mage killer

[leegi0n]

I've heard of a build called a "mage killer"...what is this? Is it something that a rogue can go into?

[sonofzeal]

There's a "Mage Slayer" feat from CWarrior I believe. Other than that, there's no commonly accepted "Mage Slayer" build that works against sufficiently-prepared mages. A good mage can always thwart just about anything an alleged "Slayer" can throw at it.

The feat is worth checking out though, if only because it qualifies you for two other solid feats. Mage Slayer itself isn't that useful unless you have a method to prevent or negate 5-foot-steps.

[Calanon]

I've heard of a build called a "mage killer"...what is this? Is it something that a rogue can go into?

here you go Mr. Death Knight (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8753.0) :smalltongue:

[Tvtyrant]

I have heard that an arcane archer firing anti-magic field arrows can do pretty well.

[Essence_of_War]

I don't know about a build, but there is a feat called "Mage-Slayer" that lets you prevent casters in your threatened radius from casting defensively.

Generally speaking, optimized wizards can only be killed by other, better prepared optimized wizards.

In practice, in most non-PvP environments, you can be very dangerous to casters with the "Mage-Slayer" and "Pierce Magical Concealment" feats. I like to slap them onto a Freedom Mantle'd Psychic Warrior 8/Crusader 2/Some Combination of Slayer-PsyWar-Sanctified Mind 10, and picking up a spiked chain.

[Lateral]

Mage Slayer itself isn't that useful unless you have a method to prevent or negate 5-foot-steps.
Yeah, but most Mage Slayer builds either dip Crusader for Thicket of Blades or take Knight 4 for Devoted Bulwark.

[deuxhero]

Other than that, there's no commonly accepted "Mage Slayer" build that works against sufficiently-prepared mages.

"Even more prepared mage"?

[Emperor Tippy]

If you want something suitably cheesy.

Step 1: Buy a Scroll of Shapechange at CL 20 (preferably a Consecrated, Invisible, Sanctum, Cooperative, Arcane thesis, Extended Persistent Spell created by an Incantatrix; they are RAW legal purchases that give you 48 hour Shapechange)
Step 2: Buy a collection of Spellblade Shuriken (1/50th the price) with every variant of Dispel Magic that exists and allows more than a +10 on the check (repeat the more common variants such as greater dispel).
Step 3: Buy a Ring of Spell Battles with a disjunction in it.
Step 4: Buy a scroll of Antimagic Field (Consecrated, Invisible, Sanctum, Cooperative, Arcane thesis, Extended, Extraordinary Spell Aim Persistent Spell version created by an Incantatrix).
Step 4: Buy a scroll of Extended Mind Blank (again using above tricks)
Step 5: Buy a scroll of Superior Invisibility (again using above tricks).
Step 6: Buy a scroll of Gate.
Step 7: Buy a necklace that has had an Invisible, Greater Shadow Evocation, Continual Flame spell cast on it.

Step 8: UMD the Shapechange scroll.
Step 9: UMD the scroll of AMF.
Step 10: UMD the scroll of Mind Blank.
Step 11: UMD the scroll of Superior Invisibility.

Step 12: Shapechange into a Shadesteel Golem.
Step 13: Put on your necklace for Fast Healing 8 and constant Haste.
Step 14: Attack the caster.

----
That's what I use in my Mage Slayer build. FMI Grey Elf Factotum 19/Mindbender 1 with his feats mostly filled with FoI. Wand Bracer with a Celerity wand in it. Have Foresight up at all times thanks to Shapechange into Air Weird. Use Celerity with UMD to avoid the caster acting first. Use Shadesteel form to avoid Daze. Use Cunning Surge to keep whacking the caster.

And then best part is that you can keep this combo up constantly without spending more gold. Use your Gate Scroll to gate in a solar. Have him Wish up a CL 200 or so Scroll of Gate. Shapechange into a Liltu. Use your Item Use (Ex) ability to activate the scroll. Use the Solars to Wish up each of the scrolls you need to continue this and another scroll of gate to repeat the loop.

You should also have a Weirdstone on hand to prevent the caster from Teleporting away.

----
The reason for the Shadesteel form is the immunity to magic, haste, and perfect fly speed. You should probably also enhance yourself with immunity to all 5 types of energy to prevent an Orb mailman from getting you that way on the off chance that they have a way to actually find you. The Spellblade shuriken prevent the caster from dispelling your shapechange (and other buffs). The AMF (shaped to avoid you) will strip off the defenses of any wizard you get within range of while still leaving your magic and attacks unaffected. The Mindblank is to prevent the caster from finding you with True Seeing, Arcane Sight, or Detect Magic (nothing with the divination descriptor will find you). The Superior Invisibility is so that you can always sneak attack and to make it nigh impossible for the caster to find you. Mindsight will let you find him if you can get within 100 feet. Shapechange into a formian queen so that you can find the caster when within 50 miles of him.


Yes, that's what I use to kill mages; and it still fails.

Oh, I also never post a build that I don't have a way to kill. :smallwink:

[Lord Vukodlak]

The feat is worth checking out though, if only because it qualifies you for two other solid feats. Mage Slayer itself isn't that useful unless you have a method to prevent or negate 5-foot-steps.

A spiked chain will negate it fairly. An ally with to flank with will work to. Or you can take this feat.

Step Up (Combat)
You can close the distance when a foe tries to move away.
Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +1.

Benefit: Whenever an adjacent foe attempts to take a 5-foot step away from you, you may also make a 5-foot step as an immediate action so long as you end up adjacent to the foe that triggered this ability. If you take this step, you cannot take a 5-foot step during your next turn. If you take an action to move during your next turn, subtract 5 feet from your total movement

I have a fighter/occult slayer with both mage slayer and step-up. I kill wizards really well...

[leegi0n]

If you want something suitably cheesy.

Step 1: Buy a Scroll of Shapechange at CL 20 (preferably a Consecrated, Invisible, Sanctum, Cooperative, Arcane thesis, Extended Persistent Spell created by an Incantatrix; they are RAW legal purchases that give you 48 hour Shapechange)
Step 2: Buy a collection of Spellblade Shuriken (1/50th the price) with every variant of Dispel Magic that exists and allows more than a +10 on the check (repeat the more common variants such as greater dispel).
Step 3: Buy a Ring of Spell Battles with a disjunction in it.
Step 4: Buy a scroll of Antimagic Field (Consecrated, Invisible, Sanctum, Cooperative, Arcane thesis, Extended, Extraordinary Spell Aim Persistent Spell version created by an Incantatrix).
Step 4: Buy a scroll of Extended Mind Blank (again using above tricks)
Step 5: Buy a scroll of Superior Invisibility (again using above tricks).
Step 6: Buy a scroll of Gate.
Step 7: Buy a necklace that has had an Invisible, Greater Shadow Evocation, Continual Flame spell cast on it.

Step 8: UMD the Shapechange scroll.
Step 9: UMD the scroll of AMF.
Step 10: UMD the scroll of Mind Blank.
Step 11: UMD the scroll of Superior Invisibility.

Step 12: Shapechange into a Shadesteel Golem.
Step 13: Put on your necklace for Fast Healing 8 and constant Haste.
Step 14: Attack the caster.

----
That's what I use in my Mage Slayer build. FMI Grey Elf Factotum 19/Mindbender 1 with his feats mostly filled with FoI. Wand Bracer with a Celerity wand in it. Have Foresight up at all times thanks to Shapechange into Air Weird. Use Celerity with UMD to avoid the caster acting first. Use Shadesteel form to avoid Daze. Use Cunning Surge to keep whacking the caster.

And then best part is that you can keep this combo up constantly without spending more gold. Use your Gate Scroll to gate in a solar. Have him Wish up a CL 200 or so Scroll of Gate. Shapechange into a Liltu. Use your Item Use (Ex) ability to activate the scroll. Use the Solars to Wish up each of the scrolls you need to continue this and another scroll of gate to repeat the loop.

You should also have a Weirdstone on hand to prevent the caster from Teleporting away.

----
The reason for the Shadesteel form is the immunity to magic, haste, and perfect fly speed. You should probably also enhance yourself with immunity to all 5 types of energy to prevent an Orb mailman from getting you that way on the off chance that they have a way to actually find you. The Spellblade shuriken prevent the caster from dispelling your shapechange (and other buffs). The AMF (shaped to avoid you) will strip off the defenses of any wizard you get within range of while still leaving your magic and attacks unaffected. The Mindblank is to prevent the caster from finding you with True Seeing, Arcane Sight, or Detect Magic (nothing with the divination descriptor will find you). The Superior Invisibility is so that you can always sneak attack and to make it nigh impossible for the caster to find you. Mindsight will let you find him if you can get within 100 feet. Shapechange into a formian queen so that you can find the caster when within 50 miles of him.


Yes, that's what I use to kill mages; and it still fails.

Oh, I also never post a build that I don't have a way to kill. :smallwink:

Holy cow, man!

[Treblain]

There's also the Occult Slayer PrC, which... is okay, but isn't up to par when it comes to actually beating mages, so it's a waste of five levels you could apply to find a cleverer way to kill mages.

Hmmm, what about Spellthief/some kind of Shadowpouncer? Teleport behind the mage and steal all their best spells instantly. Instead of spellthief, if you had some kind of level drain, that would hurt, too. Duskblade Full Attack Channeled Fell Drain Shocking Grasp, maybe?

[BobVosh]

Holy cow, man!

Ya, thats Tippy. He lives in his own universe. It is called the Tippyverse, and it is made of a mixture of RAW abuse, Awesome, and magetonium.

[Calanon]

Hmmm, what about Spellthief/some kind of Shadowpouncer? Teleport behind the mage and steal all their best spells instantly. Instead of spellthief, if you had some kind of level drain, that would hurt, too. Duskblade Full Attack Channeled Fell Drain Shocking Grasp, maybe?

If you did this to a caster he would be so pissed and Dimension door away in a fit of blind fury than prepare spells tomorrow just so he can scry for you and murder you in a surprise round of epic proportions...

I find the best way to slaughter a Wizard is by taking away his spellbook, then no matter what you do to them after that they are pretty much screwed. (Of course that isn't enough to stop them from using already prepared spells to take them down, but that is what the fell draining is for :smallbiggrin:)

For a Cleric the good ol taking the holy symbol trick works as well :smallwink:

For Sorcerers your on your own for that one >_>

I find that its easier to kill a caster then it is to play one in all fairness... Don't get me wrong I love the versatility of playing a Wizard but I realize that a Fighter is less dependent on things, the Wizard needs a spellbook, the Wizard needs a spell component pouch, a Wizard needs time to study spells all the While the Fighter only needs a weapon and his/her wits... the tier list is implying that all players share the same amount of skill with their characters...

[Emperor Tippy]

If you did this to a caster he would be so pissed and Dimension door away in a fit of blind fury than prepare spells tomorrow just so he can scry for you and murder you in a surprise round of epic proportions...
Except, you know, it doesn't work most of the time. Greater Anticipate Teleport (and the regular version) are standard in practically every caster build and give them 3 rounds to screw you. Pull out a rat from your bag of tricks and place it in the square the spell thief is going to arrive in, cast Resilient sphere on the rat, laugh as the spell thief arrives inside the sphere and is stuck. That's when the caster is being nice.


I find the best way to slaughter a Wizard is by taking away his spellbook, then no matter what you do to them after that they are pretty much screwed. (Of course that isn't enough to stop them from using already prepared spells to take them down, but that is what the fell draining is for :smallbiggrin:)
Except you aren't ever actually going to get a decent wizards spell book. My wizards regularly store one inside their stomach. And that's just one of dozens, several of which are stored in almost impossible to attack locations.


For a Cleric the good ol taking the holy symbol trick works as well :smallwink:
What cleric only has 1 holy symbol? The things are a GP a piece.


I find that its easier to kill a caster then it is to play one in all fairness... Don't get me wrong I love the versatility of playing a Wizard but I realize that a Fighter is less dependent on things, the Wizard needs a spellbook, the Wizard needs a spell component pouch, a Wizard needs time to study spells all the While the Fighter only needs a weapon and his/her wits... the tier list is implying that all players share the same amount of skill with their characters...
Playing a good fighter is far more difficult than playing a mediocre wizard, and a mediocre wizard will stomp all but the most optimized fighters.

