Help with Finishing a caster slayer build without being a caster.

[Nostrodamus]

I'm sure this my have already been addressed I'm still looking for help. I'm making a caster slayer who will be utilizing all three mage slayer feats, and spellfire wielder. Right now it's looking like: Hexblade 3/monk 2/fighter 2/ occult slayer 5.
Occult Slayer is a must, because this class is for story than optimization. Monk for saves and improved grapple and combat reflexes. Hex blade for Mettle and skills. I'll also be taking flaws for feats.
With these requirements I'm locked in for several feats; mageslayer, pierce magical concealment, pierce magical protection, improved initiative, weapon focus(a reach weapon), blind fight.
Also since this is a FR Underdark campaign, I'm looking for a race with DV. Under folk, or dwarf would be the most likely.
How can I complete this build, while at the same time improving my abilities?

[One Step Two]

Do you have access to LA buy-off? If so may I suggest using the Drow (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/elf.htm#drow) race, while the -2 con hurts for spellfire purposes, you can pay the feat tax, and go into the Kinslayer PrC from Drow of the Underdark instead of hexblade, which grants Mettle at first level, and offers Rage, Smite elves, and Deny Elf Magic to make you even harder to hit with spells, which works with anything with the Elf subtype. It has good Reflex and Will saves to boot. You can leave it early at 6th, by then you'll have shameful strike, which is a no-save sickened causing attack.

If drow isn't attractive, Duergar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dwarf.htm#duergar) are amazing, and while the -4 charisma can be a pain for you spellfire DCs, Con bonus, the SLAs, save bonuses and skill bonuses are simply the best for an LA +1 race. Class wise, you can look at Black Blood Cultist for more grapple power, but Freedom of movement will be your downfall there.

Finally you can always look into the Spellfire Channeler PrC, for more capacity and ways to expend your charges, to do things like fly or gain other nifty abilities.

I hope this gives you some food for thought!

[Nostrodamus]

Sorry I forgot to mention, for races its no LA allowed. Also I've looked at spell fire chenneler, which is nice but doesn't really help at battling mages and spellcaster.
I will look at those other PrCs though.

[One Step Two]

Then may I present the Lesser Drow (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20040215a&page=2), LA +0, dark vision, and will allow you to enter the Kinslayer class.

[Seppo87]

Having good saves is fine, but don't forget that what makes Casters difficult to defeat is how they can easily become untouchable.

You need ways to bypass things like Forcecage, Invisibility, Fly+Windwall, Repel Metal, Teleport, Prismatic Sphere.
You need way to bypass all of them because a single one working means certain defeat for you, 100%, no chance to fight back.

There is no real way to do this with a completely mundane build, so it's sad but true that it's somewhat of a lost cause.

However, the closest you can get, if you're liberal on Magic Items use, is to get mundane flight (wings graft, raptoran etc) and items that produce Antimagic Field (Beholder eye graft, custom item)

[Lorddenorstrus]

Having good saves is fine, but don't forget that what makes Casters difficult to defeat is how they can easily become untouchable.

You need ways to bypass things like Forcecage, Invisibility, Fly+Windwall, Repel Metal, Teleport, Prismatic Sphere.
You need way to bypass all of them because a single one working means certain defeat for you, 100%, no chance to fight back.

There is no real way to do this with a completely mundane build, so it's sad but true that it's somewhat of a lost cause.

However, the closest you can get, if you're liberal on Magic Items use, is to get mundane flight (wings graft, raptoran etc) and items that produce Antimagic Field (Beholder eye graft, custom item)

I have to agree, the only way for a Mundane to defeat a caster is for the caster to not be optimized. To even judge what is necessary or whether it's even possible, we'll need to know how optimized the casters you're thinking of fighting are.

[Nostrodamus]

Having good saves is fine, but don't forget that what makes Casters difficult to defeat is how they can easily become untouchable.

You need ways to bypass things like Forcecage, Invisibility, Fly+Windwall, Repel Metal, Teleport, Prismatic Sphere.
You need way to bypass all of them because a single one working means certain defeat for you, 100%, no chance to fight back.

There is no real way to do this with a completely mundane build, so it's sad but true that it's somewhat of a lost cause.

However, the closest you can get, if you're liberal on Magic Items use, is to get mundane flight (wings graft, raptoran etc) and items that produce Antimagic Field (Beholder eye graft, custom item)

I know all of that lol. I also know that this is a hopeless sort of build. 4 levels of Spell fire channeler gets me flight, which helps a lot. I'm not going for OP here, just improving my builds and its current abilities.
As for the rest of my short comings, that's why I'm in a party.

[Nostrodamus]

Then may I present the Lesser Drow, LA +0, dark vision, and will allow you to enter the Kinslayer class.

I'm thinking this very well be my race.

[Nostrodamus]

Do you have access to LA buy-off? If so may I suggest using the Drow race, while the -2 con hurts for spellfire purposes, you can pay the feat tax, and go into the Kinslayer PrC from Drow of the Underdark instead of hexblade, which grants Mettle at first level, and offers Rage, Smite elves, and Deny Elf Magic to make you even harder to hit with spells, which works with anything with the Elf subtype. It has good Reflex and Will saves to boot. You can leave it early at 6th, by then you'll have shameful strike, which is a no-save sickened causing attack.

If drow isn't attractive, Duergar are amazing, and while the -4 charisma can be a pain for you spellfire DCs, Con bonus, the SLAs, save bonuses and skill bonuses are simply the best for an LA +1 race. Class wise, you can look at Black Blood Cultist for more grapple power, but Freedom of movement will be your downfall there.

You have been pretty helpful. Kinslayer would've been great but it's a good group and those feats are hard core evil. Black blood cultist sounds like something associated with Malar, who is evil but I'll look into it now. That's in Faiths and Pantheons, right?

[One Step Two]

You have been pretty helpful. Kinslayer would've been great but it's a good group and those feats are hard core evil. Black blood cultist sounds like something associated with Malar, who is evil but I'll look into it now. That's in Faiths and Pantheons, right?

Champions of ruin, but it's also an evil class, you need access to rage as well, so you might want to give it a miss.

Obvious missed class is obvious: Ranger with the arcane hunter alternate class feature from complete mage for bonus damage, and it helps get you access to PrCs that need Track, you might also want to look into maxing hide and move silent, and take the Dark Stalker feat, to really sneak up on casters.

[Nostrodamus]

Champions of ruin, but it's also an evil class, you need access to rage as well, so you might want to give it a miss

Yessir! But still the new ideas, and book research are quite helpful. I found the Krinth to be a great base race, better than even the Lesser Drow, even for my current build. Right now, I think I'm going to fill the remaining levels with spellfire channeler. It is not the most optimized class for fighting spellcasters, but it does give me some cool abilities, at the least, I will take 4 levels of it, for the Flight ability and the improved healing would help the entire party in a crunch.
The final levels, I can just fill out with fighter or perhaps ranger, with the arcanist hunter variant, and the underdark variant as well. I was really hoping for another PrC that would blend well with Occult Slayer. At the end of the day, I think that trying to create a mundane spellcaster killer, is silly, but, still, this build may be the best that the rules have to offer for my vision.

[One Step Two]

The only other thing I can think that might help, because I always suggest this for melee types, is getting bitten by a were-tiger,and taking levels of warshaper.

[Azoth]

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=434572

There is a full lvl20 build workup I did a ways back for a purely mundane mage hunter. It may give some inspiration for advancement or gear to look out for.

[Nostrodamus]

The only other thing I can think that might help, because I always suggest this for melee types, is getting bitten by a were-tiger,and taking levels of warshaper.
I don't see how that makes me better at fighting Spellcasters??? And I do like that prestige class too!

[Nostrodamus]

There is a full lvl20 build workup I did a ways back for a purely mundane mage hunter. It may give some inspiration for advancement or gear to look out for.

How are you a Monk/Barbarian?? It make very little sense to me lol?

[Nostrodamus]

Champions of ruin, but it's also an evil class, you need access to rage as well, so you might want to give it a miss.

Obvious missed class is obvious: Ranger with the arcane hunter alternate class feature from complete mage for bonus damage, and it helps get you access to PrCs that need Track, you might also want to look into maxing hide and move silent, and take the Dark Stalker feat, to really sneak up on casters.

After I post this I will post a link with my build. I am pretty happy with it. I was thinking of that Ranger Variant, and I actually may take it in swapping out a level of Fighter 2.

[Nostrodamus]

Here is my 20 level build, with my stats on the second sheet. This was pretty challenging for me, because of the restrictions, and because of the imbalance of powers and abilities in 3.5. I've come to the conclusion that the best at mundane can do to challenge a spellcaster, is have good defenses and hope to get close quickly to grapple and dispatch the caster.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R8cMtfEnJyh6V0r1eMmu01D10R2B0oxNrDeMokGxB94/edit?usp=sharing
I am still open to suggestions, and comments on the build. Thanks to all who helped me out.

[Calthropstu]

Here is my 20 level build, with my stats on the second sheet. This was pretty challenging for me, because of the restrictions, and because of the imbalance of powers and abilities in 3.5. I've come to the conclusion that the best at mundane can do to challenge a spellcaster, is have good defenses and hope to get close quickly to grapple and dispatch the caster.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R8cMtfEnJyh6V0r1eMmu01D10R2B0oxNrDeMokGxB94/edit?usp=sharing
I am still open to suggestions, and comments on the build. Thanks to all who helped me out.

There are ways to get a fast short range teleport. There are also ways to have a contingency to cast anti-magic field after you do so. All on a non caster.

At that point it is simply a matter of winning initiative.

Unless super cheese is being allowed, such as craft contingent spell, contingency for wish bull****, (I would never allow that feat in my games) you should be able to put some serious hurt on the mage in question no matter what class you are. If there's a feat that lets you attack at the end of a teleport in the surprise round, take it.

Winning initiative here will allow a full round attack action to simply obliterate this mage. No magic means no defenses, which means no tricks from the mage.

Give the person doing this an artifact for a weapon, and that wizard is toast.

[Azoth]

How are you a Monk/Barbarian?? It make very little sense to me lol?

You start out Lawful Good, and then shift your alignment to Chaotic Good. All you lose is the ability to take more Monk levels as an Ex-Monk. Not really an issue since you got all you wanted/needed out of those 2lvls. Namely a solid boost to saves and Evasion, so that the 2lvl Rogue dip can trade out its Evasion for Spell Reflection.

[Calthropstu]

You start out Lawful Good, and then shift your alignment to Chaotic Good. All you lose is the ability to take more Monk levels as an Ex-Monk. Not really an issue since you got all you wanted/needed out of those 2lvls. Namely a solid boost to saves and Evasion, so that the 2lvl Rogue dip can trade out its Evasion for Spell Reflection.

Anyone else smell some cheddar?

[Thurbane]

Witch Slayer from ToM has some good anti-caster abilities that mesh well with Occult Slayer.

You may want to dip a ToB class (or spend some feats) for Diamond Mind maneuvers, too.

[Deadline]

Anyone else smell some cheddar?

There are plenty of fantasy stories wherein a disciplined monk strays from the path and falls to selfish barbarism, so not only does it not smell like cheese, it's more genre appropriate than many concepts I've heard.

[One Step Two]

I don't see how that makes me better at fighting Spellcasters??? And I do like that prestige class too!

Simple! As a were-tiger, you shift into your tiger form, you now are large size, have improved grab and pounce. You can full attack after a charge, rake, grapple them with a size bonus, you still have access to all your feats, but lose out on magic items depending on what they are. War-shaper makes you even more brutal in your actions to boot!

I had a look at your character sheet, pretty solid, I would like to recommend dropping your str to 14, and put 18 into dex, giving you better reflex saves. you can compensate the damage loss by taking the Hit-And-Run variant fighter from Drow of the Underdark. You don't need to be a drow to take it, it gives you +2 initiative, and lets you add your dex modifier as damage if you hit a flat -footed opponent, in exchange for giving up heavy armor and tower shield proficiency.

[gorfnab]

Here is a Mage Slayer build I came up with a while ago.

1. Ranger - B: Track, Weapon Focus: Guisarme, Arcane Hunter ACF
2. Barbarian - Spirit Totem: Lion ACF, Whirling Frenzy ACF, {Optional: City Brawler ACF (Drg#349)}
3. Barbarian - Nemisis: Arcanists, Wolf Totem ACF
4. Warblade
5. Warblade
6. Warblade - Mage Slayer
7. Warblade
8. Warblade - B: Improved Initiative
9. Crusader - Blindfight
10. Crusader
11. Occult Slayer
12. Occult Slayer - Combat Reflexes
13. Occult Slayer
14. Occult Slayer
15. Occult Slayer - Pierce Magical Concealment
16. Witch Slayer
17. Witch Slayer
18. Witch Slayer - Stand Still
19. Witch Slayer
20. Witch Slayer

Note: The levels of Occult Slayer and Witch Slayer can be switched around as needed.

Warblade nets you the maneuvers Iron Heart Surge, Moment of Perfect Mind, and Action Before Thought. You also get Uncanny Dodge

Crusader nets you the Thicket of Blade Stance (combos nicely with Stand Still, Combat Reflexes, and a reach weapon; wear spiked gauntlets or armor spikes to threaten nearby squares) and some healing maneuvers. it also nets you Indomitable Soul.

Witch Slayer nets you Mettle and Slippery Mind.

If playing human take EWP: Spiked Chain and WF: Spiked Chain instead of Guisarme

[Lorddenorstrus]

There are ways to get a fast short range teleport. There are also ways to have a contingency to cast anti-magic field after you do so. All on a non caster.

At that point it is simply a matter of winning initiative.

Unless super cheese is being allowed, such as craft contingent spell, contingency for wish bull****, (I would never allow that feat in my games) you should be able to put some serious hurt on the mage in question no matter what class you are. If there's a feat that lets you attack at the end of a teleport in the surprise round, take it.

Winning initiative here will allow a full round attack action to simply obliterate this mage. No magic means no defenses, which means no tricks from the mage.

Give the person doing this an artifact for a weapon, and that wizard is toast.

Just because I've seen you mention Anti Magic Fields across several threads now.. you do realize Wizard players came up with a counter to that.. a long long time ago right? It involved shrinking a certain material as a hat, the anti magic field undid the shrink causing the hat to expand covering the wizard entirely so they could just teleport away safely. Was it lead? God I really need someone to remind me of the material it was made from it's been to long.. That's why the biggest factor in the Mundane vs Caster theory zone is just how optimized the caster is.. a fully optimized one is immune to everything completely through aleax shenaningans etc blah op etc

[Calthropstu]

Just because I've seen you mention Anti Magic Fields across several threads now.. you do realize Wizard players came up with a counter to that.. a long long time ago right? It involved shrinking a certain material as a hat, the anti magic field undid the shrink causing the hat to expand covering the wizard entirely so they could just teleport away safely. Was it lead? God I really need someone to remind me of the material it was made from it's been to long.. That's why the biggest factor in the Mundane vs Caster theory zone is just how optimized the caster is.. a fully optimized one is immune to everything completely through aleax shenaningans etc blah op etc

See Sunder. Poke a hole in the antimagic field hat. Now, the caster is in an anti magic field, trapped inside a giant hat with nowhere to go and no way to defend himself and is simply murdered at leisure. And lead is actually very very easy to poke a hole into. Also, if that's the way you want to play this?
Take a monk in with you. Give him about a +20 - 30 initiative. The monk has haste, and every possible feat and ability that will give him extra attacks. Use each attack to steal items. You should be able to steal about 10 - 15 items. Then trigger the antimagic field.

And if you want to say "Oh but he can hide in his own plane and..."

Not in my game he can't. Any GM that allows your absolute bull**** cheese? I am not playing with. Nor am I being. You saw the responses to a simple gaining of minion hordes. DO YOU HONESTLY THINK A GM WILL ALLOW YOUR CRAP?

No. No they won't. If they do... more power to ya. But in my games? Most sane games? Yeah, not a chance.

Yeah, we could all play pun-pun. Roll a die, see who goes first, that player wins. None of us want to play that.

So let's work under the assumption that the GM in question (who I believe to be the OP) has NOT allowed the idiocy you are spouting hmmm?

[Seppo87]

And if you want to say "Oh but he can hide in his own plane and..."

Not in my game he can't. Any GM that allows your absolute bull**** cheese?

You seem to be under the impression that using core spells in the intended way is cheese.
Is this the case?



DO YOU HONESTLY THINK A GM WILL ALLOW YOUR CRAP?
Calm down.

[Calthropstu]

You seem to be under the impression that using core spells in the intended way is cheese.
Is this the case?



Calm down.

Where do you see "core spells used as intended" to create "unkillable super wizards."

Shape shifting into a zodakar? Zodakar isn't core.

Most of the garbage people have spewn at me saying "wizards are unkillable" has been out of splat books that few gm's will allow.

"Book of Elements" for Genesis to create a demiplane. How is that core?

Drop that, 80% of the "unkillable" arguments go away. Now you can be reached no matter what.

Drop a bunch of the garbage from these out of the way splat books and you are now dealing with a very very killable wizard. Who hires fighters to keep him safe at night. Or teleports to a hidden location hoping not to be found.

Like in the stories.

Who has to have a place to gather his treasure and can be robbed.

Yeah that craft contingency spell? Not happening. It's not even in the SRD.

As to "calm down" I am perfectly calm.

But I will not sit by and take these guys harassing me every time I say a viable wizard slaying tactic that will genuinely work as long as the GM isn't a moron.

[Calthropstu]

Just because I've seen you mention Anti Magic Fields across several threads now.. you do realize Wizard players came up with a counter to that.. a long long time ago right? It involved shrinking a certain material as a hat, the anti magic field undid the shrink causing the hat to expand covering the wizard entirely so they could just teleport away safely. Was it lead? God I really need someone to remind me of the material it was made from it's been to long.. That's why the biggest factor in the Mundane vs Caster theory zone is just how optimized the caster is.. a fully optimized one is immune to everything completely through aleax shenaningans etc blah op etc

BTW...

please share with me where it says "anti magic field is blocked by xxxxxx material"

[Eldariel]

Couple of tricks:

1 level of Ranger taking "Arcane Hunter" [Complete Mage] alternative class feature gets Favored Enemy: Arcanists. Add to that Nemesis-feat and you can sense all Arcanists within 60'. A great counter to many forms of invisibility; finding mages is all but impossible and this gives you a fighting chance.
Legacy Weapon [Weapons of Legacy] customized to become an anti-mage tool can be a great boon. It can include detection abilities, Evasion, Mind Blank and such, but most importantly it grants featured called "Cunning" around level 13, which means you are never flat-footed. Basically, this means you can use your own immediate action abilities when a mage teleports on you. You can also get Contingency on a Legacy Weapon. Make sure it's a secondary weapon; they suck for attacking but having e.g. a Legacy Gauntlet as a utility radar/tool while you fight with real weapons is quite convenient.
You need some non-precision way of dealing sufficient damage to kill a mage. Grapple won't do. If you somehow get a magical chance to actually land a hit, you can't afford to waste it. The caster [b]must die lest he teleports away. The standard way to do a lot of damage while moving is Charge + Power Attack + Shock Trooper, but there are other options. The limitations in how you can move during Charge can be really pesky so I recommend that you should take some levels in Warblade or Swordsage [Tome of Battle] to learn Bounding Assault. Allows double move and treats the attack as a Charge. Combined with Lion Totem Barbarian [Complete Champion] this grants you a full attack plus double move.
You need non-magical flight. The best way to acquire this is Feathered Wings-graft from Fiend Folio. A comparatively cheap item that grants efficient all-day flight and works non-magically. You have to save daily to avoid becoming evil but with the Diamond Mind maneuver "Moment of Perfect Mind", you'll never fail this save. Increases your mobility in general tremendously.
Optimally you'd have both, a ranged and a melee option. I recommend having bow setup capable of one-rounding a mage. Add to that Force and Seeking, and buy some Phasing Arrows [Dragon 330] and you can threaten a kill through walls in basically any condition. This again expands the range of enemies you can hit; Dragonbone Composite Longbow has 130' range increments enabling you to oneshot a target up to 1300' away, or 1550' with Flight Arrows [Arms & Equipment Guide]. It takes some effort to pump your ranged damage sufficiently high though, but ignoring miss chances and shooting through walls opens up options.
You definitely want Darkstalker [Lords of Madness] and Hide in Plain Sight. This is your #1 defense; if your enemy can't see you until they're dead, your job is a lot easier. It also doubles as a great defense. A mediocre form of Hide in Plain Sight can be acquired through the Dark-template [Tome of Magic], which can be acquired through Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis. A better form could be acquired through e.g. Shadow Dancer.
Any amount of means to get extra actions or to act out of turn order is peachy. White Raven Tactics, Moment of Alacrity, Island in Time [Tome of Battle] are such options as well as various magic items (Celerity is the ultimate golden option), Crafted Contingent Spells (you can buy 'em) and so on. This is the game where Wizards have a huge edge and you need to try and catch up.
Absolutely ensure any weapons you use are made of Thinaun. If you ever do manage to kill a mage, you want them dead. Not reviving in their Clone, not returning to their own body, not getting auto-resurrected, dead. To that end, capturing their soul with a Thinaun weapon and using it as a spell component is the most reliable means of being rid of them for good. There are too many ways to come back for killing someone to really work unless you either disable them and keep them in some really tight seal (Quintessence [Psionic Power] could work) or annihilate their very existence.
Some item of antimagic field is pretty convenient. Just remember not to use it prematurely; it ****s you over too. If you ever get next to a Wizard with it active, you cut many of their options. Combine that with Thicket of Blades (to stop Tumble & al.) plus Mage Slayer plus Combat Reflexes plus Tripping and you should be able to lock them down by just moving next to them. This makes your move actions more powerful as it allows you to checkmate somebody without actually having the action to finish them off that round.
Initiative pumping (Eager, Warning) gives you an extra tool as well.
One option that could be attempted against Wizards immune to damage (e.g. under Delay Death or Regeneration + nonlethal immunity or whatever) is destroy all their equipment. To that end, it might be worth your while to have Improved Sunder and to wipe out any spell component pouches and such they have. Doesn't always work but might work in some cases.
Iron Heart Surge [Tome of Battle] solves a lot of problems if you get creative with it, starting from enemy shaped Antimagic Fields. It's definitely something you want in your arsenal.


You can fit all of that into a single build (aside from perhaps Island in Time, which is the capstone of Eternal Blade [Tome of Battle]) but it takes some work. Even at that point, you won't reliably be able to kill them but at least you have a gameplan instead of "run at them, hope they don't see me coming and Cage me or whatever". Also, mind that they might be Astrally Projected starting from level 9 (Lesser Planar Binding can Bind a Nightmare which can use Astral Projection at will).

