To kill a Caster

[Brock Samson]

Hm, I don't think I accept "spot checks don't work that way." Realistically, he's just not going to be seen.

And how exactly are diseases trivial when their onset begins at night, while the wizard is sleeping, him not waking up but getting a horrible rest and so unable to regain spells the next day. The cleric you've hired who's been casting commune knows what day this occurs and that's the day you get the wizard.

[Brock Samson]

Ah those succubi. Yeah they'll all have to be shot at by your hired mercenaries on the ground. A bit of a distraction.

[Keld Denar]

And Shapeshifting into a Golem which is immune to all diseases will cure anything that ails you at any given moment. Or SSing into something with Cure Disease or Heal as a SLA just because you can....

[Yukitsu]

Hm, I don't think I accept "spot checks don't work that way." Realistically, he's just not going to be seen.

Realistically, you'd be dead from hitting the ground, no hit point non-sense asked.


And how exactly are diseases trivial when their onset begins at night, while the wizard is sleeping, him not waking up but getting a horrible rest and so unable to regain spells the next day. The cleric you've hired who's been casting commune knows what day this occurs and that's the day you get the wizard.

You don't get any penalty to spell preperation from listed diseases. And your communion every day costs more than you can afford. And if the wizard got a cold and couldn't prepare spells for some reason, he'd be in a rope trick, where you can't get him.

[monty]

Hm, I don't think I accept "spot checks don't work that way." Realistically, he's just not going to be seen.

And how exactly are diseases trivial when their onset begins at night, while the wizard is sleeping, him not waking up but getting a horrible rest and so unable to regain spells the next day. The cleric you've hired who's been casting commune knows what day this occurs and that's the day you get the wizard.

There are no facing rules, and allies don't provide cover. That realistic enough?

Even if he somehow fails against it and somehow loses his spells, he gets the disease removed, pulls out the scroll (or wand, if you prefer) of Rope Trick he'd been saving just in case, and goes back to sleep.

[Yukitsu]

Ah those succubi. Yeah they'll all have to be shot at by your hired mercenaries on the ground. A bit of a distraction.

Hired mercs either won't hit, will cost too much, or increase your odds of being spotted, as that would drive them upwards, not kill them.

[Brock Samson]

Methinks there needs to go some form of super-disease created for D&D casters.

[Stupendous_Man]

Monks?:smallwink:

Well, they're more like parasites...:smalltongue:

[Yukitsu]

Methinks there needs to go some form of super-disease created for D&D casters.

I think that's called other casters. All first tier characters get to about this level of unkillable. Wizards require the most effort, and have the most possible returns.

[Brock Samson]

To kill this unkillable ultra-prepared caster, I think you're gonna need to pull out the big guns. Use the "Sleeping with the DM" card.

[monty]

To kill this unkillable ultra-prepared caster, I think you're gonna need to pull out the big guns. Use the "Sleeping with the DM" card.

My DM's a guy. Pass.

[Brock Samson]

Ah, so then instead of a seduction it becomes a threat. Still, a valid card.

[Yukitsu]

To kill this unkillable ultra-prepared caster, I think you're gonna need to pull out the big guns. Use the "Sleeping with the DM" card.

The caster I posited isn't actually that prepared compared to what is possible to see in a truelly paranoid wizard of the same level, actually.

[Brock Samson]

I was making a general comment about any/all of the casters mentioned in the thread.

So I don't know much about the Rope Trick spell, is there ANY way at all possible to find it and get in while the caster sleeps?

[monty]

I was making a general comment about any/all of the casters mentioned in the thread.

So I don't know much about the Rope Trick spell, is there ANY way at all possible to find it and get in while the caster sleeps?

Finding it, I don't know. But you could hit it with a transdimensional spell. While being assaulted by succubi and whatever else is around.

[Brock Samson]

So if you did find it and had greater invisibility going, isn't there also an "invisibile spell" so the effect can't be seen? Add in Silence to muffle any noises the Wizard would be making and would the Succubi/whatever even know you were there at all?

[revolver kobold]

Methinks there needs to go some form of super-disease created for D&D casters.

Spellplauge?

[Yukitsu]

So if you did find it and had greater invisibility going, isn't there also an "invisibile spell" so the effect can't be seen? Add in Silence to muffle any noises the Wizard would be making and would the Succubi/whatever even know you were there at all?

In the open while moving with invisible, you have a spot DC of 20, one higher than a succubouses spot check. In other words, that wouldn't stop them from spotting you.

[Brock Samson]

I thought that it gave you a +20 to your hide check if you were moving, and a +40 if you were standing still. If so, then with some ranks in hide and a decent dex you're doing fine.

[Yukitsu]

I thought that it gave you a +20 to your hide check if you were moving, and a +40 if you were standing still. If so, then with some ranks in hide and a decent dex you're doing fine.

Stupid and rules lawyery, but you don't get to make a hide check when invisible, so it's just the DC 20. Unless you have concealment from some other source, you can't make the hide check.

[Brock Samson]

So if you can gain concealment from tall grass you can make a hide check, but if they've mowed the lawn you can't?????

And if you dimension door in you're not moving and still get the DC 40 then right? Effectively shutting down the succubi.

[olentu]

If I am remembering correctly a creature holding still is DC 30 and a completely immobile creature is DC 40.

[Yukitsu]

So if you can gain concealment from tall grass you can make a hide check, but if they've mowed the lawn you can't?????

And if you dimension door in you're not moving and still get the DC 40 then right? Effectively shutting down the succubi.

Yes, however when you try to attack, they will see you. Or do anything, really.

[Brock Samson]

So even if all you do is cast a spell it lowers the DC by 20?

How about if you cast still spells?

[olentu]

A creature can generally notice the presence of an active invisible creature within 30 feet with a DC 20 Spot check. The observer gains a hunch that “something’s there” but can’t see it or target it accurately with an attack. A creature who is holding still is very hard to notice (DC 30). An inanimate object, an unliving creature holding still, or a completely immobile creature is even harder to spot (DC 40)

Just out of curiosity what spell would you be casting.

[Brock Samson]

What am I thinking. Fireball = 500+ feet, so cast a transdimensional, sudden maximized, sudden empowered fireball, which your sleeping wizard automatically fails, and walk away.

[Yukitsu]

What am I thinking. Fireball = 500+ feet, so cast a transdimensional, sudden maximized, sudden empowered fireball, which your sleeping wizard automatically fails, and walk away.

Almost impossible to determine which square to do that do. Especially since you cast it, most commonly, while in an inn room.

[Brock Samson]

Is there a way to figure out what area to cast it in? Since you do get a 20 ft radius (and if you throw on enlarged a 40 ft radius)?

[olentu]

Well the spell does create an invisible window and if you could find some way to see the window then you would be able to properly target the spell. However after some consideration about possible counter arguments to seeing the window I have come up with the following possible difficulties assuming that since you need to get a target you did not see the place the spell was cast.

Assuming that you are staying at long range it is possible that to spot the window you might have to contend with the -1 penalty per 10 feet of distance from the window.

Another thing that struck me is from a previous discussion about getting to sleeping wizards is that using an area dispel it would seem to be possible to dispel the material plane side of the window while not dispelling the spell itself as long as the rope is pulled into the rope trick. So if it is possible to leave the rope trick the caster could send a creature in to pull in the rope. The caster would then dispel the window. The creature would come out with the rope and the caster would then enter and pull the rope in after himself. Alternatively since the caster in question seems to be one that uses planar binding often the caster could just bind some outsider that can use dispel magic on the window after he enters.

So there is my quick analysis of the problem of targeting the spell. There may however be some problems that I have not thought of.

[Brock Samson]

Well it's really not necessary to have to be at long range. Just run at x4 straight in and still in that round cast the quickened maximized etc... etc... fireball or whathaveyou. Or if you don't feel like quickening it use a Belt of Battle which can give you up to an extra full-round action that round. Then also use celerity. Put the hurtin' on good.

So yes, it does seem nigh impossible to kill the most thoroughly optimized Wizard of ultimate paranoia as a non-caster.

Still, there absolutely has to be a way, provided they have access to magic items. Hm, they could always try to bluff/diplomacize the caster into having a tea party with them inside a dead-magic zone, then at some point while in the dead-zone grapple/kill/incapacitate them.

[Yukitsu]

Is there a way to figure out what area to cast it in? Since you do get a 20 ft radius (and if you throw on enlarged a 40 ft radius)?

The problem is first knowing that the wizard is around and hiding in a rope trick. It's easy enough to assume he is, but communion doesn't work when you ask for a very specific spot like that, scry would allow a succubous to see you coming, and at this level, divinations are easy to fool when stationary anyway, using stealth skills and stalking means you'll be spotted eventually, especially if the wizard moves into an open area at some point in the day, and in general, they don't cast rope trick right out in the open. If it's an inn for instance, you'd have to figure out how to find the right room without stalking the wizard all day, and then how to get into the room without alerting everybody. Either way, if you try stalking, you'll run out of invisibility before the day ends, and even then it isn't guaranteed that you'll not be spotted.

[jguy]

Is there a creature/animal/thing that is just the bane of all casters? Like some thing that walks around in an AMF, eats magic, or is generally immune to arcane/divine?

[hamishspence]

Faerun has the Nishruu, updated to 3.5 in Lost Empires of Faerun- not all that formidable. If you use full magic-psionics transparency, the Psion-Killer might be a problem- immune to everything that grants power-resistance, and casts dispel psionics.

[Emperor Tippy]

Is there a creature/animal/thing that is just the bane of all casters? Like some thing that walks around in an AMF, eats magic, or is generally immune to arcane/divine?

Advanced Shadesteel Golem made by a caster with the Rudimentary Intelligence feat and a CL of 36 that takes warblade levels and has a Contingent AMF on (courtesy of Craft Contingent Spell).

Immunity to Magic, all the construct immunities, ton's of HD, all the warblade benefits, and that can fly in an AMF (with a fly speed of 90 and perfect maneuverability).

[Yukitsu]

On the other hand, by the time the caster has to fight it, it's not so useful, as in all odds, that thing isn't going to make it to the wizards body. Unless you throw that at my level 10 wizard.

There is also the CR 21 flux slime, which is a peculiar but potentially effective method to use. However, again, not likely to make it to the caster's body.

[Nohwl]

Advanced Shadesteel Golem made by a caster with the Rudimentary Intelligence feat and a CL of 36 that takes warblade levels and has a Contingent AMF on (courtesy of Craft Contingent Spell).


so how does a wizard kill it?

[Yukitsu]

so how does a wizard kill it?

Ostensibly gate.

[Vinotaur]

so how does a wizard kill it?

By seeing it coming and throwing an Orb of Death.

[ClericofPhwarrr]

By seeing it coming and throwing an Orb of Death.

I think that's what all the HD are supposed to prevent. Or try to prevent, at least.

[Vinotaur]

I think that's what all the HD are supposed to prevent. Or try to prevent, at least.

I don't know how it's going to have more then 300 HP without a Con score. Unless you are telling me this thing has more then 45 HD, in which case, shove it up your but Epic challenge, I have Epic spellcasting and you can go cry.

[Emperor Tippy]

By seeing it coming and throwing an Orb of Death.

Pretty much.

[Lappy9000]

okay, for someone who isn't a caster, how does one go about killing a level 20 wizard, cleric, or druid?

1) Ignore those who don't believe anything other than a caster isn't worth playing.

2) Work together with the rest of your team.

3) ???

4) Profit!

[Sir Giacomo]

Hi,

just jumping in again to try to bring things back to the realm of the realistic.

The whole floating beholder trick as well as the many succubi who spot for the caster and entertain/protect him while adventuring is, by RAW, wishful thinking.
Even though I concede that it is a stylish idea, to employ also for npc BBEGs, it is not for adventurers (barring a rare evil campaign).

It definitely does not showcase how exactly again a wizard or sorcerer up to levels 10/11 in core rules environment can protect themselves (as in: prevent their instant deaths) from an enemy surprise attack.
They definitely NEED the group more than the group needs them up to that point. Which does not mean that they are not useful or contributing to the group. But what I cannot understand are these delusions of wizard grandeur, in particular for those levels.

I outlined already what makes it complicated, to say the least:
- knowledge checks involved for at least three areas of knowledge (dungeoneering - for aberrations, religion - for undead, planes - for succubi)
The DC 15 is ONLY for BASIC questions regarding the FIELD. Considering knowledge about associated monsters and creatures, the SRD is quite clear:
SRD: Answering a question within your field of study has a DC of 10 (for really easy questions), 15 (for basic questions), or 20 to 30 (for really tough questions).
In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster.
For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information.
So, even a VERY generous DM will probably volunteer information to the 10th level wizard about the ability of an animated beholder to still be able to fly at about 10+11 (for the HD). But most likely, it will be 26 or even 31.
The knowledge DCs of lower-level undead does not matter. Only the beholder and his special flying ability matters.

- then, the floating/running animated beholder skull can only fly with up to light load, and may not be that fast since (see SRD on modes of movement):
SRD: Fly
A creature with a fly speed can move through the air at the indicated speed if carrying no more than a light load.
SRD: A creature can use the run action while flying, provided it flies in a straight line.
It is also beyond me why exactly all DMs should rule that the beholder skull should provide full cover, while the skeleton entries clearly specify:
SRD: Damage Reduction (Ex)
A skeleton has damage deduction 5/bludgeoning. Skeletons lack flesh or internal organs.
So, we have at best a halfling necromancer with his spellbook and equipment here who still has to watch out for enemy spells, ranged attacks and flying melee/grapplers.
Ah, and once again for all those wind wall uberness believers:
SRD: "While the wall must be vertical, you can shape it in any continuous path along the ground that you like". The ground. Not thin air somewhere up there 200ft in the air. Vertical (not all-enclosing sphere). Plus, it is static and the archer can simply move through hit, manyshooting after his move action.

- then the whole succubus idea: the lesser planar binding means around only 15% success chance due to will save, SR check, CHR check and the touch attack to keep it in place with a dimensional anchor. Plus, there is a likely demise of the wizard/sorcerer. The succubus will never be around "for years", since the max possible (and immediately triggering an opposed CHR check) is 1 day/level.

Emperor Tippy again fielded the great many tricks of level (non-core; so entirely optional) 17 wizard /level 18 sorcerers +, on to which I can only say the following:
- those levels are so rare for gameplay (in particular getting said wizard and sorcerer even up to those levels and survive), that they should not be the basis for arguing "wizards/sorcerers can never be overcome by non-casters".
- then, even at those levels, the non-casters have many ways at their disposal. Frosty already quoted the big trick to overcome them, and there are more ways, as hinted by Adumbration.

So, what I hope is that the OP jguy is not following many others awed by alleged wizard/sorcerer power. The game is way more balanced than that.
Which does, of course, not mean that whole campaigns devoted to the interesting idea of wizard/sorcerer persecution are such a bad idea. Any dictatorship (maybe in particular those ruled by mages, like magocracies) would wish to deny magic to anyone else. Like weapons and armour, for that matter (cf. medieval Europe and Japan).

- Giacomo

PS: To not appear as only criticising, I'll post an idea of a wizard who could survive up to level 10 better than others in core.

[Stupendous_Man]

knowledge checks involved for at least three areas of knowledge (dungeoneering - for aberrations, religion - for undead, planes - for succubi)

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/sorcererWizard.htm#wizard

Class Skills

The wizard’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Profession (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).


http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/knowledge.htm

Knowledge (Int; Trained Only)

Like the Craft and Profession skills, Knowledge actually encompasses a number of unrelated skills. Knowledge represents a study of some body of lore, possibly an academic or even scientific discipline.

Below are listed typical fields of study.

* Arcana (ancient mysteries, magic traditions, arcane symbols, cryptic phrases, constructs, dragons, magical beasts)
* Architecture and engineering (buildings, aqueducts, bridges, fortifications)
* Dungeoneering (aberrations, caverns, oozes, spelunking)
* Geography (lands, terrain, climate, people)
* History (royalty, wars, colonies, migrations, founding of cities)
* Local (legends, personalities, inhabitants, laws, customs, traditions, humanoids)
* Nature (animals, fey, giants, monstrous humanoids, plants, seasons and cycles, weather, vermin)
* Nobility and royalty (lineages, heraldry, family trees, mottoes, personalities)
* Religion (gods and goddesses, mythic history, ecclesiastic tradition, holy symbols, undead)
* The planes (the Inner Planes, the Outer Planes, the Astral Plane, the Ethereal Plane, outsiders, elementals, magic related to the planes)

[jguy]

Sir Giacomo, you rock.

For a while, all I was thinking is "how is any of this in context?" Thank you for showing me it isn't. A lot of this is happening in a vacuum, ignorant of game flow and player interaction. I see a lot of weird character combinations, feats and junk for stuff that is epic level and think "How...?"

Oh, and thanks for validating my persecution of casters idea. Seems like everyone was trying to kill it with fire so to protect their beloved casters.

[Yukitsu]

They definitely NEED the group more than the group needs them up to that point. Which does not mean that they are not useful or contributing to the group. But what I cannot understand are these delusions of wizard grandeur, in particular for those levels.

Group relies on the wizard to actually work in combat. Skeletons and succubi don't fight in this case, and if the wizard is aware of the danger, he can deal with it. The actual party in this case, has been ignored, as the wizard does not need anything they do. On the other hand, depending on the party dynamic, the wizard as I've written so far can do anything they lack.


- knowledge checks involved for at least three areas of knowledge (dungeoneering - for aberrations, religion - for undead, planes - for succubi)
The DC 15 is ONLY for BASIC questions regarding the FIELD. Considering knowledge about associated monsters and creatures, the SRD is quite clear:
SRD: Answering a question within your field of study has a DC of 10 (for really easy questions), 15 (for basic questions), or 20 to 30 (for really tough questions).

Questions I need: Level 10, knowledges are easy. Assuming base 16 int, +2 from levels, +2 from race, you get a +5 to all checks before ranks. You need 6 ranks for dungeoneering, 6 ranks for religion, 1 rank for planes. If you lack one, you can ask someone else. Technically, you only need 1 rank to know that skeletons can fly with SU flight, simply because you can know of eyeball skeletons. Knowing beholders fly and don't have wings is attainable with a 21 as well. Assuming a +4 buff to int from foxes cunning, a master crafted tool kit (knowledge) stored in a leomund's secret chest used to increase the check further, you only need 2 ranks in dungeoneering (to know of something 2 above your CR.) Those knowledges are not hard to make at all.


In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster.
For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information.
So, even a VERY generous DM will probably volunteer information to the 10th level wizard about the ability of an animated beholder to still be able to fly at about 10+11 (for the HD). But most likely, it will be 26 or even 31.
The knowledge DCs of lower-level undead does not matter. Only the beholder and his special flying ability matters.

Me: Hey DM, what's the DC to know that a half HD eyeball flies?
DM: Well, as they only have 2 other abilities, 12 and 1/2.
Me: Eyeball skeletons do, so it's reasonable that beholders (knowledge of there existance is 21 at most) also fly as skeletons.


