[3.5] Arena battles for Core Conjurer

[Torq]

In the campaign I'm currently playing in, we all had to register in an arena style battle in hopes that some of us would win and advance to the next round which is held in a city normally off-limits to humans. The arena battles had different categories (magic-only, heavy melee, light melee, mixed [magic and melee], performance) and as a Wizard, I chose magic only. A caveat to magic only is that no physical attacks from the PC were allowed and my PC is a core-only conjurer who banned evocation and necro. Oops.

At 5th level, I managed to make it through all 4 rounds, with the 4th round being a wizard one level higher than my PC. My approach was pretty straight forward: open with Stinking Cloud, wait for the opponent to come out, and use my remaining two 3rd level slots for extended Melf's Acid Arrow as well as a couple 2nd level normal Acid Arrows as needed. In the last fight, the opponent did some summoning so I had to get creative and burned through most of my spells (Invisibility, Bear's Endurance [Wizard healing FTW], Obscuring Mist, Grease) while running around the battlefield trying to avoid the summoned monsters and staying invisible until the opponent died.

In a core only game with no necro/evoc, this proved to be about as effective a strategy as I could come up with and the damage output was ok.

[r1] [r2] [r3] [r4] [r5]
2d4 2d4 2d4 2d4
-----2d4 2d4 2d4 2d4
----------2d4 2d4
---------------2d4 2d4

(5) (10) (15) (20) (10) - Average damage per round. Enough to kill most Wizards


However, now news of my exploits will precede me and I'll need a new tactic. The only other real damage output my Wizard has is Shrink Item, fly and drop it on the bad guy (usually manages around 20d6 +/- a few d6), but I'm not sure that that really works in the arena as they check for magical auras before the battle starts.

Maybe summon some grapplers? Any thoughts?

[ahenobarbi]

There is a spell you should be able to cast that deals 6d6 damage. (www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/explosiveRunes.htm)

Whate are rules? Are magic items allowed? Do you have to kill your opponent? Do you know who will be your next opponent? How many matches are left? How much time do you have to prepare for next fight? What can you do between fights?

[Torq]

There is a spell you should be able to cast that deals 6d6 damage. (www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/explosiveRunes.htm)

Whate are rules? Are magic items allowed? Do you have to kill your opponent? Do you know who will be your next opponent? How many matches are left? How much time do you have to prepare for next fight? What can you do between fights?

No magic items.
Disable or render helpless your opponent.
Opponents are random, but will be full casters and can only fight using spells.
Time between fights is enough to rememorize spells.
So far, no limits on what can be done between fights.


So, you're suggesting use one round to cast runes on something, then one round to throw it at your opponent, then one round to willingly fail a dispel attempt? One of the rules is that I can't use any spells before hand. Otherwise, I'd bring in 20 shrunken boulders and a bunch of explosive rune'd scrolls.

Isn't there a spell to hide an item's magic aura? Maybe I could cheat and cast that ahead of time...

[Biotroll]

If you want grappler, summon monster 3 has Huge fiendish monstrous centipede. +15 to grapple is quite nice and unless the enemy comes with freedom of movement, he is most likely doomed. Glitterdust is great too. Enemies can't turn invisible and it can blind them as well. Web to entagle your enemies might work too as it forces concentration checks (15+spell level) and prevents their movement. Summon monster 2 and 1 can give you monstrous spider to web enemies for you as well as find any enemies who are touching the ground with his tremorsense (though small spider can web only up to medium creatures). Color spray can be somewhat useful. It should still be stun for at least 1 round if they fall their will save. Or you can use mount spell. Flood the arena with light horses, that are loyal to you. :smallbiggrin: Also, to hide magic you can use (nystul's) magic aura spell.

[ahenobarbi]

No magic items.
Disable or render helpless your opponent.
Opponents are random, but will be full casters and can only fight using spells.
Time between fights is enough to rememorize spells.
So far, no limits on what can be done between fights.

So your opponent gets to know your tactics but you don't know anything about them? Seems a bit unfair ;)


So, you're suggesting use one round to cast runes on something, then one round to throw it at your opponent, then one round to willingly fail a dispel attempt? One of the rules is that I can't use any spells before hand. Otherwise, I'd bring in 20 shrunken boulders and a bunch of explosive rune'd scrolls.

I thought that if you could cast it before fight a summon could take a bunch of notes, run close to your enemy and try to read them...

But since you can't cast before fight it won't work.

This is a great grappler (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateRope.htm) (especially if you can get it next to your enemy on first round (out of core you could cast it, celerity lesser to move into enemy space, move action to tie up the enemy)).


Isn't there a spell to hide an item's magic aura? Maybe I could cheat and cast that ahead of time...

There is a spell for hiding magic aura (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicAura.htm). But I wouldn't use it (it can be resisted and chances are whoever organizes the event will resist).

[Torq]

So your opponent gets to know your tactics but you don't know anything about them? Seems a bit unfair ;)



I thought that if you could cast it before fight a summon could take a bunch of notes, run close to your enemy and try to read them...

But since you can't cast before fight it won't work.

This is a great grappler (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateRope.htm) (especially if you can get it next to your enemy on first round (out of core you could cast it, celerity lesser to move into enemy space, move action to tie up the enemy)).



There is a spell for hiding magic aura (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicAura.htm). But I wouldn't use it (it can be resisted and chances are whoever organizes the event will resist).

Probably correct on the magic aura, but Celerity is out of PHBII I believe, but certainly not in the PHB so it'd be out of the question.