Optimization Challenge: A Wizard on Earth

[icefractal]

In the upper ends of optimization, it's interesting how many characters make function calls to the monster manual. Not surprising, I guess, given how many monsters there are out there and how exploitable their abilities can be. This gave me an idea for an interesting challenge - one Wizard on real-life Earth.


So - here's the premise:
1) The setting is real-world Earth, at any point between the iron-age and the Renaissance you prefer. This has several implications:
a) Monsters other than actual real-world creatures do not exist. Treat this as if you were playing a modified form of D&D with a much shorter Monster Manual. Spells that reference them accomplish nothing. Spells that contain the entire stat-effects within them (such as those crappy single-form polymorph spells) can still work.
b) There are no other planes. Not even the astral, ethereal, or shadow planes. Teleportation still works (we'll say via folding space), but that's it, no Etherealness, no Astral Projection. No summoning either, but I guess Astral Construct would still work.
c) Nobody except you can learn to do anything that wouldn't work in an anti-magic field, no matter how much you train / mentally-rewire them.

2) The rules are D&D 3.5. Not "extrapolated physics". If you make guns, they will use the rules in the DMG. Advanced tech can use the rules in d20 Future.

3) We're going to make some extrapolations, for simplicity, and to avoid certain issues:
a) There are no other planets with life.
b) There are no divine beings that perform on demand. Spells like Commune won't work.

4) You are a 20th level Wizard. Or whatever, go ahead and take PrCs or multiclass, you just need to have arcane casting.
a) You can have as many spells researched as you want. Not custom ones though.
b) You have an extra 100,000 xp beyond what you need for 20th level.
c) Since other races do not exist, you are Human. (added this one after the start).

5) You rule the world. Well of course you do, you're a 20th level Wizard. So here's what you get:
a) The populace is mostly 1st-3rd level, with a very few standouts going as high as 5th level.
b) As mentioned, they can't do anything magical / supernatural whatsoever.
c) Even with intense training, they are limited to E6 rules.
d) The Leadership feat, or things like it, do not change this fact.
d) You control all wealth on earth. However, there is only a limited amount of resources that can be used for magical purposes. That happens to be 760,000 gp worth. All magic stuff will have to be crafted by you, obviously.

6) An invasion is coming, in one year. For whatever reason, you know that in exactly one year, beings from another dimension - who might have access to better stuff than you do - will invade. You need to obtain as much as strength as you can to stop them.
a) No infinite loops. If you use them, so do they, and that's pointless.

EDIT - Added this:
7) Anything involving Epic rules will be counted as a separate category for judging purposes, given the high level of arbitrariness in Epic Spellcasting.


Sorry for the TL;DR, the premise needed some explanation. If you managed to get this far, the challenge is to make the strongest character - in terms of fighting off serious threats from D&D-land, not just ruling over the populace - within these limits.

If you have some really cool ideas that would take more than a year, feel free to list that too; I just felt a time limit would make things more interesting. You can assume you crafted anything not invasion-specific before the year starts.

So - is it possible? Can we achieve high-end power without the normal environment to work with? Let's find out!

[Gavinfoxx]

This... is a brilliant challenge. I just want to say that wow, you've crossed your t's and dotted your i's.

[Vaz]

Genesis renders the "no planes" things moot. While you do not gain the benefits of the creatures which reside normally on the other planes, you still get Fast Time Trait shenanigans.

Wizard 5/Incantatrix 10/Archmage 5 has the ability to gain pretty much nearly every spell in the game; including Miracle as an SLA, to get Body Outside Body. From then on, there's nothing that cannot be done.

You use that Miracle SLA to grant the Dark Chaos Shuffle for infinite spell slots. No XP cost (it comes from a temporary clone).

With enough castings of Dark Chaos Shuffle (each day, each Clone can generate with a single casting of Miracle/Wish, with CL boosting tricks an additional 4 Clones, which last for 24 hours, each of which, each day, can generate an additional 4 clones...) you can give the entire world the correct dose of feats to get 9th level spells without class levels.

[Xar Zarath]

wow and Tippy wasn't even on this thread:smallcool:

[Coidzor]

Simulacrums. Can they exist? Are they excluded from the no-casting rule?


Genesis renders the "no planes" things moot. While you do not gain the benefits of the creatures which reside normally on the other planes, you still get Fast Time Trait shenanigans.

Or does the whole "no planes" thing mean Genesis can't work? :smalltongue: Version I'm looking at requires the caster to be on the Ethereal plane, at least.


You use that Miracle SLA to grant the Dark Chaos Shuffle for infinite spell slots. No XP cost (it comes from a temporary clone).


3) We're going to make some extrapolations, for simplicity, and to avoid certain issues:
a) There are no other planets with life.
b) There are no divine beings that perform on demand. Spells like Commune won't work.

I'm thinking that rules out Miracle based upon the text of the spell.


With enough castings of Dark Chaos Shuffle (each day, each Clone can generate with a single casting of Miracle/Wish, with CL boosting tricks an additional 4 Clones, which last for 24 hours, each of which, each day, can generate an additional 4 clones...) you can give the entire world the correct dose of feats to get 9th level spells without class levels.

Doesn't matter how they get them, they can't cast spells. Might have wiggle room if you make them into extraordinary abilities?

But, yeah, if you have infinite spell slots from miracle working, this doesn't really matter so much anyway.

[icefractal]

Miracle would indeed fall under the "divine performance" thing. Now that said, you can get infinite somethings by taking Body Outside Body and something else as SLAs, but then:
a) No infinite loops. If you use them, so do they, and that's pointless.Your infinite armies of bodies faces another another infinite army of bodies, and the results are indeterminate.

Re: Genesis - Creating new demiplanes is not prohibited, but all the versions I've seen have to be cast from either the Astral or Ethereal plane. Also, it's a bit of a question whether creating planar traits that don't exist on any existing plane (of which there's one) makes sense.

Re: Simulacra - Could exist, and would have your casting (well, half your casting).

[Erik Vale]

Old Dragonwrought Kobold Wizard 5 / UM 10 / Other 5.
Epic Spellcasting, I create a inter dimensional lock spell or some way to pre-emptively stop the invasion.

Otherwise, I create intelligent combat-capable golems with crafting feats, and get to building a better army. Thought Jars provide for XP, Money by the various sources of cheese.

[icefractal]

Not sure about Epic stuff. Go ahead if you have a specific build, but we'll call that a different category than non-Epic.

As for wealth cheese - keep in mind that you rule the entire world. Selling walls of salt does nothing because you already can have 100% of the world's money if you demand it. The issue is that - for the purpose of this challenge at least - magic stuff requires something other than tossing gold in a blender, and there's a limited amount of "arcanium" on the entire planet. 760K gp worth, to be precise.

[Erik Vale]

Said where in the rules? I accept your add on to the challenge [curses, no summoning my own gold coins or salt for item creation], however I use my epic magic to transport myself to another dimension with multiple planes, such as Sigil for selling and Limbo for timelessness, then come back whenever I'm ready [assuming the timelessness pauses my original dimension].

Also, the last 5 levels are only ? because it doesn't matter what they are, actually, the last 6 don't matter because I get level 21 Wizard casting at level 14... Or level 22 at 15 and 20 at 14, not sure.

[Rubik]

Society Mind 20, using the illithid savant trick, but instead of starting out like I would have, I'd cast Curse of Lycanthropy on myself numerous times for different types of lycanthropy (which stack), gaining Animal HD that I then retrain into illithid savant. Then I use epic spellcasting to recreate the various planes and the creatures therein, so I can finish out the remainder of the scheme. Now I'm immortal, invulnerable, know every power and spell in any of the books, have infinite pp to spend, (Su) psionics, a base ML of, at last I counted, 2,200 or so, which can be boosted into the 3,000s (with a few spells getting upwards of 4,500+), and access to all of the D&D stuff.

Of course, if that falls flat, I can always use Ice Assassin, retraining, Fusion/Astral Seed, and levels in illithid savant to gain basically everything I want anyway.

Also, why would I ever want to rule the world? I'd rather live my own life having fun my way and exploring the universe. Rule Earth? Bleh.

[Erik Vale]

Also, why would I ever want to rule the world? I'd rather live my own life having fun my way and exploring the universe. Rule Earth? Bleh.

This. I figure that our alignment/the fact we've secretly been guiding it forever is supposed to keep us here.

[Rubik]

This. I figure that our alignment/the fact we've secretly been guiding it forever is supposed to keep us here.I'd probably make some major changes in the way humans do things, but beyond that, I'd definitely stay away from ruling anyone but myself. I don't care how much power I've got; I want neither the headache nor the responsibility. Humans are a pain in the arse, and I wouldn't want to have to deal with them on a global (or even nationwide) scale.

[Zanos]

Are constructs considered magic items or creatures for the purpose of this challenge?

[Gemini476]

You do know that

c) Nobody except you can learn to do anything that wouldn't work in an anti-magic field, no matter how much you train / mentally-rewire them.
means that they can still be taught Instantaneous Conjurations?

Oh, and does not having access to MM monsters mean that we can't build golems?


Also also, why haven't we used Permanent Teleportation Circles to colonise the rest of the solar system yet? If Earth doesn't have the resources, look outside Earth.


(Also, you can't get Epic Spellcasting as a Kobold, since you can't meet the skill requirements (despite reaching the 21st level spellcasting and [Epic] requirements) since Primary Contact only works for one skill.)
Also also, how does getting class features as an Illithid Savant work? Everyone else is in E6.


One thing that you need to set up is a way to get indefinite amount of crafting XP (Eternity of Torture+Nippleclamps of Masochism+Distilled Joy), and a some way to get high-level casters on your side - could Wishing someone into an elf/reincarnating them until they are one work? 'Cause if it does, then you can get them casting 9th level spells with some levels, Instantaneous Conjurations, retraining, and Elven Generalist Domain Wizard.
It's a limited amount of spells, sure, but having a civilisation of people capable of casual teleportation helps.
Next up: build the biggest warships you can and start researching how to True Creation antimatter. When the invaders arrive, they will arrive to a galaxy-spanning empire capable of destroying worlds at a whim (Hide Life+True Creation(1ft³/CL of Antihydrogen)).

Oh, and we are assuming that psionics/magic transparency is on, right?

[Rubik]

(Also, you can't get Epic Spellcasting as a Kobold, since you can't meet the skill requirements (despite reaching the 21st level spellcasting and [Epic] requirements) since Primary Contact only works for one skill.)If you're talking to me, then I plan on using the Curse of Lycanthropy spell, which gives the one you cast it on the template, using a base animal of your choice. Picking something like a dire wolf would be excellent, since I could just change my alignment via a helm of opposite alignment, or something. Either way, it would give me extra HD, which I could then retrain into whatever levels I want, but even if it didn't, I'd still be an epic character just due to the extra animal HD, thereby qualifying for epic feats (specifically, Epic Spellcasting).


Also also, how does getting class features as an Illithid Savant work? Everyone else is in E6.Cast Ice Assassin of myself, but as an aleax. Command it to retrain its levels. Eat its brain. Or just cast Fusion and Astral Seed, then come back with one negative level and a ton of gestalted class abilities.


One thing that you need to set up is a way to get indefinite amount of crafting XP (Eternity of Torture+Nippleclamps of Masochism+Distilled Joy), and a some way to get high-level casters on your side - could Wishing someone into an elf/reincarnating them until they are one work? 'Cause if it does, then you can get them casting 9th level spells with some levels, Instantaneous Conjurations, retraining, and Elven Generalist Domain Wizard.Crafting cost reducers + thought bottle. Store my XP total, then use my mirror of opposition trick (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=246396) to multiply that thought bottle (with its attendant XP) by as many times as I want.


It's a limited amount of spells, sure, but having a civilisation of people capable of casual teleportation helps.
Next up: build the biggest warships you can and start researching how to True Creation antimatter. When the invaders arrive, they will arrive to a galaxy-spanning empire capable of destroying worlds at a whim (Hide Life+True Creation(1ft³/CL of Antihydrogen)).I'd just cast an epic spell to create a space-warping bubble around the solar system such that matter which passed through one edge of the bubble warped through the bubble to the other side, as if the intervening space wasn't there.


Oh, and we are assuming that psionics/magic transparency is on, right?It's the default, so I'd say "yes."

[Gemini476]

I'd just cast an epic spell to create a space-warping bubble around the solar system such that matter which passed through one edge of the bubble warped through the bubble to the other side, as if the intervening space wasn't there.

That could get tricky since they're coming from another dimension, though. You'll want to add some kind of Ward or Banish effect that stops them from appearing within the solar system in the first place, not to mention some way to stop their own Epic Spellcasters from Dispelling it.

Hmm.

This would be a lot simpler if the plane of dreams existed, since we could just use Microcosm on a construct, use Oneiromancy to shunt everyone into its dream, and then put the construct inside its own dream and smash the mirror that leads out. Hrmm.

The invasion is pretty tricky, since it can be assumed that they'll use an equal-or-greater level of optimisation for their own magic. Maybe make the entire plane into a Dead Magic Zone, and find some way to make yourself the exception to that?

...Wait, would making undead and golems even work? Undead are powered by the Negative Energy Plane, and (some?) Golems have elementals trapped inside them to make them work.

Would using Nailed to the Sky to put an epic Golem with line-of-sight range into use as an orbital cannon be fair play?

Oh, and what about alchemical items? Do they cut into that 760,000gp or can we Fabricate mass amounts of Shapesand to spread amongst the populace as essentially Mass Effect-style nano-swiss army knives?

[Zweisteine]

You have one year to build a magic item that lets you transfer experience to other people. Go.
Better yet, clone yourself. Research a non-hostile version of Ice Assassin!

Actually, I'd bet 100,000 xp is enough to make items enough to duplicate all of your spell slots.

This sounds like much more fun than the "real world vs D&D" threads that occasionally pop up. Keep it going.

[Vaz]

Miracle would indeed fall under the "divine performance" thing. Now that said, you can get infinite somethings by taking Body Outside Body and something else as SLAs, but then:Your infinite armies of bodies faces another another infinite army of bodies, and the results are indeterminate. It's not about the infinite armies, BoB clones can be pretty bad for that due to the low HP and number of SLA's available to them.

The purposes of that was so that you could literally be everywhere at once. Have one of the SLA's being Mindrape (you can change this yourself with Wish/Miracle (see below) to recreate PsyRef to change it as you need, then BoB clone it, and you can teach everything to everyone, as well as do the whole Dark Chaos Shuffle thing to give them every feat available to them.

I'm still a bit confused as to why the general populace cannot learn magical stuff. However, with your infinite free crafting potential via True Creation SLA's (again, PsrRef'd for your clones), and combined with having mindraped in your own knowledge of enemy weak points, you've equipped them Adamantium Weaponry and protection. Combined with the military knowledge and the inclination to practise military procedure (effectively retraining all the levels into at least Fighter). Equipping them with magic items which you've gained via your infinite crafting shenanigans, and you're halfway there to having a semi-functional military against other high level threats. These of course, have all the relevant spells permanancied.

Other military could come from Permanently Animated Constructs.

And as for Miracle/Divine performance thing; eh, Ur-Priests have access to Miracle, so why not? And technically, it doesn't really have to be Miracle, but Wish can work for that too.


Re: Simulacra - Could exist, and would have your casting (well, half your casting).Ice Assassins are better.


Better yet, clone yourself. Research a non-hostile version of Ice Assassin!
Researching isn't allowed by the OP; however you just need to Mindrape it.

As to defences, you can take a hint from Tippyverse in creating cities which are protected against forms of attack. While some of the planar defences cannot be recreated, you're still able to do the whole Prismatic Wall trick thing.

[Xar Zarath]

Also, why would I ever want to rule the world? I'd rather live my own life having fun my way and exploring the universe. Rule Earth? Bleh.

May I sig this Rubik? if you don't mind of course:smallredface:

[Coidzor]

I'm still a bit confused as to why the general populace cannot learn magical stuff.

To prevent someone from going "Oh, I just make an army of Wizard 20/Psion 20s," presumably.


And as for Miracle/Divine performance thing; eh, Ur-Priests have access to Miracle, so why not? And technically, it doesn't really have to be Miracle, but Wish can work for that too.