- then, the floating/running animated beholder skull can only fly with up to light load, and may not be that fast since (see SRD on modes of movement):
SRD: Fly
A creature with a fly speed can move through the air at the indicated speed if carrying no more than a light load.

There is a chart indicating how to change that value to compensate for changes in weight. You don't really need to move any faster. Note your quote doesn't say they stop flying. It states their move speed is for light load values.


SRD: A creature can use the run action while flying, provided it flies in a straight line.

So? It slows down to turn, which isn't really a problem when flyers for transporation use straight lines.


It is also beyond me why exactly all DMs should rule that the beholder skull should provide full cover, while the skeleton entries clearly specify:
SRD: Damage Reduction (Ex)
A skeleton has damage deduction 5/bludgeoning. Skeletons lack flesh or internal organs.

I think I said good cover and full concealment (from added features unrelated to flesh.) Not full cover.


So, we have at best a halfling necromancer with his spellbook and equipment here who still has to watch out for enemy spells, ranged attacks and flying melee/grapplers.

Not really.


Ah, and once again for all those wind wall uberness believers:
SRD: "While the wall must be vertical, you can shape it in any continuous path along the ground that you like". The ground. Not thin air somewhere up there 200ft in the air. Vertical (not all-enclosing sphere). Plus, it is static and the archer can simply move through hit, manyshooting after his move action.

Square happens to make moving around unlikely. You do realize A: how far away you get spotted from, B how large a windwall is, and most importantly, how tall it is. From any realistic distance, you can't simply move out of the windwalled area and multishot. You'd have to take a while. If you were right next by, use solid fog instead. What now?


- then the whole succubus idea: the lesser planar binding means around only 15% success chance due to will save, SR check, CHR check and the touch attack to keep it in place with a dimensional anchor. Plus, there is a likely demise of the wizard/sorcerer. The succubus will never be around "for years", since the max possible (and immediately triggering an opposed CHR check) is 1 day/level.

Days per level is specifically only for open ended contracts. Any contract with a specified time that goes over days per level is perfectly valid. Also, why is the demise likely, and what does that have to do with anything here?

"Once the requested service is completed, the creature need only so inform you to be instantly sent back whence it came. The creature might later seek revenge. If you assign some open-ended task that the creature cannot complete though its own actions the spell remains in effect for a maximum of one day per caster level, and the creature gains an immediate chance to break free."

And the duration is instantaneous. Days per level is only the rule when I don't specify a duration.


So, what I hope is that the OP jguy is not following many others awed by alleged wizard/sorcerer power. The game is way more balanced than that.
Which does, of course, not mean that whole campaigns devoted to the interesting idea of wizard/sorcerer persecution are such a bad idea. Any dictatorship (maybe in particular those ruled by mages, like magocracies) would wish to deny magic to anyone else. Like weapons and armour, for that matter (cf. medieval Europe and Japan).

Do you want me to actually build a strong wizard? Mine, while devoid of the flaws you are trying to bring up, is not optimized. I've merely cast a few spells, and as of yet, have not used anything from the DMG, items included. The game isn't balanced, and if you want, I can demonstrate it.

[Stupendous_Man]

The game isn't balanced, and if you want, I can demonstrate it.

Of course the game is balanced. Haven't you read his guide?

[Sir Giacomo]

To Jguy: glad to have helped.

To Yukitsu: well...


Group relies on the wizard to actually work in combat. Skeletons and succubi don't fight in this case, and if the wizard is aware of the danger, he can deal with it. The actual party in this case, has been ignored, as the wizard does not need anything they do. On the other hand, depending on the party dynamic, the wizard as I've written so far can do anything they lack.

Yep. The wizard is a great solo character with d4 hits, weak Fort and Reflex saves, no armour/shield feats and hardly any spells that go beyond min/lvl. (shudder).

Questions I need: Level 10, knowledges are easy. Assuming base 16 int, +2 from levels, +2 from race, you get a +5 to all checks before ranks. You need 6 ranks for dungeoneering, 6 ranks for religion, 1 rank for planes. If you lack one, you can ask someone else. Technically, you only need 1 rank to know that skeletons can fly with SU flight, simply because you can know of eyeball skeletons. Knowing beholders fly and don't have wings is attainable with a 21 as well. Assuming a +4 buff to int from foxes cunning, a master crafted tool kit (knowledge) stored in a leomund's secret chest used to increase the check further, you only need 2 ranks in dungeoneering (to know of something 2 above your CR.) Those knowledges are not hard to make at all.

You see, you get ONE piece of information at DC 21, ONE MORE at DC 26, ONE MORE at DC 31 and so on.
The DM is in now way obliged to provide you with exactly that piece of information that you desire, doing hefty meta-gaming and knowing the monster manual by heart which you should not do btw.
The designers explicitly put this (possibly considered by some) stingy rule in there to prevent meta-gaming. "Beholder, ah, I see. Watch out for that disintegration rays. And it can fly, though not very fast. It's weak, so grapple it. And if our barbarian behaves strangely peaceful, he has been charmed by the beholder." Yeah, that's true adventuring (shuddering again).
Ah, and btw, in case you wish to ask someone else for help, you need a GATHER INFORMATION check. Raise cross-class, please (since you do not think you need to have a group of other, non-wizard/sorcerer pcs around).

Me: Hey DM, what's the DC to know that a half HD eyeball flies?
DM: Well, as they only have 2 other abilities, 12 and 1/2.
Me: Eyeball skeletons do, so it's reasonable that beholders (knowledge of there existance is 21 at most) also fly as skeletons.

DM to yukitsu: "Hey, since the half HD eyeball is based on full HD eyeball that has dozens of different spell-like abilities, skills, feats, special attacks, special defenses, odd movement etc - WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I TELL YOU WITH THE EASIEST POSSIBLE KNOWLEDGE CHECK THAT IT RETAINS ITS FLYING ABILTIY WHEN YOU ANIMATE ITS CORPSE?"
:smallsigh:

There is a chart indicating how to change that value to compensate for changes in weight. You don't really need to move any faster. Note your quote doesn't say they stop flying. It states their move speed is for light load values.

The quote clearly specifies that it can fly in case it carries only light load. Do you realise why air companies are so strict about additional luggage? Yes. That's why.

So? It slows down to turn, which isn't really a problem when flyers for transporation use straight lines.

In dungeons? Wilderness? In, like, any situations where the wizard wishes to influence the course of the adventure? You can bet that the beholder corpse shell is way too slow for most situations. Ah, and most of your opponents will move faster AND be able to attack you with melee (say, also moving a straight line in a charge).

I think I said good cover and full concealment (from added features unrelated to flesh.) Not full cover.

Good cover is not a game turm. And beholder skull definitely does not provide a miss chance (as full concealment would).

Not really.

Yes, really. And in case you did not notice: I introduced the halfling necromancer (or gnome sorcerer, as you prefer) to provide you some means to ever have a chance to put it into play at least for the occasional BBEG appearance.

Square happens to make moving around unlikely. You do realize A: how far away you get spotted from, B how large a windwall is, and most importantly, how tall it is. From any realistic distance, you can't simply move out of the windwalled area and multishot. You'd have to take a while. If you were right next by, use solid fog instead. What now?

An archer of level 10 with boots of haste can move 60ft and use multishot, as can, for instance, a flying archer (60ft move), or a monk archer. Or take a barbarian with boots of striding and springing and a bow.
And, if you think the skull provides some concealment or cover, this also goes both ways (meaning you have no longer line of effect for spells).
Ah, and the solid fog you cast means your enemy is now almost entirely immune to any other of your spells because you provided him with total concealment and a way to hide from you. Cool, eh?:smallcool:
And to avoid that non-caster surprise attack, solid fog yields you nothing.
That wizards/sorcerers up to level 10/11 can launch impressive attacks/defenses of their own once they survive long enough has never been the issue.

Days per level is specifically only for open ended contracts. Any contract with a specified time that goes over days per level is perfectly valid. Also, why is the demise likely, and what does that have to do with anything here?

The demise is likely because the caster will be likely attacked in many instances along the casting of the spell by said succubus (and in most cases he will not realise from a bluffing, high-CHR succubus that said succubus actually is free from his will!).
I'll grant you that the spell allows a loophole that you could say: "protect me for a hundred years" - since the "service" than has no open end". However, you can then bet that the CHR mod from any of your gift is reduced to 0, making an opposed CHR check to beat vs the Succubus' + 8 UNLIKELY. On top of that, you only get THAT ONE SERVICE. The succubus is in no way obliged to obey every of your whims. It will protect you. No more, no less. Thus, it will not spot for you - only when it thinks it will promot protecting you. Plus, you can bet it will seek revenge after the task or if it ever gets released.

"Once the requested service is completed, the creature need only so inform you to be instantly sent back whence it came. The creature might later seek revenge. If you assign some open-ended task that the creature cannot complete though its own actions the spell remains in effect for a maximum of one day per caster level, and the creature gains an immediate chance to break free."

And the duration is instantaneous. Days per level is only the rule when I don't specify a duration.

Note also that sentence "Impossible or unreasonable commands are never agreeed to". And what exactly constitutes "unreasonable" for a chaotic evil outsider is entirely up to the DM.
I would not build Wizard uberness on the notion that by level 9 or 10 you need hordes of succubi doing your bidding.

Do you want me to actually build a strong wizard? Mine, while devoid of the flaws you are trying to bring up, is not optimized. I've merely cast a few spells, and as of yet, have not used anything from the DMG, items included. The game isn't balanced, and if you want, I can demonstrate it.

Ah yes, the typical "and that wizard is not even optimised" exaggeration. A wizard trying to exploit rules loopholes (not working, as shown, btw) to get a cover-providing, 45ft flying bone shell with cover around him making him unattackable, plus some succubi scouting for him is "not optimised". Yep, sure. It is broken and illegal.
Pls demonstrate imbalance with something that the rules provide, not these odd- albeit stylish - ideas.
Build a core level 10 wizard who can reliably protect himself from suprise attacks by non-caster monsters and pcs. That would be a start.

- Giacomo

[Vinotaur]

Ah, Giamoco, another series of lies, and misunderstandings. Do you always do this?

1) I presented a level 8, 28 PB Core only Wizard that successfully brings a Succubus into the circle 65% of the time. And who never at any point can ever be attacked by a Succubus he is binding.

As for whether it lasts only 16 days of service or a year, it doesn't matter, because he can do it again any day he chooses to.

2) In order to know that skeletons can fly, he needs a DC 21 Know religion check at the highest. In order to have a vague idea about Beholders, DC 21.

3) You want a Wizard that is protected from surprise attacks? Present a Surprise attack at level 8 and 10, compare it to my level 8 and 10 Wizards, first one Core one not of each level.

EDIT: To discourage claims of the Wizard being built for the challenge, please send the challenge to a neutral person while I build the Wizard. Let me know who so that I can PM my sheet, and the challenge can be run.

[Mushroom Ninja]

Yep. The wizard is a great solo character with d4 hits, weak Fort and Reflex saves, no armour/shield feats and hardly any spells that go beyond min/lvl. (shudder).

Contingency. It works.

[Vinotaur]

Core only Wizard finished. Just present me with a challenge or tell someone neutral what the circumstances of the challenge is.

[Stupendous_Man]

You will fight a monk with partially charged wands.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Hey, can I make a challenge for this? *puts on evil DM hat*

[Tehnar]

Oh just for the record beholder flight is EX not SU.

[Vinotaur]

Hey, can I make a challenge for this? *puts on evil DM hat*

Well, you can. But currently my Wizard is only level 10 Core only. Don't have the non-core one. So I would appreciate remaining Core yourself, Also, usual bull**** non-associated class levels tricks should probably be avoided. Something you actually expect a Core only level 10 Barbarian to be able to survive.

You can present me with more then one if you want, one to actually challenge me, and one that a Barbarian can actually survive.

I'll let you run your own challenge because even though you are quite biased, I trust you to relatively fair, unlike Giamoco, who actually requires metagaming after looking at his opponents sheet/stats to even know what wands to buy, much less use.

Oh, and just to be clear. I am pulling out all the Wizard bull**** there is. You'd honestly be hard pressed to kill this guy without pulling out above CR or giving someone/thing way more knowledge then they actually have.

[Stupendous_Man]

I'll play a character if a third is needed for whatever reason.

Always wanted to have a succubus sorceress.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Swell! I got a CR 10 core-only enemy ready from another game. Let's rumble!

Prior to combat:
a) Please send to SB else your build and spells memorized. Alternatively, you can post them in the open but you may not want to do that. I won't be posting stuff in the open (for obvious reasons)
b) Describe, in detail, and make the appropriate rolls for any actions/preparations you take prior to combat. You have 3 rests worth of resources and 3 days of time you can expend towards any preparations but don't take actions that could initiate actual combat. E.g. you could call creatures. You could find and animate corpses. You could build a small castle if you wanted to. But you could not go around dominating creatures because there's a chance it will result to combat or have other consequenses.

Combat begins:
a) Pick an open battlefield where your character could conceivably be found. E.g. in the middle of the sky over some mountains (while flying between destinations).
b) Roll initiative, spot check and listen check.

EDIT:
The challenge will be revealed to anyone who asks after it is completed. It will also be sent to 2-3 people so they can testify I am not making things up.

[jguy]

I'd love to see how this came out

[Stupendous_Man]

I'd love to see how this came out

The last few "kill a caster" challeneges, from what i hear, were never really complated, but those that were favored the caster.

[Kurald Galain]

The last few "kill a caster" challeneges, from what i hear, were never really complated, but those that were favored the caster.

Yeah, they tend to get bogged down in long, repetitive, and pointless discussions about the minutia of the rules involved, particularly as a result of SG's, shall we say, unique vision on what those rules actually are.

However, we do have WOTC on record as saying that casters were in fact overpowered in 3E, and making fixing that one of their design goals for 4E.

[Yukitsu]

I'll build up the one I've been talking about too. I'm actually pretty interested in making this sort of character now, and would like to see how it pans out in a more practical setting. Most of my in game wizards don't do this stuff because it wrecks CR curves for the rest of the party too much.

[Vinotaur]

I do not feel comfortable posting preparations in the open, since a good part of them are some of the things that might be metagamed.

I will send you a PM, and put a series of rolls here.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

OK, but someone other than you has to know them and they should not be changeable. They should also be easily accessible later.

My idea:
Pick any forum or character creation site where the last edit is noted. Post the preparations there. After the fight just tell people where exactly the preparations are and they can find them.

[Vinotaur]

OK, but someone other than you has to know them and they should not be changeable. They should also be easily accessible later.

My idea:
Pick any forum or character creation site where the last edit is noted. Post the preparations there. After the fight just tell people where exactly the preparations are and they can find them.

I sent you a PM of the preparations.

EDIT: Do you want me to have all my minions go on the same init as me or roll separately?

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Huh. If I know your preparations, who's gonna run the creature? Or do you trust me not to metagame?

Anyway, I don't really have any preparations. No class levels for me.

[Vinotaur]

Huh. If I know your preparations, who's gonna run the creature? Or do you trust me not to metagame?

Anyway, I don't really have any preparations. No class levels for me.

Generally speaking, I trust you, but if I had typed that up, Gia's challenge would probably featured several wands of X that he might otherwise not have had.

Oh, and see the edit in my last post. about Init.

EDIT AGAIN: Oh, and for the battlefield, my procession is making it's way down an old worn road through some plains. Headed towards the dungeon I intend to loot I guess.

EDIT: And here's the rolling thread: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97179

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Surprise round irrelevant (random encounter=no surprise). I go first in initiative.

Spot DC 34, Listen DC 35, both with a -10 penalty to detect the hiding enemy. If a huge creature would not have enough cover to hide in the plains (your call) then you see a whitish, translucent, winged woman some twelve feet tall flying towards you from above. Despite her size, you almost missed her against the sky.

OOC: If hide is possible, 100 ft away in the ground. If not, 100 ft away right over your head.

[Vinotaur]

You said you wanted open, so I went with something really open. I guess she's flying.

My procession continues on, nothing takes notice of her. (Since only I can see her.)

[Yukitsu]

:smallconfused: I'm wondering how you got those distances. You can't actually hide in plane sight in the sky, unless you have some really odd class levels so it should be much further away if it came from above compared to if it's hiding on the ground...

Edit: Never mind. Lack of sleep is making me crazy.

[Vinotaur]

:smallconfused: I'm wondering how you got those distances. You can't actually hide in plane sight in the sky, unless you have some really odd class levels so it should be much further away if it came from above compared to if it's hiding on the ground...

Actually, there is no possible reason I wouldn't see something much farther away in the sky, but since my reaction is the same, I don't really care.

Also, in case it is relevant my trained knowledge skills are:

+27 Planes
+24 Religion
+24 Arcana
+24 Dungeoneering.

I don't really keep track of the taking ten rules, but if I can take ten, then that's my checks if it matters. If I can't then I guess I'll roll them Or actually just roll 1d20 and let you apply whatever might be appropriate.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

As she comes closer, you realize the "her" might be at it. She actually appears to be some sort of air elemental, though you have never seen an elemental so perfectly human-like and with wings to boot. As the creature comes to only a few dozen feet above you, it turns into a massive whirlwind and it touches the ground, the force of the whirlwind trying to suck you inside and smother you. Soil is torn away from the earth, forming a cloud that obscures all vision...


Whirlwind form, move along the procession to suck you all inside.

DC 26 reflex save or be sucked in. DC 26 reflex save or take 2d8 damage. This must be repeated every time you touch the whirlwind (such as by staring turn in the same area). In the whirlwind you also take -4 to dexterity, -2 to attacks and you can escape only if you fly (which requires another reflex save). To cast spells you must make a DC 15+spell level concentration check.

The dust cloud offers concealment up to 20 ft, total concealment beyond that and obscures all vision. To cast spells you must make a DC 15+spell level concentration check.

[Vinotaur]

1) So Apparently the distance was made up entirely to justify reaching me in the first round. Okay, I don't care. Since of course I'd see an Elemental flying towards me from 300ft away at the closest.

2) Is the creature invisible or not? See invis states that I can tell, and I'd probably be able to figure it out from my minions reactions anyway.

3) Yeah, those knowledge scores, the ones that allow me to identify creatures, they exist for me to identify creatures. Since I think I can take ten, and I automatically identify the Air Elemental, you think you could tell me, hey it's an air elemental, in case that might change my actions. Cause when I see invisible flying people, I ignore them. But when I see air elementals, I talk to them.

4) Ah the old, sentient creature that does not eat attacks anything it sees for no reason whatsoever. The Staple of D&D.

5) Which exact square is the base of the Whirlwind in, since it's only 5ft wide at the base, I could maybe see it being 10ft wide at head height, but it's still going to only effect one of the 4 creatures on the ground, since 3 of them are Large sized.

[Sir Giacomo]

Ah, Giamoco, another series of lies, and misunderstandings. Do you always do this?

Please, Vinotaur, do not maintain that I lie. That is bad manners. You can tell me that I am wrong and give proof/arguments for that. But not that I intentionally say something wrong, please.

