Gestalt 3.5 D&D Wizard // The Gamer Skills in Earth Bet?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Say you're thrust into the real world the super"hero" world of Worm as a 3.5 D&D wizard (with some PF tossed in, plus some slowly regenerating spell points instead of slots) and could gain skills as The Gamer does -- basically by either absorbing a skill book or practicing a skill until you gain some experience for it.

Skills are granular for The Gamer and unrelated to class/character level, so you gain XP while using a skill, with the first few skill levels leveling up very fast, but further levels requiring exponentially more effort to gain enough XP to level.

What skills (both fantastic and real world skills) do you think would be useful for a real-life The Gamer wizard in Worm? Or psion, or whatever caster you prefer, really. Obviously the skills that wizards and psions and the like gain in D&D would be important, but what else?

[AvatarVecna]

Say you're thrust into the real world as a 3.5 D&D wizard (with some PF tossed in, plus some slowly regenerating spell points instead of slots) and could gain skills as The Gamer does -- basically by either absorbing a skill book or practicing a skill until you gain some experience for it.

Skills are granular for The Gamer and unrelated to class/character level, so you gain XP while using a skill, with the first few skill levels leveling up very fast, but further levels requiring exponentially more effort to gain enough XP to level.

What skills (both fantastic and real world skills) do you think would be useful for a real-life The Gamer wizard? Or psion, or whatever caster you prefer, really. Obviously the skills that wizards and psions and the like gain in D&D would be important, but what else?

Gestalting across "systems" can be a weird experience when trying to figure out how they interact. Most "Gamer" things I've seen tend to involve their own attribute, hit point, and mana system (although they're usually pretty similar to D&D style). Very generally speaking, though, your focus with Gamer stuff should be advancing things that advance slowly for the caster: cross-class skills, hit points (on most casters), and attributes. Wizard levels will give you plenty of Concentration or Spellcraft or Knowledge, but you can't get Listen/Spot/Perception from Wizard so that's what you take the Observe skill for from Gamer. You only get an Int boost every 4 HD? Well now you can increase your Int with continuous use at a much faster rate. HP advancing slowly? Take literally boiling baths while you review your wizard notes and scald yourself tougher. Sure, those are all things a solid T1 supercaster could solve in other ways by spending resources on them, but Gamer presents a way of solving those problems that doesn't eat into your casting resources.

[Silva Stormrage]

Oh god. The gamer is broken enough, giving them essentially 3.5's whole spell system? Thats going to lead to some crazy shenanigans.

Really the major milestones would be once you could cast lesser planar binding. As unless the spell compendium counts as a skill book you aren't learning more than your 2 spells per level without other wizards.

I think the biggest thing is that in our world using the gamer's system leveling up would be fairly difficult. I am not sure where the diminishing returns would be but becoming skilled with rifles and modern firearms and then going out to hunt wild animals would likely be the fastest and safest way to level up without getting on any government's watch list. Plus early levels 3.5 wizards aren't really that scary.

Charm + Hypnosis would be the best social spells early on but beyond some basic damage spells Scholars touch would also be a go to first level spell.

Once you get planar binding though you can 1) Call things and then fight them giving you the ability to actually gain XP reliably. and 2) Start gathering loot/minions more effectively.

Real world skills that would help the wizard though? Probably using scholars touch to and skills like divine insight/wieldskill (Once you get planar binding and bind some celestials with cleric casting) to just massively boost your ability to understand chemicals and such. You could probably rake in a lot of money with various scientific advances and could also reliably produce homemade explosives which would help you in killing more demons you call with planar binding to give you more XP.

Beyond that I am not sure how much the Gamer really adds to 3.5's mechanics. It makes leveling more MMORPG grindy but it also doesn't prevent exploiting XP gains. I think this ends up like most "What if you were a 3.5 wizard IRL" threads where it ends up being "You either take over the world or end up living in luxury depending on your preferences".

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Okay, then. A superhero world, like Worm. More impetus to push yourself, to get as powerful as possible before you get ganked and/or subsumed. Obviously, you could do really well in the real world at level 1, but let's push things along a little.

[Silva Stormrage]

Okay, then. A superhero world, like Worm. More impetus to push yourself, to get as powerful as possible before you get ganked and/or subsumed. Obviously, you could do really well in the real world at level 1, but let's push things along a little.

Hm then by that standard I think it's somewhat similar but just off the top of my head here are what I see as the major power spikes D&D level wise.

1st Level: Hypnosis+ Charm Person, True Strike + Guided Shot and Scholar's Touch. These grant you amazing mental control, an almost auto hit with a sniper rifle and nearly unmatched ability to quickly read theory books (Those don't get auto absorbed by the Gamer's abilities).

Gamer abilities that are important. Observe as noted above would grant insanely useful effective divination thats at will. Marksmanship with guns are probably your go to for offense as D&D spells take at least 3 seconds to fully cast maybe 6 whole seconds. Which is kinda restrictive in combat. If Scholar's touch grants you bonuses to reading and studying it also might grant increased intelligence score boost rate.

5th Level: Alter Self, Invisibility, Explosive Runes, Path of the Exalted/Absorb Mind.

And once again you see some great stealth options for a wizard. Being able to shape change, get into position with a sniper rifle and shoot and then teleport away (Benign transposition with familiar or something similar) is available at this level. With path of the exalted or absorb mind depending on your alignment you now have amazing divination potential if neither is particularly spammable.

Gamer abilities to note: If ACF's can be granted as bonus skills or metamagic can be gained in a similar fashion those start being valuable, most notably spontaneous divination. At this point you would probably want to start getting ranks in some sort of crafting skill and hopefully with magic boosters be able to start upgrading your rifle/tools to be better than modern militaries but probably not at tinkertech levels. Not sure how crafting would work in gamer system but assuming you can basically pick those feats up for free you would probably want to start leveling crafting skills at this point. Finally stealth skills, invisibility doesn't work against everything and wizard's don't have access to silence (Until planar binding) so leveling that would also be very useful.

