Making Wizard Duels more awesome?

[ShadowFireLance]

So, I'm reading a comic with two extremely (Think Tippy Optimized 20th level Wizards) powerful Wizards dueling, and the surrounding landscape gets annihilated, as the result of the sheer arcane energy, and the power of the spells.

Messing around with two 20th level Wizards still doesn't produce massively powerful explosions and such like you would expect.

Any suggestions other than; "Fluff?"

[Toy Killer]

Besides fluff?

Revise the magic system. Too much work? Limit self research and make spells difficult to find.

In TO, wizards are nigh-immortal; Only succumbing by the overwhelming DM fiat. Other then narrowing the scope of spells available or completely revising the magic system will make the battle more to your liking.

[JaronK]

The thing is, a smart Wizard is going to be more efficient with their magic... they're not going to waste spells blowing up the mountains nearby.

JaronK

[ArcturusV]

Well, probably would as a result of most Level 20 Wizard Duels I see on this board involve gating in something nasty. And said gated in thing probably isn't going to care about the local landscape or surgical precision as the wizard himself might. So that would probably be a good place to look for your random explosions and burninations.

[Tvtyrant]

The flashiest spells tend to be the worst in D&D. Prismatic Deluge (especially with sudden widen) would be hilariously over the top looking, but is basically a 7th level spell being cast over a larger area.

[Norin]

Hum... What comic? :)

[mregecko]

Hum... What comic? :)

+1 to this.

[Darth Stabber]

Flashy efficacious types of spells

Illusions: can be very effective, but trueseeing negates them entirely,
Big blast spells: mostly not a good use of actions, orbs are good, but they're not that flashy. The big spells do a decent job of getting around miss chance though, even still conjuration's generally smaller ones are unaffected by SR, making them more useful than the larger evocations.
Tranform into a monster: works well for shredding thing asunder, but I would rather aim a wizard's usually weak fortitude save than his HP.
Summoning big monsters: similar to above, but these are how you make the action economy work for you.
animating big undead: similar to summoning only more permanent.


How it actually usully goes.

Wizard A uses divination spells to learn about wizard B.
Wizard A teleports two wizard B
all sorts of contingent effects go off
one of the wizards fails a save and dies.

[JaronK]

Persistent Boreal Wind is certainly one option for a "collateral damage" spell. I could definitely also see an Anima Mage Wizard launching Apocalypse From the Sky as a way of harming his opponent too, if his opponent was being annoying with Illusions.

JaronK

[Lightlawbliss]

Step one: convince two hyper-intelegent supper beings that a duel to the death is the best option
Step two: Make the above agree to only fight with spells that look amazing and in places that look amazing.

[Blackhawk748]

Step one: convince two hyper-intelegent supper beings that a duel to the death is the best option
Step two: Make the above agree to only fight with spells that look amazing and in places that look amazing.

Step three: Kill the winner after he is weakened and loot both corpses
Step four: PROFIT!

On a more serious note, i made a Feat that makes Counterspelling an Immediate action, the prereq was just Improved Counterspell. Is it overpowered? Maybe hasnt been in my case, but thats because both my players and mage villains take it, so pretty epic duels go down.

[MukkTB]

I'm pretty sure that when high level TO casters go toe to toe mortals wouldn't even really be able to tell whats happening. It would look bizarre. Common things would include fighting from a demiplane, using save or dies that didn't do anything unless a saving throw was made, starting the fight off as a turtle, and firing off disjunctions that don't have visible form until they tear apart the gaudy magic and so forth.

It would be over in seconds. Between celerity and contingent spells and given that most fights only last a couple rounds anyway (18 seconds) there wouldn't be any time to process what was going on. Assuming that spells with visible effects were used, it would look like two colorful explosions instantly happening around the two involved parties.

It's nearly impossible to see who's 'winning.' Suddenly one person will fail a saving throw or not have a counter to the other guy's action and just be dead.

It may not happen in the material plane at all.

Everything may go to **** at once, Pirana Death Trap style.
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19868534/The_Mailman:_A_Direct_Damage_Sorcerer?pg=1
One minute nothing is hapening. The next minute the world is full of sharp pointy painful death. And then its done.

Effects will be difficult to predict and random in appearance. A peasant isn't going to watch a stray fireball leisurely miss the target and light a hill on fire. They're going to suddenly see some bizarre manifestation of something probably terrifying and inexplicable.

Large scale gaudy spells tend to be the domain of people who just like to **** things up. Locate city bomb comes to mind. Even if it was RAW legal it wouldn't be good for duels. Its for screwing with large populations of peasants.

