High-powered Arena PvP game

[TroubleBrewing]

My friends are, for some reason, SUPER into PvP this season. I don't know if it's caused by global warming, some kind of virus, or maybe the stars just aligned, but I've run 2 PvP games in the last three months, and now I'm playing in another arena-style PvP game.

This time, it's 16th level 3.5, no Dragon Magazine material, solo only (the guy who's running it is terrified of Leadership, Animal Companions, Special Mounts, hirelings... But for some reason he hasn't got a problem with summoned stuff), no Psionics (he was not a part of my earlier "expand my players horizons" initiative that I ran at the beginning of June or so), but basically everything else is on the table.

The players involved have some idea of what they're doing, but I'm willing to bet that I'm probably one of only two or three players to come to the table with a full-caster build. Admittedly, it's a DMM Cleric build, but I can't help it; I like to smash things.

Here's the build so far:

Cloistered Cleric 5/Death Delver 1/Sacred Exorcist 4/Contemplative 6

Base stats:

Str 8
Dex 8
Con 14
Int 12
Wis 18
Cha 14

Ending Stats:

Str 22
Dex 18
Con 22
Int 12
Wis 28
Cha 18

Human

1- Extra Turning
1- Extra Turning
3 - Travel Devotion
6 - Extend Spell
9 - Persist Spell
12 - Divine Metamagic: Persist Spell
15 - Extra Turning

Bonus- Knowledge Devotion

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STUFF
------------------------------------------

[260,000 gp]

Steadfast Boots (MIC 138)- 1,400
Belt of Battle (MIC 73)- 12,000
Metamagic Rod of Extend Spell (DMG 237)- 11,000
Nightstick Rod (LM 78)- 7,500
Reliquary Holy Symbol (MIC 120)- 1,000
Periapt of Wisdom +6 (DMG 265)- 36,000
Orange Ioun Stone (DMG 261)- 30,000
Lavender and Green Ioun Stone (DMG 261)- 40,000
Prayer Beads of Karma (DMG 268)- 20,000
Ring of Spell-battle (MIC 127)- 12,000
Monk's Belt (DMG 249)- 13,000
Healing Belt- 750
Cloak of Minor Displacement- 24,000
Ring of Evasion- 25,000
+1 Mithral Breastplate of Heavy Fortification- 40,200
Gauntlets of Energy Transformation- 1,000
Aboleth Mucus x7- 140
Third Eye Aware- 10,000

------------------------------------
MAGIC
------------------------------------

Domains: Glory, War, Law, Inquisition

Domain Spells:
1- Protection From Chaos
2- Bless Weapon
3- Magic Vestment
4- Divine Power
5- Holy Sword
6- Hold Monster
7- Dictum
8- Shield of Law

------------------------------
SPELL EFFECTS
------------------------------
WEAPON:
Ice Axe: 2d12+7 damage
Holy Sword: Ice Axe becomes +5 Holy Ice Axe (+2d6 against evil)

DAMAGE BONUS:
Righteous Wrath of the Faithful: +3 morale
Divine Favor: +5 luck

ATTACK BONUS:
Righteous Wrath of the Faithful: +3 morale
Divine Favor: +5 luck

SAVING THROWS:
Recitation: +3 luck (all)
Hand of Divinity: +2 Sacred (all)
Shield of Law: +4 resistance (all)

STATS:
Str: Righteous Might (+8 size), Divine Power (+6 enhancement)
Dex: Divine Agility (+10 Enhancement)
Con: Bear's Endurancce (+4 Enhancement), Righteous Might (+4 size)
Cha: Visage of the Deity (+4 enhancement)

ENERGY:
Visage of the Deity: Resistance to Acid 20
Resistance to Cold 20
Resistance to Electricity 20
Energy Immunity: Immunity to Fire
Protection from Energy: Protection from Sonic 120
Protection from Energy: Protection from Electricity 120
Protection from Energy: Protection from Cold 120

IMMUNITIES:
Sheltered Vitality: fatigue, exhaustion, ability damage/drain
Death Ward: all Death spells, magical death effects, energy drain,
any negative energy effects
Freedom of Movement: move/attack normally, auto-succeed grapple
checks
Shield of Law: Possession, mental influence
Stormrage: Thrown weapons, projectile ranged attacks, wind

