Mage slayer

[Mystify]

I decided I felt like putting together a dedicated anti-mage build. I think this would be an NPC, if it is actually used, but in any case, effectiveness at killing mages is the only criteria. Basically, he considers mages evil, and has vowed to seek them out and kill them. AS such, he should not have any spellcasting ability of his own, though he will use magic items.

RACE:
I am thinking spellwarped raptorian. The spell resistance from spellwarped is nice, and the ability to buff off of absorbed spells is certainly useful for someone who is fighting mages on a regular basis. Its the best SR for the effective level I was able to find on a quick search. raptorian is for the flight. Mages are liable to take to the air, and so the flight is a good counter

However, I have switched it over to karsite. They can't cast spells, which works just fine for this build. Their SR is just as good as spellwarped, and they get to heal off the absrobed spells. It has less LA than spellwarped, making it a stronger choice.

CLASSES:


-1 karsite
0 karsite
1 ranger
2 rogue
3 rogue
4 monk
5 monk
6 occult slayer
7 occult slayer
8 occult slayer
9 occult slayer
10 occult slayer
11 witch slayer
12 witch slayer nemesis
13 paladin
14 paladin
15 eldeen ranger
16 eldeen ranger
17 eldeen ranger
18 eldeen ranger


ranger takes the arcane hunter substitution level to get favored enemy(arcanist)

the rogue takes the spell reflection substitution level, trading evasion for the ability to redirect spells that miss them.

monk is a key class. It gives them several things they need. 1st, you get stunning fist. Fort save, mage, you do the math. Stunning them for a round means they are not casting spells. This is their favored opening attack. it also gives them the monk AC bonus, which works on touch attacks. Monk AC is much more valuable than armour or sheild against mages, so that is an obvious choice. It also has all good saves, which is useful. It also gives you evasion, which we gave up from rouge. The monk's unarmed also means you threaten squares next to you, even while weilding a polearm.

occult slayer is full of goodies. it boosts your saves vs. spells, which is good. It also lets you do a bit more damage vs. mages. It also lets you turn a couple of spells per day, which is nice. And, perhaps most importantly, it makes you immune to mind-affecting affects, which is a huge advantage

the two levels of which slayer gives you a smite that may or may not be useable against mages, and mettle. Mettle is basically evasion for fort and will, and combined with evasion measn you can't be effected by failed saves.

The two levels of paladin grant divine grace, which adds charisma to saves, which should boost them to being near unasailable. They are not devoted to a deity, but instead an ideal. The ideal that magic is evil. That seems like a good enough ideal to get a boost to your saves.

the eldeen ranger has the ashbound sect. this grants them another bonus to resist arcane spells, lets them spend an action point to deal double damage against a spellcaster, and improves their favored enemy bonus. The last level is not needed, as that just grants SR 20, and their innnate SR is higher than that by this point. That level wouldn't even boost saves.



FEATS:
1 improved initiative
3 weapon focus(glaive)
both of these are pre-reqs for occult slayer
6 mage slayer
slight bonus to will saves, and you can't cast defensively next to them. they can't 5ft step back either, as they are weilding a reach weapon.
9 blindfight
helps if they have concealment
12 peirce magical concealment
ignore all miss chance from spells, and identify true copy of mirror image. This cuts through their most potent layer of defenses.
15 nemesis(arcanist)
deal extra damage to evil spellcasters( and we all know there are plenty of those), and automatically detect them within 60ft. Even if they are invisible.
18 pain touch
if the stunning fist works, the round after they are stunned, they are nauseated. Nauseated means only a move action, and explicitaly dissallows all spellcasting. Now, stunning fist knocks out their spellcasting for 2 whole rounds.

so, if they get next to a spellcaster, they can shut down their spellcasting. they can find invisible spellcasters, run up to them, and hit them without any miss chance.

Equipment:
assume they will have standard equipment, I am just highlighting the more unusual items

+1 banishing(+2)(to deal with summons) ki focus(+1)(use stunning fist with) greater dispelling(+2)(in case they have a pesky spell) hunting(+1)(extra damage against favored enemy,aka spellcasters) impedance(+2)(impede their ability to cast magic) magebane(+1)(duh) glaive

ki straps: +2 to the stunning fist DC

ring of negative protection: cannot gain negative levels




Thoughs or suggestions?

[DonutBoy12321]

If you have access to Tome of Magic, use the Karsite race. +2 LA, but Spell Resistance, able to heal from spells that don't pierce its Spell Resistance, and the flavor and No Spellcasting clause fit perfectly.

[Gavinfoxx]

Uhm. It depend greatly at the optimization level of the mages in question.

At the highest levels of optimization, the only character that can kill a spellcaster is another spellcaster...

Also,

R-O-G-U-E.

'rouge' is makeup...

[Mystify]

If you have access to Tome of Magic, use the Karsite race. +2 LA, but Spell Resistance, able to heal from spells that don't pierce its Spell Resistance, and the flavor and No Spellcasting clause fit perfectly.

Yeah, that does look better. The SR is the same as spellwarped st any level, since spellwarped is +3 LA and HD+11 SR and karsite is +2 LA abd DC+10 SR. It also gives another level to play with. For optimization, switching out the last level of rouge to get 2 levels of paladin seems like the strongest choice, but I still have trouble fitting that with the character.

hmmm. Divine casters are allowed to get their power from devotion to an ideal instead of an actual diety, right? I could have him get spell resistance out of devotion to the ideal of anti-spellcasting.

I've altered the build to account for these changes

[cZak]

If you're using Eberron rules you might consider Serpent strike (feat).
Allows you to use a longspear with a flurry of blows.

[Steward]

hmmm. Divine casters are allowed to get their power from devotion to an ideal instead of an actual diety, right? I could have him get spell resistance out of devotion to the ideal of anti-spellcasting.

Yep, but although mechanically I don't think you can get spell resistance solely because of that.

[Flickerdart]

if they get next to a spellcaster
You cannot fly. You cannot teleport. You cannot match the speed of a Phantom Steed or dragon. You cannot even win initiative, because nothing you have makes up for the easy +38 a spellcaster can get, not to mention Celerity and friends. You are vulnerable to divination, you're MAD for all the ability scores, your offense sucks, you have practically no immunities.

The second this build tries to fight a spellcaster, the caster can just gate in whatever minion they choose, then leave, because they wouldn't even need to stay to make sure you'd die.

[Nabirius]

How optimized and what level is the party at when they will fight him/her? See my party's mage is a blaster-sorcerer and would get absolutely wrecked by this. But a level 20 mage that has some thought in it? I honestly doubt much of anything can win.

[Mystify]

Yep, but although mechanically I don't think you can get spell resistance solely because of that.
they get spell resistance from their race. That is only to get low-level paladin abilities.

You cannot fly. You cannot teleport. You cannot match the speed of a Phantom Steed or dragon. You cannot even win initiative, because nothing you have makes up for the easy +38 a spellcaster can get, not to mention Celerity and friends. You are vulnerable to divination, you're MAD for all the ability scores, your offense sucks, you have practically no immunities.

The second this build tries to fight a spellcaster, the caster can just gate in whatever minion they choose, then leave, because they wouldn't even need to stay to make sure you'd die.
1. fly is very easy to get with magic items
2. again, magic items
3. surprise rounds
4. they are immune to divintion. They have a permament mind blank from occult slayer
5. that not a huge deal
6. its good enough to cut through a mage. 10 from favored enemy and related bonuses, 2+2d6 from bane, 1d6 from occult slayer, say 14 str with a +6 item and tome for +7, two handed to +10, 1d10 bane weapon, +1 enchantment, 23+3d6 damage, about 33 damage per hit, 4 hits per round, one of which is double damage, and you have 167 damage. that will drop a mage before they can recover from stunning fist.
7. they have piles of immunities and a really high defense. They can turn spell, and redirect spells back at them. They have amazing saves, and failing a save can't harm them. their touch Ac will be great.

They are not going march up, waving a banner from 10 miles away. They are going to stealth in close, and spring out with stunning blows. it doesn't matter if they go first if they are stunned. They can't summon things or escape if you are next to them and they can't cast. they could probably teleport next to the mage and lock them down before they can do anything.


How optimized and what level is the party at when they will fight him/her? See my party's mage is a blaster-sorcerer and would get absolutely wrecked by this. But a level 20 mage that has some thought in it? I honestly doubt much of anything can win.
if you are pulling something from the depths of the character optimization boards, yes, this will lose. That stuff is crazy. I'm talking about a real party.

[Flickerdart]

1. fly is very easy to get with magic items
2. again, magic items
3. surprise rounds
4. they are immune to divintion. They have a permament mind blank from occult slayer
5. that not a huge deal
6. its good enough to cut through a mage. 10 from favored enemy and related bonuses, 2+2d6 from bane, 1d6 from occult slayer, say 14 str with a +6 item and tome for +7, two handed to +10, 1d10 bane weapon, +1 enchantment, 23+3d6 damage, about 33 damage per hit, 4 hits per round, one of which is double damage, and you have 167 damage. that will drop a mage before they can recover from stunning fist.
7. they have piles of immunities and a really high defense. They can turn spell, and redirect spells back at them. They have amazing saves, and failing a save can't harm them. their touch Ac will be great.

They are not going march up, waving a banner from 10 miles away. They are going to stealth in close, and spring out with stunning blows. it doesn't matter if they go first if they are stunned. They can't summon things or escape if you are next to them and they can't cast. they could probably teleport next to the mage and lock them down before they can do anything.

