I got around to retyping what I lost yesterday. Here is probably our last vesion of Puff the Magic Dragon.

Introducing, Puff the Magic Dragon version 3.0.

Ends at 15 druid/ 2 monk/ 23 wizard

Going 15 druid gets access to level 8 spells and allows Puff to extend aura of vitality 2 times per day. You’ll have all wizard spells, and be able to cast them at full strength. If you want to be a dragon you can, but if you don’t want too, then you can firebrand or IGMS or Vampiric Touch, or whatever else you want to do. Plus, going 23 wizard levels makes you able to penetrate almost everyone’s spell resistance, except most notably, pure monks. That’s what Creeping Doom is for though. Creeping Doom has no save and it has no spell resistance. It is the one spell that monks have absolutely zero chance to resist. You can cast that and then shift into dragon form. Monks will be forced to run away because you have more hit points than they do. Even if monks stay and fight, you’ll kill them because they won’t be able to hit you with an AC so high.

The whole point to SBully and my thread about Puff the Magic Dragon was to show how to make a dragon who is immune to devastating critical. Getting 100% immunity to devastating critical can be achieved by making a palemaster dragon. There is another way to achieve immunity to devastating critical, or near immunity. You can get near 100% immunity to devastating critical by having an AC so high that the chances of someone killing you with devastating critical are practically zero. Being a monk will give you the extra AC that you need to become 99.9% immune to devastating critical.

So without further ado, let me introduce our latest improvements on Puff the Magic Dragon. Puff should be a green dragon, but if you choose to play a red or blue dragon you can.

Start the game as a human lawful neutral wizard. Choose general magic as your preferred school. Take your levels in the following order to get the best base attack possible while timing your levels so you can get all the appropriate feats.

*12 wizard
*8 druid
*1 monk
*9 wizard
*2 druid
*1 wizard
*2 druid
*1 wizard
*3 druid
*1 monk

Start____Ending Stats
8 Str 8
8 Dex 8
9 Con 9 (start with 9 con. I’ll explain why later)
17 Int 20
18 Wis 30
8 Cha 8

Choose the following feats:
Level____Feat
1 – Extend Spell
1 – Knockdown (human bonus feat)
3 – Empower Spell
5 – Maximize Spell (wizard bonus feat)
6 – Blind Fight
9 – Spell Penetration
10 – Greater Spell Penetration (wizard bonus feat)
12 – Toughness
15 – Improved Critical: Unarmed Strike
18 – Improved Knockdown
21 – Great Wisdom I
24 – Great Wisdom II
24 – Great Intelligence I (wizard bonus feat)
27 – Great Wisdom III
29 – Great Intelligence II (wizard bonus feat)
30 – Epic Spell: Epic Mage Armor
33 – Epic Spell: Epic Warding
36 – Epic Spell: Greater Ruin
36 - Epic Spell: Hellball (wizard bonus feat)
39 – Dragon Shape

Make sure you bump wisdom at levels: 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36.
Make sure you bump intelligence at level: 40.

You’ll notice we timed the wizard levels perfectly so we end up with the pre-requisites to choose the epic spells; 19 intelligence, ability to cast level 9 spells, epic wizard, and the appropriate spellcraft ranks.

Max out Animal Empthy and Spellcraft at level 39.
Max everything else at level 40

Final skills look like this in human form:
42 Animal Empathy
43 Concentration
43 Discipline
43 Hide
10 Lore
43 Move Silently
42 Spellcraft
43 Tumble

Remember, if you want to make Puff a pick pocketing dragon, just switch some points around. You have a ton of skill points to put where you want. For PvP, the above point distribution works best. For Roleplaying, we suggest you make Puff a pick pocketing dragon and a lock picking dragon. Or perhaps you want a armor crafting dragon. Many possibilities there.

That is very impressive in itself, but I checked my skills in dragon form. Check these out. This includes buffs like mass camouflage, one with the land, etc.

Final skills in dragon form:
45 Animal Empathy
58 Concentration
66 Discipline
84 Hide
64 Move Silently
47 Spellcraft
60 Tumble

With Hide at 84 and Move Silently at 64 most PC’s just won’t be able to see you unless they have true seeing no matter what. Furthermore, with 47 spellcraft you’re getting +9 to all your spell saves. You’ll never fail a save against a spell unless you roll a 1.