To that end, having something that can cut the Astral Cord or at least keeping them stuck with Antimagic Field is probably convenient. Not sure how Thinaun and Astral Projection interact but if favorably, you might be able to kill them through it. Either way, you need plenty of Thinaun equipment if you ever plan to keep them dead.


BTW...

please share with me where it says "anti magic field is blocked by xxxxxx material"

Antimagic field is an emanation. That's a feature of emanations. They only affect the area, creatures, or objects to which it has line of effect from its origin. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#lineofEffect) An otherwise solid barrier needs to have a hole of at least 1 square foot to stop blocking a spell’s line of effect.

[Nostrodamus]

There are ways to get a fast short range teleport. There are also ways to have a contingency to cast anti-magic field after you do so. All on a non caster.

At that point it is simply a matter of winning initiative.

Unless super cheese is being allowed, such as craft contingent spell, contingency for wish bull****, (I would never allow that feat in my games) you should be able to put some serious hurt on the mage in question no matter what class you are. If there's a feat that lets you attack at the end of a teleport in the surprise round, take it.

Winning initiative here will allow a full round attack action to simply obliterate this mage. No magic means no defenses, which means no tricks from the mage.

Give the person doing this an artifact for a weapon, and that wizard is toast.

Can you give me some guidance in the short teleport, and how I can get it. I'm tight on skill points, but my 15th level feat is open and I have a fighter feat open as well.

[Nostrodamus]

Witch Slayer from ToM has some good anti-caster abilities that mesh well with Occult Slayer.

You may want to dip a ToB class (or spend some feats) for Diamond Mind maneuvers, too.

I don't think the"tome of ????" Books are allowed.

[Nostrodamus]

Simple! As a were-tiger, you shift into your tiger form, you now are large size, have improved grab and pounce. You can full attack after a charge, rake, grapple them with a size bonus, you still have access to all your feats, but lose out on magic items depending on what they are. War-shaper makes you even more brutal in your actions to boot!

I had a look at your character sheet, pretty solid, I would like to recommend dropping your str to 14, and put 18 into dex, giving you better reflex saves. you can compensate the damage loss by taking the Hit-And-Run variant fighter from Drow of the Underdark. You don't need to be a drow to take it, it gives you +2 initiative, and lets you add your dex modifier as damage if you hit a flat -footed opponent, in exchange for giving up heavy armor and tower shield proficiency.

Your points are good, but I can't "hope to get lycanthropy" in my build lol. However if it happens, I'll take full advantage. I was thinking of swapping out STR and DEX.

[Eldariel]

Can you give me some guidance in the short teleport, and howi can get it. I'm tight on skill points, but my 15th level feat is open and I have a fighter feat open as well.

Sadly you're down to either items or like 6 levels of Horizon Walker [SRD] or few levels of Jaunter [Expedition to the Demonweb Pits]. Most forms of teleportation (such as the Shadow Hand ones from Tome of Battle) require line of effect meaning you can't teleport across e.g. Forcecages or other such walls. I recommend getting some items to do the job; investing levels is likely not worth the effort, though you could go Shadow Pouncer through Telflammar Shadowlord [Unapproachable East] or Crinti Shadow Marauder [Shining South]. That's a fairly brutal build, especially if you teleport with your standard action, then move action, then swift action; that's three full attacks per round.

The primary problem with this approach is the spell "Anticipate Teleportation" [Spell Compendium], which is a 3rd level hours/level spell that locks you in the aether for a round while the caster is free to do preparations if you try to teleport next to the caster. There's no real reason for casters to not have it active making teleporting near them extremely risky. You still want some source of teleportation though since it's by far the easiest way to get out of Forcecages and such (though you might have to deal with Forcecage + Dimensional Lock from Time Stop loop which isn't nearly as easy; Forcecage probably doesn't care about Antimagic Field either). But I wouldn't make teleporting next to them your primary plan; another last ditch backup you can try if it seems like there's even a remote chance of it working.

[Nostrodamus]

Couple of tricks:

1 level of Ranger taking "Arcane Hunter" [Complete Mage] alternative class feature gets Favored Enemy: Arcanists. Add to that Nemesis-feat and you can sense all Arcanists within 60'. A great counter to many forms of invisibility; finding mages is all but impossible and this gives you a fighting chance.
Legacy Weapon [Weapons of Legacy] customized to become an anti-mage tool can be a great boon. It can include detection abilities, Evasion, Mind Blank and such, but most importantly it grants featured called "Cunning" around level 13, which means you are never flat-footed. Basically, this means you can use your own immediate action abilities when a mage teleports on you. You can also get Contingency on a Legacy Weapon. Make sure it's a secondary weapon; they suck for attacking but having e.g. a Legacy Gauntlet as a utility radar/tool while you fight with real weapons is quite convenient.
You need some non-precision way of dealing sufficient damage to kill a mage. Grapple won't do. If you somehow get a magical chance to actually land a hit, you can't afford to waste it. The caster [b]must die lest he teleports away. The standard way to do a lot of damage while moving is Charge + Power Attack + Shock Trooper, but there are other options. The limitations in how you can move during Charge can be really pesky so I recommend that you should take some levels in Warblade or Swordsage [Tome of Battle] to learn Bounding Assault. Allows double move and treats the attack as a Charge. Combined with Lion Totem Barbarian [Complete Champion] this grants you a full attack plus double move.
You need non-magical flight. The best way to acquire this is Feathered Wings-graft from Fiend Folio. A comparatively cheap item that grants efficient all-day flight and works non-magically. You have to save daily to avoid becoming evil but with the Diamond Mind maneuver "Moment of Perfect Mind", you'll never fail this save. Increases your mobility in general tremendously.
Optimally you'd have both, a ranged and a melee option. I recommend having bow setup capable of one-rounding a mage. Add to that Force and Seeking, and buy some Phasing Arrows [Dragon 330] and you can threaten a kill through walls in basically any condition. This again expands the range of enemies you can hit; Dragonbone Composite Longbow has 130' range increments enabling you to oneshot a target up to 1300' away, or 1550' with Flight Arrows [Arms & Equipment Guide]. It takes some effort to pump your ranged damage sufficiently high though, but ignoring miss chances and shooting through walls opens up options.
You definitely want Darkstalker [Lords of Madness] and Hide in Plain Sight. This is your #1 defense; if your enemy can't see you until they're dead, your job is a lot easier. It also doubles as a great defense. A mediocre form of Hide in Plain Sight can be acquired through the Dark-template [Tome of Magic], which can be acquired through Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis. A better form could be acquired through e.g. Shadow Dancer.
Any amount of means to get extra actions or to act out of turn order is peachy. White Raven Tactics, Moment of Alacrity, Island in Time [Tome of Battle] are such options as well as various magic items (Celerity is the ultimate golden option), Crafted Contingent Spells (you can buy 'em) and so on. This is the game where Wizards have a huge edge and you need to try and catch up.
Absolutely ensure any weapons you use are made of Thinaun. If you ever do manage to kill a mage, you want them dead. Not reviving in their Clone, not returning to their own body, not getting auto-resurrected, dead. To that end, capturing their soul with a Thinaun weapon and using it as a spell component is the most reliable means of being rid of them for good. There are too many ways to come back for killing someone to really work unless you either disable them and keep them in some really tight seal (Quintessence [Psionic Power] could work) or annihilate their very existence.
Some item of antimagic field is pretty convenient. Just remember not to use it prematurely; it ****s you over too. If you ever get next to a Wizard with it active, you cut many of their options. Combine that with Thicket of Blades (to stop Tumble & al.) plus Mage Slayer plus Combat Reflexes plus Tripping and you should be able to lock them down by just moving next to them. This makes your move actions more powerful as it allows you to checkmate somebody without actually having the action to finish them off that round.
Initiative pumping (Eager, Warning) gives you an extra tool as well.
One option that could be attempted against Wizards immune to damage (e.g. under Delay Death or Regeneration + nonlethal immunity or whatever) is destroy all their equipment. To that end, it might be worth your while to have Improved Sunder and to wipe out any spell component pouches and such they have. Doesn't always work but might work in some cases.
Iron Heart Surge [Tome of Battle] solves a lot of problems if you get creative with it, starting from enemy shaped Antimagic Fields. It's definitely something you want in your arsenal.


You can fit all of that into a single build (aside from perhaps Island in Time, which is the capstone of Eternal Blade [Tome of Battle]) but it takes some work. Even at that point, you won't reliably be able to kill them but at least you have a gameplan instead of "run at them, hope they don't see me coming and Cage me or whatever". Also, mind that they might be Astrally Projected starting from level 9 (Lesser Planar Binding can Bind a Nightmare which can use Astral Projection at will).

To that end, having something that can cut the Astral Cord or at least keeping them stuck with Antimagic Field is probably convenient. Not sure how Thinaun and Astral Projection interact but if favorably, you might be able to kill them through it. Either way, you need plenty of Thinaun equipment if you ever plan to keep them dead.



Antimagic field is an emanation. That's a feature of emanations. They only affect the area, creatures, or objects to which it has line of effect from its origin. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#lineofEffect) An otherwise solid barrier needs to have a hole of at least 1 square foot to stop blocking a spell’s line of effect.

Lots of great tips here. Can't use "Tome of ????" Books though.👹👹👹👹👹

[Deadline]

As to "calm down" I am perfectly calm.

When you hurl profanity and take every opportunity to belittle everyone who disagrees with you, you do not appear calm in the slightest.


But I will not sit by and take these guys harassing me every time I say a viable wizard slaying tactic that will genuinely work as long as the GM isn't a moron.

No one, at any point, has argued that a GM can't kill a wizard with GM Fiat.

Your "viable wizard slaying tactics" mostly rely on GM cooperation, which can be great if the person you are advising has a GM who thinks just like you. But that's rarely the case, which is why most folks here try to give suggestions that should work consistently by the rules, as that will likely be of the most use to the largest number of people.

And most enemies who are casters are not played to the fullest extent of their abilities, because that's likely not all that fun for the PCs (unless they are truly up for that). Many of the wizard tricks that have been carefully and patiently explained to you fall into the TO (Theoretical Optimization) bracket of tricks (which are likely the ones you balk at as a GM). There are a handful of folks on these boards who have said that they play at that level, but I don't think all of us do. Even at PO (Practical Optimization) levels, mid-high level casters are far more potent than martials (as always, assuming equivalent levels of optimization), and have been since the inception of the game (although it seems to me to be most notable in 3.5).


Lots of great tips here. Can't use "Time of ????" Books though.👹👹👹👹👹

ToM stands for "Tome of Magic".

[Beheld]

Here is my take on being a "caster killer":

1) So your thing is to kill Wizards and Clerics and Druids right? Well, I have some good news for you, anyone with all their levels in Rogue can do that. You blow people up for buttloads of damage, then they are dead. You do it from surprise (with a DM who knows that the surprise round actions rules are bull**** and allows you to get a full round action, or you know, whatever buy a belt of battle so you can full attack in the surprise round).

2) Uh Oh. You are now a guy who murders casters for a living with big old piles of damage, and as your PC life goes on, your enemies will find out about this, and do things to counter it!
a)Be Undead->Gravestrike
b)Be Plant->Plantstrike
c)Be Construct->Golemstrike
d)Fortification->Deathstrike Gauntlets
e)Be Elemental->Deathstrike Gauntlets
f)Come Back to Life Really Easy When You Hit Their Body For Lots of Damage->Kill them again :)
g)Are never Flat-Footed->Time to Flank, and since flanking is usually crappy to set up, you can't trust anyone else, so flank with yourself.
h)Wizard is trying to avoid being found by you->Have a Wizard party member, tell them it's their job to find the Wizard for you to kill, then blame them when they can't do it. NOT MY FAULT! :)

Now obviously, all of this is interesting to combine in a single character, but the first lesson to learn is that as a PC, you start with 1, and then only move on to 2a ect when the enemies figure it out, it's going to happen, so you need to make plans, but you can get by for a good long time on different things.

For example, any level 1 Wizard in the game could have uncanny dodge at the cost of a feat, rendering them unable to be attacked when flat-footed. But in practice, they aren't going to go for that defense until after they've tried and fails variations of the undead/construct/elemental immunities, and they might not think of uncanny dodge and wait until Foresight.

So you ability to flank with yourself on anyone you attack can usually wait a long time. The easiest way I know of is Adaptable Flanker + 10ft reach which works against all medium foes.


"Book of Elements" for Genesis to create a demiplane. How is that core?

Drop that, 80% of the "unkillable" arguments go away. Now you can be reached no matter what.

Drop a bunch of the garbage from these out of the way splat books and you are now dealing with a very very killable wizard. Who hires fighters to keep him safe at night. Or teleports to a hidden location hoping not to be found.

Like in the stories.

Who has to have a place to gather his treasure and can be robbed.

1) The Genesis spell is in three books and on the SRD, but none of those books are the "Book of Elements" so I don't know where you got that from.

2) (Mordenkien's) Mage's Magnificent Mansion is a core spell on the SRD that accomplishes the exact same effect as Genesis for the purposes of your argument.

[Eldariel]

1) So your thing is to kill Wizards and Clerics and Druids right? Well, I have some good news for you, anyone with all their levels in Rogue can do that.

I'm not a big fan of doing it with Precision Damage TBH. It doesn't feel like there are any meaningful advantages to it over using non-precision damage, and it comes with all kinds of pointless restrictions (need clear vision of target, need target to be vulnerable to precision damage, need to be in range to inflict precision damage, etc.). If you do the exact same thing using normal damage, the number of things you need to plan for is cut down to a fraction.

[AvatarVecna]

Are some of the things that make a caster super-difficult to deal with outside of Core? Sure they are. So how about a deal, Calthropstu? You make the most optimized Core-only non-caster 20 you can, and I'll make some vaguely optimized Core-only caster 20, and we can have them fight. Sound good?

[Beheld]

I'm not a big fan of doing it with Precision Damage TBH. It doesn't feel like there are any meaningful advantages to it over using non-precision damage, and it comes with all kinds of pointless restrictions (need clear vision of target, need target to be vulnerable to precision damage, need to be in range to inflict precision damage, etc.). If you do the exact same thing using normal damage, the number of things you need to plan for is cut down to a fraction.

You can spend your class levels on... uh... uh... BAB? And your feats on getting the damage needed. Or you can spend your class levels on getting damage, and then spend your feats on getting flanking with yourself, Pierce Magical Concealment, and other things you need to do that damage. Getting enough damage to one shot a Druid (and it definitely has to be a one shot) is not a trivial thing for non Rogues. Being a Rogue allows you to devote all your resources to other things besides getting more damage.

[Eldariel]

You can spend your class levels on... uh... uh... BAB? And your feats on getting the damage needed. Or you can spend your class levels on getting damage, and then spend your feats on getting flanking with yourself, Pierce Magical Concealment, and other things you need to do that damage. Getting enough damage to one shot a Druid (and it definitely has to be a one shot) is not a trivial thing for non Rogues. Being a Rogue allows you to devote all your resources to other things besides getting more damage.

...are you asking what else you can get for non-caster class levels than Rogue? 'cause right off the top of my head I can think of immediate action turn, extra standard actions, mind blank, teleportation, shadow pounce, momentary disjunction, feats, HiPS, lifesense/telepathy (for mindsight)/etc, favored enemy (for nemesis), etc. I'd say class levels are far more precious a resource than feats.

[Beheld]

...are you asking what else you can get for non-caster class levels than Rogue? 'cause right off the top of my head I can think of immediate action turn, extra standard actions, mind blank, teleportation, shadow pounce, momentary disjunction, feats, HiPS, lifesense/telepathy (for mindsight)/etc, favored enemy (for nemesis), etc. I'd say class levels are far more precious a resource than feats.

While Teflammar Shadow Lord is a great class, I'm not sure how a class that is basically four levels long, lets you full attack multiple times per round against usually flat-footed enemies, and costs three useless feats and Blind-Fighting is an argument for not taking Rogue levels and taking some other base class.

It literally costs four feats and four class levels to get those abilities, and you have way more class levels than feats.

[Nostrodamus]

I've noticed a lot of people posting options that are not what I'm looking for in terms of how I originally had my character built.
I do appreciate the suggestions, but let me clarify a couple of things.
I am aware that martial types are going to have an extremely difficult time trying to slay casters.
I don't necessarily want to kill casters, I just want to be able to give them a very hard time trying to kill me. While making it easier for my party to deal with them, using pierce magical protection and concealment.
I'm completely fine with them teleporting away, I take that as a win.
My character is not going to be the most optimized Mage slayer, if that was the goal I'd play some sort of caster.
Check my build, its linked in a earlier post, and I think I've accomplished my goal. But if you have a suggestion that meets what I'm trying to accomplish please post it.

[dascarletm]

I've noticed a lot of people posting options that are not what I'm looking for in terms of how I originally had my character built.
I do appreciate the suggestions, but let me clarify a couple of things.
I am aware that martial types are going to have an extremely difficult time trying to slay casters.
I don't necessarily want to kill casters, I just want to be able to give them a very hard time trying to kill me. While making it easier for my party to deal with them, using pierce magical protection and concealment.
I'm completely fine with them teleporting away, I take that as a win.
My character is not going to be the most optimized Mage slayer, if that was the goal I'd play some sort of caster.
Check my build, its linked in a earlier post, and I think I've accomplished my goal. But if you have a suggestion that meets what I'm trying to accomplish please post it.

Woah woah woah. This is GitP, we don't stay on topic here, especially for this kind of thread. Expect it to progress with people arguing about casters/non-casters for about.... oh 10 pages or so. If we are lucky it might devolve into the thread getting locked! So grab your popcorn and enjoy the show.:smallamused:

[Seppo87]

Woah woah woah. This is GitP, we don't stay on topic here, especially for this kind of thread. Expect it to progress with people arguing about casters/non-casters for about.... oh 10 pages or so. If we are lucky it might devolve into the thread getting locked! So grab your popcorn and enjoy the show.:smallamused:
I so want to sig this

[dascarletm]

I so want to sig this

By all means! :smallbiggrin:

[Lorddenorstrus]

Are some of the things that make a caster super-difficult to deal with outside of Core? Sure they are. So how about a deal, Calthropstu? You make the most optimized Core-only non-caster 20 you can, and I'll make some vaguely optimized Core-only caster 20, and we can have them fight. Sound good?

As much as I'd love to see that, it'll just be more whining that the Test of Spite rules favor casters to much and allow cheese. The concept of GM Fiat exists. Check, is it used as a basis of thought here on Giants? No because that's moronic and differs between EVERY Game Master ever? I am at a loss as to why looking at the game through a lens that removes all filters is a bad thing. It doesn't help conversation as one doesn't know until specified which filters a GM/DM will apply.

For Calthropstu - I had to dig through old bookmarks to find what I was looking for but the trick was to have a shrunk Lead Lined Hat. The second the anti magic field effects it, the hat.. becomes this cool tent. bam protected and ready to teleport away. As for someone attacking and destroying the lead lining after it comes out, I introduce you to the concept of action economy. It's this thing that dictates the order of people moving in combat. Short of GM fiat (Your specialty I know) said Mundie isn't going to beat the contingency Celerity that goes off. He can even tie that contingency to his hat unshrinking.. in an anti magic zone.. Just incase you try to qq about the wizard tying it to a verbal queue. Wizard always goes first.

Also just so you're aware that hat trick isn't cheese. Real cheese is using Initiate of the 7 fold Veil to create an aura'd Anti Magic Field around yourself that excludes you as a condition. That kills the other fields and even makes it rather unfun for other casters to try to fight you.

[Eldariel]

For Calthropstu - I had to dig through old bookmarks to find what I was looking for but the trick was to have a shrunk Lead Lined Hat. The second the anti magic field effects it, the hat.. becomes this cool tent. bam protected and ready to teleport away. As for someone attacking and destroying the lead lining after it comes out, I introduce you to the concept of action economy. It's this thing that dictates the order of people moving in combat. Short of GM fiat (Your specialty I know) said Mundie isn't going to beat the contingency Celerity that goes off. He can even tie that contingency to his hat unshrinking.. in an anti magic zone.. Just incase you try to qq about the wizard tying it to a verbal queue. Wizard always goes first.

In Core, you can't get Contingency for Celerity. You can however have Contingency tied to mouthing a word (speaking is a free action that can be taken out of turn order, so essentially whenever) tied to e.g. Teleporting away, protecting yourself with Resilient Sphere or something.

As for the Hat, more advanced versions simply make the hat out of Adamantine. Not a problem encumbrance-wise thanks to Shrink Item and does its job marvellously. Breaking through an Adamantine Cone without the aid of magic is a rather non-trivial task and making a hole big enough to let the AMF effect seep through (1 square-foot) is even more so.

Both of those protections help vs. AMF though if you're flying (trivial all day with Overland Flight), your assailant will have to be a natural flyer to even be able to bring an AMF to you (Contingencied AMF is something only a level 18 spellcaster could pull off).


Also just so you're aware that hat trick isn't cheese. Real cheese is using Initiate of the 7 fold Veil to create an aura'd Anti Magic Field around yourself that excludes you as a condition. That kills the other fields and even makes it rather unfun for other casters to try to fight you.

The strongest way to deploy it is by using e.g. Selective Spell [Shining South] metamagic feat (Tippy often uses this one) to make your own AMF not affect you (also works with Initiate of Mystra [Player's Guide to Faerun] and few others). Boom, complete protection from most spells short of Disjunction and anyone trying to come next to you will be under AMF before they get to you so they have to attack your magical defenses nonmagically. Even in Core though, you can get the protective sphere effect by using Archmage's Mastery of Shaping to exclude your own square from the effect of the AMF (when you take Archmage, the most useful abilities by far are Mastery of Shaping and Arcane Reach; Spell Power, Spell-Like Ability and Arcane Reach #2/Mastery of Elements/Mastery of Counterspelling round it out nicely).

This means spells influence you normally but actually getting to you physically is rather difficult, particularly if you Widen the Antimagic Field (it's large enough to cover Gargantuan creatures). And it lasts for 10min/level being a very robust defense (and offense; hostile casters will want to avoid you getting near them) on these levels. There's also the option of giving your familiar Antimagic Field which is a rather convenient delivery system for disabling magic wherever you feel like it.


Of course, you could use Magic Jar chain to permanently possess some more impressive body (Balor, Greater Stone Golem as Doc Roc did (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html?id=338867) for his Core fight vs. Giacomo, or whatever - here's (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?200516-3-x-I-have-brought-you-Devastation) the thread where he explains the trick). Shapechange and Polymorph Any Object can get semi-permanently and permanently superior bodies as well. It's not hard for a Solar Wizard to outfight your generic Fighter particularly if depriving them of magic, for instance.

