Playing the unbeatable wizard?

[Heliomance]

One of my friends, while in most respects a good optimiser, has trouble believing that wizards are just that much better than melee classes. His reasoning for this is that a melee class can do enough damage in one round to put a wizard out of the fight, and short of the wizard knowing exactly who he was going to be facing in advance and preparing specifically for that one eventuality - thereby leaving himself vulnerable to anything else that may come along - there is nothing the wizard can do about this. The (not fleshed out at all) build he generally cites is a thrower with goggles of true seeing and spell-storing axes of dispel magic. Thus, if the wizard goes invisible, the fighter can still see him, if he tries flying the fighter can still attack him, the axes, being magical, will go straight through Protection from Arrows, and the dispel magic will take down a Wind Wall in the unlikely event the wizard has it up.

He agrees that yes, the wizard could sit in his tower all day, spending 17 hours a day layering himself with buffs and scrying out any possible threats - but in that time, the fighter has been adventuring and is a commensurately higher level. A lot of the tactics I suggested were met with "but that's splat, isn't it", though he did at least concede that a core-only environment hurt fighter types more than it hurt casters.

Battlefield control spells are less useful than normal, as very few of our friendly local DMs use battlemaps, mostly just describing the battle. With these points in mind, how does the wizard own in every situation? Sometime I want to play an own-everything wizard while he's around, just to show him how disgusting they can be. If I can do it core-only, so much the better. Advice for pre level 10 or so would be most useful, though above would be interesting to see as well.

[BRC]

His logic is flawed. He claims that, short of the wizard knowing exactly who he will be up against ahead of time in order to prepare his spells, said wizard is useless. Then, he claims he wants to use a "True-seeing fighter with a bag full of dispel-magic throwing axes", which is basically sinking all your cash into something that's ONLY good against casters. And requires even MORE prep time than preparing spells unless you go with the "Magic item shop automatically stocked with everything you are looking for".

Besides, Fly and Improved Invisibility are prudent things for a wizard to prepare anyway, as they are useful against anything ground-based that can't see invisible things. Against flying things they can even the playing field, they still provide an advantage against people who use ranged weapons because the wizard gains greater mobility, ect. There are lots and lots of situations where a Wizard would want those spells handy.

However, the only time a Fighter would want a bag full of dispel-magic throwing axes and goggles of true-seeing would be if he was expecting to go up against a caster employing those tricks.


Here is what I would do

Hold Person, animate rope, and a scythe. Hold 'em, tie 'em up, and CdC his head off.

Edit: Also, each of those axes would cost 8308 GP, not counting the cost of getting Dispel Magic cast into them. Explain how he expects to afford a bag of those before the wizard gets to the point where he can cast Time Stop. Really, all the wizard needs to do is prepare Fly more times than the fighter buys axes.

[kamikasei]

The (not fleshed out at all) build he generally cites is a thrower with goggles of true seeing and spell-storing axes of dispel magic.

And he faults the wizard for "knowing exactly who he was going to be facing in advance and preparing specifically for that one eventuality"?


He agrees that yes, the wizard could sit in his tower all day, spending 17 hours a day layering himself with buffs and scrying out any possible threats - but in that time, the fighter has been adventuring and is a commensurately higher level.

The stereotypical paranoid-recluse-wizard as Tippy describes it doesn't just sequester himself away from all danger - he ventures out once every day or two days to annihilate some target that he's scryed up the wazoo in advance. That sounds like a faster way to gain XP than anything a mundane character having to slog around on his own or his mount's feet could achieve.

edit: I would avoid trying to defend an absolute claim like "wizard always wins". The key is that a few buffs and a spread of very widely applicable spells a wizard can be more than capable of handling all sorts of encounters. Chances are that whatever obscure tactic the melee guy wants to try to show how he can take down a wizard, the wizard doesn't need to plan ahead for it specifically - his standard loadout is likely to include a good counter.

And of course, the real problem is not that wizards can beat meleers, but that the set of encounters which a wizard can't handle but a melee character can is vastly (infinitely?) smaller than those that a melee character can't deal with at all without at the very least magical support (and in all likelihood magical doing-the-job-for-you-all-together).


There are lots and lots of situations where a Wizard would want those spells handy.

However, the only time a Fighter would want a bag full of dispel-magic throwing axes and goggles of true-seeing would be if he was expecting to go up against a caster employing those tricks.

Just so.

[Tokiko Mima]

I'd throw the ol' elementary Wizard kill combo as a scenario to consider.

Assume the wizard and fighter are core only. The wizard wins initiative (or survives the first round of the fighters attack.) The wizard immediately casts Time Stop on his turn, then follows with a Dimension Anchor, Cloudkill, and Forcecage(windowless variant.) Then the wizard can sit back and leisurely wait for the Fighter to die. No part of the melee's class features will prevent his untimely demise as their constitution is drained to zero, only a fortuitous magic item or two could allow any possibility of escape.

This is not the best and only way to kill a melee as a wizard. I'm giving this scenario as a demonstration to show just what sort of obstacles you face when saying that melees and full casters are balanced power-wise. A wizard's abilities can take you out of the fight with no saving throw, and at that point the wizard has as many rounds as they like to dispose of you. How would you combat something like that?

[Flickerdart]

You're doing it wrong, tokiko. The Wizard has a Contingencied Celerity that kicks in when combat starts. He doesn't have to even roll Initiative.

Also, might I suggest Mordekainen's Disjunction? It'll wipe out his goggles, axes, and the grin on his face.

A Wizard is always prepared, because he has a set of spells he always prepares. One of each - Battlefield Control, Save or Die, Save or Suck, Save or Lose to target each save, mobility and defensive spells like Overland Flight (which he casts at the start of the day) and Improved Invisibility, and then his contingency. After this, he has a ton of slots left for toys like Greater Arcane Eyes, Teleport, Summon Monsters, a bag of Explosive Runes and so forth. The Fighter's Will save will be morbidly poor, so any of a number of spells will slay him.

[BobVosh]

I'd throw the ol' elementary Wizard kill combo as a scenario to consider.

Assume the wizard and fighter are core only. The wizard wins initiative (or survives the first round of the fighters attack.) The wizard immediately casts Time Stop on his turn, then follows with a Dimension Anchor, Cloudkill, and Forcecage(windowless variant.) Then the wizard can sit back and leisurely wait for the Fighter to die. No part of the melee's class features will prevent his untimely demise as their constitution is drained to zero, only a fortuitous magic item or two could allow any possibility of escape.

This is not the best and only way to kill a melee as a wizard. I'm giving this scenario as a demonstration to show just what sort of obstacles you face when saying that melees and full casters are balanced power-wise. A wizard's abilities can take you out of the fight with no saving throw, and at that point the wizard has as many rounds as they like to dispose of you. How would you combat something like that?

Dispell axe to the force cage, duh :P

I disagree with the true sight goggles. Those are always useful. Dispel axe bag...not so much. Maybe 1 returning dispel axe.

Also...isn't the throw range on those silly axes 10 ft? Wizard flies at 60, or possibly 240 if he uses mount instead.

Level 1: Basically 50-50 who wins. Initiative: Wizard most likely, cast sleep. DC 15 will or lose on fighter.
Fighter wins wizard is most likely a goo.
Level 5: Wizard cast fly. Uses favorite disable to win.
Level 10: Wizard cast fly. Uses favorite disable to win. (fighter may finally afford 1 dispel axe...as his only weapon. Goggles are beyond his reach.
Level 15: Wizard cackles maniacally as he cast maze. No save for the first round. When you eventually make your save you pop back in a forcecage. Enjoy your dimensional anchor + finally a chance for the wizard to use all those stupid old scrolls/wands of bad evocation spells. Or whatever he does for a kill.
Level 20: Gates in a 40 HD dragon to munch you.

If at any time he feels threaten he does teleport. Away. Far.


Flicker: I think it is core only. However contigency wall of ice is always nice.

[Draz74]

Dispell axe to the force cage, duh :P

Yeah, that might help! ... if Forcecage could be dispelled ... which it can't ... aww crap. :smalleek:

I do think Dispelling and Greater Dispelling weapons are underused. Though they're strictly inferior to a Suppression Weapon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/weapons.htm#suppression) in the hands of a psionic character.

[Altima]

Might I also add that adventuring isn't the only way to gain experience, assuming that the wizard in question is an NPC. Heck, make her a rival of the fighter, and she'll always be at the same level or higher than the fighter.

I still think the best way to deal with Mr. Fighter would be a baleful polymorph. Not because it'd be the most effective (in fact, as a fort save, it'd be the worst), but turning the big, bad macho type into a tiny little squirrel would just be too awesome...especially if said wizard had, say, a cat familiar. Or hawk. Or Mephit. >.>

[mostlyharmful]

By the time a fighter can afford goggles of true seeing (range 60 feet by the by) and a returning dispelling axe the Wizards got so many CL boosts there's no way they're getting shot down.

In order to compensate for a wizards tricks the fighter must spend cash, a resource that the wizard has just as much of and can use spell completion and spell trigger stuff too..... this is not a compotition that can work out well for the fighter, the wizard is always ahead in options.

Oh, and if he's allowed to use scry'n'die tactics from his safe base he's a far more effective adventurer than a BSF slogging for days through swamps and mountain passes trying to catch up to a randomly determined critter.

