"Wizard 20" vs "Fighters 20"

[AvatarVecna]

The arena: a hollow half-sphere made of pure magicproof force, with the internal radius measuring 250 ft.

The setup: The wizard pops into existence at Day -7. When time reaches Day 0, Fighters start appearing; the wizard can use this week for preparation, within the limits put forth here. 200 fighters appear at a random place on the flat-circle portion of the hollow half-sphere; when a Fighter is defeated, they and their gear disappear, and a new Fighter appears in a random place on the flat-circle portion of the hollow half-sphere. In this way, there are always 200 Fighters within the arena at all times. The game is over when the wizard is dead or otherwise incapacitated in a way that prevents them from doing anything.

The premise: how many non-casters could a caster cast out, if a caster could cast out non-casters? More clearly: presuming the caster is forced to actually play the numbers game rather than changing the rules of engagement drastically, even if they're using arbitrarily high numbers, how long can the finite resources of the caster last out against the effectively-infinite resources of the noncasters? Alternatively, is it possible to create a caster with enough at-will abilities and high enough numbers that they can't be defeated under the continuous assault of 200 variably-optimized non-casters?

Universal Restrictions: No infinite or nigh-infinite loops; the fact that you can't actually get infinite Str with Festering Anger doesn't mean you can't get NI Strength, so it counts and is illegal. If you are pulling a loop, there has to be some cost to performing it that you are not finding a way around for your build. Immunities are allowed, but as they can change the premise if relied upon too heavily, please include an idea of how well the build would perform if (instead of "immunity") the immunity-granting thing gave a +20 to your defense against the thing it would give immunity (such as +20 to escape artist from FoM, +20 to will saves from Mind Blank, +20 to AC from Hide Life, etc).

'Wizard' Restrictions: You don't have to specifically be a wizard, merely a caster (which can include clerics, druids, rangers, or hell even rogues abusing UMD really hard, and so on). Multiclassing/PrCing is allowed, provided you don't stray from the premise: you are primarily a caster before anything else, and you're using your magic to defeat your opponents. Leaving the arena via teleportation, planar travel, or extradimensional spaces results in an immediate loss for the Wizard. Summoning/calling is allowed; when summoned/called creatures are defeated, they and their gear disappear from the arena. They are subject to the same casting limitations as the wizard is, in regards to just just how cheap their tactics are allowed to be.

'Fighter' Restrictions: You don't have to specifically be a fighter, merely a non-caster (which can include barbarians, monks, spell-less rangers, scouts, and so on). It is assumed that the NI fighters present in this challenge will have a variety of builds, and that any particular fighter build will show up an arbitrary number of times over the potentially infinite time this challenge takes to complete; as such, fighters that counter a particular tactic could show up at any particular time, so the wizard needs to be ready to deal with any hypothetical fighter. Fighters are allowed to benefit from magic items, including custom items and continuous spell effect items (provided they are affordable). However, while the Fighters are allowed to benefit from UMD and use-activated magic items, or magic items with charges of spells, these effects should primarily be for leveling the playing field rather than trying to avoid being a non-caster (ie using a wand of Fly to chase after a wizard hovering out of greatsword reach, or casting buff spells from a wand that enhance existing capabilities, and at a stretch perhaps Dispel Magic and derivatives, but actual attack spells, summoning, or anything too castery shouldn't show up in fighter strats for defeating the wizard).

[Feantar]

[...] when a Fighter is defeated, they and their gear disappear[...]

I was going to suggest the new fighters hiding behind the mount of the dead fighters but that kinda threw a wrench in my plan.

Note that if you do allow NI strength through festering anger, and you have the number of fighters set to A (let's say where A is 200), couldn't an illumian (to transfer STR to spellcasting score) have enough bonus 9th level spell slots to fight off the fighters? Essentially unlimited resources without them being infinite (unless the fighters are infinite too).

[AvatarVecna]

I was going to suggest the new fighters hiding behind the mount of the dead fighters but that kinda threw a wrench in my plan.

I am willing to adjust the premise to make that plan viable. I mostly changed it for two reasons: 1) so there's not a flow of new magic items into the arena for the wizard to use, 2) the previous thread I found on this idea, one of the proposed ways for the fighters to defeat the wizard was for so many of them to die that their collective weight forms a star and crush the wizard with gravity. Dunno if you guys could get through enough fighters for that to be viable here, so I didn't wanna take chances. XD

[Cosi]

A Wizard/Incantatrix/Primal Scholar with twenty Persistent Flash Frost Fell Drain control temperatures active at once kill every Fighter who isn't immune to cold or negative levels instantly. Unfortunately, this defense becomes instantly irrelevant, because an infinite number of Fighters instantly die until they are replaced by Fighters who are immune. I suppose it's probably possible to draft a mechanism on top of that which instantly kills the immune Fighters (probably celerity cheese), but it demonstrates that offense is basically pointless. Unless you have unbeatable offense, you're better off making yourself tankier and tankier, because killing Fighters will eventually result in creating Fighters who are immune to whatever you used to kill them.

The optimal solution for survival is to figure out exactly what counts as "defeated", debuff your starting Fighters to just above that point, and then drink mojitos as they drag their blinded and broken bodies around the arena desperately searching for you.

[Jormengand]

So, obviously, the best caster to do this with is a 20th-level truenamer. Build isn't massively important so long as you can get a massive truespeak bonus.

Preparation
Repeatedly utter conjunctive gate to call two noble djinn per utterance. Get them to use the three wishes they can each grant you to create an energy transformation field linked to time stop, and a bunch of other ETFs linked to a variety of different spells which will horribly murder anyone who isn't immune, and then to boost your stats, break WBL into pieces (and get items to make you immune to basically everything), and other fun things. Make sure that you can boost your truespeak check excessively high, because you're going to need it. Polymorph into a... dire tortoise, I think it is? That thing that makes you always go first. Or don't, if you're laden with enough buffs that it doesn't matter.

Fight!
The fighters appear, then you go first. Throw an utterance heightened to, like, 50th level or something into the ETF of time stop. Then do it again a few times for good measure. Run around throwing utterances into all the other ETFs while you're at it, and cover the battlefield in a variety of different types of death. When you're ready, let time reinstate itself and watch as all the ETFs go "Hey, I have enough levels to cast like a bajilion spells." Watch the apocalypse ensue, and twenty more summoned creatures appear. Then, have a creature summoned by one of the ETFs wander into the ETF of time stop and top it just enough to throw you into another time stop (make sure you're at the right point in the field to get the benefit). It's then your turn again, so you can keep doing this until you can't actually make your truespeak checks any more.

Rest for the Wicked
This trick is silly, but by god it's there. Technically not even infinite either. If you're wearing a ring of sustenance and can get 10,800 levels of spells (or, in this case, utterances) into the ETF of time stop, you can actually rest while time stopped. This will restore your utterances, allowing you to do it all again!

But isn't this an infinite loop?
I mean, anything that can kill fighters ad infinitum has to be an infinite loop in some sense, but no individual piece of the puzzle is an infinite loop on its own.

Another Way Which Is Even Dumber
Call noble djinn as before, but make them give you a bunch of Bracers of the Blast Barrier. Get the last one to polymorph you into a Garbler. Review the following information:

- Bracers of the blast barrier create a 10-foot-long wall which deals damage to each creature who enters either of its squares.
- There are a finite number of squares in the arena.
- Bracers of the blast barrier require you to fuel them with a spell or SLA, and use its level both as the minimum damage the barrier deals, and as the duration of the barrier.
- Truenamers can increase the level of an utterance as high as they like, but the truespeak DC increases too.
- Garblers always pass truespeak checks.
- Each new fighter is placed on the ground.
- Truenamers can fly.

Armed with this knowledge, fill the entire ground with walls of infinite-damage death for fighters, who will die, be replaced, die, be replaced, and so on, forever and ever.

(In a similar vein, though, any kind of [damage/negalevels/other bad stuff]-over-time effect that covers the whole floor and does enough to kill the fighters should work).


killing Fighters will eventually result in creating Fighters who are immune to whatever you used to kill them.

The moral of the story is that fighters are basically the same thing as MRSA.

[Segev]

I'm not sure the point of this thought experiment. Unfortunately, when you get to [class] 20, even not being a caster stops being quite so big a deal if you're allowed to spend your WBL "ideally."

This will come down to whether the fighter 20s are using magic items to overcome the wizard's casting+magic items, or to be better fighters. If the latter, the wizard can probably go on indefinitely. If the former, the wizard will lose to action deficit within the first two rounds, since the wizard can't leave the arena.

It's essentially 1 wizard 20 vs. 200 wizard 20s that are gimping themselves a little bit by relying only on items that let them play like wizards.

And there's no real way to draw a clean line of "this much magic item cheating, and no more," because the fighter 20 with full WBL can have all sorts of gear that makes him genuinely keep up with the wizard 20. And some of it will be "obviously fighter stuff," but others will not be. And there's again no way to spell out "fighter items only" without unrealistically gimping the fighter 20 builds.

[Cosi]

(In a similar vein, though, any kind of [damage/negalevels/other bad stuff]-over-time effect that covers the whole floor and does enough to kill the fighters should work).

As noted, no it doesn't. The only way to win by killing Fighters is by having something that it is literally impossible to be immune to. Otherwise you're just selecting for Fighters that are immune to it. Offense basically doesn't matter, because it's self-defeating.

[Jormengand]

As noted, no it doesn't. The only way to win by killing Fighters is by having something that it is literally impossible to be immune to. Otherwise you're just selecting for Fighters that are immune to it. Offense basically doesn't matter, because it's self-defeating.

Assuming that the premise is "How many fighters can you kill" (which, you'll notice, it is) then offence is the only thing that matters. Plus, there must be something, or some combination of things, that it's impossible to be immune to - and the ETF build can have access to basically all the things, so as long as the fighters are at all mortal, they will die.

[Cosi]

Assuming that the premise is "How many fighters can you kill" (which, you'll notice, it is) then offence is the only thing that matters. Plus, there must be something, or some combination of things, that it's impossible to be immune to - and the ETF build can have access to basically all the things, so as long as the fighters are at all mortal, they will die.

The game is "how long can you last". OP is asking "is it possible to create a caster with enough at-will abilities and high enough numbers that they can't be defeated under the continuous assault of 200 variably-optimized non-casters?" The answer to that is yes, but it involves killing Fighters only until the only ones left are ones you can cripple. If build A kills 20 billion Fighters and then dies and build B kills 0 Fighters but never dies, build B has done better. Now that I think about it, the best build is just a Diplomancer. Pretty sure it is under any conditions unless you explicitly disallow it, because Fighters are always going to lose at 199 v 1.

[Jormengand]

The game is "how long can you last". OP is asking "is it possible to create a caster with enough at-will abilities and high enough numbers that they can't be defeated under the continuous assault of 200 variably-optimized non-casters?" The answer to that is yes, but it involves killing Fighters only until the only ones left are ones you can cripple. If build A kills 20 billion Fighters and then dies and build B kills 0 Fighters but never dies, build B has done better. Now that I think about it, the best build is just a Diplomancer. Pretty sure it is under any conditions unless you explicitly disallow it, because Fighters are always going to lose at 199 v 1.
The premise: how many non-casters could a caster cast out, if a caster could cast out non-casters?

If it were just a case of lasting forever, I'd agree that the best thing is to stop the fighters from doing anything. But it's a case of how many fighters you can kill, so you have to kill fighters.

[Florian]

PF answer: The "Fighter" is actually a Fetchling Fighter (Viking) with the ability to counter any form of magic with an AoO and target ongoing enhancements with a regular attack to sunder them, can use cleave at that and is actually powered by cleaving.

A female Fetchling Fighter is actuallymore brutal, because she can enter the Sanguine Angel PrC.

Note: PF has the Fighter counter a Time Stop, sunder the Contingeny and disrupt the Planar Servant in one fells swoop and also followup up with any form of (inter)dimensional travel. To forestall any complaining: Wizard is still a very active class, Fighter is a very reactive class.

[AvatarVecna]

-snip-

The only thing in this that I think is pushing at the boundaries between regular play and NI is the part where you wish up items via genies. Getting six regular-ish items per Gate is one thing, but "break WBL into pieces (and get items to make you immune to basically everything)" feels like the kinda thing I should ask about to make sure it's not just "items gained via genie wishes don't have limits so I just make whatever".


I'm not sure the point of this thought experiment. Unfortunately, when you get to [class] 20, even not being a caster stops being quite so big a deal if you're allowed to spend your WBL "ideally."

...

It's essentially 1 wizard 20 vs. 200 wizard 20s that are gimping themselves a little bit by relying only on items that let them play like wizards.

Yeah, I should probably put something in the OP about how the Fighters have some kind of limit on how magicky their gear is allowed to be, and how much they're allowed to use WBL to pretend to be wizards instead of just using limited spell resources to level the playing field a bit.


This will come down to whether the fighter 20s are using magic items to overcome the wizard's casting+magic items, or to be better fighters. If the latter, the wizard can probably go on indefinitely. If the former, the wizard will lose to action deficit within the first two rounds, since the wizard can't leave the arena.

Exploring this bolded bit is the point of the thread. Everybody who comes to post in this thread, including myself, is perfectly aware that a wizard without limits can take on an infinite number of fighters without trying particularly hard.


And there's no real way to draw a clean line of "this much magic item cheating, and no more," because the fighter 20 with full WBL can have all sorts of gear that makes him genuinely keep up with the wizard 20. And some of it will be "obviously fighter stuff," but others will not be. And there's again no way to spell out "fighter items only" without unrealistically gimping the fighter 20 builds.

"It's hard to codify a limit so we shouldn't even bother, therefore the challenge is pointless." That's part of why I'm playing it by ear; if a wizard strat comes up that plays within the rules, then things shift to "okay, so what kind of fighter can deal with that", and if it turns out such a fighter is more dependent on, say, scrolls of gate or wish to deal with the strat, that's pretty unfightery (a real word, don't look it up, just trust me). What's the line between acceptable Dispelling, careful use of AMFs, and disjunction? It may well be more of a gradient than a hard and fast line, and exploring that is part of the point of the thread.

Mainly, the point of the thread isn't "find a way to kill infinite fighters" but either "how effectively can you defend against 200 fighters for as long as possible" crossed with "how quickly and efficiently can you kill fighters before running out of resources and losing". The goal isn't about winning, it's about getting the high score, and figuring out of there's more effective strategies that don't rely on infinite cheat codes. What kinda creative, off-the-wall ideas will result in endless fighter destruction?


