At what level can a practically optimized party kill an unoptimized level 20 party?

[faircoin]

Assuming same composition between both parties. Let me throw out some definitions. Even if you'd disagree, these are the definitions we're working with for this question specifically.

Practically optimized = what you'd see in an Iron Chef challenge, or maybe a little higher.
Unoptimized = a character WotC would publish.

Mind you, I mean what I typed in the title. "Kill", as in, not win, not adventure better than, but as in fully killing the other party.

[Epsilon Rose]

Are there any rules about party composition? I assume that the WotC party will be made of traditional mage, divine, tank, utility classes, but is the challenging party allowed to be 3 wizards and a druid?

[Yora]

Using trickery, level 1.

Wait for the level 20 party to be in the correct spot and then kill them with a huge bomb causing a massive landslide.

[faircoin]

Are there any rules about party composition? I assume that the WotC party will be made of traditional mage, divine, tank, utility classes, but is the challenging party allowed to be 3 wizards and a druid?

Why not traditional. I'm sure it gets really screwy with 3 wizards and druid.

[Garktz]

Are there any rules about party composition? I assume that the WotC party will be made of traditional mage, divine, tank, utility classes, but is the challenging party allowed to be 3 wizards and a druid?

as op said, same party, lower level higly optimized vs 20lvl non optimized party...

i.ll say around lvl 15 or so if chars are made by "default wotc"

lets compare 1v1
fighter/barbarian, ubercharger lvl15 can oneshot a lvl20 fighter/barbarian

cleric lvl 15 dmm:persist vs cleric lvl20 focused on healing

"god" wizard lvl15 vs blaster wizard lvl20

not sure about a lvl 15 rogue vs lvl 20 rogue

if not level 15 wont be far from that

[ItWasFutile]

I can do it at level 9 without putting much thought into it. At all.

[(Un)Inspired]

I remember looking at WOTC's official write up of that drow fellow who likes scimitars. He had around twenty levels and I remember thinking that the 6th level character I was playing at the time would ruin him.

[Slipperychicken]

I can do it at level 9 without putting much thought into it. At all.

One of the more important rules of optimizing is "Show, don't tell" -It's nice that you have claims, but you need to post your build/trick/strategy/whatever to back it up

Also, one always earns points for restricting oneself to builds and tricks which would be permissible in real games, and also for being efficient (using as few character resources, like levels, feats, WBL, and skillpoints, as possible).

[Lord Vukodlak]

The trick is that high level spells can make a huge difference and what is optimization.

It might not matter how wall you've optimized your 15th level characters if they lose initiative A disjunction followed up by blasphemy(or appropriate spell to oppose the parties alignment) could easily TPK the group. Any protections you might have against the effects of Blasphemy are remove by the disjunction and there is no saving throw against blasphemy.

The sample NPC's in the DMG could pull it off quite easily. But would that be optimization? Is preparing the right spells part of optimization or just good sense?

[Qc Storm]

Pretty sure that Web could ruin any unoptimized party's day.

DC 20 STR check is pretty mean.

[Story]

If by PO, you mean the kind of stuff Tippy plays with, then probably level 1.

But anyway, I think it'd be hard to say without seeing the WOTC party we're going up against, as well as the conditions of the fight. I wouldn't be surprised if it could be done at level 10 or less though.

[Snowbluff]

15 would be too easy... hmm... 13 Simulacrum the party twice.

[StreamOfTheSky]

If Dust of Sneezing and Choking is legal, and no defense against it allowed for the unoptimized level 20-ers (nor are they allowed to "metagame" to know they should intentionally fail the saves)...they still need to be able to actually kill them all in 5-7 rounds. So, I'll go with around 6th level.

[ArcturusV]

Hmm... I'm almost tempted to say 6 for something like Leadership into Arrow Volleys. As WotC NPCs tend to lack Ranged combat options beyond "Throw a fireball/lightning bolt" (Least the ones I remember) or occasionally having a short bow/throw weapon. Meaning that a bunch of level 1 followers with proper bows will outrange the level 20 party. Supply them with horses, Kaufman Retrograde the volleys until they're dead? Only one in a typical WotC party you'd have trouble with in that method would be the typical Halfaman Rogue type thanks to Evasion and the pitifully DC 15 to dodge a volley.

But then it has the problem of being a Halfling Rogue, and could get Webbed and Magic Missiled out by that level 6 party.

Granted, using Leadership should disqualify that tactic anyway. As leadership tends to create borked results. Only reason it's really in there is to set up the numbers you'd need to tick off volley rules (Thus making it faster). You could do it longer, and slower, just plinking single arrows and wearing them down with lucky hits.

But I'm not a high optimizer type.

[CIDE]

I remember looking at WOTC's official write up of that drow fellow who likes scimitars. He had around twenty levels and I remember thinking that the 6th level character I was playing at the time would ruin him.

I remember thinking the exact same thing with a level 9 character of mine. Just never got to test it.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Practically optimized = what you'd see in an Iron Chef challenge, or maybe a little higher.

Higher than that. Iron Chef is specifically about optimizing bad PrCs.

PO goes up to Mailman.

[SowZ]

Without real shenanigans, lets say an arena fight, I'd say level six or so.

[Tavar]

Might depend on exactly how poorly optimized they are, especially regarding the wealth.

[NichG]

I think you should specify the exact 'unoptimized party' that people are trying to kill, as well as roughly what kinds of tactics they use. Otherwise it becomes a question about 'how badly optimized do people think unoptimized is'.

I would guess something around ~Lv5-6 once Dust of Sneezing and Choking becomes a reasonable option within WBL, but its hard to 'show, not tell' without something to show it against.

[CIDE]

Might depend on exactly how poorly optimized they are, especially regarding the wealth.

Have you seen how bad Drizzt's stats are...?

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=fr/fx20010117d

[Emperor Tippy]

Let's see, a single level 8 Factotum vs. a level 20 wotc party. That is when I could do it fairly consistently.

Craft Contingent Shapechange, Craft Contingent Selective Antimagic Field, Craft Contingent Lesser Ironguard, Craft Contingent Widened Forcecage, Craft Contingent Wraithstrike, Craft Contingent Greater Invisibility, Craft Contingent Teleport.

Shapechange to Zodar to Wish myself right next to the party which triggers the next five contingencies to knock out all of their magic items and defenses and make me immune to all metal weapons and trap all of us inside of a force box that they can't flee from. Use Thinaun Shortswords to go to town using Cunning Insight to ensure hits and for extra damage and Cunning Surge to drop them just as fast as possible, throw on some Cunning Strike and Assassins Stance as well (one of the Burning Blade line for extra damage as well, possibly Craven if the DM will let it work with your sneak attack). Should be able to drop the party wizard and other non front-line classes in a hit or two. By the time you are out of IP (thanks to Font of Inspiration) the whole party should be dead and your Teleport should trigger to get you the hell out of there.

That should work against WotC ECL 20 parties, those tend to be pretty crappy.

[Urpriest]

If we want to get concrete, let's pick a concrete set of NPCs.

They're 15th rather than 20th, but Tordek/Jozan/Mialee/Lidda at 15th level from Enemies and Allies are fully statted out along with spells prepared. Would help us narrow things down.

Edit: The fact that they're 3.0 would require some translation work though.

[(Un)Inspired]

Have you seen how bad Drizzt's stats are...?

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=fr/fx20010117d

oh my god thank you for posting that. I forgot how truly pathetic he really is.

He has no ranged capacity whatsoever. Levitate+Crossbow= Dead moron with swords and you can shoot his cat until it turns back into a mini fig.

[Gemini476]

Have you seen the Iconics from Enemies and Allies?

The highest level versions of them are level 15, but they're hilarious.

Here's Mialee's prepared spells:

0 - Arcane Mark, Dancing Lights, Detect Magic, Read Magic
1 - Charm Person (2), Feather Fall, Mage Armor (2), Magic Missile (2), Shield (3)
2 - Blur (2), Detect Thoughts (2), Invisibility, Knock, Melf's Acid Arrow (2), Web (2)
3 - Dispel Magic (2), Fireball, Fly, Lightning Bolt, Suggestion
4 - Charm Monster (2), Stoneskin (2), Wall of Fire
5 - Cone of Cold, Dominate Person, Hold Monster, Teleport, Wall of Force
6 - Chain Lightning, Disintegrate, Greater Dispelling, Mass Suggestion
7 - Finger of Death, Plane Shift, Prismatic Spray
8 - Horrid Wilting

She also has Spell Focus (Enchantment) and Spell Focus (Evocation), so the DC for those spells are 19 + spell level.

She also has 72 hp and AC 24 (+4 Mage Armor, +4 Shield, +5 Dex).