10th Level: Scry and Die, Planar Binding, Fabricate, Contact other Plane
This is the point where D&D magic starts to become a bit crazy compared to most settings. Planar binding even without the really great options like Nightmares still has Barlugulas with their greater teleport at will that can teleport you anywhere you want and Hound Archons with their decent melee, negate mind control aura and teleport at will.

Gamer abilities: Observe is still useful and the party system lets you send planar bound minions into combat and direct them muuuuch easier than you would otherwise be able to.

Past 10th level most settings can't handle an optimized D&D wizard that effectively has infinite spells with various bonuses granted by the gamer abilities.

So in conclusion the gamer plus the wizard would I think be best "played" as a long ranged sniper/rogue like character using D&D magic as a supplement to standard military weaponry. Mostly used for buffs/out of combat scenarios. You don't really see D&D magic being useful in combat until mid to high levels or facing large amounts of enemies at once. Even then with it's incredibly long cast time unless the gamer allows you to reduce it with a "High Speed Incantation" skill it's going to be hard to use that in non ambush situations (Which lets be fair the Gamer Wizard would be great at setting up)

Edit: Whoops, forgot the strongest aspect of the Gamer Powerset. Letting others become wizards as well. Is that functionality still in effect? Also I would suggest leaving the setting vague and not explicitly Earth Bet. Because in Worm the answer would probably be "Be instantly picked up by Contessa/Cauldron and trained into a super weapon to kill the BBEG".

[AvatarVecna]

Let us suppose that it takes the Gamer approximately a week to figure out how Wizard powers and Gamer powers work, both individually and interacting. At this point, the Wizard 1//Gamer has Int 16, and understands what it takes to increase one's Int via Gamer powers. They sign up for a competitive Chess site as a new player (starting at rank 1000) and start pitting their mind against other players; because of how the Elo system works, every time they complete a match, they'll get a new opponent capable of competing with them based on how well/poorly they did against an opponent with the rating and history that they faced, and thus every match after the first (when the system is still gauging their skill level) will not be too easy or too hard...at least until they surpass rank 2500 and start running out of tougher opponents to face. Presuming that each Chess match lasts approximately an hour, increases their Elo by 50, increases their Gamer "Chess" skill by 2-3 levels, and increases their Gamer "Intelligence" attribute by 1 level (since things are getting gradually harder, you should level up things at approximately the same speed until you run out of better opponents), it will take 30 matches before human players can't challenge you anymore. So essentially, two solid days after you join the site completely new to Chess, your Chess skill has increased ~75 levels, you have Int 46 fueling your wizard abilities, and you have run out of human opponents who can significantly challenge you in this game.

Even if my estimates are off (maybe you earn a point of Int every 3 games instead of every game, for example), that's still Int 26 after two days of screwing around online. And it's not like there's a shortage of games online that you can use to train your brain...or heck, your body: take the Reaction Time test (https://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime) until you get bored of doing it; each round of 5 takes approximately 30 seconds, so a couple hours spent doing just that should get some serious increase in your reaction time, possibly even your Dex. Next, we're working on toughness and survivability. To start off, from now on only take scalding showers or baths, which should train up some heat resistance and just generally injure you (getting you more HP and more regen gradually). Secondly, get a big bottle of like, headache pills or something, and just take them as fast as you can manage with your Gamer//Wizard toughness; you'll probably get sick, but the more you do it the less sick you'll get, until eventually you could theoretically down the whole bottle without any side effects (but don't do this for too long doing that, or you'll attract some weird attention). Do the Frostbite challenge to boost Cold Resistance, jump down from high places to hurt yourself until it no longer hurts. In a state with lax gun laws? Go buy a gun, and get good with it (really good, since you're a Gamer), and then go home and shoot yourself in the foot or the leg or the chest or the head or wherever you can currently survive getting shot with it.

[noob]

Also in chess you can probably just start playing against ais after you did beat the top humans and keep going up.

[AvatarVecna]

Also in chess you can probably just start playing against ais after you did beat the top humans and keep going up.

To an extent. Because chess is a...statisticslly complex game, with so many different possible games, even computers can't really play "perfect" as much as "close to perfect". Current estimates for the human world champion are ~2900, while the best computers can reach nearly 3500 (at least as of a few years ago). But even if we add 500 points for the difference 4 years makesb and even if we add 1000 for setting this in Worm, that just means it takes 5 days to run out of computer opponents instead of the 2 it took to run out of human ones. Which is still good returns on Int for us, but it's jist not a strategy we can leep up forever worhout building a better chess computer ourselves...and at that point, getting Int boosts from mastering other games is probably a better time ivestment. Of course, at that point our Wizard 1 has 96 Int, so how much more they even need is debatable.

[noob]

To an extent. Because chess is a...statisticslly complex game, with so many different possible games, even computers can't really play "perfect" as much as "close to perfect". Current estimates for the human world champion are ~2900, while the best computers can reach nearly 3500 (at least as of a few years ago). But even if we add 500 points for the difference 4 years makesb and even if we add 1000 for setting this in Worm, that just means it takes 5 days to run out of computer opponents instead of the 2 it took to run out of human ones. Which is still good returns on Int for us, but it's jist not a strategy we can leep up forever worhout building a better chess computer ourselves...and at that point, getting Int boosts from mastering other games is probably a better time ivestment. Of course, at that point our Wizard 1 has 96 Int, so how much more they even need is debatable.

There is not just save dcs in life.
Every 8 int you get an extra level 1 spell slot which is very useful when you are level 1: 46 only gets you 5 extra level 1 spell slots which will feel short if you are adventuring alone.
Also if those matches counts as encounters(for example you want to be a well known chess player) you probably do a lot of balanced encounters which will raise your dnd level.
I never said you had to scale infinitely but you will be doing a lot of training that can be done in parallel with playing chess(such as taking head ache pills)
Also while playing chess you can probably once you beat the strongest humans get some money and possibly use it to buy salt to make magic items.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

buy salt to make magic items.Somebody's been reading Harry Potter and the Natural 20 (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8096183/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Natural-20).

