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neochaos
2008-04-13, 06:07 PM
Well, I now understand how wizards are so powerful, but I cannot figure out how to use that power against other characters. In Wizard vs Other Classes situation, what strategy and spells should wizard use against the other classes? Please give me some advise in

Wizard vs Fighter, Wizard vs Paladin, Wizard vs Cleric, Wizard vs Druid, and Wizard vs Wizard situations.

Kurald Galain
2008-04-13, 06:21 PM
Wizard vs Fighter (or Paladin) is so skewed that it's not even funny.

* Ensure they cannot find you with Invis, cannot reach you with Fly, and cannot shoot you with Wind Wall. Or simply win initiative with Moment of Prescience or Celerity.
* Do a Time Stop, then liberally spray the area with Delayed Blast Fireballs that detonate simultaneously.
* Lock them in Solid Fog, throw a Prismatic Sphere above them, then Reverse Gravity.
* Hit them with metamagiced Enervation to drop their saves, then Disintegrate for good measure.
* And so forth.

Collin152
2008-04-13, 06:24 PM
Fly, Windwall.
You can ray of frost them to death.

Squash Monster
2008-04-13, 08:15 PM
Wizard vs Fighter, Wizard vs Paladin
If at a high enough level that they have rings of freedom of movement: fly, invis, pick at them
If at lower levels: black tentacles, solid fog, twiddle thumbs

Wizard vs Cleric
If below level 7: web, stinking cloud, ect, then pick at them
If level 7 or above: you're screwed. Run away, then scry on them until you find where they sleep and kill them there. If you have to fight, hit them with save or die spells that are not based on restriction of movement or actual death.

Wizard vs Druid
If below level 7: web, stinking cloud, ect, then pick at them
If level 7 or 8: use enervation until killable
If level 9 or higher: you're screwed. See Cleric

Wizard vs Wizard
Win initiative
Stinking Cloud
Fort-based save or dies

Crow
2008-04-13, 09:04 PM
Wizard vs Druid
If below level 7: web, stinking cloud, ect, then pick at them
If level 7 or 8: use enervation until killable
If level 9 or higher: you're screwed. See Cleric

I think you need to change the lowest catagory to "below level 5 or 6". At level 7, the Druid will have access to Dispel Magic, and I haven't seen a full-caster yet that doesn't pack that one.

Emperor Tippy
2008-04-13, 09:32 PM
Wizard vs Cleric
If below level 7: web, stinking cloud, ect, then pick at them
If level 7 or above: you're screwed. Run away, then scry on them until you find where they sleep and kill them there. If you have to fight, hit them with save or die spells that are not based on restriction of movement or actual death.

Wizard vs Druid
If below level 7: web, stinking cloud, ect, then pick at them
If level 7 or 8: use enervation until killable
If level 9 or higher: you're screwed. See Cleric

With full access to all 3.5 books I'll take the wizard at level 20 over anything except a Planar Shepard druid.

To the OP: If you have your buffs on there isn't much at all that the fighter and paladin can do to you. Strategy and Spells depends on your level but its generally not difficult to figure out with 30 seconds worth of thought.

Against clerics, druids, and wizards it depends even more on the level and the enemies strategy and spells.

sikyon
2008-04-13, 09:51 PM
Wizard vs Fighter

Disjunction. Then teleport straight up. Then fly, and you win.


Wizard vs Paladin

D-d-d-disjunction


Wizard vs Cleric
Wizard vs Druid

Timestop Foresight + celerity + timestop + scrolls of delayed fireball or such should solve your problems.


Wizard vs Wizard

Win initiative, then above.


With full access to all 3.5 books I'll take the wizard at level 20 over anything except a Planar Shepard druid.

Never seen hte Planar Shepard druid, having problems seeing it as stronger than wizard.

Solo
2008-04-13, 09:54 PM
Defeating CoDzilla:

1. Stay out of range.
2. Stay out of sight.
3. Go to town with no save spells and reflex save spells.
4 ???
5. Profit

sonofzeal
2008-04-13, 09:56 PM
Never seen hte Planar Shepard druid, having problems seeing it as stronger than wizard.
Planar Sheppard basically walks around in a bubble of whichever plane he's chosen. This includes all benefits, drawbacks, and traits of that plane. Including subjective time passage.

