A level 20 wizard vs a commoner with 10 million GP?

[The Vagabond]

Which would do better in a battle- An epic level 20 wizard, or a Level 1 Commoner with 10 million GP?

Edit: Assume no chain-binding solars, and no infinite loops.

[Yael]

I suppose the wizard could be around that wealth level by epic levels, so it wouldn't make much of a diference imo.

[Jormengand]

Before the commoner has a chance to spend a single gold piece, the wizard casts time stop. He uses his actions to greater teleport and delayed blast fireball. He then ignores the fact that he just melted all his loot, because it wasn't worth anything to him anyway.

That's the result if the epic wizard is feeling unimaginative.

If the commoner has a chance to pre-spend, then he's basically using that money to pretend to be an epic wizard anyway, so it's a wash.

[Brova]

Both characters have the means to make themselves practically or literally invincible. Frankly, given no constraints the optimum move for both parties is to acquire a wish that does not cost XP and wish for an item with arbitrary bonuses to all stats, all spells at will, and any other powers that seem good. At that point, they are essentially the same character. Wizard might take it just because he starts with more power and can gate + kill the Commoner before he finishes bootstrapping himself to godhood.

[Strigon]

As with most questions of this nature, I've gotta give it to the Wizard.

Because, with 10 million GP, the best you can do is pretend to be a wizard. You might pretend very well, but you're still pretending. Anything you can buy, the Wizard can make; which means that the Wizard can do everything the Commoner can do, the Wizard can, too, plus the usual benefits to being a wizard.

[Kraken]

I agree with most of the points about being an actual wizard versus buying wizard abilities with wealth. However it's worth pointing out that an epic wizard, assuming the bare definition at level 21, has WBL of 975k too (MIC, 231). That's more than enough gold to supplement their class abilities, this isn't even close. The better question would be, how low would you need to take the wizard's level for the commoner to have a chance?

[Brova]

I agree with most of the points about being an actual wizard versus buying wizard abilities with wealth. However it's worth pointing out that an epic wizard, assuming the bare definition at level 21, has WBL of 975k too (MIC, 231). That's more than enough gold to supplement their class abilities, this isn't even close. The better question would be, how low would you need to take the wizard's level for the commoner to have a chance?

Any point where it is necessary for both parties to go wish -> get awesome item -> win is roughly 50/50. Any time the Wizard can win without needing to wish for an item (for example, when he naturally has gate) he beats the Commoner.

[Jormengand]

Any point where it is necessary for both parties to go wish -> get awesome item -> win is roughly 50/50. Any time the Wizard can win without needing to wish for an item (for example, when he naturally has gate) he beats the Commoner.

This, plus if the commoner starts with the gold instead of the actual items, if the wizard can kill the commoner before the commoner can actually by anything then the wizard wins - if they start next to each other, that happens at about level 1, though the commoner might get a lucky critical with his unarmed strike.

[Selion]

Today is Keynes&Dragons day i guess.

What i would do as the commoner is:

*) build a fortress in a demiplane with the dead magic trait.
*) hire a mundane army, that lives with me in the fortress
*) hire a really powerful creature to hunt the wizard (i think that an hoard of a few millions gold pieces can move the hearth of a great wyrm dragon).

Even so i think the wizard has the advantage (he can just wait the commoner depletes his wealth being paranoid)

(no chain binding allowed in my scenario :P )

[Jormengand]

Today is Keynes&Dragons day i guess.

What i would do as the commoner is:

*) build a fortress in a demiplane with the dead magic trait.
*) hire a mundane army, that live with me in the fortress
*) hire a really powerful creature to hunt the wizard (i think that an hoard of a few millions of gold pieces can move the hearth of a great wyrm dragon).

Even so i think the wizard has the advantage (he can just wait the commoner depletes his wealth being paranoid)

(no chain binding allowed in my scenario :P )

Okay, that works until an army of plane-shifting solars turns up on your front door and starts hitting your dudes with greatswords. Masterwork greatswords!

[Selion]

Masterwork greatswords!

LOL

BTW the commoner has more GP than the wizard, more GP= more solars :)

[Afgncaap5]

So... it's sounding like the winner to this is whichever character is allowed to spend the most time and money preparing to face off against the other.

If that's the case, the *real* question is which character has invested more into the Profession (Batman) skill at this point, and it's possibly a tie there.

So the only way to figure this out is to watch all competitions between Batman and the various anti-Batmen who've been out there (Bane, Owlman, Wrath, etc.) This won't answer the question, but I'll have really brushed up on my Batman lore. So in a way, when these two characters compete, it appears that I'm the winner.

[Jormengand]

LOL

BTW the commoner has more GP than the wizard, more GP= more solars :)

Okay, so the way that the wizard does this is by plane shifting to, or freaking creating because he's a goddamn wizard, a plane where every year that passes on that plane is a microsecond on the prime material. Then, he sits there, gating in tons of solars, and tells them to go kill. And millions of them arrive on your mini plane every second.

[legomaster00156]

Couldn't the Wizard just Disjunction anything the Commoner can get a hold of? :smallconfused:

[Aetol]

How about hiring another level 20 wizard and spending the rest to give him all the best gear ?

I assume the commoner has as many time as needed to prep, otherwise it's a pointless no-brainer.

[Strigon]

How about hiring another level 20 wizard and spending the rest to give him all the best gear ?

I assume the commoner has as many time as needed to prep, otherwise it's a pointless no-brainer.

Then the two wizards talk; the hired Wizard realizes it's much better to have another level 20 Wizard as a friend and a broke commoner as a foe than the other way around.

[Selion]

Okay, so the way that the wizard does this is by plane shifting to, or freaking creating because he's a goddamn wizard, a plane where every year that passes on that plane is a microsecond on the prime material. Then, he sits there, gating in tons of solars, and tells them to go kill. And millions of them arrive on your mini plane every second.

(a demiplane can be created with time so accelerated?)
OMG, so that is: the wizard creates a demiplane with the exit in front of the entrance of the commoner's demiplane. the wizard summons a solar with the gate spell, the solar fights for him for 20 rounds, so the solar immediately goes out from the wizard's demiplane and enters the other demiplane, the wizard summons another pair of solars, then sleeps and reiterates. This works.

The answer of the commoner could be simply building his castle far away from the demiplane entrance :D (a simple answer to a twisted question)
The task assigned to the solars would not be a "20 rounds" task and the wizard would have to pay for them

[legomaster00156]

I think the Commoner's best bet is to invest the money and promise the Wizard an annual tribute from the profits.

[Aetol]

I think the Commoner's best bet is to invest the money and promise the Wizard an annual tribute from the profits.

Does that even make sense in a medieval-like economy ?