Now, I see you have created a level 10 core wizard. I'll be away from the web until mid-next week, so for now let's see what Belial the Leveler's challenge will yield. It's interesting, I think (though I have no idea about the setting or what you are fighting), since you already lost the initiative, which can be quite deadly for low-mid-level wizards.

1) I presented a level 8, 28 PB Core only Wizard that successfully brings a Succubus into the circle 65% of the time. And who never at any point can ever be attacked by a Succubus he is binding.
As for whether it lasts only 16 days of service or a year, it doesn't matter, because he can do it again any day he chooses to.

True, I overlooked the possibility of another special magic circle use. So it boils down to the Succubus CHR check of +8 vs your CHR check of +7 (because, as I said, souls are not yours to give). And even though your mod cannot go below +0, to ask for a very long service is unreasonable and thus is not agreed to/SRD: "Impossible demands or unreasonable commands are never agreed to.)
So basically it's up to the DM. If he thinks it's stylish you summon some succubi to accompany your wizard, you eventually will succeed. If he thinks it's unreasonable for them to accompany you beyond 1 day/level, it is also OK.
And note it is ONE service, not everything the caster asks. If they come to harm, it gets likely they will seek revenge later.

2) In order to know that skeletons can fly, he needs a DC 21 Know religion check at the highest. In order to have a vague idea about Beholders, DC 21.

No, that is again just wishful thinking. It is entirely up to the DM to give a "bit of useful information". A BIT! Not ALL. You are free, of course, to houserule it otherwise.

3) You want a Wizard that is protected from surprise attacks? Present a Surprise attack at level 8 and 10, compare it to my level 8 and 10 Wizards, first one Core one not of each level.

EDIT: To discourage claims of the Wizard being built for the challenge, please send the challenge to a neutral person while I build the Wizard. Let me know who so that I can PM my sheet, and the challenge can be run.

Will think about that. Probably I'll not even need to mail it anywhere, I'll just post 8 CR 8 non-caster creatures/npcs that can come up (and with this, I do not mean "non-magic"). Ah, and do not fear - there will be no partially charged wands.:smallsmile:
I'll post them before it becomes too obvious for me what your spells etc. are. They're OK already for your 10th level wizard, although you are free to try your level 8 wizard against those:
A level 8 npc barbarian, rogue, fighter and monk.
A Treant, a Gargantuan monstrous spider, Greater Shadow, and a Behir - put you could pick also four others, if you like.
All have the ability to surprise the wizard.

- Giacomo

[monty]

And even though your mod cannot go below +0, to ask for a very long service is unreasonable and thus is not agreed to/SRD: "Impossible demands or unreasonable commands are never agreed to.)

I'm pretty sure the terms of service are not commands.

[Yukitsu]

True, I overlooked the possibility of another special magic circle use. So it boils down to the Succubus CHR check of +8 vs your CHR check of +7 (because, as I said, souls are not yours to give). And even though your mod cannot go below +0, to ask for a very long service is unreasonable and thus is not agreed to/SRD: "Impossible demands or unreasonable commands are never agreed to.)
So basically it's up to the DM. If he thinks it's stylish you summon some succubi to accompany your wizard, you eventually will succeed. If he thinks it's unreasonable for them to accompany you beyond 1 day/level, it is also OK.
And note it is ONE service, not everything the caster asks. If they come to harm, it gets likely they will seek revenge later.

As was stated, terms of service aren't demands. It's also not unreasonable to ask for a non-threatening job that pays well. You can also give them anyone's soul that you encounter in combat. Why? Because you give them the unconcious enemies, and the succubous level drains them to death. That's what succubi do. Payment in souls. I really don't get where all these wierd assumptions are coming from. A 1000 GP reusable sacraficial knife can also hold souls that you can give to them.


2) In order to know that skeletons can fly, he needs a DC 21 Know religion check at the highest. In order to have a vague idea about Beholders, DC 21.

Know beholders exist: DC 21. (less, actually. Knowing a non-unique monster exists is basic, not hard knowledge.)

To know that skeletons with supernatural flight exist, DC 16. (1 HD flying skeletal eyeball has no abilities other than fly.)

Extrapolation, priceless.


No, that is again just wishful thinking. It is entirely up to the DM to give a "bit of useful information". A BIT! Not ALL. You are free, of course, to houserule it otherwise.

I know the relevant parts. Skeletons can fly. Beholders exist. The most likely information I get? Beholders fly. Why that? Because it's the lowest of its abilities. It's also not listed as a special ability (movement never is) and it's not a vulnerability. Knowing that sort of information, while arguably obscure, wouldn't be DC 30 knowledge. Beholders are described as giant floating eyeballs after all. Also, knowledge religion 21 on beholder skeletons reveals that they fly, simply because they have no other abilities that can come up first.

[Vinotaur]

1) As explained. To know that Skeletons fly is very easy, because there is only one bit of information to know.

2) I don't care how long the service is, as long as it is longer then two days I will always have what I need.

3) As explained, unconscious people are mine to give, and Succubi extract souls through kissing. So I do have access to to souls which I can give to it.

4) If the DM bans Planar Binding, then I will not have it, if he does not, I will.

5) Giamoco, this is why I want to run challenges, because all of those things you listed, upon encountering my Wizard would have somewhere between a zero and 5% chance of actually attacking me upon running into me. And most of them would die on my minions alone with little to no involvement on my part.

Barbarian/Fighter: Might attack my minions, certainly could not sneak up on me at all. Probably have little to no method of attacking me after combat has begun.

Rogue: Likely to surprise attack my minion, be very confused at why it didn't die. And then be turned into a Squirrel.

Monk: I wouldn't even waste a spell slot on him, just let my minions take him down on their own.

A Pair of Treants: A) why are they attacking me, b) minions can probably handle them.

Pair of Spiders. See above, but just for fun, lets say that I actually use spells and I Blind them first.

Pair of Shadows: My entire group travels faster then them, I am awesome. My minions don't care. Shadow can go cry. But hypothetically, where I facing one, I would just float in the air while my minions tear it apart. Slowly granted, but oh well.

Behir: My minions beat it up while I fly contently overhead.

Oh by the way, by not going first, you have given me an excellent chance to review my strategy, and I have already come up with several improvements.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

So Apparently the distance was made up entirely to justify reaching me in the first round. Okay, I don't care. Since of course I'd see an Elemental flying towards me from 300ft away at the closest.
Actually, an encounter at the plains starts spot checks at 600 ft. You rolled a 30 so you'd notice things at 300 ft (-10 spot per 10 ft).


2) Is the creature invisible or not? See invis states that I can tell, and I'd probably be able to figure it out from my minions reactions anyway.
Not invisible, just made of air. That's why it appears translucent.


3) Yeah, those knowledge scores, the ones that allow me to identify creatures, they exist for me to identify creatures. Since I think I can take ten, and I automatically identify the Air Elemental, you think you could tell me, hey it's an air elemental, in case that might change my actions. Cause when I see invisible flying people, I ignore them. But when I see air elementals, I talk to them.
It is an air elemental-you recognize that. Only it is not just an air elemental.


4) Ah the old, sentient creature that does not eat attacks anything it sees for no reason whatsoever. The Staple of D&D.
Not quite. Once the encounter ends, I'll tell you why it attacks.


5) Which exact square is the base of the Whirlwind in, since it's only 5ft wide at the base, I could maybe see it being 10ft wide at head height, but it's still going to only effect one of the 4 creatures on the ground, since 3 of them are Large sized.
The whirlwind can move 100 feet per round, 200 if it double moves or moves downwards, 400 if it double moves and moves downwards. So the elemental turns to whirlwind, moves 100 ft down (50 ft of its move) then 50 feet across the procession. It touches you all in turn. First the giant in the left then you in the middle then the giant in the right. It can suck up creatures of up to large size. The whirlwind ends up over the giant in the right so if your first reflex save succeeds, you don't need to make further saves (unless it touches you again). You are still within the cloud of debris that extends 25 feet from the whirlwind.

[Vinotaur]

Actually, an encounter at the plains starts spot checks at 600 ft. You rolled a 30 so you'd notice things at 300 ft (-10 spot per 10 ft).

So why didn't you start the encounter at 300ft if I saw it at 300ft.


It is an air elemental-you recognize that. Only it is not just an air elemental.

If only someone had told me it was an Air Elemental, then I could have reacted as my character actually does.


The whirlwind can move 100 feet per round, 200 if it double moves or moves downwards, 400 if it double moves and moves downwards. So the elemental turns to whirlwind, moves 100 ft down (50 ft of its move) then 50 feet across the procession. It touches you all in turn. First the giant in the left then you in the middle then the giant in the right. It can suck up creatures of up to large size. The whirlwind ends up over the giant in the right so if your first reflex save succeeds, you don't need to make further saves (unless it touches you again). You are still within the cloud of debris that extends 25 feet from the whirlwind.

Incorrect, it can only move exactly 100ft, because it requires a standard action to activate the Whirlwind. Of course, it should have been 300ft away, but whatever. So which one creature does it touch? Maybe it could reach two if it were directly above me, because it could descend and pick up one of the giants.

[Yukitsu]

Ah, I think I know what is going on here. Still, the distance should be 300...

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Um, I think you missed the first round:


Surprise round irrelevant (random encounter=no surprise). I go first in initiative.
Spot DC 34, Listen DC 35, both with a -10 penalty to detect the hiding enemy. If a huge creature would not have enough cover to hide in the plains (your call) then you see a whitish, translucent, winged woman some twelve feet tall flying towards you from above. Despite her size, you almost missed her against the sky.
OOC: If hide is possible, 100 ft away in the ground. If not, 100 ft away right over your head.

That was the encounter's round 1 for the "elemental". It took a standard action to use an ability you don't yet know about then moved 200 ft down since flying in a downwards angle doubles movement for its maneurability. This left it 100 ft away from you over your head, as I note in the OOC part of the post.
Sorry I didn't make it any clearer-I guess you should ignore my post for the whirlwind. I had not realised you missed the first round-I just thought you decided to do nothing.
My mistake. :smalleek:


So, it is still round 1 and the "elemental" is 100 feet above you. It is your action now. As I said before, it appears to be an elemental but you have never seen an elemental like it. (translation: your knowledge checks do not recognize it as any normal creature. Intelligence check DC 16 to make sense of what you're seeing)

NOTE: In the interest of not mixing things up, we should probably note from now on when each one's turn ends.

[Yukitsu]

Also, start by saying "You see it 300 feet away. It turns into a tornado, and moves 200 feet towards you, ending its turn." :smallwink: That makes things a lot clearer, if you state the move and standard in clear terms.

[Yukitsu]

Gah, double post.

[Yukitsu]

Of course the game is balanced. Haven't you read his guide?

Just started reading it. It's kinda like reading up on the Bush administration. You can't quite be sure if anything is being said seriously, and you think it's funny either way, but horrifying if it was made with sincerity, simply because you don't want to accept that those sorts of views can exist with such a lack of knowledge forethought and logic.

[Vinotaur]

Just started reading it. It's kinda like reading up on the Bush administration. You can't quite be sure if anything is being said seriously, and you think it's funny either way, but horrifying if it was made with sincerity, simply because you don't want to accept that those sorts of views can exist with such a lack of knowledge forethought and logic.

Wow, that's the most accurate description I have ever heard.

@Belial:

1) Of course no we are drifting into the realm of houserules with intelligence checks and such, But check the roll thread anyway.

2) Unfortunately, I must still delay stating my action again, upon results of said Int check.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

You realise your opponent must be an elemental with celestial ancestry, perhaps even a half-celestial. How this came to be is anyone's guess.

OOC: Yeah, templated. There are no rules for recognizing templates so I had to improvise.

[Vinotaur]

1) Technically, the knowledge planes DC to identify a Half-Celestial Air Elemental is exactly the same as to identify an Air Elemental. But I can see how that might gall someone who is trying to insert realism into the rules.

2) An excellent abuse of the CR system, right up there with the best of them.

Might I make an alternative suggestion as to his actions? Drops 300ft to right next to me. Next round: Kills me no save, paralyzes my minions.

I mean, if you actually think that any level 10 character can survive a CL 16 Holy Word without also being the type of character that is good and wouldn't be attacked, then you are on crack.

3) My action, in this moot test is to speak up in Auran: "Hello, Can I help you? Can you help me?"

[Yukitsu]

2) An excellent abuse of the CR system, right up there with the best of them.

Might I make an alternative suggestion as to his actions? Drops 300ft to right next to me. Next round: Kills me no save, paralyzes my minions.

I mean, if you actually think that any level 10 character can survive a CL 16 Holy Word without also being the type of character that is good and wouldn't be attacked, then you are on crack.


To be fair, the build I'm working on would survive it, though at a considerable loss in personnel.

[Vinotaur]

To be fair, the build I'm working on would survive it, though at a considerable loss in personnel.

No he wouldn't. The only Core only way of surviving it is to be either Deaf or encased in silence, neither of which is very good for a Caster. Honest to God, this is one of those things that pisses me off about people claiming Wizards aren't leet. To make their point they break out something that can no save kill an entire party.

Honestly, my Wizard actually can survive the Holy Word. It just shuts him down for the day. Of course any other level 10 PC dies instantly.

[Starbuck_II]

No he wouldn't. The only Core only way of surviving it is to be either Deaf or encased in silence, neither of which is very good for a Caster. Honest to God, this is one of those things that pisses me off about people claiming Wizards aren't leet. To make their point they break out something that can no save kill an entire party.

Honestly, my Wizard actually can survive the Holy Word. It just shuts him down for the day. Of course any other level 10 PC dies instantly.

You can take the Prc Horizon Walker to get Planar immunity to alignment spells like Holy Word.

[Stupendous_Man]

You can take the Prc Horizon Walker to get Planar immunity to alignment spells like Holy Word.

You have to be level 11 to get the planar trait though.

[Yukitsu]

No he wouldn't. The only Core only way of surviving it is to be either Deaf or encased in silence, neither of which is very good for a Caster. Honest to God, this is one of those things that pisses me off about people claiming Wizards aren't leet. To make their point they break out something that can no save kill an entire party.

Honestly, my Wizard actually can survive the Holy Word. It just shuts him down for the day. Of course any other level 10 PC dies instantly.

See? Survival isn't that hard here. :smalltongue:

Edit: The point of random encounters isn't to kill them. It's to survive and keep going to where you are going. I usually skip elemental fights, because they have no wealth, and no useful parts to sell.

[Vinotaur]

See? Survival isn't that hard here. :smalltongue:

Edit: The point of random encounters isn't to kill them. It's to survive and keep going to where you are going. I usually skip elemental fights, because they have no wealth, and no useful parts to sell.

Except that it has 100ft perfect fly speed, oh, and it can kill me in a single action, just like it can any level 10 character that isn't good.

(Replace with half fiendish to kill all the non-evil ones.)

[Starbuck_II]

You have to be level 11 to get the planar trait though.

How often do you get Holy Worded by prior to level 11?

Isn't that a little out of your CR?

[Vinotaur]

How often do you get Holy Worded by prior to level 11?

Isn't that a little out of your CR?

Well since this came up because of the incredible abuse of the CR system that results in a level 10 character fighting something capable of casting Holy Word at CL 16.

Yes it is out of the CR of any realistic party, since it would actually kill the entire party no save. Which is why my point is that proving you can abuse the CR system does nothing to prove that Wizards aren't good.

I wouldn't claim that Wizard's aren't awesome because a CR 15 encounter could theoretically be a Huge Air Elemental with 16 Wizard levels.

I was hoping for something out of the book, or you know, not abusing greater HD to CR crap to get SLAs of 7th level spells at CL 16 to fight a level 10 character.

[Yukitsu]

Except that it has 100ft perfect fly speed, oh, and it can kill me in a single action, just like it can any level 10 character that isn't good.

(Replace with half fiendish to kill all the non-evil ones.)

It's not death for you. It's almost death. paralysis, blindness, deafened. Paralysis is close, but it's not dead. As good as dead, if you don't have anything to compensate, but not dead.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

On the Holy Word:

That's a 40' radius spell that paralyses only in the case of the half-celestial elemental CR 10. If a party that survived until level 10 has not learned enough tactics to travel more than 40 ft apart in case a random encounter blasts them with AoE, they must not have had many surprise attacks in their adventuring life.
Besides, ring of free action ring any bells? Immune to Paralysis, Whirlwind and grapples. Costs about as much as Bead of Karma.


On the encounters:

It's not an abuse of the CR system as long as it is a fairly standard threat to any PC that tries to optimise to be stronger than his ECL suggests. If you're stronger than your ECL suggests then you will be fighting monsters stronger than their CR suggests.

How about a vampire? Save vs dominate DC 25 with a -2 to your saves. Oh, don't forget the +31 move silently and hide checks.

How about an advanced succubus? Takes the appearance of a little kid in a town you just entered and charm monsters DC 22 from 70+ feet away. Unless you got true seeing-which you don't-you are never going to realise who charmed you because SLAs don't have verbal/somatic components which you can track.

Let's not forget our friend the Rakshasa. Spell Resist 27, change shape, casts as a 7th level sorcerer. Hide and blast.

Colossal animated object of magically treated hardened adamantine. 256 HP, hadness 45, immune to most non-damaging effects. Unless you packed acid or sonic damage, you will probably never defeat it.

Couatl. Casts as a 9th level spontaneous caster with access to both cleric and sorceror spells, telepathy, change shape. Uses your trick to call a few 6 HD helpers casts invisibility (SLA) and silence on them, invisibility and lesser telepathic bond on itself and a servant of his. Sees you while under disguise, calls the helpers telepathically. They teleport in, automatically surprising you AND silencing you. You get several charm monsters or suggestions cast on you at once.

Multi-enemy encounters:

6 Greater Barghests. That's CR 10. They make themselves invisible and use their bull's strength. They Dimension Door to you after they track you, automatically surprising you. They touch attack vs your flat-footed AC for grapple, probably automatically grappling you and dealing 12d6+42 unarmed strike damage. You fall unconscious. They take you away to eat you, eating your soul along with your body.

2 Efreet, transformed to morning mist. 2 walls of fire as surprise. 2 walls of fire + 2 quickened scorching rays as first action. 16d6+48 fire damage, no save.

6 nightmares astrally projecting every 30 minutes to haunt you. You can never kill them unless you somehow trap/destroy their souls. You can only run.

4 half-fiend Ravids (for the intelligence) continiously animating a forest. And by forest I mean the entire forest. You enter the forest and the Ravids command it to attack. You're attacked by 80 animated objects of up to 20 HD each at once. Fun!

[Vinotaur]

1) Yes, I can TPK parties too. But I never claimed that a Wizard can protect himself against challenges that TPK whole parties. I have demonstrated a Wizard with better spot, better protections, and less chance of actually being attacked by a random encounter then any non-caster, with the exception of Spot on a Rogue.

The fact that you can kill parties does not impress anyone. Unless you are seriously so functionally retarded as to believe that any single character can actually survive such assaults.