[Calanon]

Playing a good fighter is far more difficult than playing a mediocre wizard, and a mediocre wizard will stomp all but the most optimized fighters.

Your implying that the players aren't on equal footing when most optimizations are expecting you to know what the hell you are doing.

How about we all start at the beginning for a player when he rolls up his first character.

Timmy is your average teenage boy who has just started playing D&D with his friend Johnny. Timmy decides to play a LG Fighter where his DM ops to advise him to play a LG Warblade instead (Great advice Mr. DM) where as Johnny decides to be a CE Wizard. Hurray both players have just made their first characters :D

Lets fast forward about 4 levels (roughly to level 5) both players are starting to acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses, Timmy sees that Johnny has to prepare spells every gaming session while he just has to hold his sword and sharpen it for Orcish necks :D Johnny pays this no mind seeing as how from previous experiences Jonhny knows for a fact that if it came down to it Timmy would die against him and Timmy also knows this but he pays THIS no mind.

Fast forward yet again however this time lets go to level 15. Johnny is now a great and powerful Wizard that is level 15 (Good for him!) while Timmy is a level 15 Warblade (isn't that neat?). Johnny finally decides that he is annoyed by Timmy and wants to kill him and take his stuff (who hasn't wanted to do this?) Timmy isn't going to let this just happen now is he? So Timmy asks Mr. DM if there is a way for him to take Johnny down and Mr. DM says "Well there is always an Anti-magic field but that is Magic which you don't have" Timmy is a little bit depressed at his poor luck... Johnny got the greatness of magic while Timmy is stuck swinging a stupid pointy stick... However! upon picking up and reading a small entry in the dungeon master's guide about scrolls he learns that there are ways for him to cast magic and Timmy is happy again! but how will he use this knowledge to protect himself from Johnny?

Fast forward 5 more levels hurray! Johnny is now level 20 as is Timmy! Johnny decides to turn on Timmy and kill him! so Johnny prepares spells for him to use on Timmy mostly picking damaging spells so he can wittle down poor Timmy's HP... However! Timmy is also prepared to fight Johnny. Now Johnny being the right and nice guy decides to NOT attack Johnny before he prepares his spells and simply decides to buy some scrolls before the encounter, Johnny laughs at this idea I mean he can't even use them! or so Johnny thinks!

Combat begins, Johnny wins the initiative, and since both players are only beginners decides that using time stop would be a waste and decides to use a Disintegrate on Timmy thinking he would fail his save, He does not (DC21). Now it is Timmy's turn, Timmy taking this situation very seriously and not acting arrogantly decides to use one of his scrolls on Johnny, (Scroll of Anti-magic Ray) Johnny isn't intimidated until Timmy tells him what the scrolls does and than the DM tells Johnny that its true. Johnny is now crippled and doomed without his spells or ability to cast allowing Timmy to easily take Johnny down. However being such the nice guy that Timmy is decided to not kill Johnny's wizard since he worked so hard on him and only use this as a lesson for him.

Honestly this is the best and only example I should bring up (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0627.html) How many level 20 Wizards are ALWAYS prepared for an Anti-magic field? the answer? None, a DM taking away a casters ability to cast is very rare so the caster is usually always left with nothing but an incredibly high Intelligence Score, or a Charisma or a Wisdom score... so in effect, without your magic you are nothing but a pointy eared monkey :smalltongue:


Except, you know, it doesn't work most of the time. Greater Anticipate Teleport (and the regular version) are standard in practically every caster build and give them 3 rounds to screw you. Pull out a rat from your bag of tricks and place it in the square the spell thief is going to arrive in, cast Resilient sphere on the rat, laugh as the spell thief arrives inside the sphere and is stuck. That's when the caster is being nice.

You assume that EVERYONE knows exactly what you know when in reality sometimes they never do. Whenever people compare Wizards to other builds they always presume that the Wizard has every single spell prepared. Think about it, when your playing a Wizard do you REALLY think your going to want to prepare force cage just so you can drown somebody? are you always going to have resilient sphere prepared? are you always going to have Anticipate Teleport prepared at all times? if the answer to this is yes than your probably a Sorcerer and this has nothing to do with you. You presume to much in that a Wizard will always have these spells present.


Except you aren't ever actually going to get a decent wizards spell book. My wizards regularly store one inside their stomach. And that's just one of dozens, several of which are stored in almost impossible to attack locations.

Sometimes you don't even need to take the Wizards book, hell you can just turn off the magic. The best way to insure that the wizard is screwed against you is by going first and just removing the problem all together with a scroll of Anti-magic ray, or field (If your a melee fighter and you don't have either of these then you are clearly unprepared)


What cleric only has 1 holy symbol? The things are a GP a piece.

a Cleric with the VoP has no Holy Symbol, a Cleric that believes they will not need another only has 1 and a well prepared Cleric has multiple Holy Symbols. Of course this means nothing if we use Clarissa the fresh onto the mat Cleric :smallbiggrin:

Never put casters on a high horse, because an unprepared caster is a dead caster just how an unprepared fighter is a dead fighter...

[BobVosh]

Your implying that the players aren't on equal footing when most optimizations are expecting you to know what the hell you are doing.

How about we all start at the beginning for a player when he rolls up his first character.

Timmy is your average teenage boy who has just started playing D&D with his friend Johnny. Timmy decides to play a LG Fighter where his DM ops to advise him to play a LG Warblade instead (Great advice Mr. DM) where as Johnny decides to be a CE Wizard. Hurray both players have just made their first characters :D

Lets fast forward about 4 levels (roughly to level 5) both players are starting to acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses, Timmy sees that Johnny has to prepare spells every gaming session while he just has to hold his sword and sharpen it for Orcish necks :D Johnny pays this no mind seeing as how from previous experiences Jonhny knows for a fact that if it came down to it Timmy would die against him and Timmy also knows this but he pays THIS no mind.

Fast forward yet again however this time lets go to level 15. Johnny is now a great and powerful Wizard that is level 15 (Good for him!) while Timmy is a level 15 Warblade (isn't that neat?). Johnny finally decides that he is annoyed by Timmy and wants to kill him and take his stuff (who hasn't wanted to do this?) Timmy isn't going to let this just happen now is he? So Timmy asks Mr. DM if there is a way for him to take Johnny down and Mr. DM says "Well there is always an Anti-magic field but that is Magic which you don't have" Timmy is a little bit depressed at his poor luck... Johnny got the greatness of magic while Timmy is stuck swinging a stupid pointy stick... However! upon picking up and reading a small entry in the dungeon master's guide about scrolls he learns that there are ways for him to cast magic and Timmy is happy again! but how will he use this knowledge to protect himself from Johnny?

Fast forward 5 more levels hurray! Johnny is now level 20 as is Timmy! Johnny decides to turn on Timmy and kill him! so Johnny prepares spells for him to use on Timmy mostly picking damaging spells so he can wittle down poor Timmy's HP... However! Timmy is also prepared to fight Johnny. Now Johnny being the right and nice guy decides to NOT attack Johnny before he prepares his spells and simply decides to buy some scrolls before the encounter, Johnny laughs at this idea I mean he can't even use them! or so Johnny thinks!

Combat begins, Johnny wins the initiative, and since both players are only beginners decides that using time stop would be a waste and decides to use a Disintegrate on Timmy thinking he would fail his save, He does not (DC21). Now it is Timmy's turn, Timmy taking this situation very seriously and not acting arrogantly decides to use one of his scrolls on Johnny, (Scroll of Anti-magic Ray) Johnny isn't intimidated until Timmy tells him what the scrolls does and than the DM tells Johnny that its true. Johnny is now crippled and doomed without his spells or ability to cast allowing Timmy to easily take Johnny down. However being such the nice guy that Timmy is decided to not kill Johnny's wizard since he worked so hard on him and only use this as a lesson for him.

Honestly this is the best and only example I should bring up (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0627.html) How many level 20 Wizards are ALWAYS prepared for an Anti-magic field? the answer? None, a DM taking away a casters ability to cast is very rare so the caster is usually always left with nothing but an incredibly high Intelligence Score, or a Charisma or a Wisdom score... so in effect, without your magic you are nothing but a pointy eared monkey :smalltongue:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/antimagicField.htm
Wall of force isn't affected, and presumably forcecage isn't either. It isn't explicitly spelled out, but it is RAI for most people. That say who the heck doesn't have ray deflection for wizards? Alternatively some contingencies or foresight, or celerity even. He has spell craft for this kind of thing.




You assume that EVERYONE knows exactly what you know when in reality sometimes they never do. Whenever people compare Wizards to other builds they always presume that the Wizard has every single spell prepared. Think about it, when your playing a Wizard do you REALLY think your going to want to prepare force cage just so you can drown somebody? are you always going to have resilient sphere prepared? are you always going to have Anticipate Teleport prepared at all times? if the answer to this is yes than your probably a Sorcerer and this has nothing to do with you. You presume to much in that a Wizard will always have these spells present.

Sometimes you don't even need to take the Wizards book, hell you can just turn off the magic. The best way to insure that the wizard is screwed against you is by going first and just removing the problem all together with a scroll of Anti-magic ray, or field (If your a melee fighter and you don't have either of these then you are clearly unprepared)
Once I am high enough level, I always have anticipate teleport, forcecage (usually not to drown someone), and usually have resilient sphere. These are incredibly strong fairly general purpose spells. Several classes can teeleport, and most of them are incredibly dangerous. A no save get stuck spell? Yes please. The more paranoid can easily have the stupid shrink item box trick, although I don't bother with it as I have a party to deal with such things.


A Cleric with the VoP has no Holy Symbol, a Cleric that believes they will not need another only has 1 and a well prepared Cleric has multiple Holy Symbols. Of course this means nothing if we use Clarissa the fresh onto the mat Cleric :smallbiggrin:

Never put casters on a high horse, because an unprepared caster is a dead caster just how an unprepared fighter is a dead fighter...

A cleric with a VoP is a bad cleric and should die. Then get his nose rubbed in it like a bad dog. A cleric with only 1 holy symbol will fall for this trick once. Better make it stick. Hope he doesn't have a whole church ready to help him any way they can.

Yes you can get a unprepared caster, but only if they are dumb. Usually it takes something along the lines of a betrayal to get one, a straight fight favors the caster.

[Emperor Tippy]

Honestly this is the best and only example I should bring up (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0627.html) How many level 20 Wizards are ALWAYS prepared for an Anti-magic field? the answer? None, a DM taking away a casters ability to cast is very rare so the caster is usually always left with nothing but an incredibly high Intelligence Score, or a Charisma or a Wisdom score... so in effect, without your magic you are nothing but a pointy eared monkey :smalltongue:
That would be the stupid wizards. The ones two stupid to make it to level 20 without divine intervention.

Most everyone I've ever made is immune? To get through even my first layer of defense on my Cindy build (and not the crap version that's publicly available) would require that you make a DC 38 CL check. Anti-magic ray will never work.


You assume that EVERYONE knows exactly what you know when in reality sometimes they never do. Whenever people compare Wizards to other builds they always presume that the Wizard has every single spell prepared.
Most of my builds do have at least 95% of the spells I mentioned prepared or active on them at any given time, and the rest can get them in a round or so if needed.

Think about it, when your playing a Wizard do you REALLY think your going to want to prepare force cage just so you can drown somebody?
Yes. Forcecage is a personal shield spell that can block out virtually everything and provide a secure resting spot and it's one of the best attack spells in the game. Every wizard should at least have a scroll of it on hand at any given time.

are you always going to have resilient sphere prepared?
Sure, I usually keep a few around. It is only a 4th level slot afterall. And again, it is one of the best protection spells in the game, is a longer lasting Wall of Force at a lower level, and is an attack.

are you always going to have Anticipate Teleport prepared at all times?
Anticipate Teleport lasts all day and is a third level slot. A lesser rod of extend is 3K gold and will get AT to last 48 hours.

if the answer to this is yes than your probably a Sorcerer and this has nothing to do with you. You presume to much in that a Wizard will always have these spells present.
No, a Sorcerer is better off with an Eternal Wand of AT; or one of the various ways to burn a spell slot to use a wand. Although they still should probably have both of the other spells you mentioned.