So the tactics I would suggest would be to have some sort of Charger and a Battlefield Control Wizard. Have the Wizard lock down all the non-casters with something like Web, and then let the Charger/Dungeoncrasher/Whirling Frenzy Pouncer murderize the casters. Once that is done, work together to finish off the rest.

I'm not entirely sure what the minimum level is, but level 7 would give both Black Tentacles and WhirlPounceBarb 1/DunCrashFight 6, so that's definitely an option. It's all a question of what counts as "optimized", of course.

[jokeaccount]

Sorry for being a "noob" in here but I don't see why the WotC wizard can't just power word kill half the party in the first few rounds. Calculating average health for a cleric lvl 15 i get 101 hp (assuming 14 constituion. If they have bought amulets of +4 it goes up a bit but still). And don't tell me everyone is death warded etc.

[Story]

Well for one thing, it only targets 1 person, so it wouldn't kill half the party.

[Doc_Maynot]

Group of level 1 chicken infested commoners that took enough flaws to get quick draw and the like, probably could.

[jokeaccount]

Sure but I don't see anyone here dispatching the party in 1 round -_-. I'm pretty sure even a well placed time stop could work

EDIT: Obviously if by "WotC party" we're also talking about them playing bad and having picked chain lightning and inflict critical wounds etc then obviously they lose -_-

[Story]

A level 10 party would probably have Talismans of Undying Fortitude, assuming they didn't just go Necropolitan (which might actually be problematic when facing a high level Cleric).

At lower level, it gets tricker, but the mere fact that you're seriously considering a fight of level 6 characters against what should be Gods is telling.

Also can't do Power Word Kill during a Timestop.



Sure but I don't see anyone here dispatching the party in 1 round -_-. I'm pretty sure even a well placed time stop could work

EDIT: Obviously if by "WotC party" we're also talking about them playing bad and having picked chain lightning and inflict critical wounds etc then obviously they lose -_-

Well the only WOTC chars posted here did in fact choose Chain Lightning. Unfortunately, noone has found a level 20 WOTC party stated out yet.

[Epsilon Rose]

[Death]
Question: How much of that is them being poorly optimized and how much is just you breaking things? What would a decently optimized party do about this sort of attack?


Sorry for being a "noob" in here but I don't see why the WotC wizard can't just power word kill half the party in the first few rounds. Calculating average health for a cleric lvl 15 i get 101 hp (assuming 14 constituion. If they have bought amulets of +4 it goes up a bit but still). And don't tell me everyone is death warded etc.

Everyone is death warded, etc. It's a fourth level spell and a basic precaution if you're setting out to kill a high-level character. Why wouldn't the take steps to defend themselves against death attacks?

[Lord Vukodlak]

Let's see, a single level 8 Factotum vs. a level 20 wotc party. That is when I could do it fairly consistently.

Craft Contingent Shapechange, Craft Contingent Selective Antimagic Field, Craft Contingent Lesser Ironguard, Craft Contingent Widened Forcecage, Craft Contingent Wraithstrike, Craft Contingent Greater Invisibility, Craft Contingent Teleport.

Shapechange to Zodar to Wish myself right next to the party which triggers the next five contingencies to knock out all of their magic items and defenses and make me immune to all metal weapons and trap all of us inside of a force box that they can't flee from. Use Thinaun Shortswords to go to town using Cunning Insight to ensure hits and for extra damage and Cunning Surge to drop them just as fast as possible, throw on some Cunning Strike and Assassins Stance as well (one of the Burning Blade line for extra damage as well, possibly Craven if the DM will let it work with your sneak attack). Should be able to drop the party wizard and other non front-line classes in a hit or two. By the time you are out of IP (thanks to Font of Inspiration) the whole party should be dead and your Teleport should trigger to get you the hell out of there.

That should work against WotC ECL 20 parties, those tend to be pretty crappy.
I have to ask how the guy pulls off crafting all those contingent spells, I fail to see how a level 9 Factotum can use arcane dilettante to duplicate 9th level spells.(or even 6th level spells). If we go strictly by whats on the table at 9th level his maximum should be four.(equal to the number of spells he can use via arcane dilettante) Or 2nd because the ability is never actually shown to increase on the table. He certainly can't duplicate 9th level spells. Not to mention being able to afford all those craft contingencies.

So near as I can tell this attempt fails because it can't actually do what you say it can do.

[jokeaccount]

-I wasn't talking about the wizard using power word kill in time stop rounds. Obviously another setup would be used here i haven't thought of something though.

-When the OP said poorly optimized what I see is a lvl 20 ftr, wiz, cler, rog/bard/whatever. They also have chosen some basic feats etc (no "cheese stuffz like uber chargers and mailmen etc"). That however does not make them retards in the choice they have with their spells and weapons they use etc. Yes they won't have the most obscure item in MIC but they will still have basic stuff from DMG.

-If the low level party is buffed up then so is the higher level party. And I'm pretty sure the lvl 20 greater dispel DC wins. Hell the Wizard could even go full Elminster mode and wish for the low level party to have -X on saves for that battle and just FoG them and stuff

[Akal Saris]

I think it all depends on assumptions. A party that is built specifically to overcome a party of mediocre L20's and gets to initiate the encounter could probably do so before level 8 by using a few key cheesy tricks.

While an "optimized" party that was built to be very good at adventuring/combat and didn't have prior knowledge of their opponents or the opportunity to lay an ambush would need to be much higher level, maybe level 10-14.

At a certain point, the key is going to be winning initiative, because by L12 any number of optimized spellcasters are going to have lose-or-lose harder spells and damage-focused classes will be able to deal 200+ damage per round, killing the spellcasters in the unoptimized party before their initiative count. And the non-casters are unlikely to be a threat once the wizard and cleric are down.

[gooddragon1]

5th level and no money (well 1 light crossbow, 1 bolt, 100 stamps, some adhesive).
100 Explosive Runes (Use the variant class feature of the specialist diviner to add int to CL for each one), Invisibility, Dispel Magic, True Strike

The wizard casts the explosive runes ahead of time and buffs his caster level with his ACF for each one Gray elf with 20 int +4 from fox cunning = +7 CL for +12 to caster level to break through spell resistance (Mantle of spell resist gives +21 if any one of the unoptimized ones is wearing it).

The wizard then casts true strike and invisibility on himself. The cleric uses his trickery domain to cast invisibility on himself. They wait for the unoptimized party to get within the 10 feet of one another (probably a group huddle). The wizard fires a crossbow bolt with the 100 explosive runes attached in the form of stamps with a light adhesive at the 5 foot square in the middle of the unoptimized party. The clerics readied action to dispel magic on an area is triggered and he deliberately fails the check for each explosive rune. The enemy party takes 600d6 force damage. No initiative is rolled, saving throws are largely irrelevant, spell resistance is not effective enough to stop all of it or even near to enough of it, improved evasion still isn't enough. The unoptimized party is killed without really the benefit of a save for the most part.

This party is optimized but was not built specifically to defeat the unoptimized party. Those are all commonly available and good choices.

And yes it is (at least slightly) optimized because a gray elf is a +2 to int race and the alternate class feature rather than stock wizard. And the choice of trickery domain for a cleric. The really funny part here is that if the wizard had a rod of quicken (least) he could do this all by himself.

[tyckspoon]

Well the only WOTC chars posted here did in fact choose Chain Lightning. Unfortunately, noone has found a level 20 WOTC party stated out yet.

It should be relatively easy to advance the Enemies and Allies iconics to 20th; they're all straight-classed using only PHB material with a fairly obvious theme. You can almost just HD-advance them through the remaining five class levels and they won't end up too different... The most difficult thing would probably be calibrating to the appropriate level of derpitude in selecting their gear (Mialee 15 has a magic rapier and bow. She should never, ever, ever be using them, and they appear to be there just because Elf. Regdar 15 has a freaking Headband of Intellect +4 and a stack of Potions of Cure Moderate Wounds that will restore less than 1/10th of his HP on average. Kicker: He doesn't even have the Combat Expertise line of feats that would justify wearing the Headband to meet pre-reqs.)

[Lord Vukodlak]

5th level and no money (well 1 light crossbow, 1 bolt, 100 stamps, some adhesive).
100 Explosive Runes (Use the variant class feature of the specialist diviner to add int to CL for each one), Invisibility, Dispel Magic, True Strike


The first explosive ruins detonates annihilating the stamps and the 100 other explosive ruins before you role the dispel chance against them. You don't roll the dispel against every explosive ruin then record the results, that's not how combat works. You record the results as they happen. So the first explosive detonates and destroys the objects carrying the others.
.
And does it count as being optimized if a wizard can used permanency for arcane sight and see invisibility that sounds as basic as maxing out your concentration. That would of course let the wizard hit your duo with a maximized fireball from a thousand feet away.