Notice in our list of feats that Puff gets Hellball, Greater Ruin, Epic Mage Armor, and Epic Warding. Sound familiar? It should. That was what we did with our first version of Puff. We went Palemaster doing that, but the attack bonus was lower than this version. Also the first version of Puff only had 7 levels of wizard. The wizard spells therefore, could only realistically be used as defensive buffs. With this version of Puff you are a very powerful wizard with access to maximized IGMS if you desire.

Remember how I talked about starting with 9 constitution. I’ll explain why now. You have access to three spells that will raise your constitution a total of 11 points.
Maximized Endurance = +5
Extended Aura of Vitality = +4
Extended Blood Frenzy = +2 (You’d have 86 AC if you don’t cast this, but 85 is okay)

With these three spells, in human form you can finish at 20 constitution. This will give you enough hit points to run around in human form if you desire. In fact, with such a high wisdom AC bonus from the monk levels, you’ll be on par with most other pure casting classes in terms of hit points and AC. So this way you are a much more dynamic character. Don’t rely solely on the wizard spells though. The druid can cast harm and heal, so people better think twice before they mess with you, in human or dragon form.

Hit point calculation in human form.
15 levels druid x 7 hit points = +105
23 levels wizard x 3 hit points = +69
2 levels of monk x 7 hit points = +14
Toughness = +40
Your constitution modifier after buffing goes from a -1 to +5 so that represents a total of +6 swing. Therefore con bonus = +240
----
TOTAL = 468 hit points in human form. That is certainly enough considering you have access to heal. You shouldn’t have a problem in human form.

Obviously the true power of Puff comes from being a dragon, but I wanted to show that you have the robustness in this build to play human if you desire.

Hit point calculation in dragon form.
15 levels druid x 7 hit points = +105
23 levels wizard x 3 hit points = +69
2 levels of monk x 7 hit points = +14
Toughness = +40
Shifting will give you +440 permanent hit points by changing constitution to 32.
Shifting also gives you +100 temporary hit points.
Maximized Endurance = +80
Extended Aura of Vitality = +80
Extended Blood Frenzy = +40
-----
TOTAL = 968 hit points in dragon form. The key is to make sure your dragon has more than 960. This version does. If you have more than 960 hit points it will take 5 maximized IGMS to kill you instead of 4. So this version is on par with the other versions, though he doesn’t break the one thousand mark.

There are several other reasons why you become super powerful in dragon form.


First, monks have evasion. Puff has very high saving throws. After you figure in the +9 from spellcraft, it’s impossible for Puff to fail a save against a spell unless he rolls a 1. Therefore you are 95% immune to spells that have a reflex save. That is practically all of the good evocation spells. That leaves very few spells left that can hurt you, the most notable being Isaac’s Greater Missile Storm, and Ice Storm.

Monks also get deflect arrows at level 2. You can ignore the first ranged attack each round. This comes in really handy. Since Puff has improved invisibility and is already ignoring half the attacks, an automatic miss for the first ranged attack is a really nice compliment because arcane archers are probably the only class who can hit Puff without rolling a 20.

Going monk also gives you an improved attack schedule. Your attacks are made at -3 while other PC’s who are not monk suffer -5 for each successive attack. Puff tries to knock people down with every hit because when you knock them down you get a bonus because they are prone, and Puff gets a +8 to his attack roll for trying to knock people down. You should end up with the following attack schedule: +52/+49/+46/+43/+40. That’s not bad at all. It’s not super high, or super low, it’s average. Besides knocking people down, Puff excels at using his monk ability “stunning fist”. With a DC of 46 many monsters will find themselves held for 3 rounds while Puff shreds their bodies with his massive claws and bites off their heads with his giant mouth.

SBully and I like our druid/cleric/monk version of Puff, but that one is vulnerable to getting dispelled and losing his attack bonus on his claws. With the palemaster version or this new improved version you have epic warding. With 23 levels of wizard you are much harder to dispel, and epic warding is very tough to dispel while premonition, stoneskin, and greater stoneskin automatically are dispelled with a spell breach spell. Epic Warding also grants Puff +20 claws.

