LvL 20 Commoner w/ Leadership vs LvL 20 Anything.

[The Vagabond]

Just a theory- A Level 20 commoner vs a list of characters on the tier list, but he has the Leadership Feat. How could a level 20 commoner, with only NPCs as his followers and cohort, kill one character from each tier? Assume NPC WBL for the Commoner and his followers. So, let's say, a Commoner with Leadership vs a level 20 fighter, a level 20 barbarian, a level 20 Bard, a level 20 sorcerer, and a level 20 Wizard.

[AvatarVecna]

Just a theory- A Level 20 commoner vs a list of characters on the tier list, but he has the Leadership Feat. How could a level 20 commoner, with only NPCs as his followers, kill one character from each tier? Assume NPC WBL for the Commoner and his followers. So, let's say, a Commoner with Leadership vs a level 20 fighter, a level 20 barbarian, a level 20 Bard, a level 20 sorcerer, and a level 20 Wizard.

Assuming the cohort and the enemy can use all the same rules as each other, and are optimized to a similar degree, the answer is "the Commoner and their cohort can't win", except at a low enough level of char-op that the Commoner 20 themselves is relevant to the fight (and that's a sad level 20 fight where a Commoner matters). The reason why is simple: no matter how optimal the cohort is, they have 2 less character levels to work with than the enemy. Wizard 20 vs Wizard 18; Wizard 20 wins. Barbarian 20 vs Barbarian 18; Barbarian 20 wins. Khepri with Blackguard levels vs Khepri without: Khepri with those levels wins, because higher saves and more HD, so more feats/skills.

Of course, with the Khepri example, we're talking about the relative size of NI infinites, whereas the Barbarian 20 just has some extra HP and more magic items. Regardless, the level of optimization matters far more than the number advantage Team Commoner has.

[icefractal]

If you allowed Leadership chaining, and the followers had PC classes, maybe. Wizard 20 vs Wizard 18 + Wizard 16 + Wizard 14 + ...

Otherwise - I don't think they can, assuming the opposition is optimized to the same level. You'd have to be optimized enough via items that the number of bodies outweighed the lack of class abilities. But then the fact that you have NPC wealth would bite you in the ass. And then if you go too far and open the gates into free-Wish territory, Leadership becomes unimportant because anyone can have an army of Simulacra.

I think the best you can do is to go so far into TO territory that class abilities become inconsequential. You still wouldn't win (because Leadership also becomes inconsequential at that point) but you could pull a draw (or more accurately, create a battle that's impossible to resolve).

[Beheld]

If you allowed Leadership chaining, and the followers had PC classes, maybe. Wizard 20 vs Wizard 18 + Wizard 16 + Wizard 14 + ...

Even still, an equally optimal Wizard 20 would be a Wizard 20/Wizard 18/Wizard 16/Wizard 14, ect.

[HolyCouncilMagi]

Well, if the cohort doesn't have the same limitations, you could manage everything below T2 by out-tiering the opposition. You might even be able to manage T2; I could see a Wizard 18 beating a Favored Soul 20 (based entirely on wizards having a better set of options for going first in the fight and can prepare situationally-useful spells that the FS can't waste Spells Known on) or a StP Erudite 18 beating a Sorcerer 20, but that only gets so far and won't bridge the gap into T1 on any consistent basis.

[AvatarVecna]

The only situation where "Commoner 20+X 18" beats "X 20" is where X is so terribly unoptimal that a Commoner is actually relevant to the fight.

[The Vagabond]

So, there's no way for a Commoner +several hundred commoners being able to out-fight even a Bard? Seriously? Can a bard really destroy over 100 people at once?

[AvatarVecna]

So, there's no way for a Commoner +several hundred commoners being able to out-fight even a Bard? Seriously? Can a bard really destroy over 100 people at once?

We're not talking about hundreds of Commoners, we're talking about two. If the optimization levels are kept the same, the solo guy will win by virtue of superior firepower unless the average level of power involved is low enough that numbers are more important. Sure, a Commoner 20 with a Wizard 18 sidekick can totally beat a Monk 20, but they can't beat a Wizard 20 who's optimized just as much as the Wizard 18, because the Wizard 20 has more resources than the Wizard 18 does, and the Commoner 20's resources do not make up enough of the difference to let the Commoner+Wizard team win.