AC:
Holy Star (+6 circumstance)
Righteous Might (+4 natural)
Recitation (+3 Luck)
Shield of Law (+4 deflection)
Magic Vestment (+3 enhancement)

DAMAGE REDUCTION:
Righteous Might: 15/Evil
Visage of the Deity: 10/magic

SPELL RESISTANCE:
Shield of Law: 25 against chaotic spells/casters
Contemplative: 21

------------------------------
SPELLS CAST ON SELF
------------------------------

1- Divine Favor (p), Protection from Chaos

2- Bear's Endurance (p), Hand of Divinity (p)

3- Magic Vestment, Protection from Sonic, Protection from Electricity,
Protection from Cold, Ice Axe (p)

4- Sheltered Vitality (p), Death Ward (p), Freedom of Movement (p),
Recitation (p), Divine Power (p)

5- True Seeing (p), Holy Sword (p), Righteous Might (p), Greater Vigor (p),
Divine Agility (p), Righteous Wrath of the Faithful (p)

6- Energy Immunity: Fire (p), Visage of the Deity (p)

7- Holy Star (p)

8- Stormrage (p), Greater Spell Immunity: Antimagic Field, Greater Dispel
Magic, Polymorph Any Object, Antimagic Ray (p), Shield of Law (p)

------------------------------
SPELLS REMAINING
------------------------------

0- Light, Detect Magic x5

1- Obscuring Mist, Comprehend Languages, Ebon Eyes, Doom, (+4 MORE)

2- Calm Emotions x2, Hold Person x3, Silence

3- Bestow Curse, Invisibility Purge, Remove Curse

4- Panacea, Restoration

5- Mass Curse of Ill Fortune

6- Heal, Planar Ally, Hold Monster

7- Holy Word, Destruction, Dictum

8- NONE

-----------------------------------------
SOURCES
----------------------------------------

Magic Item Compendium
Dungeon Master's Guide
Player's Handbook
Complete Divine
Complete Arcane
Complete Champion
Heroes of Horror
Spell Compendium
Unearthed Arcana
Plus a very, very miniscule dip into Savage Species.

The (p) around some of the spells indicates that I have that spell Persisted. I have a total of 81 turn/rebuke/destroy attempts, so I persist 21 spells (using that Metamagic Rod of Extend to Persist about half of the spells the day before).

I've got a couple of "I win" buttons, namely Dictum and Holy Word. With the Prayer Beads of Karma, Law Domain granted power, and the Orange Ioun Stone, my caster level is 21 for Dictum and 20 for Holy word, meaning that if any of them have even a +1 LA template and aren't LG, I can paralyze them for 1d10 minutes.

All I'm really missing is 4 1st level Cleric spells, and 3 1st level Death Delver spells. We're doing max HP, so I end up with 217, with an AC of 48. I'm happy with the build, but what I'm looking for from the Playground are any obvious weak points or easy things my enemies can do to just shut me down. I'm also looking for redundancies in my build; I worked on this from about 11pm til about 8:30am last night/this morning, so I was pretty zonked when I finished it. I'm bound to have included some stuff that's overlapped by other things.

If there are any questions about missing information, I'll be happy to provide it. Most of this stuff was just copy-pasted from Word, so there are bound to be things I didn't include.

[Flickerdart]

What's your defense against dispelling, or a scroll of disjunction?

[TroubleBrewing]

Greater Spell Immunity covers Antimagic Field, Dispel Magic, and Antimagic Ray. I've got a Ring of Spell-Battle that allows me to make a 1/day Dispel check against a spell cast within 60ft of me that I can identify with spellcraft.

Disjunction is kind of a rhymes with witch, though.

Thanks for the quick response, btw.

[The Glyphstone]

Dispel Magic/GDM are SR: No spells. GSM won't guard against them, or Antimagic spells (they're also SR: No).

[TroubleBrewing]

Oh, crap.

Well... Then I guess I've got nothing against dispels. I originally considered Initiate of Mystra, but decided against it because Heironeous gets all the rad domains.