2) No, CL 16 Holy Word kills level 10 characters.

3) Bead of Karma costs 4000gp, Ring of Freedom of Movement costs 40,000gp.

I can craft the Bead, and not the Ring. No, no level 10 character with a WBL of 49,000 and the inability to take the craft ring feat is going to have a Ring of Freedom of Movement.

Yes, you can kill people with bull****. So can everyone else. The point is that no character can survive it.

Solar Gates in Wizard and kills him does not prove that Wizard is weak, it proves that Solars kill ****.

I asked you to provide a challenge that a level 10 Barbarian or Rogue could possibly survive. You have failed to do that. Now why don't you take the second action of the creature which is randomly hunting me for no good reason and have it turn into a damn Whirlwind that hardly bothers me so that I can force a save against it's buffed Saves that if it fails, will result in my winning the challenge, even though it probably won't because it probably has a +14 modifier to it's low saves, because you think that punishing the CR system and the RNG somehow displays that Wizards aren't more powerful then Barbarians/Fighters. Who by the way, also die from Holy Word.

[Eldariel]

If you succeed your Knowledge-check, you could just prepare an action to cast Any Standard Action Teleportation Spell In The Book If It Uses Holy Word And Proceed To Enervate It To Seven Hells If It Does Not. It seems likely that the Elemental wouldn't actually expect readied Dimension Door (since it's an unconventional defense to say the least) and would therefore go for the Holy Word anyways. That'd give you a shot. Or restricting its movement when it's still 100' from you. Or Enervating it to 7 hells.

[Vinotaur]

First: One final note on Holy Word, the party has to stay 80ft away, because it's a 40ft radius.

And just for fun:


How about a vampire? Save vs dominate DC 25 with a -2 to your saves. Oh, don't forget the +31 move silently and hide checks.

Well, I'm under a continuous Magic Circle Against Evil effect, but I can see how that would defeat non-casters.


How about an advanced succubus? Takes the appearance of a little kid in a town you just entered and charm monsters DC 22 from 70+ feet away. Unless you got true seeing-which you don't-you are never going to realise who charmed you because SLAs don't have verbal/somatic components which you can track.

See above.


Let's not forget our friend the Rakshasa. Spell Resist 27, change shape, casts as a 7th level sorcerer. Hide and blast.

I'm not sure what "Hide and Blast" means, since 7d6 damage isn't going to kill me that quickly, and you can't exactly hide while doing it. (Not to mention that I'd probably cast Resist Energy after the first one.) But yes, I could then sick my meat dummies on him, or just cast EBT and watch him die.


Colossal animated object of magically treated hardened adamantine. 256 HP, hadness 45, immune to most non-damaging effects. Unless you packed acid or sonic damage, you will probably never defeat it.

"Of magically treated Adamantium"? So what you just did there was add a **** load of difficulty using rules you made up and assigned it the same CR as a creature of much lower difficulty? Great, I fly away and laugh. Tough luck for that fighter who can't fly though, what with being beaten to death by your artificially increased challenge.


Couatl. Casts as a 9th level spontaneous caster with access to both cleric and sorceror spells, telepathy, change shape. Uses your trick to call a few 6 HD helpers casts invisibility (SLA) and silence on them, invisibility and lesser telepathic bond on itself and a servant of his. Sees you while under disguise, calls the helpers telepathically. They teleport in, automatically surprising you AND silencing you. You get several charm monsters or suggestions cast on you at once.

Great, still have Magic Circle against Evil going.


6 Greater Barghests. That's CR 10. They make themselves invisible and use their bull's strength. They Dimension Door to you after they track you, automatically surprising you. They touch attack vs your flat-footed AC for grapple, probably automatically grappling you and dealing 12d6+42 unarmed strike damage. You fall unconscious. They take you away to eat you, eating your soul along with your body.

I see them while they are invisible, I am not surprised, I fly into the air and EBT as many as I can at once.


2 Efreet, transformed to morning mist. 2 walls of fire as surprise. 2 walls of fire + 2 quickened scorching rays as first action. 16d6+48 fire damage, no save.

I don't know what a Morning Mist is. But I probably can Identify it with my obscene Knowledge checks and spellcraft checks better then any other character, I can also cast Resist Energy if I for some reason see two Efferti, or they don't break out the full blitz right away, or the do it on someone else.


6 nightmares astrally projecting every 30 minutes to haunt you. You can never kill them unless you somehow trap/destroy their souls. You can only run.

Wow, that sucks. I wonder how other people do with infinite attacks, oh just out of curiosity, why every 30 minutes instead of 10, because one allows you to pretend that non-casters actually can do anything?

Can they divine my location? No? So what's to stop me from teleporting away, and then Divining their location? Ouch, sucks to be them.


4 half-fiend Ravids (for the intelligence) continiously animating a forest. And by forest I mean the entire forest. You enter the forest and the Ravids command it to attack. You're attacked by 80 animated objects of up to 20 HD each at once. Fun!

Well assuming I don't die in one round (I probably wouldn't be as surprised as you think, seeing as Know Arcana would allow me to instantly identify them) then I would teleport away, but of course, no such luck for those Barbarians and Rogues.

[Vinotaur]

If you succeed your Knowledge-check, you could just prepare an action to cast Any Standard Action Teleportation Spell In The Book If It Uses Holy Word And Proceed To Enervate It To Seven Hells If It Does Not. It seems likely that the Elemental wouldn't actually expect readied Dimension Door (since it's an unconventional defense to say the least) and would therefore go for the Holy Word anyways. That'd give you a shot. Or restricting its movement when it's still 100' from you. Or Enervating it to 7 hells.

I'm sorry, how would I "Enervate it to seven hells" at level 10 Core only.

I could maybe have a Rod of Empower, but besides wasting a lot of money that still only does 2-6 negative levels, which ain't that great.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

1) I have demonstrated that a wizard cannot survive without a party at level 10 core (as he should not). And a ECL 10 party with good tactics (especially not clustering up when traveling) can easily kill the elemental. They can also probably overcome most of the other encounters presented below, especially the more reasonable ones. Why? Spot/Listen first of all. With 4 people there's 45% chance to roll a 20 in one of those checks and detect the encounter from further away. There is also an increased number of actions you can use to help other party members.

2) A standard strand of prayer beads (with the bead of Karma) costs 45.800 gp to buy. Even if you don't buy the item from a shop and instead find it with the other beads expended as treasure (requires DM's consent), it still costs 20.000 GP. That's about as costly as a ring of free action. Your party cleric, which should not be in the same AoE, also has remove paralysis.

3) A Holy Word at CL 16 kills characters of 6th level and less. You're 10th level and simply paralysed.

4) A single ECL 10 character equals party level 6. This means that ANY ECL 10 character solo should die or flee from a CR 10 encounter by RAW, regardless of his class. There is no solo level 10 barbarian or rogue that can overcome an appropriate CR 10 challenge as there is no level 10 wizard. Now, if we tailor the challenges to favor the barbarian or rogue, it can be done. But that's cheating.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

which should not be in the same AoEThis is the part I don't get. An 80' diameter circle is further than most of the players want to be apart in any situation like this, assuming spreading that far apart is feasible(narrow paths, bridges, and the like). If the party is in a circle 50' radius, any bandit attack will be a full round for some of the characters to respond to, and likely further than charge distance for the char in the center. An AoE with a large radius is the only reason to be that far apart(my groups usually stuck with 31' when possible).

[Kurald Galain]

Okay, so wizards can't win against RFED. Since neither can anybody else, that didn't prove a thing. What else is new?

[Yukitsu]

On the Holy Word:

That's a 40' radius spell that paralyses only in the case of the half-celestial elemental CR 10. If a party that survived until level 10 has not learned enough tactics to travel more than 40 ft apart in case a random encounter blasts them with AoE, they must not have had many surprise attacks in their adventuring life.

You mean 80 feet apart. Most parties don't manage that too well, because they know at least one of them will be hosed.


Besides, ring of free action ring any bells? Immune to Paralysis, Whirlwind and grapples. Costs about as much as Bead of Karma.

40 000. Violates suggested maximum item cost for the level. Bead of Karma is only 20 000. It also doesn't solve blindness or deafness, which drastically reduces your ability to retaliate.


It's not an abuse of the CR system as long as it is a fairly standard threat to any PC that tries to optimise to be stronger than his ECL suggests. If you're stronger than your ECL suggests then you will be fighting monsters stronger than their CR suggests.

How about a vampire? Save vs dominate DC 25 with a -2 to your saves. Oh, don't forget the +31 move silently and hide checks.

Closest I can manage is a succubous vampire (hawt) with charisma 30 for a DC of 23. Either way the wizard would be immune to it.


How about an advanced succubus? Takes the appearance of a little kid in a town you just entered and charm monsters DC 22 from 70+ feet away. Unless you got true seeing-which you don't-you are never going to realise who charmed you because SLAs don't have verbal/somatic components which you can track.

Immune since first...


Let's not forget our friend the Rakshasa. Spell Resist 27, change shape, casts as a 7th level sorcerer. Hide and blast.

Hide and blast doesn't actually work all that well. All it grants him is a single extra standard, and as 7th level sorcs don't have functional save or dies at that level, it's not too bad. They are a tough encounter though.


Colossal animated object of magically treated hardened adamantine. 256 HP, hadness 45, immune to most non-damaging effects. Unless you packed acid or sonic damage, you will probably never defeat it.

Since it's not a flexible sheet, it's easily avoided, however.


Couatl. Casts as a 9th level spontaneous caster with access to both cleric and sorceror spells, telepathy, change shape. Uses your trick to call a few 6 HD helpers casts invisibility (SLA) and silence on them, invisibility and lesser telepathic bond on itself and a servant of his. Sees you while under disguise, calls the helpers telepathically. They teleport in, automatically surprising you AND silencing you. You get several charm monsters or suggestions cast on you at once.

Coautles can't do the helpers trick. They lack level 5 arcanes, and divine doesn't gain planar binding. Planar ally costs GP per day and EXP per casting. And casters are immune to the suggestion/charm since level 1.


6 Greater Barghests. That's CR 10. They make themselves invisible and use their bull's strength. They Dimension Door to you after they track you, automatically surprising you. They touch attack vs your flat-footed AC for grapple, probably automatically grappling you and dealing 12d6+42 unarmed strike damage. You fall unconscious. They take you away to eat you, eating your soul along with your body.

They don't get to attack after they dimension door, and hide after that isn't enough to stop them from being spotted. They may not even get the surprise round depending on who spots who first.


2 Efreet, transformed to morning mist. 2 walls of fire as surprise. 2 walls of fire + 2 quickened scorching rays as first action. 16d6+48 fire damage, no save.

They don't get quickened scorching rays, and their at will scorching ray only deals 4 d6 damage.


6 nightmares astrally projecting every 30 minutes to haunt you. You can never kill them unless you somehow trap/destroy their souls. You can only run.

If you teleport away, they can no longer find you, as they have no divination and no tracking. Since they can't kill you in one round, it's not a problem if you have a single teleport.


4 half-fiend Ravids (for the intelligence) continiously animating a forest. And by forest I mean the entire forest. You enter the forest and the Ravids command it to attack. You're attacked by 80 animated objects of up to 20 HD each at once. Fun!

Ah right, that one. Those things are annoying. However, they can only get 16 HD ones, not 20. 20 HD animated objects don't exist by default, and they have no advancement. The forest also moves at a brisk pace of 20 ft per round...

Edit: Can we get this DMed by someone with a more thorough rules knowledge?

[Starbuck_II]

3) A Holy Word at CL 16 kills characters of 6th level and less. You're 10th level and simply paralysed.


But it won't kill a 6th level Horizon Walker.:smallbiggrin:
Sure it is a 11th level character, but they are immune (if they chose right planar)

[Vinotaur]

1) I have demonstrated that a wizard cannot survive without a party at level 10 core (as he should not). And a ECL 10 party with good tactics (especially not clustering up when traveling) can easily kill the elemental. They can also probably overcome most of the other encounters presented below, especially the more reasonable ones. Why? Spot/Listen first of all. With 4 people there's 45% chance to roll a 20 in one of those checks and detect the encounter from further away. There is also an increased number of actions you can use to help other party members.

1) No you haven't. If you don't abuse the Holy Word I can still kill it.

2) Great, you proved something entirely tangential to the actual point in question by abusing the CR system. Still no one cares.

The question is are Wizard's vulnerable to surprise attacks. The answer is no, because they have better spot then everyone except Druids and Rogues, and better protections then anyone.


2) A standard strand of prayer beads (with the bead of Karma) costs 45.800 gp to buy. Even if you don't buy the item from a shop and instead find it with the other beads expended as treasure (requires DM's consent), it still costs 20.000 GP. That's about as costly as a ring of free action. Your party cleric, which should not be in the same AoE, also has remove paralysis.

Or if you, you know, craft it yourself, then you don't need any special DM and if you take the price of only that one bead, it's 10,000gp, or 1/4th of the price of a Ring of Freedom of Movement, and actually possible to buy, and nothing even remotely like actually possible for a level 10 character to have one. Thank you for admitting you are wrong and that no level 10 character could ever have a Ring of Freedom of Movement.


3) A Holy Word at CL 16 kills characters of 6th level and less. You're 10th level and simply paralysed.

And therefore, out of Core, I would be fine, and In core any level 10 character would be dead.


4) A single ECL 10 character equals party level 6. This means that ANY ECL 10 character solo should die or flee from a CR 10 encounter by RAW, regardless of his class. There is no solo level 10 barbarian or rogue that can overcome an appropriate CR 10 challenge as there is no level 10 wizard. Now, if we tailor the challenges to favor the barbarian or rogue, it can be done. But that's cheating.

No, it means that he should have a 50% chance of beating said challenge. Something that, without CR abuse, I have much better odds then, whereas so far Barbarians have failed every single challenge presented.

Wizards can overcome CR 10 challenges, for a quick example:

1) Every single thing you listed with the possible exception of Efferti, since I don't know what Morning Mists are.

2) An actual Air Elemental without Holy Word as an SLA.

Wizard wins all of those.

Barbarian loses all of those. Hmm. I guess that proves that Wizards aren't better then Barbarians.

[Vinotaur]

But it won't kill a 6th level Horizon Walker.:smallbiggrin:
Sure it is a 11th level character, but they are immune (if they chose right planar)

Of course, anyone traveling the Celestial Plane much is probably actually going to be hunted by a Half Fiendish Air Elemental who uses Blasphemy, so he still get's owned.

[Yukitsu]

4) A single ECL 10 character equals party level 6. This means that ANY ECL 10 character solo should die or flee from a CR 10 encounter by RAW, regardless of his class. There is no solo level 10 barbarian or rogue that can overcome an appropriate CR 10 challenge as there is no level 10 wizard. Now, if we tailor the challenges to favor the barbarian or rogue, it can be done. But that's cheating.

A CR 10 barbarian is an ECL 10 barbarian, and a CR 10 wizard is an ECL 10 wizard. One has to win, and half of the time that winner will be the PC against the NPC. Thus, the PC is winning an equal CR encounter solo.

[Vinotaur]

Just as a point of notice, if the entire party stays 85ft away from each other, then a Cleric would lose all ability to cast any close range or touch spells on either combatant or make any melee attacks of any kind.

Barring the Cleric Archer, not a very common type of Cleric, even if it is my favorite, that means he might as well not be there. He could throw down a Flamestrike I guess, but other then that, he actually doesn't exist.

Obviously a Rogue is completely useless if he must stay 85ft away from the fighter that is being wailed on by the buffed Air Elemental, since he can't use Sneak Attack at all.

The Wizard, predictably, has a much better chance of being useful, with options like Hold Monster/Telekinesis/Phantasmal Killer (not great, but at least a chance against an Air elemental)/Confusion/Well placed Black Tentacles.

Of course, if he didn't have a 80ft Circle of Paralysis as an option, then either Wizard or Cleric could approach and use a Dismissal effect, but without that option to close, the Cleric might as well not exist.

[Stupendous_Man]

Say, I'm interested in seeing this thing go, so would some one please post an actual CR 10 challenge?

And seriously, party spreading out? Everyone knows that you never split the party!

[Yukitsu]

I've got a build pretty much done. If someone can send their challenge to a third party, I'll post up my build here, mostly in case I did something illegal. I have been drinking, so it's pretty likely. Once someone has their challenge confirmed by a third party, I'll post my build.

[Yukitsu]

No takers? Cowards. :smalltongue:

[Belial_the_Leveler]

You could fight the half-celestial elemental sans the Holy Word. :smalltongue:
(which I didn't use on the previous challenge BTW)

[Yukitsu]

You can use it with holy word, for all I'm concerned. Since my character goal is to survive the ambush, not win it, I'd simply leave while paralyzed. (which is possible) albiet at considerable loss of relatively expendable (read free) resources. A consequince of following standard anti grapple procedures, and being limited to core feats and equipment is that dimension door is a purely mental action for this build. :smalltongue:

I can even do the run down. I lose initiative, it moves 200 and tornadoes, I then recognize it as hostile, and charm monster it, and despite the fact it has a 95% failure rate, I'll say it natu 20s. Then it moves in and holy words, killing the succubi instantly and rendering me blind, deaf, and paralyzed. My skeletons, being dead and having 20HD each take nothing. For my actions, I silent, still D-door away with the skeleton I'm residing in.

3 remaining skeletons (I wouldn't be able to touch them to bring) actually have better than chance odds against a 16 HD air elemental, as they are CR 11.5 against a CR 9-10.

Please note, I assume failure at every step. :smalltongue:

Edit: 10 minutes later, when I track it down, I could probably finish it off as well, since it becomes incapable of doing that little trick again.

[Vinotaur]

You know Belial, you could actually have it take it's next action so that I can kill it.

[Yukitsu]

You know Belial, you could actually have it take it's next action so that I can kill it.

Technically, it's still your round.

[evil-frosty]

2 things
either u make friends with him so u dont have to kill him and get benefits from his spellcasting

or frame him for murder in a city that doesnt allow magic to be used as evidence then they will execute him this is assuming he is law-abiding more likely though he will say screw this and teleport away or kill a bunch of random people

also if there not power gaming there not as tough as some people make them out to be but still very tough also is the wizard a specialist and do they have all these spells actually prepared

[Vinotaur]

No, not my round, because I don't know that crazy ****ing Half Celestial Air Elementals are taking out contracts on my head, so I'm just greeting him under my standard guise of guy who is trapped.

Undoubtedly Belial has some convoluted mostly BS backstory for why this thing came here with intent to kill me and no time for talk. And also, he know everything about me and my usual habits to, so next round it will assumably turn into a whirlwind as he said, but it still will not be able to move over the entire party, so he needs to tell me what it does move over so that I can make saves for those creatures.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Inquisition style: The (as yet unknown) BBEG in the campaign is a chaotic deluded hierophant that secretly wants to remove evil from the country no matter what it takes, habea corpus be damned. The elemental is called and sent to frequent the wilderness, striking against any presence of evil that turns up. The creature is a random encounter that sees the undead giants and is compelled to attack the group.

