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All right, Tempest is sick this week, so I’m throwing something together on the fly to keep up the momentum and finally give you a chance to vote on a build. Unlike the usual fare, this is solidly aimed at DMs to use against their PCs. It showcases a trick, rather than a specific build, though I do give an example monster to illustrate the results.

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KUNG FU WITCHCRAFT

I’ll hit you, my pretty!

 

Background: The Tome of Battle is a lovely book for crafting NPCs, especially multiclass NPCs, given how initiator levels work. But there are ways to get better mileage out of this system than you might think. What if I gave you the following monster to fight?

 

Tze-Tze Show

 

“Wait a second,” you might say. “What’s up with that warblade? What race gives her +11 natural armor and all those SLAs and nifty abilities? Her HP makes sense, but what’s up with here BAB and HD? And those SAVES? And those feats and skills? That’s not a normal level 16 warblade!”

You’d be right. Tze-Tze (“Auntie” in Mandarin IIRC) is a green hag from the Monster Manual, given three levels in Uncanny Trickster and eight levels in Warblade. I gave her 77,600 gp worth of equipment (77,000 gp is the standard for level 16 NPCs according to the PHB2). She can wind up with the Avalanche of Blades + Moment of Alacrity + Diamond Nightmare Blade combo, return fire with Robilar’s Gambit + Channel the Storm, and can play at Gnowhere Gnoming with Spectral Skirmisher and Evasive Reflexes, plus multiple ways to be invisible. She’s a good solid challenge at CR 16, and one your players will remember.

Tze-Tze isn’t even the most optimized example – far from it. She’s more of a proof-of-concept build than anything. The secret to Kung Fu Witchcraft is simple: find a critter with lots of HD for its CR and the ability to take class levels, and enjoy adding half of those CR to the IL of your monstrous Bruce Lee and getting quick access to the higher level maneuvers.

Required Books: Tome of Battle, any book with monsters in it, Complete Scoundrel for the Uncanny Trickster is a plus for monsters with odd numbers of HD.

The Best Monsters

From core, the Locathah, Gnoll, and Satyr are good low-level options for monstrous martial adepts, but don’t discount the Hill Giant and Stone Giant, both of which gain an IL from their HD that is only one lower than their base CR. Andarious pointed out that the Minotaur has 6 HD for a CR 4 creature, and also has a lot of great charge synergy; keep White Raven in mind. He also pointed out that the Monster Manual 3 is absolutely lousy with critters that work well for this. The Witchknife (9 HD) and the Wood Wose (8 HD) are both only CR 4, while the Redcap is CR 2 at 4 HD (if you’re willing to forgo its special advancement rules, which are nice). If you’re willing to give class levels to an intelligent undead that doesn’t state that it advances by class, the 20 HD CR 8 Drowned is absolutely fiendish with an IL 2 higher than its CR. Give it a defensive fighting style, and just watch it wait enemies out with its drowning field.

Of course, if you’re willing to be more liberal with class level advancement for monsters, dragons make very good martial adepts, as they have some of the best hit dice and abilities in the game (try an adult white for starters). The best option for raw numbers is probably the lycanthrope template, using some fat animal for a base. Becoming a Dire Weretiger adds 16 HD for a +5 increase in CR; a Dire Weretiger Minotaur has 22 HD and is CR 9. Six levels of a martial adept, and you’ve got level 9 maneuvers and oodles of HP and charge synergy on a CR 15 monster. I offer my apologies to your PCs in advance.

 

 

There you have it. PCs shouldn’t get overconfident in your games just because they know a few moves. Anything that can form a fist can do kung fu, and don’t let ‘em forget it!

 

Next up: Time for some Andarious buildcraft. Take your pick from [AR] MacGyver, [AR] The 0 Buff Time Gish, or [AR] Truberflank. Yes, that last one was created in response to your feedback on Uberflank, and is meant to spice up flanking tactics as much as possible; the other two are interesting builds in their own right, though.

I vote for whichever build doesn't use ToB, so much ToB. I guess I'll wager that Gish would be a safe bet for something fresh.

That is one scary old hag. It's actually kind of scary how good monsters can be when optimized.

I vote for the gish. 

Dec 2, 2012 -- 11:51PM, draco1119 wrote:

I vote for the Gish. And I'd still like to see something by Seishi.

He really hasn't put out much in the way of builds. I'll ask him if there's anything he wants to throw in the ring.

Dec 2, 2012 -- 11:58PM, walermar wrote:

I vote for whichever build doesn't use ToB, so much ToB. I guess I'll wager that Gish would be a safe bet for something fresh.

For the record, neither the Gish nor MacGyver use any ToB material

Dec 3, 2012 -- 1:43AM, frost.fire wrote:

I'd like to put a vote in for gish, also I would like to state I have done this in campaigns it can be a devilishly clever trick to throw cocky players off guard, and to give them a taste of their own medicine, without being over the top about it

Oh, now you've got to elaborate on the details. I'm curious.

Dec 3, 2012 -- 8:11AM, New-Shadow wrote:

I vote for the Gish as well.  All in all, this is one scary build Radical!

Just out of curiosity, does AR have an A-Game Ranger?  It was mentioned in the A-Game Pali thread as a voting choice (I think), and I voted for it in the free for all threads, but nothing ever came of it.  I was wondering what it, and other "A-Gamed" classes (assuming there are any), looked like.

He does indeed have an A-Game Ranger, which probably deserves its shot at a vote. I also cobbled together an A-Game Spirit Shaman.

A fun build and sorry for those of you who are sick of all the ToB, I'm not stuck at work with just a handfull of E-Books now, so there will be a lot more variety to my builds. The 0 Buff Time Gish doesn't use it at all, unless you include the ability to cast Heroics and get it that way.

Minotaur Weretiger Warblade 6... you're a sicko RT, a real sicko. I love it :p Makes a wicked leader for a group of savage fighters, he can use War Masters Charge with at least to amazing effect if he's got at least one ally to get the stun bonus too.

Seriously though a Drowned Swordsage with a bunch of Stone Dragon and Setting Sun stuff to keep people close, and immobalized. As above, 9th level maneuvers at CR 15.


A note on Dragons, Heroics (Sor/Wis 2) can get them any maneuver their HD would qualify them for that has no pre-reqs. We wrote out the "Idiot List" as in "Any idiot can do that" to lampshade these really powerful kung fu maneuvers that people can do with next to no real training. A 34 HD Dragon (OK not a lot of em pre-epic) like A Wyrm Black Dragon's CR 20 and can even use Mountain Tombstone Strike 1/encounter by casting Heroics. Extreme example, and a bit silly, but you get the point.