Most Optimized Wizard a Fighter Can Beat.

[Tainted_Scholar]

Another Wizard Vs. Fighter thread, just with a slight change.

The Fighter will be high Practical Op. He is allowed multi-classing, but the majority of his levels must be in Fighter or Fighter prestige classes.

As for the Wizard, we will see how intelligently built and played a Wizard can be while still losing to the Fighter. I don't a Wizard so dumb she wears her underwear on her head.

Both of them will be Lvl 20, all first party material is available to them.

Also, I would like to avoid UMD Fighter if at all possible (Also, there have to be better Fighter than just relying on UMD).

[ColorBlindNinja]

I'd imagine that a well build Fighter could triumph over an Evoker Blaster Wizard.

A Batman Wizard? I somehow doubt it.

[Gellhorn]

If the wizard a) doesn't use something like ice Assassin or "btw I'm not really here I'm miles away on a different plane", b) doesn't have contingencies or other passive defences, and c)the fighter wins initiative, the fighter can probably win the fight assuming they can kill the wizard in one round.

I'm not saying this wizard is played super intelligently, or to their strengths, I'm just using this as a kind of starting point for both of them.

[Tainted_Scholar]

If the wizard a) doesn't use something like ice Assassin or "btw I'm not really here I'm miles away on a different plane", b) doesn't have contingencies or other passive defences, and c)the fighter wins initiative, the fighter can probably win the fight assuming they can kill the wizard in one round.

I'm not saying this wizard is played super intelligently, or to their strengths, I'm just using this as a kind of starting point for both of them.

The Wizard also would need to not use Nerveskitter in order for that to work.

[ColorBlindNinja]

If the wizard a) doesn't use something like ice Assassin or "btw I'm not really here I'm miles away on a different plane", b) doesn't have contingencies or other passive defences, and c)the fighter wins initiative, the fighter can probably win the fight assuming they can kill the wizard in one round.

I'm not saying this wizard is played super intelligently, or to their strengths, I'm just using this as a kind of starting point for both of them.

No contingencies or passive defenses seems pretty unlikely considering most buffs last all day these levels.

[Gellhorn]

The Wizard also would need to not use Nerveskitter in order for that to work.

Falls under C :smalltongue:

Edit: By "no passive defences", I really meant not too many, at least of the big ones that just say no to the fighter's ability to one shot the wizard, like foresight. I mean yeah of course the wizard will have some stuff up.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Edit: By "no passive defences", I really meant not too many, at least of the big ones that just say no to the fighter's ability to one shot the wizard, like foresight. I mean yeah of course the wizard will have some stuff up.

Ah, I see.

[Tainted_Scholar]

Edit: By "no passive defences", I really meant not too many, at least of the big ones that just say no to the fighter's ability to one shot the wizard, like foresight. I mean yeah of course the wizard will have some stuff up.

Actually the Wizard could have Foresight up and the Fighter can still win.

Foresight, by itself, only grants a +2 to AC and Reflex and prevents the subject from being flatfooted. It only becomes a problem for the Fighter when combined with Celerity, Immediate Actions, Trigger phrases and the like.

[Jowgen]

I think the fighter should be assumed to be speced for initiative and using some form of lockdown build, i.e. a mageslayer feat-chain based something. Then it actually becomes an excercise in how little optimization the Wizard can get away with, rather than how to get the Fighter to 1-hit kill the wizard.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I think the fighter should be assumed to be speced for initiative and using some form of lockdown build, i.e. a mageslayer feat-chain based something. Then it actually becomes an excercise in how little optimization the Wizard can get away with, rather than how to get the Fighter to 1-hit kill the wizard.

The major issue I see with a lockdown build is that Quickened spells don't provoke attacks of opportunity. A Quickened Dimension Door would allow the Wizard to escape pretty easily.

Trying to 1-hit kill the Wizard seems like a better stratagem for the Fighter.

Is Craft Contingent Spell on the table for the Fighter (you can buy them after all)? That would help a lot.

[Tainted_Scholar]

The major issue I see with a lockdown build is that Quickened spells don't provoke attacks of opportunity. A Quickened Dimension Door would allow the Wizard to escape pretty easily.

Trying to 1-hit kill the Wizard seems like a better stratagem for the Fighter.

So, we're looking at a Charging Build with optimized Initiative.

The Fighter might also want to carry a non-metal weapon to bypass Iron Guard.


Is Craft Contingent Spell on the table for the Fighter (you can buy them after all)? That would help a lot.

As long as it stays PO.

[ColorBlindNinja]

So, we're looking at a Charging Build with optimized Initiative.

The Fighter might also want to carry a non-metal weapon to bypass Iron Guard.

It probably wouldn't hurt for it to be magic either.




As long as it stays PO.

That's going to cut into WBL fast.

[Tainted_Scholar]

It probably wouldn't hurt for it to be magic either.

Obviously, otherwise Starmantle would block it.


That's going to cut into WBL fast.

He could probably only afford one or two contingencies on top of his other gear.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Obviously, otherwise Starmantle would block it.

In fairness, Starmantle is 1/Minute Per Level; the wizard may have to cast Time Stop and buff himself to have it up.



He could probably only afford one or two contingencies on top of his other gear.

I think that the Fighter is going to run into problems covering his bases. Wizards have such a large library of spells that a single weakness left unaccounted for can be fatal.

Edit: Ghostform is probably better than Starmantle, except in duration.

Or Shapechange for incorporeal; it lasts longer than either.

[Doctor Awkward]

Honestly, it would probably just be a much faster approach to just systematically eliminate the tools a Wizard brings that result in an auto-loss for the Fighter.

Even an Evoker Wizard wins if he opens with Disjunction + Quickened Fly and moves 60 feet straight up.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Honestly, it would probably just be a much faster approach to just systematically eliminate the tools a Wizard brings that result in an auto-loss for the Fighter.

Even an Evoker Wizard wins if he opens with Disjunction + Quickened Fly and moves 60 feet straight up.

The sad thing is while that may indeed be faster, it'll still take forever.

[icefractal]

It's going to be a bit tricky to define, because a purpose-built Fighter could defeat a Wizard who was - in general - fairly optimized, as long as that Wizard was built with a weakness left open intentionally. But that's not very informative, so I guess we should consider a Wizard who is 'typical' for the level of optimization.

I think if we assume:
1) The Wizard is playing by the normal rules. No tricks to get more spells/day than the table gives, or to have more than normal WBL, or to maintain buffs much longer than normal.
2) It's just the Wizard, no pre-fight minion-mancy. 3) We count "the Wizard ran away" as a win for the Fighter. Let's say the Fighter wants to wreck the Wizard's prize-winning rose garden, and the Wizard is trying to stop that.
4) The Wizard doesn't know significantly in advance that the Fighter is coming. This is pretty likely if #1 is true and the Wizard has multiple enemies - limited divination spells only go so far.
5) The Fighter does get and intelligently use normal WBL. Doesn't mean UMD, but none of this "Winged Boots mean you're not a Fighter any more" nonsense.

Then the Fighter just needs to be a couple degrees more optimized than the Wizard. Although that is assuming someone specifically built as a Wizard-slayer - a general purpose warrior is not likely to do as well.



Even an Evoker Wizard wins if he opens with Disjunction + Quickened Fly and moves 60 feet straight up.Well, if the Fighter's Will save is bad. With a good enough Will save, Disjunction does nothing to magic items. Obtaining a strong Will save requires more work than just casting a core spell, but that's what I mean by "a couple degree more optimized".

Also, you bring up something - what level is this happening at? I think the Fighter does best in the middle levels.

[ColorBlindNinja]

It's going to be a bit tricky to define, because a purpose-built Fighter could defeat a Wizard who was - in general - fairly optimized, as long as that Wizard was built with a weakness left open.

I think if we assume:
1) The Wizard is playing by the normal rules. No tricks to get more spells/day than the table gives, or to have more than normal WBL, or to maintain buffs much longer than normal.
2) It's just the Wizard, no pre-fight minion-mancy. 3) We count "the Wizard ran away" as a win for the Fighter. Let's say the Fighter wants to wreck the Wizard's prize-winning rose garden, and the Wizard is trying to stop that.
4) The Wizard doesn't know significantly in advance that the Fighter is coming. This is pretty likely if #1 is true and the Wizard has multiple enemies - limited divination spells only go so far.
5) The Fighter does get and intelligently use normal WBL. Doesn't mean UMD, but none of this "Winged Boots mean you're not a Fighter any more" nonsense.

Then the Fighter just needs to be a couple degrees more optimized than the Wizard. Although that is assuming someone specifically built as a Wizard-slayer - a general purpose warrior is not likely to do as well.


Well, if the Fighter's Will save is bad. With a good enough Will save, Disjunction does nothing to magic items. Obtaining a strong Will save requires more work than just casting a core spell, but that's what I mean by "a couple degree more optimized".

Also, you bring up something - what level is this happening at? I think the Fighter does best in the middle levels.

Did you have a specific build in mind?

[icefractal]

Did you have a specific build in mind?It's going to vary by how optimized the Wizard is.
* A Wizard as seen in the majority of campaigns (let's be honest, most casters are not played anywhere near their peak) could be defeated by a decent uber-charger.
* Something similar to the Elder-Evil-slaying Monk builds (but Fighter instead), could handle a moderately optimized Wizard.
* Good luck dealing with a TO-level Wizard, the only way would be similarly TO-level WBLmancy, at which point the 'Fighter' part is irrelevant.

If you mean, am I going to make a specific build ... probably not. Certainly not without a specific Wizard build being present. It's a lot of work, and fighting against Schroedinger's Wizard is a futile errand. Besides:

Wizards always win everything. Yes, everything. Don't question it.

[ColorBlindNinja]

It's going to vary by how optimized the Wizard is.
* A Wizard as seen in the majority of campaigns (let's be honest, most casters are not played anywhere near their peak) could be defeated by a decent uber-charger.

I'd agree that a charging build is our best bet. Arena battles tend not to have difficult terrain or anything that wouldn't shut down charging, so that's good.


* Something similar to the Elder-Evil-slaying Monk builds (but Fighter instead), could handle a moderately optimized Wizard.

I recall reading a thread where Tippy challenged the Playground to defeat all the Elder Evils with a Monk build. Is that what you're referring to?


* Good luck dealing with a TO-level Wizard, the only way would be similarly TO-level WBLmancy, at which point the 'Fighter' part is irrelevant.

Not only that, but without spellcasting the Fighter is still at a disadvantage. Though at high TO such contests are practically pointless.


If you mean, am I going to make a specific build ... probably not. Certainly not without a specific Wizard build being present. It's a lot of work, and fighting against Schroedinger's Wizard is a futile errand.

I see your point. I was thinking more of general tactics and gear than specific build.

I remember a Cowl of Warding being useful (if expensive). Mind Blank, Freedom of Movement and Spell Turning all in one package.

[Florian]

Hm. I´d probably use Fetchling as base race, upgrade the racial SLAs with Shadow Traveller to gain DimDoor to get Dimensional Assault going, Step Up, Step Up and Strike and Dimensional Step Up. I´d dip two levels of Barbarian to gain Fiend Totem, Superstition, Witchkiller and Spellsunder. Rest would go towards Combat Reflexes, Brute Style, Cloak and Dagger Style, round out with Balor´s Whip feat chain, Disruptive, Spellbreaker, Cut From The Air. (I try to avoid having to go into Shadowdancer or Horizon Walker)

This is a heavy denial/martial control build. Teleport-Pouce to get close, auto-movement to stick to the target - up to teleporting/plane shift along with it if necessary, everything provokes AoOs, even defensive casting and you can chain up combat maneuvers as AoO. (Edit: With the very weird side-effect of auto-triggering the Steal combat maneuver on each attack/AoO, so we´ll quickly rob the target of their WBL)

That should be able to tackle a broad range of standard wizard builds. What it prolly can´t beat is a Chronomancer, Combat-Diviner and builds focused on Bilocation and/or Akashic Form w/o having to resort to Wish for an AMF (or use an Ankou´s Shadow build)

[rel]

The issue with these threads is the back and forth. The wizard can do this but the fighter can do that but then the wizard can do the other and so on.

It assumes both parties have far too much information about each other and I don't think it reflects the actual capabilities of either class very well.

So instead try the following experiment.

1) Come up with a wizard. Stats, daily buffs and preperations, general habits, etc.

2) Don't tell anyone these stats but hold them in escrow so you can't change them

3) invite people to make a fight guy that the wizard has unknowingly wronged. The fighter knows who the wizard is and where they hang out.
The wizard isn't (initially) aware the fighter exists. As with the wizard, the fighter needs stats, tactics and so on.

See who wins and go from there. I think the challenge becomes a lot more interesting if the wizards preperations are fixed rather than specifically countering the fighter trick of the day BUT the fighter isn't omnisciently aware of said preperations.

[Endarire]

A Fighter may be in better shape if he relies on bows/thrown weapons/other ranged options.

What about UMD?

[Frozen_Feet]

A long, long time ago I started a somewhat similar thread where the question was "How big of a dragon can a Fighter beat?" The restrictions on that were more stringent for the Fighter, though: no magic items, no supernatural, spell-like, psi-like etc. abilities or feats, all levels must be in Fighter. On the dragon side, any CR was fair game.

I personally made a Raptoran archer build which could defeat Young Red Dragons, and another poster made a Darkstalker charger build which could in theory one-shot an ancient gold wyrm and force a really high number of poison saves. The problem was getting a clear shot more than anything, as a Fighter is not super good at actually finding the higher CR dragons.

Anyways... for the Fighter, you can use Raptoran for (Ex)traordinary flight, Darkstalker to become very hard to detect, possibly Hidden Talent for Call Weaponry to always have a chance to recover a magic weapon if one is lost.

[noob]

2) Don't tell anyone these stats but hold them in escrow so you can't change them

So I can make a murkdweller caster who picked up himself as a familiar and then became a changeling wizard(polymorph scroll and then take a level) and so can change his build with a simple action because his familiar can become any valid familiar(and thus he can become any wizard at any time as long as he have a casting of celerity ready)

[Beheld]

The issue with these threads is the back and forth. The wizard can do this but the fighter can do that but then the wizard can do the other and so on.

It assumes both parties have far too much information about each other and I don't think it reflects the actual capabilities of either class very well.

So instead try the following experiment.

1) Come up with a wizard. Stats, daily buffs and preperations, general habits, etc.

2) Don't tell anyone these stats but hold them in escrow so you can't change them

3) invite people to make a fight guy that the wizard has unknowingly wronged. The fighter knows who the wizard is and where they hang out.
The wizard isn't (initially) aware the fighter exists. As with the wizard, the fighter needs stats, tactics and so on.

See who wins and go from there. I think the challenge becomes a lot more interesting if the wizards preperations are fixed rather than specifically countering the fighter trick of the day BUT the fighter isn't omnisciently aware of said preperations.

I mean, the point of this thread is a Wizard that can be beaten, so that's a lot more likely to produce a Wizard that can't be beaten.

But also, you have a bit of a contradiction in 1) and 3). If the Wizard's general habits result in no one knowing where he is most of the time, then the fighter won't know where they hang out.

I mean, does have have secret spies chilling on the Wizard's demiplane? In his MMM?

[herceg]

The major issue I see with a lockdown build is that Quickened spells don't provoke attacks of opportunity. A Quickened Dimension Door would allow the Wizard to escape pretty easily.

That's a not entirely typical use of an 8th level slot*, plus a fancy way of giving up your actions for that round and your immediate action for the next before your turn.
(note the "After using this spell, you can’t take any other actions until your next turn. " part in the spell's description)


Edit: * What I mean is, how many non-fully optimized wizard will have such a spell prepared at that level?

[Beheld]

That's a not entirely typical use of an 8th level slot*, plus a fancy way of giving up your actions for that round and your immediate action for the next before your turn.
(note the "After using this spell, you can’t take any other actions until your next turn. " part in the spell's description)


Edit: * What I mean is, how many non-fully optimized wizard will have such a spell prepared at that level?

They only need any swift action spell at all that breaks cover for even a moment. A 5ft step plus casting blockade denies AoOs to your lockdown build and allows them to cast any non quickened spell to teleport.

But I agree, why cast Quickened Dimension Door when you cast Greater Dimensional Step and teleport as a swift action a bunch of time.

[Frozen_Feet]

How about putting the optimization floor at the actual floor for the Wizard?

Namely, the Blind Idiot Wizard: started out at negative modifiers for Intelligence and Wisdom and never bothered to raise them. Cannot actually cast any spells. Uses his wealth to emulate a fighter.

Then iterate upwards, giving each new Wizard one more point of intelligence so you go through Wizards who only have access to 1st/2nd/3rd/etc. spell levels untill you finally get to 9th?

[Florian]

Why not start with the iconics as a baseline? I think Mialee and Ezren have official stat blocks, at least up to lvl 15. No sense in going lower than _that_.

[herceg]

They only need any swift action spell at all that breaks cover for even a moment. A 5ft step plus casting blockade denies AoOs to your lockdown build and allows them to cast any non quickened spell to teleport.

But I agree, why cast Quickened Dimension Door when you cast Greater Dimensional Step and teleport as a swift action a bunch of time.

Would that be Dimension Jumper, Greater (Complete Mage)? Or is that another spell?
That's requires an even higher level slot, though more likely to be useful (and less situational, 1 round wonder).

This thread highlights the point about wizards and their Shroedinger's preparation quite nicely.

[Jormengand]

This (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1243745) is Captain Wizzard, the randomly-generated wizard of ultimate doom. He starts with just enough intelligence to cast his ninth-level spells on time, and increases it at every opportunity. He's made with the elite array, with the order of his stats (except intelligence) randomised. He also randomly rolled his feats (from the list of core feats, minus "Leadership"), and each parameter of a feat he took, and randomly assigned all his skill points into wizard skills, treating craft and profession but not knowledge as single skills. He then learned random spells of the highest level available when given the chance to cast spells. He's also naked.

Can a level 20 fighter beat him reliably? My gut instinct is "No, at least not with shapechange and astral projection looming at him from the ninth-level slot".

So the best wizard that a fighter can beat is probably one which is built worse than one I rolled for randomly.

The spells are in the order he learns them, incidentally, if you want to try deleveling him and see what level it becomes impossible to beat him reliably.

[noob]

I like captain wizzard.

[Beheld]

Would that be Dimension Jumper, Greater (Complete Mage)? Or is that another spell?
That's requires an even higher level slot, though more likely to be useful (and less situational, 1 round wonder).

This thread highlights the point about wizards and their Shroedinger's preparation quite nicely.

I thought it was an 8th level, which is the same level as Quickened Dimension Door, also 8th level. But like I said, it doesn't matter, because neither of those are good spells to prepare, and literally a 1st level spell accomplishes the same thing.

I don't know why you keep ignoring my points in order to take cheap shots about Schroedinger preparation.

Literally any Wizard with a familiar who is more than 5ft away can take away all your AoOs and teleport out no problem, and this is before getting into Contingencies, astral projections, and minions that are better than the fighter.

When a Fighter has to dip into Tome of Battle, PHB 2, six other things, to build a lockdown, and then goes first from 60ft away, and then a Core Wizard can negate his entire lockdown with his level 1 Class Feature and a level 4 spell, It's not the Wizard that requires Schroedinger anything.

In fact, all of this is classic Plank's Fighter, where the moment we pin down the Fighter's build, he becomes simultaneously present in all locations and therefore able to start adjacent to the Wizard knowing everything the Wizard has ever done, even when he's a Mind Blanked Wizard that teleports around and lives in MMM.

[Florian]

What´s up with Astral Projection? Strict reading of the rules text for this spell is very clear and actually rules out next to all commonly cited tactics based on it, unless RAW is intentionally ignored and a house-ruled interpretation used instead.

[Beheld]

What´s up with Astral Projection? Strict reading of the rules text for this spell is very clear and actually rules out next to all commonly cited tactics based on it, unless RAW is intentionally ignored and a house-ruled interpretation used instead.

Uh........

1) Strict reading of the rules gives infinite consumables, that's pretty OP.
2) No possible reading prevents you from chilling in your underground secret hole where no one can ever find you because you are mindblanked, and just adventuring as a character that doesn' die from being killed.
3) Anyone trying to claim you can't cast Astral Projection anywhere but the Material Plane is basically just trying to be a **** and ignoring what the spell actually does because they know the spell is broken.

[Florian]

So, basically what you´re saying is that it doesn´t work by RAW. Fine.

[Jormengand]

Uh........

I wouldn't bother. Florian's been flitting from thread to thread arguing that a standard-OP fighter (that is, a fighter with straight 18s and a weapon specifically tailored to fight his opponent, but never mind that) can defeat practically any opponent trivially. Of course he doesn't know what the rules are, and I'm suspecting he just doesn't understand what words mean.

[Beheld]

So, basically what you´re saying is that it doesn´t work by RAW. Fine.

No, what I just said is that it does work by RAW. I literally just said that twice. Why do you feel compelled to lie about what Astral Projection does?

[The_Jette]

No, what I just said is that it does work by RAW. I literally just said that twice. Why do you feel compelled to lie about what Astral Projection does?

Just ignore him. RAW, what you're saying is perfectly fine. However, I feel inclined to point out one thing: If this is a level 20 fighter going off to murder a specific Wizard then he'd probably do some research on the Wizard he's going to fight. Constantly being under the affects of an Astral Projection gives him one very specific weakness that a Fighter can take advantage of with a little preparation: the silver cord. Finding a magic item for constant see invisibility so that he can see the silver cord, then finding a Githyanki's Silver Sword, or something similar, allows him to kill the Wizard without ever having to actually attack the Wizard directly at all. And, he doesn't even have to make any of the knowledge checks himself, as no 20th level Fighter got there on his own. He can talk to a Bard for Bardic Knowledge. A Cloistered Cleric would have access to that information. Any of the Wizard's enemies who are also Wizards, and wants to see this guy dead. You get the point. Still, it just highlights one potential downside of Astral Projection, which is otherwise an extremely powerful spell.

[Florian]

I wouldn't bother. Florian's been flitting from thread to thread arguing that a standard-OP fighter (that is, a fighter with straight 18s and a weapon specifically tailored to fight his opponent, but never mind that) can defeat practically any opponent trivially. Of course he doesn't know what the rules are, and I'm suspecting he just doesn't understand what words mean.

Ah, no? I don´t know who shat in your brain today that you come up with that junk.

It´s a rather simple question whether the spell as written can actually do the tactic without liberal reinterpretation or not.
On the other hand, on page 1 of this discussion, I mentioned spells and methods that can form fully equipped clones using RAW methods that don´t need interpretation at all.
Maybe you should take a deep breath, consider the difference what is "generally greed upon on this board" and do a plausibility check on whether it actually works. See The_Jette on the question on demi-planes right now.