As noted, no it doesn't. The only way to win by killing Fighters is by having something that it is literally impossible to be immune to. Otherwise you're just selecting for Fighters that are immune to it. Offense basically doesn't matter, because it's self-defeating.

A slight counterpoint: if your entire offense is dependent on a single broken trick, then yes you will eventually have nothing left but fighters who are immune to that trick. Ignoring that the challenge isn't just "find a way to kill infinite fighters" for a moment (and thus killing lots and lots of fighters is an acceptable answer), the fighters surviving isn't dependent on them being immune to any trick, but on them being immune to every trick. Presuming that some method of permanent spells or at-will resources can come into play on the wizard side (resetting traps, reserve feats...idk buffing up permanently in that week and then picking up a sword? finding a way to get rests without dying?), it would be interesting to see how long you could go.

Offense and defense are both important, but ultimately a "high score" is gained by total number of fighters killed. If Wizard A kills a billion fighters and day and dies on Day 1, and Wizard B kills 2 fighters a day and dies on Day 1 billion, Wizard B is better. But if Wizard B just turtles and never kills any fighters, he hasn't one, he's just stalmating.

[eggynack]

Assuming that the premise is "How many fighters can you kill" (which, you'll notice, it is) then offence is the only thing that matters. Plus, there must be something, or some combination of things, that it's impossible to be immune to - and the ETF build can have access to basically all the things, so as long as the fighters are at all mortal, they will die.
Offense absolutely isn't the only thing that matters. After all, if a perfect defense is attainable, something that renders the fighters incapable of doing any harm to the wizard, then the specific structure of the offense doesn't really matter at all. They could probably stab the fighters to death, and the number of fighters they can kill would still be infinity. The premise of the thread asserts some kinda immunity into +20 thing, but there is quite possibly a way around that. Perhaps via immunities that aren't precisely immunities (going ethereal, for example), or through a layer of immunities thick enough that it renders fighters, even 200 of them, probabilistically incapable of putting up a fight. The latter plan would only provide a really huge number of dead fighters, but the fact that it could provide a route to high numbers would still make defense a relevant attribute.

[Jormengand]

Offense absolutely isn't the only thing that matters. After all, if a perfect defense is attainable, something that renders the fighters incapable of doing any harm to the wizard, then the specific structure of the offense doesn't really matter at all. They could probably stab the fighters to death, and the number of fighters they can kill would still be infinity. The premise of the thread asserts some kinda immunity into +20 thing, but there is quite possibly a way around that. Perhaps via immunities that aren't precisely immunities (going ethereal, for example), or through a layer of immunities thick enough that it renders fighters, even 200 of them, probabilistically incapable of putting up a fight. The latter plan would only provide a really huge number of dead fighters, but the fact that it could provide a route to high numbers would still make defense a relevant attribute.

The point is that killing a billion and one fighters and then dying in one round is better than killing a billion fighters and living forever. Obviously, you need to survive long enough to kill the fighters, but the only statistic that's a deciding factor in victory is "Fighters killed" not "Time survived".

[eggynack]

The point is that killing a billion and one fighters and then dying in one round is better than killing a billion fighters and living forever. Obviously, you need to survive long enough to kill the fighters, but the only statistic that's a deciding factor in victory is "Fighters killed" not "Time survived".
Sure, but defense is possibly a better way of achieving a higher fighter killed count than offense is. If you're actually living forever, then killing only a billion fighters doesn't make much sense. After all, you could just kill two more fighters, because you're presumably still alive, and then you'd beat the immediately dead wizard.

[Jormengand]

Sure, but defense is possibly a better way of achieving a higher fighter killed count than offense is. If you're actually living forever, then killing only a billion fighters doesn't make much sense. After all, you could just kill two more fighters, because you're presumably still alive, and then you'd beat the immediately dead wizard.

Yes, I understand that. The fact is, though, that what I was talking about is completely unadjacent to what you were talking about.

[Evoker]

One way to rest, thereby restoring spell slots is to target-kill all of the fighters with the ability to dispel magic in some way, then cast rope trick and rest for up to 20 hours while the 200 fighters cannot do anything to you. Or would that count as leaving the arena via extra-dimensional space? Or would this count as "Infinite"?

[zlefin]

the basic of problem wtih threads like these is that so much comes down to adjudicating various boundaries that you can't get a clear answer.

but to give some sort of answer/comments:
200 fighters is a lot; enough so that you really need some way to nullify all their attacks or you'd die round 1 to something getting through.
%-based stoppers, like AC and miss chance, won't be enough, nor would DR.


not sure what build I'd use for a caster type going into this.

is there a minimum distance the fighters can appear from you?
I'm wondering how it'd interact with things like a prismatic sphere. or various other ways to setup a barrier around yourself.
can the fighters appear off the ground if they have some sort of flight?

[Zanos]

What's the criteria for "defeated?" If you dominate a fighter, does he count as defeated? Shame the corpses disappear, collecting dread warriors of 20th level fighters could be amusing.

[AvatarVecna]

One way to rest, thereby restoring spell slots is to target-kill all of the fighters with the ability to dispel magic in some way, then cast rope trick and rest for up to 20 hours while the 200 fighters cannot do anything to you. Or would that count as leaving the arena via extra-dimensional space? Or would this count as "Infinite"?

Using rope trick counts as extra-dimensional, I'm fairly certain. At the very least, it's on the list of things I was thinking of in particular when making that part of the rules. If you can find a way to get full rests without leaving the arena or dying, getting ridiculous numbers becomes much simpler.


the basic of problem wtih threads like these is that so much comes down to adjudicating various boundaries that you can't get a clear answer.

but to give some sort of answer/comments:
200 fighters is a lot; enough so that you really need some way to nullify all their attacks or you'd die round 1 to something getting through.
%-based stoppers, like AC and miss chance, won't be enough, nor would DR.


not sure what build I'd use for a caster type going into this.

is there a minimum distance the fighters can appear from you?
I'm wondering how it'd interact with things like a prismatic sphere. or various other ways to setup a barrier around yourself.
can the fighters appear off the ground if they have some sort of flight?

No minimum distance, although they have to appear in a legal space (so, one not currently occupied by creatures/objects they would be incapable of squeezing together with). That said, there's always 200 Fighters in the arena; if only incorporeal fighters can be present in the arena as it currently exists (because you've filled it with stone or cotton candy or rubber or whatever), then only incorporeal fighters will appear.

If the Fighters are capable of flight, they can appear off the ground. If it proves useful or necessary to counter a strat, fighters can be assumed to have some measure of time to buff prior to entering the arena (so they could cast fly to appear somewhere in the air instead of on the ground...although some buffs go too far towards the caster side of things). For that last bit...okay, like, there's a big difference between a fighter who is a ghost, and a fighter who casts a spell to gain ghost powers from a scroll.

EDIT: And this thread is less about reaching an objective answer of "how many fighters can a wizard defeat, assuming the wizard is forced to actually play the game rather than completely change the rules of engagement and render the challenge insignificant" and more about seeing what kinda weird tricks people pull out to get more defeats.


What's the criteria for "defeated?" If you dominate a fighter, does he count as defeated? Shame the corpses disappear, collecting dread warriors of 20th level fighters could be amusing.

Unless that domination is permanent, the fighter isn't defeated, merely delayed. A fighter is defeated either when they are dead or when they are otherwise rendered incapable of continuing to fight in a permanent way (Flesh To Stone, Plane Shift them away, find a way to permanently set one of their attributes to 0...murder them). If you're unsure if a method counts, we can discuss it. Again, looking for creative stuff, cuz it interests me greatly. :smallsmile:

[Jack_Simth]

Let's see...

Wizard-10/Incantatrix-10.

Other than the various requirements, relevant feats:
Troll-Blooded (regeneration 1/Fire or Acid)
Minor Shapeshift (Temp HP = level, at-will swift action)
Fiery Burst (reserve feat: At-will ranged fire attack)
Acidic Splatter (Reserve Feat: At-will ranged acid attack)
Summon Elemental (reserve feat: At-will summon)
Persistent Spell (well known)
Planar Touchstone (Catalogs of Enlightenment(Pride domain)) (reroll 1's on saves)
Heighten Spell
Darkstalker

Relevant Items:
Save boosters (especially reflex)
Ring of Evasion (grants evasion)
Starmantle Cloak (Ignore nonmagical weapons, DC 15 reflex for half damage vs. magical weapons)
Ring of Freedom of Movement
Ring of Invisibility
Hand of Glory (extra ring slot)
Wings of Flying

Relevant Spells:
Energy Immunity (Acid)
Energy Immunity (Fire)
Mind Blank
Time Stop

Basic strategy:
Be flying and invisible full-time, and stay that way.
Use Summons to hit fighters.
Get a Reflex modifier of +13 or better.
Seldom get hit (invisible, flying; they've got a LOT of cubes to guess at)
Only get hit by magical weapons when I roll a 1 on reflex saves. Then reroll those.
Keep up some temp HP at all times.
Slowly heal all damage.

When I finally need to rest up (long, long time between!), use Incantatrix's Instant Metamagic to make a Persistent Time Stop.

[eggynack]

When I finally need to rest up (long, long time between!), use Incantatrix's Instant Metamagic to make a Persistent Time Stop.
This step probably doesn't work. Most interpretations of the interaction, as I recall, dictate that you cannot really persist a time stop.

[zlefin]

hiding inside a dimensional locked forcecage should heavily limit how many of the fighters can engage you at once. not sure how rare fighters that could get through that would be. or what the offense plan would be eto go with that.


finding a way to get 199 non-dangerous fighter types and have them stick around, thus meaning you only have to deal with 1 dangerous one at a time would be effective. and when you need to sleep (if you need to sleep) you can leave only a non-dangerous one until it's time to resume culling.

a variety of ways to accomplish such kind of cheese; some of it would require some observation over time to assess what feats they have, and requires you to deal with a lot of them at the start, but once you can stabilize it gets way easier. so you use a pile of gated troops or whatever to handle the first waves while you set up.

sunder/disjoin all their equipment, and make sure they don't have anything which would be that relevant without any of that. a lvl 20 fighter with no equipment shouldn't be that scary.

keep 199 of the fighters dominated perpetually. with psionic dominate it might be doable (certainly the durations are sufficient to allow you to do it, getting it setup in the first place would be trickier)

keep some of the fighters alive but trapped in a condition that doesn't let them fight but doesn't count as them losing. (dim-locked forcecage again?, with some source of food/water/air)

deal so much nonlethal damage that they're unconscious and will stay that way as long as you reapply it periodically.

[Crichton]

deal so much nonlethal damage that they're unconscious and will stay that way as long as you reapply it periodically.

This. If they just respawn when dead, focus the prep and summons on keeping them all incapacitated, in whatever way possible.

[Jack_Simth]

hiding inside a dimensional locked forcecage should heavily limit how many of the fighters can engage you at once. not sure how rare fighters that could get through that would be. or what the offense plan would be eto go with that.There's a core item that'll break it. Shield of Absorption, works as Disintegrate 2/day.


keep 199 of the fighters dominated perpetually. with psionic dominate it might be doable (certainly the durations are sufficient to allow you to do it, getting it setup in the first place would be trickier)Charm Monster or Dominate Person seems to fit the bill in most cases. Both are days/level, prevent them from attacking you, but it don't permanently disable them which means they stick around. 4th level spells either way, so you can do this a lot (and do things like use chain spell on them). May also help with nap-taking yourself, which I suppose works OK for ...
This step probably doesn't work. Most interpretations of the interaction, as I recall, dictate that you cannot really persist a time stop.
This interpretation.

[Goaty14]

Tainted Scholar + Evil Subtype (evil subtype grants immunity to negative effects of taint, which can be gotten via that one ritual in Savage Species if you don't happen to be an evil outsider) technically isn't an infinite loop because you're limited by the time you take casting the spells to get more taint. The question then becomes how much taint one could acquire before the fighters start showing up, which doesn't matter too much because your power continues to grow linearly in combat.
Mixing in Persistent Incanatrix as mentioned earlier (you definitely have the levels for it) and the trick to persist time stop only cuts further into the wound. Using the epic-level variant that switches your spellcraft ability to your spellcasting stat (so clerics and druids could research epic spells like wizards) means that you also don't have to be a INT-focused casting class to beat the spellcraft check (or max out spellcraft for that matter, since your taint is <spells cast in a week>+1-2/round, and taint is your spellcasting stat).

It's pretty obvious that you could make a caster (or truenamer, if that's your taste) that could defeat NI mundanes. Maybe we could start talking about ways you could make a mundane that could defeat such a monstrosity :smallsmile:

[ben-zayb]

I don't have a complete build, but I know it would involve incorporeality, Noctumancer, Incantatrix, Black Labyrinth, a fly speed, persisted Friendly Fire, and persisted Selective AMF.

[Quertus]

Ok, so... If the fighters start on the floor... And the floor is filled completely with Spheres of Annihilation... Is there any way to be immune to Spheres of Annihilation, or does the Wizard just win?

[Bucky]

If the floor is covered by spheres of annihilation, you kill all the fighters with no ability to fly. But when fliers spawn in midair you're vulnerable to having the spheres used against you.

[Ignimortis]

I am both absolutely disgusted by how 1 Wizard can theoretically destroy thousand and millions of characters of the same level and dying from laughter from visualising this. Thank you, GitP.

[Quertus]

If the floor is covered by spheres of annihilation, you kill all the fighters with no ability to fly. But when fliers spawn in midair you're vulnerable to having the spheres used against you.


The arena: a hollow half-sphere made of pure magicproof force, with the internal radius measuring 250 ft.

200 fighters appear at a random place on the flat-circle portion of the hollow half-sphere; when a Fighter is defeated, they and their gear disappear, and a new Fighter appears in a random place on the flat-circle portion of the hollow half-sphere.

Um, nope - there are no fighters appearing in midair.

Game?

[AvatarVecna]

Um, nope - there are no fighters appearing in midair.

Game?


If the Fighters are capable of flight, they can appear off the ground. If it proves useful or necessary to counter a strat, fighters can be assumed to have some measure of time to buff prior to entering the arena (so they could cast fly to appear somewhere in the air instead of on the ground...although some buffs go too far towards the caster side of things). For that last bit...okay, like, there's a big difference between a fighter who is a ghost, and a fighter who casts a spell to gain ghost powers from a scroll.

It can be helpful to read the whole thread.

[Quertus]

It can be helpful to read the whole thread.

I take it this bit never made it back to the first post, which still contradicts it. Sigh.