[legomaster00156]

Does that even make sense in a medieval-like economy ?
Well, I mean, Pathfinder has rules for it. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/ultimate-campaign---investments)

[Strigon]

Does that even make sense in a medieval-like economy ?

Sure; maybe they don't have a stock market in place, but prices of goods vary from time to time, you can pay for 50% of a store's startup cost in exchange for some of the profits, offer loans...
Tons of opportunities, if you know where to look.

[Vaz]

*Hey wizard, rather than you attacking me, hows about I promise a reward for people killing you. Offer it high enough so that you can get some useful knick knacks looted from their transdimensionalised corpses, or gain some new cronies to set off traps when exploring dungeons? You're happy, I'm happy, I've got a boat."

[Windrammer]

Before the commoner has a chance to spend a single gold piece, the wizard casts time stop. He uses his actions to greater teleport and delayed blast fireball. He then ignores the fact that he just melted all his loot, because it wasn't worth anything to him anyway.

That's the result if the epic wizard is feeling unimaginative.

If the commoner has a chance to pre-spend, then he's basically using that money to pretend to be an epic wizard anyway, so it's a wash.

What the heck kind of scenario would that have been anyways? A commoner set to face off with a Wizard with nothing but gold in his pocket? What's he going to do, throw gold at the wizard? OF COURSE HE HAS TIME TO PRE-SPEND.

It's natural to assume that this is a Wizard with nothing but some prepared spells, or the post wouldn't have been made. It's a question of spellcasting versus wealth. While I'd still give it to the wizard simply for his abilities of control, the commoner stands a decent chance. What would the Wizard realistically prepare? Honestly the commoner could just be flying and invisible and that could cause a whole lot of difficulty for the Wizard who has most likely not prepared the specific spell to see invisibility with his limited selection.

That commoner can buy mind blank, Energy resistance, Spell Resistance, the list goes on.

I think we should make this a contest with more specific rules.

32 point buy, all source material, no flaws or traits.

Both know about the fight and have a day of prep time. The Wizard has no wealth, no magic items, and no intention to obtain either, but he does have his spellbook. The commoner has access to all possible priced products. Neither has awareness of where the other is, what they do in their prep time, or of the specifics of their abilities. They only know as much as we do - one is a commoner, the other is a wizard. We'll say they're both human.

The fight begins with them suddenly facing each other in an open field within a forested valley, and initiative is rolled.

To start, I'd say commoner should buy mind blank before anything to avoid scrying.

[Psyren]

The Commoner should just hire a level 20 Wizard. Specifically, the one he's about to fight. Then they get whores smoothies.

[Bad Wolf]

Wizard casts Celerity, and kills him in whatever manner he feels like.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Couldn't the Wizard just Disjunction anything the Commoner can get a hold of? :smallconfused:

Seems like the rather obvious solution to me. 10 million gp worth of fancy mundane clothing isn't much help against an irritated wizard.

[TheifofZ]

Celerity+Mordekainen's Disjunction says that the wizard happens to go first, and the commoner has just lost his magic loot.
Or Time Stop instead of Disjunction, and then spam delayed spell Dispel Magic.

Or any manner of a dozen other ways to turn off magic items for at least 1 round.
After that, the wizard loots the magic items off the roughly 40' circular smear that use to be the commoner.

[khadgar567]

use the 10% of the money put a quest for wizards head and let the pc's handle the rest( while you handle your business in red light district)
aka commoner wins with int 10

[Kraken]

If the wizard hears about a million gold bounty on his head, then you're just giving him the knowledge of a target that has a million gold in loot. :smallbiggrin:

[Aetol]

What the heck kind of scenario would that have been anyways? A commoner set to face off with a Wizard with nothing but gold in his pocket? What's he going to do, throw gold at the wizard?

... that's an idea. Change this gold to copper pieces. You have about 10,000 tons of copper to bury the wizard underneath. Throw some sort of antimagic field in there and the wizard can't do a thing.

That's probably easier said than done though. :smallbiggrin:

[Selion]

I think we should make this a contest with more specific rules.

32 point buy, all source material, no flaws or traits.

Both know about the fight and have a day of prep time. The Wizard has no wealth, no magic items, and no intention to obtain either, but he does have his spellbook. The commoner has access to all possible priced products. Neither has awareness of where the other is, what they do in their prep time, or of the specifics of their abilities. They only know as much as we do - one is a commoner, the other is a wizard. We'll say they're both human.

The fight begins with them suddenly facing each other in an open field within a forested valley, and initiative is rolled.

To start, I'd say commoner should buy mind blank before anything to avoid scrying.

Nice, i'm not used to 3.5 rules, but i will try.

I'll buy at least 10 rings of 3 wishes(1 mil gp)

A reflecting intelligent armor that casts true resurrection on me once per month would be nice, but i'm not going to use it (around 250k gp)

Cubic gate 1 face to a dead magic plane (168k)
A griffin, or the fastest animal i can find in the prep time(8k?)
I hire the biggest guy i can find in the prep time


i use wish to emulate contingency: if i'm at 1 mile from the wizard teleport (2th wish) in australia where the griffin and the big guy are waiting for me, then i press the cubic gate and go in the dead magic plane.
We (me and the big guy) jump immediately on the griffin and fly away from the entrance, because soon hundreds of solars will rush in :D , but they will stop and go back in 20 rounds.

[Darrin]

This has already been attempted in the Test of Spite: The Cube (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=8187767&postcount=7) (by Sofawall) was undefeated.

Unless the Wizard 20 has a way to get around a certain number of spell clocks that can cast dispelling screen 40-60 times per round, the wizard loses.

However... part of the Cube's success is nobody knew exactly all of its defenses. A Wizard 20 with sufficient time and enough divination spells could determine exactly how many disjunctions he needs per round to breach the cube, and then it's just a war of attrition: can the wizard produce disjunctions faster than the commoner can buy spell clocks?

[Brova]

This has already been attempted in the Test of Spite: The Cube (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=8187767&postcount=7) (by Sofawall) was undefeated.

Unless the Wizard 20 has a way to get around a certain number of spell clocks that can cast dispelling screen 40-60 times per round, the wizard loses.

However... part of the Cube's success is nobody knew exactly all of its defenses. A Wizard 20 with sufficient time and enough divination spells could determine exactly how many disjunctions he needs per round to breach the cube, and then it's just a war of attrition: can the wizard produce disjunctions faster than the commoner can buy spell clocks?

Yes he can.

Wizard 15/Archmage 5. Take Extra Spell (body outside body). Your High Arcana are body outside body as an SLA four times and ice assassin as an SLA once. Supernatural Transformation on each. Cycle body outside body duplicates to make ice assassins. Can probably do it inside a minute.