Ultimate cosmic power through proper condiment use.

[Caudex Capite]

To be honest, if I were a level 20 Wizard in the Worm setting, I'd get the hell out of that universe as soon as possible, if I were at all capable of doing so. Worm is a setting that hates everyone in it and makes a point of breaking high-powered characters to pieces. You *might* be able to figure out a way to deal with an Endbringer (aside from the Simurgh, what with the apparently perfect future sight and all), though their obscene defensive and offensive capabilities both make that a tall order. Even if you do, though, you have Contessa and Scion on the board, either of whom can definitely kill you if they decide they need to (unless one of your spells, like possibly Foresight or Mind Blank, prevented Path to Victory from working). That's not even getting into how the Shards would probably manipulate normal capes into going after you, many of whom have such exotic means of attack that you'd need an absolutely perfect suite of defensive spells (and some of the capes can just straight bypass defenses, probably even killing you through an Astral Projection). It seems pretty thoroughly not worth the risk of getting involved with, unless you can't Plane Shift away.

[noob]

To be honest, if I were a level 20 Wizard in the Worm setting, I'd get the hell out of that universe as soon as possible, if I were at all capable of doing so. Worm is a setting that hates everyone in it and makes a point of breaking high-powered characters to pieces. You *might* be able to figure out a way to deal with an Endbringer (aside from the Simurgh, what with the apparently perfect future sight and all), though their obscene defensive and offensive capabilities both make that a tall order. Even if you do, though, you have Contessa and Scion on the board, either of whom can definitely kill you if they decide they need to (unless one of your spells, like possibly Foresight or Mind Blank, prevented Path to Victory from working). That's not even getting into how the Shards would probably manipulate normal capes into going after you, many of whom have such exotic means of attack that you'd need an absolutely perfect suite of defensive spells (and some of the capes can just straight bypass defenses, probably even killing you through an Astral Projection). It seems pretty thoroughly not worth the risk of getting involved with, unless you can't Plane Shift away.

Swarm that world with so much ice assassins no square meter of the universe is without ice assassins and make sure nobody can track you back.

[exelsisxax]

Swarm that world with so much ice assassins no square meter of the universe is without ice assassins and make sure nobody can track you back.

You'll be dead in a few hours of starting that due to recursion shenanigans lethally backtracking you through spacetime.

Worm is wizard hell: you can die(and worse) from knowing things. Every typical wizard strategy is a great way to get killed immediately. And of course, after you get mind-controlled and vivisected across multiverses the shards responsible are going to bud into some even more absurd levels of overpoweredness.

[noob]

You'll be dead in a few hours of starting that due to recursion shenanigans lethally backtracking you through spacetime.

Worm is wizard hell: you can die(and worse) from knowing things. Every typical wizard strategy is a great way to get killed immediately. And of course, after you get mind-controlled and vivisected across multiverses the shards responsible are going to bud into some even more absurd levels of overpoweredness.

Well what is a few hours?
The wizard probably bend the meaning of hour with time shenanigans.
If it is based solely on knowing the wizard could mind rape itself.
And I never said the ice assassins would be ice assassins of the wizard: the wizard would probably pick ice assassins of weird stuff like ice assassins of shards.

[The Random NPC]

Well what is a few hours?
The wizard probably bend the meaning of hour with time shenanigans.
If it is based solely on knowing the wizard could mind rape itself.
And I never said the ice assassins would be ice assassins of the wizard: the wizard would probably pick ice assassins of weird stuff like ice assassins of shards.

The powers are insane, like retroactive future sight. The story could have just as easily ended with a random dude somewhere in the univierse saying, "Huh, so that's what'll happen if I add milk to my evening tea".

[Malphegor]

For Psionics, fusion might be a useful ability. Take control of a willing parahuman, use their power. Let's say you got Skitter, for example, you can pretty much exploit her 'control all insects within a certain radius' ability with your own D&D internal mechanical logic to have an endless army of insects. [note: like being a necromancer but for only vermin with NO HD CAP!!!]

On arcane magic, honestly, if we take Wish off the table (because that's not sporting), I'm thinking your main issue will be the posterchild amazing parahuman of Cauldron- Contessa. Following a shard-dictated path to victory vs Scion, she's your best friend if your goals include killing Scion with minimal human losses (and minimal cultural shift turning humans into something else), but your worst enemy if you're against that goal.

So, we need to kill Scion. And a bajillion other people.

Always have on-

Mindblank- most Thinkers will hate you. This... might work against precogs? You exist in their visions, everything works fine, but it's as if you're not there in them???

Shapechange- I'm sure there's a few beings in the Monster Manuals that could be of use... At bare minimum being a dragon lets you retain your spells and should no-sell a lot of lower 'level' parahuman encounters.

Gate- Who loves Tarrasques being used as heroic kaijus of destruction? More than anything else, the Tarraque will act as a meatsponge to tank hits for your endeavours.

Magic Jar- does Scion have spell resistance and/or good Will saves? If not, this would be funny. Scion's life force goes into your magic tupperware, and you now have a gold-coloured Silver Surfer body that's a tiny fragment of a greater multidimensional whole.



Transdimensional Spell is the main metamagic feat I recommend. Your spells wibble across the dimensions, meaning even if your foe attacks you in Earth-Gimbel or whatever, you can punch them with magic even if they switch to Earth-Zeta.

[exelsisxax]

Well what is a few hours?
The wizard probably bend the meaning of hour with time shenanigans.
If it is based solely on knowing the wizard could mind rape itself.
And I never said the ice assassins would be ice assassins of the wizard: the wizard would probably pick ice assassins of weird stuff like ice assassins of shards.

Seeing as shards can basically sidestep time, I don't think you are going to win that arms race.
You can't fix it once it happens. Memetic threats can't be recovered from - either it prevents its own removal or you wipe yourself so hard you lose more than any awareness of the danger and learn it again.
You can't make an ice sculpture of a shard, nor would you be able to steal part of it without being detected and tagged for immediate investigation.


For Psionics, fusion might be a useful ability. Take control of a willing parahuman, use their power. Let's say you got Skitter, for example, you can pretty much exploit her 'control all insects within a certain radius' ability with your own D&D internal mechanical logic to have an endless army of insects. [note: like being a necromancer but for only vermin with NO HD CAP!!!]

You can't use a parahuman's power. At best, you could control a parahuman to make it use its power as you want. Not really the more precise input method.



On arcane magic, honestly, if we take Wish off the table (because that's not sporting), I'm thinking your main issue will be the posterchild amazing parahuman of Cauldron- Contessa. Following a shard-dictated path to victory vs Scion, she's your best friend if your goals include killing Scion with minimal human losses (and minimal cultural shift turning humans into something else), but your worst enemy if you're against that goal.

Why would we even take wish off the table? It doesn't really work in Worm. Nothing it can do has much of an impact when your stated goal is fighting engines of out of context problem solving. I'm doing the sporting thing and assuming the wizard hasn't been vivisected ten years ago and then smirg'd after a mindwipe.




Mindblank- most Thinkers will hate you. This... might work against precogs? You exist in their visions, everything works fine, but it's as if you're not there in them???


Mind blank does not protect against most thinkers except some precogs. Mind reading is rare(because it's so niche for Entities) but a bunch of master powers could be prevented.



Shapechange- I'm sure there's a few beings in the Monster Manuals that could be of use... At bare minimum being a dragon lets you retain your spells and should no-sell a lot of lower 'level' parahuman encounters.


This is why worm is almost custom-made to kill wizards. Encounter logic is wholly counterproductive. At no point can you ever hope to fight shards, let alone scion, and not meet a fate worse than death. The best thing to do with shapechange is use it to disguise yourself as a C53 before fully mindwiping yourself in an effort to not get dunked on.



Gate- Who loves Tarrasques being used as heroic kaijus of destruction? More than anything else, the Tarraque will act as a meatsponge to tank hits for your endeavours.


Congrats, you now have a kill order and everyone is coming to peel apart your brain, and you can't stop them.



Magic Jar- does Scion have spell resistance and/or good Will saves? If not, this would be funny. Scion's life force goes into your magic tupperware, and you now have a gold-coloured Silver Surfer body that's a tiny fragment of a greater multidimensional whole.


Magic Jar doesn't have a chance of working against any entity-related 'creature'. Even if we pretend it can work against scion's human form, you just got yourself a fake body with no capabilities. It's the puppeted avatar of the gestalt of a network of metadimensional idiot savant neural networks, not the actual being. Shards aren't creatures anymore.



Transdimensional Spell is the main metamagic feat I recommend. Your spells wibble across the dimensions, meaning even if your foe attacks you in Earth-Gimbel or whatever, you can punch them with magic even if they switch to Earth-Zeta.

Transdimensional Spell will not, on its own, give you any ability to do that. Altverses are not the etheral, shadow, etc., nor are they extradimensional spaces. It might interact with rare cases like Circus's hammerspace, but nothing more.

[noob]

You can't make an ice sculpture of a shard, nor would you be able to steal part of it without being detected and tagged for immediate investigation.

By raw you can probably with the epic eschew make a shard without the material component so you need neither the sculpture nor the body part.

[exelsisxax]

By raw you can probably with the epic eschew make a shard without the material component so you need neither the sculpture nor the body part.

The ice sculpture is a material component, the sample is not. You can't cast the spell at all without it.

And shards still aren't valid targets for basically anything.

[Caudex Capite]

Seeing as shards can basically sidestep time, I don't think you are going to win that arms race.
You can't fix it once it happens. Memetic threats can't be recovered from - either it prevents its own removal or you wipe yourself so hard you lose more than any awareness of the danger and learn it again.
You can't make an ice sculpture of a shard, nor would you be able to steal part of it without being detected and tagged for immediate investigation.



You can't use a parahuman's power. At best, you could control a parahuman to make it use its power as you want. Not really the more precise input method.



Why would we even take wish off the table? It doesn't really work in Worm. Nothing it can do has much of an impact when your stated goal is fighting engines of out of context problem solving. I'm doing the sporting thing and assuming the wizard hasn't been vivisected ten years ago and then smirg'd after a mindwipe.




Mind blank does not protect against most thinkers except some precogs. Mind reading is rare(because it's so niche for Entities) but a bunch of master powers could be prevented.



This is why worm is almost custom-made to kill wizards. Encounter logic is wholly counterproductive. At no point can you ever hope to fight shards, let alone scion, and not meet a fate worse than death. The best thing to do with shapechange is use it to disguise yourself as a C53 before fully mindwiping yourself in an effort to not get dunked on.



Congrats, you now have a kill order and everyone is coming to peel apart your brain, and you can't stop them.



Magic Jar doesn't have a chance of working against any entity-related 'creature'. Even if we pretend it can work against scion's human form, you just got yourself a fake body with no capabilities. It's the puppeted avatar of the gestalt of a network of metadimensional idiot savant neural networks, not the actual being. Shards aren't creatures anymore.



Transdimensional Spell will not, on its own, give you any ability to do that. Altverses are not the etheral, shadow, etc., nor are they extradimensional spaces. It might interact with rare cases like Circus's hammerspace, but nothing more.