Revenge-style: Malcanthet, succubus queen, is pissed that someone is always stealing her succubi servants. She impersonates divine emmisaries to various churches and tricks them into starting a secret holy war sort of thing. The elemental is a hunter in that war that randomly happens upon your group and its Detect Evil reveals you as evil. It attacks.

[Vinotaur]

Inquisition style: The (as yet unknown) BBEG in the campaign is a chaotic deluded hierophant that secretly wants to remove evil from the country no matter what it takes, habea corpus be damned. The elemental is called and sent to frequent the wilderness, striking against any presence of evil that turns up. The creature is a random encounter that sees the undead giants and is compelled to attack the group.

Revenge-style: Malcanthet, succubus queen, is pissed that someone is always stealing her succubi servants. She impersonates divine emmisaries to various churches and tricks them into starting a secret holy war sort of thing. The elemental is a hunter in that war that randomly happens upon your group and its Detect Evil reveals you as evil. It attacks.

There. Perfectly reasonable campaign hooks for any evil party. The elemental encounter would have been the first in a series of encounters that might (or might not) have led to the evil party toppling the churches in the area eventually.

1) That's great, except I'm not evil. So please explain why the Elemental, when it sees two Evil Fire Giants (because they don't look like undead) escorting a Neutral Prisoner, it responds by attacking the Neutral Prisoner?

2) Detect Evil requires Concentration and being within 60ft, neither of which the elemental managed until after it attacked. So what you actually have is an Elemental that attacks everything on site.

3) The [powerful figure] wants to eliminate evil, and so he summons and creatures [minions that totally break CR] and then divines you and only you and sends attack squads against you even though there is infinite evil in the world. Wow, worst D&D plot ever.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

1) You are calling demons and raising undead, using evil spells. You are binding creatures to serve you without paying them (slavery). You are evil. If you were not, you became evil.

2) Your little ruse? The skeletons have no bluff (mindless). It fails. Also, it is pretty obvious since you have to be going ahead of them to guide them that you're not a prisoner.
So you're either their master or an ally of their master.

3) Against everyone. You're just one of the lucky few to happen upon it hence the "random" in random encounter.


Just so there is no more bogus complaining:

You are using two 15 HD bodyguards.
Therefore I am entitled to creatures with higher HD as long as I can fit them in the CR.
You are using 9th level spells for your defence.
Therefore, I am entitled to whatever level SLAs I can fit in the CR.

[Yukitsu]

2 15 HDs only increase the party ECL from 8.5 to about 9.

[Vinotaur]

1) You are calling demons and raising undead, using evil spells. You are binding creatures to serve you without paying them (slavery). You are evil. If you were not, you became evil.

2) Your little ruse? The skeletons have no bluff (mindless). It fails. Also, it is pretty obvious since you have to be going ahead of them to guide them that you're not a prisoner.
So you're either their master or an ally of their master.

3) Against everyone. You're just one of the lucky few to happen upon it hence the "random" in random encounter.

1) I am calling creatures and having them serve me, just like every Wizard ever. I point you to stupid Drizzit books where the lawful goody two shoes Cleric of whatever binds Devils for information.

I am turning inanimate bodies, into animate bodies under my control. They don't do anything, and sometimes I might make them build a house. Oh the Evil.

No, I am not evil. I am a Neutral Wizard who serves Boccob and who seeks to propagate knowledge. If casting evil spells is reason enough for me to be evil, then I'll bind three Hound Archons instead of one, there, neutral again.

Or are you telling me that binding Devils and making them serve me with no payment is evil, and binding Archons and making them serve me is evil. And so you are going to make up things to make everything evil.

Seriously, one of my two bindings is by any definition you would ever use, good. It just flips based on your definition.

2) The Skeletons need no bluff, because they aren't doing anything that requires it. They are walking, coincidentally, Fire Giants walk too. It's not like they need to eat brains in a way that does not divulge their nature.

Do you know what bluff does? Do you know what spotting a Disguise does?

So the Elemental knows that "there is something odd" about the Fire Giants. A Spot check doesn't automatically tell him they are evil Skeletons. Hell he probably has no ranks in Knowledge Religions, so he can't even recognize a skeleton.

Also, I'm not walking ahead of them, I'm walking in between them. They are capable of walking along the road on their own without my guidance.


You are using two 15 HD bodyguards.
Therefore I am entitled to creatures with higher HD as long as I can fit them in the CR.
You are using 9th level spells for your defence.
Therefore, I am entitled to whatever level SLAs I can fit in the CR.

Can anyone else have 15HD body guards? (Yes, Clerics).

Can anyone else use 9th level spells to protect themselves at level 10? No.

And another tiny little difference, my bodyguards don't cast 8th level spells at CL 16.

This isn't a chance for you to fulfill your life long dream of killing a Wizard, this is a test to see if Wizards are in more danger then other characters from surprise attacks.

If an encounter would actually kill a Core party, then you are not proving anything. You are in fact proving that no possible character can survive a Surprise attack ever in D&D. (Which is not true, because they can whenever they face an actual CR 10 encounter, like all the ones listed as such in the book which you will never use because if you did I'd easily defeat them. Because of course, you can't beat a Wizard without grievous CR abuse.)

Since I have better Spot then all non-Rogue/Druids, Better magical protections then anyone, Less reason to be attacked then most characters, the answer is no, Wizards are not more subject to surprise attacks then other characters. I win.

Can you admit that you are wrong though, just for giggles? "I was wrong, it is impossible for a level 10 character to have a Ring of Freedom of Movement." "I was wrong, Holy Word is an 40ft Radius which means an 80ft Diameter and a party can not ever be expected to maintain 80ft of distance between all their members." "I was wrong, I don't actually understand CR at all, clearly a level 10 character should be expected to beat a CR 10 challenge half the time, but I forgot that the actual rules for CR are based on the challenges in the MM representing CR, instead of the hideous abuse of CR that is the only thing I ever do because of my hate on for Wizards."

[hamishspence]

BoVD- casting spells with Evil Descriptor is Evil act
Fiendish Codex 2: Casting spells with Evil descriptor is Corrupt act.

Only a very, very small corrupt act though. Summoning a pit fiend is equal to summoning an imp, animating a zombie is equal to Creating a Nightwalker. Them's the rules.

Cadderly Bonaduce only summoned fiends for info, never anytrhing else. Using them as guards or construction workers is described by Drizzt as "evil" And its late 2nd ed period books anyway.

and Casting Good spells doesn't affect your Corruption rating, and there is no "Sanctification rating"

You can still be Good to Neutral, but the DM who says "your character is commiting evil acts" is right.

[Yukitsu]

Core only hamish, so that nonsense from BoVD and fiendish codex doesn't apply.

[hamishspence]

I think the "casting an evil spell is an evil act" is pretty longstanding.

"When you cast this spell to summon a ceature with the evil subtype, its an evil spell" PHB. but is this synomymous with "an evil act?"

How much of a one may depend on DM, but FC2 at least admits its not a big one- "robbing the needy" is worse.

As for "what constitutes an evil act" PHB is not very informative. So, we generally use other sources.

[Yukitsu]

Since there are good aligned undead that gain raise undead as an SLA, one would assume that the books you mention are rather too strict for realistic play. Especially given the notion of characters that realize that animating a skeleton isn't any different from animating a pile of rocks.

[Kurald Galain]

I'm sure the people here are well aware that alignment is one of the biggest cans of worms in D&D history, and that you'd be hard pressed to find any two forumgoers with the same definition thereof.

Regardless, I believe it to be well established that given that "you have committed an evil act", it does not follow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non sequitur) that "therefore, you are evil".

[Mephit]

No, I am not evil. I am a Neutral Wizard who serves Boccob and who seeks to propagate knowledge. If "OMG you caztz the evilz spellz" is reason enough for me to be evil, then I'll bind three Hound Archons instead of one, their, neutral again.

Anything else aside, raising dead is unspeakably evil, especially if we're talking RAW core. No matter what you do with them, casting that spell is an evil deed.

[hamishspence]

depends on the setting. Usual reason given is Undead are dual-planar, effectively causing negative energy to leak into world while they exist. In Black Wizards, the grass withers beneath the feet of the advancing zombies and skeletons, so Creating Undead as Evil is long-standing. Though in second ed the phrase was "not a good act, and only evil wizards use it regularly"

And remember you can cast evil spells and still be Good. Just not on a routine and regular basis.

[Yukitsu]

depends on the setting. Usual reason given is Undead are dual-planar, effectively causing negative energy to leak into world while they exist. In Black Wizards, the grass withers beneath the feet of the advancing zombies and skeletons, so Creating Undead as Evil is long-standing. Though in second ed the phrase was "not a good act, and only evil wizards use it regularly"

Negative energy is stated explicitly as not being evil inherently, so that theory never holds very well. It's usually made evil as a handwave so parties can't have massed armies of skeletons but NPCs can.

[hamishspence]

interesingly, using it to rebuke undead Is, however, listed as an evil act.

P160 PHB "even if cleric is neutral, channelling positve energy is good, channelling negative energy is evil"

Yes, even though the planes themselves in DMG and (in more detail) in MoTP, are bothe Neutral and somewhat antithetical to any kind or mortal life.

Its Core. and it says effectively that some uses of negative energy (channeling, some negative energy spells) have Evil descriptor.

[Vinotaur]

Thing that you are missing is that I called a Hound Archon, and can do it again when I want. And casting a [Good] spell is a good act. So as a neutral being, the fact that I balance my good with my evil makes me all wishwashy Neutral, which is what I am.

[Vinotaur]

interesingly, using it to rebuke undead Is, however, listed as an evil act.

P160 PHB "even if cleric is neutral, channelling positve energy is good, channelling negative energy is evil"

Yes, even though the planes themselves in DMG and (in more detail) in MoTP, are bothe Neutral and somewhat antithetical to any kind or mortal life.

Its Core. and it says effectively that some uses of negative energy (channeling, some negative energy spells) have Evil descriptor.

And yet a Cleric of Wee Jas is still neutral no matter how many times they Rebuke undead. Because committing a billion "evil acts" is never going to turn someone evil.

[hamishspence]

again, depends on source. Good acts don't, in fact, balance out evil ones by Fiendish Codex 2. True, not everyone uses it, but it fixes the "I'm Chaotic Neutral, I can kiss a baby then punch its mother" claim I have seen.

a LN cleric of Wee Jas who commits a load of Evil acts, and never atones for them may still be LN, but by FC2 rules, will be going to Nine Hells, whatever their alignment is.

also: DMG: Commit enough evil acts, DM may choose to rule PC is evil.

[Vinotaur]

again, depends on source. Good acts don't, in fact, balance out evil ones by Fiendish Codex 2. True, not everyone uses it, but it fixes the "I'm Chaotic Neutral, I can kiss a baby then punch its mother" claim I have seen.

a LN cleric of Wee Jas who commits a load of Evil acts, and never atones for them may still be LN, but by FC2 rules, will be going to Nine Hells, whatever their alignment is.

also: DMG: Commit enough evil acts, DM may choose to rule PC is evil.

No one cares about your FC2 rules. This is about whether or not a PC detects as evil, not where they go when they die (by the way, theses FC 2 rules are stupid and effectively ban the neutral alignment, as well as arbitrarily declaring that everyone that dies goes to the nine hells even though there are over 100 evil planes all of which get people after they die, so clearly FC 2 is just wrong.)

Also DMG: DM says RFED. There is nothing inherently evil about protecting myself through the best possible means. Especially when those means actually decrease the amount of evil in the world.

[hamishspence]

strawman- you can be Neutral without commiting lots of evil deeds. You can be Evil and not go to Nine Hells.

Sure, the game is somewhat inconsistant on negative energy, even in core. Some uses of it have Evil descriptor, some don't. Thats life.

While summoning evil creatures or animating undead won't, in fact, condemn Lawful Character's soul to nine Hells right away, it is an evil act. Good charcter would seek atonement afterward.

As for the other LE planes- Yugoloths of Gehenna make contracts of their own, and Acheron (LN with very mild evil tendencies and some LN inhabitants) is Wee Jas's home- her worshippers may get exemption.

A Lawful person whose corruption rating isn't high enough to get condemned to Nine Hells might go to Acheron.

[Demons_eye]

Vinotaur By your thinking it dosent matter if you are evil if they think your evil they will try to kill you.

[hamishspence]

according to BoED, under most circumstances, even if you think opponent is Evil, should offer them chance to surrender. and If you don't know they have committed a crime ( or don't catch them trying to commit one), you don't have justification for trying to kill them.

[Yukitsu]

Hamish, stop citing non-core, because this is a core only exercise. If you want to start an alignment thread, do it somewhere else.

[hamishspence]

Core only exercise for mechanics. For "What Constitutes evil acts?" Hard to say- true Core doesn't explicitly Say casting an evil descriptor spell is an evil act, but it Does say Rebuking Undead, Is.

if you want to say "evil descriptor is irrelavent" thats up to you. But people have stated, earlier, that PC is behaving in a (Mildly?) evil fashion, and I am pointing out, both that this is true by various core and non-core rules, And, that they won't necessarily change alignment.

EDIT:
I was answering statements made by earlier posters: refuting "Raising undead and summoning fiends is irredeemably evil" actually, each time you do it is a very small corrupt act. Added to which, only source that states that doing it is "evil" outright is BoVD.

[KKL]

according to BoED, under most circumstances, even if you think opponent is Evil, should offer them chance to surrender. and If you don't know they have committed a crime ( or don't catch them trying to commit one), you don't have justification for trying to kill them.

The BoED's definition of Good and the definition of the BoVD's Evil are both taken to the silly extremes and so black and white, if it were a punch, it would blow concrete a new one.

[Vinotaur]

strawman- you can be Neutral without commiting lots of evil deeds. You can be Evil and not go to Nine Hells.

Sure, the game is somewhat inconsistant on negative energy, even in core. Some uses of it have Evil descriptor, some don't. Thats life.

While summoning evil creatures or animating undead won't, in fact, condemn Lawful Character's soul to nine Hells right away, it is an evil act. Good charcter would seek atonement afterward.

As for the other LE planes- Yugoloths of Gehenna make contracts of their own, and Acheron (LN with very mild evil tendencies and some LN inhabitants) is Wee Jas's home- her worshippers may get exemption.

A Lawful person whose corruption rating isn't high enough to get condemned to Nine Hells might go to Acheron.

All Clerics of Wee Jas go to Acheron, no matter their alignment or "corruption score."


Vinotaur By your thinking it dosent matter if you are evil if they think your evil they will try to kill you.

Honestly, no. There is no reason anyone would be stupid enough to attack someone just because of alignment differences.

But yes, if a D&D character was so incredibly stupid as to have a goal of "Kill all evil beings everywhere, even the infinite Devils and Demons" they would attack anyone they believed to be evil on sight.

But there is absolutely no reason for anyone to believe that I am evil. Both because I am not, and because I am the "prisoner" of some evil Giants and/or undead.

[hamishspence]

Does it actually state that in PHB or DMG- that all clerics go to home of their deity? I though that was Faerun.

[Yukitsu]

Does it actually state that in PHB or DMG- that all clerics go to home of their deity? I though that was Faerun.

It's stated in the rules for petitioners. You go to your diety, if that's not applicable, then alignment/philosphy type.

Edit: You find this in complete divine. They don't state where souls go after death at all in core D&D. It's also implied in dieties and demi gods, as well as manual of the planes.

[hamishspence]

I found in in Complete Divine- clerics and devout worshippers of deity go to deity's plane, others go to plane that's most consistent with alignment.

Can't find it in DMG, in in MoTP it simply says on page 69: "the plane that most closely matches petitioner's nature"

However, the Fiendish Codex rules were written much later. I wonder what happens to an LE cleric of Wee Jas, or one with a high corruption rating? might depend on which book takes precedence.

[Yukitsu]

I found in in Complete Divine- clerics and devout worshippers of deity go to deity's plane, others go to plane that's most consistent with alignment.

Can't find it in DMG, in in MoTP it simply says on page 69: "the plane that most closely matches petitioner's nature"

However, the Fiendish Codex rules were written much later.

Generally, worshippers most closely match their diety of worship. Fiendish codex is also a rather nonsensical system based off of old catholic teachings rather than actual morality. Basically, do anything of any sort and get sent to hell no matter what, unless you are part of that particular religious system. In general, a ton of religions vehemently deny that as a workable system of ethics, and I think the same holds here. You'll never see it used in a real game because it simply doesn't work, and trying to quantify evil is simply going to A: restrict actions B: encourage everyone to be evil, so they have freedom to act in a manner that best works towards success, C: cause alignment arguments for every action, as you try to determine how much corruption everyone gets.

In general, if there is a contradiction, use the rules that best facilitate ease of use and/or fun. My campaign, we go by semi democracy. DM gets final say on alignment, players can all pitch in. It works far better than just trying to answer a question that no one has answered in the history of humanity.

[hamishspence]

It is similar to BoED and BoVD. True, quantifying it is a little dubious, but there is always the Atone Afterwards option. its just a little harder to atone that in core (which does have alignment and atonement spell)

Placing the emphasis on acts rather than motive (BoED also does this) does seem very consistent with the way alignment works in D&D. The heavy focus on LE also makes it unsual: in effect, a Chaotic person never really needs to worry, unless you're using the Obesiance system for Lawful acts as well.


My personal view is, the "Neutral means you murder and save people equally" system in second ed was far more nonsensical. Given the choice, I'd rather have:

LG or LN people who murder more than once for The Greater Good and never atone, go to Nine Hells.

[Yukitsu]

Alternating acts is still in the core neutral description, so that violates core, which always takes precedence over all the other books.

[hamishspence]

I don't remember seeing that in description of neutral, more "has compunctions against hurting the innocent but lacks commitment to help strangers"

[Yukitsu]

I don't remember seeing that in description of neutral, more "has compunctions against hurting the innocent but lacks commitment to help strangers"

It has both. It states that a neutral individual is usually characterized by noncommitment, but they can also be active agents of both good and evil. "these folk maintain that a balance between the two of them is proper place for people..."

[hamishspence]

which seems more "don't commit good or evil acts" than "commit big good and evil acts"

Given the number of questions Core raises, that get answered by later (or earlier books) disallowing what they say as "conflicting with core" seems unusual. If you don''t have the book, fine, but if you do, and are using content, saying: If I save 10 people and murder 10, I'm Neutral, seems like overdoing the Neutral definition.

Even in "living Greyhawk" which rarely uses non-core material, for definitions of Evil acts- it says "See BoVD"

Champions of Ruin: "repeated, systematic use of these acts is the mark of an evil character"

Not a Neutral one furthering both sides. True, a Faerun source, but "atrocity plus heroism" is not Neutral in this sort of book.

[Yukitsu]

which seems more "don't commit good or evil acts" than "commit big good and evil acts"

Given the number of questions Core raises, that get answered by later (or earlier books) disallowing what they say as "conflicting with core" seems unusual. If you don''t have the book, fine, but if you do, and are using content, saying: If I save 10 people and murder 10, I'm Neutral, seems like overdoing the Neutral definition.

