Gishes vs. pure casters

[danielxcutter]

I know that gishes are often less optimal than pure casters, but I still think that they'd be pretty good at fighting them - partly because they still have a significant amount of casting, if less than a pure caster, and partly because several gish prestige classes, such as Abjurant Champion or Slayer, have class features that are highly effective at countering them.

So, a few questions:

1. Am I right? That is, are gish characters effective at fighting pure casters?

2. If so, how should you do it? What PrCs, feats, spells/powers, or items are useful or even crucial to making such a character?

3. Anything else I've missed?

[Psyren]

First you have to define what you mean by "gish." Do you mean +16 BAB and 9th-level spells, or is something lesser like a Duskblade or Magus okay?

You also have to define a rough optimization level, because a fully optimized wizard is not going to be taken down by anything less than (over)deities.

[Gusmo]

The big question is at what level. The thing about gishes, theurges, and other combination type builds, is that they tend to take a while to come online. At 20th level, a gish build with 17 levels of casting progression is much more equal to a build with 20 levels of casting progression than the situation at any level before that, where the gish has 1 or 2 spell levels fewer options than the full caster. There are a lot of great options that going gish opens up, but are they more powerful than the next level of spells you'd otherwise be getting? Also, which full caster? Druids are probably the best caster at first level, but they don't have quite the ridiculousness of other classes at high levels.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

It really depends on the types of fights. If you're talking a Gish PC versus a pure caster PC, the pure caster will still probably win, depending on the circumstances. If you mean a Gish PC versus spellcasting opponents, whether monsters or NPCs, then it depends on how the monster or NPC is built and played. If you're talking about a Gish PC versus opponents that primary casters are typically good at/needed for fighting, you're probably going to do fine.

In a Gish PC versus Primary Caster PC fight, the Gish is probably going to get dispelled/disjoined right away, removing his buffs and the entire reason he's good at fighting. The exception here is probably a Sorcadin who took Divine Defiance, so he can counterspell as an immediate action, but he sucks at Spellcraft. Otherwise the Gish will probably need to get the drop on the primary spellcaster to win.

In a Gish PC versus Spellcasting Monsters/NPCs fight, the Gish is going to shine like he always does. He probably has better saves than mundane characters (multiclassing, Greater/Superior Resistance, especially Sorcadin), is generally more mobile, and is generally stronger as a melee combatant. Plus he can keep a few situational spells and some strong iwin buttons like Glitterdust/See Invisibility, Ray Deflection, Greater Invisibility, etc. plus things like Freedom of Movement from a Periapt of the Sullen Sea.

In a Gish PC versus enemies that need a spellcaster to fight them, you'll probably have most of the necessary tools depending on the fight. I don't think a lot of opponents like this exist outside of homebrew or custom built NPCs.

[emeraldstreak]

In low level PvP arenas, gishes do better than pure casters.

In low level PvE gauntlets, gishes often do better than pure casters, but saying they are better isn't as clear-cut as the above.

Once you're out of the low levels, it's pure casters>everyone.

[danielxcutter]

First you have to define what you mean by "gish." Do you mean +16 BAB and 9th-level spells, or is something lesser like a Duskblade or Magus okay?

You also have to define a rough optimization level, because a fully optimized wizard is not going to be taken down by anything less than (over)deities.


The big question is at what level. The thing about gishes, theurges, and other combination type builds, is that they tend to take a while to come online. At 20th level, a gish build with 17 levels of casting progression is much more equal to a build with 20 levels of casting progression than the situation at any level before that, where the gish has 1 or 2 spell levels fewer options than the full caster. There are a lot of great options that going gish opens up, but are they more powerful than the next level of spells you'd otherwise be getting? Also, which full caster? Druids are probably the best caster at first level, but they don't have quite the ridiculousness of other classes at high levels.

Oh, I see. Then to clarify:

1. By gish I mean 9th level spells and +16 BAB, or CoDzillas with primarily melee-based builds.

2. Mid-op seems decent; Fireball-spamming Wizards aren't good examples, but neither do I expect living gods who play 5-dimensional chess with Pun-Pun. In other words, optimization levels that you'd expect to see at most tables.

[Gruftzwerg]

Imho it depends on how much the gish is optimized for such a fight. Just spells alone won't work. You may need contingent spells to fight the casters contingent spells. Or some special kind of defense against their powerful (meta-)magic.

I dunno, we had this kind debate a lot in the last time. Hard to tell what really would work.

I had these thoughts a while ago and the swiftblade did come into my mind. While he doesn't get 9th (unless you apply full true dragon DWK cheese, but let's ignore this for the sake of not arguing about DWK^^) enemies always have a 50% misschance against him while hasted. Be it either physical attacks or magical.
What would you say to the following attack pattern?