I think you might be overstating the degree of time/causality/memetic shenanigans at play here (unless there's a lot more of those in Ward, which I haven't read). I'm also not clear on exactly how proactive Shards can be in trying to kill you. Plausibly, if Mind Blank lets you defeat precognitive abilities, you might be able to kill Scion. Once you figure out how the Shards and powers work, you can pull off something similar to what Panacea did during Gold Morning (trying to minimize spoilers here). In fact, you can do it to as many parahumans as you want, and maintain control over them, if you're careful. That's a whole lot of firepower at your disposal, and we've seen that Scion can be surprised, and even killed, by the right combination of parahumans. You might be able to kill him with a well-prepared alpha strike. Entities are extraordinarily powerful, but they're explicitly not omnipotent, and you don't play by the same rules they do. One large advantage you have is actually speed of travel - it takes time for them to move between worlds, but you can flee to the other side of the universe instantly with Greater Teleport.

You might consider setting up a base of operations in a location unreachable for Scion, then start sending duplicates (through your preferred method) of yourself to steal parahumans. They'll lose their powers away from Earth, but you can still remove their limiters, and then control them through magical means. Once you've collected an army of super-parahumans with full access to their respective Shards, who you retain absolute control over, you can probably bring Scion down with it. Failing that, you can start killing off his Shards in a way that prevents him from retaliating. Against an existential threat like that, though, he'd certainly use PTV, so you'd need Mind Blank to be capable of thwarting it, or have a literally unbeatable plan (which might be possible, if you can find some way for it to be absolutely impossible for him to reach you at any point in the process).

You might also be able to exhaust him by getting him to repeatedly use PTV for things other than permanently defeating you individually, until he burns it out, but that seems pretty risky, since at some point he'd presumably use it in a broad enough way to include that goal.

Once he's gone, I think Worm is probably your oyster - individual Shards probably can't defend against a careful assault by a dedicated Wizard, so you can probably kill all of them off. If all else fails, you'll have to destroy their earths, but planet-busting is probably achievable given enough time? You could also wait for them to starve, eventually.

All that said, I find it unlikely you can do all this without seriously risking destroying all the alternate earths in the course of the battle, so if you care much about humanity, you may run into an issue there. Furthermore, it's still pretty risky - if PTV works, or Scion pulls out a trick you aren't expecting, you are very, very fragile, no matter how extensive your direct defenses are. If you're in the same region as a hostile Scion without a Contingency of some sort that gets you the hell out of there instantly, that version of you is probably dead.

Absent the travel speed advantage from Greater Teleport, I think you're probably screwed, because fighting Shards or strong Parahumans or Endbringers or Scion personally under any but the most controlled circumstances (which have to include some way of surviving being killed, or more than killed, or mind screwed) will kill you eventually. It's the ability to affect Earth without ever being personally at risk that gives you any chance at all.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The ice sculpture is a material component, the sample is not. You can't cast the spell at all without it.It is according to the spell.

[noob]

Also ice assassin does not targets.

[exelsisxax]

The sample is a requirement of the spell, not a material component. You can no more eschew it from the spell than you could cast goodberry without berries.


I think you might be overstating the degree of time/causality/memetic shenanigans at play here (unless there's a lot more of those in Ward, which I haven't read). I'm also not clear on exactly how proactive Shards can be in trying to kill you. Plausibly, if Mind Blank lets you defeat precognitive abilities, you might be able to kill Scion. Once you figure out how the Shards and powers work, you can pull off something similar to what Panacea did during Gold Morning (trying to minimize spoilers here). In fact, you can do it to as many parahumans as you want, and maintain control over them, if you're careful. That's a whole lot of firepower at your disposal, and we've seen that Scion can be surprised, and even killed, by the right combination of parahumans. You might be able to kill him with a well-prepared alpha strike. Entities are extraordinarily powerful, but they're explicitly not omnipotent, and you don't play by the same rules they do. One large advantage you have is actually speed of travel - it takes time for them to move between worlds, but you can flee to the other side of the universe instantly with Greater Teleport.

I think you are underestimating master, thinker, and stranger effects in addition to what we see of various capes demonstrating local time reversion, looping, and manipulation. Hell, nice guy could just wander over and stab the wizard to death with his own fork and the wizard would be incapable of recognizing a threat.

Shards (probably) won't directly hunt you down and retroactively pick your brain apart in 10 different universes, but entering local space and doing any wizard things is going to immediately get some attention. The conflict drive will nudge people to interacting with you, and very quickly the present shards will be figuring out magic, and the next buds are going to be insane fullcaster shards that achieved a possible solution to the cycle. There's no way to do wizard things and avoid attention.

Mind blank protects against a minority of precog, probably fuzzing with a plurality. It has no effect at all against something like PtV or Coil - only the fast hacky ones that actually rely on mind-reading. It doesn't protect you in any way against scion, and you can't kill scion. Maybe you should re-read Gold Morning, because they didn't beat scion in a fight. A wizard would be even more helpless, because he has no means of actually attacking Entities.

You can't flee to the other side of the universe without having been there. You still need a specific location description.



You might consider setting up a base of operations in a location unreachable for Scion, then start sending duplicates (through your preferred method) of yourself to steal parahumans. They'll lose their powers away from Earth, but you can still remove their limiters, and then control them through magical means. Once you've collected an army of super-parahumans with full access to their respective Shards, who you retain absolute control over, you can probably bring Scion down with it. Failing that, you can start killing off his Shards in a way that prevents him from retaliating. Against an existential threat like that, though, he'd certainly use PTV, so you'd need Mind Blank to be capable of thwarting it, or have a literally unbeatable plan (which might be possible, if you can find some way for it to be absolutely impossible for him to reach you at any point in the process).

You might also be able to exhaust him by getting him to repeatedly use PTV for things other than permanently defeating you individually, until he burns it out, but that seems pretty risky, since at some point he'd presumably use it in a broad enough way to include that goal.


There is no location that is unreachable. Again, though, you can't control parahumans or manipulate shards like this unless you assume a one-way transparency. And again, this plan has a 0% success chance. Scion cannot be killed by assaulting him, mind blank doesn't in any way prevent PtV from working, and unbeatable plans are oxymoronic. Just ask Eden how that went.



