Is There Any Way to Foil Foresight?

[Doctor Despair]

This spell grants you a powerful sixth sense in relation to yourself or another. Once foresight is cast, you receive instantaneous warnings of impending danger or harm to the subject of the spell. You are never surprised or flat-footed. In addition, the spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself and gives you a +2 insight bonus to AC and Reflex saves. This insight bonus is lost whenever you would lose a Dexterity bonus to AC.

When another creature is the subject of the spell, you receive warnings about that creature. You must communicate what you learn to the other creature for the warning to be useful, and the creature can be caught unprepared in the absence of such a warning. Shouting a warning, yanking a person back, and even telepathically communicating (via an appropriate spell) can all be accomplished before some danger befalls the subject, provided you act on the warning without delay. The subject, however, does not gain the insight bonus to AC and Reflex saves.

Foresight evidently only extends one round or even one action into the future. On that note, is there any way to catch a mage with those abilities flatfooted? Clearly invisibility doesn't function in that way.

Some initial questions I had:

What is the interaction with God Blooded of Vecna (which grants immunity to all divination spells cast against it or cast to learn information about it, considering Foresight is yielding information about the Blooded creature's attack) and its Enigma Aura (which, as a standard option, makes enemies with 120 feet have a 50% chance to forget the Blooded creature is there with no save and is not listed as mind-affecting)?

What is the interaction with Diamond Mind Sapphire Nightmare Blade, and other effects that specifically make an opponent flatfooted?

What constitutes danger or harm? Does that mean loss of HP? If so, if a vagabond cleric wanted to take a surprise round to heal you, would you be flatfooted against him with Foresight?

Is this spell just so vaguely worded that it does as much or as little as a DM wants essentially, or does it infallibly just prevent the flatfooted condition?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I'm pretty sure Mind Blank makes you exempt from someone else using Foresight's benefits against you.

[Beheld]

Mostly it unfailingly prevents the flatfooted condition and means there is never a surprise round you don't take part in. Since that is a level 4 Rogue ability, Doesn't seem too terrible. It may do other things depending on DM whim.

The way it interacts with Vecna Blooded is that Vecna blooded is a stupid template, and the enigma ability by RAW makes them unable to attack you, but doesn't disable all their defenses or even forget that they are in danger. I would say since Foresight was not cast to gain information about the Vecna Blooded that cloak of mystery does nothing.

[Doctor Despair]

Mostly it unfailingly prevents the flatfooted condition and means there is never a surprise round you don't take part in. Since that is a level 4 Rogue ability, Doesn't seem too terrible. It may do other things depending on DM whim.

Level 4 Rogue may still be caught flatfooted, but is not denied her dex bonus to AC. The distinction is that a Rogue cannot take immediate actions in a surprise round, which is what I am wondering can be circumvented.

[Âmesang]

You're undetected whilst under the effects of a time stop, right? Probably not the most optimized use, but could a time stopper use the time to tie up the foresighted character in some means?

(I wonder if tying his bootlaces together would go too far?)

[Flickerdart]

You're undetected whilst under the effects of a time stop, right? Probably not the most optimized use, but could a time stopper use the time to tie up the foresighted character in some means?

(I wonder if tying his bootlaces together would go too far?)
"You cannot move or harm items held, carried, or worn by a creature stuck in normal time"

[MisterKaws]

"You cannot move or harm items held, carried, or worn by a creature stuck in normal time"

though you can always forcecage+planar anchor+some antimagic thing.

[nedz]

It's a divination: Xorvintal can counter it, under the correct circumstances.

[Doctor Despair]

It's a divination: Xorvintal can counter it, under the correct circumstances.

That... now that is an interesting ability. I have not heard of that before. That and God Blooded of Vecna make for a very interesting combination! Especially because it stops anyone from learning about the dragon's "future game moves" through divination spells and similar effects.

[Bronk]

What is the interaction with God Blooded of Vecna (which grants immunity to all divination spells cast against it or cast to learn information about it, considering Foresight is yielding information about the Blooded creature's attack) and its Enigma Aura (which, as a standard option, makes enemies with 120 feet have a 50% chance to forget the Blooded creature is there with no save and is not listed as mind-affecting)?


There is very little interaction between 'foresight' and any ability that restricts divination spells on a personal level like 'mind blank', God Blooded of Vecna, and so on, because the target isn't those adversaries, it's you or your allies that you targeted. You might not know who is going to stab you, for example, but you know that you are about to get stabbed.



What is the interaction with Diamond Mind Sapphire Nightmare Blade, and other effects that specifically make an opponent flatfooted?


As the spell says, you are never flatfooted.



What constitutes danger or harm? Does that mean loss of HP?

Things like this are usually based on plain English meanings, and are also usually adjudicated in favor of the PC.



If so, if a vagabond cleric wanted to take a surprise round to heal you, would you be flatfooted against him with Foresight?


Is it really a surprise round if no one is attacking you?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

There is very little interaction between 'foresight' and any ability that restricts divination spells on a personal level like 'mind blank', God Blooded of Vecna, and so on, because the target isn't those adversaries, it's you or your allies that you targeted. You might not know who is going to stab you, for example, but you know that you are about to get stabbed.Mind blank protects you from any divination spell that grants information about you. It doesn't just protect you from spells that target you. If a divination spell targets the caster but gives him information about you, and you have mind blank up, that spell fails to give information about you, no ifs, ands, or buts. Any exceptions must explicitly call themselves out in their text.

[ryu]

Mind blank protects you from any divination spell that grants information about you. It doesn't just protect you from spells that target you. If a divination spell targets the caster but gives him information about you, and you have mind blank up, that spell fails to give information about you, no ifs, ands, or buts. Any exceptions must explicitly call themselves out in their text.

Problem being the foresight doesn't have to grant information about you. The relevant part is that the person it is cast on can't be flatfooted. No not even then. Doesn't require some enemy to be present either. You can be asleep, alone, in a room by yourself and you're still not flatfooted so long as this spell is up. It doesn't care about who you are or what template you have because the spell isn't even interacting with you in any way unless it's giving direct warning of future danger which is only half its effect. This ladies and gents is a ninth level spell. It gets to flat out speak in terms of absolutes like that.

[Doctor Despair]

Problem being the foresight doesn't have to grant information about you. The relevant part is that the person it is cast on can't be flatfooted. No not even then. Doesn't require some enemy to be present either. You can be asleep, alone, in a room by yourself and you're still not flatfooted so long as this spell is up. It doesn't care about who you are or what template you have because the spell isn't even interacting with you in any way unless it's giving direct warning of future danger which is only half its effect. This ladies and gents is a ninth level spell. It gets to flat out speak in terms of absolutes like that.