Ok, so... no longer in the realm of things I have Wizards who know how to do, but... If the Wizard could PaO himself into a creature which was, for all intents and purposes, a 250' radius Sphere of Annihilation, would there be anything that could survive? Or is that an attack with no discernable immunity?the obvious answer being, "what if they were a Sphere of Annihilation, too?", although I fear what a Rod of Cancellation might cause

[Eldan]

So, how many defences do we need to layer up until the wizard is immortal? I'm imagining an Ikea Tarrasque, with Greater Ironguard, Starmantle Cloak and Ghostform. Tripple immunity to nonmagical weapons, save against magical weapons and immunity to all metal, then immunity to damage.

***

Can we get the Dream of Iron online in a week?

[Liquor Box]

Is the wizard optimised generally, or optimised for this specific task, or not particularly optmised?

If either of the earlier two, it appears a bit unfair because the fighters are specified as being "variably optimized".

If the wizard is not optmised (for example if we take Mialee from Enemies and Allies or the standard L20 NPC wizard from the DMG), I think its kill count would be significantly lower than some of the estimates in this thread.

[death390]

why has no-one mentioned that the Artificer is a "caster"? simplest way to do this is with wonderous item traps self-resetting ones.... think about it with enought item creation reducers the cost can drop to ~3% of cost without horrid shenanigans (reducers of same name stacked on each-other which is legal). hell even a self resetting persisted time stop is probably legal during which you can craft all you like. any of the XP farming methods could work too (such as the one that gives you ambrosia from pain) the only thing you could run out of is gold but since materials are simple gold values you could WBL-mancy walls of salt and use that to craft or such.

it is effectivly infinite but technically not since your traps are doing all the work. hell simply dominate and **** takes targets out all you have to do is a command like "you want glory for yourself, subdue your competition!" could work which could take out more than 2 people.

self- resetting traps FTW!!!


another option is Arcane Swordsage since a single full round action resets all sword magic (adaptive style feat). and having access to healing, flight, dozens of other buffs, alter self, ect ect ect niegh at will would be bad for the fighters.

[Eldan]

If you need time, there's always Genesis, no need for time stop shennanigans. (Up to interpretation which is worse munchkinry, really.)

[Eldan]

Is the wizard optimised generally, or optimised for this specific task, or not particularly optmised?

If either of the earlier two, it appears a bit unfair because the fighters are specified as being "variably optimized".

If the wizard is not optmised (for example if we take Mialee from Enemies and Allies or the standard L20 NPC wizard from the DMG), I think its kill count would be significantly lower than some of the estimates in this thread.

Well, the problem with that is it's not much of a contest. The typical wizards-statted NPC played* to a low level of optimization loses to NPC fighters eventually when their spells run out, or since they are "variably optimized", the first moderlately highly optimized fighter.

*Played because playstyle matters a lot. Even a pure wizard 20 with pretty bad spell and feats selection can become quite powerful if they have a week to prepare and an optimizer controlling them. They just have a hoop or two more to jump through.

[Liquor Box]

Well, the problem with that is it's not much of a contest. The typical wizards-statted NPC played* to a low level of optimization loses to NPC fighters eventually when their spells run out, or since they are "variably optimized", the first moderlately highly optimized fighter.

*Played because playstyle matters a lot. Even a pure wizard 20 with pretty bad spell and feats selection can become quite powerful if they have a week to prepare and an optimizer controlling them. They just have a hoop or two more to jump through.

Wouldn't them being closer in ability to the fighters make it more of a contest? Or do you think that they would simply be overwhelmed by the first wave?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Wizard 20 are those guys that can create a personal pocket dimension nobody else can enter except maybe using epic magic, hide in it, speed up time inside it by an absurd amount and pump out the most powerful creatures at a rate of several per outside world second right?

[Eldan]

See, Wizards seemed to think for most of the edition's lifetime that a wizard was basically supposed to buff up their stats a bit (mage armor, bear's endurance, maybe one or two more) and then wade into combat mostly casting damage spells, with a few backup tricks. They didn't account for spellcasting during downtimes, or even moderate levels of trickery. So, if our wizard, say, casts fly and then tries to see how many fighters they can fry with meteor swarm, quickened fireballs and one or two summoned beefsticks, they die fast. It's in the playstyle.

[animewatcha]

How do the fighters enter the arena? Cause it sounds like that would be entering through planar travel in some form ( IIRC even teleporting is briefly traveling through astral or something like that by fluff ). Cause the spell Forbiddance is permanent. If wizard has prep time before fighters arrive, then forbiddance keeps them from entering the arena at all. 60 cube per caster level is enough to cover the arena.

[eggynack]

Wouldn't them being closer in ability to the fighters make it more of a contest? Or do you think that they would simply be overwhelmed by the first wave?
The entire point of this is optimizing a wizard to overcome this weird challenge. If it's just a crap wizard against crap fighters, then where's our input? To say nothing of the fact that the fighters would win trivially. It's doubtful that the crap wizard would have any serious defense against archery, or any means of insuring that they go first, so if a decent fraction of the fighters pick up a bow, and if about half of those fighters go before the wizard, then the wizard dies before they even get to act.

[Gemini476]

This can be somewhat solved via repeated timetravel and self-murder. This isn't a build in and of itself, but rather a method to make a different build more survivable via as-high-as-you-want deflection bonuses to AC, Charisma increases, and Ghost immortality. (And infinite XP, if you want to get really cheesy.)

The Wizard in question has one level in the Ghost Template Class (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040117a), and is 1xp short of level 19 (and thus has a bunch of free XP to mess around with).
They have an Unguent of TimelessnessDMG, a couple Scrolls of Unseen Servant, one Scroll of Teleport Through Time, some marigold seeds, some containers of water, and a bag of soil.

The strategy:
On day 1 they put down some soil and have the Unseen Servant plant the seeds.
On day 1, half an hour after the flowers are planted, they have a fight to the death with their future self. The winner gets awarded somewhere along the lines of 5,400XP. If their future self dies, they poof into the future; if their past self dies, their body just lies on the ground (including a full Unguent of Timelessness and unused Scroll of Teleport Through Time).
The remainder of days 1-6 are spent in meditation. The Unseen Servants occasionally water the soil.
On the seventh day, they pluck the sprout from the soil that's been untouched by INT 3+ beings since the destination time** and Teleport Through Time to fight themselves in a battle to the death, spending 1,000XP, a drop of Unguent of Timelessness, and a Scroll of Teleport Through Time.

This week repeats into infinity, until you have a future self who has survived 5,200 battles with their weaker selves - which becomes increasingly easy, since they eventually hit level 27** or so before their CR20 self stops giving XP. Having survived 5,200 battles and 100 years as an Undead, they have a 1% chance to become an Evolved UndeadLM.

These hundred years repeat ad infinitum, occasionally restarting as a past self gets lucky and slays their future. Eventually, however - and given that this is a time loop that only stops when someone decides not to travel back in time, the "eventually" will definitely happen - the loop ends with an eons-old 25th-level Evolved-to-the-Nth-degree Undead stepping forth to face the hordes of Fighterdom.
Each evolution brings with it +1 deflection to AC and +2 Charisma, and a bunch of at-will spells.
To avoid this becoming an infinite loop, 16,000 years could be enough to Diplomacy any fighters not immune to mind-affecting effects into being Fanatic and thus helping you kill the fighters immune to that.
Also, to have this actually be infinite you need to be able to use the scroll without having to UMD it (and risk a nat 1).

Should the Ghost be destroyed through whatever method, their Rejuvenation will reform them in 2d4 days - and given that their reason for existence is presumably "kill all of the Fighters", it is very unlikely that they will ever be able to rest in peace.

*Alternatively, I've heard some say that you can just Eschew Material Components the flower. In that case you can skip most of the material preparation.
**For argument's sake, let's just say that this adds to the level of the Ghost template class. Ghost 3 gets you what you want, anyway, so Wizard 17/Ghost 3 works if you don't like advancing beyond level 20.
If you want to get really cheesy and make the whole thing a bit more reliable, have the Wizard Teleport Through Time to eight minutes after they killed their past - eventually you'll be fighting CR21 selves and thus still get XP, etc. etc.
IIRC this won't get you Epic Spells, though, because I think there's something about needing to engrave those on stone slabs?

I suspect that this would at least add a little bit to the kill count, albeit not a lot since the current issues are more about running into invulnerable foes. At the very least this gives you infinite retries, though, and at some point you can expect them to only get two days' worth of rest between each of your rejuvenations!
IIRC the only thing that can permanently kill you at that point is the Hunter of the Dead prestige class, and that's a spellcaster.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

You could always use a level 20 psion, which is potentially fantastic at blasting, and can refill its pp any time it wants at this level.

I posted a link to this (http://bg-archive.minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=10200.msg345676#msg345676) in another thread, but it could easily be workable here:


Okay, here we go...

Overchannel (let's say +3) a Chained, Split Psionic Ray'd energy conversion, shared with psicrystal. Grab yourself Greater Psionic Shot, Aligned Attack (just make sure you're Chaotic or Evil), and a greater chasuble of fell power. Charge yourself up with a torch, a camp fire, and energy wall. Then, give your psicrystal a psychoactive skin of proteus, and have it turn into something not-immune-to-mind-affecting-effects and prior to battle manifest schism, shared between the two of you, and use both Aligned Attack (+3d6 w/chasuble) and Greater Psionic Shot (+4d6) and you'll end up dealing a ton of damage with 8 shots each round at (ML+3)x3 damage each, all of which Chain to hit secondary targets (and can hit multiple foes several times all at once).

In case you're keeping score, at level 17 that's 480+7d6 damage every round, plus secondary damage on up to 160 other targets (many of which can overlap).

Voila.

And don't get me started on fission.

So set yourself up high, absorb as much energy damage as you can, and you (and your psicrystal) start readying attacks to blast any fighter that comes in. If only one blasts at a time, you should be able to kill any fighter that comes in later in the same round using the other's readied action. Using metapsionics for things like Linked synchronicity can grant you additional actions if multiples come in at once that have enough HP to survive a single set of blasts from you, your psicrystal, your schismed minds, and your fissioned selves/psicrystal/schisms. And if a particular fighter is immune to [fire], use another energy type. If it becomes immune to energy conversion altogether, you've got lots of other powers you can use, since only a small handful are used in the above combo. A well put-together shaper, for instance, would have access to Huge astral constructs for more blasting, melee attacks, and grappling, and psionic minor creation for a few dozen gallons of horrific plant-based poison for a mere 1-2 pp for each manifestation (using Linked Power to massively shorten manifesting times).

You could even use metamorphosis to turn yourself into a Fine-sized, nearly invisible glass turret attached to the ceiling. So long as you don't manifest any additional powers, you could blast away all day and remain in the same form.

[edit] Oh, and it's not terribly hard to boost your AC to high levels AND get miss chances AND gain tons of temp hp, just in case the fighters get snippy about being killed.

[Yogibear41]

Off topic slightly, but I saw this item suggested. What happens when a non-magical natural attack hits someone wearing a starmantle cloak? Does the poor monster's hand get obliterated?

[Calthropstu]

Wizard 20 are those guys that can create a personal pocket dimension nobody else can enter except maybe using epic magic, hide in it, speed up time inside it by an absurd amount and pump out the most powerful creatures at a rate of several per outside world second right?

Planeshift is not epic magic, and can enter into a wizard's demiplane.

[Jack_Simth]

Planeshift is not epic magic, and can enter into a wizard's demiplane.
Lots of things are glossed over in that description, such as Forbiddance. Wish is still pre-epic, though.

[Liquor Box]

The entire point of this is optimizing a wizard to overcome this weird challenge. If it's just a crap wizard against crap fighters, then where's our input? To say nothing of the fact that the fighters would win trivially. It's doubtful that the crap wizard would have any serious defense against archery, or any means of insuring that they go first, so if a decent fraction of the fighters pick up a bow, and if about half of those fighters go before the wizard, then the wizard dies before they even get to act.

Well, if an unoptmised wizard knew the spell protection from arrows, they would be able to prepare it in their week's preparation time and cast it shortly before the fighters arrived. They could also ready an offensive spell to get the first move.

But I suppose you are right, the point of the exercise is to create a wizard that could survive a huge number of fighters. I guess creating the wizard is the challenge in the exercise, even if it is not an apples with apples scenario (or even less of one that it otherwise would have been).

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Well, if an unoptmised wizard knew the spell protection from arrows, they would be able to prepare it in their week's preparation time and cast it shortly before the fighters arrived. They could also ready an offensive spell to get the first move.Wouldn't do much against level 20 fighters. I'd be willing to bet that most, if not all, of them have magical ranged weapons, rendering DR 10/magic useless.


But I suppose you are right, the point of the exercise is to create a wizard that could survive a huge number of fighters. I guess creating the wizard is the challenge in the exercise, even if it is not an apples with apples scenario (or even less of one that it otherwise would have been).Just make yourself undetectable in some fashion and wait for them all to starve. Meanwhile, you've got plenty of ways to make your own food, or to just make yourself immune to starvation.

[Zancloufer]

-snip-

I suspect that this would at least add a little bit to the kill count, albeit not a lot since the current issues are more about running into invulnerable foes. At the very least this gives you infinite retries, though, and at some point you can expect them to only get two days' worth of rest between each of your rejuvenations!
IIRC the only thing that can permanently kill you at that point is the Hunter of the Dead prestige class, and that's a spellcaster.

So why not just be a Ghost Wizard? I mean if your a Wizard 17-19 that is pretty spooky to start with. Even if you die after only taking out one or two waves of Fighters you'll comeback in a week and most and continue killing fighters presumably fully rested.

Even if you only kill 2-3 waves per week you will end up with over 250k dead after a decade.

Though this might be considered a NI loop of sorts.

[DMVerdandi]

The thing that I don’t like with this challenge is the magic items on the *mundanes*. As another poster stated, it. Becomes one full wizard vs 200 partial wizards/artificers.

Now if the mundanes were limited to mundane equipment, but master quality, since you don’t need casters to make it, then I would think it would be in the proper spirit of the match, because it’s supposed to be non magical vs magical.

Until then, yes you can go pure TO to find means outside po caster play, but without it you can’t really gauge accurately the disparity of power.

A better question would be:

“how many level 20 mundanes with masterwork nonmagical equipment beat a level 20 caster, starting with 5, and increasing with multiples of 5, with a full refresh at each encounter. Same environment for combat stage.
Wizard only has his spellbook, and assumed all wiz/sorc spells known, and mundane equipment ”

That is worth knowing, since it’s less gear reliant and tells us a more accurate story rather than who has the most Gucci

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Well, fighters CAN make their own magical gear, assuming Item Familiar, Ancestral Relic, and a properly abused Landlord. Only three magic items, but still. More, I suppose, with some Leadership + magic item followers. Maybe some feats from Weapons of Legacy...