Once he's gone, I think Worm is probably your oyster - individual Shards probably can't defend against a careful assault by a dedicated Wizard, so you can probably kill all of them off. If all else fails, you'll have to destroy their earths, but planet-busting is probably achievable given enough time? You could also wait for them to starve, eventually.

All that said, I find it unlikely you can do all this without seriously risking destroying all the alternate earths in the course of the battle, so if you care much about humanity, you may run into an issue there. Furthermore, it's still pretty risky - if PTV works, or Scion pulls out a trick you aren't expecting, you are very, very fragile, no matter how extensive your direct defenses are. If you're in the same region as a hostile Scion without a Contingency of some sort that gets you the hell out of there instantly, that version of you is probably dead.

Absent the travel speed advantage from Greater Teleport, I think you're probably screwed, because fighting Shards or strong Parahumans or Endbringers or Scion personally under any but the most controlled circumstances (which have to include some way of surviving being killed, or more than killed, or mind screwed) will kill you eventually. It's the ability to affect Earth without ever being personally at risk that gives you any chance at all.

I see you are unaware that Worm doesn't get safe without scion around, and also that shards do proactively work towards the cycle. A wizard doing god-wizard things is doomed, because that is going to get the attention of the shards immediately. They need humans alive to continue, and regularly demonstrate the ability and inclination to prevent extinctions. Shards actively thwart any such attempts and generate countermeasures for them, just as they do to contain the host species in local space. The god-wizard in Worm is doomed, the best thing you could do is lay low and try not to get any attention.

But if you're a gambler at heart, maybe teleport to scion and start tossing magic around. If you're very lucky, the cycle might be answered in a way that avoids local space being annihilated or you being vivisected.

[noob]

The sample is a requirement of the spell, not a material component. You can no more eschew it from the spell than you could cast goodberry without berries.



I think you are underestimating master, thinker, and stranger effects in addition to what we see of various capes demonstrating local time reversion, looping, and manipulation. Hell, nice guy could just wander over and stab the wizard to death with his own fork and the wizard would be incapable of recognizing a threat.

Shards (probably) won't directly hunt you down and retroactively pick your brain apart in 10 different universes, but entering local space and doing any wizard things is going to immediately get some attention. The conflict drive will nudge people to interacting with you, and very quickly the present shards will be figuring out magic, and the next buds are going to be insane fullcaster shards that achieved a possible solution to the cycle. There's no way to do wizard things and avoid attention.

Mind blank protects against a minority of precog, probably fuzzing with a plurality. It has no effect at all against something like PtV or Coil - only the fast hacky ones that actually rely on mind-reading. It doesn't protect you in any way against scion, and you can't kill scion. Maybe you should re-read Gold Morning, because they didn't beat scion in a fight. A wizard would be even more helpless, because he has no means of actually attacking Entities.

You can't flee to the other side of the universe without having been there. You still need a specific location description.



There is no location that is unreachable. Again, though, you can't control parahumans or manipulate shards like this unless you assume a one-way transparency. And again, this plan has a 0% success chance. Scion cannot be killed by assaulting him, mind blank doesn't in any way prevent PtV from working, and unbeatable plans are oxymoronic. Just ask Eden how that went.



I see you are unaware that Worm doesn't get safe without scion around, and also that shards do proactively work towards the cycle. A wizard doing god-wizard things is doomed, because that is going to get the attention of the shards immediately. They need humans alive to continue, and regularly demonstrate the ability and inclination to prevent extinctions. Shards actively thwart any such attempts and generate countermeasures for them, just as they do to contain the host species in local space. The god-wizard in Worm is doomed, the best thing you could do is lay low and try not to get any attention.

But if you're a gambler at heart, maybe teleport to scion and start tossing magic around. If you're very lucky, the cycle might be answered in a way that avoids local space being annihilated or you being vivisected.


Material Component: This spell is cast over the ice statue of the creature to be duplicated.
Some portion of the creature to be duplicated (hair, nail, and so on) must be placed inside the ice statue as it is constructed.
In addition, the spell requires powdered diamond worth 20,000 gp.
It is the only portion that asks for a part of the creature to duplicate and it is in the material component section.


You can't flee to the other side of the universe without having been there. You still need a specific location description.
Solvable by using a telescope to watch a far away spot of empty space and also write the coordinates of that spot using whichever system physicians use:

This spell functions like teleport, except that there is no range limit and there is no chance you arrive off target. In addition, you need not have seen the destination, but in that case you must have at least a reliable description of the place to which you are teleporting. If you attempt to teleport with insufficient information (or with misleading information), you disappear and simply reappear in your original location. Interplanar travel is not possible.
You have a reliable description of the place: it is a spot with nearly no matter and at coordinates you know.

[Caudex Capite]

I agree that if the Wizard in question spends any significant time personally fighting against the wrong parahumans or Scion, he'll die (or worse) pretty fast. If he spends much time on the face of earth, he's at serious risk of that, but the Entities, Shards, and Parahumans are limited by physical distance in a way a D&D Wizard is not. Greater Teleport requires that you have a reliable description of the place to which you are teleporting, but that much is very achievable for Mars at least, which gets you safety from almost everything Worm can throw at you. Scion is possibly an exception, but Gate or Wish will get you anywhere in the universe (no familiarity clause), then after the first time you can use Greater Teleport.

My thinking with Mind Blank was that PTV is probably an information-gathering divination effect. If it isn't, then yes, you have a problem. I'm not sure if it would work at arbitrary distances, since powers in general are limited to the vicinity of the originating Shard, but even if it does, PtV can fail - Contessa's pre-nerf version from the interlude where she got it couldn't give her a complex plan she asked for from it, even when it could still see Entities.