[Jormengand]

What the heck kind of scenario would that have been anyways? A commoner set to face off with a Wizard with nothing but gold in his pocket? What's he going to do, throw gold at the wizard? OF COURSE HE HAS TIME TO PRE-SPEND.

Hey, a commoner who was racing to spend all his money before, say, a fighter or a ranger could kill him would actually be an interesting challenge. Not so much with a wizard, of course.

[Chronos]

The commoner puts cross-class ranks into UMD, and buys an item with a big enough bonus to UMD to use scrolls reliably. Then, he buys lots and lots of scrolls. At this point, it's basically wizard vs. wizard. The commoner's scrolls will run out eventually, of course, but not until after the battle.

[Kraken]

This has already been attempted in the Test of Spite: The Cube (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=8187767&postcount=7) (by Sofawall) was undefeated.

Unless the Wizard 20 has a way to get around a certain number of spell clocks that can cast dispelling screen 40-60 times per round, the wizard loses.

However... part of the Cube's success is nobody knew exactly all of its defenses. A Wizard 20 with sufficient time and enough divination spells could determine exactly how many disjunctions he needs per round to breach the cube, and then it's just a war of attrition: can the wizard produce disjunctions faster than the commoner can buy spell clocks?

Has the cube ever been taken apart publicly? I've always been curious how it stands up to RAW scrutiny. Edit: also, the wizard could likely just build their own identical cube.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I'll buy at least 10 rings of 3 wishes(1 mil gp)

Unless I am mistaken, because Ring of Three Wishes has to further experience cost associated with it, you can just wish for a Ring of Three Wishes and enjoy an infinite supply of wishes.

[GreyBlack]

... that's an idea. Change this gold to copper pieces. You have about 10,000 tons of copper to bury the wizard underneath. Throw some sort of antimagic field in there and the wizard can't do a thing.

That's probably easier said than done though. :smallbiggrin:

I remember once someone jokingly saying that the best investment in military would be to, instead of spending millions and millions of dollars on bombs, turning those millions and millions of dollars into loose change and dropping them on neighboring countries. Not only do you take care of war reparations, but you also just decimated your foes!

IN SAYING THAT: Convert 1 million gold into copper -> 100,000,000 copper. http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Copper_Piece states that a copper piece weighs 11.5 grams. Spend some amount of that to turn a finite number of these copper pieces into AMF devices. By cost, a continuous use AMF copper piece would cost 132,000 gold to make, or 13,200,000cp. Assuming we make 2 of them (just in case!), it would be 26,400,000 cp we'd have to subtract from our 100,000,000cp. SO
100,000,000-26,400,000=73,600,000cp.

These 73,600,000cp (worth 736,000gp) would then weigh 846.400.000g or 8,464,000kg

SO! Question: Are we just going to lug around these 8,464,000kg worth of cp? Or are we going to carry them in something? Also, how would we launch such an item at our wizard friend? Personally, I'm going to propose we build a shell of sufficient size to contain these cp (say it will eat up around 1000gp, or 1,000,000cp, bringing us down to 73,500,000), then buy a catapult of sorts to launch it (cannot be magical, so something mechanical like a trebuchet or a catapult would be necessary). However, all of the rules I can find for catapults state they can only fire up to around 90 lbs of materiel, or ~41kg. Personally, however, I believe we should jury-rig a springal to, instead of firing arrows or rockets, fire copper pieces. Your standard arrow springal costs 1,000gp, but with modifications I would guess that it would raise the price up to around 2000-3000gp, so we'll assume that deducts another 300,000 cp we can fire. We'll also assume that this modification allows us to assume an autofeed, so we don't have to worry about constantly reloading.

73,500,000 - 300,000 = 73,200,000 cp = 841,800,000 grams of copper = 8,418,000 kg of copper, with 2 pieces enchanted so that they create an AMF in the vicinity of this thing. Adding a third into this shrapnel drops us to a nice, cool 60,000,000cp, or 6,900,000 kg of copper.

Springals are also limited by a minimum range, however. While we will be protected by an AMF, preventing blasting, conjuration and such will still affect us. Assuming 5 range increments, we can fire out to 500ft indirectly at our wizard. In saying that, should we be able to get within 500ft, we are spraying approximately seven MILLION kilograms of copper in his general direction. While this commoner may not win the fight, watching him try and pull this off would be EPIC!

EDIT: I just realized I was off by a factor of 10 in doing my math here, leaving us with SEVENTY MILLION kilograms left over. For that amount, we should probably buy an extra couple of antimagic coins, or a couple rings of three wishes just in case.

[Aetol]

I think the best way to deliver the coins would be several bags of holding. We'll assume 1 million GP are enough to cover all other expenses, and we're left with 9 million GP, or 9,000 tons of copper. A type IV bag of holding can hold about 60 kg of copper (volume is the limit), so you'll need 150 of them for a total price of 150,000 GP. You will need hirelings to gang up on the wizard and turn all the bags inside out as fast as possible.

If you can put bags of holding inside each other, it's even better (I don't remember if it's possible in 3.5). Since a bag can hold 1,500 lb. and weighs 60 lb., plus the weigh of its handler (let's say 90 lb. top ; they're halflings), you'll need three level of recursions and several more bags to fit everything inside one bag that you carry.

It's time to meet the wizard. Convinced of his arcane superiority, he'll let you have the first round (make use of Diplomancy for that if needed). Have everybody inside your bag(s) ready an action to turn their bag inside-out as soon as they come out. Delay your own turn and pass last : turn your bag (the one that contains everyone else) inside out. Before he can react, the wizard will be buried under 9,000 tons of copper mixed with AMF coins. Wait for a few minutes – wizards have a crappy constitution – and declare yourself winner !

[legomaster00156]

I think the best way to deliver the coins would be several bags of holding. We'll assume 1 million GP are enough to cover all other expenses, and we're left with 9 million GP, or 9,000 tons of copper. A type IV bag of holding can hold about 60 kg of copper (volume is the limit), so you'll need 150 of them for a total price of 150,000 GP. You will need hirelings to gang up on the wizard and turn all the bags inside out as fast as possible.

If you can put bags of holding inside each other, it's even better (I don't remember if it's possible in 3.5). Since a bag can hold 1,500 lb. and weighs 60 lb., plus the weigh of its handler (let's say 90 lb. top ; they're halflings), you'll need three level of recursions and several more bags to fit everything inside one bag that you carry.

It's time to meet the wizard. Convinced of his arcane superiority, he'll let you have the first round (make use of Diplomancy for that if needed). Have everybody inside your bag(s) ready an action to turn their bag inside-out as soon as they come out. Delay your own turn and pass last : turn your bag (the one that contains everyone else) inside out. Before he can react, the wizard will be buried under 9,000 tons of copper mixed with AMF coins. Wait for a few minutes – wizards have a crappy constitution – and declare yourself winner !
Can you store an AMF-creating item inside a Bag of Holding? Wouldn't the Bag become a useless normal sack the moment the AMF coins get near it?

