Level 20 battle royale

[bekeleven]

You're a level 20 single-classed wizard, just wandering around faerun or greyhawk or whatever when one day you hear a voice from on high:


In exactly 24 hours, you and anything you wear or hold will be transported to a random point in a demiplane that has a 5000 mile radius. It has the same animal and plant life as the material plane, but no intelligent life: We just create dit for this purpose. Arriving at other random points on the plane shall be others in the apexes of their respective disciplines: Three masters of the sublime way, a truenamer, the world's most accomplished troubadour, warriors at the apex of fitness, the best-known rogue and the best-hidden ninja. One representative from each path of power. And you can't leave until one of you wins.

This demiplane will be totally cut off from every other plane for as long as this takes. You may not leave it, nor may you call others to it. The winner is not required to kill all of their competitors, but they may find it's the most practical path to victory.

24 hours from now. Good luck.
One 20th level character of every base class - that's about 83 people (depending how the gods count), scattered throughout the plane. You're an optimized wizard, but expect many others to be optimized as well. The gods will transport all of you to random points on the plane at the exact same time. What's your plan?

[ciopo]

Well, there is nothing to win. So my plan would be to prepare all the defensive gimmicks I can, and when the teleport happens, start broadcasting a "I surrender" by whatever means necessary.

Really, such a setup is a "win" for the partecipants if they all surrender. Spit in the face of those gods that want entertainment at our expense!

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by ciopo
Really, such a setup is a "win" for the partecipants if they all surrender.

But of course, the chances of 83 different people all agreeing to surrender are close to nil, and whoever arranged this probably knows that.

[AvatarVecna]

You're a level 20 single-classed wizard, just wandering around faerun or greyhawk or whatever when one day you hear a voice from on high:


One 20th level character of every base class - that's about 83 people (depending how the gods count), scattered throughout the plane. You're an optimized wizard, but expect many others to be optimized as well. The gods will transport all of you to random points on the plane at the exact same time. What's your plan?

Step 1: Cast "Teleport Through Time" to have as much preparation time as I desire.

Step 0 (optional): Cast "Wish" to obtain a scroll of "Teleport Through Time" for the purposes of fulfilling step 1.

Step -1 (optional): Cast "Gate" or "Shapechange" to be capable of casting Wish as described in Step 0.

Step -2 (optional): Cast "Discern Location" and then "Greater Teleport" to locate and teleport to a scroll of any of the above spells.

These are (generally speaking) preparations that won't be available to most moderately-optimized single-classed characters. The cleric and sorcerer can probably pull this off, depending on how optimized they are. Past a certain point of optimization, though, it almost doesn't matter:

The logical approach is to assume the worst-case scenario and prepare accordingly. The worst-case scenario is that one of my opponents is initiating an infinite loop (probably an infinite-wish-loop). Thus, if I think it's likely that non-wizards are capable of such wish-loops, I should resort to one too, just in case. But this is also the logical approach for my opponents, who (not being wizards) have to know that a sufficiently-optimized wizard is capable of fairly easily setting up a wish-loop. Thus, thinking logically is practically a self-fulfilling prophecy. But also, we only have to worry about the enemies that are capable of initiating a wish-loop...which is all of them, because the barrier of entry is incredibly low. If you can locate a scroll of Wish, Gate, Shapechange, Planar Binding, or Greater Planar Binding within the allotted time, and hit a DC 31 UMD check...well that's the game. And that's assuming your opponents can't just cast it themselves. And boom, you all have as many genie wishes as you want.

If everybody decides to go for big numbers instead of spells with supreme tactical advantage, then it comes down to a matter of who picks the biggest number - genie wishes can create magic items of any power level, but not of a variable power level (...well, sorta "but not"). One person could wish for +1 billion to everything and another could wish for +googol to everything. Past a certain point, what's going to matter is tactics and strategy more than "big numbers". They'll all have access to as many magic tricks as they can think of, and it's only logical to assume that they're well-versed in optimization so that would be "basically all of them". Custom item shenanigans via genie wishes basically means anything is on the table: you can use items to buy big numbers directly, metamagic'd spells, and feats. You can use spells and feats to get basically anything you want ever, including as many actions as you want.

However much effort I put into stomping the competition, the competition will put into not getting stomped, and the barrier of entry is too low for wizardry to take home the victory by default. There's just a line somewhere in high-op where, if everybody is trying equally hard, the game abruptly goes from "it's only really a fight between the full casters" to "everybody is an infinitely powerful god of more or less equal capability and the entire thing turns out to be a draw".

[ciopo]

Well, if I get teleported back to wherever I was once I'm identified as one of the loser because I surrendered, no skin off my back what the others decide to do. Needs a reason beside the forum challenge to engage.

All single classed, I'd probably prepare on a mix of "preventing getting dispelled" and "disfunction/antimagic field" . We and the sorcerer are more or less the only one with native access to both flight and invisibility. So just get some form of anti divination amd that's that? You could argue that "no outside influence" means divine spellcasters are cut of from their spellcasting, but the same can be argued for arcane spellcasters and the weave/whatever. I'm leaning toward wild shape druid being the only actual competition

[tyckspoon]

Assuming we are going to bar 'spend all your money to pretend to be a high-optimized fullcaster' (because, as already pointed out, this completely obviates the actual classes involved and turns things into 'who can make the cheesiest Wishes'), then this is effectively the full caster classes' challenge to lose. Being separated from other planes does cut out a section of traditional caster cheeses - you can't have an infinite army of Gated or Planar Bound minions fight for you (... well. Not ones you summoned on-site. The rules so far would appear to allow for having pre-acquired minions ride in with you in a Bag of Holding, Portable Hole, or pokeballed into a Smokey Confinement spell or similar.) You can't have your actual body be on another plane and the 'you' that goes into the challenge is actually an Astrally Projected duplicate. You can't just hole up in a Magnificent Mansion and wait until everybody else takes each other out, then try to come out at full strength to engage the theoretically weakened remainder. (And the poor forgotten Ninja can't use their best in class trick, which is going Ethereal and then attacking people from the Ethereal.)

But what approach would one actually want to take? hmm. I think probably some variant on the Mailman? Concentrate on an attack spell that has as few ways to block or resist it as possible, and then caster level optimization with Dispels and access to Disjunction should allow you to drop most of the things that can.

[AvatarVecna]

Assuming we are going to bar 'spend all your money to pretend to be a high-optimized fullcaster' (because, as already pointed out, this completely obviates the actual classes involved and turns things into 'who can make the cheesiest Wishes'), then this is effectively the full caster classes' challenge to lose. Being separated from other planes does cut out a section of traditional caster cheeses - you can't have an infinite army of Gated or Planar Bound minions fight for you (... well. Not ones you summoned on-site. The rules so far would appear to allow for having pre-acquired minions ride in with you in a Bag of Holding, Portable Hole, or pokeballed into a Smokey Confinement spell or similar.) You can't have your actual body be on another plane and the 'you' that goes into the challenge is actually an Astrally Projected duplicate. You can't just hole up in a Magnificent Mansion and wait until everybody else takes each other out, then try to come out at full strength to engage the theoretically weakened remainder. (And the poor forgotten Ninja can't use their best in class trick, which is going Ethereal and then attacking people from the Ethereal.)

But what approach would one actually want to take? hmm. I think probably some variant on the Mailman? Concentrate on an attack spell that has as few ways to block or resist it as possible, and then caster level optimization with Dispels and access to Disjunction should allow you to drop most of the things that can.

*nodnod*

I'm thinking main concerns are Artificer, Cleric, Druid, Psion, Sorcerer, and Wilder. Maybe Truenamer if we can bring in a cheesy Bag Of Tricks like you've described (at-will Gate would be helpful for that). Only other concern would maybe be a Rogue or Ninja we can't find.

[Darg]

5000 mile radius... that's more than 25% larger than earth. At that kind of size, it's spellcasters with clairvoyant and teleportation capabilities that are able to hunt anyone down. Mundane classes are basically stuck just trying to survive until they get a random meteor dropped on their head.

To put it in perspective, if the plane is a sphere then it would would have 314,159,265.35898 mi² of surface area. Earth has a rough flat surface area of 196,563,483 mi². If it is a flat plane, then it be 78,539,816.339745 mi²

[sreservoir]

If there's only one winner, you need to go in expecting to be one of the losers, since it's not enough to 1v1 everyone else—which you can't do reliably anyway, there are at least three other participants with better spell access than you, a whole bunch that have tricks without generic defenses, and pretty much everyone at this level has the wealth do do something that would threaten you.

Unless you're getting a reward out of this worth something like ten likely deaths (which, to be fair, might not be a tremendously price at this level of play), your best move is probably to immediately and loudly forfeit, or, failing that, arrange a contingency plan to get yourself resurrected (outside the fight) and get yourself visibly and definitively defeated asap.

[Khatoblepas]

But of course, the chances of 83 different people all agreeing to surrender are close to nil, and whoever arranged this probably knows that.

Half Elf Bard Diplomancer utilizing a Widened Resounding Voice, convinces everyone around him to stop fighting and help them subvert the battle royale. You only need to get a single wizard or cleric to gain access to scry and fry defy.

You now have 82 allies, a whole truckload of buff spells for the mundanes (polymorphed into a dragon, anyone?), and they're all on your side and ready to kick the judges' butts.

Can a bard really change the attitudes of everyone within a 4000ft radius around them in a single full round action? Yes. AND all their planar bound minions.

What's the stats on the guy that set this up? We can beat him, if we work together.

[AvatarVecna]

Half Elf Bard Diplomancer utilizing a Widened Resounding Voice, convinces everyone around him to stop fighting and help them subvert the battle royale. You only need to get a single wizard or cleric to gain access to scry and fry defy.

You now have 82 allies, a whole truckload of buff spells for the mundanes (polymorphed into a dragon, anyone?), and they're all on your side and ready to kick the judges' butts.

Can a bard really change the attitudes of everyone within a 4000ft radius around them in a single full round action? Yes. AND all their planar bound minions.

What's the stats on the guy that set this up? We can beat him, if we work together.

This is relevant if we all start in relatively close proximity to each other, which...


In exactly 24 hours, you and anything you wear or hold will be transported to a random point in a demiplane that has a 5000 mile radius. It has the same animal and plant life as the material plane, but no intelligent life: We just create dit for this purpose. Arriving at other random points on the plane shall be others in the apexes of their respective disciplines

...we pretty explicitly don't. Assuming this is a planet with 5000 mile radius, we're each going to have about 4 million square miles of surface area to ourselves. Assuming it's empty space with a volume of 5000 mile radius sphere, then instead we each have about 6 billion cubic miles of space to ourselves.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by OP
You're a level 20 single-classed wizard….

Not a bard diplomancer, and no guarantee any of the other 82 participants will happen to be a bard diplomancer who feels everyone should hug it out.

[Gusmo]

I'd bet on the bard diplomancer to get everyone to stop fighting and just turn this plane into a new civilization. It doesn't sound like such a bad place to be trapped.

[Raishoiken]

I feel like using WBL cheese alone to get stupidly specific magic items that grant access to essentially everything spell or feat based, i'm sure it's possible for pretty much everyone to have most if not all of the important magical immunities/resistances/defenses.


Sure, a caster doesn't need to spend as much wealth, if any, to start these sorts of item grabs, but WBL especially at 20level would be enough for everyone to have it handled with 24hours of prep.

I'd hafta double check my notes once im back to books but there's an easy way to manage a stupid powerful transformation into another creature through a few spells to neg everyone else who doesnt. However, this trick is available with even lvl 12 wealth let alone 20th

[Maat Mons]

Isn't the strength of Wizard supposed to be strategy? And isn't strategy all about all about dictating the terms of the fight? In this challenge, one or more gods are dictating the terms of the fight.

Getting deus-ex-machina-ed into whatever scenario the DM thought up is the opposite of what board members play Wizards for. Board members play wizards to take an active roll in directing the story of the campaign. If we wanted to sit around passively waiting for an NPC to drop a quest on us, and then go kick in a bunch of doors, we could play any class. We play the army-building, impenetrable-sanctum-crafting, setting-restructuring class because we want to do those things.

So I think the appropriate response from the Wizard is "Screw this, I'm too busy transforming this medieval society into a post-scarcity utopia to waste my time fighting things." Hand off all your items to a trusted ally, arrange to have True Resurrection cast at some specified time, and then, right after you get transported to the battlegrounds, kill yourself. Get yourself out of the fight quickly, and get back to doing important things.

Everyone knows Wizards only become adventurers because it's the fastest way to get more Wizard levels. People don't take Wizard levels out of a desire to become more effective adventurers. Adventuring exists to facilitate Wizardry. Wizardry doesn't exist to facilitate adventuring. Challenges like these always seem to get that backwards.

[Raishoiken]

Isn't the strength of Wizard supposed to be strategy? And isn't strategy all about all about dictating the terms of the fight? In this challenge, one or more gods are dictating the terms of the fight.

Getting deus-ex-machina-ed into whatever scenario the DM thought up is the opposite of what board members play Wizards for. Board members play wizards to take an active roll in directing the story of the campaign. If we wanted to sit around passively waiting for an NPC to drop a quest on us, and then go kick in a bunch of doors, we could play any class. We play the army-building, impenetrable-sanctum-crafting, setting-restructuring class because we want to do those things.

So I think the appropriate response from the Wizard is "Screw this, I'm too busy transforming this medieval society into a post-scarcity utopia to waste my time fighting things." Hand off all your items to a trusted ally, arrange to have True Resurrection cast at some specified time, and then, right after you get transported to the battlegrounds, kill yourself. Get yourself out of the fight quickly, and get back to doing important things.

Everyone knows Wizards only become adventurers because it's the fastest way to get more Wizard levels. People don't take Wizard levels out of a desire to become more effective adventurers. Adventuring exists to facilitate Wizardry. Wizardry doesn't exist to facilitate adventuring. Challenges like these always seem to get that backwards.


I'm not sure it's fair to say all wizards are into the same lifestyle or would follow the exact same tactics to reach their goals. There are likely wizards out there that do get their rocks off on adventuring

[InvisibleBison]

Plan 1: Go to a place where the god(s) responsible for the battle royale can't touch me (Sigil, divine realm of a rival god, etc) and wait there until the battle royale is over and/or I've developed a spell that will protect me from getting pulled into this sort of nonsense.

Plan 2: Arrange to be 19th level (if that will prevent me from being dragooned) or dead (if necessary) at the time when the battle royale is starting/happening.

Plan 3: As soon as the battle royale starts, cast wish to teleport myself into the presence of the paladin and immediately surrender to her.

[Maat Mons]

Fair enough. I was actually intending that to be a bit hyperbolic anyway.

In terms of actually winning a battle-royale, politicking is going to be huge. You'll want to band together with allies at first, then betray them later. So game mechanics are only a part of it. Victory will depend on how intelligently people make and break alliances.

[Crake]

So I think the appropriate response from the Wizard is "Screw this, I'm too busy transforming this medieval society into a post-scarcity utopia to waste my time fighting things." Hand off all your items to a trusted ally, arrange to have True Resurrection cast at some specified time, and then, right after you get transported to the battlegrounds, kill yourself. Get yourself out of the fight quickly, and get back to doing important things.

The OP did specify you can't leave until the battle is over. So killing yourself doesn't mean you'll be able to be resurrected, as your soul will still be trapped there, presumably. The fastest way to leaving would seemingly be to achieve a swift victory.

[icefractal]

In terms of having your class matter without setting an explicit bound on optimization level (because as mentioned, it doesn't take much WBLmancy to enter the world of unlimited power, in which all characters are interchangeable), there's a variant form I'd been considering:

The challenge will take place at [specified date]. If you want to participate, be dead at that time. You will be True Resurrected on the sealed demiplane, with your starting equipment nearby (starting equipment could range from nothing, to basic non-magic gear, to a decent but fixed set of gear). There may be other gear available in the demiplane.

This does obviously bias things to classes which can:
* Operate without specific gear
* Bootstrap quickly and without external assistance

So it's not really a true test of all classes, but I think it's a premise where you can go fairly high-op without dissolving into NI formlessness.

Rumors that this tournament's purpose is finding the best low-cost minion, and the winner will be the template for future Ice Assassins used by the tournament organizers, are completely unfounded. :smallbiggrin:

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I'd plant an acorn next to the Spire in the Outlands (where deific magic doesn't work), cast plant growth on it using a Device from Ravenloft (ie, a nonmagical "magic" item), then cast acorn of far travel on the oak tree using another Device. Now I can hole up somewhere safe (such as my extradimensional hold) with the acorn in hand. Alternatively, I'd do so on a demiplane where deific magic and divine magic (but not arcane magic, or psionics, if I'm a psion) are completely blocked.

That last one is actually a good thing to do, anyway, especially since the gods are petty, cruel, and extraordinarily incompetent in most settings, such as Faerun.

"I'm not a dancing monkey, so go find someone else to torment for your sadism."

[AvatarVecna]

If I was to assume moderately-optimized opponents, I'd probably end up something like this...



Venerable Grey Elf Adult Elf Wizard 20 (Elven Generalist 1/3, Spontaneous Divination)

Attributes (lvl 20 no items, but wishes for inherent): 16/22/12/33/20/14

Flaws:
Pathetic Charisma
Vulnerable

Traits:
Aggressive
Passionate

Feats:
HD 1: Collegiate Wizard Extend Spell
Wizard 1: Scribe Scroll
Flaw: Aerenal Arcanist Improved Initiative
Flaw: Faerie Mysteries Initiate (Passions)
HD 3: Craft Wondrous Item ?
Wizard 5: - (Spontaneous Divination)
HD 6: Leadership (cohort has nearly identical build except no Leadership)
HD 9: Extraordinary Artisan ?
Wizard 10: Magical Artisan (Extraordinary Artisan) ?
HD 12: Bind Elemental ?
HD 15: Craft Staff ?
Wizard 15: Forge Ring
HD 18: Craft Wand Extra Rings
Wizard 20: Craft Rod ?


Skill Points:
Concentration 23
K/Arcana 23
K/Dungeoneering 23
K/Local 23
K/Nature 23
K/Religion 23
K/The Planes 23
Spellcraft 23
Dealer's Choice 27

The general life path:

You start out as a venerable grey elf living in Aerenal, wanting to learn enough to be a useful ancestor spirit, so you start down the path of wizardry. Along the way one of your fellow sundowning elf friends joins you because they're doing the same thing. You both master as many spells as possible, trading secrets without a care in the world. The presence of crises in the world requires the two of you to keep living as powerful wizards rather than become advisor spirits, so you both reluctantly reincarnate about 10 times each until you were elves again (you've got some racial pride, after all). This cost you each 12800 gp via spellcasting services. You end up moving to Sharn at some point to join up with a Wizard Circle there, so that you're better prepared to deal with the big magic issues that plague the world.

Once the two of you have basically copied each other's spellbooks into personally-crafted Blessed Books, you both retrain Collegiate Wizard and Aerenal Arcanist into more useful feats. By the time that retraining began, you each had blessed books filled with all wizard cantrips, 40 1st lvl spells, 24 each of levels 2 through 9, and 24 that are dealer's choice (probably another 3 each of levels 2 through 9). They've each spent 54k on extra spells for the spellbooks (shared between them), for another 16 spells per level. Thus, total spellbooks looks like:

0th: all
1st: 56
2nd: 43
3rd: 43
4th: 43
5th: 43
6th: 43
7th: 43
8th: 43
9th: 43

This takes a little under 2 Blessed Books completely full of spells, which is 25000 on the market, but...

You're both crafters at heart: over the course of decades, you've turned money and time into power. XP is a river and you've abused that to your success. You've got 46k that's dedicated to buildings, businesses, experiments, and pocket change, with the rest crafted into various items. If your items were sold on the market, they'd be worth about 3196000 gp. As it stands, you paid 647190 gp, 115056 XP, and 3196 days. Arms, Face, Feet, Hands, Head, Ring, Ring, Shoulder, Throat, Torso, Waist, Melee Weapon, and Ranged Weapon makes 13 items at ~200k each, 2 Blessed Books for another 25k, which leaves 571k for other slotless items (ioun stones and pearls of power, but also extradimensional spaces, wands, staves, rods, etc).

And then the challenge is declared and you have problems. Starting out, we've got an item of +30 (competence) to Diplomacy around in case we have sudden money emergencies, and this definitely qualifies. It gets passed around between the wizards and the followers for them all to get loans from the bank and the guild wizard's circle. Assuming average of +0 among all those people (including the two big wizards), that's going to be about 8050 gp from the bank per person, and then 500 gp per character level per person from the guild, we amass 1457250 gp to spend. This should take a couple hours getting everybody around the city to properly borrow the money. Making the requests should take about 2 hours, and the money being gotten should take about 4 since it's an awful lot of cash.

At this point, our main wizards goes to trance while the cash is being readied (taking 2 hours via Ring Of Sustenance built into one of each of their rings). They wake up, and prep spells for the day. They both prepare a series of spells to do 7 Dark Chaos Shuffles on the PC wizard, so that he can change almost all his crafting feats into more useful metamagic or wizardry feats. These are the "?" in the feat section where feats have been crossed out. One of those DCSs is picking up Extra Rings for a couple more ring slots. Once those feats are shuffled properly (prepping spells takes an hour, talking over options and casting spells should take another hour), the money should be ready. Our two wizards now go Teleporting and Plane Shifting around, looking for 1457250 gp worth of items. 400k of that will be two new super-rings, and the rest will be more extradimensional space and more staves/rods/wands, and maybe more spells. This process probably takes about 12 hours, not including 3 hours to rest and prepare spells again in the middle cuz they're running out of 'porting magic. Once they're all done shopping across the planes, they rest one more time for the main wizard to regain his slots and prep spells. Overall, the timeline looks like this:

HOURS:
2: Get Money
3: Trance + Spell Prep
1: DCSing
6: Interplanar Shopping Trip
3: Trance + Spell Prep
6: Interplanar Shopping Trip
3: Trance + Spell Prep

At this point, you're transported into the other world. The cohort has something like 1.5 million gp to pay back within a month, but he's a high-level mid-op wizard, he can handle that issue. You've got full spell preparation for general caster fights and can spontaneously cast divination spells. If you get a chance to reprepare (and there's a wizard spell you can cast that changes around your prepared spells), you can tailor your list to taking out particular enemies. You've got 3196k gp worth of general adventurer's gear (including 571k of general spell items), and another 1457k of gear designed for PvP combat (including 1057k of PvP spell items). You've got 6 feats that have to be chosen prior to meeting your new enemies, but there's a lot of good options for those to pick from.

This is a nice, general wizard "build" that's basically 10% done, because you've got 6 feats, 400 spellbook spells, 63 spells prepared, and ~4.7 million worth of items to pick. It's also a bit tongue-in-cheek cuz like...it's assuming opponents that aren't trying too hard, but are still definitely putting in some effort, so this is just a wizard using a few optimization tricks for easy power grabs while still ultimately playing the numbers game instead of the strategy game.


Everyone knows Wizards only become adventurers because it's the fastest way to get more Wizard levels.

Speaking of tongue-in-cheek, this is very quotable. Considering sigging it, if allowed. :smalltongue:

[Khatoblepas]

Not a bard diplomancer, and no guarantee any of the other 82 participants will happen to be a bard diplomancer who feels everyone should hug it out.

Oh if I'm a wizard then that'll make it a lot easier.

Find the bard, and if they're not the kind of bard that would hug it out, mindrape them so they are. If each of the 83 classes are optimised, then the bard is highly likely to have max ranks in diplomacy. Then we teleport around and recruit everyone,and sleep in a magnificent mansion.

[icefractal]

C'mon, what kind of optimized 20th level Bard doesn't have mind-affecting protection? 😛

Which is the issue with having unspecified "20th level characters" as opposition - they could have just about any defense.

[sreservoir]

I'd plant an acorn next to the Spire in the Outlands (where deific magic doesn't work), cast plant growth on it using a Device from Ravenloft (ie, a nonmagical "magic" item), then cast acorn of far travel on the oak tree using another Device. Now I can hole up somewhere safe (such as my extradimensional hold) with the acorn in hand. Alternatively, I'd do so on a demiplane where deific magic and divine magic (but not arcane magic, or psionics, if I'm a psion) are completely blocked.

If this were going to work, why not just invoke the "regardless of local conditions" clause of wish?

[bekeleven]

One strategy I was contemplating was to spend lots of money on metamagic rods and extra castings of Time Top, possibly via scrolls. Then as soon as the event begins, I stop time, use Wish's teleport CL people to a location on the plane several times while I chain time stops, then ready an action once time stop ends to Disjunction + AMF, which activates my contingent teleport, and hope the warblades and jesters and dragon shamans and whatnot kill at least a few full casters in the confusion.

The issues with this plan include: (1) You don't know the duration of your time stops so you're spending a ton of scrolls, (2) Wishing to teleport others comes with a will save and SR (and I'm sure some full casters would have spell immunity), (3) if one person does win, and that person is a full caster - and it will be - they might be able to enchant/enslave other survivors, (4) Who's to say none of these people have their own contingent spells firing off left and right, and (5) probably a bunch of other things.

So as fun as the "max chaos opening" sounds, I don't think it's the right approach.

Also my favorite part of the prompt is that somewhere on this plane is a level 20 commoner.

[Maat Mons]

@AvatarVecna: Sig away! If you want.

[MultitudeMan]

@AvatarVecna: Sig away! If you want.
All the best people sig Maat Mons :smallbiggrin: .

[AvatarVecna]

Also my favorite part of the prompt is that somewhere on this plane is a level 20 commoner.

Big deal, 1 in 19 communities has at least one of those. :smalltongue:

[Anthrowhale]

In terms of defenses, a level 20 Dragonborn Telthor Incarnate Construct Warforged Cleric 20 (and ECL 20) with the Divine Magician ACF using as feats

1. Extend Spell
3. Initiate of Mystra
6. Persistent Spell
9. Divine Metamagic[Persistent Spell]
12. Selective Spell
15. Extra Turning
18. Extra Turning

Incorporeal protects against all mundane or Ex sources of damage, except Serrenwood bows&arrows.

Adding on Extended Persistent Selective[you] Antimagic Field protects against all Spell/SLA/Su attacks and converts magic weapon attacks into mundane attacks, except (oddly) the Soulknife and Transdimensional (or force) instantaneous Conjuration(creation) spells that are projected into the AMF and Invoke Magic boosted spells.

Adding on Extended Persistent[Mystic Shield] eliminates the Invoke Magic caveat and eliminates the magic bonuses and properties of the Soulknife weapon. It also narrows the Transdimensional (or force) instantaneous Conjuration(creation) spells caveat to L7+.

Adding on Extended Persistent[Starmantle] eliminates the Serrenwood and Soulknife caveats.

At this point you are vulnerable to only Transdimensional or Force Instantaneous Conjuration(Creation) L7+ spells that project into the AMF.

[mattie_p]

Extended Persistent[Mystic Shield]

Extended Persistent[Starmantle]
How is this character persisting Range:Touch spells?

[Darg]

How is this character persisting Range:Touch spells?

It has a fixed range. The target has to always be touched.

[RNightstalker]

You're a level 20 single-classed wizard, just wandering around faerun or greyhawk or whatever when one day you hear a voice from on high:


One 20th level character of every base class - that's about 83 people (depending how the gods count), scattered throughout the plane. You're an optimized wizard, but expect many others to be optimized as well. The gods will transport all of you to random points on the plane at the exact same time. What's your plan?

What am I planning for? The OP said you can't leave until one of you wins...so what happens to everybody else? Is this a D&D version of The Condemned? It also states that you can win without killing everyone else...soooooooooo how do you actually win this thing, and what is this thing we're trying to win?

[Anthrowhale]

It has a fixed range. The target has to always be touched.

The use of Persistent Bear's Endurance, Persistent Shield of Faith, and Persistent Protection from Evil in Exemplars of Evil on page 117 adds some evidence.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know of a published statblock which uses persistent spell in a manner which avoids applying it to touch spells?

(It's also possible of course to play with Reach spell and a one level metamagic reducer if this is a sticking point.)

[mattie_p]

Range: Touch is a matter of some debate both on this forum and elsewhere on the internet. I also squint very carefully at evidence drawn from example statblocks, as WoTC is notorious for ignoring their own RAW when making statblocks.

[Darg]

Range: Touch is a matter of some debate both on this forum and elsewhere on the internet. I also squint very carefully at evidence drawn from example statblocks, as WoTC is notorious for ignoring their own RAW when making statblocks.

If we are going by RAW, then "range expressed in feet" is not a valid type for persistent spell.

[tiercel]

Since there’s literally no set win condition, I’m picturing something like:

Bob, the 20th level commoner: Oh geez oh geez oh geez, what I am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to beat any of these folks? —Hey, what are any of us supposed to do to win, anyway? I mean what, find a brass button? *fishes in pocket* Hah, I’ve got a brass button right he—

The Gods: AND THE WINNER IS: BOB, THE COMMONER! THE REST OF YOU ARE LOSERS AND MAY NOW LEAVE.

Bob, the 21st level epic commoner: What.

Everyone else: <uses spells, manifestations, incarnum, shadow magic, binding, truenaming, and all kinds of other things that are totally not spells because they’ve been renamed, as well as miscellaneous UMD WBL-mancy to depart in disgust>

Bob, now all alone in a 10000 mile diameter demiplane: Wait! Wait I’m just… I’m just a really old farmer… how do I get home?

Bob: …

Bob: …anyone?

[Anthrowhale]

Range: Touch is a matter of some debate both on this forum and elsewhere on the internet. I also squint very carefully at evidence drawn from example statblocks, as WoTC is notorious for ignoring their own RAW when making statblocks.

I read through the controversy a bit. It seems to be quite a muddle.

The +4 level metamagic 3.0 version of persistent spell was errataed in FRCS to specifically exclude touch. (see here (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/errata))
The +6 level metamagic 3.5 version does not incorporate the errata or have its own.
War Weaver's 'enlarged tapestry' implies that 'fixed range' is different from touch.
Exemplar's of Evil page 117 applies persistent spell to multiple touch range spells.

So, if you saw (2) and (4) first, you might regard (1) as applying to the older (lower cost) version and (3) as a bit of inconsistency in an informally defined term. If you saw (1) and (3) first, you might regard fixed != touch as the clear intention with the failure to include the errata in (2) as an editing failure and the misapplication in (4) as a common editing inconsistency. No matter how you read things, there is a definite inconsistency between (3) and (4).

[Gruftzwerg]

Also my favorite part of the prompt is that somewhere on this plane is a level 20 commoner.


Since there’s literally no set win condition, I’m picturing something like:

Bob, the 20th level commoner:
...

Let me tell you that imho Bob is the strongest non-full-caster build out there (even outclassing a D2 crusader) ^^ :

1. Chicken Infested flaw
2. "Blood in the Water" stance (via 2 feats)
3. we make a warforged commoner so we don't need to sleep
= Infinite untyped +1 to attack and dmg stacking

4. Flexible Mind feat to get UMD & UPD as class skills (3rd feat)
5. Magical Training (4th feat)
6. Obtain Familiar (Raven) (5tf feat)
= Now we have a buffing and healing familiar (with wands)

7. Dodge and Combat Expertise feats (6 & 7th feats)
8. Bracer of Armor + Mobility
9. Monkey Head Talisman (for Spring Attack)
10. Whirlwind Attack (8th feat : from the flaw)
= Finally we can attack anything around us. Combined with the Blood Wind spell (from familiars wand collection) we can now attack all enemies at range at once. Hit & kill everything in a single stroke due to the absurd amount of Blood in the Water stacks.


This is just the base of the build. You can expect regular 20th lvl gear and special gear for the familiar (for the wand collection).

[Quertus]

Well, I thoroughly agree with those who have already voiced the sentiment that the role of the wise is to not risk foolishly.

"you can't leave until one of you wins" - good thing skill checks don't fail on a 1 - I think I can win at something as a free action, then leave. And anyone who doesn't get it will have a long wait looking for the Mind Blank crowd on the wrong world.

However, I'm all about combining Teleport Through Time and Mindrape to affect *who* the competition is, personality-wise, to make this not a risk.

If it is a risk, being not just dead but disintegrated sounds pretty hilarious as a way to start in a "lost" state.

However, Wizards have huge advantages here. Just like how Prismatic Wall / Sphere can *only* be taken down by certain specific spells, imagine how boned the others will be if they encounter the custom spell "Quertus' Fortress" - "may only be affected by Quertus' Drawbridge Opener, Quertus' Barrier Bypasser, and Quertus' Sanctum Securer"… as one of several thousand custom spells the Wizard knows.

A proper Wizard isn't just playing 5d chess, they're forcing you to learn the rules of the game that they invented for you to even have a chance to play.

But Wizards have another advantage to leverage: training. I'd hit up the 2,000 year old, NI level Wizard who trained me, and get them to help me power level into Epic Spell range (I was only staying at 20th to make crafting easier - and to earn NI money in my immortal existence). The NI number of caster Simulacra in my portable holes should let me cast any Epic spell I can imagine, letting me invent whole new 5d chess games that my opposition doesn't know the rules for at my whim.

And, lastly, as if I wasn't playing enough games already, I'm a top contender for creating enough sentient life to reach critical mass to power the new gods of the new world.

There's very little most classes can do to even play the same games a Wizard should be able to play almost without trying.

[icefractal]

But Wizards have another advantage to leverage: training. I'd hit up the 2,000 year old, NI level Wizard who trained me, and get them to help me power level into Epic Spell range (I was only staying at 20th to make crafting easier - and to earn NI money in my immortal existence). The NI number of caster Simulacra in my portable holes should let me cast any Epic spell I can imagine, letting me invent whole new 5d chess games that my opposition doesn't know the rules for at my whim.
Nah, see, once you put NI resources and mentors on the table, any class is about equally powerful.

You're a Commoner?
Have UMD. Get enough boosts to it (from items or assistants) to use a scroll of Shapechange.
Use Shapechange to get NI Wishes of NI value each.
Use those wishes to achieve as much absurd stats and absurd minions as you want.
Spellcasting? No problem, you have plenty of caster Simulacra. And also as many Staves/Scrolls as you need. And also Crafted Contingent Spells you can refresh when needed.

Full casters are at the apex of their (relative) power when the game doesn't have any NI tricks or serious minion-mancy being used.