Scion definitely could have died to a direct assault, given enough firepower. You just need to be able to wear him down. It's not how he lost in Gold Morning, but a Wizard can plausibly bring a lot more firepower to bear against him (and with Divinations, you might well also figure out how to kill him the way they did in Gold Morning). During Gold Morning, Khepri explicitly realizes that a humanity that had been united from the start could have brought him down.

For that matter, Scion and Eden both make it a point to limit the powers the Shards give out to parahumans, so they can't pose a threat. It should be quite possible for a Wizard to remove those limiters. If existing magic (like Mindrape) fails, there are people in-universe who can do so. Kidnap and mind control them with your method of choice, then make them do it.

The plan ends up being roughly: Set up a base of operations well outside the solar system (probably outside the galaxy), which should be unreachable for Scion/Shards without magic, because they have travel time limitations. Send minions with self-destruct contingencies of some sort (to prevent actors on earth getting magic) to kidnap promising parahumans. Take them back to your base, mind control/recruit/indoctrinate them however you feel appropriate, and remove their limiters once able (whether through existing magic, researching new spells for brain surgery, or kidnapping an appropriate parahuman). Continue doing so until you have a couple thousand limiter-free parahumans (none of whom can use their abilities on your turf), carefully sending them out in small groups back to Earth to figure out their powers. Once you've got enough trained super-capes, throw them all at Scion with magical backup (again without exposing yourself to danger). If that fails, start knocking out his Shards by sending minions to their worlds. If you can't damage them physically (which I expect you could, given that Eden was vulnerable to it), then take out their Earth instead, so they starve to death. Planetary destruction is non-trivial, but between magic and limiter-free parahumans, you probably can figure something out. Take out his Vital Shards, and Scion dies without ever having to harm the avatar.

Ultimately, this is pretty similar to Cauldron's plan, but you've got Divination, a lot more safety, and the utility of being able to mind control people extremely thoroughly. If Scion's PTV can find a way for him to reach and kill you, you lose if he ever tries it, but it seems plausible that he doesn't have the capability. He might be able to subvert one of your teleporting minions, but that's what divinations, automatic contingency plans and magically securing your base are for. I'm also not sure that the avatar would retain its abilities and connection to the Entity if it were teleported far enough away, since there's distance limitations on other shards. He might also be able to smuggle a bomb or plague into your base with one of your kidnap victims, but with sufficient caution, I think you could make that an impossible attack vector, too.

Like I said, Worm is nasty, and I wouldn't feel safe there, even as a 20th level wizard, but I do think that you could plausibly come out on top, thanks to the advantage magic gives.

[exelsisxax]

Nothing entity-related is a magical effect. A wizard has no means so stop powers from working unless they are targeting the wizard and we assume that a magic defense against mind-control defends against all mind control. PtV, and most thinker/precog powers, don't influence a person and many don't need information from the wizard's brain. Tattletale, for instance, would not be hampered by mind blank. She's not a real mind-reader, she's a cue reader. Mind blank won't stop you from giving tells or shield your surroundings from examination, so mind blank doesn't help you in any way. Similarly, there is no defense that a wizard can use to protect against the simurgh(other than being somewhere else) because it isn't a mind-influencing effect, nor a mind-reading effect.

PtV has never failed - contessa asked to do something that was logically impossible. After revising the question to something that could be done, the path was clear until the restrictions set in. Killing the wizard isn't a logically impossible task. If the wizard tries to kill scion, he gets stomped.

A wizard doesn't have the power to harm scion in any meaningful way. He's not a hp-bag, he's solar masses of distributed nigh-invulnerability. He almost never avoids attacks because they don't matter. What's a cubic foot of tissue to something that spans a thousand worlds? Things like Sting are the only real dangers, and a wizard can't replicate or harness that.

Why do you think a wizard can remove shard restrictions? It's not some mental block that you can mind-alter out of a person. Wizards simply lack any tools to interact with shards in any way.

[Caudex Capite]

Scion is described as landmass-sized, not solar-mass sized, as I recall. Fair enough on Mind Blank vs PTV, though. I think there's some ambiguity there, but it's reasonable enough to say it doesn't help. I do think it's plausible that the Wizard can set up a situation where he's totally outside Scion's power, though, such that Scion couldn't kill him even with PTV, thanks to distance limitations on what Scion can affect. I'm not sure he can try to influence Scion's world without opening himself up, though, but that seems like something his divinations can tell him. PTV can't tell Scion a way to do an impossible thing, and I think that it's impossible for Scion to influence something billions of light-years away from himself in any reasonable time frame barring the use of magic. Contessa's desire wasn't logically impossible - it was physically impossible for her to carry out.

Regarding removing power limiters, Wizards can mess with human minds, which is where the interfacing happens. A certain brain surgery removed limiters on a Shard-given power, and a Wizard could likely do something analogous with magic. Failing that, they can mind control the people who can do that with normal wizard spells, then make them do it. Furthermore, they'd have divinations to help guide the process towards what they want.

As for personally hurting Scion with magic, it's pretty unlikely that the Wizard can do so in ways that don't risk breaking the planet. That's why they wouldn't even try - it's what the army of mind-controlled parahumans is for.

[exelsisxax]

Scion is described as landmass-sized, not solar-mass sized, as I recall. Fair enough on Mind Blank vs PTV, though. I think there's some ambiguity there, but it's reasonable enough to say it doesn't help. I do think it's plausible that the Wizard can set up a situation where he's totally outside Scion's power, though, such that Scion couldn't kill him even with PTV, thanks to distance limitations on what Scion can affect. I'm not sure he can try to influence Scion's world without opening himself up, though, but that seems like something his divinations can tell him. PTV can't tell Scion a way to do an impossible thing, and I think that it's impossible for Scion to influence something billions of light-years away from himself in any reasonable time frame barring the use of magic. Contessa's desire wasn't logically impossible - it was physically impossible for her to carry out.