Ice Assassins are better.

Because they're stealing it and it's getting handwaved. If there's nothing there to steal from, though... :smalltongue:

That's beside the point of asking if such things were on the table and were exempt from the "no one but you can cast" restriction though. :smalltongue:


Otherwise, I create intelligent combat-capable golems with crafting feats, and get to building a better army. Thought Jars provide for XP, Money by the various sources of cheese.

Even if golems are on the table(the restrictions suggest to me that they aren't), how many can you get for 760,000 gp? If you start a trap or something pumping out Wish'D up and pimped out Shadesteel Golems, it'll get rendered pointless due to the setup.

[Rubik]

That could get tricky since they're coming from another dimension, though. You'll want to add some kind of Ward or Banish effect that stops them from appearing within the solar system in the first place, not to mention some way to stop their own Epic Spellcasters from Dispelling it.Transdimensional Power added to it, then ensure that the spell says that the field is (Ex) to prevent Disjunctions and Dispels. Of course, I'd have Supernatural Transformation (Psionics), so Dispels wouldn't work anyway.


This would be a lot simpler if the plane of dreams existed, since we could just use Microcosm on a construct, use Oneiromancy to shunt everyone into its dream, and then put the construct inside its own dream and smash the mirror that leads out. Hrmm.You'd have to make the construct vulnerable to [mind-affecting] effects.


The invasion is pretty tricky, since it can be assumed that they'll use an equal-or-greater level of optimisation for their own magic. Maybe make the entire plane into a Dead Magic Zone, and find some way to make yourself the exception to that?One of the things I'd make sure I had is Initiate of Mystra (with three cleric levels being one thing I'd make sure I had tucked away somewhere -- entirely for feat prereqs; I wouldn't bother for the spellcasting).


...Wait, would making undead and golems even work? Undead are powered by the Negative Energy Plane, and (some?) Golems have elementals trapped inside them to make them work.They would after I had access to Epic Spellcasting, since that would be one of my goals. I'd just ensure that the planar arrangement meant that extraplanar incursions could not happen, with the sole exception of summons and [restricted] calling spells.


May I sig this Rubik? if you don't mind of course:smallredface:Feel free, though why you'd want to, I dunno.

[StrangeLooper]

With enough castings of Dark Chaos Shuffle (each day, each Clone can generate with a single casting of Miracle/Wish, with CL boosting tricks an additional 4 Clones, which last for 24 hours, each of which, each day, can generate an additional 4 clones...) you can give the entire world the correct dose of feats to get 9th level spells without class levels.
I'm curious, how could feats give somebody spells up to 9th level (Assuming this is allowed with the previous normal people can't do any magic rule) ?

[Erik Vale]

I'm curious, how could feats give somebody spells up to 9th level (Assuming this is allowed with the previous normal people can't do any magic rule) ?

Extra Spell Known/Slot, Versitile Spellcaster.
A Bundle of Shenanigans that I avoid like the plague and don't really know ever since getting ganked by low level rogue like characters with superior invisibility.

[StrangeLooper]

Thanks.
A way to get a round the enemies ability to counter whatever magical attacks you do with their own magic could be to use diplomacy. Simply train someone as an Exemplar and then have them use Persuasive Performance with a skill like craft while the rest of the population of earth uses aid another (through being miniturarezed, rendered incorpral, or otheriwse stuffed into a small nearby space). Congrats, you now have an entire alien army as your fanatic followers.

[Rubik]

Since I'm using psionics (through jumping through hoops and the StP erudite's spell-learning ability), I'd cut Earth off from invasion completely via an epic spell, and then go Tippyverse, ensuring that humanity leaves most of nature alone (rather than destroying it all). I'd provide magical traps, education for the masses designed to improve humanity's negative qualities (such as xenophobia, tendency to massively overpopulate, and disregard for the natural world), and access to soul crystals specifically designed to help assist with any invasion plans, if the alien threat managed to sneak through somehow. Preferably powers and spells that couldn't be used effectively against anyone or anything from Earth. That way, people could defend themselves from the threat, but couldn't abuse the weapons I gave them.

Beyond that, I'd probably keep an eye on things and stay tangentially involved in an advisory position, and assist by making humanity more enlightened and self-sufficient, but I certainly wouldn't want to rule over anyone. Might as well take some responsibility; I'd feel bad if people or the world in general suffered much, if at all, when I could very easily help.

[(Un)Inspired]

Does the strength of the invading force matter at all? Can't I just blow up the earth? That stops them. No earth, nothing to invade.

[Rubik]

Does the strength of the invading force matter at all? Can't I just blow up the earth? That stops them. No earth, nothing to invade.I think you live up to your name very well. So uninspired at the idea of saving Earth that you destroy it instead.

I'm sure you make all the other red dragons proud.

[Erik Vale]

Does the strength of the invading force matter at all? Can't I just blow up the earth? That stops them. No earth, nothing to invade.

... Sad thing is, I think that would work should you be able to squish enough people somewhere else, like a gigantic spelljammer...
Hey, you could have your wizard called Noah, and your spelljammer could be your Arc.

[TuggyNE]

... Sad thing is, I think that would work should you be able to squish enough people somewhere else, like a gigantic spelljammer...
Hey, you could have your wizard called Noah, and your spelljammer could be your Arc.

Just pick a really diverse set of 8 people. (And enough of all the animals of proper genetic diversity too.) :smallwink:

[Vaz]

I'm curious, how could feats give somebody spells up to 9th level (Assuming this is allowed with the previous normal people can't do any magic rule) ?