[ColorBlindNinja]

That's a not entirely typical use of an 8th level slot*, plus a fancy way of giving up your actions for that round and your immediate action for the next before your turn.
(note the "After using this spell, you can’t take any other actions until your next turn. " part in the spell's description)


Edit: * What I mean is, how many non-fully optimized wizard will have such a spell prepared at that level?

A Quicken Metamagic Rod fixes that problem rather easily and is hardly a exotic piece of gear.

I wouldn't mind playing the wizard if this turns into a PVP match.

[Florian]

No, what I just said is that it does work by RAW. I literally just said that twice. Why do you feel compelled to lie about what Astral Projection does?

Just to be clear on that and I want to have you to apologize for calling me a "liar" after that.

It is clear what the spell should do, or ought to do. In all versions, 3E, 3.5E and PF, the same wording comes up, tho: You leave your body on the Prime Material Plane and you travel to another plane via the Astral Plane and form a new body there.

If it would say "starting point", then no argument from me on this. But the language here is very specific by calling out the starting plane for this, which in turn makes it impossible to project on the same plane by having the target plane to be "other".

For it to work, you have to make the switch from "Prime" to "Starting Point" or else the spell would not work under a lot of conditions. It´s debatable if that should be the RAI reading, but, again, the spell stayed pretty unchanged over the course of three editions.


A Quicken Metamagic Rod fixes that problem rather easily and is hardly a exotic piece of gear.

I wouldn't mind playing the wizard if this turns into a PVP match.

A PF Wizard will have his first iteration of the Spell Perfection feat chain up around lvl 15 (Ignore MM cost for a spell) and possibly use VMC Sorcerer to get the Arcane bloodline and free MM reduction.
You will probably own a Wizard´s Hat (No, not funny) so you can shift around MM effects on memorized spells as a free action, so no real need to actually prep stuff like this.

[The_Jette]

Just to be clear on that and I want to have you to apologize for calling me a "liar" after that.

It is clear what the spell should do, or ought to do. In all versions, 3E, 3.5E and PF, the same wording comes up, tho: You leave your body on the Prime Material Plane and you travel to another plane via the Astral Plane and form a new body there.

If it would say "starting point", then no argument from me on this. But the language here is very specific by calling out the starting plane for this, which in turn makes it impossible to project on the same plane by having the target plane to be "other".

For it to work, you have to make the switch from "Prime" to "Starting Point" or else the spell would not work under a lot of conditions. It´s debatable if that should be the RAI reading, but, again, the spell stayed pretty unchanged over the course of three editions.

For clarity's sake, what is it that you're saying that Astral Projection can't do?

[Jormengand]

Even if you do have to be on the material, though, that's not an issue. Captain Wizzard has shapechange; he can relatively trivially turn into a form which can survive on the moon, teleport there using one of the creature's abilities, and then astral project from there.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Just to be clear on that and I want to have you to apologize for calling me a "liar" after that.

It is clear what the spell should do, or ought to do. In all versions, 3E, 3.5E and PF, the same wording comes up, tho: You leave your body on the Prime Material Plane and you travel to another plane via the Astral Plane and form a new body there.

If it would say "starting point", then no argument from me on this. But the language here is very specific by calling out the starting plane for this, which in turn makes it impossible to project on the same plane by having the target plane to be "other".

For it to work, you have to make the switch from "Prime" to "Starting Point" or else the spell would not work under a lot of conditions. It´s debatable if that should be the RAI reading, but, again, the spell stayed pretty unchanged over the course of three editions.



A PF Wizard will have his first iteration of the Spell Perfection feat chain up around lvl 15 (Ignore MM cost for a spell) and possibly use VMC Sorcerer to get the Arcane bloodline and free MM reduction.
You will probably own a Wizard´s Hat (No, not funny) so you can shift around MM effects on memorized spells as a free action, so no real need to actually prep stuff like this.

There's nothing to stop you from moving your body to another plane after using Astral Projection.

Also, we're doing 3.5, not PF.

[Florian]

For clarity's sake, what is it that you're saying that Astral Projection can't do?

You actually can´t start on a different plane then the Prime Material Plane and you have to end up your journey on a different plane. That would rule out your own personal demi-plane and traveling to the Prime, amongst other things.


Even if you do have to be on the material, though, that's not an issue. Captain Wizzard has shapechange; he can relatively trivially turn into a form which can survive on the moon, teleport there using one of the creature's abilities, and then astral project from there.

The moon is one the same plane. That is ruled out by the target having to be an "other plane".

The spell got downgraded in PF with good reason.

[The_Jette]

You actually can´t start on a different plane then the Prime Material Plane and you have to end up your journey on a different plane. That would rule out your own personal demi-plane and traveling to the Prime, amongst other things.

But, the spell says that you can travel to other planes from the Astral Plane. So, why wouldn't you be able to just go right back to the Material Plane?

[Jormengand]

The moon is one the same plane. That is ruled out by the target having to be an "other plane".

What? I'm saying Captain Wizzard should shapechange into a creature, use the creature's ability to go to the moon, and then astral project, starting from the moon. You then cast Astral Projection, from the material, and then project yourself onto the Astral. You're then on the Astral and then "Since the Astral Plane touches upon other planes, you can travel astrally to any of these other planes as you will". I don't see what your issue is. I mean, your issue in general, not just in terms of Astral Projection.

[Beheld]

However, I feel inclined to point out one thing: If this is a level 20 fighter going off to murder a specific Wizard then he'd probably do some research on the Wizard he's going to fight. Constantly being under the affects of an Astral Projection gives him one very specific weakness that a Fighter can take advantage of with a little preparation: the silver cord. Finding a magic item for constant see invisibility so that he can see the silver cord, then finding a Githyanki's Silver Sword, or something similar, allows him to kill the Wizard without ever having to actually attack the Wizard directly at all. And, he doesn't even have to make any of the knowledge checks himself, as no 20th level Fighter got there on his own. He can talk to a Bard for Bardic Knowledge. A Cloistered Cleric would have access to that information. Any of the Wizard's enemies who are also Wizards, and wants to see this guy dead. You get the point. Still, it just highlights one potential downside of Astral Projection, which is otherwise an extremely powerful spell.

That's just not really a thing though. This is my point about Plank's Fighter. For some reason, this fighter is supposed to have had 60 years of research time and he still actually can't find out any of this info.

There is no way to do research on a Wizard under Mindblank. And the Fighter certainly has no ability. At the point where you are saying "A Cleric, a Bard, and some other guy who doesn't matter at all can team up to beat a Wizard" 1) Sure. 2) Actually still no, because knowing where an Astral Projecting Wizard is gong to be, that he is Astral Projecting at all, are things that you can't even do. At all. Not even as a Bard or Cleric or Wizard.


Just to be clear on that and I want to have you to apologize for calling me a "liar" after that.

It is clear what the spell should do, or ought to do. In all versions, 3E, 3.5E and PF, the same wording comes up, tho: You leave your body on the Prime Material Plane and you travel to another plane via the Astral Plane and form a new body there.

If it would say "starting point", then no argument from me on this. But the language here is very specific by calling out the starting plane for this, which in turn makes it impossible to project on the same plane by having the target plane to be "other".

For it to work, you have to make the switch from "Prime" to "Starting Point" or else the spell would not work under a lot of conditions. It´s debatable if that should be the RAI reading, but, again, the spell stayed pretty unchanged over the course of three editions.

Why are you still lying about what I said?

I mean, the only other alternative is that you have selective blindness that prevents you from seeing all but the last entry in a list, and also the part of the last entry that indicates that it is part of a list. Here try again:


Uh........

1) Strict reading of the rules gives infinite consumables, that's pretty OP.
2) No possible reading prevents you from chilling in your underground secret hole where no one can ever find you because you are mindblanked, and just adventuring as a character that doesn' die from being killed.

[Dagroth]

As I see it... You could start in your "unassailable citadel" and Astral Project into the Astral Plane... go to "another plane" and then travel from there through the Astral Plain back to the Prime Material Plane.

You have satisfied the requirements of the spell, and are back on the Prime Material Plane whilst still in "Astral Form".

[Elkad]

I can't see any way for this to work without the Fighter either managing a surprise one-shot, or getting the wizard in an AMF, assuming the wizard has any teleportation effects at all.

Bounce clear (whether that's as simple as a DDoor 1200' straight up, or leaving for another plane) via Contingency or similar. Put some buffs on. Return. Convince Fighter that he should care for your prize rosebushes for all eternity instead of ruining them. Or turn him into rosebush fertilizer. Or Teleport through Time and kill his infant mother.

[The_Jette]

That's just not really a thing though. This is my point about Plank's Fighter. For some reason, this fighter is supposed to have had 60 years of research time and he still actually can't find out any of this info.

There is no way to do research on a Wizard under Mindblank. And the Fighter certainly has no ability. At the point where you are saying "A Cleric, a Bard, and some other guy who doesn't matter at all can team up to beat a Wizard" 1) Sure. 2) Actually still no, because knowing where an Astral Projecting Wizard is gong to be, that he is Astral Projecting at all, are things that you can't even do. At all. Not even as a Bard or Cleric or Wizard.

Actually, Mindblank only protects from magic. Researching a Wizard could be as easy as talking to people who have encountered him in the past, or hearing stories about his exploits. Hence, Bardic Knowledge, and the Cloistered Cleric, who can have quite a few knowledge skills. And, they're not teaming up to defeat him. The Fighter is taking advantage of his allies' abilities in order to gain knowledge so that he isn't running into a fight blind. And, since we're talking about a fight between the two of them, obviously they're going to be in the same area at some point. The question is how optimized a Wizard can a Fighter beat. Well, if the Wizard is able to gather information about his enemy, why can't the Fighter? And again, Mindblank isn't going to protect from a Gather Information skill check.

[Jormengand]

Actually, Mindblank only protects from magic.

Actually:

"The subject is protected from all devices and spells that detect, influence, or read emotions or thoughts. This spell protects against all mind-affecting spells and effects as well as information gathering by divination spells or effects."

Now, depending on whether you interpret that last bit as "Divination [spells and effects]" or "[Divination spells]" and effects, there's a genuine argument about what exactly that bit means, but it certainly protects against a lot of things which aren't magic.

[Beheld]

Actually, Mindblank only protects from magic. Researching a Wizard could be as easy as talking to people who have encountered him in the past, or hearing stories about his exploits. Hence, Bardic Knowledge, and the Cloistered Cleric, who can have quite a few knowledge skills. And, they're not teaming up to defeat him. The Fighter is taking advantage of his allies' abilities in order to gain knowledge so that he isn't running into a fight blind. And, since we're talking about a fight between the two of them, obviously they're going to be in the same area at some point. The question is how optimized a Wizard can a Fighter beat. Well, if the Wizard is able to gather information about his enemy, why can't the Fighter? And again, Mindblank isn't going to protect from a Gather Information skill check.

1) Mindblank protects from a lot of things.
2) If you don't have the ability to do something, then you don't have ability to do it. Having someone else tell you who the Wizard is, where he is, all his powers, all his weaknesses, get a sword for you, tell you when he's sleeping, and then teleport you to his sleeping corpse. "But I'm the one that killed him!" all of those things the Cleric had to do for you are equally if not more important than swinging a sword at an unconscious body.
3) You can totally go talk to people who have met the Wizard, but that was my point. The DC to find out where the Wizard is is N/A. There is none, because the people you are talking to don't know.
4) Maybe a fight is the Wizard casting Contact Other Plane and asking about people trying to kill him, and sending a Pit Fiend he Planar Bound to go kill the Fighter, without ever even seeing the fighter, and without the Fighter ever even finding out where he is.

[The_Jette]

1) Mindblank protects from a lot of things.
2) If you don't have the ability to do something, then you don't have ability to do it. Having someone else tell you who the Wizard is, where he is, all his powers, all his weaknesses, get a sword for you, tell you when he's sleeping, and then teleport you to his sleeping corpse. "But I'm the one that killed him!" all of those things the Cleric had to do for you are equally if not more important than swinging a sword at an unconscious body.
3) You can totally go talk to people who have met the Wizard, but that was my point. The DC to find out where the Wizard is is N/A. There is none, because the people you are talking to don't know.
4) Maybe a fight is the Wizard casting Contact Other Plane and asking about people trying to kill him, and sending a Pit Fiend he Planar Bound to go kill the Fighter, without ever even seeing the fighter, and without the Fighter ever even finding out where he is.

Please take a moment to reread what Mindblank protects from. Your argument that a Fighter can't use contacts in order to gain information is flawed for a few reasons. Can a Fighter not have magic equipment made for him because he can't make it? Do you know what the Gather Information skill is used for? Because it's specifically going around talking to people. No, he can't use it to pinpoint the location of the Wizard. I never said he could. So, let me put it another way: nearly every argument for the Wizard is "if properly prepared he can x." Why can't a Fighter use basic common sense and get a little bit of information on his opponent before the fight? Please tell me that.

[Florian]

Yes, this is getting silly to the point we should add some new disfunctionalities to the list.

[Barstro]

nearly every argument for the Wizard is "if properly prepared he can x."
Within the confines of the words on the pages of the 3.5 books, there are spells, etc. that specifically state what a Wizard can do.


Do you know what the Gather Information skill is used for? Because it's specifically going around talking to people.
True. And the fishing skill is used to hang out near water, throw a line in the water, and catch any fish that take the bait.


Why can't a Fighter use basic common sense and get a little bit of information on his opponent before the fight? Please tell me that.
Because, with a reasonably paranoid Wizard, there is no information. It's akin to taking your +400 fishing skill to my bathtub. Nothing you do will get you a fish.
Gather information gathers all the information that there is. First you would have to show how there was even information available for the the Fighter to gather. I'd guess that there is very little and at least half of it would be incorrect.

[Florian]

Because, with a reasonably paranoid Wizard, there is no information

An assessment that´s pretty wrong. The fun part about using rules as written is that no-one can actually hide and not give information. Weird and implausible, but that´s so.

[Tainted_Scholar]

Perhaps the Fighter should take Hulking Hurler? If we limit its power it's still good but not ungodly strong. Additionally it takes less build resources than a charging build so the Fighter can focus on more of his WBL and Build on killing the Wizard.

[The_Jette]

An assessment that´s pretty wrong. The fun part about using rules as written is that no-one can actually hide and not give information. Weird and implausible, but that´s so.

Agreed. You can protect yourself from scrying, telepathy, mind rape, and truth spells... But not from that farmer who saw you blast that dragon with a bolt of lightning then fly around and shoot it with little energy missiles. He's a farmer. That's the most exciting thing he ever saw. Of course he remembers it.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I think we should compile a quick list of essential magic items for our Fighter.

I mentioned the Cowl of Warding. What else should he have?

[Florian]

Perhaps the Fighter should take Hulking Hurler?

This is my middle finger and you might kiss it. Same as your OP: If you can´t even manage to tag an edition and write it in a way that is unambiguous and points out an edition, then don´t cry when something turns up that will upset your expected result.

@ColorBlindNinja:

Serious question?

[Tainted_Scholar]

Agreed. You can protect yourself from scrying, telepathy, mind rape, and truth spells... But not from that farmer who saw you blast that dragon with a bolt of lightning then fly around and shoot it with little energy missiles. He's a farmer. That's the most exciting thing he ever saw. Of course he remembers it.

Not if you mind rape him to forget it.

[ColorBlindNinja]

@ColorBlindNinja:

Serious question?

Yes, why wouldn't it be?

[Tainted_Scholar]

This is my middle finger and you might kiss it. Same as your OP: If you can´t even manage to tag an edition and write it in a way that is unambiguous and points out an edition, then don´t cry when something turns up that will upset your expected result.

Jesus Christ what is you problem!? All I did was suggest a build.

[Florian]

Not if you mind rape him to forget it.

Uninteresting. Diplomacy and the appropriate Knowledge skills will always provide results, as that its part of how they work.

[Tainted_Scholar]

Uninteresting. Diplomacy and the appropriate Knowledge skills will always provide results, as that its part of how they work.

But the Farmer literally can't remember the encounter. How would you get it out of him with diplomacy?

[Florian]

But the Farmer literally can't remember the encounter. How would you get it out of him with diplomacy?

Do I have to care? As long as I can beat the appropriate checks, I´ll get my answer.

I could plausible pay a Rupi to a beggar in New Delhi, do my Knowledge: Local check and know what you´re up to in New Jersey.

No Plausibel? Don´t get me stated...

[ColorBlindNinja]

Do I have to care? As long as I can beat the appropriate checks, I´ll get my answer.

I could plausible pay a Rupi to a beggar in New Delhi, do my Knowledge: Local check and know what you´re up to in New Jersey.

No Plausibel? Don´t get me stated...

I sense this is case of general vs specific; with Mind Rape being the specific case and thus exception to the norm.

[The_Jette]

Not if you mind rape him to forget it.

So, you're suggesting that somehow the hypothetical Wizard found out every single person in the entire world, and all other planes of existence, then teleported to them and mind raped his existence from their memory? And, this is genuinely your argument for why our hypothetical Fighter can't find any information about his existence? Sadly, I don't think there's anything RAW about wiping your existence from the collective knowledge of existence. However, my obvious question has to be this: why would any Wizard do this? Wizards usually want to be remembered.

[Beheld]

Please take a moment to reread what Mindblank protects from. Your argument that a Fighter can't use contacts in order to gain information is flawed for a few reasons. Can a Fighter not have magic equipment made for him because he can't make it? Do you know what the Gather Information skill is used for? Because it's specifically going around talking to people. No, he can't use it to pinpoint the location of the Wizard. I never said he could. So, let me put it another way: nearly every argument for the Wizard is "if properly prepared he can x." Why can't a Fighter use basic common sense and get a little bit of information on his opponent before the fight? Please tell me that.

Again, no I'm not, I'm arguing that you can't get blood from a stone.

If you spends 80 years gathering information on every living commoner, you might gather knowledge that "The Wizard appeared from nothing, fought and killed a Dragon, then disappeared" a few times. That doesn't give you any meaningful information about where he is or will be. The Fighter still can't find the Wizard.

2) The Fighter's basic common sense gets him no information at all. For basic common sense and one Gather Information check you can get literally no information. For basic common sense you can figure out that performing 3 billion gather information checks probably isn't worth your time. The fighter doesn't have any ability to get this information, that's why he can't have it.

3) The fighter can have WBL because WBL is a feature of being a level X Fighter (either NPC wealth or PC wealth). But having a level 18 Cleric around to cast all the spells for you is not a feature of being a level 20 Fighter unless you have the Leadership feat, and then, it's the Cleric cohort who is going to do 90% of the work, and you proved that Clerics are good and that Leadership is good, and the fighter still can't do anything.

[Tainted_Scholar]

Do I have to care? As long as I can beat the appropriate checks, I´ll get my answer.

I could plausible pay a Rupi to a beggar in New Delhi, do my Knowledge: Local check and know what you´re up to in New Jersey.

No Plausibel? Don´t get me stated...

That might be more TO than PO.


So, you're suggesting that somehow the hypothetical Wizard found out every single person in the entire world, and all other planes of existence, then teleported to them and mind raped his existence from their memory? And, this is genuinely your argument for why our hypothetical Fighter can't find any information about his existence? Sadly, I don't think there's anything RAW about wiping your existence from the collective knowledge of existence. However, my obvious question has to be this: why would any Wizard do this? Wizards usually want to be remembered.

I was just saying it was a possibility, also it was more in jest than anything else.

[Florian]

That might be more TO than PO.

It´s neither. It´s part of how this system was designed.

[The_Jette]

I was just saying it was a possibility, also it was more in jest than anything else.

It would be pretty funny to read a story about a Wizard who had gone through the entire multiverse cleaning any evidence of his existence out of paranoia that one of his enemies would come get him, going so far as to build his lair in the deepest part of the Underdark with no access to it except via teleportation. Then he dies when there's an earthquake and his entire cave complex collapses on him.

[ColorBlindNinja]

It would be pretty funny to read a story about a Wizard who had gone through the entire multiverse cleaning any evidence of his existence out of paranoia that one of his enemies would come get him, going so far as to build his lair in the deepest part of the Underdark with no access to it except via teleportation. Then he dies when there's an earthquake and his entire cave complex collapses on him.

That's why you should be incorporeal. :smallwink:

Edit:

Essential Magic Items (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?187851-3-5-Lists-of-Necessary-Magic-Items)

This might be a good place to start for the Fighter's gear.

Wings of Flying or Phoenix Cloak. Hmm...

[Florian]

That's why you should be incorporeal. :smallwink:

Realistically speaking, If I were to have proof how the whole soul-stuff works and a high-level wizard has it, my decisions would be very different.

[Jormengand]

Do you know what the Gather Information skill is used for? Because it's specifically going around talking to people. No, he can't use it to pinpoint the location of the Wizard. I never said he could. So, let me put it another way: nearly every argument for the Wizard is "if properly prepared he can x." Why can't a Fighter use basic common sense and get a little bit of information on his opponent before the fight? Please tell me that.

Because Gather Information doesn't work that way.

"An evening’s time, a few gold pieces for buying drinks and making friends, and a DC 10 Gather Information check get you a general idea of a city’s major news items, assuming there are no obvious reasons why the information would be withheld. The higher your check result, the better the information.

If you want to find out about a specific rumor, or a specific item, or obtain a map, or do something else along those lines, the DC for the check is 15 to 25, or even higher."

So, the DC is DM-determined, so for "Useful combat information about a high-level wizard who is trying not to be found" it could easily be DC 40, which is beyond the reach of fighter with a probable charisma penalty and 11 ranks in the skill.


Uninteresting. Diplomacy and the appropriate Knowledge skills will always provide results, as that its part of how they work.

Similarly, Knowledge is unlikely to work either; even if you take the literal reading of how knowledge checks work where it's like an uncannily-accurate divination, you still need a DC 30 knowledge (local) check - or knowledge (something else) if his creature type isn't humanoid - to remember a bit of useful information about the wizard, which the fighter can just possibly pass on a 20 or maybe a 19. Diplomacy? Doesn't work. All diplomacy is used for is changing people's attitudes - at best, someone will protect, back up, heal or aid you, and they may also chat, advise, offer limited help or advocate you, as well as performing socially expected interaction. If you manage the epic check to turn them fanatic they'll happily try to fight the wizard for you, but they still don't magically know where he is because nothing in any of the skill descriptions even implies that.