- buff up
- Sculpt Spell AMF - Selective Spell or Extraordinary Spell Aim
- Haste (incl Time Stop)
- Teleport to target caster
= profit?

the AMF should suppress the caster magic abilities and contingent spells. Even those that would target the casting of an AMF. Cause you arrive while Time Stopped, so the Contingent Spells can't work. And as soon as the time flows again, the caster is already affected by the AMF.
What do you think? Would this work?

edit: corrected wrong metamagic feat. sry for the mistake.

[Zanos]

If a gish ever kills a character that's a more potent caster than it, it probably has a lot more to do with the skill of the two players playing the characters than the gish having 6 more BAB. Gishes are only "good" at fighting casters because they're close to 90% of a full caster anyway.

In other words, three more 9th level spells per day is better than 6 more base attack.

[Coretron03]

Imho it depends on how much the gish is optimized for such a fight. Just spells alone won't work. You may need contingent spells to fight the casters contingent spells. Or some special kind of defense against their powerful (meta-)magic.

I dunno, we had this kind debate a lot in the last time. Hard to tell what really would work.

I had these thoughts a while ago and the swiftblade did come into my mind. While he doesn't get 9th (unless you apply full true dragon DWK cheese, but let's ignore this for the sake of not arguing about DWK^^) enemies always have a 50% misschance against him while hasted. Be it either physical attacks or magical.
What would you say to the following attack pattern?

- buff up
- Sculpt Spell AMF
- Haste (incl Time Stop)
- Teleport to target caster
= profit?

the AMF should suppress the caster magic abilities and contingent spells. Even those that would target the casting of an AMF. Cause you arrive while Time Stopped, so the Contingent Spells can't work. And as soon as the time flows again, the caster is already affected by the AMF.
What do you think? Would this work?

Problem is, Anticpate teleport is a 4th level spell and lasts hours/level so at the level timestop is available that should be too hard to assume its up and because it delays you a round so you need to roll at least 3 on the d4 for timestop or you still have to make a initive roll. Even if that works what exactly are you gonna do? Time stop says their invulnerable to your spells so it would still be down to initative before you can do much to them in timestop.

This is assuming your aware of the caster and can scry and die on them so they don't have any protections from your scrying methods. Not much of your combo uses the melee parts of gishes however, just the caster bits. Then theres the Cone hat trick that has a large enough cone to fit the wizard in it shrunk by shrink item to fit on the wizards head so as soon as the timestop ends to expands to normal size and prevent the wizard from being affected by AMF, made of something strong and have there contingency for "dimension door me up if my cone hat expands" or simliar. Honestly depends on the exact wizard and the power level.

[Gruftzwerg]

Problem is, Anticpate teleport is a 4th level spell and lasts hours/level so at the level timestop is available that should be too hard to assume its up and because it delays you a round so you need to roll at least 3 on the d4 for timestop or you still have to make a initive roll. Even if that works what exactly are you gonna do? Time stop says their invulnerable to your spells so it would still be down to initative before you can do much to them in timestop.
Swiftblades get free Time Stops for casting Haste on higher slots (1round/higher lvl slot). You already have Sculp Spell Selective Spell AMF on you when you cast Haste (incl- 2 round Time Stop). When you teleport to the Caster, Time Stop is still active. Once Time Stop end, your AMF kicks in immediately (without the need of Initiative, cause it's already up & just suppressed while Time Stop). Imho thats how it could/should work. But I may be wrong here^^



This is assuming your aware of the caster and can scry and die on them so they don't have any protections from your scrying methods. Not much of your combo uses the melee parts of gishes however, just the caster bits. Then theres the Cone hat trick that has a large enough cone to fit the wizard in it shrunk by shrink item to fit on the wizards head so as soon as the timestop ends to expands to normal size and prevent the wizard from being affected by AMF, made of something strong and have there contingency for "dimension door me up if my cone hat expands" or simliar. Honestly depends on the exact wizard and the power level.

Well isn't it always a fight of scry in the first place when you want to fight a high optimized high lvl caster? And since both use the same methods of scry and defense against it, it's more about what else you scry around the actual target and what else you do to gather info.
It's always somehow lackluster when you try to kill high optimized caster.

EDIT: twisted Scup Spell and Selective Spell.. sry for the mistake.. -.-

[Gusmo]

Swiftblades get free Time Stops for casting Haste on higher slots (1round/higher lvl slot). You already have Sculp Spell AMF on you when you cast Haste (incl- 2 round Time Stop). When you teleport to the Caster, Time Stop is still active. Once Time Stop end, your AMF kicks in immediately (without the need of Initiative, cause it's already up & just suppressed while Time Stop). Imho thats how it could/should work. But I may be wrong here^^


Nothing in the wording of time stop suggests to me that magical effects stop working. Your strategy of walking up to someone with an AMF on is pretty risky in any scenario, as it's a certainty that they've created some sort of automatic defense against such spells that will fire automatically, regardless of whether they can act. Yes, technically there might be that one caster out there who hasn't, but for everyone else, things that will strip away buffs and spellcasting are one of the first things that get significant attention and resources. For instance, as a contingency, someone might have "if an external force is going to cause my active spells, magic items, or spellcasting to become nonfunctional without my consent, cast celerity." This protects against AMFs, disjunction, and other such effects, and will give them an action within your time stop. If we're talking out of core, keep in mind too that on the contingency front alone, a wizard might have a contingency on their person, a contingency on their familiar via share spells, a chain contingency on their person (Tome and Blood spell), a chain contingency on their familiar, and instant refuge (Spell Compendium). And that's scratching the surface of ways to prepare.