So how does taking 100 actions to ever 1 action anyone else gets sound?

sikyon
2008-04-13, 10:17 PM
Planar Sheppard basically walks around in a bubble of whichever plane he's chosen. This includes all benefits, drawbacks, and traits of that plane. Including subjective time passage.

So how does taking 100 actions to ever 1 action anyone else gets sound?

Are you sure about subjective time? It was errata'd out of genesis, I believe. Winning initiative should still have the wizard winning, no? Foresight celerity timestop is always awesome.

Crow
2008-04-13, 10:21 PM
Are you sure about subjective time? It was errata'd out of genesis, I believe. Winning initiative should still have the wizard winning, no? Foresight celerity timestop is always awesome.

I was under the impression that winning initiative would still get the wizard a win. Maybe tippy can elaborate. Foresight-Celerity-Timestop BS won't work for the wizard at level 15 when the Shepherd can make his bubble though.

I hate how every conversation devolves into lvl 20 versus lvl 20. How often do people seriously play at those levels. That the poster needs to ask makes me think that he is referring to a lower level range.

sikyon
2008-04-13, 10:23 PM
Foresight-Celerity-Timestop BS won't work for the wizard at level 15 when the Shepherd can make his bubble though.

Why not? Do spells not go through the bubble or such?

Collin152
2008-04-13, 10:24 PM
Why not? Do spells not go through the bubble or such?

Can't cast Foresight.
9th level.

sikyon
2008-04-13, 10:29 PM
Can't cast Foresight.
9th level.

Scroll? So there's a brief window? heh.

Squash Monster
2008-04-13, 10:29 PM
Crow - Below level 7, not including level 7. And dispel is nowhere near as much of a threat to the Wizard's capabilities as Freedom of Movement is.

Emperor Tippy - My suggestions are more under the assumption that you run into the given class during day to day adventuring. The Cleric and Druid are much more powerful adventuring characters than the Wizard. Wizards are, however, usually considered the best duelists: and Planar Shepherd is not to great in duels, as an opposing caster can very easily get within the bubble (and the fight is likely to be over before the first round anyway).

Solo - The best reflex save spells inhibit movement, which CoDzilla will be immune to due to Freedom of Movement. The best no-save spells are death effects like Enervation, which CoDzilla is immune to due to Deathward. But yes, whatever spells you have that slip through those are your best choices.

Sikyon - Yes, it actually does work that way. And what's worse, other flavors of Planar Shepherd are just as bad: some get Wish for practically free, while others get infinite HP.

Crow
2008-04-13, 10:32 PM
Crow - Below level 7, not including level 7. And dispel is nowhere near as much of a threat to the Wizard's capabilities as Freedom of Movement is.

LOL! That's the other one they all have! I forgot all about it. :smallsmile:

Eclipse
2008-04-14, 01:01 AM
Here are a few low level ideas:
Ray of Enfeeblement does strength damage with just a ranged touch attack and no saving throw. A few of those will have anyone in armor imprisoned in armor they can no longer lift. Once at zero strength, they're helpless. Coup de grace at will. Rogues and other high dex characters may pose a problem in actually hitting them though.

Mirror Image is an amazing defensive buff that makes it so anyone attacking you has a one in n+1 chance of hitting you, where n is the number of images you have. Even when you only have one image left, it's a 50/50 chance, which is as good as full concealment when the enemy knows which square you're in.

Summon Swarm is a good choice for those who are a bit harder to hit. Swarms always hit whatever is occupying the space they occupy, so you can be sure your opponent won't like it. They also take less damage from most conventional weaponry, just to make life harder. Use the distraction of the swarm to your advantage to renew any buffs that need renewing, then attack and resummon if necessary.

Talic
2008-04-14, 01:06 AM
Solo - The best reflex save spells inhibit movement, which CoDzilla will be immune to due to Freedom of Movement. The best no-save spells are death effects like Enervation, which CoDzilla is immune to due to Deathward. But yes, whatever spells you have that slip through those are your best choices.


