Wizard vs Army

[Warior4356]

So given the following scenario, if you were the wizard what would you do?

You a 17th level wizard, own a tower inside a kingdom. At your disposal about 80 0th level people commoners cooks janitors etc you also have about 20 1st-3rd level people guards and apprentices mostly. The enemy is an army of 10,000 the entire army is 1st level mooks, the leader of each group of 100 is a 3rd level, and each group of 1000 has a 5 level wizard there to prevent simple magic killing their army. Finally the entire army is lead by a 10th level wizard. There is no negotiation, you have to kill them all.

EDIT:Just to clarify there is not contest here of 17 level wizard vs army. The purpose here is coming up with fun ways to kill them all.

[Svata]

Summon Monster IX for 1d4+1 Fiendish megaraptors or huge earth elementals. Maybe 1d3 Greater ones instead, for the extra damage resistance. Most of the mooks shouldn't be able to beat the DR 10/-. And that's just off the top of my head. Heck, depending on how tightly they're packed, a few Widened Freezing Fogs (or other BFC spell of your choice) should do the trick.

Now that I think about it, a widened (metamagic rod or metmagic reducing shenanigans) Meteor Swarm would do 6d6 damage over four 80-foot radius circles, which is nearly garunteed to wie out all of the level ones, and most of the threes. Some fives, as well, depending on their classes/items.

[Shining Wrath]

How patient are you?

Towers like that, with pure mundane defenses, withstood extended sieges in the Middle Ages.

Put pure defensive buffs on everything, hire a low level Cleric who can create water in case you run low.

Then just sit on top of your tower and pick off the leaders with whatever magic amuses you today. When the leaders are gone start in on the Evocation / Conjuration area attacks.

[Vaz]

Gate in a Great Wyrm Dragon of any variety. Teleport away. Use Prestigidation to reheat some popcorn and turn it into allsorts of wierd and wonderful flavours. Scry the "battle".

[atomicwaffle]

9th level:
Shades: Mimics Conjurations of 8th level or lower. (Incendiary Cloud)

8th level:
Summon Monster VIII: (celestial triceritops) Should keep the army occupied, and take a good number of the troops with them (trample)

Create Greater Undead: Wraith. Lots of Wraiths. Good luck.

7th Level:
Project Image: Just useful

Control weather. You want rain and thunder, hail and misery. And cloudy, no light penetrates this battlefield (for the wraiths you created)

Limited Wish: Insect Plague (Druid lvl 5)

6th Level:
Dispel Magic, Greater: (utility spell)

Chain Lightning x2 (gotta kill em all)

Acid Fog (Utility/Kill em all)

5th level:
Cloudkill x2 (or x3) (most of your guys are HD 3 or lower. how about that?)

Teleport: (in case the battle goes ill)

Symbol of Sleep: Gehehe

4th level:
Evard's Black Tentacles x4: This spell kills mages dead.

3rd level:
Fly x2: Always good to have a spare

Fireball x2 (or x3) Boom.

2nd level:
Glitterdust x 2 (or x3): utility

Scorching ray x2: effective at higher levels

1st level:
Ray of Enfeeblement x4 (or x5)

O level:
4x Prestidigitation

[Rubik]

Other than small children, why would you keep 0th level anybodies around? Or 1st-3rd level ones? And of NPC classes? Commoners are ignorant, uneducated dirt farmers, and they're useless for everything, including cooking and cleaning; why do you allow them to exist? Before this scenario even comes up, you should train them to be useful things, such as initiator classes, marshals, bards, and so on.

[Vaz]

For the chickens.

[Rubik]

For the chickens.Ah, right. In that case, one level of commoner and the rest in cleric or archivist, so you have a source of fuel for caster level boosts.

[torrasque666]

Other than small children, why would you keep 0th level anybodies around? Or 1st-3rd level ones? And of NPC classes? Commoners are ignorant, uneducated dirt farmers, and they're useless for everything, including cooking and cleaning; why do you allow them to exist? Before this scenario even comes up, you should train them to be useful things, such as initiator classes, marshals, bards, and so on.

The entire point is that the opposing for has some sort of military strength while all you have are cannon fodder. So despite the appearance it is essentially 1 v 10,000. This isn't thinking on the terms of dungeon/plane delving but rather extended combat. And besides, all that 10th level has to do is Team Kill a few suckers till he hits 11, gets Anti-Magic Field, camp out for a two hours to refresh his spells, grab a sword off his dead teammate and leisurely walk up and stab you in the face. At that point all you have over him is 3 BAB.

As for "Why do you allow them to exist"... that sounds awfully Nazi-ish(GODWIN'S LAW HAS BEEN INVOKED!)

[Jormengand]

Gate in a solar angel which gates in a solar angel which....

Gate in a solar angel which casts Miracle, which actually has an option to win a battle

Gate in something bigger than a solar angel. You can go up to 34, and solars are only 23.

Sacrifice all the low-level nobodies and spam planar allies.

Spam planar bindings instead.

Spam Time Stop and Delayed Blast Fireball. Make sure you kill the 10th level wizard first, then you can greater teleport away and the fastest they can get to you is through fly.

Genesis yourself onto another plane of existence, on which only one second passes in the real world for each year you stay there. Periodically shove nasty spells through gates at the enemy.

Dominate or Quest the 10th-level wizard. Dominate or Lesser Geas the 10 5th-level wizards. Fly, and use protection from arrows, so that no-one can hit you. Make the other wizards do the same, or use other defensive spells, if they have them prepared, then get them to shut up and blast. Finish the rest off yourself.



This army contains exactly 11 people who can hurt you. Even if you're not an optimiser, you should be able to kill at least 2 of them or take over at least 1 with each spell you cast. Then, the rest is easy. Even if you send a Solar Angel just to go and hit things with a greatsword and spam self-healing and other SLAs, he should probably be able to rack up a decent tally, especially if you chuck buffs on him.


At that point all you have over him is 3 BAB.

And quite a few hit points, yes. :smalltongue:

Assuming the wizard is allowed to do that, you can still gate in a Solar, or chuck a prismatic wall or wall of iron down and watch him die, or disjoin his AMF and quickened kill him.

Though, this assumes that he has long enough - assuming that when you know about the army he's level 10, he probably doesn't have long enough to level up before you kill, incapacitate or dominate him.

Plus, what kind of wizard uses AMF while surrounded by angry warriors whose friends he just killed?

[Rubik]

My answer is to ignore all the fodder and kill/trap/convert the army using spells.

Simple.

[Ansem]

Sell everything and use the [War] spells summons.

[Dusk Eclipse]

A single casting of Blackfire will probably decimate the invading army fairly quickly.

[Promises Kept]

Is this Core only? It'd be easy enough even in core, but not really very fun, and that's been covered pretty well thus far. Now, if I want to make a point, I take Spell Mastery and Uncanny Forethought. I send my poor little commoners somewhere safe with a teleportation circle. And then I cast Apocalypse from the Sky as a full-round action. Overkill? Maybe a little bit. Funny? The enormous wasteland surrounding your tower sure says so.

[Gildedragon]

On the lvl 10 team killing folks: no good, killing per se gives no XP. Overcoming challenges does.
Walls of force behind the army. Trap them in a counter siege (or [war] force cage is kinda hillarious)

Send a couple of minions to harass the wizard during rest. Render them unable to prep spells

[Warior4356]

the best plan I came up thinking about my own scenario was:

Step 1. Scry and die the lead wizard, now that the only threat has been eliminated
Step 2. Summon elemental monolith
Step 3. Kill everything
Step 4. Profit

[sideswipe]

yawn and send out your iron golem and relax and enjoy the show

[torrasque666]

My answer is to ignore all the useless fodder and kill/trap/convert the army using spells.

Simple.

Never says that they don't have a Wizard back home supplying them with Magic Items. If I were sending my army to fight a wizard I'd make sure to equip them with a whole bunch of magic gear to overcome it.

Genesis? Has to be on Ethereal Plane and grows slowly.

Dominate? 3rd Eye Conceal

Planar Allies? Cleric list

Planar Bindings? Need to burn another spell on it to use it. Also the DC to escape and hurt you is 23+CHA as well as taking 10 minutes per binding and can't be quickened. Considering that the opposing army is probably made up of mounted soldiers and horses can run for 200ft every 6 seconds and 240 if its a light horse. Eventually you will succumb to sheer numbers.

Gating a Solar for Miracle? That's all it does and then says "**** off. I'm out." Also, there is no "win battle" option, only "Swinging the tide of a battle in your favor by raising fallen allies to continue fighting"

[ArqArturo]

My answer is to ignore all the fodder and kill/trap/convert the army using spells.

Simple.

This.

Maybe it's the Paladin-like conscience in me, but if you have a group of commoners depending on you for their safety, put them in a Mordekainen's magical mansion, call for all sorts of summon fodder shenanigans, and start all the heavy-hitting evocation spells in your book against the army.

Instil godly fear in them, then salt the land in which their bodies lay via mass flesh to salt, approach the surviving fools that even dared to defy you and start saying how the path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Remind them that blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And remind them that you will strike down upon them with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy Your brothers. And they will know You are the Lord when you lay Your vengeance upon them.

[Rubik]

This.

Maybe it's the Paladin-like conscience in me, but if you have a group of commoners depending on you for their safety, put them in a Mordekainen's magical mansion, call for all sorts of summon fodder shenanigans, and start all the heavy-hitting evocation spells in your book against the army.

Instil godly fear in them, then salt the land in which their bodies lay via mass flesh to salt, approach the surviving fools that even dared to defy you and start saying how the path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Remind them that blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And remind them that you will strike down upon them with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy Your brothers. And they will know You are the Lord when you lay Your vengeance upon them.And preferably without the religious nonsense.

[John Longarrow]

Step 1 - Stone Shape your tower shut.
Step 2 - Magnificent Mansion - Put people in it.
Step 3 - Polymorph Any Object - Straw/grain to Hash.
Step 4 - Hotbox the tower.
Step 5 - Let enemy in.

OK, so this time the party would be hot boxing a castle on purpose...

[otakumick]

Religious nonsense?

Do they speak Common in What?
Say what one more time.

[SmellyGoat]

Religious nonsense is completely acceptable within the confines of a Pulp Fiction reference imo. :smallbiggrin:

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Wail of the Banshee yet. Save or Die AoE vs. Level 0's and a 10th level Wizard trying to beat your insane DC with their Fortitude save? Heheheh.

[Jormengand]

Genesis? Has to be on Ethereal Plane and grows slowly.
Dunno why I said genesis. Plane shift will do.


Dominate? 3rd Eye Conceal
No clue what that is, but fine, I meteor swarm the wizards and then kill everything else normally.


Planar Allies? Cleric list
That's why you use the sacrifice rules. I should probably have speci... oh, wait.


Planar Bindings? Need to burn another spell on it to use it. Also the DC to escape and hurt you is 23+CHA as well as taking 10 minutes per binding and can't be quickened. Considering that the opposing army is probably made up of mounted soldiers and horses can run for 200ft every 6 seconds and 240 if its a light horse. Eventually you will succumb to sheer numbers.
1st level fighters don't have enough WBL for a horse.



Gating a Solar for Miracle? That's all it does and then says "**** off. I'm out." Also, there is no "win battle" option, only "Swinging the tide of a battle in your favor by raising fallen allies to continue fighting"

It lasts CL rounds, which is enough for it to wipe out most of the enemy army.

[Riston]

I'd probably drop the Locate City Bomb (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=3925365&postcount=4), though that may be a bit of an overkill.

[Jormengand]

I'd probably drop the Locate City Bomb (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=3925365&postcount=4), though that may be a bit of an overkill.

Go wightapocalypse or go home. :smalltongue:

[torrasque666]

That's why you use the sacrifice rules. I should probably have speci... oh, wait. I am not familiar with Sacrifice rules. Now I am.


1st level fighters don't have enough WBL for a horse. Again, they are probably being supplied by someone else, like a king who certainly would.





It lasts CL rounds, which is enough for it to wipe out most of the enemy army.

A controlled creature can be commanded to perform a service for you. Such services fall into two categories: immediate tasks and contractual service. Fighting for you in a single battle or taking any other actions that can be accomplished within 1 round (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Round) per caster level (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Caster_Level) counts as an immediate task; you need not make any agreement or pay any reward for the creature’s help. The creature departs at the end of the spell. You get one task. Not one per level. You can either have it fight or cast Miracle. Not both.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Widened Cloudkill or Widenend Fell drain Mystull grave mist are other options, the first one will quickly kill all the mooks, the second one will make all the lowest level mooks into zombies (can't recall if they are under your control or not, but it doesn't really matter).

Seriously, there is no contest the level 17 wizard wins this single-handedly. The level 5 wizard is a minor annoyance at worst, since you can use low-level spells to deal with the army while saving the big guns for the other wizard.

[Hecuba]

So given the following scenario, if you were the wizard what would you do?

You a 17th level wizard, own a tower inside a kingdom. At your disposal about 80 0th level people commoners cooks janitors etc you also have about 20 1st-3rd level people guards and apprentices mostly. The enemy is an army of 10,000 the entire army is 1st level mooks, the leader of each group of 100 is a 3rd level, and each group of 1000 has a 5 level wizard there to prevent simple magic killing their army. Finally the entire army is lead by a 10th level wizard. There is no negotiation, you have to kill them all.

The most direct solution (though not necessarily the most efficient one) here is long range, large area evocations.
The question is, can we make it efficient enough.

So let's grab Blistering Radiance, a 4th level evocation.
It has a nice, big 50 ft. radius.-- one casting will cover 7850 sq. ft.
That's about 310 mooks if they are packed 1/square.
It only does 2d6 damage, so it might take more than one casting per mook. The huge area should, however, more than compensate for the extra castings (when compared with the same tactic using other spells).

That would take too many castings to readily manage it with just your normal slots (well, you might pull it off with widen at 1250 mooks/cast -- but really, who takes widen).

It is, however, 4th level. It fits into a wand.
If you're really worried about your tower's defenses against ye giant horde of mooks, keep a wand or two of this spell handy.
A wand also means that your apprentices will be able to take care of ye giant horde of mooks for you while you keep with the actual work.

[torrasque666]

Widened Cloudkill or Widenend Fell drain Mystull grave mist are other options, the first one will quickly kill all the mooks, the second one will make all the lowest level mooks into zombies (can't recall if they are under your control or not, but it doesn't really matter).

Seriously, there is no contest the level 17 wizard wins this single-handedly. The level 5 wizard is a minor annoyance at worst, since you can use low-level spells to deal with the army while saving the big guns for the other wizard.

Send minions in one at a time, while hiding the rest in another plane made through a scroll of gate(DC 10) to make the Wizard waste his spells? All you have to do is keep it up and prevent him from getting two hours rest and he can't recharge.

[SmellyGoat]

Don't forget spells like Screen to prevent the opposing spellcaster from spying on you/your forces.

[Jormengand]

I am not familiar with Sacrifice rules. Now I am.
Good.

Again, they are probably being supplied by someone else, like a king who certainly would.
I'm assuming that they get what they say on the tin. If the


You get one task. Not one per level. You can either have it fight or cast Miracle. Not both.

"taking any other actions that can be accomplished within 1 round per caster level counts as an immediate task;"

Casting miracle and fighting for 16 rounds counts as a single task.

[Gildedragon]

Send all your followers away and then apocalypse from the sky with that deck of many things you never used.
Do sonic damage, level the army with panache

[John Longarrow]

Guigarci

If you have a deck of many things, just sit in front of your tower with the deck in front of you. Put up a sign "Free draws!!"

Either people will run in terror or they don't know what happens from that nasty thing and you get a dread wraith that summons extras. Should kill the Army quickly. After all, how many idiots will jump into battle to help their friend?

[Darkweave31]

Well since you're a level 17 wizard and of course have your own private demiplane (via genesis) where 1 day passes for every round on the material plane you have plenty of time to prepare.

I'm somewhat partial to the simulacrum clone army (using infinite wish loops for fast, cheap generation). Choose a suitable template for the army (I enjoy mandalorian bounty hunters or solars myself) and just create your own force. Arm them with quick loading force crossbows, awesome armor, and anything else they'd need (I like to wish up some augmented alchemist's fire and acid for grenades).

Use stronghold builder's guide to create giant triangular flying fortresses capable of teleportation (perhaps call them astral destroyers or something) as well as other moving platforms from which your army can deploy.

Watch the enemies scatter in terror as an army much larger, much more well equipped, and much better trained teleports above them and starts bombarding them from afar with such force they can't even hope to get close enough to engage.

Meanwhile evacuate the civilians in your tower to a magnificent mansion so they can feast in celebration of your most recent world domination...

[Gildedragon]

Guigarci

If you have a deck of many things, just sit in front of your tower with the deck in front of you. Put up a sign "Free draws!!"

Either people will run in terror or they don't know what happens from that nasty thing and you get a dread wraith that summons extras. Should kill the Army quickly. After all, how many idiots will jump into battle to help their friend?

Except when some lucky bastard draws the moon, wishes that all draws made from that deck are beneficial to the drawer...
It all depends on what side the heroes are. If you are "evil" wizard leaving the deck out is begging for your downfall
If the other wizard is a would be evil overlord or BBEGs minion, then yeah you'll probably win by throwing decks into the opposing side... Along with intelligent animated gloves whose instruction is DRAW

[Sewercop]

Unleash a million spells in two rounds before they even move out against you due to COP shenannigans.

This all boils down to cheese anyway. Either the lvl 17 wins or it is a draw because of theoretical cheese escalation.

[Hecuba]

Send minions in one at a time, while hiding the rest in another plane made through a scroll of gate(DC 10) to make the Wizard waste his spells? All you have to do is keep it up and prevent him from getting two hours rest and he can't recharge.

A reserve feat would be able to manage that scenario without use of slots. Heck, if you're an elf, a longbow might be sufficient (though the -4 non-proficiency might be iffy if you're not). A single calling spell would also likely be sufficient.

[Shining Wrath]

And preferably without the religious nonsense.

Methinks that particular religious nonsense was worship of the great deity Samuel L Jackson in one of his holy avatars, "Pulp Fiction".

YouTube clip with violence and language (http://youtu.be/x2WK_eWihdU)

[John Longarrow]

17th level wizard takes a Cat for a familiar. Buffs cat and sends it forth to reak HAVOC upon the unsuspecting masses.

Those few who survive will never dare to bare arms against their fluffy masters again!

*** I wonder if this will summon WarKitty to the thread ***

[Renen]

Go wightapocalypse or go home. :smalltongue:

Via Fimbulwinter?

I present to you:
A fun way to say "**** you" (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=9892.0)

[Jormengand]

Via Fimbulwinter?

Was thinking fell drain variant of the LCB.

[Renen]

Bah! To be honest, I stopped reading and thought "auto win" when he said 17th level wizard

[ArqArturo]

Methinks that particular religious nonsense was worship of the great deity Samuel L Jackson in one of his holy avatars, "Pulp Fiction".

YouTube clip with violence and language (http://youtu.be/x2WK_eWihdU)

Yup, that's it. But I guess I need to be a little bit more explicit next time, to avoid confusion.

Also, another alternative... Why not just use Ice Assassin on the enemy general? Quick, clean, easy, and no one else needs to die.

[Renen]

Yup, that's it. But I guess I need to be a little bit more explicit next time, to avoid confusion.

Also, another alternative... Why not just use Ice Assassin on the enemy general? Quick, clean, easy, and no one else needs to die.


Hell, why not mindrape the enemy general ane just send the army right back?

[Killer Angel]

yawn and send out your iron golem and relax and enjoy the show

..or you can tell to your advanced familiar "would you like to take care of them? you can even use my equipment".

[Flickerdart]

Via Fimbulwinter?

I present to you:
A fun way to say "**** you" (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=9892.0)
Winter lasting multiple years, dead rising as wights...Ned Stark, we should have listened to you!

[Kraken]

Couldn't the 17th level character just do a minimal amount of CL boosting and shapechange into a solar to win? They could just leisurely wade through the battlefield with some buffs and tear apart all the mooks for sport. Edit: scratch that, fly above them and plink them, just for more novelty, and also a bird's eye view. A solar has DR 15/evil and epic, and also regeneration that is only bypassed by evil and epic weapons. Veil of undeath (Spell Comp.) would make you immune to non-lethal damage (and immune to lots of other stuff), so I think that'd limit damage sources to evil epic spells and weapons. If the incoming army is so well bankrolled that they could afford to overcome that, then they could just WBL you to death through other means anyway. The 10th level wizard wouldn't have a high enough caster level to dispel anything, and even then, pumping your CL enough that dispelling is impractical due to the caps on all the spells isn't that difficult, and it carries all sorts of benefits by increasing durations and effects of uncapped spells.

[Renen]

Oh oh... I got another one.
Just summon (or maybe polymorph) into a 12 headed cryo hydra. Freeze the suckers to death.

[John Longarrow]

Couldn't the 17th level character just do a minimal amount of CL boosting and shapechange into a solar to win? They could just leisurely wade through the battlefield with some buffs and tear apart all the mooks for sport. Edit: scratch that, fly above them and plink them, just for more novelty, and also a bird's eye view. A solar has DR 15/evil and epic, and also regeneration that is only bypassed by evil and epic weapons. Veil of undeath (Spell Comp.) would make you immune to non-lethal damage (and immune to lots of other stuff), so I think that'd limit damage sources to evil epic spells and weapons. If the incoming army is so well bankrolled that they could afford to overcome that, then they could just WBL you to death through other means anyway. The 10th level wizard wouldn't have a high enough caster level to dispel anything, and even then, pumping your CL enough that dispelling is impractical due to the caps on all the spells isn't that difficult, and it carries all sorts of benefits by increasing durations and effects of uncapped spells.

Solar isn't hands on enough... Go War Troll. :xykon:

[Warior4356]

Thank you all for the great responses, keep them coming reading this stuff is awesome. Just to clarify there is not contest here of 17 level wizard vs army. The purpose here is coming up with fun ways to kill them all.

[Inevitability]

For the wizards, dominate their leader and let them call the others to his chambers. Then meteor swarm the place.
After that, Allips for the mooks. If you want, you can put some walls of force in a circle around the army first, but that just speeds things up a bit.

[Dorian Gray]

Twin repeating greater arcane fusion to cast twin repeating arcane fusion and twin repeating arcane fusion, which casts split twin repeating fell drain ocular scorching ray and split twin repeating fell drain ocular ray of frost. This assumes sorcerer and incantatrix and a lot of metamagic reducers, but it should end up with a total of 48 scorching rays per arcane fusion, which you cast 8 of per GAF, which you cast 4 of in one round. That's a bit more than 1500 scorching rays, plus around 500 rays of frost. The kicker is that each of those spells drains 1 level, and that means that you get 2000 wights to play with after each casting of GAF. And not that you'll need it, considering that your wights will start wightopocalypsing, but yes, you can do that again next round. (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-mage--58/residual-magic--2434/)

[John Longarrow]

Warior4356,

If you just want creative and fun things to do to an army that can't fight back, just go out under greater invisibility and start polymorphing random soldiers into fair maidens. That should be enough of a distraction to really cause the army to fall apart quickly!

Alternative would be to planar ally some succubi then open a cheap brothel. I wonder how many of the soldiers will die from being "Kissed" before someone catches on...

[Fouredged Sword]

Wish for a gear of an adimantium horror. Break gear into sand sized grains.

Generate an army of ice assassin adimantium horrors.

At will disintegrate solves many problems.

[ArqArturo]

Wish for a gear of an adimantium horror. Break gear into sand sized grains.

Generate an army of ice assassin adimantium horrors.

At will disintegrate solves many problems.

It also works as a good waste-disposal device for your kingdom.

[Vogonjeltz]

Gate in a Great Wyrm Dragon of any variety. Teleport away. Use Prestigidation to reheat some popcorn and turn it into allsorts of wierd and wonderful flavours. Scry the "battle".


The gate itself is a circular hoop or disk from 5 to 20 feet in diameter (caster’s choice)

Some Great wyrms are Colossal, which is 30 feet space, so those won't work (Red, Gold, Silver). Also, you can't gate them in, they aren't Extraplanar to the Material Plane (and as plane hasn't been specified it's safe to say it's there). So there's that.

Oh, and the limit on controlling for Gate (for a single creature) is 2x CL in HD. Great Wyrms:
Black = 37 HD
Blue = 39 HD
Green = 38 HD
White = 36 HD

Brass = 37 HD
Bronze = 39 HD
Copper = 38 HD


None of which matters. This is an army of 10,000 mooks. How many do you think 'any' conjured/gated creature will kill in 17 rounds?

Let's just be totally nice, and say the Dragon is capable of toasting max enemies in their breath range every time, and they roll the minimum (1 round cooldown) every time, and when they aren't breathing they're full attacking and killing with every single attack.

So basically we're looking at the best case scenario, which we already know isn't happening because the moment they show up the enemy are scattering until they're gone.

The biggest baddest Gold Dragon that this wizard can't actually summon anyway is going to get a 70' cone. That's going to cover (by my count, I could be off) 340 squares. So If the dragon is able to breath 9 times (having to take a breather in between assuming minimum downtime) and do his max attacks per round not breathing (8 rounds x 6 = 48) the maximum number of enemies a colossal great wyrm gold dragon is killing is 3108. Not nothing...but also not nearly enough considering that's where it tops out.

As the average number of rounds is 2.5 between breaths the average kills (assuming maximized hits still) is actually 1772, which barely makes a dent in the forces and cost the 9th level for the day.

More probably, this dragon will kill between 20 and 100 people, because upon showing up, everyone scatters from getting panicked. People who flee in every direction make it very difficult to hit multiple targets, even with a large cone breath weapon.

This all goes to the point that the Wizard is significantly more likely to run out of spells before the enemy runs out of troops.


9th level:
Shades: Mimics Conjurations of 8th level or lower. (Incendiary Cloud)

Question: Why not just cast the actual incendiary cloud? (Where's the benefit?)
Flaw: Range is medium (170 feet at level 17) That's not far enough to hit more than a couple people. (1088, assuming they lemming into place for you)


8th level:
Summon Monster VIII: (celestial triceritops) Should keep the army occupied, and take a good number of the troops with them (trample)

Trample from the Triceratops hits (at best) 48 troops, assuming they cluster for no good reason. That's up to 816 troops killed assuming max hits per round.
Flaw: Range is close! (65 feet at 17), which means the wizard is presumably outside his tower. This doesn't seem like a great idea.


Create Greater Undead: Wraith. Lots of Wraiths. Good luck.

Flaws: A 1 hour casting time, must be cast at night, and requires a good supply of very expensive onyx. Clerics or holy water can easily destroy wraiths. Good luck indeed.


7th Level:
Project Image: Just useful

Perhaps for fleeing the scene. But this won't be useful in a combat scenario against so many troops that they can afford to waste lives targeting the wrong one.


Control weather. You want rain and thunder, hail and misery. And cloudy, no light penetrates this battlefield (for the wraiths you created)

Flaw: 10 minute casting time.


Limited Wish: Insect Plague (Druid lvl 5)

Flaw: 150% damage from aoe. That's up to 21 from a single alchemist fire, so about 10 alchemist fires in the whole army could counter this. But hey, at least it's long range.


6th Level:
Dispel Magic, Greater: (utility spell)

Flaw: Useless if there's nothing to dispel.


Chain Lightning x2 (gotta kill em all)

Flaw: Kill's, at best, 34 enemies, out of 10,000. Burns 2 turns of casting.


Acid Fog (Utility/Kill em all)

Flaw: 170 foot range at 17th level. It's only 20-ft wide, easily circumnavigable, easily dispersed by the 2nd level gust of wind. At most, assuming the enemy actually ran into the cloud to die, would kill 1088.


5th level:
Cloudkill x2 (or x3) (most of your guys are HD 3 or lower. how about that?)

Flaws: Same as Acid Fog, the range is too short to effectively target the enemy, easily dispersed by gust of wind, in the best possible circumstances won't kill enough.