I think that Terry Pratchett got the feel for the thing right in his books.

[eggynack]

Don't use 20th level wizards. As has been mentioned, 20th level wizard bouts aren't very entertaining to watch. The first guy launches a defenses test, and if the other guy passes, he gets to launch his defenses test. There's some screwing with the action economy involved as well. In any case, instead of setting it at a level where rocket tag is the best strategy, maybe you should try it at an earlier level. At level seven, for example, a duel is less like "Fwozop. You're dead," and more like, "Fwazam. Here's a solid fog," or, "Fwoozhywoozhy. Here's a cool summoned creature." I don't know what the ideal level is where spells aren't just instantly deadly, but where the duel still has an interesting level of power behind it, but it's not level 20. It might seem counter-intuitive, but lowering the level increases the awesomeness.

[Forrestfire]

One houserule I like to use for high level duels is that when you use multiple high level magics in the same area, everyone who can see is affected by a 3rd-round Detect Magic. Gives you a bunch of flashy lights to go with the wizards' super-speed combat.



I'm pretty sure that when high level TO casters go toe to toe mortals wouldn't even really be able to tell whats happening. It would look bizarre. Common things would include fighting from a demiplane, using save or dies that didn't do anything unless a saving throw was made, starting the fight off as a turtle, and firing off disjunctions that don't have visible form until they tear apart the gaudy magic and so forth.

It would be over in seconds. Between celerity and contingent spells and given that most fights only last a couple rounds anyway (18 seconds) there wouldn't be any time to process what was going on. Assuming that spells with visible effects were used, it would look like two colorful explosions instantly happening around the two involved parties.

It's nearly impossible to see who's 'winning.' Suddenly one person will fail a saving throw or not have a counter to the other guy's action and just be dead.


So watching a duel between 20th level wizards is like a civilian watching Super Saiyans duke it out.

Thank you for this mental image :smallbiggrin:

[Fable Wright]

Basically, if you want big flashy effects, make it less about Wizards trying to kill each other, and more about Wizards showing off. Perhaps, rather than a fight to the death, they're trying to settle a dispute, and they do so in the most amusing manner available: Making **** blow up. Perhaps each wizard has a rock that they can hide within a given area, and they have 24 hours to find a location for it and set up defenses around it to make it immune/resistant to scrying attempts. On the word 'go', each wizard proceeds to start blowing up as much stuff as possible and causing massive collateral damage to try and pinpoint the location of/damage the rock, while stalling the other Wizard with offensive tactics to force them to be careful. After one rock explodes, the dispute is settled, and both go back about their business with the results in hand.

[Rogue Shadows]

The locate city bomb is pretty flashy...

[Blackhawk748]

Basically, if you want big flashy effects, make it less about Wizards trying to kill each other, and more about Wizards showing off. Perhaps, rather than a fight to the death, they're trying to settle a dispute, and they do so in the most amusing manner available: Making **** blow up. Perhaps each wizard has a rock that they can hide within a given area, and they have 24 hours to find a location for it and set up defenses around it to make it immune/resistant to scrying attempts. On the word 'go', each wizard proceeds to start blowing up as much stuff as possible and causing massive collateral damage to try and pinpoint the location of/damage the rock, while stalling the other Wizard with offensive tactics to force them to be careful. After one rock explodes, the dispute is settled, and both go back about their business with the results in hand.

I love this idea, i feel it must be used

[TuggyNE]

So, I'm reading a comic with two extremely (Think Tippy Optimized 20th level Wizards) powerful Wizards dueling, and the surrounding landscape gets annihilated, as the result of the sheer arcane energy, and the power of the spells.

Messing around with two 20th level Wizards still doesn't produce massively powerful explosions and such like you would expect.

Any suggestions other than; "Fluff?"

Don't use Wizards; they're too smart to waste their effort on stuff that doesn't work so great.

Use Sorcerers, because they're all about the flash. That's what high Cha gives you! :smalltongue:

[Lightlawbliss]

...
Use Sorcerers, because they're all about the flash. That's what high Cha gives you! :smalltongue:

I would love to see a Bard Duel.

Throw in the rock hunt idea and you have a rock concert.

[Scow2]

Don't use Wizards; they're too smart to waste their effort on stuff that doesn't work so great.

Use Sorcerers, because they're all about the flash. That's what high Cha gives you! :smalltongue:

They also tend to have flashier spells mechanically, because they can't tailor their spell loadout for the encounter and rely on 'general' loadouts. They tend to have a large number of utility, lockdown, AoE, and highly-spammable spells.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I would love to see a Bard Duel.