I don't care how good your Freedom of Movement is... It won't let you walk through a Resilient Sphere. Cast a Cloudkill emanating from the cleric's square, and Rod of Quicken a Resilient Sphere. He'll be burning a lot of restorations, before the day is out.

GrandMasterMe
2008-04-14, 07:57 AM
Assuming you are high enough level to have a rod of metagagic(maximize) you should open with a maximized time stop and in round 1 of the time stop use grease, even if they make there save which they problably will they will still be forced to be balancing:smallbiggrin: then for the rest of your time stop cast DBF, except on the last round of your time stop, then cast thunderlance just incase your enemy somehow gets to you, it is a nice spell because it has 20ft reach, dose 3d6 damage and you use your spellcasting ability exe: Int for wizards, Cha for bards and sorcerers so on and so fourth

mostlyharmful
2008-04-14, 08:06 AM
Assuming you are high enough level to have a rod of metagagic(maximize) you should open with a maximized time stop and in round 1 of the time stop use grease, even if they make there save which they problably will they will still be forced to be balancing:smallbiggrin: then for the rest of your time stop cast DBF, except on the last round of your time stop, then cast thunderlance just incase your enemy somehow gets to you, it is a nice spell because it has 20ft reach, dose 3d6 damage and you use your spellcasting ability exe: Int for wizards, Cha for bards and sorcerers so on and so fourth

:smallconfused: Eh? If you're able to cast Timestop and can afford a rod of greater maximize there's a few better options than Grease and Thunderlance, and DBF while being funny isn't the cutting edge of arena combat either.

If you want to win as a mage the first thing to think about is preventing the other guy from hurting/finding you, longterm buffs and contingent effects serve for this one. (Invis, Fly, Contingency, Mirror Image, Blur, Greater Blink, ????)

Then you insure you go first (Foresight, Celerity, Improved Init, Nerveskitter, Hmmingbird familiar, Div effects giving you the advantage, ?????)

After that you lock them down, either reducing their mobility at lower levels or preventing them from taking actions at higher ones, (The Fog line, The Wall line, Irressistable Dance, Status effects, mind control, Save-or-X, Dispelling their Buffs+Items gets an honourable mention here, ????)

After that it's not really much bother, you can either finish them with take-down stuff like Coup de Gra-ing orbs or Mind reaming them with dominate or whatever you want.

All this presupposses that your mage wants to fight them and doesn't want to avoid or bypass them which are both easier and cheaper for spell slots but tricky when there's a party trailing after you.

Skyserpent
2008-04-14, 08:32 AM
How would a Wizard go about taking down a powerful Tome of Battle fighter? They're a smidgen higher on the power scale than most of our core friends.

Eldariel
2008-04-14, 08:45 AM
Few important things that change Mage vs. Mage combat a lot:
-Battlemagic Perception
-Duelward
-Anticipate Teleportation (on level 20, that's a 100ft-radius area you really, really shouldn't teleport to, and it could potentially be widened)

Cleric also has a limited access to the same spells, through Anyspell from Spell-domain. As long as Foresight-type effects are already in place preventing either party from being flat-footed after losing initiative, there'll be one counterspell action to use in addition to all the protective buffs. Through such defenses, it's generally difficult to disable the opponent in one round, especially if the characters are in any way duel optimized (meaning they've got buffed Dispel-checks, a large portition of their daily allotment directed towards defense and the rest chosen to optimize efficiency versus a single target).

Spells like Spell Turning, Spell Resistance, Spell Immunity and so on could also be in effect, all serving to make the fight very even and long. I'd wager a duel optimized Cleric vs. Wizard fight on level where 9th level spells are available could go very long and turn into a finesse battle of maximizing the margins and depending much on the feat selection and choice of buffs as well as angle of attack. Druid is left behind in a duel mostly because Druid doesn't have Cleric's ability of using half the Wizard's spell list through domains (becoming a Cheater of Mystra works too, of course) and really, such duels tend to not be about physical prowess anymore; hitting things for damage is inferior to spending a single action to disable/slay them.

mostlyharmful
2008-04-14, 08:45 AM
How would a Wizard go about taking down a powerful Tome of Battle fighter? They're a smidgen higher on the power scale than most of our core friends.