I'm kind of at a loss for ideas here.

[Randomguy]

See if you can get a metamagic rod of quicken spell, and see if you can get a custom magic item that lets you use lesser celerity a few times per day. That should let you spend an immediate action to cast a quickened spell: perfect for interrupting the wizard that's about to dispel your buffs with a nice blasty spell. Or, if you can't quicken any good blasting spells, then get a magic item that lets you use celerity, for a standard action blasty spell. You're dazed afterwards though.

Your ring of spell battle should give you a chance to counterspell the first dispel attempt sent your way, but a ring of counterspells with greater dispel magic and another with dispel magic in it would be good too. (Not sure if they're better, though.) Remember you can have a ring with multiple capabilities on it, but it costs extra. (I forget how much extra.)

An orb of storms from DMG lets you use control winds once per day. That rips scrolls out of peoples hands if they fail a reflex save. (It does for wind wall, and that's a much lower windspeed than what you can get with control winds.) That should protect you from a wizard using a scroll, but a rogue might make it. Storm of vengeance is also nice.

[TroubleBrewing]

Ring of Counterspells is exactly what I was looking for.

... That works, right?

EDIT: Assuming that this does work, what are some other good candidates for GSI? I've got PAO covered, but if I can't find 3 other good targets for immunity, I might just trade out that 8th level slot for something else.

[Randomguy]

Ring of counterspells, unfortunately, will only work against a targeted dispel magic. :smallfrown:

Lesser globe of invulnerability would stop an area dispel though, but it's not a cleric spell.

[Flickerdart]

Looking at your physical damage, it doesn't seem all that impressive, and since you've used so many resources on buffing, one assumes this is not intentional. 2d12+20 (average 33) per whack is something you would expect from a character in his single-digit levels. You've thrown a lot of resources into defences, but a simple Orb-chucking wizard could burn through your Protection in a fraction of a turn, hop over the energy resistance, scoff at the SR (at HD+5, don't expect that to do you much good anyway) and so forth.

[TroubleBrewing]

Looking at your physical damage, it doesn't seem all that impressive, and since you've used so many resources on buffing, one assumes this is not intentional. 2d12+20 (average 33) per whack is something you would expect from a character in his single-digit levels. You've thrown a lot of resources into defences, but a simple Orb-chucking wizard could burn through your Protection in a fraction of a turn, hop over the energy resistance, scoff at the SR (at HD+5, don't expect that to do you much good anyway) and so forth.

Oh, I wasn't expecting much from the SR. I've seen it in action, and it fails to impress.

As for the protection spells, I've also got a touch AC of 36, and a fairly decent Reflex save. Plus, once the protections run out, my Visage of the Deity protection kicks on, which will at least mitigate the damage.

The lack of damage is somewhat worrying, but it wasn't my main focus (As you might have noticed.). I figured I've got a lot of SoD spells, so I won't necessarily need to beat anyone to death with my bare hands. I could be wrong, though. Especially if they make their saves... I can still persist another spell, so if there's something that will add phenomenal cosmic power to my attack damage, that'd be cool. I've heard good things about Moon Blade?

[Gwendol]

Ice axe: does respectable damage and hits as a touch attack. Might have to tweak it to account for energy resistance/immunities though. Perfect against creatures with fire immunity/cold vulnerability (there are quite a few).

Edit: Ah, should have studied the build closely. My bad! Carry on, nothing to see here. :smallbiggrin:

[Randomguy]

Why did you cast antimagic field, greater dispel magic and persist antimagic ray on yourself? Greater dispel magic doesn't even have a duration.

For more first level spells, vision of glory is a passable buff, if you have time to cast it, since it gives you a decent bonus to the first save you make in 10 rounds.

Sign is also a lvl 1 spell, it gives you +4 to your next initiative check, but it doesn't last long.

[Ithandor]

Apologies if I've missed something here... but how are you Persisting Touch range spells? I didn't notice Reach Spell, Ocular Spell or the like.

Turn attempts: I'm guessing you sub out regular Turn Undead, get it back through SE, and pick up Rebuke through Death Delver? That gives you three pools, and assuming some way to boost your Charisma to 20, 24 turns/rebukes per day. You get a further 36 from Extra Turning. Assuming Reliquary gives you 2 to each pool, and the Nightstick gives you 4 to each pool, that's 78? Did you overcount RHS's bonus?