[snoopy13a]

I'd throw the ol' elementary Wizard kill combo as a scenario to consider.

Assume the wizard and fighter are core only. The wizard wins initiative (or survives the first round of the fighters attack.) The wizard immediately casts Time Stop on his turn, then follows with a Dimension Anchor, Cloudkill, and Forcecage(windowless variant.) Then the wizard can sit back and leisurely wait for the Fighter to die. No part of the melee's class features will prevent his untimely demise as their constitution is drained to zero, only a fortuitous magic item or two could allow any possibility of escape.

This is not the best and only way to kill a melee as a wizard. I'm giving this scenario as a demonstration to show just what sort of obstacles you face when saying that melees and full casters are balanced power-wise. A wizard's abilities can take you out of the fight with no saving throw, and at that point the wizard has as many rounds as they like to dispose of you. How would you combat something like that?

You can't cast Dimension Anchor on a target while Time Stop is in effect. Cloudkill and Forcecage are allowed because they are area spells.

One huge advantage of the wizard in later levels is the hour per level spells. At lower levels, the wizard will probably not have them up as they can't predict that they'll be in a fight in the next 1-3 hours. However, once they reach level 16, they can cast the spells as soon as they wake up and they'll be good for the entire day. A high level wizard can be expected to have every hour per level buff on him/her at all times.

[Keld Denar]

You can't cast Dimension Anchor on a target while Time Stop is in effect. Cloudkill and Forcecage are allowed because they are area spells.

Yea, he oopsed. Its supposed to be Dim Lock, which has no save, affects an area, and is non-individual.

Time Stop
Dim Lock
Cloudkill
Forcecage

Thats the order you go in. Still, there are lots of other options. I personally like Empowered Split Ray Enervations. Pew pew pew black lazers of death, no save. Reduce you to level 1, then cast Sleep!

And yea, Dispelling and Greater Dispelling are kind of lackluster, IMO, because they function at min CL (5 for Dispelling, 11 for GDispelling). Since the number you are rolling against is 11+CL, even with GDM you are rolling 1d20 vs their caster level. Unless you get it pretty early (~10 or so), you are only gonna have a 30-40% chance to hit a spell, less if the caster used CL bumps like a Strand of Prayer Beads or a Ring of Enduring Arcana (or both). I just strikes me that by the time you get the cash to afford something cool like that, its rather weak and anemic.

[shadowdemon_lord]

Shoot, you don't even need time stop to make the combo work. Just put the fighter in a wall of stone/force and you've earned yourself enough rounds to go invisible and fly 70 feet up. Either wait for the fighter to escape the wall of stone, or just fly over the wall of force and drop kill spells on him till he dies. Now, if your indoors it gets slightly trickier, but still given a few rounds to buff fighter boy has no chance. Or you could just targeted dispel his axe and beat him to the punch.

[Mina Kobold]

Ahem. Phasmatic killer. Seriously it's so low level I think fireball is only chosen for the awesome nuking effect.

[BRC]

So, it's been made very clear how a Wizard can beat a fighter, I will now present the proper method a Fighter can use to defeat a wizard.

Step 1: Ally with the wizard, going to take on a big dragon or somthing.
Step 2: With the aid of the wizard, defeat the dragon, the wizard will likely use up most of their spells against it.
Step 3: Now, Kill the wizard when said wizard least expects it.

Alternatly, Tell the wizard you are going to fight undead, fight a dragon instead, have dragon eat wizard.

[phoenixcire]

Step 4: Profit!!

[BRC]

Step 4: Profit!!
Exactly
Most things talking about how awsome wizards are presume that they have
A) A good idea of what they will be going up against
and
B) Time to prepare.

If you remove either one of those things, Wizards become much less powerful. Oh sure, you can go for a Macguyver-wizard who is ready for anything, but then things are alot easier.
If the wizard knows they are going up against a fighter, they prep abunch of Save or Die/Lose spells that target will saves. If they don't know what they are up against, they may prep a few Anti-fighter spells, but not as many, which makes the fighters job much easier, as now they only need to make one or two saves, as opposed to a save every round to avoid death.

[monty]

Ahem. Phasmatic killer. Seriously it's so low level I think fireball is only chosen for the awesome nuking effect.

The problem with that is it grants two saves (one of which the fighter is likely to make). Also, it only affects one target (as opposed to fireball).

[Mina Kobold]

Exactly
Most things talking about how awsome wizards are presume that they have
A) A good idea of what they will be going up against
and
B) Time to prepare.

If you remove either one of those things, Wizards become much less powerful. Oh sure, you can go for a Macguyver-wizard who is ready for anything, but then things are alot easier.
If the wizard knows they are going up against a fighter, they prep abunch of Save or Die/Lose spells that target will saves. If they don't know what they are up against, they may prep a few Anti-fighter spells, but not as many, which makes the fighters job much easier, as now they only need to make one or two saves, as opposed to a save every round to avoid death.

Don't they ALLWAYS pprepare spells like that (and nuke spells for the shake of it)

[Heliomance]

His logic is flawed. He claims that, short of the wizard knowing exactly who he will be up against ahead of time in order to prepare his spells, said wizard is useless. Then, he claims he wants to use a "True-seeing fighter with a bag full of dispel-magic throwing axes", which is basically sinking all your cash into something that's ONLY good against casters. And requires even MORE prep time than preparing spells unless you go with the "Magic item shop automatically stocked with everything you are looking for".

I know that. Can't seem to convince him of that.
A lot of his argument is that the fighter can output enough damage in one round to drop the wizard just like that. Fighter charges, Wizard dies. Assuming Wizard doesn't die, Wizard casts spell, procs AoO from Mage Slayer fighter. Assuming he survives, say Wizard casts invisibility. Fighter, who knew he was fighting a Wizard and got hold of some way to see invisibility, laughs. Alternatively, say Wizard casts Fly. Wizard goes up, proccing an AoO on the way. Fighter brings out the ranged weapons. Wizard goes splat.

Now, I'm pretty sure that's not the way it would go. Certainly Celerity would stop it happening like that, but I don't think it would go like that even in Core.

[kladams707]

Perhaps a vs. is in order here?

[shadowdemon_lord]

If fighter wins initiative and is optimized to splat things on a charge, he's right. Of course, no one actually plays the charge optimized fighter because if they face a situation that negates charging their in real trouble. Not to mention that the charger fighter doesn't exist in core anyway. Anyway, if Wizard suvives and wizard is at least seventh level then said wizard casts dim door on the defensive and gets the frick outta there. Then given that the wizard is outside of charge radius, he sits back and laughs. Then the puts the fighter in a wall of stone (or force bubble, flies up out of range, slows the fighter, casts mount and stays out of reach, or force cages him). Also, do the math on how con scores affect HP's. Tack an 16 or 18 con on your wizard, and he's going to have cleric level HP's. This was most likely the major reason for changing how Con affected HP's in 4E.

Core fighters only have access to power attack and weapon spec to increase damage. the odds that a fighter could one shot a wizard in the days before a wizard can erect a permanent high AC score seem low unless you get a lucky shot in with lots of power attack on a two handed weapon. Anyway, if your fighter is toting around a big two handed weapon and is optimized to use it, wth is he doing using highly expensive throwing axes? Your friend has given this fighter unlimited cash, and ignored the fact that by the time he has access to that much cash, the wizard can put him in a sold stinking fog.

[Mina Kobold]

At 7th level a wizard with minimum HP will have a 40/60 surviving change against a 18 str fighter. in an averaged cenario the fighter can't even hit the wizard (if the wizard wins intiative or has summoned creatures) and if he do the changes for killing in a blow are low thus letting the wizard 5ft step and stop him, this is a lucky cenario for a fighter because most wizards aren't dumb enough to be alone (adventures, zombies, summons, etc.)

[snoopy13a]

Unfortunately, any rational wizard is going to have lots of buffed spells already up. It would be part of his/her morning routine:

1) Brush teeth
2) Comb hair
3) Cast daily buffing spells :smalltongue:

A truly paranoid wizard would stay at home in their extradimensional mansion and only go out and do errands after casting a foresight spell (they would have this for over three hours). This prevents any characters from surprising them.

But all level-headed wizards would have a contingency spell prepared on them at all times with a general condition of something like "If someone performs a hostile action towards me". This allows them to either create a resilient sphere around them, cast a spell like mislead to fool the attacker, or to cast dimension door or teleport instantly to jump away.

[ericgrau]

He's kinda right, kinda wrong, and kinda irrelevant. Really this involves a lot of what-ifs, which books are you using, etc. so it might go either way. And a duel isn't the best way to check. But usually in real games - often with the DM limiting cheese - wizards do fail, fighters do succeed, and vis versa.

[Nohwl]

wouldnt having the dm nerf the wizard and buff the fighter tell you what one is better?

[Sir Giacomo]

Hi,

for those interested, Heliomancer has started a similar thread over at WoTC (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1140965).

Similarly, there were quite a few "does fighter suck or not" threads, including comparisons to wizards. A quite representative one has also been done in the 3.5 classes forum of WoTC (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1120811).
My impression is that the opinion is shifting again towards recognising that fighters and wizards are much more balanced than what people used to think.