Sometimes you don't even need to take the Wizards book, hell you can just turn off the magic. The best way to insure that the wizard is screwed against you is by going first and just removing the problem all together with a scroll of Anti-magic ray, or field (If your a melee fighter and you don't have either of these then you are clearly unprepared)
AMF ray is blocked by a Spellblade. Everyone should have one as they are dirt cheap. AMF field is gotten around in numerous ways, the easiest is to just fly as that will shut down most fighters who are using an AMF.


a Cleric with the VoP has no Holy Symbol, a Cleric that believes they will not need another only has 1 and a well prepared Cleric has multiple Holy Symbols. Of course this means nothing if we use Clarissa the fresh onto the mat Cleric :smallbiggrin:
All but the prepared cleric are idiots then.


Never put casters on a high horse, because an unprepared caster is a dead caster just how an unprepared fighter is a dead fighter...
Except no caster who actually survives adventuring to reach level 20 will ever be unprepared; if they are it's terminally bad role playing and gross negligence on the part of the player.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Alright lets ignore all the uber munchkin of utter death wizard builds. So basically the last several posts. Lets think about NPC wizards or PC wizards who have a DM who doesn't allow things to crossly overpowered.

And really a DM who can't catch a 20th level caster unprepared isn't doing his job.

I wonder how a couple of you power gamers would survive at the houserules my RPG group likes to use. Such as spells outside the PHB require independent research. But thats a debate for another topic.

[sonofzeal]

Alright lets ignore all the uber munchkin of utter death wizard builds. So basically the last several posts. Lets think about NPC wizards or PC wizards who have a DM who doesn't allow things to crossly overpowered.

And really a DM who can't catch a 20th level caster unprepared isn't doing his job.

I wonder how a couple of you power gamers would survive at the houserules my RPG group likes to use. Such as spells outside the PHB require independent research. But thats a debate for another topic.
Er... you realize something like 90% of the really broken spells are PHB, right?

Also, acting all superior and implying people couldn't cut it at your own table, while simultaneously neither contributing anything to the conversation nor refuting any of their points? Yeah, not going to win you many friends.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Er... you realize something like 90% of the really broken spells are PHB, right?

There are a few broken spells in the PHB such as polymorph, but overall most of them are not broken. And limiting the field on its own takes some wind away from the prepared casters.

And the above aren't really contributing anything just showing how far you can break things if absolutely everything is allowed and you make the game about how powerful I am instead of how the team works together. The only way for a DM to deal with them is with mages disjunction traps to eliminate all there defenses, as greater dispeling won't cut it.

[Eldariel]

Alright lets ignore all the uber munchkin of utter death wizard builds. So basically the last several posts. Lets think about NPC wizards or PC wizards who have a DM who doesn't allow things to crossly overpowered.

And really a DM who can't catch a 20th level caster unprepared isn't doing his job.

He probably specifically is doing his job; this isn't a Player vs. DM game. If a DM is doing his job properly, Divinations will be very effective (less experienced DMs probably have serious trouble handling them). And hostile beings won't do something horribly improbable that only works off information there's no way those creatures would have.

You don't need a vast number of sources or lots of "munchkinism" for a nigh' impossible-to-kill Wizard on level 20. Level 9 spells just so happen to be ridiculously stupidly powerful so it's practically no effort at all to accomplish almost any task with very high safety. Most dangerous beings are of course other casters of similar level and other creatures with equivalent magical ability.

Problem is, statting up a Wizard 20 is, first of all, reactive based on information any possible Divinations used previously have provided, and secondly you need to make over a 100 different choices in building one so it's an immense chore to create one ground-up purely for purposes of discussion like this.


I wonder how a couple of you power gamers would survive at the houserules my RPG group likes to use. Such as spells outside the PHB require independent research. But thats a debate for another topic.

A master is a master in any environment. As long as the base rules are the same, a master will be capable of dominating should he so desire (of course, it's never the goal). And those house rules? Nothing but Core is needed for the most broken abilities.

Spellcasters have an amazing tolerance for negative houserules specifically due to the power and variety of their abilities. Of course, such house rules generally increase the level of system mastery needed to play one efficiently, but they will rarely bother a master.

[Lord Vukodlak]

You don't need a vast number of sources or lots of "munchkinism" for a nigh' impossible-to-kill Wizard on level 20. Level 9 spells just so happen to be ridiculously stupidly powerful so it's practically no effort at all to accomplish almost any task with very high safety. Most dangerous beings are of course other casters of similar level and other creatures with equivalent magical ability.
The more spells a wizard or cleric can potentially know the more powerful they are. Its the nature of the prepared caster. Triming that pool limits what they can do. Limiting the pool also makes it harder for the wizard to be prepared for all situations, once you start removing some of the crazy CL boosters from the field a good old dispelling trap before entering the BBEG' dungeon does wonders.

A wizard with say only the PHB and a handful of spells outside the core rules is no where near as powerful as a wizard with access to the spell compendum, the complete series and all those other books.

There seems to be this assumption that you should have relatively easy access to the spells you want to learn.


Spellcasters have an amazing tolerance for negative houserules specifically due to the power and variety of their abilities. Of course, such house rules generally increase the level of system mastery needed to play one efficiently, but they will rarely bother a master.

Here's the rub casters are more limited in what spells they can learn, but the more martially orientend characters are not as limited in there non-core selection. You can only have X number of feats and so many class levels. o the potential for abuse is not as high.(except for hulking hurlers and frenzied uber-chargers.)


He probably specifically is doing his job; this isn't a Player vs. DM game. If a DM is doing his job properly
The DM's job is to provide a challenge, letting one character steam roll over everything is a problem. Just as PC's can protect themselves from divintion so can the enemy.

[Vowtz]

Step 1: Buy a Scroll of Shapechange at CL 20 (preferably a Consecrated, Invisible, Sanctum, Cooperative, Arcane thesis, Extended Persistent Spell created by an Incantatrix; they are RAW legal purchases that give you 48 hour Shapechange) I was researching on this subject, where (in what book, page, etc.) can I find the information about these being legal purchases?

[Lord Vukodlak]

I was researching on this subject, where (in what book, page, etc.) can I find the information about these being legal purchases?

By RAW if its in the wealth limit of a town you can buy it. However many DM's may limit the capacity of the magic item shop.

[Eldariel]

The more spells a wizard or cleric can potentially know the more powerful they are. Its the nature of the prepared caster. Triming that pool limits what they can do. Limiting the pool also makes it harder for the wizard to be prepared for all situations, once you start removing some of the crazy CL boosters from the field a good old dispelling trap before entering the BBEG' dungeon does wonders.

Huh. Seems pretty irrelevant.


A wizard with say only the PHB and a handful of spells outside the core rules is no where near as powerful as a wizard with access to the spell compendum, the complete series and all those other books.

There seems to be this assumption that you should have relatively easy access to the spells you want to learn.

That's just the default assumption of D&D 3.5; magic item availability in general is just sort of assumed by the way the system is structured (WBL and all that). That said, a Wizard with just PHB is plenty powerful enough to deal with any errant Mage Killer.


Here's the rub casters are more limited in what spells they can learn, but the more martially orientend characters are not as limited in there non-core selection. You can only have X number of feats and so many class levels. o the potential for abuse is not as high.(except for hulking hurlers and frenzied uber-chargers.)

Irrelevant. You only need the spells you get on level-ups to shine. Sorcerers are pretty darn amazing and they can't even get anything more than the level-up spells and like, Knowstones.


The DM's job is to provide a challenge, letting one character steam roll over everything is a problem. Just as PC's can protect themselves from divintion so can the enemy.

Eh, there's precious few ways to protect against COP/Commune, which are the principal Divinations of relevance here. Only if you can protect yourself against deities can you protect yourself against those Divinations.

[Weezer]

Holy cow, man!

Heh, I must say I'd missed Tippy's absurdly high level of assumed optimization during his absence.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Huh. Seems pretty irrelevant.
An above poster mentioned needing a CL 38 check to start stripping away his defenses. It sounded quite relevant.



That said, a Wizard with just PHB is plenty powerful enough to deal with any errant Mage Killer.

Ah but what about when the whole party is involved. This is a good bit of simple team work from a previous adventure I was in. Enemy caster is using flight and open air to harass the party. The PC's wizard dispels his flight(among other things) and he lands right infront of the magekiller fighter. The Barbarian and the Cleric are busy handling the mooks the wizard brought with him.
Real mage slaying is done by teamwork, but a few feats will make you much better contributing to the job.



Irrelevant. You only need the spells you get on level-ups to shine. Sorcerers are pretty darn amazing and they can't even get anything more than the level-up spells and like, Knowstones.
But they don't shine as bright.
A wizard limited to just the spells at level up is going to have trouble shining in all situations. Would they have the power to have an incredible defense and still work offensively? Thats of course assuming there even able to stop long enough in a hostile area to pile on defensive spells.




Eh, there's precious few ways to protect against COP/Commune, which are the principal Divinations of relevance here.
Those give simple yes/no or one word answers. The information gained would be quite limited. It take a good deal of time to learn what you need to know. Time you might not have.

[Eldariel]

An above poster mentioned needing a CL 38 check to start stripping away his defenses. It sounded quite relevant.

I'm just saying, if you need a CL 38 check to start stripping away his defenses, the trap is probably not going to do anything either ('cause, y'know, Traps rarely can whip out CL 30+ Dispels given none exist in the game). And this is if it's not just disarmed.


Ah but what about when the whole party is involved. This is a good bit of simple team work from a previous adventure I was in. Enemy caster is using flight and open air to harass the party. The PC's wizard dispels his flight(among other things) and he lands right infront of the magekiller fighter. The Barbarian and the Cleric are busy handling the mooks the wizard brought with him.
Real mage slaying is done by teamwork, but a few feats will make you much better contributing to the job.

Yeah, well, that's 4v1 for you. Why the evil Wizard opted to fight such an uneven fight I'll never understand; certainly he'd have better odds with at least a handful of outsiders capable of contributing to the magic duel against the Cleric and the Wizard. Engaging against two spellcasters with you being the only one on your side is just a suicide unless you outclass them vastly.

But yeah, Mage Slayer feat allows bothering casters without protections a great deal. It's usually worth picking up, if only for Pierce Magical Concealment. Just, one should not think that because one has it, one can single-handedly defeat a spellcaster.


But they don't shine as bright.
A wizard limited to just the spells at level up is going to have trouble shining in all situations. Would they have the power to have an incredible defense and still work offensively? Thats of course assuming there even able to stop long enough in a hostile area to pile on defensive spells.

He'd still have the core offense and defense. He'd just have less specific solutions (spells such as Dismissal, Feeblemind, Charms, various Images and such would indeed fall outside the setup here). That is, he'd have less ability to specifically prepare for specific scenarios but he'd still have access to general spells that cover everything decently.


Those give simple yes/no or one word answers. The information gained would be quite limited. It take a good deal of time to learn what you need to know. Time you might not have.

*shrug* This depends heavily on the exact scenario. But those are the Divinations you should use most of the time regardless. Much comes down to the Wizard's skill in wording questions to accurately gain the desired information, then, though that's where Intelligence comes in handy.

[Lord Vukodlak]

I'm just saying, if you need a CL 38 check to start stripping away his defenses, the trap is probably not going to do anything either ('cause, y'know, Traps rarely can whip out CL 30+ Dispels given none exist in the game). And this is if it's not just disarmed.

My point was you eliminate the factors that allow a +15 boost to your CL beyond his hit dice, so stripping down his defenses are possible. You know things like consumption field



Yeah, well, that's 4v1 for you. Why the evil Wizard opted to fight such an uneven fight I'll never understand; certainly he'd have better odds with at least a handful of outsiders capable of contributing to the magic duel against the Cleric and the Wizard. Engaging against two spellcasters with you being the only one on your side is just a suicide unless you outclass them vastly.

Did you not read the part about the cleric and barbarian holding off the casters allies? It wasn't four on one. Oh and I'm sorry it wasn't the cleric That player left the group some time ago. It was the barbarian and the bard who went to hold off the wizards allies.