1&2. A Phantom Steed has a fly speed of 240 feet. Magic items cannot replicate this.
3. That requires you to sneak up on a caster, bypassing their contingencies and then dispelling their Dire Tortoise form.
4. Divinations are not mind-affecting.
5. It is if you don't have +100 PB
6. It's really really not, because by level 18 a caster who's trying can have far more HP than that just from their Constitution.
7. All you have is immunity to mind-affecting. Your saves won't save you against no-save stuff, your AC won't save you against things that don't care about AC.

Stealthing close to a caster flying at 240ft per round is quite the feat, especially since you have no way to avoid supernatural senses like Touchsense. Immunity to stunning is easy. Anticipate Teleport makes your teleportation attempt a joke.

Basically, this build only works if you ignore pretty much everything about a high-level spellcaster, at which point you can just make a Fighter with Weapon Focus and it'll do just as well.

[Hirax]

What's your proposed build's touch AC? Any run of the mill Cindy build would clobber it, no save, no SR. If you can get your touch AC higher than 70 then you can begin to consider yourself safe from orbs. But that's only orbs we're talking about.

[Mystify]

1&2. A Phantom Steed has a fly speed of 240 feet. Magic items cannot replicate this.
3. That requires you to sneak up on a caster, bypassing their contingencies and then dispelling their Dire Tortoise form.
4. Divinations are not mind-affecting.
5. It is if you don't have +100 PB
6. It's really really not, because by level 18 a caster who's trying can have far more HP than that just from their Constitution.
7. All you have is immunity to mind-affecting. Your saves won't save you against no-save stuff, your AC won't save you against things that don't care about AC.

Stealthing close to a caster flying at 240ft per round is quite the feat, especially since you have no way to avoid supernatural senses like Touchsense. Immunity to stunning is easy. Anticipate Teleport makes your teleportation attempt a joke.

Basically, this build only works if you ignore pretty much everything about a high-level spellcaster, at which point you can just make a Fighter with Weapon Focus and it'll do just as well.
3. their weapon has greater dispelling on it for a reason
4. mind blank explicitly states you are immune to divination
5. perhaps for general use, for this case he's fine. I don't understand the mindset of "you have another stat adding bonuses, so you are worst!". how does adding charisma to your saves weaken you?

the caster is not flying around at 240ft all day and night. you are supposing a
very unlikely situation. And unless they are always indoors, you teleport above their anticipate teleportation range, and drop on their head. 5ft/level is 100 ft for a level 20 caster. Even assuming they triple that to 300 through whatever means, that is still a trivial amount to drop in one round.

uponfurther consideration, I think they should ahve 2 weapons, that they switch between. One will have more of the "instant debuff" stuff, like binding so they can't just teleport away


What's your proposed build's touch AC? Any run of the mill Cindy build would clobber it, no save, no SR. If you can get your touch AC higher than 70 then you can begin to consider yourself safe from orbs. But that's only orbs we're talking about.
I can't find the actual cindy build, but from what I'm finding about it, its from the depths of character optimization threads. This is not intended to be the uber-otpimized end-all mage killer that is using tricks from 10 books to become god. This is intended to go against the type of characters that you would see in an actual campaign, and function at their role at any level.

I have presented an outline, a basic overview of their abilitie, without even going into detail as to their magic item selection. And I am being countered with tales of hyper-optimized wizards with +35 initiative that are flying around on dragon constantly.

[Hirax]

I can't find the actual cindy build, but from what I'm finding about it, its from the depths of character optimization threads. This is not intended to be the uber-otpimized end-all mage killer that is using tricks from 10 books to become god. This is intended to go against the type of characters that you would see in an actual campaign, and function at their role at any level.

I have presented an outline, a basic overview of their abilitie, without even going into detail as to their magic item selection. And I am being countered with tales of hyper-optimized wizards with +35 initiative that are flying around on dragon constantly.

Well, if you want a core only way to nuke your build, all it takes is forcecage and dimensional lock, followed by any number of painful things. Moment of prescience is a a core spell by the way, it's an easy +25 to initiative. Getting another +10 in core is still trivial and not even scratching the surface of optimization.

[Flickerdart]

3. their weapon has greater dispelling on it for a reason
4. mind blank explicitly states you are immune to divination
5. perhaps for general use, for this case he's fine. I don't understand the mindset of "you have another stat adding bonuses, so you are worst!". how does adding charisma to your saves weaken you?

the caster is not flying around at 240ft all day and night. you are supposing a
very unlikely situation. And unless they are always indoors, you teleport above their anticipate teleportation range, and drop on their head. 5ft/level is 100 ft for a level 20 caster. Even assuming they triple that to 300 through whatever means, that is still a trivial amount to drop in one round.

uponfurther consideration, I think they should ahve 2 weapons, that they switch between. One will have more of the "instant debuff" stuff, like binding so they can't just teleport away


I can't find the actual cindy build, but from what I'm finding about it, its from the depths of character optimization threads. This is not intended to be the uber-otpimized end-all mage killer that is using tricks from 10 books to become god. This is intended to go against the type of characters that you would see in an actual campaign, and function at their role at any level.

I have presented an outline, a basic overview of their abilitie, without even going into detail as to their magic item selection. And I am being countered with tales of hyper-optimized wizards with +35 initiative that are flying around on dragon constantly.
3. Your dispel is going to have a terrible CL, and still doesn't bypass the contingencies, the sneaking or the dire tortoise form's ability to always act in the surprise round.
4. Mind Blank only foils attempts by the three listed spells to gain information about the subject's mind. Gaining information about his body using Limited Wish is still kosher.
5. It doesn't weaken you, but you're not gaining anything from it, because your stats are spread so thin that you're very unlikely to eke out more than a 12 or so.

Phantom Steed lasts rounds/level, so anyone that wants to fly on it constantly can easily do so. This is not high-op. This is a spell that makes a horse, and it completely defeats your build.

[Randomguy]

4. they are immune to divintion. They have a permament mind blank from occult slayer

No, they don't. They get what amounts to a reduced mind blank effect: Immunity to enchantments as well as nondetection. They aren't immune to all divinations.

And you still need wis and dex to AC, strength for damage, con to survive, cha for saves and, if you want lots of skill points, int, so you're dependent on every ability while casters only need three. (Casting stat, dex and con.)

Casters will have MUCH more gold than you, since they can craft their own stuff. Don't depend on magic items.

Take the bonus feat rogue variant. Sneak attack is less useful, especially when there are hundreds of ways to negate it. This way you can get pierce magical protection as well.

Take the decisive strike monk variant and consider making a quarterstaff your weapon, so you can do double damage sometimes. Not much, but better than flurry of blows.

Don't optimise stunning fist so much. It's too easy to avoid, and you only get like 5 uses a day. Remove pain touch from your feat list and ki focus from your weapon enchantments (Just hit them with an unarmed strike) and ki straps from your equipment. Just use stunning fist on them after you've dispelled the buffs that make them immune to it and see if you can get them to spend one of their contingencies to make the save. It might be worth dropping for overwhelming attack style monk, which gives power attack and improved bullrush, the prereq's for shock trooper, if you want to go down that path. If you aren't going shock trooper, at least take leap attack.

Get spellblade weapons keyed to dispel magic and greater dispel magic. (A quarterstaff would be good here for both on different ends of it, primarily using one end). If you have to choose, pick the greater version.

Another bonus of quarterstaff: can't be blocked by ironguard.

Unless you can get your touch AC higher than 30, a level 20 caster will auto hit against you after casting true strike, which means you're in trouble against no-save attacks, no-sr attacks.

When most people say immunities, they mean immunities to different types of elemental damage, immunities to fear, dazed, exhausted, fatigued, nauseated, sickened, staggered, stunned, mind affecting (You've got that one), ability drain/damage, negative energy and form-changing (such as baleful polymorph and petrification). True seeing is another important defence. Remember, high saving throws don't equal immunities. If a wizard hits you with 20 save or dies, no matter high your saves are you'll fail one. For immunities, see if you can afford magic items of constant death ward, sheltered vitality, favour of the martyr and true seeing. If they don't already exist, make them custom. A magic item of phantom steed at high CL would also be nice, to keep up with the wizard.

Use LA buyoff so you can take an extra level or two.

Put high ranks in hide and move silently and see if there's a way to block mindsight.

How high are your SR and saves at level 20, anyways?

[Mystify]

I still maintain that in most campaigns, wizards do not function like that in practice. I have played in campaigns where characters have 30+ CL in mutliple class levels and are nuking CRs 10+ above them easily, and even slaying gods, with divine metamagic being slung around and initiates of hte sevenfold veild blocking everything, and the mages still did not act like that.

[Flickerdart]

So your build is intended to beat casters who aren't trying? Like I said, that isn't a very hard benchmark to hit, especially since any flaw can then be countered with "well it's not intended to beat that spell" until there are no spells left.

[Hirax]

I still maintain that in most campaigns, wizards do not function like that in practice. I have played in campaigns where characters have 30+ CL in mutliple class levels and are nuking CRs 10+ above them easily, and even slaying gods, with divine metamagic being slung around and initiates of hte sevenfold veild blocking everything, and the mages still did not act like that.

They didn't use forcecage, dimensional lock, or moment of prescience?

[Mystify]

No, they don't. They get what amounts to a reduced mind blank effect: Immunity to enchantments as well as nondetection. They aren't immune to all divinations.

And you still need wis and dex to AC, strength for damage, con to survive, cha for saves and, if you want lots of skill points, int, so you're dependent on every ability while casters only need three. (Casting stat, dex and con.)

Casters will have MUCH more gold than you, since they can craft their own stuff. Don't depend on magic items.

Take the bonus feat rogue variant. Sneak attack is less useful, especially when there are hundreds of ways to negate it. This way you can get pierce magical protection as well.

Take the decisive strike monk variant and consider making a quarterstaff your weapon, so you can do double damage sometimes. Not much, but better than flurry of blows.

Don't optimise stunning fist so much. It's too easy to avoid, and you only get like 5 uses a day. Remove pain touch from your feat list and ki focus from your weapon enchantments (Just hit them with an unarmed strike) and ki straps from your equipment. Just use stunning fist on them after you've dispelled the buffs that make them immune to it and see if you can get them to spend one of their contingencies to make the save. It might be worth dropping for overwhelming attack style monk, which gives power attack and improved bullrush, the prereq's for shock trooper, if you want to go down that path. If you aren't going shock trooper, at least take leap attack.

Get spellblade weapons keyed to dispel magic and greater dispel magic. (A quarterstaff would be good here for both on different ends of it, primarily using one end). If you have to choose, pick the greater version.

Another bonus of quarterstaff: can't be blocked by ironguard.

Unless you can get your touch AC higher than 30, a level 20 caster will auto hit against you after casting true strike, which means you're in trouble against no-save attacks, no-sr attacks.

When most people say immunities, they mean immunities to different types of elemental damage, immunities to fear, dazed, exhausted, fatigued, nauseated, sickened, staggered, stunned, mind affecting (You've got that one), ability drain/damage, negative energy and form-changing (such as baleful polymorph and petrification). True seeing is another important defence. Remember, high saving throws don't equal immunities. If a wizard hits you with 20 save or dies, no matter high your saves are you'll fail one. For immunities, see if you can afford magic items of constant death ward, sheltered vitality, favour of the martyr and true seeing. If they don't already exist, make them custom. A magic item of phantom steed at high CL would also be nice, to keep up with the wizard.

Use LA buyoff so you can take an extra level or two.

Put high ranks in hide and move silently and see if there's a way to block mindsight.

How high are your SR and saves at level 20, anyways?
somehow I read that blank thoughts was a permament mind blank, but it doesn't say that at all. My mistake.
the touch AC should be higher than 30 easily. I haven't figured out precise stats because I was still looking for overall improvements. I figured most of those immunities would be acquired through their magic item selection. I do know that they have an extra +5 vs spells and +cha to saves on top of everything else, as well as a fair bit of multi-classing to boost it up.


So your build is intended to beat casters who aren't trying? Like I said, that isn't a very hard benchmark to hit, especially since any flaw can then be countered with "well it's not intended to beat that spell" until there are no spells left.
you seem to assume that they have access to every single spell in the game. I don't believe wizards were intended to do that. In every campaign I've been in, you can look for specific spells, but you are not guaranteed to find them. sorcerers have a small list of spells known, but they have complete control. Wizards have a huge spellbook, but they have to locate the spells. Maybe that basic check on wizards is often skipped, leading to the impression they can do whatever they feel like, but any given wizard should not have every spell they feel like. This also helps with the relative balance of sorcerers and wizards.


They didn't use forcecage, dimensional lock, or moment of prescience?
things generally didn't last long enough to justify it. And they didn't care if they got killed, they were only a quickened reach revivify from standing back up.

[Flickerdart]

you seem to assume that they have access to every single spell in the game. I don't believe wizards were intended to do that. In every campaign I've been in, you can look for specific spells, but you are not guaranteed to find them. sorcerers have a small list of spells known, but they have complete control. Wizards have a huge spellbook, but they have to locate the spells. Maybe that basic check on wizards is often skipped, leading to the impression they can do whatever they feel like, but any given wizard should not have every spell they feel like. This also helps with the relative balance of sorcerers and wizards.
It is absolutely trivial to get 6 free spells per level, but even the basic two per level are enough to get all the essentials. You'll notice that I've only listed a pittance of spells. Let's count them! Shapechange, Moment of Perfect Mind, Nerveskitter, Phantom Steed, Limited Wish, Teleport, Anticipate Teleport. That's seven spells. A Wizard gets over 40 of them for free just by living. What am I assuming, again?

[Hirax]

things generally didn't last long enough to justify it. And they didn't care if they got killed, they were only a quickened reach revivify from standing back up.

I'm not following you? I named a combo that complete shuts your build down, and now you say death doesn't matter? Even if you do revive yourself, you're still stuck in the forcecage, ready to be knocked down again. Soul bind could keep you dead if someone cared enough.

[Mystify]

So your build is intended to beat casters who aren't trying? Like I said, that isn't a very hard benchmark to hit, especially since any flaw can then be countered with "well it's not intended to beat that spell" until there are no spells left.


They didn't use forcecage, dimensional lock, or moment of prescience?


I'm not following you? I named a combo that complete shuts your build down, and now you say death doesn't matter? Even if you do revive yourself, you're still stuck in the forcecage, ready to be knocked down again. Soul bind could keep you dead if someone cared enough.

I said that the caster s I was dealing with didn't care about death, and never used such spells.
anyways, pick of peircing to take care of force effects.

[Gavinfoxx]

What's the source for Pick of Piercing?

Also,


Phantom Steed lasts hours/level

Might wanna fix your typo.

[Flickerdart]

What's the source for Pick of Piercing?

Also,



Might wanna fix your typo.
Shining South - a little over 13.5k for a +1 pick of disintegration.

Also, too lazy, but thanks for pointing that out.

[Crasical]

WIZARDS ARE UNKILLABLE GRA GRA GRA GRA


:smallmad: I know I shouldn't be surprised, but...

[DoctorGlock]

Rather than going on about why mages are beatable if they don't do X, we look into making a non arcane mage slayer...

Karsite cannot cast, but is allowed to use psionics. Psions make rather good mage slayers. Ardents make amazing mage hunters.

Ardent 10/Slayer 10 is the build you likely want. You can grab the magic mantle to pick up extraordinary spell aim and null psionic field with substitute power. Port in, temporal accel (contingent temp accel also), start spamming twin linked synchronicity (dominant ideal time) and ready an action to spatter the mage when the temp accel wears off. It's ok, he will be in your null psi field. You are of course using deep impact and power attacking for full, possibly with other modifiers.

And the best part is, you are not a spellcaster. You then get to say you kicked magics rear with force of will, your own power, rather than relying on magic items. Ardents are awesome.

[Zombimode]

And the best part is, you are not a spellcaster.

Well, psionics is really just another word for magic.

[DoctorGlock]

Well, psionics is really just another word for magic.

It's a distinction i'll hide behind. Psions make the best mage killers, and using psionic force of will strikes me as more to the spirit of the challenge than being dependent on mage wrought magic items.

[olentu]

It's a distinction i'll hide behind. Psions make the best mage killers, and using psionic force of will strikes me as more to the spirit of the challenge than being dependent on mage wrought magic items.

Actually as you seem to be using that particular interpretation of the magic mantle then you are apparently using spells with regards to your character at least anyway.

[DoctorGlock]

Actually as you seem to be using that particular interpretation of the magic mantle then you are apparently using spells with regards to your character at least anyway.

Nah, just psionics tailor made to hunt mages. How magic mantle works is a matter of fluff in the end.

[herrhauptmann]

If you don't go psion, I suggest the quor-bred template from Secrets of Sarlona (I think).
They're immune to dream type spells like Nightmare or something else which requires them to be asleep. Also fear and fear effects. (Average)

Can use intelligence in place of charisma and wisdom to determine the DCs of various effects. Unfortunately, it's not a true "replace cha/wis with int" (Average or Meh)

+4 bonus on saves against illusions, mind effecting spells and abilities. (Nice)
Quorbred get teh same type of disruptive strike that witchslayers do.
Antipsionic. This is even more restrictive than a karsite's noncasting ability. No psionic powers, feats or items whatsoever. (Cry)

Stronger antidivination ability than the Occult Slayer. To detect a quorbred, you must make a level check of 20+his HD. (Nice)


And yes, if you haven't noticed it before: Any attempt to be an antiwizard on this board requires you to beat a wizard played to his full capability. So look at what tricks you need to beat, then only worry include the ones that are common in your gaming group. Just fighting with everyone about what constitutes 'average optimization' won't get you anywhere.

And Hirax:
I'd go so far as to say that Cindyhttp://www.thetangledweb.net/forums/profiler/view_char.php?cid=5890 is not and will never be a 'standard' build, even if optimization has advanced since she was proposed.
Saying something has to beat Cindy to be a good anti-caster is like saying something has to survive 5 rounds of the ubercharger (Bariaur+frenzied berserker+shocktrooper/leapattack+mounted combat feats) to be effective in melee.

[Mystify]

Saying "Psionics aren't technically magic, so they should be a psion" is defeating the point.

And that cindy is build is very full of cheese and broken classes. Comparisons against it are as flawed as comparing melee against an ubercharger, as has been mentioned.

ok. lets try to establish some baselines. Anything that will be banned by a sane DM, like incantrix, IotSV, or planar shepard, will not be considered. This would be in my campaign, and I would ban such broken classes.

Second, listing tricks a wizard may be pulling is fine. The step from there is figuring out how to effectively counter it. We need to figure out what vulnerabilities this character has, and see how we can alter it to compensate.

To put them on equal footing magic item wise, let us assume they have an ally. A powerful ex-caster, who has vowed to give up spellcasting, but is still capable of creating magic items to aid this character. This lets us create custom, cheaper magic items.