The comparison in part depends on the level and what companions are used (hence core comparisons are most useful).
The moment a wizard has access to time stop, for instance, the fighter has access to plenty of items that block whole schools of magic (true seeing, death ward, mind blank etc).
In core, also, the chance of who gains initiative is fairly even throughout all levels. Outside core, both non-caster and casters can have access to celerity effects and ability to not be flat-footed. Depends on the DM.

- Giacomo

[Tequila Sunrise]

One of my friends, while in most respects a good optimiser, has trouble believing that wizards are just that much better than melee classes.
Your friend has a point. There is generally only one kind of wizard that can consistently pwn anything and everything: the DM pet wizard. Other than those wizards, they just can't be prepared for everything, even with divinations. In all my years of gaming, I've never seen a PC wizard be the god-like figure that many optimizers expect them to be.

TS

[Flickerdart]

Your friend has a point. There is generally only one kind of wizard that can consistently pwn anything and everything: the DM pet wizard. Other than those wizards, they just can't be prepared for everything, even with divinations. In all my years of gaming, I've never seen a PC wizard be the god-like figure that many optimizers expect them to be.

TS
That's because anyone smart enough to play a wizard well is also smart enough to know that stealing the spotlight is not a good idea, because then nobody has fun. Hardcore optimizing and actual gameplay mix very rarely.

[monty]

1) Brush teeth
2) Comb hair
3) Cast daily buffing spells :smalltongue:

That's out of order. There's always the risk of getting ambushed while brushing your teeth :smalltongue:

[BRC]

Really, Wizards are powerful because of the way power is generally measured, which is theoretical debate or testing. The question is asked "Could a Level X fighter beat Y" the numbers are crunched, and the answer is "No", because all a fighter does is hit things with other things.
But when you say "Could a level X wizard beat Y" people create the wizard's spell list on the spot according to the situation, because it would be very difficult to theoretically come up with a list of prepared spells that wasn't either built to take on this obstacle, or overly skewed against it so as to avoid people saying the list was built to take on that obstacle. The best way to test it, would be to tell abunch of players to make level X wizards, complete with prepared spell lists, so you get a scientifically appropriate random sample, then play those characters against those obstacles and see what happens.

[kalt]

It really just comes down to versatility and experience. The wizard I think will be quite a bit more powerful in the hands of someone with quite a bit of experience, while a newbie wizard more than likely will suck. Heck a good fighter can be great as well, but you can really only do so much while with a well planned out and played wizard you can do just about any damn thing.

The problem I've always had with a fighter is that they are just so damn boring to play, while with a wizard you can greatly alter your play style with just a different spell list. It's not so bad with just one off adventures, but if you play a 1-20 campaign (I think i'm in the select portion of people here that actually do) a straight fighter gets a little dull. Now add in ToB and this is a completely different story.

[Eldariel]

The reason Fighter can't kill Wizard: Contingency. Whatever you do, he'll be teleported to Where You Cannot Touch Him. If you go first. If you go second, you're dead as already concluded in this thread. Either way, you're dead. There's really no way around it. Also, 1v1 is pointless. And if we go outside Core, Celerity = game over. Wizard always goes first then. Fighter just doesn't pack the kinds of scrying, dispelling, teleporting, plane hopping, form altering abilities that would allow him to really reach the Wizard.

Like, the Wizard goes ethereal. The Fighter...cries? He needs to have a Force Bow available and needs to be a focused Archer to pose any kind of threat to the Wizard at that point...oh, and needs to see Invisibility. Wall of Force puts an end to that too, which means that hopefully the Fighter has Rods of Cancellation (which spend his turn and thus allow the Wizard to cast a Solid Fog which the Fighter can't remove). Or Wizard goes ghostform inside walls. Fighter...umm...cries again? Or maybe Fighter has infinite ranks in UMD and burns a scroll of Ghostform, which spends his turn. So Wizard Dispels him. Fighter cries some more? Alternatively, Wizard Plane Shifts/Teleports and the Fighter's money and scroll run out. Then this is repeated until the Fighter runs out of scrolls/money. If the Wizard doesn't want to just go for it in spite of the Fighter having Ghostform.

Really, Fighters aren't made for killing Wizards. That's not what they should be doing, that's not what they should try to be doing and that's not what they're designed to do. On early levels, it's possible provided that they start near enough and terrain doesn't stop Charging and the Fighter wins Initiative that the Fighter wins, but once Contingency enters the picture, it doesn't matter even if the Fighter does win the Initiative. He's still boned. So on early levels, the odds are against the Fighter, but he still has a chance. On high levels, he doesn't have a chance no matter how many 20s he rolls and how many 1s the Wizard rolls, because spells that do bad stuff on failed saves, and spells that don't offer saves/require touch attacks exist.


Fighters fall to the basic defenses of a Wizard. The ones the Wizard would have up anyways regardless of what he's doing. They have no special resistance to basic magic Wizards employ. Simply put, ask anyone who knows how to build a Wizard (that is, a person who won't be stacking level 1 with Magic Missiles, level 2 with Scorching Rays, level 3 with Fireballs, etc. and has a good understanding of the usability of at least all the relevant PHB spells) for level X. Then throw level X Fighter at it. If level X is low, it'll mostly come down to initiative if the terrain favors the Fighter, and win for the Wizard if the terrain favors the Wizard. So ~25% of the matches for the Fighter. If level X is high, things really don't matter unless the Wizard actually begins in Anti-Magic Field or something and cannot leave before the Fighter charges him. So ~1% of the matches for the Fighter.

Now that we've concluded this, how about something relevant? If you're really interested in knowing why the arcanist is better, toss a 3-character party without an arcanist at a bunch of appropriately CRd challenges, then toss a 3-character party without melee at the same challenges. The divinist and the monkey can most certainly play the token fighter role (this of course assumes that the divinist isn't playing melee role), but they'll have much harder time playing token arcanist role. And no, I'm not interested in running anything of the sort, but if someone truly cares enough about the question and for a reason or another thinks that the Fighter is equally useful to the Wizard, do that.

[Khanderas]

I know that. Can't seem to convince him of that.
A lot of his argument is that the fighter can output enough damage in one round to drop the wizard just like that. Fighter charges, Wizard dies. Assuming Wizard doesn't die, Wizard casts spell, procs AoO from Mage Slayer fighter. Assuming he survives, say Wizard casts invisibility. Fighter, who knew he was fighting a Wizard and got hold of some way to see invisibility, laughs. Alternatively, say Wizard casts Fly. Wizard goes up, proccing an AoO on the way. Fighter brings out the ranged weapons. Wizard goes splat.

Now, I'm pretty sure that's not the way it would go. Certainly Celerity would stop it happening like that, but I don't think it would go like that even in Core.
Where is Dimension door, or quickened teleport ? Or 5step rule ?
Id teleport 400 yards away, then go for lightning bolt. Or baleful polymorph if I was feeling evil. Once the fighter is a turtle walk back, put him in your pocket and put him in the terrarium of shame back in your tower with all the other impudent fighters.
Bonus for getting magical stuff to sell.

[asphen fox]

One of my friends, while in most respects a good optimiser, has trouble believing that wizards are just that much better than melee classes. His reasoning for this is that a melee class can do enough damage in one round to put a wizard out of the fight, and short of the wizard knowing exactly who he was going to be facing in advance and preparing specifically for that one eventuality - thereby leaving himself vulnerable to anything else that may come along - there is nothing the wizard can do about this. The (not fleshed out at all) build he generally cites is a thrower with goggles of true seeing and spell-storing axes of dispel magic. Thus, if the wizard goes invisible, the fighter can still see him, if he tries flying the fighter can still attack him, the axes, being magical, will go straight through Protection from Arrows, and the dispel magic will take down a Wind Wall in the unlikely event the wizard has it up.

He agrees that yes, the wizard could sit in his tower all day, spending 17 hours a day layering himself with buffs and scrying out any possible threats - but in that time, the fighter has been adventuring and is a commensurately higher level. A lot of the tactics I suggested were met with "but that's splat, isn't it", though he did at least concede that a core-only environment hurt fighter types more than it hurt casters.

Battlefield control spells are less useful than normal, as very few of our friendly local DMs use battlemaps, mostly just describing the battle. With these points in mind, how does the wizard own in every situation? Sometime I want to play an own-everything wizard while he's around, just to show him how disgusting they can be. If I can do it core-only, so much the better. Advice for pre level 10 or so would be most useful, though above would be interesting to see as well.


I agree with your friend.. But my reasoning is different. The problem with the idea that wizard class is cheesy is that people always expect the wizard to be of high enough level, that the wizard has been expecting and preparing for only one encounter for that day, and that the wizards actually had the time and experience points to craft everything he/she needed.


Think of it this way: Do you expect wizards (in just your average campaign) to have all those things? Without getting over the (assuming the DM has decent intelligence and wisdom) DM and his rule number 0.

I do agree though that it has its potential to overpower any pc if ever it becomes a boss in the campaign.


I rest my case.