Teleport: (in case the battle goes ill)

Flaw: If the Wizard steps foot in arrow range he dies in 1 round. 10,000 shots average damage is 45,000.


Symbol of Sleep: Gehehe

Clever, but this will activate and then stop, maybe 5 people before the rest wait and see. That buy the caster 2 hours and 50 minutes to come up with plan B.
Flaw: People will stop walking into the valley of snooze, and it doesn't actually harm anyone. Worse, it costs a very expensive opal to even put up.


4th level:
Evard's Black Tentacles x4: This spell kills mages dead.

So what does the Wizard do if he's caught in it? The 10th level Wizard likely has it on his spell list if it's so good at killing other wizards.
Flaw: What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Each casting kills at most 64 (256 for all 4 castings)


3rd level:
Fly x2: Always good to have a spare

Flaw: This doesn't do any good, the Wizard is likely dead if he can be shot.


Fireball x2 (or x3) Boom.

Kills at most 64 (x3 = 192 if the enemy are deliberately packed in to fill every square it hits).
Flaw: Better than Chain Lightning theoretically, but in practice I've never seen a situation with NPCs that densely packed.


2nd level:
Glitterdust x 2 (or x3): utility

What utility? This could blind up to 16 creatures per casting (48 with all 3).


Scorching ray x2: effective at higher levels

Kills, at best, 6 enemies.
Flaw: (Besides the up side) Close range, so it's probably going quite badly for the Wizard if he's resorting to this.


1st level:
Ray of Enfeeblement x4 (or x5)

O level:
4x Prestidigitation

These last 9 slots can't kill or even incapacitate anyone.

By my count, assuming these spells did the maximum possible damage, the Wizard kills:
Dragon He can't Actually Gate In: 3108
Incendiary Cloud: 1088
Triceratops: 816
Chain Lightning x2: 34
Acid Fog: 1088
cloudkill x 3: 3264
Black Tentacles x 4: 256
Fireball x 3: 192
Scorching Ray x2: 6

total: 9852 (maximized kills).

Remainder: 148

Of course, I've left off the insect Swarm and Attempt to make some sort of wraith army, but the former is easily defeated by any aoe from the invaders (including torches...ahem), still it could kill up to 2 people per round until it's killed. With up to 40 attacks per round from the vicinity we're going to see at least 8 hits per round for at least 8 damage, suggests a maximum life span of 3 rounds, so 6 kills.

Remainder 142.

Wraiths could kill up to 1 enemy a round unless they're snuffed out by holy water. That being said...this particular idea carries a terrible risk, as the subsequent wraiths are controlled by the original...if that one dies, you just have a bunch of uncontrolled wraiths running around right outside the obvious Wizard's tower. This decision is more likely to result in the Wizard's death than not.

So, after assuming the Wizard been given the best possible outcome of his attempting to destroy an army of 10,000.

The question comes down to: 142 fresh troops vs 1 Wizard who has utterly exhausted his spells.


Now, from the reverse angle, let's say I have an army of 10,000 mooks and I'm trying to break into this tower.
Level 10 Wizard gets 2 castings of Passwall, collapses the Wizard Tower killing everyone inside.

[torrasque666]

-snip-

Would it be safe to assume that not many people here have experience with mass combat and don't necessarily realize that what works well in small encounters of the sort the usual party would encounter don't translate well?

[Svata]

Apocalypse from the Sky, Meteor Swarm, Fimbulwinter, etc... still do the trick on huge groups.

[torrasque666]

Apocalypse from the Sky, Meteor Swarm, Fimbulwinter, etc... still do the trick on huge groups.

Apocolypse: Casting time of a day, not sure if that will really help. Yeah sure, packs a punch, but a day?

Meteor Swarm: 9th level, so you only get 1+Int casts. Plus, each one has a 40 ft radius. Even assuming that the soldiers are packed shoulder to shoulder, thats still only a circle with an area of 5025(rounded down from 5026 and change) meaning that AT MOST you can hit 1005 soldiers per meteor. So max per casting is 4020 soldiers if packed tightly.

Fimbulwinter: I got nothing. Still kinda confused as to how its used offensively.

[Vogonjeltz]

Would it be safe to assume that not many people here have experience with mass combat and don't necessarily realize that what works well in small encounters of the sort the usual party would encounter don't translate well?

Heh, I think there's just a very inflated idea of what a high level caster can accomplish because they are so conceptually powerful.

And those spells can be powerful, but after a certain point that power is going to waste.

What happens if the enemy just send waves of enemies in groups of 50? That's 200 groups right there. If they are spaced 2 minutes apart then all the wizard spells will have lapsed by the time the next group arrives. Wizard runs out of spells before the halfway mark (after 3 hours)

[tyckspoon]

Would it be safe to assume that not many people here have experience with mass combat and don't necessarily realize that what works well in small encounters of the sort the usual party would encounter don't translate well?

Most of the printed D&D spells just aren't that good at mass combat (although the ones that are good tend to be exceptional. Mostly weather-controlling effects. Druids are a mundane army's worst nightmare.) One of my favorites is actually Wall of Fire - it covers a good area, it's opaque so it blocks line of sight for a defensive benefit, it deals enough damage to reliably destroy cannonfodder troops, and it has a duration of Concentration + casterlevel rounds. It can literally last until you get bored of sustaining it or until your enemies get tired of burning themselves to death and start working on a different solution. Use one of the methods for having something else Concentrate for you and you can even respond to that new approach while the Wall keeps going.

Boreal Wind is also pretty good - scythes out a 20x20xLong Range corridor of damage and wind, lasts for 1 +1/2casterlevel rounds, and you can redirect where it's blowing as a move action.


What happens if the enemy just send waves of enemies in groups of 50? That's 200 groups right there. If they are spaced 2 minutes apart then all the wizard spells will have lapsed by the time the next group arrives. Wizard runs out of spells before the halfway mark (after 3 hours)

Wall of Fire, Permanency, go read a book until the enemy's casters show up to deal with this thing that their mundane soldiers are pretty much completely incapable of getting through. Various Walls + Permanency if you consider it worth the XP cost are actually pretty good for this. The thing is you're stuck on taking the offense to the army. You don't need to. You can establish a defensive position that is pretty much impossible for them to overcome and either wait for them to go away when they realize the futility or wear them down over time with those 'inefficient' killing spells.

[Rubik]

I do believe a Colossal creature can squeeze through a Gate effect at half speed.

Also, Gate in a pseudonatural celestial great wyrm gold dragon, command it to fail its save and lower any resistances, and then Dominate it.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Apocolypse: Casting time of a day, not sure if that will really help. Yeah sure, packs a punch, but a day?Uncanny Forethought for cheesy 1 full round casting time.
Meteor Swarm: 9th level, so you only get 1+Int casts. Plus, each one has a 40 ft radius. Even assuming that the soldiers are packed shoulder to shoulder, thats still only a circle with an area of 5025(rounded down from 5026 and change) meaning that AT MOST you can hit 1005 soldiers per meteor. So max per casting is 4020 soldiers if packed tightly.I'm with you here; meteor swarm is very meh.
Fimbulwinter: I got nothing. Still kinda confused as to how its used offensively.Flash Frost Spell + Energy Admixture + Explosive Blast + Born of the Three Thunders = big boom, big area. Requires extensive metamagic reduction, and you'd replace your army problem with IMO a bigger problem, but it works?

Speaking of metamagic reduction, an Incantatrix solves this problem neatly. Shapechange into a Shadesteel Golem with Superior Invisibility and other hide/MS boosters to be virtually undetectable, and definitely undetectable by this army. Stack a bunch of persistent fell drain cloud of knives and auto-murder the level 10 wizard. Use Persistent Undermaster to rout the rest of the army in style, via at-will earthquakes.

[Kraken]

You wouldn't even need to use earthquake. Thanks to undermaster's stupid ability to make move earth a standard action, you could bury dozens at once, or even hundreds if they're packed tightly enough. Even when it isn't persisted, undermaster is one of the most stupidly overpowered spells in the game.

[Malroth]

Your Commoners are all living in a magnificent Mansion located on another plane.
Permanent Invisible fell animate energy substitution: (cold) wall of fire are covering each entrance to your tower.
All road signs withn 5 miles of the tower have a heightened extended Magic aura on them set to hide all magical traces and an extended Illusionary Script that gives the suggestion "My leader treats me like garbage and doesn't pay me enough, I should stab him" on anyone who sees the sign.

[Lightlawbliss]

I'm lazy, I would just make a persistent image high in the air on some dangerous plane and then make a gate to it.

[eggynack]

Snip
A lot of issues here seem to be related to casting time on spells. I don't see why that would be an issue. Did the enemy army just pop out of nowhere, and now they're charging at you with five minutes to go? It seems vaguely unlikely, especially when we're talking about a high level wizard. Thus, control weather actually would happen, because if the wizard can't figure out that an entire army is going to attack his castle ten minutes before it would actually occur, then we're talking about a particularly incompetent wizard. Seriously, you probably wouldn't even need magic to get a better lag time than that. The same likely goes for stuff like wraith piles, as while that lag time might require magic, we have magic.

Additionally, I don't see much risk from the things you're claiming risk for. Black tentacles is counterable by freedom of movement. You can keep wraiths from attacking you with something as simple as a form of invisibility, as I don't see much in the way of wraith vision modes. You're assuming something like symmetric warfare in a lot of your arguments, where the wizard won't have ways of dealing with the things that the army can't deal with. You're also assuming an odd level of foresight on the part of the army, where they have everyone equipped with alchemist's fire, bows, and gust of wind somehow. It's not like the army's limited casting resources can be everywhere on the battlefield, after all.

[Vaz]

17th level Wizards have trivially easy ways of boosting their CL.

All creatures are accessible on the Plane of Dreams, and failing that, Dragons capable of getting their own Demiplane, like any optimized wizard will be on their own Demiplane, and hence, extraplanar.

Finally like mentioned, can squeeze through the gate, and failing that Great Wyrm Steel Dragons are only huge. Once called, (provided it fails its Will Save ,, which a 17th level wizard will have maxed the DC for), dominate it. It is now yours forever and ever.

[Erik Vale]

Fun ways a wizard could kill them:
Scalding Mud... You get sucked into the ground which for some reason burns hotter than lava... Well their ashes will be good for growing things later.
Precipitate Planar Breach line: Bargain with some devils, in exchange for killing the army they get to stick in one spot, wait for you to make the breach and force as many people through as possible. The ones that survive the fight get to live on the mortal plane as long as they don't draw your attention, and for one round they have access to the prime material [you dismiss the spell afterwards]. I suppose you could bargain with some other type of outsider, like angels, but I think devils work best.

[Captnq]

Assuming I would stoop to evocation:

Iceberg - 20' area in the middle for no save 20d6. So, on top of that, I got me a wand of maximize. take 120 no save, burried in snow. Sufficate and die if you survived, bitch. Sudden widen for the hell of it. Everyone out to 120 feet gets flattened by a giant chuck of ice. Oh, and it's CRUSHING damage, not cold, so unless you took that obscure ASA that halves blunt trauma, there is no defense except having mucho HP.

Conjuration:
Ring of Fire: Sudden widen, extend metamagic rod.
Starts out a 20d6 area of lava 20' radius. every two rounds it expands 20'. It lasts for 40 rounds. So by the end of the spell, it's expanded to 440' diameter lake of lava doing 20d6 fire damage to anything inside.

Transmuter:
Fimbulwinter: Extended, Maximize rod, sudden empower, sudden widen
10 minute casting time. 40 miles around my home is plunged into eternal winter for 144 weeks. Since I maximized and empowered my die roll, I get a minimum of 30 on the effect roll, so even in the middle of the tropics in summer, I get a 22 effect. So that means I get 42" of inches of snow. Anywhere else, or any other time of year, I get 120" or 10 FEET of snow. EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR 1008 DAYS.

And since the snow never melts, it results in 1.91 MILES of snow piled up around my tower in a 40 mile circle.

So, in the 2.67 years after casting my spell, the world itself groans under the weight of the new glacier that I created, but just ONE INCH outside my 40 mile radius, the weather is just as it always was. It goes through it's seasons like nothing ever happened. They get to watch as this massive wall of ice climbs higher and higher every day into the sky. With settling we can assume the final height is a giant 1 mile thick chunk of ice. And when the spell finally ends, it will MELT. Resulting in cataclysmic enviromental changes to the entire region that will last for hundreds of years.

Do... we have to continue? Seriously. This is just silly.

[eggynack]

Seriously. This is just silly.
Pretty sure that's the point. Gotta say that I'm a fan of any plan that involves an ever-heightening glacier looming over all of mankind.

[Captnq]

Pretty sure that's the point. Gotta say that I'm a fan of any plan that involves an ever-heightening glacier looming over all of mankind.

I figure with my tower in the middle, I'll need to keep casting that Ring of fire spell about 4 times a day to keep the ice far enough back. Then the 0-level commoners are put to use shoveling off my roof.

Edit: BTW, I'm from buffalo. I've seen what 10 feet of snow in 12 days can do to a city. This is 10 feet of snow in a DAY. 5" an HOUR. Actually, Now that I think about it, I'm going to need to put up a wall of force over my tower because now even LAVA is going to buy me enough time. 80 commoners working in shifts non-stop around the clock might be able to handle it for a few days, but eventually there is no place to shovel the snow to. No invading army will survive. Hell, if they are close enough to see my tower, and they turn around and start running as soon as I start casting, they are all dead. Frozen corpses buried under a mountain of ice.

[Spuddles]

Apocolypse: Casting time of a day, not sure if that will really help. Yeah sure, packs a punch, but a day?

Meteor Swarm: 9th level, so you only get 1+Int casts. Plus, each one has a 40 ft radius. Even assuming that the soldiers are packed shoulder to shoulder, thats still only a circle with an area of 5025(rounded down from 5026 and change) meaning that AT MOST you can hit 1005 soldiers per meteor. So max per casting is 4020 soldiers if packed tightly.

Fimbulwinter: I got nothing. Still kinda confused as to how its used offensively.

what sort of army can advance on a level 17 wizard without being spotted a week away? 10,000 level 1 dudes walking to your tower is gonna be real obvious for a real long time.

[Rubik]

Pretty sure that's the point. Gotta say that I'm a fan of any plan that involves an ever-heightening glacier looming over all of mankind.Global warming? We don't need no stinkin' global warming!

Also, Invisible, Pemanencied Symbols of Insanity and/or Death all over the place.

[Renen]

Apocolypse: Casting time of a day, not sure if that will really help. Yeah sure, packs a punch, but a day?

Meteor Swarm: 9th level, so you only get 1+Int casts. Plus, each one has a 40 ft radius. Even assuming that the soldiers are packed shoulder to shoulder, thats still only a circle with an area of 5025(rounded down from 5026 and change) meaning that AT MOST you can hit 1005 soldiers per meteor. So max per casting is 4020 soldiers if packed tightly.

Fimbulwinter: I got nothing. Still kinda confused as to how its used offensively.

If you read the link youll see. After only 10 minutes of cast timeAnd then 10 mins of wait time (if I remember correctly) area for miiiiles around you becomes a veeeeery deadly place.

Also, any criticism of casting time is irrelevant. Not only would a lvl 17 wizard know the army is coming weeks in advance, there are always time shenanigans that allow you to sit in a fast time demiplane.

[Spuddles]

are we also to expect that this army of level 1 mooks are all going to fight to the death, to the last man? summoning a single yeth hound is going to route most of the army, just via forcing thousands of saves vs fear.

summoning or calling anything with around DR 10, an AoE, and flight is going to route big chunks of the army.

unless its an army of robots.

[Renen]

Hey I know... summon gorgons! Put em up on a nice pedestal in front of enemy army. Boom! You now have a whole army of stone statues. Hmm... thats familiar...

[Erik Vale]

You could dismiss the spell before it becomes a mile high glacier of doom. It seems running it for a day should be enough to kill most wildlife and the army.

[Osiris]

Take invisible spell, the feat from Cityscape
Cast it with Prismatic Wall
Enjoy the fun as hordes of mooks drop dead of their own accord.

Or, invisible summons, ones with guttural sounds to freak the mooks out as they lumber forwards. Picture it- a man runs screaming, not knowing what he runs from. He floats into midair, as if being seized by an enormous fiendish talon. Suddenly, blood erupts everywhere, and blood drips from the mouth of the horrid creature, the Vrock. Yeah, Vrocks! Why not. Telekinesis, infinite flight, infinite major image, these guys alone would be tough, but invisible ones? We need an evil smiley.

[Renen]

You could dismiss the spell before it becomes a mile high glacier of doom. It seems running it for a day should be enough to kill most wildlife and the army.

Dismiss? Dispel you mean?
Also, the Fimbilwinter I linked is better *pout*
The whole army will die in a few rounds. No need to wait for some iffy snow buildup

Also. Why Vrocks? Because Vrocks fall, everyone dies.

[Erik Vale]

I know, I've seen it. IT's a pile of meta-magic chese of awesome.

And no, has a duration, you can dismiss it... I suppose you could dispel it if you want to waste a slot.

[Deadline]

I know, I've seen it. IT's a pile of meta-magic chese of awesome.

And no, has a duration, you can dismiss it... I suppose you could dispel it if you want to waste a slot.

You can only dismiss spells with a (D) listed as part of their duration (the (D) means it's dismissable). Otherwise, no such luck.

[Captnq]

Fun Time:

The Humble Flaming Sphere
Sculpt/Extended into a 120' x 5' line Suddened widened into 240' x 10' line.

A giant rolling flaming log that is 240' long and lasts for 40 rounds. Have it just cruise around your tower.

Create Trap:
Sculpt, Invisible, Extended, Liberally season with widen, empower and maximize.

So You create an invisible trap. You go with the Fusillade of Darts, because anything else would be stupid. Because it's sculpted, both the trigger area and the target area are the same, and lets go with a 40' cone for the hell of it. Any time anyone enters the trigger area, MOVES in the trigger area, Looks at the trigger area CROSSEYED, everyone in the trigger area gets attacked with 1d4 invisible darts at BAB +10 to hit for 1d4+1 damage. Not much, you say? it lasts for 24 hours and is a 3rd level spell. 2nd level spell for 12 hours, and if I am any worth as a wizard, I can use sculpt as a +0 level adjustment. So I can cast like... what, a hundred of these a day? With overlapping fields of fire?

Once you get within 40' of my tower and anyone moves at ALL, everyone in the 40' area gets hit with 1d4 darts. Take a 5' step, everyone within 40' gets hit with 1d4 darts. Take another step, 1d4 darts... that EACH AND EVERY NPC TAKING A 5' STEP. Ignoring the overlapping fields of fire, that is. Done properly, I could get a 80' trigger area where I estimate every approaching person will get hit with 30 darts at To Hit Roll +10, and with each hit take 7 points of damage, to everyone close enough to be in the target area, for every 5' step any one takes in the trigger area.

Now, the first example is a 2nd level spell. With some work, I bet I could have a couple dozen giant burning logs rolling around my tower. The second is a 1st level spell. Both are examples that once you get to 20th, you can do very stupid things with just about any spell. The problem is, create trap is a very reasonable spell. It was not designed to have multiple metamagic feats stacked on it taking something reasonable and turning it into an invisible machine gun nest and unlimited ammo.

[Captnq]

Dismiss? Dispel you mean?
Also, the Fimbilwinter I linked is better *pout*
The whole army will die in a few rounds. No need to wait for some iffy snow buildup


I'm inside the area of effect with 80 commoners who will turn into wights in about 6 seconds, that's why. Wights suck at shoveling snow. They have an excellent union, you see. They're all racist jerks too. Into the whole wight supremacists, and wight power. They are members of the KKG (Klu Klux GETITOFFMEGETITOFFMEGETITOFFME!).

Although Now that I think about it, a persistent extended flaming sphere sculpted into a 240' X 10' log rolling around my tower could keep the area snow free.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

You wouldn't even need to use earthquake. Thanks to undermaster's stupid ability to make move earth a standard action, you could bury dozens at once, or even hundreds if they're packed tightly enough. Even when it isn't persisted, undermaster is one of the most stupidly overpowered spells in the game.It's only 5 rounds before persisting. It's only worth a slot if you think you're going to use the SLAs that day, or you're persisting it. It's even better if that army uses some sort of defensive fortification that can collapse and crush most of them to death.

[SinsI]

Create a few Wights. Buff them. Next day you have an army of 10,000 wights.

[One Step Two]

Upto 600 exp, and upto five spells is all I need.

Using divinations to locate the lead wizard, teleport to them. Then use a Limited Wish to -7 to his saving throw, then Dominate Person. You can use heighten spell to up the DC of the Dominate spell, and use Alter Fortune to force a re-roll.

Sure there are other factors, such as buffs they might have and the like, but you're a level 17 Wizard, spells like Eyes of the Oracle to have a free readied action, such as a single target Greater Dispell Magic to strip him of defensive magics, and so on.

In anycase, you now have control the Leader of the enemy army, fake some Diplomatic talks, forge peace, and then dismantle them with out a single life lost.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

With all the talk of severely altering weather patterns and creating a wightocalypse I think it's better to come up with a relatively clean solution (like the above). I assume the high level wizard has some reason to protect these peasant folk without necessarily relocating them, otherwise the thought experiment wouldn't be set up in this way. In that regard, we *could* take everything out in a direct fashion. Elemental Body + Shapechanging into a Solar (pumping CL a bit) means you're immune to crits and have DR 15/evil and epic, which should make you immune to mooks. At CL 22 with a greater rod of extend that lasts over 7 hours per casting, so you should be good to solo the army directly with two spells. If you're worried about the 10th level caster having the inquisition domain and a couple other dispel boosters, you can easily have higher CL and take a Ring of Enduring Arcana. Also, obviously kill the caster first, since he's the only one who could remotely threaten you.

How about a different challenge?Take away the level 10 caster. How low level (without loops/higher level casting access) can a wizard be to defeat the 10,000 man army without employing a scorched/frozen earth policy?

I'll start with a simple baseline:

A wizard 5/Incantatrix 4 with Ocular Spell and Persistent Spell can have DR 10/adamantine via ocular persistent stoneskin, immunity to crits with the Heart of [Element] line, powerful melee with Persistent Draconic Polymorph (cave troll at this level) and Bite of the Were[creature, in this case boar] and Greater Mighty Wallop, and basic defenses like Persistent Greater Invisibility and Persistent Greater Blink. Oh, and Persistent Fly obviously.

The chumps hit on a 20, don't crit, and have their damage reduced by 10 on a hit. The DR and fortification negate the 10,000 bows problem, and anyone approaching in melee is going to be one-shot by an invisible troll of doom. Any remaining magicians get killed first, obviously. Battlemagic Perception might be a useful pre-buff for that reason.

[torrasque666]

Third Eye Conceal breaks that though. And its relatively cheap.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Third Eye Conceal breaks that though. And its relatively cheap.Third Eye Conceal costs 120k. 10th level WBL is 49k. I don't get where "relatively cheap" comes in. Now, if you're saying that your military leader casts Disobedience every day out of paranoia, at least you're sticking within the confines of what that character should have.

And in that case you just murder him.

[torrasque666]

I must have missed a 0 somewhere.

[Erik Vale]

Yea. Funny how big 0s can be huh.


You can only dismiss spells with a (D) listed as part of their duration (the (D) means it's dismissable). Otherwise, no such luck.

OH... Well that's good to know.

Edit: The new challenge?
The 'totes not fireball' reserve feat + improved familiar [small earth elemental]. Your familiar drags you through the ground, popping up at random intervals to do damage. Off the top of my head Earth Elemental is level 5 improved familiar so that means at level 5 I will happily take out that entire army... You may wish to be a Warforged, or a Air Neraph, just for the ease of not worrying about air requirements.

The only problem comes from readied attack actions. Since the reserve feat isn't a spell I'd use the tortoise based shield from OA + Fullplate for high AC+Total concealment against anyone above waist hieght, as well as doing the attack as a readied action during the elemental's movement while it drags me around.

Extra Edit: Or level 1. Find a way to ignore WBL. Have my flying familiar drop bags of alchemists fire or something else from over 1100ft up. Should keep it out of range of all the archers, fall damage breaks the flasks to do the damage, and enemy numbers ensure hits.

[eggynack]

On the dominate thing, I'd rather just go with a banner of law (HoB, 133), which projects a protection from chaos effect from the holder of the item. Now that item, at 8,000 GP, is relatively cheap, and it's also thematically suited to the situation.

[One Step Two]

I'll admit, I was a little hamfisted with my scry and dominate approach, but I freely admit I am not a high level wizard with a super-level intelligence. Now, as for the disobedience thing, as I mentioned, a greater dispell magic will shred a good amount of their buffs, with a DC of 21, vs your 17+roll, you're sitting pretty. Them carrying somethign like a ring of Enduring Arcana makes it trickier, true, but not too hard at the end of the day.

Banner of Law is pretty awesome though, I've learned my one thing of the day. In the future, I'll make sure to cast Contact other plane first to check "Does the enemy commander have a magic item that suppresses or affects magical mind control?" and "Does the Enemy commander have any spell effects that suppresses or affects magical mind control?". And make sure any scrying is done in a combination of Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, and Greater Scrying, so I can use detect magic/arcane sight to survey what auras might be present on my target, and their locale.

[Darkweave31]

Well you could always try this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0448.html)

[Renen]

I'm inside the area of effect with 80 commoners who will turn into wights in about 6 seconds, that's why. Wights suck at shoveling snow. They have an excellent union, you see. They're all racist jerks too. Into the whole wight supremacists, and wight power. They are members of the KKG (Klu Klux GETITOFFMEGETITOFFMEGETITOFFME!).

Although Now that I think about it, a persistent extended flaming sphere sculpted into a 240' X 10' log rolling around my tower could keep the area snow free.

True... though you can just shove them into magnificent masion, and after spell kills everybody just dispell it.

[eggynack]

Banner of Law is pretty awesome though, I've learned my one thing of the day.
Indeed so. It's probably the most interesting thing I learned back when we were doing the Rating enchantment as the weakest school (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?304676-Rating-enchantment-as-weakest-school-greatest-fallacy) thread. It's a somewhat restrictive item, as you can't do much else while using it, which probably necessitates getting a fragile mook to handle your precious enchantment blocking, but that's not the biggest problem. Getting your opponent to waste a round on one of your defenses is a big deal in a wizard versus wizard battle, and possibly the biggest deal.

[Flickerdart]

Anybody who thinks that defeating an army of 10,000 required 10,000 kills all at the same time fundamentally misunderstands the nature of warfare. After a few thousand deaths among their ranks precipitated by an almighty force they cannot touch, the army would break ranks and run for the hills.

[Vogonjeltz]

A lot of issues here seem to be related to casting time on spells. I don't see why that would be an issue. Did the enemy army just pop out of nowhere, and now they're charging at you with five minutes to go? It seems vaguely unlikely, especially when we're talking about a high level wizard.

A valid criticism of the scenario presented, but not a valid criticism of my analysis. I worked within the scenario, I didn't make it up.


Thus, control weather actually would happen, because if the wizard can't figure out that an entire army is going to attack his castle ten minutes before it would actually occur, then we're talking about a particularly incompetent wizard. Seriously, you probably wouldn't even need magic to get a better lag time than that. The same likely goes for stuff like wraith piles, as while that lag time might require magic, we have magic.

You're free to waste time on a 10 minute spell while they kick the door in. I don't see it taking 10 minutes to breech the walls and murder everyone within (including the wizard who is wasting his time on weather magic), and as I mentioned in the initial rundown, 2 castings of pass wall is more than enough to sap the walls collapsing the tower and interrupting the casting (not to mention probably killing the wizard outright).


Additionally, I don't see much risk from the things you're claiming risk for.

Wizards can only control up to a certain amount of undead. There a potentially far in excess of that number of wraiths waiting to be created. The wizard wouldn't be able to protect himself from all of them, so using that as offense is suicidal at best.



Black tentacles is counterable by freedom of movement.

And also by wish, sadly neither of those was being put forth by the poster, so it's a bit off topic. If you'd like to propose an alternative wizard spell list for winning the battle, id be intrigued, you're fairly creative. Freedom of movement isn't a wizard spell though, FYI.


