Most deadly spell

[kbob]

In your opinion, what is the most deadly spell for a level 20 caster who is fighting each of these on their own: another level 20 caster, level 20 melee char, CR 20 party, or just a whole army of goblins/orcs/kobolds etc.?
By most deadly, I mean most likely to destroy, kill, teleport to hell, etc. with one shot and the least likelihood of the target(s) passing their saves (if one exists).

[Arael666]

In your opinion, what is the most deadly spell for a level 20 caster who is fighting each of these on their own: another level 20 caster, level 20 melee char, CR 20 party, or just a whole army of goblins/orcs/kobolds etc.?
By most deadly, I mean most likely to destroy, kill, teleport to hell, etc. with one shot and the least likelihood of the target(s) passing their saves (if one exists).

Gate for any and all situations. There is a reason the phrase "nothing is impossible if you gate in enough solars" was coined :smallbiggrin:

[Buufreak]

Yea. I wanted to come in with a smartass answer, but the right answer is either gate or whatever bs spell you can craft for 0gp, 0 casting time, and 0 research time using epic spellcasting. Then again, said spell was 99% likely to have been crafted with use of chain-gate cheese.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Dangerous to whom? The most dangerous spell for an arcane spellcaster to cast for the caster himself is Tenser's transformation, because any moron casting that is giving up his most powerful multifaceted tool and weapon in exchange for the ability to hit things with a stick, and rather poorly, at that.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Gate and Shapechange aside it varies depending on what you're fighting. There is no "one size kills all" spell.
If you're using spells with saves you have to consider the enemies strong saves, there's type immunities, buffs and enemy capabilities to consider and so on.

Generally you're better off though with a spell combo than a single spell, generally some form of BFC and a AoE DoT effect.
Haboob is my DoT of choice because it's low level, does untyped damage with SR:no and no save, lasts 1 min/level and can be cheaply quickened with an Aurial Sapphire (CC), but you can certainly use others depending on the enemy.
Forcecage and Wall of Thorns make very good "hard" BFC because they offer no save or SR and have very limited escape conditions. Combine them with Dimensional Anchor/Lock if necessary.

Take Forcecage & Haboob. Anything that can't teleport or dispel and doesn't regenerate dies, no save, no SR. Well, unless it's incorporeal, but that's what Gauntlets of Ghost Fighting are for.
Wall of Thorns works similarly. Anything with less than Str 20 that can't dispel or teleport is effectively stuck in it (though druids can just ignore it). Dump aoe damage on top and watch it die.

For the army the only thing that really matters is area coverage since they'll likely die to anything you cast anyway. I'd suggest Control Weather or Blizzard. There won't be much of an army left after you cover a 2-3 mile radius with tornadoes or bury it in several feet of snow.

For the equal-level spellcaster you'll probably want Chain Dispel, Greater Dispel and Battlemagic Perception at least. You won't be killing a non-moronic equal level caster in one shot unless he missed an immunity and you get lucky enough to guess it, so you'll probably want to dispel his buffs and magic items and counter his opener.
If they're wizards and not undead Mummify will take care of them nicely after they lose all their saving throw boni, if they're undead or constructs anything with a fort save that works against objects.
Divine casters are a little tougher because of better fort saves, but if they have no dispels left you can use the BFC + damage combo on them as well.

[Calthropstu]

Mythic augmented timestop.

If you can't figure out a way to neutralize someone in 20 hours, then you deserve to lose.

[lbuttitta]

Mythic augmented timestop.

I'm not familiar with mythic augmentation. Is it from Pathfinder?

[Telonius]

Prior to combat? Greater/Scrying, Contact Other Plane, or Wish/Limited Wish to emulate Divination or Commune. Having exactly the right spells prepared for the situation is what makes wizards deadly, and those spells let you do that.

[Inevitability]

I'm not familiar with mythic augmentation. Is it from Pathfinder?

Mythic is a pathfinder subsystem, yes.

[kbob]

Gate for any and all situations. There is a reason the phrase "nothing is impossible if you gate in enough solars" was coined :smallbiggrin:

Can you chain Solars? I thought summons can't summon other summons. Is there something different about Gate?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Can you chain Solars? I thought summons can't summon other summons. Is there something different about Gate?Gate is not a [summoning] spell.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Erupt is a very nice blasting spell. From Serpent Kingdoms, so you know it's broken :smallbiggrin:.

[flappeercraft]

Genesis. It can make you infinitely fastt essentially and have infinite actions where the enemy takes one if mixed with Planar Bubble or Acorn of Far Travel.

[Calthropstu]

I'm not familiar with mythic augmentation. Is it from Pathfinder?

Yes. Mythic timestop allows you to bring other people into timestop.
Augmented it increases duration to 1 hr per lvl.

[Falontani]

Yes. Mythic timestop allows you to bring other people into timestop.
Augmented it increases duration to 1 hr per lvl.

