Fighter 20 vs Warlock 10

[Xetheral]

Phantasmal Force of an image of burning chains being wrapped around you and walls of spikes of necrotic death immediately around you. Or any other image. Phantasmal Force = hard CC with an even remotely creative player. So yes, it's only 1d6 pyschic. It also completely disables you unless you make a DC 17 Int save (can Indomintable that one) one casting or a DC 17 Int Check (can't indomintable that one) for every subsequent check. Good luck with your -1 Int modifier while the Wizard is STILL ATTACKING each round, which your Phantasmal Force'd mind will rationalize as damage from the spike wall/chains/acid/whatever. Don't blame me for people not knowing how Phantasmal Force works.

As demonstrated by the contentious threads on the subject, the effectiveness of Phantasmal Force as hard CC is debated. The text of the spell simply doesn't have enough detail to resolve all the questions--some of those who you accuse of "not knowing how Phantasmal Force works" instead have a reasoned interpretation that disagrees with yours.

[georgie_leech]

As demonstrated by the contentious threads on the subject, the effectiveness of Phantasmal Force as hard CC is debated. The text of the spell simply doesn't have enough detail to resolve all the questions--some of those who you accuse of "not knowing how Phantasmal Force works" instead have a reasoned interpretation that disagrees with yours.

For instance, burning chains should keep them from moving entirely, and yet they are not actually restricted from moving. Thus, they rationalize it as them slipping free from the chains. The damage from the attacking wizard must be due to mighty magic that can pass through walls. When they attempt to get through the walls, they use their strength and experience to break through the wall where it seems weakest, and so great is their power they they don't seem to feel a thing as they bring the wall down in pieces.

It's very much debatable whether 'rationalize the inconsistencies' means they believe they can't do what they think they can't but should be able to, or if the illusion alters itself so that what seems inconsistent isn't.

[Cybren]

The wizard has to have line-of-sight to his target, without going through the Wall of Force. You can't get that without at minimum lying prone on the ground; and I'm not too sure even that would work, for a half-inch gap. How easy do you find it to see under doors, usually?
I think that RulesJD is vastly overestimating how large a half inch is. A half inch is the size of a dime. "waves hands, magic, tada" isn't a compelling argument, it's an arbitrary gimme to the wizard because they're predisposed to thinking the wizard should win.

[RulesJD]

The wizard has to have line-of-sight to his target, without going through the Wall of Force. You can't get that without at minimum lying prone on the ground; and I'm not too sure even that would work, for a half-inch gap. How easy do you find it to see under doors, usually?

Line of Sight isn't a problem because the Wall of Force is see through. It's Line of Effect that would be the problem but that's where the aforementioned 1/2 inch gap comes into play. (Nonmagical) Arrows can bend around corners or violate gravity so to speak, Magic can.

[Cybren]

As demonstrated by the contentious threads on the subject, the effectiveness of Phantasmal Force as hard CC is debated. The text of the spell simply doesn't have enough detail to resolve all the questions--some of those who you accuse of "not knowing how Phantasmal Force works" instead have a reasoned interpretation that disagrees with yours.

Besides, a level 20 fighter has a huge pile of HP, second wind, and if they're a champion, the ability to regen. An image of mean looking spikes may just have them decide "okay, I'll grit through those and impale the wizard". AKA: the dwarven method of trap disarmament

[RulesJD]

I think that RulesJD is vastly overestimating how large a half inch is. A half inch is the size of a dime. "waves hands, magic, tada" isn't a compelling argument, it's an arbitrary gimme to the wizard because they're predisposed to thinking the wizard should win.

I'm really not. Want to know how I'm right and you're wrong?


Forcecage bars are 1/2 inch apart. Tada, magic. You'd almost think I stole the item from somewhere else in the rulebook.



Also, regarding Phantasmal Force, it doesn't take a genius to come up with illusions that would last long enough to build up real barriers (Mold Earth, etc) to reinforce the illusion.

No doubt it's a spell that has a LOT of interpretation, such as can the Illusion move with the target, can it "seem" bigger than it is by creating the illusion of an infinitely deep hole that they're falling down, etc. With that said, it's hard to argue that a target that would step through an illusionary bridge and fall to their death would somehow rationalize the outcome, wouldn't rationalize that having their entire body suddenly encased in Adamantium wouldn't instead make their "Athletics" check to escape be done as an Investigation check to disbelieve, etc.

[Vogonjeltz]

You can't Dispel a Wall of Force, can't teleport through it.

Not true in 5th edition. You can't physically pass through the wall, teleportation works with no restrictions at all.

An EK has Arcane Charge and can, therefore, teleport without error automatically right through the wall of force.


5. He could try to Dispel it, because Polymorph is a level 4 spells he would need to make a DC 14 Int check without proficiency. Would fail about 45% of the time.

EK's get proficiency on their spellcasting. Dispelling a 4th level spell would only require a roll of 3 or higher on a d20 to succeed (8 or higher in the incredibly unlikely event that the EK had a +0 to their Int). Dispel Magic works 8.5 times out of 10.

A level 10 Wizard has only 6 + 9d6 + 10xconmod hp; (a range of 15-110 hp; ave of 37-87 hp, which itself averages to 62 hp).

For non-Ek's, I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to simply dig the measily 2 feet of dirt required, then squeeze under the wall of force and move in for the kill. This would all take only one round. They could action surge to kill the Wizard (average of 15 damage per hit is required, easily possible).


Everyone thinks that but *waves hands* magic, tada.

Many spells say that "at a point you can see". All you need after that is line of effect, which 1/2 inch is plenty. See PHB pg. 204.

This is true, however Wall of Force is invisible, so the Wizard won't actually be able to determine with any accuracy if the location they are targeting is truly unblocked by the wall. As it is invisible.


If the warlock and the fighter are both "broken" against each other, maybe that says that the metric you're using to define "broken" maybe isn't coherent.

I think you're giving too much creedance by using maybe. It's a meaningless (and therefore bad) metric.

[MaxWilson]

Line of Sight isn't a problem because the Wall of Force is see through. It's Line of Effect that would be the problem but that's where the aforementioned 1/2 inch gap comes into play. (Nonmagical) Arrows can bend around corners or violate gravity so to speak, Magic can.

That's not true. I don't know where you're getting your information on so-called "Line of Effect" but it's not from the 5E PHB or the DMG. Here's a quote for you:


A Clear Path to the Target

To target something, you must have a clear path to it, so it can’t be behind total cover...

A spell’s effect expands in straight lines from the point of origin. If no unblocked straight line extends from the point of origin to a location within the area of effect, that location isn’t included in the spell’s area. To block one of these imaginary lines, an obstruction must provide total cover.

If you have to make your missile turn a corner to hit the other guy, guess what? He's got total cover.

===============================================


EK's get proficiency on their spellcasting. Dispelling a 4th level spell would only require a roll of 3 or higher on a d20 to succeed (8 or higher in the incredibly unlikely event that the EK had a +0 to their Int). Dispel Magic works 8.5 times out of 10.

I think you're confusing the EK with the Abjuror. EKs Dispel with a pure Int check; Abjurors get proficiency bonus, and bards get half-proficiency bonus plus possible Peerless Skill.

[Cybren]

I'm really not. Want to know how I'm right and you're wrong?


Forcecage bars are 1/2 inch apart. Tada, magic. You'd almost think I stole the item from somewhere else in the rulebook.



Also, regarding Phantasmal Force, it doesn't take a genius to come up with illusions that would last long enough to build up real barriers (Mold Earth, etc) to reinforce the illusion.

No doubt it's a spell that has a LOT of interpretation, such as can the Illusion move with the target, can it "seem" bigger than it is by creating the illusion of an infinitely deep hole that they're falling down, etc. With that said, it's hard to argue that a target that would step through an illusionary bridge and fall to their death would somehow rationalize the outcome, wouldn't rationalize that having their entire body suddenly encased in Adamantium wouldn't instead make their "Athletics" check to escape be done as an Investigation check to disbelieve, etc.

You're the one that argued wall of force can't by using the exception to prove the rule. The same is true here. The reason the forcecage with 1/2'' bars allows spells to pass through is that the solid box specifically says it does not allow spells to pass through. It is not a property intrinsic to half inch wide gaps.

[MaxWilson]

I think you're giving too much creedance by using maybe. It's a meaningless (and therefore bad) metric.

Apparently my sense of humor is a bit on the dry side.

[RulesJD]

Not true in 5th edition. You can't physically pass through the wall, teleportation works with no restrictions at all.

An EK has Arcane Charge and can, therefore, teleport without error automatically right through the wall of force.



EK's get proficiency on their spellcasting. Dispelling a 4th level spell would only require a roll of 3 or higher on a d20 to succeed (8 or higher in the incredibly unlikely event that the EK had a +0 to their Int). Dispel Magic works 8.5 times out of 10.

A level 10 Wizard has only 6 + 9d6 + 10xconmod hp; (a range of 15-110 hp; ave of 37-87 hp, which itself averages to 62 hp).

For non-Ek's, I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to simply dig the measily 2 feet of dirt required, then squeeze under the wall of force and move in for the kill. This would all take only one round. They could action surge to kill the Wizard (average of 15 damage per hit is required, easily possible).



This is true, however Wall of Force is invisible, so the Wizard won't actually be able to determine with any accuracy if the location they are targeting is truly unblocked by the wall. As it is invisible.



I think you're giving too much creedance by using maybe. It's a meaningless (and therefore bad) metric.

1. The Wall absolutely block any teleportation that requires the Etheral Plane. The question is whether it blocks other teleportation. Unclear, indications are that it does (it blocks all physical and spells), but uncertain. Arcane Charge looks like a solid argument for by-passing it, but that's why a Wizard wouldn't bother putting up a Wall of Force around an EK, which I said multiple times in several posts.

2. NOOOOOOOOPE. Even if you're proficient in your casting stat (EK's aren't), add your proficiency bonus to spell attacks/save (EKs do), you do NOT add your proficiency modifier to Counterspell checks unless you're an Abjuration Wizard. So the best you can do is add +5.

*edit* And apparently Bards. Didn't know that.

3. Digging out roughly 4 Cubic feet of dirt in 6 seconds???? If you think I'm getting too grandiose in my expectations of magic in D&D, that's straight up hilarious. A modern day backhoe would take longer haha.

You're also assuming that the fight is taking place where there is soft dirt and not, you know, rock.

4. Do you know how Invisible works? Plus the WALL isn't invisible, it's TRANSPARENT. Biiiiig difference. You can see through it just fine, which is in the Fighter's favor because otherwise a Wizard could drop See Invisibility and have advantage on even 3/4 cover attack rolls (Fighter couldn't see the attacker).

[RulesJD]

You're the one that argued wall of force can't by using the exception to prove the rule. The same is true here. The reason the forcecage with 1/2'' bars allows spells to pass through is that the solid box specifically says it does not allow spells to pass through. It is not a property intrinsic to half inch wide gaps.

You're kidding right?

[RulesJD]

That's not true. I don't know where you're getting your information on so-called "Line of Effect" but it's not from the 5E PHB or the DMG. Here's a quote for you:



If you have to make your missile turn a corner to hit the other guy, guess what? He's got total cover.

===============================================



I think you're confusing the EK with the Abjuror. EKs Dispel with a pure Int check; Abjurors get proficiency bonus, and bards get half-proficiency bonus plus possible Peerless Skill.

Read what was written. The Wall of Force is not providing Total Cover because of the 1/2 inch gap. Ergo, magic blasto with 3/4 cover rules.

[Giant2005]

Read what was written. The Wall of Force is not providing Total Cover because of the 1/2 inch gap. Ergo, magic blasto with 3/4 cover rules.

If you want to get pedantic about the cover rules, then yes the Fighter is under full cover because none of him is exposed - all the Wizard can target is a very small section of a pair of boots, not the Fighter.

[Mellack]

Read what was written. The Wall of Force is not providing Total Cover because of the 1/2 inch gap. Ergo, magic blasto with 3/4 cover rules.

Sure there is a gap, but you can't actually make a straight line to the target through that gap. That is like claiming you can shoot someone through a skylight when he is on the other side of a wall. That is not how line of effect works.

[Misterwhisper]

I just had this picture in my head of a fighter in his nice armor and weapons trapped in a dome of force 1/2 inch off the ground and a wizard down on one knee with his face on the ground poking the end of his wand under the edge of the dome to point it at the fighter and the fighter stepping on it and pulling it out of the wizards hand and saying, "Now what?"

[Cazero]

Read what was written. The Wall of Force is not providing Total Cover because of the 1/2 inch gap. Ergo, magic blasto with 3/4 cover rules.

Fighters tend to be pretty taller than 2 inches. To exploit the 3/4 cover rules against an halfling, you need a 1 foot gap. With a coverage so close to 99.999%, pretending it isn't total cover is bad faith.

The reason forcecage doesn't provide total cover isn't the width of the holes, but their number.

[RulesJD]

It doesn't matter what you think, a 1/2 inch gap, by RAW, is not total cover from a magical spell when you only need Line of Effect (which there is) and Sight to the target (which there is from the Translucent nature of the dome).

Stop thinking that the Wizard is throwing a physical object subject to the rules of gravity, because they aren't.

Hell, Magic Missile alone doesn't give two craps so long as there is LoE and LoS and the level 10 Evocation Wizard will have more than enough to burn down the BM/Champ that is stuck under the dome.

I'm sorry you all think that Missile Weapons and Magic are somehow equal, because they're not.

Your better argument would be that by RAW the 1/2 inch is enough to shoot an arrow out of, but there is a colossal better argument that sort of thing wouldn't work for obviously reasons. Plus the Wizard can just Mold Earth themselves full cover and you get 1 arrow per turn after that from a Readied Action.


*edit*

Oh, and you're also arguing yourselves into a worse situation for the BM/Champ. If 1/2 inch is Total Cover, then the Wizard just does the same thing but casts the WoF over themselves. On its turn, just go to an area more than 5ft away, stick their wand under the dome, cast cantrip (Fighter now has 0 cover so Firebolt away) and moves back from under the edge.

Congrats, you are now even easier to kill (no cover) and can't do squat to the Wizard because it is behind Total Cover even when casting (the wand is outside, not the Wizard).

[Cybren]

You keep saying "line of effect". You're using a term from previous editions that does not exist in this edition. Here's what the rules actually say:


A Clear Path to the Target
To target something, you must have a clear path to it,
so it can’t be behind total cover.
If you place an area of effect at a point that you can’t
see and an obstruction, such as a wall, is between you
and that point, the point of origin comes into being on
the near side of that obstruction.


They have total cover, because functionally all of them is obstructed by the wall of force. You keep saying "magic! it doesn't need reasons! it's magic!", but the rules here are pretty clear.

[Naanomi]

Clearly cover goes both ways... If it is cover for the caster it is the same cover the other direction; the rules have no stipulation for 'size of arrow' and the like. If anyone can shoot an arrow through a tiny gap with accuracy; maybe it is the 'I'm literally the human pinnacle of fighting' level 20 guy

[Shaofoo]

Because for literally the reason I typed above *waves hands* magic, tada.

The Fighter has to shoot a physical object (arrow if not EK with cantrips) through the 1/2 gap at the bottom. The Wizard gets to use magic. Same reason the Message cantrip can bend around corners, Magic Missile auto-hits anything you can see, etc. I get that it's not fair, but this fight isn't about being fair. It's about abusing the spellcasting abilities of the Wizard to beat a Fighter twice its level.

It doesn't sound like you have the firmest grasp of the rules.

Besides the rules state that 3/4 cover is when the creature is about 3/4 covered. I dunno about you but 99% is much closer to 100% than 75% so I think most would rule total cover. Plus Malifice says that you can stand on an object and thus have full 100% cover that way.

Sorry but your magic does not supersede rules.

[mgshamster]

It doesn't sound like you have the firmest grasp of the rules.

Besides the rules state that 3/4 cover is when the creature is about 3/4 covered. I dunno about you but 99% is much closer to 100% than 75% so I think most would rule total cover. Plus Malifice says that you can stand on an object and thus have full 100% cover that way.

Sorry but your magic does not supersede rules.

So that's why people say wizards are OP; their magic allows them to ignore the rules! I guess I finally understand what metamagic is - oh wait, that's a sorc thing now. So sorcs are the OP ones.

[bid]

It can't reflect 75 on average unless it took an average of 3 hits to deal 25 damage. With GWM/Sharpshooter it's going to take 1-2 hits for an average of between 25-50 damage reflected per casting...
Not even. AoA only does damage to melee attacks. So your SS fighter will stay fresh. :smallwink:

[Giant2005]

Not even. AoA only does damage to melee attacks. So your SS fighter will stay fresh. :smallwink:

Does SS stand for "Subway Sandwich" in this case? If so, beating people with a sub is still a melee attack.

[georgie_leech]

Does SS stand for "Subway Sandwich" in this case? If so, beating people with a sub is still a melee attack.

Not if the Fighter throws the Sandwich. They might even be able to use the feat to aim it at a vulnerable spot! :smallbiggrin:

[NewDM]

Make sure you (counter-intuitively) cast Shield V, because an EK can just Counterspell your basic Shield I.

Or they can just let the EK use up all their spell slots countering a level 1 spell.


I doubt that's going to be enough to save your life but it should at least prevent him from headshotting or power attacking you, which will roughly double your survivability. Polymorph is a lost cause, and Haste is risky, and I doubt Booming Blade (even if you hit with it, which you probably won't) and its little 2d8 of damage is going to deter the EK from moving if he wants to move, which he probably doesn't because hello, ranged fighter. (And since he's not headshotting you he doesn't even lose anything if you stand right in his face and make him pull out a rapier instead of his bow.) The only real reason he would have to move is if you're playing games with total cover. Is that what you have in mind?

Polymorph works great in conjunction with Blink because the fighter only gets one attack on them half the time (readied action attack is 1 attack). If you go T-Rex (which is over 10 feet tall), the grapple causes restrained and it hits 1/2 the time against AC 20. Restrained is advantage on attacks against the fighter while the fighter has disadvantage on their attacks against the T-Rex. When the T-Rex blinks, the fighter falls over 10 feet taking 1d10+ damage. The process repeats until the T-Rex is out of hp and reverts back to the Wizard. Then it can repeat again for as many spell slots as the Wizard has. If the Wizard uses Fire Shield + Blink + Polymorph (T-Rex), then its likely they can win.


And don't forget about the fighter's own opportunity attack, and the possibility of grapples. The Bladesinger's best chance of winning is going to thinking outside the box--if he tries to slug it out he will lose. Summoning Magma Mephits (for four simultaneous castings of Heat Metal) might be worth trying; so would spells like Blink and Mirror Image.

The Fighters chance to hit the Blade Singer is +11 vs. AC 25 which is 35% chance to hit. With haste that goes down to 25%. Their chance to interrupt the Blade Singer's concentration at any give time (while not polymorphed) is 2.25% for less than 20 damage. If somehow the Fighter crits and deals 30 damage the chance is 16%. That's just with Blade Song active.

If the Wizard throws on Blink the fighter loses all but one attack (readied action) about half the time.

If the Wizard throws on Fire Shield and stays in melee range the fighter will take damage every time they hit with a melee attack. If they attack with a ranged weapon they will have disadvantage. The chance for a fighter to hit the BS with disadvantage vs. AC 25 is 12.25% with haste its 6.25%. Meanwhile the BS is using BB to punish the ranged fighter for trying to move away for 2d8 thunder damage (no save). The total damage each round would be:

1d8(weapon)+4(dex)+1d8(BB) BB Cantrip (action)
2d8 BB Cantrip (if the Fighter moves)
1d8(weapon)+4(dex) Haste (bonus action attack)
For a total of 30.5 average each round before hit/miss/crit are calculated in. That's assuming they don't drop some instantaneous damage spell, or use Animate Object instead of BB.

What if the fighter doesn't move? Well the ranged fighter gets disadvantage on his attacks making the BS take almost no damage.


When I go S&B fighter, I go rapier and shield. And all I need is a 13 in dexterity to use defensive duelist once a round for up to +6AC vs a melee attack, or even booming blade. Even a strength based fighter can afford a 13 in dex.

You use your reaction. That's nice, that means no counterspell.


If you're invisible, I may just take the dodge action the whole time. We'll see how long one minute goes by.

You mean that one minute that you are taking damage from area save spells or cantrips? Yeah, we'll see how long the fighter can last.


And since I have a shield I may take shield master and just prone you and use the mobile feat and just walk away.

And...? BS has a move speed of 40 while singing. You aren't going very far, with haste up (instead of GI) the BS moves twice as fast, that's 80 feet a round. Have fun trying to outrun that.


The fact is you still have to hit me, and my AC may be 20 with full plate and shield.

It'll be a tough fight, but the fighter has double your HP, AC 20. And you proficiency score is a +3 or +4, while mine is a +6.

Yes, AC 20 vs. +4(prof.)+4(dex) for +8. That's 3 away from max. That means that the BS is going to hit you on a 12 which is 45% of the time. With advantage that jumps to 69.75% of the time. 70% is about average for at-level threats.


I have yet to understand this whole thread.

Obviously the fighter and ranger are poorly written classes. Are we all just finding this out?

Some people have defended the fighter since the 3.x days where it was numerically no better than a summoned monster or animal companion.


Is that the fighter's fault or the game designers. Are we mocking something made-up?

I find the cantrips boring and cheesy, and over-powered. An eldritch blast is doing 4d10 at 17th level, actually all cantrips are doing 4dsomething at 17th, a fighter doesn't even have a 4th attack till 20th level.

But the reality is this, I can make an 8th level champion fighter, with 2 levels of warlock and EB, and be pretty formidable. Its not like I need the other 8 levels of warlock.

I've played a champion and loved it. Its a great class. Its feels realistic to me.

Yes, that's the problem. The Champion 'feels realistic' meaning it can't compete with anything that is not like a well built Barbarian, or almost any of the caster classes.


There's a lot of if's and but's implied in the scenarios outlined above. Cone of cold doesn't pass through the wall of force, and if you imply the wizard will lie flat on his belly, right next to the gap in order to shoot fireballs... Nah. Aiming the streak from afar? I would pull out the geometric calculation showing the distance of the wizard to the WoF, the size of the gap, the thickness of the WoF (1/4 inch), to see if there truly is a LoE.

The rules for spells are as follows:

"Once a spell is cast, its effects aren't limited by its range, unless the spell's description says otherwise."

"A CLEAR PATH TO THE TARGET
To target something, you must have a clear path to it, so it can't be behind total cover.
If you place an area of effect at a point that you can't see and an obstruction. such as a wall, is between you and that point, the point of origin comes into being on the near side of that obstruction."

"A spell's effect expands in straight lines from the point of origin. If no unblocked straight line extends from the point of origin to a location within the area of effect, that location isn't included in the spell's area. To block one of these imaginary lines, an obstruction must provide total cover, as explained in chapter 9"

"A target with three-quarters cover has a +5 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has three quarters cover if about three-quarters of it is covered by an obstacle. The obstacle might be a portcullis. an arrow slit, or a thick tree trunk."

An arrow slit is a few inch wide opening just like the Wall of Force. Ergo RAW every spell would hit it.

If you have a problem with it being realistic, well you'll just have to take that up with WotC.


The wall of force is definately in the realms of 'DM's call'.

See above, its really not.


Perfectly flat floors arent exactly common however, and this fighter has a maul and a greatsword to dig his way out of any earth or stone or wood (carve out a big enough chunk to wriggle through anyways). With a strength of 20 we can assume it wont take him more than a few rounds to do so (barring some kind of perfectly flat cement floor).

Re fireball, In my games I require a spell attack roll vs AC 10+cover to lob a fireball through a narrow slit or small gap, or to obtain equal pinpoint precision. Its a DMs call thing. Gives spell sniper another thing to do also.

Again, you need a perfectly flat floor (or to be standing next to the crack) to even have LOS in the first place.

That said a long rest class hitting an encounter fully rested at the start of an adventuring day has more options to nova than a short rest class does. A Paladin 10 could give the fighter a reasonable run for his money by nova smiting.

Of course by the end of the adventuring day, the battle swings in favor of the fighter even more, so there is that.

It takes quite a bit of time to dig out even soft earth. If we halved the time it takes for a normal strong and healthy person it would still be in the minutes not seconds.


The 3e version expressly didnt move:

'The wall cannot move, it is immune to damage of all kinds, and it is unaffected by most spells...'

The 5e version omits this information about the wall not being moveable. It looks like the wall can be moved or toppled.

I'd probably rule its 'more or less' immobile. Maybe allow it to be moved with a very high Str [althletics] check. Beats me.

Forcecage is expressly immobile, but thats a 7th level spell:

'An immobile, invisible, cube-shaped prison composed of magical force springs into existence around an area you choose within range. The prison can be a cage or a solid box as you choose.'

Wall of Force falls under that rule that if its not specifically spelled out it doesn't do it, same reason why Creation can't make magic items, but never actually says it can't. Basically if I can't make magic items with Creation you can't pick up a wall of force.


Not true in 5th edition. You can't physically pass through the wall, teleportation works with no restrictions at all.

An EK has Arcane Charge and can, therefore, teleport without error automatically right through the wall of force.

Actually you can't pass through the wall, but you can pass under the few inch gap at the bottom, so teleport would work, but not for the reason you are citing.


EK's get proficiency on their spellcasting. Dispelling a 4th level spell would only require a roll of 3 or higher on a d20 to succeed (8 or higher in the incredibly unlikely event that the EK had a +0 to their Int). Dispel Magic works 8.5 times out of 10.

A level 10 Wizard has only 6 + 9d6 + 10xconmod hp; (a range of 15-110 hp; ave of 37-87 hp, which itself averages to 62 hp).

Not with the Tough. They have an additional 20 hp at level 10.


For non-Ek's, I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to simply dig the measily 2 feet of dirt required, then squeeze under the wall of force and move in for the kill. This would all take only one round. They could action surge to kill the Wizard (average of 15 damage per hit is required, easily possible).

Dig through 2 feet of soft earth wide enough for you to go under a fence and time yourself. Then half that because D&D characters are just that good. It'll take about a minute after the math. By that time the Wizard has filled the hole with a spell or killed the fighter outright from damage.


This is true, however Wall of Force is invisible, so the Wizard won't actually be able to determine with any accuracy if the location they are targeting is truly unblocked by the wall. As it is invisible.

I think you're giving too much creedance by using maybe. It's a meaningless (and therefore bad) metric.

The above is not true as long as its not total cover the Wizard doesn't have to know anything. The spell simply works.


That's not true. I don't know where you're getting your information on so-called "Line of Effect" but it's not from the 5E PHB or the DMG. Here's a quote for you:


If you have to make your missile turn a corner to hit the other guy, guess what? He's got total cover.

===============================================



I think you're confusing the EK with the Abjuror. EKs Dispel with a pure Int check; Abjurors get proficiency bonus, and bards get half-proficiency bonus plus possible Peerless Skill.

See above. I posted all the relevant information. If its not total cover the spell just works RAW.

Yeah, the standard arrow slit is around a few inches in width. By RAW it would be 3/4 cover and the spells would hit. It would also work with fireball because fireball moves around obstacles to fill the area as per the area rules.

[Giant2005]

Or they can just let the EK use up all their spell slots countering a level 1 spell.

Or just one or two spell slots due to the Wizard not surviving particularly long with the reduced AC.

[NewDM]

Or just one or two spell slots due to the Wizard not surviving particularly long with the reduced AC.

20 AC is still 55% hit chance. The fighter isn't going to take them out in that time. In addition the Wizard can instead use their class feature to reduce the damage of an attack using a spell slot, which can't be counter spelled because its not a spell. If the Wizard has haste up that's 45% hit chance. That's assuming they haven't blinked that round.

[krugaan]

Not if the Fighter throws the Sandwich. They might even be able to use the feat to aim it at a vulnerable spot! :smallbiggrin:

Rogue / fighter - tavern brawler with a finesse sandwich for delicious sneak attacks!

[AvatarVecna]

Rogue / fighter - tavern brawler with a finesse sandwich for delicious sneak attacks!

Must be a grilled cheese sandwich... :smallwink:

[JNAProductions]

NewDM, care to offer an actual build? Schrodinger's Wizard is a bit too cheesy for my tastes.

[bid]

Does SS stand for "Subway Sandwich" in this case? If so, beating people with a sub is still a melee attack.
><

Only if you use cold slices.

[NewDM]

NewDM, care to offer an actual build? Schrodinger's Wizard is a bit too cheesy for my tastes.

I did earlier in the thread, twice. The build I posted for the last round of comments was a High Elf Blade Singer Wizard level 10.

[JNAProductions]

Yes, the build with AC 17 and 62 HP.

If it loses initiative, it dies. That's not good odds.

[smcmike]

Now if we go with other classes, a bladesinger wizard 10 would tear up a level 20 fighter that was not a caster. It would even have a chance against a an EK.

This is because with blade singing and a maxed dex (high elf) you can achieve AC 24 when you need them (shield). You can also polymorph several times, or go Greater Invisibility. If you are fighting the ranged fighter you keep them still with Booming Blade, and maybe keep a haste on you for the extra attack and damage (not to mention higher AC).

Wizard(Bladesinger)
High Elf

Strength 10 (+0) [10]
Dexterity 18 (+4) [14, +2 race, +2 ASI]
Constitution 14 (+2) [14]
Intelligence 16 (+3) [15, +1 race]
Wisdom 9 (-1) [9]
Charisma 9 (-1) [9]

Feats: War Caster, ASI (Dex)

AC 13(Mage Armor)+4(dex)+3(int from blade song)=20
AC with Shield spell 25

Active spells: either Greater Invisibility, Blink, Fire Shield, Animate Objects (tiny) or Polymorph (T-Rex)

Greater Invisibility: If this spell is active the Fighter has disadvantage on attacks and the bladesinger has advantage on attacks against the fighter.

Blink: Half the time the wizard is just gone. In order to do anything about this the Fighter has to ready an action to attack cutting their 4 (or 5) attacks down to 1. Meanwhile the Bladesinger is whaling away at full power with Booming Blade or another instant damage spell.

Fire Shield: Not the best option, but every time the fighter hits the Bladesinger it pays a damage tax.

Animate Objects: Animating a bunch of coins can DPR the fighter out pretty quick.

Polymoprh (T-Rex): Just match the fighters attack and damage potential until they eat through your hp. Grapple and restrain the Fighter for adv/disadvantage combo. This spell is particularly hilarious with blink (a non-concentration spell) active.

Good luck trying to interrupt this Bladesingers concentration they have a very low chance unless the fighter manages to do more than 20 damage on a single attack and even then its in the single percentage digits. Bladesingers get to add their Intelligence modifier to the concentration save as well as having advantage and their Constitution bonus.

Then of course when the fighter does land a blow they can absorb the damage by giving away lower level slots that they won't be using. A 3rd level slot absorbs 15 damage.

If the fighter is an EK and tries to counterspell, this wizard will just counterspell the counterspell. They have more slots so they win that race.

So yeah, there are classes that can win against a level 20 fighter.

For reference.

[NewDM]

Yes, the build with AC 17 and 62 HP.

If it loses initiative, it dies. That's not good odds.

No, that was the Warlock. The Blade Singer has AC 20 or 25 with Shield, or AC 27 with Shield and Haste.

[JNAProductions]

All of which requires an action. (Except shield, so AC 22.)

...

Yeah, you're still dead in one turn.

[Giant2005]

Yes, the build with AC 17 and 62 HP.

If it loses initiative, it dies. That's not good odds.

To be fair, an EK with Sharpshooter and Crossbow Master would inflict 76.5 damage from an action-surged round against AC 20, so it dies if it wins initiative too.

[Shaofoo]

Can't the Fighter just mantain distance while the Wizard does his thing, he isn't level 18 so no infinite Shields, he'll run out eventually and the Fighter can attack from 600 feet while I am not sure what is the maximum distance that a Wizard can attack.

We shouldn't just assume that the Fighter will just rush head first into melee, even a melee focused user shouldn't just rush head long.

[AvatarVecna]

I believe I saw somewhere previously in this thread that feats and the like don't carry over to Polymorph forms? If that was correct (which I'm not sure it was), does that also apply to class features?

[Malifice]

1. See prior post that I'm not using Attack Roll cantrips, I'm using DC Save ones. You only need Line of Effect + Line of Sight. No attack roll needed.

You dont have either LOS or LOF if the Fighter is standing on his helmet. You have a cm at ground level. The fighter is standing on a platform (his helm).


2. See prior post about a spell that has specific rules for a Wall/Sphere being moved. Wall of Force does not, in fact it literally has the magical ability to push you INSIDE of it, so no, you aren't grabbing it and moving it.

Not true. The spell says nothing about the wall of force being unmovable. In 3E, the spell description specifically said it was. In 5E it says nothing of the sort. Other spells that are immovable say so as in the description (forcecage for example). Youre saying its immobile when the spell says nothing of the sort.

Eve if I were to assume this was an omission or typo by WoTC, unless the fight is happening on cement, a Fighter can tunnel his way out.

Heck even if it is occuring on cement, a [10' x 10' x 6" thick] layer of cement has an AC of 15 and 180 hit points (going off the stats of Wall of stone).

A GWM Fighter can smash his way out through the floor in a few rounds.


3. 16 Con + Resiliency Con = +7 to Concentration saves. Not great, but easy to take the chance.

You replace your stats with that of the target when you polymorph. So resilient Con doesnt transfer over. You use the T-Rex (Or the Apes) unmodified Con save.

Its a really stupid thing to do against a high level fighter. You waste your action to disable your spells and he then walks up to you and smacks you to death (the polymorphed form will be gone after the first hit or two).


6. NOOOOOOOPE. You add your Int mod to each missile of Magic Missile. Why? Because jeremy crawford said so (all the missiles hit simultaneously so you only roll 1d4 + 1 + Int mod to calculate the damage for all the missiles). The original Int mod only once is idiotic anyways, but there you have it.

No you dont. You're (intentionally I feel) misreading JC. Its +int per target. If you target multiple creatures you get the bonus to multiple damage rolls with each missile.


7. You are assuming you can do a LOT more than you actually can with Grapple checks, but again, you're already assuming so much in favor of the level 20 Fighter, as with the previous poster, the level 10 Wizard has already won if you need to change THAT MUCH in favor of the Fighter.

Im assuming nothing. If you think it is not possible for a person to clamp his hand over a persons mouth, please explain why. This is 5E remember.

You've got a Strength 8 120lb weakling in robes, up against a Strength 20 MMA king, akin to Hercules. If you think its impossible for Arnie to grab a book worm, and stop said book wom from talking, we have bigger issues.


A remotely competent Wizard has 16 Dex and 16 Con (Resiliency Con) and 16 Int at the start of their career.

Strength, Wisdom and Cha all at 8?

Those Athletics checks to grapple and saves against the BMs manouvers are looking better all the time.


Your Fighter only automatically wins if they start 30ft or less and wins Initiative. Start at 35ft? Nope (unless PAM so we'll make it 45ft).

Bow + action surge + archery style + sharpshooter + superiority dice. My BM above (Dex 18) gets +12 to hit (+7 with sharpshooter) dealing 1d8+14 damage per hit. If he misses he can add +1d12 to the attack to turn it into a hit. If he hits, he adds +1d12 to the damage and imposes the frightened condition.

Wanna run the maths? He only has to hit three times, at an average of 25 damage per hit. If one of those 8 rolls to hit is a 20... good night Irene.

Also; move + action surge (use the action to dash) + action if needed, then attack 4 times.

Not that it matters. The wizard has initative +3. The BM has initiative +9 (and lucky re-rolls). He will be going first, and the wizard wont survive the first round.

[Sigreid]

Can't the Fighter just mantain distance while the Wizard does his thing, he isn't level 18 so no infinite Shields, he'll run out eventually and the Fighter can attack from 600 feet while I am not sure what is the maximum distance that a Wizard can attack.

We shouldn't just assume that the Fighter will just rush head first into melee, even a melee focused user shouldn't just rush head long.

Most of the comments I've seen in this forum that claim the fighter is always a looser assume BSF (Big Stupid Fighter) syndrome. In the case of a level 20 fighter, you have to assume that he got to level 20 learning literally nothing about the opponents he's been fighting or his allies in 20 levels of life and death struggles. I've suggested before that if the match up is with Schrodinger's wizard who has the perfect abilities memorized, the fighter should be Schrodinger's fighter with a solid understanding of his opponents abilities and a battlefield and weapons chosen to maximize his chances.

[Malifice]

Polymorph works great in conjunction with Blink because the fighter only gets one attack on them half the time (readied action attack is 1 attack). If you go T-Rex (which is over 10 feet tall), the grapple causes restrained and it hits 1/2 the time against AC 20.

Ok Wizard, you fluked initiative and go first.

I'll cast blink!

Cool you now have a 50/50 chance of: Fighter moves over, action surges and Wizard dies.

Wait... I'll cast polymorph into a T-Rex.

Cool. The Fighter moves over, actions surges and you die (first hit knocking you back into wizard form and the other 7 attacks killing you).

Dont get me wrong, a prebuffed Wizard allowed to go nova on an unsuspecting Fighter from an ambush has a great chance of winning.

What about if the Fighter ambushes the Wizard?


Restrained is advantage on attacks against the fighter while the fighter has disadvantage on their attacks against the T-Rex.

Its a moot point. Wizard casts polymorph. Fighter then belts the (now polymorphed) Wizard back into human form, and wails on him. Its a wasted spell.


See above, its really not.

Show me. The wall of force is not stated to be immobile in the spell description unlike (say) forcecage which expressly states it is.

That could just be an oversight however.


It takes quite a bit of time to dig out even soft earth. If we halved the time it takes for a normal strong and healthy person it would still be in the minutes not seconds.

Nah man. Going by the stats of Wall of Stone, an entire 10' x 10' x 6 inch thick slab of cement has an AC of 15 and 180 hitpoints. A Fighter using a Maul and GWM can smash that entire slab of concrete to powder in around 3-4 rounds without action surge.

How long would it take a person to scrape out enough dirt to squeeze through? Not longer than a few rounds for mine.


Dig through 2 feet of soft earth wide enough for you to go under a fence and time yourself. Then half that because D&D characters are just that good. It'll take about a minute after the math. By that time the Wizard has filled the hole with a spell or killed the fighter outright from damage.

Ill do it with a gun nearby (the Fighters ranged weapon). Make a quick shell scrape and then use your wall of force as 3/4 cover and shoot you. Dont forget those con saves each time you get hit.


Most of the comments I've seen in this forum that claim the fighter is always a looser assume BSF (Big Stupid Fighter) syndrome. In the case of a level 20 fighter, you have to assume that he got to level 20 learning literally nothing about the opponents he's been fighting or his allies in 20 levels of life and death struggles. I've suggested before that if the match up is with Schrodinger's wizard who has the perfect abilities memorized, the fighter should be Schrodinger's fighter with a solid understanding of his opponents abilities and a battlefield and weapons chosen to maximize his chances.

Its worse. Not only is it Schroedingers Wizard, who is all of a bladesinger, and a diviner and an evoker, but he also seems to constantly attack from a position of advantage at precisely measured ranges, often with surprise (or insanely lucky initiative rolls), and several spells already active and pre-cast, and fully rested.

Lets do this in a 60' dirt floored circular arena. Pistols at dawn, 15 paces (30') apart.

Fighter rolls initiative at +9 (with lucky). The Wizard (assuming Vuman with Dex and Con 16, resilient [con] and Int 20) rolls at +3.

Fighter wins, and its game over for the Wizard (even assuming mage armor precast).

[NewDM]

Yes, the build with AC 17 and 62 HP.

If it loses initiative, it dies. That's not good odds.


Ok Wizard, you fluked initiative and go first.

I'll cast blink!

Cool you now have a 50/50 chance of: Fighter moves over, action surges and Wizard dies.

Wait... I'll cast polymorph into a T-Rex.

Cool. The Fighter moves over, actions surges and you die (first hit knocking you back into wizard form and the other 7 attacks killing you).

Dont get me wrong, a prebuffed Wizard allowed to go nova on an unsuspecting Fighter from an ambush has a great chance of winning.

What about if the Fighter ambushes the Wizard?



Its a moot point. Wizard casts polymorph. Fighter then belts the (now polymorphed) Wizard back into human form, and wails on him. Its a wasted spell.



Show me. The wall of force is not stated to be immobile in the spell description unlike (say) forcecage which expressly states it is.

That could just be an oversight however.



Nah man. Going by the stats of Wall of Stone, an entire 10' x 10' x 6 inch thick slab of cement has an AC of 15 and 180 hitpoints. A Fighter using a Maul and GWM can smash that entire slab of concrete to powder in around 3-4 rounds without action surge.

How long would it take a person to scrape out enough dirt to squeeze through? Not longer than a few rounds for mine.



Ill do it with a gun nearby (the Fighters ranged weapon). Make a quick shell scrape and then use your wall of force as 3/4 cover and shoot you. Dont forget those con saves each time you get hit.



Its worse. Not only is it Schroedingers Wizard, who is all of a bladesinger, and a diviner and an evoker, but he also seems to constantly attack from a position of advantage at precisely measured ranges, often with surprise (or insanely lucky initiative rolls), and several spells already active and pre-cast, and fully rested.

Lets do this in a 60' dirt floored circular arena. Pistols at dawn, 15 paces (30') apart.

Fighter rolls initiative at +9 (with lucky). The Wizard (assuming Vuman with Dex and Con 16, resilient [con] and Int 20) rolls at +3.

Fighter wins, and its game over for the Wizard (even assuming mage armor precast).

Nope, you need to reread my build. Its a Blade Singer and starts its Blade Song first as a bonus action, then it uses blink, then fire shield, in that order. Then it does whatever else it was going to do like Polymorph and no the fighter isn't going to kill it first round because its AC is 25 with shield.

Edit: To be clear I'm not talking a Schrodinger wizard. I gave a very specific build with very specific spells and a very specific strategy.

[DeAnno]

The deeper we get into this thread the more confident I am in my position that the 5e rules just should've been written more clearly. All this godsawful ridiculousness surrounding a spell as core as Wall of Force is just shameful. Can it move? Can it be an obnoxious hemispherical death trap? Can you teleport through it? Will it roll if you put a fighter inside?

Beyond that, it's a completely different fight with and without prebuff rounds for the Wizard. I would argue that if the wizard is prebuffed the Fighter should be allowed to start the engagement very far away and out of range of most spells, unless one of the Wizard's prebuffs was something like Greater Invis which would let him close.

I was also going to say that any level 20 Fighter worth his salt should have a magic item that lets him teleport once per day, but after looking through the DMG the selection is really grim. This edition needs a magic item compendium badly. I almost feel like saying Eladrin is kind of a Sky Blue racial pick just for the short rest Misty Step.

[NewDM]

The deeper we get into this thread the more confident I am in my position that the 5e rules just should've been written more clearly. All this godsawful ridiculousness surrounding a spell as core as Wall of Force is just shameful. Can it move? Can it be an obnoxious hemispherical death trap? Can you teleport through it? Will it roll if you put a fighter inside?

Beyond that, it's a completely different fight with and without prebuff rounds for the Wizard. I would argue that if the wizard is prebuffed the Fighter should be allowed to start the engagement very far away and out of range of most spells, unless one of the Wizard's prebuffs was something like Greater Invis which would let him close.

I was also going to say that any level 20 Fighter worth his salt should have a magic item that lets him teleport once per day, but after looking through the DMG the selection is really grim. This edition needs a magic item compendium badly. I almost feel like saying Eladrin is kind of a Sky Blue racial pick just for the short rest Misty Step.

The only pre-buff on my Blade Singer build is mage armor which lasts for 8 hours and is completely reasonable to have pre-cast.

[Giant2005]

Nope, you need to reread my build. Its a Blade Singer and starts its Blade Song first as a bonus action, then it uses blink, then fire shield, in that order. Then it does whatever else it was going to do like Polymorph and no the fighter isn't going to kill it first round because its AC is 25 with shield.

Edit: To be clear I'm not talking a Schrodinger wizard. I gave a very specific build with very specific spells and a very specific strategy.

I really wouldn't recommend casting Fire Shield. The Wizard could die on any given round very easily - casting that spell is just a waste of a round that further reduces the Wizard's chances of surviving long enough to do something that will give him a chance.

[JNAProductions]

My Fighter has a +8 to Initiative. Your Wizard has a +4. I'm likely to win initiative, so no Bladesong for you, so AC is only 17 (22 with Shield). I get +8 to hit, so I'm hitting on 14s, with each attack dealing 19.5 damage. With 8 attacks, .35*8, 3 hit, for a total of 58.5 damage.

So I was incorrect-on average, you will survive one round. On average. With a very high chance of dying, especially since I did NOT factor in my 18-20 crit range.

[MaxWilson]

All of which requires an action. (Except shield, so AC 22.)

I think you mean AC 17, unless the wizard is casting Shield IV or Shield V. Otherwise the EK just Counterspells the Shield.

================================================== =============


No you dont. You're (intentionally I feel) misreading JC. Its +int per target. If you target multiple creatures you get the bonus to multiple damage rolls with each missile.

You're mistaken. According to Crawford, you get the bonus multiple times even on the same target (https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/557823175581769729).


@BrailSays Empowered Evocation does benefit magic missile's damage roll.


@JeremyECrawford +x per bolt,even on same target?


@BrailSays Yep. It's one damage roll, just like fireball, but that roll can damage the same target more than once.

Emphasis added.

[JNAProductions]

My build is a Champion.

Also, 9.5 damage per hit at +13, hitting on 9s. That's .6*8 for 5 attacks, and 47.5 damage. Okay, Sharpshooter is better.

[Malifice]

Nope, you need to reread my build. Its a Blade Singer and starts its Blade Song first as a bonus action, then it uses blink, then fire shield, in that order.

The Fighter has initiative +9 and lucky re-rolls. The Bladesinger has intiative +3.

The odds are the Bladesinger wont get an opportunity to do any of this before being crushed into a crimson sludge.

But lets assume you win initiative, cast Blink and enter bladesong as your action/ bonus action. High elf Wizard 10 (2 feats/ ASI) Int 20, Dex 16, Con 14. Lets also assume you have mage armor pre-cast because what the heck.

Your AC (with shield) is 21 (26). Your HP are 62. You have a 50/50 chance of blinking out after casting the above, or else youre going to wear 8 attacks. Each attack is spitting out at [+1d12 (precise strike) + 6] to hit (attack bonus - GWM). Around 3 will hit and each deals 2d6+15 damage (66 damage). On average (if you fail to blink out) you die. If he lands a single nat 20, youre dead (and he gets a bonus attack).

On your next turn you cast fireshield, and hope that you blink out (50/50).

The fighter action surges again, with GWM 'off' this time, and swings 8 more times.


Then it does whatever else it was going to do like Polymorph and no the fighter isn't going to kill it first round because its AC is 25 with shield.

Lol. Vs AC 26 the fighter averages 3+ hits spamming precise strike; he needs around a 13.5 or better to hit that AC even with GWM toggled on (37.5 percent chance of a GWM hit per swing). Decent chance of a nat 20 (2/5) with 8 attack rolls too.

Also, dont forget those extra 2 lucky re-rolls for the fighter.

Finally, a T-Rex (or whatever you turn into) cant bladesong. You lose the ability as soon as you polymorph when your stats are replaced by the new ones (only Elves can bladesong, unless your new form is an Elf of course).


Edit: To be clear I'm not talking a Schrodinger wizard. I gave a very specific build with very specific spells and a very specific strategy.

And if the build you propose loses initiative (+3 vs +9 with lucky), it promptly gets squished into a red paste. On the off chance it wins initiative, it casts blink and enters bladesong, and then every round thereafter it has a 50/50 chance of being squished into a red paste.

More than happy to run a mock combat with the BM I posted above vs this Wizard. We start 20' away on top of 40' wide stone tower.

Heck, ill even let you do the rolling.

[MaxWilson]

On your next turn you cast fireshield, and hope that you blink out (50/50).

If you do blink out, you just blink back in on your next turn to face a fighter with a Readied spell (Dispel Magic) which wipes out your Fire Shield and your Blink, sending you right back to square one. (Assuming EK.)

[NewDM]

The Fighter has initiative +9 and lucky re-rolls. The Bladesinger has intiative +3.

The odds are the Bladesinger wont get an opportunity to do any of this before being crushed into a crimson sludge.

But lets assume you win initiative, cast Blink and enter bladesong as your action/ bonus action. High elf Wizard 10 (2 feats/ ASI) Int 20, Dex 16, Con 14. Lets also assume you have mage armor pre-cast because what the heck.

Your AC (with shield) is 21 (26). Your HP are 62. You have a 50/50 chance of blinking out after casting the above, or else youre going to wear 8 attacks. Each attack is spitting out at [+1d12 (precise strike) + 6] to hit (attack bonus - GWM). Around 3 will hit and each deals 2d6+15 damage (66 damage). On average (if you fail to blink out) you die. If he lands a single nat 20, youre dead (and he gets a bonus attack).

On your next turn you cast fireshield, and hope that you blink out (50/50).

The fighter action surges again, with GWM 'off' this time, and swings 8 more times.



Lol. Vs AC 26 the fighter averages 3+ hits spamming precise strike; he needs around a 13.5 or better to hit that AC even with GWM toggled on (37.5 percent chance of a GWM hit per swing). Decent chance of a nat 20 (2/5) with 8 attack rolls too.

Also, dont forget those extra 2 lucky re-rolls for the fighter.

Finally, a T-Rex (or whatever you turn into) cant bladesong. You lose the ability as soon as you polymorph when your stats are replaced by the new ones (only Elves can bladesong, unless your new form is an Elf of course).



And if the build you propose loses initiative (+3 vs +9 with lucky), it promptly gets squished into a red paste. On the off chance it wins initiative, it casts blink and enters bladesong, and then every round thereafter it has a 50/50 chance of being squished into a red paste.

More than happy to run a mock combat with the BM I posted above vs this Wizard. We start 20' away on top of 40' wide stone tower.

Heck, ill even let you do the rolling.

Eh, then first spell would be Greater Invisibility, which the BS would then use to buff up with all the non-concentration spells. After that they'd swap to the other spells. With disadvantage to attack the Fighter has less than a 50/50 chance of hitting.

Yes, I'm changing my build, just like the Fighter build in this thread has been changed several times.

[JNAProductions]

I never changed my build.

[Giant2005]

You're mistaken. According to Crawford, you get the bonus multiple times even on the same target (https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/557823175581769729).

I'm not sure if I agree with your interpretation of what he is saying (God I hate twitter - it is too hard to convey even the most basic of thoughts in 150 characters), but either way it doesn't matter. The errata makes it impossible: "Empowered Evocation (p. 117). The damage bonus applies to one damage roll of a spell, not multiple rolls."

[Malifice]

Eh, then first spell would be Greater Invisibility, which the BS would then use to buff up with all the non-concentration spells.

Assuming you win initiative, this only imposes disadvantage on attack rolls against you.

Not the smartest thing to do against a Fighter with 2-3 lucky re-rolls up his sleeve.


After that they'd swap to the other spells. With disadvantage to attack the Fighter has less than a 50/50 chance of hitting.

The fighter has precise strike (+1d12 to hit) layered on top of his +11 to hit (with the option to use GWM) and (assuming he's already used lucky once during initiative) 2 more lucky re-rolls.

So he grins at you foolishly granting him disadvantage, which he then turns into super advantage for the first two swings at you (via using his lucky re-rolls). He toggles GWM 'on' and swings (rolling 3xd20 and taking the highest, adding 6 and an extra +1d12 if needed).

Any of those six rolls come up a nat 20 and you take (4d6+2d12+15) or 42 damage on average, get knocked prone, lose concentration on your spell, and grant him an extra bonus action attack. Odds are at least one will hit dealing 22 damage (and forcing a con save, likely passed)

Following this he attacks you six more times with GWM turned off. If he hits you without having to resort to adding precise strikes +1d12 to the attack roll (by virtue of rolling 15 or better), he instead spams tripping attack, knocking you prone (DC 19 strength save resists), cancelling your disadvantage (and dealing an extra +1d12 damage) and likely breaking your concentration on Invisibility.

If the fighter wins initiative (which he almost certainly will) he wins. If he loses initiative he wins inside of two rounds while youre still buffing.

[NewDM]

For those that missed it here is my build:

Wizard(Bladesinger)
High Elf

Strength 10 (+0) [10]
Dexterity 18 (+4) [14, +2 race, +2 ASI]
Constitution 14 (+2) [14]
Intelligence 16 (+3) [15, +1 race]
Wisdom 9 (-1) [9]
Charisma 9 (-1) [9]

Feats: War Caster, ASI (Dex)

AC 13(Mage Armor)+4(dex)+3(int from blade song)=20
AC with Shield spell 25
HP 62

Active spells: either Greater Invisibility, Blink, Fire Shield, Animate Objects (tiny) or Polymorph (T-Rex)

Greater Invisibility: If this spell is active the Fighter has disadvantage on attacks and the bladesinger has advantage on attacks against the fighter.

Blink: Half the time the wizard is just gone. In order to do anything about this the Fighter has to ready an action to attack cutting their 4 (or 5) attacks down to 1. Meanwhile the Bladesinger is whaling away at full power with Booming Blade or another instant damage spell.

Fire Shield: Not the best option, but every time the fighter hits the Bladesinger it pays a damage tax.

Animate Objects: Animating a bunch of coins can DPR the fighter out pretty quick.

Polymoprh (T-Rex): Just match the fighters attack and damage potential until they eat through your hp. Grapple and restrain the Fighter for adv/disadvantage combo. This spell is particularly hilarious with blink (a non-concentration spell) active.

Good luck trying to interrupt this Bladesingers concentration they have a very low chance unless the fighter manages to do more than 20 damage on a single attack and even then its in the single percentage digits. Bladesingers get to add their Intelligence modifier to the concentration save as well as having advantage and their Constitution bonus.

Then of course when the fighter does land a blow they can absorb the damage by giving away lower level slots that they won't be using. A 3rd level slot absorbs 15 damage.

If the fighter is an EK and tries to counterspell, this wizard will just counterspell the counterspell. They have more slots so they win that race.



Assuming you win initiative, this only imposes disadvantage on attack rolls against you.

Not the smartest thing to do against a Fighter with 2-3 lucky re-rolls up his sleeve.



The fighter has precise strike (+1d12 to hit) layered on top of his +11 to hit (with the option to use GWM) and (assuming he's already used lucky once during initiative) 2 more lucky re-rolls.

The Champion only has 6 superiority dice for the entire combat, and they only add +6.5 on average. With disadvantage that's +17.5 against AC 25 which is less than 49% chance to hit. If the Fighter uses lucky their chance goes up to 97.3%. So we'll say the first two hit.


So he grins at you foolishly granting him disadvantage, which he then turns into super advantage for the first two swings at you (via using his lucky re-rolls). He toggles GWM 'on' and swings (rolling 3xd20 and taking the highest, adding 6 and an extra +1d12 if needed).

With GWM that 97.3% drops to 83.36%.


Any of those six rolls come up a nat 20 and you take (4d6+2d12+15) or 42 damage on average, get knocked prone, lose concentration on your spell, and grant him an extra bonus action attack. Odds are at least one will hit dealing 22 damage (and forcing a con save, likely passed)

The chance of one of 6 rolls being a nat 20 is 26.49%. Not very high. But lets say one of them is a crit. He can't knock prone and use precise strike on the same attack. Where are you getting your damage numbers from?

"You can use only one maneuver per attack."

It should be 2d6+2d6+15 which is averaged to 29. The chance of my particular BS failing the concentration save is 16% Blade Song (+3 Int), War Caster(+adv). The Hit Points on my build are 62 meaning at least 3 crits would be needed to take it out. You only get one (if any). What this tells me is that you are trying to nova without understanding the rules.

22 damage will have a 6.25% chance of breaking concentration.


Following this he attacks you six more times with GWM turned off. If he hits you without having to resort to adding precise strikes +1d12 to the attack roll (by virtue of rolling 15 or better), he instead spams tripping attack, knocking you prone (DC 19 strength save resists), cancelling your disadvantage (and dealing an extra +1d12 damage) and likely breaking your concentration on Invisibility.

If the fighter wins initiative (which he almost certainly will) he wins. If he loses initiative he wins inside of two rounds while youre still buffing.

The fighter has a 12.25% chance of hitting without Lucky (which he used up in the first round) without GWM. If he turns on GWM he has a 1% chance to hit. He also used up all his Superiority Dice in the first round.

At this point the BS would cast their buff spells starting with False Life out of a 5th level slots for 29.5 temporary hit points. Next round is blink. After that Fire Shield. After that Mirror Image. After that the BS might drop Greater Invisibility for Vampiric Touch out of their other 5th level slot and begin to heal themselves for 1 minute. On a hit they deal 5d6 damage and regain half of that in hit points. So they would deal 17.5 damage and heal 8.75 per round. If the fighter tries to use a ranged attack in melee they get disadvantage. If they hit with a melee attack they take 2d6 damage.

Mirror Image causes the Fighters chance to hit to drop drastically. After GI is gone the fighter has a 35% chance to hit. With Mirror Image that drops to 8.75% for the first image, 12.25% for the second image, and 17.5% for the last image, and remember the BS can recast the spell 3 more times (at 2nd) and 3 more times (at 3rd). Also the fighter only gets one attack from a readied action half the time because the BS is blinked out.

Once the BS's hit points are back to maximum, they would recast a higher level False Life and continue to beat down the now desperate fighter that can barely touch them.

[JellyPooga]

Active spells: either Greater Invisibility, Blink, Fire Shield, Animate Objects (tiny) or Polymorph (T-Rex)

So, just to clarify; that's a 4th level slot, a 2nd level slot, a 4th level slot a 5th level slot and a 4th level slot.

You've got 1x5th, 3x3rd, 2x2nd and 4x1st level spells left, plus either a 5th or a 4th level slot, depending on whether you went for Polymorph or Animate Objects. You've also spent 4 rounds doing zero damage to the Fighter, whilst said Fighter has been taking his chances on actually damaging you. The odds of him doing a lot of damage might be small, but at least he's taking those chances. If any of them come off, it puts you in a bad bad way.

The question is; when does this build actually get around to doing anything but annoy the Fighter by being hard to kill quickly?
- A T-Rex vs. almost any Fighter 20 is not a challenge for the Fighter, it's just another delaying tactic on your part.
- Animate Objects is great DPR...until the Fighter spends a round or two dealing with it, before using Second Wind to shrug off the damage. You won't kill a level 20 Fighter quickly with this; the damage this spell does racks up, but not that fast. You've only got one more 5th level slot after you cast this, so you'd better make it count.

[Giant2005]

1st attack = shove.
2nd through 7th attack = GWM + Precision Attack for 62 damage against AC 25.
8th attack = regular strike for 5.08 damage against AC 25.
AC 25 Wizard is down in 1 without having to bother with the exploitative super advantage via Lucky.

[AvatarVecna]

Yeah, most of my ideas for taking down that build basically involve the Champion or Battlemaster Fighter shoving him prone before he can get too many buffs up and whaling on him quickly; between pre-fight buffs, Shield spells, and spell slots spent soaking damage, he'll be out of spell slots pretty quickly, and then he's no better off than any other wizard without spells left. I haven't run the numbers on this particular plan yet, but I imagine it's at least worth considering.

Also, I'm not sure how relevant this would be, but assuming the Fighter facing off against NewDM's Wizard is an EK (which apparently doesn't count as a Fighter to him, but that's why we learn the difference between facts and opinions in primary school), I think it's worth pointing out that Shield and Counterspell both take up your reaction.

[Malifice]

For those that missed it here is my build:

Wizard(Bladesinger)
High Elf

Strength 10 (+0) [10]
Dexterity 18 (+4) [14, +2 race, +2 ASI]
Constitution 14 (+2) [14]
Intelligence 16 (+3) [15, +1 race]
Wisdom 9 (-1) [9]
Charisma 9 (-1) [9]

Feats: War Caster, ASI (Dex)

AC 13(Mage Armor)+4(dex)+3(int from blade song)=20
AC with Shield spell 25
HP 62

My build is:

Vuman Fighter (BM) -Sailor

Strength 20
Dexterity 18
Constitution 14
Intelligence 10
Wisdom 12
Charisma 8

Skills: Athletics +11, Perception +7, Insight +7, Investigation +6, Acrobatics + 10
Feats: Sharpshooter, GWM, Lucky, Alert, Resilient [Wisdom], ASI (Dex, Str x 2),
Gear: Full Plate, greatsword, War mattock (maul), Longbow, arrows, dagger
Other: Archery F/S, trip attack, precise strike, menacing attack, riposte, others
AC: 18 (Full plate)
HP: 164


Active spells: either Greater Invisibility, Blink, Fire Shield, Animate Objects (tiny) or Polymorph (T-Rex)

You have nothing active other than mage armor. No pre-buffing remember. This is a straight up throwdown.


Then of course when the fighter does land a blow they can absorb the damage by giving away lower level slots that they won't be using. A 3rd level slot absorbs 15 damage.

Only if you havent cast shield already. Only the one reaction remember


The chance of one of 6 rolls being a nat 20 is 26.49%. Not very high. But lets say one of them is a crit. He can't knock prone and use precise strike on the same attack. Where are you getting your damage numbers from? "You can use only one maneuver per attack."

If you roll a nat 20, you dont use precise strike (obviously). You instead spam tripping strike dealing (+2d12 damage in addition to sitting the B/S on his backside).

Lets run the numbers. We're 20' away on top of a 40' across and 100' stone tower consisting of several levels.

Roll initiative.

Fighter gets [(1d20 with a lucky re-roll if needed) + 9] against Wizards roll of 1d20 + 4.

The average roll on (2d20 take the best) is 15 (plus 9) = 24. Wizards average roll is a 14.5. Odds are around 90 percent in facvor of the Fighter fighter going first.

He walks over to the Wizard and action surges, swinging 8 times with his maul. The first hit is at +11 against an AC of 17 (no bladesong active yet) or vs AC 22 with shield. Assuming shield is cast he has a 50 percent chance of hitting the Wizard, and if he misses he uses a lucky re-roll. If he still misses, he spams a precise strike. Factoring in lucky, he should (79.5 percent chance) hit without needing to resort to precise strike (precise strike + lucky make it a virtual monty), so he instead spams tripping strike, adding +1d12 to the [2d6+5) damage and forcing you to make a Strength save (at +0) against a DC of 19 or fall prone (granting the fighter advantage on his seven remaining attacks for the rest of the round).

The remaining 7 attacks for the round are made with GWM 'toggled on' and at advantage at +6 against the wizards AC of 22 (factoring in shield). A target numeber of 15 on a d20 rolled with advantage results in a 51 percent chance of each attack hitting, and every one of these 7 attacks has a 9.75 percent chance of a crit.

We'll round down for the luls, and just say three of these seven attacks hit. The Fighter then uses precise strike (now he has used 3 of his superiority die) on two of the misses to attempt to turn one those misses into a hit (lets say the one of those still misses even with precise strike added in - those d12s are fickle beasts), but lets round in the wizards favor to give the wizard an advantage.

Lets even rule the Fighter burns his last use of lucky (that doesnt work) to try and turn another miss into a hit, because I want to give the wizard a fighting chance.

On any hit that is made without precise strike, the Fighter spams menacing attack for an extra +1d12 damage (on top of the 2d6+15). He does this on the three hits he lands without resorting to precise strike. DC19 Wisdom save (3 times) or be frightened.

Despite the chance of a critical hit being very high for the fighter (many of the attack rolls are made at advantage, and two with lucky re-rolls which adds up to a whopping 17 x d20 rolls to hit this turn) we'll let the Wizard off the hook and say no crits were scored and not a single natural 20 was rolled in these 17 dice rolls (meaning the Fighter also misses his bonus action attack via GWM).

On average (rounding absolutely everything in the wizards favor) the Wizard gets clobbered:


3 times with GWM 'on' and an extra 1d12 damage tacked on from menacing strike. Each hit deals 2d6+1d12+15
1 time with GWM 'off' and an extra 1d12 from tripping strike. Heach hit deals 2d6+1d12+5
1 time with GWM 'on' via precise strike (no extra damage). Each hit deals 2d6+15

He takes [10d6+4d12+70] damage. Around 131 points of damage. Factoring in bad rolls from the fighter and no crits.

The Wizard cant use a reaction to soak it, as he has already used it for shield. The Wizard dies in a screaming pink mist after about the 5th or 6th attack; while prone and frightened.

[JoeJ]

Yeah, if you want to go caster vs. caster, then do that. There are better casters than an EK. To me an EK is not a fighter its a half fighter half wizard.

Now if we go with other classes, a bladesinger wizard 10 would tear up a level 20 fighter that was not a caster. It would even have a chance against a an EK.

If an EK doesn't count as a fighter, then a bladesinger doesn't count as a wizard.

[Malifice]

So, just to clarify; that's a 4th level slot, a 2nd level slot, a 4th level slot a 5th level slot and a 4th level slot.

Nah, he still doesnt understand the concentration mechanic. Hes somehow concentrating on greater invisibility and either animate objects or polymorph at the same time.

Somehow.

In addition to pre-buffing for several rounds while the Fighter twiddles his thumbs, and claiming to be able to bladedance as a T-Rex (a form incapable of the moves required by virtue of not being an Elf).


A T-Rex vs. almost any Fighter 20 is not a challenge for the Fighter, it's just another delaying tactic on your part.

He's banking on hitting the Fighter with the bite, and causing the restrained condition to the fighter. Never mind the fighter can attack normally (at disadvantage) when restrained.


- Animate Objects is great DPR...until the Fighter spends a round or two dealing with it, before using Second Wind to shrug off the damage. You won't kill a level 20 Fighter quickly with this; the damage this spell does racks up, but not that fast. You've only got one more 5th level slot after you cast this, so you'd better make it count.

10 animated coins (the most he can have) are +8 to hit and deal 1d4+4 damage each. They average 5 hits per round for about 30 damage per turn. The Fighter has ample time to belt the concentration of the Wizard down in the time it takes them to kill him. This Wizard get +5 to con saves (when blade dancing) at advantage (thaks to warcaster). If in T-Rex form he cant blade dance or use Warcaster so he instead makes them at +4 with nothing.

[Gwendol]

The deeper we get into this thread the more confident I am in my position that the 5e rules just should've been written more clearly. All this godsawful ridiculousness surrounding a spell as core as Wall of Force is just shameful. Can it move? Can it be an obnoxious hemispherical death trap? Can you teleport through it? Will it roll if you put a fighter inside?

Beyond that, it's a completely different fight with and without prebuff rounds for the Wizard. I would argue that if the wizard is prebuffed the Fighter should be allowed to start the engagement very far away and out of range of most spells, unless one of the Wizard's prebuffs was something like Greater Invis which would let him close.

I was also going to say that any level 20 Fighter worth his salt should have a magic item that lets him teleport once per day, but after looking through the DMG the selection is really grim. This edition needs a magic item compendium badly. I almost feel like saying Eladrin is kind of a Sky Blue racial pick just for the short rest Misty Step.

Yeah, the lack of details is a problem at times.

For the kind of comparisons done in this thread, with no magic items assumed, is also somewhat problematic as it will likely not reflect a situation seen in actual play. The fighter 20 will very likely have picked up a number of magic items and gadgets over the course of his career.
Eladrin can be sky blue, but so would wood elf for HiPS in adverse natural environment.

[NewDM]

So, just to clarify; that's a 4th level slot, a 2nd level slot, a 4th level slot a 5th level slot and a 4th level slot.

You've got 1x5th, 3x3rd, 2x2nd and 4x1st level spells left, plus either a 5th or a 4th level slot, depending on whether you went for Polymorph or Animate Objects. You've also spent 4 rounds doing zero damage to the Fighter, whilst said Fighter has been taking his chances on actually damaging you. The odds of him doing a lot of damage might be small, but at least he's taking those chances. If any of them come off, it puts you in a bad bad way.

Yes. After buffing that sounds about right. The 2nd 5th level slot goes to Vampiric Touch for healing the BS.


The question is; when does this build actually get around to doing anything but annoy the Fighter by being hard to kill quickly?
- A T-Rex vs. almost any Fighter 20 is not a challenge for the Fighter, it's just another delaying tactic on your part.
- Animate Objects is great DPR...until the Fighter spends a round or two dealing with it, before using Second Wind to shrug off the damage. You won't kill a level 20 Fighter quickly with this; the damage this spell does racks up, but not that fast. You've only got one more 5th level slot after you cast this, so you'd better make it count.

After the 5th round it then deals the damage while healing itself with Vampiric Touch. After that is focuses on straight up damage spells like Booming Blade and Haste, occasionally throwing out a False Life or another Vampiric Touch if it needs healing.


1st attack = shove.
2nd through 7th attack = GWM + Precision Attack for 62 damage against AC 25.
8th attack = regular strike for 5.08 damage against AC 25.
AC 25 Wizard is down in 1 without having to bother with the exploitative super advantage via Lucky.

Shove isn't going to work. Its Strength(Athletics) vs. Dexterity(Acrobatics). If the BS has Acrobatics from its background, then that means +11 vs. +8. There's a 45% chance that this won't work. So the fighter will need to use 2 of them to be pretty sure it works. Then they have to spend their 6 superiority dice on precision attack which means 6 attacks. Their chance to hit with GWM + Precision is +12.5 vs. AC 25 that's a 45% chance to hit so only half of them hit. Average damage is

Hit: 40% * 2d6+15 (22) = 8.8
Crit: 5% * 4d6+15 (29) = 1.45
Total: 10.25
x6: 61.5

In this case that's 61.5 so the BS is in fact not dead. I use anydice.com to calculate my percents. They don't accept decimals so I rounded up. The BS would in fact have more hit points left. After the first round the fighter is out of Superiority Dice and the BS simply casts a higher level False Life gaining in excess of 20 temporary hit points, gets up and walks 40 feet away from the fighter (invisible can't OA). The fighter can't get to them on their next round and must use ranged attacks which they are not optimized for. We'll say they have a +0 dex because they pumped everything into Str and used everything else on feats (like the above build):

Hit: 0%
Crit: 5% * 2d10+15 (sniper) (26) = 1.3
x8: 10.4

Not enough to crack the BS's temp HP. You can adjust this up a bit if you want (4% chance with a +2 dex, so same damage).


Yeah, most of my ideas for taking down that build basically involve the Champion or Battlemaster Fighter shoving him prone before he can get too many buffs up and whaling on him quickly; between pre-fight buffs, Shield spells, and spell slots spent soaking damage, he'll be out of spell slots pretty quickly, and then he's no better off than any other wizard without spells left. I haven't run the numbers on this particular plan yet, but I imagine it's at least worth considering.

Using spell slots to absorb damage would be rare. The Fighter first has to hit the BS, then have a high enough roll to get past the AC that Shield would give (note they are not actually using shield), if that happens, then the BS would spend a slot to reduce damage.


Also, I'm not sure how relevant this would be, but assuming the Fighter facing off against NewDM's Wizard is an EK (which apparently doesn't count as a Fighter to him, but that's why we learn the difference between facts and opinions in primary school), I think it's worth pointing out that Shield and Counterspell both take up your reaction.

Just because some guy up at WotC threw a gish build under the banner of the Fighter doesn't stop it from being a caster.


My build is:

Vuman Fighter (BM) -Sailor

Strength 20
Dexterity 18
Constitution 14
Intelligence 10
Wisdom 12
Charisma 8

Skills: Athletics +11, Perception +7, Insight +7, Investigation +6, Acrobatics + 10
Feats: Sharpshooter, GWM, Lucky, Alert, Resilient [Wisdom], ASI (Dex, Str x 2),
Gear: Full Plate, greatsword, War mattock (maul), Longbow, arrows, dagger
Other: Archery F/S, trip attack, precise strike, menacing attack, riposte, others
AC: 18 (Full plate)
HP: 164



You have nothing active other than mage armor. No pre-buffing remember. This is a straight up throwdown.

Doesn't need anything other than shield to start. First round bonus action is Blade Song.


Only if you havent cast shield already. Only the one reaction remember

It would be either/or not both.


If you roll a nat 20, you dont use precise strike (obviously). You instead spam tripping strike dealing (+2d12 damage in addition to sitting the B/S on his backside).

Lets run the numbers. We're 20' away on top of a 40' across and 100' stone tower consisting of several levels.

Roll initiative.

Fighter gets [(1d20 with a lucky re-roll if needed) + 9] against Wizards roll of 1d20 + 4.

The average roll on (2d20 take the best) is 15 (plus 9) = 24. Wizards average roll is a 14.5. Odds are around 90 percent in facvor of the Fighter fighter going first.

He walks over to the Wizard and action surges, swinging 8 times with his maul. The first hit is at +11 against an AC of 17 (no bladesong active yet) or vs AC 22 with shield. Assuming shield is cast he has a 50 percent chance of hitting the Wizard, and if he misses he uses a lucky re-roll. If he still misses, he spams a precise strike. Factoring in lucky, he should hit without needing to resort to precise strike, so he instead spams tripping strike, adding +1d12 to the [2d6+5) damage and forcing you to make a Strength save (at +0) against a DC of 19 or fall prone (granting the fighter advantage on his seven remaining attacks for the rest of the round).

The remaining 7 attacks for the round are made with GWM 'toggled on' and at advantage at +6 against the wizards AC of 22 (factoring in shield). A target numeber of 15 on a d20 rolled with advantage results in a 51 percent chance of each attack hitting, and every one of these 7 attacks has a 9.75 percent chance of a crit.

This won't work either because the BS gets to pick whether to use shield after seeing the roll. So if its going to hit with shield anyway they might mitigate the damage with their spell slots instead.


We'll round down for the luls, and just say three of these seven attacks hit. The Fighter then uses precise strike (now he has used 3 of his superiority die) on two of the misses to attempt to turn one those misses into a hit (lets say the one of those still misses even with precise strike added in - those d12s are fickle beasts), but lets round in the wizards favor to give the wizard an advantage.

Lets even rule the Fighter burns his last use of lucky (that doesnt work) to try and turn another miss into a hit, because I want to give the wizard a fighting chance.

On any hit that is made without precise strike, the Fighter spams menacing attack for an extra +1d12 damage (on top of the 2d6+15). He does this on the three hits he lands without resorting to precise strike.

2d6+15+1d12=28.5 average, however if we use averages, then we need to calculate it correctly:
8 attacks, 6 of which use superiority dice, 1 dice is used for trip attack. That leaves 5 dice for either precise strike or menacing attack.
The Fighter has a +11 or +17.5 (rounded to +18 for anydice.com) with precise strike. With an AC of 22 that means the fighter hits 85% of the time with precise strike and 50% without, with GWM they hit 25% of the time, with PS + GWM they hit 60% of the time.

Strength saving throw is at +0 vs. DC 19 that means the fighter will trip the BS 45% on the first attack. If they go GWM on the first attack that means they hit 25% of the time which means after the save chance the BS is only going to be prone 22.5% of the time. So it will actually take 2 attacks minimum to do this. (remember you can't PS and TA on the same attack).
Trip Attack:
Hit: 45% * 2d6+5+1d12 (18.5) = 8.325
Crit: 5% * 4d6+5+1d12 (25.5) = 1.275
Total: 9.6 + 90% chance of prone.

Precise Strike + GWM attacks:
Hit: 55% * 2d6+15 (22) = 12.1
Crit: 5% * 4d6+15 (29) = 1.45
Total: 13.55

Precise Strike attack:
Hit: 80% * 2d6+5 (12) = 9.6
Crit: 5% * 4d6+5 (19) = 0.95
Total: 10.55

GWM + Menacing Attack:
Hit: 20% * 2d6+15+1d12 (28.5) = 5.7
Crit: 5% * 4d6+15+2d12 (42) = 2.1
Total: 7.8 + 95% chance of Frightened for 1 round.

The damage would break down like this:
1st attack Trip
2nd-3rd attack Precise Strike + GWM
4th-5th attack Precise Strike
6th-8th GWM + Menacing attack
9.6+13.55+13.55+10.55+10.55+7.8+7.8+7.8=81.2

So if the Fighter got initiative and didn't get any unlucky rolls its possible it could take down the BS. If the BS gets initiative it goes the other way.


Despite the chance of a critical hit being very high for the fighter (many of the attack rolls are made at advantage, and two with lucky re-rolls which adds up to a whopping 17 x d20 rolls to hit this turn) we'll let the Wizard off the hook and say no crits were scored and not a single natural 20 was rolled in these 17 dice rolls (meaning the Fighter also misses his bonus action attack via GWM).

On average (rounding absolutely everything in the wizards favor) the Wizard gets clobbered:


3 times with GWM 'on' and an extra 1d12 damage tacked on from menacing strike.
1 time with GWM 'off' via precise strike and an extra 1d12 from tripping strike
1 time with GWM 'on' via precise strike (no extra damage).

He takes [10d6+4d12+70] damage.

He cant use a reaction to soak it, as he has already used it for shield. The Wizard dies in a screaming pink mist after about the 5th or 6th attack; while prone and frightened.

See above.

[Malifice]

So if the Fighter got initiative and didn't get any unlucky rolls its possible it could take down the BS.

If only the Fighter had some way to counteract unlucky rolls.

Oh wait... thats right - he's lucky.

Mate, odds are the BS loses initiative (badly) to the Fighter. Odds are (even with your skewed maths - you're not counting the fact that precise strike only gets used if the fighter misses, and if he hits he instead spams menacing or tripping strike) that the B/S goes down in a screaming heap if he doesnt go first. He certainly doesnt last past round 2 (when the Fighter action surges again, shoves the BS to the ground at +11 and then swings 7 times with GWM 'off' at +11).


If the BS gets initiative it goes the other way.

No, it really doesnt.

Lets assume the B/S flukes it and actually wins initiative. How do you spend your action and bonus action?

[Giant2005]

Shove isn't going to work. Its Strength(Athletics) vs. Dexterity(Acrobatics). If the BS has Acrobatics from its background, then that means +11 vs. +8. There's a 45% chance that this won't work.
So in order for the Wizard to survive the first round, he has to beat both the Fighter's Initiative and Athletics score, which the Fighter having a significant advantage both times? It isn't sounding too good for the poor Wizard - especially considering the Fighter can easily succeed on either of those rolls via his Lucky dice.
Not that it matters much anyway, because if he survives round 1, he falls on round 2.

Average damage is

Hit: 40% * 2d6+15 (22) = 8.8
Crit: 5% * 4d6+15 (29) = 1.45
Total: 10.25
x6: 61.5
Yeah my bad - I was factoring in GWF but it turns out that build has the Archery FS instead (god knows why he isn't just plinking the Wizard to death - Archery is clearly the superior FS).
There is also a 26.% chance of the Fighter landing a crit among those 6 attacks, and that crit would again result in the Wizard's first round death.


the BS simply casts a higher level False Life gaining in excess of 20 temporary hit points, gets up and walks 40 feet away from the fighter (invisible can't OA).
Nope, he isn't the Flash - his walk speed is only 40' (not 80), so he only walks 20' away.


The fighter can't get to them on their next round and must use ranged attacks which they are not optimized for. We'll say they have a +0 dex because they pumped everything into Str and used everything else on feats (like the above build):

Hit: 0%
Crit: 5% * 2d10+15 (sniper) (26) = 1.3
x8: 10.4
The build has 18 Dex and the Archery FS. Not that it matters anyway, considering that the Fighter wouldn't bother changing weapons - he would just go knock down the Wizard again and beat him to death with another 31.85 damage.
It would be an absolute miracle for the Wizard to get through one round, but he sure isn't getting through two.

[NewDM]

If only the Fighter had some way to counteract unlucky rolls.

Oh wait...

Mate, odds are the BS loses initiative. Odds are (even with your skewed maths - you're not counting the fact that precise strike only gets used if the fighter misses, and if he hits he instead spams menacing or tripping strike) that the B/S goes down in a screaming heap if this happens. He certainly doesnt last past round 2 (when the Fighter action surges again, shoves the BS to the ground at +11 and then swings 7 times with GWM 'off' at +11).



No it really doesnt.

Lets assume the B/S wins initiative. How do you spend your action and bonus action?

The odds aren't that bad that the BS loses initiative unless the Fighter has and uses the Lucky feat. I counted the fact that precise strike is only used on a miss, go back and look at what I tallied up. In reality the fighter will miss 1/2 of the time when trying to trip. So they won't get the damage for one attack (or they will use precise strike to get the damage, but not trip, or the BS will make the saving throw and not fall prone) so the fighter won't have advantage until the 3rd attack. This skews the numbers a lot.

If the BS wins initiative they do Blade Song + Greater Invisibility. At that point the fighter will miss every other attack, and be making regular attack rolls even when the BS is prone (adv cancels disadv). The damage goes way down. Here's how that would look:

Trip attack hit chance 12.25%. That means it would take 5 trip attacks to even have a 50% chance that one of them will connect. It would however be able to use Precise Strike which would increase its chance (but no trip) to 49% hit chance. So half of those would connect. For optimal purposes (for the Fighter) GWM is never used.

So no, the BS would win if it got initiative.

[JoeJ]

Just because some guy up at WotC threw a gish build under the banner of the Fighter doesn't stop it from being a caster.

Says the person who's calling their gish a wizard.

[Malifice]

The odds aren't that bad that the BS loses initiative unless the Fighter has and uses the Lucky feat. I counted the fact that precise strike is only used on a miss, go back and look at what I tallied up. In reality the fighter will miss 1/2 of the time when trying to trip. So they won't get the damage for one attack (or they will use precise strike to get the damage, but not trip, or the BS will make the saving throw and not fall prone) so the fighter won't have advantage until the 3rd attack. This skews the numbers a lot.

If the BS wins initiative they do Blade Song + Greater Invisibility. At that point the fighter will miss every other attack, and be making regular attack rolls even when the BS is prone (adv cancels disadv). The damage goes way down. Here's how that would look:

Trip attack hit chance 12.25%. That means it would take 5 trip attacks to even have a 50% chance that one of them will connect. It would however be able to use Precise Strike which would increase its chance (but no trip) to 49% hit chance. So half of those would connect. For optimal purposes (for the Fighter) GWM is never used.

So no, the BS would win if it got initiative.

You're forgetting that the fighter declares the use of the die after he sees the result.

So if it's a miss by less than 6, he spams precise strike. I'f he hits on the d20 then he uses menacing or tripping strike. He has that option on each attack meaning he either hits or he hits hard with six attacks.

And the fighter has lucky. And alert. And Dex 18. He goes first, and even if he doesn't, he still wins.

[Shaofoo]

The one thing that I learned in this thread is:

Memes are one hell of a drug, people just won't let them go.

[Gwendol]

About the wall of force dome. That half inch off the ground is valid at the centerpoint. In natural terrain only the DM knows what the gap will be at the edges. It can be the same, more, or nothing. It's not good enough for settling this discussion, that's for sure.

[mgshamster]

The wall of force is not stated to be immobile in the spell description unlike (say) forcecage which expressly states it is.

Otuluke's Resiliant Sphere specifically says it is movable. Level 4 spell.

Forcecage specifically says its immovable. Level 7 spell.

Wall of Force does not say one way or another. Level 5 spell.

We cannot use either spell as evidence that wall of force works one way or the other. There's only one conclusion you can draw from it: it is left up for a GM ruling. Moveable sometimes and immovable sometimes, depending on the situation.

[Shaofoo]

We cannot use either spell as evidence that wall of force works one way or the other. There's only one conclusion you can draw from it: it is left up for a GM ruling. Moveable sometimes and immovable sometimes, depending on the situation.

Which in this case translates to : Whichever it is most convenient for whoever the person is arguing at the moment.

[Giant2005]

Otuluke's Resiliant Sphere specifically says it is movable. Level 4 spell.

Forcecage specifically says its immovable. Level 7 spell.

Wall of Force does not say one way or another. Level 5 spell.

We cannot use either spell as evidence that wall of force works one way or the other. There's only one conclusion you can draw from it: it is left up for a GM ruling. Moveable sometimes and immovable sometimes, depending on the situation.

I don't think there should be any need to cite other spells as evidence. If the description of something doesn't give it a trait, then it doesn't have that trait - and we have no reason to think otherwise. We have just as much cause to think that Wall of Force is immobile, as we do to think that looking upon it will turn us to stone.

[smcmike]

I don't think there should be any need to cite other spells as evidence. If the description of something doesn't give it a trait, then it doesn't have that trait - and we have no reason to think otherwise. We have just as much cause to think that Wall of Force is immobile, as we do to think that looking upon it will turn us to stone.

Just my opinion - the wall of force is immobile. It is not an object. It's force. There isn't anything there to move. You just smash up against it like a mime.

It doesn't have a weight (since it isn't an object), so how would you go about deciding how hard it is to move? It can be free-floating.

Fun thing you can do with it - create a platform in the sky upon which to do battle.

[Giant2005]

Just my opinion - the wall of force is immobile. It is not an object. It's force. There isn't anything there to move. You just smash up against it like a mime.

It doesn't have a weight (since it isn't an object), so how would you go about deciding how hard it is to move? It can be free-floating.

Fun thing you can do with it - create a platform in the sky upon which to do battle.

That is just one of the many things the DM has to decide for himself. It is actually pretty rare to have a weight given for anything in 5e - every time you need to ask a DM if you are strong enough to move a grappled monster for instance.

[smcmike]

That is just one of the many things the DM has to decide for himself. It is actually pretty rare to have a weight given for anything in 5e - every time you need to ask a DM if you are strong enough to move a grappled monster for instance.

True enough, but there isn't even an object here to have a weight. It's force.

Walls of stone and ice are treated like the objects they are. A wall of stone can't float unsupported, because it has weight. A wall or force is just force - it is where it is.

[mgshamster]

True enough, but there isn't even an object here to have a weight. It's force.

Walls of stone and ice are treated like the objects they are. A wall of stone can't float unsupported, because it has weight. A wall or force is just force - it is where it is.

Otiluke's Resiliant Sphere is also nothing but pure force and it's moveable. It's specifically called out as weightless. It can be moved by either someone on the outside or the inside (at half speed) or flat out picking it up.

We can't use the fact that it is pure force to judge whether it is moveable or not.

[AvatarVecna]

Heck, Magic Missile is mobile; indeed, it would be much less useful if it wasn't.

[RickAllison]

As a side note, maybe we should let NewDM keep his Bladesong while a T-Rex. +Int to AC means the T-Rex gets the spectacular AC of 9 (only 2 Intelligence) and his Con save becomes +0 as well. At that point, the fighter is auto-hitting unless he rolls a 1.

Fighter makes his attacks at a 95% success rate or 90.25% if he has disadvantage, then the wizard has a 45% chance to fail his save (I'm assuming the fighter does low enough damage that it is only DC 10, which is probably a bad assumption). So each attack has a 42.75 or 40.6% chance of breaking concentration.

If the fighter uses a -5/+10 feat, the likelihood to hit goes down (hijacking one of the builds above that had Str 20 and Dex 18 with both of them, he goes from hitting on a 2 to only hitting on a 3 for Heavy or 4 for bow), but the added damage means the Con save will be larger.

For GWM, it will be 3.5+2.5+5, which works out to be only a DC 11 save. Still, that ensures the odds are slightly better for the fighter. The odds of the wizard keeping it up through the regular four attacks alone becomes 9.15%, still leaving the Action Surge. Odds are likely that the T-Rex fails by his second attack, without doing any damage.

[Giant2005]

As a side note, maybe we should let NewDM keep his Bladesong while a T-Rex. +Int to AC means the T-Rex gets the spectacular AC of 9 (only 2 Intelligence) and his Con save becomes +0 as well. At that point, the fighter is auto-hitting unless he rolls a 1.

Fighter makes his attacks at a 95% success rate or 90.25% if he has disadvantage, then the wizard has a 45% chance to fail his save (I'm assuming the fighter does low enough damage that it is only DC 10, which is probably a bad assumption). So each attack has a 42.75 or 40.6% chance of breaking concentration.

If the fighter uses a -5/+10 feat, the likelihood to hit goes down (hijacking one of the builds above that had Str 20 and Dex 18 with both of them, he goes from hitting on a 2 to only hitting on a 3 for Heavy or 4 for bow), but the added damage means the Con save will be larger.

For GWM, it will be 3.5+2.5+5, which works out to be only a DC 11 save. Still, that ensures the odds are slightly better for the fighter. The odds of the wizard keeping it up through the regular four attacks alone becomes 9.15%, still leaving the Action Surge. Odds are likely that the T-Rex fails by his second attack, without doing any damage.

That is a humorous situation you have described there, but it is entirely moot. With those stats and that spell rotation, the Wizard is dead a few rounds before Polymorph enters the equation.

[Sigreid]

Otiluke's Resiliant Sphere is also nothing but pure force and it's moveable. It's specifically called out as weightless. It can be moved by either someone on the outside or the inside (at half speed) or flat out picking it up.

We can't use the fact that it is pure force to judge whether it is moveable or not.

Well, it isn't much of a wall if wall of force can be tossed around like a beach ball.

[Shaofoo]

As a side note, maybe we should let NewDM keep his Bladesong while a T-Rex. +Int to AC means the T-Rex gets the spectacular AC of 9 (only 2 Intelligence) and his Con save becomes +0 as well. At that point, the fighter is auto-hitting unless he rolls a 1.

Fighter makes his attacks at a 95% success rate or 90.25% if he has disadvantage, then the wizard has a 45% chance to fail his save (I'm assuming the fighter does low enough damage that it is only DC 10, which is probably a bad assumption). So each attack has a 42.75 or 40.6% chance of breaking concentration.

If the fighter uses a -5/+10 feat, the likelihood to hit goes down (hijacking one of the builds above that had Str 20 and Dex 18 with both of them, he goes from hitting on a 2 to only hitting on a 3 for Heavy or 4 for bow), but the added damage means the Con save will be larger.

For GWM, it will be 3.5+2.5+5, which works out to be only a DC 11 save. Still, that ensures the odds are slightly better for the fighter. The odds of the wizard keeping it up through the regular four attacks alone becomes 9.15%, still leaving the Action Surge. Odds are likely that the T-Rex fails by his second attack, without doing any damage.

I do think such abilities that are dependant on mod also comes with a minimum as well. I don't think that there would be a penalty although doesn't the Bladesong actually require a blade anyway and while Polymorphed doesn't all equipment get merged? Although I would find it amusing to have the T-Rex dancing around with a Longsword in his tiny hands.

[mgshamster]

Well, it isn't much of a wall if wall of force can be tossed around like a beach ball.

That's fair. It's also why it's GM dependent.

My bet is that if it's used like a sphere, it's probably moveable. A hemisphere may be moveable depending on the situation. A flat surface is likely not moveable. It just really depends on the situation.

It really fits in with the 5e design philosophy of "rulings, not rules." This spell definitely calls for a ruling at the table during play.

If I were the GM, and a player was using this spell to create a hemisphere, I'd make it dependent on the caster's intent. If the caster wants it moveable (say as a giant bowl to float the whole party across a river of lava), then it's moveable. If the caster wants to use it to trap an enemy, then it's not moveable.

But that's just me.

[RulesJD]

That's fair. It's also why it's GM dependent.

My bet is that if it's used like a sphere, it's probably moveable. A hemisphere may be moveable depending on the situation. A flat surface is likely not moveable. It just really depends on the situation.

It really fits in with the 5e design philosophy of "rulings, not rules." This spell definitely calls for a ruling at the table during play.

If I were the GM, and a player was using this spell to create a hemisphere, I'd make it dependent on the caster's intent. If the caster wants it moveable (say as a giant bowl to float the whole party across a river of lava), then it's moveable. If the caster wants to use it to trap an enemy, then it's not moveable.

But that's just me.

It really, REALLY doesn't move. It literally says in the spell description that it can be cast without being attached to the ground, unlike other spells that require attachment.

There are no stats for moving it/attacking through it, again unlike other spells.

The Wall of Force doesn't move. Do you have any idea how ridiculously broken it would be if you COULD move the Wall of Force?

Also, I haven't even been abusing the best feature of it.

The WoF is up to a 10ft radius. That means it can be smaller. Why is that abusable?

I make a Wall of Force with a 1ft radius half-dome, pushing your Fighter to the inside. You are now stuck inside, basically, a 2ftx2ft area. Could luck doing anything, much less trying to attack outwards or stand on your helmet. But still 1/2 inch off the ground you are now forced down against.

Tada, you are effectively restrained, but for damn sure you don't have 3/4 cover and can't move.



Also, I honestly completely forgot about the BS build.

ANY BM/Champion build is going to get wrecked UNLESS it wins initiative. 1ft Radius Wall of Force to pin the Fighter down, then Wizard has all the time in the world to cast any non-concentration buffs. Given that it is a level 10 vs a level 20, giving the Initiative to the Wizard isn't asking for much.

Alternatively, the Wizard drops to 18 Int and picks up the Alert feat. Now you're at +8 vs +9.

[Shaofoo]

It really, REALLY doesn't move. It literally says in the spell description that it can be cast without being attached to the ground, unlike other spells that require attachment.

There are no stats for moving it/attacking through it, again unlike other spells.

The Wall of Force doesn't move. Do you have any idea how ridiculously broken it would be if you COULD move the Wall of Force?

Also, I haven't even been abusing the best feature of it.

The WoF is up to a 10ft radius. That means it can be smaller. Why is that abusable?

I make a Wall of Force with a 1ft radius half-dome, pushing your Fighter to the inside. You are now stuck inside, basically, a 2ftx2ft area. Could luck doing anything, much less trying to attack outwards or stand on your helmet. But still 1/2 inch off the ground you are now forced down against.

Tada, you are effectively restrained, but for damn sure you don't have 3/4 cover and can't move.


This has been tried before and it fails.

You can't make the fighter squeeze into the small sphere there is nothing that says that you can force the fighter into a smaller space than he actually is, he will just stand there until you can actually push him completely out of one side and stop having an illegal state. Basically trying to Pokeball the Fighter will fail. And if you can then why not go all the way and say an inch diameter sphere, now the Fighter is soup.




Also, I honestly completely forgot about the BS build.

ANY BM/Champion build is going to get wrecked UNLESS it wins initiative. 1ft Radius Wall of Force to pin the Fighter down, then Wizard has all the time in the world to cast any non-concentration buffs. Given that it is a level 10 vs a level 20, giving the Initiative to the Wizard isn't asking for much.

Alternatively, the Wizard drops to 18 Int and picks up the Alert feat. Now you're at +8 vs +9.

Well Schrodinger's Fighter can also pick Alert as well and you'd be where you started except weaker since the fighter has 5 ASI over you.

If you are going to change the stats on one side you should give courtesy for the other side to change things as well.

[Gwendol]

This has been tried before and it fails.

You can't make the fighter squeeze into the small sphere there is nothing that says that you can force the fighter into a smaller space than he actually is, he will just stand there until you can actually push him completely out of one side and stop having an illegal state. Basically trying to Pokeball the Fighter will fail. And if you can then why not go all the way and say an inch diameter sphere, now the Fighter is soup.


This isn't covered in the spell description, but looking at Forcecage gives an indication for a ruling. Since Forcecage can't fit a creature larger than the available space, neither should WoF.

[RickAllison]

This isn't covered in the spell description, but looking at Forcecage gives an indication for a ruling. Since Forcecage can't fit a creature larger than the available space, neither should WoF.

So the smallest would be a 7 ft diameter hemisphere (the diagonal of the 5 ft square)?

[Gwendol]

Ask your DM :-)

[mgshamster]

It really, REALLY doesn't move. It literally says in the spell description that it can be cast without being attached to the ground, unlike other spells that require attachment.

There are no stats for moving it/attacking through it, again unlike other spells.

The Wall of Force doesn't move. Do you have any idea how ridiculously broken it would be if you COULD move the Wall of Force?

Otiluke's Resilint Sphere also has no such requirement and it can be moved. Forcecage also has no such requirement and it cannot be moved.

We cannot use the the requirement (or lack thereof) for attachment as evidence for it being moveable or not.

[MaxWilson]

Eh, then first spell would be Greater Invisibility, which the BS would then use to buff up with all the non-concentration spells. After that they'd swap to the other spells. With disadvantage to attack the Fighter has less than a 50/50 chance of hitting.

Yes, I'm changing my build, just like the Fighter build in this thread has been changed several times.

I dunno about you--I'm still referring to Degalus Magnus Benedictus from post #42, who originally fought Diana Floralia Minerva the warlock.

================================================== ===


I'm not sure if I agree with your interpretation of what he is saying (--- I hate twitter - it is too hard to convey even the most basic of thoughts in 150 characters), but either way it doesn't matter. The errata makes it impossible: "Empowered Evocation (p. 117). The damage bonus applies to one damage roll of a spell, not multiple rolls."

The errata does not make it impossible. The errata is 100% consistent with what Crawford just said Magic Missile: because the spell's damage is explicitly "simultaneous", there is only one roll. If you have 9 missiles and you do d4+6 with a missile hit, then you roll (d4+6)x9, exactly as Crawford said.

I acknowledge that this is poor writing on the PHB author's part, to make little words like "simultaneous" be significant without calling it out as such, but the upshot is that Empowered Evocation and Magic Missile have a special interaction which makes Magic Missile the Evoker's go-to single-target spell.

================================================== ===


Well Schrodinger's Fighter can also pick Alert as well and you'd be where you started except weaker since the fighter has 5 ASI over you.

If you are going to change the stats on one side you should give courtesy for the other side to change things as well.

It may not even require any Schrodingering. Degalus from post #42 already has Alert, despite being designed for general play instead of a specific scenario. It's just a good feat to have.

[RulesJD]

Otiluke's Resilint Sphere also has no such requirement and it can be moved. Forcecage also has no such requirement and it cannot be moved.

We cannot use the the requirement (or lack thereof) for attachment as evidence for it being moveable or not.

Don't get me wrong, I love ORS and the hilarity that can ensue.

But you can't cast ORS off the ground like it specifically says you can with WoF. It must target a creature, not a space in the air. The only way that's possible is if you're falling and cast ORS, in which case it does exactly what it says it does because it's weightless and can be picked up, it thus falls from the impact of the creature that cast it/had it cast on it. ORS, in general, obeys the laws of gravity.

A WoF very specifically does not obey the laws of gravity, no matter how much damage or force is applied to it.


As to the other posters:

Yes, you could make the fighter fit into a smaller area. The PHB is explicit that a creature doesn't take up the 5ftx5ft grid square, but rather that is their zone of control. Forcing the Fighter to the inside of the half-dome would shove them inside the dome, or even sphere. What happens if you make the sphere 1ftx1ft? Honestly, no idea. But you can definitely make it small enough to not harm the fighter, while still physically pinning them and making any sort of effort like digging practically impossible.



I can't emphasize this enough. You went from giving EVERYTHING to the Warlock, to giving EVERYTHING to the Fighter (apparently grabbing Lucky + Alert now), which is rather hilarious considering the Wizard is literally 1/2 the level. If you lose Initiative as a BM (likely due to similar Dex) or a Champion (less likely due to 1/2 prof to Init but still possible) you lose the fight. They have no way to counter WoF full sphere, and no way to counter WoF half-dome with a much smaller radius, especially if it's on rock/cement.

The only Fighter that stands a chance is an EK. Would likely have to swap spells out and it gets a lot trickier due to Counterspell/Dispel.

And before you start laying claims of Schrodinger's Wizard, this Wizard is level 5 and has access to Contact Other Plane. In homebrew games my standard procedure before taking a long rest is to cast it (it's a ritual so no need for spell slot) and ask if I will encounter certain types of creatures in the next adventuring day. "Will I fight a spell caster tomorrow?" "Will it have Counterspell/Dispel?" etc. If I'm a level 10 Wizard I'm not going in unprepared.

[RulesJD]

*snip*

================================================== ===



The errata does not make it impossible. The errata is 100% consistent with what Crawford just said Magic Missile: because the spell's damage is explicitly "simultaneous", there is only one roll. If you have 9 missiles and you do d4+6 with a missile hit, then you roll (d4+6)x9, exactly as Crawford said.

I acknowledge that this is poor writing on the PHB author's part, to make little words like "simultaneous" be significant without calling it out as such, but the upshot is that Empowered Evocation and Magic Missile have a special interaction which makes Magic Missile the Evoker's go-to single-target spell.

Sadly I am right about how MM + Empowered Evoc works, because I agree that it's a massively stupid ruling. The +Mod to spell casting damage should work just like it does for Warlocks. Warlocks get it on every EB (single spell) at a low level, Draconic Sorcs get it on every spell (of a specific damage type) at mid level, and Evoc Wizards get it on an entire school of spells at the high level. No need to complicate it, but there you go.

A fun question I always had is what you do with DoT spells like Wall of Fire, etc. To skirt the rule you can just roll the damage when you cast it, add your Int mod, and then use that roll each time. Admittedly not likely to be RAW, but otherwise you're taking a level 10 Class feature and making it laughably bad.

[MaxWilson]

I can't emphasize this enough. You went from giving EVERYTHING to the Warlock, to giving EVERYTHING to the Fighter (apparently grabbing Lucky + Alert now)

He already had Alert and Lucky, since post #42 of this thread. They are just good feats to have, and the fighter has a lot of ASIs with which to take them.

As a DM I agree with you BTW about Wall of Force. It's clearly not mobile, and it would be both stupid and brokenly strong if it were mobile.

[mgshamster]

Don't get me wrong, I love ORS and the hilarity that can ensue.

But you can't cast ORS off the ground like it specifically says you can with WoF. It must target a creature, not a space in the air. The only way that's possible is if you're falling and cast ORS, in which case it does exactly what it says it does because it's weightless and can be picked up, it thus falls from the impact of the creature that cast it/had it cast on it. ORS, in general, obeys the laws of gravity.

A WoF very specifically does not obey the laws of gravity, no matter how much damage or force is applied to it.

There is no requirement for casting ORS on or off the ground. You can cast it on a flying creature, and then that creature can only move at half movement. It does not make the flying creature fall.

There is no rule that says WoF is resistant to gravity, so it is not "very specifically." It requires a ruling by a GM. But if you want to insist it is, that means it is weightless and therefore can be moved.

There is literally no rule one way or the other. It very specifically requires a ruling by a GM.

For someone who is so insistent that they are always right, even going so far as saying "If you ever think you're right and I'm wrong, it's safer just to assume I'm right," (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20774337&postcount=27) you sure do make up a lot of rules instead of reading the rules as they are actually written.

[smcmike]

There is no rule that says WoF is resistant to gravity, so it is not "very specifically." It requires a ruling by a GM. But if you want to insist it is, that means it is weightless and therefore can be moved.


This does not follow. The fact that it is weightless does not mean it can be moved. It is force, not matter, so suggesting that it does have weight seems bizarre to me.

[smcmike]

And before you start laying claims of Schrodinger's Wizard, this Wizard is level 5 and has access to Contact Other Plane. In homebrew games my standard procedure before taking a long rest is to cast it (it's a ritual so no need for spell slot) and ask if I will encounter certain types of creatures in the next adventuring day. "Will I fight a spell caster tomorrow?" "Will it have Counterspell/Dispel?" etc. If I'm a level 10 Wizard I'm not going in unprepared.

You start EVERY DAY with a save against 6d6 damage and temporary insanity? Also, the spell doesn't indicate that the being contact has any certain knowledge of the future, so...

"Unclear"
"Unclear"
"Unclear"

Or, if it does have some prognostication ability -

"Yup, maybe lots"
"Which one?"
"Oh for goodness sakes, Gary, can we just get on with the adventure?"
"Hmm, looks like we cannot. You are now insane."

[mgshamster]

This does not follow. The fact that it is weightless does not mean it can be moved. It is force, not matter, so suggesting that it does have weight seems bizarre to me.

It's how Otiluke's Resiliant Sphere is written.

It is a spherical force that is weightless and can be moved. Forcecage, on the other hand, does not mention the weight nor can it be moved.

If you think that there are inherent contradictions, you may be right. This supports my position even more: it requires a GM ruling and you cannot determine it one way or the other from the text alone.

Note that my own ruling was to make the hemisphere immovable for the purposes of this exercise - the fighter is trapped in it. I'm perfectly ok with allowing it both ways for the PC wizard, because I love it when my players use their abilities in novel ways to overcome challenges. To me, that's fun.

For the purposes of this thread, we can make a ruling and stick with it, but any ruling here doesn't automatically translate to RAW or any other thread.

[JNAProductions]

Minor note-if we're treating a 1/2 inch gap as 3/4ths cover (which is silly, by the way-it's total cover. That's not even enough space to fit your hand through) my Fighter with Sharpshooter gets to ignore it.

[mgshamster]

Minor note-if we're treating a 1/2 inch gap as 3/4ths cover (which is silly, by the way-it's total cover. That's not even enough space to fit your hand through) my Fighter with Sharpshooter gets to ignore it.

The origina argument by RulesJD was:

It counts as 3/4 for the wizard, because magic, and full cover for the fighter, because physics.

Evidence for this was that forcecage has multiple vertical 1/2" gaps every 1/2", therefore a single horizontal 1/2" off the ground is identical to that. Lessons in geometry not withstanding.

[Shaofoo]

Yes, you could make the fighter fit into a smaller area. The PHB is explicit that a creature doesn't take up the 5ftx5ft grid square, but rather that is their zone of control. Forcing the Fighter to the inside of the half-dome would shove them inside the dome, or even sphere. What happens if you make the sphere 1ftx1ft? Honestly, no idea. But you can definitely make it small enough to not harm the fighter, while still physically pinning them and making any sort of effort like digging practically impossible.


You can't shove the fighter into the smaller sphere, there is nothing that says that the Fighter is forced into anything other than being pushed out of one side. And because the fighter can't be pinned then the Wall of Force would still be cutting into the creature's space as he is pushed against the wall, there is nothing that forces the Fighter to squeeze into the smaller wall, you might want that but nothing in the rules state how strong the push is, especially when the fighter has something to push against (unlike a wall where going on either side is free space so the fighter can be shoved on either side because there is no resistance from the spell itself).



And before you start laying claims of Schrodinger's Wizard, this Wizard is level 5 and has access to Contact Other Plane. In homebrew games my standard procedure before taking a long rest is to cast it (it's a ritual so no need for spell slot) and ask if I will encounter certain types of creatures in the next adventuring day. "Will I fight a spell caster tomorrow?" "Will it have Counterspell/Dispel?" etc. If I'm a level 10 Wizard I'm not going in unprepared.

You also note that Contact Other Plane has a risk of 6d6 psychic damage and insanity. You don't have infinite time and the answers can change on a whim (Will it have Counterspell? I'll probably just answer all future question as maybe if it is possible but things with static answers can change like if it does have Counterspell). You could risk having your big day be ruined by being unable to take actions at all while insane. This favors the fighter immensely since you basically laid the risk to make it an autowin for the Fighter.

[Shaofoo]

The origina argument by RulesJD was:

It counts as 3/4 for the wizard, because magic, and full cover for the fighter, because physics.

Evidence for this was that forcecage has multiple vertical 1/2" gaps every 1/2", therefore a single horizontal 1/2" off the ground is identical to that. Lessons in geometry not withstanding.

He'll also probably use that the WoF dome will squeeze down on the fighter even though that part is in a huge grey area (pinning the Fighter so he is restrained even though the WoF has no way to cause the restrained condition).

[smcmike]

It's how Otiluke's Resiliant Sphere is written.

It is a spherical force that is weightless and can be moved. Forcecage, on the other hand, does not mention the weight nor can it be moved.

If you think that there are inherent contradictions, you may be right. This supports my position even more: it requires a GM ruling and you cannot determine it one way or the other from the text alone.

Note that my own ruling was to make the hemisphere immovable for the purposes of this exercise - the fighter is trapped in it. I'm perfectly ok with allowing it both ways for the PC wizard, because I love it when my players use their abilities in novel ways to overcome challenges. To me, that's fun.

For the purposes of this thread, we can make a ruling and stick with it, but any ruling here doesn't automatically translate to RAW or any other thread.

I'm not arguing that the RAW is clear, and I apologize if that's how it looked. I'm arguing my position on how it should be interpreted.

Here's how I read the differences you've highlighted between the spells -

ORS says it is weightless BECAUSE it can be moved. If it could not be moved, its weightlessness would be irrelevant - as it is in the case of Forcecage and, I would argue, Wall of Force.

If it is weightless, and also can be moved, that leads to absurdity. The slightest breeze would send it flying. Further, if it is weightless an can be moved, its use as a wall is extremely suspect in almost all circumstances.

"The monster advances on you. You are seconds from being devoured."
"I cast Wall of Force. That should buy us some time."
"The monster pushes your wall over. Your body is pinned beneath the wall, with the monster on top. It eats your head."

On the other hand, if it does have weight and is movable, I'm not sure how that is supposed to work, since it can hover in midair.

[RickAllison]

I'm not arguing that the RAW is clear, and I apologize if that's how it looked. I'm arguing my position on how it should be interpreted.

Here's how I read the differences you've highlighted between the spells -

ORS says it is weightless BECAUSE it can be moved. If it could not be moved, its weightlessness would be irrelevant - as it is in the case of Forcecage and, I would argue, Wall of Force.

If it is weightless, and also can be moved, that leads to absurdity. The slightest breeze would send it flying. Further, if it is weightless an can be moved, its use as a wall is extremely suspect in almost all circumstances.

"The monster advances on you. You are seconds from being devoured."
"I cast Wall of Force. That should buy us some time."
"The monster pushes your wall over. Your body is pinned beneath the wall, with the monster on top. It eats your head."

On the other hand, if it does have weight and is movable, I'm not sure how that is supposed to work, since it can hover in midair.

If it's immovable, that means it's impossible to move. If it's impossible to do, that's a step up from nearly impossible. Nearly impossible is a DC 30 check. So a step up from that would be DC 35! Not possible for a fighter alone, but a fighter/rogue.....

Not relevant to this discussion, but it is a fun thing that could pop up in an actual game.

[JellyPooga]

Yes. After buffing that sounds about right. The 2nd 5th level slot goes to Vampiric Touch for healing the BS.

After the 5th round it then deals the damage while healing itself with Vampiric Touch. After that is focuses on straight up damage spells like Booming Blade and Haste, occasionally throwing out a False Life or another Vampiric Touch if it needs healing.

The Vampiric Touch that also uses Concentration, on top of Greater Invisibility, Polymorph and/or Animate Objects? The one that, assuming the Bladesinger hits, deals 5d6 (an average of about 17) damage per round? Against the Fighter with around about 200hp? Yeah, try again when you're dealing/healing damage that the Fighter actually cares about.

The Fighter has both resources and time on his side. If the Bladesinger is going to win, he needs to do it quickly or the Fighter will just attrition him to death. "Occasionally throwing out a False Life" is just delaying the inevitable if you're not also whittling the Fighter down, because you'll eventually run out of False Life and every time you cast it, you're using up a slot that could have been better used stopping the Fighter from pounding on your skull every round.

Your Bladsinger might last a few more rounds using the tactics you describe but he's still not winning the fight.

[RulesJD]

I'm not arguing that the RAW is clear, and I apologize if that's how it looked. I'm arguing my position on how it should be interpreted.

Here's how I read the differences you've highlighted between the spells -

ORS says it is weightless BECAUSE it can be moved. If it could not be moved, its weightlessness would be irrelevant - as it is in the case of Forcecage and, I would argue, Wall of Force.

If it is weightless, and also can be moved, that leads to absurdity. The slightest breeze would send it flying. Further, if it is weightless an can be moved, its use as a wall is extremely suspect in almost all circumstances.

"The monster advances on you. You are seconds from being devoured."
"I cast Wall of Force. That should buy us some time."
"The monster pushes your wall over. Your body is pinned beneath the wall, with the monster on top. It eats your head."

On the other hand, if it does have weight and is movable, I'm not sure how that is supposed to work, since it can hover in midair.

Hahahah thank you for that image and showing the absurdity of thinking that a spell which says it can be cast off the ground is somehow moveable.

[RulesJD]

He'll also probably use that the WoF dome will squeeze down on the fighter even though that part is in a huge grey area (pinning the Fighter so he is restrained even though the WoF has no way to cause the restrained condition).

Said restrained, not Restrained Condition (capital letters important).

Yes, the WoF can shove a character whose body intersects to the side of the caster's choosing, which is significant because literally every other spell (including a level 9 spell) either shoves the creature out, gives a dex save, or cancels the spell. Why WoF is different, I have no idea. But it is.

How far can you shove? Beats me, but definitely enough so that the creature inside would be significantly restricted in available options. Go hop inside a telephone booth (bad example because they no longer exist I know), imagine it's made of material that can't be broken, and try to dig your way out. Elevate it 1/2 inch (or whatever you want for arrow slit width) and think of how little difference that would make.

Also, what do you plan on digging with? I've yet to see a player that walks around with a shovel.

[mgshamster]

I'm not arguing that the RAW is clear, and I apologize if that's how it looked. I'm arguing my position on how it should be interpreted.

Here's how I read the differences you've highlighted between the spells -

ORS says it is weightless BECAUSE it can be moved. If it could not be moved, its weightlessness would be irrelevant - as it is in the case of Forcecage and, I would argue, Wall of Force.

If it is weightless, and also can be moved, that leads to absurdity. The slightest breeze would send it flying. Further, if it is weightless an can be moved, its use as a wall is extremely suspect in almost all circumstances.

"The monster advances on you. You are seconds from being devoured."
"I cast Wall of Force. That should buy us some time."
"The monster pushes your wall over. Your body is pinned beneath the wall, with the monster on top. It eats your head."

On the other hand, if it does have weight and is movable, I'm not sure how that is supposed to work, since it can hover in midair.

That's perfectly fair. What if you want it to be moveable? Say you create a horizontal wall of force that everyone stands on, then push off a cliff so your whole party (wagons and all) glides over the grand canyon to the other side.

That's something I'd probably allow in my games. But if you rule that its immovable, always, it removes those options.

This is why I said that it can be both, depending on the use, and I'd allow the caster to decide.

[RulesJD]

You can't shove the fighter into the smaller sphere, there is nothing that says that the Fighter is forced into anything other than being pushed out of one side. And because the fighter can't be pinned then the Wall of Force would still be cutting into the creature's space as he is pushed against the wall, there is nothing that forces the Fighter to squeeze into the smaller wall, you might want that but nothing in the rules state how strong the push is, *snip*




You also note that Contact Other Plane has a risk of 6d6 psychic damage and insanity. You don't have infinite time and the answers can change on a whim (Will it have Counterspell? I'll probably just answer all future question as maybe if it is possible but things with static answers can change like if it does have Counterspell). You could risk having your big day be ruined by being unable to take actions at all while insane. This favors the fighter immensely since you basically laid the risk to make it an autowin for the Fighter.

1. You aren't pushed out, you are pushed in (half-dome or full sphere description. Important distinction.

2. Yup, no force mentioned, merely that it happens. Everything from a cockroach to an Adult Dragon. It just happens, no save given. Again, sorry you don't like it, but there you go.

3. And when you actually read the spell and how I said I would use it....."until you finish a long rest". I use this before I go to sleep, so I'm right as rain when I wake up. You'd almost think I'd actually done this before.

4. Fun fact, this Divination spell doesn't contain the usual language that screws players over. In fact, it is the only one that ENCOURAGES the divulging of accurate information by using small phrases rather than just 1 word answers. "Will I fight something that has the potential for Counterspell/Dispel?" etc. Just because YOU don't like it, doesn't mean an impartial DM (because lets face it none of us are impartial here) would rule any other way than a fight against an EK being "yes" or "possibly" vs a BM/Champion being "No" because even with feats they can't get it without MCing.

[MaxWilson]

Also, what do you plan on digging with? I've yet to see a player that walks around with a shovel.

You've seen at least one PC in this thread that walks around with Mold Earth, which is about 600 times better than a shovel.

[RulesJD]

Minor note-if we're treating a 1/2 inch gap as 3/4ths cover (which is silly, by the way-it's total cover. That's not even enough space to fit your hand through) my Fighter with Sharpshooter gets to ignore it.

Was waiting for someone to mention that.

Of course Disadvantage would apply (any remotely smart Wizard would drop prone when he sees the bow on your back and stuck inside a WoF).

I suppose to fully remove that threat, just make a WoF Sphere around your entire character, then Mold Earth some Full Cover mounds of dirt, then WoF Half-Dome 1/2 inch (or whatever you consider an arrow slit) above the ground.

The best you'll be able to do is 1 Readied Action shot per round. With 100 rounds to burn you'll be dead long before the Wizard whose dropping in Fireballs/Magic Missiles.


One good counter to the WoF Half-Dome thing would actually be to swap out a feat for Magic Initiate (Wizard) and pick up Mold Earth. Then cast it directly below your feet/fill up the gap under the WoF. Would be a race against the Fireballs/MM, but definitely possible.

Of course if it's Rock that becomes harder to abuse, but there are ways around that.

[RulesJD]

You've seen at least one PC in this thread that walks around with Mold Earth, which is about 600 times better than a shovel.

Yes. That is me, the Wizard. Not the Fighter. Would be decently useful on an Archer build for quick 3/4 cover, but I can't see any Fighter taking that ever, given the more useful cantrips they would pick up.

I picked it up on my Necromancer for obvious reasons and then realized its potential elsewhere. An oddly useful and abusable cantrip.

[smcmike]

That's perfectly fair. What if you want it to be moveable? Say you create a horizontal wall of force that everyone stands on, then push off a cliff so your whole party (wagons and all) glides over the grand canyon to the other side.

That's something I'd probably allow in my games. But if you rule that its immovable, always, it removes those options.

This is why I said that it can be both, depending on the use, and I'd allow the caster to decide.

I would not allow that. It seems much simpler in most circumstances not to allow any movement. It makes a fine bridge, but not a sky ferry.

On the other hand - "it can be free floating, or resting on a solid surface." I think if the solid surface moves, the wall moves with it.

For example, onboard a ship, you can create a wall resting on the ship, and it will move with the ship. . . Or, you can create a free-floating wall, potentially destroying the ship.

[RickAllison]

Yes. That is me, the Wizard. Not the Fighter. Would be decently useful on an Archer build for quick 3/4 cover, but I can't see any Fighter taking that ever, given the more useful cantrips they would pick up.

I picked it up on my Necromancer for obvious reasons and then realized its potential elsewhere. An oddly useful and abusable cantrip.

My campaign has used that cantrip for exactly one purpose: helping a farmer prepare his fields. It was awesome, our party did what would have taken the old man days or weeks in a matter of hours. PCs are great at farming!

[krugaan]

My campaign has used that cantrip for exactly one purpose: helping a farmer prepare his fields. It was awesome, our party did what would have taken the old man days or weeks in a matter of hours. PCs are great at farming!

Cough plantgrowth cough

PC's are great at a ton of things, because, magic.

[Shaofoo]

1. You aren't pushed out, you are pushed in (half-dome or full sphere description. Important distinction.

And stopped by the wall


2. Yup, no force mentioned, merely that it happens. Everything from a cockroach to an Adult Dragon. It just happens, no save given. Again, sorry you don't like it, but there you go.

"Just because" does not make a good argument. I don't like your argument because it is basically saying "it is like it is because shut up". And just because it happens is not a good enough, I can easily say "the fighter stops being pushed because he pushes back" because "it happens" so the fighter is partially out anyway.


3. And when you actually read the spell and how I said I would use it....."until you finish a long rest". I use this before I go to sleep, so I'm right as rain when I wake up. You'd almost think I'd actually done this before.

You didn't. nless you have been actually fighting in PvP with a fighter. Which in this case why can't a Fighter with his own connections off you while you are literally helpless. Time is not unlimited and you can't dictate when or where the match begins or if you will even be sane if you suffer a hiccup. Probably if you are incapacitated then the fight will go to the Fighter.


4. Fun fact, this Divination spell doesn't contain the usual language that screws players over. In fact, it is the only one that ENCOURAGES the divulging of accurate information by using small phrases rather than just 1 word answers. "Will I fight something that has the potential for Counterspell/Dispel?" etc. Just because YOU don't like it, doesn't mean an impartial DM (because lets face it none of us are impartial here) would rule any other way than a fight against an EK being "yes" or "possibly" vs a BM/Champion being "No" because even with feats they can't get it without MCing.

The spell says that it is expected one word answers. If a one word answer would be misleading then you are given a phrase but at no point is it expected you to somehow be completly truthful. You are basically at munchkin territory here trying to force the DM to divulge information by torturing the question. Saying that you might fight something that might have Counterspell or Dispel will get you a maybe because it isn't known what you will do next or that situations can change. You are talking to a spirit and they not omnipresent or infallible and could even have ulterior motives but that is beyond the spell.

Also you might want to tone down the "you don't like it" phrases. It makes you seem a lot more aggressive.

[mgshamster]

I would not allow that. It seems much simpler in most circumstances not to allow any movement. It makes a fine bridge, but not a sky ferry.

On the other hand - "it can be free floating, or resting on a solid surface." I think if the solid surface moves, the wall moves with it.

For example, onboard a ship, you can create a wall resting on the ship, and it will move with the ship. . . Or, you can create a free-floating wall, potentially destroying the ship.

In pathfinder's Skulls & Shackles campaign, it was called out as being immovable. If you cast it on a ship, it would batter against the ship's hull as the ship was pushed past it by the wind and current.

(I think. Can't remember if that spell specifically was called out, but any spell that was cast on an area stated in that area, regardless of where the ship moved. Made fog spells somewhat useless).

[RickAllison]

Cough plantgrowth cough

PC's are great at a ton of things, because, magic.

Our Druid did that as well. I made him a rocking chair using Fabricate, we combined Nature and Arcana checks to make NyQuil potions, and we fought off some werewolves that we tracked using a combination of Survival and Nature checks to make stink-bomb traps that were hidden with more Mold Earth.

[MaxWilson]

Yes. That is me, the Wizard. Not the Fighter. Would be decently useful on an Archer build for quick 3/4 cover, but I can't see any Fighter taking that ever, given the more useful cantrips they would pick up.

You're wrong. Look in post #42. It's the fighter.

[RulesJD]

Curious, any other classes that could take out a level 20 Fighter as easily as the Wizard? Or even at all?

My natural inclination is that a Moon Druid could abuse Earth Elemental form over the course of several hours/days, so long as there was soft dirt.

I'm pretty sure a Barbarian would still get its health burned through. Assassin Rogue 3/Paladin 7 for some hope of a massive Critical build?

[JNAProductions]

Curious, any other classes that could take out a level 20 Fighter as easily as the Wizard? Or even at all?

My natural inclination is that a Moon Druid could abuse Earth Elemental form over the course of several hours/days, so long as there was soft dirt.

I'm pretty sure a Barbarian would still get its health burned through. Assassin Rogue 3/Paladin 7 for some hope of a massive Critical build?

Erm... You've yet to prove a Wizard could do it.

[RulesJD]

You're wrong. Look in post #42. It's the fighter.

Ah as an EK, which means there wouldn't be the WoF to begin with. So not sure why it would matter since you wouldn't be digging through anything?

Like I said, useful on an Archer build, not much else for a Fighter. Sadly the "loose dirt" requirement limits its full construction ability. Although you could use it with HESCO baskets to great effect.

[RulesJD]

Erm... You've yet to prove a Wizard could do it.

Yes, we really have. BM/Champion get wrecked with 0 chance (minus starting close enough and winning Initiative), EK has a better chance. Just because you all don't like how the spells work doesn't mean that's not how they work, by RAW. Especially the Bladesinger build which stands a significantly greater chance of surviving the initial round of attacks even if it loses Initiative.

[JNAProductions]

Requiring you to win initiative still means you lose most of the time.

And just because YOU interpret magic one way doesn't mean everyone agrees.

[mgshamster]

Yes, we really have. BM/Champion get wrecked with 0 chance (minus starting close enough and winning Initiative), EK has a better chance. Just because you all don't like how the spells work doesn't mean that's not how they work, by RAW. Especially the Bladesinger build which stands a significantly greater chance of surviving the initial round of attacks even if it loses Initiative.

Just because you make up text and ignore text you don't like doesn't mean that's how it works by RAW.

[smcmike]

Yes, we really have. BM/Champion get wrecked with 0 chance (minus starting close enough and winning Initiative), EK has a better chance. Just because you all don't like how the spells work doesn't mean that's not how they work, by RAW. Especially the Bladesinger build which stands a significantly greater chance of surviving the initial round of attacks even if it loses Initiative.

1. That's a huge if.
2. Yeah, not really. Are you still on about shooting spells under the crack beneath a wall?

[MaxWilson]

Ah as an EK, which means there wouldn't be the WoF to begin with. So not sure why it would matter since you wouldn't be digging through anything?

Here's one way it could matter: a hilarious way for the EK to take out the Bladesinger would be to knock him prone using an attack, and then use Action Surge (Mold Earth) to move a 5' cube of dirt on top of him. That's 9500 lb. of dirt (76 lb./cubic foot, slightly heavier than water), about half the weight of an elephant. Good luck digging your way out of that, bladesinger. Only if he keeps fighting do you then shrug and cut his head off.

And yes, style matters. :)

Thanks for the word "Hesco bastion" BTW. I love looking at this picture (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Porta_john_hescos.JPG) and contemplating how quickly an Eldritch Knight and a couple of buddies could built that fortification.


Curious, any other classes that could take out a level 20 Fighter as easily as the Wizard? Or even at all?

I believe a Rogue 2/Shadow Monk 8 could do it.

[JellyPooga]

Especially the Bladesinger build which stands a significantly greater chance of surviving the initial round of attacks even if it loses Initiative.

Whilst it might survive a couple of extra rounds, I've still not seen anyone prove how it survives the next 4 or 5, let alone actually winning the fight. Surviving round 2 does not mean you win the fight.

[georgie_leech]

Ah as an EK, which means there wouldn't be the WoF to begin with. So not sure why it would matter since you wouldn't be digging through anything?



Last I checked, Eldritch Knights didn't go around with a sign on their backs saying "KNOWS MAGIC" in big letters; what exactly are you doing to know that he's an EK?

[MaxWilson]

Last I checked, Eldritch Knights didn't go around with a sign on their backs saying "KNOWS MAGIC" in big letters; what exactly are you doing to know that he's an EK?

And if someone does wear such a sign, he's probably an Assassin in disguise.

[krugaan]

And if someone does wear such a sign, he's probably an Assassin in disguise.

Pbbbbt, no, the "TOTALLY NOT AN ASSASSIN" sign is standard issue for assassins.

Guard: yeah, yeah, go on throu... waaaaitaminute. Are you an assassin?
Assassin: Dude, read the sign.
Guard: ... yeah, ok, go on through.

[RulesJD]

Last I checked, Eldritch Knights didn't go around with a sign on their backs saying "KNOWS MAGIC" in big letters; what exactly are you doing to know that he's an EK?

See prior post on the spell Contact Other Plane.

See also that this is a level 10 killing a level 20 character. You are going to make some concessions, and I find it HILARIOUS that people seem to want to make them in favor of the Fighter.


Let's reverse this, show me a Level 10 Fighter that has a snowball's chance in hell, WITH EVERYTHING IN THEIR FAVOR, of beating a level 20 Wizard. I asked for, at most, going first in Initiative (but not even necessary for a Bladesinger) and THAT'S IT. Everything else is people whining about spells locking down their level 20 character without any save or crap it can do about it. So, do the same for Fighter 10 vs Wizard 20.

Even naked Contingency + Simulacrum would be up at all times, and Clone on a Demiplane. Part of the Wizards body cut off an placed in a vat for Teleportation spell purposes.

Good luck.

[RulesJD]

Here's one way it could matter: a hilarious way for the EK to take out the Bladesinger would be to knock him prone using an attack, and then use Action Surge (Mold Earth) to move a 5' cube of dirt on top of him. That's 9500 lb. of dirt (76 lb./cubic foot, slightly heavier than water), about half the weight of an elephant. Good luck digging your way out of that, bladesinger. Only if he keeps fighting do you then shrug and cut his head off.

And yes, style matters. :)

Thanks for the word "Hesco bastion" BTW. I love looking at this picture (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Porta_john_hescos.JPG) and contemplating how quickly an Eldritch Knight and a couple of buddies could built that fortification.



I believe a Rogue 2/Shadow Monk 8 could do it.

Yeah we had to fill those damn things up all the time in Iraq. Heavy equipment kept breaking down in the heat/dust, so that sort of spell would have been lovely.

In D&D I'm imagining you could find a strong enough cloth and some local craftsmen to make interwoven wooden or metal bands. Heck with the Creation spell you could pretty much do it yourself. Way quicker and more efficient than the Wall of Stone spell.

*edit*

How do you figure the Rogue/Monk? Stunning Fist and all but Fighter's are proficient in Con Saves (Min +9 at level 20) with (apparently) Lucky and Indomitable. More likely to run out of Ki before it matters I would think.

[RulesJD]

Last I checked, Eldritch Knights didn't go around with a sign on their backs saying "KNOWS MAGIC" in big letters; what exactly are you doing to know that he's an EK?

So now we've gotten to the point where there Fighter has to hide what their subclass is??

AAAAHHAHAHAHAHAAHA. Wizard wins before the fight even starts because the one in a billion hero of the world level 20 Fighter that has stories sung about them throughout the land somehow isn't recognizable and their every feature (including casting spells) documented in the aforementioned songs.

[georgie_leech]

So now we've gotten to the point where there Fighter has to hide what their subclass is??

AAAAHHAHAHAHAHAAHA. Wizard wins before the fight even starts because the one in a billion hero of the world level 20 Fighter that has stories sung about them throughout the land somehow isn't recognizable and their every feature (including casting spells) documented in the aforementioned songs.

Not making an effort to hide, just not parading around in the classic robe and wizard hat. And at this point you're assuming this Wizard is gunning for this specific fighter; what happens if they just stumble into each other while one of them is in the process of doing something nefarious? I'll leave it to you to decide who the nefarious one is.

[mgshamster]

See prior post on the spell Contact Other Plane.

As has been pointed out previously, contact other plane does not allow you to know the future. There is absolutely nothing in the spell which would suggest that the creature you contact would know the future.

If it did, it would be even more powerful than the 9th level spell Foresight, which only grants a glimps in to the future.


Everything else is people whining about spells locking down their level 20 character without any save or crap it can do about it.

You making up rules and other people calling you on your BS is not "people whining." It's them calling you on your BS.

The fact that you're being an obnoxious bully about it also doesn't make the BS you're making up a part of RAW.

[DeAnno]

If the claim is that a Wizard 10 can beat a Fighter 20 we shouldn't be trying to bias the situation one way or another. Just because the Fighter is level 20 is no excuse for the Wizard to get to sculpt himself any more specifically than the Fighter can or to get any other structural advantages or rules concessions. We already aren't really accounting for the Fighter's magic items, which is a huge inaccuracy!

If the Wizard 10 can't beat the Fighter 20 fairly, then that's a sign the Wizard needs more levels not that we need to bias the argument some.

[Xetheral]

Everything else is people whining about spells locking down their level 20 character without any save or crap it can do about it.

Since when does expressing an opinion that disagrees with another poster's (i.e. yours) constitute whining?

Because a Wizard has access to (more) spells, there are naturally more interpretative questions regarding how the Wizard's abilities work. Those questions need to be resolved (at each table) whether or not a 10th level Wizard is trying to defeat a 20th level Fighter. Accordingly, they are questions that can (and should) be resolved without considering whether one is ruling in the Wizard's favor or the Fighter's favor. Once you know how the spells work against all targets, then you can get to the questions of contest parameters where the discussion is relevant whether the assumptions made favor one combatant or the other.

In short: interpretation of how the spells work in a way that you personally find overly restrictive, is in no way tilting the balance in the fighter's favor... it's instead simply disagreeing with you over how those spells should work against an arbitrary target.

[Cybren]

And if someone does wear such a sign, he's probably an Assassin in disguise.

Are you familiar with the Knight-Errant from Hackmaster?

[MaxWilson]

Are you familiar with the Knight-Errant from Hackmaster?

No, why? Sounds like a story! Do tell.

[Vogonjeltz]

I think you're confusing the EK with the Abjuror. EKs Dispel with a pure Int check; Abjurors get proficiency bonus, and bards get half-proficiency bonus plus possible Peerless Skill.

I think I misread the statement in the spell where it says to use your "spellcasting ability", interpreting that as ability mod + prof. You're right, going back to check nobody adds their prof except the Abjurer in situations like that.

Still, it would work 60% of the time (9+ = success); so that's pretty worthwhile...of course knowing it's a 4th level spell, the 20 EK could just use a 4th level slot and succeed 100% of the time...

Any way, thank you for the correction!


1. The Wall absolutely block any teleportation that requires the Etheral Plane. The question is whether it blocks other teleportation. Unclear, indications are that it does (it blocks all physical and spells), but uncertain. Arcane Charge looks like a solid argument for by-passing it, but that's why a Wizard wouldn't bother putting up a Wall of Force around an EK, which I said multiple times in several posts.

2. NOOOOOOOOPE. Even if you're proficient in your casting stat (EK's aren't), add your proficiency bonus to spell attacks/save (EKs do), you do NOT add your proficiency modifier to Counterspell checks unless you're an Abjuration Wizard. So the best you can do is add +5.

*edit* And apparently Bards. Didn't know that.

3. Digging out roughly 4 Cubic feet of dirt in 6 seconds???? If you think I'm getting too grandiose in my expectations of magic in D&D, that's straight up hilarious. A modern day backhoe would take longer haha.

You're also assuming that the fight is taking place where there is soft dirt and not, you know, rock.

4. Do you know how Invisible works? Plus the WALL isn't invisible, it's TRANSPARENT. Biiiiig difference. You can see through it just fine, which is in the Fighter's favor because otherwise a Wizard could drop See Invisibility and have advantage on even 3/4 cover attack rolls (Fighter couldn't see the attacker).

Forcewall only extends into the Ethereal plane and therefore also blocks ethereal travel, that's not the same thing as teleporting. And in the case of the Arcane Charge there's no correlation at all. It's absolutely clear on what it does, and it doesn't block teleportation spells. You may be thinking of Forcecage which requires a charisma saving throw to teleport out of.

You don't need to dig 4 feet, a character can squeeze through a space smaller than they can fit, so it would be 2 1/2, presumably, the example allowed for a few inches off the ground in order to target the Fighter, so there's almost enough room to squeeze under as it is. And I think we need not worry about timing considerations, there's plenty of questionably achievable activities (or under-achieveable in some cases) that occur within a round. With a shovel you can easily dig that in under 5 seconds, let alone 6. Backhoes aren't designed for speed, they're designed to save people from expending energy doing heavy lifting.

"An invisible wall of force"...

Seeing through is just fine, but it's obstructed. So...yeah.


Or they can just let the EK use up all their spell slots countering a level 1 spell.

The problem being that the Wizard needs Shield to not be killed by auto-attacks.


Actually you can't pass through the wall, but you can pass under the few inch gap at the bottom, so teleport would work, but not for the reason you are citing.

Not with the Tough. They have an additional 20 hp at level 10.

Dig through 2 feet of soft earth wide enough for you to go under a fence and time yourself. Then half that because D&D characters are just that good. It'll take about a minute after the math. By that time the Wizard has filled the hole with a spell or killed the fighter outright from damage.

The above is not true as long as its not total cover the Wizard doesn't have to know anything. The spell simply works.

Doesn't block teleport, only extends into the ethereal plane which has nothing at all to do with teleport.

Tough requires an ASI the level 10 Wizard doesn't have to spare. (Nor did the Bladesinger you listed have tough, with a 14 con it's hp would average to 57) it dies in 1 round fairly easily.

The game doesn't distinguish between actions that may plausibly take 6 seconds in reality and the movement that would itself require 6 seconds, digging would only take an action and squeezing only takes movement. It's all possible within the game rules.

It is true, even if the Wizard doesn't know it's not total cover, they know there is cover and the don't know where it does or doesn't exist.


Nope, you need to reread my build. Its a Blade Singer and starts its Blade Song first as a bonus action, then it uses blink, then fire shield, in that order. Then it does whatever else it was going to do like Polymorph and no the fighter isn't going to kill it first round because its AC is 25 with shield.

Edit: To be clear I'm not talking a Schrodinger wizard. I gave a very specific build with very specific spells and a very specific strategy.

AC 25 gets hit by the Fighter approximately 35% of the time, that's assuming 0 magic weapons at level 20. That's ridiculous, but let's say we're talking about an NPC who retired and gave away all their equipment because reasons.

The Wizard is still eats 24 damage on average from a single round of attacks. That's 41% of it's hit points on average.


4. Fun fact, this Divination spell doesn't contain the usual language that screws players over. In fact, it is the only one that ENCOURAGES the divulging of accurate information by using small phrases rather than just 1 word answers. "Will I fight something that has the potential for Counterspell/Dispel?" etc. Just because YOU don't like it, doesn't mean an impartial DM (because lets face it none of us are impartial here) would rule any other way than a fight against an EK being "yes" or "possibly" vs a BM/Champion being "No" because even with feats they can't get it without MCing.

Speak only for yourself, I'm being impartial.

This approach is dangerous in two ways:
1) The Wizard is incapacitating themselves for 8 hours so that any enemy at all can kill them with ease, even the weakest of possible opponents. They have no way of knowing there isn't going to be a fight sometime after the casting prior to casting, so this will always be a gamble.
2) The DM may determine that the entity contacted does not know the answer, in which case the answer is unclear. So, contrary to what you said in #4, this spell does have standard language that can invalidate the player's wishes if the DM so chooses.

I'd also advise that questions should be phrased without metagame concepts in them. It's the character asking questions, not the player.

Anyway, if both sides of a WoF dome/sphere would cross through a creature, the only viable choice would be to one side of the dome, or the other, but not inside.


Yes, we really have. BM/Champion get wrecked with 0 chance (minus starting close enough and winning Initiative), EK has a better chance. Just because you all don't like how the spells work doesn't mean that's not how they work, by RAW. Especially the Bladesinger build which stands a significantly greater chance of surviving the initial round of attacks even if it loses Initiative.

You haven't even demonstrated that the Wizard is capable of harming the Fighter, just, potentially, temporarily trapping them, let alone actually killing them. I've demonstrated that the Fighter can definitely kill the Wizard and they can definitely dig themselves a holes under a dome to squeeze through, all in one round. And that's absent any magic items to simply bop away the dome.

Even if we posit it's on rock, the Fighter could squeeze up, giving themselves full cover. Rendering the entire Wizard offense defunct absent fireballs that simply aren't damaging enough to kill a 20th level Fighter, not even close.

[comk59]

In regards to the WoF moving thing, I'd probably make it function similiarly to an immovable rod .

[MaxWilson]

See prior post on the spell Contact Other Plane.

See also that this is a level 10 killing a level 20 character. You are going to make some concessions, and I find it HILARIOUS that people seem to want to make them in favor of the Fighter.

Let's reverse this, show me a Level 10 Fighter that has a snowball's chance in ----, WITH EVERYTHING IN THEIR FAVOR, of beating a level 20 Wizard. I asked for, at most, going first in Initiative (but not even necessary for a Bladesinger) and THAT'S IT. Everything else is people whining about spells locking down their level 20 character without any save or crap it can do about it. So, do the same for Fighter 10 vs Wizard 20.

Even naked Contingency + Simulacrum would be up at all times, and Clone on a Demiplane. Part of the Wizards body cut off an placed in a vat for Teleportation spell purposes.

Good luck.

Eh. "Everything in the fighter's favor" against a level 20 wizard implies: fighter has a bunch of ammunition coated with drow sleep poison; fighter shoots the wizard 5 times in the surprise round. Result: wizard is asleep. Fighter drowns the wizard in a bathtub.

I can't do anything about the Clone and Simulacrum and Simulacrum directly except stipulate "catch the wizard away from his Simulacrum" as one of the "things in my favor", but at least now the wizard is out of commission for several months while he grows a new clone. Or is he going to come back cloneless and risk perma-death?


How do you figure the Rogue/Monk? Stunning Fist and all but Fighter's are proficient in Con Saves (Min +9 at level 20) with (apparently) Lucky and Indomitable. More likely to run out of Ki before it matters I would think.

+22 to Stealth (PWT + Stealth Expertise) and Cunning Action is really tough to beat. He may only be doing 11 or so points of damage per round (3d6+8 with Dex 18 and a short bow and sneak attack) but if the fighter can't find him, the fighter can't kill him, and the fighter will have a tough time running away too given the monk's movement advantages. It'll be like Arnold vs. the Predator.

[Cybren]

No, why? Sounds like a story! Do tell.

So, Knight-Errants have an ability, called Justification, that allows them to act seemingly out of their alignment or in ways that are overtly dishonorable (with hackmaster making Honor a score that has some serious penalties involved with losing honor).


Justification
Lest a knight errant character be accused of being too violent or aggressive and have his Honor or alignment brought into question, he must follow certain rules before initiating combat. The right of justification is a powerful tool for the knight errant and he hides behind it like a Teflon shield to escape the wrath of the gawds. It is often the only thing standing between him and a horrible retribution at the hands of those who monitor alignment infractions and acts of dishonor.

Below are six typical justifications the knight errant might use to explain his actions.

1. If you encounter someone brandishing a weapon, you can attack him. Justification: It was obviously self defense.
2. If you encounter someone who is armed but does not have a weapon in his hands, you can attack him. Justification: This is merely the good tactical move against an obviously worthy opponent. By "drawing before the other guy" you are able to avoid his treachery.
3. If you encounter someone and you cannot determine if he is armed or not (no visible weapons), you can attack him. Justification: He probably had concealed weapons. Once he is subdued or killed you can find out if he was "carrying".
4. If you encounter someone who is clearly unarmed, you can attack him. Justification: He could be a monk, a spell-caster, have invisible weapons, or weapons implanted in his body, or be serving as a decoy or character bait. Once again, once he is subdued or killed, you can find out about his true intentions.
5. If you encounter someone who is not only clearly unarmed but otherwise appears to be an "innocent civilian"; you must treat the situation with extreme caution and initiate attack. Justification: Probable cause - Feeble old people, minions, cripples, etc could very well be enemies in disguise, they could be using illusions, etc. Any act such as waving or talking (i.e., casting spells) can be interpreted as hostile, and then you can attack them in self-defense.
6. Anyone who avoids, runs away, or attempts to evade the party is guilty of something, so he can be attacked. Justification: Eventually, he probably would have done harm to others if you hadn't brought him down.


There's an additional set of examples for how Knight-Errant's might accept surrenders or take prisoners that are equally absurd. I was just reminded of them from that post.

[Sigreid]

In regards to the WoF moving thing, I'd probably make it function similiarly to an immovable rod .

This is really the only interpretation that I think makes sense. If it can be placed above the ground, it doesn't have weight in the conventional sense. If it has no weight and can be moved it doesn't can't really be used as a barrier which the "wall" part of the name strongly implies, and it couldn't be used to form a bridge as a slight breeze would blow it away before you stepped on it. If it's movable, it's basically useless for it's clearly intended purpose.

[MaxWilson]

You don't need to dig 4 feet, a character can squeeze through a space smaller than they can fit, so it would be 2 1/2, presumably, the example allowed for a few inches off the ground in order to target the Fighter, so there's almost enough room to squeeze under as it is. And I think we need not worry about timing considerations, there's plenty of questionably achievable activities (or under-achieveable in some cases) that occur within a round. With a shovel you can easily dig that in under 5 seconds, let alone 6. Backhoes aren't designed for speed, they're designed to save people from expending energy doing heavy lifting.

You must be really strong and fast. I could not excavate 2.5 cubic feet (190 lb.) of even loose dirt in five seconds. If you can do that, I'm sincerely in awe. Can you confirm that I've understood you correctly?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

In general, level 10 is before the real game breaking powers show up. Any level 20 martial VS any level 10 caster gives the martial a solid hitpoint and damage advantage. For any single martial build you could build a caster (and even a caster of every specific class) with some cool trick that can beat them, and a crazy prepared caster specialised in just fighting strong martials in general can probably take quite a few different builds. But a random average level 10 caster vs a random average level 20 martial, then the martial stands a good chance. They get the simple bonuses, the ones that kind of suck, but at least apply to almost any fight.

Level 20 vs level 40, that's a decisively more one sided story.

Also, I just noticed this is a thread with already hundreds of replies.

[smcmike]

In general, level 10 is before the real game breaking powers show up. Any level 20 martial VS any level 10 caster gives the martial a solid hitpoint and damage advantage. For any single martial build you could build a caster (and even a caster of every specific class) with some cool trick that can beat them, and a crazy prepared caster specialised in just fighting strong martials in general can probably take quite a few different builds. But a random average level 10 caster vs a random average level 20 martial, then the martial stands a good chance. They get the simple bonuses, the ones that kind of suck, but at least apply to almost any fight.

You must provide an example. I have yet to see a level 10 build that has convinced me that it could take a semi-competent level 20 martial. The most common result appears to be that the caster never gets a turn.

[comk59]

This is really the only interpretation that I think makes sense. If it can be placed above the ground, it doesn't have weight in the conventional sense. If it has no weight and can be moved it doesn't can't really be used as a barrier which the "wall" part of the name strongly implies, and it couldn't be used to form a bridge as a slight breeze would blow it away before you stepped on it. If it's movable, it's basically useless for it's clearly intended purpose.

Well, I chose the immovable rod rules because it can still technically be moved, just not in any way that's easily abusable.

[MaxWilson]

You must provide an example. I have yet to see a level 10 build that has convinced me that it could take a semi-competent level 20 martial. The most common result appears to be that the caster never gets a turn.

I'd be willing to bet on a Sorcerer 1/Life Cleric 1/Lore Bard 6/Warlock 2 vs. a semi-competent level 20 warrior, but not a competent one. Would be fun to play out in either case.

[mgshamster]

Well, I chose the immovable rod rules because it can still technically be moved, just not in any way that's easily abusable.

I like it. Good call.

Earlier someone else suggested something similar - DC 30 check to move the wall of force. Seems a reasonable ruling

[Vogonjeltz]

You must be really strong and fast. I could not excavate 2.5 cubic feet (190 lb.) of even loose dirt in five seconds. If you can do that, I'm sincerely in awe. Can you confirm that I've understood you correctly?

Under the right circumstances, I can shovel that much, sure, then again I'd only need to shovel about half a foot to actually crawl through, much the way someone would with barbed wire, so any comparison to reality sounds pointlessly ridiculous to begin with.

[RickAllison]

I like it. Good call.

Earlier someone else suggested something similar - DC 30 check to move the wall of force. Seems a reasonable ruling

That was me, and I said DC 35. 30 is nearly impossible (and is probably the right DC), so 35 is actually impossible barring the Rogue/Bard who still are unlikely to hit it. The immovable rod idea might work as well.

[Giant2005]

I can't emphasize this enough. You went from giving EVERYTHING to the Warlock, to giving EVERYTHING to the Fighter

That is nothing more than your own personal bias tainting your perception. The builds haven't changed one bit since they were fighting the Warlock. Although, they do seem to no longer be naked, so that is something.

[Giant2005]

Whilst it might survive a couple of extra rounds, I've still not seen anyone prove how it survives the next 4 or 5, let alone actually winning the fight. Surviving round 2 does not mean you win the fight.
It is unlikely for the Bladesinger to survive round 1, but it is impossible for him to survive round 2. That was established fairly conclusively back on page 11.

[MaxWilson]

It is unlikely for the Bladesinger to survive round 1, but it is impossible for him to survive round 2. That was established fairly conclusively back on page 11.

I don't think that's the case. For example, if a Diviner wins initiative and Banishes the fighter (who probably has a weak Charisma save that turns into effective disadvantage because Portent), the Diviner is then guaranteed to survive at least until round 11.

It doesn't mean the Diviner is going to win, but at least it buys him time to run away.

[mgshamster]

That is nothing more than your own personal bias tainting your perception. The builds haven't changed one bit since they were fighting the Warlock. Although, they do seem to no longer be naked, so that is something.

Basically, it was a naked fighter with no weapons vs a warlock who has initiative (Warlock has EVERYTHING) or a non-magically equipped fighter vs a warlock where they have to roll initiative (fighter has EVERYTHING).

If someone honestly believes the fighter has everything in that scenario, then they're delusional.

[krugaan]

Some normally rational people seem to be acting incredibly irrational in this thread, it's weird.

[MaxWilson]

Some normally rational people seem to be acting incredibly irrational in this thread, it's weird.

Sorry. My sense of humor may have gotten out of hand.

[krugaan]

Sorry. My sense of humor may have gotten out of hand.

And DONT LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN OR [vague threat], MISTER!

[wunderkid]

To me it seems like initiative is the key.

If the blade dancer doesn't get initiative they have a very hard time surviving.

To that end my suggestion goes to the bard for being even better than the wizard at this challenge.

Jack of all trades to initiative and expertise to stealth and perception set a good precedent for acting first. (Better than the wizard at least)

Magical secrets let's you pilfer the best spells.

Heat metal is awesome.

[MaxWilson]

Heat metal is awesome.

Yes, and Dex-based Eldritch Knights who use Mage Armor instead of metal armor are even awesomer. :)

[EvanescentHero]

I don't think that's the case. For example, if a Diviner wins initiative and Banishes the fighter (who probably has a weak Charisma save that turns into effective disadvantage because Portent), the Diviner is then guaranteed to survive at least until round 11.

It doesn't mean the Diviner is going to win, but at least it buys him time to run away.

Giant did say a bladesinger though, not just a wizard.

[Malifice]

Yes, the WoF can shove a character whose body intersects to the side of the caster's choosing, which is significant because literally every other spell (including a level 9 spell) either shoves the creature out, gives a dex save, or cancels the spell. Why WoF is different, I have no idea. But it is.

Thats a good point. Clearly another typo.

Then again seeing as it talks about a 'creatures space' in the space/reach on a 5' grid technical meaning of the word, you would have to limit it to a 5' diameter hemisphere for a M sized creature, although even that is 2.5' tall. Its probably going to have to be 10' diameter (4 x 5' squares on the board) and 5' high at its apex.

Personally, Im ignoring the 'casters choice' bit as an obvious typo, and ruling it in line with the other wall spells (the creature chooses if it intersects his space).

[Giant2005]

Giant did say a bladesinger though, not just a wizard.

He's not wrong though. There are probably plenty of ways a Bladesinger could survive more than two rounds. I was even more specifically referring to the spec and spell rotation that NewDM was proposing - that particular combination can't survive two rounds against the Fighter that Malifice put forth.

[MaxWilson]

Giant did say a bladesinger though, not just a wizard.

Good point. Even a Bladesinger though has a pretty fair chance of Banishing a fighter (who doesn't Counterspell), and the point is, if it works he lasts at least until the Banishment ends instead of always dying on round 2. I'm just nitpicking because I write software for a living, and sometimes nits turn out to matter in the end, so I feel that I should at least point them out--so thank you for nitpicking my nitpick. :)


He's not wrong though. There are probably plenty of ways a Bladesinger could survive more than two rounds. I was even more specifically referring to the spec and spell rotation that NewDM was proposing - that particular combination can't survive two rounds against the Fighter that Malifice put forth.

I believe you.

[NewDM]

You're forgetting that the fighter declares the use of the die after he sees the result.

So if it's a miss by less than 6, he spams precise strike. I'f he hits on the d20 then he uses menacing or tripping strike. He has that option on each attack meaning he either hits or he hits hard with six attacks.

And the fighter has lucky. And alert. And Dex 18. He goes first, and even if he doesn't, he still wins.

They will be able to use precise strike to hit 42.25% of the time. Tripping will be almost impossible with GI+Blade Song up (it takes about 5 normal attacks to have a 50% chance of a hit), and about half their hits will miss and they'll have to use all their Superiority dice on precise strike. I'm using the higher hp from 6+con at 1st and 4+con at each additional level (Why take the average roll when I can take the average roll rounded up?). They do in fact survive the first round and throw on 30 more temp hp from False Life, and the fighter is out of Superiority Dice and only has one more use of Action Surge. After that the Wizard is blinking around and the Fighter only gets 1 attack (readied action) every other round. The BS would then proceed to take the Fighter. It would be a long drawn out battle. They could also use the Wall of force spell to get all their buffs up if they win initiative. So yeah, they would definitely win if they win initiative.


Otuluke's Resiliant Sphere specifically says it is movable. Level 4 spell.

Forcecage specifically says its immovable. Level 7 spell.

Wall of Force does not say one way or another. Level 5 spell.

We cannot use either spell as evidence that wall of force works one way or the other. There's only one conclusion you can draw from it: it is left up for a GM ruling. Moveable sometimes and immovable sometimes, depending on the situation.

I'd have to say it'd be pretty crappy barrier if it can be moved. Maybe someone should ask JeremyCrawford.


As a side note, maybe we should let NewDM keep his Bladesong while a T-Rex. +Int to AC means the T-Rex gets the spectacular AC of 9 (only 2 Intelligence) and his Con save becomes +0 as well. At that point, the fighter is auto-hitting unless he rolls a 1.

Fighter makes his attacks at a 95% success rate or 90.25% if he has disadvantage, then the wizard has a 45% chance to fail his save (I'm assuming the fighter does low enough damage that it is only DC 10, which is probably a bad assumption). So each attack has a 42.75 or 40.6% chance of breaking concentration.

Nah, we go by the rules. At which point the BS is blinking, has Mirror Images, and has Fire Shield. Good luck trying to hit that enough to kill it while you are restrained by the grapple. The T-Rex has +10 to attack meaning they hit the Fighter's AC on a 10 on the dice so 50% chance to hit each round. Not only that but its a nice 136 temp hp whether the BS gets to do anything or not.


If the fighter uses a -5/+10 feat, the likelihood to hit goes down (hijacking one of the builds above that had Str 20 and Dex 18 with both of them, he goes from hitting on a 2 to only hitting on a 3 for Heavy or 4 for bow), but the added damage means the Con save will be larger.

For GWM, it will be 3.5+2.5+5, which works out to be only a DC 11 save. Still, that ensures the odds are slightly better for the fighter. The odds of the wizard keeping it up through the regular four attacks alone becomes 9.15%, still leaving the Action Surge. Odds are likely that the T-Rex fails by his second attack, without doing any damage.

T-Rex has a +4 con save which means he can take 2-3 hits on average before failing his concentration (25% failure chance up to 20 damage). Remember the fighter doesn't crest the 20 damage mark unless they crit.


The Vampiric Touch that also uses Concentration, on top of Greater Invisibility, Polymorph and/or Animate Objects? The one that, assuming the Bladesinger hits, deals 5d6 (an average of about 17) damage per round? Against the Fighter with around about 200hp? Yeah, try again when you're dealing/healing damage that the Fighter actually cares about.

I've explained this multiple times. He uses one at a time, dropping concentration on the previous one as needed. Vampiric Touch is only used to heal the BS's HP, he doesn't care if it does very little damage to the fighter, it keeps him from having to constantly cast False Life, and once the Fighters Action Surges and Superiority Dice are used up, the Fighter doesn't stand a chance.


The Fighter has both resources and time on his side. If the Bladesinger is going to win, he needs to do it quickly or the Fighter will just attrition him to death. "Occasionally throwing out a False Life" is just delaying the inevitable if you're not also whittling the Fighter down, because you'll eventually run out of False Life and every time you cast it, you're using up a slot that could have been better used stopping the Fighter from pounding on your skull every round.

Your Bladsinger might last a few more rounds using the tactics you describe but he's still not winning the fight.

No. Actually since he heals himself with Vampiric Touch any time he gets low on hp while his False Life takes the damage, he can actually take as much time as he wants, all the while the fighter is either attacking at disadvantage or taking 2d6*4 (28) damage per round by melee hitting the BS. By the time he runs out of slots the fighter has used up all its limited resources and the BS is still Blinking, Mirror Imaged (possibly), and Fire Shielded + one concentration spell like say Haste or GI. The BS is hammering away with its attacks while the fighter is getting 2.5 attacks on average per round that have little chance of hitting.


And stopped by the wall



"Just because" does not make a good argument. I don't like your argument because it is basically saying "it is like it is because shut up". And just because it happens is not a good enough, I can easily say "the fighter stops being pushed because he pushes back" because "it happens" so the fighter is partially out anyway.



You didn't. nless you have been actually fighting in PvP with a fighter. Which in this case why can't a Fighter with his own connections off you while you are literally helpless. Time is not unlimited and you can't dictate when or where the match begins or if you will even be sane if you suffer a hiccup. Probably if you are incapacitated then the fight will go to the Fighter.



The spell says that it is expected one word answers. If a one word answer would be misleading then you are given a phrase but at no point is it expected you to somehow be completly truthful. You are basically at munchkin territory here trying to force the DM to divulge information by torturing the question. Saying that you might fight something that might have Counterspell or Dispel will get you a maybe because it isn't known what you will do next or that situations can change. You are talking to a spirit and they not omnipresent or infallible and could even have ulterior motives but that is beyond the spell.

Also you might want to tone down the "you don't like it" phrases. It makes you seem a lot more aggressive.

Its pretty clear that you will unalterably be fighting an EK with Counter Spell in this case, simply because that's the point of this exercise. I'd agree that in any other situation the spell could go wrong, but not in this one.


1. That's a huge if.
2. Yeah, not really. Are you still on about shooting spells under the crack beneath a wall?

Are you still ignoring that an arrow slot is 3/4 cover and not total cover? Same thing exactly. RAW you are incorrect. However by the same token this also gives line of effect for teleporting out RAW.


Whilst it might survive a couple of extra rounds, I've still not seen anyone prove how it survives the next 4 or 5, let alone actually winning the fight. Surviving round 2 does not mean you win the fight.

Pffft. You need to go back and read the posts that you skipped then. Its nearly impossible to hit with Blade Song+Greater Invisibility+Mirror Image up. It has enough hit points to survived the first 2 rounds, because on the second round it uses a high level slot False Life for almost 30 temp hp gaining 1/3 more survivability than it had at the start of the fight. After the second round the fighter is completely out of Action Surges and Superiority Dice, which makes survivability much much easier.

The only real danger is the Fighter rolling high initiative or getting a crit in the first round.

[smcmike]

Are you still ignoring that an arrow slot is 3/4 cover and not total cover? Same thing exactly. RAW you are incorrect. However by the same token this also gives line of effect for teleporting out RAW.


You have a very strange definition of RAW, or perhaps a strange definition of "same."

[Giant2005]

Pffft. You need to go back and read the posts that you skipped then. Its nearly impossible to hit with Blade Song+Greater Invisibility+Mirror Image up. It has enough hit points to survived the first 2 rounds, because on the second round it uses a high level slot False Life for almost 30 temp hp gaining 1/3 more survivability than it had at the start of the fight. After the second round the fighter is completely out of Action Surges and Superiority Dice, which makes survivability much much easier.

The only real danger is the Fighter rolling high initiative or getting a crit in the first round.

Or conversely, you could go back and read the posts you skipped - more specifically, the combination of posts 309, 315 (your response to 309), and 317. First round Greater Invis + Bladesong, and second round False Life = one dead Wizard.

[Malifice]

They will be able to use precise strike to hit 42.25% of the time. Tripping will be almost impossible with GI+Blade Song up (it takes about 5 normal attacks to have a 50% chance of a hit), and about half their hits will miss and they'll have to use all their Superiority dice on precise strike. I'm using the higher hp from 6+con at 1st and 4+con at each additional level (Why take the average roll when I can take the average roll rounded up?). They do in fact survive the first round and throw on 30 more temp hp from False Life,

Youre wrong. For reasons clearly laid out to you several times in this thread.

You wont have GI and bladesong 'up' because the Fighter wins initiative 90 percent of the time.

Lets ay the fighter rolls super crap on both d20s with lucky and you go first. Even with invisibility and bladesong active, (as your actions on round one) all you do is make the Fighters first two attacks (he has lucky) turn the disadvantage from you being invisible into 'super advantage'.

Your AC with shield AND bladesong is 24. He swings (rolling 3d20 and taking the best) at +11 and is almost assured a hit. He then spams menacing strike (dealing 2d6+1d12+5 damage, and frightening you). He then repeats this (3d20 super advantage) with lucky at +11, almost certainly hitting you again - and this time he spams tripping strike (and youre almost certainly prone, cancelling your disadvantage from invisiblity).

He now toggles GWM 'on' and swings 6 more times at +6 vs AC 24, spamming Precise strike on any D20 roll of 12 or better, or on any roll of 18 or better, spams menacing strike instead. He should (by the law of averages), hit you once with menacing, and twice with precise strike.

We'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say none of these 12d20's he's rolled against you come up natural 20's (which would crit you and grant him a bonus action attack) and he only hits you once on account of precise strike.

Meaning you (on average, with the benefit of the doubt given to the Bladesinger) get clobbered twice at (2d6+1d12+5), once more at (2d6+15) and once at (2d6+1d12+15). You take 69 points of damage. With your Con of 14 you have (6+36+20) = 62 HP.

TL;DR - You still die on round one.

[mgshamster]

You have a very strange definition of RAW, or perhaps a strange definition of "same."

Arrow slots are not 1/2" wide. Arrows are wide than that. If you were to fire an arrow through a half inch slit, the feathers would clip the edges and go off course.

(My wife fletches arrows as a hobby).

[bid]

You wont have GI and bladesong 'up' because the Fighter wins initiative 90 percent of the time.(1)
He swings (rolling 3d20 and taking the best) at +11 and is almost assured a hit.(2)
He then repeats this (3d20 super advantage) with lucky at +11 (3)

TL;DR - You still die on round one.
(1). What was it? Dex14 vs Dex20+half-prof? So +2 vs +8 = +6? {ok, +5}
- anydice: output 1d20 - 1d20, 25% 30% of wizard gaining initiative
- anydice: output [highest 1 of 2d20] - 1d20, 12% 15% of wizard gaining initiative with lucky

(2) and (3). So that's 13+ to hit.
- anydice: output [lowest 1 of 2d20], 84% of avoiding hit
- anydice: output [highest 1 of 3d20], 12% of avoiding hit with lucky


Wizard won initiative and fighter had to spend a lucky roll. {12% 15%}
Wizard avoided first hit and fighter had to spend a lucky roll. {12%}
Wizard avoided the next 7 hits and fighter has no luck left. {84%}
That's .12 * .12 * .84^7 = 0.42% 0.55% of not being prone.


So yeah, you die on round one.
Greater invisibility is a good plan to die. I think one would need to think a little more to at least beat 1%.

[Naanomi]

Arrow slots are not 1/2" wide. Arrows are wide than that. If you were to fire an arrow through a half inch slit, the feathers would clip the edges and go off course.

(My wife fletches arrows as a hobby).
Of course if anyone could bank-shot an arrow off of a too-small slit of pure force and still nail their target, it would be the legendary master of combat at the very peak of human capability across all time: a level 20 fighter!

[Malifice]

(1). What was it? Dex14 vs Dex20+half-prof? So +2 vs +8 = +6?

[Dex 18] (+4) vs [Dex 18 + Alert] (+9) with a lucky re-roll attached to the +9.

Feel free to do the maths. There is a variable attached thats hard to account for on this though - the result will depend on who rolls initiative first (the Fighter only has to re-roll if the Wizard rolls 6 higher than him on the D20). If the fighter rolls first (and has to declare the result before seeing the Wizards roll) the probabilities change.

It creates a situation of and/if similar to the 'Monty Hall' problem (and my probability maths is pure suckage) where the probabilites change depending on the knowledge of the person who has the choice to switch.

Although seeing as the Wizard (oddly) then casts GI and enters bladedance even if he wins, and ithe maths on that lead to the Fighter crushing him anyways, its a bit of a moot point.

[bid]

It creates a situation of and/if similar to the 'Monty Hall' problem (and my probability maths is pure suckage) where the probabilites change depending on the knowledge of the person who has the choice to switch.
Oh it's not that bad, lucky on initiative is the braindead solution.
- don't lucky initiative 15% -> 30% losing it, but you get an extra lucky attack (.84 -> .12). Overall, it's way worse for the wizard (0.13% of not being prone)
- only use your luck if you roll below 15 and wizard could roll above you. That's 0.3% of not being prone.

But as an eager fighter, you will spend lucky on initiative even if you don't need to.:smallcool:

[NewDM]

You have a very strange definition of RAW, or perhaps a strange definition of "same."

Not really. An arrow slit is several inches wide and very tall. Its exactly the same as a WoF several inches off the ground. How are people not understanding this.


Or conversely, you could go back and read the posts you skipped - more specifically, the combination of posts 309, 315 (your response to 309), and 317. First round Greater Invis + Bladesong, and second round False Life = one dead Wizard.

I did and I'm not talking about GI on 1st round. I'm talking about WoF around the fighter 1st round and fully buffing before swapping to GI and pounding the Fighter into the dirt.


Youre wrong. For reasons clearly laid out to you several times in this thread.

You wont have GI and bladesong 'up' because the Fighter wins initiative 90 percent of the time.

Lets ay the fighter rolls super crap on both d20s with lucky and you go first. Even with invisibility and bladesong active, (as your actions on round one) all you do is make the Fighters first two attacks (he has lucky) turn the disadvantage from you being invisible into 'super advantage'.

Your AC with shield AND bladesong is 24. He swings (rolling 3d20 and taking the best) at +11 and is almost assured a hit. He then spams menacing strike (dealing 2d6+1d12+5 damage, and frightening you). He then repeats this (3d20 super advantage) with lucky at +11, almost certainly hitting you again - and this time he spams tripping strike (and youre almost certainly prone, cancelling your disadvantage from invisiblity).

He now toggles GWM 'on' and swings 6 more times at +6 vs AC 24, spamming Precise strike on any D20 roll of 12 or better, or on any roll of 18 or better, spams menacing strike instead. He should (by the law of averages), hit you once with menacing, and twice with precise strike.

We'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say none of these 12d20's he's rolled against you come up natural 20's (which would crit you and grant him a bonus action attack) and he only hits you once on account of precise strike.

Meaning you (on average, with the benefit of the doubt given to the Bladesinger) get clobbered twice at (2d6+1d12+5), once more at (2d6+15) and once at (2d6+1d12+15). You take 69 points of damage. With your Con of 14 you have (6+36+20) = 62 HP.

TL;DR - You still die on round one.

And what happens when the BS gives up their +1 to AC from ASI to dex and goes lucky and counters every roll the fighter makes?

In fact the wizard could use it on the fighters initiative roll and then on his own. Then when the fighter uses it on their first (and second) attack the BS uses it to counter that. Then suddenly the Fighter can't do jack.


Arrow slots are not 1/2" wide. Arrows are wide than that. If you were to fire an arrow through a half inch slit, the feathers would clip the edges and go off course.

(My wife fletches arrows as a hobby).

Several inches wide. Just like putting the WoF several inches off the ground.


(1). What was it? Dex14 vs Dex20+half-prof? So +2 vs +8 = +6? {ok, +5}
- anydice: output 1d20 - 1d20, 25% 30% of wizard gaining initiative
- anydice: output [highest 1 of 2d20] - 1d20, 12% 15% of wizard gaining initiative with lucky

(2) and (3). So that's 13+ to hit.
- anydice: output [lowest 1 of 2d20], 84% of avoiding hit
- anydice: output [highest 1 of 3d20], 12% of avoiding hit with lucky


Wizard won initiative and fighter had to spend a lucky roll. {12% 15%}
Wizard avoided first hit and fighter had to spend a lucky roll. {12%}
Wizard avoided the next 7 hits and fighter has no luck left. {84%}
That's .12 * .12 * .84^7 = 0.42% 0.55% of not being prone.


So yeah, you die on round one.
Greater invisibility is a good plan to die. I think one would need to think a little more to at least beat 1%.

Like I said above, the BS just traded its dex ASI for Lucky and simply counters all the fighters lucky rolls. Then on the first round uses WoF (dome) to trap the fighter while they buff up with every buff spell that does not require concentration. Then when fully buffed, they cast GI or Polymorph (T-Rex) and proceed to pound the fighter in the dirt.

[Giant2005]

I did and I'm not talking about GI on 1st round. I'm talking about WoF around the fighter 1st round and fully buffing before swapping to GI and pounding the Fighter into the dirt.

That is a much better plan - so let's explore it.
What spells will be cast prior to releasing the Fighter?

[Asmotherion]

Wile, everyone who has seen my posts (or sig) can see I am quite fond of the warlock, I have to give this one to the fighter. 20 levels is always 20 levels. Especially if it is an Eldritch Knight who has access to spells and in particular, Counterspell and Dispell magic, the warlock won't land one of his 4 spell slots and will then rely on eldrich blast (which the lv20 fighter has the ability to withstand with his high Ac and far superior HP) or his pact blade for melee, in which the fighter is at his strongest.

Ps Counterspell will counter any spell the warlock may use wile dispell magic will make sure the fighter removes hex, in case it happens.

[Malifice]

And what happens when the BS gives up their +1 to AC from ASI to dex and goes lucky and counters every roll the fighter makes?

Schroedingers wizard is alive and well I see!

In that case its [2 rolls each]. The fighter adds +9 and the Wizard adds +3. The fighter wins any tie (he has the higher Dex).


In fact the wizard could use it on the fighters initiative roll and then on his own.

For the love of Bane, read the rules. You can only spend a luck point to alter an opponents attack roll, not his ability check.


Like I said above, the BS just traded its dex ASI for Lucky and simply counters all the fighters lucky rolls.

Its irrelevant because the Fighter still probably goes first (Dex 18 and Alert vs Dex 16), and even if he doesnt, he still wins.

Your AC (with GI and Blade dance and shield) is now 23. Fighter swings with GWM 'off' needing a 12 to hit (at disadvantage assuming you spend a luck re-roll and he counters it with his own). He has a 20 percent chance to hit [factoring in disadvantage]. If he misses by less than 7 (56 percent chance of rolling a 6 or better with disadvantage) he instead spams precise strike. If he hits (20 percent chance), he instead spams tripping strike knocking you prone and removing your disadvantage due to being invisible, and vastly increasing his odds of hitting with remaining attacks (which will likely be made with GWM toggled on)

Even not counting removing your disadvantage via knocking you on your backside, every attack has a 56 percent chance of hitting, and a 20 percent chance of hitting and inflicting an extra +1d12 damage and knocking you prone.

Once prone and with GWM switched 'on' every attack has a 20 percent chance of hitting, dealing GWM damage and an extra +1d12, and a 50 percent chance of normal damage + GWM until out of sup dice, in which case GWM gets switched off for a 45 percent chance of a hit per swing.

TL;DR even if you win initiative (hes rolling at +9 vs your +3 and wins ties) you still almost certainly die on turn one. You certainly dont surive past turn 2.

[Waazraath]

Schroedingers wizard is alive and well I see!

In that case its [2 rolls each]. The fighter adds +9 and the Wizard adds +3. The fighter wins any tie (he has the higher Dex).



Isn't the 'higher dex wins tie' a 3.x rule? In 5e 'its up to the DM' as far as I know. For the rest, full agree with your reasoning / assessment of this 'contest'.

[Malifice]

Isn't the 'higher dex wins tie' a 3.x rule? In 5e 'its up to the DM' as far as I know. For the rest, full agree with your reasoning / assessment of this 'contest'.

Good point. It looks like its a 'roll a d20 again, highest wins' according to the Combat secion of the PHB.


Like I said above, the BS just traded its dex ASI for Lucky and simply counters all the fighters lucky rolls. Then on the first round uses WoF (dome) to trap the fighter while they buff up with every buff spell that does not require concentration. Then when fully buffed, they cast GI or Polymorph (T-Rex) and proceed to pound the fighter in the dirt.

Lol!

Tell you what, I'll let you do this. You have the Fighter trapped (he just sits there with a bemused look on his face as you self buff, and doesnt use his War mattock to simply smash through the top layer of the tower he stands on). WoF drops as soon as you cast Polymorph, and you have all your buffs active (that dont require concentration) and are now in T-Rex form (your concentration spell). We've both used all our lucky re-rolls for convenience sake.

Youve just cast polymorph on yourself (after finishing buffing) and WoF drops. Your turn ends.

Can you please give me the list of the buffs you used while the Fighter was trapped in the WoF and I can layer them (if applicable, bladesong wont carry over) over the base T-Rex stats in the MM, and then I can take my turn.

[JellyPooga]

I've explained this multiple times. He uses one at a time, dropping concentration on the previous one as needed. Vampiric Touch is only used to heal the BS's HP, he doesn't care if it does very little damage to the fighter, it keeps him from having to constantly cast False Life, and once the Fighters Action Surges and Superiority Dice are used up, the Fighter doesn't stand a chance.

Vampiric Touch is not healing you for any significant amount. One hit, without using superiority dice or action surge or any depleting resource does more damage than it will heal (average). Fighter has four such attacks a round. You get one. At +8 (maybe +9) to hit, probably without advantage (because you're using Vampiric Touch and not Gr.Invis. or Haste), your odds of hitting the Fighter are only slightly higher than 50%...that's a bad choice for your action in any given round.

Spending an action on False Life is even worse. Using a high level slot (of which you have relatively few) you get 30-odd HP, as you say...which the Fighter will whittle in a couple of hits, leaving you a spell slot down and no closer to actually beating the Fighter.


The BS is hammering away with its attacks while the fighter is getting 2.5 attacks on average per round that have little chance of hitting.

What attacks? So far, you've described how your Bladesinger is spending all his resources just to stay alive (and he technically fails to do that without a good dose of luck), but let's assume your survival tactics work; you're still spending your spells and actions surviving. Meanwhile, the Fighter has taken a small amount of damage from Fire Shield and a bit of damage from Vampiric Touch.

His 4 attacks will outdamage your Cantrip damage, you've got no "big guns" left because you've spent them all on survival, your AC is a bit better, but vaguely comparable to his (once you run out of Shield spell slots), his attack modifier is better and you have about a third of his max HP. Please tell me how you win this fight. Currently, you're barely convincing me that your surviving it, let alone actually beating the Fighter.


Pffft. You need to go back and read the posts that you skipped then. Its nearly impossible to hit with Blade Song+Greater Invisibility+Mirror Image up.

Greater Invisibility only lasts until you decide to cast Vampiric Touch. Mirror Image is only good for a maximum of 3 hits and Blade Song lasts 2x1 minute.

I said it before; the Fighter has time on his side. If you can't kill him quickly, he will wear you down, wait for you to expend all your spell slots and dance around taking pot-shots whilst your spell effects expire or you choose to retreat. If he gets even a little lucky, you die, he wins. Otherwise, he plays the waiting game and kills you anyway.

His resources being expended reduce his effectiveness a little, but your resources depleting turns you into a glorified commoner. Your using attrition tactics works in his favour, not yours.

[Cazero]

Not really. An arrow slit is several inches wide and very tall. Its exactly the same as a WoF several inches off the ground. How are people not understanding this.
Arrow slits are vertical. The dude you are targeting behind one is standing still and trying to shoot you with arrows. Since he can attack you at all, you have a clear line of effect to his head and torso. If the dude decide to not shoot at you, he takes one step sideways and gain full cover.
A wall of force floating several inches above the ground creates an horizontal and poorly placed slit. Even when crawling, the angle of your shots is awful. You can barely aim at the feet, and that's assuming a perfectly flat ground. And the man stuck in the wall of force can step on a rock, kick some dirt...

The situations have little in common.

[VegBru]

Lol!

Tell you what, I'll let you do this. You have the Fighter trapped (he just sits there with a bemused look on his face as you self buff, and doesnt use his War mattock to simply smash through the top layer of the tower he stands on). WoF drops as soon as you cast Polymorph, and you have all your buffs active (that dont require concentration) and are now in T-Rex form (your concentration spell). We've both used all our lucky re-rolls for convenience sake.

Youve just cast polymorph on yourself (after finishing buffing) and WoF drops. Your turn ends.

Can you please give me the list of the buffs you used while the Fighter was trapped in the WoF and I can layer them (if applicable, bladesong wont carry over) over the base T-Rex stats in the MM, and then I can take my turn.

Allow me. I would like to give a fair (well, unfair and unrealistic) advantage to the wizard, seeing as he has more to prove. If the fighter should win I suggest we call it the day.

Let us assume NewDM’s build and plan. Heck, why don’t we skip WoF. You can just stand there and watch while I buff and debuff. Also, I need you you to fail a save, ok? Oh, and I use Schrödinger’s spelllist.

Alas, my selection of non-concentration buffs are rather limited. I will use those that I can.

As a 10 level Wizard, my spell slots are 4-3-3-3-2. I use a 5th level slot for Bestow Curse, choosing Wis as your ability score. At 5th level it’s duration is 8 hours, no concentration.

I then use Mirror Image, Blink and Fireshield. I could use Longstrider, but why. I then become a T-Rex. Not really sure that I should, but there you go.

I am now at 4-2-2-1-1. You have disadvantage on attack rolls against me, make a wiz save on your turn at disadvantage or waste your action, and my attacks and spells deal an extra 1d8 necrotic damage.

Go.

[Giant2005]

You have disadvantage on attack rolls against me, make a wiz save on your turn at disadvantage or waste your action, and my attacks and spells deal an extra 1d8 necrotic damage.

Bestow Curse only does one of those things - not all of them.
I also think there is a pretty big difference between a Wizard orchestrating a situation where he can prebuff, and a fighter standing around and letting a Wizard curse him.

[AvatarVecna]

Allow me. I would like to give a fair (well, unfair and unrealistic) advantage to the wizard, seeing as he has more to prove. If the fighter should win I suggest we call it the day.

Let us assume NewDM’s build and plan. Heck, why don’t we skip WoF. You can just stand there and watch while I buff and debuff. Also, I need you you to fail a save, ok? Oh, and I use Schrödinger’s spelllist.

Alas, my selection of non-concentration buffs are rather limited. I will use those that I can.

As a 10 level Wizard, my spell slots are 4-3-3-3-2. I use a 5th level slot for Bestow Curse, choosing Wis as your ability score. At 5th level it’s duration is 8 hours, no concentration.

I then use Mirror Image, Blink and Fireshield. I could use Longstrider, but why. I then become a T-Rex. Not really sure that I should, but there you go.

I am now at 4-2-2-1-1. You have disadvantage on attack rolls against me, make a wiz save on your turn at disadvantage or waste your action, and my attacks and spells deal an extra 1d8 necrotic damage.

Go.

I'm willing to work with this. I'll be assuming the first Fighter build presented in this thread, if that's all right; JNA's Champion Archer. BTW, I feel the need to mention something regarding Bestow Curse: each casting only gets to do one effect, and you have two separate Bestow Curse effects listed (disdvantage on Wisdom Saving throws, and make a Wis save to avoid losing your turn). You've got another 5th level slot, so it's not a huge issue, but it means one less slot you have to work with.

Another thing I want to point out, before I get going, is that race and class features are not kept while Polymorphed; according to the spell, "the target's game statistics, including mental ability scores, are replaced by the statistics of the chosen beast". That means no feats, no spellcasting, no Bladesinger class features.

I'm not sure where the Disadvantage On Attacks is coming from (a third 5th lvl Bestow Curse isn't possible...well, unless the pre-buff time included a short rest for the Wizard to Arcane Recovery a 5th level slot, but that's almost too much slack we're giving the wizard); I'll just assume, since I'm using a ranged build, that it's the disadvantage on attack rolls you get from using a ranged weapon while in melee.

I'm off to run the numbers.

[Giant2005]

You've got another 5th level slot, so it's not a huge issue, but it means one less slot you have to work with.

It doesn't really matter - the same person can't be under the influence of the same spell more than once. Even if multiple wizards were casting Bestow Curse, only one of the spells would stick.


I'm off to run the numbers.

Shouldn't you at least wait until you find out which of Bestow Curse's effects he wishes to apply? Each one of those would change the numbers drastically.

[AvatarVecna]

It doesn't really matter - the same person can't be under the influence of the same spell more than once. Even if multiple wizards were casting Bestow Curse, only one of the spells would stick.

1) Really? I wasn't aware of that rule. Could you quote it for me, including page number? It's relevant to future calculations.

2) We're already bending the laws of plausibility, a slight bend to the RAW in the wizard's favor is acceptable.



Shouldn't you at least wait until you find out which of Bestow Curse's effects he wishes to apply? Each one of those would change the numbers drastically.

Really? I'm looking at how the numbers are developing so far, and they keep ending in "dead wizard". I'm not sure taking away some of the Wizard's buffs are going to change that.

[Malifice]

Allow me. I would like to give a fair (well, unfair and unrealistic) advantage to the wizard, seeing as he has more to prove. If the fighter should win I suggest we call it the day.

Let us assume NewDM’s build and plan. Heck, why don’t we skip WoF. You can just stand there and watch while I buff and debuff. Also, I need you you to fail a save, ok? Oh, and I use Schrödinger’s spelllist.

I have resilient Wisdom, a +8 Wisdom save, lucky and indomitable, and your save DC for bestow curse is only 14 [so I need a 6 or better on a d20... with three attempts], but yeah sure, why not.


As a 10 level Wizard, my spell slots are 4-3-3-3-2. I use a 5th level slot for Bestow Curse, choosing Wis as your ability score. At 5th level it’s duration is 8 hours, no concentration.

I then use Mirror Image, Blink and Fireshield. I could use Longstrider, but why. I then become a T-Rex. Not really sure that I should, but there you go.

I am now at 4-2-2-1-1. You have disadvantage on attack rolls against me, make a wiz save on your turn at disadvantage or waste your action, and my attacks and spells deal an extra 1d8 necrotic damage.

This is easy. Blink gives you a 50 percent chance of blinking out at the end of your turn (right after you turn into a T-Rex). If you blink out, on my turn I back off and draw my Bow and ready an action to close my eyes (thus ignoring your mirror image spell) and to also shoot you with my bow (+12 against your AC of 13 - disadvantage for me being blinded doesnt really matter). I spam a menacing strike on a hit.

As a T-Rex, your Wisdom save is +1 against DC 19. If you fail, youre frightened and cant approach me on your next turn.

Now you can check to see if you blink out again. For your sake I hope you do, or its 8 more (sharpshooter) arrows + a menacing strike or two [until you fail] coming your way in a volley, or ditto with the Greatsword and GWM as I leap into the air to smack the stuffing out of the Prehistoric predator before me. If you didnt blink out after becoming a T-Rex... well this volley/ flurry of strikes happens on turn 1.

Any hits (and they will hit againt AC 13, even with disadvantage, each dealing 2d6+1d12+15) force a Con save at +4 (T-Rexes arent proficient in con saves, and dont have warcaster) or the T-rex form drops (which is probably a good thing for the Wizard, particularly if it happens late in the round).

EDIT: Actually I might hold the action surges back until the T-Rex form is dropped or really low on HP. The dinosaur is way easy to kill without them, and Id rather hold them in reserve for the far more dangerous wizard underneath.

TL;DR - Bye bye T-Rex.

Incidentally, you're using all four options for Bestow Curse (you only get the one).

Pick one. Not that it really matters.

[Giant2005]

1) Really? I wasn't aware of that rule. Could you quote it for me, including page number? It's relevant to future calculations.
From the PHB page 205: "The effects of different spells add together while the durations of those spells overlap. The effects of the same spell cast multiple times don't combine, however. Instead, the most potent effect—such as the
highest bonus—from those castings applies while their durations overlap."



Really? I'm looking at how the numbers are developing so far, and they keep ending in "dead wizard". I'm not sure taking away some of the Wizard's buffs are going to change that.
I didn't say it would change the results! Just the calculations :smallwink:.

[VegBru]

Bestow Curse only does one of those things - not all of them.

Well, dang. Don't tell that to my DM.

Well, he attacks with disadvantage, then.


I also think there is a pretty big difference between a Wizard orchestrating a situation where he can prebuff, and a fighter standing around and letting a Wizard curse him.

Yes. Yes it is.

[AvatarVecna]

From the PHB page 205: "The effects of different spells add together while the durations of those spells overlap. The effects of the same spell cast multiple times don't combine, however. Instead, the most potent effect—such as the
highest bonus—from those castings applies while their durations overlap."


I didn't say it would change the results! Just the calculations :smallwink:.

Ah, nice. I'll keep that in mind for the future.

And yeah, that's a fair point; the exact number of rounds it takes to kill the wizard definitely changes, I'll admit.


Well, dang. Don't tell that to my DM.

Well, he attacks with disadvantage, then.

Really? That's the Curse that's helping him the least against JNA's Fighter, but okay.

[VegBru]

Really? That's the Curse that's helping him the least against JNA's Fighter, but okay.

Well, if it drastically diminishes my chances to win the fight, let me know and I will change it.

[Malifice]

Well, dang. Don't tell that to my DM.

Well, he attacks with disadvantage, then.

I have my eyes closed anyway (to negate mirror image) or might find myself dealing with an invisible wizard (once I smack his T-Rex form into shadows) or being restrained by it thanks to a bite.

I only need to hit AC 13 on the T-Rex. I get +12 with the bow, and +11 with the sword.

Disadvantage isnt really that much of a bother, and its negated anytime I can get the Wizard prone.

Then again I wouldnt have failed the Wisdom save anyways (rolling a 5 or less 3 times in a row on the wisdom save would suck badly, particularly after losing initiative at +9 vs +3).

I think we can all agree the T-Rex idea is plainly awful.

[VegBru]

I have my eyes closed anyway (to negate mirror image) or might find myself dealing with an invisible wizard (once I smack his T-Rex form into shadows) or being restrained by it thanks to a bite.

I only need to hit AC 13 on the T-Rex. I get +12 with the bow, and +11 with the sword.

Disadvantage isnt really that much of a bother, and its negated anytime I can get the Wizard prone.

Then again I wouldnt have failed the Wisdom save anyways (rolling a 5 or less 3 times in a row on the wisdom save would suck badly, particularly after losing initiative at +9 vs +3).

I think we can all agree the T-Rex idea is plainly awful.

Well... A T-Rex vs a 20 level fighter is a walkover. A concentration-based T-Rex vs the same fighter is… not going to win the fight.

However. I use a level 4 spell slot to make it happened. And you use a fair bit of your resources blowing through it – even if you chicken out on using your action surges. You are now faced with the unstoppable might of a 10th level, prebuffed wizard! Also, I can T-Rex again. Like, a lot.

I am ready to discuss the terms of your surrender.

[smcmike]

Not really. An arrow slit is several inches wide and very tall. Its exactly the same as a WoF several inches off the ground. How are people not understanding this.

Perhaps because this is the very first mention in this thread of placing the WoF "several inches" off the ground.

And, no, it's still not even remotely similar.

[Malifice]

However. I use a level 4 spell slot to make it happened. And you use a fair bit of your resources blowing through it

What resources? It gets nailed 4 times on turn one with no action surge or sup dice dealing (1d8+14) damage per hit. One of those hits is a menacing shot (dealing +1d12 damage) which pins the thing in place (well - prevents it from closing). This deals about 80 damage to the T-Rex without action surge, and with only the one sop dice expended.

Also forces 4 x DC 10 con saves (Pass on a d20 roll of 6 or better - the menacing shot needs an 8 or better) or be knocked into Wizard form, at which point I might action surge, use a free object interaction to draw the Sword, advance and then go nuts with 4 more (precise/ tripping) attacks and maybe GWM if I can knock you prone.

Have to see how the dice play out, but Im fairly confident its a cake walk here for the Fighter.

[AvatarVecna]

Assuming a T-Rex with Blink, Mirror Image, and Fire Shield active (with the Fighter getting disadvantage on attacks), we're looking at a 50% chance the Fighter can't affect the Wizard in a given turn, but still gets to act. If the Wizard isn't present, the Fighter uses the Dodge action to give the Wizard disadvantage to attack as well. If the wizard is present...

The Fighter closes their eyes to avoid messing with Mirror Image, and shoots them with disadvantage (which they already had anyway); +13 with disadvantage vs AC 13 has 90.25% accuracy, and will force a DC 10 Concentration save; since you don't keep class features in Polymorph, it's just +4 on the save, with no advantage. The odds of still being a dino after any particular attack are ~77%...meaning it'll usually take 4.5 attacks. The next 3.5 attacks (from the Action surge you use) go against the wizard, whose AC is currently 22...really, 17, but he's gonna use Shield, so 22. Average Damage Per Attack is gonna be 3.52125 ({[256*0]+[135*9.5]+[9*14]}/400), putting total damage for that round at 12.324375.

Presumably, the wizard uses another Polymorph (T-Rex) with their last 4th lvl slot, but that means they don't attack that round. They'll get maybe one round out of this before the Fighter does the same thing as above and forces them out of it. The wizard then uses another Polymorph spell (this time using their last 5th lvl slot); it loses an attack this round, but since the Fighter has no more Action Surges, we can assume they'll get two more rounds of T-Rex attacks before the Fighter bops them back to Wizard form for another 12.whatever damage. This gives them an expected 5 rounds of dino-attacks, 4 of which are made at disadvantage (due the how the Fighter's Dodging tactic works with the Blinking and lack of Action Surges remaining).

Let's see where our combatants stand at this point in round 7: the wizard is down 36.973125, and the Fighter has had to tank 5 T-Rex bites. The 4 bites at DisAd had average DPA of 14.0075 ({[231*0]+[168*33]+[1*59]}/400), and the one bite not at DisAd had average DPA of 22.75 ({[7*0]+[12*33]+[1*59]}/20), putting total damage dealt to the Fighter at 78.78, and the Fighter at 125.22 HP. It is now the Fighter's turn, assuming the Fighter can affect the Wizard)

Wizard's AC is now 25, since Bladesinger song is up (or whatever it's called). First attack is to knock the wizard prone (~80% success), and then attack three times without disadvantage (eyes still close=DisAd, adjacent to prone target=Ad). DPA for this is 4.95 ({[11*0]+[6*9.5]+[3*14]}/20), putting damage for that round at 14.85, and bringing the Wizard down to 22.123125 HP. Another 2 such rounds, and the wizard dies. Since this wound happen every 2 rounds (due to Blink), we can assume the whole combat gives the Wizard 4 more rounds of attacks (since after round 10, Blink wears off). Those 4 Wizard attacks have to tear through 125 HP (which doesn't include Survivor Regen or Second Wind, which would increase the number); with no 4th or 5th level slots, we're looking at 3rd lvl spells to save the day. Let's assume you fire off 4 fireballs that catch the Fighter but not the Wizard: with DC 15 and the Fighter's +5 Dex save, we're looking at 45% failure, 55% success. Assuming you only roll max damage on those fireballs, you'll deal 140 damage or so...which is just enough to force the Fighter to use his Second Wind., much less his automatic Regen.

"But what about Fire Shield?" I can hear somebody saying in a stereotypically whiny and nasally voice. Well, Mr Straw Man I made up for the purposes of answering this hypothetical question, I'm using a bow, and Fire Shield only affects melee attacks.

[AvatarVecna]

However. I use a level 4 spell slot to make it happened. And you use a fair bit of your resources blowing through it – even if you chicken out on using your action surges. You are now faced with the unstoppable might of a 10th level, prebuffed wizard! Also, I can T-Rex again. Like, a lot.

I am ready to discuss the terms of your surrender.

1) An action surge is a resource expenditure, but it's only a waste if you're still a T-Rex at the end of 8 attacks...the odds of which are around 13%; not totally negligible, but approaching it.

2) With the set-up involved here, you can T-Rex a total of 3 times; at least one of those times is without Action Surge, but the inclusion of Blink means that most of them are going to end up being at disadvantage anyway.

3) As god-awful as trying to turn into a T-Rex is to fight somebody for whom a Tarrasque is a worthy foe, it's a better idea than trying to do it as a squishy wizard; if you avoided the Polymorph and went with NewDM's other 4th lvl concentration buff of Greater Invisibility, you'll be tanking those Action Surge rounds with your actual AC and HP; statistically speaking, the T-Rex form gives you a huge bite attack and (more importantly) makes the fighter use 5 attacks against HP you don't care about.

[VegBru]

What resources?

You use a superiority die, which means you’re down to five.

Listen, I can see that I am not quite as funny as I think I am. My point was to show that even using a totally outrageous setup, turning yourself into a T-Rex will not win a fight with a level 20 fighter. Not even a champion (post 8, JNA’s build), never mind a Battle Master.

[AvatarVecna]

You use a superiority die, which means you’re down to five.

Listen, I can see that I am not quite as funny as I think I am. My point was to show that even using a totally outrageous setup, turning yourself into a T-Rex will not win a fight with a level 20 fighter. Not even a champion (post 8, JNA’s build), never mind a Battle Master.

I showed it with JNA's build in quite some detail. And I have to report that, as said as the dino plan seems, it's still better than not turning into a dino, because even as a Wizard with AC 25, the ability to spend a single spell slot negating 4 or 5 Fighter attacks is insanely useful...and not using it means tanking those shots with wizard HP. The dino plan is terrible, but as far as your options go at this level...it's probably among the least terrible.

[VegBru]

I showed it with JNA's build in quite some detail. And I have to report that, as said as the dino plan seems, it's still better than not turning into a dino, because even as a Wizard with AC 25, the ability to spend a single spell slot negating 4 or 5 Fighter attacks is insanely useful...and not using it means tanking those shots with wizard HP. The dino plan is terrible, but as far as your options go at this level...it's probably among the least terrible.

I took NewDM's claim (that a buffed T-Rex owns a level 20 fighter) at face value, gave it a better-than-the-best possible chance of success (well, I could have chosen a better curse). I might be wrong, but I believe that NewDM actually thought that the fighter would be eaten alive.

You have to admit, that’s pretty funny.

[AvatarVecna]

I took NewDM's claim (that a buffed T-Rex owns a level 20 fighter) at face value, gave it a better-than-the-best possible chance of success (well, I could have chosen a better curse). I might be wrong, but I believe that NewDM actually thought that the fighter would be eaten alive.

You have to admit, that’s pretty funny.

It's...quite a claim, I must admit. :smallbiggrin:

[MaxWilson]

I have resilient Wisdom, a +8 Wisdom save, lucky and indomitable, and your save DC for bestow curse is only 14 [so I need a 6 or better on a d20... with three attempts], but yeah sure, why not.

Four attempts.

1.) Regular save
2.) Lucky re-roll of #1
3.) Indomitable re-save
4.) Lucky re-roll of Indomitable re-save


Wizard's AC is now 25, since Bladesinger song is up (or whatever it's called). First attack is to knock the wizard prone (~80% success)

AvatarVecna,

Whence 80% success rate? By my numbers, the fighter has +11 to Athletics (Str +5, Prof +6) and the Bladesinger has +8 or +9 to Acrobatics (Dex ~+4, Prof +4) with advantage due to Bladesong, and the Bladesinger wins ties. My math says that means the Bladesinger wins 54% of the time, which means on average it will take just over two attempts by the fighter to knock him prone. (Sum of power series (0.46^N) from N(1..infinity) = 1/0.46 = 2.17.)

Why am I getting 54% and you're getting 80%? One of us is making different assumptions than the other. Can you please clarify?

BTW I just thought of another hilarious way to defeat the Bladesinger: the EK can pop him in an Otiluke's Resilient Sphere. EK has easy access to ORS (it's Evocation), Bladesinger has no Dex save proficiency, Bladesinger will have disadvantage on save due to Arcane Strike, ergo Bladesinger with 18 Dex has 30% chance of making his save. That gives the EK a full minute in which to be like, "Hey bro, why are you fighting me?" and for Bladesong to wear off.

[Malifice]

Assuming a T-Rex with Blink, Mirror Image, and Fire Shield active (with the Fighter getting disadvantage on attacks), we're looking at a 50% chance the Fighter can't affect the Wizard in a given turn, but still gets to act. If the Wizard isn't present, the Fighter uses the Dodge action to give the Wizard disadvantage to attack as well. If the wizard is present...

Mirror image doesnt work when the attackers eyes are closed.

The Fighter is better off readying an attack with his bow (in the event of a blink) and then just shooting the T-Rex with a menacing strike arrow (he only misses on a 1, and the T-Rex needs a 18+ on the wisdom save to avoid being frightened and be able to advance to the Fighter).

The fighter just waits for a non blink. Then he smacks the T-Rex (with eyes closed) 4 times with his greatsword with GWM toggled on. He hits on a 7+ with disadvantage meaning two out of four hit (thanks to disadvantage), dealing 50 damage and forcing two saves vs DC 11 and 14 (at +4) or the Wizard is knocked back to Elf form.

If the Wizard is knocked into Elf form (70 percent chance) then he action surges and belts the Wizard 4 more times using precise strike and tripping strike as needed.


"But what about Fire Shield?" I can hear somebody saying in a stereotypically whiny and nasally voice. Well, Mr Straw Man I made up for the purposes of answering this hypothetical question, I'm using a bow, and Fire Shield only affects melee attacks.

Ah this is with your champion. Different tactics. Nice.

[AvatarVecna]

Mirror image doesnt work when the attackers eyes are closed.

The Fighter is better off readying an attack with his bow (in the event of a blink) and then just shooting the T-Rex with a menacing strike arrow (he only misses on a 1, and the T-Rex needs a 18+ on the wisdom save to avoid being frightened and be able to advance to the Fighter).

The fighter just waits for a non blink. Then he smacks the T-Rex (with eyes closed) 4 times with his greatsword with GWM toggled on. He hits on a 7+ with disadvantage meaning two out of four hit (thanks to disadvantage), dealing 50 damage and forcing two saves vs DC 11 and 14 (at +4) or the Wizard is knocked back to Elf form.

If the Wizard is knocked into Elf form (70 percent chance) then he action surges and belts the Wizard 4 more times using precise strike and tripping strike as needed.



Ah this is with your champion. Different tactics. Nice.

1) Yes, Mirror Image doesn't work with closed eyes; that's why the part immediately after the first time you cut off my quote goes on to say "The Fighter closes their eyes to avoid messing with Mirror Image". It's literally the next sentence. And yeah, it's possible that the difference between Dodging on Blink rounds and Readying an attack on Dodge rounds

2) Well, it's technically JNA's build, but yeah, it's a Champion. And that kind of helps nail things down: a Champion (the worst kind of Fighter) specializes in Bow combat (a terrible one for DPR, due to no bonus action attack) and uses that bow in melee (auto-disadvantage) against a Wizard polymorphed into a T-Rex multiple times, after giving the wizard several pre-fight rounds for buffing/debuffing. The Fighter only gets to act half of the time, and 15 of their attacks will be used on a dino-form instead of against the Wizard form, which means they're wasted...and the Champion Fighter is still basically guaranteed to win?

[MaxWilson]

I showed it with JNA's build in quite some detail. And I have to report that, as said as the dino plan seems, it's still better than not turning into a dino, because even as a Wizard with AC 25, the ability to spend a single spell slot negating 4 or 5 Fighter attacks is insanely useful...and not using it means tanking those shots with wizard HP. The dino plan is terrible, but as far as your options go at this level...it's probably among the least terrible.

An even more least-terrible plan involves an Evoker casting Conjure Minor Elemental to ambush the fighter (assuming GWM fighter in plate) with 4 Magma Mephits spamming Heat Metal on different pieces of his equipment and then fleeing behind total cover. Even if he kills two of the mephits before they get away, that is still 40d8 (180) damage he'll be taking from the other Magma Mephits over the ten rounds or so of the spell. Then the Evoker can cast Magic Missile V for 7*(d4+6) (59) points of damage per casting for 299 damage total, which is comfortably enough to kill the fighter.

Well okay, that's really only half a plan since you still have to manage to ambush the fighter twice. Call it a nascent plan, or a concept. :)

[mgshamster]

Not really. An arrow slit is several inches wide and very tall. Its exactly the same as a WoF several inches off the ground. How are people not understanding this.

Several inches wide. Just like putting the WoF several inches off the ground.

This is the first instance of placing Wall of Force several inches off the ground in this thread. Prior to this, it has been placed 1/2" off the ground.

You're deriding people for not understanding something which was never said.


I'd have to say it'd be pretty crappy barrier if it can be moved. Maybe someone should ask JeremyCrawford.

Not necessarily. It could be an even more powerful barrier if the caster was able to move it. It could be moveable depending on the shape and the purpose. Heck, RulesJD argued against moveability because he thought it would be too over powered.

My point was that the spell itself doesn't say, and using other similar spells to justify one way or the other does not work, because the other spells are not in agreement.

Essentially, a ruling by a GM is required.

[AvatarVecna]

AvatarVecna,

Whence 80% success rate? By my numbers, the fighter has +11 to Athletics (Str +5, Prof +6) and the Bladesinger has +8 or +9 to Acrobatics (Dex ~+4, Prof +4) with advantage due to Bladesong, and the Bladesinger wins ties. My math says that means the Bladesinger wins 54% of the time, which means on average it will take just over two attempts by the fighter to knock him prone. (Sum of power series (0.46^N) from N(1..infinity) = 1/0.46 = 2.17.)

Why am I getting 54% and you're getting 80%? One of us is making different assumptions than the other. Can you please clarify?

BTW I just thought of another hilarious way to defeat the Bladesinger: the EK can pop him in an Otiluke's Resilient Sphere. EK has easy access to ORS (it's Evocation), Bladesinger has no Dex save proficiency, Bladesinger will have disadvantage on save due to Arcane Strike, ergo Bladesinger with 18 Dex has 30% chance of making his save. That gives the EK a full minute in which to be like, "Hey bro, why are you fighting me?" and for Bladesong to wear off.

I was not aware Bladesong gave advantage, so it's worth taking into account...but the original build made no mention of proficient skills, at least not from what I'm seeing. I'm fairly certain there's a way they could gain proficiency, but it wasn't specified, so I didn't assume it. I guess I could for the sake of giving the Wizard a better, in which case it takes an additional attack to get them prone.

Unfortunately a few other things change as a result: with 80% success, the fighter chooses between 4 attacks at ~3.5 DPA and 3 attacks at 4.95 DPA (the former being at disadvantage, the latter without), but now it's a choice between 4 attacks at 3.5 DPA and 2 attacks at 4.95 DPR, to which the advantage is the one that gives DPR 10.56; ultimately, this means that (on average) the Wizard will be hovering around 2 HP at the end of the round that used to mean their doom, meaning that (barring even slightly above-average damage rolls across 12 attacks), they get another Fireball off. Since we're assuming max damage, that's another 36 damage (accounting for saving throw success odds), which is enough to get past the Fighter's HP and Second Wind...but not his Survivor Regen, so the Wizard still loses on average.

[AvatarVecna]

An even more least-terrible plan involves an Evoker casting Conjure Minor Elemental to ambush the fighter (assuming GWM fighter in plate) with 4 Magma Mephits spamming Heat Metal on different pieces of his equipment and then fleeing behind total cover. Even if he kills two of the mephits before they get away, that is still 40d8 (180) damage he'll be taking from the other Magma Mephits over the ten rounds or so of the spell. Then the Evoker can cast Magic Missile V for 7*(d4+6) (59) points of damage per casting for 299 damage total, which is comfortably enough to kill the fighter.

Well okay, that's really only half a plan since you still have to manage to ambush the fighter twice. Call it a nascent plan, or a concept. :)

See, this plan might actually make some sense. I'm continually amused that the only caster builds being seriously put forth in a Caster 10 vs Fighter 20 fight are casters trying to pretend to be Fighters.

[Malifice]

I was not aware Bladesong gave advantage, so it's worth taking into account..

There is a pretty good argument that T-Rexes physically cant bladesong (they're not elves). You're limited to performing physical actions that your new form is capable of (can a T-Rex bladesong?). There is a second argument that even if they can, seeing as Int drops to -4 in T-Rex form, its probably not a good idea if they could.

[AvatarVecna]

There is a pretty good argument that T-Rexes physically cant bladesong (they're not elves). You're limited to performing physical actions that your new form is capable of (can a T-Rex bladesong?). There is a second argument that even if they can, seeing as Int drops to -4 in T-Rex form, its probably not a good idea if they could.

The best argument for not getting to use Bladesong in T-Rex form is that Polymorph replaces all your game stats with T-Rex stats; you keep the buff spells that are already active, but you don't keep feats, or racial features, or (as is relevant to this post) class features.

EDIT: It's the same reason the Bladesinger doesn't get to take advantage of their War Caster feat for advantage on the Concentration save while in T-Rex form: namely, they don't have any of their feats while Polymorph'd into a T-Rex.

[RickAllison]

The best argument for not getting to use Bladesong in T-Rex form is that Polymorph replaces all your game stats with T-Rex stats; you keep the buff spells that are already active, but you don't keep feats, or racial features, or (as is relevant to this post) class features.

EDIT: It's the same reason the Bladesinger doesn't get to take advantage of their War Caster feat for advantage on the Concentration save while in T-Rex form: namely, they don't have any of their feats while Polymorph'd into a T-Rex.

And so until he spends a bonus action to restart it, the BS only has his 22 AC (21 if Schrodinger's took Alert) with Shield and does not get advantage to Acrobatics.

[AvatarVecna]

Guys! I think I figured out a way for the Wizard to win, assuming they're fighting on top of some huge tower!

Pre-fight buff: Cast Blink.

Step 1: Cast Polymorph on Fighter, turning it into some tiny creature, like a rabbit. Repeat until successful.

Step 2: Grapple tiny creature.

Step 3: Drop rabbit off the edge of the 650+ ft tower.

This only has about a 13% chance of failing against a non-EK (EKs can counterspell), but the odds of them surviving 65d6+ of falling damage is ridiculously low (unless they can Feather Fall via EK or Magic Initiate) so it's worth considering.

EDIT: I know the "on top of a tower" plan was mentioned at some point, so I figured I'd take advantage of it.

[MaxWilson]

See, this plan might actually make some sense. I'm continually amused that the only caster builds being seriously put forth in a Caster 10 vs Fighter 20 fight are casters trying to pretend to be Fighters.

Yeah, if you want to stand a chance you have to embrace asymmetrical combat, which means don't turn it into a DPR race.


This only has about a 13% chance of failing against a non-EK (EKs can counterspell), but the odds of them surviving 65d6+ of falling damage is ridiculously low (unless they can Feather Fall via EK or Magic Initiate) so it's worth considering.

EDIT: I know the "on top of a tower" plan was mentioned at some point, so I figured I'd take advantage of it.

Don't you mean 20d6 fall damage? Or is 20d6 no longer terminal velocity in 5E? Edit: nope, 20d6 is still the maximum:


Falling

A fall from a great height is one of the most common hazards facing an adventurer. At the end of a fall, a creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet it fell, to a maximum of 20d6. The creature lands prone, unless it avoids taking damage from the fall.

[Malifice]

And so until he spends a bonus action to restart it, the BS only has his 22 AC (21 if Schrodinger's took Alert) with Shield and does not get advantage to Acrobatics.

This is getting ridiculous (and thats no dis to you mate!).

I think we can all agree that barring some kind of very narrow Wall of Force interpretation (allowing the hemispherical wall of force to instead create a 'coccoon' of force, and/or the Fighter standing on a perfectly flat adamantine floor or similar) then the 10th level (insert class here) doesnt beat the Fighter in a straight up throwdown barring some insane luck on their behalf (or some rubbish luck from the fighter) or both.

[RickAllison]

Guys! I think I figured out a way for the Wizard to win, assuming they're fighting on top of some huge tower!

Pre-fight buff: Cast Blink.

Step 1: Cast Polymorph on Fighter, turning it into some tiny creature, like a rabbit. Repeat until successful.

Step 2: Grapple tiny creature.

Step 3: Drop rabbit off the edge of the 650+ ft tower.

This only has about a 13% chance of failing against a non-EK (EKs can counterspell), but the odds of them surviving 65d6+ of falling damage is ridiculously low (unless they can Feather Fall via EK or Magic Initiate) so it's worth considering.

EDIT: I know the "on top of a tower" plan was mentioned at some point, so I figured I'd take advantage of it.

Im pretty sure you were being sarcastic :smallsmile: but in case you weren't, do note that the maximum fall damage is 20d6, average of 70 damage and max of 120. The fighter can tank that. Also, the DC of the Int 16 wizard is only 15 while IIRC the Wisdom save of the fighter is +7 or 8. On the off chance he does fail, he has Indomitable.

[AvatarVecna]

Im pretty sure you were being sarcastic :smallsmile: but in case you weren't, do note that the maximum fall damage is 20d6, average of 70 damage and max of 120. The fighter can tank that. Also, the DC of the Int 16 wizard is only 15 while IIRC the Wisdom save of the fighter is +7 or 8. On the off chance he does fail, he has Indomitable.

I forgot to account for Indomitable (or Lucky, for that matter), and I wasn't aware that that the 20d6 limit was still around; I'll have to let my DM know about that. Nevertheless...yes, it was not exactly intended as a serious answer. I half-expected somebody to respond with "The Eldritch Knight Counterspells...and then leaps off the tower onto the giant eagles he summoned".

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Perhaps if we lock the bunny-fighter inside an adamantine box full of acid? Or we just dump him at the bottom of a body of water deep enough to prevent him from getting to the surface before drowning.

[mgshamster]

See, this plan might actually make some sense. I'm continually amused that the only caster builds being seriously put forth in a Caster 10 vs Fighter 20 fight are casters trying to pretend to be Fighters.

That's not entirely accurate. Only one of the major wizard plans has been to turn the wizard in to a fighter, and that's NewGM's plan. He's a bit obsessed with the idea that a wizard makes a better fighter than a fighter (and still has spells!).

RulesJD's plan was to capture the fighter in WoF, and then spam non spell attack spells to kill the fighter trapped in the dome. But it never came to fruition because we had to side track on the validity of actually targeting someone in the dome, while they cannot target back. His reasoning was "because magic."

[Malifice]

RulesJD's plan was to capture the fighter in WoF, and then spam non spell attack spells to kill the fighter trapped in the dome. But it never came to fruition because we had to side track on the validity of actually targeting someone in the dome, while they cannot target back. His reasoning was "because magic."

There was some issues with regards to his interpretation of whether a the spells ability to create a 'hemispherical dome' translates into creating 5' diameter and 2 and a half foot high 'force cocoon' pinning the fighter to the ground as well.

At the very least, that interpretation requires a pretty narrow reading of the spell, and a very permissive DM.

Creative use of Phantasmal force (and a permissive DM) could allow for some shennanigans as well, but that also requires a rather permissive DM. The Fighter could (investigation +7) discover he's trapped by an illusion if he fails the 2 saves with lucky re-rolls to resist it, so its not the game changer he thinks it is.

[AvatarVecna]

That's not entirely accurate. Only one of the major wizard plans has been to turn the wizard in to a fighter, and that's NewGM's plan. He's a bit obsessed with the idea that a wizard makes a better fighter than a fighter (and still has spells!).

RulesJD's plan was to capture the fighter in WoF, and then spam non spell attack spells to kill the fighter trapped in the dome. But it never came to fruition because we had to side track on the validity of actually targeting someone in the dome, while they cannot target back. His reasoning was "because magic."

Alright, then, I amend my statement to "the only builds/tactics presented whose legality is not being debated", or something to that effect.

[mgshamster]

Alright, then, I amend my statement to "the only builds/tactics presented whose legality is not being debated", or something to that effect.

Fair!

I'm really trying to give it the benefit of the doubt. Even if the wall of force done does work, would the wizard be able to defeat the fighter? Would a champion's regen be too quick?

[AvatarVecna]

Fair!

I'm really trying to give it the benefit of the doubt. Even if the wall of force done does work, would the wizard be able to defeat the fighter? Would a champion's regen be too quick?

Assuming the Wizard won initiative and put the Fighter in a box where the Wizard can shoot in, but the Fighter can't shoot out, can the Wizard kill the Fighter? At this point, the wizard has attack cantrips and 4/3/3/3/1 spells left. I'm gonna go find the spell of each level that can deal the most damage, theoretically, without requiring an attack roll or Concentration (since WoF is taking that). Unsurprisingly, the best option available is an Evoker 10 spamming various levels of Magic Missile; without getting into all the math, let's just say it the damage can definitely outpace the Champion's Regen, if done intelligently.

EDIT: To be clear, this requires that you win initiative, that the wall provides you total cover from the fighter, that the wall provides the fighter less than total cover from you, and that your Evoker is willing to blow most of your high-level slots on spamming Magic Missiles.

[MaxWilson]

Fair!

I'm really trying to give it the benefit of the doubt. Even if the wall of force done does work, would the wizard be able to defeat the fighter? Would a champion's regen be too quick?

Mmmmm, possibly. You might be able to play some tricks with Shape Water that result in the fighter drowning underneath that dome before the ten minutes is up. Depends on a number of factors, not least whether your DM rules that solid rock is more/less durable than the stone created by the Wall of Stone spell.

[Skylivedk]

That's not entirely accurate. Only one of the major wizard plans has been to turn the wizard in to a fighter, and that's NewGM's plan. He's a bit obsessed with the idea that a wizard makes a better fighter than a fighter (and still has spells!).

RulesJD's plan was to capture the fighter in WoF, and then spam non spell attack spells to kill the fighter trapped in the dome. But it never came to fruition because we had to side track on the validity of actually targeting someone in the dome, while they cannot target back. His reasoning was "because magic."

"Good morning, class!"
"Good morning, teacher!"
"Today's subject is how to deal with pointy sticks. The sticky point is how not be stuck with the pointy end. Any points can be raised in the end. Good, let's proceed:
A: don't turn into a dino. They end up on pointy sticks and taste like chicken.
B: do conceal your intention to unalive those sticking to pointing pointy sticks. They make a point out of taking offence to that kind of behaviour and sticky situations might follow.
C: spend a year sticking a teleportation circle to the side of an active volcano. The inside, please.
D: before engaging in the potentially very sticky situation, make a point of reshaping the terrain with Hallucinatory Terrain - the most important part of the illusion is the area where you are and where you are about to cast Teleportation circle.
E: trick pointy sticker into the transportation circle.

Any points I missed?"
*raised hands*
"Yes?"
"How do we get them into the teleportation circle?
"You really had to stick it to me, huh? Good point. Let me know when you find out"

Best guess is a diviner with two times 1s as rolls doing banishment or something like it to get the time to set up the teleportation circle.

Still, pretty bad.

I'd recommend waiting to get magic jar ;)

[MaxWilson]

I loved your wordplay--but Teleportation circle only opens a door within the portal, it doesn't suck creatures through the door.

[Skylivedk]

I loved your wordplay--but Teleportation circle only opens a door within the portal, it doesn't suck creatures through the door.

Damn it. Thought it said that anyone entering the circle would get thrown into my nicely prepped volcano. Is my volcano at least refundable?

[mgshamster]

Damn it. Thought it said that anyone entering the circle would get thrown into my nicely prepped volcano. Is my volcano at least refundable?

For a reasonable reprocessing fee.

[RickAllison]

Damn it. Thought it said that anyone entering the circle would get thrown into my nicely prepped volcano. Is my volcano at least refundable?

Nope. By marking on it with the circle, you voided your warranty. Guess you need to find a new use for it *coughminion disposalcough*

[Naanomi]

I'm not sure the details, but how would a plan like this work:

1) trap fighter via wall of force (or similar)
2) use creation, fabricate, move earth, etc with the appropriate tool proficiencies (tinker mostly?) to build a series of elaborate death traps
3) hide in a Tiny Hut
4) ???
5) Come out when the dust settles to loot what is left of the body

[Malifice]

I'm not sure the details, but how would a plan like this work:

1) trap fighter via wall of force (or similar)
2) use creation, fabricate, move earth, etc with the appropriate tool proficiencies (tinker mostly?) to build a series of elaborate death traps
3) hide in a Tiny Hut
4) ???
5) Come out when the dust settles to loot what is left of the body

The fighter can kind of watch the traps get made.

Is the tiny hut indestructable?

[MaxWilson]

I'm not sure the details, but how would a plan like this work:

1) trap fighter via wall of force (or similar)
2) use creation, fabricate, move earth, etc with the appropriate tool proficiencies (tinker mostly?) to build a series of elaborate death traps
3) hide in a Tiny Hut
4) ???
5) Come out when the dust settles to loot what is left of the body

Fabricate takes 10 minutes to cast, and Creation takes 1 minute. Since any spell that takes over a single action/reaction to cast requires your concentration, and you can't concentrate on two spells at once, this means that you can't maintain Wall of Force while casting Fabricate/Creation/Leomund's Tiny Hut.



Normal activity, such as moving and attacking, doesn’t interfere with concentration. The following factors can break concentration:

Casting another spell that requires concentration. You lose concentration on a spell if you cast another spell that requires concentration. You can’t concentrate on two spells at once.
Taking damage. Whenever you take damage while you are concentrating on a spell, you must make a Constitution saving throw to maintain your concentration. The DC equals 10 or half the damage you take, whichever number is higher. If you take damage from multiple sources, such as an arrow and a dragon’s breath, you make a separate saving throw for each source of damage.
Being incapacitated or killed. You lose concentration on a spell if you are incapacitated or if you die.
The GM might also decide that certain environmental phenomena, such as a wave crashing over you while you’re on a storm-tossed ship, require you to succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw to maintain concentration on a spell.

*snip*

Certain spells (including spells cast as rituals) require more time to cast: minutes or even hours. When you cast a spell with a casting time longer than a single action or reaction, you must spend your action each turn casting the spell, and you must maintain your concentration while you do so (see “Concentration” below). If your concentration is broken, the spell fails, but you don’t expend a spell slot. If you want to try casting the spell again, you must start over.

[Sigreid]

Well, if the wizard can get the fighter to stand in a stone hole with oil flowing into it, Cast wall of force to keep the fighter in the hole, but with a gap to the ground and light the oil, perhaps he could keep the fighter in there long enough to either burn to death or die of smoke inhalation.

[MaxWilson]

Well, if the wizard can get the fighter to stand in a stone hole with oil flowing into it, Cast wall of force to keep the fighter in the hole, but with a gap to the ground and light the oil, perhaps he could keep the fighter in there long enough to either burn to death or die of smoke inhalation.

Bonus points if you can get the fighter to handcuff himself first and throw away the key.

[Sigreid]

Bonus points if you can get the fighter to handcuff himself first and throw away the key.

Yes, ridiculous scenario was ridiculous.:smallbiggrin:

[mgshamster]

What's the lowest minimum level needed for our wizard/warlock/whatever* to defeat one of the fighter builds posted in this thread?

*Rules: single class builds, no Schrodingers.

To recap, here are the fighter builds:


Made by JNAProductions (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20756848&postcount=8)

Fighter (Champion) 20
Wood Elf

Strength 9
Dexterity 20 (14 Base, +2 Race, +4 ASIs)
Constitution 18 (14 base, +4 ASIs)
Intelligence 12
Wisdom 14 (12 base, +1 Race, +1 Feat)
Charisma 12

Dex +2 (Levels 4, 6)
Sharpshooter (Level 8)
Resilient (Wsidom) (Level 12)
Con +2 (Levels 14, 16)
Mobile (level 19)

Armed with Studded Leather and a Longbow. Has the Defensive and Archery Fighting styles.

AC 18
HP 204
Move 45'


Made by Malifice (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20757364&postcount=74)

My Fighter 20 build is the switch hitter:

Feats/ ASI: Lucky, Alert, Resilient [wisdom], Great weapon master, Sharpshooter, +4 Strength, +2 Dex

Str: 20
Dex: 18
Wis: 14
Con: 12
Int and Cha: 8

Battlemaster: Precise strike, Tripping attack, Menacing attack, Riposte, others. Archery F/S.

Equipment: Full plate, Greatsword, Maul, Longbow


Made by MaxWilson (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20757130&postcount=42)
Rolls: 13 13 8 11 12 15
Degalus Magnus Benedictus, small, solid-looking man with a square face and an open manner.
LG Human Baker/Retired soldier (Pythium army), Eldritch Knight 20
Str* 11 Dex (16) 20 Con* 14 Int 12 Wis* (13) 14 Cha 8 HP 164 [* = proficient save]
Good-natured, kind, earnest, trusting; naturally quiet, but likes to talk about his wife and kids back home to anyone who asks about them; socially-awkward, unable to let a joke die. Doesn't trust most Pythium aristocrats--"they only care about each other."
Skills: Athletics, Acrobatics, Perception, Stealth, Insight; baker's tools, poisoner's kit; Common, Dwarvish
Feats (8): Sharpshooter, Dex 16 => 18, Dex 18 => 20, Alert, Mobile, Lucky, Resilient (Wis), Warcaster
Cantrips (3): Mold Earth [for digging in fortifications], False Fetters [née Booming Blade], Prestidigitation [great for cleaning baking implements]
Spells (13): Darkness, Absorb Elements, Mage Armor, Shield, Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Fire Shield, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Fireball, Expeditious Retreat*, Magic Weapon*, Blink*, Dimension Door* [* = non-evoc/abj]
Spell points: 38

[Malifice]

What's the lowest minimum level needed for our wizard/warlock/whatever* to defeat one of the fighter builds posted in this thread?

*Rules: single class builds, no Schrodingers.

To recap, here are the fighter builds:


Made by JNAProductions (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20756848&postcount=8)

Fighter (Champion) 20
Wood Elf

Strength 9
Dexterity 20 (14 Base, +2 Race, +4 ASIs)
Constitution 18 (14 base, +4 ASIs)
Intelligence 12
Wisdom 14 (12 base, +1 Race, +1 Feat)
Charisma 12

Dex +2 (Levels 4, 6)
Sharpshooter (Level 8)
Resilient (Wsidom) (Level 12)
Con +2 (Levels 14, 16)
Mobile (level 19)

Armed with Studded Leather and a Longbow. Has the Defensive and Archery Fighting styles.

AC 18
HP 204
Move 45'


Made by Malifice (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20757364&postcount=74)

My Fighter 20 build is the switch hitter:

Feats/ ASI: Lucky, Alert, Resilient [wisdom], Great weapon master, Sharpshooter, +4 Strength, +2 Dex

Str: 20
Dex: 18
Wis: 14
Con: 12
Int and Cha: 8

Battlemaster: Precise strike, Tripping attack, Menacing attack, Riposte, others. Archery F/S.

Equipment: Full plate, Greatsword, Maul, Longbow


Made by MaxWilson (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20757130&postcount=42)
Rolls: 13 13 8 11 12 15
Degalus Magnus Benedictus, small, solid-looking man with a square face and an open manner.
LG Human Baker/Retired soldier (Pythium army), Eldritch Knight 20
Str* 11 Dex (16) 20 Con* 14 Int 12 Wis* (13) 14 Cha 8 HP 164 [* = proficient save]
Good-natured, kind, earnest, trusting; naturally quiet, but likes to talk about his wife and kids back home to anyone who asks about them; socially-awkward, unable to let a joke die. Doesn't trust most Pythium aristocrats--"they only care about each other."
Skills: Athletics, Acrobatics, Perception, Stealth, Insight; baker's tools, poisoner's kit; Common, Dwarvish
Feats (8): Sharpshooter, Dex 16 => 18, Dex 18 => 20, Alert, Mobile, Lucky, Resilient (Wis), Warcaster
Cantrips (3): Mold Earth [for digging in fortifications], False Fetters [née Booming Blade], Prestidigitation [great for cleaning baking implements]
Spells (13): Darkness, Absorb Elements, Mage Armor, Shield, Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Fire Shield, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Fireball, Expeditious Retreat*, Magic Weapon*, Blink*, Dimension Door* [* = non-evoc/abj]
Spell points: 38

If you start with liberal interpretations of Simulacra, you could probably take him down from whenever that spell comes online (assuming youre fully rested of course).

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Actually, as long as the Wizard can keep the fighter off for a minute, and the fighter isn't an Eldritch Knight with a means of getting past it, the Wizard can just put up a Leomund's Tiny Hut, and from that point on they can just keep plinking at the fighter with a ranged weapon until he dies. This may take an inordinately long time in the case of a Champion.

Thus, I propose that the minimum level to beat Malifice's Battlemaster is Wizard 9:

1. Wizard wins initiative (chancy, admittedly, but not impossible)
2. Wizard traps Battlemaster inside a Wall of Force.
3. Wizard casts Leomund's Tiny Hut.
4. Wizard dismisses Wall of Force.
5. Wizard shoots Battlemaster with Light Crossbow until he dies or naffs off.

[MaxWilson]

Yes, ridiculous scenario was ridiculous.:smallbiggrin:

Hahaha. Now you've got me contemplating whether and how a Swashbuckler could use Panache to kill off a 20th level fighter.

"No really, if you go through the door in this teleportation circle and dive into the lava there is gold at the bottom of that volcano!"

LOL. Wouldn't work against a PC of course.

================================================== =========


Actually, as long as the Wizard can keep the fighter off for a minute, and the fighter isn't an Eldritch Knight with a means of getting past it, the Wizard can just put up a Leomund's Tiny Hut, and from that point on they can just keep plinking at the fighter with a ranged weapon until he dies. This may take an inordinately long time in the case of a Champion.

Even better--if the wizard can just keep the fighter off him for a couple of centuries, and the fighter isn't an elf, the wizard can use Clone to keep himself young while the fighter dies of old age!

#HowToKillAFighter

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Even better--if the wizard can just keep the fighter off him for a couple of centuries, and the fighter isn't an elf, the wizard can use Clone to keep himself young while the fighter dies of old age!

#HowToKillAFighter

As I've shown, keeping him off for a minute is hardly difficult, as long as one wins initiative. Wall of Force should do it reliably. Otiluke's Resilient Sphere might also work.

Also, Clone is 8th level, and there are much more efficient ways of killing a fighter if you're at least 15th level.

[MaxWilson]

As I've shown, keeping him off for a minute is hardly difficult, as long as one wins initiative. Wall of Force should do it reliably. Otiluke's Resilient Sphere might also work.

You can't maintain Wall of Force or Otiluke's Resilient Sphere while casting Leomund's Tiny Hut though. See post #484 for the rules quote.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

You can't maintain Wall of Force or Otiluke's Resilient Sphere while casting Leomund's Tiny Hut though. See post #484 for the rules quote.

Well, shucks. That's me told.

[Sigreid]

Actually, as long as the Wizard can keep the fighter off for a minute, and the fighter isn't an Eldritch Knight with a means of getting past it, the Wizard can just put up a Leomund's Tiny Hut, and from that point on they can just keep plinking at the fighter with a ranged weapon until he dies. This may take an inordinately long time in the case of a Champion.

Thus, I propose that the minimum level to beat Malifice's Battlemaster is Wizard 9:

1. Wizard wins initiative (chancy, admittedly, but not impossible)
2. Wizard traps Battlemaster inside a Wall of Force.
3. Wizard casts Leomund's Tiny Hut.
4. Wizard dismisses Wall of Force.
5. Wizard shoots Battlemaster with Light Crossbow until he dies or naffs off.

Alternately, fighter gets out of line of fire and waits for the spell to go down, or if he's confident in his hitpoints and AC begins stacking very heavy things precariously on the hut and when the hut goes down hilarity ensues.

[MaxWilson]

Well, shucks. That's me told.

I apologize though if you thought I was making fun of you. I just find this thread ridiculous and can't resist stirring the pot a bit--and my sense of humor sometimes gets away from me. No hard feelings, I hope?

[TheTeaMustFlow]

I apologize though if you thought I was making fun of you. I just find this thread ridiculous and can't resist stirring the pot a bit--and my sense of humor sometimes gets away from me. No hard feelings, I hope?

None at all. 'Tis a silly thread.

...Maybe if the Wizard uses Stone Shape to trap the fighter?

[Gwendol]

Ah as an EK, which means there wouldn't be the WoF to begin with. So not sure why it would matter since you wouldn't be digging through anything?

Like I said, useful on an Archer build, not much else for a Fighter. Sadly the "loose dirt" requirement limits its full construction ability. Although you could use it with HESCO baskets to great effect.

I don't think WoF is generally applicable the way you want it to unless the fight takes place on a flat, hard surface. There is no guarantee the gap will be 1/2" along the edge, just because it is that at the center.
It's too specific.

Edit: wait, it's changed to "several inches" now? Even more inadmissible.

[MaxWilson]

None at all. 'Tis a silly thread.

...Maybe if the Wizard uses Stone Shape to trap the fighter?

That has potential. How about:

1.) Wall of Force (small sphere around fighter)
2.) Stone Shape (possibly x2 or x3 depending on DM judgment) to create a stone cage or sphere around the Wall of Force, with three or four small openings about 4' wide in the top and bottom
3.) Shape Water multiple times to fill the room with water
4.) Ready: Wall of Force around the stone sphere as soon as it is filled with water and/or cracks due to damage from within. Since readying the spell costs your concentration, this also releases the existing Wall of Force so that the water begins pouring in.
5.) Hold concentration until the fighter drowns.

#4 is the most dubious step--can you cast a Wall of Force underwater? Ask your DM.

[mgshamster]

I apologize though if you thought I was making fun of you. I just find this thread ridiculous and can't resist stirring the pot a bit--and my sense of humor sometimes gets away from me. No hard feelings, I hope?

I'm really happy people are treating this thread appropriately.

Tis a silly thread, indeed. :)

But it's fun, too!