The Painter Wizard
Intro:
We get plenty of powerful builds here. But most of them are high level. Sure, simulacrum loops and 10 trillion damage to the moon are great and all, but waiting until level 15+ just takes way too long. So let's do something different. It's not quite Pun-Pun yet, but you'll have unlimited Wish spells along with an army of Demon Lords, Archdevils, Empyreal Lords, and Great Old Ones at level 5.
The Build:
We will, of course, be the best class: Wizard. No archetypes, as great as the Pact + Exploiter combo is normally, we need both the familiar and the level 5 bonus feat.
For our race, we can either be Human for the bonus feat at level 1, or Half-Elf, which gets the Skill Focus feat for free at level 1 (which we'd be taking with the Human bonus feat). Both get +2 to a stat of our choice and we don't care about any of the other racial bonuses, so either works. We'll also be Venerable, for +3 to all mental stats and -6 to all physical stats.
Our only stat that matters is Intelligence, so we'll put an 18 there via point-buy. +2 from our Race, +3 from age, increase it by +1 at level 4, for 24. Dex and Con are also usually good, so put some points in those so you don't die before reaching level 5.
Traits are a bit tricky - we get 2, but each must be from a different category. Theoretical Magician gets us +2 Spellcraft and is our best choice. Alternatively, we can take Spark of Creation and Spell Intuition gets us -5% cost and +1 Spellcraft. Trait bonuses don't stack, otherwise we'd take Theoretical Magician + Spell Intuition.
We choose Familiar for our Arcane Bond, with the Valet archetype. I like picking a Compsognathus, both for the passive +4 Inititative and the image of a tiny dino in a butler suit. The Valet gives us a +2 Circumstance bonus on Spellcraft checks to make magic items via Cooperative Crafting, and halves the crafting time.
For our feats, at level 1 we get Skill Focus (Spellcraft) from our race, an irrelevant Scribe Scroll from Wizard, and Magical Aptitude for being level 1. At level 3, we take Craft Wondrous Item. And at level 5, we get a bonus feat from Wizard and take both Craft Magic Arms and Armor and the one feat we've been waiting for, Craft Construct.
Currently, our Spellcraft bonus is 5(Ranks) + 3(Class Skill) + 7(Int) + 3(Skill Focus) + 2(Magical Aptitude) + 2(Trait) + 2(Valet Familiar) = +22
The Painting:
What constructs are we crafting? Any creature we want, with the Trompe L'oeil template applied. Magic paintings containing the creature we want to craft, which can then step out of the painting and to do our bidding. They are also our alignment, and respawn after 2d4 days if killed. The DC for crafting magic items is 5 + Caster Level + 5 for each missing prerequisite. Enter Image is a level 3 Wizard spell so we can cast that, but Animate Objects is a level 6 Cleric spell so we'll take a +5 on that. It has a CL equal to the Hit Dice of the creature we are replicating. Per the FAQ on Pearls of Power, we can create items with a CL higher than our own provided we can succeed on the Spellcraft check. Constructs require you to meet the CL prerequisite, but luckily Trompe L'oeils don't have that - the CL is listed only in the description, next to the normal price, NOT in the requirements next to the crafting price. All in all, the DC is 10+HD... for now. Easy enough.
The paintings will be intelligent, so they'll have a mind of their own. Luckily, according to this line from page 6 of the Constructs Handbook (seriously, this was WAY harder to find than it should have been), they will obey all of our commands:
Once the crafting process is complete, the resulting construct is ready to receive orders. A construct recognizes its creator intuitively and obeys all commands issued to it by that individual.
Wishes at level 5:
Our first painting will be of an Efreeti. 3/day Wish SLA. Just be sure you're good-aligned so your crafted genies are also and won't try to screw you over (evil aligned genies can be kind of a dick even if they have to follow your orders). 3000 gp Large painting + 10HD*500 gp = 8000 gold. That's within the 10500gp Wealth By Level for a level 5 PC, so you should have enough wealth to craft it. The DC is 10+10HD=20, Skill Checks don't fail on a Nat 1 unlike combat rolls, so we autosucceed even without using Take 10.
We now have Wishes, let's go to town. Use them to get the materials for crafting more Genies, maybe duplicate a Create Demiplane spell so you won't be disturbed and have it Permanancy'd. Make a bunch of Genies. Hell, make a painting of yourself to craft genies for you. Or have it make more paintings of you, and have them make the genies. You can choose a demiplane's features and theme, so make another one, this one replicating a part of the Plane of Earth where there's an intersection between a diamond and gold mine. You now have unlimited wishes and unlimited funds.
Craft a few Solars (DC 32, succeeds on take 10) so we have level 20 cleric casting. We can now use Animate Object for crafting our paintings, reducing the DC to 5+HD. They can also cast Greater Create Demiplane, letting us make the demiplane Timeless. This makes us immune to further aging, hunger, and a bunch of other stuff. Since you can have the Timeless trait apply to Magic, this also means infinite duration buff spells.
Best Painter in the Universe:
Our Spellcraft isn't yet high enough to start crafting Great Old Ones. Let's fix that. First off, wishes give us +5 Inherent to our Int. Craft a Headband of Vast Intelligence for another +6 Enhancement to Int. This one will be added a bit later, but I'm factoring it in now: Once we make a painting of Nocticula (DC 41), our painted demon lord can give us a +6 Profane to our Int via Profane Ascension. We now have 18(base) + 2(race) + 1(level) + 3(age) + 6(headband) + 5(wish) + 6(Nocticula) = 41 Int. An uneven score isn't ideal, but oh well. That's a +15 Int Modifier.