Even in "living Greyhawk" which rarely uses non-core material, for definitions of Evil acts- it says "See BoVD"

It's been explicitly stated that core takes precedence over newer material, except I believe, the SRD version of core, and possibly the rules compendium. Faerun, as a campaign specific guide only applies to Faerun, and this is a core exercise, so please keep all of your comments to core.

As for the first comment, that's one way of maintaining balance, but if a place is overwhelmingly good, and the neutral guy doesn't do anything of any alignment at all, then he's not working at all towards balance, now is he?

[hamishspence]

Getting back to the topic- based on all the sources I've read, casting a few (not a lot) of evil spells, won't make you evil. It might not even make you non-good. Do it more often, as standard operating procedure? Evil.

Where, exactly, and in what context, has it been stated- fluff, mechanics, everything?

[Kemper Boyd]

Killing a mage of any level is easy as anything. He has a limited set of resources anyway, so the winning strategy is to gradually wear him down, deny him opportunities to replenish his resources and once he starts to run out of them, hit him with a nice magekiller character.

[Yukitsu]

Pics or it didn't happen.

There is no real reason why a high level mage would stick around when his resources are low, and even less reason for him to physically be in a specific place where you could actually hit him with anything.

[Stupendous_Man]

Killing a mage of any level is easy as anything. He has a limited set of resources anyway, so the winning strategy is to gradually wear him down, deny him opportunities to replenish his resources and once he starts to run out of them, hit him with a nice magekiller character.
How do you deny his ability to replenish resources at higher levels?

[Kurald Galain]

Killing a mage of any level is easy as anything. He has a limited set of resources anyway, so the winning strategy is to gradually wear him down, deny him opportunities to replenish his resources and once he starts to run out of them, hit him with a nice magekiller character.

Yes a samuarai can toattly kill any nubmer of casterswit his SWORS!!!

[Kemper Boyd]

There is no real reason why a high level mage would stick around when his resources are low, and even less reason for him to physically be in a specific place where you could actually hit him with anything.

I'm assuming that stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum. A high-powered wizard will have people and stuff he cares about, unless he's evil which makes it somewhat harder.

If a wizard is Batman, the obvious answer will be that you have to do stuff he has to react on, like the Joker did in The Dark Knight or what Bane did in Knightfall. Wear him down, beat him mentally before you beat him physically. And if he doesn't show up, well, you don't need to kill him because you've already beaten him anyway.

[Kurald Galain]

If a wizard is Batman, the obvious answer will be that you have to do stuff he has to react on, like the Joker did in The Dark Knight
Apparently you have forgotten how that movie ends... :smallbiggrin:

[Stupendous_Man]

The joker also lost the grappling contest with batman, didn't he?

[The Glyphstone]

The joker also lost the grappling contest with batman, didn't he?

He also failed his UMD check to activate his partially charged wand...:smallbiggrin:

[Mushroom Ninja]

Killing a mage of any level is easy as anything. He has a limited set of resources anyway, so the winning strategy is to gradually wear him down, deny him opportunities to replenish his resources and once he starts to run out of them, hit him with a nice magekiller character.

http://worshipstirregulars.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/orly.jpeg

It's awfully easy for high level mages to get away to a safe resting-place via plane shift, teleport, etc.

[Kemper Boyd]

It's awfully easy for high level mages to get away to a safe resting-place via plane shift, teleport, etc.


"I can always flee" isn't really a winning strategy. While the wizard is resting, you are still carrying out your plans. Basic strategy: seize the initiative, make the enemy react, and once you have the opportunity, attack.

[Stupendous_Man]

"I can always flee" isn't really a winning strategy.
Need I remind you that it was yourself who said that casters are easy to kill, and presented your reasons as to why you thought that was the case?

Therefore, under those conditions, the winning strategy for the caster is to stay alive. Retreating is an acceptable course of action if the only goal is to survive unharmed.

[Mephit]

"I can always flee" isn't really a winning strategy. While the wizard is resting, you are still carrying out your plans. Basic strategy: seize the initiative, make the enemy react, and once you have the opportunity, attack.

That quote is going to get a lot of...reactions...Let's leave it at that.

[Vinotaur]

"I can always flee" isn't really a winning strategy. While the wizard is resting, you are still carrying out your plans. Basic strategy: seize the initiative, make the enemy react, and once you have the opportunity, attack.

Um? I'm confused, would you be within line of sight of the Wizard at any point?

Because if so you would be dead.

Seriously, please describe how you would "Wear down the Wizard" other then by taking Leadership, in which case, my Wizard takes Leadership, and his Wizard Cohort kills your Cohort and Followers with no risk on my part at all.

You have a lot of talk about things that never actually happen, but seriously:

"I'm going to wear down the Wizard!" Wizard: "I'm going to cast scry, teleport, and then Baleful Polymorph."

See how one of those works and the other one features no actual actions just a hypothetical strategy that doesn't even work.

[Stupendous_Man]

That quote is going to get a lot of...reactions...Let's leave it at that.

You have been ninja'd. Or perhaps more appropriately, Batman'd.

Thankfully, you were not Superman'd.

[mostlyharmful]

Killing a mage of any level is easy as anything. He has a limited set of resources anyway, so the winning strategy is to gradually wear him down, deny him opportunities to replenish his resources and once he starts to run out of them, hit him with a nice magekiller character.

So the way to beat a character using their class features and decent tactics is to be the DM, force arbitrary fights on them over and over and then sic a specialized magekiller in their own private, unreachable haven. In other words you cheat. Well yes, if I'm the DM I can say "rocks fall, you die", that's not really saying much....:smallannoyed:

[Mushroom Ninja]

"I can always flee" isn't really a winning strategy. While the wizard is resting, you are still carrying out your plans. Basic strategy: seize the initiative, make the enemy react, and once you have the opportunity, attack.

But, noncasters can't flee as well as casters. This means that if they went through the same resource-depleting gauntlet that a caster did, there's no guarantee that they can escape and come back with vengance.

[Kemper Boyd]

Seriously, please describe how you would "Wear down the Wizard" other then by taking Leadership, in which case, my Wizard takes Leadership, and his Wizard Cohort kills your Cohort and Followers with no risk on my part at all.

As long as we don't actually have a scenario in the context of which this happens, I can't give any specific examples. But I assume if a decent DM would present this as a problem in a scenario or a campaign, they would certainly have a context where the wizard exists.

Thinking in the terms of a standup fight is dumb, when you are probably outgunned from the start. So, the wizard has Leadership? Attack his followers, and pick the correct time and place to do this. The cohort and other followers aren't as strong as the wizard himself, so you have more leeway there. Does he have allies? Isolate them from him, make them hate him or ignore him.

Don't engage him directly. Fight like a terrorist, overwhelm his allies and friends so he himself either has to step in or face defeat. Make him use resources in ways where he expends more resources than you do. Never allow him to rest. If he flees, wreak havoc.

And if he allows you free reign to do what you want, functionally you have killed him by making him a paper tiger, unable to step up. Sure, you might actually lose to him when you engage him: but that's all part of the fun :)

[Mephit]

As long as we don't actually have a scenario in the context of which this happens, I can't give any specific examples. But I assume if a decent DM would present this as a problem in a scenario or a campaign, they would certainly have a context where the wizard exists.

Thinking in the terms of a standup fight is dumb, when you are probably outgunned from the start. So, the wizard has Leadership? Attack his followers, and pick the correct time and place to do this. The cohort and other followers aren't as strong as the wizard himself, so you have more leeway there. Does he have allies? Isolate them from him, make them hate him or ignore him.

Don't engage him directly. Fight like a terrorist, overwhelm his allies and friends so he himself either has to step in or face defeat. Make him use resources in ways where he expends more resources than you do. Never allow him to rest. If he flees, wreak havoc.

And if he allows you free reign to do what you want, functionally you have killed him by making him a paper tiger, unable to step up. Sure, you might actually lose to him when you engage him: but that's all part of the fun :)

Not to be a nay-sayer, but what exactly is stopping the wizard from tracking you down and killing you? :smallconfused:

And the leadership remark was just for the case you were going to suggest a Leadership-based tactic yourself.

[Kemper Boyd]

Not to be a nay-sayer, but what exactly is stopping the wizard from tracking you down and killing you? :smallconfused:


This is again one of those questions that hard to answer without having a context to put it in. The easiest answer is that you keep yourself well hidden and the initial moves are carried out by people you've paid to do things to harry the wizard.

[Stupendous_Man]

This is again one of those questions that hard to answer without having a context to put it in. The easiest answer is that you keep yourself well hidden and the initial moves are carried out by people you've paid to do things to harry the wizard.

Pray the wizard doesn't have a friend who is a high level bard.

[Yukitsu]

I'm assuming that stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum. A high-powered wizard will have people and stuff he cares about, unless he's evil which makes it somewhat harder.

If the party is still alive, and the wizard is out of spells, let them deal with it, while hiding. If you're actually out of spells, then you've likely just soloed 5 encounters. If you're out of spells, scrolls and wands, then you'd likely just soloed the campaign module. If it's a random encounter, then teleport can evacuate the entire party.


This is again one of those questions that hard to answer without having a context to put it in. The easiest answer is that you keep yourself well hidden and the initial moves are carried out by people you've paid to do things to harry the wizard.

"I mindrape the lackeys. What's his bosses name? Legend lore, scry, teleport. No, not him. His mother. I want him to know he's F***ed his own life up beyond repair before I kill him."

[Stupendous_Man]

"I mindrape the lackeys. What's his bosses name? Legend lore, scry, teleport. No, not him. His mother. I want him to know he's F***ed his own life up beyond repair before I kill him."

Or, you know, go back in time and romance his mother so you can pull a "Luke, I am your Father" moment on him when he least expects it.

[Vinotaur]

Thinking in the terms of a standup fight is dumb, when you are probably outgunned from the start. So, the wizard has Leadership? Attack his followers, and pick the correct time and place to do this. The cohort and other followers aren't as strong as the wizard himself, so you have more leeway there. Does he have allies? Isolate them from him, make them hate him or ignore him.

Don't engage him directly. Fight like a terrorist, overwhelm his allies and friends so he himself either has to step in or face defeat. Make him use resources in ways where he expends more resources than you do. Never allow him to rest. If he flees, wreak havoc.

And if he allows you free reign to do what you want, functionally you have killed him by making him a paper tiger, unable to step up. Sure, you might actually lose to him when you engage him: but that's all part of the fun :)

I'm sorry, what? His Cohort is standing right next to him, so is his party, he doesn't have a lot of other people he cares about, and when he shows up at some town that is nice to him and finds everyone dead, he CoPs you, scrys, and the kills you.

How do you isolate allies or make them hate him when they are always around?

How do you prevent him from resting? He's going to go to sleep in his Rope trick with his friends anyway.

Why would he flee? He can kill you easily.

Name one thing that you are trying to do that he actually wants to stop, that he can't stop in less then an hour?

You keep pretending that you know where he is and he has no idea where you are, but that's not even close to the truth because he has divinations and teleport, and you don't.

[Yukitsu]

Or, you know, go back in time and romance his mother so you can pull a "Luke, I am your Father" moment on him when he least expects it.

Wait wait, even better. Replaces the baby with the baby version of yourself, raising the real "him" to be your evil acolyte. So you're fighting your past self, with the person he thinks he is at your side.

[Stupendous_Man]

Wait wait, even better. Replaces the baby with the baby version of yourself, raising the real "him" to be your evil acolyte. So you're fighting your past self, with the person he thinks he is at your side.

1) Fighting your past self is risky, because it could get you killed.

2) You don't get laid with that plan.

[Yukitsu]

1) Fighting your past self is risky, because it could get you killed.

2) You don't get laid with that plan.

1) No it's not. In fact, it guarantees that you won't get your past killed, and if you manage the reveal, then he probably won't want to kill you either. :smallbiggrin:

2) You do if the one you swapped out was your actual son. :smalltongue:

Bonus points if you train your acolyte/son to call the hero (because face it, you're the villain of this story) father, despite being the same age. :smalltongue:

[Kurald Galain]

2) You don't get laid with that plan.
On the other hand, you're already a wizard who hangs out with succubi :smallbiggrin:

[mostlyharmful]

This is again one of those questions that hard to answer without having a context to put it in. The easiest answer is that you keep yourself well hidden and the initial moves are carried out by people you've paid to do things to harry the wizard.

Yet the problem is that the wizard is, by the level it's worth spending this amount of resources on fighting him, completely inaccessable to laymen while resting (Rope trick and Mansion) and virtually unfindable while adventuring (flying invisible contingencied incorporeal nondetectable and Mindblanked to start with). The wizard (or rather the caster, lets not prejudge) has the Divinations, not the other way around, they have the planeshift and teleport spells not the other way round.

The wizard has an answer to "so who's trying to hurt me and where are they?" no matter how many double blind info drops you do they can churn through them eventually. A non-caster has no way of finding let alone hurting this wizard without A.) trying to duplicate being a caster through items made by casters at phenomenal price and little chance of working or B.) by hiring anouther, bigger full caster to do it for them.

[KKL]

"I can always flee" isn't really a winning strategy. While the wizard is resting, you are still carrying out your plans. Basic strategy: seize the initiative, make the enemy react, and once you have the opportunity, attack.

Sorry, but Wizards defy that sort of strategy completely and utterly.

[jguy]

this just proves my point that the game should be called Wizards&Wizards. What do you expect from a company called Wizards of the Coast?

[Yukitsu]

Wizards & CoDzilla.

[The Glyphstone]

And don't forget their two most popular campaign settings, Artificerron and the Incantatrix Realms.

[FoE]

I now know how to take down any caster:

Sic Mr. Scruffy on his ass. :smalltongue:

[chiasaur11]

I now know how to take down any caster:

Sic Mr. Scruffy on his ass. :smalltongue:

Still, even the Scruffster likes caster backup.

Says something, doesn't it?

[Sir Giacomo]

Well, interesting how the thread evolved.

Vinotaur, I think you provided some good ideas- still you fail to show how the wizard will be able to survive surprise attacks by level 10.

You see, first of all, you provided the tactics of a BBEG npc, because you need a LOT of DM goodwill to pull it for any pc wizard or sorcerer in a campaign -and even then there are gaping holes in the defense.
I already showed why it is nigh impossible that you can float around in a beholder skull. It's stylish, but it is HIGHLY specific and rare, not something that every caster player could do whenever he/she pleases to do so, with the average DM using the core rules. Additionally, the succubus idea, while charming (pun intended :smallbiggrin:) still carries some risks and will not protect you from surprise attacks completely, nor without lingering risks.
I'll summarise the problems, in rules and fluff/game practice:

I. RULES
1. THE BEHOLDER FLOATING VEHICLE (BFV)
- there are no rules that say you get total or any cover or concealment while being in a beholder skull.
- you have to be of small size to be even carried by said animated beholder skull. So it's a tactics at best for Belkar's evil wizard twin brother, but not for many players wishing to play a medium size character.
- it is extremely unlikely that you'll make the knowledge DC of dungeoneering and religion to even think about this
- it is extremely unlikely that you'll get hold of a beholder corpse in the first place (it is way above CR for the party, and you cannot buy it - there is no price listed in the DMG).
- the beholder is very slow, even if you order it to run all the time, since it will always be overturned by enemies who run as well. And you will have a hard time to get out of missile range.
- as already pointed out by Belial the Leveler, the good idea of covering the skeletons in a seeming spell is only good for the short-term impression and chance encounter. However, most of your opponents will hear the moaning zombies and skeletons (not moving silently, these undead have no skills) from afar and notice something is odd about them and thus adjust their attacking tactics accordingly.
This does not mean that they will not do mistakes, but still...
2. THAT CHARMING MS S
- I admit I overlooked the second circle of protection possibility that reduce the risks. There are still many problems, though
- the succubus may seek revenge. Entirely in the DMs hands.
- the spell is evil and may turn you to be evil from your neutral alignment. This may be counterbalanced by you also binding good creatures (against their will), but it is delicated (as already discussed above) what your DM understands as evil.
- the succubus will do ONE service for you, and, since clever, can try to twist your orders and wishes in the worst possible ways (it's all in the spell description). So either it will spot for you, OR try to protect you (though without combat). If it is told to only spot for you, it will likely charm you at first opportunitiy once it is free. This does not mean it ends it service for you, but your playing will be severely influenced by the DM (and thus Ms S), turning you ultimately to evil alignment. In case a party is with you, this will be to their disadvantage. You could bind several succubi to do different services, but this then inflates the risks of revenge, charm monsters cast your way, twisting of your orders and intentions, plus, of course, intrigue between the succubi needing your attention.

II. FLUFF
- what kind of group will even want to be with that wizard? Running around with floating skulls, zombies, and chaotic evil demons is tolerated by a group in only the rarest of circumstances. Otherwise, you're in a solo campaign - and your wizard is much weaker compared to a wizard with a regular group, since most enemies of that CR may possibly not surprise you anymore (in the rare case you can pull this with your DM), but simply cut through your weak allies like butter).
- the ability to summon so many bodyguards, part of which are flying and carry you around is not only the ability of your wizard, or any casters, at that. It is open to all characters via cohorts and leadership feat. The fighter has even more bonus feats so can have such a cohort much more easily. Meanwhile the wizard, with his familiar, will have a penalty on the leadership score determining this powerful companion.
You probably already know my opinion on this: DMs will likely only either allow EVERYONE the same number of cohorts/allies running with them, or NOBODY. ALL classes have the ability to attract such allies, only the wizard has more avenues - still, the result is the same (with leadership resulting in the most powerful ally, of course).
- finally, as shown nicely by Belial the Leveler, once your DM also resorts to maxing out what is possible for CR 10 (or lower) creatures to attack your wizard who maxed out stuff available only in the most rare circumstances and only by the most power-creepy DMs would still lose quickly.
And as I show below, even the "normal" CR 8 challenges for a lone level 10 wizard in core can be too tough in a surprise situation (which is what Stupendous_Man asked for, I think).

Now, turning to what you said before replying to my post in detail:


1) As explained. To know that Skeletons fly is very easy, because there is only one bit of information to know.

Yes, but again - what makes you think that the bit of information you look for is the one provided by the LOWEST possible DC of the check? And: to know that skeletons fly is not enough, you also need to know whether it is extraordinary or supernatural, and whether you can be carried by it or not (oops, already THREE bits of information). And even then, you have no idea that a beholder corpse will do the trick - only that supernaturally flying skeletons that are large enough can carry you around.

2) I don't care how long the service is, as long as it is longer then two days I will always have what I need.

Fair enough, but see the lingering risks I outlined above.

3) As explained, unconscious people are mine to give, and Succubi extract souls through kissing. So I do have access to to souls which I can give to it.

No, you do not. The succubus bestows negative levels which will eventually slay the victim, but it does not grant the soul. You'll need non-core stuff/items and DM fluff to do that.
Plus, it is debatable whether through your binding the succubus will get to slay more mortals/wreak more havoc by just guarding you/spotting you or within its original realm on behalf of its usual lord.
Without any true gift or sacrifice of yours, be prepared that the average DM will not give you any bonus to your CHR check.