Of course, the real kicker is that the Wizard is never alone; between Animated Dead, Simulacrums, Planar Bound creatures and crafted constructs, dominated creatures or whatever, he has ridiculous access to minionmancy and an army on his own right should he so desire (or at the very least, assistant casters).

[Lorddenorstrus]

In Core, you can't get Contingency for Celerity. You can however have Contingency tied to mouthing a word (speaking is a free action that can be taken out of turn order, so essentially whenever) tied to e.g. Teleporting away, protecting yourself with Resilient Sphere or something.

As for the Hat, more advanced versions simply make the hat out of Adamantine. Not a problem encumbrance-wise thanks to Shrink Item and does its job marvellously. Breaking through an Adamantine Cone without the aid of magic is a rather non-trivial task and making a hole big enough to let the AMF effect seep through (1 square-foot) is even more so.

Both of those protections help vs. AMF though if you're flying (trivial all day with Overland Flight), your assailant will have to be a natural flyer to even be able to bring an AMF to you (Contingencied AMF is something only a level 18 spellcaster could pull off).



The strongest way to deploy it is by using e.g. Selective Spell [Shining South] metamagic feat to make your own AMF not affect you (also works with Initiate of Mystra [Player's Guide to Faerun] and few others). Boom, complete protection from most spells short of Disjunction and anyone trying to come next to you will be under AMF before they get to you so they have to attack your magical defenses nonmagically. Even in Core though, you can get the protective sphere effect by using Archmage's Mastery of Shaping to exclude your own square from the effect of the AMF (when you take Archmage, the most useful abilities by far are Mastery of Shaping and Arcane Reach; Spell Power, Spell-Like Ability and Arcane Reach #2/Mastery of Elements/Mastery of Counterspelling round it out nicely).

This means spells influence you normally but actually getting to you physically is rather difficult, particularly if you Widen the Antimagic Field (it's large enough to cover Gargantuan creatures). And it lasts for 10min/level being a very robust defense (and offense; hostile casters will want to avoid you getting near them) on these levels. There's also the option of giving your familiar Antimagic Field which is a rather convenient delivery system for disabling magic wherever you feel like it.

Thanks this is a much better way of explaining it haha. I've been busy for the last few months and only recently finally got back into playing. I've forgotten so much. It's always nice to know my peers have much better memory than I do.

[dascarletm]

The hat requires some non-RAW finagling to make it work. Such an item does not exist in the game, nor do rules on how items expand etc.

[AvatarVecna]

As much as I'd love to see that, it'll just be more whining that the Test of Spite rules favor casters to much and allow cheese. The concept of GM Fiat exists. Check, is it used as a basis of thought here on Giants? No because that's moronic and differs between EVERY Game Master ever? I am at a loss as to why looking at the game through a lens that removes all filters is a bad thing. It doesn't help conversation as one doesn't know until specified which filters a GM/DM will apply.

I am perfectly willing to drop my challenge if Calthropstu acknowledges that a core-only non-caster can't beat a core-only caster unless the non-caster has GM Fiat and/or arbitrary bans helping them win. I will admit, if the DM or contest referee is rigging things in the non-casters favor, they actually have a chance and it could play out in weird ways.

if it would help, I could just make a Core-only build now, and that would give people a chance to nitpick it looking for cheese before the game starts, and Calthropstu could tailor their build to beat it. Does that work better?

[dascarletm]

I am perfectly willing to drop my challenge if Calthropstu acknowledges that a core-only non-caster can't beat a core-only caster unless the non-caster has GM Fiat and/or arbitrary bans helping them win. I will admit, if the DM or contest referee is rigging things in the non-casters favor, they actually have a chance and it could play out in weird ways.

if it would help, I could just make a Core-only build now, and that would give people a chance to nitpick it looking for cheese before the game starts, and Calthropstu could tailor their build to beat it. Does that work better?

I suggest level 10 as a starting point.

[Beheld]

The hat requires some non-RAW finagling to make it work. Such an item does not exist in the game, nor do rules on how items expand etc.

"Conical stone or adamntium doesn't exist" ??? Really?

You don't think it's possible to make a stone or adamntium structure by RAW?

[AvatarVecna]

I suggest level 10 as a starting point.

That's probably a good starting point, yeah. Keeps most of the more ridiculous superpowers out of the game, might actually make the fight a bit even. Unless you meant "show them a level 10 version of your lvl 20 build, so they can get an idea of what direction you're taking it in", but I don't think you meant that.

[dascarletm]

"Conical stone or adamntium doesn't exist" ??? Really?

You don't think it's possible to make a stone or adamntium structure by RAW?
Excessive ?'s... yuck
Question: Why did you put those words as a quote?
As an item it isn't listed specifically, but you could make one sure. The RAW problem is what happens when it is dispelled. Does the falling happen as an immediate action, or does it need a place in the initiative count? Does the item expand from a fixed point or uniformly? If it expands uniformly what happens when your head impedes its expansion? If it were real world physics the rapid expansion would cause the item to shoot upward as it attempted to expand into your head. These sorts of things require interpretation which isn't a bad thing in the slightest.


That's probably a good starting point, yeah. Keeps most of the more ridiculous superpowers out of the game, might actually make the fight a bit even. Unless you meant "show them a level 10 version of your lvl 20 build, so they can get an idea of what direction you're taking it in", but I don't think you meant that.
The former assumption :smallbiggrin:

[AvatarVecna]

The former assumption :smallbiggrin:

That's good. Keeps things interesting.

[Seppo87]

[COLOR="#FFFFFF"]Does the falling happen as an immediate action, or does it need a place in the initiative count?
Free falling happens instantly, up to a maximum distance per round. This is actually in the SRD iirc


Does the item expand from a fixed point or uniformly? If it expands uniformly what happens when your head impedes its expansion? If it were real world physics the rapid expansion would cause the item to shoot upward as it attempted to expand into your head. These sorts of things require interpretation which isn't a bad thing in the slightest.
If this was the case, it woul happen with *every* shrunk item that you didn't levitate before returning to its actual size.

The spell does not mention a chance of breaking a fragile object when its returned to its normal size (i.e. a bottle, it suddenly jumps because of "rapid expansion" and then it breaks) nor it says that the objects below the item block its growth (if it did, you'd have to levitate items before returning to their actual size).
There is no reason to assume any of these results given how you CAN use the spell to restrict and then enlarge again a bottle or a glass or anything fragile that is sitting on a solid surface, no reason except the specific intent of disabling a cunning trick.

[ryu]

That's good. Keeps things interesting.

Although, assuming the fighter isn't using WBL to be a wizard stand-in, the level 10 wizard can and will still be capable of killing arbitrarily high numbers of level 20 fighters with so much as a few short hours of prep.

[dascarletm]

Free falling happens instantly, up to a maximum distance per round. This is actually in the SRD iirc


If this was the case, it woul happen with *every* shrunk item that you didn't levitate before returning to its actual size.

The spell does not mention a chance of breaking a fragile object when its returned to its normal size (i.e. a bottle, it suddenly jumps because of "rapid expansion" and then it breaks) nor it says that the objects below the item block its growth (if it did, you'd have to levitate items before returning to their actual size).
There is no reason to assume any of these results given how you CAN use the spell to restrict and then enlarge again a bottle or a glass or anything fragile that is sitting on a solid surface, no reason except the specific intent of disabling a cunning trick.

I've yet to see it on the SRD.

The rules say nothing about it (the expansion and how it works if the item is worn or otherwise), thus it requires interpretation. I'm merely saying that for the trick to work you need to make assumptions that are outside of RAW, which is totally fine; I'm cool with that. I personally would assume differently than others, but to each their own. My intent however is not to disable a "cunning" trick.

[Seppo87]

I'm merely saying that for the trick to work you need to make assumptions that are outside of RAW
In a RAW discussion, you shouldn't be allowed to make assumptions that contradict RAW:

RAW the spell works on any object without requiring that the object levitate and without moving the object, this is a fact.

RAW do not state that the floor prevents expansion, so the character's head cannot prevent expansion.
RAW do not state that the object moves because of the sudden expansion, therefore the object does not jump around.
RAW do not need to say "floor does not prevent expansion" or "the object does not jump around". The spell is supposed to work when an object is placed on a solid surface, and won't move the object unpredictably unless explicitly stated.
Moving an object is an effect, you can't add effects and pretend that's raw.

Raw for the same reason don't have to say that using Fireball doesn't summon an inevitable, because it doesn't unless explictly stated. It would be an added effect.

If anything, you have to prove that the spell behaves in ways that are not stated by the spell itself. As written, the spell works. It's not blocked by a solid surface standing below it, and won't jump around.
Saying otherwise equals shifting the burden of proof.

[Beheld]

Free falling happens instantly, up to a maximum distance per round. This is actually in the SRD.

He's claiming that since those rules specify that they apply to creatures, they don't apply to objects, so apparently there is no gravity, because there are no rules that say objects fall. I mean the rules specifically say how much damage they do when falling, but that's not the same thing as saying they fall, so maybe they don't!


The rules say nothing about it (the expansion and how it works if the item is worn or otherwise), thus it requires interpretation. I'm merely saying that for the trick to work you need to make assumptions that are outside of RAW, which is totally fine; I'm cool with that. I personally would assume differently than others, but to each their own. My intent however is not to disable a "cunning" trick.

The rules don't say that the object doesn't explode killing everyone but the caster within a 50 mile radius no save. I imagine any reasonable person will agree that it requires equally as much interpretation to decide that unshrunken objects don't explode as that they don't float.

[One Step Two]

I've noticed a lot of people posting options that are not what I'm looking for in terms of how I originally had my character built.
I do appreciate the suggestions, but let me clarify a couple of things.
I am aware that martial types are going to have an extremely difficult time trying to slay casters.
I don't necessarily want to kill casters, I just want to be able to give them a very hard time trying to kill me. While making it easier for my party to deal with them, using pierce magical protection and concealment.
I'm completely fine with them teleporting away, I take that as a win.
My character is not going to be the most optimized Mage slayer, if that was the goal I'd play some sort of caster.
Check my build, its linked in a earlier post, and I think I've accomplished my goal. But if you have a suggestion that meets what I'm trying to accomplish please post it.

That's what I keep aiming for, but everyone loves making builds, so let them :smallbiggrin:

The Lycanthropy suggestion I made was more for laughs, but very nice if you can get it. But I imagine it's hard to find were-tigers in the underdark :smallwink:

How are you for magic items, anything planned? If not I would like to recommend a Continuous Collar of Umbral Metamophosis, it does come from tome of magic, but for 22k gold, it gives you the Dark Creature template at all times, which is also found in Tome of Magic, it gives you a bunch of goodies, such as +10ft movement, hide in plain sight in anywhere except areas of natural daylight or daylight spells, and +8 to hide, and +6 to move silent checks, there's other benefits too, but those are the stand outs.

If you an get it, you will absolutely want a Ring of Spell-Battle, from the Magic item compendium. It informs you of all spell casting within 60ft of you, and give you a spell craft check to identify the spell even if you cant see it being cast or it's effects. And once per day, you can use it to attempt to counterspell a spell you identify as if using dispel magic, or redirect the target of the spell to any target within 60ft.

Weapons enchantments you might like:
From the players guide to Faerun, a couple useful weapon enchantment is: Spellblade, for +1, you become immune to a spell of your choice, as long as it's a single target spell aimed at you. It let you simply shrug it off, or throw it at a different target. Hilarious for things like disintegrate.
Greater Dispelling (found in the Magic item compendium as well) is also amazing as it lets you use a single target greater dispel magic on a target you hit, if you choose, 3/day, great for shredding buffs.

Magic Item Compendium has tonnes of gems, but here's a few stand outs:

Binding, 2/day, an opponent you've struck is treated as having dimensional anchor cast on them for a round, stops them from teleporting away.

Eager is a straight +2 bonus to initiative, and drawing the weapon is a free action, and +2 bonus damage in surprise rounds, which stacks with the Warning enchantment, which is +5 Insight bonus to initiative when held in hand, for a total of +7

Magebane weapon (also from Complete Arcane) is a must, against anything that casts Arcane spells or SLA's, the weapon gains +2 to hit, and +2d6 damage, a very solid +1 enchantment.

[AvatarVecna]

I'm completely fine with them teleporting away, I take that as a win..

This is part of the problem: it's not necessarily a win at all. A spellcaster will sometimes teleport away because they know that staying means dying, and they can't beat you if they stay...but sometimes they teleport away because they aren't sure if they can kill you if they stay, and they wanna make sure.

So if you treat spellcasters teleporting away as a victory, you will inevitably end up getting ambushed when they teleport back in, this time with their spell selection tailored to defeating you. Now, if you treat them teleporting away as a victory, I suppose you could call this a technical tie...but when their victory ends with your death, and your victory ends with them surviving because they used a tactic that allows them to not get killed, one of those victories was much more definitive than the other.

[Nostrodamus]

That's what I keep aiming for, but everyone loves making builds, so let them :smallbiggrin:

The Lycanthropy suggestion I made was more for laughs, but very nice if you can get it. But I imagine it's hard to find were-tigers in the underdark :smallwink:

How are you for magic items, anything planned? If not I would like to recommend a Continuous Collar of Umbral Metamophosis, it does come from tome of magic, but for 22k gold, it gives you the Dark Creature template at all times, which is also found in Tome of Magic, it gives you a bunch of goodies, such as +10ft movement, hide in plain sight in anywhere except areas of natural daylight or daylight spells, and +8 to hide, and +6 to move silent checks, there's other benefits too, but those are the stand outs.

If you an get it, you will absolutely want a Ring of Spell-Battle, from the Magic item compendium. It informs you of all spell casting within 60ft of you, and give you a spell craft check to identify the spell even if you cant see it being cast or it's effects. And once per day, you can use it to attempt to counterspell a spell you identify as if using dispel magic, or redirect the target of the spell to any target within 60ft.

Weapons enchantments you might like:
From the players guide to Faerun, a couple useful weapon enchantment is: Spellblade, for +1, you become immune to a spell of your choice, as long as it's a single target spell aimed at you. It let you simply shrug it off, or throw it at a different target. Hilarious for things like disintegrate.
Greater Dispelling (found in the Magic item compendium as well) is also amazing as it lets you use a single target greater dispel magic on a target you hit, if you choose, 3/day, great for shredding buffs.

Magic Item Compendium has tonnes of gems, but here's a few stand outs:

Binding, 2/day, an opponent you've struck is treated as having dimensional anchor cast on them for a round, stops them from teleporting away.

Eager is a straight +2 bonus to initiative, and drawing the weapon is a free action, and +2 bonus damage in surprise rounds, which stacks with the Warning enchantment, which is +5 Insight bonus to initiative when held in hand, for a total of +7

Magebane weapon (also from Complete Arcane) is a must, against anything that casts Arcane spells or SLA's, the weapon gains +2 to hit, and +2d6 damage, a very solid +1 enchantment.

I never really plan for magical items other than the one that give ability score enhancements. Most of the ones you mentioned I'm aware of, especially magebane, one of the best weapon enhancements in the game. I'm also go for a transmuting weapon from MIC, which overcomes DR of any kind after the first hit.
Most of the equipment will be to boost my AC which will be low.
I just hope my DM will work spellfire like a 3.5 rod of absorption, absorbing spells as a free action. But if not, we have a caster in the group to charge up my spellfire stored levels.
That collar sounds great. If like to get more stealthy but the build and my ability score limitations hampered that. Ring of invisibility would be nice.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Obvious missed class is obvious: Ranger with the arcane hunter alternate class feature from complete mage for bonus damage, and it helps get you access to PrCs that need Track, you might also want to look into maxing hide and move silent, and take the Dark Stalker feat, to really sneak up on casters.Don't forget the Nemesis feat: locate and pinpoint your favored enemies -- arcanists (arcane spellcasters, spell-like ability users, and invocation users) -- within 60', even through walls, and gain +1d6 dmg against evil arcanists.

Also, this build (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15474863#post15474863) (focusing less on monk but more on psywar) can work really well against less optimized spellcasters. Also, this (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=2926.msg97988#msg97988).

[Nostrodamus]

This is part of the problem: it's not necessarily a win at all. A spellcaster will sometimes teleport away because they know that staying means dying, and they can't beat you if they stay...but sometimes they teleport away because they aren't sure if they can kill you if they stay, and they wanna make sure.

So if you treat spellcasters teleporting away as a victory, you will inevitably end up getting ambushed when they teleport back in, this time with their spell selection tailored to defeating you. Now, if you treat them teleporting away as a victory, I suppose you could call this a technical tie...but when their victory ends with your death, and your victory ends with them surviving because they used a tactic that allows them to not get killed, one of those victories was much more definitive than the other.

Well then I will just deal with them when they return. It's not a problem. I'm a non caster. I'm not going to min/max this character who wants to do well battling casters, because I'll pull my hair out trying to be ready for all of the tricks they can dish out.
I'm outclassed already. I'm not playing by myself and I have faith my companions will make up for my short comings. If we get ambushed by a caster because they got away before, maybe we will be more powerful than last time. Also, I'll have some non detection ability as well.
Enemy victories always equate to PC death, they are NPCs, lol so it's not that serious.
It sound to m me like your DM is more about killing PCs than making the game FUN. If that is the case I feel bad 4 you.😿
To me in DnD, anytime my character survives and encounter is a Victory!🙌💸💪👍🎆🎆🎰🐲🍻

[Nostrodamus]

Woah woah woah. This is GitP, we don't stay on topic here, especially for this kind of thread. Expect it to progress with people arguing about casters/non-casters for about.... oh 10 pages or so. If we are lucky it might devolve into the thread getting locked! So grab your popcorn and enjoy the show.:smallamused:

I guess you are correct lol, it's my first time starting a thread. But you are right, it's awesome to just "watch" the 🎆🎆🎆🎆👿

[AvatarVecna]

Well then I will just deal with them when they return. It's not a problem. I'm a non caster. I'm not going to min/max this character who wants to do well battling casters, because I'll pull my hair out trying to be ready for all of the tricks they can dish out.
I'm outclassed already. I'm not playing by myself and I have faith my companions will make up for my short comings. If we get ambushed by a caster because they got away before, maybe we will be more powerful than last time. Also, I'll have some non detection ability as well.
Enemy victories always equate to PC death, they are NPCs, lol so it's not that serious.
It sound to m me like your DM is more about killing PCs than making the game FUN. If that is the case I feel bad 4 you.😿
To me in DnD, anytime my character survives and encounter is a Victory!

Firstly, I was responding to that under the assumption that you were still attempting to build a caster slayer without being a caster yourself. Top experts agree that being considered a slayer requires you to actually slay your target in some manner. :smalltongue:

Secondly, this is also the kind of tactics that can be used when playing a PC mage against an NPC non-mage; teleport away, and only teleport back in when you're prepared to take them down hard.

Thirdly, my DM isn't about killing PCs, they're more about actually challenging their players with tactics beyond "both sides full attack until one side is dead". It's an interesting experience, I highly recommend you try it sometime. :smalltongue:

EDIT: Because I've been having some problems lately with tone, I just wanna be clear that I don't think there's anything wrong with playing a lower-op game, it's just not for me.

[ryu]

Well then I will just deal with them when they return. It's not a problem. I'm a non caster. I'm not going to min/max this character who wants to do well battling casters, because I'll pull my hair out trying to be ready for all of the tricks they can dish out.
I'm outclassed already. I'm not playing by myself and I have faith my companions will make up for my short comings. If we get ambushed by a caster because they got away before, maybe we will be more powerful than last time. Also, I'll have some non detection ability as well.
Enemy victories always equate to PC death, they are NPCs, lol so it's not that serious.
It sound to m me like your DM is more about killing PCs than making the game FUN. If that is the case I feel bad 4 you.😿
To me in DnD, anytime my character survives and encounter is a Victory!🙌💸💪👍🎆🎆🎰🐲🍻

Where on earth is the fun of the experience if your enemy is deliberately and obviously pulling punches? One of my core rules of D&D is that if someone screws up they should stand a real chance of failure for it.

[One Step Two]

I never really plan for magical items other than the one that give ability score enhancements. Most of the ones you mentioned I'm aware of, especially magebane, one of the best weapon enhancements in the game. I'm also go for a transmuting weapon from MIC, which overcomes DR of any kind after the first hit.
Most of the equipment will be to boost my AC which will be low.
I just hope my DM will work spellfire like a 3.5 rod of absorption, absorbing spells as a free action. But if not, we have a caster in the group to charge up my spellfire stored levels.
That collar sounds great. If like to get more stealthy but the build and my ability score limitations hampered that. Ring of invisibility would be nice.

The really annoying thing about straight AC boosts is that it's kind of binary. Either you have enough, or you don't. I remember an old post somewhere that referenced that if you aren't running AC at something like your current level+23, you're more likely to be hit than not. It's why I advocate stealth, not being seen means you can't be targeted. I was going to suggest ways to boost your touch AC, but at times, you want them to be able to hit you with spells to charge up. Also, keep in mind, most spellcasters worth their salt have see invisibility on hand, hide checks still need spot checks. A friend of mine who plays rogues and other stealth characters par-excellence, will still make hide checks while under greater invisibility, just to be absolutely sure, that even if he could be seen, they need to find him first, hide in plain sight is an excellent compliment to invisibility.

When I allowed someone to use Spellfire in a campaign I ran a while back, I made the compromise that the player could either ready an action to absorb or use an immediate action, but could only absorb one spell per round. It's a reasonable compromise in my mind, and should be a suggestion to offer if your DM feels that being able to absorb spells like the rod of absorption is too much, as it makes you need to consider your action economy wisely.

I also endorse MaxiDuRaritry's suggestion of Nemesis, if you are a good character, it's super handy, and helps locating invisible casters.

[Calthropstu]

As much as I'd love to see that, it'll just be more whining that the Test of Spite rules favor casters to much and allow cheese. The concept of GM Fiat exists. Check, is it used as a basis of thought here on Giants? No because that's moronic and differs between EVERY Game Master ever? I am at a loss as to why looking at the game through a lens that removes all filters is a bad thing. It doesn't help conversation as one doesn't know until specified which filters a GM/DM will apply.

For Calthropstu - I had to dig through old bookmarks to find what I was looking for but the trick was to have a shrunk Lead Lined Hat. The second the anti magic field effects it, the hat.. becomes this cool tent. bam protected and ready to teleport away. As for someone attacking and destroying the lead lining after it comes out, I introduce you to the concept of action economy. It's this thing that dictates the order of people moving in combat. Short of GM fiat (Your specialty I know) said Mundie isn't going to beat the contingency Celerity that goes off. He can even tie that contingency to his hat unshrinking.. in an anti magic zone.. Just incase you try to qq about the wizard tying it to a verbal queue. Wizard always goes first.