Also, I noticed that your buffed stats include the pre-errata'ed versions of Divine Favor and Righteous Might, which were both toned down. If they're the versions your group plays with, then nevermind :)

Nitpicking aside:

Picking up a weapon or armour spikes with the Spellblade enhancement (PGtF) will give you outright immunity to targeted Greater Dispel Magic (get a few if you want a selection!). Rings of Counterspell are also great for this. With Bead of Karma, Ring of Enduring Arcana and/or Ankh of Ascension, you could also boost your CL pretty high versus dispels. Hopefully, at 16th level, Disjunction won't be an issue; if it is I'd recommend Craft Contingent Spell with the condition "Whenever I am the target of or in the target area of a Disjunction", with an appropriate GTFO spell attached.

Either of the Holy Transformation spells (SpC) are also worth a look, for persisting. If you can afford UMD, wands of Heroics could be used to grant things like Power Attack, which should help with damage - though trying to power attack with Ice Axe when it says it's too insubstantial to apply a Strength modifier to damage with is a different business....

Hope some of that is of some use! :smallsmile:

[TroubleBrewing]

This is exactly what I needed. Thanks for taking the time to pick apart my late-night-early-morning errors!


Apologies if I've missed something here... but how are you Persisting Touch range spells? I didn't notice Reach Spell, Ocular Spell or the like.

I forgot to mention this: The guy who's running this thing has ruled that "Range: Touch" means it has a fixed range. Not the norm, I know. Very, very nice regardless.


Turn attempts: I'm guessing you sub out regular Turn Undead, get it back through SE, and pick up Rebuke through Death Delver? That gives you three pools, and assuming some way to boost your Charisma to 20, 24 turns/rebukes per day. You get a further 36 from Extra Turning. Assuming Reliquary gives you 2 to each pool, and the Nightstick gives you 4 to each pool, that's 78? Did you overcount RHS's bonus?

Hm... It would appear so. I'm only at 75 right now... If I buy a scroll of Righteous Aura and Persist it on day 1 of my routine, that would give me +4 sacred to Cha, leaving me with a total of 81, allowing me to Persist 22 spells.


Also, I noticed that your buffed stats include the pre-errata'ed versions of Divine Favor and Righteous Might, which were both toned down. If they're the versions your group plays with, then nevermind :)

That would be the case, yes.


Picking up a weapon or armour spikes with the Spellblade enhancement (PGtF) will give you outright immunity to targeted Greater Dispel Magic (get a few if you want a selection!). Rings of Counterspell are also great for this. With Bead of Karma, Ring of Enduring Arcana and/or Ankh of Ascension, you could also boost your CL pretty high versus dispels.

I'll look into getting rid of some of the less useful items so I can fit these ones in my budget. Does a green and lavender Ioun Stone function in any way that would be useful to this problem? I've got one of those.


Hopefully, at 16th level, Disjunction won't be an issue; if it is I'd recommend Craft Contingent Spell with the condition "Whenever I am the target of or in the target area of a Disjunction", with an appropriate GTFO spell attached.

I'm thinking Disjunction won't be an issue either. It's a fairly low-magic table, except for a few exceptions. I'm betting on one guy bringing a Theurgic-type, and another guy bringing a blasty type to the table, but nothing too threatening.


Either of the Holy Transformation spells (SpC) are also worth a look, for persisting.

I've got 1 spell left, so I'll certainly give them a once-over.

EDIT: Holy cow. I replaced Destruction with Holy Transformation on my list, but HT totally overrides Hand of Divinity (only a +2 sacred bonus to saves, instead of +4 from HT), which means I still have that open slot!


If you can afford UMD, wands of Heroics could be used to grant things like Power Attack, which should help with damage - though trying to power attack with Ice Axe when it says it's too insubstantial to apply a Strength modifier to damage with is a different business....

Yeah... I was happy I'd managed to boost my Str score so high, but it doesn't really do anything for me with regards to damage...