So where is the line between an unoptimized party and a stupid party. I'd say a wizard who hasn't made arcane sight and see invisibility permanent via permanency by 20th level is on the stupid side of the line.

[gooddragon1]

The first explosive ruins detonates annihilating the stamps and the 100 other explosive ruins before you role the dispel chance against them. You don't roll the dispel against every explosive ruin then record the results, that's not how combat works. You record the results as they happen. So the first explosive detonates and destroys the objects carrying the others.
.
And does it count as being optimized if a wizard can used permanency for arcane sight and see invisibility that sounds as basic as maxing out your concentration. That would of course let the wizard hit your duo with a maximized fireball from a thousand feet away.

Get a crossbow and fire from 150 feet out. The wizard doesn't take ranks in spot or listen because it's cross class so he's at -14 to spot and listen. If you have any degree of optimization you can get a reasonably good hide and move silently check without having ranks in them such that even if he had see invisibility it wouldn't matter. Dispel magic is a burst so it affects everything simultaneously if you aim it right. You make the checks in order if you want to but you could just roll 100d20 to find out. There is no rule I've ever seen where it means that the explosive runes are detonated sequentially. I'd advocate a silence spell on the part of the cleric but that would necessitate the use of a metamagic rod of silent spell.

[Snowbluff]

The first explosive ruins detonates annihilating the stamps and the 100 other explosive ruins before you role the dispel chance against them. You don't roll the dispel against every explosive ruin then record the results, that's not how combat works. You record the results as they happen. So the first explosive detonates and destroys the objects carrying the others.


There is nothing to suggest they would do anything other than resolve simultaneously.

Adamantine sheets would have hardness 20 and 40 HP per inch. 6d6= ~21, so 2 HP sheets of 1/20 of an inch would give the runes a more than likely chance to survive. Even at 50%, the damage would be great.

EDIT: This is working under the assumption that blowing up an explosive rune isn't an attempt to erase it (which it probably is).

[Lord Vukodlak]

A bolt is also made of several parts but is considered one object. A map of considered one object, likewise a book of maps would be considered one object.
So if you stick a bunch of stamps to the object they become part of one object. The stacking rules apply so only one explosive rune deals damage.

[gooddragon1]

A bolt is also made of several parts but is considered one object. A map of considered one object, likewise a book of maps would be considered one object.
So if you stick a bunch of stamps to the object they become part of one object. The stacking rules apply so only one explosive rune deals damage.

I'd argue against it but I know an easier way: Summon monster, bag of stamps, dimension door. Dimension door puts the summoned monster in the middle of the other party. Summoned monster empties the bag of stamps onto the ground as a readied action (note the "you can’t take any other actions until your next turn" means the spellcaster, not what he cast it on if it wasn't himself). Cleric readied action dispel goes off. Several stamps on the ground later... boom.

Requires 7th level, but... whatever.

[Snowbluff]

A bolt is also made of several parts but is considered one object. A map of considered one object, likewise a book of maps would be considered one object.
So if you stick a bunch of stamps to the object they become part of one object. The stacking rules apply so only one explosive rune deals damage.
*removes binding from book*

Excuse me? Not that it matters. The stacking rules refer to numerical bonuses, with an exception made for mind control. Even if we were to refer to the rule, different amounts of damage are a varying effect using the erroneous logic present in the premise. It sounds to me you crafted this argument to enforce how you think the game should be played, rather than how things work. :smalltongue:

[Tyndmyr]

The trick is that high level spells can make a huge difference and what is optimization.

It might not matter how wall you've optimized your 15th level characters if they lose initiative

Meh, example chars tend towards crappy init. Normally only the rogues are any good. Optimized, assume at least a wand of nerveskitter or something. Probably better stat allocation.

I would give it a go at level five, because that's when you get level three spells, and you've got enough wealth to get some of the fun things going. Maybe six. The example chars are often pretty bad, though.

If I'm fulling letting the optimization genie off the chain, level 1, yes. Keep in mind that I play in the sort of games where "I empty my bag of holding filled with allips" is an entirely legitimate move, and pun pun only fails due to the saurukk not existing. Considering that WoTC sometimes doesn't even bother to give flight or ranged weapons to their NPCs...it's quite likely that some of the party will be literally unable to strike back. Prioritize them last.

I observe that Mialee, having a +0 to con, will have less than 50 hp at level 15(only have her earlier stats handy)...and even at level 20, she's not really beefy. A single Power Word: Pain will reliably kill any char that is under 50 hp. I note that the challenge requirements only require me to kill the higher level party, not ensure my party's survival. She's got only two dispel magics, too...a level one wizard can put out enough volume to overcome her defensive measures in this regard, and her hp are sufficiently low that even a d6/rnd will rapidly impact her hp significantly.

Obviously, the first level wizard will belong to the organization of magic, giving a free, no action, no spell slot auto-counterspell once per day. That disposes of the first dangerous cast of the higher level party, regardless of init. Hell, we can do the same for the cleric easily enough. Two free counters.

The cleric is the next most dangerous adversary, so let's look at Jozan. With feats like Brew Potion and Scribe Scroll, he's not really an offensive beast. Also, from the sources I can find offhand, he doesn't appear to have selected any domains. This limits his versatility. He can heal, of course. This could slow the death of the wizard, if they stick together. Of course, doing so soaks his actions, essentially keeping him out of the fight. He preps a LOT of enchantment based spells with short ranges. These are not especially hard to avoid. That's...most of his offensive capability right there. He can plink away poorly with a crossbow or try to charge with a mace. The level 1 counterpart may actually deal more damage. I note that while the 7th level version would also be vulnerable to the PW: Pain tactic, the 15th level would at least require some shooting first. This is fine. We can make a solid archer cleric that snipes from range while the wizard engages close up. Being able to shut down two spells from the target party means that we only really need to worry about the rogue and the fighter at first, anyway. I suggest our cleric utilize lesser vigor. Given the crappy damage output of the target party, this should automatically get the level 1 party healed back up should they take incidental damage.

Lidda, like the rest, apparently feels that a large volume of crappy magic weapons are better than one good one. In addition, UMD is not a priority, and a light crossbow is her only ranged option. If we're engaging from outside sneak attack range, her damage output is abysmal. Her hp are on par with the clerics. The only *real* danger from her is that she might get lucky with UMDing her wand of invisibility. Now, the casters can rely on detect magic to see her, but this would render the melee fellows mostly useless. Still, with enough range, we can mostly not worry about this. Our rogue can actually have UMD and a wand of magic missile(we haven't really worried about wealth for the rest). Hell, toss her a scroll of detect magic. Problem solved. She contributes reliably to death by hp, and can hold action to force concentration checks on casters via damage, if need be.

Last but not least, Tordek. He's actually a wall of meat and hp, so he's kind of a problem. Kind of. He still has craptastic saves, and his speed is terrible. His best option for flight is his ring of jump. Merely being at the top of a tree would give you plenty of time to deal with him. Grease would be hilariously effective. Still, he does have a comp longbow that he doesn't suck with entirely. The good news is that Tordek isn't that important. If our wizard is a conjuration specialist(which sadly, limits power word pains, but grease is conjuration...), teleports can soak his inevitable charges until he fails a save and becomes mostly useless. Archer cleric, archer fighter, and rogue can engage from up in trees some distance away, while wizard pretty much tanks.

Oh, I forgot. Individual magical arrows are cheap. Everyone has a few arrows of the various appropriate "slaying" categories. The save DCs aren't great, but it's not like the targets have great saves. Speeds the process along.

[gooddragon1]

Meh, example chars tend towards crappy init. Normally only the rogues are any good. Optimized, assume at least a wand of nerveskitter or something. Probably better stat allocation.

I would give it a go at level five, because that's when you get level three spells, and you've got enough wealth to get some of the fun things going. Maybe six. The example chars are often pretty bad, though.

If I'm fulling letting the optimization genie off the chain, level 1, yes. Keep in mind that I play in the sort of games where "I empty my bag of holding filled with allips" is an entirely legitimate move, and pun pun only fails due to the saurukk not existing. Considering that WoTC sometimes doesn't even bother to give flight or ranged weapons to their NPCs...it's quite likely that some of the party will be literally unable to strike back. Prioritize them last.

I observe that Mialee, having a +0 to con, will have less than 50 hp at level 15(only have her earlier stats handy)...and even at level 20, she's not really beefy. A single Power Word: Pain will reliably kill any char that is under 50 hp. I note that the challenge requirements only require me to kill the higher level party, not ensure my party's survival. She's got only two dispel magics, too...a level one wizard can put out enough volume to overcome her defensive measures in this regard, and her hp are sufficiently low that even a d6/rnd will rapidly impact her hp significantly.