[leegi0n]

I think if a DM is against powerbuild game-breakers, it should be known to all at the onset of the campaign. If that house rule is broken, then all should focus on the immediate demise of the game-breaker, regardless of level. Rules are, after all, rules.

There's a lot to be said about uber optimization too. But it definitely has its place.

[Eldariel]

My point was you eliminate the factors that allow a +15 boost to your CL beyond his hit dice, so stripping down his defenses are possible. You know things like consumption field

Well, that does nothing to his defenses already in place.


Did you not read the part about the cleric and barbarian holding off the casters allies? It wasn't four on one. Oh and I'm sorry it wasn't the cleric That player left the group some time ago. It was the barbarian and the bard who went to hold off the wizards allies.

*shrug* Still sounds awfully careless of the evil Wizard, here.

[TroubleBrewing]

Did you not read the part about the cleric and barbarian holding off the casters allies? It wasn't four on one. Oh and I'm sorry it wasn't the cleric That player left the group some time ago. It was the barbarian and the bard who went to hold off the wizards allies.

Wait, the Wizard gets allies? Great! His Druid, Cleric, and Artificer buddies want in.

The Cleric casts Calm Emotions and then the Druid grapples the Barbarian and he crumbles. The Bard... Gets ignored, mostly? I mean, don't get me wrong. Bards are awesome with the right choices. But this is a Tier 1 arena here, and they're getting outclassed.

The Artificer does some stuff. Helps the Wizard. Etc.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Wait, the Wizard gets allies? Great! His Druid, Cleric, and Artificer buddies want in.

The Cleric casts Calm Emotions and then the Druid grapples the Barbarian and he crumbles. The Bard... Gets ignored, mostly? I mean, don't get me wrong. Bards are awesome with the right choices. But this is a Tier 1 arena here, and they're getting outclassed.

The Artificer does some stuff. Helps the Wizard. Etc.

Actually it was a golem and some fiend that cast unholy blight, I can't quite recall which variety but he got critically hit by a great axe. There was also a third ally standing directly beneath him I had to take out first.


Well, that does nothing to his defenses already in place.
It means you can actually remove the defenses with standard abilities instead of having to resort to disjunction



*shrug* Still sounds awfully careless of the evil Wizard, here.
He was flying, invisible, he had only one serious caster to content with. (our wizard). And troops on the ground to deal with a Barbarian, Fighter and a Bard. The wizard could see invisible, so he hit the enemy with greater dispel magic. And to my joy he landed at my feet. I only regret he didn't try using a targeted spell on me, but I guess he knew it be reflected back at him. I love my reflecting shield.

[Eldariel]

It means you can actually remove the defenses with standard abilities instead of having to resort to disjunction

The CL for the effects in place is set in the moment of casting. Somehow disabling anything buffing caster level (can't really think of anything that would work without ****ing over the party entirely TBH) wouldn't affect them.


He was flying, invisible, he had only one serious caster to content with. (our wizard). And troops on the ground to deal with a Barbarian, Fighter and a Bard. The wizard could see invisible, so he hit the enemy with greater dispel magic. And to my joy he landed at my feet. I only regret he didn't try using a targeted spell on me, but I guess he knew it be reflected back at him. I love my reflecting shield.

*shrug* I wasn't there so I don't know what exactly happened but that just sounds way too easy. Why was there no counterspell of any kind on a simple Greater Dispel Magic? That's what every spellcaster prepares for the very first thing every morning, since it's so damn obvious.

Had his Contingency already triggered or what happened? What had his last action been? It just seems like he wasn't taking the party Wizard as a serious threat for some reason in spite of knowing exactly what a Wizard is capable of.

[ILM]

You assume that EVERYONE knows exactly what you know when in reality sometimes they never do. Whenever people compare Wizards to other builds they always presume that the Wizard has every single spell prepared. Think about it, when your playing a Wizard do you REALLY think your going to want to prepare force cage just so you can drown somebody? are you always going to have resilient sphere prepared? are you always going to have Anticipate Teleport prepared at all times? if the answer to this is yes than your probably a Sorcerer and this has nothing to do with you. You presume to much in that a Wizard will always have these spells present.
Anticipate Teleport has a 24 hour and is a staple, yes. You cast it in the morning along with Mind Blank and the like. As for the rest, you do get Scribe Scroll at level 1... (but um I agree with the others, Forcecage is one of the spells I rarely go without)

[Arbitrarity]

Also, if you're really strapped for spell selection, there's always Grey Elven Generalist Collegiate Wizards. Unless you know you aren't finding scrolls, it's a wasted feat, but 5 spells per level is probably enough for most needs.

Also, 24 hour buffing spells? Damn right I cast those for all day, every other day rotating because of extend spell.

[Lord Vukodlak]

The CL for the effects in place is set in the moment of casting. Somehow disabling anything buffing caster level (can't really think of anything that would work without ****ing over the party entirely TBH) wouldn't affect them.
No I mean you don't allow those broken boosters to begin with. So maybe they get a boost of one or two to there CL not a huge number.



*shrug* I wasn't there so I don't know what exactly happened but that just sounds way too easy. Why was there no counterspell of any kind on a simple Greater Dispel Magic? That's what every spellcaster prepares for the very first thing every morning, since it's so damn obvious.
Becase counterspelling requires an action and if he's counterspelling the wizard every round the guys on the ground do have some options to fly up and meet him. Counterspelling with dispel magic requires a CL check even against dispel magic. He'd already acted before the wizard that round anyway.



Had his Contingency already triggered or what happened? What had his last action been? It just seems like he wasn't taking the party Wizard as a serious threat for some reason in spite of knowing exactly what a Wizard is capable of.
How many wizards take evocation as a prohibited school? Quite a few as recall. In any event he had evocation because he nearly killed the wizard with it in the opening round. If he had a contingency it was stripped by the dispeling or it had already gone off.

A Contingency to use greater dispel magic to counter another greater dispeling would require an 18th level caster.(which he wasn't) In case thats what your thinking.
He and his friends did some serious damage before we brought him down. I merly described how the fight ended, not the entire battle.
Once the wizard was on the ground he faced a fighter who he couldn't cast defensively against, couldn't five-foot stepaway from due to the step-up feat.
Not that it mattered he failed the dexterity check to avoid landing prone.
*featherfall or the equalivent when fly ends doesn't stop you from landing prone*
So he lands on his ass infront of the mageslaying, step-up fighter with a holy sword that deals bonus damage against spellcasters, oh and the blindfight feat to help with the concealment he still had after his invisibility was removed.

[Eldariel]

Becase counterspelling requires an action and if he's counterspelling the wizard every round the guys on the ground do have some options to fly up and meet him. Counterspelling with dispel magic requires a CL check even against dispel magic. He'd already acted before the wizard that round anyway.

I was talking about counter from like Ring of (Greater) Counterspells, Ring of Spell-Battle, Battlemagic Perception or whatever, not actually burning an action to counter.


How many wizards take evocation as a prohibited school? Quite a few as recall. In any event he had evocation because he nearly killed the wizard with it in the opening round. If he had a contingency it was stripped by the dispeling or it had already gone off.

There's Greater Shadow Evocation at 8 for that. And I was wondering what the Contingency might've possibly been keyed on if targeted Greater Dispel Magic casting didn't trigger. Seems just...if a direct attack by the most common anti-caster effect doesn't trigger it, it's a pretty darn useless Contingency in the first place.


He and his friends did some serious damage before we brought him down. I merly described how the fight ended, not the entire battle.
Once the wizard was on the ground he faced a fighter who he couldn't cast defensively against, couldn't five-foot stepaway from due to the step-up feat.
Not that it mattered he failed the dexterity check to avoid landing prone.
*featherfall or the equalivent when fly ends doesn't stop you from landing prone*
So he lands on his ass infront of the mageslaying, step-up fighter with a holy sword that deals bonus damage against spellcasters, oh and the blindfight feat to help with the concealment he still had after his invisibility was removed.

And he didn't Quickened Dimension Door away? Well, sucks to be him I guess. Grats on the kill. I...don't think that's really representative of evil Wizards though.

[Lord Vukodlak]

I was talking about counter from like Ring of (Greater) Counterspells, Ring of Spell-Battle, Battlemagic Perception or whatever, not actually burning an action to counter.
Counterspelling with dispel magic isn't certain its a CL check. Even against another dispel magic. Never heard of battlemagic perception but its from Heroes of Battle which our DM doesn't have and chances are wouldn't allow without independent research. And looking at it in my copy. I think he'd say no to the spell. In anyevent if you include the vertical distance and the horizontal distance between the two casters it be over 100ft.

A Ring of Spell-battle is from the complete arcane and once again its unlikely the DM would allow that item.(If we can't buy one, it certainly won't show up on a guy we can loot) And it costs to much if you use the WBL guidelines for NPC's. This wasn't a BBEG style wizard so he had the regular wealth for an NPC of his level, not counting his spellbook. Which he didn't have on him.



There's Greater Shadow Evocation at 8 for that. And I was wondering what the Contingency might've possibly been keyed on if targeted Greater Dispel Magic casting didn't trigger. Seems just...if a direct attack by the most common anti-caster effect doesn't trigger it, it's a pretty darn useless Contingency in the first place.
As I said it takes an 18th level caster to put greater dispeling into a contingency, which he wasn't. Try 15th level so 7th level spells at the most.


And he didn't Quickened Dimension Door away? Well, sucks to be him I guess. Grats on the kill. I...don't think that's really representative of evil Wizards though.
Not everyone takes takes quicken spell, a quickened dimensional door is also an 8th level spell. Which would have been beyond ours or his capabilites.
And most importantly, the fighter got to act before his next turn. Even if he had a quickend dimensional door(or similar trick) he'd have been dead before had the chance to cast it.

[Eldariel]

Counterspelling with dispel magic isn't certain its a CL check. Even against another dispel magic.

That's not really the point tho; it wasn't attempted, even.


As I said it takes an 18th level caster to put greater dispeling into a contingency, which he wasn't. Try 15th level so 7th level spells at the most.

Contingency triggers of GDM; it does something to negate whatever you're being targeted. Generally Contingency is linked to Dimension Door, Teleport, Resilient Sphere or similar. This tends to be sufficient to break line of effect for whatever is the threat.


Not everyone takes takes quicken spell, a quickened dimensional door is also an 8th level spell. Which would have been beyond ours or his capabilites.
And most importantly, the fighter got to act before his next turn. Even if he had a quickend dimensional door(or similar trick) he'd have been dead before had the chance to cast it.

Everyone should take Quicken Spell. If they don't, well, they deserve the death they get. That said, again, I'm not aware of the level we're talking. Dimension Door should be game once 8th level spells come into play (since it's such an utterly amazing Oh ****-button) but if those aren't play, sure.

That said, Fighter acting first makes it all moot. That kind of makes his Mage Slayer feat and all that irrelevant too though; any melee class can kill a mage without protective magic with a full attack and if the Wizard never has a chance to cast spells, being unable to cast defensively isn't terribly relevant.

[Lord Vukodlak]

That's not really the point tho; it wasn't attempted, even.
If it came down to a dispel magic war, well we made sure the bard learned greater dispeling. It be a funnier story though if the wizard owed his death to a bard. Or maybe he was a sorcerer can't really tell.


That said, Fighter acting first makes it all moot. That kind of makes his Mage Slayer feat and all that irrelevant too though; any melee class can kill a mage without protective magic with a full attack and if the Wizard never has a chance to cast spells, being unable to cast defensively isn't terribly relevant.
Well if the fighter didn't roll well the mage might survived, then mage slayer would have been relevant. The mage still had a couple protection spells up displacement, (rendered almost moot by blindfight). And AC boosting spells are really don't cut it against a fighters main attack.

[Eldariel]

If we didn't growned him and I was forced to fly up after him, it certainly would have been relevant, as mage slayer would let me take even a full-round action to reach him but I'd still be a problem due to mage slayer.

Eh, couldn't he have just 5' stepped away? Or did you have reach?

[Lord Vukodlak]

Eh, couldn't he have just 5' stepped away? Or did you have reach?

I had the feat step-up which lets me counter a 5' step as an immidiate action with my own 5' step. I mention it in an above post. I didn't know I'd be allowed either of those feats(step-up or mage slayer) when I built the character. So I don't have a reach weapon.