Some of them are. It really depends on the disciplines they focus on, if they go for save boosting and defnsive stuff in Diamond Mind or Iron Heart Whatever you focus on No-Save spells, if they take lots of things from Shadow hand then lock-down spells usually used against casters like Dimensional Anchour get used, if they focus on direct melee stuff like tiger claw, setting sun and stone dragon then although they're better at what they should be (melee combat) they don't change a casters tactics overmuch.

Knowing what a ToBer has up their sleeve is the purview of the well informed, Div using, mage. By the time ToB users get uber any PC should be able to cobble together at least some information on them before they kick the door in.

Eldariel
2008-04-14, 09:14 AM
To quote BenSan from the CO boards:
"Martial adepts continue to play the same game that everyone else has been playing, with various new refinements and twists, up through twenty. This game can be called D&D. High-level spellcasters get to play the all-new games of Rocket Launcher Tag and "Let's Bone Reality Up The Backside", and nobody else gets to play."

Basically, yes, ToB-characters have more of a chance vs. casters than normal melee characters, but not much more. An überarcher from ToB, for example, could end the fight in the case that he wins the Initiative and your contingency (or Contingent Spells - a feat allows you to craft them) isn't set to teleport you to a sanctuary in the event of an attack that would hit your person. For example, in a combat arena with teleportation outside it, an archer with a Force bow could easily end the battle with his high Initiative (it could, in fact, be high enough to win the Initiative against Moment of Prescience, provided that the Wizard doesn't have too much Init optimization beyond that - or one could interpret Moment to not apply to Initiative since it's technically a check unto its own that isn't listed) Island in Time + Time Stands Still while also maintaining his defensive capabilities.

However, those are specific circumstances that gimp the Wizard and assume he isn't prepared and not Wishing the ToB char out of existence or Scry'n'Killing his ass out of the moon without any fear of retaliation. In an Arena Fight, a ToB character specifically designed to defeat a Wizard could concievably do it some percentage of the time, but in a fight in a real world with effectively limitless space and options, the Wizard will never need to face the ToB character; he can be killed from a different plane or whatever.

Sir Giacomo
2008-04-14, 06:20 PM
Wizard vs Fighter (or Paladin) is so skewed that it's not even funny.

:smallsigh:


* Ensure they cannot find you with Invis,
See invisbility items? Pinpointing with listen?


cannot reach you with Fly,
archery.


and cannot shoot you with Wind Wall.
They can, since wind wall is static. And the caster cannot use it while flying (it needs to be set on the ground) and even if you just hover over the ground for only some 10fts to stay within the ground-based wind wall, the fighter/paladin armed with a bow simply moves in, shoots from below.
A much better defense vs missile attacks is concealment or blink, but the first may be overcome with seeking arrows, while the latter also cuts your own spell attacks (greater blink can help, though).


Or simply win initiative with Moment of Prescience or Celerity.
You cannot win initiative with any of these spells. Moment of prescience does not add to initiative roll, celerity gives you extra actions that you cannot use when you do not have initiative (and btw once celerity is in, so are belts of battle).
Normally the level 17&above combo of foresight (extended or dmmed) with celerity is advocated, but at those levels a timestop/AMF availble also to highest level paladins/fighters via items can knock that out, too.


* Do a Time Stop, then liberally spray the area with Delayed Blast Fireballs that detonate simultaneously.
Ring of evasion (entirely possible by those levels 17&up). And/or spell resistance buff. And/or fire protection.


* Lock them in Solid Fog,
You cannot "lock" someone in a solid fog. What you do, though, is lose line of sight to the fighter and paladin (= no more targeted spells). Not always a good tactics.


throw a Prismatic Sphere above them, then Reverse Gravity.
Again, level 17& up. And you cannot cast through a prismatic sphere, which is built around the caster (10ft radius, so a bit difficult to imagine it being "thrown" over someone).