EDIT: The higher we boost the char-op on the ECL 20 enemy/ECL 18 ally, the more pointless the fight becomes: the difference in power between the 20 and the 18 will just keep growing in the favor of the 20, right up until it stops mattering.

[eggynack]

Does a wizard 20 really have meaningfully more resources than a wizard 18? Sure, they get a couple more spells per day, but it really seems like a drop in the bucket, especially as you increase power level. I don't think that either the commoner or the two wizard levels really mean all that much to the result of the fight, at least if you stick with base classes. If you start using prestige classes, then I suppose the wizard 20 could plausibly pull together some benefit over and above the wizard 18 that makes a difference.

[ben-zayb]

Does a wizard 20 really have meaningfully more resources than a wizard 18? Sure, they get a couple more spells per day, but it really seems like a drop in the bucket, especially as you increase power level. I don't think that either the commoner or the two wizard levels really mean all that much to the result of the fight, at least if you stick with base classes. If you start using prestige classes, then I suppose the wizard 20 could plausibly pull together some benefit over and above the wizard 18 that makes a difference.

To be honest, the L18 vs L20 wizard comparisons feels similar to the beaten-to-death T1/2 vs another T1/2 matchups. As the Optimization Limit of two characters approaches Pun-Pun, the significant difference of competence approaches 0. And for T1/2s that comes far sooner.

[eggynack]

To be honest, the L18 vs L20 wizard comparisons feels similar to the beaten-to-death T1/2 vs another T1/2 matchups. As the Optimization Limit of two characters approaches Pun-Pun, the significant difference of competence approaches 0. And for T1/2s that comes far sooner.
That was my thinking also, more or less. I guess the wizard side will inevitably be slightly advantaged, but the value of that advantage rounds to something like zero. Though, actually, I suppose victory depends somewhat on the win condition. If the challenge is for the wizard to kill everyone on the opposing side, then all of this logic holds up well enough, but if the wizard only needs to kill the commoner, then he likely has an advantage because the commoner's wizard won't likely be able to supply as many defenses to the commoner as a wizard would be able to apply to themselves. That said, assuming the full scale murder as a victory condition, the commoner may have a slight advantage from the marginally greater access to action economy in the form of personal wand use, and also maybe just cause the extra body makes the commoner team harder to kill. Again though, these things round to zero for the most part.

[AvatarVecna]

It depends on how optimal the wizards are being played. If it's only up to about high T3 (and neither of them is busting out campaign-ending spells/tactics), then the brute-force proof of "who's strongest" will look something like this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0166.html); the lines from V is panel 7 and the sorcereress in panel 8 are appropriate, especially when you consider that in our Wizard 20 vs Wizard 18 example, neither party really has an advantage in finesse or intelligent use of magic (they're equally matched in that regard, or close enough). Thus, the victory comes if the Commoner 20 themselves is capable of proving themselves equal to whatever spell slot advantage a Wizard 20 has over a Wizard 18.

Which is to say, 1 7th lvl spell, 1 8th lvl spell, and 2 9th lvl spells, assuming they have the same Intelligence score. Of course, a Commoner optimized enough to be equal to those spell slots is built at a far higher char-op level than wizards whose magic duel amounts to a counterspell-off, so those wizards would need to be upped to the Commoner's char-op level...and the Commoner becomes less than useful once more. Le sigh...

[Malroth]

So, there's no way for a Commoner +several hundred commoners being able to out-fight even a Bard? Seriously? Can a bard really destroy over 100 people at once?

At high Op levels Bard reaches a high Tier 2 and can pull off any mass kill trick a sorcerer could or simply pull off a bardic performance with a +whatever he feels like save DC to convince the army to go home.

[ranagrande]

The Commoner should win this. The OP includes followers, so the fight is actually going to be something like solo Wizard 20 vs Commoner 20, Wizard 18, and ~200 low level mooks.

[Dread_Head]

The Commoner should win this. The OP includes followers, so the fight is actually going to be something like solo Wizard 20 vs Commoner 20, Wizard 18, and ~200 low level mooks.

Unless you are a Bard (and even mostly then) having an army of low level mooks is practically pointless by this level.

Everyone should note that the OP stated the followers and cohort were all NPC classes. In which case provided that all the followers and cohort are Adepts they have a good chance of beating a Tier 5 class, and probably even a Tier 4 but no higher really.