Compare that to the Xorvintaal feature, however. That is the only ability that I've seen that specifically seems to address the function of Foresight, which is a warning of future danger -- but that warning in and of itself involves violating the Xorvintaal feature. I've not used the term, but it seems like here the specific ability of Xorvintaal would trump the general of Foresight? It's in the MMV by the way, if you wanted to check the exact wording and context.

[ryu]

Compare that to the Xorvintaal feature, however. That is the only ability that I've seen that specifically seems to address the function of Foresight, which is a warning of future danger -- but that warning in and of itself involves violating the Xorvintaal feature. I've not used the term, but it seems like here the specific ability of Xorvintaal would trump the general of Foresight? It's in the MMV by the way, if you wanted to check the exact wording and context.

So it doesn't trigger the future warning function of foresight? Jolly good. Still doesn't matter. That's only half the effect of foresight, and the other half is a statement of fact relating to never being flatfooted with no qualifying statements. Someone under foresight is never flatfooted. Not even then. No not even if you attack them and are immune to divinations or specifically don't trigger future warnings. That just stops the other half of the effect that allows the subject to have knowledge of the danger he's acting with immediates against. He still totally gets his immediates though.

[Bronk]

Mind blank protects you from any divination spell that grants information about you. It doesn't just protect you from spells that target you. If a divination spell targets the caster but gives him information about you, and you have mind blank up, that spell fails to give information about you, no ifs, ands, or buts. Any exceptions must explicitly call themselves out in their text.

I agree. The thing is, the Foresight spell gives you information about the danger status of your own body, not your mind blanked assailants. If you have foresight up and are about to be stabbed, your body is about to be imperiled it whether the person behind the knife is warded or not. You'll get a warning, saying, 'hey, heads up, you're about to be attacked', and then you'll be on guard.

[Doctor Despair]

So it doesn't trigger the future warning function of foresight? Jolly good. Still doesn't matter. That's only half the effect of foresight, and the other half is a statement of fact relating to never being flatfooted with no qualifying statements. Someone under foresight is never flatfooted. Not even then. No not even if you attack them and are immune to divinations or specifically don't trigger future warnings. That just stops the other half of the effect that allows the subject to have knowledge of the danger he's acting with immediates against. He still totally gets his immediates though.

So somehow we begin to cast a spell against the "not flatfooted" mage who otherwise has no idea what is happening.

His contingency spell triggers, obviously.

Our contingency spell triggers from his trigger.

Then his next one.

Then ours.

Ad nauseum. Assume we've had equal time to make these; the only fair measure is to assume we have the same amount, whether they be crafted contingent spells, the ninth level teleportation contingency, or what have you. Since his triggered first, ours triggers last as a Disjunction to dispel all of the contingency spells.

The enemy mage goes to cast a spell as an immediate action, perhaps a teleportation spell, perhaps a counterspell; in any event, we use our immediate action to counter his counter, or even just to cast an additional disjunction.

His half-crazed familiar, which has been preparing an action every turn to interrupt spellcasting, goes to cast a spell of some kind.

Our familiar likewise has been preparing to counter their familiar's spell. The same goes for both their immediates if they get them.

If they have Chronotyrm extra actions for the extra immediate, so do we in some fashion; in fact, we would benefit more from the extra actions since it is our turn and we get an extra immediate and an extra standard, so our extra standard could have been readied to stop any random standard action he may have prepared, though I do not believe, without the future warning part, the enemy mage would have had any notice to prepare an action with. If the future warning is stopped by the dragon ability, then we have an extra standard to cast offensive spells with.

The enemy mage has used his contingency spells, his immediates, his prepared spell, and his familiar has used its spells. Any magical protections he has should be dispelled. Naturally, this means that his astral projection should either wink out or be at a severe tactical disadvantage when we use our move action to move up to the mage and our second move action to pull the standard-attack-pumped fighter (who has prepared action to attack) out of our bag of holding.

The ability to negate the futuresense is very significant because it should prevent the enemy from readying an action or spell for the following round, cutting their action economy in half. :)

[ben-zayb]

So somehow we begin to cast a spell against the "not flatfooted" mage who otherwise has no idea what is happening.

His contingency spell triggers, obviously.

Our contingency spell triggers from his trigger.

Then his next one.

Then ours.

Ad nauseum. Assume we've had equal time to make these; the only fair measure is to assume we have the same amount, whether they be crafted contingent spells, the ninth level teleportation contingency, or what have you. Since his triggered first, ours triggers last as a Disjunction to dispel all of the contingency spells.

The enemy mage goes to cast a spell as an immediate action, perhaps a teleportation spell, perhaps a counterspell; in any event, we use our immediate action to counter his counter, or even just to cast an additional disjunction.

His half-crazed familiar, which has been preparing an action every turn to interrupt spellcasting, goes to cast a spell of some kind.

Our familiar likewise has been preparing to counter their familiar's spell. The same goes for both their immediates if they get them.

If they have Chronotyrm extra actions for the extra immediate, so do we in some fashion; in fact, we would benefit more from the extra actions since it is our turn and we get an extra immediate and an extra standard, so our extra standard could have been readied to stop any random standard action he may have prepared, though I do not believe, without the future warning part, the enemy mage would have had any notice to prepare an action with. If the future warning is stopped by the dragon ability, then we have an extra standard to cast offensive spells with.

The enemy mage has used his contingency spells, his immediates, his prepared spell, and his familiar has used its spells. Any magical protections he has should be dispelled. Naturally, this means that his astral projection should either wink out or be at a severe tactical disadvantage when we use our move action to move up to the mage and our second move action to pull the standard-attack-pumped fighter (who has prepared action to attack) out of our bag of holding.

The ability to negate the futuresense is very significant because it should prevent the enemy from readying an action or spell for the following round, cutting their action economy in half. :)Yup, that's one of many scenarios on how mid-op casters fight each other.

[ryu]

So somehow we begin to cast a spell against the "not flatfooted" mage who otherwise has no idea what is happening.

His contingency spell triggers, obviously.

Our contingency spell triggers from his trigger.

Then his next one.

Then ours.

Ad nauseum. Assume we've had equal time to make these; the only fair measure is to assume we have the same amount, whether they be crafted contingent spells, the ninth level teleportation contingency, or what have you. Since his triggered first, ours triggers last as a Disjunction to dispel all of the contingency spells.

The enemy mage goes to cast a spell as an immediate action, perhaps a teleportation spell, perhaps a counterspell; in any event, we use our immediate action to counter his counter, or even just to cast an additional disjunction.

His half-crazed familiar, which has been preparing an action every turn to interrupt spellcasting, goes to cast a spell of some kind.

Our familiar likewise has been preparing to counter their familiar's spell. The same goes for both their immediates if they get them.