You can keep wraiths from attacking you with something as simple as a form of invisibility, as I don't see much in the way of wraith vision modes. You're assuming something like symmetric warfare in a lot of your arguments, where the wizard won't have ways of dealing with the things that the army can't deal with. You're also assuming an odd level of foresight on the part of the army, where they have everyone equipped with alchemist's fire, bows, and gust of wind somehow. It's not like the army's limited casting resources can be everywhere on the battlefield, after all.

Invisibility is short lived, and not on the spell list presented. Yes, I did assume the army came prepared, seeing as thy are on offense. The army casters were explicitly equipped to defend the troops and gust of wind is a classic defense spell vs poison gasses. Or do you think, given how potentially devastating they are, the wizards would ignore that possibility? What would you propose instead for a 2nd level spell?


17th level Wizards have trivially easy ways of boosting their CL.

None of which were listed. In most cases additional CL do almost nothing to increase fatalities significantly.


All creatures are accessible on the Plane of Dreams, and failing that, Dragons capable of getting their own Demiplane, like any optimized wizard will be on their own Demiplane, and hence, extraplanar.

Default plane is prime material, as nothing stated otherwise it was fair to assume the question was directed there, rather than the plane of hammocks, or the plane of dead magic zones (which would make it trivial to defeat any wizard).


Finally like mentioned, can squeeze through the gate, and failing that Great Wyrm Steel Dragons are only huge. Once called, (provided it fails its Will Save ,, which a 17th level wizard will have maxed the DC for), dominate it. It is now yours forever and ever.

Still not extra planar on the prime material, and I did mention exactly how many casualties they could cause (maximum). Which just isn't enough.


are we also to expect that this army of level 1 mooks are all going to fight to the death, to the last man? summoning a single yeth hound is going to route most of the army, just via forcing thousands of saves vs fear.

I don't know, unless we want to bring morale rules in, then yes. Maybe they're all fanatics. Maybe they are all secretly ice assassins. Whatever does it for you ;)

The problem with relying on summons is that they only last for just under 2 minutes. That's a very short time, and anyone fleeing the hound will be right as rain within 40 seconds (assuming they don't make the paltry DC 11 save).


summoning or calling anything with around DR 10, an AoE, and flight is going to route big chunks of the army.

unless its an army of robots.

Again, they might make them panicked for a very brief moment, but then that summons is gone, for the day, practically nobody died, and the army is still there.

[Flickerdart]

You're free to waste time on a 10 minute spell while they kick the door in.
Why would the wizard wait until the army was right at the door to start casting? Armies move very slowly.



Again, they might make them panicked for a very brief moment, but then that summons is gone, for the day, practically nobody died, and the army is still there.
That's not how a rout works. People see the line break, and they run.

[eggynack]

A valid criticism of the scenario presented, but not a valid criticism of my analysis. I worked within the scenario, I didn't make it up.



You're free to waste time on a 10 minute spell while they kick the door in. I don't see it taking 10 minutes to breech the walls and murder everyone within (including the wizard who is wasting his time on weather magic), and as I mentioned in the initial rundown, 2 castings of pass wall is more than enough to sap the walls collapsing the tower and interrupting the casting (not to mention probably killing the wizard outright).
It was never really made clear how far away the enemy army is before you know about it. The OP certainly never said, "The first indication the wizard has of his approaching doom/fun times is the knocking on his castle gate." Thus, we must either rely on common sense, which would clearly indicate a longer lag time, or the OP, if he has some particular preference.

As for your passwall plan, I'm somewhat doubtful that it would be effective. You first have to successfully reach the tower, which is difficult in and of itself, and the wizard needs to be reliant on the tower's stability for success, which seems a bit doubtful. If you're tunneling through the tower itself, then the tower could easily be either thick enough that the spell only creates a thin tunnel, or it could be made of metal, and if you're tunneling through the ground, then the thin tunnel eventuality would be inevitable. I also see little indication that the tunnel created by passwall is anything other than structurally sound, especially given that its purpose is traveling through walls, rather than collapsing stuff.




Wizards can only control up to a certain amount of undead. There a potentially far in excess of that number of wraiths waiting to be created. The wizard wouldn't be able to protect himself from all of them, so using that as offense is suicidal at best.
The idea is that the wizard uses some form of stealth, thus actually protecting himself from all of the wraiths at once, and likely some large quantity of enemies. I can't see all that much in the way of invisibility bypassing on the stat sheet, after all. You could also keep some of the head wraiths away from the field of battle, if you have the kind of time needed for that.



And also by wish, sadly neither of those was being put forth by the poster, so it's a bit off topic. If you'd like to propose an alternative wizard spell list for winning the battle, id be intrigued, you're fairly creative. Freedom of movement isn't a wizard spell though, FYI.
I was thinking a ring, actually. That, fortunately, would not use any used resources.


Invisibility is short lived, and not on the spell list presented. Yes, I did assume the army came prepared, seeing as thy are on offense. The army casters were explicitly equipped to defend the troops and gust of wind is a classic defense spell vs poison gasses. Or do you think, given how potentially devastating they are, the wizards would ignore that possibility? What would you propose instead for a 2nd level spell?
I'm not saying that the wizards would necessarily ignore the possibility. However, you're talking about one wizard amidst each group of 1,000, which, if the enemies aren't clumped in a ball, is likely going to take up more space than the 60 ft. radius of gust of wind. I can probably also handle invisibility through item resources.

There's some decent room in the list for extra spells, however. Most of the hyper long duration ones would likely be cast the day before, in preparation, or hell, maybe they're actually just up all the time. I don't see much reason for going on a wraith creating spree at the last minute. Filling the empty slots is tricky, however. There is this odd situation where serious high power tactics would just incinerate the army without much hope of counterattack. I mean, the list we're talking about is running shades for some reason. It would be so easy to make that d into a p, and turn the final s into a "change". So damnably easy.

[Captnq]

Okay, look. Army approaching from the horrizon on 20th level wizard's tower. A tower where if the wizard is like MY PLAYERS, is made of layered substances that render it invulnerable to the moon falling out of orbit on top of it. 20th level wizard does NOTHING. Why? Because he bargained with a god a while back who had earth mastery and had his entire tower made out of riverine (which can only be destroyed by disintegrate. He Animated the tower, Illthid weapon grafted a few dozen Spell blades to the tower so it is immune to those few spells that could actually damage it, and he sits at the top of the tower staring down on the invading army breifly before getting back to his studies and never gives it a second thought.

Why? Because the tower is surrounded by a customized silence field one inch thick and a one inch thick AMF above that both connected to an on/off switch in his study. The tower itself is made entirely out of immovable rods and stone traps so if the ENTIRE PLANET disappeared, it would remain floating there.

He's used wondrous architecture to render everyone inside immune to anything you can think of and a few things you can't. Nobody inside needs to eat, breath, sleep, bathe, or suffer from any negative condition, ever.

Assuming... BIG TIME ASSUMING... you actually manage to breach his walls, a few dozen sequential maximized and empowered contingency crafted time stops go off, giving him a good 5 minutes to make up his mind if he wants to stay and fight, or grab what's important and flee reality as you understand it.

I've been running a 30+ level campaign for years now. We started at 1st. Trust me. This fight won't even take place. The wizard won't even notice. A wizard dies when he stops being paranoid and wants to die, or another wizard figures that it's worth blowing 10 wishes to make sure you can burrow past his defenses, counter his contingencies, and fight each other inside a time stop.

I had to do that you know. I had to make up rules for fighting inside time stop spells. When your campaign gets past 30th, every major combat that is an actual threat to the PCs takes place in the instant between moments.

[Dorian Gray]

I would also like to point out that the greater arcane fusion for 2000 deaths is only an 8th level spell, which the sorcerer can cast... what, 5 or 6 of? I'm not great with math, but 6*2000 is bigger than 10000. After all that is done, we've still got all of our level 7 and lower spells to use. I mean, you need every metamagic reducer ever, but that's what sorcerers do anyway, right? :smallbiggrin:
Ooh, wait- I can do that one better!
1)Twin Repeating Greater Arcane Fusion
a)Embedded: Twin Repeating Chain Chain Lightning
b)Embedded 2: Not important. Twin Repeating Arcane Fusion, maybe
I)That will have a split twin repeating chain scorching ray and a chain split twin repeating ray of frost
2)Each of the 4 GAFs ends up casting 4 chain chain lightnings. 16 CCLs
3)Each CCL hits 1 target before chaining to 17 others (from the feat). It then chains from the secondary targets to 18 others (from the spell)
4)18*18*4*4=5184 targets
5)Plus 4*1728 from the scorching rays: 2*2*2*3*18*4 (8320); And 4*576 from the rays of frost (2304)
6) 15808 hits!
7) Wooo!
8) Wait. Wait wait wait.
a) Ring of Arcane Might
b) Robe of Arcane Might
c) Terran Brandy
d) After CL 20 it's a moot point, but yeah, we can keep boosting it more
9) Revised formula: 4([4*20*20]+[4{8*3*20+8*20}])=
...16640

I want to restate that in big letters
16640 different targets
16640 different targets
16640 different targets

Ladies and gentlemen, we have achived 160% fatalities, in only 1 spell!

Disclaimer: I totally screwed something up in there. But you can in fact use chain spell with chain lightning, and that's all that matters. Also, my math is probably wrong somewhere in here, but at this point it doesn't really matter.

[Baroknik]

Here's a list of some of my (simple) ideas:
1) Prismatic Sphere + Permanency + Astral Projection
The prismatic sphere isn't getting countered by a 10th level wizard (requires disintegrate), so the wizard inside can as really project out and have his projection do all the fighting safely. Assuming no prep, it takes him 1 day to project out, but he has all the time in the world now as nobody can really harm him.

2) Shapechange into a Nightcrawler (CL 25 required, but possible via shenanigans).
Burrow under the army and feast. Dr 15 will help and SR 31 means a level 10 wizard probably isn't touching you. It's not a permanent solution due to the time constraint, but it seems like it has potential.

3) if all else fails, just Plane Shift to a safe location (or enter your MMM) to wait for new spells per day.

4) Cast Contagion (mummy rot) on a single soldier. Stall out the war (see options 1 and 3) as everyone dies.

5) Spamming Whirlwind of Teeth seems pretty efficient as well. 5th level slot for 8d8 damage over an 85 ft radius for 17 rounds

[Erik Vale]

Ok, so we've proven that with enough optimisation the fight will either:
-Be ignored.
-Ended with a swift action/contingency.
-Ended by the wizard deliberately going slow and having fun... Or having poor Op-Fu.
-Ended by the wizard barracading himself in and getting a level 5 wizard follower to do it... After removing the level 10 enemy wizard and maybe a few of the others.
-As above but by one of his level 1 'apprentices' familiars, if not more than one's.
-End with the entire army joining the wizards side.
-Ended by the wizard letting someone else make the army's lives all sorts of miserable in revenge for even contemplating it.

[toapat]

My question is, If Maximized Fimbulwinter is let run its full duration on Athas, what happens? could you slowly restore the planet?

Couldnt you just leave the door open on your tower and have the mooks go through an invisible permanancied Prismatic Wall?

[Rubik]

My question is, If Maximized Fimbulwinter is let run its full duration on Athas, what happens? could you restore the planet?I'm pretty sure there's more wrong on Athas than lack of water and lots of heat. It's a dying world, with only a few stretches of living land left. The rest has had its ability to sustain life virtually eradicated, and there are very few creatures capable of survival there.

There ARE ways to fix it (http://dfds.wikia.com/wiki/Druid_Spells#Nurturing_Seeds), but that depends on not dying to the elements while you do so, as well as the ability to actually cast the spell enough times to cover the majority of the planet.


Couldnt you just leave the door open on your tower and have the mooks go through an invisible permanancied Prismatic Wall?Well, killing people yourself is one way to ensure the enemy doesn't get to them.

[Grollub]

Transmute Rock to Mud, and Transmute Mud to Rock.. play some golf with the heads. :smallcool:

[toapat]

I'm pretty sure there's more wrong on Athas than lack of water and lots of heat. It's a dying world, with only a few stretches of living land left. The rest has had its ability to sustain life virtually eradicated, and there are very few creatures capable of survival there.

There ARE ways to fix it (http://dfds.wikia.com/wiki/Druid_Spells#Nurturing_Seeds), but that depends on not dying to the elements while you do so, as well as the ability to actually cast the spell enough times to cover the majority of the planet.

There really isnt anything right with Athas whatsoever. but stacking paired (it seems intended that Fimbulwinter counts as winter for other fimbulwinter castings. If they are both maximized thats 14 feet per day for 336 days. For a total aquatic generation of 3.1 Billion cubic feet, or .02 cubic miles.) castings of Fimbulwinter enough would probably generate enough water that the world wouldnt be a near universal desert. Once thats dealt with life would probably get better alot faster then just having druids slowly, once per year, encasing every seed they can find in mystic poop to slowly heal the planet.

[Rubik]

There really isnt anything right with Athas whatsoever. but stacking paired (it seems intended that Fimbulwinter counts as winter for other fimbulwinter castings. If they are both maximized thats 14 feet per day for 336 days. For a total aquatic generation of 3.1 Billion cubic feet, or .02 cubic miles.) castings of Fimbulwinter enough would probably generate enough water that the world wouldnt be a near universal desert. Once thats dealt with life would probably get better alot faster then just having druids slowly, once per year, encasing every seed they can find in mystic poop to slowly heal the planet.I don't think it matters how much or how little water there is; defiled land cannot sustain any but the absolute most tenacious life forms until it's healed. Add water to defiled land, and all you'll get is dead mud.

My suggestion is to build myriad traps of that spell and use animated skeletons to take the seeds and plant and cultivate them all over the place. The biggest problem is defilers just doing it all over again, but I guess that means that planar bubbles with dead arcane magic zones are your friends.

[Vogonjeltz]

Why would the wizard wait until the army was right at the door to start casting? Armies move very slowly.

That's not how a rout works. People see the line break, and they run.

I don't know why, the OP posited this Wizard suddenly had to defend against a 10,000 man army, so presumably he got surprised.

Fortunately the hound doesn't rout anything, it panicks those who fail will saves for between 8 and 40 seconds. Then they're fine.


It was never really made clear how far away the enemy army is before you know about it. The OP certainly never said, "The first indication the wizard has of his approaching doom/fun times is the knocking on his castle gate." Thus, we must either rely on common sense, which would clearly indicate a longer lag time, or the OP, if he has some particular preference.

With no early warning system in place, common sense dictates that he would not be aware until something made him aware. For example, a battering ram at his door.


As for your passwall plan, I'm somewhat doubtful that it would be effective. You first have to successfully reach the tower, which is difficult in and of itself, and the wizard needs to be reliant on the tower's stability for success, which seems a bit doubtful.

Why would it be doubtful that someone could ride up to the tower?
Towers rely on stability to not fall down. Gravity and what not.


If you're tunneling through the tower itself, then the tower could easily be either thick enough that the spell only creates a thin tunnel, or it could be made of metal, and if you're tunneling through the ground, then the thin tunnel eventuality would be inevitable. I also see little indication that the tunnel created by passwall is anything other than structurally sound, especially given that its purpose is traveling through walls, rather than collapsing stuff.

It's up to the OP to dictate the size of the tower, however each passwall is 25 feet deep, so it's not remotely likely that this is a tower with walls over 100 feet thick.

Purpose is irrelevant, with enough leverage it falls, as anyone who's ever played Jenga can attest to.

Metal towers are not feasible without advanced cooling systems.


The idea is that the wizard uses some form of stealth, thus actually protecting himself from all of the wraiths at once, and likely some large quantity of enemies. I can't see all that much in the way of invisibility bypassing on the stat sheet, after all. You could also keep some of the head wraiths away from the field of battle, if you have the kind of time needed for that.

I was thinking a ring, actually. That, fortunately, would not use any used resources.

Some form of stealth? I guess a ring of invisibility is some form of expensive stealth. Of course, fleeing the tower and abandoning his vassals/apprentices/whoever is living there looks like failure to me.


I'm not saying that the wizards would necessarily ignore the possibility. However, you're talking about one wizard amidst each group of 1,000, which, if the enemies aren't clumped in a ball, is likely going to take up more space than the 60 ft. radius of gust of wind. I can probably also handle invisibility through item resources.

All they have to do is be evenly distributed, and have a mount to quickly get into range of any AoE dispersible by gust. Rapid response units seem more apt, like a fire dept.


There's some decent room in the list for extra spells, however. Most of the hyper long duration ones would likely be cast the day before, in preparation, or hell, maybe they're actually just up all the time. I don't see much reason for going on a wraith creating spree at the last minute. Filling the empty slots is tricky, however. There is this odd situation where serious high power tactics would just incinerate the army without much hope of counterattack. I mean, the list we're talking about is running shades for some reason. It would be so easy to make that d into a p, and turn the final s into a "change". So damnably easy.

Need a body for wraiths, if this guy is known to use undead id be shocked, shocked!, if the army had 0 clerics and paladins. (Or blackguards, alignment depending.)


Okay, look. Army approaching from the horrizon on 20th level wizard's tower. A tower where if the wizard is like MY PLAYERS, is made of layered substances that render it invulnerable to the moon falling out of orbit on top of it. 20th level wizard does NOTHING. Why? Because he bargained with a god a while back who had earth mastery and had his entire tower made out of riverine (which can only be destroyed by disintegrate. He Animated the tower, Illthid weapon grafted a few dozen Spell blades to the tower so it is immune to those few spells that could actually damage it, and he sits at the top of the tower staring down on the invading army breifly before getting back to his studies and never gives it a second thought.

Why? Because the tower is surrounded by a customized silence field one inch thick and a one inch thick AMF above that both connected to an on/off switch in his study. The tower itself is made entirely out of immovable rods and stone traps so if the ENTIRE PLANET disappeared, it would remain floating there.

He's used wondrous architecture to render everyone inside immune to anything you can think of and a few things you can't. Nobody inside needs to eat, breath, sleep, bathe, or suffer from any negative condition, ever.

Assuming... BIG TIME ASSUMING... you actually manage to breach his walls, a few dozen sequential maximized and empowered contingency crafted time stops go off, giving him a good 5 minutes to make up his mind if he wants to stay and fight, or grab what's important and flee reality as you understand it.

I've been running a 30+ level campaign for years now. We started at 1st. Trust me. This fight won't even take place. The wizard won't even notice. A wizard dies when he stops being paranoid and wants to die, or another wizard figures that it's worth blowing 10 wishes to make sure you can burrow past his defenses, counter his contingencies, and fight each other inside a time stop.

I had to do that you know. I had to make up rules for fighting inside time stop spells. When your campaign gets past 30th, every major combat that is an actual threat to the PCs takes place in the instant between moments.

So the tower is just asking for a disjunction.

When using time stop a caster can't harm anyone, so I'm not sure why you needed to come up with house rules about combat in a time stop when the only person acting can't hurt anyone.


I would also like to point out that the greater arcane fusion for 2000 deaths is only an 8th level spell, which the sorcerer can cast... what, 5 or 6 of? I'm not great with math, but 6*2000 is bigger than 10000. After all that is done, we've still got all of our level 7 and lower spells to use. I mean, you need every metamagic reducer ever, but that's what sorcerers do anyway, right? :smallbiggrin:
Ooh, wait- I can do that one better!
1)Twin Repeating Greater Arcane Fusion
a)Embedded: Twin Repeating Chain Chain Lightning
b)Embedded 2: Not important. Twin Repeating Arcane Fusion, maybe
I)That will have a split twin repeating chain scorching ray and a chain split twin repeating ray of frost
2)Each of the 4 GAFs ends up casting 4 chain chain lightnings. 16 CCLs
3)Each CCL hits 1 target before chaining to 17 others (from the feat). It then chains from the secondary targets to 18 others (from the spell)
4)18*18*4*4=5184 targets
5)Plus 4*1728 from the scorching rays: 2*2*2*3*18*4 (8320); And 4*576 from the rays of frost (2304)
6) 15808 hits!
7) Wooo!
8) Wait. Wait wait wait.
a) Ring of Arcane Might
b) Robe of Arcane Might
c) Terran Brandy
d) After CL 20 it's a moot point, but yeah, we can keep boosting it more
9) Revised formula: 4([4*20*20]+[4{8*3*20+8*20}])=
...16640

I want to restate that in big letters
16640 different targets
16640 different targets
16640 different targets

Ladies and gentlemen, we have achived 160% fatalities, in only 1 spell!

Disclaimer: I totally screwed something up in there. But you can in fact use chain spell with chain lightning, and that's all that matters. Also, my math is probably wrong somewhere in here, but at this point it doesn't really matter.

Arcane fusion casts 2 spells. Meta magic isn't part and parcel of spells. To whit, there's only a spell called fireball, there's no twinned fireball spell.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I don't know why, the OP posited this Wizard suddenly had to defend against a 10,000 man army, so presumably he got surprised.Nope. This is what the OP actually said:
So given the following scenario, if you were the wizard what would you do?

You a 17th level wizard, own a tower inside a kingdom. At your disposal about 80 0th level people commoners cooks janitors etc you also have about 20 1st-3rd level people guards and apprentices mostly. The enemy is an army of 10,000 the entire army is 1st level mooks, the leader of each group of 100 is a 3rd level, and each group of 1000 has a 5 level wizard there to prevent simple magic killing their army. Finally the entire army is lead by a 10th level wizard. There is no negotiation, you have to kill them all.Nothing about the army showing up out of nowhere. So, you get your standard detections, such as the obvious low rumbling an army of 10,000 marching would make.
Fortunately the hound doesn't rout anything, it panicks those who fail will saves for between 8 and 40 seconds. Then they're fine.If they're robots, sure. But they're people. People, seeing their comrades flee, are likely to flee as well.
With no early warning system in place, common sense dictates that he would not be aware until something made him aware. For example, a battering ram at his door.Or, again, the sound of 10,000 people marching on his tower. Or any number of early warning systems the wizard himself could have drawn up. He does need to worry about threats that are much more serious than mundanes.
Towers rely on stability to not fall down. Gravity and what not.The point is, if they've knocked down the tower (doubtful), they have only succeeded in inconveniencing and pissing off the wizard. They haven't defeated him, though I'd give it a partial victory IF the army doesn't just arbitrarily get right next to his doorstep without him noticing.
It's up to the OP to dictate the size of the tower, however each passwall is 25 feet deep, so it's not remotely likely that this is a tower with walls over 100 feet thick.Go ahead and let the only threat to the wizard prepare two passwalls with his precious level 5 slots. See how far that gets him.
Purpose is irrelevant, with enough leverage it falls, as anyone who's ever played Jenga can attest to.

Metal towers are not feasible without advanced cooling systems.Again, if we're going by common sense, he hears them coming.
Need a body for wraiths, if this guy is known to use undead id be shocked, shocked!, if the army had 0 clerics and paladins. (Or blackguards, alignment depending.)Refer to the OP. Nothing divine is mentioned.
Arcane fusion casts 2 spells. Meta magic isn't part and parcel of spells. To whit, there's only a spell called fireball, there's no twinned fireball spell.
A metamagic feat lets a spellcaster prepare and cast a spell with greater effect, albeit as if the spell were a higher spell level than it actually is.A spell modified by a metamagic feat is a spell with a greater effect. Further, per the description of Arcane Fusion,
If applying a metamagic feat to a spell, use the adjusted spell level and casting time for purposes of determining eligibility for Arcane Fusion.Greater Arcane Fusion works as Arcane Fusion with higher level spells.

[eggynack]

With no early warning system in place, common sense dictates that he would not be aware until something made him aware. For example, a battering ram at his door.
First, he likely does have an early warning system in place, in the form of magic. Second, that "something" making him aware could be something as simple as seeing/hearing thousands of enemies approaching from the distance. It just seems vaguely unlikely, even in reality, let alone when dealing with a paranoid wizards.


Why would it be doubtful that someone could ride up to the tower?
As above, so too here.


Towers rely on stability to not fall down. Gravity and what not.
Well, yeah, but towers won't necessarily collapse to the mighty power of gravity given the first provocation. You've blown a single, reasonably sized, hole in it, without any sort of concussive force backing it up. I suppose it could work on a pretty small tower, with low level of structural support


It's up to the OP to dictate the size of the tower, however each passwall is 25 feet deep, so it's not remotely likely that this is a tower with walls over 100 feet thick.
I think you mean 10 feet deep, as we're dealing with a 10th level wizard. It's a somewhat more plausible thing, in that fashion.


Metal towers are not feasible without advanced cooling systems.
I suppose, though you don't really need the whole thing to be made of metal. Really, we should be lining this tower with lead as a matter of course, in order to stop divinations of various kinds.



Some form of stealth? I guess a ring of invisibility is some form of expensive stealth. Of course, fleeing the tower and abandoning his vassals/apprentices/whoever is living there looks like failure to me.
That could be problematic, I suppose, if friend survival is a victory condition. In that case, the best solution is probably the one where you hold the master wraiths in reserve. I think you can still lose wraiths gained in the field of battle, but that's a thing that is less problematic.



All they have to do is be evenly distributed, and have a mount to quickly get into range of any AoE dispersible by gust. Rapid response units seem more apt, like a fire dept.
That's certainly a better radius, though not a perfect one, necessarily. Assuming a horse of some variety, we'd probably be talking about a radius of about 120 feet, and at higher speeds of mount, maybe 160 feet, which is the region where you still need to fit nearly all of your guys.



Need a body for wraiths, if this guy is known to use undead id be shocked, shocked!, if the army had 0 clerics and paladins. (Or blackguards, alignment depending.)

That's a bit of a different challenge, though it's probably not the biggest deal. I mean, what level of cleric/paladin are we even talking about here? Would they even be all that dangerous against our horde of wraiths? I'm somewhat doubtful on the latter count.

[Sewercop]

Okay, look. Army approaching from the horrizon on 20th level wizard's tower. A tower where if the wizard is like MY PLAYERS, is made of layered substances that render it invulnerable to the moon falling out of orbit on top of it. 20th level wizard does NOTHING. Why? Because he bargained with a god a while back who had earth mastery and had his entire tower made out of riverine (which can only be destroyed by disintegrate. He Animated the tower, Illthid weapon grafted a few dozen Spell blades to the tower so it is immune to those few spells that could actually damage it, and he sits at the top of the tower staring down on the invading army breifly before getting back to his studies and never gives it a second thought.

Why? Because the tower is surrounded by a customized silence field one inch thick and a one inch thick AMF above that both connected to an on/off switch in his study. The tower itself is made entirely out of immovable rods and stone traps so if the ENTIRE PLANET disappeared, it would remain floating there.

He's used wondrous architecture to render everyone inside immune to anything you can think of and a few things you can't. Nobody inside needs to eat, breath, sleep, bathe, or suffer from any negative condition, ever.

Assuming... BIG TIME ASSUMING... you actually manage to breach his walls, a few dozen sequential maximized and empowered contingency crafted time stops go off, giving him a good 5 minutes to make up his mind if he wants to stay and fight, or grab what's important and flee reality as you understand it.

I've been running a 30+ level campaign for years now. We started at 1st. Trust me. This fight won't even take place. The wizard won't even notice. A wizard dies when he stops being paranoid and wants to die, or another wizard figures that it's worth blowing 10 wishes to make sure you can burrow past his defenses, counter his contingencies, and fight each other inside a time stop.

I had to do that you know. I had to make up rules for fighting inside time stop spells. When your campaign gets past 30th, every major combat that is an actual threat to the PCs takes place in the instant between moments.

I wish there was an +1 button here,nice

[Graypairofsocks]

If you are doing a incorporeal undead army, use Shadows instead of Wraiths as Wraiths have daylight weakness and I think the army is probably going to attack during day.

Make sure to command the original shadow to exit the battlefield after creating some spawn.

Command the shadows to focus the 5th lvl Wizard of each group(technically order the orignal shadow to command its spawn to do so and give their spawn the same command).

Give a command that if they are being attacked by the wizard to get close to him by hiding in the ground while closing in on him/her.

This plan isn't that good if they have access to a lot of holy water.

Scry & die the enemy leader.

And hide your people(it might take a lot of spells).


Well since you're a level 17 wizard and of course have your own private demiplane (via genesis) where 1 day passes for every round on the material plane you have plenty of time to prepare.

It is arguable if changing time traits works with the Spell version of Genesis(it certainly doesn't with the psionic version).

[Flickerdart]

It is arguable if changing time traits works with the Spell version of Genesis(it certainly doesn't with the psionic version).
The psionic version can't manipulate time traits because it explicitly says: "You can’t manipulate the time trait on your demiplane; its time trait is as the Material Plane." The magic version lacks this line. If it could still not manipulate time traits with that line being absent, why is that line there in the psionic version?

[Erik Vale]

Responses to the stupid in bold... Just because the stupid.

I don't know why, the OP posited this Wizard suddenly had to defend against a 10,000 man army, so presumably he got surprised.
... No he didn't. And if he lacks any warning system he wouldn't be a level 17 wizard. He'd be a corpse due to actual assassins or other wizards, not armies.

With no early warning system in place, common sense dictates that he would not be aware until something made him aware. For example, a battering ram at his door.
If he lacks any warning system he wouldn't be a level 17 wizard. He'd be a corpse due to actual assassins or other wizards, not armies.

Why would it be doubtful that someone could ride up to the tower?
Towers rely on stability to not fall down. Gravity and what not.

It's up to the OP to dictate the size of the tower, however each passwall is 25 feet deep, so it's not remotely likely that this is a tower with walls over 100 feet thick.
Yes, it's doubtful. I've got a level 5 destroying a army given enough time. This tower has a level 17 defending it. And OP hasn't defined, it could be as large as you want. You could be a level 17 wizard ancient dragon living in a dragon size tower, it'd still meet the criteria of the challenge [if not the intent].

Purpose is irrelevant, with enough leverage it falls, as anyone who's ever played Jenga can attest to.
Ok, a [at least] magically reinforced mostly stone tower has a 10ft*10ft hole at one section of the base, and immidiately falls.

Metal towers are not feasible without advanced cooling systems.
A lead lined tower is not, and would probably be standard. Also, Walls of Force... In any case, the Landlord feat makes such moot by giving you money to by said cooling systems, which exist due to magic.

Some form of stealth? I guess a ring of invisibility is some form of expensive stealth. Of course, fleeing the tower and abandoning his vassals/apprentices/whoever is living there looks like failure to me.
Mages Magnificent Mansion is a form of stealth. Enemy can't get in. Also, level 17 wizard has a lot of WBL.

So the tower is just asking for a disjunction.
Does Riverine count as magic despite the fluff?
Also, spellblades vs disjunction lying around the tower counters that. Spellblades are also there to counter disintegration as actually noted in the post.
Finally, enemies highest level wizard is level 10.

When using time stop a caster can't harm anyone, so I'm not sure why you needed to come up with house rules about combat in a time stop when the only person acting can't hurt anyone.
Persists Time Stop as UM and maintain using pearls of power. Use pearls of power to absolutely cover people with explosive runes a arbitary time later.
Time stop eventually ends because you allow it, people read the huge number of runes surrounding them [you try not reading a sign that popped up out of nowhere, or a rune that suddenly appeared on your buddies back] The army is killed by arbitrary damage.

I've worked out how to timestop parties. I'm actually now imagining using that for the wizard to personally challenge [intmod] soldiers at a time, and then punching them to death because why not.

[ryu]

Erik I like the way you think. So delightfully personal in method.

[SinsI]

I think what we actually need to think about is not Wizard vs Army but Army vs Wizard.
What can that Army do against that lvl 17 Wizard?

[ryu]

I think what we actually need to think about is not Wizard vs Army but Army vs Wizard.
What can that Army do against that lvl 17 Wizard?

Same number of casters as OP? Acquire planar binding wishes and use an infinite chain of them to begin preparing for contingency chess. Pun-pun is assumed to not be allowed despite infinite wishes because then the level 17 wizard would've done it sooner rendering the point moot.

[eggynack]

I think what we actually need to think about is not Wizard vs Army but Army vs Wizard.
What can that Army do against that lvl 17 Wizard?
I don't know if it's possible, but I think the first step would be making it so that the army isn't inevitably discovered days before they arrive. The key to that, I suspect, is ditching the army. There are a lot of people at the army's command, and we should make as much use of them as is feasibly possible, but breaking down into smaller strike forces might be a good plan. You lose the instant arrow death part of the plan, but honestly, that plan was doomed even before it was proposed. I mean, hell, I know it's of a short duration, but friendly fire is a real thing, and a dangerous one. There are lots of things like that, and they're tricky for a mass of units to deal with. I'm not entirely sure what the strike forces would do once they reach the tower, but there's gotta be something worth doing.

[Erik Vale]

Pool their funds and 'buy' a bigger fish?
Sacrifice rules for a miracle and commune. Commune to god you'll use miracle for precipitate Greater Planar Breach/Planar Breach and let him do the organising in order to drop a bunch of pitfiends/other on the wizard and hope he's surprised. Given that the miracle is coming from the god your giving the sacrifice to you could probably cook up something better... Like making a gate starting from something like the sun where a bunch of devils are hiding. Plasma Lance+BBEGs.

At least, that's how I'd try it if I didn't dismiss it as insane. However lots of reconnaissance would be involved.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

How to overcome the challenge of a 17th level wizard with a 10th level character and 10,000 chumps...

Leave the army behind. 10th level wizard takes leadership, gets a diplomancer cohort. Diplomancer talks the wizard into joining their side. GG.

[ryu]

How to overcome the challenge of a 17th level wizard with a 10th level character and 10,000 chumps...

Leave the army behind. 10th level wizard takes leadership, gets a diplomancer cohort. Diplomancer talks the wizard into joining their side. GG.

This assumes the wizard isn't a PC, they're immune to diplomacy, and won't kill off intruders before they get a standard action. While the first is a fair possibility the second is far more questionable.

[Erik Vale]

That's when you start talking [a free action] until the wizard says 'fine, I won't kill you.' and your sense motive indicates he isn't bluffing.

If it weren't that it was a free action, people would probably start dying of old age first though.

Edit: This assumes he doesn't kill you with a contingency that goes off whenever someone tries to avoid being killed by him by talking.

[ryu]

That's when you start talking [a free action] until the wizard says 'fine, I won't kill you.' and your sense motive indicates he isn't bluffing.

If it weren't that it was a free action, people would probably start dying of old age first though.

Edit: This assumes he doesn't kill you with a contingency that goes off whenever someone tries to avoid being killed by him by talking.

Or that the wizard ever actually meets them in person to begin with. How on earth did this team get past the hellzone of traps we all know every wizard's tower is?

[Erik Vale]

Hmmm.
Perhaps planeshift followed by contact other plane targeting the wizard?

Maybe not strictest RAW, but it gets them talking.]

Edit: Actually, strictest RAW.
Q: Will you join my team? [Rushed Diplomacy check for +Yes]
A: [Player] Why?
A: [NPC] Sure thing buddy.

[ryu]

Hmmm.
Perhaps planeshift followed by contact other plane targeting the wizard?

Maybe not strictest RAW, but it gets them talking.]

Edit: Actually, strictest RAW.
Q: Will you join my team? [Rushed Diplomacy check for +Yes]
A: [Player] Why?
A: [NPC] Sure thing buddy.

And if the wizard is vecna blooded or much more commonly permanently mind-blanked? Can't call him then.

[_felagund]

Create a Gate (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/gate.htm)to Fire Plane top of their capital/headquarters etc.. and watch the lava rain.. It would be fun :smallcool:

[Spuddles]

Okay, look. Army approaching from the horrizon on 20th level wizard's tower. A tower where if the wizard is like MY PLAYERS, is made of layered substances that render it invulnerable to the moon falling out of orbit on top of it. 20th level wizard does NOTHING. Why? Because he bargained with a god a while back who had earth mastery and had his entire tower made out of riverine (which can only be destroyed by disintegrate. He Animated the tower, Illthid weapon grafted a few dozen Spell blades to the tower so it is immune to those few spells that could actually damage it, and he sits at the top of the tower staring down on the invading army breifly before getting back to his studies and never gives it a second thought.

Why? Because the tower is surrounded by a customized silence field one inch thick and a one inch thick AMF above that both connected to an on/off switch in his study. The tower itself is made entirely out of immovable rods and stone traps so if the ENTIRE PLANET disappeared, it would remain floating there.

He's used wondrous architecture to render everyone inside immune to anything you can think of and a few things you can't. Nobody inside needs to eat, breath, sleep, bathe, or suffer from any negative condition, ever.

Assuming... BIG TIME ASSUMING... you actually manage to breach his walls, a few dozen sequential maximized and empowered contingency crafted time stops go off, giving him a good 5 minutes to make up his mind if he wants to stay and fight, or grab what's important and flee reality as you understand it.

I've been running a 30+ level campaign for years now. We started at 1st. Trust me. This fight won't even take place. The wizard won't even notice. A wizard dies when he stops being paranoid and wants to die, or another wizard figures that it's worth blowing 10 wishes to make sure you can burrow past his defenses, counter his contingencies, and fight each other inside a time stop.

I had to do that you know. I had to make up rules for fighting inside time stop spells. When your campaign gets past 30th, every major combat that is an actual threat to the PCs takes place in the instant between moments.

high level dnd is so hilariously absurd


I think what we actually need to think about is not Wizard vs Army but Army vs Wizard.
What can that Army do against that lvl 17 Wizard?

dragonwrought kobolds for the epic feats?

everyone uses aid another action sleight of hand checks to hit the epic level DCs to move at will instantaneously. giant teleporting army of 10,000 pickpockets eachother to the wizard, then pick pockets the wizard into a portable hole full of quintessence.

[Melcar]

Some Great wyrms are Colossal, which is 30 feet space, so those won't work (Red, Gold, Silver). Also, you can't gate them in, they aren't Extraplanar to the Material Plane (and as plane hasn't been specified it's safe to say it's there). So there's that.

I just want to make clear that the spell Gate does not specify, that the creature has to fit through the gate. Nowhere within the spell discription is this even hinted at. You can summon a colossal+++ or any other size for that matter. THere are no limits. Part of the magic of the gate is "shunning" the target creature through. There are limits to the HD thought!

[Nightcanon]

"With no early warning system in place, common sense dictates that he would not be aware until something made him aware. For example, a battering ram at his door."
Seriously? An army of 10,000 is going to make a significant amount of noise and be visible for a several miles. Add in the baggage train and other logistics (how many cattle does it take to feed 10,000 men per day?). Even if for some reason our 17th level wizard has no active early warning system, does no one living along the path of this army's march think to come and tell him that an army is coming?
You could of course posit that the army has some way of arriving at the door unannounced, but anyone capable arranging this is likely to find a different approach more effective.

[Nightcanon]

Army vs Wizard
How long have we got to prepare this? Given enough time I'd suggest having some sort of tournament to select likely hero material to go off adventuring with the low level wizards, then with the tenth level wizard, until you have a party that might have a chance of taking on a 17th level wizard (fingers crossed he's retired from active adventuring and so isn't 27th by the time you get there..).
Or send your target a really good home cinema system and some great DVDs so he doesn't notice your 10,000 strong army until your battering ram hits the door-can't lose from there apparently..

[Rubik]

How is the army going to deal with the Astral Projection, five thousand Clones, researched Body-Outside-Body, Contingent Greater Celerity, immunity to death by damage, immunity to all physical and energy damage types, etc?

[Vaz]

I just want to make clear that the spell Gate does not specify, that the creature has to fit through the gate. Nowhere within the spell discription is this even hinted at. You can summon a colossal+++ or any other size for that matter. THere are no limits. Part of the magic of the gate is "shunning" the target creature through. There are limits to the HD thought!

They can pass through via Squeezing. Considering it's a Will Save to resist, it's effectively a non-mind affecting impel on the mind forcing them through to then complete a task. Not to mention Steel Dragons only get up to huge.

Which have Epic Spellcasting, or a ton of 9th level spells.

And lastly, they're always Extraplanar on the Realm of Dreams. Each and every creature is on the Realm of Dreams.

[Erik Vale]

So, Like I said, summon bigger fish. We have found our bigger fish.

As to how they get it, CoI or Sacrifice rules.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

This assumes the wizard isn't a PC,If you're the level 10 wizard with an army, then presumably the wizard is an NPC.
and won't kill off intruders before they get a standard action. While the first is a fair possibility the second is far more questionable.You're not an intruder. You're just a dude who shows up to the tower asking to talk. Unless he's batpoop crazy CE he's not going to kill everyone who shows up. If he's not a complete hermit who never talks to anyone, the diplomancer should at least get a chance to talk with him. This is how I think it would go down:

The diplomancer (D) shows up, asks for an audience. The wizard (W) does some divinations, learns that the diplomancer has no ill intent towards him, and sends an intermediary. D convinces the intermediary that this is important enough for him to talk to the wizard directly. The wizard, not being a complete CE crazy person or hermit, who has already magically determined that D poses no threat and has no ill will (and that he isn't a mindraped sleeper agent or somesuch), agrees. D then peacefully convinces W to join the side of team diplomancer. There are some "if"s there, but it's more along the lines of "if this wizard ever wants to talk to anyone he doesn't know, or receive messages from those people."

[Rubik]

How about using Whispering Wind (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/whisperingWind.htm) on a Diplomancer to fanatasize the wizard from afar?

[Deadline]

And lastly, they're always Extraplanar on the Realm of Dreams. Each and every creature is on the Realm of Dreams.

Or if that is considered cheesy, there are a ton of Planar dragons. Just summon a Hellfire Wyrm or Pyroclastic Dragon or ...

[hayek]

So given the following scenario, if you were the wizard what would you do?

You a 17th level wizard, own a tower inside a kingdom. At your disposal about 80 0th level people commoners cooks janitors etc you also have about 20 1st-3rd level people guards and apprentices mostly. The enemy is an army of 10,000 the entire army is 1st level mooks, the leader of each group of 100 is a 3rd level, and each group of 1000 has a 5 level wizard there to prevent simple magic killing their army. Finally the entire army is lead by a 10th level wizard. There is no negotiation, you have to kill them all.

EDIT:Just to clarify there is not contest here of 17 level wizard vs army. The purpose here is coming up with fun ways to kill them all.

Summon Exactly 1 shade and unleash it on the 0th level commoners. Let the 81 shades loose on the army. Yeah, the higher levels might kill them all but not before they start domino spawning more shades and wiping out their massive army.

While the 100 3rd level somethings and the 10 5 level wizards and level 10 wizard are busy trying to sort out the chaos and kill my new army of 10,081 shades kill them 1 on 1.


Other than small children, why would you keep 0th level anybodies around? Or 1st-3rd level ones? And of NPC classes? Commoners are ignorant, uneducated dirt farmers, and they're useless for everything, including cooking and cleaning; why do you allow them to exist? Before this scenario even comes up, you should train them to be useful things, such as initiator classes, marshals, bards, and so on.

I figured out why.

[Shining Wrath]

I think what we actually need to think about is not Wizard vs Army but Army vs Wizard.
What can that Army do against that lvl 17 Wizard?

I think we've established the army will never see the wizard.

I think the wizard should build traps consisting of Mirrors of Opposition with renewing Protection from Arrows spells upon them, placed on little hills with deep moats surrounding them.

Sets of 4 pointing in all directions so you can't approach from behind. Fill the moats with acid.

Put a few of those where the army can't reach your tower without going past the mirrors. That will certainly thin the ranks.

[Vogonjeltz]

Nothing about the army showing up out of nowhere. So, you get your standard detections, such as the obvious low rumbling an army of 10,000 marching would make.

I was unaware of the game rule that marching makes a low rumble. Where's that located then?


Or any number of early warning systems the wizard himself could have drawn up.

For the post I was responding to, no such defenses were entertained. If you'd like to refine that original concept with some certainty, by all means, draw up a complete battle plan.


The point is, if they've knocked down the tower (doubtful), they have only succeeded in inconveniencing and pissing off the wizard. They haven't defeated him, though I'd give it a partial victory IF the army doesn't just arbitrarily get right next to his doorstep without him noticing.

Being in a tower when it collapses is an extremely serious threat, and one that can be enacted by just the 10th level wizard, no need to even involve an army of 10k. A collection of SRD20 quotes that are relevant:
Characters in the bury zone of a cave-in take 8d6 points of damage, or half that amount if they make a DC 15 Reflex save.

Characters take 1d6 points of nonlethal damage per minute while buried.

The amount of loose stone that fills a 5-foot-by-5-foot area weighs one ton (2,000 pounds).

A character who has no air to breathe can hold her breath for 2 rounds per point of Constitution. After this period of time, the character must make a DC 10 Constitution check in order to continue holding her breath. The save must be repeated each round, with the DC increasing by +1 for each previous success.

When the character fails one of these Constitution checks, she begins to suffocate. In the first round, she falls unconscious (0 hit points). In the following round, she drops to -1 hit points and is dying. In the third round, she suffocates.

Regarding Arcane Fusion and Metamagic:


Neither spell chosen can have a casting time longer than 1 standard action.

I'll give you a guess as to how long a sorcerer's casting time is for spells with metamagic on them. We don't even need to address the fact that twinned repeating gaf is level 15.


First, he likely does have an early warning system in place, in the form of magic. Second, that "something" making him aware could be something as simple as seeing/hearing thousands of enemies approaching from the distance. It just seems vaguely unlikely, even in reality, let alone when dealing with a paranoid wizards.

If you'd like to setup your own idea of how this wizard is going to defend, that's fine, but I was addressing atomicwaffle's idea, which only included what it included.

Second, I agree that line of sight extends until it is blocked. So as long as this is taking place on a flat featureless demiplane, you're covered, but if I recall correctly it was in a kingdom of some sort, and those typically exist in terrain that is neither flat nor featureless.

Now if the army is actually proceeding stealthily, then Listen and Spot checks are very unlikely to succeed past 200 feet, even in good conditions as a result of the -1 per 10 feet rule. Wizards don't get those as class skills after all.


Well, yeah, but towers won't necessarily collapse to the mighty power of gravity given the first provocation. You've blown a single, reasonably sized, hole in it, without any sort of concussive force backing it up. I suppose it could work on a pretty small tower, with low level of structural support

Funny you should mention this.
A character can cause a cave-in by destroying half the pillars holding the ceiling up. As goes half the tower's base, so too goes the tower. Pass-wall removes more than enough stone to sap the wall. And a large tower will have more weight on the load-bearing portions than a small tower.


I think you mean 10 feet deep, as we're dealing with a 10th level wizard. It's a somewhat more plausible thing, in that fashion.

I misread that as +5/three levels, not 3 additional levels. Hrm, less useful then. Still, if the tower wall is only 20 feet on a side, removing an entire wall is likely to result in a partial collapse.


Really, we should be lining this tower with lead as a matter of course, in order to stop divinations of various kinds.

Agreed, lest the enemy wizard scry and catapults be targeted against the room/level the Wizard is in for an early win.


That's certainly a better radius, though not a perfect one, necessarily. Assuming a horse of some variety, we'd probably be talking about a radius of about 120 feet, and at higher speeds of mount, maybe 160 feet, which is the region where you still need to fit nearly all of your guys.

There is room for acceptable losses to any given spell. If alarm can be raised individuals can flee the threat faster than it moves while waiting for the cavalry to arrive and gust it out of existence. Acid Fog/Cloudkill/Incendiary Cloud are slow enough that there should be only minimal casualties, certainly no where near the maximum number.


That's a bit of a different challenge, though it's probably not the biggest deal. I mean, what level of cleric/paladin are we even talking about here? Would they even be all that dangerous against our horde of wraiths? I'm somewhat doubtful on the latter count.

True, but the original challenge was somewhat bland. I can't think of a good reason the attackers wouldn't avail themselves of holy power if going after a necromancer. As to what I'd bring? Clerics of Pelor seem like a good bet. Spiritual weapon, etc. Also, horde? Where is this guy getting the bodies, his own followers? eww! Remember he can only command one undead per casting (control undead only lasts minutes, so that's not useful for holding onto things that take hours to make)

If I were the attackers, I'd split my forces into smaller (yet still numerically overwhelming) groups. Even if the wizard has a wraith, he can only attack a single group at a time, by the time the wraith finishes off a squad of 20 the whole battle could be over. I suppose it all depends on how the wizard deploys his wraith. (i.e. keep close as a bodyguard of sorts, or send out and hope it can do some serious damage before the army just rolls past it.)


And if he lacks any warning system he wouldn't be a level 17 wizard.

Ah, so he's no true level 17 wizard then?


cooling systems, which exist due to magic.

Really? Where are those listed? Or should I just accept that a wizard did it?


Also, spellblades vs disjunction lying around the tower counters that.

Spellblades require the wielder to be targeted.
Spellblade is a quality that can be applied to weapons. It applies to a single spell, and makes the wielder immune to that spell, but only if it is directly targeted at the wielder.

And Mordenkainen's Disjunction doesn't target the anyone, it acts on an area.
Area: All magical effects and magic items within a 40-ft.-radius burst


Persists Time Stop as UM

What is UM shorthand for? You'll have to explain how 6 levels of metamagic are getting layered on a 9th level spell.
A persistent spell uses up a spell slot six levels higher than the spell's actual level.


to absolutely cover people with explosive runes

Characters under the effects of Time Stop can't target anyone with spells.
While the time stop is in effect, other creatures are invulnerable to your attacks and spells; you cannot target such creatures with any attack or spell.

Not that you can put Explosive Runes on a person anyway.
Target: One touched object weighing no more than 10 lb.


I've worked out how to timestop parties.

How? Is the secret to tell uncomfortable jokes leading to *awkward silence*?


Seriously? An army of 10,000 is going to make a significant amount of noise and be visible for a several miles. Add in the baggage train and other logistics (how many cattle does it take to feed 10,000 men per day?). Even if for some reason our 17th level wizard has no active early warning system, does no one living along the path of this army's march think to come and tell him that an army is coming?
You could of course posit that the army has some way of arriving at the door unannounced, but anyone capable arranging this is likely to find a different approach more effective.

Not trivial questions.

The level of noise is entirely dependent on the number of troops traveling together in any one place. That being said, making a listen check is -1 per 10 feet. I'm away from Heroes of Battle, which probably has rules regarding this, but if it doesn't then the army can't even be heard until what, 200 feet out? That's rather close, easily closed within 12 seconds (2 rounds).

Visibility is another matter. What is the terrain like? Is it forrested around the tower? Lightly? Densely? Is it in hilly country? The mountains? A town? Vision extends until something blocks it, and forests block vision quite handily, as do hills, buildings, etc...

Heroes of Battle should also contain typical logistics information. Historically forces relied on wheat, water (or beer when clean water was unavailable), and salted fish/meats. http://usna.edu/Users/history/abels/hh381/Medieval%20Logistics.htm

Lastly, the issue of locals warning the Wizard. This is taking place in a kingdom, meaning everyone living there are subjects of the crown/ruling body. Who would risk their lives to provide warning to the Wizard? If found out, the penalty would certainly be death for treason. And anyone attempting to warn the wizard would have to outrun the army's forward scouts/outriders, which is very unlikely. Professionals vs Amateurs.


Army vs Wizard
How long have we got to prepare this? Given enough time I'd suggest having some sort of tournament to select likely hero material to go off adventuring with the low level wizards, then with the tenth level wizard, until you have a party that might have a chance of taking on a 17th level wizard (fingers crossed he's retired from active adventuring and so isn't 27th by the time you get there..).

Scenarios:
1) Wizard insults crown. Crown decides to lay down the law, sends forces to deal with the Wizard.
2) Wizard is a known ally of an enemy of the kingdom, forces are sent to deal with the wizard.
3) Wizard is harboring a pretender to the throne. Army comes knocking.


How is the army going to deal with the Astral Projection, five thousand Clones, researched Body-Outside-Body, Contingent Greater Celerity, immunity to death by damage, immunity to all physical and energy damage types, etc?

Astral Projection is still just the same wizard, but now without a 9th level spell slot. How does this make killing the body 'in' the tower less challenging?

5000 Clones cost 50,000,000gp, which the Wizard doesn't have at 17th level. If the Wizard uses the 3 base slots to cast clone, it will require 4 1/2 years to make 5000 clones, not including the 2d4 months required to finish growing the clone (so the last 240 clone wouldn't be on hand). Transferring into a clone results in a level loss, or 2 points of constitution if 1st level. So only 16 clones + 1 per 2 points of Con would actually be useful, anything more would go to waste.

How is immunity to death by damage and all physical and energy types being acquired?

[Deadline]

I was unaware of the game rule that marching makes a low rumble. Where's that located then?

Not trivial questions.

The level of noise is entirely dependent on the number of troops traveling together in any one place. That being said, making a listen check is -1 per 10 feet. I'm away from Heroes of Battle, which probably has rules regarding this, but if it doesn't then the army can't even be heard until what, 200 feet out? That's rather close, easily closed within 12 seconds (2 rounds).


Just remember, using the Spot rules, you can't see the sun.

To put it another way, circumstance bonuses are a thing. Also, an argument could be made for large size penalties to apply to Hide and Move Silently for an army.

[eggynack]

If you'd like to setup your own idea of how this wizard is going to defend, that's fine, but I was addressing atomicwaffle's idea, which only included what it included.
I suppose the best plan would be a contact other plane, perhaps with a lag time of two days (Will I be attacked tomorrow? Will I be attacked tomorrow (attempt 2)? Will I be attacked two days from now? second attempt. Questions about the nature of yes responses/standard uses of questions if all results are no). That should work out reasonably well. You have to work around the crap result, and probably a difficult one at that, but that's not all that hard for a high level wizard. Running something like a gray elf with all relevant int boosts will get something like a +12 mod at the base, which does pretty well, all things considered.




Funny you should mention this. As goes half the tower's base, so too goes the tower. Pass-wall removes more than enough stone to sap the wall. And a large tower will have more weight on the load-bearing portions than a small tower.
Your pair of 5*8*10 foot holes are sufficient to remove half of a tower's base? I'm somewhat doubtful, to be honest, especially as you're somewhat limited in the direction of your holes. You can't really shave off big circular swaths of the bottom, for example, because the spell goes in a straight line, and seems to end when it hits fresh air.




True, but the original challenge was somewhat bland. I can't think of a good reason the attackers wouldn't avail themselves of holy power if going after a necromancer. As to what I'd bring? Clerics of Pelor seem like a good bet. Spiritual weapon, etc. Also, horde? Where is this guy getting the bodies, his own followers? eww! Remember he can only command one undead per casting (control undead only lasts minutes, so that's not useful for holding onto things that take hours to make)
The horde could probably come from a village nearby, assuming evil, or maybe even time+graveyard+cash, assuming not-evil, or from an evil village nearby, also assuming not-evil. That's the main reason we're using wraiths, I think. Mass propagation. Hell, even assuming a small number of starting wraiths, there'd still be a solid number by battle's end.

[Rubik]

Astral Projection is still just the same wizard, but now without a 9th level spell slot. How does this make killing the body 'in' the tower less challenging?Astral Projection is Permanent until dismissed, dispelled, or the wizard "dies." It's one less 9th level spell for one day -- or the wizard could've Planar Bound a nightmare to get them for free whenever he wants them.

Storing the body elsewhere -- such as in a portable hole embedded inside a wall, or in another plane (or even a Magnificent Mansion) -- would keep it perfectly safe.

"Killing" the wizard just sends him back to his body, safe and sound, where he can try again.


5000 Clones cost 50,000,000gp, which the Wizard doesn't have at 17th level. If the Wizard uses the 3 base slots to cast clone, it will require 4 1/2 years to make 5000 clones, not including the 2d4 months required to finish growing the clone (so the last 240 clone wouldn't be on hand). Transferring into a clone results in a level loss, or 2 points of constitution if 1st level. So only 16 clones + 1 per 2 points of Con would actually be useful, anything more would go to waste.A single Clone generally costs 1,000 gp, with a 500 gp (reusable) focus, and it does take awhile to create. However, there's more than one way to get them very, very fast, including Wishing for a fully-functional Clone (via Planar Binding, a ring of three Wishes, Shapechanging into a zodar, etc), or creating a Clone normally and then using this trick (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?246396-Another-Addition-To-The-Tippyverse) to duplicate them ad nauseam. You can also use the time-dilated demiplane to speed growing them up, if you want.

I'm sure there are other options, too, if I really wanted to start researching, but that should be enough for the moment, I think.

And the wizard can bypass level loss easily enough, through thought bottles, or by catching lycanthropy and retraining his levels, or a few other ways. It's not that difficult to come back from -- at least, not if you have magic available.


How is immunity to death by damage and all physical and energy types being acquired? For the first, Beastland Ferocity + Delay Death means that you cannot die from damage so long as it's active. Not even then.

For the second, the Energy Immunity spell is a Thing, as is Polymorph, which grants subtypes and the abilities thereof (such as Fire for fire immunity, Cold for cold immunity, and so on).

[Vaz]

Vogonjeltz, with all due respect, it doesn't appear that you have the same system mastery/awareness of CharOp tricks that many who frequent the forum have. Maybe that is a down on our part, but also,,maybe try asking how things are done rather than saying 'nope'.

A combination of Arcane Fusion, and Rapid Metamagic reduce the cost of Applied Metamagic and the casting time time of metamagic'd spells.

[Vogonjeltz]

Just remember, using the Spot rules, you can't see the sun.

Is there a rule somewhere the sun is hiding?


To put it another way, circumstance bonuses are a thing. Also, an argument could be made for large size penalties to apply to Hide and Move Silently for an army.

Of course circumstance bonuses are a thing. They just aren't a thing in the example you used.


I suppose the best plan would be a contact other plane, perhaps with a lag time of two days (Will I be attacked tomorrow? Will I be attacked tomorrow (attempt 2)? Will I be attacked two days from now? second attempt. Questions about the nature of yes responses/standard uses of questions if all results are no). That should work out reasonably well. You have to work around the crap result, and probably a difficult one at that, but that's not all that hard for a high level wizard. Running something like a gray elf with all relevant int boosts will get something like a +12 mod at the base, which does pretty well, all things considered.

Unless you want super unreliable answers, there's a greater than 0 chance the entity contacted decides to melt the wizards mind. This sounds super inconvenient if the army waits till then to attack.


Your pair of 5*8*10 foot holes are sufficient to remove half of a tower's base? I'm somewhat doubtful, to be honest, especially as you're somewhat limited in the direction of your holes. You can't really shave off big circular swaths of the bottom, for example, because the spell goes in a straight line, and seems to end when it hits fresh air.

Are you thinking round tower, where I'm thinking square?


The horde could probably come from a village nearby, assuming evil, or maybe even time+graveyard+cash, assuming not-evil, or from an evil village nearby, also assuming not-evil. That's the main reason we're using wraiths, I think. Mass propagation. Hell, even assuming a small number of starting wraiths, there'd still be a solid number by battle's end.

Right, and that is extremely dangerous for the wizard who can only control x number of wraiths, the remainder of whom can easily eat him. That's a Pyrrhic victory.


Astral Projection is Permanent until dismissed, dispelled, or the wizard "dies." It's one less 9th level spell for one day -- or the wizard could've Planar Bound a nightmare to get them for free whenever he wants them.

I guess it's a free 1-up. Of course, suspended animation doesn't actually say he doesn't have to eat, so I guess dying of thirst happens within 3 days.


Storing the body elsewhere -- such as in a portable hole embedded inside a wall, or in another plane (or even a Magnificent Mansion) -- would keep it perfectly safe.

"Killing" the wizard just sends him back to his body, safe and sound, where he can try again.

Unless he dies there in the meantime.


A single Clone generally costs 1,000 gp, with a 500 gp (reusable) focus, and it does take awhile to create. However, there's more than one way to get them very, very fast, including Wishing for a fully-functional Clone (via Planar Binding, a ring of three Wishes, Shapechanging into a zodar, etc), or creating a Clone normally and then using this trick (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?246396-Another-Addition-To-The-Tippyverse) to duplicate them ad nauseam. You can also use the time-dilated demiplane to speed growing them up, if you want.

All the methods listed are more expensive, not less.


I'm sure there are other options, too, if I really wanted to start researching, but that should be enough for the moment, I think.

And the wizard can bypass level loss easily enough, through thought bottles, or by catching lycanthropy and retraining his levels, or a few other ways. It's not that difficult to come back from -- at least, not if you have magic available.

I mentioned the inefficiency of the thought bottle, can't spend XP you don't have.


For the first, Beastland Ferocity + Delay Death means that you cannot die from damage so long as it's active. Not even then.

For the second, the Energy Immunity spell is a Thing, as is Polymorph, which grants subtypes and the abilities thereof (such as Fire for fire immunity, Cold for cold immunity, and so on).

Beastland ferocity just means the wizard is still standing until -9.
" If the creature is reduced to —10 hit points, it dies normally."

Delay death also does nothing here:
"While under the protection of this spell, the normal limit of -9 hit points before a character dies is extended without limit."

That doesn't stop beastland ferocity from killing the wizard at -10 hp. (Note, the spell is killing the wizard, not the actually damage).


The latter only allows two types. Nothing about physical there. And nothing about total immunity.

[Rubik]

I guess it's a free 1-up. Of course, suspended animation doesn't actually say he doesn't have to eat, so I guess dying of thirst happens within 3 days.Rings of sustenance are A Thing, and they're A Cheap Thing, to boot, one which every character that isn't undead or a construct should invest in.


Unless he dies there in the meantime. Probably won't happen.


All the methods listed are more expensive, not less.The Wishes get around the time limit, and zodar Wishes via Shapechange are completely free (minus the one spell slot -- which you'll probably want to have available anyway -- and the action cost of turning into one and actually casting the Wish). The mirror trick gets you as many Clones as you care to have, and duplicates of all the rest of your equipment, for free. Yes, it costs for the mirrors, but they're not THAT expensive, especially since it gives you infinite equipment after.

Also, Astral Projection gives you duplicates of your equipment, so you can use the duplicates, dismiss the Astral Projection, and cast Astral Projection again, getting yet another copy of your equipment -- including a Clone in a portable hole.


I mentioned the inefficiency of the thought bottle, can't spend XP you don't have.I'm not sure how you can say that thought bottles don't work. They're explicitly for regaining negative levels, so you're pretty much grasping at (nonexistent) straws on this point, I think.


Beastland ferocity just means the wizard is still standing until -9.
" If the creature is reduced to —10 hit points, it dies normally."

Delay death also does nothing here:
"While under the protection of this spell, the normal limit of -9 hit points before a character dies is extended without limit."

That doesn't stop beastland ferocity from killing the wizard at -10 hp. (Note, the spell is killing the wizard, not the actually damage). Combine the two, and suddenly you have, "can act when below 1 hp, and cannot die when below -10 until Delay Death expires." And then you can just heal up in whatever way you choose, from Shapechanging into something with regeneration to a potion of (reduced level) Heal.


The latter only allows two types. Nothing about physical there. And nothing about total immunity.Energy Immunity makes you immune to the energy types of your choice. There's also (Greater) Ironguard, which makes you outright immune to the vast majority of damage from weapons. You can also just avoid damage with a tinfoil hat, a Contingent Celerity to move out of the way, or what have you. You can also produce a crazy-strong body-shaped object (made of Riverine or whatever), Shapechange into an undead, then cast Haunt Shift. Nab a spellblade for immunity to Disintegrate and use the myriad ways of avoiding Disjunction. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?331518-Any-better-ways-to-obtain-quot-immunity-quot-to-disjunction)

[eggynack]

Are you thinking round tower, where I'm thinking square?
Seems highly plausible.



Right, and that is extremely dangerous for the wizard who can only control x number of wraiths, the remainder of whom can easily eat him. That's a Pyrrhic victory.
I wouldn't say that they can easily eat him. He's a high level wizard, after all, and they have little real reason to attack him and invite quick death. Worst case scenario, we default to stealth/evasion, which isn't all that hard to pull off.



I guess it's a free 1-up. Of course, suspended animation doesn't actually say he doesn't have to eat, so I guess dying of thirst happens within 3 days.

Or infinite free 1-up's, really, because you can just kinda send more astral projections.

[Erik Vale]

Editing to spellcheck:

Responses in Bold

I was unaware of the game rule that marching makes a low rumble. Where's that located then?
According to listen you fail to hear people half the time speaking right next to you, and past 200ft you're blind. Are you sure you wish to follow this route?


Being in a tower when it collapses is an extremely serious threat, and one that can be enacted by just the 10th level wizard, no need to even involve an army of 10k.
This is already counted by lead sheets blocking the passwall part way through as well as the riverine tower of no.

I'll give you a guess as to how long a sorcerer's casting time is for spells with metamagic on them. We don't even need to address the fact that twinned repeating gaf is level 15.
Wizard...

If you'd like to setup your own idea of how this wizard is going to defend, that's fine, but I was addressing atomicwaffle's idea, which only included what it included.

Second, I agree that line of sight extends until it is blocked. So as long as this is taking place on a flat featureless demiplane, you're covered, but if I recall correctly it was in a kingdom of some sort, and those typically exist in terrain that is neither flat nor featureless.

Now if the army is actually proceeding stealthily, then Listen and Spot checks are very unlikely to succeed past 200 feet, even in good conditions as a result of the -1 per 10 feet rule. Wizards don't get those as class skills after all.

Why is it happening in a kingdom? It's just a tower. It's liable to be in the middle of some planes or on top of a mountain, or jutting out of a forest, all of which are conducive to either breaking up the army fairly well or seeing great distances.
Also, your using those spot rules... Ok, Now I want you to transport the army to the tower without them all getting lost.


Funny you should mention this. As goes half the tower's base, so too goes the tower. Pass-wall removes more than enough stone to sap the wall. And a large tower will have more weight on the load-bearing portions than a small tower.
Two holes =/= half tower


I misread that as +5/three levels, not 3 additional levels. Hrm, less useful then. Still, if the tower wall is only 20 feet on a side, removing an entire wall is likely to result in a partial collapse.
Who said the walls were straight?
That's 1/4, which doesn't line up with the collapse rules you quoted.
And what about when the walls are larger to accommodate large wizards/experiments.

Agreed, lest the enemy wizard scry and catapults be targeted against the room/level the Wizard is in for an early win.
The wizard could probably take the catapults, and have fun trying to hit without being noticed

There is room for acceptable losses to any given spell. If alarm can be raised individuals can flee the threat faster than it moves while waiting for the cavalry to arrive and gust it out of existence. Acid Fog/Cloudkill/Incendiary Cloud are slow enough that there should be only minimal casualties, certainly no where near the maximum number.
That's a large if given what you're slinging about. Invisible Acid Fog just has bodies being vaporized in a area, no time for the alarm to be raised unless you notice, by which point your stuck between a spreading cloud of invisible instadeath and all your buddies who are pushing you forward into it.


True, but the original challenge was somewhat bland. I can't think of a good reason the attackers wouldn't avail themselves of holy power if going after a necromancer. As to what I'd bring? Clerics of Pelor seem like a good bet. Spiritual weapon, etc. Also, horde? Where is this guy getting the bodies, his own followers? eww! Remember he can only command one undead per casting (control undead only lasts minutes, so that's not useful for holding onto things that take hours to make)
1: Moving the Goal Posts.
2: WBL [Slaves]
3: Smokey Confinement.
4: Undead Leadership/Normal Leadership.
5: Planar Binding.
6: Dragon Ally.
7: Wall of Stone+Stone Shape+Flesh To Stone, Great for corpse creatures

If I were the attackers, I'd split my forces into smaller (yet still numerically overwhelming) groups. Even if the wizard has a wraith, he can only attack a single group at a time, by the time the wraith finishes off a squad of 20 the whole battle could be over. I suppose it all depends on how the wizard deploys his wraith. (i.e. keep close as a bodyguard of sorts, or send out and hope it can do some serious damage before the army just rolls past it.)
That's a different challenge, however your contribution is noted. However your concluding 1 Wraith. Smokey confinement bombardment in the middle of their army.


Ah, so he's no true level 17 wizard then?
No, as in the challenge wouldn't have occurred in the first place due to easier forms of wizard control.

Really? Where are those listed? Or should I just accept that a wizard did it?
Level 1 or 2 spells actually. Listed in DNDTools something named cooling breeze for cooling rooms, set up as wonderous items if not architecture, which you could probably find in the stronghold builders handbook.
Also, where is your RAW?


Spellblades require the wielder to be targeted.

And Mordenkainen's Disjunction doesn't target the anyone, it acts on an area.

Ok, Point.

What is UM shorthand for? You'll have to explain how 6 levels of metamagic are getting layered on a 9th level spell.
Ultimate Magus. [Qualify through Spontainous Divination]
Metamagic gets applied through expending spellslots equal to metamagic's level instead of total level. Thus, you lose a level 9 and 6 spell slot. Carry around 2 9, 2 6, and X 3 and you have unlimited time to apply explosives runes.

Edit: Later check means Incatrix is needed instead, accessing the metamagic by a roll shortly after through it's level 3 ability.


Characters under the effects of Time Stop can't target anyone with spells.

Not that you can put Explosive Runes on a person anyway.

Explosives runes is being activated once the timestop ends, as stated. :smallsigh:
And I target clothes, weapons, patches of grass, banners, poles, armor, gauntlets, helmets, boots etc


How? Is the secret to tell uncomfortable jokes leading to *awkward silence*?

Wizard 5 [Spont Div]Spellguard of Silvery Moon [name may be wrong] 5, War Weaver 1, UM X. Sprinkle with Incantrix as desired.
Bodyguard changes Timestop from personal to touch, Warweaver or metamagic increase that range, Warweaver allows mono-target spells to affect yourself and a number of bonded targets based on int mod [casting stat mod, so int], UM for spellslot cheese.

Quick check dictates Timestop will take a level 18 UM, so not available for this challenge [but possible using Bloodlines, Legacy Champ + The skill trick class whos name I cant remember to achieve UM 23, who can apply metamagic to level 11 spells through lower level spell slots. In this case you'd be stuck using incantrix to persist time stop instead of pearls so you'll have to roll your optimized spellcraft instead, poor wizard. Given Timestops duration and level requirements, W5 SoSM 5, WW 1, I 3, UM 3 is available, meaning you can persist group time-stop using one casting. And you have got innate CL 20 before gear.

Yes, you can argue that he has to spend money to learn spells by strictest RAW. I counter with So?


Not trivial questions.

Visibility is another matter. What is the terrain like? Is it forrested around the tower? Lightly? Densely? Is it in hilly country? The mountains? A town? Vision extends until something blocks it, and forests block vision quite handily, as do hills, buildings, etc...

Lastly, the issue of locals warning the Wizard. This is taking place in a kingdom, meaning everyone living there are subjects of the crown/ruling body. Who would risk their lives to provide warning to the Wizard? If found out, the penalty would certainly be death for treason. And anyone attempting to warn the wizard would have to outrun the army's forward scouts/outriders, which is very unlikely. Professionals vs Amateurs.
You've assumed both high and low visibility. Also it's entirely possible that the tower is floating 100s of feae up [possible, Stronghold builders guide book.] In fact, with the available options the tower could teleport or planeshift away, and then the wizard proceeds to wipe out the army from the safety of long range spells... Or using burrow speed and reserve feats.

Also, who says it's the kingdom's army. Also, anything he has out watching.


Astral Projection is still just the same wizard, but now without a 9th level spell slot. How does this make killing the body 'in' the tower less challenging?
Who says the wizard is in the tower?

5000 Clones cost 50,000,000gp, which the Wizard doesn't have at 17th level. If the Wizard uses the 3 base slots to cast clone, it will require 4 1/2 years to make 5000 clones, not including the 2d4 months required to finish growing the clone (so the last 240 clone wouldn't be on hand). Transferring into a clone results in a level loss, or 2 points of constitution if 1st level. So only 16 clones + 1 per 2 points of Con would actually be useful, anything more would go to waste.
You have a point, this was a stupid idea for the person who made it for clone numbers.
However, no time limits have been set on the wizard, and the wizard doesn't need to cast the spell, planar bound efreeti can do it just fine.

Right, and that is extremely dangerous for the wizard who can only control x number of wraiths, the remainder of whom can easily eat him. That's a Pyrrhic victory.
Why would the wraiths attack the wizard? They have a whole world to feast on instead of attacking the wizard armed with invisible needles and Incorporeal Nova

I guess it's a free 1-up. Of course, suspended animation doesn't actually say he doesn't have to eat, so I guess dying of thirst happens within 3 days.
Ring of Sustenance. And not 1 up, unlimited up, Nightmare just repeats the spell. :smallsmile:

All the methods listed are more expensive, not less
... What? Planar Binding and Efreeti to make 3 is more costly than casting clone? Take a moment to headesk

[Vogonjeltz]

Rings of sustenance are A Thing, and they're A Cheap Thing, to boot.

You're welcome for ensuring any future wizard you run doesn't die horribly of starvation. :)


Probably won't happen.

Very reassuring.


The Wishes get around the time limit, and zodar Wishes via Shapechange are completely free

That wish has a time limit on its reuse. Can't use the ability again until that comes up.


(minus the one spell slot -- which you'll probably want to have available anyway -- and the action cost of turning into one and actually casting the Wish). The mirror trick gets you as many Clones as you care to have, and duplicates of all the rest of your equipment, for free. Yes, it costs for the mirrors, but they're not THAT expensive, especially since it gives you infinite equipment after.

Mirror trick? You use a lot of confusing short hand.


Also, Astral Projection gives you duplicates of your equipment, so you can use the duplicates, dismiss the Astral Projection, and cast Astral Projection again, getting yet another copy of your equipment -- including a Clone in a portable hole.

Presumably the results of anything done with the magically existing equipment go away at the same time as the spell does (including even instantaneous effects). As they are actually still just ongoing effects from the projection.


I'm not sure how you can say that thought bottles don't work. They're explicitly for regaining negative levels, so you're pretty much grasping at (nonexistent) straws on this point, I think.

Level loss from clone isn't negative levels, so that doesn't apply. You're pretty much grasping at straws trying to make this work.


Combine the two, and suddenly you have, "can act when below 1 hp, and cannot die when below -10 until Delay Death expires." And then you can just heal up in whatever way you choose, from Shapechanging into something with regeneration to a potion of (reduced level) Heal.

Spells don't combine like that. Both apply, sadly one kills you when you hit -10 hp, negating the value of the other.


Energy Immunity makes you immune to the energy types of your choice. There's also (Greater) Ironguard, which makes you outright immune to the vast majority of damage from weapons. You can also just avoid damage with a tinfoil hat, a Contingent Celerity to move out of the way, or what have you. You can also produce a crazy-strong body-shaped object (made of Riverine or whatever), Shapechange into an undead, then cast Haunt Shift. Nab a spellblade for immunity to Disintegrate and use the myriad ways of avoiding Disjunction. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?331518-Any-better-ways-to-obtain-quot-immunity-quot-to-disjunction)

Iron guard (greater is the 3.0 name of the spell, they're actually the same level) only lasts a round a level, that isn't helping at all, and it burns a 7th level slot, same as energy immunity, which translates into up to 2000 enemies who aren't dead.


Seems highly plausible.

I wouldn't say that they can easily eat him. He's a high level wizard, after all, and they have little real reason to attack him and invite quick death. Worst case scenario, we default to stealth/evasion, which isn't all that hard to pull off.

A high level wizard who used all his spells on making a wraith army and gating in an ineffectual dragon for 2 minutes.


Or infinite free 1-up's, really, because you can just kinda send more astral projections.

That would require infinite time, which there isn't.

[Vaz]

Regarding Beastlands ferocity/Delay Death both work fine.
The only time you die is when you hit -10 exactly when both spells are up.

[Nightcanon]

"This is taking place in a kingdom, meaning everyone living there are subjects of the crown/ruling body."
Actually the OP didn't specify that the wizard's enemy was the army of the kingdom in which he resides, so a possible reading is that the army is an invading force. Even if the wizard had made an enemy of the king, it's entirely possible that he would be a local lord of some sort himself and thus the local peasantry also owe him fealty (feudal system, innit?). Even if he has no political power, he either has some dealings with the locals (in which case he will hear some gossip that there is an army on the march) or he is a recluse, in which case he guards his privacy and takes note of anything that might disturb it. The only reason I can see for a character of that level not knowing what's going on near his home is that it means so little to him that in the event of an army coming to batter down the door, he will just up-sticks and move out via teleport at the drop of a hat.
I don't have army rules to hand, either, but in the event of them saying that a force of 10,000 can move unseen without magical aid, I'd have to overrule them on the grounds of them being nonsense. Even through woods or jungle a force that size is going to be visible as 1000 campfires and hundreds of carts. Of course, you could argue that create food and drink trap shenanigans sort logistics out more effectively that even modern armies manage, but tbh, if the local army is pulling that kind of thing it makes it even less likely that the resident archmagi don't take an interest about what is happening outside their front doors.
And, as I said before, if you have the magical wherewithal to render the logistics of a 10,000-strong force trivial, there are probably more efficient ways for you to take on a lvl 17 than with a peasant army.

[Rubik]

You have a point, this was a stupid idea for the person who made it for clone numbers.I did point out later how that's accomplished, actually. 5,000 Clones actually is doable.


You're welcome for ensuring any future wizard you run doesn't die horribly of starvation. :)Every character that I've ever played (again, barring undead and constructs) that could afford one has had a ring of sustenance. It's not new news.


Very reassuring.And quite apt.


That wish has a time limit on its reuse. Can't use the ability again until that comes up.Which is the next time you use Shapechange to become a different zodar, yes. Which, by the way, is as early as next round.


Mirror trick? You use a lot of confusing short hand.I was referring to the link I posted earlier. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?246396-Another-Addition-To-The-Tippyverse)


Presumably the results of anything done with the magically existing equipment go away at the same time as the spell does (including even instantaneous effects). As they are actually still just ongoing effects from the projection.A spell cast is a spell cast, and unless something is said to the contrary, instantaneous effects remain so.


Level loss from clone isn't negative levels, so that doesn't apply. You're pretty much grasping at straws trying to make this work. Thought bottles work regardless of why the levels were lost. It resets your XP total to what it was when you used the bottle (minus 500 xp for storing it). Try again?


Spells don't combine like that. Both apply, sadly one kills you when you hit -10 hp, negating the value of the other.Um... Yes, they do combine like that. One prevents you from dying at -10, and the other lets you act normally at 0 hp and below.

Unless you can quote something saying otherwise?


Iron guard (greater is the 3.0 name of the spell, they're actually the same level) only lasts a round a level, that isn't helping at all, and it burns a 7th level slot, same as energy immunity, which translates into up to 2000 enemies who aren't dead.You asked, I answered. Also, Extending/Persisting are Things, and this is one spell that is worth Persisting.


That would require infinite time, which there isn't.Or one standard action, since you do have access to Planar Binding nightmares (which have it as a standard Su action).

[eggynack]

A high level wizard who used all his spells on making a wraith army and gating in an ineffectual dragon for 2 minutes.
The wizard can make the wraiths prior to the attack, and in fact pretty much must do that.



That would require infinite time, which there isn't.
You only need infinite 1-ups if it takes infinite wizard iterations to take down the army. It's really just as many as you need. You send down an astrally projected wizard to your tower, and take down some of the enemies, and then he dies, cause why not? The next day, there is a second astrally projected wizard, also attacking the army, and maybe this one beats the army. If he doesn't, another wizard the next day. An army can do nothing to threaten the high level wizard, so he effectively cannot lose, particularly because there is much the high level wizard can do to threaten the army. I suppose it would be better to think of astral projection as a single extra life of infinite length, with all that entails.

[Erik Vale]

Responses in Bold

I did point out later how that's accomplished, actually. 5,000 Clones actually is doable.
No, it's more the point of the level loss. No one need 5000 clones. After two or three your pretty much screwed unless your enemy is also having to use up clones...
Which is why you use contingency true resurection, except:

Thought bottles work regardless of why the levels were lost. It resets your XP total to what it was when you used the bottle (minus 500 xp for storing it). Try again?
But now I feel stupid for fogetting about that

Or one standard action, since you do have access to Planar Binding nightmares (which have it as a standard Su action).
Or you be a Elan/Neraph/Killoren [I think]/Construct/Undead and then you actually have unlimited time.



You only need infinite 1-ups if it takes infinite wizard iterations to take down the army. It's really just as many as you need. You send down an astrally projected wizard to your tower, and take down some of the enemies, and then he dies, cause why not? The next day, there is a second astrally projected wizard, also attacking the army, and maybe this one beats the army. If he doesn't, another wizard the next day. An army can do nothing to threaten the high level wizard, so he effectively cannot lose, particularly because there is much the high level wizard can do to threaten the army. I suppose it would be better to think of astral projection as a single extra life of infinite length, with all that entails.
Why? Astral project via Nightmare. Every time you die, you come back next round, full strength and gear. Also, you would need to have your body on the Astral/be ageless in order to actually have the unlimited time for that plan...

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I was unaware of the game rule that marching makes a low rumble. Where's that located then?I was unaware of the game rule that casting passwall on a structure causes it to collapse. Where's that located then?
For the post I was responding to, no such defenses were entertained. If you'd like to refine that original concept with some certainty, by all means, draw up a complete battle plan.High op answer: Shapechange into an Elemental Weird and know all the things. Low op answer: Stealthy simulacrum scouts.
Being in a tower when it collapses is an extremely serious threat, and one that can be enacted by just the 10th level wizard, no need to even involve an army of 10k. A collection of SRD20 quotes that are relevant:It's a serious threat for someone who needs to breathe, has no contingency for the matter, has no clone, and cares about 8d6 damage.
I'll give you a guess as to how long a sorcerer's casting time is for spells with metamagic on them. We don't even need to address the fact that twinned repeating gaf is level 15.1. Rapid Metamagic and (my preferred method) Arcane Spellsurge work.
2. I assume he's using various ways to reduce metamagic costs.

Though I should point out that his caster isn't a wizard and therefore gets disqualified on a technicality.

Now if the army is actually proceeding stealthily, then Listen and Spot checks are very unlikely to succeed past 200 feet, even in good conditions as a result of the -1 per 10 feet rule. Wizards don't get those as class skills after all.

Funny you should mention this. As goes half the tower's base, so too goes the tower. Pass-wall removes more than enough stone to sap the wall. And a large tower will have more weight on the load-bearing portions than a small tower.So, your entire 10,000 person army is stealthily creeping up to the castle without anyone noticing, and you want common sense to dictate things like structural mechanics?
Agreed, lest the enemy wizard scry and catapults be targeted against the room/level the Wizard is in for an early win.You scry the wizard, who apparently has no protection against scrying (such as lead lined walls, detect scrying, Mind Blank, or even friggin' high will saves.) You see an interior room with books, scrolls, and scribbles at many desks and tables. Where exactly do you target that catapult shot?
There is room for acceptable losses to any given spell. If alarm can be raised individuals can flee the threat faster than it moves while waiting for the cavalry to arrive and gust it out of existence. Acid Fog/Cloudkill/Incendiary Cloud are slow enough that there should be only minimal casualties, certainly no where near the maximum number.This is true, but again they're not robots. We don't have information on the discipline of the soldiers, but if they're level 1 they might not regroup after fleeing the area.
True, but the original challenge was somewhat bland. I can't think of a good reason the attackers wouldn't avail themselves of holy power if going after a necromancer. As to what I'd bring? Clerics of Pelor seem like a good bet. Spiritual weapon, etc. Also, horde? Where is this guy getting the bodies, his own followers? eww! Remember he can only command one undead per casting (control undead only lasts minutes, so that's not useful for holding onto things that take hours to make)The original challenge was bland, so you're moving the goalposts... for the OP? Also, low level Clerics are only going to (maybe) solve one solution, while the wizard has many solutions at hand with a basic set of spells prepared.
5000 Clones cost 50,000,000gp, which the Wizard doesn't have at 17th level.Well, unless he's using TO. And he really only needs 1.

[Rubik]

<snip>You realize that it's considerably better to respond to quotes, rather than editing them directly, right?

And responding to you when you do that is annoyingly difficult. Just separate the quotes out like the rest of us do, because it's kind of rude not to.

[super dark33]

You realize that it's considerably better to respond to quotes, rather than editing them directly, right?

And responding to you when you do that is annoyingly difficult. Just separate the quotes out like the rest of us do, because it's kind of rude not to.

Or put large numbers at the quoted post, and your reply by each number outside the quote.

[Erik Vale]

I'm used to both methods and haven't considered them rude. I'll go to splitting up quotes for this thread.

[One Step Two]

If the army turns up on your doorstep in one instant and given no time for preperation, you'll still be ready for them.
For a wizard with 9th level spells, Time is not a factor. Here's the link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14007284&postcount=365) to my Stuffy Doll challenge, it's overly complex for this challenge, so here's the relevant part:



My wizards tower is more akin to a stately manor home, where I have a certain penchant for gardening by hand, unaided by magic, though many of my cohorts would call it an obsession.

...
Using three more standard actions, I dimension door to the windowbox flower bed I tend once per day before I prepare my spells in the morning in my study. I take a stone from the windowsill, and cast Magic Mouth on it with the following Message:
"Death imminent, twelve seconds. Cursed, [day] [month] [hour] [minutes], Stuffy doll. Research and counter. North-east Vegetable Patch Contingency."
With the condition of triggering when I am within 20 feet.
I then use Teleport through time (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/pg/20030409b) on the stone.

My past self from a day ago recieves the message +/-8 minutes...
...
Failing this, I repeat the Magic Mouth, Teleport through time combo, adding the words "Attempt [number]" to the magic mouth each time. The North-east vegetable patch contngency is an unworked peice of earth which is being re-fertilizaed and hasn't been touched in a few days, giving my past selves more time to attempt to resolve the Defeat of the Stuffy doll.


This does require having Teleport through time in memory or on a scroll, but using a wish, or any methord of gaining a wish to generate one works just as well. The wizard is forewarned of an impending attack, and can make divinations at their own discression for as much time as they need given untouched soil, and other requirements of Teleport through time. Especially if the wizard then moves to a time altered demi plane to complete more preprations, or simply teleporting his whole tower away if he feels like it.

[Rubik]

If the army turns up on your doorstep in one instant and given no time for preperation, you'll still be ready for them.
For a wizard with 9th level spells, Time is not a factor. Here's the link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14007284&postcount=365) to my Stuffy Doll challenge, it's overly complex for this challenge, so here's the relevant part:



This does require having Teleport through time in memory or on a scroll, but using a wish, or any methord of gaining a wish to generate one works just as well. The wizard is forewarned of an impending attack, and can make divinations at their own discression for as much time as they need given untouched soil, and other requirements of Teleport through time. Especially if the wizard then moves to a time altered demi plane to complete more preprations, or simply teleporting his whole tower away if he feels like it.Note that Eschew Materials removes the material components, allowing you to TTT to any point in the past.

[Erik Vale]

You could have it worked by golems instead, and you've a limit as to the number of times [the number of flowers], but this is arbitrary.

Quick reading of the spell seems to indicate that you can't just send a stone, you would need to transport a creature+gear... Perhaps a animated object + magic mouth?

[One Step Two]

Note that Eschew Materials removes the material components, allowing you to TTT to any point in the past.

Huh, wow, I always read that as being a focus. TTT just gets better and better.


You could have it worked by golems instead, and you've a limit as to the number of times [the number of flowers], but this is arbitrary.

Quick reading of the spell seems to indicate that you can't just send a stone, you would need to transport a creature+gear... Perhaps a animated object + magic mouth?

Golems, nice touch, Topiary Guardians for more Panache! Heck the tender Golems/Guardians would be the target to carry the message for you.

[Vogonjeltz]

Regarding Beastlands ferocity/Delay Death both work fine.
The only time you die is when you hit -10 exactly when both spells are up.

Beastland ferocity specifically says the character dies at -10 hp. So it doesn't matter that the other spell prevents the caster from dying of having negative x hp, because the spell actually kills them at that point, not the amount of negative hp.


"This is taking place in a kingdom, meaning everyone living there are subjects of the crown/ruling body."
Actually the OP didn't specify that the wizard's enemy was the army of the kingdom in which he resides, so a possible reading is that the army is an invading force. Even if the wizard had made an enemy of the king, it's entirely possible that he would be a local lord of some sort himself and thus the local peasantry also owe him fealty (feudal system, innit?).

Pedantic.


Even if he has no political power, he either has some dealings with the locals (in which case he will hear some gossip that there is an army on the march) or he is a recluse, in which case he guards his privacy and takes note of anything that might disturb it.

He might hear nothing, the locals could be detained, or dead.


The only reason I can see for a character of that level not knowing what's going on near his home is that it means so little to him that in the event of an army coming to batter down the door, he will just up-sticks and move out via teleport at the drop of a hat.

Or he has no forewarning.



I don't have army rules to hand, either, but in the event of them saying that a force of 10,000 can move unseen without magical aid, I'd have to overrule them on the grounds of them being nonsense. Even through woods or jungle a force that size is going to be visible as 1000 campfires and hundreds of carts.

Forest visibility is really quite limited. Max spot ranges are 180 feet for a sparse forest, 120 for a dense one. It doesn't matter that it's 10,000 men, they can easily be hidden just a small distance away when in a forest.



Of course, you could argue that create food and drink trap shenanigans sort logistics out more effectively that even modern armies manage, but tbh, if the local army is pulling that kind of thing it makes it even less likely that the resident archmagi don't take an interest about what is happening outside their front doors.
And, as I said before, if you have the magical wherewithal to render the logistics of a 10,000-strong force trivial, there are probably more efficient ways for you to take on a lvl 17 than with a peasant army.

Soldiers can easily carry a weeks worth of supplies with them, and I don't see this fight taking more than a single day.


I did point out later how that's accomplished, actually. 5,000 Clones actually is doable.

Every character that I've ever played (again, barring undead and constructs) that could afford one has had a ring of sustenance. It's not new news.

And quite apt.

Which is the next time you use Shapechange to become a different zodar, yes. Which, by the way, is as early as next round.

That isn't how shapechange works. Rincewind is still Rincewind regardless of the form his body is taking. His debts don't get forgiven.


I was referring to the link I posted earlier. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?246396-Another-Addition-To-The-Tippyverse)

A spell cast is a spell cast, and unless something is said to the contrary, instantaneous effects remain so.

Thought bottles work regardless of why the levels were lost. It resets your XP total to what it was when you used the bottle (minus 500 xp for storing it). Try again?

Level loss which applies to level loss due to death, however this is level loss due to clone. Not the same. And the thought bottle still isn't an option if the wizard doesn't have the XP to spare.


Um... Yes, they do combine like that. One prevents you from dying at -10, and the other lets you act normally at 0 hp and below.

Unless you can quote something saying otherwise?

Yes I can.

If the creature is reduced to —10 hit points, it dies normally.

See? The spell kills him at that point.


You asked, I answered. Also, Extending/Persisting are Things, and this is one spell that is worth Persisting.

They are indeed things, but as I have pointed out above, not important things when it comes to these spells.


Or one standard action, since you do have access to Planar Binding nightmares (which have it as a standard Su action).

That's interesting, although the OP specified this wizard just had a bunch of commoners, not an awesome nightmare ride. So I guess that's out.


The wizard can make the wraiths prior to the attack, and in fact pretty much must do that.

You only need infinite 1-ups if it takes infinite wizard iterations to take down the army. It's really just as many as you need. You send down an astrally projected wizard to your tower, and take down some of the enemies, and then he dies, cause why not? The next day, there is a second astrally projected wizard, also attacking the army, and maybe this one beats the army. If he doesn't, another wizard the next day. An army can do nothing to threaten the high level wizard, so he effectively cannot lose, particularly because there is much the high level wizard can do to threaten the army. I suppose it would be better to think of astral projection as a single extra life of infinite length, with all that entails.

Because there's only one wizard, the army can easily break into the tower while he's busy fighting, which means his body is vulnerable. As are his people.

[eggynack]

Because there's only one wizard, the army can easily break into the tower while he's busy fighting, which means his body is vulnerable. As are his people.
His people, maybe. His body, less so, as he could easily be doing this from a private demiplane. There's a real problem with the inverse question here, I think. The wizard can't really lose unless he's not trying all that hard. Thus, all there really is to do is come up with vaguely entertaining solutions, and barely analyze them, because any serious analysis would lead to some army destroying optimization.

[Rubik]

Beastland ferocity specifically says the character dies at -10 hp. So it doesn't matter that the other spell prevents the caster from dying of having negative x hp, because the spell actually kills them at that point, not the amount of negative hp. And Delay Death overrides that. Go read the spell. We'll wait.


Or he has no forewarning.Divination means he always has forewarning, unless every single member of the army is Mind Blanked or Vecna-blooded (neither of which could possibly be the case, since the first one is way beyond their WBL, and Vecna-blooded creatures are rare due to their secretive natures).


Forest visibility is really quite limited. Max spot ranges are 180 feet for a sparse forest, 120 for a dense one. It doesn't matter that it's 10,000 men, they can easily be hidden just a small distance away when in a forest.Doesn't matter to Contact Other Plane.


Soldiers can easily carry a weeks worth of supplies with them, and I don't see this fight taking more than a single day.Very true. I'd be surprised if the wizard didn't wipe them out within an hour or less.


That isn't how shapechange works. Rincewind is still Rincewind regardless of the form his body is taking. His debts don't get forgiven.This isn't Rincewind, since he's only ever cast one spell. This is a D&D wizard, not a Discworld wizzard.

And it's not the wizard's body casting Wish. It's the zodar he's turning into, and he can turn into a different one every round.


Level loss which applies to level loss due to death, however this is level loss due to clone. Not the same. And the thought bottle still isn't an option if the wizard doesn't have the XP to spare. It works regardless of why. I said that already. And it's easy for a wizard to farm XP. Just go out and find something 8 levels lower than he is and tenderize it.


Yes I can.

See? The spell kills him at that point.And Delay Death overrides that limitation explicitly, which is why you cast it.

You're as bad as Giacomo and his sock-puppet account Pickford, and...

...waitaminute.


They are indeed things, but as I have pointed out above, not important things when it comes to these spells.And you pointed out wrong, as I have also pointed out.

The similarities to Giacomo and Pickford keep mounting.


That's interesting, although the OP specified this wizard just had a bunch of commoners, not an awesome nightmare ride. So I guess that's out.A handful of spells can take care of that within minutes, and the effect lasts forever, if you want it to.


Because there's only one wizard, the army can easily break into the tower while he's busy fighting, which means his body is vulnerable. As are his people.His people are in a Magnificent Mansion, and his body is in a portable hole in said mansion.

The army can't do anything about it, either.

[Erik Vale]

Or he has no forewarning.

Has been found otherwise, Teleport through time.



Forest visibility is really quite limited. Max spot ranges are 180 feet for a sparse forest, 120 for a dense one. It doesn't matter that it's 10,000 men, they can easily be hidden just a small distance away when in a forest.

What says the towers in a forest? I'm having a hard time imagining 10000 level 1 people not making much sound as their armored feet crunch through the forest. Travel time will also be rather slow.



Soldiers can easily carry a weeks worth of supplies with them, and I don't see this fight taking more than a single day.

Go with take 10 survival checks instead, but if they're carrying supplies they'll be mighty tired when it comes to the fight.



Level loss which applies to level loss due to death, however this is level loss due to clone. Not the same. And the thought bottle still isn't an option if the wizard doesn't have the XP to spare.

No, Thought bottle resets your XP, and death doesn't loose XP, only resurection does.
And the OP wizard can have the XP to spare. He can be 1xp off level 1.



That's interesting, although the OP specified this wizard just had a bunch of commoners, not an awesome nightmare ride. So I guess that's out.

I've provided a pause time build, there is unlimited prep time. Attach timestop to a contingency and from the outside it takes absolutely no time for the wizard to defeat the army. Literally.



Because there's only one wizard, the army can easily break into the tower while he's busy fighting, which means his body is vulnerable. As are his people.
Mage's Magnificent Mansion. Flying Tower. Teleporting Tower. Burrowing Tower. Planeshifting tower. Wall of force around the tower.

[Dorian Gray]

I'll give you a guess as to how long a sorcerer's casting time is for spells with metamagic on them. We don't even need to address the fact that twinned repeating gaf is level 15.

Correct on both counts. Well, sorta. There is a feat (comes online at level 12) that allows for standard action casting on metamagic-ed up spells for spontaneous casters. So the first part isn't an issue.
As for the second bit... well.
Incantatrix level 10 gives -1 to the metamagic adjustment: level 13 at this point. Practiced metamagic (twin, repeat) brings it down to level 11. Arcane thesis brings it to level 9. If you want to be a cheeky bugger, you can add on invisible spell- that'll reduce the level by an additional 2, meaning you cast Greater Arcane Fusion as a 7th level spell- but that's just obscene cheese. No, we'll stick to casting it at level 8.
In a similar manner, Arcane Thesis (scorching ray) makes splitting the rays free, we've already got -1 cost for twin and repeat, and fell drain is also free. In fact, fell drain makes the spell cheaper to cast.
So yes, I can totally cast twin repeating greater arcane fusion as an 8th level spell. It'll take all my feats to do so, but optimizing scorching ray isn't abnormal for sorcerers.
I can also purchase a rod of quicken spell, which will allow me to cast 2 of the bursts per round.

[Vogonjeltz]

His people, maybe. His body, less so, as he could easily be doing this from a private demiplane. There's a real problem with the inverse question here, I think. The wizard can't really lose unless he's not trying all that hard. Thus, all there really is to do is come up with vaguely entertaining solutions, and barely analyze them, because any serious analysis would lead to some army destroying optimization.

He doesn't have a private demiplane according to the scenario given, he just has a tower.


And Delay Death overrides that. Go read the spell. We'll wait.

Why wait? Let's all read together.

The spell does not prevent the subject from entering the dying state by dropping to —1 hit points. It merely prevents death as a result of hit point loss.
If the subject has fewer than —9 hit points when the spell's duration expires, it dies instantly.

Death in this case isn't occurring due to hit point loss. Does it help that this is a rounds/lvl spell cleric spell?


Divination means he always has forewarning, unless every single member of the army is Mind Blanked or Vecna-blooded (neither of which could possibly be the case, since the first one is way beyond their WBL, and Vecna-blooded creatures are rare due to their secretive natures).

Doesn't matter to Contact Other Plane.

Very true. I'd be surprised if the wizard didn't wipe them out within an hour or less.

This isn't Rincewind, since he's only ever cast one spell. This is a D&D wizard, not a Discworld wizzard.

And it's not the wizard's body casting Wish. It's the zodar he's turning into, and he can turn into a different one every round.

It works regardless of why. I said that already. And it's easy for a wizard to farm XP. Just go out and find something 8 levels lower than he is and tenderize it.

And Delay Death overrides that limitation explicitly, which is why you cast it.

You're as bad as Giacomo and his sock-puppet account Pickford, and...

...waitaminute.

And you pointed out wrong, as I have also pointed out.

The similarities to Giacomo and Pickford keep mounting.

A handful of spells can take care of that within minutes, and the effect lasts forever, if you want it to.

His people are in a Magnificent Mansion, and his body is in a portable hole in said mansion.

The army can't do anything about it, either.

Divination is a spell school, as contact other plane is the only actual divination spell referred to I can only assume that's the one being referred to. Contact other plane is unreliable and dangerous, prone to failure.

Rincewind was just a name out of a hat, it wasn't referring to the character in the novels. The point being that shapechange doesn't ever change the identity of the caster, and identity is intrinsically tied to how often a character can use an ability. If the ability can only be used once a day it doesn't matter how often the same character adopts a form that can use that once a day ability.

As was shown in the quote, delay death doesn't stop Beastland ferocity from killing the wizard, it just stops death from negative hp more than -9. It's the difference between correlation and causation.


Has been found otherwise, Teleport through time.

Has some pretty intense and DM governed requirements. The spell is virtually impossible to cast even with the DM approving of it.



What says the towers in a forest? I'm having a hard time imagining 10000 level 1 people not making much sound as their armored feet crunch through the forest. Travel time will also be rather slow.

Go with take 10 survival checks instead, but if they're carrying supplies they'll be mighty tired when it comes to the fight.

-1 to listen checks per 10 feet.
I said carry supplies, not rely on survival checks.



No, Thought bottle resets your XP, and death doesn't loose XP, only resurection does.
And the OP wizard can have the XP to spare. He can be 1xp off level 1.


Using the thought bottles requires 500 XP, can't burn XP to drop the character a level, therefore can't use the thought bottle at all and be 17. Those are rules.


I've provided a pause time build, there is unlimited prep time. Attach timestop to a contingency and from the outside it takes absolutely no time for the wizard to defeat the army. Literally.

The contingency spell is limited to 6th level. But other than basic facts being wrong, it's a great plan.


Correct on both counts. Well, sorta. There is a feat (comes online at level 12) that allows for standard action casting on metamagic-ed up spells for spontaneous casters. So the first part isn't an issue.
As for the second bit... well.
Incantatrix level 10 gives -1 to the metamagic adjustment: level 13 at this point. Practiced metamagic (twin, repeat) brings it down to level 11. Arcane thesis brings it to level 9. If you want to be a cheeky bugger, you can add on invisible spell- that'll reduce the level by an additional 2, meaning you cast Greater Arcane Fusion as a 7th level spell- but that's just obscene cheese. No, we'll stick to casting it at level 8.
In a similar manner, Arcane Thesis (scorching ray) makes splitting the rays free, we've already got -1 cost for twin and repeat, and fell drain is also free. In fact, fell drain makes the spell cheaper to cast.
So yes, I can totally cast twin repeating greater arcane fusion as an 8th level spell. It'll take all my feats to do so, but optimizing scorching ray isn't abnormal for sorcerers.
I can also purchase a rod of quicken spell, which will allow me to cast 2 of the bursts per round.

So not a Wizard, but an Incantatrix?

Relevant:
Improved Metamagic (Su): At 8th level, the incantatrix has mastered metamagic to such an extent that whenever she uses a metamagic feat, the feat's level increase upon a spell is reduced by one (this can't reduce an increase to less than one level, or less than zero levels if the increase is already +0). For example, an incantatrix wizard could prepare a quickened fireball as a 6th-level spell instead of a 7th-level spell.

[eggynack]

He doesn't have a private demiplane according to the scenario given, he just has a tower.
He can have both. He's in the tower, and then he makes a private demiplane, and callooh callay, victory is achieved.



Death in this case isn't occurring due to hit point loss.
Yes, it is. The spell says that you die normally if you hit -10. That means death by HP loss, rather than death by beastland ferocity shooting you in the face.


The contingency spell is limited to 6th level. But other than basic facts being wrong, it's a great plan.

I think he meant the feat.


So not a Wizard, but an Incantatrix?
He can be both. He's cool like that.

[Vogonjeltz]

He can have both. He's in the tower, and then he makes a private demiplane, and callooh callay, victory is achieved.

Yes, it is. The spell says that you die normally if you hit -10. That means death by HP loss, rather than death by beastland ferocity shooting you in the face.

I think he meant the feat.

He can be both. He's cool like that.

Genesis costs XP, none to spare if he's just 17 (nobody said 17 +like 1500 XP for emergencies like needing a demiplane and thought bottle).

Except ferocity says you die, and it is a spell. Nothing is saying spells can't kill you.

Well he said contingency, not craft contingent spell. What am I a mind reader?

I call shenanigans on that last bit! :p

[Rubik]

Genesis costs XP, none to spare if he's just 17 (nobody said 17 +like 1500 XP for emergencies like needing a demiplane and thought bottle).Except you can use Sanctum Spell'd Shades to get one without an XP cost.


Except ferocity says you die, and it is a spell. Nothing is saying spells can't kill you.And again, Delay Death nixes that problem. Persisting it means you can go literally all day at -1,000,000 hit points and be fine. Beastland Ferocity means you stay nice and conscious the whole time.

Just like I've said several times already.

[ryu]

Do I even have to bring up simple use of ambrosia/liquid pain depending on the wizard's alignment. Nobody cares about XP costs. No one has ever needed to care about XP costs since the start of 3.5.

[eggynack]

Except ferocity says you die, and it is a spell. Nothing is saying spells can't kill you.


Yes, but the spell has to say it kills you, or it doesn't kill you. As is, the spell is very much not saying it kills you. It's just saying that it doesn't stop you from dying. Particularly because it says that you die normally.

[Vogonjeltz]

Except you can use Sanctum Spell'd Shades to get one without an XP cost.

And again, Delay Death nixes that problem. Persisting it means you can go literally all day at -1,000,000 hit points and be fine. Beastland Ferocity means you stay nice and conscious the whole time.

Just like I've said several times already.


A sanctum spell uses a spell slot of the spell's normal level.

I still disagree with the assertion that beastland ferocity doesn't kill you.

And you can't delay death forever because the only way to cast it is via limited wish.


Yes, but the spell has to say it kills you, or it doesn't kill you. As is, the spell is very much not saying it kills you. It's just saying that it doesn't stop you from dying. Particularly because it says that you die normally.

Which goes against what delay death does.


Do I even have to bring up simple use of ambrosia/liquid pain depending on the wizard's alignment. Nobody cares about XP costs. No one has ever needed to care about XP costs since the start of 3.5.

Oh is this wizard tower actually just a franchise in a brothel chain?

[Gildedragon]

Oh is this wizard tower actually just a franchise in a brothel chain?
I've usually heard it (agony/ambrosia xp farms) set up as a hospital of sorts...
but with the nippleclamps of exquisite agony... yeah brothel works with a more sex positive wizard at the helm.
Seeing how he is also an incantatrix I presume drag or a non-binary gender identity. Which hardly is shenanigans

And in any case, you can just use your followers (or familiar) (or family)

[Rubik]

I still disagree with the assertion that beastland ferocity doesn't kill you.It says you "die normally" if you pass the -9 hp threshold. Delay Death (again!) bypasses that limitation.


And you can't delay death forever because the only way to cast it is via limited wish.Domain wizards are a thing, and Delay Death is in the Destiny Domain.


Which goes against what delay death does.Exactly. You "die normally" of hp damage, even with Beastland Ferocity, but "normally" changes when Delay Death is involved, because Delay Death explicitly removes that issue -- that's the whole point of the spell.


Oh is this wizard tower actually just a franchise in a brothel chain?Hell yeah.

[eggynack]

Which goes against what delay death does.

Isn't that the point? Beastland ferocity says that you die normally when you hit -10. Delay death overrides you dying from HP damage, which is what is being allowed by beastland ferocity. It all seems rather simple, and it adds up to HP damage not affecting you while the spells are running.

Edit:

Domain wizards are a thing, and Delay Death is in the Destiny Domain.

I don't think this works. Domain wizard explicitly pulls from the set of arcane domains listed, with anything else up to fiat. You could always pull it off with arcane disciple, however.

[toapat]

Oh is this wizard tower actually just a franchise in a brothel chain?

Well where else would the local nobility store their excess princesses? The paladin monastary?

[ArqArturo]

Well where else would the local nobility store their excess princesses? The paladin monastary?

They'd be in safe hands. Unless this Monstery is called 'Old Town'.

[Rubik]

Well where else would the local nobility store their excess princesses?In another castle. Always in another castle!

*Bursts into tears*

[toapat]

They'd be in safe hands. Unless this Monstery is called 'Old Town'.

can you explain the reference to me?

[ArqArturo]

Sin City reference. Old town is the Red Light district in which the prostitutes working there defend themselves with BFGs and plenty of dakka to make an ork proud.

[toapat]

Sin City reference. Old town is the Red Light district in which the prostitutes working there defend themselves with BFGs and plenty of dakka to make an ork proud.

so basically the same thing as i had intended with the Paladin Monastery. just with slightly more sex and slightly less requiring your next 3 sons in payment for protecting your daughter

[ryu]

Oh is this wizard tower actually just a franchise in a brothel chain?

Well why do YOU think we're bothering to keep those people around? This is certainly the only reason I'd do it.

[One Step Two]

Speaking of Sex, yet another way to defeat an enemy army with little effort. Use Greater Planar Bindings, call in an advanced HD Succubus, or one with Class levels, Bard works well for this. She becomes the Head of your spy network, making use of Lesser Planar bindings to summon normal Succubi, one for each enemy Wizard of 5th level.

There's a number of ways to deal with the charisma checks to make a deal with the Called creature, I won't go over it again.

In Anycase, all it takes is one kiss, and a DC 21 will save to resist any others. The enemy army is decapitated, their highest level, not to mention most Powerful members are removed. A force of nothing higher than level 3s, the Succubi can cause whatever havok they like once the wizards are removed.

Once more, time is not a factor. Travel through time, personal accelerated Demi plane, or Plane shift to a plane where a year will pass on the plane while one round passes in real time gives you everything you need to summmon and deal with the Planar Bindings.

[Erik Vale]

He doesn't have a private demiplane according to the scenario given, he just has a tower.

It doesn't say he has no alarms and his tower is in the middle of the forest and that he's deaf. It also doesn't say he's carrying around a idiot ball.
Also, Contingent Timestop which is persisted, with this maintained ad-nausium.



Divination is a spell school, as contact other plane is the only actual divination spell referred to I can only assume that's the one being referred to. Contact other plane is unreliable and dangerous, prone to failure.

There are many other divinations, and that's why you re-ask and cast multiple times. Also, ability drain/damage is trivial to become immune to and recover from.


Rincewind was just a name out of a hat, it wasn't referring to the character in the novels. The point being that shapechange doesn't ever change the identity of the caster, and identity is intrinsically tied to how often a character can use an ability. If the ability can only be used once a day it doesn't matter how often the same character adopts a form that can use that once a day ability.
That is your claim, now back it up.


Has some pretty intense and DM governed requirements. The spell is virtually impossible to cast even with the DM approving of it.
Really, due to the material components, because it's not like there's a feat that skips that right out which was mentioned, oh, what's it called, Eschew Materials?
Also, a IC way was provided.



I said carry supplies, not rely on survival checks.
I said survival checks would be better.


Using the thought bottles requires 500 XP, can't burn XP to drop the character a level, therefore can't use the thought bottle at all and be 17. Those are rules.
Really, because a level 17 with 500 xp left over isn't a level 17?
And just because the wizard used it at the start of the challenge doesn't mean that he no-longer qualifies for the challenge. You could be level 16 sans 500 xp but as long as you begun at level 17 the challenge has been met.



The contingency spell is limited to 6th level. But other than basic facts being wrong, it's a great plan.

Craft Contingent Spell. :smallsmile:


So not a Wizard, but an Incantatrix?
A Incantrix can still be a wizard. It could be a sorcerer, but being a Incantatrix doesn't stop you from being a wizard.

As for ignoring XP requirements as spells, it could instead have a sacrificial alter where a evil wizard sacrifices a Angel every week or so for dark craft XP which I believe extends to spells, but I'm not sure... Or it could be a place where he trades for souls to use as the xp component because I know that works.

[eggynack]

Also, Contingent Timestop which is persisted, with this maintained ad-nausium.

This is a bit ambiguous to be relied upon for argument purposes. I'd rather things not enter the eternal singularity of what "apparent time" is, and whether or not it qualifies as the duration of the spell. It's just bad times for everyone involved.

[Nightcanon]

Pedantic.
Seriously? You're rules-lawyering that because spot and listen don't allow you see someone beyond the end of your nose, the Grand Old Duke of York can march his 10,000 men right up to a wizard's tower unseen, but I'm being pedantic?
Either our wizard has has some links with and role within the local community or he doesn't. If he does, someone is going to mention to him that there is an army on the march (and whatever the rules say, an army of 10,000 does not march unnoticed), because that's what peasants do when something new and troubling appears: ask the wise man.
If he's a total recluse, he either has some sort of information gathering and warning system set up, because he places some value on his property, or he places no value at all on it, in which case he's operating on a "nothing I can't take with me when I teleport out at 6 seconds' notice" basis.
If an army of 10,000 can take a 17th level wizard by surprise, you don't need the army, you just need a single rogue to walk in and coup de grace him while he sleeps. If that idea seems silly, it's because it is.

[Vaz]

Beastland ferocity specifically says the character dies at -10 hp. So it doesn't matter that the other spell prevents the caster from dying of having negative x hp, because the spell actually kills them at that point, not the amount of negative hp.
Precisely my point. If he's not at -10 HP, he's alive. Unless he hits -10 HP exactly, then he can continue. Do we need to continue this train of thought?


The subject becomes such a tenacious combatant that it continues to fight without penalty even while disabled or dying. While between —1 and —9 hit points, the creature gains a +4 enhancement bonus to Strength. If the creature is reduced to —10 hit points, it dies normally.

What happens when he's reduced to -11 HP? There's nothing regarding that. It simply states -10HP it dies normally, with no recompense to what happens should you be able to go lower.

You want to play by RAW, I'm happy to too.

[ahenobarbi]

Get reserves of strength feat, Polymorph Any Object pebbles in to tarrasques (when flying above enemy army).

[ryu]

Get reserves of strength feat, Polymorph Any Object pebbles in to tarrasques (when flying above enemy army).

What if they just summon allips?

[ahenobarbi]

What if they just summon allips?

Then you cloud kill them and they regret for eternity loosing such a cool way to die ;) Or you could look through monster manuals (I can't right now) to pick more powerful fighting form for your pebbles.

[Erik Vale]

...
I'm now imagining a wizard toting two mobile spell traps, one that POA's pebbles to pebbles, and one that POA's Tarrasques to Tarrasques...
To bad they can be dispelled back into pebbles.

[ahenobarbi]

...
I'm now imagining a wizard toting two mobile spell traps, one that POA's pebbles to pebbles, and one that POA's Tarrasques to Tarrasques...
To bad they can be dispelled back into pebbles.

And they have very little hp too (if I used boulders they would have a lot of HP) but yeah, I was going mostly for unusual way to do this, not for an effective one.

[Inevitability]

Something I thought of.

Make sure to have the Extra Spell feat. If you don't have it, Dark Chaos Shuffle.

Take Consumptive Field with Extra Spell. Cast it, and slaughter your commoners until your caster level is above 50.

Cast Energy Immunity (acid) and Energy Immunity (fire), with your boosted CL.

Polymorph into a troll (trollshape will do nicely). If the spell runs out, recast it the round before.

Now you are immune to every single thing that might kill you for a day or so, and the low-level wizards won't be able to dispel it.

Now go crazy. If you run out of spells, plane shift to a slow time plane, prepare your spells, return to the battlefield.

If you want to go really crazy, cast all of this on your familiar, while you drink tea and muffins.

[Renen]

Man... its funny seeing Vog trying to be smarter than everyone in this thread.

My favorite part is where he claims that "something is not stated in the OP" but when wraiths are brought up, suddenly he mentions clerics that can take them out. Those sure werent mentioned in the OP

@consumptive field
Cant you just fireball an ant hill? Or boil some bacteria in a beaker?

[Rubik]

If you want to go really crazy, cast all of this on your familiar, while you drink tea and muffins.Did somebody say "muffins"?

http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130511202649/creepypasta/images/7/79/262392_UNOPT_safe_derpy-hooves_muffin_cannon_bass-cannon.jpg.jpg

[Deadline]

Is there a rule somewhere the sun is hiding?

Is it then your assertion that you can freely see anything, no matter how distant, so long as it is not attempting to hide?


It doesn't say he has no alarms and his tower is in the middle of the forest and that he's deaf. It also doesn't say he's carrying around a idiot ball.

Nor does it state that the army consists of stealthy clerics, sneaky siege weapons (presumably those catapults are making hide/move silent checks somehow), and horses who can hide in their own shadows. It also doesn't state that the troops have an unbreakable morale, or attack in small suicide squads. There is decidedly no mention as to why the entity funding the army would spend at least 45,000gp on alchemists fire and holy water instead of spending it on something useful, like potent magic items, spells, or planar bound/planar ally entities. It doesn't mention the shape of the Wizard's tower (although every piece of fantasy art I've ever seen shows them as round). The whole thing is light on details, and the argument is silly.

And sure, he's misread/misinterpreted a number of spells and items, but calling Vogonjeltz a Pickford sock puppet was uncalled for. There's no need to stoop to name calling. :smallannoyed: There's a ton of 3.5 material, and it's easy to miss something.

This theoretical scenario is pointless. Frankly, I'm more interested in hearing about this wizardly chain of brothels. :smallbiggrin:

[Inevitability]

@consumptive field
Cant you just fireball an ant hill? Or boil some bacteria in a beaker?

I'm sure you can, but killing commoners is more entertaining. And if you are trying to keep away from evil, you can pay clerics to resurrect them afterward. Or do it yourself with another extra spell.

[ryu]

Is it then your assertion that you can freely see anything, no matter how distant, so long as it is not attempting to hide?



Nor does it state that the army consists of stealthy clerics, sneaky siege weapons (presumably those catapults are making hide/move silent checks somehow), and horses who can hide in their own shadows. It also doesn't state that the troops have an unbreakable morale, or attack in small suicide squads. There is decidedly no mention as to why the entity funding the army would spend at least 45,000gp on alchemists fire and holy water instead of spending it on something useful, like potent magic items, spells, or planar bound/planar ally entities. It doesn't mention the shape of the Wizard's tower (although every piece of fantasy art I've ever seen shows them as round). The whole thing is light on details, and the argument is silly.

And sure, he's misread/misinterpreted a number of spells and items, but calling Vogonjeltz a Pickford sock puppet was uncalled for. There's no need to stoop to name calling. :smallannoyed: There's a ton of 3.5 material, and it's easy to miss something.

This theoretical scenario is pointless. Frankly, I'm more interested in hearing about this wizardly chain of brothels. :smallbiggrin:

I'll PM you the basics later.

[Gildedragon]

Wizard's tower (although every piece of fantasy art I've ever seen shows them as round). The whole thing is light on details, and the argument is silly.

...
This theoretical scenario is pointless. Frankly, I'm more interested in hearing about this wizardly chain of brothels. :smallbiggrin:

Seen my fare share of square wizard towers; they tend to be more Deco than Neo-Ramshackle-Gothic in style. A couple pentagonal ones too to make pentagram drawing easier.

As to wizardly demenses of pleasure: Super real shadow conjurations, they feel 100++% as pleasurable than the real deal!

[Rubik]

calling Vogonjeltz a Pickford sock puppet was uncalled for. There's no need to stoop to name calling. :smallannoyed: There's a ton of 3.5 material, and it's easy to miss something.No one has done this, to my knowledge.

[ryu]

No one has done this, to my knowledge.

Rubik is technically correct. That's the best kind of correct.

[Deadline]

No one has done this, to my knowledge.

Shenanigans.

There was no reason to imply it either. :smalltongue:

[Rubik]

Shenanigans.

There was no reason to imply it either. :smalltongue:I have no idea what you're talking about. :smallconfused:

[Deadline]

I have no idea what you're talking about. :smallconfused:


You're as bad as Giacomo and his sock-puppet account Pickford, and...

...waitaminute.

And you pointed out wrong, as I have also pointed out.

The similarities to Giacomo and Pickford keep mounting.


If I'm misrepresenting what you said, please clarify.

[Jormengand]

Right, here's how a core-only wizard does this:

1: Before the battle begins, he should either have spammed wall of iron or sold his spells off. In essence, money doesn't matter.
2: Buff your save DCs by a lot. You should already have spammed wish (or, more to the point, forced some efreets to spam wish on you) and be wearing an item of +lots int. That should be enough.
3: Put a symbol of insanity on a small stone. This takes 10 minutes, but if you don't have 10 minutes you can plane shift or gate to a plane which is a lot faster than this one, and go back afterwards. Set the SoI so that it triggers when a creature touches the rune, but it won't trigger for you or creatures you summon. Make a few more of the same if you like.
4: Rest in the fast plane, and make more SoI stones until you have eleven. Remember you can heighten the SoIs to increase the save DC and use up your ninth-level slots too. Rest again, and go back to the material.
5: SMIX 1d3 vrocks, repeat until you have 11. Invisibility them. Yes, even if you need to use up all your third-level slots, do it. Then mind blank them all. You probably don't have enough slots for that, but only a few of them need it so it's fine.
6: Each vrock without mind blank grabs a SoI stone, greater teleports, and drops it in the enemy army, preferably directly onto a wizard. Unless all the wizards have both an active See Invisibility and a readied action to dispel any magic on anything that ports in, not to mention that they probably can't dispel it anyway, and all the fighters (or were they warriors? Doesn't matter) have readied actions to shoot your vrocks down, they're probably still alive. In any case, dropping a stone with SoI on someone probably doesn't count as attacking, so they're probably still invisible as well as alive.

Meanwhile, the mind blanked ones greater teleport in about 110 feet from a wizard, and touch the SoI stone to the forehead of one of the fighters on their next round, before rocketing off 50 feet in the first round and 200 feet each round after that, taking the 60 foot radius (radius, not diameter) with it.

Alternatively, if actually making someone touch the stone is a problem you can set the trigger to when it's read, and let your summons trigger it, and just have the vrock read it while floating 10 feet in the air. The mind blanked ones whizz around, and the other ones attack random stuff.
7: Your spells should be at least DC 30. Even the wizards will have a hard time dealing with that. Everyone within 60 ft will be affected, and while I can't remember exactly, I'm guessing that's something in the region of 80-100 people being affected. The non mind blanked vrocks are sitting over 60 feet in the air, so they then go off to kill some non-insane people. With five attacks, 2 AoOs and 10 ft reach, they're killing 7 people per round for the remaining ~15 rounds of their existence.
8: Most of the enemy army is insane, and even if someone kills the vrocks (or they go away after a minute and a half) there are still several SoI stones lying about, turning everyone within 60 feet insane. The remaining non-insane soldiers are desperately avoiding being killed by the others. A few of them manage to escape the ensuing bloodbath - perhaps 100 soldiers make it out alive. The tenth-level wizard might, conceivably, save, d door out of the effect and meet up with the rest of the soldiers minus half his hit points and some of his best spells.
9: You're fighting 100 soldiers and a half-dead level 10 wizard. Please tell me that you can work this out on your... okay, okay, just... you've used up all your 8th and 9th level spells, but fortunately, every slot of third level and above can produce 1d4+1 critters which last for over a minute and a half, and you probably still have all your 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th slots left, so go ahead and summon about 6d4+6=16 critters of each of 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th monster level, which should easily be enough to fight the army, but save a seventh-level slot anyway. Your creatures go ahead and kill stuff.
10: The wizard survived, didn't he? All right, plane shift back onto the plane where time stands practically still and rest. Shove greater invisibility and spell turning on yourself. Then plane shift back.
11: Disjoin the wizard. If he casts a spell, you'll turn it back on him anyway. Then time stop. Delayed blast fireball. Delayed blast fireball. Delayed blast fireball. Refresh your time stop. Delayed blast fireball. Empowered delayed blast fireball. Stand well back and watch the fireworks.

This assumes that practically nothing goes to plan, and it still works.

[Ivanhoe]

Been following this thread for a while, and I find it quite fascinating.
Also, contrary to the majority of thread participants, I see quite a few good points made by Vogonjeltz. It may not be such an easy thing to do for a 17th level pc wizard to kill an approaching army as envisioned by the OP and others ...:smallsmile:

Anyhow, the DMG CR table clearly indicates that this scenario should be a fairly easy one for the level 17 wizard (many low-level soldiers not really counting to raise a CR).


So given the following scenario, if you were the wizard what would you do?

You a 17th level wizard, own a tower inside a kingdom. At your disposal about 80 0th level people commoners cooks janitors etc you also have about 20 1st-3rd level people guards and apprentices mostly. The enemy is an army of 10,000 the entire army is 1st level mooks, the leader of each group of 100 is a 3rd level, and each group of 1000 has a 5 level wizard there to prevent simple magic killing their army. Finally the entire army is lead by a 10th level wizard. There is no negotiation, you have to kill them all.

EDIT:Just to clarify there is not contest here of 17 level wizard vs army. The purpose here is coming up with fun ways to kill them all.

A level 10 npc wizard, plus 10 more 5th level wizards plus the mooks should possibly add up to CR 15 or 16.
The OP does not specify more of the scenario such as who surprises whom, whether the pc wizard cares for his followers or not, how many XP he has above minimum for level 17 etc. So a lot could go against the wizard, making this a cool scenario for a one-on-one adventure idea for a single level 17 wizard pc.
Still, I do not see how the level 17 wizard can lose this. Really. Abstracting from spells the cost XP or undead shenanigans (that are pretty evil and not common for pcs), or clever item (ab)use, the SRD spells alone should win any match:
- mage magnificent mansion to get your followers to safety (or, if surprised, most of them)
- Monster Summoning IX for elder air elemental, possibly several times (and boosted by augment summoning). With time stop if urgent. It has DR 10 and can whirwind whole army units to oblivion.
- widened confusion spells can be pretty nasty to an army
- meteor swarm gets 4 80ft diameter spheres of burning death for level 1 soldiers
- 340ft long walls of fire can influence a 10,000 army pretty well.
- shapechanging into a young adult brass dragon (buff up in time stop first, for instance with haste and iron body and use your normally always up overland flight) and gradually putting to sleep the whole invading army would also be nice.
- an extended mirage arcana will generally conceal the tower in such a way, that the army will attack the wrong buildings first. Even detect magic will work only at short range to detect something is odd.

There are likely more, but I guess that should be enough already.:smallwink:

edited idea: using monster summoning IX for maximised 5 huge air elemantals going whirlwind is problably even more efficient ...

[Rubik]

If I'm misrepresenting what you said, please clarify.I merely pointed out similarities I noticed.

[Brookshw]

I merely pointed out similarities I noticed.

Sockpuppet is not a similarity, it was a derogatory shot that you denied. Own it and take whatever actions you deem appropriate.

[Rubik]

Sockpuppet is not a similarity, it was a derogatory shot that you denied. Own it and take whatever actions you deem appropriate.And the term was directed towards Giacomo/Pickford, rather than Vogonjeltz,if you'll notice.

[eggynack]

And the term was directed towards Giacomo/Pickford, rather than Vogonjeltz,if you'll notice.
I'm honestly pretty doubtful of the claim as it applies to Giacomo and Pickford as well, if you're being serious about this stuff. They did have their similarities in what they supported, but they said pretty different things a lot of the time, and wrote in substantially different ways. For example, Giacomo made a significant amount of use of multiquoting, whereas Pickford started out not knowing how to, or otherwise not wanting to multiquote, and eventually started doing so later on.

[Brookshw]

And the term was directed towards Giacomo/Pickford, rather than Vogonjeltz,if you'll notice.

No, I don't notice nor recognize that as somehow an acceptable alternative.

[akward Lad]

My standard plan for dealing with the "high level magic user vs. low level army" problem is to just summon enough owls.

How to summon enough owls

feats/items required
Sudden maximize/rod of maximize
Sudden empower/rod of empower
Sudden extend/rod of extend

Cast your highest level summon monster spell using the above metamagic.
Use that spell to cast 1d3 of the summon monster spell one level lower.
Use each of those spells to cast 1d3 of the spell one level lower
Repeat
Once you arrive at summon monster one choose your summon. I like celestial owls. They have cute faces, they are small and can fly (which helps when the numbers get ridiculous, and it will), and they tend to be closer to alignments I play. (Evil characters can choose fiendish hawks.)
Due to the maximize metamagic numbers get out of hand quickly.
In this case we are starting with summon monster IX and with both empower and maximize we are averaging 102,400 owls
That is 10 owls for every lv1 mook,
20 for every lv3 caster,
40 for every lv5 caster,
And then you can use your remaining spells to deal with the lone lv10
If you happen to roll perfect on the empower rolls you get 390,625 owls which is probably enough owls to defeat the army after blotting out the sun

[Vogonjeltz]

It doesn't say he has no alarms and his tower is in the middle of the forest and that he's deaf. It also doesn't say he's carrying around a idiot ball.
Also, Contingent Timestop which is persisted, with this maintained ad-nausium.

There are many other divinations, and that's why you re-ask and cast multiple times. Also, ability drain/damage is trivial to become immune to and recover from.

I think eggynack covered the first part. Contact Other Plane states the caster suffers reductions (which aren't drain or damage or penalty). Also failure in the check means an inability to cast spells for the stated duration. There's a non zero risk of this occurring, so it's incredibly risky to do this every day.



That is your claim, now back it up.


I don't see anything in the spell or the sub school stating that the caster changes their actual identity. The onus to prove your claim is on you.



Really, due to the material components, because it's not like there's a feat that skips that right out which was mentioned, oh, what's it called, Eschew Materials?
Also, a IC way was provided.

I said survival checks would be better.

Really, because a level 17 with 500 xp left over isn't a level 17?
And just because the wizard used it at the start of the challenge doesn't mean that he no-longer qualifies for the challenge. You could be level 16 sans 500 xp but as long as you begun at level 17 the challenge has been met.

Craft Contingent Spell. :smallsmile:

A Incantrix can still be a wizard. It could be a sorcerer, but being a Incantatrix doesn't stop you from being a wizard.

As for ignoring XP requirements as spells, it could instead have a sacrificial alter where a evil wizard sacrifices a Angel every week or so for dark craft XP which I believe extends to spells, but I'm not sure... Or it could be a place where he trades for souls to use as the xp component because I know that works.

Travel Through Time requires the spell to be cast in a particular location, in addition to the material and XP components. It's also fraught with risk of mishap and int damage.

If survival checks were better, what's the problem?

Characters can't spend XP such that they lose levels, that's the problem.

Incantatrix can't be a sorcerer (wizard levels are required) and only a sorcerer can cast the arcane fusion line of spells.

How is this wizard acquiring angels to sacrifice? Gate and the planar binding lines wouldn't work, and summons aren't really there.


Seriously? You're rules-lawyering that because spot and listen don't allow you see someone beyond the end of your nose, the Grand Old Duke of York can march his 10,000 men right up to a wizard's tower unseen, but I'm being pedantic?
Either our wizard has has some links with and role within the local community or he doesn't. If he does, someone is going to mention to him that there is an army on the march (and whatever the rules say, an army of 10,000 does not march unnoticed), because that's what peasants do when something new and troubling appears: ask the wise man.
If he's a total recluse, he either has some sort of information gathering and warning system set up, because he places some value on his property, or he places no value at all on it, in which case he's operating on a "nothing I can't take with me when I teleport out at 6 seconds' notice" basis.
If an army of 10,000 can take a 17th level wizard by surprise, you don't need the army, you just need a single rogue to walk in and coup de grace him while he sleeps. If that idea seems silly, it's because it is.

Yes. And a rogue would be more than capable of killing the wizard, probably in a single round. All that is required is the right circumstances.


Precisely my point. If he's not at -10 HP, he's alive. Unless he hits -10 HP exactly, then he can continue. Do we need to continue this train of thought?

What happens when he's reduced to -11 HP? There's nothing regarding that. It simply states -10HP it dies normally, with no recompense to what happens should you be able to go lower.

You want to play by RAW, I'm happy to too.

I don't think he ever gets to -11, because ferocity kills him, as normal, at -10.


Is it then your assertion that you can freely see anything, no matter how distant, so long as it is not attempting to hide?

Nor does it state that the army consists of stealthy clerics, sneaky siege weapons (presumably those catapults are making hide/move silent checks somehow), and horses who can hide in their own shadows. It also doesn't state that the troops have an unbreakable morale, or attack in small suicide squads. There is decidedly no mention as to why the entity funding the army would spend at least 45,000gp on alchemists fire and holy water instead of spending it on something useful, like potent magic items, spells, or planar bound/planar ally entities. It doesn't mention the shape of the Wizard's tower (although every piece of fantasy art I've ever seen shows them as round). The whole thing is light on details, and the argument is silly.

And sure, he's misread/misinterpreted a number of spells and items, but calling Vogonjeltz a Pickford sock puppet was uncalled for. There's no need to stoop to name calling. :smallannoyed: There's a ton of 3.5 material, and it's easy to miss something.

This theoretical scenario is pointless. Frankly, I'm more interested in hearing about this wizardly chain of brothels. :smallbiggrin:

Line of sight extends until blocked. And trees block line of sight quite well.

Siege weapons are typically going to be built in place, indirect fire doesn't require line of sight (Heroes of Battle).

After 5 attacks each trebuchet will have a +10 to hit for 14d6 per stone. 100,000 men can easily construct 10-20 trebuchet for 140d6-280d6 damage (excluding splash damage which is also 140d6-280d6!) per landing. How much hp does stone have again?

The OP didn't mention funds for either the Wizard or the Army. So I was taking that to mean wealth by level for both.

This does raise an interesting point. Who are the NPCs? The Wizard? The army? Both?

[Dorian Gray]

Yes. And a rogue would be more than capable of killing the wizard, probably in a single round. All that is required is the right circumstances.

Line of sight extends until blocked. And trees block line of sight quite well.

Siege weapons are typically going to be built in place, indirect fire doesn't require line of sight (Heroes of Battle).

After 5 attacks each trebuchet will have a +10 to hit for 14d6 per stone. 100,000 men can easily construct 10-20 trebuchet for 140d6-280d6 damage (excluding splash damage which is also 140d6-280d6!) per landing. How much hp does stone have again?

The OP didn't mention funds for either the Wizard or the Army. So I was taking that to mean wealth by level for both.

This does raise an interesting point. Who are the NPCs? The Wizard? The army? Both?

The bit with the rogue: you realize that that statement could be made about anything, ever? "X could kill Y if X could kill Y" isn't an argument, it's a restatement of the reflexive property.

Also, none of the stuff about the trebuchets even matters because the wizard can destroy the army in one or two rounds.

[Vogonjeltz]

The bit with the rogue: you realize that that statement could be made about anything, ever? "X could kill Y if X could kill Y" isn't an argument, it's a restatement of the reflexive property.

Also, none of the stuff about the trebuchets even matters because the wizard can destroy the army in one or two rounds.

You've piqued my interest. Ok what is the wizard doing round 1? Round 2?

[Dorian Gray]

You've piqued my interest. Ok what is the wizard doing round 1? Round 2?

I've already laid this out. Technically, it's a sorcerer, and you can't use GAF on a wizard, but round 1 you cast twin repeated fell drain chain chain lightning and quickened twin repeated fell drain chain chain lightning to hit 3200 people, and on round 2 you cast the same. Also on turn 2 the 3200 wraiths can kill, say, 1600 more people, so by turn 2 you have killed 80% of the army. I'd count that as destroying the army, considering that armies would surrender after 20% casualties in one day, but if that doesn't count, on round three the 8000 wraiths you control can probably manage to kill 2000 humans. :smallbiggrin:
The level 10 wizard isn't even a problem here. You can just ignore him- it isn't as if he can break through your spell turning/resistance/immunity/whatever.

Edit: and my dictionary of numbers is now telling me that 3200 people is the population of the Falkland Islands. I feel somewhat guilty.

[Erik Vale]

I think eggynack covered the first part. Contact Other Plane states the caster suffers reductions (which aren't drain or damage or penalty). Also failure in the check means an inability to cast spells for the stated duration. There's a non zero risk of this occurring, so it's incredibly risky to do this every day.

Hmm, you'r right, they have a low stat check. 18+5+8+5=36-10=26/2=13. The wizard has a +13 int mod assuming he put all his points in it, it was a 18 stat, he's used wish for stat bonuses, and has a +5 item.
Follow up with +2 int from age and +2 from race this becomes +15. Follow with Pride Domain [Achievable by feats, which you can by and change to whatever you wish] means that you only fail when you roll two ones in a row, which means 1/400 days [less than 1/year] on average you will take a int reduction to 8 for 5 weeks. In exchange you get to ask 100 questions that are right 88% of the time. This leaves you with 16 int on the 5 week period you fail 1/two years [on average], giving you all spells up to 8th level... Yea, wizard has divinations well and truly covered... Oh, and it's a 5th level spell, so you still get your spells.



I don't see anything in the spell or the sub school stating that the caster changes their actual identity. The onus to prove your claim is on you.

I see multiple creatures that can grant wishes, and each time you become a wish granting creature, you gain it's wishes per day, each time you change out, you lose the wishes per day, there's nothing to keep track that you've used it.



Travel Through Time requires the spell to be cast in a particular location, in addition to the material and XP components. It's also fraught with risk of mishap and int damage.

XP requirements are negated by components/thought bottle. Material components negated by feat. Location... Nope, locations requirements are nill, that's part of the ignored material components [Eschew Materials], so you still travel through time. Depending on how far you're willing to travel you could destroy the army before it even sets off.



If survival checks were better, what's the problem?

No problem, just something for your future reference. Basically saying that you can ignore food as long as you can take 10 on survival and actually get a result of 10.



Characters can't spend XP such that they lose levels, that's the problem.

Never seen the rule stating such, and that doesn't stop level with 500xp which is still level.



Incantatrix can't be a sorcerer (wizard levels are required) and only a sorcerer can cast the arcane fusion line of spells.

Hmmm. If the feat is replicable with a level 15 cohort than it still works, if not than I'm glad to say it's not my trick, in any case I leave it for the person who made the trick to argue it.



How is this wizard acquiring angels to sacrifice? Gate and the planar binding lines wouldn't work, and summons aren't really there.

Calling specifically brings the actual creature, so yes, Gate, Planar Binding, Planar Ally, Dragon Ally, Halaster's Summons [if you dip into 3.0] all work.



I don't think he ever gets to -11, because ferocity kills him, as normal, at -10.

But he's never actually at -10, you don't pass through the numbers one at a time, you skipp to the relevent, and I disagree with your reading.



Line of sight extends until blocked. And trees block line of sight quite well.

Where in the challenge is the tower in the trees? :smallbiggrin::smallwink::smalltongue:



Siege weapons are typically going to be built in place, indirect fire doesn't require line of sight (Heroes of Battle).

After 5 attacks each trebuchet will have a +10 to hit for 14d6 per stone. 100,000 men can easily construct 10-20 trebuchet for 140d6-280d6 damage (excluding splash damage which is also 140d6-280d6!) per landing. How much hp does stone have again?

The OP didn't mention funds for either the Wizard or the Army. So I was taking that to mean wealth by level for both.

This does raise an interesting point. Who are the NPCs? The Wizard? The army? Both?

What says the tower is stone, Riverene is Avaliable. Also, after the first shot a wall of force would deal with the siege being continued handedly, as you would proceed to bombard the wall of force instead.
And how much do these hundreds of trebaches that you're silently crafting cost to make? And what are you making them with if the tower is on a featureless plain or on a mountain?
And what is level 1's WBL? The challenge already denies WBL as the Wizard has a tower and the followers, level 0 doesn't exist, and the tower is the wizards which can't be free, and the people are the wizards but the wizard isn't being forced to spring for leadership, which would give the wizard more followers that aren't quite so useless.

[Erik Vale]

I've already laid this out. Technically, it's a sorcerer, and you can't use GAF on a wizard, but round 1 you cast twin repeated fell drain chain chain lightning and quickened twin repeated fell drain chain chain lightning to hit 3200 people, and on round 2 you cast the same. Also on turn 2 the 3200 wraiths can kill, say, 1600 more people, so by turn 2 you have killed 80% of the army. I'd count that as destroying the army, considering that armies would surrender after 20% casualties in one day, but if that doesn't count, on round three the 8000 wraiths you control can probably manage to kill 2000 humans. :smallbiggrin:
The level 10 wizard isn't even a problem here. You can just ignore him- it isn't as if he can break through your spell turning/resistance/immunity/whatever.