[Drynwyn]

Wizard lays down an Antimagic Field, punches commoner until commoner dies.

With all the magic turned off, the guy with 20d4 hit dice and +10 BAB trumps the dude with 1 to 4 hit points.

[Ger. Bessa]

It has been said already that 10^7 GP was quite heavy. Probably (citation needed) a bit heavier than this commoner's heavy load. So the thread is about who would win between a lv20 wizard vs a disabled commoner.

The number of answers to this thread reveals that it's not that obvious.

As a commoner, here is what I'd do : I'd plan on agreeably surprising the wizard. I'd spend a bit of it to have a surprise bag made to hold such an amount with an instant release with confettis spreading the word "surprise" (and maybe "happy birthday"). Then I would hire a vecna-blooded (or mind-blanked) to randomly pick a number between 5 and 8 millions and put that number of GP into the bag. That's around 3 millions possible surprises.

Then I'd offer it to the wizard and let him die crushed by those gold pieces when the bag bursts.

And for anyone who says, "But the wizard has contingencies", well no. It's not an act of aggression, it's a pleasant surprise, so a contingency would have to be very specific. But contingencies for 3 millions scenarios isn't in the WBL of a lv20 wizard. So statistically, the wizard loses.

So yeah, numbers have spoken. Statistically, a lv20 wizard loses to a disabled commoner. (Wu jens are better anyway. They have spooky taboos and no commoner would ever try to offer something to a spooky wu jen, and would leave him alone)

[Tjallen]

Are they close enough for an antimagic field to hit the commoner? Cause gold won't help you against the level 20 wizard with a staff, a Masterwork staff, when you are wearing 10 million gold worth of no longer magical junk, after all you are still a level 1 commoner.

[Aetol]

Turns out a bag of holding is (temporarily) disabled when inside an AMF. It just behaves as a simple cloth bag. So we'll need a magic item that can be triggered to activate an AMF, maybe with a built-in contingency, such as :
- activates when in close proximity to more than a thousand tons of metal.
- activates when someone starts casting a spell (such that the spell can't be cast)
- activates at the end of the round after being armed.

I've thought of another way to deliver the copper to the wizard without too much manpower. In your first bag of holding, put as much CPs as possible while leaving room for another bag. This second bag contains more CPs and a third bag, and so on, until you have enough bags to fit your 9,000 tons of loose change (that's 152 or so bags). The second-to-last bag must also contain a kobold ready to die for your cause (start a cult or whatever) with a dagger and a mean for you to give him a signal : an ad hoc magic item, or just a string running through all the bags that you can pull on.

When the combat starts (again, with the first round for you), an ally toss the AMF grenades at the wizard's feet, then you give the signal to the kobold, who stabs his bag : its content spill into the second-to-last bag, which suddenly contains more than it can hold. The bag bursts and its content spills into the next bag, which bursts in turn... Quickly toss the bag at the wizard's feet and get the hell out of dodge. The last bag bursts and buries the wizard under all the CPs, the contingency on the AMF grenades activates, you won.

[Strigon]

Wizard lays down an Antimagic Field, punches commoner until commoner dies.

With all the magic turned off, the guy with 20d4 hit dice and +10 BAB trumps the dude with 1 to 4 hit points.

Until you realize that the commoner spent ~0.1% of his cash on a bodyguard who now proceeds to grapple, pin, and annihilate the now-useless wizard.



Also, why cash? Salt or sand would work much better (granted it would be less amusing, but that's the price of killing a level 20 Wizard.)

[Aetol]

Also, why cash? Salt or sand would work much better (granted it would be less amusing, but that's the price of killing a level 20 Wizard.)

Dude. You already have 1,000 m3 of copper. That's more than enough to kill a wizard and crash the medieval copper industry.


A few word on the location. To ensure the wizard is properly entombed instead of being thrown back by the coppersplosion, the "combat" should happen indoors. Make sure there is only one door and it is behind you ; throw the soon-to-be-exploding bag between you and the wizard, then run. The room can be quite large, up to 1,000 m3, but make sure your AMF devices can cover it entirely. It must be sturdily built, since we don't want the walls to burst and possibly free the wizard ; underground is better.

[Drynwyn]

Until you realize that the commoner spent ~0.1% of his cash on a bodyguard who now proceeds to grapple, pin, and annihilate the now-useless wizard.



Also, why cash? Salt or sand would work much better (granted it would be less amusing, but that's the price of killing a level 20 Wizard.)

Wizard casts Finger of Death, or Chain Lightning, or Evard's Black Tentacles, or, hell, a carefully shaped Wall of Stone, to neutralize the commoner's mundane assistance, and thenlays down an antimagic field and punches the commoner until it dies.

[Aetol]

Wizard casts Finger of Death, or Chain Lightning, or Evard's Black Tentacles, or, hell, a carefully shaped Wall of Stone, to neutralize the commoner's mundane assistance, and thenlays down an antimagic field and punches the commoner until it dies.

Why not just do that on the commoner ?

[Strigon]

Why not just do that on the commoner ?

The commoner is presumably wearing magical protection.

But I'm not convinced by that logic anyway; if the commoner had any sense, he'd keep some backup hidden, which would only come into play after the AMF was laid down.

[Aetol]

The commoner is presumably wearing magical protection.

But I'm not convinced by that logic anyway; if the commoner had any sense, he'd keep some backup hidden, which would only come into play after the AMF was laid down.

Or he could just outfit his BSF with the same kind of protection. 10 million GP is ridiculous anyway, I don't think you'd get significantly less protection for 5 million.

[Troacctid]

The Commoner can easily duplicate all the Wizard's class abilities by buying scrolls, so it's really just Wizard vs. Wizard, which could make for an interesting story, but is not really a suitable topic for a debate.

I'm inclined to say that, since the Wizard made it to level 20 and the Commoner accumulated an obscene amount of wealth, they've clearly both already won.

[sovin_ndore]

Commoner hires a party of Lvl 21 Wizards to deal with the level 20 Wizard in question. He then banks the rest of his money and retires to his stronghold.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

So I'm making two basic assumptions.

1. The commoner gets to spend their cash.

2. The Wizard can't engage in infinite loops or cash generating schemes and only has WBL.

I think the Commoner would win under standard* arena rules. They have enough gold to out Wizard a Wizard. They will have more layers of defenses even especially against things like Anti-Magic Fields and Disjunction than the wizard. They will also be able to generate a larger number of these attacks.

*Arena of arbitrary size, leaving = losing, you arrive prepped, etc.

In an open world conflict, my money is on the Wizard. The wizard can easily make numerous forays which each cost the commoner at least a million gold in consumables to fend off. The Commoner can outclass any attack of defense the Wizard has, but without NI gold they cannot outclass every attack and defense.

I'm also assuming you can't "hire 2 level 20 wizards" in a scenario like this. High level mercenary wizards might gladly accept a contract to defeat a Wizard at a given time and place, but they won't accept an open ended contract to cause the true and final death of an opponent as dangerous as another Wizard 20.

[GreyBlack]

As to the people wondering about the logistics of firing these items: it actually gets far more fun now. So, in the last of my calculations, we had approximately 6 million gold left over (originally 600,000gp, but I had originally been calculating based on only 1 million gp rather than 10 million). With this six million, we can easily upgrade our plans. First of all, as has been noted, we should probably turn the delivery method into magic bags - a type 4 costs us 10,000gp. Additionally, we can upgrade the enchantment on the AMF coins to be, instead of constant, use activated items (same cost). We could set the use trigger to something like, say, "when this item hits an altitude of X feet," and we could find a wizard to craft contingent spell Open/Close and Mage Hand on the magic bags, with the Open/Close being "When this item reaches X feet, cast Open on the mouth of the bag" and the Mage Hand being, "When this item has Open cast on it, turn the bag inside out". The cost to craft those contingencies is rather negligible, as they're both level 0 spells, (100 gold for each pairing, so between 1,000 and 10,000 gp depending on how many bags we buy), so we'll pop that cost onto the bags and assume it to be cost neutral to get them (mostly because it makes my math easier; if someone REALLY wants to figure out the difference between 7 million gp worth of copper coins and 6,990,000 gp, be my guest).

Also, our delivery method needs work. That springal? Not gonna work with the bags. Why not just buy a gargantuan bombard, then? I originally didn't buy it because of cost (15,000gp), but seeing as we have 6.99 million GP left over, let's go for it. This gives us some advantages, as it also lets us ignore our maximum firing range of 500 feet on the springal (no maximum range per the PFSRD on the bombard). So now, instead of 6.99 million, we have 6.975 million gp worth of copper to fire, a bombard for a delivery system, and 10 rounds to fire. Y'know what? Let's up it to 20 rounds: 6.875 million gp. We still effectively have 79,062,500 kg (35,937,500 lbs) worth of materiel to fire. Effectively, we would need over 220 more magic bags to fire this much materiel, which would cost us 2.2 million gp. Not ideal, because then we wouldn't have nearly as much materiel to fire (though we could just throw debris in there and fire it for different damage types: wood logs, nails, shrapnel, bodies, etc.), so I'm going to, instead, just opt for 150 more bags (1.5million gp)

Running total so far:
(6.875 - 1.5) * 10^6= 5.375 * 10^6 gp worth of copper (5.375 * 10^8 cp) = 28,096,590.909 pounds of copper.

Currently, our bags can hold 1.7 million pounds worth of copper, which, while not nearly the 29 million pounds we need, still gives us 170 rounds of copper filled shrapnel to simultaneously destroy an area of land equal to 52,000 square meters.

BUT:


Also, why cash? Salt or sand would work much better (granted it would be less amusing, but that's the price of killing a level 20 Wizard.)


You're right! With that 5.375 * 10^6 gp, we can just load up on bags and shrapnel! Throw loose metal, wooden logs, pokers, garbage, diseased rats, etc. into the bags, fire at will, ad we can do even more damage! If we were to simply spend our entire total on bags and AMF coins (each costs 132,000gp to make, or 1.32*10^5 gp), we could make another 40 coins for 5.28 million gp.

(5.375 - 5.28) * 10^6 = 0.095 * 10^6 = 9.5 * 10^4 gp. We still have 9,500 gp left over. From here, I'm just going to say let's just go full commoner, buy some cows, farm land, chickens, and start running McDonalds now.

BECAUSE:
An unintended side-effect of this operation is crashing the world copper market; copper is either so hard to come by because we own it all or so commonplace that it is literally worthless. Likely one (before we start firing in the wizard's general direction) then the other (after). Doing this, we can now corner the markets, making it nigh-on impossible for the wizard to buy anything, making us fortunes with which we can do whatever we want.

My friends in the playgrounds, it isn't a question of whether a wizard or commoner is more powerful. In the end, wizard versus commoner, the mathematician wins.

[Aetol]

How does a bag of holding burst anyway ? Does the content just spill harmlessly (or as harmlessly as a 10-meter tall copper tsunami can do) or does it outright explode ? In my 152-nested-bags contraption it could be pretty ugly. I'd need to find something for the commoner to avoid being killed.

[Strigon]

How does a bag of holding burst anyway ? Does the content just spill harmlessly (or as harmlessly as a 10-meter tall copper tsunami can do) or does it outright explode ? In my 152-nested-bags contraption it could be pretty ugly. I'd need to find something for the commoner to avoid being killed.

Yeah; I've read enough What If? to know the answer is almost certainly blazing hot pieces of copper slag moving at blisteringly fast speeds, and the commoner will need a ridiculously powerful form of protection.

[Aetol]

Yeah; I've read enough What If? to know the answer is almost certainly blazing hot pieces of copper slag moving at blisteringly fast speeds, and the commoner will need a ridiculously powerful form of protection.

An ally with a scroll of teleport to bail him out just before the bag explodes ought to do the trick.

By the way, now I'm convinced this need to happen underground. No building would resist if the bags do explode.

[legomaster00156]

I love how the Playground's solution to this fight is to fire 8,464,000 kilograms of explosive copper coins out of Bag of Holding siege weapons at a level 20 Wizard.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I love how the Playground's solution to this fight is to fire 8,464,000 kilograms of explosive copper coins out of Bag of Holding siege weapons at a level 20 Wizard.

1) it is hilarious and
2) the commoner is vulnerable to so many things he has to think creatively. In theory the wizard would see this coming though, if only because of his beyond super genius intellect.

[TheifofZ]

The problem with AMF is that "Spell resistance: No" spells still can be cast and used inside one.
The level 1 commoner with no ranks in Spellcraft or Knowledge beyond Knowledge: Farming equipment probably doesn't know this, but a level 20 wizard with +30 minimum to the related checks damn well does. So the Wizard preps half his spells with spells that have SR: No, a few escape clauses with SR: No, and a few emergency options for anything silly the commoner does.
AMF comes out, and suddenly it's a Wizard with all his spells vs a level 1 commoner in fancy clothes.
Assuming the commoner has a bodyguard, the first Orb of Fire kills the commoner, and then the bodyguard's job is over.
Also remember that UMD requires a standard action for most (not all) Spell Completion items, so even if the commoner can fake being a wizard, the wizard can still use quickened spells to win before the commoner can blink.