So to summarise, evil outsiders can't melt steel fighters, the moon astral projections were fake, and we should all wear tin-foil commoners to protect us from mind control. That, or you're lying. Hmm...

[ColorBlindNinja]

Realistically speaking, If I were to have proof how the whole soul-stuff works and a high-level wizard has it, my decisions would be very different.

What soul-stuff are you referring to?

[icefractal]

If people actually want to do this, I suggest an evolutionary process.
1) Start with an uniptimized Wizard, like an iconic.
2) Make a Fighter that can defeat that Wizard and all previous Wizards.
3) Make a Wizard that can defeat that Fighter and all previous Fighters.
4) GOTO 2

I also suggest that the level be 10 or 15 instead of 20. Reasons:
1) More applicable to most campaigns
2) Less work
3) Avoid endless arguments about Ice Assassin et al

I also suggest that there be a concrete objective, because a turtle-fest is not as interesting. Proposal:
1) The Wizard has a magic rose garden that will give him real ultimate power.
2) It will take the Fighter one minute (10 rounds of actions) to ruin it.
3) At the time the Fighter reaches the area, the ritual will finish in one hour (no further actions by Wizard needed).

So within an hour, one side will win.

[ColorBlindNinja]

If people actually want to do this, I suggest an evolutionary process.
1) Start with an uniptimized Wizard, like an iconic.
2) Make a Fighter that can defeat that Wizard and all previous Wizards.
3) Make a Wizard that can defeat that Fighter and all previous Fighters.
4) GOTO 2

That's an interesting idea. Any suggestion for an iconic Wizard build?


I also suggest that the level be 10 or 15 instead of 20. Reasons:
1) More applicable to most campaigns
2) Less work
3) Avoid endless arguments about Ice Assassin et al

I think by the time we reach high enough Op for Ice Assassin the Fighter will have already failed to slay a lower Op Wizard.


I also suggest that there be a concrete objective, because a turtle-fest is not as interesting. Proposal:
1) The Wizard has a magic rose garden that will give him real ultimate power.
2) It will take the Fighter one minute (10 rounds of actions) to ruin it.
3) At the time the Fighter reaches the area, the ritual will finish in one hour (no further actions by Wizard needed).

So within an hour, one side will win.

That's an interesting idea, but I think that works against the Fighter. 10 rounds is an eternity; that's plenty of time for the Wizard to disable him.

It won't take much, just Mage's Disjunction and Forcecage.

[Tainted_Scholar]

If people actually want to do this, I suggest an evolutionary process.
1) Start with an uniptimized Wizard, like an iconic.
2) Make a Fighter that can defeat that Wizard and all previous Wizards.
3) Make a Wizard that can defeat that Fighter and all previous Fighters.
4) GOTO 2

I really like this idea. Perhaps we could use a Elven Generalist Wizard with no prestige classes.


I also suggest that the level be 10 or 15 instead of 20. Reasons:
1) More applicable to most campaigns
2) Less work
3) Avoid endless arguments about Ice Assassin et al

I mostly wanted to Lvl 20 since that's when they're at they've gotten all their useful class features and what not.


I also suggest that there be a concrete objective, because a turtle-fest is not as interesting. Proposal:
1) The Wizard has a magic rose garden that will give him real ultimate power.
2) It will take the Fighter one minute (10 rounds of actions) to ruin it.
3) At the time the Fighter reaches the area, the ritual will finish in one hour (no further actions by Wizard needed).

So within an hour, one side will win.

That might be an interesting 2nd Scenario. We'd see who would win in a straight fight and in a slightly more complicated challenge.

[PanosIs]

This discussion seems to have recovered from the lapse of common sense that happened in the page before and the benchmark seems alright enough. (Rose gardens)

I think we can start from a generalist wizard with core only spells and work our way from there. I also agree that it should be before 9th level spells are on the table because of various things like Ice Assassin, Shapechange et. al but it doesn't really matter that much. Its not like we don't know spells are better than a lack thereof.

[AvatarVecna]

I'd be fine going to 20th lvl on both sides as long as certain problematic high-level spells are avoided. the Wizzard build previously put forth was inoptimally generated, but was not actually all that unoptimal; all it really proves is that a Wizard 20 with literally nothing worth mentioning but Shapechange and Astral Projection is still a formidable foe.

I'm currently working on a rather cheesy wizard build that is optimized with the end goal of "spend as many spells as possible on all-day buffs, and then pretend to be a monk or fighter". Y'know, see if a self-buffing wizard that avoids totally broken BS like polymorph effects can Big Number better than a fighter can Big Number. No summoning, no debuffing, no AoE or BFC, just self-buffing and wrecking face all day. I can't say if the end result will be an even fight, but I think it can certainly be a fair fight.

[Tainted_Scholar]

I'm currently working on a rather cheesy wizard build that is optimized with the end goal of "spend as many spells as possible on all-day buffs, and then pretend to be a monk or fighter". Y'know, see if a self-buffing wizard that avoids totally broken BS like polymorph effects can Big Number better than a fighter can Big Number. No summoning, no debuffing, no AoE or BFC, just self-buffing and wrecking face all day. I can't say if the end result will be an even fight, but I think it can certainly be a fair fight.

Kinda like a CoDzilla but with a Wizard? It certainly sounds interesting, I'll say that.

[AvatarVecna]

Kinda like a CoDzilla but with a Wizard? It certainly sounds interesting, I'll say that.

Essentially, yeah. Not quite DMM: Persist levels of cheese, but Incantatrix still has some BS in it. Ultimately, I figure putting the wizard into a Big Number contest with the fighter will make determining the victor much simpler (since it's essentially a contest between two fighters, it becomes more a comparison of offense and defense in pure numbers, rather than "I'm on another plane" or "I'm immune to everything" kind of BS defenses and "no save no SR just suck it up" or "7-layer BFC/AoE damage/round" BS offenses.

[Tainted_Scholar]

Essentially, yeah. Not quite DMM: Persist levels of cheese, but Incantatrix still has some BS in it. Ultimately, I figure putting the wizard into a Big Number contest with the fighter will make determining the victor much simpler (since it's essentially a contest between two fighters, it becomes more a comparison of offense and defense in pure numbers, rather than "I'm on another plane" or "I'm immune to everything" kind of BS defenses and "no save no SR just suck it up" or "7-layer BFC/AoE damage/round" BS offenses.

It'll be kinda sad if the Wizard turns out to be better at melee then the Fighter though.

[ColorBlindNinja]

It'll be kinda sad if the Wizard turns out to be better at melee then the Fighter though.

I'd say that it's likely. Spells can easily shoot your AC, STR, ect. into the stratosphere.


Essentially, yeah. Not quite DMM: Persist levels of cheese, but Incantatrix still has some BS in it. Ultimately, I figure putting the wizard into a Big Number contest with the fighter will make determining the victor much simpler (since it's essentially a contest between two fighters, it becomes more a comparison of offense and defense in pure numbers, rather than "I'm on another plane" or "I'm immune to everything" kind of BS defenses and "no save no SR just suck it up" or "7-layer BFC/AoE damage/round" BS offenses.

Are you planning to use Polymorph/Shapechange to boost your stats?

[Beheld]

I also suggest that there be a concrete objective, because a turtle-fest is not as interesting. Proposal:
1) The Wizard has a magic rose garden that will give him real ultimate power.
2) It will take the Fighter one minute (10 rounds of actions) to ruin it.
3) At the time the Fighter reaches the area, the ritual will finish in one hour (no further actions by Wizard needed).

So within an hour, one side will win.

I don't buy these kind of stipulations, you are basically handing the Fighter infinite knowledge he couldn't have and transportation he couldn't manage. If you throw 90% of high level into the trash to start the comparison, why not just use lower level character like level 7.

[AvatarVecna]

It'll be kinda sad if the Wizard turns out to be better at melee then the Fighter though.

That would be quite sad, yes. If it helps, my build gets a lot less effective if certain sources are off the table; I could deal with losing obscure splats and having to use lesser spells to reach similar effects (giving up Triple Strike for regular old Haste, for instance), but if Dragon Magazine was off the table (and it usually is), my Will save would be 10 points lower (and closer to a regular Wizard Will save), and my HP would plummet a good bit (using Int in place of Con for HP is great in the early levels, and becomes less necessary when I get some good Con buffs up). Considering that Dragon Magazine is often banned and/or not considered 1st party, it's easy to take away some parts of the build...although I still think it'll largely be functional.


Are you planning to use Polymorph/Shapechange to boost your stats?

Nope. Not touching polymorph effects, as previously stated. The characterization I'm going for is a wizard who believes in his own enlightened use of ki; he's perfectly fine enhancing his own body to Super-Saiyan levels, but just copying the body of another creature is cheap magic tricks that let puny mages pretend to be real warriors like him. :smalltongue::smallbiggrin:

[ColorBlindNinja]

That would be quite sad, yes. If it helps, my build gets a lot less effective if certain sources are off the table; I could deal with losing obscure splats and having to use lesser spells to reach similar effects (giving up Triple Strike for regular old Haste, for instance), but if Dragon Magazine was off the table (and it usually is), my Will save would be 10 points lower (and closer to a regular Wizard Will save), and my HP would plummet a good bit (using Int in place of Con for HP is great in the early levels, and becomes less necessary when I get some good Con buffs up). Considering that Dragon Magazine is often banned and/or not considered 1st party, it's easy to take away some parts of the build...although I still think it'll largely be functional.

We should ask the OP if Dragon Magazine is banned or not.

I'll be very interested to see some the more obscure parts of your build. :smallsmile:



Nope. Not touching polymorph effects, as previously stated. The characterization I'm going for is a wizard who believes in his own enlightened use of ki; he's perfectly fine enhancing his own body to Super-Saiyan levels, but just copying the body of another creature is cheap magic tricks that let puny mages pretend to be real warriors like him. :smalltongue::smallbiggrin:

I see. I asked because it's an easy way to boost your physical scores. I wonder how our Fighter will fair...

[Tainted_Scholar]

That would be quite sad, yes. If it helps, my build gets a lot less effective if certain sources are off the table; I could deal with losing obscure splats and having to use lesser spells to reach similar effects (giving up Triple Strike for regular old Haste, for instance), but if Dragon Magazine was off the table (and it usually is), my Will save would be 10 points lower (and closer to a regular Wizard Will save), and my HP would plummet a good bit (using Int in place of Con for HP is great in the early levels, and becomes less necessary when I get some good Con buffs up). Considering that Dragon Magazine is often banned and/or not considered 1st party, it's easy to take away some parts of the build...although I still think it'll largely be functional.

Dragon Magazine and other obscure sources are fine. We might take them away if the Wizard wins though.

[AvatarVecna]

We should ask the OP if Dragon Magazine is banned or not.

I'll be very interested to see some the more obscure parts of your build. :smallsmile:

Regardless of whether they approve or not, I'm probably gonna submit it anyway; as mentioned, there's ways around the mentioned issues, and while there's a lot of Broken Dragon content, I'm limiting myself to feats because that's much easier than tracking down every BS spell posted in Dragon Mag to see which buffs are worth sniping. There's not too many things in my build that are obscure, I think, but there's quite a few things planned so far that are kinda b**** moves, like getting a permanent item of Swift Haste for 8000 gp market price, or getting Divine Power/Righteous Might off the Runescarred Berserker list to drive the price down, or Persisting for +4 level adjustment (and getting to persist 14 spells of lvl 6 and higher). Previously, one such b**** move was taking the Pathetic (Constitution) Flaw twice on a Venerable Elf (taking Con down to 1 since racials can't go lower), before becoming a Necropolitan, but that part of the build is gone so I have to care about Con again (if only for having a decent Fort save and Concentration check).


I see. I asked because it's an easy way to boost your physical scores. I wonder how our Fighter will fair...

Oh, I absolutely agree on that, it's just a level of "easy bull****" that I'd rather avoid because of how problematic those spells can be.


Dragon Magazine and other obscure sources are fine. We might take them away if the Wizard wins though.

That's fair, and certainly in line with the thread. I may very well provide two versions of the build: one with the obscurer stuff, and one with lesser-but-more-common effects of a similar nature.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Regardless of whether they approve or not, I'm probably gonna submit it anyway; as mentioned, there's ways around the mentioned issues, and while there's a lot of Broken Dragon content, I'm limiting myself to feats because that's much easier than tracking down every BS spell posted in Dragon Mag to see which buffs are worth sniping. There's not too many things in my build that are obscure, I think, but there's quite a few things planned so far that are kinda b**** moves, like getting a permanent item of Swift Haste for 8000 gp market price, or getting Divine Power/Righteous Might off the Runescarred Berserker list to drive the price down, or Persisting for +4 level adjustment (and getting to persist 14 spells of lvl 6 and higher). Previously, one such b**** move was taking the Pathetic (Constitution) Flaw twice on a Venerable Elf (taking Con down to 1 since racials can't go lower), before becoming a Necropolitan, but that part of the build is gone so I have to care about Con again (if only for having a decent Fort save and Concentration check).

Interesting. Are you using the Faerie Mysteries Initiate feat (it sounded like it)?




Oh, I absolutely agree on that, it's just a level of "easy bull****" that I'd rather avoid because of how problematic those spells can be.

They're also quite a bit of paperwork.


That's fair, and certainly in line with the thread. I may very well provide two versions of the build: one with the obscurer stuff, and one with lesser-but-more-common effects of a similar nature.

I look forward to both. :smallsmile:

[Zancloufer]

That's an interesting idea, but I think that works against the Fighter. 10 rounds is an eternity; that's plenty of time for the Wizard to disable him.

It won't take much, just Mage's Disjunction and Forcecage.

I think the 10 rounds thing was more of a counter to stop the wizard from leaving and coming back more than a minute later. For example if the Wizard used Astral Projection and the Fighter had a way of cutting the cord the wizard is SoL if he doesn't have something like teleport ready. Also he's probably not pre-buffed or packing minions at that point .

[Tainted_Scholar]

I think the 10 rounds thing was more of a counter to stop the wizard from leaving and coming back more than a minute later. For example if the Wizard used Astral Projection and the Fighter had a way of cutting the cord the wizard is SoL if he doesn't have something like teleport ready. Also he's probably not pre-buffed or packing minions at that point .

The Wizard is allowed to have hour long buffs up before the fight begins. Making the Wizard buff after combat begins is like making the Fighter put on his armour after combat begins. Not having buffs up ahead of time is a truly abysmal level of optimization.

I agree with you about her probably not having minions though.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I think the 10 rounds thing was more of a counter to stop the wizard from leaving and coming back more than a minute later. For example if the Wizard used Astral Projection and the Fighter had a way of cutting the cord the wizard is SoL if he doesn't have something like teleport ready. Also he's probably not pre-buffed or packing minions at that point .

I think any Wizard that lacks hour long buffs falls into "underwear on head" stupid.

[AvatarVecna]

The Wizard is allowed to have hour long buffs up before the fight begins. Making the Wizard buff after combat begins is like making the Fighter put on his armour after combat begins. Not having buffs up ahead of time is a truly abysmal level of optimization.

I agree with you about her probably not having minions though.


I think any Wizard that lacks hour long buffs falls into "underwear on head" stupid.

This is a large part of the reason why I'm making a Persistomancer. No argument about why the Wizard starts the fight with a few dozen buff spells active on them; they cast them at the beginning of the day!

[Coretron03]

I'd be interested in making a wizard for this (Likely on the lower Op end). I think for simplicity i'll restrict myself to Core+Complete Mage/Arcane and Spell Comp and PHB 2, maybe unearthed arcana if its ok. Maybe a Abjurer wizard, level 20, with prestige classes. I'll see what i can do.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I'd be interested in making a wizard for this (Likely on the lower Op end). I think for simplicity i'll restrict myself to Core+Complete Mage/Arcane and Spell Comp and PHB 2, maybe unearthed arcana if its ok. Maybe a Abjurer wizard, level 20, with prestige classes. I'll see what i can do.

So it seems we have several people interested in building wizards; does anyone have any interest in the Fighter?

I must confess that Fighter optimization isn't my forte.

[flappeercraft]

I am by no means a fighter expert, but might I suggest taking the Pugilist (Variant fighter from Dragon Magazine) Necropolitan route? It makes you immune to damage without requiring spellcasting of any sorts.

Basically just use the bonus feat and trade it off for Shake it off ability of the pugilist which converts all damage to nonlethal and undead makes you ignore nonlethal.

[Coretron03]

I am by no means a fighter expert, but might I suggest taking the Pugilist (Variant fighter from Dragon Magazine) Necropolitan route? It makes you immune to damage without requiring spellcasting of any sorts.

Basically just use the bonus feat and trade it off for Shake it off ability of the pugilist which converts all damage to nonlethal and undead makes you ignore nonlethal.

I'm not sure how that immunity to damage is PO...


Also, that reminds me. If we take something like Necropolitan do we still have to have less xp at level 20 or do we assume the characters have earned it back over 20 levels(as lower level characters get more xp from normal encounters)?

[arkangel111]

One major thing that should be considered is that we need to take the randomness out of the equation. one lucky or unlucky roll can end a fight regardless of who is optimized better and will show us nothing. I think everything should be normalized, ie. take 10 to hit and saves average dmg results. this should better reflect the actual capabilities of each build.

[AvatarVecna]

One major thing that should be considered is that we need to take the randomness out of the equation. one lucky or unlucky roll can end a fight regardless of who is optimized better and will show us nothing. I think everything should be normalized, ie. take 10 to hit and saves average dmg results. this should better reflect the actual capabilities of each build.

As a minor addendum to this, I would suggest that people take average DPR into account, including how attack rolls affect DPR. Assuming people take 10 to hit takes criticals out of the equation; I can't say whether that will mean it favors one side or the other (generally speaking, I would assume it favors fighter, but wizard can get in on the critical action too), but not taking it into account doesn't seem right.

Definitely agree that we should look at averages more than running a test fight and seeing who gets luckier. Hell, with how rocket-taggy the game gets with even martials in the later levels, I wouldn't be surprised if the single roll that really matters is initiative.

[Jormengand]

If people actually want to do this, I suggest an evolutionary process.
1) Start with an uniptimized Wizard, like an iconic.

That was the purpose of Captain Wizzard, the randomly generated wizard, but as discussed there are no fighters which can actually beat Captain Wizzard, which implies that you have to take deliberately bad options in order to be beaten as a wizard. So the most optimised wizard a fighter can beat is some flavour of deliberately bad one.

[AvatarVecna]

So the most optimised wizard a fighter can beat is some flavour of deliberately bad one.

That sounds like my cue! :smallbiggrin: This build uses the "5 gp=1 XP" tradeoff that shows up in a few places through the game, for the purposes of crafting and fulfilling XP costs on spells.

"The told me I could become anything I wanted, so I became a Fighter." (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1243723)

I mean...with barely any items and no spell buffs (or even spells in spellbook) specified, this guy is neat, and vaguely capable, but hardly a threat to an equal-level Fighter. Let's see what he's got once he's studied and practiced his katas...

https://media.giphy.com/media/fzZaLJjnNscKs/giphy.gif (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1244722)

The spells that begin with a "+" sign are spells that get Persisted via Metamagic Effect or Instant Metamagic. The spells that begin with a "++" sign are spells that get Persisted and then Extended via Metamagic Effect or Instant Metamagic.

I'm sure there's some stuff wrong in there, and there's definitely some stuff that's questionable in there, but there's only a couple effects that go against the "Big Numbers Only" philosophy and goes straight into the "LOL Nope" stuff I'm trying to largely avoid, and they are Mind Blank, Freedom Of Movement (on the armor), and Empyreal Ecstasy (which I thought was a neat enough ability to be worth including; it can be ignored for the purposes of the contest, but I thought it'd be worth showing to people).

Armor Class: AC 51/Touch AC 31/FF AC 43
Hit Points: 330
Damage Reduction: 15/evil, 10/adamantine, 5/cold iron
Speed: Land 30 ft, Fly 130 ft (perfect), Swim 30 ft
Senses: Listen +54, Search +35, Spot +54, Darkvision (no range limit), Blindsight 60 ft, True Seeing 60 ft
Initiative: +22
Saves: Fort +29/Ref +32/Will +39

Attack routine (possibly with pounce): +42/+42/+42/+37/+32/+27 targeting Touch AC, dealing 12d6+33 bludgeoning/1d8 fire damage, 17-20/x4 criticals with +3d10 fire on crits (so crits deal 48d6+132 bludgeoning/3d10+1d8 fire).

Power Attack routine (possibly with pounce): +22/+22/+22/+17/+12/+7 targeting Touch AC, dealing 12d6+73 bludgeoning/1d8 fire damage, 17-20/x4 criticals with +3d10 fire on crits (so crits deal 48d6+292 bludgeoning/3d10+1d8 fire).

I also have 10 Fighter Bonus Feats that I can re-select at the beginning of every day, assuming I keep this exact spell layout (which I don't, since there's a number of these spells I'm only casting every other day).

Scenario: Thor has been vacationing in the mortal realm, going out and kicking ass when the whim strikes him, and making sacrifices to Odin to power his divine abilities. Thor is a good person, but tends to seek out combat with worthy opponents to test both their mettle and his own, with the assurance that the Allfather will reward whichever valiant warrior makes it to Valhalla.

Whether by stumbling across him or deliberately seeking him out, you and Thor have crossed paths and decided to have a fight to the death. Nobody's running away, nobody's using cheap tactics, and death is but an inconvenience for mighty warriors such as us. Come with me, mortal, and we shall see which of us is stronger.

[Hish]

That was the purpose of Captain Wizzard, the randomly generated wizard, but as discussed there are no fighters which can actually beat Captain Wizzard, which implies that you have to take deliberately bad options in order to be beaten as a wizard. So the most optimised wizard a fighter can beat is some flavour of deliberately bad one.

This may be true, but the way he was played doesn't scream poor optimisation to me. "Shapeshift, teleport to the moon, cast Astral Projection and return to the material plane" is more advanced than most people would do, even if they are more adept than a RNG at picking spells.
A poorly optimised character would use Astral Projection to go to the astral plane, and Shapechange for turning into a bear or something. Not going to the moon and becoming invincible.


That sounds like my cue! :smallbiggrin: This build uses the "5 gp=1 XP" tradeoff that shows up in a few places through the game, for the purposes of crafting and fulfilling XP costs on spells.

"The told me I could become anything I wanted, so I became a Fighter." (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1243723)

I mean...with barely any items and no spell buffs (or even spells in spellbook) specified, this guy is neat, and vaguely capable, but hardly a threat to an equal-level Fighter. Let's see what he's got once he's studied and practiced his katas

Etc.

