Questions about an upcoming encounter[3.5]

[Angry Bob]

One of my players has expressed interest in his character, a level 30 (slightly nerfed) pixie gestalt sorcerer/initiate of the sevenfold veil//cleric of Pelor/radiant servant with some other stuff, challenging Archmage Cadmin Daebragh, the most powerful arcane caster in my setting, about which he knows is a leShay with 20+ caster levels on top of racial hit dice.

The player recently came into possession of a feat, Epic Counterspell, making it unnecessary to ready an action to counter. He uses heighten spell and and improved counterspell to make casting pretty much impossible around him. Then he uses maximized time stop, automatic quicken < 10th, stacked multispell, and delay spell to throw 25+ spells per standard action. He does not make use of epic spellcasting basically because he doesn't really need it yet.

I get the sense that this may be par for the course for epic level. However, the Archmage(title, not class, though he probably has levels of archmage as well) has been built up as more or less a physical god. I don't want to disappoint or denigrate the player's or character's skills by making it an easy fight, but I'm at a loss as to what to do to that end. The terms of the duel are likely to be "to the death, winner true resurrects loser."

My ideas so far are custom epic spells(which the player can't counter yet), spell slots high enough to preclude countering via heighten, and epic-level intelligent items with x/day powerful spells, stacked/nested permanent emanations, but that's not nearly enough.

There are some houserules, the biggest of which are:
To use metamagic, you have to be able to cast spells of the level the spell would be without reducers, excluding a few things like metamagic rods, wu jen spell secrets and similar abilities, and the automatic metamagic feat line.
Use the pathfinder versions of Alter Self, Polymorph, Shapechange, and similar effects.

Tl;dr: How to give an epic level caster specced to counterspell an interesting and challenging duel against another epic caster?

Post Script: If anything is unclear or poorly explained, tell me and I will elaborate.

[Acanous]

Epic Spells>non Epic Spells. When what he's casting can't be countered except by another epic spell, gets through anti magic fields, and can affect things normally immune...

Heck, there's one spell in the ELH called something along the lines of "Wrath of God" that does irresistable damage.

For feats, grab Iron Will and Devine Denial. Devine Denial grants a will save to negate against devine spells or effects if they normally list Save: None, and a further +2 to will saves.

This mage is also epic, yes? Give him epic counterspell. Now he can do the same thing as your PC, although not as well. (Which is good, PCs should always be better at their schtick than NPCs.)

Wear a ring of Mettle. That'll negate the spells that DO have a will save.
Initiative is going to be a silly thing.

This guy should have Persisted Spell Engine active on him. So he casts spontaniously, any Arcane spell in the game. Will also help for counters.

Strategy:
Your Wizard scoffs at Devine magic, preferring the much more intricate and complex (Though understandable) Arcana. He doesn't counter Devine spells- they aren't worth the slot. He'll just save and shrug them off. He counters Arcane spells, and on his action will blast the hell out of his rival with an Epic Spell.

His Will save should be ridiculous. +52 is within reason considering PrCs, Iron Will, Devine Denial and a robe of resistance.

[Godskook]

1.I've never delved far into counterspell mechanics, but here's some basic questions:
1a.What CL is the player casting his spells at?
1b.Is he using dispel to counterspell, and if so, how is he getting around the CL caps?

If I'm right, and he's using dispel magic line spells to do his counterspelling, simply getting the opponent's CL into the "rolls are required" range will make the fight at least run-able.

2.Afaik, in order to counterspell, you must be aware of the spell being cast. If a spell is silent, still, invisible and eschewed, I don't think it can be counterspelled.

3.An epic spell that grants 'concealment' against counterspelling(counterspelling has a 20%/50% chance of failure against target) is *INCREDIBLY* appropriate, especially since the PC lvl 30 mage is a legend who's famous for counterspelling. A near-god of the setting would've developed countermeasures of this sort.

4.Can't counterspell a spell that's already in effect, and by epic level, any spellcaster is capable of going CoDzilla if they need to. With epic buff spells, even without optimizing your spellcraft, the LeShay should be able to out-perform most things in a 1v1.

5.In a similar vein to #4, you can't counterspell dragons and outsiders that are part of the caster's 'entourage', assuming the duel is set to the terms "everything at our disposal". And yes, minions should normally count. There's 3 different schools that say so(Conjuration, Necromancy and Enchantment).

[Angry Bob]

Most of the player's killing power comes from wings of flurry, holy word, and orb of acid. He's probably expecting orb of acid and holy word to be useless in this situation, though, as the Archmage has far higher HD than his CL and is immune to energy, like the player. When it comes down to it, the player's biggest enemy is that when something that doesn't trigger the retaliatory effects of his veils, his only real offensive options are "mediocre" energy damage or wings of flurry.