[Coretron03]

Wait, how does scuplt spell let you be unaffected by Anti magic field? Am I missing something because the text says this
Benefit: You can modify an area spell by changing the area's shape to either a cylinder (10-foot radius, 30 feet high), a 40-foot cone, four 10-foot cubes, a ball (20-foot-radius spread), or a 120-foot line. The sculpted spell works normally in all respects except for its shape. For example, a lightning bolt whose area is changed to a ball deals the same amount of damage, but affects a 20-foot-radius spread.
A sculpted spell uses a spell slot one level higher than the spell's actual level.
I don't see how that lets you be unaffected by AMF. Is it something in the spell shape rules that say you can exclude yourself for one of the shapes?

[Gruftzwerg]

Nothing in the wording of time stop suggests to me that magical effects stop working. Your strategy of walking up to someone with an AMF on is pretty risky in any scenario, as it's a certainty that they've created some sort of automatic defense against such spells that will fire automatically, regardless of whether they can act. Yes, technically there might be that one caster out there who hasn't, but for everyone else, things that will strip away buffs and spellcasting are one of the first things that get significant attention and resources. For instance, as a contingency, someone might have "if an external force is going to cause my active spells, magic items, or spellcasting to become nonfunctional without my consent, cast celerity." This protects against AMFs, disjunction, and other such effects, and will give them an action within your time stop. If we're talking out of core, keep in mind too that on the contingency front alone, a wizard might have a contingency on their person, a contingency on their familiar via share spells, a chain contingency on their person (Tome and Blood spell), a chain contingency on their familiar, and instant refuge (Spell Compendium). And that's scratching the surface of ways to prepare.

Time Stop prevents any kind of interaction with other creatures and their belongings (items attached/held/worn) even with your spells. So my AMF that I already casted doesn't affect him when I arrive at the other casters location via teleport.
And once Time Stop ends, AMF is there immediately, while the Contingency Spells of the victim still would need reaction time (time need to be aware of the situation, so the contingency can trigger properly. Note that it's the Contingent Spell that needs to be aware of the situation, not the target.). So imho, the Contingency Spells can't trigger under this circumstances (I wouldn't bet anything on this argument, but it seems plausible to me^^).

[Gusmo]

Wait, how does scuplt spell let you be unaffected by Anti magic field? Am I missing something because the text says this
Benefit: You can modify an area spell by changing the area's shape to either a cylinder (10-foot radius, 30 feet high), a 40-foot cone, four 10-foot cubes, a ball (20-foot-radius spread), or a 120-foot line. The sculpted spell works normally in all respects except for its shape. For example, a lightning bolt whose area is changed to a ball deals the same amount of damage, but affects a 20-foot-radius spread.
A sculpted spell uses a spell slot one level higher than the spell's actual level.
I don't see how that lets you be unaffected by AMF. Is it something in the spell shape rules that say you can exclude yourself for one of the shapes?

There are other ways to have an AMF around you but not have it affect you, my guess is that sculpt spell was merely confused for extraordinary spell aim, or possibly


Time Stop prevents any kind of interaction with other creatures and their belongings (items attached/held/worn) even with your spells. So my AMF that I already casted doesn't affect him when I arrive at the other casters location via teleport.

What part of the spell description makes you come to this conclusion? I'm not getting the same conclusion that you are when I read the spell.

[Gruftzwerg]

There are other ways to have an AMF around you but not have it affect you, my guess is that sculpt spell was merely confused for extraordinary spell aim, or possibly sorry twisted the feats. yeah either extraordinary spell aim or selective spell would work here.




What part of the spell description makes you come to this conclusion? I'm not getting the same conclusion that you are when I read the spell.


While the time stop is in effect, other creatures are invulnerable to your attacks and spells; you cannot target such creatures with any attack or spell. A spell that affects an area and has a duration longer than the remaining duration of the time stop have their normal effects on other creatures once the time stop ends.

seems pretty obvious to me. My question would be, how comes that you don't have the same conclusion? How would you otherwise interpret the sentences?