Cool! Actually, I was going to post a thread asking if there are any Wizard builds that can be a better Fighter than a Fighter without summoning. Looks like I don't have to anymore.

[PanosIs]

I'd be interested in making a Fighter build, although the constraints should be set in stone before that. Seeing as Thor is using Incantatrix I suppose it is alright to multiclass into any martial base/prestige classs. And for sanity reasons we're staying away from Tome of Battle?

[ColorBlindNinja]

I'd be interested in making a Fighter build, although the constraints should be set in stone before that. Seeing as Thor is using Incantatrix I suppose it is alright to multiclass into any martial base/prestige classs. And for sanity reasons we're staying away from Tome of Battle?

The OP said that the majority of the Fighter's levels had to be Fighter or Fighter-esque Prestige classes.

We might want to ask for clarification on that last one.

Edit:

I am by no means a fighter expert, but might I suggest taking the Pugilist (Variant fighter from Dragon Magazine) Necropolitan route? It makes you immune to damage without requiring spellcasting of any sorts.

Basically just use the bonus feat and trade it off for Shake it off ability of the pugilist which converts all damage to nonlethal and undead makes you ignore nonlethal.

What issue of Dragon Magazine is the Pugilist from?

[Tainted_Scholar]

Armor Class: AC 51/Touch AC 31/FF AC 43
Hit Points: 330
Damage Reduction: 15/evil, 10/adamantine, 5/cold iron
Speed: Land 30 ft, Fly 130 ft (perfect), Swim 30 ft
Senses: Listen +54, Search +35, Spot +54, Darkvision (no range limit), Blindsight 60 ft, True Seeing 60 ft
Initiative: +22
Saves: Fort +29/Ref +32/Will +39

Attack routine (possibly with pounce): +42/+42/+42/+37/+32/+27 targeting Touch AC, dealing 12d6+33 bludgeoning/1d8 fire damage, 17-20/x4 criticals with +3d10 fire on crits (so crits deal 48d6+132 bludgeoning/3d10+1d8 fire).

Power Attack routine (possibly with pounce): +22/+22/+22/+17/+12/+7 targeting Touch AC, dealing 12d6+73 bludgeoning/1d8 fire damage, 17-20/x4 criticals with +3d10 fire on crits (so crits deal 48d6+292 bludgeoning/3d10+1d8 fire).

I also have 10 Fighter Bonus Feats that I can re-select at the beginning of every day, assuming I keep this exact spell layout (which I don't, since there's a number of these spells I'm only casting every other day).

Scenario: Thor has been vacationing in the mortal realm, going out and kicking ass when the whim strikes him, and making sacrifices to Odin to power his divine abilities. Thor is a good person, but tends to seek out combat with worthy opponents to test both their mettle and his own, with the assurance that the Allfather will reward whichever valiant warrior makes it to Valhalla.

Whether by stumbling across him or deliberately seeking him out, you and Thor have crossed paths and decided to have a fight to the death. Nobody's running away, nobody's using cheap tactics, and death is but an inconvenience for mighty warriors such as us. Come with me, mortal, and we shall see which of us is stronger.

I'm going to be honest, when I created this thread, "Can a Wizard out melee a Fighter?" was not one of the questions that I expected to be answered. Though I can say that I am now eagerly awaiting the result.


The OP said that the majority of the Fighter's levels had to be Fighter or Fighter-esque Prestige classes.

We might want to ask for clarification on that last one.

By Fighter Prestige class, I meant, it must be a prestige class that a pure Fighter can qualify for.

[PanosIs]

What issue of Dragon Magazine is the Pugilist from?

Its Dragon #310 along with the other Fighter variants (Exoticist, Targeteer etc) if I'm not mistaken.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Its Dragon #310 along with the other Fighter variants (Exoticist, Targeteer etc) if I'm not mistaken.

I see, thanks!

[PanosIs]

A few preliminary ideas:
An antimagic torc provides a lot of benefits if we can get close to the offending wizard, we can do this via some fast flying speed, especially if we can get it without magic, even with magic getting on the wizards side and then popping antimagic is going to be pretty good.

Having some way to get extra actions on our turn is imperative to counter stuff like abrupt jaunt, although I don't think there's a way to win over Celerity (Fighter does thing, Celerity into Time Stop and win). But that spell is pretty damn broken anyways. Once we have the Wizard in our antimagic field everything becomes easy, since with our lockdown build the Wizard cannot get away.

Some other possible approaches:
Sneaking up on the wizard could be possible, if difficult, being under continuous Mind Blank and Nondetection can help with that though, and if we pull it off we can probably get an one turn kill, prefferably from range.
Demoralizing the Wizard is also an option, If not winning the fight, getting one or two turns of cowering from Imperious Command does almost guarrantee a win, plus with the possible optimization of skills our Intimidate check can easily be in the 60s.
I would love to be able to dispel the wizard's spells but even greater dispelling with CL 20 should not be able to beat the boosted CL of our adversary, any other way to pull this off? Or a way to disrupt Swift Action casting.

[Karl Aegis]

It looks like the tables have been turned! It is the wizard seeking out the fighter now so that he may attain material components for his heroics spell!

[ColorBlindNinja]

A few preliminary ideas:
An antimagic torc provides a lot of benefits if we can get close to the offending wizard, we can do this via some fast flying speed, especially if we can get it without magic, even with magic getting on the wizards side and then popping antimagic is going to be pretty good.

Antimagic items tend be rather expensive and turn off all our other magic items. That seems like a bad idea against all but the most un-optimized Wizards.


Having some way to get extra actions on our turn is imperative to counter stuff like abrupt jaunt, although I don't think there's a way to win over Celerity (Fighter does thing, Celerity into Time Stop and win). But that spell is pretty damn broken anyways. Once we have the Wizard in our antimagic field everything becomes easy, since with our lockdown build the Wizard cannot get away.

That assumes that the Wizard isn't flying.


Some other possible approaches:
Sneaking up on the wizard could be possible, if difficult, being under continuous Mind Blank and Nondetection can help with that though, and if we pull it off we can probably get an one turn kill, prefferably from range.
Demoralizing the Wizard is also an option, If not winning the fight, getting one or two turns of cowering from Imperious Command does almost guarrantee a win, plus with the possible optimization of skills our Intimidate check can easily be in the 60s.
I would love to be able to dispel the wizard's spells but even greater dispelling with CL 20 should not be able to beat the boosted CL of our adversary, any other way to pull this off? Or a way to disrupt Swift Action casting.


- It's kinda hard for Fighters to sneak, what with low skill points and all the good skills being cross rank.
- This assumes that the Wizard isn't immune to fear and that we get to act first. I'd prefer just to kill her and be done with it.
- The only way I can think of to Dispel the Wizard is with a Holy Avenger. The only way I can think of to disrupt a Swift spell is to ready an action.

[AvatarVecna]

For what it's worth, antimagic, dispelling, and disjunction can screw over Thor pretty hard right now...but he's also got ~200k left and a couple good crafting feats, so building in some protection against those is certainly possible. I mostly left them out because I want going for more of a fair fight: avoiding cheap magic tricks and limited use-per-day OP abilities that make fighting pointless, but rather a strict numbers contest. I left that defense against antimagic/anti-magic tactics open because taking advantage of it would just prove that a Fighter pretending to be a Wizard can, with the right spell effects, prove superior to a Wizard pretending to be a Fighter. :smalltongue:

[ColorBlindNinja]

For what it's worth, antimagic, dispelling, and disjunction can screw over Thor pretty hard right now...but he's also got ~200k left and a couple good crafting feats, so building in some protection against those is certainly possible. I mostly left them out because I want going for more of a fair fight: avoiding cheap magic tricks and limited use-per-day OP abilities that make fighting pointless, but rather a strict numbers contest. I left that defense against antimagic/anti-magic tactics open because taking advantage of it would just prove that a Fighter pretending to be a Wizard can, with the right spell effects, prove superior to a Wizard pretending to be a Fighter. :smalltongue:

If you can afford an Adamantine hat and a Permanent Shrink Item, that should be enough in the way of AMF defenses.

By the way, nice build for Thor.

[PanosIs]

Antimagic items tend be rather expensive and turn off all our other magic items. That seems like a bad idea against all but the most un-optimized Wizards.

I disagree, we can bash head quite well without any magic items, while an AMF turns off all of the Wizard's buffs, contingencies and escape mechanisms. And as for the flying bit, we can quite easily get a fly speed via items, getting next to the wizard and then activating our AMF means both we and the wizard fall down to earth again at which point we have the advantage as a full-bab, lots-of-HP class.


It's kinda hard for Fighters to sneak, what with low skill points and all the good skills being cross rank.

It's not very hard to get hide and move silently as class skills (or even from some other class in combination with able learner), but I still don't think it's a good idea, as Wizards have a lot of tools to disrupt this anyways. Is an option for discussion either way.


This assumes that the Wizard isn't immune to fear and that we get to act first. I'd prefer just to kill her and be done with it.

Yes it does, and that is a significant obstacle, however the Zhentarim substitution levels let us demoralize as a swift action so the investment cost is pretty low.


The only way I can think of to disrupt a Swift spell is to ready an action.

Help me with the mechanics here, is it possible to ready an action as your action for the round, activate a Belt of Battle for a full attack, and then when the Wizard tries to do a thing, disrupt it with your readied action in your own turn?

[ColorBlindNinja]

I disagree, we can bash head quite well without any magic items, while an AMF turns off all of the Wizard's buffs, contingencies and escape mechanisms. And as for the flying bit, we can quite easily get a fly speed via items, getting next to the wizard and then activating our AMF means both we and the wizard fall down to earth again at which point we have the advantage as a full-bab, lots-of-HP class.

If that Wizard's using Phantom Steed to fly, you'll never catch her. A flying steed might help, but this tactic also assumes no contingency.


It's not very hard to get hide and move silently as class skills (or even from some other class in combination with able learner), but I still don't think it's a good idea, as Wizards have a lot of tools to disrupt this anyways. Is an option for discussion either way.


It's pretty easy to get Hide/Move Silently as class skills, but I don't think we'll have the DEX and INT to make use of them.


Yes it does, and that is a significant obstacle, however the Zhentarim substitution levels let us demoralize as a swift action so the investment cost is pretty low.

It wouldn't hurt to try then.


Help me with the mechanics here, is it possible to ready an action as your action for the round, activate a Belt of Battle for a full attack, and then when the Wizard tries to do a thing, disrupt it with your readied action in your own turn?

After checking the rules, it would seem that would more or less work. Barring a 5-Foot step, you can't move once you've readied an action. I don't think you'd be able to get close enough to the Wizard for that idea to work.

[AvatarVecna]

If you can afford an Adamantine hat and a Permanent Shrink Item, that should be enough in the way of AMF defenses.

That's good for teleporting out, but the ability to fight in an Antimagic Field without losing my buffs would be really nice; if nothing else, I may go Wizard 7/Cloistered Cleric 3/Incantatrix 10 on a rebuild, give up on crafting my own armor/weapon, pick up Knowledge Devotion from CC, and then take Initiate of Mystra in its place. Then spent some of my last bits of money on some anti-Disjunction stuff (maybe Spellblade, maybe Ring Of Spell Battle).

Of course, my main defense against such things right now is "we have a gentlemen's agreement to fight like men".


By the way, nice build for Thor.

Thanks. As you can see from the above, still has some kinks that can be worked out, but I feel that if he was in a full party, having a Cleric, Druid, or Bard to help out with "buffing up the warrior all day" (particularly a persistomancy cleric), getting the divine spells would be a lot easier and he could be even better.

Still, for a self-sufficient Gish Wizard, he's pretty awesome.

[ColorBlindNinja]

That's good for teleporting out, but the ability to fight in an Antimagic Field without losing my buffs would be really nice; if nothing else, I may go Wizard 7/Cloistered Cleric 3/Incantatrix 10 on a rebuild, give up on crafting my own armor/weapon, pick up Knowledge Devotion from CC, and then take Initiate of Mystra in its place. Then spent some of my last bits of money on some anti-Disjunction stuff (maybe Spellblade, maybe Ring Of Spell Battle).

Of course, my main defense against such things right now is "we have a gentlemen's agreement to fight like men".

If you have room for a feat, you can take Wild Talent and then cast Dweomer of Transference. The way it's worded, it should block AMFs (along with any other spells)



Thanks. As you can see from the above, still has some kinks that can be worked out, but I feel that if he was in a full party, having a Cleric, Druid, or Bard to help out with "buffing up the warrior all day" (particularly a persistomancy cleric), getting the divine spells would be a lot easier and he could be even better.

Still, for a self-sufficient Gish Wizard, he's pretty awesome.

I always wondered why more people didn't talk about Gish Wizards instead of CoDzilla. I mean, CoDzilla is impressive, but it's not the only Full Caster Gish option out there.

[Florian]

A few preliminary ideas:
An antimagic torc provides a lot of benefits if we can get close to the offending wizard, we can do this via some fast flying speed, especially if we can get it without magic, even with magic getting on the wizards side and then popping antimagic is going to be pretty good.

Having some way to get extra actions on our turn is imperative to counter stuff like abrupt jaunt, although I don't think there's a way to win over Celerity (Fighter does thing, Celerity into Time Stop and win). But that spell is pretty damn broken anyways. Once we have the Wizard in our antimagic field everything becomes easy, since with our lockdown build the Wizard cannot get away.

It´s a logistical/economy of actions problem on the fighter side of things. Firing up an AMF is an end-of-the-round move that you have to do after you actually had to use magic or gear go get in close and personal.

[ColorBlindNinja]

It´s a logistical/economy of actions problem on the fighter side of things. Firing up an AMF is an end-of-the-round move that you have to do after you actually had to use magic or gear go get in close and personal.

I think PanosIs was planning on using a lockdown build of some sort to keep the Wizard from taking a full round action to withdraw and then using a quickened spell of her choice.

[Florian]

I think PanosIs was planning on using a lockdown build of some sort to keep the Wizard from taking a full round action to withdraw and then using a quickened spell of her choice.

The problem is the Torc being an always-on effect. Going for high-magic targets with a martial means you need the nuke options, but you´ve got to gauge when using it will hurt more than benefit you. (Or you find a way to use EX abilities..)

[ColorBlindNinja]

The problem is the Torc being an always-on effect. Going for high-magic targets with a martial means you need the nuke options, but you´ve got to gauge when using it will hurt more than benefit you. (Or you find a way to use EX abilities..)

I see. I could have sworn that there's an AMF item that's user activated. But I suppose that'd mean you'd have to win initiative or death is likely.

[Florian]

I see. I could have sworn that there's an AMF item that's user activated. But I suppose that'd mean you'd have to win initiative or death is likely.

Sorry, my 3,5 is pretty rusted, haven´t gone there for years. What it means is that you a) have to win ini and b) have to handle your economy of actions right and c) don´t be a (legal) target.
So basically, a Lion totem dip/Shadow Pouncer/Swordsage as base and using a Belt of Battle to activate AMF in between.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Sorry, my 3,5 is pretty rusted, haven´t gone there for years. What it means is that you a) have to win ini and b) have to handle your economy of actions right and c) don´t be a (legal) target.
So basically, a Lion totem dip/Shadow Pouncer/Swordsage as base and using a Belt of Battle to activate AMF in between.

Anticipate Teleport might complicate that.

[Florian]

Anticipate Teleport might complicate that.

That´s a judgement call. Interesting spell, but we do get into problems with the RAW here when trying to find out what is covered and what is not. Edit: Think about why I mentioned EX.

[ColorBlindNinja]

That´s a judgement call. Interesting spell, but we do get into problems with the RAW here when trying to find out what is covered and what is not. Edit: Think about why I mentioned EX.

It says spell or effect. That last one is pretty broad.

[Florian]

It says spell or effect. That last one is pretty broad.

Your call.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Your call.

It sounds to me that Anticipate Teleportation would block all teleport based effects; regardless of if they were spells, SLA, SU or EX.

It lasts 24 hours too, so it's likely to be up if the Wizard in question is remotely optimized.

[Tainted_Scholar]

It sounds to me that Anticipate Teleportation would block all teleport based effects; regardless of if they were spells, SLA, SU or EX.

It lasts 24 hours too, so it's likely to be up if the Wizard in question is remotely optimized.

Every character should have Anticipate Teleport up, given how powerful Scry and Die is.

[Florian]

It sounds to me that Anticipate Teleportation would block all teleport based effects; regardless of if they were spells, SLA, SU or EX.

It lasts 24 hours too, so it's likely to be up if the Wizard in question is remotely optimized.

A tempeh, jalapeno and cheddar burger accompanied by a good lager sounds solid.

Having to talk about what a spell "sounds" in contrast to what it actually says does not.
I´ve got the feeling that the two of us will often find us in disagreement when things are open to interpretation.

[ColorBlindNinja]

A tempeh, jalapeno and cheddar burger accompanied by a good lager sounds solid.

Having to talk about what a spell "sounds" in contrast to what it actually says does not.
I´ve got the feeling that the two of us will often find us in disagreement when things are open to interpretation.

If it was only intended to block spells, why include the word "effect" at all? Why not use a different, more precise word?

[emeraldstreak]

What issue of Dragon Magazine is the Pugilist from?

Pugilist isn't immune to damage, some people chose to read its description in this way but there's nothing in English proving them right; and I believe it was later clarified to not be immune to damage.

That being said, suppose the Fighter is immune to hit point damage, or even - for a time - all vectors of attack in 3.5. I still don't see how he wins against a wizard without UMD or custom magic items.

[Florian]

If it was only intended to block spells, why include the word "effect" at all? Why not use a different, more concise word?

Good question. "Effect" is not even a thing covered by basic d20 rules so we´re left to wonder what it could or should mean ( aka RAI).

Edit: Maybe that gives you some insight on why I insisted on a certain point during this discussion. For a challenge or PvP match, the rules must be clear. The moment we have to actually have to interpret what the rules mean, it´s already too late.

[emeraldstreak]

A Fighter can act before a Wizard via the Bloodhound PrC. So if the Fighter is optimized enough to one-shot the Wizard, and the Wizard is unoptimized enough to not have contigencies, that's likely the upper limit of what a non-UMD Fighter can achieve.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Good question. "Effect" is not even a thing covered by basic d20 rules so we´re left to wonder what it could or should mean ( aka RAI).

Edit: Maybe that gives you some insight on why I insisted on a certain point during this discussion. For a challenge or PvP match, the rules must be clear. The moment we have to actually have to interpret what the rules mean, it´s already too late.

I think we can worry about the details when the fighting starts.

With that said, it seems pretty obvious what the spell meant; it blocks teleport spells and effects. So any effect that involves teleportation would be blocked.


A Fighter can act before a Wizard via the Bloodhound PrC. So if the Fighter is optimized enough to one-shot the Wizard, and the Wizard is unoptimized enough to not have contigencies, that's likely the upper limit of what a non-UMD Fighter can achieve.

If you're talking about Ready and Waiting, then that only lasts 10 minutes. That limits it's usefulness severely and the readied action can fail if the Wizard is too far away (depending on what the action is).

[emeraldstreak]

If you're talking about Ready and Waiting, then that only lasts 10 minutes. That limits it's usefulness severely and the readied action can fail if the Wizard is too far away (depending on what the action is).

When 10 minutes pass, the Bloodhound needs expend a standard action to renew it. Not a big deal.

Obviously the readied action is to one-shot the wizard within the best range possible to optimize while keeping up the one-shot requirement.

And again, it will work only against a non-contingency wizard, which is a low optimization bar.

[PanosIs]

To be honest it seems that the RAI on Anticipate Teleportation is for it to work for out of combat teleports, giving you a warning and one/three rounds to ready stuff against scry and dies, I don't think it was meant to block stuff like Dimension Door and co. while in initiative count. However RAW it works so it doesn't really matter.

For a pure fighter, without resorting to stuff like AMFs and similar, I don't think we can even overpower Thor, with dips we can get there as there's a lot of power to be gained. In any case I still think that reaching the wizard via speed tricks (plenty of ways to get 1000+ feet of movement off in one round, even while flying) and then AMF on them while having a lockdown build is one of the best ways to deal with said wizard. Of course, contingencies can ruin that plan but there are very few ways to deal with that anyways.

Now if we could just shoot an antimagic field onto said wizard...

[Beheld]

It sounds to me that Anticipate Teleportation would block all teleport based effects; regardless of if they were spells, SLA, SU or EX.

It lasts 24 hours too, so it's likely to be up if the Wizard in question is remotely optimized.

Extend for 48 hours :D. Doesn't cost any slots on days you leave your super fortress.

That being said, [teleport] effects may not cover all effects we consider teleportish, like shadowstep may not be teleportation, as teleport effects "Teleportation is instantaneous travel through the Astral Plane. Anything that blocks astral travel also blocks teleportation." could easily mean that things that move you through the plane of shadow are not the same, and bypass Greater Anticpate Teleport.


I think we can worry about the details when the fighting starts.

With that said, it seems pretty obvious what the spell meant; it blocks teleport spells and effects. So any effect that involves teleportation would be blocked.

That's a terrible system for these kinds of tests. If someone builds a character based on the premise of being able to bypass Anticipate Teleport with they shadowjumping Teflammar ShadowLord, it's not fine to say "we can figure out the rules in game" and then screw them in game. Likewise the reverse for people neglecting defense under the belief that Greater Anticipate Teleport will stop it.


In any case I still think that reaching the wizard via speed tricks (plenty of ways to get 1000+ feet of movement off in one round, even while flying) and then AMF on them while having a lockdown build is one of the best ways to deal with said wizard. Of course, contingencies can ruin that plan but there are very few ways to deal with that anyways.

Now if we could just shoot an antimagic field onto said wizard...

How does this work if the Wizard has flying by magic? You cause him to fall out of the AMF field as soon as you activate the AMF field.

[ColorBlindNinja]

When 10 minutes pass, the Bloodhound needs expend a standard action to renew it. Not a big deal.

Obviously the readied action is to one-shot the wizard within the best range possible to optimize while keeping up the one-shot requirement.

And again, it will work only against a non-contingency wizard, which is a low optimization bar.

I guess that works. As long as you have a way to make the Wizard your mark. That could be tricky. I agree that VS contingency it probably won't work.

Also, Bloodhound requires a ton of skill points. That could be a problem.


To be honest it seems that the RAI on Anticipate Teleportation is for it to work for out of combat teleports, giving you a warning and one/three rounds to ready stuff against scry and dies, I don't think it was meant to block stuff like Dimension Door and co. while in initiative count. However RAW it works so it doesn't really matter.

WotC had to know that including all spells with the teleport descriptior would include Dimension Door. Right? :smallsigh:


For a pure fighter, without resorting to stuff like AMFs and similar, I don't think we can even overpower Thor, with dips we can get there as there's a lot of power to be gained. In any case I still think that reaching the wizard via speed tricks (plenty of ways to get 1000+ feet of movement off in one round, even while flying) and then AMF on them while having a lockdown build is one of the best ways to deal with said wizard. Of course, contingencies can ruin that plan but there are very few ways to deal with that anyways.

I'd be interested in hearing about how you're getting that big of a movement boost.

The OP did say that Hulking Hurler was on the table, so long as we don't go nuts. Maybe that's a better option for damage?

[emeraldstreak]

I guess that works. As long as you have a way to make the Wizard your mark. That could be tricky.

It is, in fact it probably requires a bit of fiat in the Fighter's favor while setting up the conflict.


I agree that VS contingency it probably won't work.

Ready Action vs Contingency vs firing off an immediate action - it's a bit of a mess rulewise. Even so, a Fighter should much prefer that to an Initiative arms-race against a Wizard.



Also, Bloodhound requires a ton of skill points. That could be a problem.


For a level 20 Fighter, not really. That being said the PrC is indeed more in-style for, say, a Ranger.

[PanosIs]

For speed, I was thinking of the various ways to get Cheetah's rush ability that lets you move at 10 times your speed, I think I've even seen an item with that ability. Otherwise, getting a 100+ base speed is viable with some light template stacking and items, and our preffered method of flight is probably something that gives us double land speed, so it is possible to catch up to the wizard with that and some additional moves.

Hulking Hurler is amusing, and we can try it out, the only reason I'm reluctant is that it gets trumped by more things than AMF+Lockdown which, once set up, is extremely hard to get away from.

PS.: On Anticipate Teleportation, the lack of a clear ruling on how it works while in initiative is what makes me think it was intended for out of initiative use. What happens when you attempt to cast Dimension Door in initiative count in an area with Anticipate Teleportation? Do you disappear, then a round of combat happens and then you appear again?

[ColorBlindNinja]

It is, in fact it probably requires a bit of fiat in the Fighter's favor while setting up the conflict.

We could probably hand-wave it for this little contest. Otherwise, I'd say Mind Blank makes that tricky to say the least.


Ready Action vs Contingency vs firing off an immediate action - it's a bit of a mess rulewise. Even so, a Fighter should much prefer that to an Initiative arms-race against a Wizard.

I agree.


For a level 20 Fighter, not really. That being said the PrC is indeed more in-style for, say, a Ranger.

Fair enough. I was thinking about the INT score needed for the most part. We only need two levels to get Ready and Waiting.

Edit:


For speed, I was thinking of the various ways to get Cheetah's rush ability that lets you move at 10 times your speed, I think I've even seen an item with that ability. Otherwise, getting a 100+ base speed is viable with some light template stacking and items, and our preffered method of flight is probably something that gives us double land speed, so it is possible to catch up to the wizard with that and some additional moves.

Hulking Hurler is amusing, and we can try it out, the only reason I'm reluctant is that it gets trumped by more things than AMF+Lockdown which, once set up, is extremely hard to get away from.

I think setting up AMF + Lockdown is going to be tricky. What templates did you have in mind?

[PanosIs]

Indeed, it is, but the main point is catching up to the Wizard, after that and considering no contingencies that activate from: 1) Us getting close to the Wizard 2) Us activating an item it's reasonably easy to crash into land (We both take a lot of damage), and, depending on wether we have a Belt of Battle use remaining we can also grapple/trip/kill the Wizard or ready some disruption.

For speed, Shadow creature, Dark creature and Feral creature grant a pretty hefty buff. (+20 and x1.5) Along with being non-****e templates in general. And we can add classes that get fast movement as well as being of a race that has a high base speed, lets say 40 or 50 gets us to 90-115, and with a speed boosting item we break the 120ft. barrier required to catch up to a Phantom Steed.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Indeed, it is, but the main point is catching up to the Wizard, after that and considering no contingencies that activate from: 1) Us getting close to the Wizard 2) Us activating an item it's reasonably easy to crash into land (We both take a lot of damage), and, depending on wether we have a Belt of Battle use remaining we can also grapple/trip/kill the Wizard or ready some disruption.

That Belt of Battle won't work in the AMF; unless you were planning on turning it off?


For speed, Shadow creature, Dark creature and Feral creature grant a pretty hefty buff. (+20 and x1.5) Along with being non-****e templates in general. And we can add classes that get fast movement as well as being of a race that has a high base speed, lets say 40 or 50 gets us to 90-115, and with a speed boosting item we break the 120ft. barrier required to catch up to a Phantom Steed.

How much LA is that total?

[PanosIs]

That Belt of Battle won't work in the AMF; unless you were planning on turning it off?

Welp, that was luxury anyways, but still, if we have a swift action to spare we can activate it before we activate the AMF.


How much LA is that total?

It's +4 LA if I'm not mistaken, but not all of these are necessary. I would grab Feral for the goodies and maybe Shadow if more speed is needed. There's an item that grants the Dark template.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Welp, that was luxury anyways, but still, if we have a swift action to spare we can activate it before we activate the AMF.



It's +4 LA if I'm not mistaken, but not all of these are necessary. I would grab Feral for the goodies and maybe Shadow if more speed is needed. There's an item that grants the Dark template.

Yeah, the Collar Of Umbral Metamorphosis from Tome of Magic.

+4 LA seems like a lot...

[PanosIs]

+4 LA seems like a lot...

It is a lot if you're a level dependant character, for a Fighter it hurts much less I think, loosing some BAB and saves, we can even look into obscure races that have LA as long as we don't drop below 16 levels of full BAB for 4 attacks. If we just take the Feral template that means we have another 3 LA to work with. What race has cool abilities and a high base speed?

[ColorBlindNinja]

It is a lot if you're a level dependant character, for a Fighter it hurts much less I think, loosing some BAB and saves, we can even look into obscure races that have LA as long as we don't drop below 16 levels of full BAB for 4 attacks. If we just take the Feral template that means we have another 3 LA to work with. What race has cool abilities and a high base speed?

Catfolk have a 40' movement speed if I recall. That's only for land, though.

Edit: Are you using a template for flight?

[PanosIs]

Catfolk have a 40' movement speed if I recall. That's only for land, though.

Edit: Are you using a template for flight?

That's disapointing, I hoped there'd be something with 50-60ft speed to lift off some weight of the other components of the build.

I'm using the Feathered Wings Graft from Fiend Folio, grants fly speed equal to twice your land speed with average maneuverability. Also has the advantage of not being dispellable.

[ColorBlindNinja]

That's disapointing, I hoped there'd be something with 50-60ft speed to lift off some weight of the other components of the build.

Maybe a dip in Barbarian for an extra +10?


I'm using the Feathered Wings Graft from Fiend Folio, grants fly speed equal to twice your land speed with average maneuverability.

Is our Fighter evil then? Or can we consistently make that Will save?

[PanosIs]

Maybe a dip in Barbarian for an extra +10?

Is our Fighter evil then? Or can we consistently make that Will save?

Totally evil, we're trying to ruin the poor Wizard's rose garden, what did you expect :P

[PanosIs]

We can also be a Centaur for a 50ft. base land speed and use Horseshoes of speed to get it to 80, 100 with Shadow and Dark, but a Centaur with the Feathered Wings graft would look quite stupid. :P

In any case, with the speed issue kinda solved (We can get a base speed of 60ft. quite easily without LA and we get up to 125 with +3 LA if I didn't miss anything, that along additional move actions from Belt of Battle/Chronocharm, extra turns from Boots of Temporal Acceleration and the double speed from the Feathered Wings, and the double speed on the charge should let us somehow reach the Wizard. What's our next issue? We AMF next to the Wizard and drop down, what does the Wizard do then?

[ColorBlindNinja]

We can also be a Centaur for a 50ft. base land speed and use Horseshoes of speed to get it to 80, 100 with Shadow and Dark, but a Centaur with the Feathered Wings graft would look quite stupid. :P

In any case, with the speed issue kinda solved (We can get a base speed of 60ft. quite easily without LA and we get up to 125 with +3 LA if I didn't miss anything, that along additional move actions from Belt of Battle/Chronocharm, extra turns from Boots of Temporal Acceleration and the double speed from the Feathered Wings, and the double speed on the charge should let us somehow reach the Wizard. What's our next issue? We AMF next to the Wizard and drop down, what does the Wizard do then?

What the Wizard would do next depends on optimization level. I would give the Wizard a magically shrunken hat that would expand when the AMF hits it. That blocks line of effect and allows the Wizard to use Dimension Door to escape. Or use Time Stop and buff.

Otherwise, Invoke Magic allows her to cast a spell in the AMF and stopping her depends on a lockdown build.

I remember Mage Slayer, Stand Still and maybe a dip into Knight/Crusader being necessary for that.

Edit: Martial Study for Thicket of Blades is better than a Crusader dip.

[PanosIs]

What the Wizard would do next depends on optimization level. I would give the Wizard a magically shrunken hat that would expand when the AMF hits it. That blocks line of effect and allows the Wizard to use Dimension Door to escape. Or use Time Stop and buff.

Otherwise, Invoke Magic allows her to cast a spell in the AMF and stopping her depends on a lockdown build.

I remember Mage Slayer, Stand Still and maybe a dip into Knight/Crusader being necessary for that.

Edit: Martial Study for Thicket of Blades is better than a Crusader dip.

So on needed feats:


Mage Slayer
Combat Reflexes
Stand Still
Martial Study: Something
Martial Stance: Thicket of Blades

Unsure if using two feats is better than a Crusader dip, but oh welp, we do have 17 feats to get with our 18 fighter levels. What kind of gear are we using besides a Cowl of Warding?

[ColorBlindNinja]

So on needed feats:


Mage Slayer
Combat Reflexes
Stand Still
Martial Study: Something
Martial Stance: Thicket of Blades


Unsure if using two feats is better than a Crusader dip, but oh welp, we do have 17 feats to get with our 18 fighter levels. What kind of gear are we using besides a Cowl of Warding?

- We're going to need something for True Seeing, maybe a Gem of Seeing?
- We should have the Death Ward enhancement for our armor.
- We should have Boots of Teleport or something similar.
- We could use a Rod of Negation.
- Initiative enhancements to a minor weapon like a dagger or shuriken.
- Boosts to AC, Stats (STR/CON) and saves (Cloak of Resistance). We could pay someone for a permanent Superior Resistance (+6 to saves) but Pelor forbid it gets dispelled.

That's just a few pieces of gear we need. Even one hole in the Fighter's defense could spell doom.

[PanosIs]

I think I have an initial character to play with, he's not particurarly optimized but it's a starting point so we can draw up a starting wizard and fight.

Here he is:


Half Minotaur Feral Water Orc Fighter 18
Large Humanoid - Chaotic Evil

Speed: 75ft, Fly 150ft. (Average)

(32 point buy, 18 points in STR and CON, 8 in everything else)
Final scores after items:
STR 40
DEX 14
CON 30
INT 4
WIS 6
CHA 6

Initiative: +12, rerollable

Armor Class: 44 (38 touch, 37 flat footed)

Hit Points: 280

SAVES:
Fort: +26
Ref: +13
Will: +21

Feats:


Power Attack
Improved Bull Rush
Shock Trooper

Leap Attack
Battle Jump
Headlong Rush

Mage Slayer
Stand Still
Combat Reflexes
Defensive Sweep
Robilar's Gambit

Martial Study: Foehammer
Martial Stance: Thicket of Blades

Pierce Magical Concealment
Steadfast Determination
Endurance

Improved Critical

Equipment:

Waist: Belt of Battle
Head: Cowl of Warding
Ring: Ring of Protection +5
Ring: Ring of Anticipation
Throat: Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis and Antimagic (Merge Antimagic Torc and Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis)
Face: Third Eye Clarity
Torso: Vest of Resistance +5
Shoulders: Mantle of Second Chances
Arms: Armbands of Physique (Item of STR, DEX and CON +6)
Graft: Feathered Wings
Feet: Boots of +10ft speed
Sidearm: +1 Warning Eager Dagger
Main Weapon: +1 Valorous Transmuting Minotaur Greathammer with Lesser Truedeath Crystal
Armor: +5 Ghost Ward Death Ward Quickness Full Plate
Shield: +5 Animated Ghost Ward Tower Shield

Other: Tome of STR +5
Other: Tome of CON +1


It's a pretty crammy build but its got both charging that can kill stuff outright and the lockdown aspect set up pretty well, along with antimagic tricks and a very fast fly speed.




Armor Class: AC 44/Touch AC 38/FF AC 37
Hit Points: 280
Speed: Land 75 ft, Fly 150 ft (average), Swim 75 ft
Initiative: +12, rerollable
Saves: Fort +26/Ref +13/Will +21

Immunities: Continuous Mind Blank, Freedom of Movement, Spell Turning from Cowl of Warding, protection from death effects 1/Day

Lockdown: Mage Slayer cuts casting on the defensive, Thicket of Blades cuts 5-foot steps and movement in general, Antimagic Field prevents casting barring shrinking hat cheese and Invoke Magic costs a Swift action forcing a Standard action spell which is disrupted by Mage Slayer opportunity attack. Stand Still prevents movement, Defensive Sweep forces movement and Robilar's Gambit pads it all up to be useful in other things besides ruining rose gardens.

Charging: Valorous Heedless Headlong Leaping Charge for a x3 modifier on damage and an x5 modifier on Power Attack with Pounce (arguably) from the Feral Template gives an attack routine of +34/+29/+24/+19, for


3d6+34 bludgeoning 17-20/x4 which becomes ~223 damage per attack on the charge, not counting criticals

[ColorBlindNinja]

I think I have an initial character to play with, he's not particurarly optimized but it's a starting point so we can draw up a starting wizard and fight.

Here he is:


Half Minotaur Feral Water Orc Fighter 18
Large Humanoid - Chaotic Evil

Speed: 75ft, Fly 150ft. (Average)

(32 point buy, 18 points in STR and CON, 8 in everything else)
Final scores after items:
STR 40
DEX 14
CON 30
INT 4
WIS 6
CHA 6

Initiative: +12, rerollable

Armor Class: 44 (38 touch, 37 flat footed)

Hit Points: 280

SAVES:
Fort: +26
Ref: +13
Will: +21

Feats:


Equipment:

It's a pretty crammy build but its got both charging that can kill stuff outright and the lockdown aspect set up pretty well, along with antimagic tricks and a very fast fly speed.



Interesting. He should be able to make the DC 31 Will save for 9th level spells (AKA Mage's Disjunction) fairly often.

A Greater Dispel Magic followed by Mage's Disjunction could be problematic, though.

Edit:

+12 to Initiative doesn't seem high enough, though, even with the reroll.

Later Edit:
150' fly speed is good, but Phantom Steed caps at 240'. Or is your plan to take a double move action and then activate the Belt of Battle to attack?

Even Later Edit:
Duh! You're going to charge! I feel like an idiot now. :smallfrown:

[Beheld]

Indeed, it is, but the main point is catching up to the Wizard, after that and considering no contingencies that activate from: 1) Us getting close to the Wizard 2) Us activating an item it's reasonably easy to crash into land (We both take a lot of damage), and, depending on wether we have a Belt of Battle use remaining we can also grapple/trip/kill the Wizard or ready some disruption.

For speed, Shadow creature, Dark creature and Feral creature grant a pretty hefty buff. (+20 and x1.5) Along with being non-****e templates in general. And we can add classes that get fast movement as well as being of a race that has a high base speed, lets say 40 or 50 gets us to 90-115, and with a speed boosting item we break the 120ft. barrier required to catch up to a Phantom Steed.

I don't think the falling rules work that way? It sure looks like people fall on their own turn, instead of in some sort of non present consecutive time fall, and it's still negated by a Shrunk Item anything that blocks line of effect.

Also, Phantom Steeds can use their actions to run with a move speed of 240ft, and you can't even double move if you want to move and use an AMF item. So you need a speed of 240x4 to close with a Phantom Steed.

Also I'm somewhat skeptical of anything that basically amounts to being in an AMF and hoping the Wizard never manages to move 5-10ft.

[PanosIs]

Interesting. He should be able to make the DC 31 Will save for 9th level spells (AKA Mage's Disjunction) fairly often.

A Greater Dispel Magic followed by Mage's Disjunction could be problematic, though.

There's still much optimizing to be done here. And there are further ways to increase Will saves (ie. 3kgp for Iron Will gets another +2). I don't get what Greater Dispel would accomplish though?


+12 to Initiative doesn't seem high enough, though, even with the reroll.

It is not. Any ideas of how we would pad that, without relying on Dexterity?


I don't think the falling rules work that way? It sure looks like people fall on their own turn, instead of in some sort of non present consecutive time fall, and it's still negated by a Shrunk Item anything that blocks line of effect.

Also, Phantom Steeds can use their actions to run with a move speed of 240ft, and you can't even double move if you want to move and use an AMF item. So you need a speed of 240x4 to close with a Phantom Steed.

Also I'm somewhat skeptical of anything that basically amounts to being in an AMF and hoping the Wizard never manages to move 5-10ft.

I really didn't think about the falling rules. Just assumed people fall at the same time because it seems more logical than staying still in place until your turn. Shrunk anything that negates line of effect seems pretty cheesy to me, but oh welp.

The antimagic field does not neet to be our only shtick. It's just a tool that is good to be available as with the lockdown build it is quite probable that the wizard WONT be able to move 5-10ft.

The above build can easily incorporate demoralize as a tactic as well by taking the Zhentarim Fighter sub levels, which for some reason don't trade anything away, but it's not like thats a particurarly viable tactic.

And besides that, this is pure fighter, we can get a lot of mileage out of dips in other classes and/or prestige classes, this is just a starting point for the purposes of this discussion.

[ColorBlindNinja]

There's still much optimizing to be done here. And there are further ways to increase Will saves (ie. 3kgp for Iron Will gets another +2). I don't get what Greater Dispel would accomplish though?

It suppresses your Cloak of Resistance; suddenly the Fighter's Will Save dropped by 5.



It is not. Any ideas of how we would pad that, without relying on Dexterity?

There's an Initiative enhancement that can be put on the dagger; the weapon should boost initiative by 9 total. I forget the details.


I really didn't think about the falling rules. Just assumed people fall at the same time because it seems more logical than staying still in place until your turn.

I recall there being several different mutually exclusive rules for falling. It gets confusing fast.


Shrunk anything that negates line of effect seems pretty cheesy to me, but oh welp.

It's easy to do and is quite PO. It's the most common defense VS AMF.


The antimagic field does not neet to be our only shtick. It's just a tool that is good to be available as with the lockdown build it is quite probable that the wizard WONT be able to move 5-10ft.

Without the AMF the Wizard will probably just use Quickened spells.


The above build can easily incorporate demoralize as a tactic as well by taking the Zhentarim Fighter sub levels, which for some reason don't trade anything away, but it's not like thats a particurarly viable tactic.

It can't hurt.


And besides that, this is pure fighter, we can get a lot of mileage out of dips in other classes and/or prestige classes, this is just a starting point for the purposes of this discussion.

Do we want to dip into Hexblade for Mettle and Monk for Evasion? Or will that take away too many bonus feats?

[Beheld]

The antimagic field does not neet to be our only shtick. It's just a tool that is good to be available as with the lockdown build it is quite probable that the wizard WONT be able to move 5-10ft.

If the Wizard is 5ft away, you have like, a zero percent chance of stopping him from escaping. If he is adjacent, then he might need some trick of some kind, of which I can think of a few.

In either case, you have to get next to him with a move action then use a standard to activate an AMF, and even ignoring contingencies, Astral Projection, and immediate action celerities, and line of effect blockers, you still have to use your much slower speed to catch a 960 ft per round Phantom Steed.


And besides that, this is pure fighter, we can get a lot of mileage out of dips in other classes and/or prestige classes, this is just a starting point for the purposes of this discussion.

I just think a one shot charge build or a hurler build that does damage with "seige weapons" would be better.

[Coretron03]

What about the spell Maze? I can't see any immunities to it and your int of 4 means escaping is impossible, giving the wizard 10 minutes to debuff the area and buff up. Maybe forcecage summon swarm? I'm probably missing something though.

[AvatarVecna]

What about the spell Maze? I can't see any immunities to it and your int of 4 means escaping is impossible, giving the wizard 10 minutes to debuff the area and buff up. Maybe forcecage summon swarm? I'm probably missing something though.

Isn't that Build a Half-Minotaur? I haven't checked, but I think that template gets something for Maze...

[Florian]

How does this work if the Wizard has flying by magic? You cause him to fall out of the AMF field as soon as you activate the AMF field.

You actually have to fly by using magic yourself. Activating the AMF would also cut your spell, causing you to fall. The way D&D handles this, both will do the drop in parallel, at the same speed and hit the ground at the same moment.


PS.: On Anticipate Teleportation, the lack of a clear ruling on how it works while in initiative is what makes me think it was intended for out of initiative use. What happens when you attempt to cast Dimension Door in initiative count in an area with Anticipate Teleportation? Do you disappear, then a round of combat happens and then you appear again?

Most effects that give you some kind of foresight or preventive action tend to only work in a PvE environment against a gm, as the whole chain of actions must be declared and stay unchanged, something that will not happen when actual players are involved.

[Coretron03]

Isn't that Build a Half-Minotaur? I haven't checked, but I think that template gets something for Maze...

I feels stupid.

However, half-minotaur only gives a +4 on Int checks for maze, meaning the build has a +1 on the Int check, giving it a 10% chance of success. 10 rounds of wizard buffing and spell placement is still a problem, although a bit smaller then before.

[PanosIs]

Here's another build, this guy is fun, he's a tricky small fey that likes to play tricks on people, including our poor Wizard.


Half-Celestial Saint Wild Jermlaine - Fighter 8/Ranger 5/Swordsage 2/Barbarian 2
Small Outsider - Chaotic Good

STR 6
DEX 32
CON 18
INT 12
WIS 38
CHA 8

Speed: Land 95ft., Fly 190ft. (good)

Armor Class: AC 82/Touch AC 82/Flat Footed AC 72
Hit Points: 160
Saves: Fort +22/Ref +25/Will +28

Class/Template Features:
AC Bonus:
We get Wisdom to our AC thrice, from Swordsage, Moon-Warded Ranger and the Saint Template, thus having a 48 AC bonus just from Wisdom, this applies to Touch AC as well, making us extremely difficult to hit.

Favored Enemy:
Favored Enemy: Arcanists along with Solitary Hunting and the 5th level bonus increase gets us a +4 to hit and damage against spellcasters, plus access to Favored Power Attack.