[Flickerdart]

Really, Wizards are powerful because of the way power is generally measured, which is theoretical debate or testing. The question is asked "Could a Level X fighter beat Y" the numbers are crunched, and the answer is "No", because all a fighter does is hit things with other things.
But when you say "Could a level X wizard beat Y" people create the wizard's spell list on the spot according to the situation, because it would be very difficult to theoretically come up with a list of prepared spells that wasn't either built to take on this obstacle, or overly skewed against it so as to avoid people saying the list was built to take on that obstacle. The best way to test it, would be to tell abunch of players to make level X wizards, complete with prepared spell lists, so you get a scientifically appropriate random sample, then play those characters against those obstacles and see what happens.
I think this has been done before. But sure, whatever. I propose a challenge. A Tippy-style Wizard against a level-appropriate encounter. One person stats the wizard (and gives the stats and readied spells to a neutral third party) and another person gives a few challenges to the same person that are likely to be faced by a single PC of that level. Cue epic space battle. Remember, we're not looking for a "random sample" but proof that a wizard CAN be prepared for anything. Sure, not Emeral Legion type threats, but if the DM isn't TRYING to kill the Wizard, he'll have a good success chance. And if he is, then "rocks fall" always makes the save.

[BRC]

I think this has been done before. But sure, whatever. I propose a challenge. A Tippy-style Wizard against a level-appropriate encounter. One person stats the wizard (and gives the stats and readied spells to a neutral third party) and another person gives a few challenges to the same person that are likely to be faced by a single PC of that level. Cue epic space battle.

A Wizard CAN be prepared for anything, or mostly anything. Sure, not Emeral Legion type threats, but if the DM isn't TRYING to kill the Wizard, he'll have a good success chance.
For comparison purposes, we will need to do the same thing with a few fighters.

[Flickerdart]

For comparison purposes, we will need to do the same thing with a few fighters.
We're testing the ability of one character to be prepared against all possible encounters. I think just one is fair, but if you feel the need to make more, be my guest.

Materials allowed? Splats help both sides, but Wizards do get more out of them, despite Core still being broken.

Standard WBL, I presume, some point buy, ECL...10? That's a good average level.

[AgentPaper]

I like where this is going. Mind if I add a monk of my own creation to the list? These characters should also face each other, with the same items/spells prepared/etc. as they use against the various "encounters".

[Kesnit]

Standard WBL, I presume, some point buy, ECL...10? That's a good average level.


I look forward to seeing this. No Time Stop or Cerelity.

Note: I am not saying the Wizard will fail without those spells. Just that excluding the overtly-broken 9th level spells will make this much more interesting.

[Eldariel]

Celerity is a level 4 spell, and thus available. It's from PHBII though. And it could just as well be granted a special ban. The curious thing is that level 10 is one level before Wizard gets Contingency. That said, with immediate action defenses, they should still be fine. Without 'em, they'll have harder time without insane initiative though.

[BRC]

Because the Wizards won't have to worry about saving spells for later encounters that day, let's make the encounters abit more difficult. the Encounter Calculator puts an ECL 10 character at party level 6, so a CR 8 encounter sounds about right.
Edit: I messed around with the encounter calculator abit, so let's say the encounters could be either 1 CR 8, 3 CR 5, or 5 CR 3's, to truly account for differing situations.

[Flickerdart]

Fair enough.

We could also do ECL 5 and 15, with the obvious adjustments to the challenges. 20 and 1 are not desirable for obvious reasons, but we can include those as well. And Epic is, well, epic. The Wizard chain-summons Solars, animates the planet and wins.

[Keld Denar]

Think of it this way: Do you expect wizards (in just your average campaign) to have all those things? Without getting over the (assuming the DM has decent intelligence and wisdom) DM and his rule number 0.


But you see, a wizard gets quite a few options from mid level on. Especially in the case of a Focused Specialist Conjourer, which I've very fond of playing. At about level 10-11, you expend maybe ~3 spells per encounter that is EL+1 or so, 2 regular and 1 Quickened. That means he can take on 5-6 encounters a day, more than a lot of other characters. And if you do it right, even your low level spells are effective. Ray of Enfeeblement is just as good at level 10 as at level 1, or even more so! Glitterdust, assuming SF and GSF (Master Specialist route) has a decent enough DC that it compares to 4th level spells, and its pretty much an autowin. Freezing Fog and EBT are worth almost a whole encounter on their own, especially if you do something nasty like overlap your EBT with the druids Entangle.

So no, I fully expect my wizards to be able to handle more than a single encounter, or more than a few encounters, simply because its not that hard with a little bit of good planning. Check out the spell list here (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheets/view.php?id=103401).

2x Freezing Fog
1x Split Ray Enervation (combine with medium MM Rod of Empower)
2x Teleport
1x Viscid Glob
1x Split Ray of Dizziness
1x EBT
2x Solid Fog
1x Ray of Dizziness
1x Split Ray of Enfeeblement (combine with medium MM Rod of Empower)
3x Glitterdust
A couple of Quickened Ray of Clumsiness and Enfeeblement
etc.

That there is enough disable and debuff to last at least 5 encounters. You don't have to do somethign every round. If you "win" the fight in the first round, sit back and make a pot of tea (Prestidigitation!) while the damage people go get dirty with the blood spilling. You could also swap out one of the 3rd level spells for a Rope Trick, if it was desired, and you could rest undisturbed and come out ready to win 5 more encounters.

[AgentPaper]

I think we need a list of books and such available. And I'm against specific bans of anything. If we have to get rid of a bunch of wizard spells for the fighter to be on-par, then what point are we actually proving? Pun-Punesque cheese shouldn't be allowed, of course, but otherwise it should be done by RAW. Level 1 might need to be done just so we can see how the classes stack up over the levels, and Level 20 might be fun just for the lightshow, but I agree that 5, 10, and 15 should at least be done.

Also, we might not want to limit ourselves to 1 encounter. Perhaps 3 different days: one with a CR 8-10 creature, one with 2 CR 6-8 encounters, and one with 4 different CR 4-6 encounters. Thus we can measure stamina and pure power. Each day you start with your selected items, full health, and your selected spells at full, and perhaps an hour before each encounter to prepare.

Edit: Perhaps it should be 1 CR 12 encounter one day, 2 CR 10 encounters another, 4 CR 8 encounters the next, and then finish it with 8 CR 6 encounters in a day to really put these guys to the test? This would be with the expectation that the characters probably won't survive most or all of the days, and we just see how much they managed to do in that amount of time.

[Aquillion]

I think that that challenge still misses something.

A lot of what a wizard does functions as a 'force multiplier' -- they make other people more awesome. One person alone changes things somewhat; it's very non-standard.

But that doesn't mean that everyone in the team is equally powerful.

I suggest, instead, having one wizard or fighter, and three other people accompanying them.

What should those three people be? Something minor, so they don't dominate the game, and not something that a wizard nor a fighter directly provide. They could be Commoners or Aristocrats, even. Making them Warriors might be stepping on the Fighter's toes. Possibly Rogues? We could run tests with each.

But basically, one-lone-character is a bad system for testing. Add three friendly commoners or aristocrats with generic weapons + armor, at the very least. Those classes are weak enough that it'll be clear that the real burden should be on the class/build being tested, but will be a bit closer to real play.

[AgentPaper]

3 cohorts sounds good, they should be the same level as the main class, and warriors. They don't have any equipment, all of that has to be provided by the main character out of his WBL. They should be identical for each of the characters, with the same feats and such. So a warrior might decide to give them bows and back him up with range, the wizard could give them shield and good armor to keep him safe from immediate harm, etc.

[BRC]

I think we need a list of books and such available. And I'm against specific bans of anything. If we have to get rid of a bunch of wizard spells for the fighter to be on-par, then what point are we actually proving? Pun-Punesque cheese shouldn't be allowed, of course, but otherwise it should be done by RAW. Level 1 might need to be done just so we can see how the classes stack up over the levels, and Level 20 might be fun just for the lightshow, but I agree that 5, 10, and 15 should at least be done.

Also, we might not want to limit ourselves to 1 encounter. Perhaps 3 different days: one with a CR 8-10 creature, one with 2 CR 6-8 encounters, and one with 4 different CR 4-6 encounters. Thus we can measure stamina and pure power. Each day you start with your selected items, full health, and your selected spells at full, and perhaps an hour before each encounter to prepare.

Edit: Perhaps it should be 1 CR 12 encounter one day, 2 CR 10 encounters another, 4 CR 8 encounters the next, and then finish it with 8 CR 6 encounters in a day to really put these guys to the test? This would be with the expectation that the characters probably won't survive most or all of the days, and we just see how much they managed to do in that amount of time.
Okay, I don't know enough about the books to pick out the supercheesy ones to ban, but let's keep this to Pure Wizard, no PRC's.

Anyway, I even thought of some fluff

The Archmage Tippicus was greatly respected throughout the land. He would eliminate threats by a simple, yet effective system. He would sit within his well-protected tower and, when he heard about something that may challenge him, use his magical power and the vast number of tomes and beastiaries in his library to determine all he could about it. Only then, having prepared his spells with it's defeat in mind, would he leave his stronghold and assault it. Countless foes fell before him in this way, and the kingdom was kept safe. However, one day some of his apprentices approached him as he returned from slaying a vile lich.
"Master" their leader said "Why do you do this, what happens if you don't have time to prepare against a threat. Isn't this system of Scrying, Researching, and then engaging too slow and limiting. Why don't you prepare for anything, go out there, and engage whatever the threat may be?"
The Archmage Laughed "Student, we are not sorcerers who merely throw magic blindly until our foes have been reduced to a smoking crater. We are Wizards, our greatest asset is our mind. Each time you prepare your spells, it must be for a specific purpose, so you are best prepared to defeat what comes. To do anything else would be folly."
"But Master" said the apprentice "We are wizards, our magic is great, I think we can handle things without preparing specifically for them"
The Archmage laughed and said "Very well, prove it. Get some of the tower guards to help you and prepare your spells. In my dungeons I hold countless foes in stasis, and I was thinking of cleaning that out anyway, maybe putting in a rec-room. Let's put your idea to the test..."