[Gusmo]

Contingency doesn't care about any of those things. It's still in effect while the time stop is active, and if you trigger its conditions, even during a time stop, it will activate. To be clear with regards to my example contingency (copy/pasted from a real character), the contingency would trigger right before your final action during your time stop, (or possibly right after that final action, but before the time stop ends, I confess the wording of my particular example makes it tricky), because by taking that final action, an external force causes the wizard's buffs to drop. A differently worded contingency might trigger at a different time during your time stop, or might not be triggered at all. A contingency with the wording, 'if I'm in the area of an AMF,' could trigger at any point during your time stop, because regardless of whether your AMF is affecting your target, they're in its area. Then there's always the lead hat trick.

Edit: also, let's get some perspective on what a meaningful gish victory would entail. So far there's been a lot of talk about how to use spells to strip an opponent of their buffs and casting ability, but no mention of using gishy abilities to make a meaningful dent in an enemy caster's defenses. Once you've got a caster's defenses stripped away, yeah, you can use your gishy melee powers to then pulverize your opponent, but so what? The real obstacle is getting through the opponent's buffs and other magical defenses. Once the buffs and so forth are gone, to me the method by which your terminate your opponent isn't particularly meaningful, because that's not where the real challenge is. So frankly, even if there's a better plan involving some ludicrous amount of time stops, celerities, and readied actions here that ultimately can fire off a disjunction or trap your opponent in your AMF, all that's really done is prove the point that you haven't added any power for yourself by gishing, you're doing all the real work the same way a full caster does.

[Rhaegar14]

I would say that, if the gish is of a high enough level to cast Antimagic Field, a gish that wins initiative is at a significant advantage in this match-up up to a certain level of optimization, as while the gish is only as good as (or, to be more realistic, better than) a pure martial because of magical buffs, the gish is usually much better off in that AMF than a pure caster. The gish has no chance once you've reached the level of optimization where the caster just laughs off the AMF (which I would say is cheesy but there are certainly ways of doing it) or at the very least has effective contingencies for it (the well-known adamantine hat trick comes to mind).

And all that's assuming that the situation works out in the gish's favor; they win initiative and can get close enough to the caster on their first turn to subject them to an AMF.

[danielxcutter]

Well, I suppose AMF was pretty obvious, but I'm surprised that no one's mentioned using Abjurant Champion to prepare Dispel Magic as a swift action and tear down buffs or counterspell low-level spells. I expected that to come up, but I guess it's not that good?

[Gruftzwerg]

Contingency doesn't care about any of those things. It's still in effect while the time stop is active, and if you trigger its conditions, even during a time stop, it will activate.
I don't think so. From the perspective of the Contingency the "Time Stop"er doesn't even exit.

You are undetectable while time stop lasts.
And when the Contingency can't detect you, if can't react to you. The Contingency needs to be aware to trigger.
But at the moment it can detect you (Time Stop fades), it is already under the influence of AMF.
And once you are in a AFM you can't trigger you Contingent Spells, despite how you word the trigger, it won't work.
being in the AMF area after it was already cast > contingent spells
being in the AMF area before/while it is cast < contingent spells

which lead to the conclusion that:

A contingency with the wording, 'if I'm in the area of an AMF,' could trigger at any point during your time stop, because regardless of whether your AMF is affecting your target, they're in its area. Then there's always the lead hat trick.
won't work out. The Contingent Spell(s) is(/are) to late aware to do anything.


lead/adamantine hat trick:
Gish runs out of range, so that the AMF isn't affecting the hat anymore. Anyone wanna have "squeezed caster in a hat" for dinner? :smallbiggrin: (don't take this to serious, but I try to imagine what really would happen? Would the hat-user be squeezed into it?^^)

edit:

Well, I suppose AMF was pretty obvious, but I'm surprised that no one's mentioned using Abjurant Champion to prepare Dispel Magic as a swift action and tear down buffs or counterspell low-level spells. I expected that to come up, but I guess it's not that good?
Cause I guess it would still need to many action to be of any use. You need to take down the magical defenses of the caster all at once or either his Contingency Spells or his regular spells/round will fire off and you'll have a problem. Depending on the setup of the Contingency Spells, you could need to target several of them at once to be able to penetrate the defense. I guess that makes Dispel Magic to unreliable as choice of weapon.

[ryu]

Well, I suppose AMF was pretty obvious, but I'm surprised that no one's mentioned using Abjurant Champion to prepare Dispel Magic as a swift action and tear down buffs or counterspell low-level spells. I expected that to come up, but I guess it's not that good?

You have worse caster level than your target, less slots to work with, and they also have fun things to be doing with swifts or even immediates. Any job a gish can do, a caster can do better, because the gish spent level(s) on not being a caster and non-caster levels suck.

[Zanos]

I'm pretty sure the area spells with duration reference in time stop is in regards to spells you cast when you apply context. Otherwise you can cast time stop and walk through walls of force somehow. Or you could cast time stop and then scry someone in a mage's private sanctum.