Of course whenever I slay an arcane spellcaster I have to make a corruption check due to a unique curse I have.(I'm the prison for a immortal dracolich). Should my corruption rise to high he's set free. Thankfully the corruption resets at dawn, unless i'm dead in which case I keep making checks. So that may be why I'm allowed those non-core feats.

[JoeYounger]

That would be the stupid wizards. The ones two stupid to make it to level 20 without divine intervention.

Most everyone I've ever made is immune? To get through even my first layer of defense on my Cindy build (and not the crap version that's publicly available) would require that you make a DC 38 CL check. Anti-magic ray will never work.


Most of my builds do have at least 95% of the spells I mentioned prepared or active on them at any given time, and the rest can get them in a round or so if needed.

Yes. Forcecage is a personal shield spell that can block out virtually everything and provide a secure resting spot and it's one of the best attack spells in the game. Every wizard should at least have a scroll of it on hand at any given time.

Sure, I usually keep a few around. It is only a 4th level slot afterall. And again, it is one of the best protection spells in the game, is a longer lasting Wall of Force at a lower level, and is an attack.

Anticipate Teleport lasts all day and is a third level slot. A lesser rod of extend is 3K gold and will get AT to last 48 hours.

No, a Sorcerer is better off with an Eternal Wand of AT; or one of the various ways to burn a spell slot to use a wand. Although they still should probably have both of the other spells you mentioned.


AMF ray is blocked by a Spellblade. Everyone should have one as they are dirt cheap. AMF field is gotten around in numerous ways, the easiest is to just fly as that will shut down most fighters who are using an AMF.


All but the prepared cleric are idiots then.


Except no caster who actually survives adventuring to reach level 20 will ever be unprepared; if they are it's terminally bad role playing and gross negligence on the part of the player.

I agree with you completely Emporer Tippy, for your level of gaming. I've been in several epic campaigns where straight up, the casters had EVERYTHING. a perfectly optimized caster should ALWAYS beat a perfectly optimized warrior. That being said, I don't agree with you saying that its bad roleplaying for a wizard to make it to 20 and not have all of this stuff up. The first three epic campaigns I plays I'd never heard of half the metamagic feats you referenced earier in this thread. You (and I assume your group) taking gaming to a level that most people on this thread can't hardly imagine. There's nothing wrong with that, and I'd love to sit in on a campaign session with you, but there is a huge flaw in your thought process if you're assuming that everyone is on your level. I've known lots of wizards with only one spell book, that they did not keep in their stomache. And several clerics who didnt have extra holy symbols. When you play on a level where the DM doesn't think about stuff like that, then you dont have to think about stuff like that.

[Eldariel]

I had the feat step-up which lets me counter a 5' step as an immidiate action with my own 5' step. I mention it in an above post. I didn't know I'd be allowed either of those feats(step-up or mage slayer) when I built the character. So I don't have a reach weapon.

Well, he'd probably be surprised by that but he'd equally probably take a move action away. He could have cross-class Tumble ranks too though it sounds like that wasn't the case. Still, yeah, it could work.

[Tyndmyr]

Except you aren't ever actually going to get a decent wizards spell book. My wizards regularly store one inside their stomach. And that's just one of dozens, several of which are stored in almost impossible to attack locations.

This. I like familiar pocket instead of Hoard Gullet, myself. Fortunately, you can use both!

Also, stash a physical copy inside the standard issue adamantium hat in case of a dispel that you, for some strange reason, can't stop(ok, so that's pretty much only the truenaming one, but still).


What cleric only has 1 holy symbol? The things are a GP a piece.

Also this. It's like targeting the spell component pouch. Yes, that 5 gp loss will really hurt me.

[Legendairy]

A few things I have noticed in most campaigns is that when you face off against the Big Bad Wizard he is nowhere near as powerful as he should/could be. The reasoning is you dont want to TPK your group everytime.

Now if it were a player playing said wizard and CARED about his character, honestly I don't think you would have had a chance. A DM generally isnt going to make an uber optimized wizard to fight the group. A 15th level caster with a golem as back up and a few well placed summons and some spells to get tactical advantage on your caster would laugh at the melee in most cases.

I am not saying what you did isn't possible or probable but would be a different story with a PC rather than an NPC.

[JoeYounger]

Alright lets ignore all the uber munchkin of utter death wizard builds. So basically the last several posts. Lets think about NPC wizards or PC wizards who have a DM who doesn't allow things to crossly overpowered. Hey, these people play different than me, so you should ignore them!

And really a DM who can't catch a 20th level caster unprepared isn't doing his job.Hey, listen to me insult people I dont know because they play differently than I do!

I wonder how a couple of you power gamers would survive at the houserules my RPG group likes to use. Such as spells outside the PHB require independent research. But thats a debate for another topic. Hey, I wonder how you guys would do in a custom made world that me and my friends set up so that you couldnt play a good character! There's no way you could still be good if you were playing by all the rules we put in place to make sure you were bad!

Here, I fixed that for you. lol

[Lord Vukodlak]

JoeYounger, the point of the houserules is that spellcasters have all they need to be powerful with just the core rules. Limiting them largely to those options while letting the lower tiers have more books to build from helps balance things out. And don't quote me if your not actually going to quote me, it may border on flaming.


Well, he'd probably be surprised by that but he'd equally probably take a move action away. He could have cross-class Tumble ranks too though it sounds like that wasn't the case. Still, yeah, it could work.

The wizard was admitedly kind of insane, but we were basically transversing the Plane of Leng in an attempt to reach the edge of our reality. So maybe we were the insane ones. He may have attacked us simply because he was hungry. But teleport didn't work at the edge of reality or we'd have skipped the journey and never met him. We had to talk across the plane, well fly on phantom steeds. He attacked when we camped for the night.
We originally tried shadowwalk... the shadow of the plane of leng is not somewhere you want to go... thats all I'm saying.

He could have planeshifted away or he simply could have not attacked the party. Though I think the above poster Legendairy said it best in that a DM shouldn't send a fully optimized wizard against the party.

[Tyndmyr]

There are a few broken spells in the PHB such as polymorph, but overall most of them are not broken. And limiting the field on its own takes some wind away from the prepared casters.

And the above aren't really contributing anything just showing how far you can break things if absolutely everything is allowed and you make the game about how powerful I am instead of how the team works together. The only way for a DM to deal with them is with mages disjunction traps to eliminate all there defenses, as greater dispeling won't cut it.

Nah. At least half of my favorite broken spells are from core. Time Stop, wish, contingency, permanency, foresight, force cage? These are all golden options that every high level caster will use at least a goodly portion of the time, and for which there is no real equivalent outside core.

Limiting to core only, among other things, kills mage slayer. Limiting to core only will not at all hinder those among us who are optimization minded. Quite the reverse. It'll make it impossible for the other team.

And this conversation is highly relevant to mage slayer. It's not a bad feat, but it's not really going to do much against a caster without a notable amount of other options(I'd consider stand still, thicket of blades, and reach an essential start).


But they don't shine as bright.
A wizard limited to just the spells at level up is going to have trouble shining in all situations. Would they have the power to have an incredible defense and still work offensively? Thats of course assuming there even able to stop long enough in a hostile area to pile on defensive spells.

That's...still a minimum of 4 known spells per spell level, all the cantrips, and some extra first level spells known. A few extra by level 20, as well. That's enough for some massive diversity in your spells prepared list. It's not a great weakness.

And how do you justify this? Do they have no gold to research spells themselves(note that you can automatically research any printed spell)? Do no other casters exist? Do no scrolls exist? If all these are true, then the magicless melee is far, far more crippled than they are.


Becase counterspelling requires an action and if he's counterspelling the wizard every round the guys on the ground do have some options to fly up and meet him. Counterspelling with dispel magic requires a CL check even against dispel magic. He'd already acted before the wizard that round anyway.

Counterspelling with an action is not the way to go. I, personally, use rings of counterspelling* loaded with two forms of dispel(greater is guaranteed to be one at the appropriate levels), and membership in church o' magic for a free "no" button for anything not already covered. I also tend to utilize a wand of wings of cover as an alternative no button for most things.

A dispel SHOULD cause him to expend some resources in most circumstances. It shouldn't be a win button. Your DM is softballing fights for you.

*Core item. Also inexpensive. I've packed two on chars as low as level six.



As I said it takes an 18th level caster to put greater dispeling into a contingency, which he wasn't. Try 15th level so 7th level spells at the most.

But it doesn't to put dimension door into a contingency. That's pure core, and it's a great one. That said, I key my contingencies to spoken words, which I can do as a free action at any time. If I ID the spell you're casting(and seriously, who doesn't max spellcraft?), and have no way to prevent death by it...goodbye. It's a useful general purpose defense, not merely an anti-dispel defense.

To those saying the wizard may not have spellbook copies/defenses...this is an example of the gentlemans agreement. Realistically, anyone who derived his power from a single tome would take measures to protect it. You would, I would, certainly an intellectual genius would. But, nobody at the table wants to hear a long, long list of these defenses. So, if the GM doesn't target the spellbook, we don't have to. It's a win/win option. I do not detail all my usual spellbook defenses until I realize it's that kind of a game. If a DM wants to play hardball, I'll do likewise.

[JoeYounger]

JoeYounger, the point of the houserules is that spellcasters have all they need to be powerful with just the core rules. Limiting them largely to those options while letting the lower tiers have more books to build from helps balance things out. And don't quote me if your not actually going to quote me, it may border on flaming.

I understand the point of the house rule, I really do. But you need to understand that it's just that, a house rule. And for you to come into this forum and insult everyone by saying they should be ignored because they play differently? Thats much closer to flaming than anything I did.


Flaming
Any poster that openly attacks, insults, belittles, or abuses another poster will have their offending post modified and an Infraction issued to them.

I wasn't flaming, I was paraphrasing.

[Tyndmyr]

Note that if you play under notable house rules that greatly affect what you're asking for advise about, you should probably mention them in the same post where you ask for advise.

Not doing so, and then criticizing the advice given because of a house rule people would have no reasonable way of knowing is poor form, I'm afraid.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Limiting to core only, among other things, kills mage slayer. Limiting to core only will not at all hinder those among us who are optimization minded. Quite the reverse. It'll make it impossible for the other team.
You misunderstand the spells and magic items are closely limited core. More marital related feats are not.
The higher tier classes have more restrictions on what books they can draw from then the lower tier classes.



That's...still a minimum of 4 known spells per spell level, all the cantrips, and some extra first level spells known. A few extra by level 20, as well. That's enough for some massive diversity in your spells prepared list. It's not a great weakness.

And how do you justify this? Do they have no gold to research spells themselves(note that you can automatically research any printed spell)? Do no other casters exist? Do no scrolls exist? If all these are true, then the magicless melee is far, far more crippled than they are.

I wasn't suggesting ANYONE do that ick, I was responding to someone else who said it make no difference. In our group you need to research non-core spells as they are considered rare and what casters might have them would be reluctant to give up that knowledge.


I wasn't flaming, I was paraphrasing.
And According to the forum rules, you can't edit a quote of another users post to insult him. I'm not saying you insulted me but someone else might see it that way.

The question was how well would they do if they weren't allowed every combination under the sun. As they appear to act like every group is using all optimization from every book available.

[JoeYounger]

And According to the forum rules, you can't edit a quote of another users post to insult him. The question was how well would they do if they weren't allowed every combination under the sun. As they appear to act like every group is using all optimization from every book available.

Like I said, I wasn't insulting you, I was paraphrasing what you said. I'm not trying to derail this thread, I just thought it was kinda dickish of you to openly insult other people for their method of play, and then imply that they couldn't do as well in your campaign, using rules that specifically limit their characters, and then for you to get louder about the issue when they said they could still break a character using only core.

But its whatever lol, my bad.

[Emperor Tippy]

I wonder how a couple of you power gamers would survive at the houserules my RPG group likes to use. Such as spells outside the PHB require independent research. But thats a debate for another topic.
Just fine. Core has Shapechange, Time Stop, Force Cage, Foresight, Prismatic Sphere, Resilient Sphere, Disintegrate, Astral Projection, Disjunction, and a large portion of the other broken or powerful spells.