- Magical Training to get cantrips.
- Then they count as 1st-level spells outside your sanctum due to Sanctum Spell I presume,
- which allows you to use them for Precocious Apprentice.
- Apply Sanctum Spell to the spells gained through Precocious Apprentice, making them count as level 3 spells.
- Due to Earth Spell the spell counts as level 4.
- Extra Slot gets you level 3 slots now.
- Heighten a level 2 spell to level 3 and make it a Sanctum spell.
- It counts as a level 4 spell outside your Sanctum,
- but due to Earth Spell's effect its effective level becomes 5.
- Extra Slot gets you level 4 slots now.
- Etcetera.

This is a copy paste, and often a staple of "TO", doubly so when XP-less Dark Chaos Shuffle is being thrown around, when they can not only exponentially increase their spell slots but also know every single spell in the game.

[(Un)Inspired]

I think you live up to your name very well. So uninspired at the idea of saving Earth that you destroy it instead.

I'm sure you make all the other red dragons proud.

Have I said something to offend you? I get the sense that you were insulted by something I wrote. If so, I'm sorry? I guess?

I feel like I was the only one to notice that no mention of protecting earth was placed in the challenge. Nor was saving any life on earth from the nebulously defined invading force. The challenge was simply to stop people from invading. I feel like destroying the earth is kind of an inspired choice in that context.

[Rubik]

Have I said something to offend you? I get the sense that you were insulted by something I wrote. If so, I'm sorry? I guess?Nope! Not one bit. I found it humorous, is all, and was poking a bit of fun at you for it. The response does fit with your name and avatar, after all.


I feel like I was the only one to notice that no mention of protecting earth was placed in the challenge. Nor was saving any life on earth from the nebulously defined invading force. The challenge was simply to stop people from invading. I feel like destroying the earth is kind of an inspired choice in that context.While true, such things would generally only occur to the Chaotic and Evil types. Which, again, fits in really well with the whole "great wyrm red dragon" motif. :smallamused:

[(Un)Inspired]

Hehe very true. I'm just glad I didn't offend. I have a tendency to say off putting things without really thinking about it and I really don't want to do that on a cool site like this.

As far as red dragons go I could never destroy the earth. All my stuff like gold and thrills are on it! If there isn't anyone to admire how rad I am then I'm just being awesome in a vacuum.

Edit: also all those d&d personality tests always peg me as chaotic evil. Stupid tests, I'll have to destroy their creators.

[Erik Vale]

This is a copy paste, and often a staple of "TO", doubly so when XP-less Dark Chaos Shuffle is being thrown around, when they can not only exponentially increase their spell slots but also know every single spell in the game.

... I'ma have to check that out for myself, but that use of sanctum spell doesn't seem right.

[icefractal]

Wow, great to see so many responses already! :smallbiggrin:

Since Epic Spellcasting can do pretty much everything, I'm going to count that as a seperate category in terms of the challenge.
Although I would be curious to know details, since casting Epic Spells within your budget is difficult without huge hordes of other casters contributing, and making those huge hordes without an infinite loop is rather non-trivial in this setup.

Constructs - You can make any that are explicitly craftable. Others do not exist, and even craftable constructs don't exist until the first time you make one (so no Wish -> Ice Assassin of a hypothetical construct someone could theoretically make).

Alchemical Items - Good question. Because of that whole "must be a spellcaster" clause, I'm going to say that they need "arcanium" in general. However, you can Fabricate mass quantities of any RL substances, using the d20 Modern rules for those (so, yes to Acid, for example).
Also note that substances such as Adamantine, Darkwood, etc do not exist in the world, although ones that are not magical or tied to other planes could hypothetically be created with Wish.

A couple things that have come up:
* Kobold - Does not exist, since the MM only includes RL creatures. Sorry, added clarification in this regard to the OP.
* Illithid Savant - Qualifying how? Polymorphing into an "Illithid" fails because no such creature exists.
* Wish someone into an Elf - no such thing as Elves.
* Reincarnate always turns them into a human or RL animal.
* Aleax doesn't exist, not a RL creature.
* If you give anyone other than you (or a Simulacra/IA of yourself) a feat like Magical Training, it simply does nothing for them. RL people can't do magic. Except you, for some reason.

[Xar Zarath]

Feel free, though why you'd want to, I dunno.

I have my reasons:smallamused:

And to the OP, would destroying the Earth be optional? I mean if you can just transform the people into something easy to transport, then just move them onto a spelljammer...?

[chaos_redefined]

So... important question...

Using a nice cheap option... what happens when some regular earthling tries to get food out of an everlasting rations bag? I mean, it doesn't work in an AMF and all... Does this change if we were to talk about the resetting traps that create food? Can they inadvertently trigger them? Can they be taught how to trigger them?

[Rubik]

Since Epic Spellcasting can do pretty much everything, I'm going to count that as a seperate category in terms of the challenge.
Although I would be curious to know details, since casting Epic Spells within your budget is difficult without huge hordes of other casters contributing, and making those huge hordes without an infinite loop is rather non-trivial in this setup.There are plenty of ways to get additional "me"s, from Ice Assassins to the Fission power to Simulacrum to shadow-clones to Body Outside Body to Mind Seeded animals and more. They're "me" in every way that counts, including being able to cast in a null magic field/dead plane via Initiate of Mystra or Planar Bubble, if that's the issue. I just pull a few thousand together, if need be, before joining them to me in a hivemind after a few epic spells are cast.