Throw in the rock hunt idea and you have a rock concert.

20th level Bard duels would pretty much be "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", wouldn't they?

Or the climax to Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny, which is more or less the same thing with more Power of Friendship.

[Darth Stabber]

They also tend to have flashier spells mechanically, because they can't tailor their spell loadout for the encounter and rely on 'general' loadouts. They tend to have a large number of utility, lockdown, AoE, and highly-spammable spells.

That just make me want to see two mailmen sorcs go at it. Beam spam, HO! Whoever loses initiative is only a smouldering crater.

[MukkTB]

The mailman is a slight improvement, however it wouldn't be very interesting to see. One guy wins initiative. The other casts celerity. Umm. I don't know what happens next. I think the initiative winner casts celerity himself and blows away the loser. That still assumes they're both on the same plane of existence and not running contingencies or other interesting stuff. One halfway decent looking blast and its over. Probably an orb so you won't even get a cool looking lightning bolt or anything. We're talking two cowboys doing quick draw, not the stuff epic magic duels are made of. Cool in its own right.

What we really need is a link to a high op duel featuring a couple T1 casters. They run them on these boards on occasion.

[eggynack]

How about a druid duel instead? A lot of druid tactics are less direct than wizard tactics, so you might get more interaction. Having your armies of summons fight away on the ground while you try to engage each other directly through the maelstrom could be cool. Druids also get some of the flashier and more world destroying spells, though many of them have long casting times. Basically anything that creates a natural disaster is pretty great for this. I particularly like summoning an oread for earthquake purposes, but they're all on the druid list, so you get some choice.

[Darth Stabber]

How about a druid duel instead? A lot of druid tactics are less direct than wizard tactics, so you might get more interaction. Having your armies of summons fight away on the ground while you try to engage each other directly through the maelstrom could be cool. Druids also get some of the flashier and more world destroying spells, though many of them have long casting times. Basically anything that creates a natural disaster is pretty great for this. I particularly like summoning an oread for earthquake purposes, but they're all on the druid list, so you get some choice.

Plus there is th titanic clash as two bear/dinosaur/mastadon commanders covered in wilding clasp'd magical trinkets crash into each other.

[eggynack]

Plus there is th titanic clash as two bear/dinosaur/mastadon commanders covered in wilding clasp'd magical trinkets crash into each other.
Quite so. There's a lot to love about the druid duel. I've gotta figure that wild shape'd punching wouldn't get involved until both druids are basically out of other resources, but that just means that it becomes the climax if the fight drags out.

[TrollCapAmerica]

Plus there is th titanic clash as two bear/dinosaur/mastadon commanders covered in wilding clasp'd magical trinkets crash into each other.

Reminds me of a PA comic I once read where a UFC fight ends like this


http://pigroll.com/img/****_bear_punch.jpg

[Malak'ai]

I have to quote the character Nakor from Raymond E Feist's Serpent War Saga for this.

This is how a Wizards duel goes. First wizard throws spell. Second wizard counters. Third wizard throws spell back. Forth wizard counter. Man with sword comes along and kills all the wizards while they're distracted.

I know it's slightly different in D&D, but the principle is still basically the same, IMO anyway. Wizard Duel's are pointless and leave the Wizard vulnerable to others around them.

[ahenobarbi]

Well that's because in d&d you rarely have side effects of what you do affect environment.

Also a nice mock-up fight that doesn't revolve around Gating in the spoiler here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=259430).

[eggynack]

Well that's because in d&d you rarely have side effects of what you do affect environment.

Also a nice mock-up fight that doesn't revolve around Gating in the spoiler here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=259430).
Well, as I mentioned, that's only if you're not a druid. Druids are always fooming about with boreal winds, and blizzards that enable shenanigans, and huge summons that stick around for a bit. Hell, possibly their best blasting technique, cones of cold from summoned orglashes, leaves huge elementals behind in their wake. They effectively get earthquake as a 6th level spell, and that has huge environmental impact. If you want to combine interesting tactical combat with huge side effects on the environment, I think that druid combat has to be the way to go. You're not necessarily going to leave the surrounding land a desiccated husk, but you might, and it's going to be a lot less all or nothing than wizard combat.