* Hit them with metamagiced Enervation to drop their saves, then Disintegrate for good measure.
Disintegrate is not such a good attacking spell (although it is versatile), since you need to
1) bypass touch AC (which is not lowered by the enervation btw)
2) overcome the save and
3) overcome SR.


* And so forth.
Yes.:smallamused:

@the OP
Now that some of these typical "spell win combos" vs non-casters like fighters and paladins have been (again) debunked some ideas for wizards concerning the class opponents you listed:

vs fighter
- illusion and enchantment spells are great. The first can greatly upset a fighter since true seeing becomes only availble at very high levels. The second can turn their brawn to your advantage
- you can defend vs chargers with things like solid fog or evard's tentacles. Vs archers, you can defend via getting cover (wall spells), or summoning minions to get the archer into melee.

vs paladin
- illusions similarly are quite good, although enchantments suffer from the higher paladin saves. Still, paladin more often have heavy armour (for the knightly fluff), so simlar to clerics you can target them with touch spells.
- vs chargers: similar to fighters.
- the double threat of paladin AND a mount should make tactics that divide the two imperative, so that you do not have to fight both at the same time. Area control spells like solid fog are doubly important here, combined with area effects that the paladin cannot escape from without leaving his mount behind (say, a blink effect).

vs Cleric
- most clerics wear heavy armour in their career and have low touch AC. Target them with ray/touch spells (enfeeblement is good at lower levels, in particular since clerics often do not have STR as their highest score)
- deny clerics their ways to refresh spells (attacking them at the hour of day they have to pray etc.)
- clerics can attack wizards via 1) buffing others 2) fighting buffed on their own and 3) spell duels. on 1) and 2): do the usual anti-meleer tactics, hide, summon own allies from positions of relative safety. 3) some cleric attacks could target your weak saves. Try to cover those (death ward item, for instance, and resistance to elemental attacks). Holy word spells are likewise quite powerful; though with a freedom of movement effect you can ovecome paralysis; with a silence item you could stop it altogether, and you could try to keep the range to medium-long vs the cleric's larger number of close range spells.
- target a cleric's weak save: reflex. As long as the cleric does not have evasion, you can go quite far with evocation direct damage spells. Note that the cleric might have spell resistance buff up at high levels, so get some level-enhancing items and spell resistance penetration feats.

vs Druids
- similar to clerics, although they much more rarely have anything on them that could weigh them down.
- Basically, you can also make use of area of effect direct damage spells (it would also hurt the animal companion, but note that it may have evasion in case the druid does not take the biggest kind for its level).

vs other wizards.
- now, that's open for debate....Illusionists are quite powerful until true seeing items come up. Apart from that, maybe try a powerfully built wizard with high physical stats and a good melee weapon and have him use AMF on his colleages. Initiative could be key in deciding any duel, as could the familiar with the higher spot/listen abilities to avoid surprise at lower levels.

- Giacomo

Solo
2008-04-14, 06:27 PM
Disintegrate is not such a good attacking spell (although it is versatile), since you need to
1) bypass touch AC (which is not lowered by the enervation btw)
2) overcome the save and
3) overcome SR.

1. Touch AC is usually low.
2. Fort save lowered by Enervation
3. Since when do fighters and Paladins get Spell Resistance?



- target a cleric's weak save: reflex. As long as the cleric does not have evasion, you can go quite far with evocation direct damage spells.

Cleric: Cure Moderate Wounds!

Go Team Cleric!

Eldariel
2008-04-14, 06:47 PM
The thing is, every non-Archer character is going to suck at Archery, 'cause the best bow enchantment (Splitting) requires two Archery-feats (PBS>Precise Shot) and to maximize archery, you also need Rapid Shot. Before that, you'll be dealing 1d8+little damage per shot, which is really trivial for a character above level 5; getting through mere 100 hitpoints would take over 10 turns with 20 Str and +5 bow. So unless the warrior is a focused Archer, there isn't much you need to fear from him after Flight unless he's winged; if he has his own items for Flight, you can deal good damage by Dispelling them (because no self-respecting Wizard ever leaves home without Dispel Magic/Greater prepared) when he's in the air. Also, Wind Wall allows you to stay sufficiently high to hide behind it without being on melee range; on level 5 it's already 25ft high, so you can be high enough to hide behind it while midair without the danger of being in the reach of even a jumping Fighter or Paladin.