Additionally, let us assume we are using LA buyoff, so we can have up to 3 LA and still be 20th level. This gives us some room in the current build.

[herrhauptmann]

To put them on equal footing magic item wise, let us assume they have an ally. A powerful ex-caster, who has vowed to give up spellcasting, but is still capable of creating magic items to aid this character. This lets us create custom, cheaper magic items.

Good assumptions, save for one.
Even if you've got the same amount of wealth to put into your items, you're using items to duplicate what the enemy gets from his spells.
Wizards can cast mindblank. You need an item that grants mindblank. The mindblank is always cast at the level of your enemy wizard. Your mindblank hat will be made at the lowest possible level to cast mindblank (level 7 spell, CL15).
Enemy wizard casts Heart of X spells for the stacking effects. At his caster level. You've got to find items to duplicate all those effects. Fortification, freedom of movement, etc. And now that you've duplicated his defensive abilities, you've got to use items to beat his. While he's got any number of spells that will do it (reaving dispel)
So even with a cohort, you're still behind the wizard in the WBL guidelines. Unless that cohort is casting the same defensive spells on you. Difficult when some of the buffs are targeted on the caster himself.


My standard equipment/enchantments for high level play:

Soulfire armor (BoED)
Durable/blueshine armor and Everbright weapons. Because acid/rust is a pain no matter what level you are (MiC/DunScape)
Anti-impact armor. Just in case the DM decides to have the ceiling fall on you. You can now ask how much damage it does, and ignore half when he says "I dunno, 50d6." (It worked for me)
Mindblank hat. 43200gold
Mask of Synthesete ~3k
Custom Boots of haste (~27k for infinite use. Keep reactivating every 5 rounds. Or pay more for a quickened haste for greater action economy)
Steadfast boots if you fight with a 2 handed weapon. Gets the enemy minions out of hte way if they decide to charge you.
Hanks Energy Bow (web article), with splitting (+3) precise (+1)
1 handed weapon that can be held in 2 hands.
Souldrinker (38k DMG).
Holy (+2, most enemies will be evil I think),
Blessed (+1 BoED if you plan to optimize your crits) Magebane (+1 MiC),
Smoking weapon. (maybe armor/shield spikes). Free miss chances, works on touch attacks too.
Eager weapon/armor spikes. Init boost
Animated shield. AC boost will be minimal, but that's more enchantments you can spread around for defenses without prices getting too high
Phoenix cloak (Mic)
Third eye dampen, blindfold of darkness, goggles of true night. MiC says to ignore stacking cost. Useful for these face slot items
Ring of blink. If you've got Pierce Magic Concealment, you ignore the miss chances you'd otherwise take.
Ring of skill boosters.
Psychoactive skins. Can only have 1 active, but can wear 3 at once. I recommend keeping Dampening active, then swapping with Trollskin as needed
Bracers of Opportunity/Strongarm bracers
wraithstrike gloves if you can. (DM will hit you)
Crown of white raven or other ToB discipline. Even without a recovery mechanic, these are nice.
Fiendslayer/demolition/truedeath crystals
Lesser crystals of return.
Greater crystal of screening
Crystal of bent sight
Greater crystal of aquatic action (and finned gauntlets too. Suddenly going in the water SUCKS)

[Mystify]

but we do have an advantage. We only have to deal with casters. They have to be able to deal with everything in the entire system.
We can also stalk a wizard for a while beforehand. See what spells they use, see what defenses they have, etc. If they are a sorcerer, you can learn what spells they know. If they are a wizard, you may attack a improperly defended spellbook, or sabotage/steal items while they are not defending them properly. You can wait until they are choosing spells to go out and fight the undead army, or even better, wait until after they fight the undead army, have a spell selection not geared toward you, have exhausted it fighting all day, and have no had time to re-establish their contingencies and such.

We should not assume we are fighting a prepared wizard fully prepped with everything they can potentially do in play. if their defensive spell doesn't last an hour per level or more, they will have to have spent several spell slots to maintain it all day, which would leave them weakened later. Either they are recasting such spells and burning several spellslots on keeping it up, or they are not going to have it when you decide to strike. You can interrupt their sleep, continuously. Each interruption adds hours to the time they need to rest, and if you never afford them that chance their spell slots can be eroded. Even if they are using a spell to rest in a pocket dimension, you can use that to your advantage. The precise strategy will vary from spellcaster to spellcaster, depending on their habits and tendencies.

The battle will occur on our terms. We are the hunter, they are the prey. We can hire mercenaries to provide distractions and diversions, to use up their spell slots. If they are using a spell to give them a huge boost to initiative, strike directly after their last battle, when they have not recast it. They have a limited number of spells prepared if they area wizard, they can't use that boost for every encounter. Wait for them to not have it, and then you can get the jump on them.

[herrhauptmann]

Ok, what exactly are you trying to make here?
An NPC to attack your party wizards?
A character to play in a game?
A character to play in a pbp game on the forums?

Unless this is an NPC to throw at the party, anything you can buy, the enemy can buy.
And please, don't use the plural to talk about your character. It's as obnoxious as referring to yourself in the third person.

[gkathellar]

if you are pulling something from the depths of the character optimization boards, yes, this will lose. That stuff is crazy. I'm talking about a real party.

It doesn't take much charop to cast spells that benefit you in a particular situation — and SR is a crappy defense against a spellcaster. Nor do you have the offense to penetrate any of a spellcaster's many, many defenses. Not to mention that most spellcasters can turn into giant monsters and wreck you in close combat.

In short, you got nothing against anything but a blaster. Which may be what you expect to face, in which case this is fine.


I still maintain that in most campaigns, wizards do not function like that in practice. I have played in campaigns where characters have 30+ CL in mutliple class levels and are nuking CRs 10+ above them easily, and even slaying gods, with divine metamagic being slung around and initiates of hte sevenfold veild blocking everything, and the mages still did not act like that.

This raises another important question — how do you intend to deal with any of those? Can you penetrate an IotSV's defense? Can you go toe-to-toe with a DMM: Persist rainbow dreadsnake, or a Cheater of Mystra? How about a beguiler with versatile spellcaster and a wizard level? Or a basic mailman build? How about a plain old druid? These are all medium-op spellcasters, in that they're not hugely specialized and don't require a ton of skill to put together, they all function before level 20, and every one of them will waste your build.

Flickerdart was talking about the very extreme end of knowing what you can do with spells. None of it is particularly high-op building, but it does require a lot of knowledge. I'm talking about a Druid 20 who has turned into a dinosaur and is now eating you alive while setting you on fire and summoning monsoons.

[Mystify]

Ok, what exactly are you trying to make here?
An NPC to attack your party wizards?
A character to play in a game?
A character to play in a pbp game on the forums?

Unless this is an NPC to throw at the party, anything you can buy, the enemy can buy.
And please, don't use the plural to talk about your character. It's as obnoxious as referring to yourself in the third person.
probably an NPC who has been hunting wizards in a campaign, and would eventually go after the party spellcasters.

just because they can buy something doesn't mean they did. Esp. since not every spellcaster is willing to spend the time and xp to craft things.

I say "we" because we are building the character together. It is no longer simply my character, by bringing him here for discussion. Its how I normally talk while collaborating with people.

Also, just becasue I am presenting a 20 level plan does not mean this will be going against level 20 wizards all the time. We also need to consider how this will function at various levels. At low levels, his abilities to redirect and turn spells will be potent, and his SR fully worthy of consideration.

Also, a spellcaster won't nessecarily know know has all of these defenses. If they cast a spell directly on him, they may not be prepared for it to turn on them. Esp. if its a touch attack, since you normally can't turn rays.

[nyarlathotep]

to be honest the major focus when fighting a wizard would be to find him when he is unaware. A sufficiently prepared paranoid wizard can only be defeated by another wizard. That being said supposing the wizard lived a fairly normal life (i.e. not in dire turtle form all the time) you can find small weaknesses. First you need to find out what sort of contingencies and other magic effects he has up all the time, either by hiring some goons to attack and watch them get shredded or through a high spellcraft check and detect magic. Then you buy item specifically to counter those spells and contingencies. You then have to find some way to either ambush him or gain his trust.

In short your equipment load out will have to be different for every wizard and you will have to know intimate details about each target.

[Mystify]

It doesn't take much charop to cast spells that benefit you in a particular situation — and SR is a crappy defense against a spellcaster. Nor do you have the offense to penetrate any of a spellcaster's many, many defenses. Not to mention that most spellcasters can turn into giant monsters and wreck you in close combat.

In short, you got nothing against anything but a blaster. Which may be what you expect to face, in which case this is fine.



This raises another important question — how do you intend to deal with any of those? Can you penetrate an IotSV's defense? Can you go toe-to-toe with a DMM: Persist rainbow dreadsnake, or a Cheater of Mystra? How about a beguiler with versatile spellcaster and a wizard level? Or a basic mailman build? How about a plain old druid? These are all medium-op spellcasters, in that they're not hugely specialized and don't require a ton of skill to put together, and every one of them will waste your build.

Flickerdart was talking about the very extreme end of knowing what you can do with spells. None of it is particularly high-op building, but it does require a lot of knowledge. I'm talking about a Druid 20 who has turned into a dinosaur and is now eating you alive while setting you on fire and summoning monsoons.
IotSV requires a couple of saves and/or immunities, and you can run through it just fine. If you prep to take them on, doing melee past their defenses is fully doable. DMM persistant is one of the things that would be banned. In fact, generally assume that even with metamagic cost reductions(which should never have been added to the system in the first place), they can't cast a spell with an effective level higher than 9.
There are also ways to knock out shapechange abilities, which is probably something I should look into adding to the build. That does seem to be a weakness that needs addressing.
How much do these optimized wizards rely on spells that give AC bonuses? Is the peirce magical protections useful, or laughable?

