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View Full Version : [3.5] Battle Couple Bosses



fortesama
2010-08-24, 06:46 AM
Forgive the long post.

Our DM started a rather odd campaign which covers multiple settings (so all setting-specific stuff are allowed) with custom plane shifting effects which led to just about every setting being accessible via plane shift, including our custom ones. It got to a point that it requires multiple DMs to manage so I offered my services. I'm in charge of my own magic-heavy setting while the others manage everything else.

Now that that's out of the way, let me say this that one of our players (I suspect the third guy) pulled something weird with Wish, thus getting the entire party a ridiculous amount of gold (meaning WBL is kinda worthless now) and giving everybody a +5 to all stats but not much else. The one DMing at the time tried pulled a counter to that by exploiting a vague loophole in said reportedly clever wording when the warlock pulled a scroll of genesis (where'd he get that?) to get around that. couldn't get the details so yeah... Still, having +6 headbands of intellect and rings of freedom of movement, among other things, well before they should have them is kinda alarming. The only solace is that they're kind bad at picking what items to buy so they're basically sitting on a huge pile of gold with no idea on how to use it. OTOH, my character for when I'm not DMing did benefit too...

the team is this. They're all ECL 11:


Feral lLizardfolk Cleric/Scout/Barbarian... don't ask
Human Sorcerer with a thing for summons and divinations and a familiar which he never uses.
Err... Human StP Erudite 6/Beholder Mage 2/Cerebremancer 3(this guy is scary. I remember the levels since it REALLY stuck)
A Human Warlock/Hellfire Warlock with an custom invocation that allows for iterative attacks with EB and a feat that punches through SR (my fault as my warlock in a campaign way back pulled that. and the DM allowed it at the time)


Oh, I have an Abjurer/Master Specialist/Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil when I'm not DMing.

With that data in mind, i was thinking of throwing a pair of wizards at them. One has a build similar to mine, the other is a blaster (i'm thinking of giving her incantatrix).

Any ideas on how to build those bosses to give these guys a reasonable challenge? Keep in mind they may have access to items they shouldn't have yet (and the beholder mage now has the entire wizard spell list cast spontaneously. though he's not too bright about it).

Edit: Oh, i wasn't present at the time when someone played with the Wish.

LordShotGun
2010-08-24, 06:49 AM
I honestly dont know much given what you have said, but mage's disjuction is just mean especially to the people who just recently got all sorts of powerful items.

OR have the wizards summon something like a rust monster if you REALLY want to downsize their WBL.

fortesama
2010-08-24, 07:07 AM
A lot of their equips tend to be increases in stats, saves or ac though there is a ring of freedom of movement and a ring of spell battle and greater counterspells for the beholder mage. no staves or wands or scrolls (the beholder's got that covered).

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2010-08-24, 07:10 AM
Make them both Red Wizards (FR/DMG), each has seven Simulacrum of himself to do circle magic. That means they'd be at least level 13, I'd go for 15th so their copies can contribute 4th level spells and they can lead a circle of 8, and so they'd be a decent challenge. This can also contribute to solving your party wealth problem.

Each of them participates as circle leader twice. The first time, he contributes a 0-level spell and each Simulacrum contributes a 4th level spell (28 spell levels). He Heightens one 0-level spell to 20th level, and one 1st level spell to 9th level with these spell slots. They do circle magic a second time, this time he casts that 20th level spell while each Simulacrum contributes its other 4th level spell, giving him 48 spell levels.

He spends 20 levels to increase his caster level to 40 for the day (15th level, Spell Power +5). He spends 17 more of those levels to Empower and Maximize various offensive spells. He has Spell Mastery, one of his mastered spells is Mordenkainen's Disjunction, and he has taken Signature Spell (PGtF) for that as well. He can spontaneously convert that heightened-to-9th-level spell he has into an MDJ, and spend his remaining 11 bonus levels to heighten it to 20th level, for a DC of 30 + Int bonus + (Greater) Spell Focus. If both of them throw one of those out the party should be completely out of magical items, and have to spend a considerable amount of wealth replacing every piece of gear.

If you want to get really mean, (Rod of) Chain Spell (CA) + Break Enchantment can remove all of those instantaneous +5 Inherent bonuses from Wishes. Give them the Inquisition domain granted power via the Wizard 5 ACF from CC to grant +4 to Dispel checks, including for Break Enchantment. Make them gestalt with ten levels of Master Specialist (Abjurer) for another +5 to dispel checks, and you're probably guaranteed to remove all those unfair bonuses.