Alright guys, I'm going to cast a bunch of traps everywhere, take a rest, do it again, all the while I am crafting magic traps and golems. Alright guys I'm ready, I just spent 12 years of my immortal life crafting golems with time stopped, I'm ready for whatever fight is here. Also I cast gate roughly 80 times. Sure they will all close the moment time starts back up, but not before 80 solars come through. Oh there was an army of level 20 adventurers? hah hahahaha HAHAHAHA

[The Viscount]

Best spell against an army depends on their individual HD. If the max HD is 3, then cloudkill instantly kills all the creatures it touches and has good spread. It does have the limitation that creatures immune to poison are immune to the spell, so you can't kill an army of dretches. But for most basic armies of humanoids it will do the job.

Against any fights with 20th level characters, before anything else I'd recommend Mordenkainen's Disjunction to strip them of their buffs.

If you are talking about killing level 20 creatures, then killing them isn't necessarily what you want, and is only half the battle. At these levels they may have a contingency up to zap them with Revivify or call for help or something to prevent them from staying dead. There are several paths to solve this problem.

The first is a non-death that incapacitates them, such as a sufficiently similar Polymorph Any Object, or, for more fun, Eternity of Torture. These effects are permanent, so can be dispelled. To counter this simply place the result where nobody can get to them. Again there are several ways, but I'll pick the one that doesn't see as much discussion. Place the result in a container like a bag of holding. Plane shift to the abyss, and amble around the infinite staircase (Fiendish Codex I pg 110) until you encounter the door that makes you make a DC 18 will save, no problem with sufficient buffs. Then toss your foe's inert form through the door. They are removed from play.

The second is more questionable: put them in a bag of holding and then rupture the bag or put it in a portable hole. The viability of this strategy depends on what your DM says happens to the soul of a creature sent to such a path.

The third is high risk, high return. First kill your foe with the spell of your choice. A popular option is uncapped damage like Maw of Chaos so you can pump your caster level. Then planar bind a Barghest and toss it the corpse. They like eating flesh, so this shouldn't be hard to convince them. If you don't feel like bothering and have the money, Barghest's Feast is an alternative. End effect is the same, nothing short of wish, miracle, or true resurrection will bring them back. You can then either wait for these to happen or cast them yourself. These spells have a 50% success rate. If they succeed, repeat the process. If they fail, "no mortal magic" can bring them back.

A long answer, I know, but high levels call for complicated tactics.

[Jack_Simth]

Alright guys, I'm going to cast a bunch of traps everywhere, take a rest, do it again, all the while I am crafting magic traps and golems. Alright guys I'm ready, I just spent 12 years of my immortal life crafting golems with time stopped, I'm ready for whatever fight is here. Also I cast gate roughly 80 times. Sure they will all close the moment time starts back up, but not before 80 solars come through. Oh there was an army of level 20 adventurers? hah hahahaha HAHAHAHA
The use explicitly prevents resting. But basically, yes.

[Ruethgar]

Create Element(Earth) for Stones of Anihilation. DC 40 or cease to exist. There is also temporal and black sand, but those depend on who you are going against and need to be coupled with a way to spread it so not one use unless you can get the gust of windstorm side effect added.

[unseenmage]

Energy Transformation Field. Across every inch of the divined battlefield.

Because it negates and eats every Su, Sp, spell, and magic item activation activated in it.

I like to cram Smoky Confinement in it. Though that requires casting it in a way that removes its costly component AND pre littering your battlefield with bottles.

Alternatively, just use Gate.


EDIT: Oh! Ohoh! Sphere of Ultimate Destruction!
I LOVE that one.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Rockburst. A 2nd level spell capable of destroying mountains, continents, moons, space stations, and even planets.

[kbob]

Create Element(Earth) for Stones of Anihilation. DC 40 or cease to exist. There is also temporal and black sand, but those depend on who you are going against and need to be coupled with a way to spread it so not one use unless you can get the gust of windstorm side effect added.
I am not familiar with this. Where is this found? Google search is coming up with "elementals" and nothing for "stones of annihilation".

[Sto]

Rockburst. A 2nd level spell capable of destroying mountains, continents, moons, space stations, and even planets.

I need to thank you for introducing me to this spell, and I agree that it's a pretty lethal spell.

Shame you can't kill Atropus with it though.

[Calthropstu]

Ice9 (https://www.nuklearpower.com/2004/10/28/episode-476-red-mage-in-the-cradle/)

[CIDE]

Create Element(Earth) for Stones of Anihilation. DC 40 or cease to exist. There is also temporal and black sand, but those depend on who you are going against and need to be coupled with a way to spread it so not one use unless you can get the gust of windstorm side effect added.


I am not familiar with this. Where is this found? Google search is coming up with "elementals" and nothing for "stones of annihilation".


I'm seconding this one. Same with the "temporal" reference. I know all about the Black Sand, though.

[SaintNick]

Would using Polymorph Any Object to turn a pebble into a lead block with infinite volume qualify?

[Bohandas]

Locate city

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Try applying the locate city bomb to Widened detect magic.