He counterspells by being a sorcerer, having improved counterspell, having at least one low-level spell known of every arcane school, and using heighten spell to increase the spell level of said spell until he can counter the spell being cast. He never uses dispel to counter. Having the Archmage have incredibly high-level spell slots or faking him out with heighten spell is one idea.

I've ruled that since psionic powers(which are by default silent, still, requiring no material components, and easy as hell to hide the signs) can be psicrafted, just casting the spell is enough to alert someone that you're casting, if they're paying attention to you at all. The fight won't be an ambush either way, so that's out. And even if he could disguise his casting, the player has a ring that alerts him to casting in a certain proximity.

The "concealment" against counterspelling is an okay idea, but I hesitate to want to rule how the player's ring would interact with that.

[Godskook]

The "concealment" against counterspelling is an okay idea, but I hesitate to want to rule how the player's ring would interact with that.

Normal Concealment gives two things:
1.A miss chance when attacking someone with it
2.Poorer ability to spot them

What I'm suggesting is only referencing part #1, i.e., when he has that epic spell up, counterspell attempts have a natural failure rate independent of everything else, just like concealment's miss chance.

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I only know of three ways to counterspell:
-With dispel magic line
-With the exact spell being cast
-Spells that explicitly counter other spells

How is he counterspelling with a spell based purely on school?

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Where'd you get your metamagic rule? I'm curious cause I came up with roughly the same idea and I'm just wondering if someone else came up with it too or if mine propogated.

[Angry Bob]

Normal Concealment gives two things:
1.A miss chance when attacking someone with it
2.Poorer ability to spot them

What I'm suggesting is only referencing part #1, i.e., when he has that epic spell up, counterspell attempts have a natural failure rate independent of everything else, just like concealment's miss chance.

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I only know of three ways to counterspell:
-With dispel magic line
-With the exact spell being cast
-Spells that explicitly counter other spells

How is he counterspelling with a spell based purely on school?

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Where'd you get your metamagic rule? I'm curious cause I came up with roughly the same idea and I'm just wondering if someone else came up with it too or if mine propogated.

Part 1: Makes sense.
Part 2: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#improvedCounterspell
Part 3: Great minds think alike. We'd had some munchkin trouble with a metamagic-abusing wizard in a previous campaign and simply banning metamagic seemed like overkill.

[Gavinfoxx]

Which houserule fix are you using to make epic spells sane?

... Wait, you are using epic spells as written? Whyever would anyone want to do THAT?

[Angry Bob]

Which houserule fix are you using to make epic spells sane?

... Wait, you are using epic spells as written? Whyever would anyone want to do THAT?

I'm using them as they were meant to be used: with heavy DM oversight and veto-power. If it still proves troublesome, I may just ad hoc some 10th+ level spells instead of using epic spells as written.

[Medic!]

Would the Mage Duel guidelines in Magic of Faerun make your life any easier? Another thing from the FR settings that might apply to your situation is the Magister template (everyone at our table who routinely plays an arcane caster has drooled over it at one point or another, useful on an NPC, river of chocolate to PCs)

[Angry Bob]

Would the Mage Duel guidelines in Magic of Faerun make your life any easier? Another thing from the FR settings that might apply to your situation is the Magister template (everyone at our table who routinely plays an arcane caster has drooled over it at one point or another, useful on an NPC, river of chocolate to PCs)

Mage duel guidelines is out. Both parties would object to something that limits them, especially the guy who's built to counter pretty much at will. The duel template would remove that advantage, if we're thinking of the same one.

What book is the Magister template in?

[Godskook]

Let's see:

Counterspell, afaik, still requires line of effect, so you can get him there by casting from behind walls.

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SLAs can not be counterspelled, and archmage grants SLAs.

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Unless your player has a way of 'joining' the NPC in his timestop(there's a feat for that, I think), those spells can't be counterspelled either. Combo with the above to get a lot done reliably.

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While its true, he can counterspell a lot per round, his times per day is limited. Swarming him with gated caster-dragons will drain his resources quite quickly, and fortunately, Dragons have a lot of HD, so they won't go down like chumps to his Holy Words, even if you use Chromatics.

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Dweomer Keeper grants supernatural spells 4/day. With the right preperation, that could be all you need.

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Counterspelling the way your player is only works if the spells are of a spell level lower than his 'counterspell'. If your NPC has spells of the same level as the player, those spells can't be counterspelled with that method.

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[Mystify]

You can't counter a silent, still, eschew materials spell because you can't use spellcraft to identify it, not because you can't tell they are casting it. Spellcraft specifically states you need to observe some of the components of the spell. Even if you know that they are casting a spell, if you don't know which spell you can't counter it.

[Angry Bob]

You can't counter a silent, still, eschew materials spell because you can't use spellcraft to identify it, not because you can't tell they are casting it. Spellcraft specifically states you need to observe some of the components of the spell. Even if you know that they are casting a spell, if you don't know which spell you can't counter it.

Fascinating. All the Archmage would need to do is move outside the 60ft Ring of Spell-Battle range. Easy enough.