Also just so you're aware that hat trick isn't cheese. Real cheese is using Initiate of the 7 fold Veil to create an aura'd Anti Magic Field around yourself that excludes you as a condition. That kills the other fields and even makes it rather unfun for other casters to try to fight you.

Ok, so looking at Shrink item... something is shrunk to 1/16th its normal size.

Ok. So, if we are looking for a hat that covers JUST a 5 foot square... 5 foot by 5 foot by *height of wizard + 1 foot* we are talking about: 60 inches by 60 inches by 68 - 90 inches

60 divided by 16 is 3 3/4 inches. You think someone targetting a mage is going to miss a 3 3/4 inch wide hat (even invisible) sitting on his head? *sunder*

[Beheld]

Ok, so looking at Shrink item... something is shrunk to 1/16th its normal size.

Ok. So, if we are looking for a hat that covers JUST a 5 foot square... 5 foot by 5 foot by *height of wizard + 1 foot* we are talking about: 60 inches by 60 inches by 68 - 90 inches

60 divided by 16 is 3 3/4 inches. You think someone targetting a mage is going to miss a 3 3/4 inch wide hat (even invisible) sitting on his head? *sunder*

If they take an action to sunder it before the AMF, then the Wizard can use his actions to CAST A SPELL. The only thing the hat is for is if someone has an AMF field. If they have the AMF field, then it doesn't matter because the cone drops down before you reach them.

[JNAProductions]

Ok, so looking at Shrink item... something is shrunk to 1/16th its normal size.

Ok. So, if we are looking for a hat that covers JUST a 5 foot square... 5 foot by 5 foot by *height of wizard + 1 foot* we are talking about: 60 inches by 60 inches by 68 - 90 inches

60 divided by 16 is 3 3/4 inches. You think someone targetting a mage is going to miss a 3 3/4 inch wide hat (even invisible) sitting on his head? *sunder*

Cal, go ahead and make your Fighter or other martial. See how it does.

And either he approaches with an AMF up, in which case the hat drops immediately (and, since the target of his charge is now obstructed, he can't do anything) or the AMF is down, and the Wizard uses Abrupt Jaunt, making the charge fail. Either way, the wizard then Dimension Doors 500' straight up (and flies, thanks to Overland Flight) then starts dropping spells on the Fighter. (If the Fighter activates an AMF, the Wizard then drops some boulders, shrunk by Shrink Item.)

[Calthropstu]

Cal, go ahead and make your Fighter or other martial. See how it does.

And either he approaches with an AMF up, in which case the hat drops immediately (and, since the target of his charge is now obstructed, he can't do anything) or the AMF is down, and the Wizard uses Abrupt Jaunt, making the charge fail. Either way, the wizard then Dimension Doors 500' straight up (and flies, thanks to Overland Flight) then starts dropping spells on the Fighter. (If the Fighter activates an AMF, the Wizard then drops some boulders, shrunk by Shrink Item.)

Heh, I have never run into a player OR gm that even TRIED that with the hat, and how I would rule it?

Make a saving throw. Congrats, you're not cut in half by your own hat, and the hat is now behind you. Sorry, when I say "you're not getting away with cheese in my, or any GM I have ever played with games" I mean precisely that. "But I centered it exactly in place and put soverign glue on it to hold it there and..." and the sovereign glue altered the path it grew causing it to alter slightly and instead of "plopping around you" grew off your head and fell over. And if you know ANYTHING about physics? Yeah, that's how it would work.

"But I..." Screw you cheese monkey MUAHAHAHAHA!

And I would actually say the MUAHAHAHAHA as you protested.
No cheese in my games. YOU CAN BE KILLED. Anything you use to try and make yourself invincible? I am going to kill you with.

Most GMs I know, including the dozens of them I have met through PFS, would tell you the exact same thing.

[ryu]

Cal, go ahead and make your Fighter or other martial. See how it does.

And either he approaches with an AMF up, in which case the hat drops immediately (and, since the target of his charge is now obstructed, he can't do anything) or the AMF is down, and the Wizard uses Abrupt Jaunt, making the charge fail. Either way, the wizard then Dimension Doors 500' straight up (and flies, thanks to Overland Flight) then starts dropping spells on the Fighter. (If the Fighter activates an AMF, the Wizard then drops some boulders, shrunk by Shrink Item.)

Or instantaneous conjuration orbs of pain in various flavors of damage if we want a solution that doesn't require planning.

[JNAProductions]

Heh, I have never run into a player OR gm that even TRIED that with the hat, and how I would rule it?

Make a saving throw. Congrats, you're not cut in half by your own hat, and the hat is now behind you. Sorry, when I say "you're not getting away with cheese in my, or any GM I have ever played with games" I mean precisely that. "But I centered it exactly in place and put soverign glue on it to hold it there and..." and the sovereign glue altered the path it grew causing it to alter slightly and instead of "plopping around you" grew off your head and fell over. And if you know ANYTHING about physics? Yeah, that's how it would work.

"But I..." Screw you cheese monkey MUAHAHAHAHA!

And I would actually say the MUAHAHAHAHA as you protested.
No cheese in my games. YOU CAN BE KILLED. Anything you use to try and make yourself invincible? I am going to kill you with.

Most GMs I know, including the dozens of them I have met through PFS, would tell you the exact same thing.

You don't sound like a very fun DM.

[AvatarVecna]

This thing doesn't work because I can use a Fiat Hammer on it. I will support this stance with theoretical anecdotal evidence.

Nobody is arguing this point. I absolutely agree that a caster cannot win in a game where the DM responds to clever tactics based on knowledge of the rules with the phrase "screw you cheese monkey".

Incidentally, I'm probably gonna sig that, if I can find room in my sig.

[Thurbane]

Just throwing this out there: No Hit, No Save, No SR effects (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=9207.0)

[Lorddenorstrus]

Nobody is arguing this point. I absolutely agree that a caster cannot win in a game where the DM responds to clever tactics based on knowledge of the rules with the phrase "screw you cheese monkey".

Incidentally, I'm probably gonna sig that, if I can find room in my sig.

That counts as a win right? Admittance to requiring Fiat to win is the same as saying you can't win the coin flip unless both sides are heads lol. I am a little shocked it took this long to figure out he isn't the DM of forum.

Well on the plus side, none of us have to play with him. I feel bad for anyone who does. It must get pretty boring.

[Calthropstu]

Nobody is arguing this point. I absolutely agree that a caster cannot win in a game where the DM responds to clever tactics based on knowledge of the rules with the phrase "screw you cheese monkey".

Incidentally, I'm probably gonna sig that, if I can find room in my sig.

It's not a fiat hammer, it's simply realizing THAT WON'T ACTUALLY WORK.

Go ahead, try it. Build a device in a circle that can be suddenly expanded to 5 feet. You can do it with a tightly wound 5 foot diameter coil that is then latched to itself with a latch you can attach to a remote control. Use it 100 times. Then let's see how many times it simply falls around you in a nice neat circle.

I am willing to bet 0.

[Beheld]

Heh, I have never run into a player OR gm that even TRIED that with the hat, and how I would rule it?

Make a saving throw. Congrats, you're not cut in half by your own hat, and the hat is now behind you. Sorry, when I say "you're not getting away with cheese in my, or any GM I have ever played with games" I mean precisely that. "But I centered it exactly in place and put soverign glue on it to hold it there and..." and the sovereign glue altered the path it grew causing it to alter slightly and instead of "plopping around you" grew off your head and fell over. And if you know ANYTHING about physics? Yeah, that's how it would work.

"But I..." Screw you cheese monkey MUAHAHAHAHA!

And I would actually say the MUAHAHAHAHA as you protested.
No cheese in my games. YOU CAN BE KILLED. Anything you use to try and make yourself invincible? I am going to kill you with.

Most GMs I know, including the dozens of them I have met through PFS, would tell you the exact same thing.

While I fully support everyone else's points about you being a not fun DM and how no one is arguing that you can beat a DM who punches you in the face for daring to use rules at his table, I would like to add on:

It seems like you don't even understand the hat concept. Like, you know how like a stereotypical Wizard hat has a giant cone? And you know how that cone is hollow inside? That's what the example cone is. It's not a solid object, it basically can't grow into you, the entire point of the thing is that if someone approaches with an AMF from any direction it responds the same way, growing and falling straight down over you, blocking line of effect with you inside.

While I certainly don't question your ability to throw logic, reason, and rules out the window to punish people for the crime of not dying to your DMNPC Penis extension mage killer, based on the way you explained how you would go about having their hat kill them, it seems like you weren't aware of the hollow nature of the hat in question.


It's not a fiat hammer, it's simply realizing THAT WON'T ACTUALLY WORK.

Go ahead, try it. Build a device in a circle that can be suddenly expanded to 5 feet. You can do it with a tightly wound 5 foot diameter coil that is then latched to itself with a latch you can attach to a remote control. Use it 100 times. Then let's see how many times it simply falls around you in a nice neat circle.

I am willing to bet 0.

I'm willing to bet if you build something that expands in the real world, it will use mechanical energy to expand, rather than magical energy (or the removal there of) and therefore not be a very good indicator.

But I have built circles that expanded uniformly around a certain point. They were just made of liquid in a liquid medium.

[AvatarVecna]

That counts as a win right? Admittance to requiring Fiat to win is the same as saying you can't win the coin flip unless both sides are heads lol.

You'd think so, but he seems to think it's a badge of honor to beat a caster this way, and doesn't want to give up that badge by admitting that his method of winning involves blatantly cheating and ignoring every rule other than "Rule 0: What the DM Says Goes".

[JNAProductions]

It's not a fiat hammer, it's simply realizing THAT WON'T ACTUALLY WORK.

Go ahead, try it. Build a device in a circle that can be suddenly expanded to 5 feet. You can do it with a tightly wound 5 foot diameter coil that is then latched to itself with a latch you can attach to a remote control. Use it 100 times. Then let's see how many times it simply falls around you in a nice neat circle.

I am willing to bet 0.

There's a big difference between a coil and a magically shrunk hat.

Like it or not, this works just fine by RAW.

Edit: Also, Cal, AV, how are those builds coming along? Level 10, right?

[AvatarVecna]

It's not a fiat hammer, it's simply realizing THAT WON'T ACTUALLY WORK.

Go ahead, try it. Build a device in a circle that can be suddenly expanded to 5 feet. You can do it with a tightly wound 5 foot diameter coil that is then latched to itself with a latch you can attach to a remote control. Use it 100 times. Then let's see how many times it simply falls around you in a nice neat circle.

I am willing to bet 0.

Ignoring Beheld's post pointing out that's not how the rules work, and ignoring that we operate in a world of magic anyway, and physics is only a mild suggestion at best, my post wasn't just referring to your asinine attempt to dismiss this particular hat trick, it was referring to your entire method of debating caster vs non-caster. Anything that's perfectly legal and yet allows the wizard to utterly dominate the competition? "BANHAMMER!!! See? Non-casters can totally beat casters!" Anybody can win at Monopoly if they cheat as the banker, that doesn't mean they won by the rules. In my games, we follow the agreed-upon rules, come hell or high water; I have fun trying to out-optimize my DM and my players (depending on whose running), and the rest of my group does as well. That group switched to 5e awhile back because things were starting to get a bit out of hand, but it was still tons of fun.

[AvatarVecna]

Also, Cal, AV, how are those builds coming along? Level 10, right?

Dunno. I mean, he hasn't even accepted the challenge yet, much less agreed on a starting level. Original challenge was lvl 20 core only for both sides, but I liked the suggestion of changing it to lvl 10.

[Calthropstu]

You don't sound like a very fun DM.

You don't sound like a very fun player. "I want to be invincible whaaaaa..."

Go cry in someone else's ear.

You know what, I am going to go to the next Iron GM and ask how many GMs would allow your trash, and see how many say yes.

I'll record it too and post it on youtube.

The reality is that any GM worth his salt is not going to let you be invincible, no matter how "creative" your tricks are, no matter how much RAW you quote. The simple fact... no GM is going to let you break their game.

[AvatarVecna]

You don't sound like a very fun player. "I want to be invincible whaaaaa..."

Go cry in someone else's ear.

You know what, I am going to go to the next Iron GM and ask how many GMs would allow your trash, and see how many say yes.

I'll record it too and post it on youtube.

The reality is that any GM worth his salt is not going to let you be invincible, no matter how "creative" your tricks are, no matter how much RAW you quote. The simple fact... no GM is going to let you break their game.

My DMs do. They, like me, prefer actually accomplishing something through knowledge of the rules, rather than banning something because they can't think of a way around it.

[Big Fau]

Heh, I have never run into a player OR gm that even TRIED that with the hat, and how I would rule it?

You see, a problem with anecdotal evidence is that it isn't reliable, it isn't consistent, and it's very easy to lie about. We go by the RAW because we don't know the DM in question. Just because you've never experienced a (very real) thing doesn't mean it can't happen.


Make a saving throw. Congrats, you're not cut in half by your own hat, and the hat is now behind you. Sorry, when I say "you're not getting away with cheese in my, or any GM I have ever played with games" I mean precisely that. "But I centered it exactly in place and put soverign glue on it to hold it there and..." and the sovereign glue altered the path it grew causing it to alter slightly and instead of "plopping around you" grew off your head and fell over. And if you know ANYTHING about physics? Yeah, that's how it would work.

2 things:

That saving throw is a measily DC 15 (per Heroes of Battle, IIRC). Trivial at 20th level. Trivial at 10th level. Hell, it's trivial at 5th level.
Soverign Glue is a magic item, negated by AMF.



"But I..." Screw you cheese monkey MUAHAHAHAHA!

And I'd pick up my dice and leave because you don't have any limb to stand on in this debate.


And I would actually say the MUAHAHAHAHA as you protested.
No cheese in my games. YOU CAN BE KILLED. Anything you use to try and make yourself invincible? I am going to kill you with.

Most GMs I know, including the dozens of them I have met through PFS, would tell you the exact same thing.

Why do so many people have this competitive mentality about D&D? A DM's job isn't to kill the party, it's to challenge them. If one player is all-but-immortal that just means your challenges TO THAT PC don't need to be lethal ones; there are all kinds of challenges that don't involve lethal combat.

Edit:

The reality is that any GM worth his salt is not going to let you be invincible, no matter how "creative" your tricks are, no matter how much RAW you quote. The simple fact... no GM is going to let you break their game.

BULL****.

If one of my players broke my campaign, I'd be buying him a drink and analyzing what he did to see how exactly I need to prepare the next encounter for it. Because that's what a DM is supposed to do. i can adjust to my players and their skills because I have a very intimate understanding of this game's rules, a level-head, and a capability of accepting "defeat".

The fact that you have no capacity to even try this is why people get so worked up over your posts.

[JNAProductions]

You don't sound like a very fun player. "I want to be invincible whaaaaa..."

Go cry in someone else's ear.

You know what, I am going to go to the next Iron GM and ask how many GMs would allow your trash, and see how many say yes.

I'll record it too and post it on youtube.

The reality is that any GM worth his salt is not going to let you be invincible, no matter how "creative" your tricks are, no matter how much RAW you quote. The simple fact... no GM is going to let you break their game.

Except being able to avoid an AMF is not going to break the game. It's a nifty counter to a vulnerability you have. If that alone breaks your game, you have other issues than a smart player.

And as a player, I prefer to play a DFA (Dragonfire Adept) in 3.5. It's FAR from invincible. It's just a class that can contribute in most situations, as well as being a pseudo-dragon, which is fun!

But more on topic (on the off-topic topic :P) I would not like to play under a DM who refuses to let his player have fun, interesting, smart options. I'd much rather play under a DM who lets such a trick work once, then comes up with an in-game counter for it.

For instance-you need to get something from within an AMF. Now your lead hat is useless-it'll stop you from proceeding. (That being said, excessive AMF usage is also a bad DM sign-used sparingly, it's a great way to force casters to think outside the box and rely on less magical companions. Used excessively, it's a DM that doesn't know how to handle casters and effectively banning them without actually banning them. (And even then, there are ways around it-Chosen of Mystara is one, I think.))

[Big Fau]

Can we talk for a second about how the only RAW-printed AMF-producing item is in a premade adventure that costs 100K? And the next best option is in Lords of Madness, the same book that introduced a spell that allows casters to outright ignore a Dead Magic/AMF effect while being trapped inside it (Invoke Magic, for the curious)?

[Calthropstu]

Ignoring Beheld's post pointing out that's not how the rules work, and ignoring that we operate in a world of magic anyway, and physics is only a mild suggestion at best, my post wasn't just referring to your asinine attempt to dismiss this particular hat trick, it was referring to your entire method of debating caster vs non-caster. Anything that's perfectly legal and yet allows the wizard to utterly dominate the competition? "BANHAMMER!!! See? Non-casters can totally beat casters!" Anybody can win at Monopoly if they cheat as the banker, that doesn't mean they won by the rules. In my games, we follow the agreed-upon rules, come hell or high water; I have fun trying to out-optimize my DM and my players (depending on whose running), and the rest of my group does as well. That group switched to 5e awhile back because things were starting to get a bit out of hand, but it was still tons of fun.

What banhammer?

It's a disagreement on how the spell works.

I'm not saying you can't shrink down a lead superhat.

I'm saying that lead superhat isn't going to expand exactly the way you want.

Although, now that I think of it, I could set it up so that it wasn't a hat, but...


Damn, I just invented one that would work. Not a hat. A veil. A special 4 part veil where the growing on each side would form 4 5 foot walls leaning inward on each other ultimately forming a pyramid. A hat would just fall off your head. This would be 4 walls being drawn inwards by a special mechanical setup when enlarged.
The mechanical setup wouldn't even need to be enlarged to work.

DAMN. I just built something I can't deny would work. A lead hat... pffft, falls off your head as it grows. A shrunken set of 4 lead walls? I can't rule my way out of that. Though, to be fair, it would only work once. As soon as the enemy found out about it, they'd develop a counter.

[JNAProductions]

What banhammer?

It's a disagreement on how the spell works.

I'm not saying you can't shrink down a lead superhat.

I'm saying that lead superhat isn't going to expand exactly the way you want.

Although, now that I think of it, I could set it up so that it wasn't a hat, but...


Damn, I just invented one that would work. Not a hat. A veil. A special 4 part veil where the growing on each side would form 4 5 foot walls leaning inward on each other ultimately forming a pyramid. A hat would just fall off your head. This would be 4 walls being drawn inwards by a special mechanical setup when enlarged.
The mechanical setup wouldn't even need to be enlarged to work.

DAMN. I just built something I can't deny would work. A lead hat... pffft, falls off your head as it grows. A shrunken set of 4 lead walls? I can't rule my way out of that. Though, to be fair, it would only work once. As soon as the enemy found out about it, they'd develop a counter.

And what, prey tell, would this counter be?

[Calthropstu]

And what, prey tell, would this counter be?

My first inclination is to hit the whole thing with a disintigrate from afar before the attacker teleported, but that's involving a caster. A second attacker would likely have to teleport in with the first, and steal one of the pre-enlarged walls. Or, even better, a high level rogue steals the back facing wall without getting caught before the fight even breaks out. Maybe even replacing it with a fake.

[AvatarVecna]

Can we talk for a second about how the only RAW-printed AMF-producing item is in a premade adventure that costs 100K? And the next best option is in Lords of Madness, the same book that introduced a spell that allows casters to outright ignore a Dead Magic/AMF effect while being trapped inside it (Invoke Magic, for the curious)?

Custom items aren't exactly uncommon around here.


What banhammer?

Eh, this particular example is more Fiat Hammer than Ban Hammer, but it amounts to the same thing: "this thing doesn't work because I don't want it to".

EDIT: Incidentally, I have yet to hear from you about whether you're down for that fight.

[Lorddenorstrus]

And what, prey tell, would this counter be?

Assume the wizard is stupid. If he's smart there simply isn't one. Fact.

Of course in this false reality we're killing brain cells on with each look, I imagine it'll be something along the lines of Calthropstu's specialty. DM Fiat, he can.. cheat the action economy system and have them remove the defense then place an AMF after. Assume the wizard doesn't have a 1 lvl dip into Mind Bender to set up at the cost of 1 feat.. a cool ass 100 foot detection aura that even mind blank doesn't protect from. Oh wait mentioned that already that's under assume the wizard is stupid and doesn't have every defense imaginable. Or we still stuck to core? I stopped fully paying attention awhile ago.

If we're not stuck to core Idk why the wizard isn't in a mind swapped aleax body and just strutting around his "Invulnerable / Immune" body.

[JNAProductions]

My first inclination is to hit the whole thing with a disintigrate from afar before the attacker teleported, but that's involving a caster. A second attacker would likely have to teleport in with the first, and steal one of the pre-enlarged walls. Or, even better, a high level rogue steals the back facing wall without getting caught before the fight even breaks out. Maybe even replacing it with a fake.

Caster casts Disintegrate on the hat. Wizard player DDoors straight up, or straight away, or to some other safer spot.

Since they teleport in, there's no AMF. Upon being attacked, the Wizard player DDoors straight up, or to some other safe spot.

The last one could work... But I'm pretty sure there are ways to counter high-level Rogue sneaking. I've not got enough op-fu to make it work, though.

[Calthropstu]

Custom items aren't exactly uncommon around here.



Eh, this particular example is more Fiat Hammer than Ban Hammer, but it amounts to the same thing: "this thing doesn't work because I don't want it to".

EDIT: Incidentally, I have yet to hear from you about whether you're down for that fight.

I am not. Namely because I don't trust most of the people in this forum to gm it.

You wanna go toe to toe in a fight, caster vs non caster 10th level, it would have to be GM'd by someone who I know wouldn't allow you to say "I cast super bull**** cheese before the fight, and make myself invincible." And I don't think many of those exist on this forum.

[Beheld]

I am not. Namely because I don't trust most of the people in this forum to gm it.

You wanna go toe to toe in a fight, caster vs non caster 10th level, it would have to be GM'd by someone who I know wouldn't allow you to say "I cast super bull**** cheese before the fight, and make myself invincible." And I don't think many of those exist on this forum.

"It would have to be someone I trust to ban spells without you knowing in advance what spells are banned!"

Yeah, we would all trust the impartiality of anyone who meets those qualifications. :sigh:

[ryu]

Caster casts Disintegrate on the hat. Wizard player DDoors straight up, or straight away, or to some other safer spot.

Since they teleport in, there's no AMF. Upon being attacked, the Wizard player DDoors straight up, or to some other safe spot.