[Kaiyanwang]

Fair enough.

The Wizard chain-summons Solars, animates the planet and wins.

You cannot chain-summon with Gate. Gate costs XP.

Anyway, IMHO, challenges and similar things are futile. You can assume wizard do anything, with a Schrödinger spellbook. And he discovered/dropped from an enemy all the spells he needs, too. Even with examples, you cannot cover all the possible events occuring at a gaming table.

Unless you play encounters like this

1) PCs and monsters say good morning
2) PCs and monsters roll initiative start to beat each other

In this case ok, casters pwns yadda yadda and all the usual crap. But this means n00b DM, IMHO. Period.

In actual game, Yes, there are times when wizard has the right combination of spell and pwns. So what? There are times when a fail with natural 1 slay living or cast in stone kills an important enemy, a well placed charge, smite evil sequence or flanking TWF sneak attack wreaks havoc, so?

AREN'T POWERFUL PCs WORTHY of SHOW EARTHSHAKING POWERS, BTW?

In a challenging, flexible game, wizard MUST have all of this. Because he's high level, has cunning enemies. In a fight with impossible planar terrain, flying enemies, hazards, living evocation spells roaring around, he must
SHOW to his buddy fighter becasue it's worthy interpose his muscled body to protect an educated high level commoner.

This does not means "everything is ok as we see it." Spells cost/benefit ratio could be changed without make spellcasters unavailable. Some spell could be easily nerfed without lose beauty. Some spell should be limited or screwed. Ok.

But, even with the situation as wee see it, the unbeatable wizard is pointless, IMHO. The game is so situazional (unless you play it as a boring grinding without significative changes) that is IMPOSSIBLE have always the same spell at the right moment, the right buff at the right moment.

Unless you think like someone that few spell are the win button. No. Few spell are the otrageous advantage button, but not the win, IMO. Or that spells have infinite duration. Or cannot be dispelled.

Final annotation: of course, even if those who say fighter can beat the wizard, one thing is sure: WIZARD CAN ADAPT TO BEAT FIGHTER FAR BETTER THAN FIGHTER CAN ADAPT TO BEAT WIZARD. Not to see this would be blindness.

Think that a wizard is unbeatable and can do without fighter... well...

[Mushroom Ninja]

So, in this challange, does the wizard get to start with his daily buffs running?

[Starbuck_II]

You cannot chain-summon with Gate. Gate costs XP.

Not to sound like Obama here, but:
Um, yes, he can.

Gate costs no XP when used by a Solar. Reread their use. It isn't as a spell (only spells cost xp).

Yes, that is powerful. And yes, a Solar can Gate another Solar.

Heck, you could have used a Titan.

[Draz74]

You cannot chain-summon with Gate. Gate costs XP.

Chain-summon with Gate = Gate something that can, itself, use Gate as a special ability (usually a Titan). Order it to do so. Et cetera.

[Mushroom Ninja]

I can create a test subject of some form for the challenge if needed.

[Kesnit]

So, in this challange, does the wizard get to start with his daily buffs running?

An argument could be made that the 15th LVL wiz could have his hour/level ones up. Maybe the 10th level WIZ, though a creative DM could throw an encounter at the party after they bunked down for the night. (This is assuming the WIZ doesn't have something like Rope Trick.) 5th level - no.

Minute/level or round/level buffs, no.

[Kaiyanwang]

Chain-summon with Gate = Gate something that can, itself, use Gate as a special ability (usually a Titan). Order it to do so. Et cetera.

OOOOOK. but every solar has gate?

And every solar of the multiverse has nothing else to do that answer to the wizard calling?

And even if they do so, I hope for the wizard that he had a good reason to subtract a lot of angels from the struggle against evil.

This way of thinking, IMHO, is plain wrong. It assumes that the universe you are interacting with, in game, is not living and has not his own purpose.

It assumes everything is for PCs. But maybe this an old issue revamped in recent editions :smallbiggrin:

[Yukitsu]

I sent a wizard with a generic spell list for one of these already, but my challenger wussed out. I'll see if I can find it and bump the level up by 1.

[Douglas]

You cannot chain-summon with Gate. Gate costs XP.
He was talking about epic. The wizard researches an epic spell that permanently summons a Couatl and uses casting time mitigation to reduce it to DC 0. Once he has enough Couatls, he uses their 4th level spell slots to create a DC 0 epic spell that permanently summons a Solar. He casts this repeatedly until he's got enough Solars with their 9th level spell slots to pull off a DC 0 summon-two-Solars ritual spell, and so on. As all the epic spells involved have a DC of 0, they all cost nothing at all to research; the only limit on how many Solars the wizard can summon (all of them permanent) is his epic spell slots per day and the number of days available, and the growth rate is exponential.

That is what is meant by chain-summoning Solars with an epic wizard, and it can very quickly get enough ritual assistants with 9th level spells to mitigate millions, billions, trillions, or more points of spellcraft DC for new epic spells. This makes it trivial to, as Flickerdart suggested, create an epic spell that literally animates the entire planet under the wizard's control.

[monty]

He was talking about epic. The wizard researches an epic spell that permanently summons a Couatl and uses casting time mitigation to reduce it to DC 0. Once he has enough Couatls, he uses their 4th level spell slots to create a DC 0 epic spell that permanently summons a Solar. He casts this repeatedly until he's got enough Solars with their 9th level spell slots to pull off a DC 0 summon-two-Solars ritual spell, and so on. As all the epic spells involved have a DC of 0, they all cost nothing at all to research; the only limit on how many Solars the wizard can summon (all of them permanent) is his epic spell slots per day and the number of days available, and the growth rate is exponential.

That is what is meant by chain-summoning Solars with an epic wizard, and it can very quickly get enough ritual assistants with 9th level spells to mitigate millions, billions, trillions, or more points of spellcraft DC for new epic spells. This makes it trivial to, as Flickerdart suggested, create an epic spell that literally animates the entire planet under the wizard's control.

Something I always wondered about that: why solars? Planetars also get 9th level spells, and are easier to summon. Wouldn't that speed up the process considerably?

[Keld Denar]

You can use Vast. He's level 11, linked in my last post about 6 posts up. Or I'll linky him again.

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheets/view.php?id=103401

There, 11th level FS Conjourer in a box, complete with gear and typical spell list. Plus, hes packin MELFS UNICORN ARROWS...oh yeah!

[Douglas]

Lots of free Wishes? A DM who rules that domain spells can't be used for the rituals (not that a DM is likely to allow this at all)? If you're high enough level to have more than 2 epic spells per day? I don't know, I'm not the one who came up with this.

At level 21 with RAW, though, yes Planetars would be faster. You wouldn't have a ridiculous number of free Wishes available per day, but how much does that really matter when you're casting DC umpty zillion epic spells?

[phoenixcire]

I don't play casters much so I'm not sure of everything but would Wave of Exhaustion combine with Ray of Enfeeblement to pretty much take all the fight out of a Fighter?

[kemmotar]

well...I was thinking that making this exclusively fighter vs wizard isn't really what it's all about. The tippy wizard says "I pwn everything" and so I have a small character proposition that I made a while back when a friend of mine said the sorcerer/initiate of the sevenfold veil/fate spinner can pwn everything and so I proceeded to prove him wrong. Here are the basics:

rakshasha (14 level monster class from savage species)
some of the benefits are:
alternate form at will, lots of stats, +5 to all saves, detect thoughts at will, can cast spells as a sorcerer of level 7(assuming 14 monster class levels)+class levels(other than rakshasha monster class levels obviously). And here is the cherry to top it off: immunity to spells up to and 8th level. This defence can be deactivated at will to receive spells he wants to(such as buffs and beneficial spells) and a +6 charisma. Assuming a pretty neutral starting point for cha, 16 (that being the main stat we will be using) +6 +4(from levels)...we get 26 charisma (without items)...with items let's assume a +6 cha item (no tomes etc). 32 charisma.

Then we go for the mindspy PrC (this requires no feats so that's helpful and it is a 5 level PrC, from complete warrior)
we have instant mindscan and spherical mindscan which allow us to read anything's mind (Assuming it has one) in a sphere (i think it was 30 ft, same with detect thought's cone) and this provides us after it is done with knowing the surface thoughts as well as a +5 to AC and AR. The bonus to AC counts when flatfooted. Now add one level of whatever you want.

Feats: mage slayer tree (if you want to) or other things including heighter spell like ability, depends on flavour...by the time I described this my friend has given up.

Now with the master wizard tippycus things will be more difficult. Keep in mind first of all that this is not a build made to kill wizards as it is an all around good build, includes fighting anything with intelligence and has DR15 or so as well as some combat stats.