[Serafina]

Lvl 20 Commoner with NPC-class cohort? Not challenge against an optimized Lvl 20 Wizard, Cleric, other T1 class. The same probably goes for T2 and T3 classes.

Now, if the Commoner-side is allowed to chain Leadership? We get Level 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 6 characters out of that. But again, NPC-classes simply don't bring enough to the table to carry the day.

What if we allow PC-class cohorts?
Well, at the very least we get a Level 18 Wizard (or other T1 class) with 30% more wealth by level (adding the commoners wealth to the cohorts wealth) than a 20th-level PC. Which is nice, but not really worth two class levels.

Now, what if the Cohort has further PC-class cohorts?
Wealth by level does not go up notably, a 14-th level NPC would only add a 7% to the total wealth for example. But that character could take most crafting-feats, which would effectively double effective wealth by level! Other than that, the 14th-level character could be of a different class - say, a Cleric. Which offers access to additional spells and tricks not otherwise available.
We can make another iteration of that with 12th level, grabbing for example a Bard. After that, dedicated summoners or necromancers would probably be most effective. Oh, and divinations!


So, what we're looking at here is:
A 18th-level T1 class with ~280% wealth by level, buffed by a 16th-level T1 class and a 14th-level Bard (or similar class) and with a large horde of undead. And the ability to constantly get up-to-date information from the remaining four casters that sit somewhere in a tower and cast divinations (not hugely relevant in combat, but quite an asset out of it).

And actually, there is not that much an 18th-level character would not have access to that a 20th-level character would. 9th-level spells are on the table after all.

[eggynack]

Unless you are a Bard (and even mostly then) having an army of low level mooks is practically pointless by this level.
I dunno that that's necessarily true. If you make every mook a caster of some variety, then they can plausibly present an offense that's non-trivial to defend against. Can a caster really just shrug off a massive pile of magic missiles, one feasibly capable of dealing sufficient damage to seriously inconvenience the wizard? Or how about 20 of a save or X spell, say glitterdust, one likely to get through because of simple odds. All kindsa effects are at the disposal of the mooks, and while they can certainly be defended against, putting up such a defense takes resources. And, while murdering the army is easy enough, it does take time. Overall, I think that, while the difference isn't a massive one by any means, it might represent the slight edge necessary to give tiny bonus odds to the commoner. Because ultimately, in this fight between high level wizards, you're inevitably going basically even with a tiny shift one way or the other.


Everyone should note that the OP stated the followers and cohort were all NPC classes. In which case provided that all the followers and cohort are Adepts they have a good chance of beating a Tier 5 class, and probably even a Tier 4 but no higher really.

Yeah, but I've been discounting that, mostly because, as you state, it makes the situation trivial. A high tier class isn't going to fall to an army of crap, where they could plausibly be challenged by an army of marginally less crap, and face even or worse odds against the army of marginally less crap with a wizard at the head.

[Dread_Head]

I dunno that that's necessarily true. If you make every mook a caster of some variety, then they can plausibly present an offense that's non-trivial to defend against. Can a caster really just shrug off a massive pile of magic missiles, one feasibly capable of dealing sufficient damage to seriously inconvenience the wizard? Or how about 20 of a save or X spell, say glitterdust, one likely to get through because of simple odds. All kindsa effects are at the disposal of the mooks, and while they can certainly be defended against, putting up such a defense takes resources. And, while murdering the army is easy enough, it does take time. Overall, I think that, while the difference isn't a massive one by any means, it might represent the slight edge necessary to give tiny bonus odds to the commoner. Because ultimately, in this fight between high level wizards, you're inevitably going basically even with a tiny shift one way or the other.

It depends how prepared the Wizard is really, if they know they will be fighting an army of mooks (knowing what is coming is sorta the basis of their power) then they can prepare some large AoE spells and be done with it quickly, or just put up some immunites and ignore them, or just start the battle on some plane of existence inimical to low level life etc.

Any character by that level should be packing a raptors mask, freedom of movement, energy resistances or immunity and enough HD to avoid effects like sleep and colour spray. What other low level spells are there left to be worried about? Shield handles magic missiles well enough and a contingent shield set to go off if anyone casts magic missile at you would solve that threat.

I'm not saying that an army of low level mooks can't pose a threat, just that it won't pose much of a one to a prepared caster. Maybe a Tier 2 would get caught out, but most of those defences will be taken by any character who can get them. Tier 3 or lower would probably struggle. I guess a concentrated enough wave of attackers is a threat to anything because they can always roll a 20 to hit or you can always roll a 1 on a save but theres even spells to solve that.

[eggynack]

It depends how prepared the Wizard is really, if they know they will be fighting an army of mooks (knowing what is coming is sorta the basis of their power) then they can prepare some large AoE spells and be done with it quickly, or just put up some immunites and ignore them, or just start the battle on some plane of existence inimical to low level life etc.

That's my point, really. The wizard 20 needs to expend resources, in the form of the time needed to cast an otherwise do-nothing AoE, or the slots to put up immunities that wouldn't otherwise be necessary, or the need to be in a specific area or otherwise bring the battle there, that the cohort wizard doesn't need to expend. Unlike the two level difference, I'm not sure that a pile of mooks rounds to zero. It doesn't represent a high powered threat, but it might round instead to, I dunno, one or two, in whatever arbitrary system of measurement we're using. Because, after all, if being prepared were completely costless, then the wizard wouldn't need to know about the opponent beforehand to be prepared, cause they'd just always have all the spells needed.

I was just working with some base level tricks too. The resources added could easily come in the form of other classes, pulling in a wide variety of mediocre spells, maybe with some weird buffs mixed in, or some crap healing, or a dozen spontaneous regions of silence, or something involving psionics. Hell, you could even make some of the cohorts bards and add a bit of marginal power to some scattered druidic animal companions, preferably something flying, and get in some damage on top of the arbitrary instant of power that just augmented the cohort wizard's whatever. Again, none of this is game changing, but if you can get the wizard to toss out some fireball equivalent instead of a crazy death spell for the cohort, then that's basically the wizard ceding a surprise round in a game of rocket tag. It's the kinda thing that could tip the scales.

[ShurikVch]

Which race(s) are the Commoner, Cohort(s), and Followers?

[Seto]

Just a theory- A Level 20 commoner vs a list of characters on the tier list, but he has the Leadership Feat. How could a level 20 commoner, with only NPCs as his followers and cohort, kill one character from each tier?

Do you mean only NPC classes ? Like, Commoner 20 and Aristocrat 18 ? No way.

[Dread_Head]

That's my point, really. The wizard 20 needs to expend resources, in the form of the time needed to cast an otherwise do-nothing AoE, or the slots to put up immunities that wouldn't otherwise be necessary, or the need to be in a specific area or otherwise bring the battle there, that the cohort wizard doesn't need to expend. Unlike the two level difference, I'm not sure that a pile of mooks rounds to zero. It doesn't represent a high powered threat, but it might round instead to, I dunno, one or two, in whatever arbitrary system of measurement we're using. Because, after all, if being prepared were completely costless, then the wizard wouldn't need to know about the opponent beforehand to be prepared, cause they'd just always have all the spells needed.

I was just working with some base level tricks too. The resources added could easily come in the form of other classes, pulling in a wide variety of mediocre spells, maybe with some weird buffs mixed in, or some crap healing, or a dozen spontaneous regions of silence, or something involving psionics. Hell, you could even make some of the cohorts bards and add a bit of marginal power to some scattered druidic animal companions, preferably something flying, and get in some damage on top of the arbitrary instant of power that just augmented the cohort wizard's whatever. Again, none of this is game changing, but if you can get the wizard to toss out some fireball equivalent instead of a crazy death spell for the cohort, then that's basically the wizard ceding a surprise round in a game of rocket tag. It's the kinda thing that could tip the scales.

A Wizard 20 has 4 extra high level spells vs. a wizard 18 though. Which is more than enough to waste some slots on prebattle buffs to make the mooks irrelevant or even on a plane shift to change the place of battle to the negative energy plane (or positive, or fire, or water, really anywhere mooks won't survive).

But what I'm really trying to suggest is that if a wizard is pulling the usual wizardy tricks then the mooks will be irrelevant anyway without additional invested resources. They will never do anything against a wizard astrally projecting from their own private demiplane for example.

[ShurikVch]

Mooks are not irrelevant - they may pool their WBL to hire somebody who WILL be relevant :smallbiggrin:

Also, Expert 18 Cohort with Lucid Dreaming may just drag that Wizard 20 guy into the Dreamheart - Flawless Victory!

[yellowrocket]

enough mooks can get together and make a pointless theoretical argument long enough and mind numbing enough, that if the wizard reads it, it will cause the wizard to have a massive headache and then fail his concentration checks during the following battle.

[ben-zayb]

Mooks are not irrelevant - they may pool their WBL to hire somebody who WILL be relevant :smallbiggrin:

Also, Expert 18 Cohort with Lucid Dreaming may just drag that Wizard 20 guy into the Dreamheart - Flawless Victory!

Not sure if it's due to the eyesore color, but I swear I read that the first time as Monks. WotC probably intended that effect, though.

[Iain]

Just a theory- A Level 20 commoner vs a list of characters on the tier list, but he has the Leadership Feat. How could a level 20 commoner, with only NPCs as his followers and cohort, kill one character from each tier? Assume NPC WBL for the Commoner and his followers. So, let's say, a Commoner with Leadership vs a level 20 fighter, a level 20 barbarian, a level 20 Bard, a level 20 sorcerer, and a level 20 Wizard.

It's kind of funny how many people are only really interested in talking about Wizards! :smallsmile:

Assuming you meant for the PC-class character to be unable to take Leadership, I'd have thought that a L20 Commoner with a L18 Adept cohort should stand a good chance against a L20 Fighter or Barbarian, at least. But I have no experience of statting such things out, or of playing high level characters - so may well be wrong.

[thethird]

A lvl 20 truenamer can chaingate solars. Is truenamer ever considered a good class?

Trick question, it is at level 20.

[Dusk Eclipse]

There is one way the commoner can beat all of them, "The Cube", which can be done with normal WBL IIRC, but an artificer cohort would seriously speed things up.

[AvatarVecna]

There is one way the commoner can beat all of them, "The Cube", which can be done with normal WBL IIRC, but an artificer cohort would seriously speed things up.

The Cube was a build made for a char-op contest that had a lot of rules put in place to disallow overpowered builds from running roughshod over everybody, and the Cube just found a convenient loophole in those safeguards. A Commoner driving The Cube is optimal enough (compared to the baseline Commoner) that a T1/T2 character of similar char-op levels is going to blow through it. It may have been virtually unbeatable by wizards chained down with heavy restrictions on what they could do with their magic, but an unchained wizard will curbstomp them all the same.

[DarkSonic1337]

A Wizard 20 has 4 extra high level spells vs. a wizard 18 though. Which is more than enough to waste some slots on prebattle buffs to make the mooks irrelevant or even on a plane shift to change the place of battle to the negative energy plane (or positive, or fire, or water, really anywhere mooks won't survive).

But what I'm really trying to suggest is that if a wizard is pulling the usual wizardy tricks then the mooks will be irrelevant anyway without additional invested resources. They will never do anything against a wizard astrally projecting from their own private demiplane for example.

The thing Eggynack is saying is that the mooks can force the higher level character to spend resources to respond to them. If that resource is a few of the extra slots you get from being higher level then they've already evened the playing field a little bit, but what about the scenario where the higher level character has to use ACTIONS to respond?

Actions are one of the most valuable resources a caster has! Even if the mooks only take 1 round to be dealt with that is in itself a win for team commoner because it is a round where the higher level character is not dealing with the main threat.

[Flickerdart]

Actions are one of the most valuable resources a caster has! Even if the mooks only take 1 round to be dealt with that is in itself a win for team commoner because it is a round where the higher level character is not dealing with the main threat.
There is 0 motivation to attack the mooks or the commoner before attacking the commoner's cohort.

[AvatarVecna]

The thing Eggynack is saying is that the mooks can force the higher level character to spend resources to respond to them. If that resource is a few of the extra slots you get from being higher level then they've already evened the playing field a little bit, but what about the scenario where the higher level character has to use ACTIONS to respond?

Actions are one of the most valuable resources a caster has! Even if the mooks only take 1 round to be dealt with that is in itself a win for team commoner because it is a round where the higher level character is not dealing with the main threat.

The action economy is important, but the tier of the involved characters also comes into play. Sure, a Fighter having to tank an extra 100 sling bullets or whatever can kinda suck, since at least a few of them are hitting, but between the minions numbers and their ability to force the Fighter to deal with them, he might just ignore them to start out with (preferring to go take out the real threat). A bard might have a bit more trouble, considering that bards are built as force-multipliers more than solo adventurers. As for Wizards, well...we all know that wizards suck at dealing with crowds of low-level mooks. At best, those crowds of low-level mooks will be a speed bump for the wizard, a single standard action to solve (depending on char-op level of course; it could very well be a swift action if he's good enough).

[Telonius]

Versus a Paladin, he has a chance. Cohort is an Expert. The Cohort takes Bluff, Diplomacy, and Forgery as his class skills. The Commoner calls for a parley as combat starts. One minute later the Paladin has "received a message" from the head of his Order, commanding him to surrender immediately to the Commoner.

[Dusk Eclipse]

The Cube was a build made for a char-op contest that had a lot of rules put in place to disallow overpowered builds from running roughshod over everybody, and the Cube just found a convenient loophole in those safeguards. A Commoner driving The Cube is optimal enough (compared to the baseline Commoner) that a T1/T2 character of similar char-op levels is going to blow through it. It may have been virtually unbeatable by wizards chained down with heavy restrictions on what they could do with their magic, but an unchained wizard will curbstomp them all the same.

You know what you are right, I forgot the ToS put some heavy nerfs on casters. Still the original challenge pitted the commoner + cohort/followers against a class on each tier, I'd reckon the Cube would probably take on every Tier 6 through 4 easilly, tier 3 is less certain as there are some casters in there, Tier 1&2 as you said are on the caster's favours.

[PaucaTerrorem]

Gotta ask, what's The Cube?

[AvatarVecna]

Gotta ask, what's The Cube?

A magic mecha constructed using the Stronghold rules, driven by a Commoner, and powered by pure bull****.

EDIT: Need more than that? Okay, imagine a cube the size of a house, except the entire thing is made of of Walls of Force that are continually pumping out targeted Greater Dispel SLAs...oh yeah, and the whole thing can move, flying into things and plowing through them (if I'm understanding things correctly).

[Douglas]

A magic mecha constructed using the Stronghold rules, driven by a Commoner, and powered by pure bull****.

EDIT: Need more than that? Okay, imagine a cube the size of a house, except the entire thing is made of of Walls of Force that are continually pumping out targeted Greater Dispel SLAs...oh yeah, and the whole thing can move, flying into things and plowing through them (if I'm understanding things correctly).
Weren't Prismatic Walls involved too? I'm hardly an expert on The Cube but I read a few posts about it out of curiosity once, and I think I remember that. I can't remember if it had any conventional offense batteries, or if it just rammed into people. Built primarily with the Stronghold Builders Guide, with heavy use of wealth by level and the Landlord feat.

[ShurikVch]

Note: some feats give very specific cohorts:
Recognized Leader/Wise Elder/Venerable Elder - cohort with Barbarian class;
Dragon Cohort;
Undead Leadership;
Are we excluding them outright?

Also, Close Cohort allow to take cohorts of only -1 level (instead usual -2)

[AvatarVecna]

Weren't Prismatic Walls involved too? I'm hardly an expert on The Cube but I read a few posts about it out of curiosity once, and I think I remember that. I can't remember if it had any conventional offense batteries, or if it just rammed into people. Built primarily with the Stronghold Builders Guide, with heavy use of wealth by level and the Landlord feat.

You may be right; truthfully I only ever saw what people theorized the Cube could've been; I never even saw it in action. But yeah, stuffing Prismatic Walls on it sounds about right.

[Flickerdart]

Versus a Paladin, he has a chance. Cohort is an Expert. The Cohort takes Bluff, Diplomacy, and Forgery as his class skills. The Commoner calls for a parley as combat starts. One minute later the Paladin has "received a message" from the head of his Order, commanding him to surrender immediately to the Commoner.
This is the worst plan.

1. The paladin is not required to accept a request for parley, especially given that a rushed Diplomacy check is made at a -10 penalty and the paladin has both Diplomacy and Sense Motive in-class (as opposed to the commoner, who hasn't even got Diplomacy).
2. If the paladin does not belong to an order, the entire ruse fails.
3. The cohort will need to roll three checks - Disguise and Bluff to convince the paladin that he is a messenger from the order, and then Forgery. All of them are made at substantial penalties.
4. The paladin is under no compulsion to obey the letter - refusing an order from your superior to surrender to an enemy is not a gross violation of the code, and doesn't lead to falling.

[Aharon]

You may be right; truthfully I only ever saw what people theorized the Cube could've been; I never even saw it in action. But yeah, stuffing Prismatic Walls on it sounds about right.

Nobody saw it in action, because the actual build was (at least to my knowledge) never completed: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-147304.html

Also, it relies on a dubious interpretation of spell clocks (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070312a), using the assumption that it can be used to cast its spells multiple times per rounds, which, IMO, isn't really supported by the text.

[Beheld]

Honestly it doesn't even matter at level 20, because all you need is CL 30 on your spells to be completely immune to Greater Dispel Magic.

[AvatarVecna]

Nobody saw it in action, because the actual build was (at least to my knowledge) never completed: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-147304.html

Also, it relies on a dubious interpretation of spell clocks (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070312a), using the assumption that it can be used to cast its spells multiple times per rounds, which, IMO, isn't really supported by the text.

I saw that thread awhile back, but I thought it was discussing the Cube; AFAIK, builds weren't posted publically for the Test Of Spite, to prevent the char-op equivalent of counter-picking. Again, since I wasn't around when the ToS stuff was happening, and the Cube became relevant, I can't say for sure if it ever saw combat, or how it truly performed, or how it really worked; all I've got to go on is rumors, hearsay, and the occasional thread.

And since the dude you made it has been banned from the forum, it's unlikely we're going to be getting details any time soon on what exact kind of ridiculous TO went into making it function.

[Aharon]

I saw that thread awhile back, but I thought it was discussing the Cube; AFAIK, builds weren't posted publically for the Test Of Spite, to prevent the char-op equivalent of counter-picking. Again, since I wasn't around when the ToS stuff was happening, and the Cube became relevant, I can't say for sure if it ever saw combat, or how it truly performed, or how it really worked; all I've got to go on is rumors, hearsay, and the occasional thread.

And since the dude you made it has been banned from the forum, it's unlikely we're going to be getting details any time soon on what exact kind of ridiculous TO went into making it function.

To my knowledge, there wasn't a match including the Cube, and there was no sheet submitted, AFAIK (I was one of the sheet checkers).

[AvatarVecna]

To my knowledge, there wasn't a match including the Cube, and there was no sheet submitted, AFAIK (I was one of the sheet checkers).

Fair enough.

[ShurikVch]

Not sure if it's due to the eyesore color, but I swear I read that the first time as Monks. WotC probably intended that effect, though.I think you just accidentally solved the mystery of Stormtrooper Effect - Monks, on top of their 3/4 BAB, have no proficiency with blasters... :smallamused:

[Segev]

The difficulty with this discussion is that there's nothing, in theory, preventing the "LvL 20 Anything" also having Leadership.

So it becomes "anything you can do, I can do better," because the Commoner 20's Leadership is matched 100% by the Anything 20's Leadership, and the Anything 20 has useful class features (at least, compared to the Commoner 20).

[icefractal]

Even if we assume the contender can't have Leadership, it still doesn't help the Commoner much unless we allow Leadership-chaining - and even then, I'm not sure. The amount of optimization necessary to make NPC classes relevant against anything of mid+ tier is a high enough amount that it makes Leadership less important.

If this was "make a L20 Commoner that can defeat any WotC-published NPC" that would be one thing, and probably do-able. But when the other side has access to the same tricks, not so much.

[Kraken]

I would once again like to put out a call for The Cube's actual stats, just for curiosity, it's often mentioned in abstract details, but I've never seen more than that. Regardless, it would be pointless here, because my understanding is that the cube is purely made from WBL, and therefore if it ends up being optimal it turns into commoner20+cube+cohort+followers versus a level 20 tier 1 with a cube too. I wouldn't underestimate followers spamming SoDs, possibly from magic items either, it's hard to avoid 1s forever, as not everyone is going to nab the pride domain power.

[gadren]

Hey, what if the level 18 cohort wizard casts a spell to drop the 200+ mooks on the opponent? Think of all that damage from falling objects!