Most effective combos before they get Freedom of Movement-items: Solid Fog + Cloudkill. That kills practically all melee characters soon enough if they don't have Freedom of Movement. If they do, Dispel Magic their item and repeat parts 1 and 2. Generally, bombing them with rays kills them fast enough. Dispel any stupid protections they have and go to town. The thing that makes making plans easy for Wizard is that they can Dispel basically anything that would be of inconvenience, while vs. non-casters, they don't need to worry about the same, as items of (Greater) Dispel Magic invariably either cost too much or have too low caster level to be effective.

If you really want to win with Delayed Blast Fireballs (I don't understand why would you do that except to humiliate someone though), just spend first action to Dispel their protections and then Fireball them to death. If they have natural Fire Immunity (or Flame's Blessing stance) though, I suppose you could switch the element of your DBF (since you seem focused on the spell anyways, might as well pick Elven Spell Lore or something to cast them as sonic - not an economical plan, but Delayed Blast Fireball rarely is).


Regardless, what you brought up stands: Wizard has so many options to just win it's staggering. Many spells are so open-ended it's not even funny, and then there're spells with XP cost and scrolls that Wizard can use if he really needs to win.

Moment of Prescience is interesting: Initiative can be treated as an opposed Dex-check with modifiers, whici would cause MoP to work, or as a special check, when it wouldn't. Whether it works or not is quite paramount to a duelist Wizard, but even if it doesn't, thanks to Hummingbird familiar, free Improved Initiative on the first level (with Martial Wizard-ACF) and Nerveskitter and so on, Wizard tends to still go far before almost anyone else. Also, thanks to Contingencies et co. longterm buffs a Wizard is one of the few characters who can survive going second.

Collin152
2008-04-14, 06:53 PM
Cleric: Cure Moderate Wounds!

Go Team Cleric!

Cleric: Destruction.

Go Team Cleric!

tyckspoon
2008-04-14, 07:01 PM
If you really want to win with Delayed Blast Fireballs (I don't understand why would you do that except to humiliate someone though), just spend first action to Dispel their protections and then Fireball them to death. If they have natural Fire Immunity (or Flame's Blessing stance) though, I suppose you could switch the element of your DBF (since you seem focused on the spell anyways, might as well pick Elven Spell Lore or something to cast them as sonic - not an economical plan, but Delayed Blast Fireball rarely is).


It's really more of a party trick, or something you do if you really need to kill somebody from inside a Time Stop instead of just using your free rounds to get an insurmountable advantage in buffs/summoned allies/field-control spells laid out. I first encountered it on these forums in a thread entitled something like 'How do I kill a dragon with blasting?', where the solution is to get all your blasting done in one round. It's also a potentially valid mind-game tactic, because Everybody Knows Ref-save-based blasting is a sucker's bet and fire resistance is easy to come by.. so a wizard who prepares to lay down a four or five round barrage of fireballs in one action can do pretty well against opponents who have spent their money buying defenses against death effects and getting polymorphed into rabbits instead.

Eldariel
2008-04-14, 07:06 PM
I did it a lot in Baldur's Gate, but beyond that I've always found there's almost always a less spell level consumptive way of doing it. One just has to find it. I mean, 9th level slot and probably all your 7th levels is a lot. But yea, I guess it's a decent option for an arena fight; otherwise I can't see why anyone would prepare all those DFBs as that cuts to your overall usefulness a lot.

Kurald Galain
2008-04-15, 03:11 AM
:smallsigh:
Ah yes, the usual false arguments from you. So, have you done any work yet on those builds you promised last month? You haven't said anything here that you haven't said a hundred times before, and that hasn't been thoroughly debunked and disproven a hundred times before.

Check out the Logic Ninja guide for strategies that actually work.