[Flickerdart]

The lower the optimization, the better gishes will do. "Counter-magic the guy until you can run up and hack his face off" works okay before various minions, layered defenses, contingencies, and scary metamagic cheese come into play. But if you want to play a counter-magic guy, you shouldn't be focusing on gishing - gishing eats your levels and feats that you want to save for things like Divine Defiance.

The thing to remember is that the barrier to kill a caster in combat is very low if you manage to deny the caster his magical defenses. It's just that doing that is very hard. Investing into melee prowess is jumping the gun because you fail to guarantee yourself the opportunity to bring that prowess into play at all. Just bring a dominated fighter or bound demon or something to punch the enemy wizard once his spells are down.

[Gruftzwerg]

I'm pretty sure the area spells with duration reference in time stop is in regards to spells you cast when you apply context. Otherwise you can cast time stop and walk through walls of force somehow. Or you could cast time stop and then scry someone in a mage's private sanctum.

The Wall of Force isn't cast by you and it's you interfering with it, not the "others". 2 points that don't match here.

- A Wall of Force cast by someone else before you Time Stop works normal against you.

- it's the Time Stop user that can't affect any other creatures (incl. his Spells/Effects). nothing states that he isn't affected by other thing. In fact you can take damage from fire/lava, acid and such things.

-> the AMF of the Time Stop user doesn't affect anybody until Time Stop falls off and leave 0 time to react (even not immidiate action) against his AMF, cause it's already/still there in the same moment that Time Stop did run off. Contingent Spells are instantly suppressed in the moment they are just aware of the effect and can't react at all.

edit: and just to ensure nobody forgets it:

You are undetectable while time stop lasts.

[Zanos]

The Wall of Force isn't cast by you and it's you interfering with it, not the "others". 2 points that don't match here.

- A Wall of Force cast by someone else before you Time Stop works normal against you.

- it's the Time Stop user that can't affect any other creatures (incl. his Spells/Effects). nothing states that he isn't affected by other thing. In fact you can take damage from fire/lava, acid and such things.

-> the AMF of the Time Stop user doesn't affect anybody until Time Stop falls off and leave 0 time to react (even not immidiate action) against his AMF, cause it's already/still there in the same moment that Time Stop did run off. Contingent Spells are instantly suppressed in the moment they are just aware of the effect and can't react at all.
Okay, so you can't bypass an anticipate teleport or scrying protection then. Glad we cleared that up.

[Flickerdart]

Okay, so you can't bypass an anticipate teleport or scrying protection then. Glad we cleared that up.

Ancitipate teleportation is powerful, but anyone teleporting ~200ft out should be safe against even a CL-pumping Red Wizard. It seems like a surmountable distance for a properly built gish.

[Zanos]

Ancitipate teleportation is powerful, but anyone teleporting ~200ft out should be safe against even a CL-pumping Red Wizard. It seems like a surmountable distance for a properly built gish.
Assuming you know where the are, yes. Most divination spells don't give that wide of an area of vision, even if you can overcome their anti-divination spells while simultaneously protecting yourself from theirs. We're talking about Extraordinary Spell Aimed AMF scry and dying, so I assume the full caster is employing similar levels of optimization.

And to be honest, any tactic that works on the full caster the full caster can also use. As you mentioned, it's pretty trivial to just drop in a bunch of minions that are going to be much more physically capable than a gish in an AMF.

[Gruftzwerg]

Okay, so you can't bypass an anticipate teleport or scrying protection then. Glad we cleared that up.

anticipate teleport: 5-ft./level radius @lvl20 = 100ft.
Who said that I would be so insane to teleport right next to the caster? Am I insane? (Maybe, cause I try to find a solution here^^).

And that it would be a battle of scrying around each other (assuming both participants have the same defenses against scrying) was already clear and pointed out. You need to gather information indirectly with other persons/animals/objects who are near the target caster as medium in the first place.
1. battle of scrying around each other
2. preparation
3. the actual fight

edit: to make it clear. this ain't a 100% success rate guideline. I guess more about 50% chance at who did scry better than the other.? And I guess that is going to be your best bet against high lvl casters anyway. Who scrys and prepares better. But scry is the real important part. The preparation is just a simple thought exercise that won't take much effort. Just logical preparation depending on your skillset. But to get info about something that tries to prevent that via magic is the real deal.

[Flickerdart]

Assuming you know where the are, yes. Most divination spells don't give that wide of an area of vision, even if you can overcome their anti-divination spells while simultaneously protecting yourself from theirs. We're talking about Extraordinary Spell Aimed AMF scry and dying, so I assume the full caster is employing similar levels of optimization.

And to be honest, any tactic that works on the full caster the full caster can also use. As you mentioned, it's pretty trivial to just drop in a bunch of minions that are going to be much more physically capable than a gish in an AMF.

This is true, of course. Though typically, the attacker has an advantage in such an environment - he can adapt his tactics to the target, but the target has to pick a set of defenses and stick to them.

[Necroticplague]

I see your delineation between 'gish' and 'full-caster' as completely arbitrary. Full casters can be gishes, themselves. Just Battledance a pile of Persistent buffs, and your as competent (or more) in melee as everyone else. Or just Wild Shape into the beefiest creature you qualify for.

[Coretron03]

anticipate teleport: 5-ft./level radius @lvl20 = 100ft.
Who said that I would be so insane to teleport right next to the caster? Am I insane? (Maybe, cause I try to find a solution here^^).


lead/adamantine hat trick:
Gish runs out of range, so that the AMF isn't affecting the hat anymore. Anyone wanna have "squeezed caster in a hat" for dinner? :smallbiggrin: (don't take this to serious, but I try to imagine what really would happen? Would the hat-user be squeezed into it?^^)
These two don't match up, unless you have a way to get you AMF to extend an amount equal to the wizards caster level*5 which is going to be at least 105 with a ioun stone. if he's using the contingency that I said earlier (Dimension door up if hat expands to make sure the wizard isn't trapped in it ever) would mean as soon as your anti magic field activates you've got a peeved off caster flying above you.


Necroticplauge: The OP said a Gish is anyone who has 16 BAB and 9th level spells. Which actually excludes the currently discussed fish from counting as he only has 16 levels of casting and only 8th level spells but that's getting a bit nitpicky.

[Gusmo]

edit: to make it clear. this ain't a 100% success rate guideline. I guess more about 50% chance at who did scry better than the other.? And I guess that is going to be your best bet against high lvl casters anyway. Who scrys and prepares better. But scry is the real important part. The preparation is just a simple thought exercise that won't take much effort. Just logical preparation depending on your skillset. But to get info about something that tries to prevent that via magic is the real deal.

That's the point I was making earlier. We can quibble about the details of any number of spell interactions, but nothing about being a gish actually helps win any significant portion of the fight so far. Once you've got your opponent defenseless, it doesn't particularly matter whether you kill them with some sort of tricked out enervation or by power attacking for 999 damage. For this to be meaningful in my opinion, the gish needs to win using class abilities and/or feats that are characteristic of their crossover nature.

[Gruftzwerg]

These two don't match up, unless you have a way to get you AMF to extend an amount equal to the wizards caster level*5 which is going to be at least 105 with a ioun stone. if he's using the contingency that I said earlier (Dimension door up if hat expands to make sure the wizard isn't trapped in it ever) would mean as soon as your anti magic field activates you've got a peeved off caster flying above you.



Why should the gish wait for the hat to expand fully? When the gish moves into the range of the caster so that he is affected by AMF, he just needs to do 1 step back. The wizard isn't in AMF range anymore, the hat don't expand fully, once the caster ain't affected by AMF the hat is already shrinking and squeezing him to death. I guess no reaction time again ?

+ your wording for the contingency failed. cause when the "hat expands" your are in a AMF where your contingency spells don't trigget. When the gish retreats, so that the "hat isn't expanding" anymore, the contingency failed to trigger again.

Imho this is the most reliable way, if you somehow manage to know the wording/trigger of the enemy contingency spells. But if you have gathered that much intel it's already a win situation. As said, first scry/gather info than try to prepare and kill. The gish could try to send some clones in the first place for some intel on the casters defense. Once you have a grasp, you can try to work out a tactic. You need to find a hole in the defensive of the caster (and the wording in his contingencies maybe) to win the fight.
It's all about getting the right info about the enemy while preventing the same. And since both have access to the same spells for that, it may be just a matter of who was luckier or smarter at using those abilities.

edit: to clarify.. Contingency Spells are like Wishes. You can try to find a loophole in the wording to exploit and abuse.

[Coretron03]

Gusmo pretty much nailed it. Your not beating (or attempting) to win as a gish, your just a spell caster with a bit higher bab and less spells. I could argue how the hat expands and that hat expands=full size becaude there isn't a duration on unexpanding but it still comes down to the fact being a gish isn't winning it for you. I do enjoy these types of arguements however so I may continue anyway. On that note you seem to assume you win init because you can't 5ft step back if you don't and foresight protects from surprise. Moment of prescise (probably spelled wrong) can give a biggrt init bonua for the caster due to higher CL. Anyway, your choice to continue or not.

[danielxcutter]

You know, while this discussion is quite fun to read in a good way, that's not the point I was trying to make at all. The point was, to quote Xykon,


A big pile of spells isn't enough when the other guy has a big pile of spells AND the strength to crush your windpipe with his bare phalanges.

So far I haven't seen much of this argument or a rebuttal to it.

[Gusmo]

You know, while this discussion is quite fun to read in a good way, that's not the point I was trying to make at all. The point was, to quote Xykon,

So far I haven't seen much of this argument or a rebuttal to it.