[jindra34]

You can't counter a silent, still, eschew materials spell because you can't use spellcraft to identify it, not because you can't tell they are casting it. Spellcraft specifically states you need to observe some of the components of the spell. Even if you know that they are casting a spell, if you don't know which spell you can't counter it.

Not quite, you can use dispel magic to counter spell them because it explicitly obviates the need to make the spellcraft check. But at those levels its a small comfort.

[Godskook]

Fascinating. All the Archmage would need to do is move outside the 60ft Ring of Spell-Battle range. Easy enough.

And relevant to your houseruling on the subject:


Identify a power being manifested. (You must sense the power’s display, or see some visible effect, to identify a power.) No action required. No retry.

Thus, while you can psicraft powers, you still must be aware of them in some way shape or form.

A form of arcane sight(detect magic works too slowly to work, imho) should be enough, but such sights almost always have limited ranges.

[Mystify]

Not quite, you can use dispel magic to counter spell them because it explicitly obviates the need to make the spellcraft check. But at those levels its a small comfort.
True. That is much less reliable in any case, esp. at this point in the game.

[Angry Bob]

Okay, so (autosilent+autostill)x3 should cover any spell of 9th or lower for counterspelling.

Now for the veils. Specifically, the one that stops spells and spell-likes. The players recently came across these modified mithral golems that could shoot disjunction rays as standard actions. They dropped off the remains with a mages' guild to reverse-engineer the ability into a usable spell, but I'm probably going to let the Archmage already have it. Should a disjunction effect applied as a long range ray(only affecting a single effect or item) be a ninth level spell or an epic spell?

I'm not disjoining his items, just his buffs. To do otherwise would be mean. His items I plan to deal with by way of a custom epic spell that dispels(contingent on the associated check) everything in a column.

I'm also still stuck on the actual build for this guy. His leShay HD give him all the feats he could ever want, but what would he do for classes/prestige classes? Probably levels of dweomerkeeper at least, as well as archmage.

[Godskook]

Keep in mind that automatics function off spell level, not slot level, so adding further metamagic(except Heighten) won't disqualify them.

As for your NPC:

1.Are you using gestalt for him?

2.Where are LeShay?

[Angry Bob]

Keep in mind that automatics function off spell level, not slot level, so adding further metamagic(except Heighten) won't disqualify them.

As for your NPC:

1.Are you using gestalt for him?

2.Where are LeShay?

I may owe my player a redaction, then.

He's unlikely to use gestalt, instead piling different classes on top of each other. What I could do instead is gestalt his casting with his leShay HD. But they're fey HD, so don't know how good that would be.

leShay are from the ELH. More accurately, I'm using the SRD, if there are any differences.

[Medic!]

What book is the Magister template in?

Magic of Faerun p. 185, note that there are differences to the template depending on when it's taken. (SR 50 for 1d4+3 months, then down to *ugh* 20; Greater Ironguard for 9 days)

[Angry Bob]

Magic of Faerun p. 185, note that there are differences to the template depending on when it's taken. (SR 50 for 1d4+3 months, then down to *ugh* 20; Greater Ironguard for 9 days)

Yeah, I looked at it. The Archmage probably isn't still under the first nine days effects. That, and he can probably do about as well with custom items and spells.

[Godskook]

Let's see:

Paladin 2/Sorcerer 4/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Sacred Exorcist 1/Marshal 1(charisma aura)

That's a great start. Add to that Unarmed Swordsage 2 and Ascetic Mage. And assuming WBL and non-epic gear, here's a quick update to AC/saves:

AC: 112(+23 Dex, +22 Cha, +20 Insight, +10 Natural Armor, +5 Deflection, +9 Shield, +13 Armor)
Touch AC: 80(+23 Dex, +22 Cha, +20 Insight, +5 Deflection)
Fort: 62(16 Base, +19 Con, +22 Cha, +5 Resistance)
Ref: 77(27 Base, +23 Dex, +22 Cha, +5 Resistance)
Will: 66(27 Base, +12 Wis, +22 Cha, +5 Resistance)

And that's not counting what you can do with the Fortify Seed, which can grant at the very least:

+28 Enhancement
+10 Circumstance
+10 Competence
+10 Alchemical
+10 Sacred
+10 Insight
+10 Morale
+10 Luck

For a total of +98 to any ability score, or a bonus +49 mod, which translates into an additional +98 to AC or Saves since this build has Cha and another relevant stat to each of those statistics.

And I'm limiting myself to only what's doable within Ranks, double Charisma(from aura and non-epic WBL), and a d20 roll. With 10 minute casting times, and a little backlash, you don't even need any of the d20.

[Vendle]

A competence bonus specifically doesn't apply to ability checks or other rolls that aren't related to a character's level or skill ranks, so I doubt that it can be used to raise an ability score.
His Spellcraft and other skills could still benefit from a competence bonus.

The rest looks good, though.