And also, consider fighting a end-of-the-day, we've been'adventuring-all-day-and-need-to-rest wizard.

[Mystify]

to be honest the major focus when fighting a wizard would be to find him when he is unaware. A sufficiently prepared paranoid wizard can only be defeated by another wizard. That being said supposing the wizard lived a fairly normal life (i.e. not in dire turtle form all the time) you can find small weaknesses. First you need to find out what sort of contingencies and other magic effects he has up all the time, either by hiring some goons to attack and watch them get shredded or through a high spellcraft check and detect magic. Then you buy item specifically to counter those spells and contingencies. You then have to find some way to either ambush him or gain his trust.

In short your equipment load out will have to be different for every wizard and you will have to know intimate details about each target.

Exaclty what I was saying. a real wizard is not a dire turtle 24/7. You find the time when they are vulnerable, not when they are sitting around with every possible buff in play. You get to observe them and counter their tricks.

[gkathellar]

How much do these optimized wizards rely on spells that give AC bonuses? Is the peirce magical protections useful, or laughable?

AC is a pretty terrible defense in general, past a certain level.


Exaclty what I was saying. a real wizard is not a dire turtle 24/7. You find the time when they are vulnerable, not when they are sitting around with every possible buff in play. You get to observe them and counter their tricks.

Craft Contingent Spell? Moment of Prescience? Time Stop?

Anyway, you have yet to explain how you're going to survive a fight with a Druid. Once you get past that threshold, you can talk about dealing with the other, more powerful casters.

[Flickerdart]

A wizard that cares about surviving is not accessible while vulnerable. In order to catch him without buffs you are going to need to get inside his private demiplane or Magnificent Mansion, and then defeat his guardians - and even then, he is going to have his 24+ hour buffs up, of which there are many.

[Mystify]

AC is a pretty terrible defense in general, past a certain level.

give me a list of what defenses you expect the wizard to have, so I can formulate a counter. Some ones I can think of offhand-

invisibilty, etherealness, or other miss-chances
- peirce magical concealment negates them, and nemesis lets me locate which square they are in
DR
- DR/adamatine is the most common from spells, and that is easily coutnered with an adamatine weapon. What other's are possible? If nothing else, a shadowstriking weapon will get past it. Unless they can actually pull off considerable DR/-.
polymorph effects
- I'll figure otu which anti-shapechanging ability I need to work in later, but that should be doable.

[JKTrickster]

Wait is this only arcane spell casters or divine or psionics or all of the above?

Cause again, each of those are vastly different and require different tricks to beat.

And also I would have expected AMF to pop up already.

[Flickerdart]

invisibilty, etherealness, or other miss-chances
- peirce magical concealment negates them, and nemesis lets me locate which square they are in
Pierce Magical Concealment does jack all to Etherealness, because Etherealness does not provide a miss chance. Nemesis also has a very small range.

[nyarlathotep]

Exaclty what I was saying. a real wizard is not a dire turtle 24/7. You find the time when they are vulnerable, not when they are sitting around with every possible buff in play. You get to observe them and counter their tricks.

True but you cannot assume that a given wizard has no defenses up. You have to find that specific wizard and figure out if he is say turned into a dire tortoise at all hours of the day, or actually a projected image from the real wizard's familiar, or has a craft contingent blade barrier on at all times. The most important assets for a mage slayer are the ability to gather information call in favors, a very very high spellcraft check, and encyclopedic knowledge of spells and how to counter them.

If for example your target is on a demiplane 24/7 with a crap ton of buffs you have to consider a number of things.

1) He has probably weathered a few assassination attempts before so he will be on to you.
2) He will have anticipate teleport greater if he is this paranoid so you need to get around it, likely by having a lot of people with you through separate planeshifts. He will hopefully only be able to deal with a few of you in the 3 rounds he has.
3) You need items to buff your initiative into the 30s if not higher. If he is a tortoise you won't be able to surprise him so this is vital to acting first.
4) You need some way to limit the wizard's mobility, force cage is a good option as is a trans-dimensional version of black tentacles.
5) This will be cost intensive in magic items get an artificer friend please.
6) You need to be able to reduce miss-chance and concealment.
7) Bring your artificer along to use wands you're gonna need it.

No single build an item layout can be considered a good mageslayer setup because of the versatility afforded to mages. You need to be just as versatile and change your items to match your opponents.

[Cerlis]

You cannot fly. You cannot teleport. You cannot match the speed of a Phantom Steed or dragon. You cannot even win initiative, because nothing you have makes up for the easy +38 a spellcaster can get, not to mention Celerity and friends. You are vulnerable to divination, you're MAD for all the ability scores, your offense sucks, you have practically no immunities.

The second this build tries to fight a spellcaster, the caster can just gate in whatever minion they choose, then leave, because they wouldn't even need to stay to make sure you'd die.

The problem i have with this is that if you are fighting spellcasters who can gate then you should have the money to buy magic items (made by Anti mage God clerics) that handle all that ****.

Edit* naturally ignoring the usually "Thats a bunch of metagame crap. No one but a PvP focused psycho end boss is going to have all that"

Or do all wizards sit around on magic horses (with chamber pots attached) all day?

[gkathellar]

The problem i have with this is that if you are fighting spellcasters who can gate then you should have the money to buy magic items (made by Anti mage God clerics) that handle all that ****.

Mordenkainen's Disjunction.

[Flickerdart]

The problem i have with this is that if you are fighting spellcasters who can gate then you should have the money to buy magic items (made by Anti mage God clerics) that handle all that ****.
Incorrect assertion. There are no magic items that can equal 9th level spells. Even most artifacts are not a powerful. And the wizard has more spells than you can afford counter items, so it's a losing battle anyway.

[nyarlathotep]

Incorrect assertion. There are no magic items that can equal 9th level spells. Even most artifacts are not a powerful. And the wizard has more spells than you can afford counter items, so it's a losing battle anyway.

I'm pretty sure properly built mobile stronghold spaces are able to ignore most if not all spells castable by a single caster. Unless of course you consider wondrous architecture to not be a magic item.

That being said if equal level the wizard has just as many items as you AND spells leaving him at the advantage still.

[Flickerdart]

Cube is not a magic item, no. Cube is also pretty far into TO. It's also remarkably difficult for a non-caster to make any sort of attacks out of the Cube, and very easy for a caster to penetrate a poorly thought out Cube.

[olentu]

Nah, just psionics tailor made to hunt mages. How magic mantle works is a matter of fluff in the end.

Well if you are not using that particular interpretation then you very well can't be using extraordinary spell aim on a power.

[nyarlathotep]

Cube is not a magic item, no. Cube is also pretty far into TO. It's also remarkably difficult for a non-caster to make any sort of attacks out of the Cube, and very easy for a caster to penetrate a poorly thought out Cube.

Cube is no further into TO than continuously being in a personal demiplane as a tortoise. Both use very simple uses of book given abilities. Cube just uses a more obscure book.

[NineThePuma]

... What's Cube?

[Flickerdart]

Cube is no further into TO than continuously being in a personal demiplane as a tortoise. Both use very simple uses of book given abilities. Cube just uses a more obscure book.
Cube, at its full extent, is a perfect and indestructible defense cobbled together from a large number of sources. Tortoise is one spell, demiplane is one spell. They're not on the same scale at all.

[JKTrickster]

Actually yeah if you're bringing Cube, you should probably be comparing that against a Fully paranoid Batman Wizard that abuses double Astral Projection on a private plane that you don't even know where it is and is impossible to find and get to.

A.K.A. Unkillable.

[herrhauptmann]

probably an NPC who has been hunting wizards in a campaign, and would eventually go after the party spellcasters.

just because they can buy something doesn't mean they did. Esp. since not every spellcaster is willing to spend the time and xp to craft things.

I say "we" because we are building the character together. It is no longer simply my character, by bringing him here for discussion. Its how I normally talk while collaborating with people.

Also, just becasue I am presenting a 20 level plan does not mean this will be going against level 20 wizards all the time. We also need to consider how this will function at various levels. At low levels, his abilities to redirect and turn spells will be potent, and his SR fully worthy of consideration.

Also, a spellcaster won't nessecarily know know has all of these defenses. If they cast a spell directly on him, they may not be prepared for it to turn on them. Esp. if its a touch attack, since you normally can't turn rays.

Ok, some of your assumptions in the post prior to the one I quoted are then irrelevant.
What you were describing was essentially scry and die tactics. But since you're the DM, you don't need to worry about that. You always know where the party is, and what they're doing. You always know what their standard tactics and capabilities are.
If you want to keep it fair, roll your stealth checks or whatever against the party spot modifiers. If the party wins, they realize they're being tailed or watched.
Personally, I don't start tailoring fights against the PCs until they've made a big enough nuisance of themselves to be noticed. If they wander into the underdark for 10 levels killing drow then get blindsided as soon as they step onto the surface by a force of high elves tailored to beat them all, well that's just mean.

Also, depending on play style, in the minutes after a fight is probably the worst time to attack the party. Many of hteir minute/level buffs, and some of their round/level buffs will still be active. Only advantage you'll have is that their HP totals might not be at full, and some of their spells prepared will have been expended. So eitherwait 20 minutes after the fight (full HP, but more spells expended), or wait until some of the party is already incapacitated by another enemy.

