High Level Spellcasters: Invulnerablility 101

[Fable Wright]

I'm running a game set in an adventure school college, where the PCs interact with a variety of equivalent leveled adventurers and adventuring parties. If you fall behind the level curve (around 1 level per 3 months, including summer break), you're kicked out, which causes extremely high attrition rates. Fewer than 1% of students manage to reach Senior year, and those that do are almost certainly among the most paranoid and dangerous beings on the material plane.

In part because the teachers are designed to be high level encounters every day. The enchantment and illusion professor is an Aboleth with tenure, and can get away with permanently mind controlling students. Necromancy is taught by a lich. Some gym instructors decide that class for the day is to run away from a Roc until the period is over. Stuff like that.

Leaving aside the logistics of this, what are some tricks that Senior level students might pick up to avoid dying on a regular basis? I have a Necromancer who bodysurfs Freshmen with Magic Jar, an Illusionist who uses Malleable Illusion Project Image to beam around campus, and an artificer who just sends a body double homunculus in to class and has a familiar relay instructions and scrolls for tests. I've established that melee classes tend to roam in packs to gang up on attackers as a herd defense, but what other options much there be for next year's seniors? I've got a Cleric who beseeched their God for a True Polymorph, so that if killed they get to pop back out in their normal form, and can maybe reuse the previous seniors that haven't been encountered yet, but I'm interested in the kinds of paranoid failsafes the playground had brewed up.

Thanks! :smallsmile:

[JeffreyGator]

Clone and Contingency are both designed for these shenanigans. The Lich already has a reformation option.

Other 'Teachers' could be extra-planar beings that would just need to be summoned again.

[Matrix_Walker]

Neat! Very reminiscent of Illuminati University, and I love IOU. (What does the "o" stand for, you may ask? I'm afraid you're not cleared for that.)

[JackPhoenix]

Pay a bunch of commoners to let themselves be beaten up daily for easy XP. You could also do it with rats, chickens, or any other harmless creature. CR 0 creatures still give 10 xp. You'll get your level, you don't have to deal with the teachers. Metagaming? Sure, but the whole idea is based on metagaming.

[Let'sGetKraken]

Pay a bunch of commoners to let themselves be beaten up daily for easy XP. You could also do it with rats, chickens, or any other harmless creature. CR 0 creatures still give 10 xp. You'll get your level, you don't have to deal with the teachers. Metagaming? Sure, but the whole idea is based on metagaming.

While technically true, this misses the point of the game to a staggering degree, and I'm honestly not sure why you suggested it. How would that in any way help OP with their question?

On the spellcasting side, contingency is a fantastic workaround, but you might have less options for more martial characters. You could have an arcane trickster rogue who survives by being essentially undetectable, or an artificer who has outfitted themselves with all sorts of protective gear.

Another cool option would be for a zealot barbarian, who can have made a deal with a local cleric for resurrections (with no material component cost) in exchange for a monthly fee.

[JackPhoenix]

While technically true, this misses the point of the game to a staggering degree, and I'm honestly not sure why you suggested it. How would that in any way help OP with their question?

It answers the question, which was "what are some tricks that Senior level students might pick up to avoid dying on a regular basis?". Farming trivial opponents for XP is extremely metagamey, but perfect solution for gaining levels in the available time without risking death. Abusing a loophole in the rules is something a smart character would do.

[Fable Wright]

Clone and Contingency are both designed for these shenanigans. The Lich already has a reformation option.

Other 'Teachers' could be extra-planar beings that would just need to be summoned again.

Resummonable teachers do seem like an excellent idea. I didn't include Clone on the list due to the fact that you can only get it most of the way through Senior year, which makes it a lovely backup, but not a guarantee.

Contingency is the one spell every Wizard knows at the academy because it is a hugely powerful option, but mostly as a wildcard defense. You can only have one contingent defense at a time, and when that's known, you'll lose out pretty quickly. Defending against mind control? You're vulnerable to death. But if you have a Magic Jar, for example, you can always have a Readied action to duck out of the body, and you're not vulnerable to any harm when acting through a Projected Image... assuming your base is defended.

Which it is.


Neat! Very reminiscent of Illuminati University, and I love IOU. (What does the "o" stand for, you may ask? I'm afraid you're not cleared for that.)

Oh hey, a GURPS book based around insane school shenanigans.

Yoink!
The O is clearly for Overlord.


Pay a bunch of commoners to let themselves be beaten up daily for easy XP. You could also do it with rats, chickens, or any other harmless creature. CR 0 creatures still give 10 xp. You'll get your level, you don't have to deal with the teachers. Metagaming? Sure, but the whole idea is based on metagaming.

The rats have also been level grinding. (https://youtu.be/MVh4G6EF-RY?t=2m)

You don't mess with the chickens. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrPLmnUmWDQ)

And commoners die at 0 HP, so if you want to deal with being a mass-murderer, sure, you can get a quick power boost. What's the worst that can happen?


On the spellcasting side, contingency is a fantastic workaround, but you might have less options for more martial characters. You could have an arcane trickster rogue who survives by being essentially undetectable, or an artificer who has outfitted themselves with all sorts of protective gear.

Another cool option would be for a zealot barbarian, who can have made a deal with a local cleric for resurrections (with no material component cost) in exchange for a monthly fee.

Yep. Martial characters tend to attach to a Wizard, or as mentioned, act in packs. Usually around a Paladin core for the boosted saves. Enough skills and ways of breaking concentration and they can fend off most casters.

That said, Zealot Barbarian is very cool—definitely including one as a very mercenary Junior who capitalizes on that fact. Thanks!

[Let'sGetKraken]

It answers the question, which was "what are some tricks that Senior level students might pick up to avoid dying on a regular basis?". Farming trivial opponents for XP is extremely metagamey, but perfect solution for gaining levels in the available time without risking death. Abusing a loophole in the rules is something a smart character would do.

Right, but it doesn't make for interesting characters or help OP at all - just because they get to high level doesn't mean they can rock actual attendance. They asked "What would high level students look like?" and your answer is essentially "Let's not actually have them be students and just have them farm easy sources of XP instead". It completely misses the point of the question.

[Renduaz]

Here are several (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?528162-The-Invincible-Caster-(-Invoke-Duplicity-Etherealness-Forcecage-Other-)) options (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?533093-The-Defensive-Wizard-Strategy-Build) from my perspective. Also, Planar Bound Celestials for infinite Innate healing spells.

[Matrix_Walker]

Oh hey, a GURPS book based around insane school shenanigans.

Yoink!



I was in a GURPS fantasy game with an out of place high tech character. "Itanimulli and his pet mini-dragon Dronf". Everyone else had standard fantasy characters, but I was playing an IOU student who had snuck into their wiorld to do his thesis, 'The effects of fifth dimentional magics within a pocket dimention'.

His pet was in fact a remote controlled piece of technology, piloted by his roommate. When the High god of the Universe showed up, he had to hide, as that was in fact his professor at school, and he did not have permision to be mucking about in the teacher's hand crafted pocket dimension.