Alternately, there are ways to get skill checks up to NI levels (see: omniscificer) and ludicrously-high-but-not-NI levels via buffing spells. Given that, mitigation isn't all it's cracked up to be (though still quite useful). It'd be fairly easy to research and create an entire populated multiverse through epic magic, with a high enough Spellcraft check, and not even have to rely on backlash damage or whatever.


* Kobold - Does not exist, since the MM only includes RL creatures. Sorry, added clarification in this regard to the OP.
* Illithid Savant - Qualifying how? Polymorphing into an "Illithid" fails because no such creature exists.
* Wish someone into an Elf - no such thing as Elves.
* Reincarnate always turns them into a human or RL animal.
* Aleax doesn't exist, not a RL creature.
* If you give anyone other than you (or a Simulacra/IA of yourself) a feat like Magical Training, it simply does nothing for them. RL people can't do magic. Except you, for some reason.Those things can and will exist after a good hard epic spell is cast. And if the initial spell doesn't cover them, I'd create a new spell that did, using the same methods of Spellcraft bumpage.


So... important question...

Using a nice cheap option... what happens when some regular earthling tries to get food out of an everlasting rations bag? I mean, it doesn't work in an AMF and all... Does this change if we were to talk about the resetting traps that create food? Can they inadvertently trigger them? Can they be taught how to trigger them?There are Devices from Ravenloft: nonmagical items that produce mundane "magical effects."

[icefractal]

Using a nice cheap option... what happens when some regular earthling tries to get food out of an everlasting rations bag? I mean, it doesn't work in an AMF and all... Does this change if we were to talk about the resetting traps that create food? Can they inadvertently trigger them? Can they be taught how to trigger them?Other people can use magic items just fine. They just can't make them, or satisfy any magical requires for using them (like Runestaves).


I just pull a few thousand together, if need be, before joining them to me in a hivemind after a few epic spells are cast.A method that can produce NI copies is still in NI-land, even if you only choose to produce a few hundred with it. Which means the opposition also rolls in with a googleplex of minions, and the battle gets stupid.

[Rubik]

A method that can produce NI copies is still in NI-land, even if you only choose to produce a few hundred with it. Which means the opposition also rolls in with a googleplex of minions, and the battle gets stupid.Meh. I can single-handedly stand up to anything short of Pun-Pun or an overdeity by that point. If nothing else, I'll just pop the solar system into a shrunken bottle and store it on a shelf somewhere until I've blasted them all to smithereens.

[Vaz]

What exactly is this Optimization Challenges end goal?

[Endarire]

With you as a level 20 Human Wizard (or the equivalent), how are you able to cast epic spells?

[Phelix-Mu]

Ooh. This gets the creative juices flowing. More ideas later, but for now, a few questions that come to mind.

1.) On the intersection of genetics and magic: Can I just rule out that any use of magic to alter animals or plants will breed true? That way leads to some real crazy kittens, I believe.

2.) Is awaken being adjudicated separately if used for plants? It seems to rely on the entry for animated objects, so I'm thinking "no." How about animals? You seem to imply that that works.

3.) Wild shape and real animals: I think we should also maybe rule out some of this. It seems to be a wizard challenge, but then the build restriction seems to leave the door wide open.

4.) Psicrystal/familiar shenanigans: Severely limited due to some well-though out rules, but is the existence of psicrystals good-to-go? Cerebremancer keeps calling my name, even though I am an Arcane Hierophant at heart.:smallwink:

[StrangeLooper]

The biggest challenge I would face would be in a numbers. I am only one spell caster and the invaders are a whole lot more. I think creating a whole race of war forged or golems and then training them in magic (using summoned monsters and such) to get them to level 20 quickly would probably be the easiest way. I would estimate it would take a week to get one war forged to level 20 (using time stops and other methods) and from their on the amount grows exponentially. 3/5ths of the way through the year and their are about a billion of us with another 2/5ths of a year to prepare for the invasion.

[Phelix-Mu]

The biggest challenge I would face would be in a numbers. I am only one spell caster and the invaders are a whole lot more. I think creating a whole race of war forged or golems and then training them in magic (using summoned monsters and such) to get them to level 20 quickly would probably be the easiest way. I would estimate it would take a week to get one war forged to level 20 (using time stops and other methods) and from their on the amount grows exponentially. 3/5ths of the way through the year and their are about a billion of us with another 2/5ths of a year to prepare for the invasion.

Well, this sounds good except for summoned monsters. Even if you rely on killing animals, you cap out the level you can gain experience from them in a hurry.

In fact, I think the only other creatures with anything near 20hd are going to be

1.) big animals
2.) anything with hd that you buy
3.) any awakened plants (if that is kosher)

Everything else is going to be pretty pitiful. But, that said, I imagine there is some pyramid scheme out there that would work.

[Coidzor]

Non-extinct real world animals tend to cap out around 11 HD (Elephant) and 12 HD (Baleen and Sperm Whales & Giant Squid) from what I recall.

[Phelix-Mu]

1.) I also may need some guidance on how a multiclass character determines the level breakdown of his/her simulacrum. Suppose a character has something x/something y/something z, where x+y+z=20. The simulacrum has half as many levels/HD, but can the levels be any legal combination of x, y, and z, or is it fixed somehow?

2.) Have we assumed that IA of oneself is feasible? How are we getting around the murderous compulsion thing, cause I may need to include that in my build?

3.) I will likely be making use of the simulacrum item, in Frostburn, I believe it was. I will check, but do any of you know if this is more/less expensive than UMDing or otherwise using the appropriate scroll? I never really checked before.

[Vaz]

Teleport through time and/or Ice Assassins work there,

[Phelix-Mu]

Any solution including teleport through time, especially to a problem involving a time limit, is fairly trivial. Obviously, if you teleport back to the point at which the earth was slowly condensing into a solid formed from dust and comet fragments, and prevent the earth from forming, they can't invade earth. To do this, you probably need something like

1.) teleport through time

2.) decanter of endless water

There. That's probably only one of an arbitrarily large number of ways to use teleport through time to render this challenge not much of challenge.

Oh, I think we can actually render the earth into a superheated clump of rock simply by using ring gates and greater teleport to get us close to the sun. If that fails, planar ring gates should work.

Trying to save earth is considerably less trivial, but given an arbitrarily large amount of time, it's eminently possible.

[Gemini476]

This post is mostly just me musing on various things that could be done within this challenge, but can probably be ignored if you don't want to read walls of text. So yeah.


Alright then, Arcane Swordsage 20. I know that this isn't really in the spirit of the challenge, but I'm on an AS binge right now so whatever.


If you prefer, you could
instead emphasize the magical talents of the swordsage by
giving the swordsage the ability to learn arcane spells in place
of maneuvers of equivalent level. In general, spells from the
schools of abjuration, evocation, and transmutation are most
appropriate for a swordsage of this type, especially spells with
a range of personal or touch. The arcane spell is “cast” as if
it were a martial maneuver. In this case, you should remove
the class’s light armor profi ciency and reduce the swordsage’s
Hit Die to d6.

Maneuvers known:
0 of 1st level, 1 of second level, 3 each of levels 3-8, 6 of level 9.

Feats: Adaptive Style, everything else is optional. Oh, and something to make yourself immortal/ageless would be nice, but is tricky to get.
Immortality is only needed if it's ruled that the apparent time that passes within a Time Stop ages you faster than regular time.

When you arrive at Earth, initiate Time Stop. On the first turn in Time Stop, recover Time Stop with a full-round action. On the second turn, initiate Time Stop again. Each time you initiate Time Stop, you gain 1d4-1 rounds of apparent time.

After eight hours of Time Stopping, you have gained 4,800d4-4800 rounds of timeless time - 7,200 rounds average, or twelve hours. Maybe sleep during the first eight of those before you continue or something, but whatever.

Have you ever seen a movie where someone gets the ability to move so fast that time seems to stand still, and proceed to abuse it horribly? That is now the rest of your life.

Oh, and since you have five other ninth-level spells known that you can initiate equally infinitely (hence Adaptive Style), you can start doing some really crazy things. Why, you ask?


Extraordinary or Supernatural Abilities: Martial
maneuvers and stances are never spells or spell-like abilities.
Unless the description of the specific maneuver or stance
says otherwise, treat it as an extraordinary ability. Thus,
these abilities work just fine in an antimagic field or a dead
magic zone. A maneuver or stance can’t be dispelled or
counterspelled, and initiating one does not provoke attacks
of opportunity.
If a maneuver is overtly magical or otherwise uses a supernatural power source, it is noted as a supernatural ability in its
description. In this case, the maneuver obeys all the standard
rules for supernatural abilities.
Nightmares and Dweomerkeepers seem to indicate that (Su) abilities also ignore the component costs of the spells they emulate, although that could be disputed.
What does this mean? Teleport Through Time is essentially At-Will, for instance. As are four other Transmutation/Abjuration/Evocation spells with Personal or Touch range.

You're kind of like the Doctor except more awesome, basically. Oh, and when the invaders come (a lifetime later, from your point of view), you can do that thing where people put a hundred Explosive Runes in a book except you cover an entire country with them instead. Yeah.
Really, having infinite time makes the time limit a lot less of an issue. Just craft everything mundanely if that's what floats your boat, but I'm sure you could find other ways to boost the planets defense during that time.
Undermaster is pretty great if you can ignore material components, since that'll let you reshape the entire planet to your whim given time. Oh, and you can have so many Contingencies that it's ridiculous.

You miss out on a lot of the cooler things since you can't Shapechange into non-Earth creatures, but you are still a Time Lord. Which is still pretty awesome.


For something that's a bit more in the line of what was expected when you said "arcane casting", did you know that the 7th, 8th, and 9th level Mysteries of the Shadowcaster are cast as arcane spells? I will never not advertise for Black Labyrinth.

Or you could just use Eternity of Torture+Nippleclamps of Masochism+Liquid Joy to set up some kind of dubious establishments that generate large amounts of Ambrosia which can be used both as XP and GP in crafting. Removing limits is something that Wizards are pretty good at.
Use Teleport Through Time to get enough time for all your crafting (and to make it so that your global empire has existed since the dawn of time), and if you get some kind of way to get immortality (Steal Life works well for the Evil God-Emperor types) you now no longer need to worry about most of the limitations in the OP. I think. Creating new races is an Epic spell (Origin of Species), so that's something a bit more dubious. I guess you could create were-rats with Curse of Lycanthropy? That's a way to buff the entire population, I guess.

Here's a short way to make yourself the God-Emperor of Earth:

Teleport Through Time waaay back in history.
Use Hide Life to make yourself unkillable by mundane means. Oh, and refresh a Contingent Revivify every nineteen days so that if you are killed you don't stay dead.
Use your arcane might to establish yourself as leader of some tribes and expand your power.
If someone complains, consider replacing them with an Ice Assassin.
Have people sacrifice themselves to you every full moon (Steal Life giving you 1 week of life for every point of Con drain). This gives you, on average, 42 weeks of life every month. Assuming you aren't a Necromancer (which you might consider, actually), in which case it's 52.5 weeks. A year a month is pretty good!
Put the elderly into an Eternity of Torture-powered coma, put on Nippleclamps of Masochism if you want to get Ambrosia rather than Liquid Pain.
Use Curse of Lycanthropy to spread were-rat lycanthropy throughout the population: if everyone's a were-rat, it's basically a free buff. +6 Dex, +2 Con, Always Lawful Evil? Yes please.

Actually, being a Lawful Evil Necromancer might be a good idea. Considering that Necromancy spells (Mother Cyst, Hide Life, Curse of Lycanthropy, Steal Life) are actually pretty useful when you're playing at being God-Emperor, that is. I don't see Conjuration being as useful without planes, and Transmutation loses a lot of its luster without access to most of the Monster Manual.
That's pretty weird.

[Rubik]

Use Curse of Lycanthropy to spread were-rat lycanthropy throughout the population: if everyone's a were-rat, it's basically a free buff. +6 Dex, +2 Con, Always Lawful Evil? Yes please.
Better to turn everyone into werebears so they're Lawful and Good. (Though why they're Good and werewolves are Evil is beyond me, when real bears and wolves are all purely Neutral. Do people turn into bears that then help little old ladies cross the street and sell Cub Scout cookies to raise money for charity?) After all, if everyone follows the law AND go out of their way to help others, that's less effort on your part at keeping them alive and orderly.

[Gemini476]

Better to turn everyone into werebears so they're Lawful and Good. (Though why they're Good and werewolves are Evil is beyond me, when real bears and wolves are all purely Neutral. Do people turn into bears that then help little old ladies cross the street and sell Cub Scout cookies to raise money for charity?) After all, if everyone follows the law AND go out of their way to help others, that's less effort on your part at keeping them alive and orderly.

Werebears don't exist. Curse of Lycanthropy (Book of Vile Darkness, Pestilence 6), however, explicitly creates 1d6 wererats from pretty much nothing. It's a really weird spell.


Lawful Evil people will also respect powerful authority, which considering that you are a level 20 Wizard in an E6 world is probably you. Also if they're Good they might object to you draining life from people to live forever and such.

[Rubik]

Werebears don't exist. Curse of Lycanthropy (Book of Vile Darkness, Pestilence 6), however, explicitly creates 1d6 wererats from pretty much nothing. It's a really weird spell.

Lawful Evil people will also respect powerful authority, which considering that you are a level 20 Wizard in an E6 world is probably you. Also if they're Good they might object to you draining life from people to live forever and such.Complete Divine has the Curse of Lycanthropy spell (which override's the BoVD's version, technically), which allows you to bestow any form of lycanthropy you want on the subject, which actually turns people into lycanthropes, rather than creating evil wererats out of bloody wounds.

It's better than the other spell in all sorts of ways, and for more types of characters.

[Gemini476]

Complete Divine has the Curse of Lycanthropy spell (which override's the BoVD's version, technically), which allows you to bestow any form of lycanthropy you want on the subject, which actually turns people into lycanthropes, rather than creating evil wererats out of bloody wounds.

It's better than the other spell in all sorts of ways, and for more types of characters.

...Actually, the xenomorph wererat version was reprinted in Spell Compendium.

Is the Complete Divine version of the Pestilence Domain overwritten by the Spell Compendium one or what? That's May 2004 vs. December 2005, by the way. Or maybe April 2013 for the reprint of the Spell Compendium, I don't know.

This is really weird. Why are there two different versions of this spell? Why did they replace the Defenders of the Faith version with the Book of Vile Darkness version, then replace the BoVD version with the Complete Divine (aka the updated DotF) version? Why did they flip-flop back to the BoVD version with the Spell compendium?
Sometimes I just don't understand Wizards of the coast.

[Rubik]

...Actually, the xenomorph wererat version was reprinted in Spell Compendium.

Is the Complete Divine version of the Pestilence Domain overwritten by the Spell Compendium one or what? That's May 2004 vs. December 2005, by the way. Or maybe April 2013 for the reprint of the Spell Compendium, I don't know.

This is really weird. Why are there two different versions of this spell? Why did they replace the Defenders of the Faith version with the Book of Vile Darkness version, then replace the BoVD version with the Complete Divine (aka the updated DotF) version? Why did they flip-flop back to the BoVD version with the Spell compendium?
Sometimes I just don't understand Wizards of the coast....I...think maybe we should consider them entirely different spells that just happen to have the same name, and count them as exempt from the "same name = overwrite" rule.

The BoVD/SpC version is full of RAW headaches and fail anyway, I think. Create entirely new people out of nothing? Really? And they're not even clones of preexisting individuals. They just suddenly spring up out of nothingness.

[Coidzor]

Tabula Ratsa.

[Drachasor]

A method that can produce NI copies is still in NI-land, even if you only choose to produce a few hundred with it. Which means the opposition also rolls in with a googleplex of minions, and the battle gets stupid.

I thought only infinite loops were prohibited. Something that produces tons and tons of minions/copies is probably not an infinite LOOP.

If the Wizard isn't allowed to produce large amounts of whatever, then I am not sure he's really going to be doing much that Earth can't manage on its own with conventional weaponry. Not when we're talking about battles on a global scale. I mean, I assume the enemy is going to be a large enough force to potentially take over the planet...if not then the Wizard need do nothing.