Edit: and my dictionary of numbers is now telling me that 3200 people is the population of the Falkland Islands. I feel somewhat guilty.

Can this be done by level 15 [or almost done/dones similarly], if so it fits in the challenge with the added steps of:
-Message your sorcerer cohort to get his a$$ over here and deal with the army.
-Watch Sorcerer toast army while you drink your morning cocoa.


Oh, for the trick, don't wraiths take a day to spawn? Fell Animate may be better if the case should it still fit, as you instead create lots of zombies the round after the character dies, and unless the army is geared with bludgeoning weapons it's having to deal with a number of 2HD zombies rapidly approaching the armies size appearing within their ranks, where it's weapons are of limited use...

[Rubik]

You can take 10 on ability checks.

Just throwing that out there.

[Dorian Gray]

Can this be done by level 15 [or almost done/dones similarly], if so it fits in the challenge with the added steps of:
-Message your sorcerer cohort to get his a$$ over here and deal with the army.
-Watch Sorcerer toast army while you drink your morning cocoa.


Oh, for the trick, don't wraiths take a day to spawn? Fell Animate may be better if the case should it still fit, as you instead create lots of zombies the round after the character dies, and unless the army is geared with bludgeoning weapons it's having to deal with a number of 2HD zombies rapidly approaching the armies size appearing within their ranks, where it's weapons are of limited use...

Nah, it comes online at level 16, when you get level 8 spells. You can't know Greater Arcane Fusion at level 15.

I don't know about the second bit- I thought it was instant, but if it does take a day, yeah, fell animate would be better.

[Erik Vale]

Nah, it comes online at level 16, when you get level 8 spells. You can't know Greater Arcane Fusion at level 15.

I don't know about the second bit- I thought it was instant, but if it does take a day, yeah, fell animate would be better.

Apparently Dragon Mag is technically RAW, I don't remember where that was said, but if so Knowstones are available [Basically how sorcerers learn more spells, but RAW they'd loose them each time they'd level up and would need to reuse the stone, but I think it may be destroyed by the learning process], however I'm not sure if you'll be able to cast it.

*Checks Rules* They rise next night, and wraiths have daylight powerlessness, so Fell-Animate is better, especially as you'll be able to command some of them... The rest will probably just stand in place though, depending if you would give zombies the natural programming to constantly 'hunt' attack and eat, or if they need commands to be able to do anything. Given vermin are mindless yet obviously think it could go either way, but if they do nothing then it'll make for a much easier clean up, assuming you want to clean up instead of leaving them as a warning/wall.

[Dorian Gray]

*Checks Rules* They rise next night, and wraiths have daylight powerlessness, so Fell-Animate is better, especially as you'll be able to command some of them... The rest will probably just stand in place though, depending if you would give zombies the natural programming to constantly 'hunt' attack and eat, or if they need commands to be able to do anything. Given vermin are mindless yet obviously think it could go either way, but if they do nothing then it'll make for a much easier clean up, assuming you want to clean up instead of leaving them as a warning/wall.

Well, in that case the wizard would just have to cast for a third round, I guess, and omit the fell drain part of the spell. Easier than cleaning up a couple thousand zombies.

[Erik Vale]

Yea, but you may get a living wall of flesh that serves as an eternal testament to what happens when you get attacked by fools...
And you get fertalizer as flesh rots from the bones... Best collected by a golem or someone with a strong stomach and really good nose plugs. Edit: And something to filter the air they breath.

[Brookshw]

I've already laid this out. Technically, it's a sorcerer, and you can't use GAF on a wizard, but round 1 you cast twin repeated fell drain chain chain lightning and quickened twin repeated fell drain chain chain lightning to hit 3200 people, and on round 2 you cast the same. Also on turn 2 the 3200 wraiths can kill, say, 1600 more people, so by turn 2 you have killed 80% of the army. I'd count that as destroying the army, considering that armies would surrender after 20% casualties in one day, but if that doesn't count, on round three the 8000 wraiths you control can probably manage to kill 2000 humans. :smallbiggrin:
The level 10 wizard isn't even a problem here. You can just ignore him- it isn't as if he can break through your spell turning/resistance/immunity/whatever.

Edit: and my dictionary of numbers is now telling me that 3200 people is the population of the Falkland Islands. I feel somewhat guilty.

Is that math accurate for chain lightning? I thought repeat targets the same creature (dead at the first I assume). Something seems odd about this.

[Erik Vale]

*Checks*
I'm gladder this isn't my trick, you are correct. This leaves twin chain chain lightning [possibly with fell animate] and quickened twin chain chain lightning.

[Dorian Gray]

Aw... you're right. I suppose if the level 10 wizard showed his face you could blast him, but.. :smallfrown:

Still, though, 1600 a round isn't too shabby. You can get everyone in 7 rounds that way- less if you use fell animate and have the zombies kill people.

[Vogonjeltz]

I've already laid this out. Technically, it's a sorcerer

Technically I was asking how a Wizard did it, not how a Sorcerer did it.


round 1 you cast twin repeated fell drain chain chain lightning and quickened twin repeated fell drain chain chain lightning to hit 3200 people, and on round 2 you cast the same.Also on turn 2 the 3200 wraiths can kill, say, 1600 more people, so by turn 2 you have killed 80% of the army. I'd count that as destroying the army, considering that armies would surrender after 20% casualties in one day, but if that doesn't count, on round three the 8000 wraiths you control can probably manage to kill 2000 humans.

Chain Lightning (6th level spell) @ 17 hits 18 targets.
Chain Spell: +17 targets, +3 spell levels. (Now level 9, hits 35 targets)
Fell Drain: targets take a negative level, +2 spell levels (now level 11, no significant change)
Twin Spell: Spell takes effect twice on the same targets. +4 spell levels (now level 15, still 35 targets)
Repeat Spell: next round the spell casts again, if the original target is still valid (and no further than 30 feet from its starting location) otherwise, fails. +3 spell levels. (Now level 18 spell, still only 35 targets.)

The second proposed casting is a level 22 spell that also only hits 35 targets, for a total of 70 targets who may be dead.
How exactly were you proposing reducing the 4 or 5 metamagic feats such that they no longer add the minimum increase of +1 per metamagic?
And where did you get the idea that this would hit 3200 people? At level 17 it's 70 targets, maximum.

Another question your response raised, where are these wraiths supposedly coming from?


Hmm, you'r right, they have a low stat check. 18+5+8+5=36-10=26/2=13. The wizard has a +13 int mod assuming he put all his points in it, it was a 18 stat, he's used wish for stat bonuses, and has a +5 item.
Follow up with +2 int from age and +2 from race this becomes +15. Follow with Pride Domain [Achievable by feats, which you can by and change to whatever you wish] means that you only fail when you roll two ones in a row, which means 1/400 days [less than 1/year] on average you will take a int reduction to 8 for 5 weeks. In exchange you get to ask 100 questions that are right 88% of the time. This leaves you with 16 int on the 5 week period you fail 1/two years [on average], giving you all spells up to 8th level... Yea, wizard has divinations well and truly covered... Oh, and it's a 5th level spell, so you still get your spells.

If I'm reading the additions correctly, you've baseline assumed the Wizard is an Old Grey Elf (18+2 starting Int from Race) Wizard who has used a +5 Tome of Clear Thought/Wishes, and placed the 4 ability score increases in Int, and a +6 Int Enhancement item for 35 Int total, a +12 modifier.

Of course, there's a problem here. By being a Grey Elf, this Wizard is starting with a 6 Strength. And Old reduces that a further 3 points to only a 3 Strength. (-4 mod, carrying capacity of Light: 10 lb. or less, Medium: 11-20 lb., Heavy: 21-30 lb.

And upon failure the scores fall to 8. That's 8 total, not 8 before modifiers.


I see multiple creatures that can grant wishes, and each time you become a wish granting creature, you gain it's wishes per day, each time you change out, you lose the wishes per day, there's nothing to keep track that you've used it.

What creature besides the Zodar?


XP requirements are negated by components/thought bottle. Material components negated by feat. Location... Nope, locations requirements are nill, that's part of the ignored material components [Eschew Materials], so you still travel through time. Depending on how far you're willing to travel you could destroy the army before it even sets off.

It's Nil, not nill. The Location is part of casting the spell, so no, it's not optional and it's not a component.


Never seen the rule stating such, and that doesn't stop level with 500xp which is still level.

Here you go:
Some powerful spells entail an experience point cost to you. No spell can restore the XP lost in this manner. You cannot spend so much XP that you lose a level, so you cannot cast the spell unless you have enough XP to spare. However, you may, on gaining enough XP to attain a new level, use those XP for casting a spell rather than keeping them and advancing a level. The XP are treated just like a material component—expended when you cast the spell, whether or not the casting succeeds.

Appears to utterly rule out the thought bottle, but that's just one vogon's interpretation. Would you like to hear some of my poetry on the matter?

XP is now gone.
Nothing can return it here.
Never level loss.

HAIKU!


Calling specifically brings the actual creature, so yes, Gate, Planar Binding, Planar Ally, Dragon Ally, Halaster's Summons [if you dip into 3.0] all work.

These lines are why not:

Impossible demands or unreasonable commands are never agreed to.

A controlled creature can be commanded to perform a service for you. Such services fall into two categories: immediate tasks and contractual service. Fighting for you in a single battle or taking any other actions that can be accomplished within 1 round per caster level counts as an immediate task; you need not make any agreement or pay any reward for the creature’s help. The creature departs at the end of the spell.


What says the tower is stone, Riverene is Avaliable. Also, after the first shot a wall of force would deal with the siege being continued handedly, as you would proceed to bombard the wall of force instead.
And how much do these hundreds of trebaches that you're silently crafting cost to make? And what are you making them with if the tower is on a featureless plain or on a mountain?
And what is level 1's WBL? The challenge already denies WBL as the Wizard has a tower and the followers, level 0 doesn't exist, and the tower is the wizards which can't be free, and the people are the wizards but the wizard isn't being forced to spring for leadership, which would give the wizard more followers that aren't quite so useless.

Riverine is rare, and it's availability (like all materials) is subject to DM permissiveness.
Wall of Force might stop the shots, but only for the 17 rounds it exists.
Trebuchets can cost as little as nothing at all, assuming the materials to make them are easily available. (The prices are in Heroes of Battle.)
Level 1 NPCs get more WBL than PCs do. Alot more, numbers are in the DMG or PHB II.


You can take 10 on ability checks.

Just throwing that out there.

If there's no stress. Speaking to a Greater Deity (or any other immensely powerful being) is stress inducing.

[Rubik]

If there's no stress. Speaking to a Greater Deity (or any other immensely powerful being) is stress inducing.You're just casting a spell. It's really not that stressful, since it's just a divination. It's not like you're beneath his boot, groveling, or whatever.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Of course, if I was running the army, they have wizards as well. But alas, not every kingdom is built by a mageocracy.

[Rubik]

Of course, if I was running the army, they have wizards as well. But alas, not every kingdom is built by a mageocracy.And those that aren't are destined to have a "power behind the throne" that is.

[Vogonjeltz]

You're just casting a spell. It's really not that stressful, since it's just a divination. It's not like you're beneath his boot, groveling, or whatever.

I can imagine little more stressful that contacting a being who, without my or their saying a word, can render me an idiot for almost 2 months. Prestidigitation is just casting a spell. This is gambling ones sanity, and possibly life.

[eggynack]

If I'm reading the additions correctly, you've baseline assumed the Wizard is an Old Grey Elf (18+2 starting Int from Race) Wizard who has used a +5 Tome of Clear Thought/Wishes, and placed the 4 ability score increases in Int, and a +6 Int Enhancement item for 35 Int total, a +12 modifier.
It seems like you assumed old at first, but then failed to take it into account in the actual calculations. We start at 20, 22 from old, 27 from tome, 31 from level, and 37 from item. If we go venerable instead, that gets 38 intelligence. That means perfect success against the intermediate deity, which grants odds good enough that several questions asked about the same thing would grant a fairly reliable answer, and success on all but a 1 against the greater deity. The former remains true with a mod one less, so old is fine.


Of course, there's a problem here. By being a Grey Elf, this Wizard is starting with a 6 Strength. And Old reduces that a further 3 points to only a 3 Strength. (-4 mod, carrying capacity of Light: 10 lb. or less, Medium: 11-20 lb., Heavy: 21-30 lb.

I'm not sure what that's impacting here, but if it's a problem then we can start with marginally higher strength, or use an item.



What creature besides the Zodar?
Can't think of much, but the other aspect of the argument seems more relevant anyway. Besides, if we're really getting serious about things, you only need one wish to get all wishes.



It's Nil, not nill. The Location is part of casting the spell, so no, it's not optional and it's not a component.
It looks like it's listed under material components.

Edit:
I can imagine little more stressful that contacting a being who, without my or their saying a word, can render me an idiot for almost 2 months. Prestidigitation is just casting a spell. This is gambling ones sanity, and possibly life.
Taking 10 doesn't say stressful. It says threatened or distracted. As dangerous as this is, it doesn't look like anything is actively threatening you. You can take as long as you want to cast the spell, after all, and there's no real pressure to not be at the peak of your abilities (or the average, I suppose).

[Rubik]

I can imagine little more stressful that contacting a being who, without my or their saying a word, can render me an idiot for almost 2 months. Prestidigitation is just casting a spell. This is gambling ones sanity, and possibly life.Except the spell has absolutely no negative repercussions if you take 10 with a reasonable modifier to your Int score, even if you ask questions which insult the being you're contacting.

Anything else is DM fiat.

[Flickerdart]

I can imagine little more stressful that contacting a being who, without my or their saying a word, can render me an idiot for almost 2 months. Prestidigitation is just casting a spell. This is gambling ones sanity, and possibly life.
That's not how a stressful situation is determined by the rules for taking 10.


A skill check represents an attempt to accomplish some goal, usually while under some sort of time pressure or distraction...When your character is not being threatened or distracted, you may choose to take 10...The normal take 10 and take 20 rules apply for ability checks.
A character is not threatened by casting Contact Other Plane any more than they are by climbing up a wall or jumping across a chasm, and one can take 10 on Climb checks and Jump checks just fine. You're not in a pinch until you actually fail.

[Brookshw]

Ya know Vog, I don't always agree with you, but I do enjoy your debates :smallbiggrin:

[Phelix-Mu]

I'd use invisibility on patches of brown mold, and then use some manner of sneakiness to plant them around the campfires of the enemy as they are getting ready to sleep.

Oh, right, I got it. Skull talismans of darkfire and patches of brown mold growing on blankets carried by servant horde castings. They infiltrate the camp at night, drop their mold, and break their talismans. I think that works. Each servant dies quickly, but the only thing they really have to do is spread the mold.

Brown mold does 1d4 nonlethal to every living thing in a radius, forever. It grows when exposed to fire. The army should be comatose in remarkably little time, and further application of low-level fire-starting should make the spread even more impressive. Each patch grows, so no matter how big it gets, a single casting of invisibility on each patch should keep the whole thing invisible.

Bonus points if you can get some of the wizards knocked out before they get up a see invisibility.

The big upside here is you weed out the mooks without using anything over level 5 in terms of spells. Thus, you can keep your big guns for turning the wizards from enemies into lackeys, and then set about charming/mindraping/zombifying/greens sliming all of the mooks.

[Vogonjeltz]

It seems like you assumed old at first, but then failed to take it into account in the actual calculations. We start at 20, 22 from old, 27 from tome, 31 from level, and 37 from item. If we go venerable instead, that gets 38 intelligence. That means perfect success against the intermediate deity, which grants odds good enough that several questions asked about the same thing would grant a fairly reliable answer, and success on all but a 1 against the greater deity. The former remains true with a mod one less, so old is fine.

Oops I forgot the old modifier. That's pretty specific. And 1 Str is 10 lb max carry. That means basically no gear, too heavy. A single point of str damage or drain will lay this wizard out. I'm not in favor of buffing one stat so much that another stat becomes an extreme weakness.



I'm not sure what that's impacting here, but if it's a problem then we can start with marginally higher strength, or use an item.


I am inclined to think that you can pick out several dozen ways to deal a single point of str damage or drain.



Can't think of much, but the other aspect of the argument seems more relevant anyway. Besides, if we're really getting serious about things, you only need one wish to get all wishes.


I'm familiar with the infinite wish claim, I don't buy it. No need to rehash.



It looks like it's listed under material components.

It's discussed when discussing the actual material component, but being related to a material component doesn't make it one.



Edit:
Taking 10 doesn't say stressful. It says threatened or distracted. As dangerous as this is, it doesn't look like anything is actively threatening you. You can take as long as you want to cast the spell, after all, and there's no real pressure to not be at the peak of your abilities (or the average, I suppose).

It's threatening to turn the wizard into an idiot. That is as threatening as combat.


Except the spell has absolutely no negative repercussions if you take 10 with a reasonable modifier to your Int score, even if you ask questions which insult the being you're contacting.

Anything else is DM fiat.

This occurs before questions are asked. That succeeding isn't bad has no bearing on if the character is endangered.


That's not how a stressful situation is determined by the rules for taking 10.

A character is not threatened by casting Contact Other Plane any more than they are by climbing up a wall or jumping across a chasm, and one can take 10 on Climb checks and Jump checks just fine. You're not in a pinch until you actually fail.

I am forced to disagree, contacting a deity is inherently threatening.



Ya know Vog, I don't always agree with you, but I do enjoy your debates :smallbiggrin:

Oh I enjoy debating these things too :)
I like to see how other players reach their conclusions.

[Rubik]

This occurs before questions are asked. That succeeding isn't bad has no bearing on if the character is endangered.Then it isn't particularly stressful, since you haven't yet encountered the being you're trying to contact (and the spell is something that wizards should cast routinely -- at least daily). Routine tasks with no inherent danger or pressure are, RAW, not stressful situations.


I am forced to disagree, contacting a deity is inherently threatening.You can disagree with RAW all you want, but that doesn't mean you're any more correct.

[eggynack]

Oops I forgot the old modifier. That's pretty specific. And 1 Str is 10 lb max carry. That means basically no gear, too heavy. A single point of str damage or drain will lay this wizard out. I'm not in favor of buffing one stat so much that another stat becomes an extreme weakness.
Then buff both. Pretty simple.




I am inclined to think that you can pick out several dozen ways to deal a single point of str damage or drain.
As above, so too here. You get an item of some sort, or start with higher than an 8, or go with old instead of venerable (because it applies in pretty much the same way in all circumstances), or anything.



I'm familiar with the infinite wish claim, I don't buy it. No need to rehash.
Don't see why not. Seems solid.



It's threatening to turn the wizard into an idiot. That is as threatening as combat.
It's not a thing threatening you, however. There's no actual pressure apart from the pressure of failure, and you can spend forever preparing your mind if you choose (though you likely won't). That's the difference between the two things, that there's no pressure apart from the task at hand and its results. The task itself can't be the thing threatening you, because if it were, it would be nigh impossible to take 10 in any situation.

[Brookshw]

Oh I enjoy debating these things too :)
I like to see how other players reach their conclusions.

Not sure if you mean players as in players or people who play d&d. I'd actually be curious to know what roles (dm or player) people engaged in the conversation generally take. Not that this should undermine their positions on raw but I am curious.

[Dorian Gray]

Chain Lightning (6th level spell) @ 17 hits 18 targets.
Chain Spell: +17 targets, +3 spell levels. (Now level 9, hits 35 targets)
Fell Drain: targets take a negative level, +2 spell levels (now level 11, no significant change)
Twin Spell: Spell takes effect twice on the same targets. +4 spell levels (now level 15, still 35 targets)
Repeat Spell: next round the spell casts again, if the original target is still valid (and no further than 30 feet from its starting location) otherwise, fails. +3 spell levels. (Now level 18 spell, still only 35 targets.)

The second proposed casting is a level 22 spell that also only hits 35 targets, for a total of 70 targets who may be dead.
How exactly were you proposing reducing the 4 or 5 metamagic feats such that they no longer add the minimum increase of +1 per metamagic?
And where did you get the idea that this would hit 3200 people? At level 17 it's 70 targets, maximum.

Another question your response raised, where are these wraiths supposedly coming from?


When I had a straight-classed wizard do it, I omitted some stuff. But:
I assumed that the caster was capable of boosting his caster level by 3. It really isn't hard. So Chain Lightning is actually +20 targets.

But Chain Spell interacts in an unusual way with Chain Lightning. Chain Lightning targets one creature. The effect then bounces to 20 others, as per the chain spell metamagic. All those 21 targets are affected by Chain Lightning. The actual Chain Lightning then goes out from those targets to hit 20 other people. It's 21*20, not 20+20. That's because the Chain Spell metamagic effect takes place before the chaining aspect of the spell- so you have 21 targets being hit by the first part of chain lightning, which carries all the effects of the first part of the chain lightning spell, e.g. the fact that it bounces around.

That gives 420 targets at caster level 20 (it might be higher, I'm away from my books right now, but I don't think so). Twin Spell makes for 800 hit, and Quicken means that you can do that twice a round. I took out the repeat spell part, because anyone hit by the initial bolt is likely to get fried in one round. That's a spell level of 6+3+4=13 (17 with quicken). But Arcane Thesis (Chain Lightning) reduces those costs by 1 each, down to 11, and with something like Midnight Metamagic (incarnum) and an essentia helm, those costs can be reduced by another 4- down to 7. The essentia helm works 3 times a day, and costs less than 20k gold, so we can afford to have a spare. A greater rod of quicken spell gives 3 free quickened spells, so we get 6 twin chain chain lightnings, 3 of which are quickened. That's 800*6=4800 targets hit- we can do that in 3 rounds.

The reason that Fell Drain was included is that stuff that gets level-drained to death rises as a wraith- but I took that out, because Eric Vale kindly informed me that that happens at the next sunset (that arse :smallbiggrin:). Instead, we use Fell Animate, which gives us a very large number of uncontrolled zombies (at the cost of +3 spell level). That brings the level of the spells up to 10- but if we throw in something like practiced metamagic, we can lower the cost of each metamagic feat by an additional 1 per- that's -1 from chain, -1 from twin, -1 from fell drain, which brings the cost back down to a 7th level spell.

The zombies presumably attack the enemy soldiers (uncontrolled -- int neutral evil isn't known for intelligence), but if they wouldn't have a significant impact, the fell animate could be cut from the spell.

Still, with Midnight Metamagic, Arcane Thesis (Chain Lightning), Practiced Metamagic, and a rod of quicken spell, we can lower the cost of twin quickened chain chain lightning to 6- or even 5, if you want to get really cheeky. A wizard might only get 2 or 3 9th level spells at level 17, but he can get a lot of 6th, 7th, and 8th level spells. If you want to be a munchkin, you can take the feat Invisible Spell, which costs nothing- which means that with just Practiced Metamagic (invisible spell), you can lower the cost of any spell by 1 level.

In conclusion, with a bit of determination and intelligence, metamagic is incredibly abusable- and high-level wizards have both of those qualities in spades.


Not sure if you mean players as in players or people who play d&d. I'd actually be curious to know what roles (dm or player) people engaged in the conversation generally take. Not that this should undermine their positions on raw but I am curious.

I'm the resident munchkin. Actually, I mainly play low tier melee classes outside of the forums, because I really enjoy the challenge of optimizing, and it's so incredibly easy and boring to optimize casters. It's a hell of a lot more fun to play a fighter duel-wielding whips and using the whip climber feat in conjunction with spring attack to swing up, trip+attack, and swing away. That build was feat-intensive.

[Erik Vale]

If I'm reading the additions correctly, you've baseline assumed the Wizard is an Old Grey Elf (18+2 starting Int from Race) Wizard who has used a +5 Tome of Clear Thought/Wishes, and placed the 4 ability score increases in Int, and a +6 Int Enhancement item for 35 Int total, a +12 modifier.

Of course, there's a problem here. By being a Grey Elf, this Wizard is starting with a 6 Strength. And Old reduces that a further 3 points to only a 3 Strength. (-4 mod, carrying capacity of Light: 10 lb. or less, Medium: 11-20 lb., Heavy: 21-30 lb.

And upon failure the scores fall to 8. That's 8 total, not 8 before modifiers.

Yes, they fall to 0. Then his enchantment bonus in applied because it's a item, not himself [which is the only thing he's not]. And no, you've gotten them wrong.
And what say's that the wizard starts with 6str? And why would he not have a buff on so he could carry around his clothes if it were? That's a dangerous assumption there laddy.



What creature besides the Zodar?

I'm not going to troll through all the books to give you a listing. However the SRD has through a very rough look: Solar and Pitfiend can both work.



It's Nil, not nill. The Location is part of casting the spell, so no, it's not optional and it's not a component.

Hmm, my mistake. And no, Location comes from the component, you explicitly land on the same spot based on the component. There's no component, so you just land on the same spot you cast it.



Here you go:

Appears to utterly rule out the thought bottle, but that's just one vogon's interpretation. Would you like to hear some of my poetry on the matter?

XP is now gone.
Nothing can return it here.
Never level loss.

HAIKU!

1: Referencing Spells Explicitly, and thus applies only RAI.
2: A level 17 can have 500xp to spare and still be a level 17. He could be 1 xp off 18 and still be a level 17. Still fits for the challenge.



These lines are why not:

Uhh, who said the creature was agreeing again? There's nothing stopping you from physically restraining it and then sacrificing it.




Riverine is rare, and it's availability (like all materials) is subject to DM permissiveness.
Wall of Force might stop the shots, but only for the 17 rounds it exists.
Trebuchets can cost as little as nothing at all, assuming the materials to make them are easily available. (The prices are in Heroes of Battle.)
Level 1 NPCs get more WBL than PCs do. Alot more, numbers are in the DMG or PHB II.

Where is that stated?
That's why you then persist it. :smallsmile:
So when you're on a featureless plain attacking a fortress flying 5 miles in the air how much does it cost to make a trebuchet that can shoot the tower?



If there's no stress. Speaking to a Greater Deity (or any other immensely powerful being) is stress inducing.
No it's not, and I already provided a 1/400 failure chance.



I am forced to disagree, contacting a deity is inherently threatening.


Good for you. However there is only chance of failure, not threat as per RAW, which means you can take 10 but not 20.


Not sure if you mean players as in players or people who play d&d. I'd actually be curious to know what roles (dm or player) people engaged in the conversation generally take. Not that this should undermine their positions on raw but I am curious.
Normally I play what I think is cool and try to make it keep up [my IRL Op-Fu is more limiting, my brain just slows down in social situations... :smallsigh:]. I help out others by reading the book and using my knowledge to point things out to them... This however does occasionally cause problems such as when we change from 5th revised to 6th ed of heroes where many rules are similar but different in important ways and my brain still accesses 5thR.

[Brookshw]

I'm the resident munchkin. Actually, I mainly play low tier melee classes outside of the forums, because I really enjoy the challenge of optimizing, and it's so incredibly easy and boring to optimize casters. It's a hell of a lot more fun to play a fighter duel-wielding whips and using the whip climber feat in conjunction with spring attack to swing up, trip+attack, and swing away. That build was feat-intensive.

That sounds really fun, reminds me a favorite build one on my players did. How'd you pull it off? I have this vaguely crazy Tarzan image in my head now.

[Dorian Gray]

That sounds really fun, reminds me a favorite build one on my players did. How'd you pull it off? I have this vaguely crazy Tarzan image in my head now.

I had TWF, and I maxed climb and use rope- the skills used with the whip climber feat. My DM ruled that the Brachiation feat let me move as normal while using Whip Climber, and I would swing up to 15 ft away from enemies, trip them and hit them, and swing away (spring attack). I think I ended up needing Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Whip Climber, Brachiation, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Whip), and Two Weapon Fighting. I had an enchantment on the whips so that they did actual damage- I don't recall the build being incredibly effective, but it was fun.

[Phelix-Mu]

Nobody liked my solution? *teehee*

What is currently under debate, by the by? I could go back and read, but I figure that, at this point in a debate, a bit of a recap is in order. Anyone care to indulge me?