Obviously, the first level wizard will belong to the organization of magic, giving a free, no action, no spell slot auto-counterspell once per day. That disposes of the first dangerous cast of the higher level party, regardless of init. Hell, we can do the same for the cleric easily enough. Two free counters.

The cleric is the next most dangerous adversary, so let's look at Jozan. With feats like Brew Potion and Scribe Scroll, he's not really an offensive beast. Also, from the sources I can find offhand, he doesn't appear to have selected any domains. This limits his versatility. He can heal, of course. This could slow the death of the wizard, if they stick together. Of course, doing so soaks his actions, essentially keeping him out of the fight. He preps a LOT of enchantment based spells with short ranges. These are not especially hard to avoid. That's...most of his offensive capability right there. He can plink away poorly with a crossbow or try to charge with a mace. The level 1 counterpart may actually deal more damage. I note that while the 7th level version would also be vulnerable to the PW: Pain tactic, the 15th level would at least require some shooting first. This is fine. We can make a solid archer cleric that snipes from range while the wizard engages close up. Being able to shut down two spells from the target party means that we only really need to worry about the rogue and the fighter at first, anyway. I suggest our cleric utilize lesser vigor. Given the crappy damage output of the target party, this should automatically get the level 1 party healed back up should they take incidental damage.

Lidda, like the rest, apparently feels that a large volume of crappy magic weapons are better than one good one. In addition, UMD is not a priority, and a light crossbow is her only ranged option. If we're engaging from outside sneak attack range, her damage output is abysmal. Her hp are on par with the clerics. The only *real* danger from her is that she might get lucky with UMDing her wand of invisibility. Now, the casters can rely on detect magic to see her, but this would render the melee fellows mostly useless. Still, with enough range, we can mostly not worry about this. Our rogue can actually have UMD and a wand of magic missile(we haven't really worried about wealth for the rest). Hell, toss her a scroll of detect magic. Problem solved. She contributes reliably to death by hp, and can hold action to force concentration checks on casters via damage, if need be.

Last but not least, Tordek. He's actually a wall of meat and hp, so he's kind of a problem. Kind of. He still has craptastic saves, and his speed is terrible. His best option for flight is his ring of jump. Merely being at the top of a tree would give you plenty of time to deal with him. Grease would be hilariously effective. Still, he does have a comp longbow that he doesn't suck with entirely. The good news is that Tordek isn't that important. If our wizard is a conjuration specialist(which sadly, limits power word pains, but grease is conjuration...), teleports can soak his inevitable charges until he fails a save and becomes mostly useless. Archer cleric, archer fighter, and rogue can engage from up in trees some distance away, while wizard pretty much tanks.

Oh, I forgot. Individual magical arrows are cheap. Everyone has a few arrows of the various appropriate "slaying" categories. The save DCs aren't great, but it's not like the targets have great saves. Speeds the process along.

Looks at cards in hand.

"I fold."

[Lord Vukodlak]

snip

Now that is an example of using good optimization and not just a trick that anyone can do regardless of how there character is built.


*removes binding from book*

Excuse me? Not that it matters. The stacking rules refer to numerical bonuses, with an exception made for mind control. Even if we were to refer to the rule, different amounts of damage are a varying effect using the erroneous logic present in the premise. It sounds to me you crafted this argument to enforce how you think the game should be played, rather than how things work. :smalltongue:

Its not that the damage doesn't stack is that the multiple castings of explosive runes on a single object don't stack.

Furthermore back to dispel magic

For each creature within the area that is the subject of one or more spells, you make a dispel check against the spell with the highest caster level. If that check fails, you make dispel checks against progressively weaker spells until you dispel one spell

For each object within the area that is the target of one or more spells, you make dispel checks as with creatures.

Effects are done and resolved one at a time that's just how combat works. Suppose to go off simultaneously just isn't how combat is resolved you might not like it but that's the system we play. The ruins would explode one at a time destroying the other objects before they could explode. That's how combat works.

[gooddragon1]

Its not that the damage doesn't stack is that the multiple castings of explosive runes on a single object don't stack.

Furthermore back to dispel magic


Effects are done and resolved one at a time that's just how combat works. Suppose to go off simultaneously just isn't how combat is resolved you might not like it but that's the system we play. The ruins would explode one at a time destroying the other objects before they could explode. That's how combat works.

They're separate objects now. If they were 1 object that would maybe be the case. A fireball doesn't deal damage 1 at a time. It deals it all at once. A dispel magic should work exactly the same way barring multiple spells on the same object.


For each creature object...

[Snowbluff]

Its not that the damage doesn't stack is that the multiple castings of explosive runes on a single object don't stack.

This is absolutely not the case. It's not a numerical bonus or penalty. None of the other cases in the Rules Compendium refer to this instance.

[Lord Vukodlak]

They're separate objects now. If they were 1 object that would maybe be the case. A fireball doesn't deal damage 1 at a time. It deals it all at once. A dispel magic should work exactly the same way barring multiple spells on the same object.

Fireball deals xd6 damage all at once to everything in the area, the spell doesn't tell you to roll once for each creature caught in the area.

But with dispel magic tells you check each applicable target ONE at a time, the first explosive runes goes off and damages everything within its radius and likely destroying the other explosive ruins in short order. The fact they're all the same doesn't stop you from having to roll once against each object, thus they're resolved one at a time.

Should work the exact same way isn't does, but be happy is having the explosive runes cheese in the game actually a good thing?

[Story]

So where is the line between an unoptimized party and a stupid party. I'd say a wizard who hasn't made arcane sight and see invisibility permanent via permanency by 20th level is on the stupid side of the line.

As pointed out before, WOTC takes stupidity in character building to an artform.

[Rebel7284]

Too many variables, but I have to ask, kill a party of level 20s with what probability? The party can always all roll 1s on initiative and die to the unoptimized wizard's delayed blast fireballs from within a time stop...

I would say that by level 15, you should have over a 95% chance of winning. You probably need at least 4th level spells to compete without rules abuse, so I would say around 50% chance of winning at level 7.

Which is roughly what people are saying. :)

[gooddragon1]

Fireball deals xd6 damage all at once to everything in the area, the spell doesn't tell you to roll once for each creature caught in the area.

But with dispel magic tells you check each applicable target ONE at a time, the first explosive runes goes off and damages everything within its radius and likely destroying the other explosive ruins in short order. The fact they're all the same doesn't stop you from having to roll once against each object, thus they're resolved one at a time.

Should work the exact same way isn't does, but be happy is having the explosive runes cheese in the game actually a good thing?

It's not multiple spells over several turns though. It's a single explosive (in a way) effect. It doesn't need to be "should" work. In fact you're assuming that this takes any time at all. For the purposes of resolving the effects of the dispel you make them separately but this all happens simultaneously. Another example is scorching ray. All 3 targets (max level) are hit simultaneously but take different damage. They all die at the same time however. Spells don't do sequential stuff unless they take up multiple turns. Again, the "sequence" is merely for resolving what is dispelled and ONLY in the case of a target with multiple spells on it would it matter. One spell per object however means they all go off simultaneously as the sequence is merely a formality at that point.

Another example: Antimagic field. You walk into one... it doesn't cause your stuff to fail sequentially. Now you might say, but it says you make the check for each target. Sure you do, but it still resolves all at once. It never says that it resolves them sequentially. You make a dispel check against each one but they resolve at the same time. Exactly the same way you roll damage with scorching ray but all targets are affected at the same time because it originates from a single spell.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Now that people are bringing up the terrible example characters I'm wondering how they're supposed to take on a straightforward level-appropriate challenge like a Marilith, assuming the DM actually uses the SLAs.

The Marilith isn't even their biggest problem, as shown with all the low level tactics listed above, but if a standard CR+2 melee demon can chew up the party with minimal use of special abilities (project image for a little bit, attempt to summon a hezrou, feeblemind a caster, then go to town with full attacks) how wasn't it caught during playtesting? Oh, right.

[Epsilon Rose]

Now that people are bringing up the terrible example characters I'm wondering how they're supposed to take on a straightforward level-appropriate challenge like a Marilith, assuming the DM actually uses the SLAs.

The Marilith isn't even their biggest problem, as shown with all the low level tactics listed above, but if a standard CR+2 melee demon can chew up the party with minimal use of special abilities (project image for a little bit, attempt to summon a hezrou, feeblemind a caster, then go to town with full attacks) how wasn't it caught during playtesting? Oh, right.

Actually, this reminds me of a story I heard once. It was in a YouTube video, but I don't remember the name. Sorry :smalltongue:.