If they have Chronotyrm extra actions for the extra immediate, so do we in some fashion; in fact, we would benefit more from the extra actions since it is our turn and we get an extra immediate and an extra standard, so our extra standard could have been readied to stop any random standard action he may have prepared, though I do not believe, without the future warning part, the enemy mage would have had any notice to prepare an action with. If the future warning is stopped by the dragon ability, then we have an extra standard to cast offensive spells with.

The enemy mage has used his contingency spells, his immediates, his prepared spell, and his familiar has used its spells. Any magical protections he has should be dispelled. Naturally, this means that his astral projection should either wink out or be at a severe tactical disadvantage when we use our move action to move up to the mage and our second move action to pull the standard-attack-pumped fighter (who has prepared action to attack) out of our bag of holding.

The ability to negate the futuresense is very significant because it should prevent the enemy from readying an action or spell for the following round, cutting their action economy in half. :)

You had a lot of the high tier staples down but forgot one thing. It's possible to pull an arbitrarily large number of costless artifacts from a spell component pouch. Because of how disjunction interacts with artifacts the spell suddenly becomes actively detrimental to the caster. As an additional point there's minions and mindsight to consider. Both of those things are terrifying and likely held by both sides. Net effect though? Attaining true surprise is unlikely even while immune to divinations. I mean I guess there's that ability you can get with six spent levels, but that loses a lot of caster levels.

[Doctor Despair]

You had a lot of the high tier staples down but forgot one thing. It's possible to pull an arbitrarily large number of costless artifacts from a spell component pouch. Because of how disjunction interacts with artifacts the spell suddenly becomes actively detrimental to the caster. As an additional point there's minions and mindsight to consider. Both of those things are terrifying and likely held by both sides. Net effect though? Attaining true surprise is unlikely even while immune to divinations. I mean I guess there's that ability you can get with six spent levels, but that loses a lot of caster levels.

I'm actually considering a build for just this purpose, and as of right now it can get within ~121 feet iirc. By going psionic first, you can get the Slayer ability to block mindsight, the dragon ability (ability ripped from a willing dragon and astral seeded) blocks Foresight, Vecna-Blooded blocks divination, Mindblank Detect Hostile Intent, Ghostform to Touchsight, Magic Aura to Arcane Eye, Necropolitan to Lifesense, uhhhh... other things. The main barriers are a psionic character ripping Magic Sense from the one magic-eating swarm (range of 30 feet) and someone ripping Dweomersight from the Balhammoth I think it was called (pinpointing ANY magic aura within 120 feet? Please... T.T). So far as I can tell, there is no way to get past those two abilities, so the disjunction spell specifically (unless we can DMM it or something) is just an ideal. Oh, and maxxed hide, invisibility (vecna blocks truesight), item familiar, etc. The standard pumping things.

Now, that build gets you effective invisibility so long as you stay ~121 feet away. The pros of Vecna also mean that, until you strike, no one is going to use that 9th level psion ability to search for you, ice assassin you, or go back in time to find you; they have no knowledge that you exist, so you do get the element of surprise, and if you reapply the Vecna template immediately afterward, everyone forgets you struck in the first place. But how, exactly, are you striking as a mere unoptimized psion? Those six slayer levels do hurt.

As I understand it, astral seed is, again, the answer here. By using fusion with a cohort (again, we're avoiding any NPC interaction if we can avoid it), we can gain all kinds of delicious benefits from an astral seed, namely ninth level casting and 17th (if not higher) caster level, maybe even 40 after circle magic effects proc. If you take the cohort early on, you can powerlevel the guy and tell him what classes and feats to take. The most important things to get from him are, of course, Initiate of Mystra (because selective AMF is kind of hard to bypass) and ninth level casting, with access to individual arcane spells as need be, such as ability rip or disjunction.

Assuming the contingencies cancel out (disjunction was the easiest spell to think about here, but it really doesn't matter as long as the last interrupt spell to be cast is a disjunction to cancel the previous ones), I'm not really sure what all spells would be best to trigger here. It's possible the caster doesn't have Dweomersight, but if we're being truly safe, we have to assume they do. That means we're kept at a distance of 121 feet -- medium range at least -- to maintain that element of surprise. I'm just not sure what to do here considering even greater dispel magic will likely flop since it caps at +20 bonus.

Still, I feel there's something valuable to be done here. If ever there was a character that could beat out a mage, it would be one that denies the mage prepared standard actions and so seeks to out-action-economy them on the fly, but... I haven't figured out exactly where to take this yet.

Edit:

This is assuming that the mage has not cheesed to NI/I stats. I always plan assuming a fully optimized character that has not used infinitely looping/recursive abilities in that way.

As for the artifacts... funnily enough, the deity would be aware the artifact broke, but when it looked to see what happened to the artifact, all it would see is the enemy caster that pulled them out of the pouch with all the divination-and-remote-viewing protection this character has, haha. In any event, they'd need to have a prepared action to pull the artifacts out of their spell-pouch, otherwise, unless it's on their character sheet, it isn't there. :p

Edit 2:

I am considering looking into Astral Dreadnaughts and how I might use them on a mage's astral cord, since no one ever thinks to protect that (nor can they, to my knowledge?) or else some sort of Githyanki sword nonsense from the astral plane. Still, I figured I'd investigate spell potentials first before delving into that 3.0 unconverted mess.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Three levels of cleric and Initiate of Mystra + AMF or Planar Bubble for a dead magic plane (see: near the Spire, in the Outlands) should block any magic sensing, and it has the benefit of negating other spellcasters that get near you and rendering a number of spells and other abilities useless against you. The only real downsides are needing to make CL checks to cast and not being able to use magic items. Replace the latter with devices, from Ravenloft: Legacy of the Blood. If all of your items are constant use, you only ever need one battery charge to activate them, and they're good from then on.

[Doctor Despair]

Three levels of cleric and Initiate of Mystra + AMF or Planar Bubble for a dead magic plane (see: near the Spire, in the Outlands) should block any magic sensing, and it has the benefit of negating other spellcasters that get near you and rendering a number of spells and other abilities useless against you. The only real downsides are needing to make CL checks to cast and not being able to use magic items. Replace the latter with devices, from Ravenloft: Legacy of the Blood. If all of your items are constant use, you only ever need one battery charge to activate them, and they're good from then on.

The downside to putting this character in an AMF or DMZ is that, while he could cast spells as the Initiate of Mystra, supernatural abilities and whatnot would be suppressed. Thus, we block Dweomersight and Magic Sense, but we leave ourselves open to all the divination effects, mind sight, and the works. Now, a selective AMF should leave those up, but then the issue of auras comes up again. It seems like we have to choose between the two. The main reason I wanted to get Initiate is to cast spells (other than orbs) into other mages AMFs, which they really have no reason not to have DMM persisted considering they aren't trying to be stealthy. Well, not as stealthy.