Also, the wizard wouldn't have all wiz/sorc spells. Only wiz spells. Of course, since it doesn't HAVE to be a wizard...

[DMVerdandi]

Well, fighters CAN make their own magical gear, assuming Item Familiar, Ancestral Relic, and a properly abused Landlord. Only three magic items, but still. More, I suppose, with some Leadership + magic item followers. Maybe some feats from Weapons of Legacy...

Also, the wizard wouldn't have all wiz/sorc spells. Only wiz spells. Of course, since it doesn't HAVE to be a wizard...

All things considered; sure, yes you could backdoor magic items that way, but again it works against the spirit of the whole challenge imo. You do that and the strongest thing about the mundanes is their non-mundane equipment.
It’s like being on naked and alone and testing your survival skills, but they give you a cell phone with a charger and WiFi.


And yeah, it doesn’t have to be a wizard, but a caster-type

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I really regret not knowing about those self-made item options back when I was playing with my last group. The guy liked to give multiple redundant greater artifacts to two of the players (that only they could use), while everyone else was still looking for a proper +1 weapon or armor. At level 21.

[eggynack]

“how many level 20 mundanes with masterwork nonmagical equipment beat a level 20 caster, starting with 5, and increasing with multiples of 5, with a full refresh at each encounter. Same environment for combat stage.
Wizard only has his spellbook, and assumed all wiz/sorc spells known, and mundane equipment ”

That is worth knowing, since it’s less gear reliant and tells us a more accurate story rather than who has the most Gucci
Infinite? I wasn't all that convinced the fighters with magical equipment that weren't trying to wizard out could ever kill the wizard. Does a fighter without magical equipment have any means of harming a caster that has gone ethereal? A caster can probably spend their entire lives ethereal, and then pop in with a quick fighter kill by some means every so often. I know druids can do the always ethereal thing, so I have doubts that a 20th level wizard would fail at this.

[Calthropstu]

Assuming artifacts are not in play:

Wizard become a ghost with permanent antimagic field. Magic weapons become nonmagical. Until a fighter comes along with access to a disjunction, the wizard literally cannot be harmed, and even then disjunction isn't guaranteed.

Edit: In 3.5 this would literally permanently remove him from existence making him completely untargetable until the field was removed unless he somehow made himself excluded. In pathfinder this would work fine regardless.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Assuming artifacts are not in play:

Wizard become a ghost with permanent antimagic field. Magic weapons become nonmagical. Until a fighter comes along with access to a disjunction, the wizard literally cannot be harmed, and even then disjunction isn't guaranteed.Bad idea. Incorporeal critters go *poof* in AMFs.

[edit] edit-ninja'd.

[Calthropstu]

Bad idea. Incorporeal critters go *poof* in AMFs.

[edit] edit-ninja'd.

To be fair, removing yourself from existence means the fighters can't kill you. So... Win?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

To be fair, removing yourself from existence means the fighters can't kill you. So... Win?It just gives the fighters time to ready themselves until the AMF dissipates. It's not like the AMF is permanent, unless you take pains to make it so.

You could always hit them with metamagic'd disjunctions, I guess. Remove all of their magical equipment and then laugh at the fact that they literally can't do anything to you 'cuz you're incorporeal. It'd be hard to do this multitudinous times without power points, a repeating trap, or similar, though.

[Calthropstu]

It just gives the fighters time to ready themselves until the AMF dissipates. It's not like the AMF is permanent, unless you take pains to make it so.

You could always hit them with metamagic'd disjunctions, I guess. Remove all of their magical equipment and then laugh at the fact that they literally can't do anything to you 'cuz you're incorporeal. It'd be hard to do this multitudinous times without power points, a repeating trap, or similar, though.

In my post I mentioned making the amf permanent.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

In my post I mentioned making the amf permanent.Then congratulations. You managed to take out a grand total of zero fighters before committing soul-suicide.

[Calthropstu]

Then congratulations. You managed to take out a grand total of zero fighters before committing soul-suicide.

I also mentioned excluding yourself from the effect for 3.5, and that in pf it works fine. Please read what was posted before commenting. It avoids situations where you look like well... this.

That said, on the notion of disjunction, I can't imagine more than one or two fighters having it, making them your primary targets. Once they are killed and replaced, presumably without the amf removal, you can liesurely enjoy your complete immunity (assuming you have excluded yourself from the effects) and survive infinitely. Alternatively, if you can work it just right, you can make yourself immune to disjunction and enjoy true absolute immunity. At that point, simply obliterate infinite fighters.

So:
Make yourself incorporeal via indispellable means (such as becoming a ghost)
Create an AMF you are immune to.
Make your AMF effectively immune to disjunction.
Make the AMF permanent.
Slaughter fighters with impunity.
Edit: Create undead from their corpses before they disappear, covering the battlefield so they can't spawn.

Only caveat: Nothing says none of the fighters can't also be incorporeal which could be a thing.

[eggynack]

Only caveat: Nothing says none of the fighters can't also be incorporeal which could be a thing.
I guess they could use some LA or something, but at some point we're not really working with a fighter here. At sufficient LA usage, the situation probably slants pretty heavily towards the fighters.

[RoboEmperor]

Ok... so... um...

1. Cast Gate ONCE.
2. Have the Called Hecatoncheires intentionally fail his saving throw against Necrotic Tumor.
3. Get his name.
4. Gate him back Uncontrolled (and therefore permanently)
5. Repeat
6. Repeat
7. Repeat
...
...
...
???. Repeat

100 bitch slaps x ??? a round

And during the fight, the wizard rests because he's in no danger whatsoever and repeats for a never ending army of brain controlled hecatoncheires.

This is me just being lazy. Pretty sure there's an even more OP tactic using a combo of synergetic epic outsiders. You need an added restriction: No called creatures.

edit: As for wealth, as many rod of excellent magic as possible.

[rferries]

Chiming in - multiple permanencied prismatic spheres slightly overlapping such that no fighters can be generated within them, so that the wizard can relax safely and indefinitely. Then, multiple permanencied walls of fire throughout the rest of the arena to constantly fry the fighters over time (even 1d4 fire damage/round will kill them all eventually). Add multiple permanencied symbols (especially insanity) and you should be good to go indefinitely.

[Jack_Simth]

Chiming in - multiple permanencied prismatic spheres slightly overlapping such that no fighters can be generated within them, so that the wizard can relax safely and indefinitely. Then, multiple permanencied walls of fire throughout the rest of the arena to constantly fry the fighters over time (even 1d4 fire damage/round will kill them all eventually). Add multiple permanencied symbols (especially insanity) and you should be good to go indefinitely.

How are you planning on affording all the Permanency?

[Cosi]

How are you planning on affording all the Permanency?

planar binding for an Efreet gets you three free permanencies per casting. Dweomerkeeper's Supernatural Spell lets you cast limited wish to emulate permanency without paying the XP cost up to four times per day. Arguably Archmage plus Supernatural Transformation, or depending on which sources you believe just Archmage, lets you get either a SLA or a Supernatural ability that is or emulates permanency. Or Thought Bottles.

[flappeercraft]

My solution is the following at level 12
Naenhoon Illumian
Cleric 2/Entropomancer 10

Feats:
-Great Fortitude
-Magical Aptitude
-Heighten Spell

Ability scores:
-Int 21 (18 +3 leveling)
-Wis 14
-Cha 10

Items:
-Spell Component Pouch
-Ring of Sustenance
-Headband of Intellect +6

He qualifies for Entropomancer by using Naenhoon and heighten to be able to cast 4th level spells which only takes 3 turn attempts which unless he has less than 10 on charisma he's fine.

So what he does is he uses his Spell Component Pouch to take out a bunch pf Spheres of Annihilation which he can get due to it being technically a Spell Component because of the spell Apocalypse from the Sky (BoVD), he then hides inside them. He never starves due to his ring of sustenance and due to the Control Sphere class feature from Entropomancer he is not annihilated by the sphere. He can survive indefinitely. The Cleric can never lose the check since he has the Control Sphere class feature which allows him to control the sphere as if he had a talisman of the sphere which gets him a Control check of +40 as a level 12 character. If you want to bump it up although no fighter should be able to beat that then he can just get two scrolls of PAO with his WBL and UMD them to become a Black Ethergaunt permanently which makes his Control Check a +50

[RoboEmperor]

Chiming in - multiple permanencied prismatic spheres slightly overlapping such that no fighters can be generated within them, so that the wizard can relax safely and indefinitely. Then, multiple permanencied walls of fire throughout the rest of the arena to constantly fry the fighters over time (even 1d4 fire damage/round will kill them all eventually). Add multiple permanencied symbols (especially insanity) and you should be good to go indefinitely.

Properly outfitted mundanes will laugh at this setup.

1d4 fire damage/round will do jack against fast healing, or even the most basic of energy resistances, and Teleportation gear will bypass prismatic entirely, and mind-blank items will stop insanity. In addition everything you suggested is SR:Yes.

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

There is no reason a level 20 mundane won't have one item of each category in that thread.

[Troacctid]

Level adjustments are a potent tool for the non-casters. One simple strategy, for example, is the Shadow template, which fights nicely against a lot of "obvious" caster strategies. Total concealment prevents direct targeting (and in this case is not foiled by true seeing), evasion dodges a lot of AOEs, and fast healing provides endurance against stallout tactics with damage over time.

Also, I think a lot of people are thinking "Fighter" and forgetting that initiators are also Fighters and are significantly tougher than your PHB standbys. Especially if they use their WBL to put up an antimagic field, which a build like Jack_Simth's (for example) is probably just going to end up folding to.

Also in the Fighter category: Rogues with optimized Diplomacy checks. Just sayin'.

[RoboEmperor]

Also in the Fighter category: Rogues with optimized Diplomacy checks. Just sayin'.

Aren't PCs immune to diplomacy? I think I heard somewhere that you can't diplo PC chars.

[flappeercraft]

Aren't PCs immune to diplomacy? I think I heard somewhere that you can't diplo PC chars.

You would be right about that, the skill specifies it is for influencing NPCs

[Troacctid]

That assumes the wizard is a PC.

[Quertus]

Just make yourself undetectable in some fashion and wait for them all to starve. Meanwhile, you've got plenty of ways to make your own food, or to just make yourself immune to starvation.

Invent a new dimension or three. Not a new plane, some new dimensions. Create some denizens for these dimensions, PaO yourself into one, removing yourself from the three standard dimensions. Undetectable and untouchable covered.

Then you just need to be immortal, etc, to wait out most of the Fighters. For the immortal Fighters with sustenance? Well, create some creatures that live in your dimensions that you can send to kill the Fighters. I'm thinking epic multi-headed dimension dragons would be apropos, if you didn't go the "fill the arena with Spheres of Annihilation" route.


I really regret not knowing about those self-made item options back when I was playing with my last group. The guy liked to give multiple redundant greater artifacts to two of the players (that only they could use), while everyone else was still looking for a proper +1 weapon or armor. At level 21.

:smalleek:

What was this guy's problem?!


That assumes the wizard is a PC.

Touché.

[Sleven]

Stock wizards can already never have to worry about running out of 5th level or lower spells once they hit level 11. Specific builds can do this with 9th level or higher spells. Psions can do the same at any level. Etc. Use this as you will.

Energy Transformation Field is great. Here’s a few other alternatives:

Play a bard, use Music of the Gods (obtained via Inspire Greatness + negative level cheese) and fascinate the enemy fighters indefinitely. Making the DC nigh-unbeatable isn’t too hard.

Body Outside Body as many times as desired. Give the clones Control Body (gets around Freedom of Movement, etc.), Ectoplasmic Cocoon, Psionic Dominate, or etc. (non-spells). Control the 200 fighters with said clones indefinitely and thus never have to worry about fighting new ones.

Alternatively, if they must be killed, just control all but one and replace old ones with new ones you find better.

AMF isn’t much of a counter because there’s no reason for the caster not to take Initiate of Mystra. And with Burrowing Power a psion never has to worry about AMF or dead magic either.

It wouldn’t be too hard to create the ability to rest indefinitely, but as I already noted in the first paragraph, this isn’t necessary either.

Another key as the fighters got smarter would likely be to never use ranged attacks unless it’s with a disposable minion/clone, as they’re too easy to become immune to and/or have used against you.

I could go on, but that being said I’m also confused at the purpose. We need to do something infinite—or something that could be used infinitely—to get the “high score”, but that isn’t allowed. Yet you haven’t given clear enough lines to have a real starting point for non infinite tactics. Maybe limit the spells they’re allowed to cast (including via proxies such as minions or transformation fields, etc.)?

[rferries]

How are you planning on affording all the Permanency?

The main thing is to ensure the wizard's safety first, which could arguably be done with as few as 2 prismatic spheres (so that no fighter can materialise in their confines). Everything else is to reduce the wizard's workload (while she rests and refreshes her spells in between each bout of slaughtering the fighters).


Properly outfitted mundanes will laugh at this setup.

1d4 fire damage/round will do jack against fast healing, or even the most basic of energy resistances, and Teleportation gear will bypass prismatic entirely, and mind-blank items will stop insanity. In addition everything you suggested is SR:Yes.

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

There is no reason a level 20 mundane won't have one item of each category in that thread.

Sure, but then I question the point of this hypothetical. I assumed it was about pitting the class features of each class against each other, whereas gear blurs the lines between classes. Otherwise we might as well do the "astral projection invulnerability" trick or even Pun-Pun.

In any event my goals were:

1) to have permanent, constant effects that require as little input as possible from the wizard (as we're aiming for an infinitely successful setup)

2) along those lines, a source of steady damage (wall of fire), however minor

3) symbols of insanity might not affect fighters with mind blank, but those PCs will be attacked by fighters who lack mental protection.

I suppose the wizard could keep a dimensional lock refreshed within the confines of the spheres, in keeping with your concerns. Other tweaks would be possible.

[icefractal]

Sure, but then I question the point of this hypothetical. I assumed it was about pitting the class features of each class against each other, whereas gear blurs the lines between classes. Otherwise we might as well do the "astral projection invulnerability" trick or even Pun-Pun.Getting NI spells/items from free Wishes blurs the lines between classes a lot more. But I'm not entirely surprised people are going there, because hitting maximum non-loop potential takes a lot more work.

