Most powerful characters in Dungeons and Dragons?

Question

Someone once told me it was a cloud giant, but the i had heard recently that it was a pit fiend which is like a balrog except more powerful.

Answer 1

with 3.5 (and 3.0 too I suppose) dnd creatures (and players) have no real limit on their power since the DM can always keep adding things to it. For example on the WotC website in one of their articles on the multi-headed template from the savage species book the writer made a 30-headed tarrasque. It was just made as a joke to show off how strong the template can be but I'd have to say it was pretty effective. It ended up as a Challenge Rating 40 so obviously an elite opponent for epic level campaigns if any DM were ever twisted enough to throw it at his/her players.

here's an exerpt from the article
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"This creature speaks for itself. The multiheaded template allows it to exist, but it's still just plain wrong. The multiheaded template says this guy should have a CR 29, but I used the added Hit Dice to recalculate the CR instead. It seemed more realistic, and it's still a TPK machine. I thought about adding the half-fiend template to it, but then it becomes an instant-kill machine (as if it isn't already) because its blasphemy caster level is 106. This is probably the most powerful creature I can come up with, but I may surprise myself some day and outdo it.

In melee, it uses Power Attack for 50, leaving it +70 melee on all its attacks. It has ninety head-based attacks in 1 round, thirty of which can be instant-kill attacks (since making a DC 80 Fort save is probably impossible to most everyone it would face).

I adjusted its spell resistance in an ad-hoc manner. One suggestion is to use 11 + CR as its spell resistance, but I compared the old spell resistance and what someone would have to roll to overcome it to get the new value."
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the link below has the full stats for it (and several other creatures with multiple heads)

Answer 2

As others have said, there's no real limit. At the climax of one campaign, we fought an entire army lead by 20 pit fiends, the pit fiends lasted all of 5 rounds. And it only took that long because the main caster was busy elsewhere.

The most powerful creature I've seen in actual play was the Flesh Colossus. Radiates anti-magic, has a DR of 20 or 25, several thousand HP and is immune to all spells, critical hits, poison, and probably a number of other things, has a couple of other obnoxious abilities and deals huge heaps of damage. After studying the thing for a while from a safe distance (over a mile away), the party decided it couldn't be beat (by us anyhow) and just left. But that thing is epic level and I always felt it's a bit underrated at CR25.

Answer 3

Do you mean opponents or playable character classes?
I can imagine a high level cloud giant (they can have character classes) can be much more fearsome than an average pit fiend, or even a balor (the devil equivalent of a pit fiend).
Have you looked into an advanced and an likely templated* version of a chaos beast / entropic reaper though? It's main attack will make you into a chaos beast yourself in short order with no way of recovery, you just have to tamper with the saving throw DCs a little and in a short while everybody can become one. ;-)

* I don't know the correct template names from the top of my head, but there are some really sick combinations possible

IMHO the most powerful - versatile, adaptable - character class in D&D is the druid.
Can be a caster (summoner or heavy artillery), tank or spy as needed. And that's before adding the animal companion.

Answer 4

A cloud giant? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Any character can be powerful. Keep in mind that monsters are there to be beaten, not to stand the test of time. Player characters will always have the best options.

The Tarrasque is by far the most powerful monster i've seen. A gigantic T-Rex like creature, it can reflect spells, has a wicked regeneration (40 I believe), and, you can't kill the damn thing unless you get it down to -10 hp, and THEN cast wish on it! No easy task, trust me.

Answer 5

It's the DM, silly. Don't you know that? He/she IS every monster or npc that your character will face!!! But, if you want something more..."tangible" I'd have to remind all who play, that the Deities, bless them, are without doubt, at the top of my "most powerful" list. Especially the "Greater gods;" most of them need merely to think it, and it IS! Monsters and things so mundane, are pitifully gnatish in comparison to a Greater or Lesser (even a Demi-) god. Only the Demon Lords and Greater Devils rise to abilities which make them even a "potential" threat to the gods! That's my take on it.

Answer 6

Well, there is a way in 3.0 to make yourself a god by 6th level or somthing close to that...

Get a Kobald sorc witha viper familar. There are a few spells, cant recall witch ones just right now..

But because you can share spells with your viper, and your both a lizard type creature, your can persistance your spells back and forth, using things like owls wisdom, and ogrillions strength and whatnot, to permenently boost your stats to......... infinity.... when you have a dex mod of 9,999,999,999,999,999,999,999... you can be hard to hit unless your flat footed... and because your con mod is 9,999,999,999,999,999,999,999.... you can spare a the hit points to eat a spell or two.... or twelve.. Not to mention all the bonus spells, DC mods, attack rolls, base ability mods for skills, saves, points and whatnot.... your only shortage is feats... and well, who needs power attack or skill focus when your that beastly! Oh yeah... Did I mention this is broken?

couple of people I game with told me about this.... thanks guys.

wonder why they put out 3.5 when you could do all those fun things in 3.0

Answer 7

Entropic Reaper

Answer 8

Characters or Monsters?
If monsters, I'd hate to run into a Tarrasque they say some of the largest dragons are more dreaded but I'm not so sure.

Answer 9

Give it the ability to speak to people's minds and tell them things like 'kill your child to prove your allegiance to me'. Whatever you do, don't base the change of heart too closely on the Christian God, though. Having God sex with a 14 year old virgin to make a Baby God is just not done in this day and age.

Answer 10

Pun Pun