[Ravitiate]

While I can appriciate a good flashy duel as much as the next action fan, a wizards dual isn’t about flashiness, it’s about deduction, being able to plan, thinking ahead and using your actions as effectively as you can. It’s less Dragonball Z and more Death Note than anything. As the DM and storyteller, it’s up to you to make the inner monologues entertaining, make intelligent being number one relinquish a good strategy because he assumes the other has planned for it, and make the intelligent being number two go for that strategy because he assumes that the other assumes it’s too obvious to be the choice. The D&D version of an optimized Wizards-duel is a mind game between chess-masters, not a trifling battle with Fireballs.

Thinking about good Wizards duels made me think of War of the Spider Queen books though, found a relevant excerpt you might be able to draw some inspiration from:

As Syrzan wove magic, its dark elf counterpart was hastily doing the same. The lich finished first. A blaze of lightning, kin to those still twisting and forking through the open air outside, leaped from its parched, scaling hand, crackled entirely through Pharaun's torso, and burned a black spot on the ceiling.

Pharaun's muscles clenched, and his hair lifted away from his head, but his protections averted any real harm. Indeed, the attack didn't even disrupt his own conjuring. On the final word, he thrust out his hand, releasing a wave of cold, fluttering shadows like ghostly bats.
Screeching and chattering, the phantoms swooped and whirled about the alhoon, slashing at it with their claws. The mind flayer growled a word in some infernal tongue, and a jagged crack snaked up one of the walls. Pharaun's illusory minions vanished.

The Mizzrym extracted five glass marbles from one of his pockets, rolled them dexterously in his palm, and rattled off a brief tercet. A quintet of luminous spheres appeared in the air and shot toward Syrzan, attacking it with fire, sound, cold, acid, and lightning simultaneously. Surely at least one of those forces would pierce its defenses.


Syrzan gave a rasping, clacking shriek and swept its hand through the air. In an instant, the orbs reversed their courses, streaking back at their source as fast as they'd sped away. Caught by surprise, Pharaun nonetheless attempted to dodge in the only manner possible. He restored
his weight and dropped toward the floor like a stone. Two of the radiant projectiles streaked past him to explode against the ceiling. Two more simply vanished when they came into contact with his piwafwi. The fifth ghosted into his chest.

The loudest scream he'd ever heard shook his bones, jabbed agony through his ears, and smashed his thoughts to pieces. Stunned, he kept plummeting until he smashed down in the midst of the melee. For a moment he simply lay amidst scores of shifting, stamping feet, then his mind focused, and he realized he needed to get off the floor before somebody trampled him. He started to scramble up, and a swinging length of chain struck him on the temple.
It was just a glancing blow, but it knocked him back down. A kyton loomed over him, whirling its flexible weapons around for another attack. The spirit had Sabal's face.

Pharaun pointed his finger and rattled off a spell, realizing partway through that he couldn't hear himself—or anything else. Seconds before, the battle had been a hammering cacophony, but it had fallen silent.

Luckily he didn't need to hear his voice to recite a spell. Power blazed from his fingertip into the devil's body. In a heartbeat, the kyton's flesh shriveled within its wrapping of chain. The links sliding and flopping around it, the fiend collapsed.
(…)
Pharaun levitated, only to find himself mere feet from something the illithilich must have conjured while its fellow mage was floundering about below. It was a huge, phosphorescent, disembodied illlthid head, with mouth tentacles longer than the drow was tall. The members writhing, the squidlike construct flew forward. Up close, it smelled fishy.

Pharaun snatched a white leather glove and a chip of clear crystal from his cloak and commenced a spell. A tapered tentacle tip whipped around his forearm, tugged, and nearly spoiled the final manipulation, but he pulled free and completed the pass successfully. An immense hand made of ice appeared beside the mind flayers head. It wrapped its fingers around it, dug its talons in, and held the thing immobile. The only problem was that the phantom illithid head was still blocking Pharaun's view. He simultaneously wove a spell and bobbed lower until he saw Syrzan.

On the final word of the incantation, white fire erupted from the alhoon's desiccated flesh . . . fire that died a second later. The magic should have transformed the undead wizard into an inanimate corpse, but the only effect had been to singe its shabby robe a little. Pharaun reflected that despite several attempts, he had yet to injure or even jostle his adversary. If the dark elf hadn't known better, he might have wondered if Syrzan was not in fact the better arcanist.
Two things strike me – 1. It’s all about story telling – 2. Non-optimized wizards probably make for more flashy battles.

[Killer Angel]

Messing around with two 20th level Wizards still doesn't produce massively powerful explosions and such like you would expect.


Wizards' duels are not always a massive display of power (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHunA6CYHvo). :smallbiggrin: