Well, I may have found a way to make Puff the Magic Dragon a whole lot tougher. Here is how. Devastating Critical doesn't mean anything unless people can actually hit your dragon. The highest attack bonus any melee person can get is a 28 WM/ 11 fighter/ 1 wizard using true strike gives +79. SBully and I originally made Puff using the Palemaster class because we wanted him to have immunity to critical hits. The PM also gets cool epic spells.
I've been testing all different kinds of dragon builds today. Puff has a couple flaws that I don't like. Puff can use Improved Knockdown on all his hits to get a free +8 to his attacks. This means with no equipment he'll be getting 4 attacks per round (because of haste). He'll get the attacks at +51/+46/+41/+51. That is not super good. He'll have an average to difficult time hitting higher AC opponents.
Let me suggest perhaps a better way to make Puff. It's hard to tell at this point, but I think this newer version of Puff the Magic Dragon is better. And Puff, for the most part, even though he won't have immunity to critical hits, won't have to worry about devastating critical. I'll explain that at the end.
If you want to play the original Puff you can. I might suggest doing something like what I just got done testing. I did 15 druid/ 15 cleric/ 10 monk. Being cleric gives me access to several spells that carry over even after being shifted (For those who like to double check, feel free to do so. I checked them all already.) I suggest going trickery and travel domains. Trickery for improved invisibility and travel for haste. Now you can extend your spells to and they'll last 30 rounds minimum.
Casting Divine Power will give Puff added attack bonus of +6. Casting Aid gives an extra +1. Casting Prayer gives +1 to attack and damage. Casting Battletide gives +2 to attack and +2 MAGICAL damage that carries over to the dragon. Casting an extended divine favor gives +5 to attack and +5 MAGICAL damage that carries over to the shifted form.
By going 10 levels of monk you get knockdown, improved knockdown, and cleave for free. Also, you get 5 attacks per round and your attacks are only at -3 each time instead of the normal -5. In fact, you get 5 normal attacks each round. You can get 8 attacks each round without cheating. 5 normal, +1 haste, +1 divine power, +1 flurry of blows. So this version of Puff the Magic Dragon will do 2-12 +25 (critical 19-20/x2). You'll also do an extra 7 magical damage each hit that will bypass physical reduction. So the new version of Puff gets 8 attacks and does more damage than the old. How's the attack bonus?
Well, you can get a free +8 to your attack roll by clicking on improved knockdown on every attack. So I was rolling the following attacks: +71/+68/+65/+62/+59/+56/+53. You'll probably never miss about 80% of the PC's out there with that type of roll. In fact, the newer version of Puff has almost as high an attack roll as that fighter/WM/wiz I talked about earlier. The only difference is Puff can get 8 attacks per round legitimately.
Furthermore, by going 15 cleric/ 15 druid, Puff can get level 8 druid and cleric spells. This is especially useful for when people catch you when you aren't shifted. Just cast one word of faith (no save) and people get blinded immediately. Also, getting level 8 druid spells means you can cast creeping doom, then shift. The enemy continues to get hit by creeping doom (up to 1000 hit points before creeping doom goes away) while you hack away at them.
Now here's another reason why devastating critical shouldn't bother you too much. After casting buffs, this version of Puff has an AC = 83. So for someone to kill you with devastating critical they have to first hit you (probably means they need to roll a 20 because Puff's AC is so high). Then they have to hit you again on the threat roll (they have to roll another 20). The chances of rolling two 20's in a row are 1 in 400. But this doesnt' kill Puff yet. Suppose someone with devastating critical does score a critical hit. Then Puff gets to try to make a fortitude save to cancel the devastating critical hit part.
Puffs saves are: Fort 45 Reflex 37 Will 46
So puff will get 1d20 +45 to try to beat the devastating critical hit. Puff will make his save almost every single time. So who needs immunity to critial hits, when people have to roll two 20's in a row to critical hit you, and then Puff has to roll a 1 on his fortitude save to die from devastating critical. Also, with improved invisibility people miss half the time. The odds of rolling two 20's in a row followed by a 1 for Puff's roll on his save then figuring in the 50% concealment are 1/20 * 1/20 * 1/20 * 1/2 or 1 in 16000. So I don't see any point in going the Palemaster part except for the cool epic spells and the immunity to hold, paralyzation, and stun. This newer version is 99.99% immune to devastating critical.