If you're doing an NPC against the party, I'd say not to worry about the monk levels you've got going on up there. 1 man against a party? He's going to be several levels higher. So his saves will be a bit higher too, meaning he doesn't really need the monk save boosters. While the monk class abilities themselves are quite useless by the time he gets access to them. You'd do a lot better with 2 levels of swordsage (non ToB levels still grant boosts to initiator level), so a level Level 12 person with 2 levels in swordsage, will have a total IL of 7. That's a lot better than deflect arrows, isn't it?

[Fax Celestis]

A better build would be to go Karsite 2/Paladin 5/Witch Slayer 5/Occult Slayer 5/something else 3

But your paladin levels are going to be very very heavily ACF'd.

Take the Avenging ACF (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#paladin) from Unearthed Arcana. This trades your lay on hands, remove disease, and turn undead for favored enemy.

Trade your mount for the Charging Smite ACF from PHB-II, or for the Stand Fast ACF (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) from the Cityscape web enhancement. I prefer the former, but the latter makes a good team player.

Trade your detect evil SLA for a detect magic SLA by taking the first Golden Lion substitution level from Champions of Valor.

Trade the spellcasting you'll never use for bonus feats by the Holy Warrior ACF from Complete Champion.

Trade your first favored enemy for favored enemy (arcanists), from Complete Mage.

Take Power Attack, Awesome Smite (CCham), Favored Power Attack (CWar), Leap Attack (CAdv), Wise to Your Ways (Arcanists) (Ghostwalk), Nemesis (Arcanists) (BoED), and Extend Supernatural Ability (ToM).

Put Mighty Smiting, Stunning Surge, and Shattermantle on your weapon.

This gets you CHA+4 to saves vs arcanists, mettle, and EX mind blank. You have 2 smite evils and 5 smite the wickeds with which you should use power attack, charging smite, and awesome smite. You have SR from karsite, and detect magic plus nemesis (arcanists) lets you find magical creatures (to target your smites on). If you need more smites, you can pick up another 1/CHA from the Avenging Strike feat in ToB, and you can switch races to killoren for another 1/hr, max CHA/day, plus you'll save two levels of LA. Or you can switch to an elf (I like star elves, myself) and take the elf paladin substitution levels to get ranged smiting. You could also take three levels of hexblade for another CHA to saves vs arcane spells. If you skip karsite and go with something else instead, consider taking half-fey for a 60' (Good) fly speed, blanket immunity to Enchantment spells, +4 Charisma, and a bunch of CHA-based SLAs.

The biggest way to fend off spellcasters is to not let them do the things they do best. Mettle plus giant saving throws plus EX mind blank makes you de facto immune to a great deal of things, and Witch Hunter's Momentary Disjunction ability is made of so much win (since you can get it at ECL 10 and it has a DC 20+CHA, which is pretty astronomical). It'll let you pin them down, at the least, especially if you extend it. Charging Smite plus your smite feats plus Favored Power Attack lets you turn your opponents into a fine red mist if they hold still, which Momentary Disjunction will make easier.

I still wouldn't recommend this as anything as hardy as a 'mage slayer', but it will be able to contribute to the majority of combats and can dish out some rather terrifying amounts of damage. It is rather reliant on party support, but as this is a social game, this is to be expected.

[Crasical]

I'm -really- bad at optimizing in general, so I've been staying out of this thread. But I wanted to pop in to say to all the people saying Psionics didn't fit thematically as an anti-magic character: What about Dark Sun?

[Mystify]

I'm -really- bad at optimizing in general, so I've been staying out of this thread. But I wanted to pop in to say to all the people saying Psionics didn't fit thematically as an anti-magic character: What about Dark Sun?

Its not that psionics doesn't fit anti-magic in general. Its that it doesn't fit with this character. Deciding to be against casters, but still use as system thats magic-but-we-won't-call-it-that is defeating the point.

[NineThePuma]

Its not that psionics doesn't fit anti-magic in general. Its that it doesn't fit with this character. Deciding to be against casters, but still use as system thats magic-but-we-won't-call-it-that is defeating the point.

... No it isn't. :smallconfused:

Psionics has very different fluff. Maybe the character explicitly has a beef with people who touch The Weave, or something. That's Magic, and Psionics doesn't have any affect on it from fluff.

[Mystify]

... No it isn't. :smallconfused:

Psionics has very different fluff. Maybe the character explicitly has a beef with people who touch The Weave, or something. That's Magic, and Psionics doesn't have any affect on it from fluff.

Yes, fluff-wise, its not magic. But really, its magic.

[MeeposFire]

... No it isn't. :smallconfused:

Psionics has very different fluff. Maybe the character explicitly has a beef with people who touch The Weave, or something. That's Magic, and Psionics doesn't have any affect on it from fluff.

He doesn't want something with overt magic like effects. Granted he seems to be fine with in what we have in 3.5 as supernatural magic abilities like smiting but doesn't want anything even remotely similar to magic.

[NineThePuma]

... *sigh* Whatever. In that case, you're doomed to failure, as outlined by a dozen people on page 1.

Mind, I think Fax's build is nifty as crap, and am going to steal it.

[kulosle]

maybe this time this will post. So having made a mage slayer for a very high optimization campaign recently I would like to say that archery is your best bet for getting the NPC out of there alive. He doesn't have a beef against the rest of the party so engaging in melee doesn't make sense for the character. Sniping fits the feel the best. Well the next comment that is made is, "but how do you hit someone with a bow from far enough away to escape and still do damage?" The primary sniping methods does have a very little damage output and is generally unreliable. Answer is Inspire Courage optimization. If you don't to do bard then play a paladin with the spell less and harmonizing knight variants. Also there was a spell less bard floating around on this forum some where. Send some goons in to attack the party. The goons main job is to get the wizard out of his immune to damage form, using shape change shenanigans, via disjunction or dispelling or whatever it takes, don't make the goons to much of a threat that the wizard feels the need to take evasive action, they should be easily squish-able, and they need to get him to use clarity. You, who are watching this through any of the methods used to see farther than normal, have a readied action to shoot your many shot when the wizard cast clarity, your action resolves first and you should be able to kill with one attack. Then you use a customized teleportation item to get the hell out of there. Rinse and repeat.

[gkathellar]

archery is your best bet

Contingency: Wind Wall.

[kulosle]

Who saves there contingency for wind wall? Plus there are ways around that, like shooting a ballista or any other huge sized weapon. There are others but i don't remeber them off the top of my head.

[gkathellar]

Okay, Craft Contingent Spell: Wind Wall. And yes, a ballista will work, but a solid wizard has a dozen other defenses beyond that, up at all times.

[kulosle]

This is what the goons strike for is suppose to do. But i'll admit its not a perfect plane but it usually gets the job done and it puts the archer in very little danger.

[Kittenwolf]

Just off the bat, I like the idea of Mage slayer builds, I like the thought that someone should be able to take down these guys. However, how would a build deal with a Mage that simply has a dozen Craft Contingent Spells setup for "If I would be subjected to and affected by a spell, effect or attack that I do not wish to be subjected to, dimension door me 300ft in a random, non-entombing direction" then another that is "if I have run out of contingent dimension doors, word of recall"?

[kulosle]

By straight up melee attacking them, because someone who focuses all his spells into defense is going to die under repetitive attack.

[Kittenwolf]

Those are crafted contingencies though, fallbacks if you will, not spells used that day. With this setup you attack, he vanishes away, then on his turn nukes, CCs or whatever else seems appropriate.

[kulosle]

Ah okay. So i'm AFB but can a contingency be that specific? If so the only response I could think of is if the character became aware of this problem, then attacked in response to the last contingency going off. But that would be hard to do.

[Mystify]

we need some form of dimensional lock to keep teleport happy casters pinned.

[kulosle]

I honestly don't think a long chain of contingencies set up could be prevented stop. I personally would house rule that you can't start with so many cast. And if he tried to start to set up this ridiculous chain he would be attacked. Its the same logic as saying pun pun shouldn't be allowed to happen.

[Flickerdart]

Its not that psionics doesn't fit anti-magic in general. Its that it doesn't fit with this character. Deciding to be against casters, but still use as system thats magic-but-we-won't-call-it-that is defeating the point.
At least that'd be one thing that build could defeat. *rimshot*

[kulosle]

we need some form of dimensional lock to keep teleport happy casters pinned.

I would also disagree with this. I tried doing so and the second that a caster is dimensional anchored they feel in danger and throw up every defense they could possibly muster. I prefer the out of no where instant kill.

[Kittenwolf]

I honestly don't think a long chain of contingencies set up could be prevented stop. I personally would house rule that you can't start with so many cast. And if he tried to start to set up this ridiculous chain he would be attacked. Its the same logic as saying pun pun shouldn't be allowed to happen.

Actually, by RAW setting up contingencies like that is quite legal (using Craft Contingent Spell, not the Contingency spell), you'd certainly be within your rights to house-rule the page if you wanted to, but by RAW it's fine.

But anyways, this one was kicking around my head last night as an example :)

Meet Steven the Wizard. Former adventurer, foodie and researcher. Steven was a mighty adventurer in his younger days, but having reached middle age he spends most of his days in his custom-built tower with his familiar Mittens.
Steven dedicates most of his time to researching Immortality, wanting to keep living without the pesky "Becoming undead" thing that most casters have to resort to.

However, there's a food festival going on in a couple of days and he really wants to be there, so he's taking some time off research to sample some of this year's new delights.
Unbeknownst to Steven however, a disgruntled cook has hired a Mage Slayer to kill Steven. Steven only gave his waffles two stars last year and the cook is out for revenge....