[RoboEmperor]

Sure, but then I question the point of this hypothetical. I assumed it was about pitting the class features of each class against each other, whereas gear blurs the lines between classes. Otherwise we might as well do the "astral projection invulnerability" trick or even Pun-Pun.

You should read the first post, it has the rules of what items the fighters can have :)

[Troacctid]

Invent a new dimension or three. Not a new plane, some new dimensions. Create some denizens for these dimensions, PaO yourself into one, removing yourself from the three standard dimensions. Undetectable and untouchable covered.
Three problems with that:
1. Making yourself totally immune to an attack instead gives you a +20 bonus against that attack.
2. It relies on homebrew material.
3. Leaving the arena to travel to another dimension constitutes a forfeit.


The main thing is to ensure the wizard's safety first, which could arguably be done with as few as 2 prismatic spheres (so that no fighter can materialise in their confines). Everything else is to reduce the wizard's workload (while she rests and refreshes her spells in between each bout of slaughtering the fighters).
Fighters with sufficiently high saves will just walk through the sphere. In particular, Crusaders have Mettle, which allows them to avoid the entire effect by succeeding on only one saving throw. Oh, and some of the Fighters will likely be packing a Rod of Cancellation.

[Calthropstu]

So, any new arguments against my method? So far it seems to stand up to scrutiny.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Just fill the prismatic spheres with fabricated walls of stone so it's impossible to either break the stone or enter the spheres. Position them right and the fighters'll just have to stand on the spheres until they fail a save or fly around until they pass out from exhaustion.

[eggynack]

So, any new arguments against my method? So far it seems to stand up to scrutiny.
A couple of the steps are pretty undefined. In particular, you haven't stated how you're immune to your own AMF, how you've rendered your AMF immune to disjunction, or how you've made the AMF permanent.

[Quertus]

Three problems with that:
1. Making yourself totally immune to an attack instead gives you a +20 bonus against that attack.
2. It relies on homebrew material.
3. Leaving the arena to travel to another dimension constitutes a forfeit.

#1? Ok, I've been waiting to jump on this one. The immunity -> +20 bonus is just dumb, and here's why:

Because of that rule, I Diplomancy all the fighters. They aren't there, therefore they are immune. But immunity only translates to a +20 bonus. So, I Diplomancy them all before the match even begins. That's how this build fares under that optional rule, if my "not being there" counts as immunity, counts as a +20 bonus. :smalltongue:

For point 2, I actually choose it because it's not homebrew, it's retro. Those dimensions were actually there from the original redbox series. But, yes, in general, having something that the fighters won't eventually have a counter for almost requires homebrew. Or Spheres of Annihilation? (And Anticipate Teleport?)

Point 3 is... rough. However, the OP said, "Leaving the arena via teleportation, planar travel, or extradimensional spaces results in an immediate loss for the Wizard. " This would be none of those, and thus technically legal (even if clearly not in the spirit of the challenge).

My original goal was, fill the arrival zone with Spheres of Annihilation, and be somewhere else. This is simply my latest adaptation of this.

Sure, I could use Wish to ask for some defense no one else has, or had a counter to, that would make me immune to my Spheres of Annihilation, but I was trying to have a single, static defense, like using different dimensions.

However, how do you feel about Simulacri with Widened, CL-boosted Anticipate Teleport, moving Spheres of Annihilation into the path of incoming fighters? Any defense for that?

[InvisibleBison]

However, how do you feel about Simulacri with Widened, CL-boosted Anticipate Teleport, moving Spheres of Annihilation into the path of incoming fighters? Any defense for that?

That would only work against fighters that are made out of matter. Fighters that aren't made out of matter wouldn't be affected by the Sphere of Annihilation. I don't know if the rules ever directly address the point, but I wouldn't be surprised if at least some kinds of incorporeal creatures aren't made out of matter. Also, outsiders might not be made of matter - the outsider type description says they're "at least partially composed of the essence (but not necessarily the material) of some plane other than the Material Plane".

[Troacctid]

A couple of the steps are pretty undefined. In particular, you haven't stated how you're immune to your own AMF, how you've rendered your AMF immune to disjunction, or how you've made the AMF permanent.
Also, again, immunity —> +20, which means the Fighters can still hit you if they have a high enough bonus.


Point 3 is... rough. However, the OP said, "Leaving the arena via teleportation, planar travel, or extradimensional spaces results in an immediate loss for the Wizard. " This would be none of those, and thus technically legal (even if clearly not in the spirit of the challenge).
Are you in another dimension or not? If you are, then you forfeit. If you're not, then the fighters can attack you.


However, how do you feel about Simulacri with Widened, CL-boosted Anticipate Teleport, moving Spheres of Annihilation into the path of incoming fighters? Any defense for that?
This plan relies on there being a Sphere of Annihilation in the arena. What if you enter and it's just empty, without any convenient artifacts for you to exploit? What's your backup? You can't buy one, and I'm not aware of a way to make one.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Also, again, immunity —> +20, which means the Fighters can still hit you if they have a high enough bonus.And that's horribly abusable, so abuse the hell out of it.


This plan relies on there being a Sphere of Annihilation in the arena. What if you enter and it's just empty, without any convenient artifacts for you to exploit? What's your backup? You can't buy one, and I'm not aware of a way to make one.RAW, spell component pouches contain them.

[eggynack]

Also, again, immunity —> +20, which means the Fighters can still hit you if they have a high enough bonus.
For which part? The disjunction part would definitely have that rule be pertinent. The part about being immune to your own AMF probably wouldn't be. The fact that you can kinda classify AMF as an area that's immune to magic or something, I'm honestly not sure.

[RoboEmperor]

So, any new arguments against my method? So far it seems to stand up to scrutiny.

So, any arguments against my method? So far no one seems to give a damn :(

[unseenmage]

...

This plan relies on there being a Sphere of Annihilation in the arena. What if you enter and it's just empty, without any convenient artifacts for you to exploit? What's your backup? You can't buy one, and I'm not aware of a way to make one.
The spell Sphere of Ultimate Destruction comes close to making one.
As does Gating in that one sphere-of-annihilation-like epic monster. Sorry I can't remember its name or source, just remember immj thought it was cool.

[Goaty14]

As does Gating in that one sphere-of-annihilation-like epic monster. Sorry I can't remember its name or source, just remember immj thought it was cool.

Umbral Blot (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/umbralBlot.htm). I'm not too familiar if you can gate in a construct, though.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Too bad entropomancers can't summon and control umbral blots. Maybe have one as a familiar?

[Troacctid]

For which part? The disjunction part would definitely have that rule be pertinent. The part about being immune to your own AMF probably wouldn't be. The fact that you can kinda classify AMF as an area that's immune to magic or something, I'm honestly not sure.
Incorporeal immunity to nonmagical attacks.


RAW, spell component pouches contain them.
No they don't. Spell component pouches can't contain components that don't fit inside the pouch.


So, any arguments against my method? So far no one seems to give a damn :(
I assume the fighters ignore the hecatoncheires and make a beeline for the wizard while he's lazing around. They've got no real reason to fight the minions.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

No they don't. Spell component pouches can't contain components that don't fit inside the pouch.I can only assume it's possible to have Colossal-sized spellcasters, especially when actual spellcasting is involved. A Colossal-sized spell component pouch still costs only 5 gp.

[RoboEmperor]

Umbral Blot (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/umbralBlot.htm). I'm not too familiar if you can gate in a construct, though.

Nope, extraplanar creatures exclusively.


I assume the fighters ignore the hecatoncheires and make a beeline for the wizard while he's lazing around. They've got no real reason to fight the minions.

The hecatoncheires have the wizard completely surrounded/encased tightly so unless the fighters can hit through them they won't be able to touch or even get near the wizard even with teleport.

[Troacctid]

I can only assume it's possible to have Colossal-sized spellcasters, especially when actual spellcasting is involved. A Colossal-sized spell component pouch still costs only 5 gp.
If we're talking RAW, then there's no indication that colossal spellcasters' component pouches would be any larger than normal. Containers with different capacities based on size are actually noted in the adventuring gear table, and component pouches lack the note.

Furthermore, even if it did fit, I'm pretty sure there is no spell that lists a Sphere of Annihilation as a component.


The hecatoncheires have the wizard completely surrounded/encased tightly so unless the fighters can hit through them they won't be able to touch or even get near the wizard even with teleport.
Fly over them. NBD.

[RoboEmperor]

Fly over them. NBD.

Put a Chichimec on the top and Bottom.
Or Ride a Phane and have a Phane above with the Hecatoncheires on all sides.

Phanes are also a nice idea. If the wizard dies, one goes back 4 rounds and does something differently to prevent it. 4 Phanes should result in infinite "resurrections".

[Goaty14]

Furthermore, even if it did fit, I'm pretty sure there is no spell that lists a Sphere of Annihilation as a component.


So what he does is he uses his Spell Component Pouch to take out a bunch pf Spheres of Annihilation which he can get due to it being technically a Spell Component because of the spell Apocalypse from the Sky (BoVD)

For the record: Apocalypse from the Sky requires an artifact as part of the spell.

[Troacctid]

Put a Chichimec on the top and Bottom.
Or Ride a Phane and have a Phane above with the Hecatoncheires on all sides.
That does a reasonable job blocking the Fighters who are Medium or larger, but the Small ones can still Tumble past your Huge linebackers, and the Tiny ones don't even have to Tumble.


For the record: Apocalypse from the Sky requires an artifact as part of the spell.
It doesn't require a Sphere of Annihilation.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

It doesn't require a Sphere of Annihilation.Ahem.


Spell Component Pouch: A spellcaster with a spell component pouch is assumed to have all the material components and focuses needed for spellcasting, except for those components that have a specific cost, divine focuses, and focuses that wouldn’t fit in a pouch.


Material Component: An artifact, usually one of good perverted to this corrupt use.Padding

[RoboEmperor]

That does a reasonable job blocking the Fighters who are Medium or larger, but the Small ones can still Tumble past your Huge linebackers, and the Tiny ones don't even have to Tumble.

Even if they can move past, there is no space they can stand in so they cannot reach the wizard who is resting ontop of a flying phane's back. (or it's not flying to not give any empty spaces under it for small creatures to stand inside of.

[Troacctid]

Ahem.
It doesn't specify a Sphere of Annihilation. It could be any artifact. And logically, if you were able to pick up and move the spell component pouch without it disintegrating, it stands to reason that the artifact inside is not a Sphere of Annihilation.


Even if they can move past, there is no space they can stand in so they cannot reach the wizard who is resting ontop of a flying phane's back. (or it's not flying to not give any empty spaces under it for small creatures to stand inside of.
You can share a space with a creature that is three sizes larger or smaller than you, so they just stand (or fly) in the hecatoncheires' space and smack you from there.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

reasonWhat, in 3.5? I do believe this is your problem, right here.

[Goaty14]

It doesn't specify a Sphere of Annihilation. It could be any artifact. And logically, if you were able to pick up and move the spell component pouch without it disintegrating, it stands to reason that the artifact inside is not a Sphere of Annihilation.

Ok, then what stops the player from repeatedly getting a spell component pouch, each with a different artifact (until he gets a sphere of annihilation)? The wizard just might win solely by having a pile of artifacts in place of their normal gear.

Second, Reason =/= RAW. One could theoretically wrap a spell component pouch around the sphere like a balloon by filling the area in between the sphere and the pouch with helium (though D&D and physics don't mesh well) or cast a certain faerun spell that lifts it up.

[unseenmage]

Nope, extraplanar creatures exclusively.



...
Couldn't one simply Gate in an extraplanar one? Perhaps with a template that makes it such or that has been created on one of those infinitely large planes?

[eggynack]

Incorporeal immunity to nonmagical attacks.
Ah, the other fourth weird immunity thing. This rule is really weird. Like, I don't think it'd apply if the character were ethereal. I'm not even sure if it'd apply here. Cause, if the wizard isn't there to be hit, then presumably that would not constitute immunity. After all, we don't call it, "Immunity to being hit by a sword swung by a fighter at ground level," when the wizard is 100 feet above the fighter.

[Troacctid]

Ok, then what stops the player from repeatedly getting a spell component pouch, each with a different artifact (until he gets a sphere of annihilation)? The wizard just might win solely by having a pile of artifacts in place of their normal gear.
In that case, the Fighters could do the same thing, and they collectively have more wealth.


One could theoretically wrap a spell component pouch around the sphere like a balloon by filling the area in between the sphere and the pouch with helium (though D&D and physics don't mesh well) or cast a certain faerun spell that lifts it up.
And as soon as you tried to move either one, you'd have yourself a disintegrated pouch.


Ah, the other fourth weird immunity thing. This rule is really weird. Like, I don't think it'd apply if the character were ethereal. I'm not even sure if it'd apply here. Cause, if the wizard isn't there to be hit, then presumably that would not constitute immunity. After all, we don't call it, "Immunity to being hit by a sword swung by a fighter at ground level," when the wizard is 100 feet above the fighter.
In this case the wizard is incorporeal, not ethereal. Absconding to the ethereal plane would constitute a forfeit, after all.

[eggynack]

In this case the wizard is incorporeal, not ethereal. Absconding to the ethereal plane would constitute a forfeit, after all.
Not sure on that. You're still kinda in the area, even if you're also on a different plane. If a thing launched at a given position within an area can hit you in the face, then are you not in that position in that area?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Also, teleportation would invalidate the wizard, since he's passing through the Astral or Ethereal for a bit.

[RoboEmperor]

You can share a space with a creature that is three sizes larger or smaller than you, so they just stand (or fly) in the hecatoncheires' space and smack you from there.

Alright. Someone who has more experience with epic creatures need to chime in here and help me out!

Still though, no mundane can beat 3 Phanes all channeling their time regression 1round apart (and if nothing needs to be undone, they start using time regression after the other 2). So if no mundane can one shot a Phane that has used its time regression for 3 rounds, it is literally impossible for the wizard to lose.

Round # will be
1 2 3 2 3 4 3 4 5 4 5 6 5 6 7 6 7 8 7 8 9
instead of
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9


Couldn't one simply Gate in an extraplanar one? Perhaps with a template that makes it such or that has been created on one of those infinitely large planes?

I'm actually not an expert on Gate. I'm a planar binding expert. So... maybe? My ruling atm is that you can't control a creature that isn't an outsider, elemental, or has the extraplanar subtype. Only create a gate in front of it, and it chooses whether to go through it or not.