The last one could work... But I'm pretty sure there are ways to counter high-level Rogue sneaking. I've not got enough op-fu to make it work, though.

Even in core you have the contingency spell and your choice of be not here button. You also have foresight if I remember properly. Or you could just make a second ''hat'' worn under the first. Should I keep going? I can keep going.

[AvatarVecna]

I am not. Namely because I don't trust most of the people in this forum to gm it.

You wanna go toe to toe in a fight, caster vs non caster 10th level, it would have to be GM'd by someone who I know wouldn't allow you to say "I cast super bull**** cheese before the fight, and make myself invincible." And I don't think many of those exist on this forum.

Then let's make it an arena fight. Limited area (maybe large, but not closer to "Roman Colosseum" than "Hunger Games"), no teleporting out, no prep time. I even promise: no bull**** tactics. I won't be using anything that isn't from the core three books, anyway; hell, unless I really cheesed things out, I wouldn't be invulnerable at level 10 even if I had access to non-Core stuff.

EDIT: By "no bull**** tactics", I mostly mean that I will be using spells the way they were intended to be used. No weird combos that somehow result in super-awesome power, just the spells the way they're supposed to work.

[Big Fau]

I'm saying that lead superhat isn't going to expand exactly the way you want.

The laws of physics don't support your argument. The cone is bottom-heavy, the cone is already partway on top of an object that can guide it down, and it falls a very short distance. But if you want, what about a bowler hat? Tophat? Cowboy hat? A fez? There's a ton of options here. We could even make it a mask, as facing doesn't exist in 3.5 (without a variant in UA). You only need to block LoE for a brief instant.


I am not. Namely because I don't trust most of the people in this forum to gm it.

You wanna go toe to toe in a fight, caster vs non caster 10th level, it would have to be GM'd by someone who I know wouldn't allow you to say "I cast super bull**** cheese before the fight, and make myself invincible." And I don't think many of those exist on this forum.

You've never heard of impartial judging? Why would we play by your friend's rules if you won't play by ours either?

[Lorddenorstrus]

I am not. Namely because I don't trust most of the people in this forum to gm it.

You wanna go toe to toe in a fight, caster vs non caster 10th level, it would have to be GM'd by someone who I know wouldn't allow you to say "I cast super bull**** cheese before the fight, and make myself invincible." And I don't think many of those exist on this forum.

Even if the fight started with you both literally in front of each other with no prep time I'm almost one hundred percent positive the wizard would be able to just teleport out of your movement distance by a lot.. then sit in side a Rope Trick and prep himself... then kick you sideways.
Seriously though? "I don't trust anyone other than my buddy GMs, I need them to make sure everything is ruled in my favor." That's not unfair in the slightest... LOL. Oh god I got Lord Drako vibes there for a minute.. the only missing thing is pictures of half naked men.

[Beheld]

Then let's make it an arena fight. Limited area (maybe large, but not closer to "Roman Colosseum" than "Hunger Games"), no teleporting out, no prep time. I even promise: no bull**** tactics. I won't be using anything that isn't from the core three books, anyway; hell, unless I really cheesed things out, I wouldn't be invulnerable at level 10 even if I had access to non-Core stuff.

EDIT: By "no bull**** tactics", I mostly mean that I will be using spells the way they were intended to be used. No weird combos that somehow result in super-awesome power, just the spells the way they're supposed to work.

Well I mean, you could be Astrally Projected, so unless he has a Gith sword on him, that's the same thing :)

[ryu]

Even if the fight started with you both literally in front of each other with no prep time I'm almost one hundred percent positive the wizard would be able to just teleport out of your movement distance by a lot.. then sit in side a Rope Trick and prep himself... then kick you sideways.
Seriously though? "I don't trust anyone other than my buddy GMs, I need them to make sure everything is ruled in my favor." That's not unfair in the slightest... LOL. Oh god I got Lord Drako vibes there for a minute.. the only missing thing is pictures of half naked men.

Personally I'm nostalgic for Orcus rants. Oh wait I misspelled it. ORCUS!

[AvatarVecna]

Oh god I got Lord Drako vibes there for a minute.. the only missing thing is pictures of half naked men.

I cannot disagree with this more. LordDrako was an *******, sure, but LD's ridiculous builds were based on some really solid optimization, it's just that some of the finer points of his build had more weaknesses than he was able to understand, and he refused to back down on that. Say what you will about LD, but he could actually optimize a caster to the point that beating his caster required some non-half-assed optimization on the other side.

[Lorddenorstrus]

I cannot disagree with this more. LordDrako was an *******, sure, but LD's ridiculous builds were based on some really solid optimization, it's just that some of the finer points of his build had more weaknesses than he was able to understand, and he refused to back down on that. Say what you will about LD, but he could actually optimize a caster to the point that beating his caster required some non-half-assed optimization on the other side.

I recall towards the end he kept rejecting Test of Spite offers due to not being able to find a GM he trusted, so that + the avatar is what reminded me.

[Big Fau]

Well I mean, you could be Astrally Projected, so unless he has a Gith sword on him, that's the same thing :)

That's actually a point I need to mention: If the mage is Astrally Projected and the projection gets AMFed, it just winks out of existence until the AMF ends. Since AP has an unlimited duration and AMF isn't, there's no risk of the caster dying before the AMF ends.

[Calthropstu]

Caster casts Disintegrate on the hat. Wizard player DDoors straight up, or straight away, or to some other safer spot.

Since they teleport in, there's no AMF. Upon being attacked, the Wizard player DDoors straight up, or to some other safe spot.

The last one could work... But I'm pretty sure there are ways to counter high-level Rogue sneaking. I've not got enough op-fu to make it work, though.

Read... surprise round/readied action.

Disintigrate caster: I ready to cast disintigrate as soon as the mage enters the room.
Attacker: I use teleport boots which triggers the contingency AMF as soon as the disintigrate goes off.

Initiative.

Attacker wins...



Still, if I am having a noncaster trying to kill a caster, having caster backup leaves a foul taste in my mouth. I made an exception in the rogue dispel dagger assassin. That guy had to die. And the caster made sense.

But the whole concept of this thread is to build a character capable of killing medium optimized wizards. Not Super Overpower I CAST EVERYTHING, EVERY DAY wizards.

Because I can attest fully: people are lazy.

The whole thing you guys are describing? The only equivalent in the real world I can equate it to...

Is a green beret sniper, going around town ducking behind buildings with an assault rifle, full combat gear, and 1000 rounds of ammo. Because someone MIGHT attack him while he does his shopping.

And oh yeah, he's jerry rigged some sort of mechanical contraption to follow behind him so it can carry his groceries. So he can keep his weapon at a ready position. At all times.

Oh yeah, and he has a rocket launcher too. That he dual wields with his assault rifle.

All on roller skates so he can move faster. Rocket powered.

[JNAProductions]

Read... surprise round/readied action.

Disintigrate caster: I ready to cast disintigrate as soon as the mage enters the room.
Attacker: I use teleport boots which triggers the contingency AMF as soon as the disintigrate goes off.

Initiative.

Attacker wins...



Still, if I am having a noncaster trying to kill a caster, having caster backup leaves a foul taste in my mouth. I made an exception in the rogue dispel dagger assassin. That guy had to die. And the caster made sense.

But the whole concept of this thread is to build a character capable of killing medium optimized wizards. Not Super Overpower I CAST EVERYTHING, EVERY DAY wizards.

Because I can attest fully: people are lazy.

The whole thing you guys are describing? The only equivalent in the real world I can equate it to...

Is a green beret sniper, going around town ducking behind buildings with an assault rifle, full combat gear, and 1000 rounds of ammo. Because someone MIGHT attack him while he does his shopping.

And oh yeah, he's jerry rigged some sort of mechanical contraption to follow behind him so it can carry his groceries. So he can keep his weapon at a ready position. At all times.

Oh yeah, and he has a rocket launcher too. That he dual wields with his assault rifle.

All on roller skates so he can move faster. Rocket powered.

Or he's just Astrally Projected. Total safety, no drawbacks.

[One Step Two]

I cannot disagree with this more. LordDrako was an *******, sure, but LD's ridiculous builds were based on some really solid optimization, it's just that some of the finer points of his build had more weaknesses than he was able to understand, and he refused to back down on that. Say what you will about LD, but he could actually optimize a caster to the point that beating his caster required some non-half-assed optimization on the other side.

I disagree with your disagreement, but only one one point. LordDrako posted incorrect builds that were based off preexisting optimization builds, and ignored a lot of the questions directed at core concepts of how his optimization was supposed to work.

[AvatarVecna]

Read... surprise round/readied action.

Disintigrate caster: I ready to cast disintigrate as soon as the mage enters the room.
Attacker: I use teleport boots which triggers the contingency AMF as soon as the disintigrate goes off.

Initiative.

Attacker wins...



Still, if I am having a noncaster trying to kill a caster, having caster backup leaves a foul taste in my mouth. I made an exception in the rogue dispel dagger assassin. That guy had to die. And the caster made sense.

But the whole concept of this thread is to build a character capable of killing medium optimized wizards. Not Super Overpower I CAST EVERYTHING, EVERY DAY wizards.

Because I can attest fully: people are lazy.

The whole thing you guys are describing? The only equivalent in the real world I can equate it to...

Is a green beret sniper, going around town ducking behind buildings with an assault rifle, full combat gear, and 1000 rounds of ammo. Because someone MIGHT attack him while he does his shopping.

And oh yeah, he's jerry rigged some sort of mechanical contraption to follow behind him so it can carry his groceries. So he can keep his weapon at a ready position. At all times.

Oh yeah, and he has a rocket launcher too. That he dual wields with his assault rifle.

All on roller skates so he can move faster. Rocket powered.

In total fairness, that Green Beret's doesn't live in a world where his/her shopping cart might turn out to be a demigod in disguise, or the store manager is a lich with all the employees being his undead minions and they're trying to capture you to sacrifice you to grant the lich power, or it turns out the store is a living entity that generates food by eating powerful magic users while they shop. This is the kind of thing that can happen in a D&D game, because magic bull**** is not limited to the player characters.

What do you think of the arena idea? Still too much bull**** potential?

[Big Fau]

The whole thing you guys are describing? The only equivalent in the real world I can equate it to...

Is a green beret sniper, going around town ducking behind buildings with an assault rifle, full combat gear, and 1000 rounds of ammo. Because someone MIGHT attack him while he does his shopping.

Lolth is trying to pull the material plane into the Abyss, Mind Flayers are trying to put out the sun so they can eat more brains, Devils are trying to steal every mortal soul they can, the forces of law are canonically trying to release a god-killing psychic entity by sending Inevitables to its prison, a single mass-extinction can call down a moon that wipes out the planet, Tiamat is trying to wage war, and god only knows how many other world-ending plots there are.

And you compare a mage capable of fighting these things to a soldier with a gun.


All on roller skates so he can move faster. Rocket powered.

Let me know when you get around to reading Overland Flight's effect.

[ryu]

Or he's just Astrally Projected. Total safety, no drawbacks.

And besides, let's be real here. The only reason none of us have done that for the sheer novelty is lack of ability due to lack of resources, problems with the laws of physics, and the general illegality of such.... everything.

[eggynack]

The whole thing you guys are describing? The only equivalent in the real world I can equate it to...

Is a green beret sniper, going around town ducking behind buildings with an assault rifle, full combat gear, and 1000 rounds of ammo. Because someone MIGHT attack him while he does his shopping.

And oh yeah, he's jerry rigged some sort of mechanical contraption to follow behind him so it can carry his groceries. So he can keep his weapon at a ready position. At all times.

Oh yeah, and he has a rocket launcher too. That he dual wields with his assault rifle.

All on roller skates so he can move faster. Rocket powered.
There are two key differences between reality and the game world that make your example not all that accurate. First, paranoia makes way more sense in the game than it does in reality. For all of a caster's power, there's a pile of enemy casters with just as much power, and they can attack at any moment, hitting in a way that needs one out of a massive pile of defenses. Yes, there's seriously dangerous things folks can do in reality, but not much quite so paranoia inducing as a foe learning everything about you and your location before teleporting in and killing you instantly. It's like if a sniper could do their thing from the other side of the world, and without much in the moment preparation.

Second, all those things are really hard for a normal person to carry. If you could do all those things you said, prepare all those defenses, and not incur any significant cost, either in defense maitanence or local suspicion or danger to others or anything, wouldn't you do so? I'm not even strictly assuming someone that could plausibly be targeted. Even for someone for whom an attack is ridiculously unlikely and implausible, it'd make sense to have those defenses if they were cheap enough. Well, they are mostly cheap enough for a wizard. That lead hat can be crazy cheap for a wizard, especially with WBL manipulation. Hell, you might as well get three or four. After all, you were talking up this whole sundering plan. I don't think said plan is especially plausible, but whatever. If you're not really trading anything for this safety, why not get the safety?

So, as ridiculous as these defenses may look in a real world context, this is not a real world context. This is a universe where that assault rifle is cheap, weightless, invisible, doesn't take up hand space, and has a safety that's directed by your mind. It's also a universe where a bunch of other people also have access to those selfsame assault rifles. It seems to me that it'd be way more ridiculous to not have that assault rifle than to have it.

[Beheld]

Just for the record, a hat is an attended item, and would thus get to use the Wizard's Fort save and make a save. If you can get the Wizard to fail a Fort save, you'd be better off just casting Flesh to Stone.

[GreyBlack]

If you have access to Pathfinder, might I recommend the Item Mastery feats?

[Calthropstu]

I disagree with your disagreement, but only one one point. LordDrako posted incorrect builds that were based off preexisting optimization builds, and ignored a lot of the questions directed at core concepts of how his optimization was supposed to work.

I am not going to lie. When it comes to pure optimization? I am not even going to pretend I am the best. Nothing of the sort. I don't try to go through thousands of rules in dozens of books looking for every possible loophole. It's a waste of time. I have a life outside of games. I could probably do fairly well if I absolutely tried. I have the core rulebook of pathfinder down pretty solidly, and I used to have a good foundation in 3.5 (though the fact that I have played pathfinder exclusively for the last 4 years, and had stopped playing entirely for almost 2 years before that has led me to forget a lot from 3.5)
I am well aware there are some amazing spells and powers. And many of them make it EXTREMELY difficult for someone to kill a decently optimized spell caster.

I actually have no problem with creating a demiplane, using astral projection and then journeying in relative safety.

Where I have a problem is "And then I use a super contingency to make it so that I can't have my cord cut, and also set up a super barrier in my plane so there is absolutely no way anyone or anything can possibly enter. And then I..."

At that point I have a problem.

I have no problem with "I cast a few buffs to make it harder for people to attack me."

I have a problem with "I cast every possible buff in existence and constantly walk around with a lead superhat and if anyone ever comes at me I automatically get to teleport."

I have no problem with "I cast clone several times, so if I die I have a backup plan."

I have a problem with "I cast shapechange and turn into a zodokar who has unlimited wishes as a supernatural ability and then cast clone a bazillion times all for FREE! And then I scatter them across all the planes and all the worlds because WHEEEE WISH!"

I have no problem with "I set up a bunch of ways to make it harder to kill me."

I have a problem with "I use every D&D or Pathfinder resource in existence to find every possible combination where I cannot be killed, and can kill anything with one shot"

At that point, I am done. Rocks fall, you die.

[Big Fau]

At that point, I am done. Rocks fall, you die.

While that is fine in your game, be aware that not every player enjoys such a thing and you should not treat that playstyle as the predominant playstyle in these forums.

[Beheld]

I play with and DM extensively homebrewed games, part of the homebrewing is a variety of homebrew classes. Many of them possess abilities from levels 10-15 that grant them some ability to die and reform later at a different (or the same) location.

While the have various ways of theoretically being interfered with, I have never once, ever, had any aspect of the game suffer from characters being able to come back from the dead like a lich a few days or weeks after being killed.

If you think that poses a problem for your game I suggest trying it out to see, because I seriously doubt it will.

Except of course Calthropstu. You shouldn't try it out, it will definitely cause problems for your games, since your only source of enjoyment is the suffering of your players.

[ryu]

High tier 1 play is uncommon even here even among those who know how. In fact I know of only two tables with certainty that play at that level commonplace. Mine, and Tippy's.

[Endarire]

People already speculated and detailed this last decade (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3821.0).

[torrasque666]

While that is fine in your game, be aware that not every player enjoys such a thing and you should not treat that playstyle as the predominant playstyle in these forums.
I'd wager more people who enjoy such a thing (IE, those who don't tend towards higher op playstyle) are probably more common than the folks here would imply. After all, those kinds of players don't come here. Those are the players who play once a week when they get a night away from the spouse/kids/pets/job/what have you. However, its more likely that those kinds of players noted that 5e was a bit more towards their playstyle and migrated to the new system.

But yeah, that's not going to be the predominant playstyle here. This is the stomping ground of optimization nuts who can't get enough of absolute power.

[Eldariel]

Can we talk for a second about how the only RAW-printed AMF-producing item is in a premade adventure that costs 100K? And the next best option is in Lords of Madness, the same book that introduced a spell that allows casters to outright ignore a Dead Magic/AMF effect while being trapped inside it (Invoke Magic, for the curious)?

There's Antimagic Torc in the Underdark (25k for 1 hour 50 mins of AMF) and there's Bulwark of Antimagic in Draconomicon (27580gp for 1 hour 50 mins of AMF). Both of those are quite affordable. There's also Antimagic Shackles in Book of Exalted Deeds though those are ridiculously expensive being continuous.


I'd wager more people who enjoy such a thing (IE, those who don't tend towards higher op playstyle) are probably more common than the folks here would imply. After all, those kinds of players don't come here. Those are the players who play once a week when they get a night away from the spouse/kids/pets/job/what have you. However, its more likely that those kinds of players noted that 5e was a bit more towards their playstyle and migrated to the new system.

But yeah, that's not going to be the predominant playstyle here. This is the stomping ground of optimization nuts who can't get enough of absolute power.

These forums are somewhat tame compared to MinMaxBoards/BG/Old 339. Indeed, the powerlevel people play on and the level of optimization are both middling on average; people do use some power but games aren't built around everyone having rules mastery and playing at tier 1 complete with a world moved by powers acting on that same level. Test of Spite was the refreshing breather where some truly new tech got developed and certain effects got their time in the sun but certainly, many players here lack the tables where to truly work their op-fu. It does, after all, take a DM and fellow players on a similar level of mastery to make it an awesome communal experience (though a single master can certainly elevate the level of mastery across the board tremendously).

[Calthropstu]

I'd wager more people who enjoy such a thing (IE, those who don't tend towards higher op playstyle) are probably more common than the folks here would imply. After all, those kinds of players don't come here. Those are the players who play once a week when they get a night away from the spouse/kids/pets/job/what have you. However, its more likely that those kinds of players noted that 5e was a bit more towards their playstyle and migrated to the new system.

But yeah, that's not going to be the predominant playstyle here. This is the stomping ground of optimization nuts who can't get enough of absolute power.

Having played at over 200 different tables in over 25 different counties in 6 different states, I can say you are correct. Once the cheese gets to a certain level, the players almost always universally demand it to stop. Yes, there is a variation of that point at each table. Yes, some allow more than others.

But once the point is reached, it is almost always universally bad for the table. Sometimes it will end a campaign, in fact, I once saw it literally cause a fist fight. (though it was mainly because that cheese was directed at a fellow player) So no, I do not allow cheese at my tables. And I make sure people know this.

[Seppo87]

Having played at over 200 different tables in over 25 different counties in 6 different states

And none of them kept you!

[Calthropstu]

I play with and DM extensively homebrewed games, part of the homebrewing is a variety of homebrew classes. Many of them possess abilities from levels 10-15 that grant them some ability to die and reform later at a different (or the same) location.

While the have various ways of theoretically being interfered with, I have never once, ever, had any aspect of the game suffer from characters being able to come back from the dead like a lich a few days or weeks after being killed.

If you think that poses a problem for your game I suggest trying it out to see, because I seriously doubt it will.

Except of course Calthropstu. You shouldn't try it out, it will definitely cause problems for your games, since your only source of enjoyment is the suffering of your players.

Not at all. In fact, some of my best high powered games have included just that. Mythic in pathfinder allows that once you hit tier 10 automatically. True res when you die, usable once per week I think? Once per month? Something along those lines. I don't feel like looking things up right now. Too early.

Another guy paid to have like 20 clones of himself set up, while yet another (same game) decided to turn himself into a lich. Great game.

Another time, (major evil campaign) someone decided to have 150 prisoners. He would swap minds with them and adventure with their bodies. When he died, he would simply snap back to his own body, take over another prisoner, and do it all over again. No one in the world ever caught on because he set up a fake "mastermind who had many mages working for him." No one ever suspected all the mages were the same guy in different bodies. He didn't bother using a bunch of powerful items on his junk bodies, because he didn't care if they died.

I had no problem with that.

I would have started having a problem with "And all of this is being done from my astral body while my real body is on my own personal permanent demiplane trapped behind an anti transportation barrier and an anti magic field with me sitting within a lead tent."

One is a reasonable attempt to escape detection and prevent someone from finding and killing you.

The other is an attempt at absolute invulnerability.

One is interesting.

One is cheese.

[Calthropstu]

And none of them kept you!

Kind of hard to be "kept" when you have moved hundreds of miles away. I have played at some tables for years, but alas when you move as often as I do, it is difficult to stay at tables forever. I would be welcomed back at most of them though.

Some of the tables died (one literally... Kind of hard to continue a campaign with a dead GM), some continue. I have enjoyed most, and most enjoyed having me.

[Âmesang]

I'm wondering how much sneaking around could be countered with a widenend alarm spell?

…then again the talk of shrinking objects has made me wonder if there's an "enlarge item" spell and if it can be combined with animate object and awaken construct to create giant, mutant potatoes that play the bagpipe. :smalltongue:

[Eldariel]

I'm wondering how much sneaking around could be countered with a widenend alarm spell?

That's a magic trap and anyone with Trapfinding can thus find and disarm it. Though it can help either way by at least making you aware of the existence of a sneak. However, given it doesn't pinpoint the target, it's inefficient.

There are some practical all-day options for fighting sneaking. My first option is always Arcane Sight. That works a surprising number of times; most creatures have magic items and the more the merrier. The stronger enemies have significant amounts of buff spells on them too. Sadly though, Nystul's Magic Aura might completely counter Arcane Sight (though whether the Magic Aura-spell of itself can be detected with Arcane Sight is unclear) making this unreliable. Still, I always make sure to have Permanencied or at least active Arcane Sight on most of my characters; not needing Line of Effect or Sight for rudimentary detection makes it tremendously useful and it has other uses too. Even gives you an idea of what all the magic items your target has are if you can establish line of sight.