DEVASTATING CRITICAL DISCUSSION

Your AC after you buff will be 85. It has been notably pointed out that if Puff is caught flat footed he loses some of his AC. This will make him vulnerable to devastating critical. The plan is simple to ensure this doesn’t happen. Make sure you cast a level 4 spell called “Improved Invisibility” and a level 8 wizard spell called “Greater Sanctuary”. They both last for 230 rounds.

The list of characters who can see Puff the Magic Dragon before he comes out of Greater Sanctuary and before he loses Invisibility is reserved exclusively to the casting classes because they have access to True Seeing. Since melee types are the ones who get devastating critical, it is going to be near impossible without magical items to get a high enough attack bonus to hit Puff and get True Seeing. The only way to get true seeing is to multi-class into a spell-casting class. This in turn is going to lower your attack bonus and you’re not going to be able to hit Puff if you do this. Mages are the only ones who can see Puff. Generally speaking nobody else is going to see Puff until Puff wants them too. Casting Improved Invisibility combined with Greater Sanctuary makes Puff invisible and ensures that the arcane archers and the weapon masters don’t catch Puff flat-footed. Any other class will never get an attack bonus high enough to hit Puff on anything except a 20.

It is possible to die from devastating critical. You are not immune like the Palemaster. Here is what would have to happen. Puff’s enemies have a 50% chance to miss due to his concealment. Enemies will have to roll a 20 to hit him. After they roll a 20 they have to roll another 20 to score a critical hit. After this Puff has to roll a 1 on his fortitude save. If all this happens then Puff will die from devastating critical.

The math is simple. 1/20 (first hit) * 1/20 (critical threat) * 1/20 (Puff fails fort save) * 1/2 (50% miss chance from improved invis) = 1 out of 16000 attacks will kill Puff with Devastating Critical. Breaking out a calculator…. That means Puff is 99.99375 % immune to devastating critical. That’s good enough for me. If it’s not for you, then play the Palemaster version. The odds are more likely someone will find you resting and kill you than kill you with devastating critical.

End of Devastating Critical Discussion.

We are all waiting for an official ruling from Jay about damage reduction and creatures. We may never get one though. Until Bioware rules it a bug, this is a valid build and SBully and I intend to go forth with it. We’ve heard the arguments for and against giving creatures attacks an innate enhancement bonus from casting spells. We believe the manual is very clear. We also believe that it is POSSIBLE that Bioware or the Live Team INTENTIONALLY left creature’s unchanged when they removed the stoneskin/ greater stoneskin/ premonition bug a while back. If this is ruled a bug, then SBully and I will modify our version of Puff some. Until that happens we probably won’t be modifying him anymore. We promised to deliver our final product, and this is the culmination of both our efforts.

Who can defeat Puff? Very few, if any. You are the ultimate tank with almost 1000 hit points, an AC of 85, all the immunities you have from being a dragon, and damage reduction of 50/+20 from epic warding.

You are every bit the spell caster that you can be with access to level 8 druid spells and level 9 wizard spells.

Thanks and enjoy your gaming experience as always.

cdaulepp and SBully

Edited By Cinnabar Din on 02/26/08 07:53

Okay, I tried to build this and failed. Three times! Are there any pointers as to when skill points/levels MUST be used? I've made this build and it worked perfectly fine. Ensure you are of the right alignment, lawful neutral (lawful for monk, neutral for druid). As far as I can tell no feats or skills are required pre-epic, it's pretty much whatever you want there. But in epic lvls you must do the feats EXACTLY as shown and always be maxing out spellcraft for the epic spells.

The most important thing about this build is the order in which you take the classes. That you also have to take EXACTLY in order for the build to work. That's the only problem I can imagine you having. I want to make a couple of comments about this build.

My comments will be only in relation to PvM not PvP. I believe that this build is mainly intended for PvP which is not to say that it is not intended for PvM but is not necessarily designed with a pure PvM focus in mind.

My comments are in relation to the build in PvM.
I found the build - relative to a more conventional build such as a weaponmaster or straight pure mage etc to be very difficult to lvl. This is for obvious reasons, the character begins as a wiz and then turns into a druid therefor once that process begins you are in a sense stunted in your development. The build also is designed to be strong partially in the fact that you will be a dragon and of course this is not possible until lvl 39.

Also in PvM there is not the commonness or ease to rest after every encounter and furthermore unlike in pvp where an encounter may last for a short number of rounds in PvM the ease of use in a build and quality of a build may rest in the ability for it to last for a lengthy number of rounds in a strong form.