[Troacctid]

Not sure on that. You're still kinda in the area, even if you're also on a different plane. If a thing launched at a given position within an area can hit you in the face, then are you not in that position in that area?
Hey, you said yourself, the wizard isn't actually there, right?


Still though, no mundane can beat 3 Phanes all channeling their time regression 1round apart (and if nothing needs to be undone, they start using time regression after the other 2). So if no mundane can one shot a Phane that has used its time regression for 3 rounds, it is literally impossible for the wizard to lose.

Round # will be
1 2 3 2 3 4 3 4 5 4 5 6 5 6 7 6 7 8 7 8 9
instead of
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
It just lets the phane re-do its actions from previous turns. I don't see the game-breaker here.

[RoboEmperor]

It just lets the phane re-do its actions from previous turns. I don't see the game-breaker here.

With 3 Phanes they can go back in time 3 rounds anytime they want, so if a fighter manages to score a kill on the wizard the phane just undos the kill and uses this knowledge to somehow save the wizard from that fighter.

For example, if a fighter flies through the Phanes and one shot the wizard, the phane can go back in time and tell its allies to ready an action to intercept that fighter and then start time regressing again.

Come to think of it, maybe I only need 1 Phane... hmm... or only 2. Epic Level combat hurts my brain!

Anyways, what I'm trying to say here is, if you can jump back in time 3 rounds posthumously anytime you want with an army of epic level creautres 30 CR higher than the fighters, you will be unkillable.

edit: Yeah, I only need two. Talking is a free action so I can make the rounds go 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 in an infinite loop with only 1 phane until the wizard is ensured to live. Then the phane delays it all by a round, 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4. The 2nd phane is in case the 1st phane miraculously gets killed.

If I'm not mistaken, the Phane can save-scum like this indefinitely until his allies get lucky criticals and solves the threat that way.

[eggynack]

Hey, you said yourself, the wizard isn't actually there, right?
I suppose there's truth to that. It's a weird situation. Prolly just needs clarification, ultimately. The ethereal thing is pretty straightforward, but immunity into +20's has roughly a billion chunks of oddity associated.

[Quertus]

That would only work against fighters that are made out of matter. Fighters that aren't made out of matter wouldn't be affected by the Sphere of Annihilation.

Well ****.

However, under the optional rule where immunity only gives a +20, they still die. I'm liking this exploit more and more!


Also, again, immunity —> +20, which means the Fighters can still hit you if they have a high enough bonus.

Remember, that's just an optional rule, not the default of the arena. And I've already converted how the wizard wins the fight if that optional rule is in play.


Are you in another dimension or not? If you are, then you forfeit. If you're not, then the fighters can attack you.

I'm in the fourth and fifth dimension, but I'm right there in the arena? Maybe?

Imagine a 2d arena, and a 2d wizard, who "stands up" from the arena like a pop-up book.

Either way, the OP did not say that the Wizard was disqualified by leaving the arena - they listed very specific spells which disqualified the Wizard. :smalltongue: A wizard who uses his feet to walk through the barrier is, by RAW, not disqualified. :smalltongue:

But, yeah, still pretty clearly against the spirit of the challenge. :smallfrown:



This plan relies on there being a Sphere of Annihilation in the arena.

No, it doesn't. There's the possibility of the spell component pouch trick, which is why I figured no-one would question it, but my personal implementation is that I happen to have a wizard who knows where some idiot has stored an absolutely ridiculous number of Spheres of Annihilation. Now, he may well get into NI trouble for "borrowing" them, and this may well be disqualified for Infinite, but, otherwise, it seems like a perfectly workable plan.


As does Gating in that one sphere-of-annihilation-like epic monster. Sorry I can't remember its name or source, just remember immj thought it was cool.

Umbral Blot?


I suppose there's truth to that. It's a weird situation. Prolly just needs clarification, ultimately. The ethereal thing is pretty straightforward, but immunity into +20's has roughly a billion chunks of oddity associated.

Hence my abuse of that rule to win through diplomacy against targets not even present. :smallwink:

[Kaouse]

[Pathfinder] Level 20 Cyclopean Seer Oracle. Have the Allied Spellcaster feat and abuse the spell, "Army Accross Time" in order to gain a significant increase in Caster Level (up to a maximum of +26 over your normal caster level). Hags and other coven abusers can abuse Army Across Time for nigh infinite caster level, but that's not entirely necessary.

If you are Lawful Evil, then cast Dictum & Blasphemy, ensuring that the only Lawful Evil Fighters remain. Then use Greater Black Tentacles (which doesn't bother Good creatures) and Maw of Chaos (which doesn't bother chaotic creatures) to CC any Lawful Evil Fighters that remain. Both of those spells become rather reliable CC with a +26 caster level increase. Plus, if you're a Cyclopean Seer, you probably also have a +20 CHA mod (Profane Ascencion + Genius Avaricious + Venerable Age should do it). So escaping from those CC spells shouldn't be easy. Maw of Chaos even comes with a handy ability to reroute teleportation in it's area, so it will instantly affect all Fighters entering the arena.

Lastly, as a Cyclopean Seer Oracle, you have access to the most OP ability imaginable, "Flash of Insight," which lets you choose the results of ANY die roll (if you use it on a d20, your capstone allows you to reuse it as long as the number you choose does not exceed your CHA mod, hence the importance of having a +20 mod for free nat 20s). It's real use here though, is to abuse Erratic time Demiplanes, and turn a day of rest on your demiplane into a single round passed in the arena. Thus, you can always recover your spells in a single round.

If you want a defense, then just rely on Hide in Plain Sight and get an unbeatable Stealth mod. Since Cyclopean Seers also have access to Glimpse of the Akashic (one of the most OP spells imaginable, ever more broken with a +26 CL increase), an unbeatable Stealth score shouldn't be too hard to attain.

[Calthropstu]

Ahem.



Padding

Pretty sure a sphere of annihilation destroys the pouch and thus cannot fit in one.

[Troacctid]

I'm in the fourth and fifth dimension, but I'm right there in the arena? Maybe?

Imagine a 2d arena, and a 2d wizard, who "stands up" from the arena like a pop-up book.

Either way, the OP did not say that the Wizard was disqualified by leaving the arena - they listed very specific spells which disqualified the Wizard. :smalltongue: A wizard who uses his feet to walk through the barrier is, by RAW, not disqualified. :smalltongue:

But, yeah, still pretty clearly against the spirit of the challenge. :smallfrown:
So you are literally entering an extradimensional space. Which disqualifies you. How are you getting to the fifth dimension anyway? I'm not aware of any rules-legal way to do so.


No, it doesn't. There's the possibility of the spell component pouch trick, which is why I figured no-one would question it, but my personal implementation is that I happen to have a wizard who knows where some idiot has stored an absolutely ridiculous number of Spheres of Annihilation. Now, he may well get into NI trouble for "borrowing" them, and this may well be disqualified for Infinite, but, otherwise, it seems like a perfectly workable plan.
It just involves treasure beyond your WBL. What if the Fighters just happen to "borrow" a few extra things from the magic item dealers?

Notably, a Fighter could perform the same trick just as easily against 200 Wizards if given sufficient prep time and access to arbitrary artifacts.


Hence my abuse of that rule to win through diplomacy against targets not even present. :smallwink:
I doubt you can point to a rule that grants creatures immunity to influence on the basis of proximity. Incorporeal immunities, on the other hand, specifically use the word "immune."

[Quertus]

So you are literally entering an extradimensional space. Which disqualifies you.

I mean, it probably should, but, by RAW, it does not. And this is the Playground, after all, home of the most optimized pedantry. :smallwink:


How are you getting to the fifth dimension anyway? I'm not aware of any rules-legal way to do so.

Custom 9th level spells, so that they cannot be safely duplicated, even with wish?

I don't actually remember if there was a published technique, even in old-school, or not.


It just involves treasure beyond your WBL. What if the Fighters just happen to "borrow" a few extra things from the magic item dealers?

Notably, a Fighter could perform the same trick just as easily against 200 Wizards if given sufficient prep time and access to arbitrary artifacts.

Yes and no. Maybe I'm just remembering old-school rules, but, as I recall, the Fighter has no way to control the Spheres - that's a Wizard-exclusive "class feature".

Now, he could arguably do something similar if people hasn't poopoo'd the spell component pouch cheesy cheese with a side if cheese, but, since that's been naysayed, I think that the fighter is out of luck replicating this trick.


I doubt you can point to a rule that grants creatures immunity to influence on the basis of proximity. Incorporeal immunities, on the other hand, specifically use the word "immune."

But the wizard wasn't incorporeal. So that did not apply.

[Calthropstu]

A couple of the steps are pretty undefined. In particular, you haven't stated how you're immune to your own AMF, how you've rendered your AMF immune to disjunction, or how you've made the AMF permanent.

Isn't there a way to exclude yourself from your own spell? I remember it being referenced several times on this forum. Never used it myself, and the computer containing all my 3.5 pdfs has gone kaput.

As for permanent, permanency does this... It's just subject to gm adjudication.

[eggynack]

Isn't there a way to exclude yourself from your own spell? I remember it being referenced several times on this forum. Never used it myself, and the computer containing all my 3.5 pdfs has gone kaput.
It's kinda wonky. You use selective spell or something, creating a shell around yourself outside of which the AMF exists, but that just means that magic stops being before coming back into being and then hitting you. An AMF that stops working just before your body exists doesn't do a ton.



As for permanent, permanency does this... It's just subject to gm adjudication.
A challenge majig doesn't seem like the place for what are essentially house rules.

[Troacctid]

I mean, it probably should, but, by RAW, it does not. And this is the Playground, after all, home of the most optimized pedantry. :smallwink:

Custom 9th level spells, so that they cannot be safely duplicated, even with wish?

I don't actually remember if there was a published technique, even in old-school, or not.
By RAW, demiplanes are extraplanar. You're talking about creating not even custom spells but whole custom rule systems, which is well outside the realm of RAW.



Yes and no. Maybe I'm just remembering old-school rules, but, as I recall, the Fighter has no way to control the Spheres - that's a Wizard-exclusive "class feature".
Anyone can control a Sphere of Annihilation with a DC 30 check.


But the wizard wasn't incorporeal. So that did not apply.
The build in question was incorporeal.


As for permanent, permanency does this... It's just subject to gm adjudication.
Antimagic Field cannot be made permanent.

[Calthropstu]

Antimagic Field cannot be made permanent.

Why is that?

[Troacctid]

Why is that?
It's not on the list of eligible spells—and also, you can't cast permanency in (or into) an antimagic field because...well, you know.

[Calthropstu]

It's not on the list of eligible spells—and also, you can't cast permanency in (or into) an antimagic field because...well, you know.

Now we get into technical. See, it's not on the "eligible spell list," BUT permanency says "other spells may be made permanent subject to gm adjudication." So it's up to the gm. As I had stated.

As for unable to be making the field permanent because of its nature, now it gets wonky. See, the antimagic field says magic entering into or passing through... but see it says nothing about magic targeting itself. And, logically, the antimagic field does not contain itself. So an argument can easily be made.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If one casts acorn of far travel on a tree in an area with the timeless trait in regards to magic, antimagic fields would most definitely be permanent. Likewise for someone using planar bubble (either version) tied to a timeless (magic) plane. And making it last 24-48 hours via Persistent Spell and maybe Extend Spell seems long enough for most purposes, really.

[RoboEmperor]

Now we get into technical. See, it's not on the "eligible spell list," BUT permanency says "other spells may be made permanent subject to gm adjudication." So it's up to the gm. As I had stated.

As for unable to be making the field permanent because of its nature, now it gets wonky. See, the antimagic field says magic entering into or passing through... but see it says nothing about magic targeting itself. And, logically, the antimagic field does not contain itself. So an argument can easily be made.


A challenge majig doesn't seem like the place for what are essentially house rules.

I mean, the wizard is OP as it is, so why are we giving him tremendous amount of leniency and favoritism by house ruling a non-RAW interaction?

How about "The wizard researches a 1st level spell that permanently kills every fighter that appears in the arena" and have a DM say "Ok, you can have it, because there's this vague rule saying I can give you any spell you want."

Challenge over, wizard won by researching a 1st level spell.

Try something else, something that doesn't require DM leniency and favoritism. AMF is a CORE spell, so if it's not on the permanency list, it's not there on purpose.

[Calthropstu]

I mean, the wizard is OP as it is, so why are we giving him tremendous amount of leniency and favoritism by house ruling a non-RAW interaction?

How about "The wizard researches a 1st level spell that permanently kills every fighter that appears in the arena" and have a DM say "Ok, you can have it, because there's this vague rule saying I can give you any spell you want."

Challenge over, wizard won by researching a 1st level spell.

Try something else, something that doesn't require DM leniency and favoritism. AMF is a CORE spell, so if it's not on the permanency list, it's not there on purpose.

Ultimately, you could probably just wish it permanent. Now handling the disjunction is the real kicker.
Also, you might need tunneling spell to bypass your own amf since spells can't be cast through it.

[eggynack]

If one casts acorn of far travel on a tree in an area with the timeless trait in regards to magic, antimagic fields would most definitely be permanent. Likewise for someone using planar bubble (either version) tied to a timeless (magic) plane. And making it last 24-48 hours via Persistent Spell and maybe Extend Spell seems long enough for most purposes, really.
Yeah, I wasn't really expecting that issue to represent a huge stumbling block. It's probably the least important of the four or so issues that have been presented. The immunity to your own AMF is probably the most important, because it's a lot of what the plan is, then the ethereal immunity into a +20 thing, cause it renders the plan possibly not particularly effective, then the disjunction immunity, because, while it's important if it happens, I wouldn't expect it to be a super present strategy among a pile of fighters, and finally the duration, which was mostly there for completeness' sake, because making it actually permanent is non-trivial and I like knowing what we're talking about.

[Calthropstu]

Yeah, I wasn't really expecting that issue to represent a huge stumbling block. It's probably the least important of the four or so issues that have been presented. The immunity to your own AMF is probably the most important, because it's a lot of what the plan is, then the ethereal immunity into a +20 thing, cause it renders the plan possibly not particularly effective, then the disjunction immunity, because, while it's important if it happens, I wouldn't expect it to be a super present strategy among a pile of fighters, and finally the duration, which was mostly there for completeness' sake, because making it actually permanent is non-trivial and I like knowing what we're talking about.

Selective spell does the trick for not being affected by the amf. That +20 houserule will definitely be a problem though. Without that houserule, it works almost 100%.

With the +20 rule, there will eventually be an ubercharger strong enough to one shot you. At this point I suggest coupling this defense with miss chances, as well as bringing planar bindings and gates into play. With 20 dr and complete shut down of enemy magic, most archers won't be a real issue.