Okay, going 10 levels of monk gives you an extra 30% speed bonus. Don't forget haste gives you 50% move bonus too. Have you seen a dragon move at 180% speed. It's incredibly fast. The monk levels also give the ability to use stunning fists. With stunning fists you can hold somone for 3 rounds. Puff's DC for stunning fists is as follows: 10 (base) + 20 (half character level) + 16 (wisdom modifier) = 46. Not many characters cansurvive a stunning fist attack with a DC of 46. It's really easy to hold someone for 3 rounds while you beat on them.
I got Puff to 1033 hit points on the newer version without re-rolling. His max hit point calculation is as follows for this build: 15 druid x 8 = +120 15 cleric x 8 = +120 10 monk x 8 = +80 max endurance = +80 max aura vitality = +80 ext blood frenzy = +20 shifting changes base dex to 32 or +11 modifier. So 11 * 40 = +440 temp dragon hit points = +100 toughness = +40 Total = 1080 hit points.
Anyway, it's a tradeoff you will all have to decide. If you want the epic spells, and immunity to critical hits go Palemaster. If you want the extra melee attacks, extra speed, more damage, better saves, more hit points, better attack bonus, better AC then go cleric/monk/druid. Either way, Puff is one bad dragon.
This is off topic, but I've seen people say that 1200 hits is the most possible, but I think I could make a druid/dwarven defender/CoT that would have more than 1200 hit points.
cdaulepp
P.S. I tested Bigby's Forceful Hand on a couple arena servers, so I'm not sure if they have some screwy script with that spell or not. Puff would never get knocked down from that spell, however a medium size creature with improved knockdown can knock Puff down. I'm not sure why, but that's how it was working.
The only thing I found that would be close to what you're looking for is here:
Click Here
That link should show you how to take your monk levels and stuff, but it's not exactly the best way. I realized after I made it that because monks have high saving throws in every category it would be better to take 8 monk levels pre-epic. I don't think I've done the write up ever to show this, but you should basically be able to switch what I have in that link around a little bit and get better saves.
I hope that is it. Sorry again about linking the other threads to the wrong versions.
cdaulepp
Quote: Posted 03/21/04 20:09:16 (GMT) by Ironnails
cdaulepp, This is a very nice build . Do you think you could tell us how you took your levels (of monk and such) and also your beginning stats?
-Sorry if this is repeated, something funny is up with the post and it says there is 8 pages sometimes and 7 pages sometimes... the post i made earlier is here sometimes... but when i try to edit it, i cant... funny
The beginning stats (again I stress this was just a quick test build, I can't remember what I was thinking for putting the points in charisma like I did.) Str 8 Dex 8 Con 8 Int 14 Wis 18 Cha 15
Ending stats str 8 dex 8 con 8 Int 14 wis 30 cha 16
I opened the file with Leto. I took the levels in this order: 12 cleric (take travel and trickery domains) 4 monk 4 druid (not sure why I did this. Going 8 monk pre-epic would be better) 3 cleric 5 monk 11 druid 1 monk
I bumped wisdom at every level except level 40 At level 40 I bumped charisma.
So that's how I did it. Now cast all your buff spells and shift. You'll get the results I did. Again, this was just a quick run through to test if divine power and battletide would carry over to dragon shape. They do. I had already tested a druid/ paldadin/ CoT dragon earlier and I saw from that dragon that bless, prayer, aid, and divine favor carried over so I was testing real quick divine power and battletide with the cleric dragon.
That will get you the basics. I need to fine tune it obviously. And maybe some of you could suggest a better feat or two. I don't know why I took empower spell. I don't need it.
To get the 8 attacks per round, cast 1 haste, 1 divine power, and use flurry of blows. I didn't test if you can use flurry of blows and improved knockdown at the same time. Since several of you are obviously going to go build this, could you test that please for me.
Extend your 1 round/ caster level spells and cast them very last. I didn't bother casting any regeneration spells. Why do that, when I have so many hits anyway? Casting those takes more time away from the other buffs that only last 1 round/caster level.