Now DC for detect thoughts is 12+charisma mod, thus assuming 32 cha we have 23 DC. Wizards have +12 and though they don't dump wiz they don't pump it either...thus since mindscan automatically repeats every round we can reliably get in at some point...once he fails the save I think it works even outside the sphere so we should be good. We can also pump it with the heighten spell like ability feat.

now the key thing is:
wizards would be able to identify a Rakshasha through knowledge arcana or planes and true sight isn't uncommon and since rakshasha is an evil creature we can assume that since it is evil it will want to protect itself in any eventuality. Now a wise rakshasha will not depend only in alternate form as true sight isn't uncommon especially when you're this high level. Thus taking advantage of our nice charisma modifier, skills and alter form to give a +10 to disguise we can make a nice disguise take 10 or 20 doing and you're good. Now take a given scenario.

person A(rakshasha disguised) waylays archmage tippycus while he is going home to his tower or whatever. Typical theft scenario ensues "your money or your life" wizard procceeds to blast, initiative, wizard wins due to celerity.

(now a point I made in these forums a while ago concerning celerity was if mindblank affected it. Due to the rakshasha's nature we will assume it permanencied)

Now...if mindblank works on celerity (doubtful but depends on DM and interpretation of spells) roll initiative, if not the wizard starts. Most spells won't work plus rakshasha can have cast overland flight, and buffs and can also cast gr. invis and other spells. Now assuming the wizard starts. Most spells won't work (remember immunity up to 8th level spells + monstrous humanoid). The key factors are:
a) surprise factor (how come this pitiful human is unaffected?)
b) mindscan is bound to catch him at some point
c) benefit of limited spellcasting ability for buffs
d) disguise cannot be pierced with magical means, wizards suck at spot checks...

Now I'm pretty sure there is something out there much better than mindspy but I like it a lot for some reason...and keep in mind this is not in any way optimized and i've only spent 36k...

[Keld Denar]

The problem with your build there, is that Rakshasa's have natural sorcerer casting, and taking the Mageslayer feats kills your CL. Each feat you take from it gives you a -4 CL. Its the dumbest thing ever, but its in the rules. So you'd basically take away a Rakshasa's ability to cast any spells if you take Mage Slayer and say...Pierce Magical Concealment. That would also neft his telepathy.

And even if the Rakshasa is "immune" to spells below 8th level, immunity in D&D is a relative term. Spells with SR:No ignore immunity. Thus, your Rakshasa is still vulnerable to be hit by any number of several dozen Conjouration spells that don't check SR.

And how would Mind Blank block Celerity? Celerity just messes with your init order. Its not [Mind Affecting] for anyone?

[kemmotar]

Firstly, I didn't know the bit about mage slayer tree. Secondly, celerity may not be mind affecting but it could be argued that it reads your intent before doing it or something. I did say that that is not probable. Maybe there is a DM out there that will take into account though my bet isn't on it. The main thing here is providing a surprise factor, high saves and combat ability. With disguise the wizard won't know it's a rakshasha he's facing. With mindblank he can't scry it beforehand...it's just trying to even out the odds.

Limited spellcasting ability helps with buffs, most spells don't ignore SR, I didn't say it will make him immune to everything but there is a fair chance that the spell that is cast isn't one that bypasses SR. I'm just trying to find a way to even out the playing field...how many spells bypass SR? Not all that many...sure there can be 100 spells that bypass SR but how many of them are good, how many of them will be prepared and how many will even be known? Then how many of them will actually be cast? In any chain of spells, being immune to one of them could destroy the chain and it should take time for the wizard to find the reason why the spell didn't work.

If one spell doesn't work the first thought won't be ah he's immune to all spells up to level 8 therefore he is a rakshasha. First, seeing how the enemy appears human (maybe cast truesight or already having it) he will think it is either a magic item making him immune to the type of spell therefore try something different.

I don't claim to know the game so well that I can make a build to defeat the wizard, many people have tried and failed...I just got an idea and thought if I put it out there someone who knows more can take it and find a way for something similar to defeat the wizard. Mindspy is already not good for battling a wizard and i'm sure there are other PrCs that are much better...the advantage this build has over fighting classes is immunity, surprise and limited spellcasting.

[Douglas]

The Savage Species monster class is based on 3.0 stats. The 3.5 Rakshasa (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/rakshasa.htm) just has high spell resistance. At ECL 20 it would have SR 33. Even with no caster level boosting and no Spell Penetration, a level 20 wizard would beat that 40% of the time. With boosts, it is easy to get that to 100%.

For detect thoughts, you are assuming that the wizard has not cast Mind Blank (24 hour base duration) and has no save boosting equipment (Cloak of Resistance +5 for 25k, anyone?). Both of these are quite cheap and are extremely valuable in a large number of situations.

[Yukitsu]

For reference on how many spells ignore SR, my level 11 wizard has 4 level 6 spells that aren't affected, 3 level 5 spells, 5 level 4 spells, 6 level 3 spells, 6 level 2 spells and 7 level 1 spells prepared on his standard list.

[Keld Denar]

And some of the BEST spells don't have SR. Freezing Fog is my favorite mid level kill spell. Take 1d6 cold damage every round, no save, while you are almost completely unable to get out of my cloud. You can't cast very many spells out, because you don't have LoS, and barring FoM or a Teleport ability, he's probably not gonna be able to get out. For extra grins and giggles, follow it up with a Quickened Web and drop an EBT on the same area the next round. Now, he has to make a str check, a grapple check, and 2 reflex saves just to be able to take 2 full round actions to go 5' in a 20' radius effect. All the while, taking 2d6+5. Its mean, but if you really want someone dead, thats how you do it. If it does get out, you are waiting there with a no save SR:No Orb spell to the face to finish him off. Yippy ki yay, Melon Farmer!

And guess what? No SR ANYWHERE in there. Just losing. At the bare minimum, that would buy you a few rounds to just Teleport away. An encounter avoided is an encounter overcome, and thus tasty tasty xp should be awarded.

[kemmotar]

dammit...you all just destroyed my dreamm:smallfurious:
that didn't last long...

didn't know it was 3.0...guess then the little bugger wizzard is truly unbeatable...

[Dixieboy]

That's out of order. There's always the risk of getting ambushed while brushing your teeth :smalltongue:
which raises the question

does brushing your teeth provoke AOO?

[The_Jackal]

Your thrower is doomed by a mage smart enough to cast fly, hover out at maximum magic missile range and spam 5d4+5 at him until his opponent is dead. Range increment on a throwing axe is 10 feet. A 6th level mage can fire magic missiles at 160 feet, with zero miss chance. Have fun throwing through that -30 hit penalty.

Seriously, if you want to get rid of a wizard, you need to bring a rogue. Sneak up on him when he's busy tying his shoelaces, and remove his lungs in a single round.

[aje8]

The comparison in part depends on the level and what companions are used (hence core comparisons are most useful).
The moment a wizard has access to time stop, for instance, the fighter has access to plenty of items that block whole schools of magic (true seeing, death ward, mind blank etc).
In core, also, the chance of who gains initiative is fairly even throughout all levels. Outside core, both non-caster and casters can have access to celerity effects and ability to not be flat-footed. Depends on the DM.

Right and Wrong.

Level Dependicy is present. Though the wizard is overall more useful than the fighter starting at ~Level 6 or 7, in an actual duel situation they will be pretty close until levels significantly after that. I'm not sure if the wizard will win the duels until maybe level 9 or 11. However, throughout all that time the fighter can..... hit things and kill things. The wizard can be the face, the battfeild controller, the skill monkey, AND hit things. Not to mention Teleport and other utility spells.

Say what? The figher has access to plenty of things that block whole schools of magic? So does a COMMONER 20! If you're logic is: He has items that make him good..... so what? Anybody can have those items.

Also, no item makes you immune to Celerity -> Timestop -> Gate in Efreet -> Free Wishes-> BOOM!

[Crow]

Sorry folks, but wizards lose in the end because wizards don't ever gain any experience. No challenge = No experience.

:smallbiggrin:

[Keld Denar]

Sorry folks, but wizards lose in the end because wizards don't ever gain any experience. No challenge = No experience.

Sigh...sad but true...

So play a Dragonfire Adept instead! All the croud control goodness, half the cheese!

[Kyeudo]

The Arena that I've been running for over a year now has tested the combat capabilities of a prepared wizard vs. a prepared member of any other class repeatedly for low levels (Levels 1 and 2). Guess what we found?

Anything that lacks supernatural capabilities has extreme difficulty in dealing with a wizard. The wizard is an incredibly flexible platform for delivering a multitude of possible effects using a multitude of possible tactics. Just the core only options (all of which have been incredibly popular) put the wizard capable of bringing the game down to a single saving throw. Add in the out of core options, and you get one-hit KO magic missiles and wight-making acid splashes. This is what the wizard is capable of at 1st and 2nd level.

The fighter hits things really hard with a sharp metal stick.

[Kesnit]

The Arena that I've been running for over a year now has tested the combat capabilities of a prepared wizard vs. a prepared member of any other class repeatedly for low levels (Levels 1 and 2). Guess what we found?

What about Wizards who have no idea what they are facing when?

[Keld Denar]

What about Wizards who have no idea what they are facing when?

Then you take a variety. Some spells are just good in almost any situation. For example, Freezing Fog, like I mentioned, is particularly strong against constructs and the like, but also works against zombies regardless of size, anything huge size or bigger, and against almost everything that doesn't have a teleport or FoM effect. EBT is great against anyhting medium sized or smaller that doesn't fly. Enervation is great against everything but undead and a couple other things. Glitterdust works on almost everything but bats and other creatures that don't rely on sight for locating prey (constructs and most undead ARE affected by Glitterdust).

Basically, you try to have at least one thing for just about every possibility. You try to have at least 1 spell for each save, a couple things that don't have saves that attack different weaknesses, some stuff that affects groups, some thats single target, etc. If you find yourself needing to affect things that you didn't prepare enough spells for, try to retreat and prep to fight them better the next day. For the most part, though, a well prepared wizard has a little something for everyone to play with.

[The Glyphstone]

Not for another wizard.

And keep in mind the thing that none of the "Wizards Aren't Uber" people remember to point out, and none of the "Wizards Are Uber" people bother to mention - unless you're Tippy, a Tippyzard is pushing the boundary between practical and theoretical optimization. He doesn't have the ability to break a campaign like Pun-Pun or the Hulking Hurler does, but he can still break a campaign if played to his strengths, so only a player actively looking to ruin the game for the DM and the other players will actually play an invincible Tippyzard who hides in his fortress 24 hours/day and only ventures out with Astral Projections carrying rejuvenating Wish scrolls while throwing UbergazillionD6 metamagic doom attacks.

Batman wizards are another story, but since their entire purpose is making the other party members better, it's not as bad - with a very skillfully played Batman, your party members might not ever even notice that you're actually practically soloing the encounters.

[Kesnit]

Then you take a variety. Some spells are just good in almost any situation. For example, Freezing Fog, like I mentioned, is particularly strong against constructs and the like, but also works against zombies regardless of size, anything huge size or bigger, and against almost everything that doesn't have a teleport or FoM effect. EBT is great against anyhting medium sized or smaller that doesn't fly. Enervation is great against everything but undead and a couple other things. Glitterdust works on almost everything but bats and other creatures that don't rely on sight for locating prey (constructs and most undead ARE affected by Glitterdust).

Basically, you try to have at least one thing for just about every possibility. You try to have at least 1 spell for each save, a couple things that don't have saves that attack different weaknesses, some stuff that affects groups, some thats single target, etc. If you find yourself needing to affect things that you didn't prepare enough spells for, try to retreat and prep to fight them better the next day. For the most part, though, a well prepared wizard has a little something for everyone to play with.

While I appreciate your answer, that isn't what I was asking. Kyeudo said a prepared WIZ ran over everything. I was asking what the results were when the WIZ wasn't prepared.

It wasn't intended as a general question, but for one person discussing one situation. :smallsmile:

[The Glyphstone]

Well, one of the things a WIZ is always prepared for, paradoxically as it is, is not being prepared. Any smart wizard has at least a teleport/greater teleport in reserve, and if he runs into something his current spell loadout cannot handle, he runs away.

[aje8]

And keep in mind the thing that none of the "Wizards Aren't Uber" people remember to point out, and none of the "Wizards Are Uber" people bother to mention - unless you're Tippy, a Tippyzard is pushing the boundary between practical and theoretical optimization. He doesn't have the ability to break a campaign like Pun-Pun or the Hulking Hurler does, but he can still break a campaign if played to his strengths, so only a player actively looking to ruin the game for the DM and the other players will actually play an invincible Tippyzard who hides in his fortress 24 hours/day and only ventures out with Astral Projections carrying rejuvenating Wish scrolls while throwing UbergazillionD6 metamagic doom attacks.

Batman wizards are another story, but since their entire purpose is making the other party members better, it's not as bad - with a very skillfully played Batman, your party members might not ever even notice that you're actually practically soloing the encounters.
This is true, God and Batman can easily make it appear that the peons (Melee characters) are doing the work when really, if they weren't there it'd just be a Summoned Creature doing the exact same thing.

Just pointing this out, but a God/Batman Wizard can not be overpowered if his all party is highly optimized and the encoutners are tough enough.

In my current campain, my God Wizard is not overpowered as the other player who regularly makes the campian is Clericzilla (You know, flying around with Massing lesser vigor on 24-7?) and the encounters are usually 2-3 CR above us.

[Aquillion]

Not for another wizard.

And keep in mind the thing that none of the "Wizards Aren't Uber" people remember to point out, and none of the "Wizards Are Uber" people bother to mention - unless you're Tippy, a Tippyzard is pushing the boundary between practical and theoretical optimization. He doesn't have the ability to break a campaign like Pun-Pun or the Hulking Hurler does, but he can still break a campaign if played to his strengths, so only a player actively looking to ruin the game for the DM and the other players will actually play an invincible Tippyzard who hides in his fortress 24 hours/day and only ventures out with Astral Projections carrying rejuvenating Wish scrolls while throwing UbergazillionD6 metamagic doom attacks.

Batman wizards are another story, but since their entire purpose is making the other party members better, it's not as bad - with a very skillfully played Batman, your party members might not ever even notice that you're actually practically soloing the encounters.I mentioned it!

This is something that a lot of people forget in these discussions. It's sort of unintuitive, but it's actually the Clerics and Druid CoDzillas that are best at doing absolutely everything with no help -- a wizard can accomplish that (because their biggest asset is versatility, you can optimize a wizard for almost anything), but it's not their most optimal strategy. Wizards are best at being a force multiplier -- at changing the situation to make the entire party more awesome, in one way or another.

Incidentally, this also answers the people who constantly harp on how they think a wizard can't possibly be prepared for anything -- a wizard can be prepared, at least, for anything anyone else in the party can handle, and will usually be prepared to make countless otherwise impossible-to-handle situations manageable. This is because the best strategy for a wizard is not to plan your spell list primarily around your expected challenges or your temporary situation (both help a bit, but you'd only change a few spells for that) -- the best strategy for a wizard is to plan your spell list around your party. Haste is almost never useless. Slow is almost never useless. Solid Fog is almost never useless. Mass Fly is an instawin button against many non-flying opponents, and often makes a dangerous situation manageable against flying opponents. And these spells are so broadly-applicable because they focus not on killing the enemy outright, but on changing the situation in ways that make your party members able to finish the enemy easily.

But, as I said earlier, this doesn't mean that everyone is equally powerful from an optimization standpoint... a wizard who partners with a warrior (the NPC class) instead of a fighter is going to be only inconvenienced. A fighter who partners with an adept instead of a wizard, though, is going to be seriously crippled (and this is even though adepts are an overwhelmingly superior class to warriors.)

Actually, that'd be an interesting challenge -- a Wizard / Warrior duo taking on some standard challenges, vs a Fighter / Adept duo taking on the same challenges.

[Yukitsu]

That is why I advocate that all wizards generously apply undead and planar ally, which is why I also never nerf my charisma score as a wizard when I can help it. Then they are force multiplying their own resources, as well as the party's resources. This basically means double the win, which is actually quadruple the win because wizards roughly double efficacy. Actually, it's D&D, so it's triple the win.

[monty]

He doesn't have the ability to break a campaign like Pun-Pun or the Hulking Hurler does

I'd argue that a well-played wizard is much more game-breaking than the Hulking Hurler. Remember, the HH is literally a one-trick pony (well, not literally a pony, but you get what I mean); all he can do is damage, so he won't change the course of a plot much and is quite easy to kill if he becomes a problem.

[Eldariel]

I'd argue that a well-played wizard is much more game-breaking than the Hulking Hurler. Remember, the HH is literally a one-trick pony (well, not literally a pony, but you get what I mean); all he can do is damage, so he won't change the course of a plot much and is quite easy to kill if he becomes a problem.

The Hurler can do things like destroy mountains, wreck planets, annihilate terrain and overall, do dumb stuff. I'll give you that he lacks Wizard's ability to remake reality, but any physical characteristics he can remove.

[Kaiyanwang]

He was talking about epic. The wizard researches an epic spell that permanently summons a Couatl and uses casting time mitigation to reduce it to DC 0. Once he has enough Couatls, he uses their 4th level spell slots to create a DC 0 epic spell that permanently summons a Solar. He casts this repeatedly until he's got enough Solars with their 9th level spell slots to pull off a DC 0 summon-two-Solars ritual spell, and so on. As all the epic spells involved have a DC of 0, they all cost nothing at all to research; the only limit on how many Solars the wizard can summon (all of them permanent) is his epic spell slots per day and the number of days available, and the growth rate is exponential.

That is what is meant by chain-summoning Solars with an epic wizard, and it can very quickly get enough ritual assistants with 9th level spells to mitigate millions, billions, trillions, or more points of spellcraft DC for new epic spells. This makes it trivial to, as Flickerdart suggested, create an epic spell that literally animates the entire planet under the wizard's control.

WOW. Just... wow. Two questions:

1) People continue to quote my first post when i notice the XP cost of gate and tell me the uber chaingate combo. but I said later:
OOOOOK. but every solar has gate?

And every solar of the multiverse has nothing else to do that answer to the wizard calling?

And even if they do so, I hope for the wizard that he had a good reason to subtract a lot of angels from the struggle against evil.

This way of thinking, IMHO, is plain wrong. It assumes that the universe you are interacting with, in game, is not living and has not his own purpose.

It assumes everything is for PCs. But maybe this an old issue revamped in recent editions :smallbiggrin:

What I said is pointless?

2) NIce epic spell combo. In what asylum is the DM locked? Epic spells are not intended to work imperatively. If an epic spell make something wrong, the DM is free to don't allow it. Is clearly said in the ELH.

And DM has always the last word, anyway. This would make any "imbalance" issue pointless in a RPG.

[Aquillion]

2) NIce epic spell combo. In what asylum is the DM locked? Epic spells are not intended to work imperatively. If an epic spell make something wrong, the DM is free to don't allow it. Is clearly said in the ELH.

And DM has always the last word, anyway. This would make any "imbalance" issue pointless in a RPG.Epic spells are broken anyway (in a way that would require that a DM substantively change how certain Seeds work, not just nixing specific applications.)

Go read the Transform seed. Really read it:

To transform an object or creature into the specific likeness of another individual (including memories and mental abilities), increase the Spellcraft DC by +25.

Mental abilities include personality, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores, level and class, hit points (despite any change in its Constitution score), alignment, base attack bonus, base saves, extraordinary abilities, spells, and spell-like abilities, but not its supernatural abilities.Also note that you specifically retain your old mental abilities even while gaining those of your new form. And note how the Transform seed is Permanent.

Yeah. Short of saying 'that part of the book does not apply', Epic Magic essentially allows you to permanently gain any abilities that anyone at your level could conceivably have, and do it over and over again until you possess all abilities anyone could possibly have at your level. This isn't any fancy tinkering with mitigation factors or anything like that -- it's well within reach of a fairly low-level epic character using only limited and reasonable mitigation. It's merely doing exactly what the Transform seed tells you it can do.

[Kaiyanwang]

I agree with you - epic spellcasting is not well designed. He needed an update, but, even several parts of ELH has been updated, seed has not.

This is a shame because the idea was very cool. Actually, I allowed it in my old campaing (this needed an effort from players and DM part), but I said to my player that if they reach Epic in the current campaign, Epic Spellcasting will be not available (the setting is 1000 years after the previous story, so we can say that only heroes of the past had these powers).

Maybe I'd allow it for NPC (an ancient wyrm living in the previuous story??) because this is another options in the ELH.

But this is not my point. My point is not the brokeness of this of that, because there are things need fixes. My concerns are about

1) Role of DM. In a lot of examples (see above) seems like DM does not exist

2) Shroedinger Spellbook and /or sameness of the encounter (and different feel of spell preparing spellcaster in actual, varied and articulated play)

Said this, I leave space to you challenge, sorry for the derailment.

[Kesnit]

1) Role of DM. In a lot of examples (see above) seems like DM does not exist

I saw a comment on the WotC forum (and maybe here too) about that. Uber-optimized builds are not intended to actually be used. They are nothing but thought-experiments. "How can we work within the rules in order to twist things out of proportion."

So you are correct - no self-respecting DM would allow the combos seen here (and in similar threads).


2) Shroedinger Spellbook and /or sameness of the encounter (and different feel of spell preparing spellcaster in actual, varied and articulated play)

This was addressed a few posts back. Rather than having the WIZ stand back and play god (which an uber-optimized, overprepared WIZ could do), the WIZ can make everyone else better at their job. Mass Fly, Slow, Haste, etc, all have pretty-much universal application - and make the WIZ a welcome member of a party, rather than the main event.

D&D is a group event, and no one wants to play in a group where one or two people hog the show. Otherwise, why are the rest of the players there?

[Flickerdart]

What I said is pointless?
By RAW, yes. But this is theory. As I've also already said (since your Spot check seems to be selective) nobody actually plays the Wizard this way. Because, what would be the point? No DM would allow that, and no player would enjoy it. Unless we're talking about the adventure where Mechanus animates as an Inevitable...

The point is, a Wizard can, by the rules, violate reality every which way, while a fighter cannot. If you forbid it, it doesn't mean that the ability is suddenly not there for all Wizards. Don't Oberoni.

I also love how, in lieu of doing the actual real test with the 5, 10 and 15th level characters, all the naysayers descend on an off-hand comment at the end of the post that was essentially a joke. I did say doing Epic was pointless, but arguing is so much more fun than proof, isn't it?

[monty]

2) NIce epic spell combo. In what asylum is the DM locked? Epic spells are not intended to work imperatively. If an epic spell make something wrong, the DM is free to don't allow it. Is clearly said in the ELH.

And DM has always the last word, anyway. This would make any "imbalance" issue pointless in a RPG.

Just because you can fix it doesn't mean it isn't broken.

[Kaiyanwang]

The point is, a Wizard can, by the rules, violate reality every which way, while a fighter cannot. If you forbid it, it doesn't mean that the ability is suddenly not there for all Wizards. Don't Oberoni.



I see your point. But I say: since this is a RPG, Wizard interact with his universe.

He bends the rule of the universe. The universe remains in front of him without reaction?

A wizard summons a Solar. Saying that he cannot call a superior servant of a deity without expecting consequences other that lose 1000 Xp is oberoni? I only ask this to myself (and to you).

A solar is not a tool. Is an angel. You have to think before call an angel.

However, we could say that the costs/benefit thing should be reworked more from the mechanical point of view. Well, yes.

This is the difference I meant with the solar thing. Abuse avoided in-game.

About epic spellcasting (and about the Spot skill) I already said that are broken and needed an update.

[Yukitsu]

I see your point. But I say: since this is a RPG, Wizard interact with his universe.

He bends the rule of the universe. The universe remains in front of him without reaction?

A wizard summons a Solar. Saying that he cannot call a superior servant of a deity without expecting consequences other that lose 1000 Xp is oberoni? I only ask this to myself (and to you).

A solar is not a tool. Is an angel. You have to think before call an angel.

However, we could say that the costs/benefit thing should be reworked more from the mechanical point of view. Well, yes.

This is the difference I meant with the solar thing. Abuse avoided in-game.

Universes, per se, don't have any actions, so no, the universe can't do anything about it. People in it might, but otherwise, no. As for solars, if the wizard is good aligned and doing it, then they shouldn't care. If he's evil, they'll be gunning for him anyway, and thus, it's a moot point to discuss consequinces. Lastly, a wizard can take down the universe RAW if the beings within it get uppity against him. You can infinite gate all the solars, and infinite planar bind all the pit fiends in both planes within a round, and force both sides into a deadly death match against eachother, leaving both planes completely wide open for the abyss to just march in and take it all. It is MAD, but it illustrates why celestia can't just retalliate against a wizard that enjoys winning from a consequince point of view without consequinces against themselves either.

Of course this would never fly in a real campaign, but saying that a wizard can't do it is still the Oberroni whatever, and given the rules it can still happen. By the time wizards are casting gate, the side that he's gating have to consider the consequinces of messing with him far more than he has to worry about the consequinces of casting gate. Even dieties are not an insurmountable challenge to a mere level 20 caster, so don't try to say that the gods themselves try to stop the caster. The consequinces of the wizard beating on of them is even more disastrous than him gating solars to win petty and insignificant adventures.

[Flickerdart]

...or you could just make an epic spell that Summons Solars instead of Calling them, which compounds to the forces of Good in the universe. By your logic, the universe will then spring up to help you for some unfathomable reason, but even if it doesn't, such a spell wouldn't be very hard to do. End result: the Wizard wins, again. They don't even have to be Solars, you could just as easily borrow evil creatures. Or chain-make Eidolons of yourself (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/eidolon.htm).

[Yukitsu]

Waiting for epic is for ponces. :smalltongue: Chain simulacruming vecna at level 13 FTW.

[hamishspence]

Brachina, despite having Trap the Soul as a spell-like ability, still need the material component. (even though SLAs normally require no component)

Same principle should apply- no simulcra without the required materials. Good luck getting bits of bone off Vecna.

[Flickerdart]

Brachina, despite having Trap the Soul as a spell-like ability, still need the material component. (even though SLAs normally require no component)

Same principle should apply- no simulcra without the required materials. Good luck getting bits of bone off Vecna.
Diplomacheese, and ask him nicely?

[hamishspence]

even a "fanatical" Vecna might not be that friendly.

and does diplomacy always work in combat situations?

Also, Vecna might be hard to find.

[Nohwl]

Waiting for epic is for ponces. :smalltongue: Chain simulacruming vecna at level 13 FTW.

how do you do that?

[Yukitsu]

Same principle should apply- no simulcra without the required materials. Good luck getting bits of bone off Vecna.

The bit of the person isn't the expensive material component, and thus, that part can be ignored via eschew component.

[Fjolnir]

wouldn't creating simulactrums of vecna only require that you hunt down either the hand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_of_Vecna), Eye (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_Vecna), or some other chunk (http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Vecna#Other_artifacts) of Him to replicate, all of which exist in the world as artifacts of awe inspiring power someplace

[hamishspence]

I think the point of artifacts was- cannot be duplicated, or damaged in any way other than Special Story Way.

All components, expensive and not, are ignored for monster SLA purposes. Shapechange, for example.

However, allowing this for the players? Not a great idea.

a science explanation (yes, I know, dead catgirls, sorry :smallbiggrin:) would be that the Bit contains DNA, dead or otherwise, to duplicate the target. No DNA, no duplicate.

[Lycanthromancer]

Just nab yourself the Head of Vecna (http://www.blindpanic.com/humor/vecna.htm).