How good is this Cheese strat against epic characters and does it work

[flappeercraft]

So a few days ago my group of players and I decided to do a one shot where all of us make a team of 5 characters and do a battle tournament. All characters 21st level, no infinite loops, DCFS cheese with Elder evil feats/Site feats, and a maximum 3 full casters on the team (the other 2 need to have at least 25% mundane levels). You can start with morning buffs and similar long lasting buffs. So my idea was to create a druid who as a morning buff will have Shapechange on him on the form of a Dire Tortoise so I would begin with the suprise round for which he would use the free action from Shapechange to turn into a Chronotyrin which would effectively double his actions giving him 2 standard actions instead of 1 for the suprise round after which with the first Transmute rock to mud on the floor and then Heightened 9th level Transmute Mud to rock which would likely leave them stuck on the floor (DC 39 Reflex save or be stuck in the stone). Would it work by RAW and if it does would it be effective?

[Gellhorn]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/freedomOfMovement.htm

There's not really a reason as to why you'd be in an arena fight (at least I assume it's an arena fight where they need to be present, if not astral projection means they're in no real danger anyway) without something like freedom of movement.

Also contingent celerity would mean the enemy wizard goes first anyway.

Not really much experience with epic levels, but... epic spellcasting is also kinda silly.

[Crake]

I should ask why in an arena fight you would have a surprise round?

But yeah, your trick would be negated by any means of tactical teleportation (really cheap and easy to get), or just by the characters being able to fly and avoid such a pitfall. Freedom of movement would likely also help, though I wouldn't be 100% sure on that, because freedom of movement says nothing about letting you slip through gaps that you wouldn't normally be able to fit through, so, presuming your foot is bigger than your ankle, when the mud turns to stone, your foot cannot physically raise out of the stone. It would be like being in a cage and saying freedom of movement lets you slip through the bars.

But yeah, as I mentioned, there are plenty of ways to get out of it anyway, even if it's just the wizard casting disintegrate on the stone.

[Heliomance]

I should ask why in an arena fight you would have a surprise round?


Because Dire Tortoises always get a surprise round, even when there wouldn't normally be one.

[Darrin]

My issue would be... on the surprise round, you use a standard action to shapechange into a chronotyryn, which gets Dual Actions (Su), but you already used one standard action, so you only get one extra standard action after that. Otherwise you're getting three standard actions on that round. There might be a better way to do that (UMD a scroll of celerity, maybe?).

As far as transmute rock to mud... yeah, it's pretty darned likely that most epic-level PCs are going to have freedom of movement already in effect or easily activated. And it's not like the Druidzilla playbook doesn't have several "Encounter-Ender" options... If you just want to do the blasty version, Sudden Maximize + Energy Substitution (sonic) + firestorm or frostfell might end things quickly. Deadfall (Spell Compendium) is another good one if your opponents start out standing near each other: 20' radius, 20d6 damage (no save), and your opponents are buried under 5' of logs.

However, I suspect this exercise is largely going to be a Nash Equilibrium Fustercluck: each team will have a cascading series of counter-strategies to negate the First Turn Uberspell: freedom of movement, AMF, globe of invulnerability, spell immunity, contingency, etc. It won't be so much an arena fight as "Rules Wankery Theatre": who can come up with the most elaborate "I Win" button that isn't immediately countered by all the other "I Win" buttons.

[legomaster00156]

However, I suspect this exercise is largely going to be a Nash Equilibrium Fustercluck: each team will have a cascading series of counter-strategies to negate the First Turn Uberspell: freedom of movement, AMF, globe of invulnerability, spell immunity, contingency, etc. It won't be so much an arena fight as "Rules Wankery Theatre": who can come up with the most elaborate "I Win" button that isn't immediately countered by all the other "I Win" buttons.
Actually sounds kind of fun to me. The first round is a long series of Xanatos Gambits colliding with one another, and the loser is the one with the least clever plan. :smallbiggrin:

[Crake]

My issue would be... on the surprise round, you use a standard action to shapechange into a chronotyryn, which gets Dual Actions (Su), but you already used one standard action, so you only get one extra standard action after that. Otherwise you're getting three standard actions on that round. There might be a better way to do that (UMD a scroll of celerity, maybe?).

As far as transmute rock to mud... yeah, it's pretty darned likely that most epic-level PCs are going to have freedom of movement already in effect or easily activated. And it's not like the Druidzilla playbook doesn't have several "Encounter-Ender" options... If you just want to do the blasty version, Sudden Maximize + Energy Substitution (sonic) + firestorm or frostfell might end things quickly. Deadfall (Spell Compendium) is another good one if your opponents start out standing near each other: 20' radius, 20d6 damage (no save), and your opponents are buried under 5' of logs.

However, I suspect this exercise is largely going to be a Nash Equilibrium Fustercluck: each team will have a cascading series of counter-strategies to negate the First Turn Uberspell: freedom of movement, AMF, globe of invulnerability, spell immunity, contingency, etc. It won't be so much an arena fight as "Rules Wankery Theatre": who can come up with the most elaborate "I Win" button that isn't immediately countered by all the other "I Win" buttons.

To clarify, once shapechange is cast on you (which, since OP said he was shapechanged into a dire tortise) changing forms is a free action, so it wouldn't cost him a standard action to transform.