Steven has a bit of a ritual that he goes through whenever he leaves his tower, a slightly-paranoid series of tasks and spells that he still goes through, just in case.

Ten or Twelve hours before he plans to leave all he casts Greater Consumptive Field and goes for a quick jog through the house. This accomplishes two things:
1) It kills off all the vermin and insects that inevitably get into the tower (and all the ants that always find the honey)
2) It temporarily boosts his caster level by 20-40, making spells last longer

He then casts on himself:
Moment of Prescience
Greater Mage Armor
Heart of Fire/Water/Earth/Air/Heart
Any other Hour/Level buffs he can think of
A couple of Energy Immunities
Mind Blank
Anticipate Teleportation
Contingency (Death Ward if struck by an effect it would negate)

After this he goes back to his usual duties for a while, has a nice meal and a siesta in his Heward's Fortifying Bedroll.
It's then back up, cast Foresight and a couple more Energy Immunities (so he's immune to them all), and ready to head off to town!

Being a Wizard he always wears two rings of Counterspelling containing Greater Dispel Magic, and has a trusty scroll of Greater Spell Immunity (just in case).
And of course, like all Arcane casters he has See Invisibility & Arcane Sight permanancied.

He also has the following Craft Contingent Spells:
1) If I'm about to be affected by a Mordenkeinen's Disjunction, Word of Recall
2) If I'm about to die, Word of Recall
3) If I'm about to be damaged by an attack, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere (on myself)

If he does end up in trouble his Foresight will warn him, and he'll usually then cast Time Stop (Effulgent Epparation, Superior Invisibility, Greater Blink and whatever else seems appropriate) and then decide what to do against his foes.

How would a mage slayer deal with Steven?

[Mystify]

Actually, by RAW setting up contingencies like that is quite legal (using Craft Contingent Spell, not the Contingency spell), you'd certainly be within your rights to house-rule the page if you wanted to, but by RAW it's fine.

But anyways, this one was kicking around my head last night as an example :)

Meet Steven the Wizard. Former adventurer, foodie and researcher. Steven was a mighty adventurer in his younger days, but having reached middle age he spends most of his days in his custom-built tower with his familiar Mittens.
Steven dedicates most of his time to researching Immortality, wanting to keep living without the pesky "Becoming undead" thing that most casters have to resort to.

However, there's a food festival going on in a couple of days and he really wants to be there, so he's taking some time off research to sample some of this year's new delights.
Unbeknownst to Steven however, a disgruntled cook has hired a Mage Slayer to kill Steven. Steven only gave his waffles two stars last year and the cook is out for revenge....

Steven has a bit of a ritual that he goes through whenever he leaves his tower, a slightly-paranoid series of tasks and spells that he still goes through, just in case.

Ten or Twelve hours before he plans to leave all he casts Greater Consumptive Field and goes for a quick jog through the house. This accomplishes two things:
1) It kills off all the vermin and insects that inevitably get into the tower (and all the ants that always find the honey)
2) It temporarily boosts his caster level by 20-40, making spells last longer

He then casts on himself:
Moment of Prescience
Greater Mage Armor
Heart of Fire/Water/Earth/Air/Heart
Any other Hour/Level buffs he can think of
A couple of Energy Immunities
Mind Blank
Anticipate Teleportation
Contingency (Death Ward if struck by an effect it would negate)

After this he goes back to his usual duties for a while, has a nice meal and a siesta in his Heward's Fortifying Bedroll.
It's then back up, cast Foresight and a couple more Energy Immunities (so he's immune to them all), and ready to head off to town!

Being a Wizard he always wears two rings of Counterspelling containing Greater Dispel Magic, and has a trusty scroll of Greater Spell Immunity (just in case).

He also has the following Craft Contingent Spells:
1) If I'm about to be affected by a Mordenkeinen's Disjunction, Word of Recall
2) If I'm about to die, Word of Recall
3) If I'm about to be damaged by an attack, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere (on myself)

If he does end up in trouble his Foresight will warn him, and he'll usually then cast Time Stop (Effulgent Epparation, Greater Blink and whatever else seems appropriate) and then decide what to do against his foes.

How would a mage slayer deal with Steven?

Have the DM ban him for consumptive field abuse.

apart from that, I'll puut together a strategy later. I'm exhausted atm.

[deuxhero]

Even if you don't have wind-wall, lesser cloak of displacement is 20% chances of him just not hitting.

[kulosle]

I think steve would be on the bottom of the list of mages to kill for the majority of mage slayers. He's not going around causing trouble. But if I were to try and kill him I would use two mage slayers. One that is the archer i already explained using force damage and one that is a tank. A unkillable juggernaut that gets steve to need to use his "if i die contingency word of recall, the archer readies an attack that if he teleports away to make an attack. that once a gain should kill him. I'd have to actually sit down with books to make this a solid plan but this is my basic set up.

edit: Pierce magical concealment, what mage slayer wouldn't have it?

[Kittenwolf]

Have the DM ban him for consumptive field abuse.

apart from that, I'll puut together a strategy later. I'm exhausted atm.

Replace consumptive field with Karma Bead and nothing changes other than the check to dispel the spells, and how much 'overtime' the spells have.


Even if you don't have wind-wall, lesser cloak of displacement is 20% chances of him just not hitting.

Yeah, Wind Wall is an option there too :). This guy wasn't intended to be uber optimised, or to have any magic items that will noticably alter what he looks like (he doesn't want 50% displacement while eating dinner after all :) ).
People wanted a "Realistic" Wizard to attack against, so here they go.

[Kittenwolf]

I think steve would be on the bottom of the list of mages to kill for the majority of mage slayers. He's not going around causing trouble. But if I were to try and kill him I would use two mage slayers. One that is the archer i already explained using force damage and one that is a tank. A unkillable juggernaut that gets steve to need to use his "if i die contingency word of recall, the archer readies an attack that if he teleports away to make an attack. that once a gain should kill him. I'd have to actually sit down with books to make this a solid plan but this is my basic set up.

1) *how* are you planning to "get Steve to use his contingency"
2) How do you know about his contingencies in the first place?
3) I'm pretty sure you can't ready an action against a free action/reaction

[gkathellar]

People wanted a "Realistic" Wizard to attack against, so here they go.

Psh. A "realistic" 20th-level wizard has a high enough intelligence to have read the evil overlord handbook, whether or not he's evil. He probably doesn't allow any dedicated wizard-slayers that he doesn't directly or indirectly control to remain alive, because that would be dumb. Even if a wizard slayer poses very little credible threat to you, you don't just let someone run around saying, "I'm killing all the members of your profession!"

These builds always assume that the mage slayer is the one doing the hunting, even though wizards have far better tools for hiding and for information gathering than any mage slayer could dream of. Go around killing low-level wizards on your way up, and high level wizards are going to start keeping tabs on you. And by "tabs" I mean "kill them just to be sure they catch me on my way home from a long day of god-punching."

[kulosle]

1) *how* are you planning to "get Steve to use his contingency"
2) How do you know about his contingencies in the first place?
3) I'm pretty sure you can't ready an action against a free action/reaction

1)like i said not entirely sure on the details, AFB, but maybe a pair of archers. 2)The only leg up a mage slayer can gain on a mage is information, when i talk about mage slayers i assume they have stalked their target long enough to know how dangerous they are and how long much planning they need to do. If I was a mage slayer I would send goons after goons till I knew enough about him. In this case i'd learn that steve likes to teleport away. So that would be the cue for my attack.
3)not sure about this either now that i think of it, i don't see anything in the rules against it, But i'm mearly skimming the SRD. Does anyone know more on this?



Psh. A "realistic" 20th-level wizard has a high enough intelligence to have read the evil overlord handbook, whether or not he's evil. He probably doesn't allow any dedicated wizard-slayers that he doesn't directly or indirectly control to remain alive, because that would be dumb. Even if a wizard slayer poses very little credible threat to you, you don't just let someone run around saying, "I'm killing all the members of your profession!"

These builds always assume that the mage slayer is the one doing the hunting, even though wizards have far better tools for hiding and for information gathering than any mage slayer could dream of. Go around killing low-level wizards on your way up, and high level wizards are going to start keeping tabs on you. And by "tabs" I mean "kill them just to be sure they catch me on my way home from a long day of god-punching."

Yes wizards could hunt mage slayers better than mage slayers could hunt wizards. But how many PCs do you know that derail the plot to go hunt mage slayers?

[Mystify]

Actually, by RAW setting up contingencies like that is quite legal (using Craft Contingent Spell, not the Contingency spell), you'd certainly be within your rights to house-rule the page if you wanted to, but by RAW it's fine.

But anyways, this one was kicking around my head last night as an example :)

Meet Steven the Wizard. Former adventurer, foodie and researcher. Steven was a mighty adventurer in his younger days, but having reached middle age he spends most of his days in his custom-built tower with his familiar Mittens.
Steven dedicates most of his time to researching Immortality, wanting to keep living without the pesky "Becoming undead" thing that most casters have to resort to.

However, there's a food festival going on in a couple of days and he really wants to be there, so he's taking some time off research to sample some of this year's new delights.
Unbeknownst to Steven however, a disgruntled cook has hired a Mage Slayer to kill Steven. Steven only gave his waffles two stars last year and the cook is out for revenge....

Steven has a bit of a ritual that he goes through whenever he leaves his tower, a slightly-paranoid series of tasks and spells that he still goes through, just in case.