The Rest:
BARBARIAN:
Pounce
Ferocity (1/Day)

SWORDSAGE:
AC Bonus
Discipline Focus: Shadow Blade

RANGER:
Favored Enemy: Arcananists (+4)
Favored Enemy: Aberrations (+2)
Track
Wild Empathy
Armor of the Senses
Endurance

SAINT:
AC Bonus
Holy Power
Holy Touch
SLAs: At will - Guidance, Resistance, Virtue, Bless
DR: 10/evil
Fast Healing 17
Immunities: Acid, Cold, Electricity, Petrification
Keen Vision: LLV and DRV 60ft.
Protective Aura
Resistances: Fire 10, +4 to Fort vs poison
Tongues

Feats:

Stand Still
Pierce Magical Protection
Cumbrous Will
Pierce Magical Concealment
Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Spiked Chain
Shadow Blade
Power Attack
Leap Attack
Favored Power Attack
Serenity
Mage Slayer
Iron Will
Endurance
Improved Trip


Magic Items:

Cowl of Warding
Gem of Seeing
Ring of Protection +5
Vest of Resistance +5
Crystal Mask of Mind Shielding
Armbands of the Nimble Sage (+6 DEX, +6 WIS item)
Mantle of Second Chances
Ring of Anticipation
Belt of Battle
Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis
Dagger of Eager Warning
Boots of Continuous Retreat
Celestial Armor with Death Ward, Ghost Ward, Nimbleness enhancements
+5 Ghost Ward Animated Heavy Steel Shield
+1 Transmuting Brilliant Valorous Feycraft Gloryborn Spiked Chain



Armor Class: AC 82/Touch AC 82/Flat Footed AC 72
Damage Reduction: 10/Evil
Hit Points: 160
Speed: Land 95ft., Fly 180ft. (good)
Initiative: +22, rerollable
Saves: Fort +22/Ref +25/Will +28

Immunities: Continuous Mind Blank, Freedom of Movement, Spell Turning from Cowl of Warding, immunity to Acid, Cold, Electricity and Petrification, protection from death effects 1/Day.

Lockdown: We have cut down on the lockdown aspect, having only Mage Slayer and Combat Reflexes for 12 opportunity attacks per turn along with Stand Still, could swap a few feats out to grab Thicket of Blades.

Charging: Valorous Leaping Charge for a x2 modifier on damage and an x5 modifier on Power Attack with Pounce from Barbarian dip gives an attack routine of +20/+15/+10/+5, for


1d6 + 32 piercing 20/x2 which becomes ~115 damage per attack on the charge which is...miserable, especially with that to-hit bonus, it's probably worth it to go for archery at this point, we have the feats to spare and we can get Dex to damage quite easily, gets even better if we get Ranged Power Attack somehow.
This character also has some maneuvers from Swordsage, we would get Assassin's Stance, Cloak of Deception and some other borderline relevant stuff, although we could try to push Concentration and grab Moment of Perfect Mind and Mind over Body. Generally, high defensive stats with this build, make us quite hard to kill.

[Jormengand]

I think that using Tome of Magic: Swords Edition Tome of Battle classes kinda stretches the definition of "Fighter" or "Martial class" or "Mundane class" a little.

[noob]

Here's another build, this guy is fun, he's a tricky small fey that likes to play tricks on people, including our poor Wizard.


Half-Celestial Saint Wild Jermlaine - Fighter 8/Ranger 5/Swordsage 2/Barbarian 2
Small Outsider - Chaotic Good

STR 6
DEX 32
CON 18
INT 12
WIS 38
CHA 8

Speed: Land 95ft., Fly 190ft. (good)

Armor Class: AC 82/Touch AC 82/Flat Footed AC 72
Hit Points: 160
Saves: Fort +22/Ref +25/Will +28

Class/Template Features:
AC Bonus:
We get Wisdom to our AC thrice, from Swordsage, Moon-Warded Ranger and the Saint Template, thus having a 48 AC bonus just from Wisdom, this applies to Touch AC as well, making us extremely difficult to hit.

Favored Enemy:
Favored Enemy: Arcanists along with Solitary Hunting and the 5th level bonus increase gets us a +4 to hit and damage against spellcasters, plus access to Favored Power Attack.

The Rest:
BARBARIAN:
Pounce
Ferocity (1/Day)

SWORDSAGE:
AC Bonus
Discipline Focus: Shadow Blade

RANGER:
Favored Enemy: Arcananists (+4)
Favored Enemy: Aberrations (+2)
Track
Wild Empathy
Armor of the Senses
Endurance

SAINT:
AC Bonus
Holy Power
Holy Touch
SLAs: At will - Guidance, Resistance, Virtue, Bless
DR: 10/evil
Fast Healing 17
Immunities: Acid, Cold, Electricity, Petrification
Keen Vision: LLV and DRV 60ft.
Protective Aura
Resistances: Fire 10, +4 to Fort vs poison
Tongues

Feats:

Stand Still
Pierce Magical Protection
Cumbrous Will
Pierce Magical Concealment
Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Spiked Chain
Shadow Blade
Power Attack
Leap Attack
Favored Power Attack
Serenity
Mage Slayer
Iron Will
Endurance
Improved Trip


Magic Items:

Cowl of Warding
Gem of Seeing
Ring of Protection +5
Vest of Resistance +5
Crystal Mask of Mind Shielding
Armbands of the Nimble Sage (+6 DEX, +6 WIS item)
Mantle of Second Chances
Ring of Anticipation
Belt of Battle
Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis
Dagger of Eager Warning
Boots of Continuous Retreat
Celestial Armor with Death Ward, Ghost Ward, Nimbleness enhancements
+5 Ghost Ward Animated Heavy Steel Shield
+1 Transmuting Brilliant Valorous Feycraft Gloryborn Spiked Chain



Armor Class: AC 82/Touch AC 82/Flat Footed AC 72
Damage Reduction: 10/Evil
Hit Points: 160
Speed: Land 95ft., Fly 180ft. (good)
Initiative: +22, rerollable
Saves: Fort +22/Ref +25/Will +28

Immunities: Continuous Mind Blank, Freedom of Movement, Spell Turning from Cowl of Warding, immunity to Acid, Cold, Electricity and Petrification, protection from death effects 1/Day.

Lockdown: We have cut down on the lockdown aspect, having only Mage Slayer and Combat Reflexes for 12 opportunity attacks per turn along with Stand Still, could swap a few feats out to grab Thicket of Blades.

Charging: Valorous Leaping Charge for a x2 modifier on damage and an x5 modifier on Power Attack with Pounce from Barbarian dip gives an attack routine of +20/+15/+10/+5, for


1d6 + 32 piercing 20/x2 which becomes ~115 damage per attack on the charge which is...miserable, especially with that to-hit bonus, it's probably worth it to go for archery at this point, we have the feats to spare and we can get Dex to damage quite easily, gets even better if we get Ranged Power Attack somehow.
This character also has some maneuvers from Swordsage, we would get Assassin's Stance, Cloak of Deception and some other borderline relevant stuff, although we could try to push Concentration and grab Moment of Perfect Mind and Mind over Body. Generally, high defensive stats with this build, make us quite hard to kill.
from thread

but the majority of his levels must be in Fighter or Fighter prestige classes.
guess he needs one more fighter level for being allowed(if exactly 50% is the majority else he needs two more fighter levels).

[PanosIs]

To be honest, I just wanted the WIS to AC, it's not like we're utilizing the Spells Maneuvers as a core aspect of the build. If the issue is the Fighter levels, the Barbarian levels can be cut off, especially if we go for an Archery build. I'll revise and repost. I still have the issue of getting trapped by Maze spells, any idea how to overcome that?

[Elkad]

PS.: On Anticipate Teleportation, the lack of a clear ruling on how it works while in initiative is what makes me think it was intended for out of initiative use. What happens when you attempt to cast Dimension Door in initiative count in an area with Anticipate Teleportation? Do you disappear, then a round of combat happens and then you appear again?

I don't see any discrepancy with in-initiative use. It delays the teleport.

The spell also delays the arrival of the teleporting creature by 1 round (so that it arrives on its initiative count immediately before its next turn), generally giving the recipient of the spell and anyone else made aware of the information 1 round to act or ready actions.

On it's initiative.

That's the way I've always played it, on either side of the screen. And you aren't even aware of the intervening time. If your exit point is in the area, you are delayed. For any spell with with the (Teleportation) descriptor (50+ in just spells), and any other ability listed as teleportation. You don't even know you are delayed, so you'll think your opponent has some unknown precognition ability.

Of course you can still use DDoor to flee, since you can teleport out of the Anticipate area just fine.

Or just use it to be completely invulnerable for one (or 3) rounds. You can't do anything, but you aren't in the fight either. Fall prone as a free action, cast Stand as immediate action, disappear for 1rnd. That only has edge case utility, like if friends can save you, but I've used it in combat. Ally was about to die. I had nothing that would save him as an Immediate action, but I had AT running. So I cast Stand on him, and bought a round for the party (minus him) to come up with a solution.

Many handy uses for that. Party member is falling? Immediate action to stop him, then you have a whole round to place something to support his weight under him (flying carpet, etc).

The only possible rules discrepancy I see is what happens if I use it on myself? Since I can leave the area, I take the effect with me. Either I would pause for double duration (before touching the Astral, and before landing back on the Prime), or I wouldn't pause at all, because the effect doesn't work until I'm there. I use "doesn't effect the caster", but I'd be happy with a consistent rule by a DM that it works the other way.

[PanosIs]

Snip.

That sounds reasonable enough, thanks for clarifying.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Here's another build, this guy is fun, he's a tricky small fey that likes to play tricks on people, including our poor Wizard.


Half-Celestial Saint Wild Jermlaine - Fighter 8/Ranger 5/Swordsage 2/Barbarian 2
Small Outsider - Chaotic Good

STR 6
DEX 32
CON 18
INT 12
WIS 38
CHA 8

Speed: Land 95ft., Fly 190ft. (good)

Armor Class: AC 82/Touch AC 82/Flat Footed AC 72
Hit Points: 160
Saves: Fort +22/Ref +25/Will +28

Class/Template Features:
AC Bonus:
We get Wisdom to our AC thrice, from Swordsage, Moon-Warded Ranger and the Saint Template, thus having a 48 AC bonus just from Wisdom, this applies to Touch AC as well, making us extremely difficult to hit.

Favored Enemy:
Favored Enemy: Arcanists along with Solitary Hunting and the 5th level bonus increase gets us a +4 to hit and damage against spellcasters, plus access to Favored Power Attack.

The Rest:
BARBARIAN:
Pounce
Ferocity (1/Day)

SWORDSAGE:
AC Bonus
Discipline Focus: Shadow Blade

RANGER:
Favored Enemy: Arcananists (+4)
Favored Enemy: Aberrations (+2)
Track
Wild Empathy
Armor of the Senses
Endurance

SAINT:
AC Bonus
Holy Power
Holy Touch
SLAs: At will - Guidance, Resistance, Virtue, Bless
DR: 10/evil
Fast Healing 17
Immunities: Acid, Cold, Electricity, Petrification
Keen Vision: LLV and DRV 60ft.
Protective Aura
Resistances: Fire 10, +4 to Fort vs poison
Tongues

Feats:

Stand Still
Pierce Magical Protection
Cumbrous Will
Pierce Magical Concealment
Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Spiked Chain
Shadow Blade
Power Attack
Leap Attack
Favored Power Attack
Serenity
Mage Slayer
Iron Will
Endurance
Improved Trip


Magic Items:

Cowl of Warding
Gem of Seeing
Ring of Protection +5
Vest of Resistance +5
Crystal Mask of Mind Shielding
Armbands of the Nimble Sage (+6 DEX, +6 WIS item)
Mantle of Second Chances
Ring of Anticipation
Belt of Battle
Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis
Dagger of Eager Warning
Boots of Continuous Retreat
Celestial Armor with Death Ward, Ghost Ward, Nimbleness enhancements
+5 Ghost Ward Animated Heavy Steel Shield
+1 Transmuting Brilliant Valorous Feycraft Gloryborn Spiked Chain



Armor Class: AC 82/Touch AC 82/Flat Footed AC 72
Damage Reduction: 10/Evil
Hit Points: 160
Speed: Land 95ft., Fly 180ft. (good)
Initiative: +22, rerollable
Saves: Fort +22/Ref +25/Will +28

Immunities: Continuous Mind Blank, Freedom of Movement, Spell Turning from Cowl of Warding, immunity to Acid, Cold, Electricity and Petrification, protection from death effects 1/Day.

Lockdown: We have cut down on the lockdown aspect, having only Mage Slayer and Combat Reflexes for 12 opportunity attacks per turn along with Stand Still, could swap a few feats out to grab Thicket of Blades.

Charging: Valorous Leaping Charge for a x2 modifier on damage and an x5 modifier on Power Attack with Pounce from Barbarian dip gives an attack routine of +20/+15/+10/+5, for


1d6 + 32 piercing 20/x2 which becomes ~115 damage per attack on the charge which is...miserable, especially with that to-hit bonus, it's probably worth it to go for archery at this point, we have the feats to spare and we can get Dex to damage quite easily, gets even better if we get Ranged Power Attack somehow.
This character also has some maneuvers from Swordsage, we would get Assassin's Stance, Cloak of Deception and some other borderline relevant stuff, although we could try to push Concentration and grab Moment of Perfect Mind and Mind over Body. Generally, high defensive stats with this build, make us quite hard to kill.

Do you have room for the Nemesis feat from the Book of Exalted Deeds? It allows you to pinpoint your favored enemy within a certain distance. Could be a lifesaver if the Wizard is using some form of invisibility.

[PanosIs]

Same build but with an archery focus, this is the last one I'll be posting. Anyone wanna make some Wizards in various optimization levels?

Some slight WBLmancy was done to afford the necessary equpment (Merchantile Background discount on the 5 most expensive items).


Half-Celestial Saint Wild Jermlaine - Fighter 9/Ranger 5/Swordsage 2/Barbarian 1
Small Outsider - Chaotic Good

STR 6
DEX 32
CON 18
INT 12
WIS 38
CHA 8

Speed: Land 70ft., Fly 140ft. (good)

Armor Class: AC 81/Touch AC 81/Flat Footed AC 71
Hit Points: 155
Saves: Fort +22/Ref +25/Will +28

Class/Template Features:
AC Bonus:
We get Wisdom to our AC thrice, from Swordsage, Moon-Warded Ranger and the Saint Template, thus having a 48 AC bonus just from Wisdom, this applies to Touch AC as well, making us extremely difficult to hit.

Favored Enemy:
Favored Enemy: Arcanists along with Solitary Hunting and the 5th level bonus increase gets us a +4 to hit and damage against spellcasters.

The Rest:

BARBARIAN:
Fast Movement 10ft.
Whirling Frenzy (1/Day)

SWORDSAGE:
AC Bonus
Discipline Focus: Something

RANGER:
Favored Enemy: Arcananists (+4)
Favored Enemy: Aberrations (+2)
Track
Wild Empathy
Armor of the Senses
Endurance

SAINT:
AC Bonus
Holy Power
Holy Touch
SLAs: At will - Guidance, Resistance, Virtue, Bless
DR: 10/evil
Fast Healing 17
Immunities: Acid, Cold, Electricity, Petrification
Keen Vision: LLV and DRV 60ft.
Protective Aura
Resistances: Fire 10, +4 to Fort vs poison
Tongues

Feats:

Weapon Focus (Longbow)
Weapon Specialization (Longbow)
Ranged Weapon Mastery (Piercing)
Precise Shot
Point Blank Shot
Rapid Shot
Woodland Archer
Cumbrous Will
Darkstalker
Merchantile Background
Improved Initiative

Arrow Swarm - Targeteer Fighter
Vital Aim - Targeteer Fighter

Improved Initiative
Iron Will
Endurance



Magic Items:

Cowl of Warding
Gem of Seeing
Ring of Protection +5
Vest of Resistance +5
Crystal Mask of Mind Shielding
Armbands of the Nimble Sage (+6 DEX, +6 WIS item)
Mantle of Second Chances
Ring of Anticipation
Belt of Battle
Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis
Dagger of Eager Warning
Boots of Speed
Eyeball of the Voyeur (+30 Spot item)
Celestial Armor with Death Ward, Ghost Ward, Nimbleness enhancements
+4 Ghost Ward Animated Heavy Steel Shield
+1 Seeking Splitting Force Transmuting Sure Striking Serrenwood Composite Greatbow w/ a Greater Revelation Crystal
+1 Brilliant Blurstrike Distance Magebane Binding Razorfeather Arrows


ACFs: Moon-Warded Ranger
ACFs: Solitary Hunting
ACFs: Arcane Hunter
ACFs: Champion of the Wild
ACFs: Targeteer Fighter
ACFs: Whirling Frenzy




Armor Class: AC 81/Touch AC 81/Flat Footed AC 71
Damage Reduction: 10/Evil
Hit Points: 160
Speed: Land 70ft., Fly 140ft. (good)
Initiative: +26, rerollable
Saves: Fort +22/Ref +25/Will +28

Immunities: Continuous Mind Blank, Freedom of Movement, Spell Turning from Cowl of Warding, immunity to Acid, Cold, Electricity and Petrification, protection from death effects 1/Day.

Senses and Stealth: I didn't completely stat out but we should have around +50 to +70 Spot for our archery needs, and our Hide and Move Silently are also pretty high even with cross class skill points thanks to our high DEX and Dark template benefits (+35 to +50 in Hide and Move Silently). Along with possible use of Shadow Hand maneuvers for some added stealth.

Disjunction: The base +28 WILL save should be enough to defend against such effects, additionally we can utilize Cumbrous Will to get an +6 on the save with moderate drawbacks in subsequent turns.

Binding: Binding Arrows apply a no-save Dimensional Anchor uppon our opponent, which means that he cannot teleport away from our location, which in turn means that provided we win initiative (something quite probable) we can lock our opponent into battling it out. The crystal of revealing prevents invisibility and our range is obscene with a 260ft. range increment and Woodland Archer providing +4 on each missed attack.

Volley Turn: We activate Whirling Frenzy, Haste, Arrow Storm and Rapid Shot, this results in 5 extra attacks with a -9 penalty to all attacks. Thusly our attack schedule is, including splitting:


Attacks: 12 attacks at +25, then 2 attacks at +20, +15 and +10, all attacks ignoring both Armor/Shield bonuses, Concealment and Dexterity bonuses due to Seeking, Brilliant and Blurstrike. Additionally each missed attack giving a +4 to subsequent ones through Woodland Archer. The grand total is 36 attacks (using Belt of Battle), with each attack dealing

Damage: 1d8+2d6+19 piercing 19-20/x3 ignoring alignment and material based DR through Transmuting and Sure Striking. The damage can be increased by a lot through the use of some short of Sneak Attack and Craven but that has the issue of loosing out a lot against immunity to precision damage.

[PanosIs]

Do you have room for the Nemesis feat from the Book of Exalted Deeds? It allows you to pinpoint your favored enemy within a certain distance. Could be a lifesaver if the Wizard is using some form of invisibility.

That seems quite useful, it can certainly fit in the Spiked Chain Jermlain build, and possibly in the new archery build.

[ColorBlindNinja]

That seems quite useful, it can certainly fit in the Spiked Chain Jermlain build, and possibly in the new archery build.

I noted that both builds have less than 200 HP; this leaves them vulnerable to Power Word Blind. Taking even a bit of damage could also allow them to be hit with Power Word Stun.

[PanosIs]

I noted that both builds have less than 200 HP; this leaves them vulnerable to Power Word Blind. Taking even a bit of damage could also allow them to be hit with Power Word Stun.

Yes, but if we keep going iterating on builds it will take forever before we cover most of our bases. We're fighting wizards after all. I'll see if I can boost the CON a bit, but it will bite into other items. I think the next step is to draw up some wizards and go ruin some rose gardens.

EDIT: We're also immune to all Power Words due to continuous Mind Blank as Power Words are Enchantment (Compulsion) (Mind-Affecting) spells.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Yes, but if we keep going iterating on builds it will take forever before we cover most of our bases. We're fighting wizards after all. I'll see if I can boost the CON a bit, but it will bite into other items. I think the next step is to draw up some wizards and go ruin some rose gardens.

I goofed, both of the those spells should be blocked by Mind Blank. As long as our magic items remain functional, that shouldn't be a an issue.

[Karl Aegis]

Do we have any ideas for really low-op wizards? I know Captain Wizzard is completely randomized, but I think we can go even lower op.


Illithid Arcanist
Aboleth Mage
Grell Philosopher
Wyvern Mage
Ogre Mage
Orc Necromancer - Dual Wields Scimitars, spends entire fight taking a dump
FIENDISH Black Pudding Cabalist
Kaorti Wizrobe
Githyanki Lich
Githyanki Cabalist
Ogre Mage.... Mage
Primordial Shadow Giant Wizard
Some guy

[PanosIs]

The iconics are a pretty good idea, other than that, we can have fun with a variety of builds *ghm* rage mage *ghm*. I'm also brainstorming on how to further optimize the fighter, 2 levels of Paladin could get us WIS to all saving throws which would be quite good.

[ColorBlindNinja]

The iconics are a pretty good idea, other than that, we can have fun with a variety of builds *ghm* rage mage *ghm*. I'm also brainstorming on how to further optimize the fighter, 2 levels of Paladin could get us WIS to all saving throws which would be quite good.

I assume you're taking Serenity for that?

[PanosIs]

I assume you're taking Serenity for that?

That's the idea, not sure if worth it tho.

I think it's time to grab our fighters and our wizards and fight it out in the rose garden arena and battle it out. But we need some wizard builds to do that.

[Jormengand]

Do we have any ideas for really low-op wizards? I know Captain Wizzard is completely randomized, but I think we can go even lower op.


Illithid Arcanist
Aboleth Mage
Grell Philosopher
Wyvern Mage
Ogre Mage
Orc Necromancer - Dual Wields Scimitars, spends entire fight taking a dump
FIENDISH Black Pudding Cabalist
Kaorti Wizrobe
Githyanki Lich
Githyanki Cabalist
Ogre Mage.... Mage
Primordial Shadow Giant Wizard
Some guy


Well...

If we start with the restriction "Must be a 20th-level wizard with enough intelligence to cast their spells on time, cannot destroy own spellbook or do anything else obviously dumb" then we can still take the worst spells we can find. Specialising in bad ways isn't actually helpful, since the penalty for specialising actually restricts us from taking bad spells if they happen to be in our banned schools.

We can burn our feats easily enough. We can burn our skills fairly trivially too (with appraise, pointless professions, and the like). Then we have to burn all of our spells. Unfortunately, we do get every cantrip.