There are a few broken spells in the PHB such as polymorph, but overall most of them are not broken. And limiting the field on its own takes some wind away from the prepared casters.
No, the majority of the challenge breaking spells are core. The only key that isn't is the celerity line, everything else is pretty much just icing.


And the above aren't really contributing anything just showing how far you can break things if absolutely everything is allowed and you make the game about how powerful I am instead of how the team works together.
Um no, the above is what I consider necessary to kill an average wizard at level 20 in a relatively straight fight. That is a mage killer build, exactly what the DM asked for.

The only way for a DM to deal with them is with mages disjunction traps to eliminate all there defenses, as greater dispeling won't cut it.
Nah, those don't really work.


The more spells a wizard or cleric can potentially know the more powerful they are. Its the nature of the prepared caster. Triming that pool limits what they can do. Limiting the pool also makes it harder for the wizard to be prepared for all situations, once you start removing some of the crazy CL boosters from the field a good old dispelling trap before entering the BBEG' dungeon does wonders.
Only a +2 on the CL bit came from spell. Archmage, Bead of Karma, Orange Ioun Stone are all core and give you +3.

And while limiting the spell selection to core eliminates some of what you can do, it also makes you impossible to actually kill.


A wizard with say only the PHB and a handful of spells outside the core rules is no where near as powerful as a wizard with access to the spell compendum, the complete series and all those other books.

There seems to be this assumption that you should have relatively easy access to the spells you want to learn.


Here's the rub casters are more limited in what spells they can learn, but the more martially orientend characters are not as limited in there non-core selection. You can only have X number of feats and so many class levels. o the potential for abuse is not as high.(except for hulking hurlers and frenzied uber-chargers.)


The DM's job is to provide a challenge, letting one character steam roll over everything is a problem. Just as PC's can protect themselves from divintion so can the enemy.

No, the DM's job is to ensure everyone has fun. That is the point, nothing else.

And of course divination is blocked. It's why you don't rely on it in high level play, anything you are involved with will be covered in protections. There is still quite a lot of use you can get out of it but without Spontaneous Divination it tends to be a bit hard on your spell slots.


I agree with you completely Emporer Tippy, for your level of gaming. I've been in several epic campaigns where straight up, the casters had EVERYTHING. a perfectly optimized caster should ALWAYS beat a perfectly optimized warrior. That being said, I don't agree with you saying that its bad roleplaying for a wizard to make it to 20 and not have all of this stuff up. The first three epic campaigns I plays I'd never heard of half the metamagic feats you referenced earier in this thread. You (and I assume your group) taking gaming to a level that most people on this thread can't hardly imagine. There's nothing wrong with that, and I'd love to sit in on a campaign session with you, but there is a huge flaw in your thought process if you're assuming that everyone is on your level. I've known lots of wizards with only one spell book, that they did not keep in their stomache. And several clerics who didnt have extra holy symbols. When you play on a level where the DM doesn't think about stuff like that, then you dont have to think about stuff like that.

That has nothing to do with the basic mind set. A level 20 wizard who gained those levels through adventuring from level 1 has faced a minimum of 290 life or death fights and survived them all. He is more intelligent than the greatest human minds who have ever lived. He is driven and motivated to the level of Alexander the Great or the like. Why is all that true? Because it has to be for him to have 1) willingly embraced the risks involved in adventuring and 2) survived them.

Anything at level 20 that isn't incredibly paranoid reached that level through divine intervention and luck.

Adventuring is just about the most dangerous profession that has ever existed. I believe it's the DMG that mentioned that only 10% of people make it past level 5, the rest died. Those percentages get worse as you go up in level until a level 20 wizard is an incredibly rare event.

[Tyndmyr]

You misunderstand the spells and magic items are closely limited core. More marital related feats are not.
The higher tier classes have more restrictions on what books they can draw from then the lower tier classes.

What are the exact restrictions then? You'll get the most useful feedback if you tell us that.


I wasn't suggesting ANYONE do that ick, I was responding to someone else who said it make no difference. In our group you need to research non-core spells as they are considered rare and what casters might have them would be reluctant to give up that knowledge.

Research is a slight increase in price, and a bit of time. This is not a notable restriction for 99%+ of the casters in the world.

Note that the lower the wealth/magic of a world, the MORE eager a wizard should be expected to be to sell access to the spells he has. He has less money, less potential buyers, etc.


The question was how well would they do if they weren't allowed every combination under the sun. As they appear to act like every group is using all optimization from every book available.

What books are available for each?

Note that even if the answers are Magic: Core Only, and Melee: All, magic still probably wins most fights.

[hex0]

A Neraph Spellthief might be able to drain a few spells in the surprise round.

Arcanopath Monk has decent stuff to check out. You could probably make an unarmed Swordsage/Arcanopath Monk build with all the Mage Slayer feats and make it work.

[ILM]

JoeYounger, the point of the houserules is that spellcasters have all they need to be powerful with just the core rules. Limiting them largely to those options while letting the lower tiers have more books to build from helps balance things out.
No. Casters have all they need to snap the game in half and tell reality to GTFO with just the core rules; adding other books to the lower tiers changes nothing to that and doesn't even come close to filling the gap. Only Tome of Battle did a decent job throwing a real bone to martial characters, and they did that by giving them de facto spellcasting, which says a lot. And apparently a lot of people ban the book outright because it's 'overpowered'.

If you want to houserule, don't start with supplements, start with Core.

@Tyndmyr: Vukodlak isn't the OP, I don't think he asked for anything. :smallwink:

[Lord Vukodlak]

What makes it break is when your allowed to combine several of these non-core things. Is like A, B, C, D and E are fine on there own. But combine them together and you have the shadowgnome killer. Thats the main concern it all adds up. Wizards, Clerics and Druids increase in power with every book of spells allowed. The wizard has the option to learn the spell while the cleric and druid only need to choose to prepare it that day.
Your never going to balance martial and magic but you can at least try and tone down on how versatile the top tier classes are without destroying what they are.



What are the exact restrictions then? You'll get the most useful feedback if you tell us that.
Well the wizard and the cleric.(when he was still around) Were basically limited to the PHB when it came to most spells. The bard got a little more leway. Being a bard, and the wizard was able to take some champion thing for his summons as well summon monster has never been to powerful.

We tend to allow the vigor line of spells simply because it helps prevent the five minute adventuring day.



What books are available for each? Note that even if the answers are Magic: Core Only, and Melee: All, magic still probably wins most fights.
Magic spells and items are more or less limited to core only. Except for a few things that improve summon monster. It can also depend on whose campaign were running. Its more a case by case basis but druid's, clerics and wizards get the least non-core material as they already have the best in core.

If the non-core thing the caster wants isn't greated towards optimimzation its more likely to go through. As choosing not to optimize a top tier class is always encouraged. We had a character who took leadership for the followers and ignored the cohort. Just so he could have a network of informats for a thieves guild.

[JoeYounger]

That has nothing to do with the basic mind set. A level 20 wizard who gained those levels through adventuring from level 1 has faced a minimum of 290 life or death fights and survived them all. He is more intelligent than the greatest human minds who have ever lived. He is driven and motivated to the level of Alexander the Great or the like. Why is all that true? Because it has to be for him to have 1) willingly embraced the risks involved in adventuring and 2) survived them.

Anything at level 20 that isn't incredibly paranoid reached that level through divine intervention and luck.

Adventuring is just about the most dangerous profession that has ever existed. I believe it's the DMG that mentioned that only 10% of people make it past level 5, the rest died. Those percentages get worse as you go up in level until a level 20 wizard is an incredibly rare event.

Fair enough, and I understand what you're saying, it makes sense because your character IS smart enough to realize this and know the implications of not being this paranoid, but I still firmly believe that the normal PLAYER playing a wizard 20 isn't smart enough to know all of his options on how to break something, and the normal group isn't ever going to encounter half of the stuff you built your wizard to be protected against. I suppose you could call it a roleplaying screw up for a 20 wizard to not be as min maxed as he can be considering what he's been thru, or you could just say its luck. Regardless I dont think how you play should be considered the norm :P

[Emmerask]

And this conversation is highly relevant to mage slayer. It's not a bad feat, but it's not really going to do much against a caster without a notable amount of other options(I'd consider stand still, thicket of blades, and reach an essential start).

I think pierce magical concealment would be very essential too (ignore mirror image blur etc)

[Lord Vukodlak]

I think pierce magical concealment would be very essential too (ignore mirror image blur etc)

Mage Slayer, Pierce Magical Concealment, Pierce Magical Protection and Step-up plus reach and trip. Then back up that character with a party and our ready to go slay spell casters.
What we're all forgeting is its not about how does the one defeat a mage, how does a group. Defeating the wizard means little if the rest of his companions are unharmed.

[vitkiraven]

What books are available for each?

Note that even if the answers are Magic: Core Only, and Melee: All, magic still probably wins most fights.
Unless the group does the RIGHT thing by melee types and allow ALL D20 3.5 Books, even 3rd party books. Some of those get real sick.
:smallamused:

[Menteith]

What makes it break is when your allowed to combine several of these non-core things. Is like A, B, C, D and E are fine on there own. But combine them together and you have the shadowgnome killer. Thats the main concern it all adds up. Wizards, Clerics and Druids increase in power with every book of spells allowed. The wizard has the option to learn the spell while the cleric and druid only need to choose to prepare it that day.

Your never going to balance martial and magic but you can at least try and tone down on how versatile the top tier classes are without destroying what they are.

It is a true statement that a Wizard will increase in power as additional spells are added. It is also a true statement that the list of spells and magic in the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide allows a Wizard to do more or less anything while remaining impervious to harm, by using the spells as intended; in fact, most of the incredibly powerful spells are found in these manuals. These statements are not mutually exclusive. I don't disagree with potentially homebrewing rules to limit the effectiveness of a Wizard if you want to, but that's not relevant to the discussion of how to build a character capable of killing a reasonably prepared Wizard.

I must stress this point - limiting Wizards to the PHB and DMG in the hopes of limiting their effectiveness will not work. These books contain enough effects in them that allow a Wizard to fundamentally break reality without exploiting ambiguous wordings. Additionally, the OP requested a build that was capable of killing Casters - not one capable of killing an enemy that the DM is softballing at you. If a Wizard is not using the core abilities of his class effectively, then any build is capable of killing them.

[Tyndmyr]

Unless the group does the RIGHT thing by melee types and allow ALL D20 3.5 Books, even 3rd party books. Some of those get real sick.
:smallamused:

If you allow ALL third party books, I suppose so. But honestly, those are generally fairly short on broken mundane options. Unless you allow "the class I just scribbled on the back of a napkin" level stuff.

[Lord Vukodlak]

A lot of people are assuming the DM is going to over optimize the mage to the fullist, but as another poster pointed out the DM probably won't do that as his goal isn't to TPK the party.
Most everyone is offering up how to beat a mage directly with a single spell caster. Instead of how a group and a few choice feats can get the job done.

[Tyndmyr]

@Tyndmyr: Vukodlak isn't the OP, I don't think he asked for anything. :smallwink:

Then....why would his house rules matter at all to the OP?

And why should he expect us to take his house rules into consideration when answering the OP? I'm afraid I don't understand that at all.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Then....why would his house rules matter at all to the OP?

And why should he expect us to take his house rules into consideration when answering the OP? I'm afraid I don't understand that at all.

It all started when I questioned how someone might build a wizard wthout using every PrC or spell option available under the sun, it derailed from there.

[Menteith]

A lot of people are assuming the DM is going to over optimize the mage to the fullist, but as another poster pointed out the DM probably won't do that as his goal isn't to TPK the party.
Most everyone is offering up how to beat a mage directly with a single spell caster. Instead of how a group and a few choice feats can get the job done.

The OP asked for a build called "mage killer". It's entirely possible that they meant the PrC Mage Slayer, in which case their question has been answered. It's also possible they wanted to find an actual build capable of killing an Arcane spell caster. In either case, this has nothing to do without creating a group. This is why "most everyone is offering up how to beat a mage directly with a single..."; it was the question that was asked in the thread.

@Tyndmyr - No idea.

EDIT - And stop saying things like "every PrC or spell option under the sun". It is entirely possible to build a caster with these defensive and offensive options off of PHB and DMG.