If the target relies on supernatural Hide in Plain Sight, anything with True Seeing can probably see through it. I say "probably" because it's not spelled out but True Seeing more or less sees through all effects magical in nature and (Su) abilities fall in that category. It probably doesn't work vs. Extraordinary HiPS though (but can someone hide in e.g. shadows if there are none for the perceiver?). Greater Prying Eyes last for hours/level and have True Seeing; higher up those can be convenient to keep around. Blindsight/Tremorsense/Blindsense/etc. are generally not worth bothering with as Darkstalker exists but it might be worth keeping them active anyways just in case you happen upon a hapless, careless sneak (though frankly, such sneaks generally have poor enough Hide/Move Silently that it's possible to detect them by just magically augmenting an underling's perception abilities).

Also, many Planar Bound outsiders as well as many potent Simulacrums (Avoral for instance) come equipped with True Seeing, which allows you to outsource such needs. They tend to have decent detection capabilities too, though not perfect. Mindsight (Mindbender + the feat; hard to get the feat otherwise though you could Limited Wish Psychic Reformation to do it on the fly) and Lifesense (available through Shapechange and many Undead) are convenient but it's not far-off to rule that Mind Blank protects from Mindsight and becoming not-living or at least not visible to the living is simplicity itself (just don't be alive). Touchsight (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/touchsight.htm) (available through Limited Wish/Wish/Miracle or some Psionic proxy that you can reshape as necessary) is a rather convenient way to become aware of them but the range is only 60' and it requires line of effect. It's possible for a sneak to act beyond that range. Also, incorporeality probably protects you from Touchsight in any case. Touchsight is however a tad more difficult to maintain for any extended periods as a Wizard.

There's also the nuclear option of using Elemental Weirds (Gated, Simulacrum'd, or yourself Shapechanged) to abuse their free action Contact Other Plane to become aware of the exact moment in time when a sneak would attempt to approach you, locate that sneak and obliterate them. Knowledge is power and infinite free action COPs make you omniscient for most intents and purposes. Without Elemental Weirds, getting enough questions to pinpoint someone to a 5' square for long enough to annihilate them/break their cover takes a while and is not nearly as reliable. Commune is a solid alternative if you're only asking yes/no questions, available through some familiars, bound creatures, etc. The spells sometimes need to be condensed into a single action; luckily you can use e.g. the Wish-line of spells to accomplish long cast times in a short timespan (or alternative planes with faster time plus Plane Shift, Planar Bubble or such).

[Âmesang]

Arcane sight's one of my favorite spells and I always try to get it permanencied along with see invisibility; I was thinking of adding a house rule along the lines of the Rules/Magic Item Compendium's "identify magic items" option to allow for quick identification of spell effects (essentially a Spellcraft DC of 25 + spell level), since it seems weird to me that you could now use it to identify magic items but not spells. :smallconfused:

Besides, who doesn't like having glowing blue eyes?

This is probably less than optimized, but I also enjoy having a quasit familiar in bat form using invisbility and Hide to watch my caster's back (effectively giving her "eyes in the back of her head"). +40 to Hide isn't impossible to beat, but not insignificant, either; of course see invisibility and true seeing cuts that in half, but that's life.

…actually, really stupid idea time: how many of Kevin McCallister's traps would work on the average high-level wizard?

[JNAProductions]

Let me try to clear something up:

Cal, you prefer a lower-OP gameplay style. And that is totally fine. If it works for you and your table, that's fantastic! D&D is a game, games are meant to be fun.

However, just because at your table you don't allow higher-OP tricks, does not mean they don't exist. People here don't mind if, at your table, Fighters and Wizards are actually on par because the Wizards can't access more powerful abilities. What they do care about is you claiming that that's how it SHOULD work, because at a lot of tables, that's just not the case.

[Beheld]

Arcane sight's one of my favorite spells and I always try to get it permanencied along with see invisibility; I was thinking of adding a house rule along the lines of the Rules/Magic Item Compendium's "identify magic items" option to allow for quick identification of spell effects (essentially a Spellcraft DC of 25 + spell level), since it seems weird to me that you could now use it to identify magic items but not spells. :smallconfused:

Besides, who doesn't like having glowing blue eyes?

This is probably less than optimized, but I also enjoy having a quasit familiar in bat form using invisbility and Hide to watch my caster's back (effectively giving her "eyes in the back of her head"). +40 to Hide isn't impossible to beat, but not insignificant, either; of course see invisibility and true seeing cuts that in half, but that's life.

…actually, really stupid idea time: how many of Kevin McCallister's traps would work on the average high-level wizard?

You can already identify a spell with a spellcraft check DC 20+spell level. If you see a magic aura, that is an effect of the spell, so you can identify the spell.

But yeah, if you can see Nystal's Magic Aura, then Arcane Sight detects anyone who has any magic items or spells on them at all, if it disguises it's own aura, then it just counters Arcane Sight.

[Gruftzwerg]

Hexblade 3/monk 2/fighter 2/ occult slayer 5.


Dunno, but imho either you go the full monk(prc) route or you leave it (and don't waste lvls in monk).

But here is another suggestion if you should decide to go the full monk route:

Arcanopath Monk:

- deafen, silence, confusion attacks
- deflect/reflect spell ability
and if that isn't enough, you can make a
- "Slap of Forgetfulness" to delete prepared spells/spell slots
and the cornerstone at lvl 10 can make it permanent ( on failed save till next lvlUp).

combine with a few lvl of Shintao Monk:

- detect Evil/Magic
- immune to stunning, sleep spells and effects, and slow spells and effects

You could also deeper in Shintao (6) for a Gaze silence attack which is pretty nice.

Imho the Monk route looks more delicious. So many ways to hinder the caster from casting. You can stack %spellfailure on your victim and even erase spells from his mind. I think the 2 monk prc's would make up for the loss of Occult Slayer, technically and roleplay/lore wise.

[Big Fau]

Dunno, but imho either you go the full monk(prc) route or you leave it (and don't waste lvls in monk).

But here is another suggestion if you should decide to go the full monk route:

Arcanopath Monk:

- deafen, silence, confusion attacks
- deflect/reflect spell ability
and if that isn't enough, you can make a
- "Slap of Forgetfulness" to delete prepared spells/spell slots
and the cornerstone at lvl 10 can make it permanent ( on failed save till next lvlUp).

combine with a few lvl of Shintao Monk:

- detect Evil/Magic
- immune to stunning, sleep spells and effects, and slow spells and effects

You could also deeper in Shintao (6) for a Gaze silence attack which is pretty nice.

Imho the Monk route looks more delicious. So many ways to hinder the caster from casting. You can stack %spellfailure on your victim and even erase spells from his mind. I think the 2 monk prc's would make up for the loss of Occult Slayer, technically and roleplay/lore wise.

Monks are honestly really bad at slaying mages. Their class features, including PrCs, just can't keep up with the sheer number of options a mage has. Arcanopath Monk is particularly bad: Its class features require a Standard action to use (can't flurry), allow a saving throw (buffs make saves easy), last for one round, and are limited in daily uses.

Never mind that they go through normal AC, which tends to be very high.

[Gruftzwerg]

Monks are honestly really bad at slaying mages. Their class features, including PrCs, just can't keep up with the sheer number of options a mage has. Arcanopath Monk is particularly bad: Its class features require a Standard action to use (can't flurry), allow a saving throw (buffs make saves easy), last for one round, and are limited in daily uses.

Never mind that they go through normal AC, which tends to be very high.

I know that "Using a supernatural ability is a standard action unless noted otherwise."

But imho the (SU)Attacks of the Arcanopath Monk refer to "an attack" not "an standard attack". It's the same wording as in "Stunning Fist", that you declare them before the attack roll. Even the text about the ruling of max. use of once per round is the same. IMHO the "SU" attacks doesn't take up a standard action, just only an attack which could be a standard action, if you use it in conjunction with an standard attack, but it isn't limited to it. It could be just one of the attacks made in a full attack.
My end conclusion would be that you could even use all 4 Abilities in a Flurry. (? am I wrong?)

edit: just wanted to add something to make my point more clear. If it would have been restricted to an standard attack like you suggest, the sentences about the max usage of once per round would be totally pointless (cause in 99,99% of all possible cases, you can only have 1 standard attack). IMHO this sentence should make it clear that it isn't restricted, but maybe that is just me wanting to see it there

[Calthropstu]

I know that "Using a supernatural ability is a standard action unless noted otherwise."

But imho the (SU)Attacks of the Arcanopath Monk refer to "an attack" not "an standard attack". It's the same wording as in "Stunning Fist", that you declare them before the attack roll. Even the text about the ruling of max. use of once per round is the same. IMHO the "SU" attacks doesn't take up a standard action, just only an attack which could be a standard action, if you use it in conjunction with an standard attack, but it isn't limited to it. It could be just one of the attacks made in a full attack.
My end conclusion would be that you could even use all 4 Abilities in a Flurry. (? am I wrong?)

edit: just wanted to add something to make my point more clear. If it would have been restricted to an standard attack like you suggest, the sentences about the max usage of once per round would be totally pointless (cause in 99,99% of all possible cases, you can only have 1 standard attack). IMHO this sentence should make it clear that it isn't restricted, but maybe that is just me wanting to see it there

Agreed, I would rule it that way as well.

[Eldariel]

Dunno, but imho either you go the full monk(prc) route or you leave it (and don't waste lvls in monk).

But here is another suggestion if you should decide to go the full monk route:

Arcanopath Monk:

- deafen, silence, confusion attacks
- deflect/reflect spell ability
and if that isn't enough, you can make a
- "Slap of Forgetfulness" to delete prepared spells/spell slots
and the cornerstone at lvl 10 can make it permanent ( on failed save till next lvlUp).

combine with a few lvl of Shintao Monk:

- detect Evil/Magic
- immune to stunning, sleep spells and effects, and slow spells and effects

You could also deeper in Shintao (6) for a Gaze silence attack which is pretty nice.

Imho the Monk route looks more delicious. So many ways to hinder the caster from casting. You can stack %spellfailure on your victim and even erase spells from his mind. I think the 2 monk prc's would make up for the loss of Occult Slayer, technically and roleplay/lore wise.

The two levels of the Monk are the best the class has to offer. Improved unarmed strikes + 2 decent feats for which you don't need to meet prerequisites (Combat Styles expand the options tremendously), Evasion, all good saves, unarmed damage die, ability to perform unarmed strikes with your entire body (arguably everyone with Unarmed Strikes can do this though), Flurry with Monk-weapons (practically speaking, Unarmed Strikes), Wis to AC when not wearing armor. Even just the two feats without prerequisites, and the Evasion are generally worth it compared to most martial chassis.

Monk needs to wait until level 6 to get anything substantial afterwards, and after that he literally gets nothing before level 11, after which the class is empty. Thus, two levels of Monk makes sense while the rest...well, let's just say that Occult Slayer's Mind Blank is better than the whole rest of the Monk class. Plus switching to proper combat classes means you can actually fight; one of the big problems of the Monk is that Druids, Clerics and even Wizards fight better than the Monk does if they feel like it. Plus of course Barbarians, Fighters, etc.

That's the principal failing of an Arcanopath Monk too: it can do all sorts of debuffs on successful hits. But if you're landing successful hits on a mage, he should be dying anyways. It doesn't actually help you follow up on teleports, fly, hit high AC/miss chance/whatever, bypass contingencies or even avoid getting destroyed by Zombie Hydras/Glabrezus/Summons/anything attacking your AC, etc. What you need from your classes is not random debuffs on hit but the way to actually reach the target, hit the target and kill the target, and to not die while trying. Arcanopath doesn't provide any benefits in any of those regards any more so than the default Monk-class does. The Ray Deflection ability is useful...but it's awfully specific for "Rays and Energy Missiles" (so probably doesn't work vs. e.g. Orbs) and I find it highly unlikely that a Mage would actually try to hit an unarmored target with touch spells in the first place. It's literally the worst possible target for that spell group.

And the on-hit abilities allow a save (something casters are pretty good at buffing) and the Strike of Oblivion actually allows Spellcraft Check to avoid forgetting the spells for a level. To put the difference between save DCs and skill bonuses into perspective, a level 20 Monk can have like 36 Wis with complete focus making for DC 10+9+13 = DC 32 Spellcraft-check to remember the hardest spells; a level 20 Wizard's spellcraft is 23 Ranks + 13 Int + 2 Synergy so his base bonuses with no buffs/magic/etc. without rolling are higher than the DC by a good bit (+38).

It's up to you if you think it's worth the 4 levels and a bunch of cruddy feats (Mobility? Dodge? Deflect Arrows?! How are those supposed to help vs. a mage...or anything at all for that matter?) to gain immunity to rays and Magic Missiles. It's probably not though; rays aren't your first worry if you're buffing your Touch AC anyways.

Shintao Monk is actually pretty good. It doesn't have cruddy prerequisites (aside from being Lawful Good) allowing you to focus your resources on getting the job done. It gives you feats, stat bonuses (though if DM updates the Touch of the Void Dragon to work like 3.5 stat buff spells, it becomes much worse; as it stands, typeless 1d4+1 for hour/level to any stat is nice though - and it uses your character level), some decent immunities (Slow, Stunning; sadly not Daze) and level 8 would offer free Communes. Though practically speaking, the class is 3 levels long; it's really not worth sitting in for 5 levels to get one useful ability. The gaze attacks target Will, are Charisma-based, have a short range, and are once per day. They're thus basically worthless.


Basically, both those classes are full of offensive abilities that might look great on paper but are practically useless in actual play - a fairly common feature in WotC design (sadly the reason so many PRCs are pointless). It doesn't help that you need to max out mental stats to get the save DCs to any decent spheres, and even if you do you're still behind a caster buffing their saves, and that it doesn't address any of the core failings of the Monk chassis particularly against casters (Monk vs. Polymorph, Polymorph wins most of the time; and that's just a single spell deployed in a suboptimal manner).

[Gruftzwerg]

The two levels of the Monk are the best the class has to offer.

I know, but I was referring to this specific case/build.


And the on-hit abilities allow a save (something casters are pretty good at buffing) and the Strike of Oblivion actually allows Spellcraft Check to avoid forgetting the spells for a level.

Yeah, casters can buff themselfs to oblivion if they have the time to buff up (most fortitude buffs aren't 24/7). And that leads to the old "batman-syndrom". If the caster had enough preparation time, a noncaster can't beat it. So, there is always the need of some kind of surprise element involved if you wanna accomplish this task.
Further, you activate Strike of the Oblivion "on successful slap of forgetfulness application", which means after the enemy failed the save role. And the caster can regain the spells/-slots at a "later" time on a successful Spellcraft Check. He may have very good chances to succeed the role, if he survives till then. Cause I don't think the Spellcraft check can be made in the mid of the same combat. It's like trying to learn a new spell from your wizard teammate in the heat of the battle for an unprepared spellslot (which the caster most likely doesn't even have at that moment). Which leaves me with the opinion that it would work out, if you have the surprise moment.

- sneak up in some kind of manner to the caster
- flurry with stunning fist and all your debuffs each round

As said, beating a caster as non caster has more to do with the right timing, the surprise moment, the strategy and a good portion of "luck"

And last said, I think a good section of magical items is also needed for this task.
Beating a highlvl caster is like almost beating a lower god.

[Eldariel]

As said, beating a caster as non caster has more to do with the right timing, the surprise moment, the strategy and a good portion of "luck"

And last said, I think a good section of magical items is also needed for this task.
Beating a highlvl caster is like almost beating a lower god.

All that though means you're hitting the target, he's failing saves and somehow still not dead. Debuffs are worse than lethal damage after all. Even if he loses his highest level slots, that does nothing to stop him from using a lower level slot to disengage or kill you, and even if he can't use spells he can probably still activate some magic item or contingency or such to escape and wait to get his stuff back. You should build to kill if you get the hit in. Charge multipliers or using effective increases to reach Colossal++ Unarmed Strikes for 16d8 unarmed damage or throwing a big rock or looping damage or getting tons of attacks or even ToB maneuvers, you should definitely be able to near-guarantee a kill if you do manage to get to the caster and get through their defenses enough to deal damage. Or at least disabling them; something like Daze is pretty hard to get immunity to so permanently Dazing someone or freezing them out of time or whatever is also acceptable. Stunning Fist would be nice but immunity to stunning is comparatively rather easy to come by.

Thus, your class levels shouldn't be used on irrelevant stuff such as debuffs on a target that should be dead. You'll want classes that actually help you with the job. Thus, your class levels should grant:
- Immunities: all immunities are good but particularly on the divination front so you aren't hopelessly outmatched; Vecna-Blooded, Mind Blank and company are really good here
- Mobility: teleporting, fast movement, flight, burrowing, etc. - movement modes are key to actually getting a chance to hit someone whose primary means of transportation are stuff like 500 mile teleport and phantom steed (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/phantomSteed.htm) flying at 240' per round all day every day
- Detection Abilities: casters can be invisible, ethereal, illusionary, projected or whatever for extended periods of time should they want; you want some source of True Seeing and preferably some unconventional detection abilities that work through solid objects (casters can be incorporeal with Ghostform, Shapechange or company - Shapechange even lasts for 10 mins/level, easily all day)
- Defenses: Be it a caster's underlings, passive auras or whatever, chances are you'll probably have to make some saves and get through some obstacles to harm a caster. Touch AC & co. too can buy you time vs. careless enemies - being underestimated can buy you the time you need
- Actions: If you can threaten your enemy with minor actions such as immediate action or move action, that's great. Makes you dangerous all the time, not just when you get your turn in Initiative.
- Antimagic Abilities: It's possible for spells to grant immunity to damage and such so having abilities that disable magic is rather key.

Beating a caster has to do with both, your baseline, circumstances and of course luck (and most importantly, how good all-day buffs and divinations the caster has). Most important though is attacking with something they aren't prepared with. Everything can be prepared for but not every caster necessarily bothers; thus you need to maximize your number of "somethings". You can't affect your luck, but your build can improve your baseline and circumstances. Arcanopath does neither though (aside from Deflect Ray for Defenses-component); thus I don't think it's a class you actually want to take if you want to hunt mages. And Shintao is kinda borderline - it's interesting but I'd say there are generally superior options.

[Big Fau]

I know, but I was referring to this specific case/build.



Yeah, casters can buff themselfs to oblivion if they have the time to buff up (most fortitude buffs aren't 24/7). And that leads to the old "batman-syndrom". If the caster had enough preparation time, a noncaster can't beat it. So, there is always the need of some kind of surprise element involved if you wanna accomplish this task.

Do you know how many spells last hours/level? Or how high you can get your caster level? Or how even 10 minutes/level can still last upwards of 3 hours?


Further, you activate Strike of the Oblivion "on successful slap of forgetfulness application", which means after the enemy failed the save role. And the caster can regain the spells/-slots at a "later" time on a successful Spellcraft Check. He may have very good chances to succeed the role, if he survives till then. Cause I don't think the Spellcraft check can be made in the mid of the same combat. It's like trying to learn a new spell from your wizard teammate in the heat of the battle for an unprepared spellslot (which the caster most likely doesn't even have at that moment). Which leaves me with the opinion that it would work out, if you have the surprise moment.

It still requires a Standard action by RAW (since none of the abilities specify they allow Flurry to work with them).


- sneak up in some kind of manner to the caster
- flurry with stunning fist and all your debuffs each round

1: A caster's divination spells allow them to know ahead of time that someone will try this (seriously, you can learn of events up to a week in advance if you know how to work those spells).
2: A caster's AC is often higher than a Fighter's, never mind concealment and stacked miss chances (having two separate 50% miss chances is possible).
3: Casters have a higher initiative modifier than anyone else due to Foresight, Moment of Prescience, Nerveskitter, Hummingbird Familiar, etc.


As said, beating a caster as non caster has more to do with the right timing, the surprise moment, the strategy and a good portion of "luck"

"Luck" being "The caster's controller forgot how to play his class".


And last said, I think a good section of magical items is also needed for this task.
Beating a highlvl caster is like almost beating a lower god.

Multiple times we've discussed using the WBL to counter a mage is a bad idea, as they have access to the same stuff. And look at what you just said.

[Gruftzwerg]

Do you know how many spells last hours/level? Or how high you can get your caster level? Or how even 10 minutes/level can still last upwards of 3 hours?

yeah, but it still isn't 24/7. and as said, the best way to engage a caster is, to engage him the sneaky way and catch him off guard. and if that isn't available, you need some sort of dispel magic to erase the active buffs. Dispelling can/has to be done via teammates or items when you aren't a caster.




It still requires a Standard action by RAW (since none of the abilities specify they allow Flurry to work with them).
Since when does every ability have to point out that it works with flurry? The cases that I am aware of when it's written like that is, when you have some sort of non monk weapons involved (e.G. Beast Strike). The normal way is that, when it looks like it might work but it doesn't work, it it pointed out (e.G. Eldritch Claws involve your unarmed strike damage but count as claws and therefore forbid the use of flurry). I mean we are talking here about "exception-rules". I mean, does Power Attack mention that you can flurry? No, because there is no rule that indicates it wont. Same here.



1: A caster's divination spells allow them to know ahead of time that someone will try this (seriously, you can learn of events up to a week in advance if you know how to work those spells).
2: A caster's AC is often higher than a Fighter's, never mind concealment and stacked miss chances (having two separate 50% miss chances is possible).
3: Casters have a higher initiative modifier than anyone else due to Foresight, Moment of Prescience, Nerveskitter, Hummingbird Familiar, etc.

1&2: as already said, if the Caster is high enough and has to much preparation time, the is no non-caster build that will accomplish this task. You need the right strategy, items & timing to do so.
3: Same as 1&2 and not to forget that the Magekiller should also focus on absurd high Initiative bonuses (preferable items with ongoing effects, so he doesn't need to waste actions like to caster to buff him up).




"Luck" being "The caster's controller forgot how to play his class".


Multiple times we've discussed using the WBL to counter a mage is a bad idea, as they have access to the same stuff. And look at what you just said.

yeah if you have a full optimized high lvl caster (wizard), he will always hide on one of his own planes and just kill you from there (with a Duplicate or just Scry & Fry). We all know that.
But I guess the meaning of this thread is, to talk about the possible scenarios and how they would look like. Against a full optimized high lvl wizard who doesn't want to be killed and is hiding all his existence and rejects any kind of personal confrontation and is abusing all cheese like scry & fry? tell me any non caster-build that can do this..
So can we calm down and try to talk about the "lucky" shots and "not about a full optimized high lvl wizard" which isn't possible at all?