So yes. Being creative and lobbing a very large number of shrapnel-based molten coins at the wizard from about a fifth a mile away may be one of the best options the commoner has.

[Strigon]

The problem with AMF is that "Spell resistance: No" spells still can be cast and used inside one.
The level 1 commoner with no ranks in Spellcraft or Knowledge beyond Knowledge: Farming equipment probably doesn't know this, but a level 20 wizard with +30 minimum to the related checks damn well does.

So does a very rich commoner who, if he had any sense, would have purchased a magic item that would allow him to know this.

[Aetol]

The problem with AMF is that "Spell resistance: No" spells still can be cast and used inside one.
The level 1 commoner with no ranks in Spellcraft or Knowledge beyond Knowledge: Farming equipment probably doesn't know this, but a level 20 wizard with +30 minimum to the related checks damn well does. So the Wizard preps half his spells with spells that have SR: No, a few escape clauses with SR: No, and a few emergency options for anything silly the commoner does.

Where do you see that ? The SRD says :


An antimagic field suppresses any spell or magical effect used within, brought into, or cast into the area, but does not dispel it. Time spent within an antimagic field counts against the suppressed spell’s duration.
....
If you cast antimagic field in an area occupied by a summoned creature that has spell resistance, you must make a caster level check (1d20 + caster level) against the creature’s spell resistance to make it wink out.

There is no other mention of spell resistance.

[GreyBlack]

So does a very rich commoner who, if he had any sense, would have purchased a magic item that would allow him to know this.

Or, based on my calculations, put part of his remaining 9000gp towards the necessary knowledge checks. Hell, keep a bard on retainer, just in case.

[Ger. Bessa]

On a second thought, it's better for the commoner NOT to spend a copper and keep his treasure whole. 10^7 GP in loot is far too much for a CR < 20 encounter (and since he didn't gear up, he's well under CR 20) and no sane DM would ever let a wizard player get away with murderhobo-breking the balance of his campaign.

Of course you could ask the question with an insane DM, but there lies random spell effects... and Orcus... (who waits in the chamber of secret houserules, not sure they favor the tier 1 caster)

Being protected by the DM is probably the best protection there is.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Where do you see that ? The SRD says :



There is no other mention of spell resistance.

ThiefofZ is mistaken. The spells that bypass AMF are instantaneous duration conjuration (creation) effects that project real objects into the AMF without actually being centered in the AMF. The created projectiles aren't magical and can't be suppressed by the field once they've been conjured.

Give me a moment and I'll fetch a RAW quote.


Creation

A creation spell manipulates matter to create an object or creature in the place the spellcaster designates (subject to the limits noted above). If the spell has a duration other than instantaneous, magic holds the creation together, and when the spell ends, the conjured creature or object vanishes without a trace. If the spell has an instantaneous duration, the created object or creature is merely assembled through magic. It lasts indefinitely and does not depend on magic for its existence.

Emphasis mine.

[TheifofZ]

Yup. I was wrong.

I did know something functioned in it, but I guess I was misremembering? My collective bad, guys.
I am pretty out of it today.

[Strigon]

Worse things have happened.
So it's agreed; the wizard is screwed in this scenario?

[GreyBlack]

Worse things have happened.
So it's agreed; the wizard is screwed in this scenario?

Oh, Grod no! The amount of time it would take to get these items together would certainly make the wizard suspicious and begin scrying for why the copper market crashed. However, IF we assume that there is no prep time getting this stuff together AND the wizard couldn't find the commoner, AND there was even enough copper available in the world, then MAYBE the wizard would be caught off guard against a couple million tons of copper being lobbed in his direction by a commoner from half way across the plane (no maximum range on the bombard by RAW!). The key to this plan is who expects to get pelted to death by copper pieces from 6 towns over? Other than people in the Playground, of course.

[Strigon]

Oh, Grod no! The amount of time it would take to get these items together would certainly make the wizard suspicious and begin scrying for why the copper market crashed. However, IF we assume that there is no prep time getting this stuff together AND the wizard couldn't find the commoner, AND there was even enough copper available in the world, then MAYBE the wizard would be caught off guard against a couple million tons of copper being lobbed in his direction by a commoner from half way across the plane (no maximum range on the bombard by RAW!). The key to this plan is who expects to get pelted to death by copper pieces from 6 towns over? Other than people in the Playground, of course.

I think this scenario assumes no interaction between the two until the big fight, prep time, and the two are just dropped into an arena.
Besides, it doesn't strictly rely on copper; any material will do the job quite nicely.

[Drynwyn]

Unless the wizard cast Protection from Arrows as a general defensive measure. Each individual copper piece is unlikely to deal >10 damage.

[Aetol]

Unless the wizard cast Protection from Arrows as a general defensive measure. Each individual copper piece is unlikely to deal >10 damage.

We don't want to harm the wizard with the coins, we want to bury him in it.

[GreyBlack]

Unless the wizard cast Protection from Arrows as a general defensive measure. Each individual copper piece is unlikely to deal >10 damage.

I dunno... depends on the velocity? I mean, these are molten coins flying at 100-200 m/s, so they might potentially overcome the damage reduction? Unless the DM rules that we're dealing damage in clusters? Besides, based on law of averages, one of those copper pieces will roll 20 3 times in a row and deal the killing blow.

[legomaster00156]

Besides, based on law of averages, one of those copper pieces will roll 20 3 times in a row and deal the killing blow.
That is nothing more than a houserule.

[Strigon]

That is nothing more than a houserule.

Technically it's a variant rule, which is certainly more than a houserule.
Maybe not RAW, in its strictest sense, but closer to it than a houserule.

In any case, these copper pieces would be traveling at a similar velocity to bullets (or maybe even orders of magnitude faster; not slower, in any case.), so it only makes sense that they would deal similar damage. Most bullets deal > 10 damage on a particularly good roll, and far more on a good crit. When you have millions of those things rolling to hit, you will take a colossal amount of damage.

[Aetol]

Wait, I just checked – when a BoH is overloaded or damaged, its content does not explode or spill out, it's lost forever. So much for the coppersplosion.

Back to the first method :
- We need 161 bags of holding type 4, a few AMF devices activated by contingency, a pair of boots of speed, and 160 kobolds ready to give their lives (probably gained by starting a cult).
- Put the 900 million CP in 150 BoH (60 tons per bag, the maximum volume). Give each of these bags to a kobold.
- Put these bags and their kobolds in 10 BoH, 15 in each bag. Give each of these bags to a kobold.
- Put these bags and their kobolds in the last BoH. Also put the armed but inactive AMF devices inside.
- Meet the wizard in a large underground room with only one door. Convince him to let you have the first round.
- Make sure you are closest to the door and are wearing the boots of speed before starting.
The initiative turn must be the following :
1. Every BoH kobold ready an action to turn their bag inside out in the general direction of the wizard as soon as they come out.
2. Turn your bag inside out, activate the boots of speed (free action), and run like hell.
3. The wizard is buried in loose change, the contingency on the AMF devices activate, you win.