The main dilemna with the build - which of course is because of game restrictions - is that one cannot cast as a dragon - one is limited to melee (aside from epic spells of which there are only a couple). And as a melee form in PvM it is not nearly as capable as it is in PvP.
Why is that? Well many servers in pvm have either huge ab or huge ac and in this instance either the ac of the dragon is negated or the ab of the dragon is too low.

The HP of the dragon is very helpful as are some of the other natural dragon abilities.

I would like cdaul and sbully to provide in addition to this build therefore a build not designed to cast, unless it is but to buff, for the purposes of having suitable ab (without true strike as this is useless in pvm) say 60 ab with +5 items and wihtout true strike, and to also have around the 100ac mark with +5 items. I believe there is a cleric version of sorts if so please attach or modify to suit.

I think for many purposes that build may be much more effective in PvM than puff or at least easier to manage.

Cheers,

VoRTeX I just built this Dragon offline, and tested it against a couple of creatures.

My measure for a good character is that it must be able to stand against a Prismatic dragon, and possibly kill it. If it can kill more than one, even better.

Reason being is that a Prismatic dragon casts quite alot of spells, then starts hacking at you. It has HIGH AC (prolly 65+) and high AB (around 55+)

The problem I have with this build is that it looks brilliant on paper, but in reality cannot hit the broad side of a barn. With an AB of 46 fully buffed, it just cannot hit anything at lvl 40.

On the server I play on, I have a lvl 30 character now, with 52 AB buffed, and I struggle to hit some of the monsters reliably.

If there is a way to get this char's AB up to about 55, it would be worth building.

IMO, version 2 of Puff is still the best. I will build version 1 now and see if that works out better.
Quote: Posted 01/17/05 10:29:30 (GMT) -- Firestar Rogue
If there is a way to get this char's AB up to about 55, it would be worth building.

Sir Smokesalot has a 58 AB fully buffed.
_________________
Two wrongs don't make a right but three lefts do. Thanks Myth, I will have a look at it.

I know version 2 of puff ends up with 83 AC and about 67 AB, but we all know that Divine Favour, even when extended, lasts only a short while. That is it's only drawback. Same with Battletide (2 AB, methinks, might be 1).

But even with 62 or 60 AB, this is still higher than this version as well as version 1 of puff, and even Sir Smokesalot.

My big question is... why does dragons suffer from such a low AB? I mean, surely the huge STR bonus they get, hels a bit, not? Is it because of the base class pre-epic? Is that maybe the reason? I mean, cleric makes up for it, but cleric spells is still buffing spells. How do you get your AB higher?

I am stumped. [QUOTH]

My big question is... why does dragons suffer from such a low AB? I mean, surely the huge STR bonus they get, hels a bit, not? Is it because of the base class pre-epic? Is that maybe the reason? I mean, cleric makes up for it, but cleric spells is still buffing spells. How do you get your AB higher?

I am stumped.

[QUOTH]


*BUMP*

I wanna know too anyone know?
Quote: Posted 01/18/05 12:35:58 (GMT) -- Firestar Rogue

Thanks Myth, I will have a look at it.

I know version 2 of puff ends up with 83 AC and about 67 AB, but we all know that Divine Favour, even when extended, lasts only a short while. That is it's only drawback. Same with Battletide (2 AB, methinks, might be 1).

But even with 62 or 60 AB, this is still higher than this version as well as version 1 of puff, and even Sir Smokesalot.

My big question is... why does dragons suffer from such a low AB? I mean, surely the huge STR bonus they get, hels a bit, not? Is it because of the base class pre-epic? Is that maybe the reason? I mean, cleric makes up for it, but cleric spells is still buffing spells. How do you get your AB higher?

I am stumped.

Mainly, the reason that the dragon's AB is so low is that he doesn't wield a weapon. This means two things:

1) He doesn't get bonus AB from a weapon enhancement bonus. In human form, cdaulepp's build could get +5 AB to any weapon he wielded by casting Greater Magic Weapon; not so in Dragon form

2) No bonus from feats. In human form he could get +1 to AB from Weapon Focus and another +2 from Epic Weapon Focus, but even if you take Weapon Focus in Unarmed this won't do anything in Dragon form (although if you take the PrC Shifter class you can learn Weapon Focus: Creature, which IS useable in shifted form).