4) If the DM bans Planar Binding, then I will not have it, if he does not, I will.

Yes, you can "have" Planar Binding, but you need to live with the consequences of the parts of the spell that the DM determines.

5) Giamoco, this is why I want to run challenges, because all of those things you listed, upon encountering my Wizard would have somewhere between a zero and 5% chance of actually attacking me upon running into me. And most of them would die on my minions alone with little to no involvement on my part.

Currently all the creatures I listed would with a surprise round likely overcome your wizard who in 95% (or more) of the campaigns would not be floating around all the time with cover in a skull, would have no undead minions at all without irritating his party, and would not have various bound outsiders without any problems (fluffwise or ruleswise).
But even IF you have all that, the creatures I listed plus a bit of work on the npcs of 8th level in the DMG would tell you there are huge threats. There is no gametext or duel situation needed, just some common sense.

Barbarian/Fighter: Might attack my minions, certainly could not sneak up on me at all. Probably have little to no method of attacking me after combat has begun.

The barbarian: can partial charge from 40ft away, possibly with a high enough jump skill (with the high move and STR), power attacking with a spiked chain in enlarged form for an additional 20ft reach. Although I admit that the barbarian will have trouble to avoid being spotted first by the succubus/i. But there can be scenes like that: your wizard with his minions runs into an orc tribe, and while you deal with the tribe, the orc barbarian chieftain level 6 comes back and, in a rage, attacks you from behind.
The fighter: will be able to shoot you from 100s of feet away in an archer-heavy build.
Both of them can coat their weapons with FORT-save poison (their strong save, in case they accidently poison themselves with 5%.)
And they can certainly have a chance by simply observing the slowly-moving trek of your wizard's freak show who is in charge there, even if some skeletons look like fire giants. Your floating wizard is not invisible.

Rogue: Likely to surprise attack my minion, be very confused at why it didn't die. And then be turned into a Squirrel.

About the surprise: see above - and a rogue in particular will be more likely to see through deceptions. He can also set traps and ambush the wizard from a higher point, doing 4d6 sneak with each hit as long as the wizard is flat-footed. And it is likely (thanks to the higher initiative of the rogue) that the rogue will get through his sneak attack, plus his two-weapon fighting three attacks in the first round.
Since the 8th level npc rogue can easily get to about +21 hide skill, the succubus spot, from a larger distance (30ft partial charge, more if the rogue just drops on the wizard), likely will not help.

Monk: I wouldn't even waste a spell slot on him, just let my minions take him down on their own.

The monk is even worse than the rogue, since he only needs to have that surprise touch attack, from 50ft partial charge range away. Touch attack, plus grapple check and then combat is practically over for the wizard (or he has quite high concentration and wins initiative to avoid being pinned). And since you said you wouldn't even waste spell slot, your wizard would certainly die without that saving dimension door spell.:smallsmile:

A Pair of Treants: A) why are they attacking me, b) minions can probably handle them.

Just one treant is enough. It is "nearly undistinguishable" from a tree if it so wishes, and when you move through its forest with undead you can bet it will be upset :smallwink:, and smack you with a reach from the ground of about 45ft up (30ft tall, 15ft reach), more if it jumps up.

Pair of Spiders. See above, but just for fun, lets say that I actually use spells and I Blind them first.

Again, just one spider needed. In its surprise round, it just spits a web from up to 50ft away and then closes in for the kill. Or, it could partial charge you from 40ft away and give a poison bite of DC 20. It is unhindered by its own webs, so could hide in the dark behind the cover of webs unspottable by the succubus and then attack.

Pair of Shadows: My entire group travels faster then them, I am awesome. My minions don't care. Shadow can go cry. But hypothetically, where I facing one, I would just float in the air while my minions tear it apart. Slowly granted, but oh well.

The greater shadow from the SRD that I am talking about has 40ft flying speed of good maneuverability, better than anything your minions or your wizard have. Lacking magic weapons, your minions cannot even touch the shadow, and the succubus does not fight (and its charm spells are not that much help). Actually, even the normal shadow poses a big threat to your wizard and a horde of them making CR 8 would annihilate the wizard in the surprise round without a strong party with magic weapons and doing AoO around him (say, a monk with a magic spiked chain, enlarged, and with combat reflexes).

Behir: My minions beat it up while I fly contently overhead.

The behir with its suberb climbing ability puts itself into a position to surprise attack from above in a dungeon, grabs the wizard and then can rake/lighting/swallow whole. In a dungeon where said behir dwells the wizard often cannot "fly contently overhead".
It will hear the undead wizard party (that does not move silently or hides) long before the wizard party enters its lair.

Oh by the way, by not going first, you have given me an excellent chance to review my strategy, and I have already come up with several improvements.

Yes, and I think they are really good (I liked you idea to mask your undead with seeming) - but not enough to prove your point.
As already summarised by Belial the Leveler, the level 10 wizard (and certainly below that level) is too weak to survive a surprise attack and thus needs a party.
He is useful to the party, but certainly in combat needs more protection than others. Which is also entirely in line with what the core rules intend.
Imo the increased long-lasting defensive spell/magic powers at higher levels then are counterbalanced in combat again by the many vulnerabilities of magic in high level play to other magic, available to all classes and creatures of those levels.

- Giacomo

PS: Ah, one small thing...

The joker also lost the grappling contest with batman, didn't he?

Hmmm...which contest do you refer to?
The joker monk did no grappling contest at all, although based on his core rules set he certainly outclasses even the optional-octupus-familiar-in-fish-bowl carrying wizard specialised in grappling.
Talic ran a grappling contest once for core level 6 builds, where a grappling-specialised monk came out ahead of a sorcerer and a cleric (of Kord) devoted to grappling.

[Mr.Bookworm]

Well, first you buy partially charged wands...
Okay, that joke has been officially done to death.

[Stupendous_Man]

Hmmm...which contest do you refer to?
At the end of The Dark Knight. Watch it, I'd hate to spoiler the movie for you.

[Sir Giacomo]

Well, first you buy partially charged wands...
Okay, that joke has been officially done to death.

You could - since it is npcs and monsters where the DMG assumes partial wands can be found-, but it's not necessary...:smallbiggrin:

- Giacomo

[Sir Giacomo]

At the end of The Dark Knight. Watch it, I'd hate to spoiler the movie for you.

True. That is a modern classic. Comes in a close second to "I know a little magic trick - I'll make disappear this pen..."

- Giacomo

[Vinotaur]

Giamoco, I will suffice it to say that you have greatly confused me with someone else, and you have not even the remotest clue what my preparations are.

You are also still wrong about a great many things.

And as for everyone having Leadship, yes, your Wizard Cohort is far more dangerous then you, but I would then have a second Wizard Cohort, and we'd both have minions.

Also: "penalty to leadership score" ha. It's not actually possible for an intelligent player to have less then the maximum for his Cohort level anyway.

[Doomsy]

About the only way that I could think of to deal with a seriously heavy duty power wizard, off the top of my head and I am seriously not sure about this even in 3.5, is to challenge the wizard to fight at the base of the Spire in the dead magic zone after having another wizard, a cleric, and hell, anything else that can give seriously long duration buffs on you. Even then I'm pretty sure someone here can beat that.

Honestly, someone playing the wizard reasonably can probably be taken. Someone using all of the tricks on here constantly should be hit with the rulebook and then ejected from the group by a cannon because they obviously thought D&D was not a zero sum game based on everybody having fun and was instead some kind of bizarre contest you win by being the bestest.

[Yukitsu]

I. RULES
1. THE BEHOLDER FLOATING VEHICLE (BFV)
- there are no rules that say you get total or any cover or concealment while being in a beholder skull.

So? Was stated to be a side effect of interior additions.


- you have to be of small size to be even carried by said animated beholder skull. So it's a tactics at best for Belkar's evil wizard twin brother, but not for many players wishing to play a medium size character.

If this is too much of a sticking point, make a statue of an advanced beholder with bulgy muscles (HD increases to strength) and then use a spell service to turn it into a corpse and then animate dead it. Carrying capacity 464 light load. On the other hand, there is nothing stopping a smaller one from carrying an individual at lower speeds if they don't happen to meet the weight criteria.


- it is extremely unlikely that you'll make the knowledge DC of dungeoneering and religion to even think about this

Religion is a 16. A skeleton eyeball has 2 abilities. Fly, and Dr/bludgeoning. I get both, guaranteeing I know that skeletons can fly by a religion 16. Knowing beholders exist is a 21, which is low.


- it is extremely unlikely that you'll get hold of a beholder corpse in the first place (it is way above CR for the party, and you cannot buy it - there is no price listed in the DMG).

If acquisition is going to be "rules don't say you can." then you can get it via stone to flesh, as another poster pointed out earlier.


- the beholder is very slow, even if you order it to run all the time, since it will always be overturned by enemies who run as well. And you will have a hard time to get out of missile range.

He's also in a location where many individuals are incapable of reaching him. Missiles, again, can be defeated with walls, or other tricks dedicated to thwarting archers, nor can a core archer have a bludgeoning arrow.


- as already pointed out by Belial the Leveler, the good idea of covering the skeletons in a seeming spell is only good for the short-term impression and chance encounter. However, most of your opponents will hear the moaning zombies and skeletons (not moving silently, these undead have no skills) from afar and notice something is odd about them and thus adjust their attacking tactics accordingly.
This does not mean that they will not do mistakes, but still...

Skeletons also don't moan, and in particular have higher than normal dex scores. Mine however, would specifically not be hiding, so that's a moot point.


2. THAT CHARMING MS S
- I admit I overlooked the second circle of protection possibility that reduce the risks. There are still many problems, though
- the succubus may seek revenge. Entirely in the DMs hands.

Rocks can fall and kill your monk for no reason. DMs can do whatever they want. There is no reason an entity given a valuable resource for less work than is required by their demonic lords would be angry.


- the spell is evil and may turn you to be evil from your neutral alignment. This may be counterbalanced by you also binding good creatures (against their will), but it is delicated (as already discussed above) what your DM understands as evil.

I think it's established that the style wizard is evil.


- the succubus will do ONE service for you, and, since clever, can try to twist your orders and wishes in the worst possible ways (it's all in the spell description). So either it will spot for you, OR try to protect you (though without combat). If it is told to only spot for you, it will likely charm you at first opportunitiy once it is free. This does not mean it ends it service for you, but your playing will be severely influenced by the DM (and thus Ms S), turning you ultimately to evil alignment. In case a party is with you, this will be to their disadvantage. You could bind several succubi to do different services, but this then inflates the risks of revenge, charm monsters cast your way, twisting of your orders and intentions, plus, of course, intrigue between the succubi needing your attention.

This is outright false. You can get it to agree to any contract you desire, not just a single part of that service. I'd say "Be a bodyguard for 6 months, bodyguard being defined as..." if you pressed the point to much.


- what kind of group will even want to be with that wizard? Running around with floating skulls, zombies, and chaotic evil demons is tolerated by a group in only the rarest of circumstances. Otherwise, you're in a solo campaign - and your wizard is much weaker compared to a wizard with a regular group, since most enemies of that CR may possibly not surprise you anymore (in the rare case you can pull this with your DM), but simply cut through your weak allies like butter).

Neutrals all don't really care, and to be honest, why would a party want to be with a goody two shoes stuck up paladin? Alignment in group should be able to handle a group with anything except the two extremes.


- the ability to summon so many bodyguards, part of which are flying and carry you around is not only the ability of your wizard, or any casters, at that. It is open to all characters via cohorts and leadership feat. The fighter has even more bonus feats so can have such a cohort much more easily. Meanwhile the wizard, with his familiar, will have a penalty on the leadership score determining this powerful companion.

Leadership makes everyone broken. Wizards even more so. Also, fighters need those feats to do things. What core only feats do wizards even need? I think still spell is about the only necessary core feat for wizards.


You probably already know my opinion on this: DMs will likely only either allow EVERYONE the same number of cohorts/allies running with them, or NOBODY. ALL classes have the ability to attract such allies, only the wizard has more avenues - still, the result is the same (with leadership resulting in the most powerful ally, of course).

So basically, you are going with the Oberonni fallacy. The DM can change the rules to make everything better. Well sure, but the DM can also reasonably rule that all wizards get free apprentices because that's cool, and that fighters aren't awesome enough to ever take leadership. Wizards can get the same feats as everyone else to help their numbers, and can go above and beyond that. Limiting the numbers running around to make the game more even isn't D&D. Making it so that everyone can do it equally to make the game more even isn't D&D. It's a homebrew game.


- finally, as shown nicely by Belial the Leveler, once your DM also resorts to maxing out what is possible for CR 10 (or lower) creatures to attack your wizard who maxed out stuff available only in the most rare circumstances and only by the most power-creepy DMs would still lose quickly.
And as I show below, even the "normal" CR 8 challenges for a lone level 10 wizard in core can be too tough in a surprise situation (which is what Stupendous_Man asked for, I think).

Actually, that was never finished, and involves heavy use of creature templating where it is generally considered inappropriate. In fact, if the challenge were CR 11, every party member of any party would have been killed instantly, no save.


Yes, but again - what makes you think that the bit of information you look for is the one provided by the LOWEST possible DC of the check? And: to know that skeletons fly is not enough, you also need to know whether it is extraordinary or supernatural, and whether you can be carried by it or not (oops, already THREE bits of information). And even then, you have no idea that a beholder corpse will do the trick - only that supernaturally flying skeletons that are large enough can carry you around.

Read knowledge. It states increases to DC only occur for special attacks and weaknesses, not random bits of trivia.


Fair enough, but see the lingering risks I outlined above.

I really should post my build. It gets around that problem nicely.


No, you do not. The succubus bestows negative levels which will eventually slay the victim, but it does not grant the soul. You'll need non-core stuff/items and DM fluff to do that.

Refernces note that levels lost due to negative level drain is in fact your soul being drained away. Core rules don't state anything at all about souls, however, the general ruling seems to indicate that it is in fact your soul being destroyed. "creature making an energy drain attack draws a portion of its victim’s life force from her." So unless you want to argue that life force isn't a soul, despite the fact that 0 life force means you can no longer be raised from the dead, it's sufficient to say they can have it. Otherwise, they can have the life force.


Plus, it is debatable whether through your binding the succubus will get to slay more mortals/wreak more havoc by just guarding you/spotting you or within its original realm on behalf of its usual lord.
Without any true gift or sacrifice of yours, be prepared that the average DM will not give you any bonus to your CHR check.

If it's a non-core game, giving up the souls is a personal sacrafice, as they can be traded in for EXP for crafting. Otherwise, it states that succubi avoid combat, so they don't go about slaying mortals or wreaking havoc. They seduce and kill a few people at a time.


Yes, you can "have" Planar Binding, but you need to live with the consequences of the parts of the spell that the DM determines.

Same with anythings you do, however. Planar binding isn't really some horrible game breaking spell in this context, and if you prefer, wish examples can be brought up.


Currently all the creatures I listed would with a surprise round likely overcome your wizard who in 95% (or more) of the campaigns would not be floating around all the time with cover in a skull, would have no undead minions at all without irritating his party, and would not have various bound outsiders without any problems (fluffwise or ruleswise).
But even IF you have all that, the creatures I listed plus a bit of work on the npcs of 8th level in the DMG would tell you there are huge threats. There is no gametext or duel situation needed, just some common sense.

Try and run it. My wizard is up to the challenge.


The barbarian: can partial charge from 40ft away, possibly with a high enough jump skill (with the high move and STR), power attacking with a spiked chain in enlarged form for an additional 20ft reach. Although I admit that the barbarian will have trouble to avoid being spotted first by the succubus/i. But there can be scenes like that: your wizard with his minions runs into an orc tribe, and while you deal with the tribe, the orc barbarian chieftain level 6 comes back and, in a rage, attacks you from behind.

That won't stop him from being spotted, because the succubi are not distracted by combat.


The fighter: will be able to shoot you from 100s of feet away in an archer-heavy build.

Make a level 10 one that can manage enough damage, core only. Even 22 strength composite is only doing 6.5 damage to a skeleton per shot.


Both of them can coat their weapons with FORT-save poison (their strong save, in case they accidently poison themselves with 5%.)
And they can certainly have a chance by simply observing the slowly-moving trek of your wizard's freak show who is in charge there, even if some skeletons look like fire giants. Your floating wizard is not invisible.

However, mine is in complete cover.


About the surprise: see above - and a rogue in particular will be more likely to see through deceptions. He can also set traps and ambush the wizard from a higher point, doing 4d6 sneak with each hit as long as the wizard is flat-footed. And it is likely (thanks to the higher initiative of the rogue) that the rogue will get through his sneak attack, plus his two-weapon fighting three attacks in the first round.

Since the 8th level npc rogue can easily get to about +21 hide skill, the succubus spot, from a larger distance (30ft partial charge, more if the rogue just drops on the wizard), likely will not help.

Even a rogue at this level will be spotted moving in at close ranges. It's a massive - to hide checks when moving. It winds up being +16 compared to +19, but you need the succubi to fail on every roll.


The monk is even worse than the rogue, since he only needs to have that surprise touch attack, from 50ft partial charge range away. Touch attack, plus grapple check and then combat is practically over for the wizard (or he has quite high concentration and wins initiative to avoid being pinned). And since you said you wouldn't even waste spell slot, your wizard would certainly die without that saving dimension door spell.:smallsmile:

Yes, because he can manage to get high in the air.


Just one treant is enough. It is "nearly undistinguishable" from a tree if it so wishes, and when you move through its forest with undead you can bet it will be upset :smallwink:, and smack you with a reach from the ground of about 45ft up (30ft tall, 15ft reach), more if it jumps up.

Darn. 5 feet short.


Again, just one spider needed. In its surprise round, it just spits a web from up to 50ft away and then closes in for the kill. Or, it could partial charge you from 40ft away and give a poison bite of DC 20. It is unhindered by its own webs, so could hide in the dark behind the cover of webs unspottable by the succubus and then attack.

Spot vs. hide thwarts this one.


The greater shadow from the SRD that I am talking about has 40ft flying speed of good maneuverability, better than anything your minions or your wizard have. Lacking magic weapons, your minions cannot even touch the shadow, and the succubus does not fight (and its charm spells are not that much help). Actually, even the normal shadow poses a big threat to your wizard and a horde of them making CR 8 would annihilate the wizard in the surprise round without a strong party with magic weapons and doing AoO around him (say, a monk with a magic spiked chain, enlarged, and with combat reflexes).

A monk with a spiked chain/enlarge/combat reflexes doesn't do enough damage in one hit to stop those shadows. Shadows and other incorporeals are a pain no matter what, unless you have specific tools to actually fight them. Your posited monk is most certainly not one of them.


The behir with its suberb climbing ability puts itself into a position to surprise attack from above in a dungeon, grabs the wizard and then can rake/lighting/swallow whole. In a dungeon where said behir dwells the wizard often cannot "fly contently overhead".
It will hear the undead wizard party (that does not move silently or hides) long before the wizard party enters its lair.