[GreyBlack]

Wait, I just checked – when a BoH is overloaded or damaged, its content does not explode or spill out, it's lost forever. So much for the coppersplosion.

Back to the first method :
- We need 161 bags of holding type 4, a few AMF devices activated by contingency, a pair of boots of speed, and 160 kobolds ready to give their lives (probably gained by starting a cult).
- Put the 900 million CP in 150 BoH (60 tons per bag, the maximum volume). Give each of these bags to a kobold.
- Put these bags and their kobolds in 10 BoH, 15 in each bag. Give each of these bags to a kobold.
- Put these bags and their kobolds in the last BoH. Also put the armed but inactive AMF devices inside.
- Meet the wizard in a large underground room with only one door. Convince him to let you have the first round.
- Make sure you are closest to the door and are wearing the boots of speed before starting.
The initiative turn must be the following :
1. Every BoH kobold ready an action to turn their bag inside out in the general direction of the wizard as soon as they come out.
2. Turn your bag inside out, activate the boots of speed (free action), and run like hell.
3. The wizard is buried in loose change, the contingency on the AMF devices activate, you win.

And that's easier than firing it out of a cannon and decimating the nearby countryside.... how?

Just remember, a key contingency I put on my bags was to cast mage hand to turn the bags inside out at maximum height and velocity, turning it into copper buckshot. When you turn a bag of holding inside out, you completely empty its contents.

[Aetol]

And that's easier than firing it out of a cannon and decimating the nearby countryside.... how?

Because it'd be rather easy to miss, and the wizard will see it coming. Even if you do hit, the coins will end up scattered over a wide area and won't trap the wizard.


Just remember, a key contingency I put on my bags was to cast mage hand to turn the bags inside out at maximum height and velocity, turning it into copper buckshot. When you turn a bag of holding inside out, you completely empty its contents.

I missed that. I guess that's better than kobold kamikazes.

[GreyBlack]

Because it'd be rather easy to miss, and the wizard will see it coming. Even if you do hit, the coins will end up scattered over a wide area and won't trap the wizard.

... I may or may not have been attempting to cause absurd amounts of collateral damage to allow us to gain XP to level up. I plead the seventh.

[Judge_Worm]

Assuming the wizard doesn't shenanigans kill the commoner before they can spend a dime...

The commoner wins. Commoner uses all their wealth to have an epic level wizard or cleric create an item that auto kills the wizard every time they begin to cast a spell, use a supernatural/spell-like ability, or everytime they are the subject of an effect of a spell. That way they can't even be resurrected, or haunt the commoner. And if they kill 'em the old fashioned way, the wizard is still stuck without their magic. At epic level a wizard would gladly knock off a potential threat anyways, 10,000,000 gold just sweetens the deal.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I have one word to say to your copper-piece railgun: Ironguard.

Also, I think we have to discount every solution that's "hire a _____"-- at that point it's a matter of wizard-verses-____, not wizard-verses-WBLmancy. And if the wizard doesn't get to crush the commoner under chain-gated solars, the commoner shouldn't be able to buy arbitrarily high-bonus custom items-- let's stick to stuff that's actually described somewhere in print. And no-one gets Wish loops, because if we get into that **** then it's just a race to see who can Wish themselves to godhood fastest.

Anyway, regardless of anything else, I suspect the wizard will be able to land at least one attack that deals more than d4+10 damage. (Teleport+Contact Other Plane+Love's Pain?)


Oh, Grod no!
I like that you apparently swear by me.

[Strigon]

Anyway, regardless of anything else, I suspect the wizard will be able to land at least one attack that deals more than d4+10 damage. (Teleport+Contact Other Plane+Love's Pain?)

That also assumes the Commoner is dumb enough not to have an item that would prevent such damage.

[Aetol]

Anyway, regardless of anything else, I suspect the wizard will be able to land at least one attack that deals more than d4+10 damage. (Teleport+Contact Other Plane+Love's Pain?)

Well, from the beginning my plan relied on appealing to the wizard's apparent superiority (and probable haughtiness) and get him to be sporting and not act on the first round...

[Strigon]

Well, from the beginning my plan relied on appealing to the wizard's apparent superiority (and probable haughtiness) and get him to be sporting and not act on the first round...

Find a new angle that doesn't rely on this; you don't survive 20 levels by being sportsmanlike.

Everyone knows being sportsmanlike only gets you a pounding headache, and dreams of large women.

[Aetol]

Find a new angle that doesn't rely on this; you don't survive 20 levels by being sportsmanlike.

Everyone knows being sportsmanlike only gets you a pounding headache, and dreams of large women.

Initiative out the wazoo then. How good at that would the wizard be ?

[sovin_ndore]

Everyone knows being sportsmanlike only gets you a pounding headache, and dreams of large women.
Well, assuming the commoner is a Goliath, he could always diplomance an offer to set aside his readied action to bash the wizard's head in with a rock on the condition that they face each other as God intended. Sportsmanlike. No tricks, no weapons, [no magic], skill against skill alone.

[Ger. Bessa]

Reciprocally, a lv20 goliath wizard might loose to a great wyrm force dragon commoner 1 with 10^7 GP.

I assume once again that it wasn't the expected answer.


Once more, commoner wins, without chicken infested shenanigans. With chicken infested, no need for 10^7 GP, you can make sacrifices to dark beings and get on your way to the wish loop faster than a kobold paladin can summon Pazuzu.

D&D, where the only thing scarier than a puny wizard is a pun-puny commoner.

[Drynwyn]

Reciprocally, a lv20 goliath wizard might loose to a great wyrm force dragon commoner 1 with 10^7 GP.

I assume once again that it wasn't the expected answer.


Once more, commoner wins, without chicken infested shenanigans. With chicken infested, no need for 10^7 GP, you can make sacrifices to dark beings and get on your way to the wish loop faster than a kobold paladin can summon Pazuzu.

D&D, where the only thing scarier than a puny wizard is a pun-puny commoner.
Wish-loops and chain-gates are being disregarded, since then it's just a question of who can turn themselves into a god fastest. (Probably the wizard, since he just has to prepare new spells, rather than go out and buy things.)

[GreyBlack]

Okay, as I've given my answer (nuking from cross-continent with currency), I find there to be a couple of fundamental problems to address for the commoner to win.

Issue the first: raw statistics. As a general rule, a 20 wizard will always be stronger. They will have more hp, bab, fort save, will save, everything. Any solution in favor of the commoner will have to overcome the fact that, in an AMF, the wizard will win.