A strategy of defensive lines, obscuring mists, invisibility, flight and this ethereal magic shutdown will pretty much extend your survivability to near infinite.

[Quertus]

Anyone can control a Sphere of Annihilation with a DC 30 check.


Notably, a Fighter could perform the same trick just as easily against 200 Wizards if given sufficient prep time and access to arbitrary artifacts.

Huh. Until Sphere of Annihilation is given a price, I'm not demonstrably over WBL, although it's clearly cheesy one way or the other. Well, while the Fighter could preform the "fill the arena" trick, they could not preform the "cast spells to have allies move Spheres around" trick. Nor could they do this next bit:


That would only work against fighters that are made out of matter. Fighters that aren't made out of matter wouldn't be affected by the Sphere of Annihilation.

So, what types of Fighters aren't made of matter? And can I deal with them by...

Filling the astral / ethereal with enough stuff to force them to appear outside the arena?

Using Diplomacy?

Or do I have to resort to spells / minions?

[rferries]

Right, I've had a rethink.

The Setup
1. The wizard fills almost all of the arena with stone (most likely by summoning creatures that can use wall of stone as a spell-like ability - four conjured dao could do it within a week of constant casting).

2. The wizard leaves a small pocket in the stone for herself, sealed away from the rest of the arena and only large enough for herself (so that no fighters can appear there). She has a few magic items for air, food, water, etc as necessary, or becomes undead, or casts temporal stasis on herself. She'll be spending the rest of eternity here, ho hum.

3. There are also 4-5 vertical channels in the stone near the centre of the arena, just large enough so that 200 fighters can fill them without any fighter becoming incorporeal. At the base of each channel is a permanent teleportation circle, set to teleport the fighters into the vacuum outside or into the nearest sun. The wizard has used feats, items, etc to make her caster level high enough to beat any possible spell resistance (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/30467/how-can-i-overcome-spell-resistance).

The Process
As each fighter appears, he immediately drops down into a teleportation circle (before he can activate an item of flight) and is immediately teleported away to his doom (no save). In this way the channels are perpetually full of falling fighters, and the wizard is safely ensconced in her pocket.

If it's ruled that the fighters can start with their flight activated, the wizard will have to use summoned creature shenanigans (due to the otherwise overwhelming XP costs) to create 200 individual pockets instead of the channels, each with their own teleportation circle (so that the fighters have to start in contact with them).

Bonus
If the fighters' magic items are problematic, the wizard can fill the channels (except the bases) with walls of greater dispel magic, made permanent with the help of limited wish or wish spells. Requires a bit of DM permission but I think it's fair, given that prismatic wall and more powerful spells can be made permanent.

[Calthropstu]

Right, I've had a rethink.

The Setup
1. The wizard fills almost all of the arena with stone (most likely by summoning creatures that can use wall of stone as a spell-like ability - four conjured dao could do it within a week of constant casting).

2. The wizard leaves a small pocket in the stone for herself, sealed away from the rest of the arena and only large enough for herself (so that no fighters can appear there). She has a few magic items for air, food, water, etc as necessary, or becomes undead, or casts temporal stasis on herself. She'll be spending the rest of eternity here, ho hum.

3. There are also 4-5 vertical channels in the stone near the centre of the arena, just large enough so that 200 fighters can fill them without any fighter becoming incorporeal. At the base of each channel is a permanent teleportation circle, set to teleport the fighters into the vacuum outside or into the nearest sun. The wizard has used feats, items, etc to make her caster level high enough to beat any possible spell resistance (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/30467/how-can-i-overcome-spell-resistance).

The Process
As each fighter appears, he immediately drops down into a teleportation circle (before he can activate an item of flight) and is immediately teleported away to his doom (no save). In this way the channels are perpetually full of falling fighters, and the wizard is safely ensconced in her pocket.

If it's ruled that the fighters can start with their flight activated, the wizard will have to use summoned creature shenanigans (due to the otherwise overwhelming XP costs) to create 200 individual pockets instead of the channels, each with their own teleportation circle (so that the fighters have to start in contact with them).

Bonus
If the fighters' magic items are problematic, the wizard can fill the channels (except the bases) with walls of greater dispel magic, made permanent with the help of limited wish or wish spells. Requires a bit of DM permission but I think it's fair, given that prismatic wall and more powerful spells can be made permanent.

Not bad, until a fighter comes along with a dimensional anchor effect on him who destroys a circle. Then they take adamantine swords, axes, shovels etc, chop their way to the other circles and then chop them up and eventually get their way to you.

[Segev]

Items of feather fall would necessitate the non-falling version of the teleportation circle traps.

Alternatively, fighters bearing items of anti-magic field still screw with this approach. Double up, if necessary; one would suppress the other, but if a dispel hits one, the other activates. Quintupling up would make the 1d4+1 round reset timer irrelevant, in case you're hitting them with a dispel per round. (More than that and it gets silly on both sides, but might be doable with dispelling walls.)

[MaxiDuRaritry]

What happens if you fill up the entire field with walls of iron, with a few absolutely minuscule empty spaces filled with a single grain of sand (made of riverine) that is the focus of a permanent, burrowing antimagic field? The only space big enough for a creature is an area just large enough for the "wizard" to fit into, with no additional space whatsoever? Fighters would materialize inside solid iron, instantly killing them. And if they tried the incorporeality thing, they would be locked into a state of nothingness due to the presence of the AMFs. If there's something that could walk through the iron like an earth elemental walks through earth, how about mithral? Adamantine? Obdurium? Riverine? Prismatic walls? Perhaps an evenly marbled mix of all of the above?

Of course, the above would suck for the wizard, too, but nobody ever said the solution had to be comfortable.

[Segev]

I may have missed a stipulation somewhere to the contrary, but wouldn't an AMF or dimension lock prevent the fighters from materializing within their areas at all?

[Troacctid]

The challenge assumes the caster plays the numbers game rather than changing the rules of engagement drastically. Filling up the arena so every square is occupied and the Fighters can't teleport in is just a way of rejecting the premise. Besides, it results in you defeating zero Fighters, which is not exactly an impressive score.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The challenge assumes the caster plays the numbers game rather than changing the rules of engagement drastically. Filling up the arena so every square is occupied and the Fighters can't teleport in is just a way of rejecting the premise. Besides, it results in you defeating zero Fighters, which is not exactly an impressive score.Note that I didn't use dimensional anchor, dimension lock, or some derivative or similar effect. If they're teleported in via nonmagical means (a device from Ravenloft, mayhap), then they will find their mass sharing the same space as already extant matter, and they will die -- or at least bounced back with quite a lot of damage. If they are teleported in and bounced back multiple times, they will eventually die.

But yes, one of numerous reasons wizards et al are considered so powerful is they can simply reject the rules of whatever reality they're subjected to and substitute their own.

[Segev]

This thread has led me to wonder if there's any way to construct a character who, upon teleporting into an occupied space, simply "wins" the contest by teleporting in just fine, and leaving him-shaped holes in anything that was there before he got there. Not quite telefragging (no explosions), but tele-disintegrating.

Pop into a solid wall, and sure, he's embedded in the wall, but the intervening stone or other materials are just gone and he's there in their place.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

This thread has led me to wonder if there's any way to construct a character who, upon teleporting into an occupied space, simply "wins" the contest by teleporting in just fine, and leaving him-shaped holes in anything that was there before he got there. Not quite telefragging (no explosions), but tele-disintegrating.

Pop into a solid wall, and sure, he's embedded in the wall, but the intervening stone or other materials are just gone and he's there in their place.Fusion with an umbral blot? Only really works if you can manage to polymorph any object it into a living corporeal creature, first, though. Then dismiss the polymorph.

[Troacctid]

Note that I didn't use dimensional anchor, dimension lock, or some derivative or similar effect. If they're teleported in via nonmagical means (a device from Ravenloft, mayhap), then they will find their mass sharing the same space as already extant matter, and they will die -- or at least bounced back with quite a lot of damage. If they are teleported in and bounced back multiple times, they will eventually die.
Telefrags deal 3d6 damage. That's not enough to kill a 4th level character, let alone a 20th level character. You'll kick a few dorks out of the arena and then get ganked by the first pixie. I predict zero kills.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Telefrags deal 3d6 damage. That's not enough to kill a 4th level character, let alone a 20th level character. You'll kick a few dorks out of the arena and then get ganked by the first pixie.How does a pixie survive being teleported into a solid mass repeatedly?

[Troacctid]

How does a pixie survive being teleported into a solid mass repeatedly?
Tiny creatures can share other creatures' space. So it appears in the only available space: your space, conveniently in position for a full attack against your sensitive bits.

Ghosts can also get you, as can anyone with Ethereal Armor.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Tiny creatures can share other creatures' space. So it appears in the only available space: your space, conveniently in position for a full attack against your sensitive bits.When I said only enough space for the 'wizard,' I meant it. As in, skin-tight. Ain't no way that's going to happen.


Ghosts can also get you, as can anyone with Ethereal Armor.And how can ghosts or anyone else who is incorporeal remain functional inside an AMF without disappearing entirely? And you can't attack the Material Plane from the Ethereal without somehow attacking across interplanar boundaries, which would be blocked by the above prismatic walls, I believe. (They're abjurations, which affect ethereal things.)

[Troacctid]

When I said only enough space for the 'wizard,' I meant it. As in, skin-tight. Ain't no way that's going to happen.
In that case you kill zero Fighters.


And how can ghosts remain functional inside an AMF?
Patience domain ability via Catalogues of Enlightenment makes them immune to it for 1 minute. Gives them 10 full rounds where they get to beat you up while you're encased in iron and unable to move.

Or just wait for the AMFs to run out, since the spell can't be made permanent.

[InvisibleBison]

And how can ghosts or anyone else who is incorporeal remain functional inside an AMF without disappearing entirely?

An antimagic field only causes incorporeal undead to wink out, so if the incorporeal fighter isn't an undead he'll be just fine.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

In that case you kill zero Fighters.


Patience domain ability via Catalogues of Enlightenment makes them immune to it for 1 minute. Gives them 10 full rounds where they get to beat you up while you're encased in iron and unable to move.

Or just wait for the AMFs to run out, since the spell can't be made permanent.Immune to the AMF (for 10 rounds), but not to the prismatic walls. And yes, the AMFs can be made permanent, easily. I detailed, I think, three ways on how to do so, earlier in the thread, after all. Acorn of far travel on a timeless-with-respect-to-magic demiplane, as well as planar bubble (the spell) and planar bubble (from planar shepherd).


An antimagic field only causes incorporeal undead to wink out, so if the incorporeal fighter isn't an undead he'll be just fine.Huh. I might have to set up a device of (un)hallow combined with veil of undeath. Toss it on the Ethereal Plane, and all the ethereal fighters wink out. Permanently.

[RoboEmperor]

I'm looking at the rules, and I'm not seeing anything that says a tiny creature can share a space with an enemy large creature. So even if the fighter is diminutive he can't end his turn while in the same space as a hecatoncheires or a phane.

So... unless someone shows me the rule that says tiny creatures can stand under/on top of a large creature and attack, Gating in and Necrotic Tumoring epic creatures with a few phanes letting all your creatures save-scum for critical hits seems to be a sure-fire way to wipe out infinite fighters.

[Troacctid]

Immune to the AMF (for 10 rounds), but not to the prismatic walls. And yes, the AMFs can be made permanent, easily. I detailed, I think, three ways on how to do so, earlier in the thread, after all. Acorn of far travel on a timeless-with-respect-to-magic demiplane, as well as planar bubble (the spell) and planar bubble (from planar shepherd).
You don't need to be immune to Prismatic Wall. You can walk right through them as long as your saves are good enough.

Which plane is timeless with respect to magic? I realize it's theoretically possible for such a plane to exist, but I don't know of any such planes, and a demiplane wouldn't work for Planar Bubble without being native to it.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

You don't need to be immune to Prismatic Wall. You can walk right through them as long as your saves are good enough.True enough, I suppose, though you'd better have lots of rerolls due to having to push through potentially dozens of them.

Also, it doesn't help with the riverine, which also extends into the Ethereal.


Which plane is timeless with respect to magic? I realize it's theoretically possible for such a plane to exist, but I don't know of any such planes, and a demiplane wouldn't work for Planar Bubble without being native to it.Easy enough to make one with certain versions of genesis, and even if you're not naturally native, it's easy enough to create a body there and swap into it. With a pebble + polymorph any object + mind-swapping shenanigans, you have no problem with it at all.

[Troacctid]

I'm looking at the rules, and I'm not seeing anything that says a tiny creature can share a space with an enemy large creature. So even if the fighter is diminutive he can't end his turn while in the same space as a hecatoncheires or a phane.

So... unless someone shows me the rule that says tiny creatures can stand under/on top of a large creature and attack, Gating in and Necrotic Tumoring epic creatures with a few phanes letting all your creatures save-scum for critical hits seems to be a sure-fire way to wipe out infinite fighters.
DMG 29


True enough, I suppose, though you'd better have lots of rerolls due to having to push through potentially dozens of them.
On the other hand, if the Fighter spawns near the Wizard, there might not be any Prismatic Walls to pass through at all. A ghost could spawn right on top of the Wizard and bypass all the defenses.


Also, it doesn't help with the riverine, which also extends into the Ethereal.
Where are you getting this riverine, how are you shaping it into walls, and how are you keeping it around in an antimagic field?


Easy enough to make one with certain versions of genesis, and even if you're not naturally native, it's easy enough to create a body there and swap into it. With a pebble + polymorph any object + mind-swapping shenanigans, you have no problem with it at all.
How do you do this without any interplanar travel? If you leave the arena to go to your demiplane (or even to the ethereal plane to create your demiplane) during your seven days of prep time, you forfeit the contest.

[RoboEmperor]

DMG 29

Thank you, the Srd is both a boon and a bane since it promotes people to abandon the books.

lemme figure out something like a hollow cube of adamantine with infinite dimension lock carried by the wizard.

[Troacctid]

lemme figure out something like a hollow cube of adamantine with infinite dimension lock carried by the wizard.
Any Fighter shows up with an absorbing shield and that cube is gone.

Or just smash it the old-fashioned way. It'll take a while, but you already had seven days to prep, so a few more rounds isn't going to hurt.

[RoboEmperor]

Any Fighter shows up with an absorbing shield and that cube is gone.

Or just smash it the old-fashioned way. It'll take a while, but you already had seven days to prep, so a few more rounds isn't going to hurt.