Level 15 Wizards with a caster level of 40 and up to 17 spell levels worth of free Maximize/Empower are sure to pose a threat to a gearless buffless party, so they'll have to play well to overcome the challenge. Have them cast through Projected Images to make it even harder if you want.

Telonius
2010-08-24, 07:19 AM
Too bad about that Ring of Freedom of Movement. Otherwise, for the Warlock, a simple Grapple can really ruin his day. All Invocations require somatic components, and creatures within a grapple can't use spells (and presumably spell-like abilities) with somatic components.

"Magic Circle Against..." will work to somewhat neutralize the summoner.

ZiggZagg
2010-08-24, 08:52 AM
How does the Mage have the Beholder Mage class if he is human?

fortesama
2010-08-24, 09:28 AM
One of LoP's dirty tricks. didn't think he had access to that one in particular. guess my friend who i helped make an StP erudite leaked it to him.

basically he played with his backstory which boils down to:

PAO to Elan, then beholder ala magical accident. Followed by 2 metamorphic transfer feats to make sure he qualifies even with the strictest interpretation of the prereqs for beholder mage. Couple that with said effect being under the effects of some epic feat that kinda makes the PAO reactivate after 1d4 rounds after a dispel and locking him out of the beholder form any longer than 30 seconds is kinda hard short of an AMF and with his cash he can pay for another PAO if I or some other DM locks him out with some other means. even if any of us successfully turn him back, he's still an StP erudite, hardly something to sneeze at.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2010-08-24, 09:31 AM
How does the Mage have the Beholder Mage class if he is human?

Most likely a PAO trick, but using Metamorphosis in this case. Keep in mind that if you no longer meet the prerequisites for a prestige class, you no longer gain the benefits of that prestige class apart from HP, BAB, saves, and skills. If he's not currently a beholder, that class grants him zero spellcasting ability. If he has no arcane spellcasting ability, he loses Cerebremancer's increase to his arcane and psionic progressions.

If he Metamorphosises back into a Beholder to regain those, he would have to rest to regain his spell slots and powerpoints, and Metamorphosis would have to last throughout that required eight hours rest. Using Metamorphosis to turn back into a Beholder would likely result in regaining his central eye, which he would once again have to put out. You could say that his two normal eyes become that central eye, and his hair transforms into the eyestalks when he uses Metamorphosis. Therefore, putting out that central eye would be voluntarily blinding himself, which would persist in his regular form unless he received restorative magic.

Furthermore, Beholder Mage has a special prerequisite of "Put out central antimagic eye." PAO/Metamorphosis does not grant you any supernatural abilities of the form you take, you may have a central eye but it is not a central antimagic eye, so the PAO trick does not even qualify you for Beholder Mage. Feats like Assume Supernatural Ability and Metamorphic Transfer can get around this, but you also run into problems with how their spellcasting is handled. You must give up the spell effect of a small eyestalk to cast spells from it, if his eyestalks have no spell effects he cannot trade that for casting spells from it. If he only temporarily/limited has access to the spell effects of his eyestalks, then his spellcasting should likewise be temporary/limited. Again this runs into problems with qualifying for Cerebremancer.

A non-beholder beholder mage is theoretical optimization, not something that could actually be played. Anything that could be a problem with playing one should be a problem for that character, which TO never takes into account.


Edit: Even if he temporarily loses the prestige class's qualifications, he should lose its spellcasting benefits until he rests again. This will also cause the temporary loss of Cerebremancer's increase to his manifester level, which will reduce his maximum powerpoints and cause his current powerpoints to decrease by an equal amount, which will also stay gone until he rests again. Besides that, the MDJ Red Wizards should be able to snuff out his Beholdering until he can repeat his shenanigans.

WinWin
2010-08-24, 10:25 AM
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Wish_and_the_Word_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Bu ild)

The Wish and the Word. Debatable legality, though should give you some inspiration for a few dirty tricks. Combined with circle magic...

fortesama
2010-08-24, 07:45 PM
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Wish_and_the_Word_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Bu ild)

The Wish and the Word. Debatable legality, though should give you some inspiration for a few dirty tricks. Combined with circle magic...

Ahh, yes, those guys. I remember using one of them (not the whole build. just some tidbits) for ideas on building a warlock that qualifies for IotSV. Yes I love warlocks no matter how powerful wizards or clerics are compared to them. Maybe they're a bit more viable in this campaign where you can find just about any magical item you want if you know which shop to look and if you have enough cash to burn (which is exactly what happened in this case).

As you've noticed with my first post, I decided to go Abjurer instead as it's less of a pain to enter and I wanted to try a wizard.

Tried testing the waters a bit. The Lizardfolk didn't buy any weapons, preferring to charge and do other things ala travel devotion, the beholder mage keeps forgetting to multicast or use his standard action for a power or otherwise tends to use highly inappropriate spells or powers (brilliant blade against a small horde of undead as an example), the sorcerer's a peeping tom that didn't buy anything at all other than a purple coloured castle, and the warlock forgot that the party had that much money at all, though he did get a ring of FOM as a gift, but not much else.

Tael
2010-08-25, 01:11 AM
You have a beholder mage in the party. Why are you even trying?

fortesama
2010-08-25, 01:52 AM
as i mentioned, he's not too bright when it actually comes to which spells to cast as well as frequently forgetting that he can sling multiple spells in a turn without even trying (which i keep quiet about whenever he forgets), so there may be a fighting chance. also, while he does have the entire spell list under his command, it may have overwhelmed him a bit (when you've got a novel-length reference for spells, i think browsing through them all will leave most people with a headache). suffice to say, when i'm DMing, i don't help him in picking the most appropriate spell (and i cast said spell when I'm not DMing anyway instead of letting him do that).

Dr Gunsforhands
2010-08-25, 02:19 AM
Well, they have some pretty good equipment and alone they're pretty nasty. At this point, it's going to be hard to plan something they would be afraid of, especially two wizards, unless you spend hours picking specific spells. I've done that before and I always shed a single tear when they kill their opponents, loot the bodies, and ignore their backstories.

It is at this point you bring in the Warmages. Say what you want about the practicality of Warmage PC's, they are good at one thing: Once a day unleashing a psychotic spell. Two Warmages will hit them with at least two spells laden with crazy sudden metamagics. I also highly recommend having the Warmages know delay spell so that if they ever get the drop on the PC's and have five rounds to prepare, you can launch ten spells at them in one round. That'll put the fear into them.

I like Warmages because they do damage, you don't have to spend a long time getting a spell list ready, and they can put the fear into PC's with a psychotic spell.

fortesama
2010-08-25, 03:44 AM
hmmm... any way i can practically stick an incantatrix on top of a warmage? i was thinking earlier of sending a sorcerer/incantatrix which likes to spam arcane spellsurge, arcane fusion, celerity and, say, a maximized, empowered, twinned quickened scorching ray/fireball, perhaps followed with a maximized, empowered, twinned, split ray, enervation or something.

and rapid metamagic. i'm still thinking on how i could legally do all that.

WinWin
2010-08-25, 04:18 AM
pull out the big guns. Timestop + Chained Phantasmal Thief + Gate + Morndenkainens Disjunction + Simulacrum+ Teleport without Error.

Agent Smith and his Simulacrums all appear near simultaneously and start casting. Those that manage to steal an item from the party via Chained phantasmal Theif teleport away the following round.

The 'real' Agent Smith uses his Timestop actions to gate in some support. He does not care about the XP loss because he has a Thought Bottle hidden in his secret extraplanar laboratory (along with a clone or two).

A couple of simulacrums delay until the end of the round and then move close to various PC's, probably whislt invisible, flying and with a few anti-detection buffs running. They use Celerity actions to activate Scrolls of Morndenkainens Disjunction. They probably are destroyed...

The 'real' Agent Smith might depart the following round or throw a few debuffs/control spells into the mix. His gated minions take the fight to the PC's.

Within 2 rounds or so, the Agent Smiths should all teleport away if not destroyed or killed. Leaving the PC's to fight some previously irrelevant gated minions without the benefits of magical gear and semi-permenant buffs.

Wealth is not an issue, so gear can be replaced. PC's can be rezzed easily enough in the wish economy. The pressure should be on though. Who attacked them? What was their motive? When are they coming back for round 2?

fortesama
2010-08-25, 08:11 AM
Cool idea. Not quite my style, though i'll (covertly) pass this on to one of the killer DMs in our group once he gets a taste of our ah... luxurious equipment. I don't mind losing some of the gear i've picked up too much since they're ill-gotten, though i'll miss that ring of spell battle.