[Lord Vukodlak]

The OP asked for a build called "mage killer". It's entirely possible that they meant the PrC Mage Slayer, in which case their question has been answered. It's also possible they wanted to find an actual build capable of killing an Arcane spell caster. In either case, this has nothing to do without creating a group. This is why "most everyone is offering up how to beat a mage directly with a single..."; it was the question that was asked in the thread.

@Tyndmyr - No idea.

He actually asked if a rogue could do it and everyone offered other caster builds.

[Tyndmyr]

He actually asked if a rogue could do it and everyone offered other caster builds.

No...they haven't. They have offered melee advice, and warned of typical caster tricks the OP will need to be prepared for. Tippy's advice, for example, consisted of UMDing a bunch of toys to kill casters, something a rogue can normally do.

Note additionally that his question of if a rogue can do it was a follow on question to what a mage killer build is. Pointing out non-rogue options is also reasonable.

[Yukitsu]

He actually asked if a rogue could do it and everyone offered other caster builds.

Well, one was UMD to have a rogue pretend he's a really expensive caster. Though if the caster leaves for 48 hours, you're down 10s of thousands of gp. But yeah, you're not getting a caster without spells.

[The Glyphstone]

Most everyone I've ever made is immune? To get through even my first layer of defense on my Cindy build (and not the crap version that's publicly available) would require that you make a DC 38 CL check. Anti-magic ray will never work.
\

Somewhat off-topic, but this brings to mind something that's been bouncing in my mind, and since you have returned to the forum, you can answer it. What, exactly, is the point of having a super-uber-optimized build that you keep secret and hidden away? Cindy and the Cube both, it feels like the 'Canadian Girlfriend' of op builds to lack a better terminology; supposedly there, but never available to show to anyone.

[Menteith]

He actually asked if a rogue could do it and everyone offered other caster builds.

"I've heard of a build called a "mage killer"...what is this? Is it something that a rogue can go into?"

The question is not a rogue exclusive question. And there is still absolutely nothing on building a group in there.

[Yukitsu]

Somewhat off-topic, but this brings to mind something that's been bouncing in my mind, and since you have returned to the forum, you can answer it. What, exactly, is the point of having a super-uber-optimized build that you keep secret and hidden away? Cindy and the Cube both, it feels like the 'Canadian Girlfriend' of op builds to lack a better terminology; supposedly there, but never available to show to anyone.

Because when your DM peruses the forums, and wants to know the weaknesses of the build, it's much easier to find and kill it through the forums than looking at numbers and words on a sheet of paper, as forumites such as myself can comment on weaknesses of the build. Or you're stuck in PVP and it's a player you're concerned about.

[The Glyphstone]

Because when your DM peruses the forums, and wants to know the weaknesses of the build, it's much easier to find and kill it through the forums than looking at numbers and words on a sheet of paper, as forumites such as myself can comment on weaknesses of the build. Or you're stuck in PVP and it's a player you're concerned about.

If you're intending to actually use a build like Cindy in play, rather than as a pure thought experiment, there are much bigger issues at hand.

[Lord Vukodlak]

"I've heard of a build called a "mage killer"...what is this? Is it something that a rogue can go into?"

The question is not a rogue exclusive question. And there is still absolutely nothing on building a group in there.

I presume he wants the build for his character in an existing campaign for an existing character(as he asked for a rogue way). Reminding him its a team effort is important.

[Yukitsu]

If you're intending to actually use a build like Cindy in play, rather than as a pure thought experiment, there are much bigger issues at hand.

Yeah, well sometimes your the sole mortal in a group of rank 11 dieties, and things like infinite loops, unlimited spell slot tricks and absolute use of contingencies are not all that unbecoming. :smalltongue:

I actually agree, but some people are just competitive, or some people like playing PVP "arena" battles. Nothing in particular wrong with that.

[Emperor Tippy]

Somewhat off-topic, but this brings to mind something that's been bouncing in my mind, and since you have returned to the forum, you can answer it. What, exactly, is the point of having a super-uber-optimized build that you keep secret and hidden away? Cindy and the Cube both, it feels like the 'Canadian Girlfriend' of op builds to lack a better terminology; supposedly there, but never available to show to anyone.
Because my Cindy build makes use of at least 2 tricks that I have never seen used before and don't particularly want to make publicly available. I also refuse to make public anything that I don't have a way to defeat, or at least be immune to.

And I can use the publicly available version to defeat most challenges. Since I don't need to use it, why make it public?

[Tyndmyr]

It all started when I questioned how someone might build a wizard wthout using every PrC or spell option available under the sun, it derailed from there.

Most builds only used a couple sources.

Let us consider the standard humanWizard 7/Loremaster 8/Archmage 5, shall we? Pure core.

This wizard has specialized in conjuration, banning evocation and necromancy, and utilizes scrolls and wands to cover those two options. He has quicken and extend(via rod for extend), as well as an orange ioun stone, two rings of counterspelling, a boccobs blessed book, a handy haversack, cloak of resistance, +6 int enhancement item +5 inherent, +4 con and dex enchancement items, and his high arcane is the following list: Spell Power, SLA: Time Stop, Mastery of Shaping, Mastery of Elements, SLA: Shapechange

His feats are Skill Focus(Know:Arcana)(human), Improved Init(1), Quick Spell(bonus from wiz 5), Silent Spell(3), Still Spell(6), Spell Focus(Conjuration)(9), Spell Focus(Transmutation)(12), Skill Focus(Spellcraft)(Applicable Knowledge), Lightning Reflexes(15), Iron Will(18)

His secrets are Applicable Knowledge, True Stamina, Secret Knowledge of Avoidance and Weapon Trick.

He can be expected to have basically any core hour/lvl, 10 min/lvl, or day duration buffs up at all times.

Given the leftover WBL, you can assume he basically knows all spells in core, and has consumables for whatever he doesn't have prepared. He lives in an unknown(probably interplanar) location. Explain how your melee build can find and kill him. Explain how you prevent him from doing the same to you. Note that this is a purely core wizard that, while reasonably built, is quite far from optimal(seriously, I took all three save boosters).

[Menteith]

I presume he wants the build for his character in an existing campaign for an existing character(as he asked for a rogue way). Reminding him its a team effort is important.

After writing a response, I deleted it and realized we're derailing the original question by arguing about their intent, without offering relevant information. Your statement is certainly true if your assumption is correct.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Explain how you prevent him from doing the same to you. Note that this is a purely core wizard that, while reasonably built, is quite far from optimal(seriously, I took all three save boosters).

Why Teamwork of course.

[The Glyphstone]

Because my Cindy build makes use of at least 2 tricks that I have never seen used before and don't particularly want to make publicly available. I also refuse to make public anything that I don't have a way to defeat, or at least be immune to.

And I can use the publicly available version to defeat most challenges. Since I don't need to use it, why make it public?

Same point stands though - why create it in the first place if its only purpose is to exist in a nebulous cloud of possibility, untested? Or if it's simply for personal satisfaction of 'I made an unbeatable character', why mention it publicly but refuse to ever allow anyone to see it? It's not like sharing those tricks will make you unable to use them, so the absolute worst case scenario is 'versing' an identical copy of said unbeatable character to a draw. It's like the boxer champ who fights one match and retires, so that he can always claim he was undefeated his entire career - sure, it's technically true, but what is it really worth?

[Yukitsu]

Why Teamwork of course.

Despite what Saturday morning cartoons want you to believe, the power of teamwork is not a catch all solution. Frankly, that build can surround itself with pit fiends via greater planar binding and teamwork back if it wants, though for some reason I suspect not many wizards take high charisma.


Same point stands though - why create it in the first place if its only purpose is to exist in a nebulous cloud of possibility, untested? Or if it's simply for personal satisfaction of 'I made an unbeatable character', why mention it publicly but refuse to ever allow anyone to see it? It's not like sharing those tricks will make you unable to use them, so the absolute worst case scenario is 'versing' an identical copy of said unbeatable character to a draw. It's like the boxer champ who fights one match and retires, so that he can always claim he was undefeated his entire career - sure, it's technically true, but what is it really worth?

Worth absolutely nothing, same as everything else that comes outta theory op.

[Tyndmyr]

Why Teamwork of course.

Assume you lack an arcanist, because explaining how wizard + x beats a wizard is...silly. The OP asked about a mage-killer char, not how a team works together.

What exactly prevents him from teleporting in, winning init(likely. Dude has improved init and a solid dex mod, and anyhow, he'll be invisible and buffed to hell), Time Stopping, and neutralizing your entire party?

Saying "teamwork" is not an answer.


Same point stands though - why create it in the first place if its only purpose is to exist in a nebulous cloud of possibility, untested? Or if it's simply for personal satisfaction of 'I made an unbeatable character', why mention it publicly but refuse to ever allow anyone to see it? It's not like sharing those tricks will make you unable to use them, so the absolute worst case scenario is 'versing' an identical copy of said unbeatable character to a draw. It's like the boxer champ who fights one match and retires, so that he can always claim he was undefeated his entire career - sure, it's technically true, but what is it really worth?

I do the same thing. I don't claim to be as good as Tippy at it, but my first reaction to a shiny new build is figuring out how I can kill it.

There are actual challenges at cons and stuff to bring the most broken legal char, etc. Also, very high op games do exist. There are legit reasons to keep a few tricks to yourself.

[Lord Vukodlak]

He's not going to be a mage killer alone so we can only offer up how he can make himself deadlier to spellcasters and remind him he's going to need the whole party for his encounters.

One on One hypotheticals are usually utterly pointless as its not how the game usually goes.

[Emperor Tippy]

Same point stands though - why create it in the first place if its only purpose is to exist in a nebulous cloud of possibility, untested?
I wanted to see what I could actually do, and it has been tested. I've played it and DMed with that build in use by my players, I just haven't published it online.

Or if it's simply for personal satisfaction of 'I made an unbeatable character', why mention it publicly but refuse to ever allow anyone to see it? It's not like sharing those tricks will make you unable to use them, so the absolute worst case scenario is 'versing' an identical copy of said unbeatable character to a draw.
Some of it's personal satisfaction, some of it is to give people a point to shoot for. And I have shared a lot of it publicly. Besides, I don't need it for any of the challenges or the like I mention it in; the publicly available version is good enough for most of those.

It's like the boxer champ who fights one match and retires, so that he can always claim he was undefeated his entire career - sure, it's technically true, but what is it really worth?
Do you want to see a few dozen builds that have every single spell that is beneficial persisted? That have an unlimited number of spell slots?

If I publish those two tricks then they will get used, and instead of being able to read the builds and ideas that other people come up with I will just see my own tricks tossed onto a bunch of other builds.

[JoeYounger]

Where can I find the publicly available Cindy build? I'm relatively new here, and for some reason the search bar doesnt wanna work for me today =/

And any chance you'd tell us what the secret tricks enable you to do? Or is that what you were saying, that the tricks let you have EVERYTHING persisted and unlimited spell slots?

[Yukitsu]

Where can I find the publicly available Cindy build? I'm relatively new here, and for some reason the search bar doesnt wanna work for me today =/

And any chance you'd tell us what the secret tricks enable you to do? Or is that what you were saying, that the tricks let you have EVERYTHING persisted and unlimited spell slots?

Which secret tricks? The one in Tynd's build, or the ones that auto persist everything and grant limitless spell slots?

The former are a loremaster prestige class ability, it's actually fairly weak.

The latter are basically just either rods of absorption or the absorb spell spell and the incantrix class. Or a geomancer can autopersist near anything with enough night sticks. My preference is for ice assassin though, as it grants functionally limitless spell slots.

[JoeYounger]

Which secret tricks? The one in Tynd's build, or the ones that auto persist everything and grant limitless spell slots?

The former are a loremaster prestige class ability, it's actually fairly weak.

The latter are basically just either rods of absorption or the absorb spell spell and the incantrix class. Or a geomancer can autopersist near anything with enough night sticks. My preference is for ice assassin though, as it grants functionally limitless spell slots.

Sorry, I should have been more clear. Emporer Tippy said he has two tricks that he's never seen anywhere else and hasn't shared online anywhere. I was hoping he'd at least tell us what they accomplished :P

Also, haha, casters have always intimidated me quite a bit, so I've never gotten into the uber crazy stuff. Where can I find Ice assassin, Geomancer and Incantrix?

