icefractal
2017-01-23, 07:01 PM
Much has been written about Wizards, and the general consensus is that with sufficient preparation, they can handle just about anything - except another Wizard (or other equally versatile caster). If we look at any given situation, there's a way a Wizard can deal with it, and usually a way they can trivially deal with it, and those ways have been enumerated in multiple threads.
What I haven't seen much of is: What does The Prepared Wizard look like in concrete detail? It's all very well to have a cloud of possibilities, but to use one as a PC or NPC we have to nail those down to realities. Therefore, this is a challenge to develop that Wizard, for the benefit of everyone who wants to use one in a game, and maybe make some interesting discoveries along the way.
The Challenge:
What spells, feats, items, preparations, and so forth would you use to protect a Wizard from the hazards of living in a D&D setting and having enemies? The less of the character's resources are used for this, the better.
System: Pathfinder, Paizo + DSP
The reason for using Pathfinder here is primarily the existence of the SRD. With 3.5 builds, there's no (legal) way to look up all the spells/feats/etc used without having the books at hand. Also, I think there may be more left to discover in Pathfinder, with the shorter time it's been around. I threw DSP stuff in because it's fun and a fair number of GMs allow it, but feel free to make a "Paizo only" build if you want.
Setting: Golarion
In terms of "what creatures exist" for Simulacrum and other purposes, any published creature or NPC does.
Outside of that, any character that could exist as a 20th level PC can exist, but the fewer of these you need to specify the better.
Character: Human Wizard 20, standard WBL, 20 point buy.
* Holing up in a demiplane and acting through proxies is the easy way, but we can do better. This Wizard lives in a metropolis (such as Absalom), has a house there where they spend several hours a day, walks around the city (alone, or at least apparently alone), meets people in person, and has a reputation that involves their real identity.
* The less of the character's resources (specialization/archetypes, items, spells prepared, feats, wealth) you use for this purpose, the better. Using more than half of a given category would be a failure; we want to do things other than survive. Spells known are free.
* Since wealth is a resource we're optimizing, no ignoring it via Blood Money / Wish / whatever.
* No NI loops, for the same reason.
Keeping it Real
This is a Practical Optimization challenge, and the whole point is to be concrete. So things only count to the extent that you specify them. Using divinations is an important asset, but you have to say what divinations you'd use and what questions you'd ask with them. If your divination strategy is too complex for a flow-chart type of approach, then I'll create a potential threat and you can divine against that. Same goes for prepared spells, obviously.
Making a whole build can be a lot of work, so go ahead and post partial stuff or single tricks if you want, that's useful also. However, please skip anything super-vague like "Use Planar Binding to get all info, details left as an exercise for the reader" - see Keeping it Real.
What I haven't seen much of is: What does The Prepared Wizard look like in concrete detail? It's all very well to have a cloud of possibilities, but to use one as a PC or NPC we have to nail those down to realities. Therefore, this is a challenge to develop that Wizard, for the benefit of everyone who wants to use one in a game, and maybe make some interesting discoveries along the way.
The Challenge:
What spells, feats, items, preparations, and so forth would you use to protect a Wizard from the hazards of living in a D&D setting and having enemies? The less of the character's resources are used for this, the better.
System: Pathfinder, Paizo + DSP
The reason for using Pathfinder here is primarily the existence of the SRD. With 3.5 builds, there's no (legal) way to look up all the spells/feats/etc used without having the books at hand. Also, I think there may be more left to discover in Pathfinder, with the shorter time it's been around. I threw DSP stuff in because it's fun and a fair number of GMs allow it, but feel free to make a "Paizo only" build if you want.
Setting: Golarion
In terms of "what creatures exist" for Simulacrum and other purposes, any published creature or NPC does.
Outside of that, any character that could exist as a 20th level PC can exist, but the fewer of these you need to specify the better.
Character: Human Wizard 20, standard WBL, 20 point buy.
* Holing up in a demiplane and acting through proxies is the easy way, but we can do better. This Wizard lives in a metropolis (such as Absalom), has a house there where they spend several hours a day, walks around the city (alone, or at least apparently alone), meets people in person, and has a reputation that involves their real identity.
* The less of the character's resources (specialization/archetypes, items, spells prepared, feats, wealth) you use for this purpose, the better. Using more than half of a given category would be a failure; we want to do things other than survive. Spells known are free.
* Since wealth is a resource we're optimizing, no ignoring it via Blood Money / Wish / whatever.
* No NI loops, for the same reason.
Keeping it Real
This is a Practical Optimization challenge, and the whole point is to be concrete. So things only count to the extent that you specify them. Using divinations is an important asset, but you have to say what divinations you'd use and what questions you'd ask with them. If your divination strategy is too complex for a flow-chart type of approach, then I'll create a potential threat and you can divine against that. Same goes for prepared spells, obviously.
Making a whole build can be a lot of work, so go ahead and post partial stuff or single tricks if you want, that's useful also. However, please skip anything super-vague like "Use Planar Binding to get all info, details left as an exercise for the reader" - see Keeping it Real.