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View Full Version : Missed me! And again! You're not very good at this, are you? [3.5]



Heliomance
2010-02-18, 12:15 PM
A character concept occurs to me. One that uses immediate actions and miss chances to make sure that they're never quite where their opponent is hitting. What's the best way to go about this?

Thoughts:

-Abrupt Jaunt would be very helpful
-An illusionist would be able to stack up the miss chances like nobody's business
-Swiftblade might be useful, but costs a lot of levels
-ToB to get some ways to dodge as an immediate action?
-Evasion would help somewhat with spells

Tyndmyr
2010-02-18, 12:17 PM
Abrupt Jaunt, mirror image, blur, and wings of cover are generally sufficient to ensure that nothing that targets you will ever, ever get through.

The best part is, it really doesn't require much investment.

Kallisti
2010-02-18, 12:24 PM
If you can get homebrew disciplines, Setting Sun+Iron Heart+Dancing Leaf+Scarlet Rose=basically untouchable.

Eldariel
2010-02-18, 12:27 PM
It's doable martially. There's that Shifting Defense-stance that's very good for this. Combined with some AoO-focus and Sidestep/Evasive Reflexes, you can be very hard to pin down with attacks. Of course, the primary problem is this is only really functional against melee attacks.

Once you get Exceptional Deflection and Infinite Deflection on epic, that could change but before then you mostly Dodge melee attacks.

Tyndmyr
2010-02-18, 12:41 PM
Abrupt Jaunt, mirror image, blur, and wings of cover are generally sufficient to ensure that nothing that targets you will ever, ever get through.

The best part is, it really doesn't require much investment.

If we want to avoid more than just attacks, we need a bit more work. We'll assume some method of gaining persist...the exact details are up to you.

Left hand: wand of wings of cover. Bonus points if you pick up extra swift/immediate actions. This is your generic no button, usable as many times as you have swift actions. If a sorcerer, you can use this as a spell instead.

Magic missile defense: Shield(or nightshield)...or the brooch that stops them...there are a few options here, but its something to consider.

Flight: Because the ground is also a target and a source of attacks(earthglide, etc).

Protection from Arrows(or grtr version): Just so you don't need to spend actual resources to avoid huge volumes of ranged attacks. Flying high also helps, due to range increments.

Ironguard: Immunity to metal weapons. This covers a great deal of things, and is generally awesome.

Mirror image: Use them seperated by 5 ft, so you know which one is being attacked. Don't blow your WoC until they pick the right one. On your next turn, thanks to merging and seperating, they no longer know which one is the right one.

Blur: Stacks with mirror image. Keeps your images alive longer vs overwhelming firepower.

Blink: Stacks with blur and mirror image, since it's an untyped miss chance. Half damage from aoes, falling, 50% miss chance vs everything. Allows you to see and target ethereal opponents.

The four heart spells: Water is no longer a problem for you. It is for everyone else, though. Note that according to stormwrack, the water's surface breaks LoE. Fire resist 20, just to make fireballs irrelevant together with blink. Immunity to crits, sneak attack, etc. Dischargable freedom of movement. Faster fly speed, etc. All around great.

Invisible Solid Fog or Obscuring Mist. Total concealment from things that see invsibility or have true seeing up. No illusion negation for them.

Seriously, if you have even a portion of that up, it's ludicrously hard for anything to actually hit you, ever, and you still have normal actions available on your turn. Plus, your AC doesn't even matter.

jiriku
2010-02-18, 12:54 PM
Protection from evil, swift etherealness and ruin delver's fortune are also good defensive spells. Protection from evil says no to mind control, swift etherealness avoids basically anything but gaze attacks for an entire round, at the cost of taking you out of the action for a round (you can still spend that round buffing though). Ruin delver's fortune will grant immunity to poison, or disease, and grants a large enough save bonus to make SoD effects basically irrelevant, while the save bonus + evasion lets you ignore area attacks.

Oslecamo
2010-02-18, 12:58 PM
Seriously, if you have even a portion of that up, it's ludicrously hard for anything to actually hit you, ever, and you still have normal actions available on your turn. Plus, your AC doesn't even matter.

Hmm, maximized empowered force breath attack?:smalltongue:

Granted, force effects are always cheesy as they bypass most defences.

Eldariel
2010-02-18, 01:02 PM
Hmm, maximized empowered force breath attack?:smalltongue:

Granted, force effects are always cheesy as they bypass most defences.