Xykon's quote isn't much use here, it's more like a case of a big pile of spells and martial abilities (gish) versus a bigger pile of spells in the hands of someone that's put more resources into developing their use (caster). I've touched on the issue you're speaking of in two posts and don't really have anything to add to what I've said already.

[ryu]

You know, while this discussion is quite fun to read in a good way, that's not the point I was trying to make at all. The point was, to quote Xykon,



So far I haven't seen much of this argument or a rebuttal to it.

But see that's just it. In the vast majority of cases a big pile of spells, and features that augment spells are going to be the most efficient way to solve a problem. This is true of Xykon himself. Let's be clear here. Do you think he won that fight due to his listen check, his higher hitdie, or any of that? Or was it because his opponent had a a big pile of spells, a crippling weakness, and no experience at all using the two strongest schools in the game? It's not that Xykon's powerful. It's that all of his opponents are deliberately way weaker than he is, or have some crippling flaw written into them for him to exploit.

[Zanos]

Yeah, Xykon won that fight as soon as he hit V with superb dispelling. He could have just filled the room with maximized fireballs if he really wanted him dead. Actually, had he done so, V probably would have actually been dead instead of just moderately choked. Or if Xykon used his negative energy damage. Or his paralyzing touch. Hell, that scene requires a lot of stupidity from Xykon to work. He was the more powerful caster. And he had backup from his allies. And his opponent had an achilles heel based on mental stability. And his opponents SO had just told his opponent they never wanted to see them again.

V lost that fight for a lot of reasons that had very little to do with Xykons +1 strength modifier.

[Eldariel]

Well. BAB only matters when magic is negated - otherwise the caster can have persistent Divine Power and be just as good a Fighter minus some feats granting some ultimately rather meaningless numbers. Thus the arguments in favour of the gish have to revolve around getting the caster in the AMF and keeping them there. Which is a tricky proposition, one you can approach in any number of ways and there's any number of problems to overcome but that heavily depends on the precise builds of both participants. A Lockdown Gish tripping the caster in an AMF and keeping them there has obviously already won. Same goes for Charger Gish for whom the Caster just becomes fine red mist the second he gets to attack. The problems come when we remember that:

1) A high level caster has precious few reasons to be alone. Be it Gish or Hands Off Caster, all the minionmancy is a huge part of why they're so powerful in the first place and simple "approach and beat down" becomes a whole lot less reliable if there are some undead/simulacrums/outsiders/dominateds in the way. This complicates particularly things like approaching.

2) Most of the battle between high level casters (Gish with access to 9s is a high level caster) is about gaining the initiative and knowing the other's position while the other doesn't know yours. Otherwise known as surprise. A caster doesn't just exist in a vacuum. A caster is generally at a given location at a given time, but capable of moving swiftly (Greater Teleport at CL20 covers 2000 miles in 6 seconds or 333 miles per second [1/620th of the speed of light]), while Phantom Steed covers 240' [270' with a speed bonus] per second the bird's way while Polymorph/Shapechange enables transforming into a dragon for travel purposes. Even Core Polymorph has Young Adult White Dragon at 200' - Shapechange offers Prismatic/Force Dragon from Epic, Tien Lung Dragons or Tun Mi Lung Dragons from Oriental Adventures all at 250' each. And then there's Mercury Dragon from Dragons of Faerun. Using Run-action under Maximized Time Stop, that allows covering 5000' in a round leaving time for 5 swift actions (which could be e.g. Greater Celerities to double it up to 10000') without even using spells. Thus, the key matter is being able to locate your enemy and being aware of them before they are of you.

3) A caster can be hard to pinpoint even if you know their general area that particular moment. Spells like Superior Invisibility, Mind Blank, Shapechange (the ability to e.g. be incorporeal and exist inside matter) and company go a long way towards being difficult to approach or pinpoint. Not to mention Astral Projection or the like. Most of the fight is again being aware of your adversary and being able to engage them.

4) On a miniature scale, things like the caster's defensive Antimagic Fields, Anticipate Teleportations, Force Manifests, Contingencies and company can make approach extremely difficult. However, this is the least of the attacker's problems. If you can locate your opponent, be certain they are indeed your opponent and so on, you can at least attempt to mount an assault in some way. The hard part is actually finding your opponent and being able to attack them before they can take an action and for their part attempt to obliterate you.

[Psyren]

You know, while this discussion is quite fun to read in a good way, that's not the point I was trying to make at all. The point was, to quote Xykon,



So far I haven't seen much of this argument or a rebuttal to it.

Xykon isn't a gish, so why are we rebutting something that has nothing to do with your premise? :smallconfused:

[Zanos]

Xykon isn't a gish, so why are we rebutting something that has nothing to do with your premise? :smallconfused:
I understand the intent. Big Pile of Spells + Physical Strength(Gish) > Big Pile of Spells(Fullcaster). But the "math" is actually Bigger Pile of Spells+Spell Enhancing Build Resources > Big Pile of Spells + Physical Strength.