Let's list all the Spellcraft bonuses we get now, via getting spells cast on us, casting them ourselves, crafting, or even buying items:
Natural 20 via Cyclops Helm
+15 Int
+5 Ranks
+3 Class Skill
+2 Theoretical Magician (trait)
+3 Skill Focus feat (untyped)
+2 Magical Aptitude feat (untyped)
+5 Visualization of The Mind cast by us (untyped)
+2 Valet Familiar (circumstance)
+2 Masterwork Tool (circumstance)
+4 Arcane Family Workbook (circumstance)
+5 Armillary Amulet item (competence)
+6 Bestow Insight cast by our Solar (insight)
+4 Greater Heroism, cast via Wish (morale)
= 78. Note that unlike most bonus types, untyped and circumstance stack with others of the same type, so long as it is not from effectively the same source.
So, we can now succeed on a DC 78 Spellcraft check. The paintings have a DC of 5+HD, so we can craft things up to 73 HD. It's a shame the Pathfinder gods aren't statted out, that's probably enough to replicate at least some of the weaker ones. In D&D 3.5 (PF is basically D&D 3.75), most deities had ~60 HD. This seems like a good time to mention that we can take a +5 DC to half the time needed to craft a magic item.
Army of the Gods:
It's finally time to start crafting some demigods. My favorites include Demon Lords (HD 31~36), Archdevils (HD 31~35), Empyreal Lords (HD 31~34), Great Old Ones (HD 28~36), and Baba Yaga (HD 20, Mythic 10). Also, ourselves, HD 5, for mass production of the others on the list.
Additionally, you'll want to craft some Intelligent Items with a Special Purpose Dedicated Power. These things can use one 4~7 level spell at will as an SLA, which means no material components. Have them spam Lesser Create Demiplane, Permanency, and whatever other spells you feel like while creating your Painted World. Greater Heroism would also be a good idea for all your painted clones.
You might occasionally want something slightly more subtle than an army of Demon Lords. Solars, as mentioned above, are great, as they can transform into humanoids. So can Metallic Dragons. And if you want some minions that are immune to magic, Noqual and Adamantine Golems make decent grunts in your painted army.
Eventually, you may get tired of that -6 Str/Dex/Con from being so old, so craft yourself a Major Ring of Spell Storing and have your minions put in a Greater Age Resistence and Threefold Aspect (this method also lets us apply any other Personal range spells, with infinite duration because Timeless demiplane). Alternatively, Cyclic Reincarnation will get you a new young body. Upon leaving your Timeless Demiplane, all of the time you spent there will catch up to you, meaning you'll die of old age if you're 2d20 years over Venerable (or 3d20 for Half-Elf). Of course, you'll most likely never physically leave the safety of your demiplane, since you can just Astral Project out when you want to leave (have one of your Great Old One Hastur cast it, maybe one that you're wearing as Construct Armor).
All is Paint:
Finally, let's see what happens when we Fork Bomb the universe. For science. Let's assume we have half of our painted selves creating more painted painter wizards. The other half will be crafting painted genies, angels, demigods, and intelligent items - to expand our demiplane fast enough to hold all these paintings, and as guards and as an army to annihilate anyone that annoys us.
Crafting normally takes 1 day/1000gp price, or more accurately 8 hours/1000gp (but you can never craft for more than 8 hours/day). We can speed that up. A +5 DC lets us increase that to 1000gp every 4 hours. Cooperative Crafting (Valet Familiar) doubles the value that can be crafted each day. And we can make the demiplane double time instead of timeless - we lose the eternal buffs, but we're only 5 HD, so just Take 10 without any of the spells/item bonuses easily beats the DC15 (5+5HD+5speed). If we need the eternal buffs from Timeless for something, we can just have separate Demiplanes. Normally, multipliers in Pathfinder stack additively - but since all three of those modify different things, the result is x8 speed, not x4.
Making a magic painting of ourselves normally takes 40 hours work over 5 days. We're reducing that to 5 hours of work. Since only half of our copies will make more copies, this means a doubling every 10 work hours. For ease of math, I'll assume it takes 1.25 days to have each painting produce a new painter (it actually averages out a bit faster, but the math gets too complicated). The number of paintings goes 1->2->4->8->16->..., or 2x, where x is the number of iterations. Within a week, you'll have 32. After a month, 16 777 216. After a year, a number with 87 digits - for comparison, the number of atoms in the observable universe has between 78 and 82 digits. So we have a million times the number of atoms in the universe in copies of ourselves. And an even larger number of demigods.
At this point, just go send a few trillion demigods to kill off any deities you don't like. They've never been statted, but since Lamashtu (a demon lord) attained divinity by killing a god using an army of demons, they have no chance, and you might even ascend if you haven't already. You're good aligned (remember your first genie? good times), so all the evil outsiders and gods in the Abyss, Abaddon, and Hell are probably dead by now.
Edit: Minor math error - we get 78 on Spellcraft, not 76.
Edit 2: Formatting, added Fork Bomb, some other minor changes
