...On Chain Gating Solars

[Gullintanni]

This topic comes up every so often as a particularly high-op, if not outright cheesy tactic.

I'm curious how people are, by RAW, getting away with this. The typical objections usually live in the world of fluff - namely that the legions of heaven wouldn't necessarily appreciate being exploited en masse by adventurers. While I agree with the logic of this sentiment, I'd rather confine my objection to the RAW. So here it is:

I understand fully that Solars cast as 20th level Clerics. But jumping into the MM entry for Solars, the list of Cleric spells typically prepared by a Solar does not include Gate. Given that Gate calls a creature typical to its species, it's fair to assume you're not getting a Solar that has Gate prepared when you call one.

So, in order for chain gating to work, one must activate the contractual service clause of the Gate spell in order to give the Solar time to rest and prepare spells per your request. Which means negotiating price and waiting, pessimistically, 24 hours between the summoning of each Solar, since Clerics prepare spells once at a specific time each day.

Ergo, chain gating Solars is going to eat WBL and down time. Am I missing something? By my best approximation, even with a cheese friendly DM, chain gating Solars simply doesn't work. At least, not easily.

As an aside, chain gating in general still works - you're just grabbing Titans instead of Solars.

[Crake]

Presumably it involves using the solar's 1/day wish SLA to create a scroll of gate, which it would then use without any loss of resources.

[Calthropstu]

Good catch, I knew gate was a cleric spell, but you are correct.... solars do not have gate default.
Titans do, but they are nowhere near the casting juggernauts that Solars are. Also, by raw a titan only gets one gate per day. Any gm may simply say "Sorry, I have used that ability today." Chain ends.

[SangoProduction]

Presumably it involves using the solar's 1/day wish SLA to create a scroll of gate, which it would then use without any loss of resources.

With gate being a 9th level spell, and wish only duplicating a spell of 8th level or lower...you'd have a hard time getting it past a DM that the "Create magical item" part could include a spell of 9th level. (Then again, chain gating in general is hard to get past a DM, so I guess sticking with pure RAW, which is what optimizers do, it's not technically against any rules.)

[Eldan]

The true answer is of course that there are only 24 solars in existence, so your chain ends prettty quickly. :smalltongue:

[ryu]

The true answer is of course that there are only 24 solars in existence, so your chain ends prettty quickly. :smalltongue:

I mean.... Even if we assume that 24 solars is approximately a pretty good addition to most any high level fight outside epic.

[Gullintanni]

Good catch, I knew gate was a cleric spell, but you are correct.... solars do not have gate default.
Titans do, but they are nowhere near the casting juggernauts that Solars are. Also, by raw a titan only gets one gate per day. Any gm may simply say "Sorry, I have used that ability today." Chain ends.

The typical Titan is described as using their Gate only to escape a difficult encounter...

I don't envision Titans getting challenged often given their CR. But, technically this is true.

I suppose the Wish SLA would work :smalltongue:

[XionUnborn01]

If there's any argument against a scroll of wish (which i guess I can understand) all they have to do is wish for a candle of invocation. It's only like 2.5k gp so easily within the parameters.

[Goaty14]

If there's any argument against a scroll of wish (which i guess I can understand) all they have to do is wish for a candle of invocation. It's only like 2.5k gp so easily within the parameters.

Ah man, your wish failed...

What are you going to do with that Chaotic Evil Candle of Invocation?

[Silva Stormrage]

Ah man, your wish failed...

What are you going to do with that Chaotic Evil Candle of Invocation?

Thats not how wish works. Previous editions let the DM just outright twist it but in 3.5 that only applies if you try to push it beyond the stated uses. Of which create candle of invocation is 100% allowed if cheesy and broken.

At that point your DM is just houseruling away a problem which he is fine to do but it doesn't address this tactic in TO.

[Togo]

I'd suggest that using a wish to create an item to duplicate an effect that the wish couldn't itself duplicate, particularly creating an item that requires power equal to that of wish, is a clear and obvious violation of the guidelines for wish.

In my experience much of the TO content relies on interpretations of the rules that are extremely generous. Which is probably where it should be, to create the maximum entertainment and interesting builds.

[icefractal]

It's pretty explicitly allowed, and when you're paying XP for the Wish, it's reasonably balanced - Wishing for a Scroll of Gate has a higher XP cost than just using Wish to emulate a spell.

The problem is cost-free Wishes, usually via Wish as an SLA or Su ability. And those (if used for any purpose that stacks) break the game completely. And not broken as in "unbalanced", but as in "it is not actually possible to resolve a fight by the rules when both sides have an arbitrary number of contingent actions happening" - which is something easily done when free Wishes for items are in play.

TL;DR - free Wish loops are inherently TO rather than PO, and about as usable in a game as Pun-Pun is.