As for the rest of our spells, I'm thinking that we should stock up on utility spells with no combat potential, buffs which are useless on wizards/against fighters, and spells which no longer work on the fighter. At first level, say, we can have enlarge person/hypnotism/sleep/cause fear/erase/jump/feather fall, then at second obscure object/continual flame, then nondetection/rage, then lesser GOI/remove curse, then break enchantment/dream, then GOI/undeath to death, then spell turning/control undead, then dimensional lock/protection from spells, then freedom/refuge/soul bind/time stop, because unsurprisingly finding ninth-level spells with no value at all is hard. Then, at last, the wizard would have trouble fighting most fighters.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Well...

If we start with the restriction "Must be a 20th-level wizard with enough intelligence to cast their spells on time, cannot destroy own spellbook or do anything else obviously dumb" then we can still take the worst spells we can find. Specialising in bad ways isn't actually helpful, since the penalty for specialising actually restricts us from taking bad spells if they happen to be in our banned schools.

We can burn our feats easily enough. We can burn our skills fairly trivially too (with appraise, pointless professions, and the like). Then we have to burn all of our spells. Unfortunately, we do get every cantrip.

As for the rest of our spells, I'm thinking that we should stock up on utility spells with no combat potential, buffs which are useless on wizards/against fighters, and spells which no longer work on the fighter. At first level, say, we can have enlarge person/hypnotism/sleep/cause fear/erase/jump/feather fall, then at second obscure object/continual flame, then nondetection/rage, then lesser GOI/remove curse, then break enchantment/dream, then GOI/undeath to death, then spell turning/control undead, then dimensional lock/protection from spells, then freedom/refuge/soul bind/time stop, because unsurprisingly finding ninth-level spells with no value at all is hard. Then, at last, the wizard would have trouble fighting most fighters.

I suspect even a Wizard who prepared nothing but blasting spells would put up a semblance of a fight.

I still maintain that a Wizard with even the most basic amount of optimization will triumph in this little contest.

[PanosIs]

Whats the save we've got to be reliably hitting to dodge 9th level spells out of a mid-op Wizard? I'm fiddling with some cool feats that grant bonuses to saves.

[Jormengand]

Whats the save we've got to be reliably hitting to dodge 9th level spells out of a mid-op Wizard? I'm fiddling with some cool feats that grant bonuses to saves.

I'd say you should be looking at 19 for existing, plus 2 for the int score, plus 5 more for the int score from leveling and a book, and then another 3 from an item, then a fw more piddly bonuses which probably equal another 5 or 6, so about 35?

[Florian]

[QUOTE=Karl Aegis;22107847]Do we have any ideas for really low-op wizards?

I mentioned Mialee before, the iconic wizard. I think the iconics were fully statted in on book?

[ColorBlindNinja]

[QUOTE=Karl Aegis;22107847]Do we have any ideas for really low-op wizards?

I mentioned Mialee before, the iconic wizard. I think the iconics were fully statted in on book?

Enemies and Allies; her highest stat block is level 15.

[PanosIs]

With some optimizing I can get all of our fighters saves to ~+45, while keeping AC in the 80s, which essentially means we're only subjects to spells without saves or attack rolls. Still haven't solved the Maze problem and I think there aren't many ways to deal with an Astral Projecting Wizard. But that's a pretty solid defensive start.

[ColorBlindNinja]

With some optimizing I can get all of our fighters saves to ~+45, while keeping AC in the 80s, which essentially means we're only subjects to spells without saves or attack rolls. Still haven't solved the Maze problem and I think there aren't many ways to deal with an Astral Projecting Wizard. But that's a pretty solid defensive start.

Yeah, Maze is pretty much insurmountable. What kind of touch AC are we looking at?

[PanosIs]

Yeah, Maze is pretty much insurmountable. What kind of touch AC are we looking at?

All our AC is Touch AC, with Ghost Ward on the Armor and Shield and the rest being either Insight (Saint), or untyped (Swordsage, Moon-Warded Ranger). Our Flat Footed AC is lower, at ~70, but still high enough to dodge even True Striked attacks (+20 from Truestrike, +10 BAB, +4 DEX, +10 from random modifiers gives a +44 which never hits a 70 besides a natural 20). In the meanwhile we're ignoring Concealment, hitting our opponent's Touch+Flat Footed AC and ignoring DR that's based on material or alignment.

EDIT: Apparently Ghost Ward adds only enhancement boni to AC so our Touch AC is 7 points lower than our normal AC, meaning around ~75.

MORE EDITING: A Belt of Magnificence would set us back a significant amount but get us to +5 INT along with getting us additional hit points, skill points, and various other goodies, if only we could craft those items ourselves...

[PanosIs]

The final iteration of the Jermlaine, and my final contribution to this thread before it does off completely, this is the best I could come up defense-wise that fills the criteria of being purely martial and still being able to oneshot the wizard consistently. Not a fighter any more since most levels are in Ranger but still a full martial (Champion of the Wilds ACF gives up ranger spellcasting).


Half-Celestial Saint Jermlaine - Ranger 10/Paladin 2/Witch Slayer 2/Swordsage 2/Fighter 1
Small Outsider - Chaotic Good

STR 10
DEX 34
CON 24
INT 18
WIS 44
CHA 16

Speed: Land 80ft., Fly 160ft. (good)

Armor Class: AC 92 (10 Base + 51 Wisdom + 10 Dexterity + 8 Armor + 7 Shield + 5 Deflection + 1 Natural)/Touch AC 84/Flat Footed AC 82
Hit Points: 200
Saves: Fort +54/Ref +55/Will +58

Class/Template Features:
AC Bonus:
We get Wisdom to our AC thrice, from Swordsage, Moon-Warded Ranger and the Saint Template, thus having a 51 AC bonus just from Wisdom, this applies to Touch AC as well, making us extremely difficult to hit.

Favored Enemy:
Favored Enemy: Arcanists along with Solitary Hunting and the 5th 15th level bonus increase gets us a +8 to hit and damage against spellcasters, which also improves our saves through Wise of your Ways.

Spelldodge:
We get both Evasion (Ranger 9) and Mettle (Witch Slayer 2), which combined with our immense saves make us immune to most spells that require a saving throw.

The Rest:

FULL FAVORED ENEMY TABLE:

Arcanist [+10]
Outsider (Evil) [+4]
Outsider (Lawful) [+2]
Aberration [+2]



RANGER:
Wild Empathy
Armor of the Senses (Wis to AC)
Walk in Silence
Bane Weapon
Woodland Stride
Swift Tracker
Evasion
Solitary Hunting

WITCH SLAYER:
Smite Spirit Sharer 1/Day
Mettle

PALADIN:
Aura of Good
Detect Magic
Smite Evil 1/Day
Divine Grace

SWORDSAGE:
Quick to Act +1
AC Bonus
Discipline Focus: Whatever

SAINT:
AC Bonus
Holy Power
Holy Touch
SLAs: At will - Guidance, Resistance, Virtue, Bless
DR: 10/evil
Fast Healing 17
Immunities: Acid, Cold, Electricity, Petrification
Keen Vision: LLV and DRV 60ft.
Protective Aura
Resistances: Fire 10, +4 to Fort vs poison
Tongues

Feats:

Nemesis
Wise to your Ways
Serenity
Woodland Archer
Darkstalker
Improved Initiative
Rapid Shot
Point Blank Shot
Track
Arrow Storm - Targeteer Fighter Ability


Magic Items:

Cowl of Warding
Gem of Seeing
Ring of Protection +5
Vest of Resistance +5
Third Eye Clarity
Bracers of Archery, Greater
Cloak of Mysterious Emergence
Ring of Anticipation
Belt of Magnificent Battle (Belt of Magnificence + Belt of Battle)
Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis
Eyeball of the Voyeur (+30 Spot item)
Dagger of Eager Warning and Initiative
Expended Luck Blade
Boots of continuous Expeditious Retreat and Speed
Enemy Spirit Pouch (Arcanists)
Celestial Armor with Death Ward, Ghost Ward, Nimbleness enhancements
+4 Ghost Ward Animated Heavy Steel Shield
+1 Seeking Splitting Force Transmuting Sure Striking Elvencraft Serrenwood Composite Greatbow w/ a Greater Revelation Crystal
+1 Brilliant Blurstrike Distance Magebane Binding Razorfeather Arrows


Arcane Hunter
Champion of the Wild
Moon-Warded Ranger
Shadow Sword Substitution Levels (3, 6)
Solitary Hunting

Avenging Paladin
Golden Lion Substitution Levels (1)
Hunter of Fiends

Targeteer Fighter




Armor Class: AC 92/Touch AC 84/Flat Footed AC 82
Damage Reduction: 10/Evil
Hit Points: 200
Speed: Land 80ft., Fly 160ft. (good)
Initiative: +27, rerollable
Saves: Fort +54/Ref +55/Will +58

Immunities: Continuous Mind Blank, Freedom of Movement, Spell Turning from Cowl of Warding, immunity to Acid, Cold, Electricity and Petrification, protection from death effects 1/Day.

Magic Defenses: Mettle + Evasion along with extremely high saves and AC make us immune to most spells. Maze is countered by hitting ourselves with one of our arrows, thus applying a dimensional anchor to ourselves.

Binding: Binding Arrows apply a no-save Dimensional Anchor uppon our opponent, which means that he cannot teleport away from our location, which in turn means that provided we win initiative (something quite probable) we can lock our opponent into battling it out. The crystal of revealing prevents invisibility and our range is obscene with a 260ft. range increment and Woodland Archer providing +4 on each missed attack.

Volley Turn: We activate Haste, Arrow Storm and Rapid Shot, this results in 4 extra attacks with a -7 penalty to all attacks. Thusly our attack schedule is, including splitting:


Attacks: All our attacks target Touch and Flat Footed AC, we ignore concealment. Our schedule is: 10 attacks at +39 and the 2 attacks at +34, +29 and +24.

Damage: Our weapons count as twice bane against arcanists (the Bane Weapon feature from the Shadow Sword substitution levels grants the Bane quality against our favored enemies, and since Magebane is a different property they stack with each other) thusly getting +4d6 to damage. So our damage is for each attack: 1d10+5d6+12, 19-20/x3 for an average of 35 damage per attack, which is quite low, yet still enough to oneshot a wizard through two full attacks (700 damage on all hits, expecting 3-4 misses with Woodland Archer gives around 550 damage), and we ignore DR through Sure Striking and Transmuting.

[ColorBlindNinja]

The final iteration of the Jermlaine, and my final contribution to this thread before it does off completely, this is the best I could come up defense-wise that fills the criteria of being purely martial and still being able to oneshot the wizard consistently. Not a fighter any more since most levels are in Ranger but still a full martial (Champion of the Wilds ACF gives up ranger spellcasting).


Half-Celestial Saint Jermlaine - Ranger 10/Paladin 2/Witch Slayer 2/Swordsage 2/Fighter 1
Small Outsider - Chaotic Good

STR 10
DEX 34
CON 24
INT 18
WIS 44
CHA 16

Speed: Land 80ft., Fly 160ft. (good)

Armor Class: AC 92 (10 Base + 51 Wisdom + 10 Dexterity + 8 Armor + 7 Shield + 5 Deflection + 1 Natural)/Touch AC 84/Flat Footed AC 82
Hit Points: 200
Saves: Fort +54/Ref +55/Will +58

Class/Template Features:
AC Bonus:
We get Wisdom to our AC thrice, from Swordsage, Moon-Warded Ranger and the Saint Template, thus having a 51 AC bonus just from Wisdom, this applies to Touch AC as well, making us extremely difficult to hit.

Favored Enemy:
Favored Enemy: Arcanists along with Solitary Hunting and the 5th 15th level bonus increase gets us a +8 to hit and damage against spellcasters, which also improves our saves through Wise of your Ways.

Spelldodge:
We get both Evasion (Ranger 9) and Mettle (Witch Slayer 2), which combined with our immense saves make us immune to most spells that require a saving throw.

The Rest:

FULL FAVORED ENEMY TABLE:

Arcanist [+10]
Outsider (Evil) [+4]
Outsider (Lawful) [+2]
Aberration [+2]



RANGER:
Wild Empathy
Armor of the Senses (Wis to AC)
Walk in Silence
Bane Weapon
Woodland Stride
Swift Tracker
Evasion
Solitary Hunting

WITCH SLAYER:
Smite Spirit Sharer 1/Day
Mettle

PALADIN:
Aura of Good
Detect Magic
Smite Evil 1/Day
Divine Grace

SWORDSAGE:
Quick to Act +1
AC Bonus
Discipline Focus: Whatever

SAINT:
AC Bonus
Holy Power
Holy Touch
SLAs: At will - Guidance, Resistance, Virtue, Bless
DR: 10/evil
Fast Healing 17
Immunities: Acid, Cold, Electricity, Petrification
Keen Vision: LLV and DRV 60ft.
Protective Aura
Resistances: Fire 10, +4 to Fort vs poison
Tongues

Feats:

Nemesis
Wise to your Ways
Serenity
Woodland Archer
Darkstalker
Improved Initiative
Rapid Shot
Point Blank Shot
Track
Arrow Storm - Targeteer Fighter Ability


Magic Items:

Cowl of Warding
Gem of Seeing
Ring of Protection +5
Vest of Resistance +5
Third Eye Clarity
Bracers of Archery, Greater
Cloak of Mysterious Emergence
Ring of Anticipation
Belt of Magnificent Battle (Belt of Magnificence + Belt of Battle)
Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis
Eyeball of the Voyeur (+30 Spot item)
Dagger of Eager Warning and Initiative
Expended Luck Blade
Boots of continuous Expeditious Retreat and Speed
Enemy Spirit Pouch (Arcanists)
Celestial Armor with Death Ward, Ghost Ward, Nimbleness enhancements
+4 Ghost Ward Animated Heavy Steel Shield
+1 Seeking Splitting Force Transmuting Sure Striking Elvencraft Serrenwood Composite Greatbow w/ a Greater Revelation Crystal
+1 Brilliant Blurstrike Distance Magebane Binding Razorfeather Arrows


Arcane Hunter
Champion of the Wild
Moon-Warded Ranger
Shadow Sword Substitution Levels (3, 6)
Solitary Hunting

Avenging Paladin
Golden Lion Substitution Levels (1)
Hunter of Fiends

Targeteer Fighter




Armor Class: AC 92/Touch AC 84/Flat Footed AC 82
Damage Reduction: 10/Evil
Hit Points: 200
Speed: Land 80ft., Fly 160ft. (good)
Initiative: +27, rerollable
Saves: Fort +54/Ref +55/Will +58

Immunities: Continuous Mind Blank, Freedom of Movement, Spell Turning from Cowl of Warding, immunity to Acid, Cold, Electricity and Petrification, protection from death effects 1/Day.

Magic Defenses: Mettle + Evasion along with extremely high saves and AC make us immune to most spells. Maze is countered by hitting ourselves with one of our arrows, thus applying a dimensional anchor to ourselves.

Binding: Binding Arrows apply a no-save Dimensional Anchor uppon our opponent, which means that he cannot teleport away from our location, which in turn means that provided we win initiative (something quite probable) we can lock our opponent into battling it out. The crystal of revealing prevents invisibility and our range is obscene with a 260ft. range increment and Woodland Archer providing +4 on each missed attack.

Volley Turn: We activate Haste, Arrow Storm and Rapid Shot, this results in 4 extra attacks with a -7 penalty to all attacks. Thusly our attack schedule is, including splitting:


Attacks: All our attacks target Touch and Flat Footed AC, we ignore concealment. Our schedule is: 10 attacks at +39 and the 2 attacks at +34, +29 and +24.

Damage: Our weapons count as twice bane against arcanists (the Bane Weapon feature from the Shadow Sword substitution levels grants the Bane quality against our favored enemies, and since Magebane is a different property they stack with each other) thusly getting +4d6 to damage. So our damage is for each attack: 1d10+5d6+12, 19-20/x3 for an average of 35 damage per attack, which is quite low, yet still enough to oneshot a wizard through two full attacks (700 damage on all hits, expecting 3-4 misses with Woodland Archer gives around 550 damage), and we ignore DR through Sure Striking and Transmuting.


Good to see Evasion and Mettle. The lack of Fighter levels might be a problem.

[PanosIs]

Good to see Evasion and Mettle. The lack of Fighter levels might be a problem.

Yeah, but considering it's a pure martial, I think it's still within the spirit of this thread, the Ranger IS just a skillful fighter after all.

And in any case, it was more of an experiment to see how much defense one can have against a Wizard. That along with plenty of skill points makes us quite versatile in our way of approaching the challenge.

[ayvango]

Take absolutely unoptimized Wizard 20 with every feat failed. E.g. he spent all feats to martial proficiency or item creation. He still could avoid any fighter with ease. All wizard needs are spells.

Contingency spell that casts Celerity triggered by cast of Nerveskitter. Inside celerity wizard casts timestop and get enough time either to escape or to build complex trap which would be interpretable for a fighter.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Take absolutely unoptimized Wizard 20 with every feat failed. E.g. he spent all feats to martial proficiency or item creation. He still could avoid any fighter with ease.

Contingency spell that casts Celerity triggered by cast of Nerveskitter. Inside celerity wizard casts timestop and get enough time either to escape or to build complex trap which would be interpretable for a fighter.

If we were truly going for such a poorly build Wizard, her spells choices should be just as bad.

[PanosIs]

According to the challenge the Wizard needs to defeat the fighter, not just run away. With that in mind I think the last two iterations are pretty competitive barring the obvious unbeatable stuff (Astral Projection, probably Shapechange for something that has a no-save-no-attack-just-die). We do have a weakness to getting walled in by something, but we can use our boots to teleport out, kill the wizard, and then take care of the garden. (But if we do that we don't have Maze defense up, in any case, you get the point)

[ColorBlindNinja]

According to the challenge the Wizard needs to defeat the fighter, not just run away. With that in mind I think the last two iterations are pretty competitive barring the obvious unbeatable stuff (Astral Projection, probably Shapechange for something that has a no-save-no-attack-just-die). We do have a weakness to getting walled in by something, but we can use our boots to teleport out, kill the wizard, and then take care of the garden. (But if we do that we don't have Maze defense up, in any case, you get the point)

I actually can't think of anything that the Wizard can Shapechange into that has such an attack.

The Zodar's SU Wish would be the closest, but it only has a caster level of 16.

[PanosIs]

So how does the Wizard murder us? I can think of a few things but they're strictly TO and inspired by that killing the invincible dummy challenge, is there any normal way to get an one-and-a-time-stop-turn kill on us?

[ColorBlindNinja]

So how does the Wizard murder us? I can think of a few things but they're strictly TO and inspired by that killing the invincible dummy challenge, is there any normal way to get an one-and-a-time-stop-turn kill on us?

A Red Wizard could probably get a souped up Wish and use Blasphemy.

Greater Dispel + Mage's Disjunction could be nasty. It wouldn't kill us per say, but it would leave us vulnerable.

An Archmage might use a shaped AMF combined with a few Orb of X spells. I forget how much of our AC would be effected by AMF.

Also, if the Wizard was menaced by an AMF, she could have taken Martial Study twice for Iron Heart Surge.

[PanosIs]

A Red Wizard could probably get a souped up Wish and use Blasphemy.

Greater Dispel + Mage's Disjunction could be nasty. It wouldn't kill us per say, but it would leave us vulnerable.

An Archmage might use a shaped AMF combined with a few Orb of X spells. I forget how much of our AC would be effected by AMF.

Also, if the Wizard was menaced by an AMF, she could have taken Martial Study twice for Iron Heart Surge.

1) True, maybe it'd be a good idea to grab an item of continuous Silence, also helps us sneak.

2) Even with Dispel our resistances are over the top (even if all our items stopped working our Saves would only drop by 6, of course it would be bad for other reasons)

3) Our Wisdom to AC is not stated as a type but I assume it's Extraordinary and thus unaffected by an AMF, thus our AC would drop by 15, still have enough to dodge Orbs, an antimagic field into a no save (Ex) ability can possibly hit us, but we still have high saves.

4) We're no longer reliant on AMFs so not a huge issue anymore.

[ColorBlindNinja]

1) True, maybe it'd be a good idea to grab an item of continuous Silence, also helps us sneak.

Custom items aside, does such a thing exist? Also Joyful Noise negates Silence within 10'.


2) Even with Dispel our resistances are over the top (even if all our items stopped working our Saves would only drop by 6, of course it would be bad for other reasons)

It might leave us vulnerable to other attack forms that we would normally be immune.


3) Our Wisdom to AC is not stated as a type but I assume it's Extraordinary and thus unaffected by an AMF, thus our AC would drop by 15, still have enough to dodge Orbs, an antimagic field into a no save (Ex) ability can possibly hit us, but we still have high saves.

That's good. Do we have a solution to Forcecage + Dimensional Lock?


4) We're no longer reliant on AMFs so not a huge issue anymore.

I see. I just thought I'd mention it VS future AMF tactics.

[PanosIs]

Custom items aside, does such a thing exist? Also Joyful Noise negates Silence within 10'.

Ring of Silent Spells (Ironic right?) is the only item I can think that casts silence, should be enough for our purposes.


It might leave us vulnerable to other attack forms that we would normally be immune.

True, Dispel on our Cowl leaves us vunerable to Power Words.


That's good. Do we have a solution to Forcecage + Dimensional Lock?

No, sadly, does Forcecage extend to the Ethereal plane? EDIT: We can just buy a Rod of Cancelation, or the previously mentioned Antimagic Torc to deal with this. Also, note that our items are of a total worth of around 1mil at this point, 250.000gp higher than the WBL.

In any case, we're going into a pretty decent optimization point now, if a Wizard has to employ things like obscene CL boosts and Dispels on our items it means we're at least doing something right. I think we're beating the average unoptimized (not intentionally making bad choices, just not having stuff like contingent Celerities, Astral Projection and +30 Initiative) level 20 Wizard pretty consistently provided good tactics on our part. We can try to walk our way up from there.

[Tainted_Scholar]

No, sadly, does Forcecage extend to the Ethereal plane? EDIT: We can just buy a Rod of Cancelation, or the previously mentioned Antimagic Torc to deal with this. Also, note that our items are of a total worth of around 1mil at this point, 250.000gp higher than the WBL.

I don't mind if we go a little over WBL (A 1,000 GP at most), but a going quarter mil over is way too much.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Ring of Silent Spells (Ironic right?) is the only item I can think that casts silence, should be enough for our purposes.

Joyful noise might still be a problem.



True, Dispel on our Cowl leaves us vunerable to Power Words.

Energy Drain will also ruin our day. Edit: Or not, Mettle should save us from that.


No, sadly, does Forcecage extend to the Ethereal plane? EDIT: We can just buy a Rod of Cancelation, or the previously mentioned Antimagic Torc to deal with this. Also, note that our items are of a total worth of around 1mil at this point, 250.000gp higher than the WBL.

All force effects extend to the Ethereal Plane. I was afraid that we might be exceeding WBL; we need so many items for defense alone.


In any case, we're going into a pretty decent optimization point now, if a Wizard has to employ things like obscene CL boosts and Dispels on our items it means we're at least doing something right. I think we're beating the average unoptimized (not intentionally making bad choices, just not having stuff like contingent Celerities, Astral Projection and +30 Initiative) level 20 Wizard pretty consistently provided good tactics on our part. We can try to walk our way up from there.

I think Forcecage and Wall of Force are big issues. Also, do we have any way of dealing with the Wizard's defenses? Ironguard alone no sells all metal weapons, magic or otherwise. Time Stop will probably be used for short-term buffs, rather than offense.

[emeraldstreak]

Contingency spell that casts Celerity triggered by cast of Nerveskitter.

As a min this isn't triggered by Bloodhound, and arguably not triggered by a surprise round. But I agree with your general sentiment the wizard is a good wording away from skipping the fight and winning later.

[PanosIs]

I don't mind if we go a little over WBL (A 1,000 GP at most), but a going quarter mil over is way too much.

I see, I could pull off some WBLmancy to make it work, we do have a feat to spare and all. But I'll just cut some of the more useless stuff.

So the two options are to either cut (yes I was a bit more above WBL than I expected):

No tome of DEX +4 (~110k)
No Belt of Magnificence, instead item of DEX, WIS and CON +6 (~100k)
No item of +30 spot (~90k)

Or trade Improved Initiative for Merchantile Background (Practically increases our WBL by 25%), which allows us to just drop the Tome of Dex. And there are probably better ways to optimize purchases. And there are further items that are more luxury than need.


Joyful noise might still be a problem.

I wouldn't worry about a fringe spell that a Wizard might use to ruin our plan regarding a spell that the Wizard might have in mind. I think it's pretty clear that Schrodiger's Wizard can beat our Fighter 100% of the time. I'd say we solve the most obvious problems first, like:


I think Forcecage and Wall of Force are big issues. Also, do we have any way of dealing with the Wizard's defenses? Ironguard alone no sells all metal weapons, magic or otherwise. Time Stop will probably be used for short-term buffs, rather than offense.

Yeah, a Rod of Cancelation might be in order to solve that issue.

We're using Razorfeather Transmuting arrows, which adapt to the target's defenses at the start of the next turn. We might want to be using something like Metalline arrows instead so that we can adapt them at our own turn instead. But in general we ignore much of the possible defenses through Blurstrike, Seeking, Sure Striking, Brilliant and Transmuting/Metalline. (Concealment: No, Dexterity bonus: No, Armor/Shield Bonus: No, DR/Alignment: No, DR/Material: No)

A wizard using Iron Guard along with high DR/Cold Iron might be a problem for us though. Any ideas?

EDIT: How does the Force property interact with materials? Will a Force Bow always bypass DR/Cold Iron, bypass it if the arrows were originally Cold Iron, or neve bypass it?

MORE EDIT: Well, Force property negates the need for Transmuting (Saves us 70k) and bypasses Iron Guard and all DR.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I see, I could pull off some WBLmancy to make it work, we do have a feat to spare and all. But I'll just cut some of the more useless stuff.

So the two options are to either cut (yes I was a bit more above WBL than I expected):

No tome of DEX +4 (~110k)
No Belt of Magnificence, instead item of DEX, WIS and CON +6 (~100k)
No item of +30 spot (~90k)

Or trade Improved Initiative for Merchantile Background (Practically increases our WBL by 25%), which allows us to just drop the Tome of Dex. And there are probably better ways to optimize purchases. And there are further items that are more luxury than need.

What would our initiative and touch AC look like then?



I wouldn't worry about a fringe spell that a Wizard might use to ruin our plan regarding a spell that the Wizard might have in mind. I think it's pretty clear that Schrodiger's Wizard can beat our Fighter 100% of the time.

OK.


Yeah, a Rod of Cancelation might be in order to solve that issue.

I'd say it's vital; Forcecage is an instant lose condition otherwise.


We're using Razorfeather Transmuting arrows, which adapt to the target's defenses at the start of the next turn. We might want to be using something like Metalline arrows instead so that we can adapt them at our own turn instead. But in general we ignore much of the possible defenses through Blurstrike, Seeking, Sure Striking, Brilliant and Transmuting/Metalline. (Concealment: No, Dexterity bonus: No, Armor/Shield Bonus: No, DR/Alignment: No, DR/Material: No)

Where are Razorfeather and Transmuting from?


A wizard using Iron Guard along with high DR/Cold Iron might be a problem for us though. Any ideas?

I don't think the DR/Cold Iron will help much since the Wizard is immune to metal. Can we afford a Cold Iron weapon?


EDIT: How does the Force property interact with materials? Will a Force Bow always bypass DR/Cold Iron, bypass it if the arrows were originally Cold Iron, or neve bypass it?

I don't think Force is made out of any preexisting materials. I've heard people argue that it should bypass DR, but I can't remember the details.

[PanosIs]

What would our initiative and touch AC look like then?

We just loose 2 initiative, our Touch AC is restricted by our Armor max DEX which is +10. (Celestial Armor has a max DEX of +8 and Nimbleness adds another 2)


Where are Razorfeather and Transmuting from?

I believe Razorfeather Arrows are from the Fiend Folio, not so sure tho, check teh Archery Handbook. They're mundane arrows that have 19-20 crit range, and that's pretty much it. Transmuting is from the MIC.


I don't think the DR/Cold Iron will help much since the Wizard is immune to metal. Can we afford a Cold Iron weapon?

I don't think Force is made out of any preexisting materials. I've heard people argue that it should bypass DR, but I can't remember the details.

Nevermind, our Force Bow bypasses all DR, so Transmuting is obsolete, and we don't care about Ironguard. Source: Text of the Force property in MIC.

[ColorBlindNinja]

We just loose 2 initiative, our Touch AC is restricted by our Armor max DEX which is +10. (Celestial Armor has a max DEX of +8 and Nimbleness adds another 2)

OK, that doesn't sound too bad.


I believe Razorfeather Arrows are from the Fiend Folio, not so sure tho, check teh Archery Handbook. They're mundane arrows that have 19-20 crit range, and that's pretty much it. Transmuting is from the MIC.

Thanks.


Nevermind, our Force Bow bypasses all DR, so Transmuting is obsolete, and we don't care about Ironguard. Source: Text of the Force property in MIC.

OK, now I get it.

I know you're not worried about obscure spells, but Forceward does block against Force effects. It's also immobile, but given the nature of this challenge it could still be a problem.

[PanosIs]

I know you're not worried about obscure spells, but Forceward does block against Force effects. It's also immobile, but given the nature of this challenge it could still be a problem.

Indeed, and I thought about it, but it would a much bigger problem if our attacks were subject to immunities/DR. It is weird because we can't "turn off" the Force property, not can we put it on amunition as it is written right now, although that would be quite reasonable. A solution would be to have a +1 Seeking Splitting Sure Striking Elvencraft Serrenwood Greatbow and using an oil chamber and an oil of an artificier infusion, getting the Metalline property if our adversary uses Force Ward or the Force property if they use other defensive spells but that is going quite far.

If the wizard hasn't planned specifically for that Force is an extremely good property, and even if he has he needs to win initiative (improbable), or use Celerity to get his Force Ward up.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Indeed, and I thought about it, but it would a much bigger problem if our attacks were subject to immunities/DR. It is weird because we can't "turn off" the Force property, not can we put it on amunition as it is written right now, although that would be quite reasonable. A solution would be to have a +1 Seeking Splitting Sure Striking Elvencraft Serrenwood Greatbow and using an oil chamber and an oil of an artificier infusion, getting the Metalline property if our adversary uses Force Ward or the Force property if they use other defensive spells but that is going quite far.

If the wizard hasn't planned specifically for that Force is an extremely good property, and even if he has he needs to win initiative (improbable), or use Celerity to get his Force Ward up.

Contingency could be a problem. Particularly Chained Contingency. But we already knew that. :smallsigh:

[PanosIs]

Contingency could be a problem. Particularly Chained Contingency. But we already knew that. :smallsigh:

Nothing we can do about that, just hope that the Wizard doesn't have too many contingencies and/or irrelevant contingencies (Having a Teleport Contingency is irrelevant since we're using Binding Arrows, having an Iron Ward Contingency is irrelevant because Force).

[ColorBlindNinja]

Nothing we can do about that, just hope that the Wizard doesn't have too many contingencies and/or irrelevant contingencies (Having a Teleport Contingency is irrelevant since we're using Binding Arrows, having an Iron Ward Contingency is irrelevant because Force).

Where is binding from?

[PanosIs]

Where is binding from?

Magic Item Compendium, page 29. Dimensional Anchors target hit. Problem is, I just realized, it's a Swift activation and Blurstrike is Swift as well, for some reason I thought they were Free, will revise.

EDIT: And Bluring is melee only, I thought it could be put on ammunition. Dammit I should read this stuff more carefully.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Magic Item Compendium, page 29. Dimensional Anchors target hit. Problem is, I just realized, it's a Swift activation and Blurstrike is Swift as well, for some reason I thought they were Free, will revise.

EDIT: And Bluring is melee only, I thought it could be put on ammunition. Dammit I should read this stuff more carefully.

I never knew about that one; it seems really useful.

[PanosIs]

I never knew about that one; it seems really useful.

I think we're certainly opening our volley with one such arrow, our to hit is pretty high and dimensional anchor on our opponent is extremely important, especially since its saveless and it isn't a spell and thus can't be dispelled.

EDIT: Putting it on our bow all but guarantees it will find its mark.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I think we're certainly opening our volley with one such arrow, our to hit is pretty high and dimensional anchor on our opponent is extremely important, especially since its saveless and it isn't a spell and thus can't be dispelled.

I'm not so sure about that last one. Magic items directly reference spells in their creation; you could certainly argue that they can be dispelled.

[PanosIs]

I'm not so sure about that last one. Magic items directly reference spells in their creation; you could certainly argue that they can be dispelled.

You could, but going by wording, the creature can't teleport AS IF affected by a Dimensional Anchor spell, otherwise it would just cast Dimensional Anchor, thusly what stops the creature from teleporting isn't a spell. The magic item can be dispelled as per the description of Dispel Magic, but that wont allow the creature to teleport away either, since its already been hit by the property.

In any case, both can be argued and it's not too important, other than the fact it is a useful property and it breaks stuff like Contingent Teleports for sure.

[ColorBlindNinja]

You could, but going by wording, the creature can't teleport AS IF affected by a Dimensional Anchor spell, otherwise it would just cast Dimensional Anchor, thusly what stops the creature from teleporting isn't a spell. The magic item can be dispelled as per the description of Dispel Magic, but that wont allow the creature to teleport away either, since its already been hit by the property.

In any case, both can be argued and it's not too important, other than the fact it is a useful property and it breaks stuff like Contingent Teleports for sure.

I see. It looks like we have a solid strategy.

[PanosIs]

I see. It looks like we have a solid strategy.

I believe so. I think we're as far as we're gonna get regarding defense. There's not much else we're vunerable to.

Regarding offense we could do better, we're currently sitting on (Concealment: No, Armor/Shield: No, DR: No) but to use our Binding Arrows we have to forgo using a Belt of Battle and similar. Maybe we could do some tricks with Boots of Temporal Acceleration?

Also, since we don't need Sure Striking and Transmuting and we can't use Blurstrike are there any other cool enhancement we can put on our bow/arrows?

[ColorBlindNinja]

I believe so. I think we're as far as we're gonna get regarding defense. There's not much else we're vunerable to.

Regarding offense we could do better, we're currently sitting on (Concealment: No, Armor/Shield: No, DR: No) but to use our Binding Arrows we have to forgo using a Belt of Battle and similar. Maybe we could do some tricks with Boots of Temporal Acceleration?

Also, since we don't need Sure Striking and Transmuting and we can't use Blurstrike are there any other cool enhancement we can put on our bow/arrows?

Splitting and Collusion (I think that's it?) would increase damage.

[PanosIs]

Splitting and Collusion (I think that's it?) would increase damage.

We have Splitting already, Collision is interesting indeed, although we do have upwards of 300 damage per full attack anyways. I was thinking more utility stuff.

[ColorBlindNinja]

We have Splitting already, Collision is interesting indeed, although we do have upwards of 300 damage per full attack anyways. I was thinking more utility stuff.

What about Phasing (from an issue of Dragon Magazine if I recall)?

[PanosIs]

What about Phasing (from an issue of Dragon Magazine if I recall)?

Could be useful IF it goes through obstacles such as Wall of Force. (It's Dragon#330 and it is not specified if it does)

[ColorBlindNinja]

Could be useful IF it goes through obstacles such as Wall of Force. (It's Dragon#330 and it is not specified if it does)

I can't seem to find the exact wording, but I've heard people argue to that effect before.

[PanosIs]

I can't seem to find the exact wording, but I've heard people argue to that effect before.


Phasing amunition allows the wielder to ignore a single solid object no thicker than 5ft. A phasing arrow can be shot through a glass window, a stone rampart, or even an adamantine breastplate. When using phasing amunition ignore cover, then shield, then armor of the target in that order (you get only one). Once one form of bonus has been ignored the rest apply normally. Irrelevant text about dodge bonuses.

Feint Transmutation; CL 5; Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Blink; Price: +2 Bonus

It can be argued that it goes through force obstacles but I don't think it stands, seeing it uses Blink.

[ColorBlindNinja]

It can be argued that it goes through force obstacles but I don't think it stands, seeing it uses Blink.

I see. From the wording alone it sounds like it can, though.

What page is that on? I couldn't seem to find it.

[PanosIs]

I see. From the wording alone it sounds like it can, though.

What page is that on? I couldn't seem to find it.

It's on page 67. However the various resources for Dragon on the internet have their pages messed up, you have to look at the page index in the page itself (the physical scan).

[ColorBlindNinja]

It's on page 67. However the various resources for Dragon on the internet have their pages messed up, you have to look at the page index in the page itself (the physical scan).

Thanks. It might not hurt to add Phasing with stuff like Resilient Sphere out there and whatnot.

[PanosIs]

Thanks. It might not hurt to add Phasing with stuff like Resilient Sphere out there and whatnot.

True, if we consider that it works it also goes over stuff like wall of force and similar. We have plenty of money to play around with since we kicked Transmuting, Sure Striking and Blurstrike.

[Tainted_Scholar]

How does Phasing interact with Prismatic Wall? Sorry if we went over that already and I missed it.

[PanosIs]

How does Phasing interact with Prismatic Wall? Sorry if we went over that already and I missed it.

We did not. If we say that it bypasses a Wall of Force I would say it also bypasses a Prismatic Wall, but since the wording is fiddly this is all assumptions we're making.

[ColorBlindNinja]

We did not. If we say that it bypasses a Wall of Force I would say it also bypasses a Prismatic Wall, but since the wording is fiddly this is all assumptions we're making.

I don't think Phasing would bypass a Force effect because it relies on Blink, and Force effects extend to the Ethereal Plane.

As far as I can tell, that isn't true of Prismatic Wall.

[PanosIs]

I don't think Phasing would bypass a Force effect because it relies on Blink, and Force effects extend to the Ethereal Plane.

As far as I can tell, that isn't true of Prismatic Wall.

That's why I said "if we assume", I agree that it doesn't, but I think it should bypass the Prismatic Wall.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Do we have complete enough builds for both characters to start testing?

[PanosIs]

Well, my Fighter is ready, but someone has to make the Wizard, except if we play with Thor as a first challenge. (Well, 'Fighter' as in martial character, only one Fighter level :P, although if we want to enforce the Fighter part switching Ranger for Fighter is quite easy.)

[Hackulator]

Do we have complete enough builds for both characters to start testing?

I feel like if you wanted to test this, the best way would be to groupthink the wizard and create the level of optimization you want to test, and then have people build fighters to try to kill it. However, the wizard should be created in PMs, and the fighters should be created privately as well. Thus, we have a wizard with the level of optimization we want to test, and a bunch of fighters to fight against it. We then increase or decrease the wizard's power level as needed for further testing. Having people know what build they are fighting against gives clear advantages that are outside the question of purely fighter vs wizard.

[Tainted_Scholar]

I feel like if you wanted to test this, the best way would be to groupthink the wizard and create the level of optimization you want to test, and then have people build fighters to try to kill it. However, the wizard should be created in PMs, and the fighters should be created privately as well. Thus, we have a wizard with the level of optimization we want to test, and a bunch of fighters to fight against it. We then increase or decrease the wizard's power level as needed for further testing. Having people know what build they are fighting against gives clear advantages that are outside the question of purely fighter vs wizard.

I disagree, this isn't a standard Fighter Vs. Wizard thread. We're specifically trying to make the Fighter win, so input from both sides will greatly increase the chances of that happening.

[PanosIs]

I feel like if you wanted to test this, the best way would be to groupthink the wizard and create the level of optimization you want to test, and then have people build fighters to try to kill it. However, the wizard should be created in PMs, and the fighters should be created privately as well. Thus, we have a wizard with the level of optimization we want to test, and a bunch of fighters to fight against it. We then increase or decrease the wizard's power level as needed for further testing. Having people know what build they are fighting against gives clear advantages that are outside the question of purely fighter vs wizard.

I think we're mature enough to be able to make our builds considering a vacuum and not the build on the other side. Thus, I don't think making the builds privately is required.

[Hackulator]

I think we're mature enough to be able to make our builds considering a vacuum and not the build on the other side. Thus, I don't think making the builds privately is required.

That's not an issue of maturity. If you know what fighter you are facing, you know what defenses would be totally useless. It is impossible for this to not affect your build process. You would constantly have to second guess yourself about whether you were metagaming if you decided not to include something that you knew to be useless against the fighter. You might end up with a wizard LESS likely to win because you would avoid certain things because they feel like metagaming, but if you did not know what you were fighting you might have included them in your build. It is purely impossible to not have knowledge affect what you do.


I disagree, this isn't a standard Fighter Vs. Wizard thread. We're specifically trying to make the Fighter win, so input from both sides will greatly increase the chances of that happening.

We're not so much trying to make the Fighter win as trying to see how much a Fighter can win against. Let's call this most powerful wizard a fighter can beat Wizard A. Both wins and losses inform us here. If someone builds a fighter that can beat Wizard X but nobody can make a Fighter who beats Wizard Y, we know

X<=A<Y

in terms of where Wizard A, the Wizard we are looking for, is on the optimization scale.

[PanosIs]

Also, I think we're consistently beating Thor at this point and I don't think there's anything he can do to outfight us. One volley from us should have him dead and he can never hit us (except if I'm missing some obscure feat).

Essentially we're using "quadratic" scaling for our fighting abilities (Our to-Hit scales progressively with our attacks through Woodland Archer, our AC scales progressively with Wisdom, our saves scale progressively with Wisdom and their base stat along with Favored Enemy bonus) something that is not possible to do through spells.

Of course, Thor is not a particurarly optimized Wizard, is more like a Wizard that, as the poster of the build stated, is vacationing as a Fighter.

Any opinions on this? Is there something Thor can do to outfight us?

[PanosIs]

That's not an issue of maturity. If you know what fighter you are facing, you know what defenses would be totally useless. It is impossible for this to not affect your build process. You would constantly have to second guess yourself about whether you were metagaming if you decided not to include something that you knew to be useless against the fighter. You might end up with a wizard LESS likely to win because you would avoid certain things because they feel like metagaming, but if you did not know what you were fighting you might have included them in your build. It is purely impossible to not have knowledge affect what you do.

Yes, possibly, but at the same time, we know what general defenses a Wizard is likely to use, and we know what kind of defenses a Wizard is unlikely to use. I'd expect Ironguard, but not Force Ward, I'd expect Flight and Invisibility along with a number of Contingencies. Of course the build is going to be a bit biasad and it would be better to make it privately, but I think we can get sufficiently good results without going to that.

We can also use various established PO and TO builds. It will give us some idea of the capabilities of our Fighter.

[Hackulator]

Yes, possibly, but at the same time, we know what general defenses a Wizard is likely to use, and we know what kind of defenses a Wizard is unlikely to use. I'd expect Ironguard, but not Force Ward, I'd expect Flight and Invisibility along with a number of Contingencies. Of course the build is going to be a bit biasad and it would be better to make it privately, but I think we can get sufficiently good results without going to that.

We can also use various established PO and TO builds. It will give us some idea of the capabilities of our Fighter.

Ok, let me change my suggestion slightly. Groupthink a generic (by generic I just mean not optimized against fighters specifically) wizard here, and have people create fighters to kill it privately. Each time a Fighter kills it, tweak it a bit and try to fight that fighter again, once you beat that fighter, people come at it with new fighters.

[Tainted_Scholar]

Ok, let me change my suggestion slightly. Groupthink a generic (by generic I just mean not optimized against fighters specifically) wizard here, and have people create fighters to kill it privately. Each time a Fighter kills it, tweak it a bit and try to fight that fighter again, once you beat that fighter, people come at it with new fighters.

Why would they need to create the Fighter privately?

[PanosIs]

Why would they need to create the Fighter privately?

This, there's no reason to create either of them in private. The Fighter is free to try to counter the Wizard on the first attempt and then we iterate into higher degrees of Wizard optimization without specializing to kill the Fighter.

As for the Wizard build I think we should start from low PO, the Wizard who would be played in a normal game with along tier 3-4 classes. It's a pretty good start I think as if a Fighter cannot beat even that we can't really go lower.

[ColorBlindNinja]

As for the Wizard build I think we should start from low PO, the Wizard who would be played in a normal game with along tier 3-4 classes. It's a pretty good start I think as if a Fighter cannot beat even that we can't really go lower.

Sounds good to me. Did you take a look at Captain Wizard, posted earlier in the thread?

[Tainted_Scholar]

As for the Wizard build I think we should start from low PO, the Wizard who would be played in a normal game with along tier 3-4 classes. It's a pretty good start I think as if a Fighter cannot beat even that we can't really go lower.

How about a Straight 20 Eleven Generalist with the following stats.

Str. 8
Dex. 16
Con. 14
Int. 23
Wis. 8
Cha. 8

We can use this as the baseline and then determine things like spells prepared, feats, skills etc.