Ten or Twelve hours before he plans to leave all he casts Greater Consumptive Field and goes for a quick jog through the house. This accomplishes two things:
1) It kills off all the vermin and insects that inevitably get into the tower (and all the ants that always find the honey)
2) It temporarily boosts his caster level by 20-40, making spells last longer

He then casts on himself:
Moment of Prescience
Greater Mage Armor
Heart of Fire/Water/Earth/Air/Heart
Any other Hour/Level buffs he can think of
A couple of Energy Immunities
Mind Blank
Anticipate Teleportation
Contingency (Death Ward if struck by an effect it would negate)

After this he goes back to his usual duties for a while, has a nice meal and a siesta in his Heward's Fortifying Bedroll.
It's then back up, cast Foresight and a couple more Energy Immunities (so he's immune to them all), and ready to head off to town!

Being a Wizard he always wears two rings of Counterspelling containing Greater Dispel Magic, and has a trusty scroll of Greater Spell Immunity (just in case).

He also has the following Craft Contingent Spells:
1) If I'm about to be affected by a Mordenkeinen's Disjunction, Word of Recall
2) If I'm about to die, Word of Recall
3) If I'm about to be damaged by an attack, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere (on myself)

If he does end up in trouble his Foresight will warn him, and he'll usually then cast Time Stop (Effulgent Epparation, Greater Blink and whatever else seems appropriate) and then decide what to do against his foes.

How would a mage slayer deal with Steven?

Have the DM ban him for consumptive field abuse.

apart from that, I'll puut together a strategy later. I'm exhausted atm.

[Kittenwolf]

1)like i said not entirely sure on the details, AFB, but maybe a pair of archers.


Will be interesting to see what you think, since your first volley at least should fail.



2)The only leg up a mage slayer can gain on a mage is information, when i talk about mage slayers i assume they have stalked their target long enough to know how dangerous they are and how long much planning they need to do. If I was a mage slayer I would send goons after goons till I knew enough about him. In this case i'd learn that steve likes to teleport away. So that would be the cue for my attack.


Unfortunately that assumption is drastically flawed. First of all how do you stalk someone in a tower, and secondly as has been pointed out the moment you start sending "waves of goons" you're going to be the target of every information gathering spell in the game, and the Wizard can do it a lot better than you can with scrolls or bought spells.



3)not sure about this either now that i think of it, i don't see anything in the rules against it, But i'm mearly skimming the SRD. Does anyone know more on this?


Pretty you can ready an action against another action (ie, "I ready an action when he casts Teleport") but not against something that literally has no 'trigger' (like a contingent spell).

[NineThePuma]

Joker Bard anyone?

[Midnight_v]

Have the DM ban him for consumptive field abuse.

apart from that, I'll puut together a strategy later. I'm exhausted atm. You know thats not amusing right? It just makes you look petulant.
Much like what you're trying to do. Steve is the Dm's npc wizard.

Also what you're trying to do is kinda wrong. Even if we spoon feed you every possibility, every contingency, and every probablility...

You're going to end up with something that insta-gibs someones character.
Why go through all the rigamorole when it going to be a "rocks fall" everyone dies moment? Or worse "you're charcter is dead"; "no save" moment.
The way you're presenting comes off as terrible "I'll get you my pc's!" dm'ing.
Thats 1.

2nd: The utter hypocrisy of a guy who has a mage cohort on hand to make him "Magic items" but who hate magics is staggering.
Thats WORSE by far than the Psionics (magic) thing. Any reasonable person who you run that by is going to look at you like you lost your gib.

All that being said. . .

Do you know what the characters builds are?
Is this Npc supposed to die? Live to harass?
Does he exist simple as a way to let the Melee's shine for a battle or 2?

I want to help really but, I'm hoping I'm getting an incorrect veiw of what your goal is here.
What do you want this guy to do in the story?

[Mystify]

You know thats not amusing right? It just makes you look petulant.
Much like what you're trying to do. Steve is the Dm's npc wizard.

Also what you're trying to do is kinda wrong. Even if we spoon feed you every possibility, every contingency, and every probablility...

You're going to end up with something that insta-gibs someones character.
Why go through all the rigamorole when it going to be a "rocks fall" everyone dies moment? Or worse "you're charcter is dead"; "no save" moment.
The way you're presenting comes off as terrible "I'll get you my pc's!" dm'ing.
Thats 1.

2nd: The utter hypocrisy of a guy who has a mage cohort on hand to make him "Magic items" but who hate magics is staggering.
Thats WORSE by far than the Psionics (magic) thing. Any reasonable person who you run that by is going to look at you like you lost your gib.

All that being said. . .

Do you know what the characters builds are?
Is this Npc supposed to die? Live to harass?
Does he exist simple as a way to let the Melee's shine for a battle or 2?

I want to help really but, I'm hoping I'm getting an incorrect veiw of what your goal is here.
What do you want this guy to do in the story?
1. Its only appears that way because this thread is about a singlular episode. see point 3

2. The scenario I gave was a "reformed" mage. a powerful mage that he has managed to convinvce of his veiwpoint, and so does not cast spells anymore, but still has all of his pre-existing knowledge and skills to craft items. And they would be crafting anti-magic items. And realistically, they have to accept using magic items, because otherwise your character is non-functional. Not even just non-functional in a mage-slaying capacity, but non-functional period. You could even have the item crafter be an artificier, then they aren't even a spellcaster at all.

3. I have no clue what the character builds would be. The campaign doesn't even exist at the moment. that is part of why I am creating something like htis now. They can only specialize their build against hypothetical mages, not the specific mage in the party. the only way to justify haveing the build be specialized against a specific character is if they were specificially bred/trained/raised ot combat that character, which generally doesn't make sense outside of a generational evil overlord scenario. Equipment selection and strategy can be gears towards a character with proper justification since those are malleable after the point you decide to hunt the character.

in the actual campaign, it would start as rumours. first the party happens across a rumour that john the mage died, then sally the witch, and after while they start realizing that there is someone picking off mages. eventually they would go after the party, and have to be convincing that they could have killed these other mages off, and seriously scare the caster. When you realize someone is hunting you, it has no impact if they wouldn't be able to kill you. Its when you realize you are being hunted, and if caught, you are going to be rend limb from limb, and you won't be able to stop them that the fear kicks in. the actual encounter with the character is not the point. its not going to be some guy appearing out of nowhere, ganking the wizard, and dissapearing.

So the party will be trying to figure out who has been killing these mages, figure out how to not get killed by them, while trying to devise a method to stop him. if a key element is the artificier customizing his items against the spellcasters, part of their strategy might become tracking down and stopping this support. they may eventually witness/have a chance to interfere with another assassination attempt on another wizard, where he is not prepped to
take down the party mage. This would present an opportunity to display his ability to take on amges, demonstrate his ability to negate spellcasting against him, and let him leave to recur later.

This would not be the only thing going on, merely one element of the game world, so they party may not consider him the primary threat that they need to spend all their effort tracking down, but presents an issue that they would constantly have to be on guard against.

[kulosle]

I admit that making a mage slayer is kind of rude to the players. I made mine in a killy campaign where the players were informed that i was specifically trying to kill them.

[herrhauptmann]

I admit that making a mage slayer is kind of rude to the players. I made mine in a killy campaign where the players were informed that i was specifically trying to kill them.
Just throwing a mageslayer at them when they're used to stock monsters is sort of mean. Assuming of course they're a caster heavy party. But if it happens because of reasons of plot...

In the campaign I'm running, the antagonists have a real grudge against certain organizations that tend to have a lot of casters: Red Wizards, Zhents, Netherese, Cult of Dragon. So, their ultimate goal is to cause widespread devastation at the power bases for those groups and kill as many as possible(Using circle magic rules out of Relics & Rituals).
However, only the main wizard and his assistants know what's going to actually happen. As a result, the PCs think they're in a race to stop an undead horde.
Many of the subordinates are fed lies, or just not told the whole truth.
-There's an insane necromancer who thinks the goal is kill and animate everyone within Thay and send them against Aglarond.
-There's a very aggrieved lawful neutral judge type who believes they're going to arrest as many wizards as they can, and try them for crimes.
And so forth.

Most of the groups the party encounters will have someone with the feat mageslayer. And maybe more of the 'standard' magekiller build. So far, out of 3 story based fights, the party has been lucky enough to focus fire on the magehunter each time. (Starting to really annoy me)

But they're starting to get to the point where the final boss has noticed the effect they're having on his plans (they killed one of his apprentices who was attuning with mini maguffin #1). So the fights are going to get harder, with the boss sending his more reliable servants at them (those who have more of a mageslayer focus).
Fortunately, the party is aware of this. :smallbiggrin:
The party had gone to the big bads hometown to try and learn about him. On arrival, they learned that the town is often under attack because it's the remains of a crashed netherese city (almost whole population are Karsites).
Big bad sent one of his apprentices with two tasks: 1)to help protect his hometown from attacks 2)And remove the reason why it's always being attacked. While he, acts as the pointman and destroys the invading forces. (Party didn't seem keen to bite on the sidequest I dangled. So it proved to be an easy way to further the plot along)

The party instead killed the apprentice and his men in a difficult fight.
After that, it was just a matter of me sitting there grinning while they discussed what to do. Very quickly, they bugged out of there and fled to silverymoon, hoping the wards would help protect them while they sold loot, bought new gear, and planned what to do next.
I've never done such a good job at scaring the party without throwing an unwinnable encounter at them. I'm very pleased.:smallcool: