puzzler7
2018-02-20, 03:57 PM
Requirements:
Level 20 Arcanist with capstone - School Savant Archetype recommended
Contingency > Create Undead (Juju Zombie) - This isn't strictly necessary, but you're going to want some way to not have to eat/drink/sleep.
Fiendish Proboscis exploit
19 extra reservoir points (Extra Reservoir x7 or Elf FCB x19)
Quick Study exploit - again, not necessary, but highly recommended
Quicken Spell
Greater Create Demiplane
Time Stop
Gate
Summon Monster III
Swarm of Fangs
With 19 extra reservoir points, you can have 42 maximum. The Arcanist capstone allows you to cast any spell you have prepared by spending spell level + 1 points. The Fiendish Proboscis exploits allows you to refill your pool as follows:
The arcanist can spend 1 point from his arcane reservoir as a standard action to grow a long, articulated proboscis covered with small spiky hairs. The appendage grows from the arcanist’s face and houses a highly flexible, muscular tongue tipped with a cartilaginous barbed quill. The proboscis lasts for 1 round per arcanist level, during which time the arcanist cannot speak or use verbal components.
The arcanist can end this exploit’s effects early as a swift action. As a standard action, the arcanist can attack a target with the proboscis’s tongue. This is a primary natural weapon with a 10-foot reach. Attacks with the tongue resolve as a touch attack. If the arcanist uses his tongue and hits a creature capable of casting spells or using spell-like abilities, he drains a portion of the target’s magical ability and adds 1 point to his arcane reservoir (points gained in excess of the reservoir’s maximum are lost). If the arcanist hits a creature that cannot cast spells or use spell-like abilities, the tongue instead drains a portion of the target’s life force and heals the arcanist of 1d6 points of damage. Regardless of the target’s ability to use magic, the tongue’s unnerving siphoning of magical or life energy causes the struck creature to become sickened for 1 round.
Thus, given ample time and a willing creature with SLAs, you can avoid spending any resources, allowing for the following infinite loop.
Once you've secure some way to never sleep, create a timeless demiplane:
On planes with this trait, time still passes, but the effects of time are diminished. How the timeless trait affects certain activities or conditions such as hunger, thirst, aging, the effects of poison, and healing varies from plane to plane. The danger of a timeless plane is that once an individual leaves such a plane for one where time flows normally, conditions such as hunger and aging occur retroactively. If a plane is timeless with respect to magic, any spell cast with a noninstantaneous duration is permanent until dispelled.
"Any spell cast with a noninstantaneous duration is permanent until dispelled."
Cast Time Stop in this demiplane, and cast Summon Monster III to summon a Lantern Archon. Both of these spells last forever. Plane Shift back to the Material Plane, and wait for combat.
When combat starts, win initiative (guaranteeing this is left as an exercise to the reader). School Savant (Foresight) gives you +10 init, lets you act in the surprise round, and treats your init die as a nat 20, hence my recommendation. Cast Time Stop (-10 points) - you have at least 2 rounds to work with. Gate (-10 points) to your demiplane, refresh your reservoir on the lantern archon you summoned (-1 point), Gate (-10 points) back, and cast Time Stop again, resetting its duration. Rinse and repeat. This can be done with only 32 points.
Of course, this on its own isn't terribly useful - it just lets you hop between dimensions until you collapse of exhaustion. Which isn't terribly interesting. To actually affect something outside of Time Stop, you need to cast a quickened spell before the Plane Shift. My recommendation is Swarm of Fangs - no save, no SR, and it deals 2d6 untyped damage at the end of your turn. Simply cast it at the beginning of your Time Stop, and use your second action to ready Time Stop to go off as soon as the Swarm of Fangs begins moving, freezing it in normal time. This will take up to another 10 points.
Rinse and repeat, and you can do an arbitrarily high amount of damage that bypasses DR and SR, no save, in a single standard action.
The best part about this is that it means you can have any buff spell with a duration of minutes/level or longer on you at all times. Every 19 minutes, simply Time Stop, Gate to your demiplane, Quick Study to prepare whatever spell in your spellbook, and cast the required spells out of your reservoir, refilling it as necessary. This means that you can always apply Moment of Prescience and Heightened Awareness to your initiative, among other things.
What does the playground think about this? Assuming that the Arcanist wins initiative, is there anything that can get past this?
I realize this is a very important discovery, as arcane full casters are widely regarded as among the weakest of the classes, requiring significant optimization to keep up with the rest of the party at later levels. It's probably not huge that a level 20 caster broke the game, especially in a build that takes 20 levels to come together, but I thought it was interesting.