Ok, what if a Phane puts the wizard in its mouth? And the wizard is some kind of creature that doesn't need to breathe? Can't teleport into a creature, can't break its mouth open without killing the phane. No addition reinforcements though, the wizard would get one shotted if he leaves to cast gate again so...

Initial army of epic creatures from the 7 day preparation is it. If fighters beat that they win. But with save scumming phanes and hecantoncheires who has REGENERATION and fast healing... not a chance imo XD, Unless... uberchargers?

[Troacctid]

Ok, what if a Phane puts the wizard in its mouth? And the wizard is some kind of creature that doesn't need to breathe? Can't teleport into a creature, can't break its mouth open without killing the phane. No addition reinforcements though, the wizard would get one shotted if he leaves to cast gate again so...

Initial army of epic creatures from the 7 day preparation is it. If fighters beat that they win. But with save scumming phanes and hecantoncheires who has REGENERATION and fast healing... not a chance imo XD, Unless... uberchargers?
I think you're misinterpreting how phanes work. The ability lets the phane choose different actions. It doesn't rewind everything that happened in those four rounds.

[RoboEmperor]

I think you're misinterpreting how phanes work. The ability lets the phane choose different actions. It doesn't rewind everything that happened in those four rounds.


Time Regression (Su)

If the phane spends an action per round for four rounds, at the end of the 4th round the phane regresses back in time 4 rounds, to the very 1st round it originally began concentrating on time regression. On its second pass through the time stream, it can take completely different actions, based on its knowledge of the future (though if it takes different actions from its first pass through the time stream, the events of the original time stream are also changed).

So are you saying...
1. Only the Phane's stat block reverts to that of the 1st round, so it's essentially a full heal every 4 rounds?
2. Phanes go back in time 4 rounds and do something else.
3. Something else....?

Perhaps you can explain to me how it works exactly. I was assuming #2. Because if he does things differently, other people do things differently, so ultimately he did rewind time.

[Troacctid]

So are you saying...
1. Only the Phane's stat block reverts to that of the 1st round, so it's essentially a full heal every 4 rounds?
2. Phanes go back in time 4 rounds and do something else.
3. Something else....?

Perhaps you can explain to me how it works exactly. I was assuming #2. Because if he does things differently, other people do things differently, so ultimately he did rewind time.
The phane sends itself back in time to the first round and can change its actions. Nobody else redoes their actions unless the phane's new actions cause them to. Which means if the Fighter scores a crit, and the phane goes back in time, but the Fighter still makes that same attack, then that attack is still a crit, for example. The phane could, of course, change its actions to intervene. But then again, it could also have just done that in the first place. "Wizard! Wizard! I came from the future to warn you—the Fighter is going to attempt to close the distance and attack you in melee!" "...Yeah, thanks phane, you're real helpful."

[RoboEmperor]

The phane sends itself back in time to the first round and can change its actions. Nobody else redoes their actions unless the phane's new actions cause them to. Which means if the Fighter scores a crit, and the phane goes back in time, but the Fighter still makes that same attack, then that attack is still a crit, for example. The phane could, of course, change its actions to intervene. But then again, it could also have just done that in the first place. "Wizard! Wizard! I came from the future to warn you—the Fighter is going to attempt to close the distance and attack you in melee!" "...Yeah, thanks phane, you're real helpful."

Ok so it's save-scumming with a predetermined random number chain. So the same action will have the same results no matter how much you reload, so you gotta do something differently to change to outcome.

So no save-scumming crits, but yes to undoing the wizard's death, or perhaps a Hecatoncheires's death.

Ok so far we got...
1. Gate in an army of necrotic tumored epic creatures (several phanes).
2. A Phane puts the Warforged Wizard in its mouth.
3. Epic Creatures slaughter all fighters until they die.
4. Each phane spams Time Regression so no fighter gets lucky and does something disastrous.

So the question is, can NI 20th level fighters kill the epic creatures? Or can they somehow kill the wizard who is inside a phane's mouth? If yes then my method fails, if no my method wins.

I think... 21 is a good number of epic creatures? (3 gated, tumored, re-gated creatures a day)

I forgot to mention, because of the +CL boosts the wizard has to employ to gate these creatures, his Necrotic Tumors are undispellable without Mage's Disjunction.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Where are you getting this riverine, how are you shaping it into walls, and how are you keeping it around in an antimagic field?Start with a small amount of unenhanced riverine (such as a masterwork dagger). Do this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?246396-Another-Addition-To-The-Tippyverse) with the riverine several times to get lots of it. Then, since it's considered a material instead of a spell effect, just fabricate the tons of Wolverine riverine however you like.

Walls of force (which riverine is [basically] composed of a nonmagical version of) are immune to AMFs.


How do you do this without any interplanar travel? If you leave the arena to go to your demiplane (or even to the ethereal plane to create your demiplane) during your seven days of prep time, you forfeit the contest.Minions. And if you're a StP erudite (or a psion with such as a cohort and/or thrall), you could toss genesis on a manifestation of soul crystal so said minion could do it for you. They bring back a pebble from the demiplane, you PAO it into the body you want, and then you do the mind swapping stuff. Or even just fusion-dance-ha! with it. Minions are force-multipliers, after all.

[Troacctid]

Ok so it's save-scumming with a predetermined random number chain. So the same action will have the same results no matter how much you reload, so you gotta do something differently to change to outcome.

So no save-scumming crits, but yes to undoing the wizard's death, or perhaps a Hecatoncheires's death.
"Oh no, my Wizard died because I spent four turns doing nothing. Luckily, I can rewind and do something else that actually contributes to combat! It's a good thing I can manipulate the time stream because I definitely couldn't have just done that stuff the first time around, nope, no sir!"


Ok so far we got...
1. Gate in an army of necrotic tumored epic creatures (several phanes).
It's worth pointing out that if the tumors are altering their forms, then the abominations would arguably be immune to them.


2. A Phane puts the Warforged Wizard in its mouth.
Phanes don't actually have this ability. Also, they're incorporeal, so it wouldn't really block anything.


3. Epic Creatures slaughter all fighters until they die.
Also, I guess the abominations are rank 0 deities, so you can't actually call them with gate unless they want to be called, and if they do answer the call, they won't be under your control.


4. Each phane spams Time Regression so no fighter gets lucky and does something disastrous.
Turning back time wouldn't stop anyone from getting lucky or unlucky.


Start with a small amount of unenhanced riverine (such as a masterwork dagger). Do this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?246396-Another-Addition-To-The-Tippyverse) with the riverine several times to get lots of it. Then, since it's considered a material instead of a spell effect, just fabricate the tons of Wolverine riverine however you like.
Riverine is explicitly magical, which means fabricate can't transmute it.


Minions. And if you're a StP erudite (or a psion with such as a cohort and/or thrall), you could toss genesis on a manifestation of soul crystal so said minion could do it for you. They bring back a pebble from the demiplane, you PAO it into the body you want, and then you do the mind swapping stuff. Or even just fusion-dance-ha! with it. Minions are force-multipliers, after all.
StP Erudites can't learn 9th level spells.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Riverine is explicitly magical, which means fabricate can't transmute it.Dispel magic? :p Or PAO it into something nonmagical first. Or use a device of PAO to turn something else into riverine.


StP Erudites can't learn 9th level spells.Sure they can. Maybe not through the means specified in their class entries, but it's entirely possible. I mean, give a manifestation of soul crystal containing psychic chirurgery to a 17th level wizard/cleric/whatever, and voila. If needed, make sure you have the Magic Mantle first.

[Troacctid]

Dispel magic? :p Or PAO it into something nonmagical first.
PAO shouldn't be able to affect the magical force. And riverine blocks spell effects as a wall of force does; dispel magic won't affect it.


Sure they can. Maybe not through the means specified in their entries, but it's entirely possible. I mean, give a manifestation of soul crystal containing psychic chirurgery to a 17th level wizard/cleric/whatever, and voila. If needed, make sure you have the Magic Mantle first.
Psychic chirurgery only works on psionic powers, not spells.

[rferries]

Not bad, until a fighter comes along with a dimensional anchor effect on him who destroys a circle. Then they take adamantine swords, axes, shovels etc, chop their way to the other circles and then chop them up and eventually get their way to you.

See my comment about the walls of greater dispel magic. Also do people actually use items of dimensional anchor? Teleportation is far more useful for a PC than it is dangerous; warding yourself against plane shift means you can't teleport out when you realllly need to :D


Items of feather fall would necessitate the non-falling version of the teleportation circle traps.

Alternatively, fighters bearing items of anti-magic field still screw with this approach. Double up, if necessary; one would suppress the other, but if a dispel hits one, the other activates. Quintupling up would make the 1d4+1 round reset timer irrelevant, in case you're hitting them with a dispel per round. (More than that and it gets silly on both sides, but might be doable with dispelling walls.)

I'm not sure items of antimagic field fit the spirit of the test (nor do I think they'd be very common - fighters love their magic gear hehe). However you've already addressed how to solve them via the walls.

I think my plan is the best option yet (even if I must say so myself haha). Though this contest is kind of arbitrary IMHO -if there's no "perfect" solution the answer is simply "the wizard eventually runs out of spells and is killed".

[MaxiDuRaritry]

PAO shouldn't be able to affect the magical force. And riverine blocks spell effects as a wall of force does; dispel magic won't affect it.If all else, fails, clone a ton of extremely sharp shards of riverine and embed them all over inside the solid bits of the arena. Anything trying to pass through gets shredded.


Psychic chirurgery only works on psionic powers, not spells.See: Magic Mantle.

And StP erudites treat spells AS powers, but of a higher level for the purposes of learning them the normal way (but not via psychic chirurgery, as that's not mentioned in the class entry).

[RoboEmperor]

"Oh no, my Wizard died because I spent four turns doing nothing. Luckily, I can rewind and do something else that actually contributes to combat! It's a good thing I can manipulate the time stream because I definitely couldn't have just done that stuff the first time around, nope, no sir!"

They only need to spend an action around. it could be a move action so they can do stuff. And there's nothing wrong with a guy who does nothing to turn back time 4 rounds in case something unexpected happens.


It's worth pointing out that if the tumors are altering their forms, then the abominations would arguably be immune to them.

The implanted cyst envelops the target's brain. Pretty sure that's not form altering. Otherwise a cut from a sword is "form altering".


Phanes don't actually have this ability. Also, they're incorporeal, so it wouldn't really block anything.

That's like saying "adventurers can't eat because they don't have that ability." but good point about corporeality. I guess a Hecatoncheries will have to eat the wizard.


Also, I guess the abominations are rank 0 deities, so you can't actually call them with gate unless they want to be called, and if they do answer the call, they won't be under your control.

If this is true then you are 100% correct. They don't have a divine rank on their stat block though, are divine ranks on stat blocks?


Turning back time wouldn't stop anyone from getting lucky or unlucky.

If a fighter got lucky and somehow one shot crit killed the wizard, turning back time could let a Hecatoncheires block the fighter or kill him first instead of his other target.

[Troacctid]

See my comment about the walls of greater dispel magic. Also do people actually use items of dimensional anchor? Teleportation is far more useful for a PC than it is dangerous; warding yourself against plane shift means you can't teleport out when you realllly need to :D



I'm not sure items of antimagic field fit the spirit of the test (nor do I think they'd be very common - fighters love their magic gear hehe). However you've already addressed how to solve them via the walls.

I think my plan is the best option yet (even if I must say so myself haha). Though this contest is kind of arbitrary IMHO -if there's no "perfect" solution the answer is simply "the wizard eventually runs out of spells and is killed".
The first rogue with enough ranks in trapfinding will disable the circle, and then your walls only buy you time.

[rferries]

The first rogue with enough ranks in trapfinding will disable the circle, and then your walls only buy you time.

Search requires a full-round action -by the time they find a circle they'll already have fallen on to it.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The first rogue with enough ranks in trapfinding will disable the circle, and then your walls only buy you time.Yes, the first rogue in a fighters-only competition...

[rferries]

Yes, the first rogue in a fighters-only competition...

In fairness the rules allow for PCs other than straight fighter 20 builds.

[Troacctid]

That's like saying "adventurers can't eat because they don't have that ability." but good point about corporeality. I guess a Hecatoncheries will have to eat the wizard.
I mean obviously creatures can eat other creatures, but they generally have to do it, y'know, one bite at a time, absent a Swallow Whole ability.


If this is true then you are 100% correct. They don't have a divine rank on their stat block though, are divine ranks on stat blocks?
General abomination trait.


Search requires a full-round action -by the time they find a circle they'll already have fallen on to it.
I just assume the majority of Fighters can fly.


Yes, the first rogue in a fighters-only competition...
Rogues are Fighters.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Rogues are Fighters.Note the expression on my avatar.

[rferries]

I just assume the majority of Fighters can fly.

I already addressed that (no worries, it was a wall of text haha).

[RoboEmperor]

General abomination trait.

There it is! Thanks! Awesome! I got something out of our exchange. Gate can't gate Abominations. Less power for Gate and more power for Planar Binding!

Abominations and Titans are the only epic outsiders I know of, and Titans don't have regeneration or fast healing so they will die, so i guess my method is a flop. GG

[Troacctid]

I already addressed that (no worries, it was a wall of text haha).
How are you making them stand in the circle?

[Quertus]

How are you making them stand in the circle?

By making that the only available space in the arena. And by dispelling their magic.

Not sure how he handles mundane flight by really small creatures, though.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

By making that the only available space in the arena. And by dispelling their magic.

Not sure how he handles mundane flight by really small creatures, though.I believe there's a spell to ground mundane fliers really fast.

[Troacctid]

By making that the only available space in the arena. And by dispelling their magic.

Not sure how he handles mundane flight by really small creatures, though.
I expect raptoran and dragonborn to be common choices for Fighters. They have natural (Ex) flight. Touchstone for Catalogues of Enlightenment (Patience domain) would also give a Rogue enough time to disarm it.

[Quertus]

I believe there's a spell to ground mundane fliers really fast.

True. But I don't remember seeing it mentioned before in this thread.


I expect raptoran and dragonborn to be common choices for Fighters. They have natural (Ex) flight. Touchstone for Catalogues of Enlightenment (Patience domain) would also give a Rogue enough time to disarm it.

Uh, I'm not sure if common is as important is existent, but sure.

Care to explain how that combo gives a rogue how much time to do what?

[Troacctid]

Care to explain how that combo gives a rogue how much time to do what?
It delays the effect of the spell for 10 rounds. Plenty of time.