That said, there are really only two ways to increase your AB in Dragon form:

1) Increase your base AB

2) Buff yourself

In terms of buffing capabilities, Cleric builds are the best, hands down. Make sure you have at least 15 levels in Cleric to get the most out of your buffs, and if you don't also have at least 15 Druid levels you'll want to pick up the War Domain, so that you can cast Extended Aura of Vitality.

Now, for the buffs:

Divine Power - This will buff your AB according to this formula at lvl 40: AB boost = (30 - base AB)

Thus, if you had a base AB of 27, it would buff you 3 points, and if you had a base AB of 23, it would buff you 7 points. For now, let's assume you have a BAB of 25.

Divine Power +5
Divine Favor +5
Bless +1
Aid +1
Prayer +1
Battletide +2
Aura of Vit. +2
Empowered Bull's Str +1-4
_________________
+18-21

Thus, if you have a BAB of 25, a base Str of 48 (Ancient Dragon form gets this), and magical bonuses of +18-21, you should get a buffed AB of 67-70. Theoretically I think you should be able to get it as high as 75 if you had another spell or ability to boost your AB another 5 points, say from a Divine Wrath ability used by a lvl 15+ Champion of Torm.

So, if you REALLY wanted to max your AB in shifted form, I would say go Druid 15/Cleric 15/CoT 10, as the extra +2 AB you would get from having a higher CoT level would be offset by the loss of AB from Divine Favor, which is more useful in my opinion since you can Extend it and cast it multiple times per day.

Additionally, I think armor merges into dragon form, so I'm not sure, but if you had Str bonuses on your armor, shield, or helm, those bonuses MIGHT merge into dragon form as well.

Note that it isn't incredibly useful to have an AB much higher than +15, as this will just decrease the bonus you get from Divine Power, giving you the same AB you had before.

Note that there is a +20 cap to magical bonuses from AB, and a +12 cap to bonuses to stats; hence, the highest AB you should be able to get,in theory, is 80. That said, I'd be highly impressed if anyone managed to do it without using True Strike, which only lasts a whopping 9 seconds anyway. How strange.. I remember testing a dragon build that had a functional epic prowess and epic weapon foc.. it was weap foc unarmed that did nothing.

Also, might as well take out improved knockdown. You no longer get the bonus ab from size. That hurts.. it's now a straight -4 on all attacks. Thanks for the posts.

I heard that there is now a +6 enchantment on dragon claws. Does this only count towards bypassing dmg reduction, or is it a proper enchantment bonus, meaning AB and dmg incriment?

I am trying to make a 15 cleric/15 druid/10 Cot now, but my NWN is crashing when I try to create a module, so I'm a bit stuffed at the moment. Hopefully I can sort if out today and I'll report back if I can make it.
Quote: Posted 02/17/05 08:10:30 (GMT) -- Firestar Rogue

Thanks for the posts.

I heard that there is now a +6 enchantment on dragon claws. Does this only count towards bypassing dmg reduction, or is it a proper enchantment bonus, meaning AB and dmg incriment?

I am trying to make a 15 cleric/15 druid/10 Cot now, but my NWN is crashing when I try to create a module, so I'm a bit stuffed at the moment. Hopefully I can sort if out today and I'll report back if I can make it.

The +6 enhancement bonus is only for bypassing DR.

As for the Cleric/Druid/CoT, I just tested cdaulepp's version of it, and although it got a +73 AB on the character sheet, it was actually hitting for +71. He called it a +79 attacking dragon, so I can only assume that the extra +8 was the bonus he got from IKD before it was fixed.

Even though CoT gives you another 3 points of AB (as well as +5 to all saves), I'd still probably go with Monk on this build. If you were to do Monk 6/Druid 17/Cleric 17, you could get a MUCH higher AC than the CoT version, even though your AB would be a few points lower.

Not only would you get another +4 AC from Tumble, +1 Monk AC, and +10 Wis (base), you'd also be able to exploit, I mean use, the 9th lvl Cleric spell Undeath's Eternal Foe to boost your AC up another +8 points.

Although the CoT build does get a slightly higher AB, my only beef with it is that it doesn't last very long; in cdaulepp's version, it lasted a whopping 5 rounds even with Maximized Eagle's Splendor, so at least for me, it doesn't really seem worth it.