Regarding removing power limiters, Wizards can mess with human minds, which is where the interfacing happens. A certain brain surgery removed limiters on a Shard-given power, and a Wizard could likely do something analogous with magic. Failing that, they can mind control the people who can do that with normal wizard spells, then make them do it. Furthermore, they'd have divinations to help guide the process towards what they want.

As for personally hurting Scion with magic, it's pretty unlikely that the Wizard can do so in ways that don't risk breaking the planet. That's why they wouldn't even try - it's what the army of mind-controlled parahumans is for.

The bold is true as long as the wizard stays away. Wish teleporting and creating demiplanes could easily make a place where nobody ever bothers the wizard. If the wizard tries to get his fingers in things, he's doomed. Entities DO have FTL, and poking one from a billion lightyears away is basically a one-way ticket to giving a shard unlimited teleportation after you get neutralized by a recursive or memetic effect.

She couldn't do it because it was logically impossible. There is basically little that entities are incapable of, and killing wizards is not a logical impossibility. The only safety is in scion not using PtV. If you attack scion and he doesn't feel like instakilling the wizard with Stilling, a PtV is an auto-win.

The limitations are not present within the host, but commands imprinted to the shard. A wizard can't touch those, only esoteric things like amy's Shaper shard - which is the entity organ for actually doing that sort of thing.

Really, I can't think of a single shard that could not incontestably and permanently deny any wizard access to the vicinity of earth. Every single one can drop utterly obliterating effects that a wizard can't negate or avoid and wizards don't have a single tool to even try to fight back. The winning move is hiding or running, because fighting shards is basically impossible and trying to "win" as a cape will absolutely generate shards with escalating anti-magic capabilities in short order to further the cycle.

[noob]

She couldn't do it because it was logically impossible. There is basically little that entities are incapable of, and killing wizards is not a logical impossibility. The only safety is in scion not using PtV. If you attack scion and he doesn't feel like instakilling the wizard with Stilling, a PtV is an auto-win.

Ihs your mortality away then it is a logical impossibility to kill you.

[exelsisxax]

Ihs your mortality away then it is a logical impossibility to kill you.

Seeing as how the wizard is in Worm, I believe the appropriate corruption of that wish, if we pretend that such a use is not obviously outside of RAI, is that the wizard becomes an unconditionally perpetual local field effect that experiences nothing but pain and can't influence the world beyond filling typical EM sensors with a chorus of screaming. Mortality removed.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Seeing as how the wizard is in Worm, I believe the appropriate corruption of that wish, if we pretend that such a use is not obviously outside of RAI, is that the wizard becomes an unconditionally perpetual local field effect that experiences nothing but pain and can't influence the world beyond filling typical EM sensors with a chorus of screaming. Mortality removed.There are tons of ways that Iron Heart Surge wish can grant immortality. Immortality is easy. Become a necropolitan. Polymorph any object into an elan. Or a warforged. Or gain the Otherworldly feat (worth 10,000 gp, according to the A&EG). Or PAO into practically any outsider.

All of these are worth WAY less than 25,000 gp, which is the maximum limit for wish without spending
more XP. And since the above are well within what the RAW for what wish can do, a generic wish for immortality is easily achieved.

[The Random NPC]

People keep saying that the Shards don't work when away from Earth, but I don't remember that being a thing. Does anyone have a reference?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

People keep saying that the Shards don't work when away from Earth, but I don't remember that being a thing. Does anyone have a reference?I don't have a reference, but I believe it's the fact that the human's link to their shard only functions from so far away, so if the human is moved to Alpha Centauri, say, their powers simply won't work because of the distances involved, unless the shard is moved as well.

[exelsisxax]

There are tons of ways that Iron Heart Surge wish can grant immortality. Immortality is easy. Become a necropolitan. Polymorph any object into an elan. Or a warforged. Or gain the Otherworldly feat (worth 10,000 gp, according to the A&EG). Or PAO into practically any outsider.

All of these are worth WAY less than 25,000 gp, which is the maximum limit for wish without spending
more XP. And since the above are well within what the RAW for what wish can do, a generic wish for immortality is easily achieved.

That's just not dying from aging. Being truly immortal is beyond the scope of wish, unless you flagrantly abuse the "other things" clause.


People keep saying that the Shards don't work when away from Earth, but I don't remember that being a thing. Does anyone have a reference?


It is a built-in limitation. Individuals could theoretically leave (Legend?), but mass transportation options would likely be sabotaged (like a Squealer spacehulk, or Sphere's power, for example).

They do work away from earth to some extent. Some might have no practical range limitation, but most shards do not provide powers too far away from their spatial location, and tinker shards intentionally sabotage that sort of thing like they do doomsday weapons to keep the host species both contained and alive. I don't think if it's been clarified that shards are in fact limited by range, or that the observed range limitations are only imposed on host usage to maintain containment.

edit: ninja'd

[MaxiDuRaritry]

That's just not dying from aging. Being truly immortal is beyond the scope of wish, unless you flagrantly abuse the "other things" clause.Three words: aleax ice assassin.

The wish gives you a scroll.

[The Random NPC]

I don't have a reference, but I believe it's the fact that the human's link to their shard only functions from so far away, so if the human is moved to Alpha Centauri, say, their powers simply won't work because of the distances involved, unless the shard is moved as well.

I don't remember reading anything about that, and I thought that the shards were kind of metaphysically implanted in them. Otherwise how could people intercept the powers?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I don't remember reading anything about that, and I thought that the shards were kind of metaphysically implanted in them. Otherwise how could people intercept the powers?Word of God for the distance thing, I think.

But it's like sticking your finger through a hole in the wall, only the finger is a tiny piece of the shard implanted into the brain through the power-induced brain tumors, and the hole in the wall is a portal extending between universes. The bandwidth is insane, and all the processing power is done via the continent-sized biological computer hiding on an empty Earth somewhere else and shunting energy through dimensions, which is where the power effects themselves come from.