[Little Brother]

Be an Azurin. Sacred Exorcist stacks with Cleric levels for Turning, but if you are an Azurin, you get a special turn, Channel Incarnum, so it would give you three turn pools to go crazy with.

Why are you not a Cheater? And why do you not have whichever domain grants Shapechange/Polymorph/co?

[TroubleBrewing]

Be an Azurin. Sacred Exorcist stacks with Cleric levels for Turning, but if you are an Azurin, you get a special turn, Channel Incarnum, so it would give you three turn pools to go crazy with.

I've got three pools already. I'm trading Turn Undead for Destroy Undead (EtCR), and then picking TU up again with Sacred Exorcist.


Why are you not a Cheater? And why do you not have whichever domain grants Shapechange/Polymorph/co?

Heironeous has better domains for what I want. Specifically, Glory/Inquisition domain.

It's only 16th level, so I wouldn't get Shapechange anyway.

[Little Brother]

I've got three pools already. I'm trading Turn Undead for Destroy Undead (EtCR), and then picking TU up again with Sacred Exorcist. You should say that, then.

Or you did and I'm blind.


Heironeous has better domains for what I want. Specifically, Glory/Inquisition domain.

It's only 16th level, so I wouldn't get Shapechange anyway.Yes, but polymorph is good. It makes your damage respectable. You are averaging what, 33/swing? And if you wanted to, getting Shapechange by 16th level should be a piece of metaphorical cake. Or pie. I prefer pie.

[TroubleBrewing]

Or you did and I'm blind.

This one.


Yes, but polymorph is good. It makes your damage respectable. You are averaging what, 33/swing?

Yeah, but the point of the build is not "shapeshifting".


And if you wanted to, getting Shapechange by 16th level should be a piece of metaphorical cake.

Again, not the point at all. I'm not looking to cheese it up here, and Shapechange doesn't interest me at all.

[Little Brother]

This one.Mentioning "destroy" once is not saying you're using the variant. Saying "Destroy Undead turn variant," or something like that is


Yeah, but the point of the build is not "shapeshifting". But high-optimization to beat someone else is. A wizard should at least be around 100 HP at that level. So you plan on killing them in 3 rounds, before they can kill you?

When killing wizards, the name of the game is rocket tag. You need to kill a wizard in one shot, or you die. Dimension Door out, celerity, time stop, solid fog, Maw of Chaos(or whatever you call it), and then start mailmaning you. Or Polymorph into an Emerald Legionaire and stomp you. Or get early casting, disjunct you, then do the above. Or a typical Mailman. Or you run into the Nasty Gentleman? Or a necropolitan Tainted Scholar who SoDs you with a DC in the thousands. Or you run into the Cheater, who laughs at your magic, then does what you do, but better, then ROFLStomps you in his AMF. Hell, why aren't you running the Cheater?

Looking at your statblock, I might even make an Orc Runescarred Charger on a roc, and deal about 5X your HP in my antimagic field while flying.

You're saying this is high-op, but I could throw something together in two minutes to kill it. When it comes to 1v1 HighOp things, you need to kill the other person in one round. What that is is just run-of-the-mill DMM. That's optimized, but NOT high optimization.


Again, not the point at all. I'm not looking to cheese it up here, and Shapechange doesn't interest me at all.See above. If you're fighting a decent wizard with that, you're gonna die. Very quickly.

[TroubleBrewing]

But high-optimization to beat someone else is. A wizard should at least be around 100 HP at that level. So you plan on killing them in 3 rounds, before they can kill you?

I'm not looking to kill Batman, here. As I mentioned before, there will probably only be two other full casters at the table, and one of them is a blaster, the oher a Theurgic type.


When killing wizards, the name of the game is rocket tag. You need to kill a wizard in one shot, or you die. Dimension Door out, celerity, time stop, solid fog, Maw of Chaos(or whatever you call it), and then start mailmaning you. Or Polymorph into an Emerald Legionaire and stomp you.

Again, I'm not worried about running into Batman. Seriously.


Or get early casting, disjunct you, then do the above. Or a typical Mailman. Or you run into the Nasty Gentleman? Or a necropolitan Tainted Scholar who SoDs you with a DC in the thousands. Or you run into the Cheater, who laughs at your magic, then does what you do, but better, then ROFLStomps you in his AMF. Hell, why aren't you running the Cheater?

As I've mentioned, this is a relatively magic-lite table. I don't have to plan for TNG, taint-shenanigans, or Cheaters. And as I've stated, I'm not running the Cheater because a) it isn't what I'm looking for, b) Mystra doesn't have the domains I wanted, and c) I prefer not to cookie-cut builds I find that someone has already perfected. I like to create my own take on existing, proven builds.


Looking at your statblock, I might even make an Orc Runescarred Charger on a roc, and deal about 5X your HP in my antimagic field while flying.

Awesome. Really, that's great for you.


You're saying this is high-op, but I could throw something together in two minutes to kill it.

Where on earth did I say this was high-op? And again, really, great for you.


When it comes to 1v1 HighOp things, you need to kill the other person in one round. What that is is just run-of-the-mill DMM. That's optimized, but NOT high optimization.

I'm well aware of the rocket tag phenomenon. Not what I'm looking for. I don't need to kill them in one round.


See above. If you're fighting a decent wizard with that, you're gonna die. Very quickly.

Swell. Won't be fighting a decent Wizard, or even a Wizard at all, most likely.

[Douglas]

Ring of counterspells, unfortunately, will only work against a targeted dispel magic. :smallfrown:
That depends on DM reading of what casting a spell "upon" someone means. Personally, I'd rule that any spell that directly affects you (or your items or buffs) counts.

For protection from dispelling, get a Ring of Enduring Arcana from Complete Mage. +4 caster level on all your spells for the specific purpose of resisting dispels, for the low, low cost of 6000 (I think) gp.

Boosting caster level in general will also help, and there are a number of ways to do that. For one thing, you can get a second bead of karma so you'll have +4 caster level for Dictum/Holy Word in the fight and for all your buffs.

Check out the Team Solars link in my sig for a long list of good spells for Persist (the DM for that also ruled that touch is fixed). I didn't separate them by class in the main list, unfortunately, but I did list sources so it should be easy to check.

[Little Brother]

Scrubbed}


Again, I'm not worried about running into Batman. Seriously.The mailman isn't batman. The Solid Fog/Chaos Maw thing isn't a batman trick, it's a fairly basic one. The Emerald Legion is the go-to target for Polymorph-ishs if you can go to 16 HD, and Polymorph isn't a Batman thing, it's a staple.


As I've mentioned, this is a relatively magic-lite table. I don't have to plan for TNG, taint-shenanigans, or Cheaters. And as I've stated, I'm not running the Cheater because a) it isn't what I'm looking for, b) Mystra doesn't have the domains I wanted, and c) I prefer not to cookie-cut builds I find that someone has already perfected. I like to create my own take on existing, proven builds.There are easy ways around that. I'm pretty sure you can worship a pantheon, like the Sovereign Speaker does. There are plenty of gods that give those. That would also let you nab the Polymorphy/shapechangey one.

Scrubbed}


Awesome. Really, that's great for you.Scrubbed}


Where on earth did I say this was high-op? And again, really, great for you.Scrubbed}


I'm well aware of the rocket tag phenomenon. Not what I'm looking for. I don't need to kill them in one round.
Yes you do. If you don't, against anyone who knows anything in about this game, you will die in one round. Even an unoptimized fighter should be doing around that much damage. A factotum will be doing that much in a round, easy, or just turn into an Emerald Legionnaire and be immune to damage.


Swell. Won't be fighting a decent Wizard, or even a Wizard at all, most likely.Scrubbed}

[Flickerdart]

Isn't an Emerald Legionnaire an illegal Polymorph form because they're templated?

[TroubleBrewing]

Isn't an Emerald Legionnaire an illegal Polymorph form because they're templated?

Not to mention the "if looks could kill" glares you'd get from every DM you tried to pass this off on, and the veritable library of books you'd get chucked at you.

[Randomguy]

Oh, if you want to be extra safe, you can get a ring of greater counterspells (from MiC): It lets you counterspell as an immediate action once per day, in addition to the benefits of a normal ring of counterspells.