@eldariel:
the build I mention has access to:

- Immunities (as already mentioned)
- Mobility (fast movement, + required magic items)
- Detection (permanent "see invisible", detect evil/magic, 100% chance to hit ethereal
- Defenses (defect/reflect ability; high touch AC due to more monk lvls, everything else needs to be addressed with magical items anyway if you aren't a caster).
- Actions (once you are at your target, the anti caster feats you pick give you the upper hand on the action economy. AOO's and Mage Slayer should shut the casters actions down to a few limited quicken spells)
- Antimagic Abilities (deflect/reflect. sure not the strongest ability, but it has it uses. anything else needs to be completed with magic items).

really, did you at least read/think about the build I suggested? I mean, I have checked all your point in my build (k, I need some magic items here and there, but that is true for every non caster trying to kill a high lvl caster).

as said, lets try to discuss the "possible" scenarios of unoptimized high lvl casters and stop arguing about the impossible ;)

edit: and btw.. every time this "how to beat a high lvl caster/wizard" discussion comes up, people start to behave like their DMs have thrown dozens of high lvl optimized sry&fry wizard half-gods at them.
May I ask humbly how many of em did you really fight in a campain?? Me none, but we don't play high lvl games that much, maybe that's the reason why I haven't seen em as enemies?

[Big Fau]

yeah, but it still isn't 24/7. and as said, the best way to engage a caster is, to engage him the sneaky way and catch him off guard. and if that isn't available, you need some sort of dispel magic to erase the active buffs. Dispelling can/has to be done via teammates or items when you aren't a caster.

Question: How are you entering a Rope Trick without the caster's permission? If a mage wants privacy, he gets it. No physical means of infiltrating a Rope Trick or MMM exists, short of perhaps Wish/Miracle. Item-based spellcasting is also really bad, as it can't keep up with the CL boosting a mage can do.


Since when does every ability have to point out that it works with flurry?

Every supernatural ability requires a standard action unless specified otherwise. None of the Arcanopath Monk's class features specify otherwise, therefore all of them take a standard action to use.


The cases that I am aware of when it's written like that is, when you have some sort of non monk weapons involved (e.G. Beast Strike). The normal way is that, when it looks like it might work but it doesn't work, it it pointed out (e.G. Eldritch Claws involve your unarmed strike damage but count as claws and therefore forbid the use of flurry). I mean we are talking here about "exception-rules". I mean, does Power Attack mention that you can flurry? No, because there is no rule that indicates it wont. Same here.

Power Attack is an Ex feat that modifies your attack. The PrC's features state the abilities are supernatural, and supernatural abilities have restrictions placed on them.


1&2: as already said, if the Caster is high enough and has to much preparation time, the is no non-caster build that will accomplish this task. You need the right strategy, items & timing to do so.

High enough, in this case, starts at 5th level for a monk-based mage killer. The duration on Rope Trick, once extended (via rod or feat) is 10 hours. Long enough to rest up, prepare new spells, and cast some all-day buffs. Starting at 9th level there's no need to extend it.


3: Same as 1&2 and not to forget that the Magekiller should also focus on absurd high Initiative bonuses (preferable items with ongoing effects, so he doesn't need to waste actions like to caster to buff him up).

Custom items are an arms race that casters have a distinct advantage in (being able to craft those items reduces their costs).


yeah if you have a full optimized high lvl caster (wizard), he will always hide on one of his own planes and just kill you from there (with a Duplicate or just Scry & Fry). We all know that.

Therein lies the weakness of caster-killer builds. For every trick you come up with, they have a new one for each school of magic available to them.


So can we calm down and try to talk about the "lucky" shots and "not about a full optimized high lvl wizard" which isn't possible at all?

There's no need for a specialized build against these casters. A simple charger build can do that job.


- Immunities (as already mentioned)


Immune to stunning, sleep, and slow. Not immune to Solid Fog, Daze effects, or petrification, or death effects, or paralysis, or Hold effects, or entangle... I can go on for quite a while.


- Mobility (fast movement, + required magic items)

Overland Flight is faster than anything the Monk could acquire, outside of a casting of Overland Flight. Casters also have spells to boost their speeds, several of which can stack.


- Detection (permanent "see invisible", detect evil/magic, 100% chance to hit ethereal

See invisibility isn't the only means of stealth (Darkness+Ring of Darkhidden, for example).


- Defenses (defect/reflect ability; high touch AC due to more monk lvls, everything else needs to be addressed with magical items anyway if you aren't a caster).

Only applies to ray spells. Doesn't help against Web, or really any other spell that targets without an attack roll. And the items only help if you 1) Win initiative or 2) Don't get hit by Dispel Magic when you lose initiative.


- Actions (once you are at your target, the anti caster feats you pick give you the upper hand on the action economy. AOO's and Mage Slayer should shut the casters actions down to a few limited quicken spells)

Abrupt Jaunt, quickened spells (Dimension Hop is a popular one), and several other spell effects can negate this.


- Antimagic Abilities (deflect/reflect. sure not the strongest ability, but it has it uses. anything else needs to be completed with magic items).

Specify which items, and then tell me how you are affording them. Seriously, this has always been an issue with these "builds": No numbers.

The thing about mages isn't just they are capable of rendering themselves invulnerable; The sheer number of offensive and defensive abilities they have means no single build can consistently counter their options.

[Eldariel]

@eldariel:
the build I mention has access to:

- Immunities (as already mentioned)
- Mobility (fast movement, + required magic items)
- Detection (permanent "see invisible", detect evil/magic, 100% chance to hit ethereal
- Defenses (defect/reflect ability; high touch AC due to more monk lvls, everything else needs to be addressed with magical items anyway if you aren't a caster).
- Actions (once you are at your target, the anti caster feats you pick give you the upper hand on the action economy. AOO's and Mage Slayer should shut the casters actions down to a few limited quicken spells)
- Antimagic Abilities (deflect/reflect. sure not the strongest ability, but it has it uses. anything else needs to be completed with magic items).

Yes, you got 1 thing in all those categories. That's not the point; the point is having as many things as possible in each. The levels in your build that contribute to this end: Monk 1, 2, Shintao Monk 3, Arcanopath Monk 4. All the other levels are wasted; and indeed, spending 4 levels on Deflect Ray is a bit wasteful on a build that can already stack massive Touch AC. If you are serious about hunting magi, you should be using all your 20 levels towards getting as many useful abilities as possible. Levels are a sparse resource, as are feats.

You can aim higher. Try and go beyond that wind and defeat yourself. Particularly, try to get as much from class levels as possible. Magic items can always be disabled via. Antimagic Fields, Disjunctions, Chain Dispel Magics or whatever. They're not reliable. Things you get from class levels are much better.

- Right now the character on a level where a single summon will outfight it, and even getting attacks in on the caster won't be enough to kill them as it does no damage and no hard CC. Your offense needs improvement. Currently the character is not a serious threat to anything as it can't actually do lethal damage or lethal status effects. A martial character that can't even do damage is hardly worth bothering with; that's the one thing they're naturally adept at.

- Right now the character has no freedom of movement, no way to see through illusions, no way to take extra actions, no contingencies or immediate actions of note and no mental defenses. That's a couple of key holes and a lot of smaller ones.

Lack of mental defenses is the worst. Lacking Mind Blank, you are vulnerable to Scry and similar effects. You also lack magic immunity of any kind. That's a strategic handicap. If a magus ever wants you dead, you have no protection from the divinations of any caster. It's a one-way street; they can always pinpoint you no matter where you are, you can never find them unless they want you to. If you ever rest, they can just kill you in your sleep or send you nightmares or whatever. Further, you have absolutely no defense against effects like Irresistible Dance (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/irresistibleDance.htm).

The second part is also big; Freedom of Movement allows you to move freely in water, avoid various Fog-effects and so on. Wizards can produce all those effects and they're very likely to have the effect themselves. Further, if a Wizard ever summons a Colossal Monstrous Centipede (www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/monstrousCentipede.htm) to grapple you, you'll want to be able to escape that. There are some classes that grant it.

Lacking defense against illusions is also pretty bad. You need some source of True Seeing. Something like Project Image (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/projectImage.htm) is threatening but attacking it will accomplish little. This build also has no way to tell what's the real Wizard out of all the Dragons in the room; some gated, some illusionary, some polymorphed. Hell, it's even hard to tell if the room it's in is real. Detect Magic is slow and there's no time to focus on it in combat. At the very least Arcane Sight would be needed.

Lacking Mettle is annoying with regards to Maw of Chaos, Cloudkill and similar effects. If there was a poison immunity it wouldn't be that bad, but as it stands... It's not as big as the others though since it's rather inefficient to kill a party by spamming penetrating effects but it's still certainly a relevant consideration especially since it's very cheap to acquire.

Lacking extra actions mean that the Wizard has the sole mastery of action economy. You can't surprise them by taking an extra standard action when they'd think you've spent your turn nor by taking an immediate action out of turn order. This is a huge decrease in your ability to actually catch them offguard. Off the top of my head, Island in Time by Eternal Blade is about the only way to take a significant amount of actions as an Immediate Action, but you have some defensive Immediate Actions available much more easily (e.g. One with Shadow [Tome of Battle], maneuver that makes you incorporeal). Factotum offers offensive extra actions and Ruby Knight Vindicator offers extra swift actions. There are others too but that's some of the better ones off the top of my head.


really, did you at least read/think about the build I suggested? I mean, I have checked all your point in my build (k, I need some magic items here and there, but that is true for every non caster trying to kill a high lvl caster).

as said, lets try to discuss the "possible" scenarios of unoptimized high lvl casters and stop arguing about the impossible ;)

The fact that the enemy ultimately always has an edge is no excuse not to do your best. I'm sure you could add a lot to the stub you went with if you wanted to. Magic items should add on top of a solid core, not be the whole story. After all, the more your build can do the more you have to invest in the utility magic items.


edit: and btw.. every time this "how to beat a high lvl caster/wizard" discussion comes up, people start to behave like their DMs have thrown dozens of high lvl optimized sry&fry wizard half-gods at them.
May I ask humbly how many of em did you really fight in a campain?? Me none, but we don't play high lvl games that much, maybe that's the reason why I haven't seen em as enemies?

Which campaign? Our variant of Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, we fought a couple. One was a TPK though it was a close fight. Our Abyssal Takeover campaign, it was tier 1 so almost countless. That was a bookkeeping nightmare but also exhilarating at the same time. Two proper higher level Liches in our campaign around the artifact pair Nemesis/Genesis (ran from 1 to 15). I partook the A Role Reversed (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?81144-A-Role-Reversed) fight right here on GitP, amounting to 3 arena fights. And many others.

The thing is, it's a lot of work to make a high level caster out of scratch so particularly less experienced DMs probably won't bother that much, and it takes a lot of juices when they do. But e.g. Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms has plenty of premade high level Casters to just toss in modifying their spells and feats a bit. And a very experienced DMs can of course roll them off the conveyor belt, having built tons before and probably having lots of unused builds lying around.

[Calthropstu]

Every supernatural ability requires a standard action unless specified otherwise. None of the Arcanopath Monk's class features specify otherwise, therefore all of them take a standard action to use.


RAW vs RAI...

Personally, I'd rule in favor of the flurry.

[Gruftzwerg]

This time I put the question on TOP:
How many times have your DM (or you when you DMed) thrown so optimized "you can't kill me" wizards at you? How many times??? I can't think of any DM that I know who would be so "cruel" to make every encounter impossible unless you play "World of Wizards and Wands" with him? Is this the way you play all your D&D sessions? I bet not.
and yeah, a T1 encounter for a T1 group doesn't count. I am talking about the caster encounters when your group is full of T4/5. Since the OP is about a noncaster build aiming for killing casters you can't expect him to beat a T1 optimized caster to begin with. So, how would you design an caster encounter for such a group? Would you really go that far??

PS: And lets not forget: Not all casters are T1/2 half gods. And not every T1/T2 will be optimized for not beeing killed. Or is there a hidden rule, that every lvl 20 caster is a full combat experienced combat caster?? There are those who achieve their power thru studies and aren't that experienced combatants. At least I can imagine this type of casters, that would fit as T4/5 encounter.


@ rope trick
yeah, the wizards gets access to rope trick and is so paranoid to hide himself for eternity for "no reason"?

what is this thread about? about an anti caster theme. Will it be the most reliable way to beat a caster? Hell no, cause he wants to go the non-caster route which is not possible unless the Wizard isn't optimized in hiding his ass for eternity. And again, I can't think of any DM that would design encounters for his players, where the enemy is so optimized against the party, that the party can't beat it!?!

@SU & Flurry:
I already said my POV about how I see the ruling. Not a word about why the SU's should be handled different than Stunning Fist, which uses the same sentence text structure. And we all now how D&D loves to use special sentences again and again to tell you how you/we should rule it. The SU attacks all refer to "once a round". Why would they describe that with a complete sentence (which is the same as in Stunnin Fist), when the could have just write that its a standard attack? I doesn't make any sense for me, the way you see it. Why a sentence when you can address everything in Standard Attack? And all other Feats/Abilities always mention it, if an "attack" (not just an SU non-combat ability) counts as standard attack. and now all of a sudden the monk abilities that are written like stunning fist should behave different than stunning fist??

@mobility:
monk fast movement buffs all movement modes. and since some magical ways to fly are based on your land-speed, you can double dip monk fast movement. 150ft flyspeed is easy to achieve as monk(20).

@defenses:
lets not forget that monk has 3 good saves + high touch AC. IMHO the best things to get from your class. If you have good saves, you don't rely on other class abilities like other to resist magic. I bet none of you have ever played a high lvl monk build to talk out of experience of how much an annoying target a monk can be for a caster, because of his 3 good saves. Is there any more reliable way to boost magical defenses with your class than having good saves & touch AC?

@actions:
..if the mage is able to cast those spells. All of the arguments I get all the time, can be broken down to the issues I already pointed out myself..

- how much the caster/encounter is designed to "not die"
- moment of surprise (If you have it, you can try to shut down his casting ability, and than GG if he doesn't have any defensive/escape magic item)
- the preparation time of the caster (and if he is aware of the situation due to scry spells or not)
- strategy, timing and luck is all whats left ;)

and pls, not everybody is playing 3.5 as "Wizards & Wands" where all casters (including NPCs) are full optimized half gods. and not to forget the casters that aren't T1/2.
So can we all try to be of any help to the OP instead of starting a Tierwar??
We should be trying to design a T3~5 anti caster build if it shouldn't be clear yet.. ;)
This is not a T1 war^^

[Beheld]

yeah, but it still isn't 24/7. and as said, the best way to engage a caster is, to engage him the sneaky way and catch him off guard. and if that isn't available, you need some sort of dispel magic to erase the active buffs. Dispelling can/has to be done via teammates or items when you aren't a caster.

This idea that you are going to attack him when his buffs are down is ridiculous. Even if his buffs don't last all day (which they often do) you have absolutely no ability to find and attack him when his buffs are down if they "only last between 8 and 60 hours."

You are basically explaining how you as a hitman monk would kill a sleeping character, without explaining how you would find them sleeping. You could be a Commoner 20 and do the same thing. You could be a Commoner 1 and be literally just as good as your sample build at killing Wizards, since your entire premise is based on "I attack him while he's asleep, even though I have no ability to even find him."

[Eldariel]

How many times have your DM (or you when you DMed) thrown so optimized "you can't kill me" wizards at you? How many times??? I can't think of any DM that I know who would be so "cruel" to make every encounter impossible unless you play "World of Wizards and Wands" with him? Is this the way you play all your D&D sessions? I bet not.

Most games have mixed tiers and in those games, enemies too range from tier 1 to tier 5. The very existence of this Hunter of ours means the world contains many tiers and he wants to hunt the big game. It'd be a real pity if the DM didn't even reward his build with difficult targets that are serious about staying alive and ending him if necessary as well. Certainly, I've played T3-5 characters in campaigns with T1 casters and I've even specifically built Mage Hunters and had some success; I prepared the best I could and sometimes I was able to pull something sufficiently unexpected off.

Don't misunderstand; I don't expect every Mage to be perfectly prepared. However, you don't know how each Mage is prepared so you should prepare yourself to counter as many things as you can and the more, the merrier. If a Mage uses Ironguard, your wooden attacks might land, and if he happens to have Superior Invisibility instead, your True Seeing or +40 Spot might catch him off-guard. Your ability to sense him through walls and attack as if it wasn't there is a good bet, as is your ability to attack as an immediate actions. Having as many "somethings" as possible to hopefully catch the caster off-guard is by far a mundane's best bet for getting the job done.


@mobility:
monk fast movement buffs all movement modes. and since some magical ways to fly are based on your land-speed, you can double dip monk fast movement. 150ft flyspeed is easy to achieve as monk(20).

Monk doesn't have extraordinary flight which limits his options. E.g. a caster surrounded by antimagic field (with a hole in the middle thanks to Extraordinary Spell Aim or Archmage, or ignoring it thanks to Selective Spell or Initiate of Mystra or Shadow Weave Magic or whatever). The spell can be kept up all day, lasts 10 min per level without persisting, he can exclude himself; Rod Extended AMF from a level 13 caster with +2 caster level bonuses lasts for 300 mins (5 hours) for instance. In that case, magical flight won't suffice to reach him. You need ranged attacks or nonmagical flight. There are classes, feats and races that could grant that. Similar considerations apply to other movement modes (Earth Glide, Burrow, Teleport, etc.). That is to say, movement speed is nice but speed alone won't suffice. Add a bit more.


@defenses:
lets not forget that monk has 3 good saves + high touch AC. IMHO the best things to get from your class. If you have good saves, you don't rely on other class abilities like other to resist magic. I bet none of you have ever played a high lvl monk build to talk out of experience of how much an annoying target a monk can be for a caster, because of his 3 good saves. Is there any more reliable way to boost magical defenses with your class than having good saves & touch AC?

It's a good start. However, the build in the OP could already have higher saves, and taking two additional levels in any kind of Paladin (or indeed, any class granting Divine Grace or similar) would skyrocket them further. It also possesses Mettle and Evasion to ignore effects that occur on a successful saves, and Mind Blank to ignore all mind-affecting spells and scrying (some of which can kill a Monk without as much as a Save, such as Irresistible Dance). That's a significant step up from Monk, which gets ~+12 to all saves from class and Evasion. Stat stacking results in higher bonuses than mere good bases.

That is to say, a Monk with all good base saves and Evasion is a decently difficult target. Monk 2/Paladin 2/Hexblade 3 is much, much more so, particularly if he also stacks more stats to his Touch AC, such as Arcane Duelist (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20030224a) and Ascetic Mage [Complete Adventurer] to get Charisma to Touch AC twice (in spite of the name, you don't really need to be a caster to get the benefits). He could get it once more with e.g. Risen Martyr, some races or such. Further, he could trade a second instance of Evasion from some class (e.g. Rogue) for Ray Deflection [Dungeonscape] to throw touch attacks back at the opponent (similar to Arcanopath Monk 8, but a bit easier). Getting Uncanny Dodge or similar to keep your AC vs. surprise and attackers you can't see would help even further. Nay, for someone who relies on AC I'd consider it essential. Both builds lack e.g. Freedom of Movement; that's definitely something you want as well. Jaunter, Travel-domain and few others grant some Freedom of Movement access for instance.

Also, being immune is always better than having good saves. Natural 1s exist, as do effects that don't allow saves or need touch attacks (Irresistible Dance I mentioned a couple of times but trapping effects like Forcecage, Solid Fog, etc. fall into this category as well). Speaking of which, getting rerolls and ways to avoid natural 1s is fairly high priority; Pride-domain granted power makes failing saves on natural 1s highly unlikely, dropping from 5% to 0.25% per roll. If you fight a lot of mages and walk through Prismatic Walls and stuff, you will have to roll a lot of saving throws and a natural 1 will catch you sooner or later no matter how good your saves are.


@actions:
..if the mage is able to cast those spells. All of the arguments I get all the time, can be broken down to the issues I already pointed out myself..

...or you could do your best to prepare for them and pick classes that give you some tools to play the same game, and lose nothing while gaining even more chances to win even when things don't go absolutely perfectly. That way you have more chances to surprise the mage. Factotum for instance is a great base class offering lots of nice stuff including extra actions galore so taking that path certainly offers some decent alternatives to Wis/Cha-bases like here.


and pls, not everybody is playing 3.5 as "Wizards & Wands" where all casters (including NPCs) are full optimized half gods. and not to forget the casters that aren't T1/2.
So can we all try to be of any help to the OP instead of starting a Tierwar??
We should be trying to design a T3~5 anti caster build if it shouldn't be clear yet.. ;)
This is not a T1 war^^

When you do something as nebulous as "hunt mages", I think it's best to prepare for as many things the mages can do as possible. After all, you'll probably want your career to continue if you successfully defeat the first magus you face. All of them are like to have different abilities so you should prepare for as much of the whole package as possible. Just like they can always surprise you with different tricks, you too should always have something new ready for them; the most powerful thing in D&D for most levels of play is an unexpected angle of attack. To that end, be the best you can at the job you pick for yourself. :smallwink:

[Deadline]

Things you need as a non-caster "mage hunter" of NPC mages (in order of importance):

1. Agreement from the GM that they will not play any caster to be hunted to the fullest extent of their abilities. If you don't have this, you're out of luck.
2. A way to find the mage in question.
3. A way to get to the mage in question (this includes planar travel, flight, etc.)
4. As much investment as you can afford to try and surprise said mage, beat them to initiative, or at least as much protection as you can get to try and survive the first volley if you fail.
5. A way to kill said mage (a sharp stick, sneak attack with a ham sandwich, whatever really).

[Eldariel]

Things you need as a non-caster "mage hunter" of NPC mages (in order of importance):

1. Agreement from the GM that they will not play any caster to be hunted to the fullest extent of their abilities. If you don't have this, you're out of luck.
2. A way to find the mage in question.
3. A way to get to the mage in question (this includes planar travel, flight, etc.)
4. As much investment as you can afford to try and surprise said mage, beat them to initiative, or at least as much protection as you can get to try and survive the first volley if you fail.
5. A way to kill said mage (a sharp stick, sneak attack with a ham sandwich, whatever really).

I'd like to add a couple of things here: protection from divination is truly an absolute godsent. You can't divine on the enemy anyways so only absolute immunity on your part evens the odds (Vecna-Blooded might suffice but anything short of that...). Stuff like Nondetection, Mind Blank, etc. is just sweet - it makes you nearly not-completely-screwed in the information war.