Issue the second: long term planning. I remember seeing someone say that the only way to reach 20 wizard was by playing the most paranoid mofo ever, and create contingencies for everything. However, as RAW is a thing and we're going WBL vs WBL-mancy, the wizard can only plan a certain number of contingencies at a time (disregarding infinite cash loops). Assuming that, the commoner will have to find a way to beat all of those contingencies, which, to me, implies a massive amount of out-of-the-box thinking. Every wizard week think that, if an individual attacks me, cast time stop. How do we get around that?

Issue the third: how to prevent a wizard from getting wind of the plan. How do we keep someone who's nigh omniscient from knowing what we're planning to do? How does Batman keep Superman from knowing what his contingency for Superman going rogue is?

As such, it won't be enough for a commoner to simply buy an absurd number of items, because a wizard can always already counter these things. We have to think, what would a wizard NEVER think to prepare against?

[legomaster00156]

How does Batman keep Superman from knowing what his contingency for Superman going rogue is?
You know, this is just about the best possible analogy for this fight. One absurdly powerful superhuman vs. one guy with a crapton of money and reasonable enough intelligence to use it.

[ericgrau]

Buy items with metamagic and >9th level spells and outwizard the wizard. You can buy about as many spells as the wizard can buy spells known or more with level 20 WBL, except the wizard can only use ~6-7 9ths per day. The commoner can use all of his. Everything the wizard might do in theory the commoner can do in practice. All ways at once simultaneously rather than a few choices out of many options.

The theory is well you have a finite number of items while the wizard can choose from any of his spells known, except that with 10 million gp your finite item spells can exceed all of the wizards spells known. So while you may not be able to choose, your "always-on" exceeds all of the wizard's "possibles".

Alternate class features are harder to nab but there are probably items out there for them.

[TheifofZ]

Does anyone else find it mildly adorable that most of the effort in this thread has been less about who could win, and more about the math involved in finding the best way for a commoner to go about crushing a wizard with thousands of tonnes of high-velocity molten copper.

... that is odd, now I think about it. What the heck.

[Deophaun]

Some RAW facts.

Draconomicon gives us the weight for coins. This being D&D, it should be no surprise that there is no difference in weight OR density between copper, silver, gold, mithral, or adamantium. There are 50 coins to a pound, and there are 12,000 coins in a cubic foot. Our 1,000,000,000 copper coins weigh 20,000,000lbs. Which isn't that far off from the 18.66 million lbs previously given.

Attacks are discrete units. You cannot break them up. As soon as the bolt is launched, it hits or misses. If something is triggered to go off when the projectile is at its "peak," then it goes off before the bolt is even launched. Any kobolds geared to emerge and unload their payload in flight will instead emerge and unload their payload right on top of the springals or whatever the commoner's using.

Because of this, there's no momentum in D&D. Projectiles have no velocity. Otherwise, our commoner could hire a thousand other commoners, get them to stand in a line, and... you see where this is going. Dead catgirls as far as the eye can see. I already had to climb over a mountain of them to get here.

If the commoner wants to drop coins on the Wizard, just inverting a BoH and making it rain won't do anything. Each coin weighs 1/50th of a lb. As per the DMG page 303, they are too small to do damage. Instead, the coins must be formed into ingots weighing 1lb first. They will achieve their maximum lethality at 1,400 ft (20d6).

There is good news here. If the commoner could just drop all those coins in a single big pile, the Wizard would only have to make a single DC 15 Reflex save to avoid all damage (and being buried alive: rogue space is not just for rogues). Instead, since there are hundreds of thousands of individual ingots, he has to make hundreds of thousands of those saves, and no matter how good his Reflex save is, he's going to roll a lot of ones.

The bad news is that means the commoner will probably trip a contingency before an AM ingot hits. So the first thing to drop must be an AM Ingot.

Fortunately, since there is no velocity or momentum, even if you miss with the AM Ingot, it won't bounce away and leave the wizard outside its AoE.

The biggest issue, though, is that astral projection pretty much saves the Wizard. Really, you didn't think that was his actual body in his tower, did you?

[GreyBlack]

Some RAW facts.

Draconomicon gives us the weight for coins. This being D&D, it should be no surprise that there is no difference in weight OR density between copper, silver, gold, mithral, or adamantium. There are 50 coins to a pound, and there are 12,000 coins in a cubic foot. Our 1,000,000,000 copper coins weigh 20,000,000lbs. Which isn't that far off from the 18.66 million lbs previously given.

Attacks are discrete units. You cannot break them up. As soon as the bolt is launched, it hits or misses. If something is triggered to go off when the projectile is at its "peak," then it goes off before the bolt is even launched. Any kobolds geared to emerge and unload their payload in flight will instead emerge and unload their payload right on top of the springals or whatever the commoner's using.

Because of this, there's no momentum in D&D. Projectiles have no velocity. Otherwise, our commoner could hire a thousand other commoners, get them to stand in a line, and... you see where this is going. Dead catgirls as far as the eye can see. I already had to climb over a mountain of them to get here.

If the commoner wants to drop coins on the Wizard, just inverting a BoH and making it rain won't do anything. Each coin weighs 1/50th of a lb. As per the DMG page 303, they are too small to do damage. Instead, the coins must be formed into ingots weighing 1lb first. They will achieve their maximum lethality at 1,400 ft (20d6).

There is good news here. If the commoner could just drop all those coins in a single big pile, the Wizard would only have to make a single DC 15 Reflex save to avoid all damage (and being buried alive: rogue space is not just for rogues). Instead, since there are hundreds of thousands of individual ingots, he has to make hundreds of thousands of those saves, and no matter how good his Reflex save is, he's going to roll a lot of ones.

The bad news is that means the commoner will probably trip a contingency before an AM ingot hits. So the first thing to drop must be an AM Ingot.

Fortunately, since there is no velocity or momentum, even if you miss with the AM Ingot, it won't bounce away and leave the wizard outside its AoE.

The biggest issue, though, is that astral projection pretty much saves the Wizard. Really, you didn't think that was his actual body in his tower, did you?

Sweet! I was unaware the Draconomicon said that! Changes my math a bit, but I'll figure that out in a bit.

[Strigon]

You know, this is just about the best possible analogy for this fight. One absurdly powerful superhuman vs. one guy with a crapton of money and reasonable enough intelligence to use it.

It's more like Alfred with Batman's money vs. Superman with Batman's intelligence (because any Wizard good enough to make it to level 20 has an Intelligence at least in the 20's by now.

[Aetol]

The SRD says the same thing (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Wealth_and_Money), you know. It's the figure I've been using from the beginning (well, rounded up to 10g the coin).

... and using the peasant railgun is a great idea. Wish I had thought of that earlier.