Now, devices... Devices I don't know about. We can get mindblank as an ability from Slayer with three more levels, so we can make due without that magic item. Our item familiar would be hard to give up for the bonus to hide, as would ghostform (now we can't just max hide), magical enhancements to dex, our ring of invisibility... A very rough, old version of the build is here, before I knew anything about psionics (I still know precious little, haha):
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?472675-Have-you-seen-this-man.

My impression is that being in an AMF personally is bad news bears for this character, though, even as an Initiate.

[ben-zayb]

Out-actioning your fellow caster can be done using Spell Stowaway feats for Wish, Miracle, Celerity, etc. You can get it pre-epic in more than one ways, but the PrC Void Disciple being the most obvious. Of course, you still have to keep in mind that all of your tools, a 9ths caster will just as likely have them available for use.

[ryu]

First off the artifacts are always on the sheet... from level 1. They free, weightless, and nope a rather powerful level nine spell. Why on earth not?

And with the acquisition of dead magic selective planar effects we start getting into tippy level tricks. From here the most significant leaps in power I'm familiar with involve arbitrarily large numbers of micro-minions, ridiculous stat boosting through swarm mechanics, and good old fashioned Aleax. Well there's also pun-pun, but everything previous is what I know that doesn't require making up abilities.

In summary at the highest levels of optimization no one can hurt or even inconvenience anyone else. The very concept of conflict becomes hilariously moot. For this reason I consider D&D to have an uplifting message about piece. Learn to live with your neighbors. You really can't get rid of each other.

[Doctor Despair]

Out-actioning your fellow caster can be done using Spell Stowaway feats for Wish, Miracle, Celerity, etc. You can get it pre-epic in more than one ways, but the PrC Void Disciple being the most obvious. Of course, you still have to keep in mind that all of your tools, a 9ths caster will just as likely have them available for use.

Yes, but that's where the element of surprise does come in handy. By denying them readied actions, we net ourselves a standard action to initiate (which means our last contingency resolves after (in response to) their last contingency), and then we also have a readied action to use that they do not. Providing all things are equal in terms of resources, denying them two actions and taking those two ourselves should lead to a successful encounter where we meet another mage (meet here meaing "spot with true seeing on the material plane").

Now, a given mage could hide in a pocket dimension and whatnot, so this is only effective for dealing with an astral projection. If the enemy caster does not try to scry us (which they shouldn't due to the Vecna Blooded), we actually have no way of knowing where they are. The astral cord trick is probably the only way to kill the original caster, but again, I haven't put any planning into that element. We could rip the ability to sever the cord from the dreadnaught, yes, but getting up to it and cutting it is an entirely different matter -- that might best be solved from the astral plane.


First off the artifacts are always on the sheet... from level 1. They free, weightless, and nope a rather powerful level nine spell. Why on earth not?

And with the acquisition of dead magic selective planar effects we start getting into tippy level tricks. From here the most significant leaps in power I'm familiar with involve arbitrarily large numbers of micro-minions, ridiculous stat boosting through swarm mechanics, and good old fashioned Aleax. Well there's also pun-pun, but everything previous is what I know that doesn't require making up abilities.

In summary at the highest levels of optimization no one can hurt or even inconvenience anyone else. The very concept of conflict becomes hilariously moot. For this reason I consider D&D to have an uplifting message about piece. Learn to live with your neighbors. You really can't get rid of each other.

Sure, they have them. Vecna-blooded, the slayer ability, and the dragon ability essentially grant invisibility to even deities however. An initial glance at the artifact will only show the caster who put it in their pouch to begin with. Perhaps we can assume a deity will intervene for us and smite the projection, haha. In any event, disjunction clearly isn't the answer we're looking for only because of the close range limit, not the artifact issue. :p

Essentially, planning this character, I came to the conclusion that any character who took advantage of Tippy-level tricks to get NI/I stats immediately ascended to the Tippyverse where they romp and play and all the other sorts of things omnipotent beings do when the mortal universe is literally insignificant to them, haha.

[ben-zayb]

The problem I see with this is assuming that both of your contingencies will just cancel off each other, when in fact, neither of you will likely have no idea what each one is packing. Also,this being TO, I'm assuming that this is all just hypotheticals. However, if this is to be used by a PC in an actual (uber-power) campaign against a BBEG, the BBEG will likely have higher level, and more contingencies, consequently, than the PC.

[ryu]

Oh and just for kicks have you ever read the glorious stupidity that is acorn of far travel and considered potential applications. This game is full of shenanigans. It's got more shenanigans than anime has absurd looking hairstyles, and that's a LOT of shenanigans.

Also just gonna point out that once ninths are on the table level doesn't matter unless it's allowing access to epic stuff.

[Doctor Despair]

The problem I see with this is assuming that both of your contingencies will just cancel off each other, when in fact, neither of you will likely have no idea what each one is packing. Also,this being TO, I'm assuming that this is all just hypotheticals. However, if this is to be used by a PC in an actual (uber-power) campaign against a BBEG, the BBEG will likely have higher level, and more contingencies, consequently, than the PC.

Well, if each contingency from this character is a Disjunction sequentially triggered by each contingency activating from the enemy mage or an immediate action being taken by the enemy mage, then it shouldn't matter what they have prepared. If every single contingency they have triggers one at a time, then we would out-last them by one; meanwhile, if they trigger multiple at a time, our spells would last longer. If they stopped triggering at a point, as they probably would since the standard mage has contingencies against things other than a total assault from an invisible psionic mage, then the Disjunction should destroy the remainder of their untriggered contingencies and the like. The single-mindedness of this build is its strength in this case because it doesn't need to pay much mind to defense, what with the invisibility.

Once you get a higher-level character, they can have epic wards that protect them from all spells and abilities, complete invisibility that can't be penetrated without epic level casting and an opposed caster check, and all sorts of shenanigans like that. This character is effective up to and until level twenty, at which point it stops being effective at killing level appropriate mages and just settles for being invisible to them. So long as they stay at least 120 feet away. Although at that level I suppose an effective means of gathering first-hand information would be nice for a party, considering all the defenses against divination that start cropping up.

[ryu]

I would also point out that one flaw in your method is to assume equal numbers of contingencies. This actually benefits the mage. Did you know there are immediate action spells which can simply be cast from slots that counter disjunction?

[Doctor Despair]

I would also point out that one flaw in your method is to assume equal numbers of contingencies. This actually benefits the mage. Did you know there are immediate action spells which can simply be cast from slots that counter disjunction?

But a character only gets one (or two, if you are a Chronotyrm) immediate actions per round, yes? And we get the same number of them.

Edit:

What method would you suggest would be fair to determine how many contingencies someone has? All things being fair, each mage had an indefinite amount of time to prepare them. How do we measure the average or even maximum paranoia of a mage? How do we measure the thoroughness of this assassin? How do we prevent this from dissolving into an argument of "My guy has more foresight!" "Noooo, MY guy has more foresight!" Hence, I assumed both were of equal paranoia -- or rather, assumed maximum thoroughness of the assassin, allowing that anyone who was any more paranoid than that would never risk even using an astral projection in the first place as it is far too dangerous what with the astral cord being exposed and all.

Edit 2:

This is a very different scenario without the use of Disjunction, however. I'm not sure what spells to use here to accomplish a similar effect, only that it would be at some sort of advantage because we have use of a move action and two standards over the enemy; potentially we could even trade out the move for another standard if we use the move to pull out an ally from a bag of holding, haha.

[ben-zayb]

Huh, you better be within 40ft of the caster (which you can't, because 120ft limit), then, or else you'll be gimping yourself.

Once triggered, a contingent spell takes immediate effect upon the bearer (or is centered in the bearer’s square if the spell affects an area).Emphasis mine.


Of course, you can just say "Oh, no, I use Contingent Celerity instead!", but as Ryu said, we'll go back to that endless schrodinger's preparation where you end up Disjuncting a simple clone anyways, and now the real mage is alerted of your presence.

[Doctor Despair]

Huh, you better be within 40ft of the caster (which you can't, because 120ft limit), then, or else you'll be gimping yourself.
Emphasis mine.


Of course, you can just say "Oh, no, I use Contingent Celerity instead!", but as Ryu said, we'll go back to that endless schrodinger's preparation where you end up Disjuncting a simple clone anyways, and now the real mage is alerted of your presence.

Well, I'm the one who mentioned that issue. :p But it should only be the last action that matters. Regardless, that's why I'm considering something to do with the astral cord. I think that's the only weakness a mage could possibly have, if the aim was actually to kill a caster. Barring that, one might settle for using magic to dispel or otherwise kill off the projection before immediately going to renew the God Blooded of Vecna template to remove all knowledge of the character from the world. XP for successful encounter, no real net harm done to either party.

[ryu]

But a character only gets one (or two, if you are a Chronotyrm) immediate actions per round, yes? And we get the same number of them.

Edit:

What method would you suggest would be fair to determine how many contingencies someone has? All things being fair, each mage had an indefinite amount of time to prepare them. How do we measure the average or even maximum paranoia of a mage? How do we measure the thoroughness of this assassin? How do we prevent this from dissolving into an argument of "My guy has more foresight!" "Noooo, MY guy has more foresight!" Hence, I assumed both were of equal paranoia -- or rather, assumed maximum thoroughness of the assassin, allowing that anyone who was any more paranoid than that would never risk even using an astral projection in the first place as it is far too dangerous what with the astral cord being exposed and all.

The simplest answer is to have it be astral projections of ice assassins you made of yourself. No matter what you do to any of the horde of me that does my bidding outside my personal plane, the most you will ever accomplish is to mildly inconvenience me. Why ever leave your plane? You have tools to experience whatever you want there, and interact with anything not there with no risk to yourself. That's the easiest way of obtaining the literally impossible to kill even theory powerset.

Also only spells contingencied by the spell contingency have to be centered on self to my knowledge. Craft contingent spell spells can target however you want.

[Doctor Despair]

The simplest answer is to have it be astral projections of ice assassins you made of yourself. No matter what you do to any of the horde of me that does my bidding outside my personal plane, the most you will ever accomplish is to mildly inconvenience me. Why ever leave your plane? You have tools to experience whatever you want there, and interact with anything not there with no risk to yourself. That's the easiest way of obtaining the literally impossible to kill even theory powerset.

Also only spells contingencied by the spell contingency have to be centered on self to my knowledge. Craft contingent spell spells can target however you want.

Now that is a good point. Astral Projection you can work your way around. Astral Projections of Ice Assassins, on the other hand... Hard to say. On that note, I suppose it is literally impossible to ever kill a mage. Defeat one in an encounter? Surely. But this manner of approach is unhelpful.

Now, a mage that has not taken six levels in Slayer may be vulnerable to being found by the Vecna Blooded template. If the mage or his ice assassins ever tries to use divination to find this assassin, the assassin will immediately know where the caster is -- worded such that it bypasses Sequester. Now, if the assassin immediately reapplies the template, the mage should forget that this assassin exists.

This should mean that the mage has effectively found either the mage's unconscious body or, more likely, the body of an ice assassin, which is within one mile of the mage's body. In all likelihood this means they are on a demiplane. I do not know enough about planar travel to know how inaccessible such a plane is, but it should be connected to the astral plane, leaving the body vulnerable to having its astral cord severed, yes? So the assassin needs to approach the demiplane from the astral plane, use true seeing and probably dweomersight (since we've found it's infallible thusfar) to find the mage's original body in a sweep of the plane, and sever the cord.

Now, again, the mage likely has several ice assassins with dweomersight guarding the astral cord. This, I think, is the end of where my conjecture can go. At this point, my instinct would be to say "well then the assassin ought to have an equal number of ice assassin... well... assassins hunting the body!" I'm unsure of the implications of putting that many casters in the astral plane like that, nor am I 100% on multi-caster battle mechanics. Heck, I'm only just coming to competency on single-caster assassination mechanics, which are probably the simplest of any caster interactions there could possibly be.

Edit: Of course, a truly paranoid mage would first take all the steps this assassin has taken, including those six slayer levels... Although I think it's equally likely they would just depend on their magical defenses since they don't explicitly need to be invisible with their current setup and a 6 level adjustment is hard to shake without astral seed shenanigans.

[ryu]

Actually planes created by genesis have no limit on the rules that apply to them. They can have any number of planar traits, and as such you can be on one without having to worry about a cord just as if you were on material if the caster of the plane made it that way. The other fun benefit? The caster doesn't have to stop at one plane. The plane his ice assassins project from doesn't have to be the same as his body. It's starting to get terrifying to even consider the logistics of how to harm a person with these tools isn't it? Even without tippy tricks it's almost impossible to instigate a real conflict with actual stakes.

[Doctor Despair]

Actually planes created by genesis have no limit on the rules that apply to them. They can have any number of planar traits, and as such you can be on one without having to worry about a cord just as if you were on material if the caster of the plane made it that way. The other fun benefit? The caster doesn't have to stop at one plane. The plane his ice assassins project from doesn't have to be the same as his body. It's starting to get terrifying to even consider the logistics of how to harm a person with these tools isn't it? Even without tippy tricks it's almost impossible to instigate a real conflict with actual stakes.

Don't you have to be within one mile of your ice assassin to control them, though? I'd imagine they'd have to be on the same plane to quantify that distance. Still, as to what body Vecna Blooded would indicate (the conscious one or the original one?), I suppose it's up to DM fiat. Of course, as a psion (our original class, after all), the metafaculty skill would reveal the location of the plane the mage was on once we had seen the caster or some incarnation of him. That could provoke the journey towards them, at least. I am unsure of what exact barriers you could put up to make the planar travel inaccessible to anything but a completely optimized character however, given enough time and ample resources. As I said, I am unfamiliar with the precise mechanics of planar travel apart from there are spells to do it and apparently survival checks to do it as well.

[ryu]

Don't you have to be within one mile of your ice assassin to control them, though? I'd imagine they'd have to be on the same plane to quantify that distance. Still, as to what body Vecna Blooded would indicate (the conscious one or the original one?), I suppose it's up to DM fiat. Of course, as a psion (our original class, after all), the metafaculty skill would reveal the location of the plane the mage was on once we had seen the caster or some incarnation of him. That could provoke the journey towards them, at least. I am unsure of what exact barriers you could put up to make the planar travel inaccessible to anything but a completely optimized character however, given enough time and ample resources. As I said, I am unfamiliar with the precise mechanics of planar travel apart from there are spells to do it and apparently survival checks to do it as well.

Seriously read acorn of far travel. It's just so gloriously stupid. Also reapplied vecna related template on the discovery/death of any ice assassin or daily whichever comes first. Good luck finding the real plane. Through selective planar traits we can render travel in or out somewhat... difficult for people who aren't the caster.

[icefractal]

You had a lot of the high tier staples down but forgot one thing. It's possible to pull an arbitrarily large number of costless artifacts from a spell component pouch.At the point when you treat "spell component pouch has infinite artifacts" seriously, doesn't "high tier" become an obsolete concept? A 1st-level Commoner is T0 (as is every other class), because they can pull out unlimited Wishes from their pouch (Talisman of Reluctant Wishes) and give themselves as much power as they want.

[ryu]

At the point when you treat "spell component pouch has infinite artifacts" seriously, doesn't "high tier" become an obsolete concept? A 1st-level Commoner is T0 (as is every other class), because they can pull out unlimited Wishes from their pouch (Talisman of Reluctant Wishes) and give themselves as much power as they want.

Actually the artifacts from the pouch do nothing. They have no cost, no weight, and don't require any specific form. All that is relevant to them is the interaction with disjunction and as a component for a nasty wide area killing spell.

[Doctor Despair]

Actually the artifacts from the pouch do nothing. They have no cost, no weight, and don't require any specific form. All that is relevant to them is the interaction with disjunction and as a component for a nasty wide area killing spell.

If you can make the will save, the deity-attention aspect of the spell is negligible. Heck, even without the ability to hide from gods, it doesn't say the attention is negative. At that point, it's up to DM fiat to decide how the gods feel about you destroying 100 free, powerless artifacts that are probably exact replicas of the thousand and thousands of others in every other spellcaster's pouch, so while it's funny, it's not really RAW to say it foils Disjunction in that way. :p Unless you can't make a DC 25 will save every time. THEN it gets a little dicey since you automatically lose all spell-casting ability from the infinite artifacts procing that save.

[Doctor Despair]

Sever Silver Cord (Ex): If the astral dreadnought can attack an astral traveler's back (by flanking it, catching it flat-footed, or pursuing it while panicked and fleeing), it can attack the silver cord that connects the astral form to its material counterpart. The normally insubstantial cord is treated as a tangible object with the owner's AC, hardness 10, and 20 hit points (see Attack an Object in Chapter 8 of the Player's Handbook). A silver cord visibly trails 5 feet behind an astral traveler before fading into the astral medium. Attacking it draws an attack of opportunity from the astral traveler. When the cord is damaged, the astral traveler must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 13) or be immediately forced to return to its body. Severing the silver cord destroys both the astral form and the body on the Material Plane.

Suppose we were to ability rip this power from an Astral Dreadnought (in the Manual of the Planes). The way it is worded, it seems as though you could attack with a ranged weapon so long as you attack the creatures back. At higher levels, it is certainly not possible to catch an enemy flatfooted (Foresight OP), and flanking seems like a poor choice if an attack from range will suffice (Even if we could somehow avoid Dweomersight), but what about "or pursuing it while panicked and fleeing"? The way it is phrased seems to allow for the assassin to be "panicked and fleeing". Suppose the assassin is fleeing a higher power all the time, and hence has this stealth, and is panicked by it. By taking -2 on almost everything, should you be able to proc this ability? And does this technically give someone who is otherwise unconscious from using Astral Projection an attack of opportunity that they are unable to take?

Edit:


A panicked creature must drop anything it holds and flee at top speed from the source of its fear, as well as any other dangers it encounters, along a random path. It can’t take any other actions. In addition, the creature takes a –2 penalty on all saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks. If cornered, a panicked creature cowers and does not attack, typically using the total defense action in combat. A panicked creature can use special abilities, including spells, to flee; indeed, the creature must use such means if they are the only way to escape.

So the creature cannot take any other actions... but may use special abilities and spells so long as they fulfill this "fleeing" quest. It seems like they should be unable to use the attack action? But many special abilities only apply when attacking. While it is an unconventional reading, it doesn't seem to disagree with the text, save that it must travel along a random path. That seems to make this less viable considering how carefully one must tread to avoid triggering spells and whatnot.

Is there any way, then, to trigger this Astral Dreadnought ability?

... Actually, it seems that Sequester foils any Foresight a mage might put on itself, unless I am wrong. Foresight specifically is self-cast, detecting any danger to the caster. Does Sequester cause Foresight to fizzle if you try to cast it on yourself while sequestered? If that's the cast, then the flatfooted status may be more achievable that it initially seemed.

[ryu]

If you can make the will save, the deity-attention aspect of the spell is negligible. Heck, even without the ability to hide from gods, it doesn't say the attention is negative. At that point, it's up to DM fiat to decide how the gods feel about you destroying 100 free, powerless artifacts that are probably exact replicas of the thousand and thousands of others in every other spellcaster's pouch, so while it's funny, it's not really RAW to say it foils Disjunction in that way. :p Unless you can't make a DC 25 will save every time. THEN it gets a little dicey since you automatically lose all spell-casting ability from the infinite artifacts procing that save.

Ah but you don't get just ONE will save per casting. You get one per artifact and everyone rolls a one eventually. How many rolls can you make without any ones? 1000? 1000000? 1,000,000,000,000?

[Âmesang]

"You cannot move or harm items held, carried, or worn by a creature stuck in normal time"
I've got the most scathingly brilliant idea! You erect walls on all side of the person whilst under time stop, then conjure forth concrete to fill in the "box" (with the person inside).

I'm sure there must be some sort of "instant hardening" spell around, right? :smallbiggrin:

(Granted, I'm still trying to figure out how to replicate this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbArvIqZzkI) in D&D just 'cause.)

[Doctor Despair]

Ah but you don't get just ONE will save per casting. You get one per artifact and everyone rolls a one eventually. How many rolls can you make without any ones? 1000? 1000000? 1,000,000,000,000?

Depends, how many weighted die do I get? :p Regardless, you're very right; so we'd have to approach the mage with an ice assassin of ourselves and have the ice assassin disjunction it.

Ryu, what do you think about the interaction between the ever-popular Sequester and Foresight?

Edit:

Ame, the only issue with that is that their contingencies would still pop, even during your time stop. D:

[ryu]

Depends, how many weighted die do I get? :p Regardless, you're very right; so we'd have to approach the mage with an ice assassin of ourselves and have the ice assassin disjunction it.

Ryu, what do you think about the interaction between the ever-popular Sequester and Foresight?

Edit:

Ame, the only issue with that is that their contingencies would still pop, even during your time stop. D:

I'd say it prevents warnings but doesn't make flatfooted happen. Nothing makes flatfooted happen.

[Doctor Despair]

I'd say it prevents warnings but doesn't make flatfooted happen. Nothing makes flatfooted happen.

Fair enough, so the only way to proc the ability would be to flank -- granted the astral projection/sequester/what have you invariably leaves the caster's body vacant in some manner, so at least we won't have to contest with Dweomersight or Magic Sense. Of course, there may be sentries posted with the aforementioned abilities. I believe if we can achieve incorporeality without a spell (natural or changed type or what have you), then we can bypass Dweomersight by forgoing contingent spells and magical items, but that leaves us vulnerable to their contingent spells.

(An aside: I am still not 100% clear on how one would have an ice assassin sentry in this manner. Your consciousness is elsewhere due to astral projection; it is from that consciousness that you direct the ice assassin, yes? Doesn't that force you to keep your ice assassins within that one mile radius of your consciousness?)

For each sentry they have, however, we can have an additional ice assassin, once again assuming equal resources. Let's say we have two assassins approach the body on a charge with pounce, triggering contingent magic, triggering our contingent magic to counter it, immediate, immediate, etc. I feel like at this point it is a matter of placement of ice assassins, the spells actually matter... The tactics of this multi-clone fighting is a little beyond me.

If this mage applies that many contingency spells to its ice assassin clones (as it has to, since this eventuality exists), then its astral projection should be less protected in that way, leaving it more vulnerable to this form of attack. As I understand it, either end of the cord being severed would be just as fatal.

It does feel very off-flavor, however, to have to charge... If we devote three ice assassins to the task, two could carry two other assassins forward, taking two move actions to close the 120 foot gap. We would win the contingency war there, so we should be able to get into that flanking position.

Ultimately, astral projection seems to be a trap against this kind of assailant. You have to split your resources between defending the body and defending the projection, whereas the assailant need only focus on offensive uses for resources.

[ryu]

Fair enough, so the only way to proc the ability would be to flank -- granted the astral projection/sequester/what have you invariably leaves the caster's body vacant in some manner, so at least we won't have to contest with Dweomersight or Magic Sense. Of course, there may be sentries posted with the aforementioned abilities. I believe if we can achieve incorporeality without a spell (natural or changed type or what have you), then we can bypass Dweomersight by forgoing contingent spells and magical items, but that leaves us vulnerable to their contingent spells.

(An aside: I am still not 100% clear on how one would have an ice assassin sentry in this manner. Your consciousness is elsewhere due to astral projection; it is from that consciousness that you direct the ice assassin, yes? Doesn't that force you to keep your ice assassins within that one mile radius of your consciousness?)

For each sentry they have, however, we can have an additional ice assassin, once again assuming equal resources. Let's say we have two assassins approach the body on a charge with pounce, triggering contingent magic, triggering our contingent magic to counter it, immediate, immediate, etc. I feel like at this point it is a matter of placement of ice assassins, the spells actually matter... The tactics of this multi-clone fighting is a little beyond me.

If this mage applies that many contingency spells to its ice assassin clones (as it has to, since this eventuality exists), then its astral projection should be less protected in that way, leaving it more vulnerable to this form of attack. As I understand it, either end of the cord being severed would be just as fatal.

It does feel very off-flavor, however, to have to charge... If we devote three ice assassins to the task, two could carry two other assassins forward, taking two move actions to close the 120 foot gap. We would win the contingency war there, so we should be able to get into that flanking position.

Ultimately, astral projection seems to be a trap against this kind of assailant. You have to split your resources between defending the body and defending the projection, whereas the assailant need only focus on offensive uses for resources.

Relevant resource is acorn of far travel. It's an obscure little druid spell of low enough level as to be easily obtainable. It allows the being effected by it to treat themselves as if they were standing under a specific tree rather than where they actually are for magical, and planar effects.

Also selective planar traits. How do you react to the plane being dead magic to all but the caster, disallowing planar travel in or out for all but the caster, and altered time traits that makes everyone not the caster get one tenth the turns? This is one of those things that makes attacking people on their plane terrifying. As a place they invented all the rules benefit them, and usually to an immense and unfair degree.

[Doctor Despair]

Relevant resource is acorn of far travel. It's an obscure little druid spell of low enough level as to be easily obtainable. It allows the being effected by it to treat themselves as if they were standing under a specific tree rather than where they actually are for magical, and planar effects.

Also selective planar traits. How do you react to the plane being dead magic to all but the caster, disallowing planar travel in or out for all but the caster, and altered time traits that makes everyone not the caster get one tenth the turns? This is one of those things that makes attacking people on their plane terrifying. As a place they invented all the rules benefit them, and usually to an immense and unfair degree.

Now that is something to contend with! Can you designate traits of the astral plane though? What is to stop someone from travelling up to the caster's body on the astral plane and snipping the cord? Or if you did, how all is the caster using astral projection?

[ryu]

Now that is something to contend with! Can you designate traits of the astral plane though? What is to stop someone from travelling up to the caster's body on the astral plane and snipping the cord? Or if you did, how all is the caster using astral projection?

The spell only says you have to be there when you cast it. It says nothing to prevent you from moving the body afterwards.

[Doctor Despair]

The spell only says you have to be there when you cast it. It says nothing to prevent you from moving the body afterwards.

I suppose, then, we have two roads to go down: targeting the caster, or targeting the body.

The body is essentially protected by half a slew of planar traits; iirc Planar Shepherd might help with that, might not, etc.

The caster has contingent spells to contend with.

An important factor to consider is whether or not the caster has put even one contingent spell into place on itself in the plane, or an ice assassin, or what have you. Every resource devoted to defense on that plane is a resource we have to attack the caster.

I'm also curious precisely what sorts of traits the most defensive caster could apply to a plane. I'm not aware of much to do with genesis and planar traits, so I don't know offhand what defenses someone might throw up.

[ryu]

I suppose, then, we have two roads to go down: targeting the caster, or targeting the body.

The body is essentially protected by half a slew of planar traits; iirc Planar Shepherd might help with that, might not, etc.

The caster has contingent spells to contend with.

An important factor to consider is whether or not the caster has put even one contingent spell into place on itself in the plane, or an ice assassin, or what have you. Every resource devoted to defense on that plane is a resource we have to attack the caster.

I'm also curious precisely what sorts of traits the most defensive caster could apply to a plane. I'm not aware of much to do with genesis and planar traits, so I don't know offhand what defenses someone might throw up.

It seems in your reading of astral projection you forgot to read one of the dumbest things about it. Your astral projection has all the gear, and ongoing permanent effects you do. That includes crafted contingent spells. It's actually a common exploit to cast this spell to multiply uses of spell activated items like scrolls of high level spells.

As no one planar trait exclusive with any other save those in direct conflict with each other? Basically anything beneficial can be used in combination. How many planar traits have you read? I'll tell you right now there's a lot of them. Planar shepherd will help a bit. It can prevent you from being effected at negative traits targeted at outsiders. It will only let you take in one beneficial trait unless you create your own demiplane. Sadly though you've already dropped a lot of caster levels at this point.

[Doctor Despair]

Sadly though you've already dropped a lot of caster levels at this point.

It occurs to me that it would be quicker to simply have a psion as a cohort. If you are in control of the fused creature when you use Astral Seed and you die before your cohort, it should function much the same, save that we now have CL 20 -- or higher, with boosts and whatnot.

[ryu]

It occurs to me that it would be quicker to simply have a psion as a cohort. If you are in control of the fused creature when you use Astral Seed and you die before your cohort, it should function much the same, save that we now have CL 20 -- or higher, with boosts and whatnot.

The problem with that plan is that if we start allowing you to use various stat boosting possibly NI tricks the same restriction is lifted from me. Do you really want to see where that goes?

[Doctor Despair]

The problem with that plan is that if we start allowing you to use various stat boosting possibly NI tricks the same restriction is lifted from me. Do you really want to see where that goes?

No, no NI tricks. Are you not referring to opposed caster level checks? I just meant that this character can boost if the enemy can; more or less what you just said, haha.

Edit: So Planar Bubble from Planar Shepherd wouldn't help with the hostile elements in the caster's plane? Or, if we have the cohort before it takes Planar Shepherd, couldn't it select the caster's plane as its Planar Attunement?

[ryu]

No, no NI tricks. Are you not referring to opposed caster level checks? I just meant that this character can boost if the enemy can; more or less what you just said, haha.

What I meant was that the psionic version of genesis explicitly disallows the shenanigans I'm talking about and thus you don't have access to enough CL to in the arcane version. The advantage I get is that all my tricks are either entirely arcane or very low level from other sources for ease of maintenance. You have to be very careful what class' tricks you intend to use, because past a certain point you allow me to start using all of them.

In other words you start taking cohorts and astral seeding them. I'm allowed to do much more terrifying things.

Also I meant that planar shepherd would help you against negative traits pointed at outsiders. On top of that it would get you one positive trait unless you also had your own plane created as per the arcane/divine genesis.

[Doctor Despair]

What I meant was that the psionic version of genesis explicitly disallows the shenanigans I'm talking about and thus you don't have access to enough CL to in the arcane version. The advantage I get is that all my tricks are either entirely arcane or very low level from other sources for ease of maintenance. You have to be very careful what class' tricks you intend to use, because past a certain point you allow me to start using all of them.

In other words you start taking cohorts and astral seeding them. I'm allowed to do much more terrifying things.

Also I meant that planar shepherd would help you against negative traits pointed at outsiders. On top of that it would get you one positive trait unless you also had your own plane created as per the arcane/divine genesis.

In order to be able to affect folks who hide in a simple AMF, we need Initiate of Mystra -- unless there's some creature ability we can ability rip that lets them ignore AMF -- so I am assuming we have used fusion on a cohort here, and since we are assuming the enemy has access to Dweomersight via ability rip//astral seed, so do we have access to ability rip X//astral seed. We don't necessarily have to astral seed the cohort, but we benefit from the abilities it has nonetheless. I believe we can get any additional arcane spells from staffs and UMD, save those that we need contingencied, but I am unsure of what contingency chain to use at this point.

From a theoretical standpoint, it seems like someone more experienced than I, using this stealth concept, would be able to use planar shepherd, staffs, contingent spells, and so on to kill a mage via their astral cord -- I apologize if I make blunders while I am discussing this. As we've moved deeper into this discussion, we've slowly left my realm of experience (or plane of experience, if you will, haha), and I am relying on your expertise here.

In regard to planar shepherd: do you mean it blocks negative traits pointed at [subtype] Outsiders, or that it protects against negative traits affecting strangers/intruders? Is this using Planar Bubble as I think it is? And when you say you get one positive trait, what is that referring to? The exception, I think, is if you planar bubble a plain with effects that cancel out the caster's target plane, yes?

[ryu]

In order to be able to affect folks who hide in a simple AMF, we need Initiate of Mystra -- unless there's some creature ability we can ability rip that lets them ignore AMF -- so I am assuming we have used fusion on a cohort here, and since we are assuming the enemy has access to Dweomersight via ability rip//astral seed, so do we have access to ability rip X//astral seed. We don't necessarily have to astral seed the cohort, but we benefit from the abilities it has nonetheless. I believe we can get any additional arcane spells from staffs and UMD, save those that we need contingencied, but I am unsure of what contingency chain to use at this point.

From a theoretical standpoint, it seems like someone more experienced than I, using this stealth concept, would be able to use planar shepherd, staffs, contingent spells, and so on to kill a mage via their astral cord -- I apologize if I make blunders while I am discussing this. As we've moved deeper into this discussion, we've slowly left my realm of experience (or plane of experience, if you will, haha), and I am relying on your expertise here.

In regard to planar shepherd: do you mean it blocks negative traits pointed at [subtype] Outsiders, or that it protects against negative traits affecting strangers/intruders? Is this using Planar Bubble as I think it is? And when you say you get one positive trait, what is that referring to? The exception, I think, is if you planar bubble a plain with effects that cancel out the caster's target plane, yes?

Planar bubble allows you to act entirely as if the inside of the bubble was the plane you attuned. This would allow you to ignore a lot of negative effects I'd aim directly at you until I managed to break the bubble. Even without your own arcane/divine genesis you can still attune the bubble to planes that actually exist natively. Those are mostly one useful trait deals though. There's also the issue of your spells having to reach beyond your bubble that could cause problems for you. Essentially what I'm saying is that you get some good help if a bit limited even without arcane genesis, and slightly less limited help with it. There's still the issue that your planar bubble is a bubble rather than the entirety of the plane that will cause problems for you.