[ryu]

Well. BAB only matters when magic is negated - otherwise the caster can have persistent Divine Power and be just as good a Fighter minus some feats granting some ultimately rather meaningless numbers. Thus the arguments in favour of the gish have to revolve around getting the caster in the AMF and keeping them there. Which is a tricky proposition, one you can approach in any number of ways and there's any number of problems to overcome but that heavily depends on the precise builds of both participants. A Lockdown Gish tripping the caster in an AMF and keeping them there has obviously already won. Same goes for Charger Gish for whom the Caster just becomes fine red mist the second he gets to attack. The problems come when we remember that:

1) A high level caster has precious few reasons to be alone. Be it Gish or Hands Off Caster, all the minionmancy is a huge part of why they're so powerful in the first place and simple "approach and beat down" becomes a whole lot less reliable if there are some undead/simulacrums/outsiders/dominateds in the way. This complicates particularly things like approaching.

2) Most of the battle between high level casters (Gish with access to 9s is a high level caster) is about gaining the initiative and knowing the other's position while the other doesn't know yours. Otherwise known as surprise. A caster doesn't just exist in a vacuum. A caster is generally at a given location at a given time, but capable of moving swiftly (Greater Teleport at CL20 covers 2000 miles in 6 seconds or 333 miles per second [1/620th of the speed of light]), while Phantom Steed covers 240' [270' with a speed bonus] per second the bird's way while Polymorph/Shapechange enables transforming into a dragon for travel purposes. Even Core Polymorph has Young Adult White Dragon at 200' - Shapechange offers Prismatic/Force Dragon from Epic, Tien Lung Dragons or Tun Mi Lung Dragons from Oriental Adventures all at 250' each. And then there's Mercury Dragon from Dragons of Faerun. Using Run-action under Maximized Time Stop, that allows covering 5000' in a round leaving time for 5 swift actions (which could be e.g. Greater Celerities to double it up to 10000') without even using spells. Thus, the key matter is being able to locate your enemy and being aware of them before they are of you.

3) A caster can be hard to pinpoint even if you know their general area that particular moment. Spells like Superior Invisibility, Mind Blank, Shapechange (the ability to e.g. be incorporeal and exist inside matter) and company go a long way towards being difficult to approach or pinpoint. Not to mention Astral Projection or the like. Most of the fight is again being aware of your adversary and being able to engage them.

4) On a miniature scale, things like the caster's defensive Antimagic Fields, Anticipate Teleportations, Force Manifests, Contingencies and company can make approach extremely difficult. However, this is the least of the attacker's problems. If you can locate your opponent, be certain they are indeed your opponent and so on, you can at least attempt to mount an assault in some way. The hard part is actually finding your opponent and being able to attack them before they can take an action and for their part attempt to obliterate you.

And this is before you start accounting for things the caster can do to make it much, much harder to even have a chance of finding them. For example vecna blooded, making ice assassins of the dead ice assassins of yourself to command as decoys and extra power, astral projection, private demiplanes, the natural home-field advantage that makes a caster's demiplane the worst place to fight them even if you can get there, clones to not die for long even in that unlikely event, and so on.

[danielxcutter]

I understand the intent. Big Pile of Spells + Physical Strength(Gish) > Big Pile of Spells(Fullcaster). But the "math" is actually Bigger Pile of Spells+Spell Enhancing Build Resources > Big Pile of Spells + Physical Strength.

Yes, that was what I meant, and I guess you're mostly right, although getting an AMF to work almost guarantees victory, it's just freaking hard.

Btw, I think there was a spell called Antimagic Ray or something... I think it was 8th level.

[Gusmo]

Yes, that was what I meant, and I guess you're mostly right, although getting an AMF to work almost guarantees victory, it's just freaking hard.

Btw, I think there was a spell called Antimagic Ray or something... I think it was 8th level.

Antimagic ray can be found in the Spell Compendium and offers the target a will save. I believe most, or possibly even all full casters have a good will save progression in both their base classes and prestige classes. If you figure 5 levels of base class plus a couple prestige classes, that's probably going to be a +15 or so base save by level 20.

[ryu]

Yes, that was what I meant, and I guess you're mostly right, although getting an AMF to work almost guarantees victory, it's just freaking hard.

Btw, I think there was a spell called Antimagic Ray or something... I think it was 8th level.

There's a very good set of reasons AMFs are kinda considered one of the silliest joke spells used as attempted offense.

For example did you know it has a ten foot range AND radius? meaning in addition to all the defenses the caster can put up you also have to be able to get close on your own terms?

Stuff like this is why people generally only bother with it combined with selective spell for a purely beneficial defense.