Second, for the ways to actually kill said mage, it's worth remembering that Heart of Air/Earth/Fire/Water spells [Complete Mage] are relatively low level, last for 1 hour per day and together grant immunity to critical hits. Thus, anything that relies on precision damage needs to be able to overcome immunity. It might also be worth keeping the Primal-line spells from Dragon Magic in mind though they're Sorcerer-only and thus less likely (but their duration is 24 hours so they will be up); they grant Improved Uncanny Dodge instead. Of course, things like Greater Mirror Image (Immediate Action, does the obvious), Wings of Cover (Immediate Action, blocks a single attack with no roll) & company should also be something you plan for: thus, pick your tool of murderifying assuming crit/precision immunity, invisibility+clones, freedom of movement (heart of water), dr 10/adamantine (heart of earth), good saves (Superior Resistance [Spell Compendium] is 24 hours and grants +6 to all saves), elemental resistances (Resist Energy is pretty free to keep up) and the ability to block a single attack (or move as an immediate action but that's harder to prepare for and Celerity is significantly higher on the brokenness scale anyways). It's relatively easy to plan around those so one might as well; it cuts away at least the simplest of the all-day defenses.

[Nostrodamus]

Dunno, but imho either you go the full monk(prc) route or you leave it (and don't waste lvls in monk).

But here is another suggestion if you should decide to go the full monk route:

Arcanopath Monk:

- deafen, silence, confusion attacks
- deflect/reflect spell ability
and if that isn't enough, you can make a
- "Slap of Forgetfulness" to delete prepared spells/spell slots
and the cornerstone at lvl 10 can make it permanent ( on failed save till next lvlUp).

combine with a few lvl of Shintao Monk:

- detect Evil/Magic
- immune to stunning, sleep spells and effects, and slow spells and effects

You could also deeper in Shintao (6) for a Gaze silence attack which is pretty nice.

Imho the Monk route looks more delicious. So many ways to hinder the caster from casting. You can stack %spellfailure on your victim and even erase spells from his mind. I think the 2 monk prc's would make up for the loss of Occult Slayer, technically and roleplay/lore wise.

In what books are these monk variants?

[Eldariel]

In what books are these monk variants?

They're prestige classes. Arcanopath Monk is most recently in Dragon Magazine Compendium, Shintao Monk is from Oriental Adventures.

[Big Fau]

This time I put the question on TOP:
How many times have your DM (or you when you DMed) thrown so optimized "you can't kill me" wizards at you? How many times???

Four times, three of which were by party's decision. The one that wasn't was nearly a TPK too (two of the party members teleported out and Miracled the other three back from the grave).


I can't think of any DM that I know who would be so "cruel" to make every encounter impossible unless you play "World of Wizards and Wands" with him? Is this the way you play all your D&D sessions? I bet not.

No, but it has been a fun change of pace. Hyper-lethal and high-skill are not the same thing though. Tier 1 casters require a very strong plan that needs the entire party working together, not a single build that barely covers first base of caster defense.


and yeah, a T1 encounter for a T1 group doesn't count. I am talking about the caster encounters when your group is full of T4/5. Since the OP is about a noncaster build aiming for killing casters you can't expect him to beat a T1 optimized caster to begin with. So, how would you design an caster encounter for such a group? Would you really go that far??

Outside of one fighter (who used Dungeoncrasher), none of my players use Tier 5s or lower. Those classes pretty much don't exist outside of NPCs in my groups, even when I don't DM.

I have and will do so again (Dragons, specifically). Most of those encounters don't need to end in combat either.


PS: And lets not forget: Not all casters are T1/2 half gods. And not every T1/T2 will be optimized for not beeing killed. Or is there a hidden rule, that every lvl 20 caster is a full combat experienced combat caster?? There are those who achieve their power thru studies and aren't that experienced combatants. At least I can imagine this type of casters, that would fit as T4/5 encounter.

The only Tier 4 or lower full caster is the Healer. And by definition being 20th level means you are a combat-experienced caster.


@ rope trick
yeah, the wizards gets access to rope trick and is so paranoid to hide himself for eternity for "no reason"?

Only when he needs to sleep at night. Or he can use MMM. Its only "paranoid" when doing so is unreasonable; in any campaign (especially one where you know you could be making enemies with Asmodeus or any other evil entity).

Hell, even before I became an optimizer I used Rope Trick to hide the party (one of my DMs ran a zombie apocalypse campaign, so doing so was a practical way of protecting the group).


what is this thread about? about an anti caster theme. Will it be the most reliable way to beat a caster? Hell no, cause he wants to go the non-caster route which is not possible unless the Wizard isn't optimized in hiding his ass for eternity.

I like how you admit I'm right and then immediately try to ignore the fact that you're admitting I'm right.


And again, I can't think of any DM that would design encounters for his players, where the enemy is so optimized against the party, that the party can't beat it!?!

Being a caster-hunter is a gentlemen's agreement; by nature it is unreasonable unless one party holds back.


@SU & Flurry:
I already said my POV about how I see the ruling. Not a word about why the SU's should be handled different than Stunning Fist, which uses the same sentence text structure.

Feats are not supernatural abilities (except for Reserve feats). Stunning Fist is an Ex ability, which follow a different set of rules than SUAs. Blame the designer of the Arcanopath Monk for not being aware of this difference.


And we all now how D&D loves to use special sentences again and again to tell you how you/we should rule it. The SU attacks all refer to "once a round". Why would they describe that with a complete sentence (which is the same as in Stunnin Fist), when the could have just write that its a standard attack?

Because the Dragon Compendium was written by Paizo, who (at the time) were notoriously bad at editing.


I doesn't make any sense for me, the way you see it. Why a sentence when you can address everything in Standard Attack? And all other Feats/Abilities always mention it, if an "attack" (not just an SU non-combat ability) counts as standard attack. and now all of a sudden the monk abilities that are written like stunning fist should behave different than stunning fist??

Several DO specify they only work as a special attack (Hammer Fist, for example). None of the Monk's stunning abilities are SU, only the Arcanopath Monk's class features (because the designer didn't know about the SUA rules).


@mobility:
monk fast movement buffs all movement modes. and since some magical ways to fly are based on your land-speed, you can double dip monk fast movement. 150ft flyspeed is easy to achieve as monk(20).

Enhancement bonus. Doesn't stack with itself.


@defenses:
lets not forget that monk has 3 good saves + high touch AC. IMHO the best things to get from your class.

Solid Fog doesn't allow a save, and doesn't require a touch attack. There are, in fact, no less than a dozen such spells in the game. And even good saves can be crippled or just outright fail to help.


If you have good saves, you don't rely on other class abilities like other to resist magic.

And then you lose to every spell on this list. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=9207.0) Note that those spells also ignore SR, which you don't have anyway due to lacking Monk levels (not that it makes a difference since you can't boost your SR easily).


I bet none of you have ever played a high lvl monk build to talk out of experience of how much an annoying target a monk can be for a caster, because of his 3 good saves. Is there any more reliable way to boost magical defenses with your class than having good saves & touch AC?

Spells, as a matter of fact. Getting a touch AC in the 60s is something a spellcaster is very capable of doing.



- how much the caster/encounter is designed to "not die"
- moment of surprise (If you have it, you can try to shut down his casting ability, and than GG if he doesn't have any defensive/escape magic item)
- the preparation time of the caster (and if he is aware of the situation due to scry spells or not)
- strategy, timing and luck is all whats left ;)

It doesn't even take a scry spell; the Anticipate Teleportation spell gives you a full round's warning if the would-be assassin tries to teleport, and there are multiple ways to detect enemies without needing a spot or listen check.


and pls, not everybody is playing 3.5 as "Wizards & Wands" where all casters (including NPCs) are full optimized half gods. and not to forget the casters that aren't T1/2.
So can we all try to be of any help to the OP instead of starting a Tierwar??
We should be trying to design a T3~5 anti caster build if it shouldn't be clear yet.. ;)
This is not a T1 war^^

The OP's points are still being addressed by this discussion; we are helping him by showcasing other abilities he needs to be aware of if an arms race occurs.

[Gruftzwerg]

Dragon Compendium and I think Oriental Adventures. Both are PrCs.

correct.

as Deadline said: the DM needs to tailor the encounter for the noncaster-casterkiller. Otherwise it's out of question.

1. The moment of surprise as said is really important, we need protection from divination spells (can be done with magic items).

2. our magic items can be suppressed by dispell but we can do the same with magic items if we win the initiative roll. If the Wizard is in an Anti-magic Field (which excludes him), you may think that you have the disadvantage, cause you can't dispell him. But you can enter the Field and prevent him from casting any bad stuff on you too. And while we are at the Antimagic Fild which excludes the caster, he remains most of his defensive buffs. Imho, Blur/Displacement or Mirror Image should be suppressed too as they aren't effecting the wizard himself (he is only the target), but the place around the mage which is effected by AMF. So, in the end The caster even looses access to some defensive spell option. Anything that doesn't effect your body directly or your mind is suppressed. e.g. Shield would be suppressed to for the caster.
End conclusion: double edged sword imho

3. DM needs to tailor a way to find the caster and confront the real one (if he has duplicates)

again, everything said in the last post all refer to T1 (wizards in most cases). We all know how impossible this is for noncasters. so again, the encounters need to be tailored around the players. And the player should focus on a build that is fun to play and not a statoverloaded autoattacker (just drawing out a worst case scenario, not that all the build you mentioned are to simple. don't get me wrong pls ;)
and I would prefer a more offensive mage killer to play, than a defensive statoverloaded plain autoattacker which just play his passive defenses out.

edit:

"Blame the designer of the Arcanopath Monk for not being aware of this difference."
The class features of the Arcanopath Monk refer to an "attack". And an "attack" gives you the condition that the SU doesn't behave normally as standard action. "Attack" is the exception that you are missing in your logic imho. Cause "Attack" can always be either a standard attack or one attack in a full attack chain. That is the reason why all attacks who are standard attack always explicit name it, cause otherwise you could misinterpret it with "Attack". Again, the sentence about the max usage of 1/round would be totally meaningless if it would be really an standard attack. Imho it's not just RAI it's RAW the more I read into it.


I like how you admit I'm right and then immediately try to ignore the fact that you're admitting I'm right.
sry, but I only see how your ego seems to make this a T1 only war. where in this sentence is the will to help (the OP, or even me maybe)? I already said that I know of the impossibility of this task, and that the DM needs to design the encounter in favor of the player and you are still trying to play your "T1 only" war here? I think it's getting to late. I'll take some sleep and hope that maybe morning we have a better conversation ;)

[Big Fau]

correct.

as Deadline said: the DM needs to tailor the encounter for the noncaster-casterkiller. Otherwise it's out of question.

1. The moment of surprise as said is really important, we need protection from divination spells (can be done with magic items).

Those protections only stop Scrying. Casters have other abilities.


2. our magic items can be suppressed by dispell but we can do the same with magic items if we win the initiative roll. If the Wizard is in an Anti-magic Field (which excludes him), you may think that you have the disadvantage, cause you can't dispell him. But you can enter the Field and prevent him from casting any bad stuff on you too.

1) Conjuration (Creation) spells ignore AMFs.
2) You have no magic items while the mage does. 99% of the time that's a losing fight, even with the mage's (typically) 1/2 BAB.


And while we are at the Antimagic Fild which excludes the caster, he remains most of his defensive buffs. Imho, Blur/Displacement or Mirror Image should be suppressed too as they aren't effecting the wizard himself (he is only the target), but the place around the mage which is effected by AMF. So, in the end The caster even looses access to some defensive spell option. Anything that doesn't effect your body directly or your mind is suppressed. e.g. Shield would be suppressed to for the caster.

The methods of creating a "selective" AMF usually create a 5ft safe zone centered on the caster. That is, there's an entire 5ft space where the caster just gives no crap about being surrounded by an AMF. The one method


3. DM needs to tailor a way to find the caster and confront the real one (if he has duplicates)

Anything that relies on DM Fiat is flat-out unreliable.


The class features of the Arcanopath Monk refer to an "attack". And an "attack" gives you the condition that the SU doesn't behave normally as standard action. "Attack" is the exception that you are missing in your logic imho. Cause "Attack" can always be either a standard attack or one attack in a full attack chain. That is the reason why all attacks who are standard attack always explicit name it, cause otherwise you could misinterpret it with "Attack". Again, the sentence about the max usage of 1/round would be totally meaningless if it would be really an standard attack. Imho it's not just RAI it's RAW the more I read into it.

Negative. You can take an attack action (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#attack), or you can use a special ability. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#useSpecialAbility)

In the case of the Arcanopath Monk, the class has several different special abilities that just so happen to require an attack roll to deliver. Because these attacks do not specifically state that they use the attack action or full attack action (and I can provide examples of abilities that do specify such), and because they do not state an action type at all, they default to Standard actions (separate from Attack actions).

[Beheld]

This time I put the question on TOP:
How many times have your DM (or you when you DMed) thrown so optimized "you can't kill me" wizards at you? How many times??? I can't think of any DM that I know who would be so "cruel" to make every encounter impossible unless you play "World of Wizards and Wands" with him? Is this the way you play all your D&D sessions? I bet not.

I personally have played against such many times. Literally in my very last session, we killed a Wizard/Incantatrix with Persisted buffs who hung out at a secret base casting Planar Binding to create minions to send at us. He was the BBEG behind the campain, and we Contact Plane hunted him down and murdered him and his army of bound minions at his secret base.

He wasn't in a genesis plane or MMM, and he didn't have Mindblank, but then again, he was only level 13 or so.

[Gruftzwerg]

Negative. You can take an attack action (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#attack), or you can use a special ability. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#useSpecialAbility)

In the case of the Arcanopath Monk, the class has several different special abilities that just so happen to require an attack roll to deliver. Because these attacks do not specifically state that they use the attack action or full attack action (and I can provide examples of abilities that do specify such), and because they do not state an action type at all, they default to Standard actions (separate from Attack actions).

Ok thanks to this ridiculous rule:
"Attack:

Making an attack is a standard action. "
we now have a really ugly conflict in RAW (sry, wasn't aware of this sentence)
Because since "Attack" seems to be a keyword you wouldn't be able to ever use a Full-Attack to attack more than once.
Cause "If you get more than one attack per round .." has the keyword in it and you can't use more than 1 standard attack per round. See how that definition of "attack" is totally in conflict with the way they actually use "attack" (see Stunning Fist and Arcanopath Monk features). It's impossible to take every instance of "attack" as standard action as described in that rule imho.
and now it's really time for some sleep ;)

[Big Fau]

Ok thanks to this ridiculous rule:
"Attack:

Making an attack is a standard action. "
we now have a really ugly conflict in RAW (sry, wasn't aware of this sentence)
Because since "Attack" seems to be a keyword you wouldn't be able to ever use a Full-Attack to attack more than once.
Cause "If you get more than one attack per round .." has the keyword in it and you can't use more than 1 standard attack per round. See how that definition of "attack" is totally in conflict with the way they actually use "attack" (see Stunning Fist and Arcanopath Monk features). It's impossible to take every instance of "attack" as standard action as described in that rule imho.
and now it's really time for some sleep ;)

You could at least read some examples:


A monk must use a full attack action to strike with a flurry of blows


When making a full attack action, a hasted creature may



As a standard action, you can make one melee attack for every five points of your base attack bonus (including epic attack bonus, round fractions down). You cannot attack any one opponent more than once as part of this action. These attacks (as well as all other attacks made until the start of your next turn) suffer a -4 penalty.

When using the Improved Whirlwind feat, you also forfeit any bonus or extra attacks granted by other spells or abilities (such as Cleave or the haste spell). Since these attacks are made as part of a standard action, you can’t make a 5-foot step between any two of the attacks.

Normal
Without this feat, using the Whirlwind Attack feat requires a full attack action, and you can take a 5-foot step between any two of the attacks.


A rast that loses this ability falls and can perform only a single action (either a move action or an attack action) each round.

This isn't even half of the references to it in the SRD. There is a distinction between a Standard action and an Attack action. Otherwise Martial Adepts would be able to use multiple maneuvers as a full attack action when there are maneuvers that specifically call out requiring a full round action to make a full attack.

[ryu]

You could at least read some examples:









This isn't even half of the references to it in the SRD. There is a distinction between a Standard action and an Attack action. Otherwise Martial Adepts would be able to use multiple maneuvers as a full attack action when there are maneuvers that specifically call out requiring a full round action to make a full attack.

Or warblades I think it was which refill their maneuvers by full attacking. That would be a pretty real boost to there action economy.

[Big Fau]

Or warblades I think it was which refill their maneuvers by full attacking. That would be a pretty real boost to there action economy.

Actually, due to the wording, they can full attack to recover their maneuvers:


You can recover all expended maneuvers with a single swift action, which must be immediately followed in the same round with a melee attack or using a standard action to do nothing else in the round (such as executing a quick, harmless flourish with your weapon).

The standard action limitation, by RAW, applies directly to their "doing nothing" method.

[ryu]

Actually, due to the wording, they can full attack to recover their maneuvers:



The standard action limitation, by RAW, applies directly to their "doing nothing" method.

I was trying to say that if any maneuver can be used with an attack action they can use all of there maneuvers in the same action that recovers them. Serious boost of action economy right there.

[Big Fau]

I was trying to say that if any maneuver can be used with an attack action they can use all of there maneuvers in the same action that recovers them. Serious boost of action economy right there.

Ah, misinterpreted that. Yeah, the class would be damn powerful if it could do that.

[ryu]

Ah, misinterpreted that. Yeah, the class would be damn powerful if it could do that.

I mean... Still tier 3 in my opinion. Higher tier 3, but still tier 3.

[Big Fau]

I mean... Still tier 3 in my opinion. Higher tier 3, but still tier 3.

Yeah, but then you add in Martial Study for something like Strike of Righteous Vitality and be effectively immune to HP damage and that entire idea gets stupid.

[ryu]

Yeah, but then you add in Martial Study for something like Strike of Righteous Vitality and be effectively immune to HP damage and that entire idea gets stupid.

And then you might reach low tier 2. Might. Being literally immortal is just one of many things you can get fairly easily in the higher tiers. That's how big the gap between 2 and 3 is.

[Âmesang]

Because the Dragon Compendium was written by Paizo, who (at the time) were notoriously bad at editing.
I don't recall Wizards being much better. :smalltongue: What's the crit range of a check toee again?

[Gruftzwerg]

This isn't even half of the references to it in the SRD. There is a distinction between a Standard action and an Attack action. Otherwise Martial Adepts would be able to use multiple maneuvers as a full attack action when there are maneuvers that specifically call out requiring a full round action to make a full attack.

Imho the references you pointed out, just prove me right (in the way "attack" is used), cause no of the references you showed used the keyword "attack": It was either "full attack action", "attack action" or "standard action" explicitly named, as I said. Noone of the examples uses the keyword "attack" alone, compared to the class abilities and Stunning Fist what I had named for reference.
Do you see the difference? Look up any other special attack. It is either a "standard attack", a "full attack" or a simple "attack" (where you can choose if it is a single attack, or one in a full attack chain, like in Stunning Fist).
The sentence about "Attack" beeing the keyword for standard attack is just a bad joke imho, cause every instance, which I am aware of atm.(! I may be wrong, but than give me better examples/references) uses "attack" as I described it, and otherwise you will always find the related action for the attack needed, if it isn't a simple "attack".

[Eldariel]

3. DM needs to tailor a way to find the caster and confront the real one (if he has duplicates)

Eh, DM tailoring encounters so that PCs have an easy time with them isn't very much fun. I'd rather just rely on the higher tier teammates or outsourced helpers, or enemy magus negligence to go through their clones and catch the real one and stash their soul in a Thinaun blade (though if they have Ironguard, that's really pesky as Thinaun is a metal).


1. The moment of surprise as said is really important, we need protection from divination spells (can be done with magic items).

Yes, but an item of Mind Blank is ~110k, which is a sizable chunk of even level 20 character's wealth by level. That's why I'd prefer an auxiliary source of it. Well, Legacy Weapons are also acceptable but they're their own ballpark of hassle.


2. our magic items can be suppressed by dispell but we can do the same with magic items if we win the initiative roll. If the Wizard is in an Anti-magic Field (which excludes him), you may think that you have the disadvantage, cause you can't dispell him. But you can enter the Field and prevent him from casting any bad stuff on you too. And while we are at the Antimagic Fild which excludes the caster, he remains most of his defensive buffs. Imho, Blur/Displacement or Mirror Image should be suppressed too as they aren't effecting the wizard himself (he is only the target), but the place around the mage which is effected by AMF. So, in the end The caster even looses access to some defensive spell option. Anything that doesn't effect your body directly or your mind is suppressed. e.g. Shield would be suppressed to for the caster.
End conclusion: double edged sword imho

He'd exclude his square so all the buffs that affect his person would work. I'd assume he'd also fly as per usual which would again require nonmagical flight to be able to reach him. And even inside the AMF, he can still hit you with any Conjuration (Creation) effects, bound minions, constructs, undead or such. It's a decent protection vs. mundane types, but adding a class or feats or items that gain natural fly would enable getting past it.


and I would prefer a more offensive mage killer to play, than a defensive statoverloaded plain autoattacker which just play his passive defenses out.

I agree. Offense is good. To that end, the baseline Monk offers nothing and neither do Arcanopath or Shintao. Need means to deal damage, and preferably other lethal effects and preferably at range as well as in melee. To that end, classes like Barbarian, Ranger, etc. are good - they help to work the direct damage effects. Same with things granting size increases, grant bonus attacks, significant flat damage bonuses, and similar. Person_Man's compendium (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?127026-3-X-Person-Man-s-Guide-to-Melee-Combos) actually lists a decent number of ways to get the melee offense to a reasonable place (though ranged offense is even trickier and perhaps even more important since being able to attack from beyond True Seeing/Mindsight/Touchsight/etc. range from Hiding might catch many targets off-guard).

[Gruftzwerg]

I'd rather just rely on the higher tier teammates or outsourced helpers

higher tier teammates can probably even do it without the magekiller help. And that is my point: either you have help of your teammates & magic items to overcome your weaknesses or the DM will tailor it around the PCs weaknesses (outsourced helper are still the DM helping the player by tailoring). The job of the Arcanopath Monk in the group is to prevent the caster from further casting, and imho he is really good at that. Sure he needs help to accomplish this, but every T3-5 needs a bunch of help(ers), incl the DM, to beat a optimized T1.

People try to make it look, as if the Arcanopath Monk build I mentioned would run alone into a T1, but I guess the OP will be in a party, where his job is to be the one that shuts down the casting ability of the casters. Others may be needed to dispell or get him back to the ground or whatever is the case.

and btw, since many already recommend size increasing magic, the AMF won't affect you, once you are bigger than the 10ft radius. If you really push size, AMF doesn't effect you. And reaching 10ft size isn't that hard. Sure the magic could be surpressed, but the caster would need an action for that. and it ends in a initiative battle. who can shut down the other faster. the monk the caster or the caster the monk.