[Yukitsu]

Sorry, I should have been more clear. Emporer Tippy said he has two tricks that he's never seen anywhere else and hasn't shared online anywhere. I was hoping he'd at least tell us what they accomplished :P

That would rather defeat the point. It's pretty easy to reverse engineer virtually anything if you know what the end effect is.

[Emperor Tippy]

Every single spell in the game that is useful and can legally be persisted is persisted, without requiring levels in prestige classes besides Archmage/Incantatrix or hundreds of items.

An unlimited number of spell slots.

[JoeYounger]

Wow, that's kinda silly! lol

Is there a place that has all of the public build? Or has it just been thrown out bits and pieces over several threads?

[Tyndmyr]

Every single spell in the game that is useful and can legally be persisted is persisted, without requiring levels in prestige classes besides Archmage/Incantatrix or hundreds of items.

An unlimited number of spell slots.

Dammit, my guess was Tainted Scholar. I suppose that was a bit too easy, though. Hmm. It's really the infinite slots that's the tricky bit. You get that, and all you need to do is engage in some heavy duty stat manipulation to be able to persist them via Incantatrix. Ima have to think about this puzzle a little.

Edit: I have a link to the public Cindy build on one of my home computers...Pm me, and I'll send it to you later.

[Yukitsu]

Dammit, my guess was Tainted Scholar. I suppose that was a bit too easy, though. Hmm. It's really the infinite slots that's the tricky bit. You get that, and all you need to do is engage in some heavy duty stat manipulation to be able to persist them via Incantatrix. Ima have to think about this puzzle a little.

Edit: I have a link to the public Cindy build on one of my home computers...Pm me, and I'll send it to you later.

I'm thinking meta shenanigans, heightened magic missile through innate spell, absorption and time stops. You just need enough to hit on your absorption with meta to net 19 spell slots to eventually just have unlimited spell slots. That's my guess at first glance.

[Tyndmyr]

I'm thinking meta shenanigans, heightened magic missile through innate spell, absorption and time stops. You just need enough to hit on your absorption with meta to net 19 spell slots to eventually just have unlimited spell slots. That's my guess at first glance.

Oh, the absorption loop has been used before, yes. I think I helped w that one actually, though it was someone else who spotted the potential.

I suppose with sufficient shenanigans, you might be able to abuse mnemonic enhancer a lot as well.

Either of those are going to abuse twin and metamagic reducers, which Cindy is going to utilize anyway, so it fits.

Though, in addition to either of those, you still need to get all spells in the game on your spell list. That's a touch awkward, though workarounds exist depending on what's available in the campaign world.

[Emperor Tippy]

I'm thinking meta shenanigans, heightened magic missile through innate spell, absorption and time stops. You just need enough to hit on your absorption with meta to net 19 spell slots to eventually just have unlimited spell slots. That's my guess at first glance.
That works to charge, it doesn't give you unlimited prepared spells though. And I use a method that is less feat intensive.

[tyckspoon]

Is there a place that has all of the public build? Or has it just been thrown out bits and pieces over several threads?

The version I last remember seeing was a pretty straightforward Incantatrix, of the style that is currenly known as a Mailman. Nothing in it that isn't known tech, at this point; Persist key buffs with Incantatrix, Orb of Fire + Arcane Thesis + a bazillion metamagic feats as primary offensive technique, Chaos Shuffle miscellaneous bonus feats (elf racial weapons, familiar Alertness, etc) into extra metamagics/metamagic reducers for the stuff that's still too expensive even after Thesis + Incantatrix.



Though, in addition to either of those, you still need to get all spells in the game on your spell list. That's a touch awkward, though workarounds exist depending on what's available in the campaign world.

If you're going full-on RAW optimization? This is possibly the easiest thing to do, because you can just Wish for copies of spellbooks or scrolls containing spells you don't yet know. And that's the most obvious, there are probably a few other more elegant and less brute-force ways to go about it.

[Yukitsu]

The version I last remember seeing was a pretty straightforward Incantatrix, of the style that is currenly known as a Mailman. Nothing in it that isn't known tech, at this point; Persist key buffs with Incantatrix, Orb of Fire + Arcane Thesis + a bazillion metamagic feats as primary offensive technique, Chaos Shuffle miscellaneous bonus feats (elf racial weapons, familiar Alertness, etc) into extra metamagics/metamagic reducers for the stuff that's still too expensive even after Thesis + Incantatrix.


Yeah, that's why I was thinking meta looping absorption. Not really sure why one would care to have all spells prepped though, other than academic interest, I just usually get miracle onto my arcane spell list and use that for all the 7-, and honestly don't really use my 8ths and 9ths all that much.

[Tyndmyr]

If you're going full-on RAW optimization? This is possibly the easiest thing to do, because you can just Wish for copies of spellbooks or scrolls containing spells you don't yet know. And that's the most obvious, there are probably a few other more elegant and less brute-force ways to go about it.

Doesn't TO normally only consider the safe list for wishes? I mean, yes, surely anything on your class spell list is easy enough to learn, but what about things like divine spells? You have to assume things like southern magicians to get those ported over.

Unless....you can attune with an archivist's spellbook.

[tyckspoon]

Doesn't TO normally only consider the safe list for wishes? I mean, yes, surely anything on your class spell list is easy enough to learn, but what about things like divine spells? You have to assume things like southern magicians to get those ported over.


Crafter Warlocks can make arcane scrolls of any arbitrary spell, IIRC. That plus other means of transforming divine to arcane means scrolls can exist, which means they're a valid magic item to Wish for. Wishing for magic items is a safe-list use, and notoriously does not have a value limit in RAW. Supposed to be limited by XP cost, but we know how to get around that.. so you can safely Wish for 'a scroll containing one copy of every arcane spell I don't know' and get.. well, one copy of every spell in the game you don't know.

[Tyndmyr]

Mmmm, I suppose by strict RAW, you CAN learn any arcane spell off a scroll. Yes, that gets us a complete chain. Presumably a solar gate chain can take care of the wish cost. Divide total number of spells out into whatever chunks deemed reasonable for a wish by the DM.

That gets us there, albeit probably not in the ideal fashion. A MM reduced twined Mnemonic Enhancer + Sanctum Spell gets us an arbitrarily large amount of memorized spells, so long as we have a way to make them count as level 3 spells or less.

That said, the "three additional levels of spell, prepared normally" is implied to stack with your normal spell preparation. There's no restriction preventing you from combining them with say, a level six spell slot for a level nine spell memorized. I admit it's a slightly cheesy interpretation, but there is no cap on spell levels this is used for. Just three additional.

[Yukitsu]

At this level of optimization, that sort of cheese shouldn't really worry you too much, but rather absolutely everything that comes before it.

[herrhauptmann]

To the OP: I don't know a warrior based magekiller build that's held up to the optimization of a high level wizard, but I've got a few ideas...

1)Homebrew prestige class I found. Needs a little tweaking. http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19526050/Witch_Hunter_PrC_-_PEACH?post_id=331833934 Combination of Witchslayer (ToM), and Occult Slayer (CW). (If no homebrew, just take those two PrC)

2)Take the feats mage slayer, pierce magic protection (slightly meh), blindfight (prereq), and pierce magic concealment (awesome). The Pathfinder step up feats are useful. Though PF Disruptive feat chain is less useful with Mageslayer on the table.

3)Races/templates. Karsite (ToM), Quorbred (secrets of sarlona). Lose the ability to cast/manifest, but get some neat little things. Some more useful others. The SR seems respectable. Again, not good enough to slow down a batman wizard, but enough for standard boss fights. Using it in a high level game, seem to have SR/PR equal to most monsters with a CR 2 or 3 higher than my ECL.

4)Swordsage or Martial study can get you a little bit of tactical teleportation from Shadow Hand. But it can be foiled with various divination/abjuration effects.

5)Ranger 1: Favored Enemy Arcanists (CM). Strongarm fighting style, Dragon Magazine (Or Pathfinder Ultimate Combat.)

6)Equipment. You need lots of good equipment. Need to duplicate most of the standard buffs a wizard gets from his spells, with your items.
Magebane (mic), runeforged (pfsrd), mindblank, haste, good miss chances (ring of blink, you ignore your own miss chances with PMC).

7)Luck rerolls. If that one hit ends up as a nat-1, you want to ensure you get a second chance. (Also helps if you nat-1 a save or die)

8)High initiative. You want to go first.


Still won't help you if he's got a contingency that says "If I get wounded, teleport me to my home pocket plane." Or if he's just sitting on his homeplane and casting through a simulacra or something.
For damage, I'd suggest a starmetal weapon (CArc), with shocktrooper/leap attack. You want to ensure you kill him with the first hit, because you probably won't get a second one.
If shocktrooper/leap attack is not allowed, or abuse isn't (dropping AC to 0), throw some combat brute in there too. You can then repeat your power attack bonuses/penalties on the round AFTER you charge with momentum swing.


You can still do a lot of that with a rogue, but it's going to be a very nonstandard rogue. Though I'd recommend taking the feat Craven, so you can add your level to each Sneak Attack you make. Works with just 1 level in rogue/ninja/scout.

[Elric VIII]

Mmmm, I suppose by strict RAW, you CAN learn any arcane spell off a scroll. Yes, that gets us a complete chain. Presumably a solar gate chain can take care of the wish cost. Divide total number of spells out into whatever chunks deemed reasonable for a wish by the DM.

That gets us there, albeit probably not in the ideal fashion. A MM reduced twined Mnemonic Enhancer + Sanctum Spell gets us an arbitrarily large amount of memorized spells, so long as we have a way to make them count as level 3 spells or less.

That said, the "three additional levels of spell, prepared normally" is implied to stack with your normal spell preparation. There's no restriction preventing you from combining them with say, a level six spell slot for a level nine spell memorized. I admit it's a slightly cheesy interpretation, but there is no cap on spell levels this is used for. Just three additional.

Is there anything preventing someone from casting spells through Miracle with metamagics applied?

Because, if so, it seems that by having a Wizard/Incantatrix with Arcane Devotee for the Luck Domain can use an Absorption loop to use Wish and Miracle to a) learn every arcane spell and b) cast every divine spell (since a 9th level sanctum spell outside your sanctum is an 8th level spell).

[Emperor Tippy]

Is there anything preventing someone from casting spells through Miracle with metamagics applied?
No, and technically you don't even have to know the metamagic that you apply. And if you want to be real cheesy you don't even need to know the meta reducers you apply to get the spell level low enough to replicate. I didn't use that interpretation but it's RAW justifiable.


Because, if so, it seems that by having a Wizard/Incantatrix with Arcane Devotee for the Luck Domain can use an Absorption loop to use Wish and Miracle to a) learn every arcane spell and b) cast every divine spell (since a 9th level sanctum spell outside your sanctum is an 8th level spell).
Yes, you can. I'm using something else so that I don't need absorption loops (can still do it but don't need it).

[Elric VIII]

No, and technically you don't even have to know the metamagic that you apply. And if you want to be real cheesy you don't even need to know the meta reducers you apply to get the spell level low enough to replicate. I didn't use that interpretation but it's RAW justifiable.

I didn't even think of that. That is quite good.



Yes, you can. I'm using something else so that I don't need absorption loops (can still do it but don't need it).

Well, I won't try to guess. No one is ever as satisfied as they think they will be once they find out how the magic trick works.

[dextercorvia]

Sorry, I should have been more clear. Emporer Tippy said he has two tricks that he's never seen anywhere else and hasn't shared online anywhere. I was hoping he'd at least tell us what they accomplished :P

Also, haha, casters have always intimidated me quite a bit, so I've never gotten into the uber crazy stuff. Where can I find Ice assassin, Geomancer and Incantrix?

Ice Assassin is on the Wizards site, just google it. It is simulacrum on crack.

Geomancer is in CDiv. He is using it to treat Arcane spells as Divine, so they can be persisted.

Incantatrix is in PGtF Crazy broken meatmagic abilities. Like persist a spell with a spellcraft check. Reduce the cost of all metamagic by 1 (min 1) and several bonus feats.