The basics of the story are that the teller was running an old-school (maybe AD&D) game at a con as part of an official circuit type thing. When he looked over the module he was given he saw an encounter where three low-level wizards jump the party with nothing but magic missile prepared. He realized that under no circumstances would this amount to anything, so he gave them more reasonable spells. This resulted in a couple of PC deaths (mainly do to lucky rolls). After the event he was taken aside by a WotC coordinator and told that players weren't supposed to die and their modules were designed with that in mind.

The same might be the case for these NPCs. They might be explicitly designed to lose.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Was anyone supposed to face the iconic party? I thought they were just example characters played to various levels.

[tyckspoon]

Now that people are bringing up the terrible example characters I'm wondering how they're supposed to take on a straightforward level-appropriate challenge like a Marilith, assuming the DM actually uses the SLAs.


That one's relatively easy, actually - Jozan activates his Prayer Bead of Karma and casts Holy Word. His effective caster level of 20 for this spell gives him an excellent chance of beating the Marilith's SR, automatically blinds and deafens the Marilith if he does beat SR, and gives a chance of ending the fight in one spell by banishing the demon. If it doesn't get banished, he may try to follow up with an actual Banishment if he happens to have a few items that are inimical to Mariliths to boost his spell penetration and saving DC; otherwise, he joins the beatdown with Regdar or Tordek and Lidda and dismantles the Marilith in melee before the Holy Word debuffs wear off (as a bonus, if the Marilith had any weaker fiendish allies, they were almost guaranteed to be banished or rendered helpless by the CL 20 Holy Word.)

[NichG]

Well I think you have to consider that encounters that these 'iconics' would face would be run with the same mind for optimization as they themselves were built to. Against CR-appropriate demons that don't use their SLAs intelligently they're probably fine.

It does bring up an interesting point - how powerful can you make these iconic characters by playing them smart with their abilities as written?

[TuggyNE]

Actually, this reminds me of a story I heard once. It was in a YouTube video, but I don't remember the name. Sorry :smalltongue:.

The Spoony Experiment's Leaping Wizards.

[Grollub]

oh my god thank you for posting that. I forgot how truly pathetic he really is.

He has no ranged capacity whatsoever. Levitate+Crossbow= Dead moron with swords and you can shoot his cat until it turns back into a mini fig.

haha.. truly amazing

[gooddragon1]

Well I think you have to consider that encounters that these 'iconics' would face would be run with the same mind for optimization as they themselves were built to. Against CR-appropriate demons that don't use their SLAs intelligently they're probably fine.

It does bring up an interesting point - how powerful can you make these iconic characters by playing them smart with their abilities as written?

Explosive runes. Well assuming mialee can get and scribe them.

[Epsilon Rose]

The Spoony Experiment's Leaping Wizards.

Ah, that would be it. Thank you.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

That one's relatively easy, actually - Jozan activates his Prayer Bead of Karma and casts Holy Word. His effective caster level of 20 for this spell gives him an excellent chance of beating the Marilith's SR, automatically blinds and deafens the Marilith if he does beat SR, and gives a chance of ending the fight in one spell by banishing the demon. If it doesn't get banished, he may try to follow up with an actual Banishment if he happens to have a few items that are inimical to Mariliths to boost his spell penetration and saving DC; otherwise, he joins the beatdown with Regdar or Tordek and Lidda and dismantles the Marilith in melee before the Holy Word debuffs wear off (as a bonus, if the Marilith had any weaker fiendish allies, they were almost guaranteed to be banished or rendered helpless by the CL 20 Holy Word.)1. I forgot Jozan had something so useful as a Bead of Karma with Holy Word prepared. It's funny how even terrible builds can waltz into stuff like that.
2. Proper use of Project Image could ruin this trick, depending on how it plays out.
3. Obviously if the Marilith is banished it's GG (20% chance to SR and ~40% chance to make the banishment save ~ 50% he's still there), but if it's just blinded then it can teleport away, wait out the 2d4 rounds of blindness, and then come back.
4. Also, since Jozan is evil, won't he blind himself?

Another note: If a low level party wants to use shady tactics to take out the group they probably want to focus down Jozan first.

[Tvtyrant]

Sudden maximize power word pain could potentially get them all, especially if they are stuck in solid fog. Edit: forgot it only did one foe. Oh well, kill one a day until they run out of party members.

[Epsilon Rose]

Question: has this devolved into "how could one or two decently optimized characters take out an entire 20th lvl WotC party?"

[Sith_Happens]

Question: has this devolved into "how could one or two decently optimized characters take out an entire 20th lvl WotC party?"

Well, Tippy showed up with a bunch of Craft Contingent 9ths, but that doesn't really count.

[Pickford]

Are there any rules about party composition? I assume that the WotC party will be made of traditional mage, divine, tank, utility classes, but is the challenging party allowed to be 3 wizards and a druid?

The problem being party composition really matters, as do tactics. If one party is all spellcasters and the other has an Abjurer with archers...gg casters.

edit: For those who are not following: MDJ > everything the other casters have, then archers kill them in ~1 round. :smallcool:

[Lord Haart]

Well, Tippy showed up with a bunch of Craft Contingent 9thsZodar shapechange routine seems to be more telling to me.


Have you seen how bad Drizzt's stats are...?

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=fr/fx20010117d

23 AC HOLY BLASTER RIFLE 23 AC

[gooddragon1]

Zodar shapechange routine seems to be more telling to me.



23 AC HOLY BLASTER RIFLE 23 AC

That's okay. He's got the mary sue template that makes him roll natural 20's every time and his enemies always roll natural 1's.

[ArcturusV]

The proper name of it being the Plot Armor Template.

[Beardbarian]

Let's see, a single level 8 Factotum vs. a level 20 wotc party. That is when I could do it fairly consistently.

Craft Contingent Shapechange, Craft Contingent Selective Antimagic Field, Craft Contingent Lesser Ironguard, Craft Contingent Widened Forcecage, Craft Contingent Wraithstrike, Craft Contingent Greater Invisibility, Craft Contingent Teleport.

Shapechange to Zodar to Wish myself right next to the party which triggers the next five contingencies to knock out all of their magic items and defenses and make me immune to all metal weapons and trap all of us inside of a force box that they can't flee from. Use Thinaun Shortswords to go to town using Cunning Insight to ensure hits and for extra damage and Cunning Surge to drop them just as fast as possible, throw on some Cunning Strike and Assassins Stance as well (one of the Burning Blade line for extra damage as well, possibly Craven if the DM will let it work with your sneak attack). Should be able to drop the party wizard and other non front-line classes in a hit or two. By the time you are out of IP (thanks to Font of Inspiration) the whole party should be dead and your Teleport should trigger to get you the hell out of there.

That should work against WotC ECL 20 parties, those tend to be pretty crappy.

All Hail to the Emperor!
Tippy ≥ Win

[Der_DWSage]

Now that we've sufficiently ruined the day of the iconic parties, how about shifting goal posts a bit-using the level 20 character guidelines from the PHB II?

Roughly statted out, here's an enemy party to kill.


Stats:Strength 26, Dexterity 15, Constitution 14, Intelligence 8, Wisdom 12, Charisma 6.

HP:20d12+40 (Average 160 HP)
AC:28
Flatfooted:26
Touch:13
DR:5/-
Fort:+17
Ref:+11
Will:+10

Skills: Survival +24, Listen (Wis) +24, Jump (Str) +31

Feats:
Power Attack, Mad foam Rager, Cleave, Weapon Focus(Greataxe), Improved Critical(Greataxe), Improved Sunder, Defensive Sweep, Overwhelming Assault

Attack:+36, 1d12+19, 19-20 x3 (+7 Greataxe)
Full Attack:+36/+31/+26/+21, 1d12+19, 19-20 x3 (+7 Greataxe)

Equipment:
+7 Greataxe, +6 Dragonhide Breastplate, Amulet of Natural Armor +3, Gloves of Dexterity +2, Ring of Protection +1, Belt of Giant Strength +4, Cloak of Resistance +3, Winged Boots (Hey look! A counter to flyers! They finally remembered one.)


Stats:Strength 12, Dexterity 8, Constitution 15, Intelligence 10, Wisdom 24, Charisma 14

HP:20d8+40 (Average 120 HP)
AC:31
Flat-footed:31
Touch:9

Fortitude:+17
Reflex:+8
Will:+22

Skills:
Concentration +25, Heal +28

Attack:+23, 1d6+8, x2 (Morningstar)
Full Attack:+23/+18/+13, 1d6+8, x2 (Morningstar)

Feats:
Combat Casting, Sacred Healing, Divine Ward, Extra Turning, Brew Potion, Sacred Purification, Quicken Spell, Extra Turning

Equipment:+7 Morningstar, +6 full plate armor, +6 heavy steel shield, periapt of Wisdom +4, cloak of resistance +3, dust of disappearance, winged boots.

Prepared Spells
0: Detect magic, light, resistance, read magic, detect poison, guidance.
1st: Shield of faith, bless, protection from evil, magic weapon, sanctuary, divine favor, command, comprehend languages.
2nd: Hold person, bull’s strength, spiritual weapon, lesser restoration, inflict moderate wounds, resist energy, align weapon, augury.
3rd: Dispel magic, prayer, blindness/deafness, protection from energy, magic circle against evil, invisibility purge, searing light, glyph of warding.
4th: Divine power, inflict critical wounds, restoration, dismissal, freedom of movement, greater magic weapon, spell immunity, death ward.
5th: Flame strike, true seeing, spell resistance, righteous might, mass inflict light wounds, scrying, plane shift, disrupting weapon.
6th: Heal, greater dispel magic, harm, blade barrier, banishment, mass bull’s strength, find the path.
7th: Greater restoration, holy word, greater scrying, destruction, ethereal jaunt, repulsion.
8th: Fire storm, holy aura, antimagic field, mass inflict critical wounds, greater spell immunity.
9th: Mass heal, implosion, miracle, true resurrection, etherealness, storm of vengeance.

(Domains are unchosen, but as I used the 'Healer' selection of feats, let's assume Healing and Good, for some pretty low optimization. Also, he is over his allotment of spells, but I don't care enough to fix it. Assume they have some bad info on what he -might- have prepared.)


Stats:Strength 8, Dexterity 15, Constitution 12, Intelligence 26, Wisdom 12, Charisma 10

HP:20d4+20, average 60 HP
AC:20
Flat-footed:18
Touch:14

Fort:+7
Will:+13
Ref:+8

Attack:If he's hitting you with a stick, he's either insulting you or Wizarding wrong.

Skills:Concentration +24, Spellcraft +31, Decipher Script +31, Knowledge(arcana) +31, Knowledge (the planes) +31, Craft(Alchemy) +31

Feats
Combat Familiar, Scribe Scroll, Grenadier, Mad Alchemist, Brew Potion, Craft Wondrous Item, Spell-Linked Familiar, Craft Wand, Eschew Materials, Extend Spell, Elven Spell Lore, Spell Penetration, Quicken Spell

Equipment
Staff of evocation, Bracers of armor +7, Headband of intellect +6, ring of protection +2, boots of teleportation, 3,450 gp

Prepared Spells
0: Detect magic, read magic, disrupt undead, mage hand.
1st: Magic missile, mage armor, charm person, color spray, silent image, disguise self
2nd: Scorching ray, invisibility, mirror image, alter self, spider climb, see invisibility
3rd: Fireball, dispel magic, displacement, haste, fly, suggestion
4th: Stoneskin, polymorph, greater invisibility, charm monster, lesser globe of invulnerability, scrying
5th: Cone of cold, teleport, Bigby’s interposing hand, dominate
person, hold monster.
6th: Chain lightning, greater dispel magic, Tenser’s transformation, Mordenkainen’s lucubration, contingency.
7th: Prismatic spray, limited wish, ethereal jaunt, greater teleport, greater scrying.
8th: Horrid wilting, prismatic wall, polymorph any object, protection from spells, mind blank.
9th: Meteor swarm, wish, time stop, gate, shapechange.


Stats:Strength 11, Dexterity 26, Constitution 12, Intelligence 14, Wisdom 10, Charisma 8.

HP:20d6+20, average 80 HP
AC:33
Flat-footed:24
Touch:23

Fort:+8
Ref:+21
Will:+7

Attack:+29, 1d4+6, 18-20 x2(Small Rapier)
Full Attack:+29/+24/+19, 1d4+6, 18-20 x2 (Small Rapier)

Skills:Hide +35, Move Silently +35, Search +25, Disable Device +25, Open Locks +31, Sleight of Hand +31, Tumble +31, Spot +23, Listen +23, Bluff +22

Feats:
Combat Expertise, Improved Feint, Weapon Finesse, Tumbling Feint, Improved Initiative, Einhander, Dodge, Combat Cloak Expert

Rogue talents chosen:
Improved Evasion, Defensive Roll, Slippery Mind, Opportunist

Equipment:+6 Rapier, +6 mithral shirt, +3 Shortbow with mundane arrows, amulet of natural armor +1, cape of the mountebank, gloves of Dexterity +4, ring of protection +2, winged boots, ioun stone (dusty rose)

While they're certainly not overwhelming, they've at least covered some of the classic weaknesses. (Flying, Wizard has Mind Blank, focusing on a single good weapon, etc.)

(Additionally, I'm pretty sure that these off-the-shelf guys would mop the floor with the iconic D&D party themselves.)

[ArcanistSupreme]

You made Mialee's Int too high. Her Dex should be higher too.

EDIT: Didn't notice we had moved on. Oh well.

[Sith_Happens]

23 AC HOLY BLASTER RIFLE 23 AC

If you think that's bad, you obviously haven't noticed his attack bonus.

And if you think his attack bonus is bad, you obviously haven't noticed why it is: STR 13 and no Weapon Finesse. At ECL 18.

[Karnith]

If you think that's bad, you obviously haven't noticed his attack bonus.
Or his damage output, for that matter. He's just really not very well-built in any respect.

As is the case with pretty much every official 3.0/early 3.5 character. He's not even the worst.

[Korahir]

All Hail to the Emperor!
Tippy ≥ Win

sorry to tell you but his suggestion doesn't work unless the factotum teams up with a lvl 17 wizard who casts all those contingent spells, which takes weeks.

[Der_DWSage]

Clearly, his contingencies come about from stepping on a handy wish trap. Dang Wizards keep just leaving 'em around wherever. Worse than Tribbles, they is.

[Kioras]

Or his damage output, for that matter. He's just really not very well-built in any respect.

As is the case with pretty much every official 3.0/early 3.5 character. He's not even the worst.

I think that is what happens when dealing with characters written for first edition, who have progressed through the story, and then converted into 3.5, withoug using any real optimization. The lack of optimization is weird considering these characters are iconic representatives of their prospective classes/archtypes.

[Emperor Tippy]

sorry to tell you but his suggestion doesn't work unless the factotum teams up with a lvl 17 wizard who casts all those contingent spells, which takes weeks.

Um no, they can be bought. Or created yourself after buying a single Scroll of Shapechange.

You can buy the Contingent spells in most metropolises and in any planar metropolis. A quick Plane Shift to Union or the City of Brass and you are fine, or Sigil if you know of a portal.

[JaronK]

Pretty sure my level 12 Archivist can absolutely slaughter that sample party, and that's a character I'm actually playing (but he's a heavily optimized character... Binder 1/Archivist 3/Tainted Sorcerer 1/Anima Mage 8).

If nothing else, I don't see anything in that party that can handle an Extended Boreal Wind smashing them into a wall. 15d4 damage per round, and the wind effects keep them from moving. Concentration to even cast would be tough under those conditions. Remember that Boreal Wind is an upgraded version of Gust of Wind which is 50 mph winds, so even the 51mph winds conditions from the DMG have to apply.

Save DC is 30 btw.

JaronK

[Pickford]

All Hail to the Emperor!
Tippy ≥ Win

Why can't, once you've cast wish, blowing your standard action, they just cast dispel magic, turning you back into a feeble wizard and then murder you in 1 round? Oh that's right, they can do that.

[TuggyNE]

Why can't, once you've cast wish, blowing your standard action, they just cast dispel magic, turning you back into a feeble wizard and then murder you in 1 round? Oh that's right, they can do that.

You quoted the wrong post, but the short answer is: surprise round means you get a standard action at the very least once you get there, a bit of initiative optimization would give you a full round if you don't feel like relying on that, Crafted Contingencies mean you blow off enough spells immediately on arrival to disable them without there being any chance* to respond, and Cunning Surge means you get all the actions you need.

*No chance for unoptimized characters, at least.

Edit: Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention that the character in question was not actually a wizard. Factotum.

[Story]

I assume our character is on the offence and hence gets to go first? Do you think a Wall of Sand would shut the casters down?

[Pickford]

You quoted the wrong post, but the short answer is: surprise round means you get a standard action at the very least once you get there, a bit of initiative optimization would give you a full round if you don't feel like relying on that, Crafted Contingencies mean you blow off enough spells immediately on arrival to disable them without there being any chance* to respond, and Cunning Surge means you get all the actions you need.

*No chance for unoptimized characters, at least.

Edit: Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention that the character in question was not actually a wizard. Factotum.

No, I quoted the person who blindly bought into what Tippy said because....Tippy. /swoon.

I know about the surprise round but why can't the unoptimized character use an immediate action spell, like celerity, to interrupt? Or are you saying a character is optimized if they aren't also a drooling idiot?

[TuggyNE]

No, I quoted the person who blindly bought into what Tippy said because....Tippy. /swoon.

I know about the surprise round but why can't the unoptimized character use an immediate action spell, like celerity, to interrupt? Or are you saying a character is optimized if they aren't also a drooling idiot?

Flat-footed means immediate actions don't work.

[Emperor Tippy]

Why can't, once you've cast wish, blowing your standard action, they just cast dispel magic, turning you back into a feeble wizard and then murder you in 1 round? Oh that's right, they can do that.

Because the Wish triggers the Selective Antimagic Field (which could actually be used first if you wanted) which knocks out all magical defenses and items, including such things as Foresight and thus means no automatic acting in the surprise round. Said Antimagic Field also shuts down little things like Dispel magic as it can not be cast inside of an AMF.

And the fact that the attacker is a Factotum and not a Wizard. Which means an Initiative that is almost certainly sufficient to go first and the ability to take 10 or so standard actions before anyone else gets to act at all.

Then there is the Forcecage which stops anyone from physically leaving the area of the AMF, which stops any magic use, and the Lesser Ironguard which protects the Factotum from metal weapons. There is also the Invisibility inside of an area where virtually all methods of detecting invisible creatures are negated.

[Sith_Happens]

All of this is, of course, a bit out of the definition of "PO" that the thread is using.

[Aharon]

5th level and no money (well 1 light crossbow, 1 bolt, 100 stamps, some adhesive).
100 Explosive Runes (Use the variant class feature of the specialist diviner to add int to CL for each one), Invisibility, Dispel Magic, True Strike

The wizard casts the explosive runes ahead of time and buffs his caster level with his ACF for each one Gray elf with 20 int +4 from fox cunning = +7 CL for +12 to caster level to break through spell resistance (Mantle of spell resist gives +21 if any one of the unoptimized ones is wearing it).

The wizard then casts true strike and invisibility on himself. The cleric uses his trickery domain to cast invisibility on himself. They wait for the unoptimized party to get within the 10 feet of one another (probably a group huddle). The wizard fires a crossbow bolt with the 100 explosive runes attached in the form of stamps with a light adhesive at the 5 foot square in the middle of the unoptimized party. The clerics readied action to dispel magic on an area is triggered and he deliberately fails the check for each explosive rune. The enemy party takes 600d6 force damage. No initiative is rolled, saving throws are largely irrelevant, spell resistance is not effective enough to stop all of it or even near to enough of it, improved evasion still isn't enough. The unoptimized party is killed without really the benefit of a save for the most part.

This party is optimized but was not built specifically to defeat the unoptimized party. Those are all commonly available and good choices.

And yes it is (at least slightly) optimized because a gray elf is a +2 to int race and the alternate class feature rather than stock wizard. And the choice of trickery domain for a cleric. The really funny part here is that if the wizard had a rod of quicken (least) he could do this all by himself.

How is it that this thing still flies around? As far as I'm aware, nobody ever provided any evidence that you can deliberately fail your dispel magic check. It does work if you lower your caster levels or use a scroll/wand by someone with a low caster level, but you can't deliberately fail.

[Aharon]

Was anyone supposed to face the iconic party? I thought they were just example characters played to various levels.

They are in the appendix of Bastion of Broken Souls, for example, so that a player can take one over should his own character die. I assume this stopped with 3.5, I haven't seen this in 3.5 adventures.

[gooddragon1]

How is it that this thing still flies around? As far as I'm aware, nobody ever provided any evidence that you can deliberately fail your dispel magic check. It does work if you lower your caster levels or use a scroll/wand by someone with a low caster level, but you can't deliberately fail.

With a CL of 12 on the runes and having a cleric of 5th level it's a DC 23 to dispel the runes. He'd need an 18 or better. I like my chances with 100 runes.

[TuggyNE]

How is it that this thing still flies around? As far as I'm aware, nobody ever provided any evidence that you can deliberately fail your dispel magic check. It does work if you lower your caster levels or use a scroll/wand by someone with a low caster level, but you can't deliberately fail.

It's like natural 20s on skill checks: one part of the system uses them, so that must mean every part does! Sadly, 3.x is just not that consistent.

[Radar]

I think the Explosive Runes stacking has cased being a topic, but if anyone is still unsure, that all of them would go off wihtout destroying each other, then simply modify the spells with Relicguard metamagic. Yes, it's from a Dragon magazine, but it's useful without being broken.

How is it that this thing still flies around? As far as I'm aware, nobody ever provided any evidence that you can deliberately fail your dispel magic check. It does work if you lower your caster levels or use a scroll/wand by someone with a low caster level, but you can't deliberately fail.
Then simply use a minimum CL scroll and pile up more Explosive Runes to compensate for those, that will be dispelled. Besides, the caster of Explosive Runes in the example can easily afford a CL boosting item, which will make it viable.

As for the PHB II party, I would have to run the numbers, but a bunch of stealth optimized Rogues stacked up with scrolls of Streamers (from Shining South) might ruin the day of every party without serious preparations. The required level would be, whatever is needed to afford and reliably use at least a CL 12 Streamers scroll. The main tactic would be to get in the 220 ft range undetected (Streamers is a Medium range spell), cast the spell on each party memeber, keep the distance and renew the spell as needed. Unfortunately I don't have enough time to stat things up properly and test the hypothesis, so there might be a glaring hole in the plan. If it works, then it's a win by a horribly overpowered spell and not by character optimisation.

[Korahir]

Um no, they can be bought. Or created yourself after buying a single Scroll of Shapechange.

You can buy the Contingent spells in most metropolises and in any planar metropolis. A quick Plane Shift to Union or the City of Brass and you are fine, or Sigil if you know of a portal.

The first three Contingent spells (in order of your list) you create, eat up your WBL +1900GM. I'm sure you got a work around for that one too, but it all only works with Wishloops and Shapechange shenanigans (add Chaos shuffle and all the other things you are famous for if you wish). Me stating it doesn't work means it doesn't work under the premise given by the OP:


Practically optimized = what you'd see in an Iron Chef challenge, or maybe a little higher.


Agreed to disagree?

[Der_DWSage]

No, I quoted the person who blindly bought into what Tippy said because....Tippy. /swoon.

I know about the surprise round but why can't the unoptimized character use an immediate action spell, like celerity, to interrupt? Or are you saying a character is optimized if they aren't also a drooling idiot?

Not that I agree with Tippy's Pack O' Contingencies either, but I'd honestly say picking up Celerity alone takes them from 'Unoptimized' to 'Somewhat Optimized.' So it makes the entire thing null and void by itself. Stick to what either Mialee or the sample 20s would bring to bear, I'd say.

I'd also say that if Tippy brings in Contingencies, Ice Assassins, Shadesteel Golems, Spell Traps, Chaos Shuffle, Shapeshifting Zodars, or any of the other things he's more than infamous for, he's automatically taking things from 'Practically Optimized' to 'OpTippyized.'

[Story]

Maybe TO should stand for Tippy Optimization

Anyway, do these guys walk around with any protection from death effects? If not, a party of generic level 9 Wizards could just ambush them, pop off 3-4 ennervations each and teleport away before the party can respond. And this is without any particular optimization or build resources consumed apart from boosting initiative.

Kill the Cleric first, then focus on the Wizard. If the Wizard survives (likely) and is smart, he'd Limited Wish a Revivify, but midop probably won't know about spells like that.

Admittedly this has more to do with the power of prebuffing and surprise rounds then anything else.

[tyckspoon]

How is it that this thing still flies around? As far as I'm aware, nobody ever provided any evidence that you can deliberately fail your dispel magic check. It does work if you lower your caster levels or use a scroll/wand by someone with a low caster level, but you can't deliberately fail.

Use Dispel Ward, a level 1 Dispel variant that only works on abjurations on items and areas (..it's so specifically limited that it's mostly good for deliberately triggering Explosive Runes, in fact.) CL 1 Dispel means you only need CL 11 Runes to guarantee failure. Or take the Arcane Mastery feat to Take 10 on your CL checks, which means you roll 10+CL against 11+CL to try and Dispel and can likewise guarantee you never succeed. It's not a hard check to rig if you want to make use of it.

(Not disagreeing that 'automatically fail your check' is bad information, but it doesn't take a lot of resources to make it a true thing.)

[Pickford]

Because the Wish triggers the Selective Antimagic Field (which could actually be used first if you wanted) which knocks out all magical defenses and items, including such things as Foresight and thus means no automatic acting in the surprise round. Said Antimagic Field also shuts down little things like Dispel magic as it can not be cast inside of an AMF.

And the fact that the attacker is a Factotum and not a Wizard. Which means an Initiative that is almost certainly sufficient to go first and the ability to take 10 or so standard actions before anyone else gets to act at all.

Then there is the Forcecage which stops anyone from physically leaving the area of the AMF, which stops any magic use, and the Lesser Ironguard which protects the Factotum from metal weapons. There is also the Invisibility inside of an area where virtually all methods of detecting invisible creatures are negated.


1) You can't surprise someone with Foresight, so this whole plan goes by the wayside.
2) Foresight would warn of the AMF (and all the other contingencies) in time for the user to do something about it. So that's all into the rubbish bin too.

For the guy who thinks a random spell happens to be optimization, I've got news for you, that means anyone with anything besides what...all fireballs even in 9th level spell slots it optimized (and he's optimized vs creatures with the cold subtype right?) Let's actually define optimized before we go too much further.

[Ruethgar]

Level 3 Cleric with cross class ranks in lucid dreaming, or add on a human paragon level just to be safe. You are allowed to add plants to your own dreamscape with a good check(Guidance of the Avatar for +20), so you can add, let's say an awakened tree wizard 20 to gate and transdimensional spell killing all the 20s since he has 10 rounds of actions for every one of theirs due to being in the dreamscape(time stop for more).

[Spuddles]

If Dust of Sneezing and Choking is legal, and no defense against it allowed for the unoptimized level 20-ers (nor are they allowed to "metagame" to know they should intentionally fail the saves)...they still need to be able to actually kill them all in 5-7 rounds. So, I'll go with around 6th level.

A check to identify the effect (spellcraft dc 30) would be pretty easy for at least one caster to make.


Sudden maximize power word pain could potentially get them all, especially if they are stuck in solid fog. Edit: forgot it only did one foe. Oh well, kill one a day until they run out of party members.

How are you hitting your targets without line of sight with a single target spell? How are you surviving the 10d6 fireball and 15d6 cone of cold, and a meteor storm?


Maybe TO should stand for Tippy Optimization

Anyway, do these guys walk around with any protection from death effects? If not, a party of generic level 9 Wizards could just ambush them, pop off 3-4 ennervations each and teleport away before the party can respond. And this is without any particular optimization or build resources consumed apart from boosting initiative.

Kill the Cleric first, then focus on the Wizard. If the Wizard survives (likely) and is smart, he'd Limited Wish a Revivify, but midop probably won't know about spells like that.

Admittedly this has more to do with the power of prebuffing and surprise rounds then anything else.


The problem with a low level party vs a high level is that their evocations are going to annihilate you. How are generic wizards getting off that many enervations? TO arcane thesis abuse?

[NichG]

1) You can't surprise someone with Foresight, so this whole plan goes by the wayside.
2) Foresight would warn of the AMF (and all the other contingencies) in time for the user to do something about it. So that's all into the rubbish bin too.

For the guy who thinks a random spell happens to be optimization, I've got news for you, that means anyone with anything besides what...all fireballs even in 9th level spell slots it optimized (and he's optimized vs creatures with the cold subtype right?) Let's actually define optimized before we go too much further.

I'd like to point out that they did define 'unoptimized' at least, by specifying that the targets are the four WotC iconics as stated out in the WotC materials.

Yes, they're laughably unoptimized. Its not quite fireballs in all spell slots but its close. And thats kind of the point here - how bad could a newbie's Lv20 be versus how good can LvX be. It's a different question if you make the Lv20 the way a moderately experienced player would.

[Pickford]

I'd like to point out that they did define 'unoptimized' at least, by specifying that the targets are the four WotC iconics as stated out in the WotC materials.

Yes, they're laughably unoptimized. Its not quite fireballs in all spell slots but its close. And thats kind of the point here - how bad could a newbie's Lv20 be versus how good can LvX be. It's a different question if you make the Lv20 the way a moderately experienced player would.

The OP actually just said A character WoTC would publish. (Which, given that Celerity is a WoTC spell, is entirely reasonable to assume as an option)

I don't know that we have any level 20 examples however.

[Spuddles]

The problem with these threads is that it's stupidly easy to build a character, especially casters, to defeat a specific challenge, given the amount of "shark repellent" in 3.5.

I think the optimized party ought to be built such that they dont know if they will face a level 20 party. They should be built such that they kick open a dungeon door and suddenly! a random encounter! It's drizzt!

[Story]

The problem with a low level party vs a high level is that their evocations are going to annihilate you. How are generic wizards getting off that many enervations? TO arcane thesis abuse?

Surprise round: ennervation
Round 1: ennervation (I assume everyone wins initiative due to optimization, but even without that's still 8 ennervations from a party of four)
Activate Belt of Battle - ennervation
Celerity - ennervation
Contigency - when an enemy acts while I'm dazed - teleport everyone out.

Result - one dead cleric and one temporarily crippled Wizard most likely. No particular build resources expended apart from optimizing initiative, which you'd normally do anyway


The problem with these threads is that it's stupidly easy to build a character, especially casters, to defeat a specific challenge, given the amount of "shark repellent" in 3.5.

I think the optimized party ought to be built such that they dont know if they will face a level 20 party. They should be built such that they kick open a dungeon door and suddenly! a random encounter! It's drizzt!

In which case I run, and come back a day later with appropriate spells.

Anyway, I think an optimized build could take them out without any permanent build choices made to counter the party. It just might take a couple levels more than a specific counter would.

[Chambers]

Foresight is tricky.

Yes, a character can never be surprised or flat-footed while the spell is active. However, the spell does not give the character any extra actions to act on the warning that the spell gives the character.


In addition, the spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself and gives you a +2 insight bonus to AC and Reflex saves.

So while the character with Foresight active would certainly know the advice that the spell gave him/her, the spell doesn't inherently give the character the action to do so. For example, in this case the advice might be to cast Teleport and leave the area but Foresight by itself doesn't allow the character to cast that spell simply because the character was warned.

The actions that it lists at the end of the spell description are in regards to when the spell is cast on another creature and it should be noted that none of the actions listed include casting a spell. Telepathic Communication would require that the Telepathic Communication spell be already cast prior to receiving the warning.

[Story]

Foresight is tricky.

Yes, a character can never be surprised or flat-footed while the spell is active. However, the spell does not give the character any extra actions to act on the warning that the spell gives the character.



Did you post in the wrong thread? None of the level 20s have Foresight.

[Urpriest]

Perhaps we should specify a specific, optimized party as well, to discourage "shark repellent" and TO (which yes, Shapechange into Zodar, Streamers stacking, and Explosive Runes books are all TO).

Since there are many PO characters that are statted to all levels in optimization showcase format, why don't we restrict ourselves to those? For example, let's say our PO party is King of Smack, Mailman, Gnowhere Gnome, and some PO divine caster (can't think of one at present, but Cheater builds are pretty clearly TO. Maybe just a straightforward DMM build?)

At what level can that party defeat the 20th level suggested builds from PHBII?

[Der_DWSage]

The OP actually just said A character WoTC would publish. (Which, given that Celerity is a WoTC spell, is entirely reasonable to assume as an option)

I don't know that we have any level 20 examples however.

Quite frankly, the small change of adding Celerity to Mialee's spellbook alone puts her on a scale above the rest of her party. The rest of the party is that badly built. That's a good portion of why I reacted as I did.

The rest of it is that, while Celerity is a pretty good spell for a PO party, the unoptimized party is expected to focus on blasting with a few of the more obvious defensive buffs, such as Mage Armor, Mindblank, and at an extreme stretch, a See Invisibility. Celerity is none of those. You can also argue specifics all you like, but the unoptimized 'baseline' party from PHBII, nor the terribly unoptimized Iconic Party have it as an option.

Also, you really need to start reading topics before you jump in, Picky. I posted some level 20 examples from the PHBII less than a page ago.

[Chambers]

Did you post in the wrong thread? None of the level 20s have Foresight.

Nope. I was responding to this:


1) You can't surprise someone with Foresight, so this whole plan goes by the wayside.
2) Foresight would warn of the AMF (and all the other contingencies) in time for the user to do something about it. So that's all into the rubbish bin too.

[Story]

Oh, I had him on ignore. Anyway, it's a rather strange statement given that the opponents here explicitly don't have Foresight.

[Chambers]

::shrug::

Strange or not, just wanted to clarify.

...

There's an ignore function?

[Der_DWSage]

Story:He apparently didn't pay attention to the fact that we had two sets of unoptimized opponents, the iconic D&D party and the PHBII baseline party. That's why he mentioned Foresight and Celerity at all.

Chambers:Aye. Click on a person's name, and on the toolbar under where their picture is, you'll see two options-add to buddy list, and add to ignore list.