This is why you should always have Force Dragon-form as a Shapechange underlay! Or Forceward up.

Tyndmyr
2010-02-18, 01:03 PM
Hmm, maximized empowered force breath attack?:smalltongue:

Granted, force effects are always cheesy as they bypass most defences.

That does get by most of them...assuming you can target all the mirror images.

However, you do also need flight to get into range, and if solid fog is up, that may pose a problem. Fortunately, damage is halved by blink, so even pre-save, it helps. Sometimes, abrupt jaunt will also be sufficient to get you out of it. Wings of cover also provides a bonus vs aoes, IIRC...so that may be of circumstancial help as well.

Oh yeah, prot evil is good. I run that whenever I think mind control is an issue.

Math_Mage
2010-02-18, 01:05 PM
If playing a martial class with all these miss effects up (particularly blink), don't forget to take Pierce Magical Concealment so you don't have to worry about them on your own attack.

On the other hand, with that feat readily available to the DM, what is the best way to deal with characters that have taken it? :smallconfused:

Tyndmyr
2010-02-18, 01:11 PM
If playing a martial class with all these miss effects up (particularly blink), don't forget to take Pierce Magical Concealment so you don't have to worry about them on your own attack.

On the other hand, with that feat readily available to the DM, what is the best way to deal with characters that have taken it? :smallconfused:

Blink isn't actually a concealment effect. To make it become concealment(and reduce it to 20%), you need a way of striking ethereal creatures.

Damn...just realized that blink doesn't help against force effects. Getting out of the way of the force breath weapon looks to be the only way out unless someone has a great way of ignoring force aoes.

Oh, side note...the only thing that has a miss chance for you is the blink. The rest doesn't hamper you at all.

Oslecamo
2010-02-18, 01:21 PM
That does get by most of them...assuming you can target all the mirror images.
Hmm, I believe the images are all in the same square. That's why mirror image isn't that hot against area attacks.

In a match of test of spite, a lion totem barbarian charged a mirror imaged wizard, destroyed half the images and then hit the wizard in one turn by sheer luck so I believe the optimizers agree that you can't just control your mirror images and spread them up to further make you harder to hit.



However, you do also need flight to get into range, and if solid fog is up, that may pose a problem. Fortunately, damage is halved by blink, so even pre-save, it helps. Sometimes, abrupt jaunt will also be sufficient to get you out of it. Wings of cover also provides a bonus vs aoes, IIRC...so that may be of circumstancial help as well.


Well, some damage will go trough, and hey, breath attacks are normaly from dragons, and most dragons can fly!

Flickerdart
2010-02-18, 01:31 PM
The funny thing about dragons is that Solid Fog makes them stall and fall down onto swords.

Eldariel
2010-02-18, 01:34 PM
Blink isn't actually a concealment effect. To make it become concealment(and reduce it to 20%), you need a way of striking ethereal creatures.

Damn...just realized that blink doesn't help against force effects. Getting out of the way of the force breath weapon looks to be the only way out unless someone has a great way of ignoring force aoes.

Oh, side note...the only thing that has a miss chance for you is the blink. The rest doesn't hamper you at all.

Rules of Game: There, Not There (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/rg) covers all that in rather great length. Basically, Incorporeal Miss Chance isn't really a Miss Chance at all, but an inherent possibility of the attack just plain failing due to the strange nature of the target (either lacking body or being an Ethereal creature manifesting).

And Blinking...well, you can't attack material from Ethereal or Vice Versa (without Force-weapons anyways), so it's not really a miss chance as much as chance of being on the wrong plane while attacking. Much what this thread is about, really; not being there to deliver the attack.


Of course, it's still a spell-based chance to miss an attack and thus strict reading of rules might still state PMC ignores it (it really comes down to whether we consider "miss chance" to be a rules term that refers to detection-based lack of ability to hit target, or just general "chance to miss a target").


The funny thing about dragons is that Solid Fog makes them stall and fall down onto swords.

Unless they have Hover.

Sinfire Titan
2010-02-18, 01:37 PM
If you're going to be focusing this heavily on defense, be sure it's a caster. At least then you have a decent offense to make up for everything.

Oslecamo
2010-02-18, 01:46 PM
The funny thing about dragons is that Solid Fog makes them stall and fall down onto swords.


If they can't cast fly on themselves, a couple of feats will rise their maneuverability to perfect. Or hover for just one feat.

Draz74
2010-02-18, 02:34 PM
The problem with counting on immediate actions for your defense is that you only get one per round.

Unless you have Stance of Alacrity. Then you get two. But then you have to have at least Initiator Level 15, and one of your immediate actions has to be a Counter.

Fortunately, there are Counters that work very well for this. My favorite maneuver in all of Tome of Battle is Baffling Defense. :smallcool:

So ... a Master of Nine with a one-level Conjurer dip? Definitely a unique character design.

Flickerdart
2010-02-18, 02:37 PM
If they can't cast fly on themselves, a couple of feats will rise their maneuverability to perfect. Or hover for just one feat.
Which then means they can't spend their feats on more useful things that kill you. How many dragons are going to know Fly when they can already fly? That's not how you make it far as a Sorcerer, with their limited Spells Known.

Tehnar
2010-02-18, 02:45 PM
Peirce Magical Concealment goes against blink as well as it is miss chance generated via a spell. They even cite that it bypasses Ghostform.

lsfreak
2010-02-18, 03:04 PM
Peirce Magical Concealment goes against blink as well as it is miss chance generated via a spell. They even cite that it bypasses Ghostform.

Incorporeal =/= ethereal. PMC doesn't do anything against blink.

KillianHawkeye
2010-02-18, 03:57 PM
Hmm, I believe the images are all in the same square. That's why mirror image isn't that hot against area attacks.

In a match of test of spite, a lion totem barbarian charged a mirror imaged wizard, destroyed half the images and then hit the wizard in one turn by sheer luck so I believe the optimizers agree that you can't just control your mirror images and spread them up to further make you harder to hit.

Not so....


Mirror image creates 1d4 images plus one image per three caster levels (maximum eight images total). These figments separate from you and remain in a cluster, each within 5 feet of at least one other figment or you.

So, you can spread them out a little, although I can see why most people don't bother tracking the position of 1 to 8 illusionary dopplegangers.

Tehnar
2010-02-18, 04:13 PM
Doesn't matter why the miss chance is there, for Peirce Magical Concealment it only matters where it comes from (in this case has to be from a spell or spell like ability).

For 3 feats invested, melee should be able to have nice things.

Akal Saris
2010-02-18, 04:44 PM
One of my PCs made this her theme for a 14th level game that I run.

She went Human Warlock 14, and has the following defenses...

-Deeper Darkness (filled with bat swarms) as an immediate action (using feats from Drow of the Underdark to make her darkness+bats invocation deeper darkness and make it instantaneous, along with a bit of house-ruling to make the darkness+bats invocation qualify rather than the normal darkness invocation)
-Hide in Plain Sight (when within 10ft of magical darkness)
-Darkstalker feat (can't be found by tremorsense, blindsense, etc. with mundane hiding)
-Ring of the Darkhidden (Hide works against Darkvision)
-Ring of Blinking
-Entropic Warding (Can't be tracked, 20% miss against missiles)
-DR 6/Cold Iron or whatever
-Carpet of Flying and Spider Climb invocation
-Her eldritch blasts can either blind opponents or nauseate them

She pretty much glories in how ridiculously annoying her character is to fight. So far only two combats have gotten her in trouble - one fight with about 20 small AOE's that quickly bit away all her HPs, and another where she and the rest of the party got hit with dragon fear and the opponents got to attack her repeatedly for a few rounds.

Beorn080
2010-02-18, 04:57 PM
Technically, its not miss chance, but astral projection + plane shift = never actually hit. So really, its a 100% miss chance of your real body, while still able to attack.

Math_Mage
2010-02-18, 06:28 PM
Doesn't matter why the miss chance is there, for Peirce Magical Concealment it only matters where it comes from (in this case has to be from a spell or spell like ability).

For 3 feats invested, melee should be able to have nice things.

It's not a chance to miss, though. It's a chance to be on another plane. And if you're on another plane, you're not going to hit no matter what feats you take. Ghostform's miss chance, by contrast, is with weapons that can attack, but may not hit. If you were using unarmed attacks or nonmagical weapons, PMC wouldn't work for Ghostform, either.

AslanCross
2010-02-18, 06:39 PM
ToB ways to get better at dodging:
-The Desert Wind counter Zephyr Dance gives +4 Dodge bonus to AC vs one attack as an immediate action.
-Iron Heart: Wall of Blades gives an opposed attack roll as your effective AC (IF it's better than your true AC) against one attack as an immediate action.
-Manticore Parry allows you to deflect an attack to make it hit an enemy.
-the Diamond Mind stance Pearl of Black Doubt increases your AC by +2 for one round every time someone misses you. I've gotten my AC up to 52 from about 46 this way.

magic9mushroom
2010-02-18, 08:54 PM
A bunch of contingent Dimension Doors and Teleports gotten by Wishes granted by a Candle of Invocationed Efreeti. [/cheese]

Tyndmyr
2010-02-19, 08:59 AM
Hmm, I believe the images are all in the same square. That's why mirror image isn't that hot against area attacks.

In a match of test of spite, a lion totem barbarian charged a mirror imaged wizard, destroyed half the images and then hit the wizard in one turn by sheer luck so I believe the optimizers agree that you can't just control your mirror images and spread them up to further make you harder to hit.

From SRD: These figments separate from you and remain in a cluster, each within 5 feet of at least one other figment or you.

So, while you do have to keep them reasonably close together, you don't have to keep them all clustered around you. Clearly, chaining them into a line is legal. Obviously, this brings up questions like what happens when the line is broken, but at a minimum, you should do a little bit of seperation, just to make it harder to hit all the images via various shaped attacks, and to limit the damage from melee.

Sure, images do tend to have a finite lifespan anyhow, but until they die, they're great at nearly everything but aoes. Blur and blink are an important way to limit the loss of them...but it doesn't stop magic missile or other force effects. Sure, you can stop the magic missile aimed at YOU, but that doesn't replicate to your images.


Well, some damage will go trough, and hey, breath attacks are normaly from dragons, and most dragons can fly!

Eh, I was assuming dragonfire adept, given the player like build of a force breath weapon. I guess you could technically have a dragon with such a weapon, but speed of flight becomes relevant then. Thanks to persisted Fly and Heart of Air, the defensive wizzie has a fly speed of 70ft(100ft if you get to use 3.0 stuff...unlikely though). Now, dragons are faster...but a lot of them have poor manuverability, so staying out of the breath weapon may actually be possible to a large degree.

This doesn't help against multiple dragons with this, though, so in the interests of ludicrous immortality, Im still looking at a generic anti-force spell.

BenTheJester
2010-02-19, 09:33 AM
From SRD: These figments separate from you and remain in a cluster, each within 5 feet of at least one other figment or you.

So, while you do have to keep them reasonably close together, you don't have to keep them all clustered around you. Clearly, chaining them into a line is legal. Obviously, this brings up questions like what happens when the line is broken, but at a minimum, you should do a little bit of seperation, just to make it harder to hit all the images via various shaped attacks, and to limit the damage from melee.

Sure, images do tend to have a finite lifespan anyhow, but until they die, they're great at nearly everything but aoes. Blur and blink are an important way to limit the loss of them...but it doesn't stop magic missile or other force effects. Sure, you can stop the magic missile aimed at YOU, but that doesn't replicate to your images.



Eh, I was assuming dragonfire adept, given the player like build of a force breath weapon. I guess you could technically have a dragon with such a weapon, but speed of flight becomes relevant then. Thanks to persisted Fly and Heart of Air, the defensive wizzie has a fly speed of 70ft(100ft if you get to use 3.0 stuff...unlikely though). Now, dragons are faster...but a lot of them have poor manuverability, so staying out of the breath weapon may actually be possible to a large degree.

This doesn't help against multiple dragons with this, though, so in the interests of ludicrous immortality, Im still looking at a generic anti-force spell.

A Dragonwrought Kobold DFA has 24h Flight(which he can recast at will) with perfect maneuverability and 90ft fly speed with the Improved Speed feat.


How do mirror images register on blindsense/blindsight?

Tyndmyr
2010-02-19, 10:46 AM
A Dragonwrought Kobold DFA has 24h Flight(which he can recast at will) with perfect maneuverability and 90ft fly speed with the Improved Speed feat.


How do mirror images register on blindsense/blindsight?

Hearing is specifically called out as not negating mirror image, and blindsense/sight is described as using other senses to compensate for a lack of sight. So...if you have non-hearing senses, you might be able to justify it, but hearing alone isn't likely to help you. Note that even if you do use this method, you still have a 50% miss chance due to concealment.

Tremorsense would bypass it, if you were on the ground, and a voidmage would also likely be able to determine which was real.

Eloel
2010-02-19, 02:01 PM
Blindsight doesn't give you the miss chance, blindsense does (assuming invisible opponents).
I have no idea how it interacts with mirror image though.