Level 20 Arcanist with capstone - School Savant Archetype recommended
Contingency > Create Undead (Juju Zombie) - This isn't strictly necessary, but you're going to want some way to not have to eat/drink/sleep.
Fiendish Proboscis exploit
19 extra reservoir points (Extra Reservoir x7 or Elf FCB x19)
Quick Study exploit - again, not necessary, but highly recommended
Quicken Spell
Greater Create Demiplane
Time Stop
Gate
Summon Monster III
Swarm of Fangs
With 19 extra reservoir points, you can have 42 maximum. The Arcanist capstone allows you to cast any spell you have prepared by spending spell level + 1 points. The Fiendish Proboscis exploits allows you to refill your pool as follows:
The arcanist can spend 1 point from his arcane reservoir as a standard action to grow a long, articulated proboscis covered with small spiky hairs. The appendage grows from the arcanist’s face and houses a highly flexible, muscular tongue tipped with a cartilaginous barbed quill. The proboscis lasts for 1 round per arcanist level, during which time the arcanist cannot speak or use verbal components.
The arcanist can end this exploit’s effects early as a swift action. As a standard action, the arcanist can attack a target with the proboscis’s tongue. This is a primary natural weapon with a 10-foot reach. Attacks with the tongue resolve as a touch attack. If the arcanist uses his tongue and hits a creature capable of casting spells or using spell-like abilities, he drains a portion of the target’s magical ability and adds 1 point to his arcane reservoir (points gained in excess of the reservoir’s maximum are lost). If the arcanist hits a creature that cannot cast spells or use spell-like abilities, the tongue instead drains a portion of the target’s life force and heals the arcanist of 1d6 points of damage. Regardless of the target’s ability to use magic, the tongue’s unnerving siphoning of magical or life energy causes the struck creature to become sickened for 1 round.
Thus, given ample time and a willing creature with SLAs, you can avoid spending any resources, allowing for the following infinite loop.
Once you've secure some way to never sleep, create a timeless demiplane:
On planes with this trait, time still passes, but the effects of time are diminished. How the timeless trait affects certain activities or conditions such as hunger, thirst, aging, the effects of poison, and healing varies from plane to plane. The danger of a timeless plane is that once an individual leaves such a plane for one where time flows normally, conditions such as hunger and aging occur retroactively. If a plane is timeless with respect to magic, any spell cast with a noninstantaneous duration is permanent until dispelled.
"Any spell cast with a noninstantaneous duration is permanent until dispelled."
Cast Time Stop in this demiplane, and cast Summon Monster III to summon a Lantern Archon. Both of these spells last forever. Plane Shift back to the Material Plane, and wait for combat.
When combat starts, win initiative (guaranteeing this is left as an exercise to the reader). School Savant (Foresight) gives you +10 init, lets you act in the surprise round, and treats your init die as a nat 20, hence my recommendation. Cast Time Stop (-10 points) - you have at least 2 rounds to work with. Gate (-10 points) to your demiplane, refresh your reservoir on the lantern archon you summoned (-1 point), Gate (-10 points) back, and cast Time Stop again, resetting its duration. Rinse and repeat. This can be done with only 32 points.
Of course, this on its own isn't terribly useful - it just lets you hop between dimensions until you collapse of exhaustion. Which isn't terribly interesting. To actually affect something outside of Time Stop, you need to cast a quickened spell before the Plane Shift. My recommendation is Swarm of Fangs - no save, no SR, and it deals 2d6 untyped damage at the end of your turn. Simply cast it at the beginning of your Time Stop, and use your second action to ready Time Stop to go off as soon as the Swarm of Fangs begins moving, freezing it in normal time. This will take up to another 10 points.
Rinse and repeat, and you can do an arbitrarily high amount of damage that bypasses DR and SR, no save, in a single standard action.
The best part about this is that it means you can have any buff spell with a duration of minutes/level or longer on you at all times. Every 19 minutes, simply Time Stop, Gate to your demiplane, Quick Study to prepare whatever spell in your spellbook, and cast the required spells out of your reservoir, refilling it as necessary. This means that you can always apply Moment of Prescience and Heightened Awareness to your initiative, among other things.
What does the playground think about this? Assuming that the Arcanist wins initiative, is there anything that can get past this?
I realize this is a very important discovery, as arcane full casters are widely regarded as among the weakest of the classes, requiring significant optimization to keep up with the rest of the party at later levels. It's probably not huge that a level 20 caster broke the game, especially in a build that takes 20 levels to come together, but I thought it was interesting.