Behir are not intelligent creatures, nor are they capable of making the check to attack the wizard at the expense of not attacking the many much more available monsters on the floor. In addition, the succubi will hear it scuttling on the roof from 140 feet away.


Yes, and I think they are really good (I liked you idea to mask your undead with seeming) - but not enough to prove your point.
As already summarised by Belial the Leveler, the level 10 wizard (and certainly below that level) is too weak to survive a surprise attack and thus needs a party.

Seriously, try running your party against that, without abusing the alignmeny expectation of the experiment. A full party loses, automatically, simply because that thing can wipe them all out with an SLA.

[Stupendous_Man]

It seems to me, Giacomo, that a level 10 party would be wiped out with Holy Word no matter what, unless they happened to be Good, or widely spread out (which makes them vulnerable to everything else).

How about we use a challenge that would be appropriate for a party of level 10 characters, and then run the necromancer though that?

[olentu]

A good party would probably be fighting a half fiend and just be hit by a Blasphemy for similar effect to a holy word.

[ericgrau]

Simple answer is prepared caster wins, caster caught unprepared loses. Hey man, it says right in the PHB, that's the rule! :smalltongue: (j/k about 2nd sentence if any of you are overly literal). That's why most people defending casters like to hear what they're up against first, and then say "Ha! I could just beat it with this if I prepared that spell today, hadn't expended it on another encounter, wasn't surprised and won initiative"

When I hear about things that happened in real games, and what I've seen so far in my limited gaming experience, the balance isn't so skewed. Theoretical char op OTOH is another story.

[Yukitsu]

Simple answer is prepared caster wins, caster caught unprepared loses. Hey man, it says right in the PHB, that's the rule! :smalltongue: (j/k about 2nd sentence if any of you are overly literal). That's why most people defending casters like to hear what they're up against first, and then say "Ha! I could just beat it with this if I prepared that spell today, hadn't expended it on another encounter, wasn't surprised and won initiative"

I've got my build. I'll run it against any ambush encounter for a given day. I don't need to know creature type before hand, but I do need to know terrain type.

[Stupendous_Man]

Simple answer is prepared caster wins, caster caught unprepared loses. Hey man, it says right in the PHB, that's the rule! :smalltongue: (j/k about 2nd sentence if any of you are overly literal). That's why most people defending casters like to hear what they're up against first, and then say "Ha! I could just beat it with this if I prepared that spell today, hadn't expended it on another encounter, wasn't surprised and won initiative"


A well build sorcerer, then. We can find someone to make a sorcerer and see if they can run the gamut with it.

[ericgrau]

I've got my build. I'll run it against any ambush encounter for a given day. I don't need to know creature type before hand, but I do need to know terrain type.

Meh, the problem with such things is that they rarely run to the end, and even if they do they tend to not be thorough enough. Both usually due to time constraints or laziness regarding the activity or rules lookups. But tell ya what, if I have some free time to have some fun, I'll take you up on that.

Thing is I'll DM it, people will inevitably complain about the results, and we may never get a straight agreement. But I will give it an honest go. More than 1 encounter would be preferable, time permitting. Rules are core only, PHB races only, and let me know what level you are ahead of time (5-15 strongly preferred). Then I'll design a level-appropriate scenario, not just an encounter. CR's may vary. After the scenario is created but before we run it, I'd like to see your full build (plz don't send before that). Contact me via PM, b/c I may not check back on this thread. Again, no guarantee that I'll have free time for this.

EDIT (For based on stupendous man's comment): Any caster would be acceptable, but if he wants a sorceror I wouldn't give him basic background details before the encounter. He'd get those after submitting his build.

[Yukitsu]

It's a level 10 straight core wizard.

[ericgrau]

Cool I stuck you on my buddy list so I can remember your name. If I get the time to make the scenario I'll shoot you a message. If you want to do this in good faith you could build your wizard and spellbook while I'm working on the scenario, but pick your spells for the day (out of your spellbook) after I give you background info. Standard wealth-by-level applies. Amount per table, max 1/4 WBL per individual item. Price expendables at 5x, or take 1/5th the number of charges instead. Try not to be abusive with high level and/or expendable items. Expect a handful of encounters in the scenario, not just 1.

[Yukitsu]

Cool I stuck you on my buddy list so I can remember your name. If I get the time to make the scenario I'll shoot you a message. If you want to do this in good faith you could build your wizard and spellbook while I'm working on the scenario, but pick your spells for the day (out of your spellbook) after I give you background info. Standard wealth-by-level applies (amount per table, max 1/4 WBL per individual item). Let me know if you'd be using WBL to obtain a huge number of 4th-5th level spells in your spellbook, or a large number of other high-level hard to obtain things. If there aren't any or there's just a few, don't worry about asking and just make your character.

I bought a total of 8 spells, ranging from 5-3. I can reduce that down pretty easily. I'd like to have a +6 headband, but the difference between a +6 and +4 is fairly academic. Race is a nonstandard but still core race (grey elf), and items consist mostly of already used items to gain permanent, non-dispellable effects for personal protection. In other words, my consumables were already consumed, and only ever get consumed once.

[ericgrau]

That number of high level items is fine. I'd have to check the WBL tables, but if a +6 headband is less than 1/4 WBL, it's fine. Please switch your race. I'll have to review the dispel magic rules regarding permanent effects. IIRC effects from permanency'ed spells can be dispelled (and don't come back), and I forget whether magic items can be affected and how (temporarily if so, I'm sure). I'll check on that later.

Permanent single use consumables are fine at regular price (not 5x), though I can't think of any that exist in core off the top of my head.

[Yukitsu]

They are instantaneous. (Skeletons) Material component cost is consumable, and is only paid for once. Grey elf is a core race, however. Why change it?

[ericgrau]

I'm afraid I may be getting too much info about your character, you're gonna influence the encounter man :smalltongue:.

Material components and focuses for one-time-ever cast spells are fine at 1x (not 5x price), unless it's reasonable for the thing made to be destroyed/expended/etc. within your adventuring career. Then you must pay 5x. If you want to cast a spell or spells with a costly material component during this scenario, pay 5x for the material component(s). Focuses are 1x.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the grey elf. I think PHB races are more reasonable for most, albeit not all, player builds. And the better option for a generalized challenge. Heck I'd even disallow prestige classes and undue knowledge of monsters if it came to that. You're only getting semi-free choice of magic items b/c it's assumed you ran into them at some point (and attempting to regulate them would be borderline insane). Do put some points in knowledge skills if you're counting on monster-knowledge or other knowledge, btw, or you might run into some trouble with meta-gaming. Which skills are for which monster-types are in the PHB. I'd be rolling randomly among the monster's special abilities and weaknesses for the first ability told to you, again for the 2nd, etc.

Again, I can't guarantee that I'll have time for this, but I'll let you know if I cook something up.

[jguy]

Wouldn't a caster have a hard time if the Inevitables came after them? I mean, they'd never stop short of going to their plane and destroying it, right?

[Yukitsu]

I'm afraid I may be getting too much info about your character, you're gonna influence the encounter man :smalltongue:.

Material components and focuses for one-time-ever cast spells are fine at 1x (not 5x price), unless it's reasonable for the thing made to be destroyed/expended/etc. within your adventuring career. Then you must pay 5x. If you want to cast a spell or spells with a costly material component during this scenario, pay 5x for the material component(s). Focuses are 1x.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the grey elf. I think PHB races are more reasonable for most, albeit not all, player builds. And the better option for a generalized challenge. Heck I'd even disallow prestige classes and undue knowledge of monsters if it came to that.

Yes, but the challenge was a core only. :smallwink: I'm going to stick to the core only criteria, and if someone wants to do a PHB only build, all the power to them. A PHB only challenge would be hard for any class to play, wizards, to druids, to fighter and monks.


Again, I can't guarantee that I'll have time for this, but I'll let you know if I cook something up.

Cool.

[Yukitsu]

Wouldn't a caster have a hard time if the Inevitables came after them? I mean, they'd never stop short of going to their plane and destroying it, right?

They don't automatically find you, and in fact, are very unlikely to find a competent wizard after the first defeat. It's at worst, an occassional set back, and at best, a very consistant source of EXP.

[jguy]

but isn't the whole point of the inevitables that they can and will eventually find you, no matter what?

[Vinotaur]

1) Eric Grau, That's why I created an entire Wizard build and sent it out before being presented with any challenges, and then offered it to any challenge someone though could prove that Wizards are more susceptible to Surprise attacks. (IE lose where another non-Druid class would succeed.)

It's also ECL 10, Core only.

Of course, I'm just as happy to adapt it to other levels.

Oh, and you'll note that the pre-prepared Wizard is still just fine, and can easily beat the instakill encounter if it doesn't use Holy Word, and additionally, would never have been attacked by the creature in question anyway.

2) Inevitables? Not really. Mostly they all have very low saves for their level, low SR, little to no ability to travel long distance or between planes quickly. And only one of them can even attack you with a non-will save if you are flying in the air. And the best part? All constructs, so you can kill them with an easy disintegrate.

Inevitables are really easy to avoid, and pretty easy to beat. Not much of challenge at all. The inevitable always coming fluff is the only thing that makes them worth having, because after a week you can just say, "Mechanus adds another inevitable to the hunt, and the other ones keep coming." So that way you face several at once and it provides a good RP point.

[Yukitsu]

but isn't the whole point of the inevitables that they can and will eventually find you, no matter what?

If you suck at life, then they will, sure. However, that doesn't make them competent at their own job when the querry is a wizard. Spells such as nondetection block it. Polymorph/shapechange block it. They don't have the tools to break a wizards scry defenses after the first encounter.

[monty]

If you suck at life, then they will, sure. However, that doesn't make them competent at their own job when the querry is a wizard. Spells such as nondetection block it. Polymorph/shapechange block it. They don't have the tools to break a wizards scry defenses after the first encounter.

Not to mention they could just kill it over and over anyway.

[hamishspence]

in some cases, if its killed, a new inevitable of higher level, or with class levels, gets sent out. Obligatum VII in Elder Evils is an example. However, seven inevitables over thousands of years suggests it won't be a big problem.

[Sir Giacomo]

Hi again,

first of all, let me say that I am eager to see ericgrau to DM both yukitsu's and Vinotaur's core level 10 wizards.
Then - sorry, Vinotaur, in case I confused you with some of my arguments. You did defend the floating beholder skull/fire-giant-undead-yet-in-reaility-skeleton-guard/succubus idea, and I responded to the general idea, as well as your remarks.

Yukitsu provided some more comments, to which I'd like to answer.



So? Was stated to be a side effect of interior additions.

What interior additions? And how can they be possible in core? Although I admit that you could put tower shields for total cover up around you as well, but those would block your line of sight - or when provided with slits - would still impair your seeing range.
But yes, I think you could armour your floating beholder skull with stuff to get at least partial cover - provided you get hold of that beholder in the first place.

If this is too much of a sticking point, make a statue of an advanced beholder with bulgy muscles (HD increases to strength) and then use a spell service to turn it into a corpse and then animate dead it. Carrying capacity 464 light load. On the other hand, there is nothing stopping a smaller one from carrying an individual at lower speeds if they don't happen to meet the weight criteria.

You can only turn a creature with a "skeletal system" into a..well, animated skeleton. No way to do that by turning a stone statue into pure flesh. Sorry. And using stone to flesh from npc casting then starts to add heftily to your already spent 25gp/HD animated. Ah, and the statue has no HD.

Religion is a 16. A skeleton eyeball has 2 abilities. Fly, and Dr/bludgeoning. I get both, guaranteeing I know that skeletons can fly by a religion 16. Knowing beholders exist is a 21, which is low.

With a religion check DC of 16, you'll receive ONE bit of information pertaining to an undead creature you encounter or think about. Me thinks that a floating beholder corpse has several abilities and bits of information that are a candidate for that (note that the knowledge skill does not specify the available knowledge as only abilities):
- it flies as a supernatural ability
- it has DR/bludgeoning
- it has no skills of its own
- it gains +2 DEX
- it gets the improved initiative feat and loses all original other ones.
etc. etc.

If acquisition is going to be "rules don't say you can." then you can get it via stone to flesh, as another poster pointed out earlier.

As I pointed above, this will not help you, since you need a corpse with a skeletal system. Only (once) living beings have such systems.

He's also in a location where many individuals are incapable of reaching him. Missiles, again, can be defeated with walls, or other tricks dedicated to thwarting archers, nor can a core archer have a bludgeoning arrow.

Walls need an action to be brought up and are static - not going to help the wizard moving around with his freak show vs an archer who 1) gets surprise attack and 2) likely wins initiative due to his higher DEX/improved initative.
And if you float 50ft high, walls are difficult to cast (wind wall does not help here, it needs to be vertical, on the ground).
And the archer - provided it wants to kill the floating caster, and not the strange fire giants, will not need to overcome the bludgeoning DR of skeletons.
Although, as conceded by me above, in that rare, rare, circumstance where your npc BBEG floats around in the skull will likely have some kind of cover that should shut down archery attacks (still, the beholder skeleton can stomach only so much arrow damage of around possibly 1d8+7 per hit, even with his DR)

Skeletons also don't moan, and in particular have higher than normal dex scores. Mine however, would specifically not be hiding, so that's a moot point.

Yes, skeletons don't moan, but their bones rattle...:smallbiggrin: Seriously - the skeleton has NO skills and thus moves silently (if ordered at all to do that) only at its DEX bonus (negatively modified in case it wears armour and does not move half speed) - likely opponents and monsters at those levels will hear them with a simple listen check - and there will be one such listen check for each of your minions (the beholder ,the large skeleton/fire giants etc.).

Rocks can fall and kill your monk for no reason. DMs can do whatever they want. There is no reason an entity given a valuable resource for less work than is required by their demonic lords would be angry.

But there is - you see, otherwise there would be no saving throw, but rather the simple bargaining mechanism of the planar ally spells.
And the planar binding spell sets the scene nicely with the following first sentence of its description (SRD): "Casting this spell attempts a dangerous act: to lure a creature from another plane to a specifically prepared trap, which must lie within the spell’s range."

I think it's established that the style wizard is evil.

Yep. So that makes it already clear that it is only for the very rare party as tolerable (or evil campaigns).

This is outright false. You can get it to agree to any contract you desire, not just a single part of that service. I'd say "Be a bodyguard for 6 months, bodyguard being defined as..." if you pressed the point to much.

The spell description unfortunately is not that clear in that respect. It only warns of the danger associated with the spell, that the called creature can seek revenge (btw not that improblable since it can die really as it is called and not summoned) and that if clever will try to subvert your commands.
You see, the succubus cannot even be a bodyguard since it will "flee combat whenever it can". Again, this is a bit of information that your wizard may not happen to know with his DC 16+ knowledge-the planes check, in particular not when he is still just 10th level - barely able to cast that spell.

Neutrals all don't really care, and to be honest, why would a party want to be with a goody two shoes stuck up paladin? Alignment in group should be able to handle a group with anything except the two extremes.

But we talk about the viability of a wizard build here, not about whether paladins are something that people should play in a group or not. The paladin is a choice available only in some groups, but I dare say your evil wizard build with clear signs of his evilness (undead around him) will find even rarer groups to play with. Simply because most groups will want to be more the heroic kind of guys leaning towards good.

Leadership makes everyone broken. Wizards even more so. Also, fighters need those feats to do things. What core only feats do wizards even need? I think still spell is about the only necessary core feat for wizards.

Yes, the typical "leadership is broken" argument. The problem is: you, through some innovative spell use, get a continuous 6HD outsider companion of CR7 (or more of them), and a skeletal guard, but you deny the leadership feat to the non-casters getting then the same. Why this double standard, I wonder? Both are game mechanics. Both caster and non-caster can get hundereds of followers or cohorts or companions through spell use or feats (btw., you'll possibly realise that the joker monk can also have an undead army with a wand of animate dead).

So basically, you are going with the Oberonni fallacy. The DM can change the rules to make everything better. Well sure, but the DM can also reasonably rule that all wizards get free apprentices because that's cool, and that fighters aren't awesome enough to ever take leadership. Wizards can get the same feats as everyone else to help their numbers, and can go above and beyond that. Limiting the numbers running around to make the game more even isn't D&D. Making it so that everyone can do it equally to make the game more even isn't D&D. It's a homebrew game.

The stuff you suggested contradict the rules clearly, whereas what I say is the way a DM would INTERPRET what the rules say in order to provide balance (as outlined in the DMG p. 13).
- When your wizard has leadership, a familiar plus an undead bodyguard from animate dead, as well as three succubi from planar binding, it definitely IS balanced by
- the non-caster who simply has leadership with a better cohort (+2 since he has no familiar), no costs to create the undead army, no risk involved from keeping the succubi around, no X.P. threat through the possible loss of his familiar, and a way higher stealthiness with his companion, and no mini-army is easily overcome with some area of effect spells, to boost (or an npc cleric turning undead).

My advice is not to readily grab the advantage of some stuff, and simply ignore the drawbacks. No houseruling needed here.
And if you believe that the usual DM will allow one player to run an army (btw which is entirely played by the DM, since they are npcs), and bans leadership for the rest of the group, I think you are mistaken.

Actually, that was never finished, and involves heavy use of creature templating where it is generally considered inappropriate. In fact, if the challenge were CR 11, every party member of any party would have been killed instantly, no save.

No, I do not think so. I guess some talk was about the powerful use of holy word which allegedly a party of that level has no means against. Well...yes, a party of a single wizard, of course not (as envisioned by the rules).
But a party with...
- ... a cleric or bard able to cast the silence spell
- ... a monk able to charge/flyby attack in- and outside the holy word range
- ... a rogue archer attacking from way outside the holy word range
- ... a fighter with the blind-fight feat
- ....a charger barbarian simply smashing/grappling it with one strike?
etc...

Read knowledge. It states increases to DC only occur for special attacks and weaknesses, not random bits of trivia.

No. This is what the PHB p. 78 states:
"In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10+ the monster's HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster. For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, the DM can give another piece of useful information."

You see? All the info I listed on skeletons above are bits of useful information on the special powers or vulnerabilities. For the 13HD beholder skeleton, it would mean a religion check DC of 23+20 to know them all, or DC 43 (and again, those are only FIVE bits of information, not ALL). The information that is handed out is ENTIRELY up to the DM. Which only makes sense since otherwise the suspense of the game would be greatly reduced with players meta-gaming.

I really should post my build. It gets around that problem nicely.

Please do so. I like your ideas (and those of Vinotaur), but I think you have to accept you run into problems which clearly show that wizards ARE very vulnerable in levels 1-10.

Refernces note that levels lost due to negative level drain is in fact your soul being drained away. Core rules don't state anything at all about souls, however, the general ruling seems to indicate that it is in fact your soul being destroyed. "creature making an energy drain attack draws a portion of its victim’s life force from her." So unless you want to argue that life force isn't a soul, despite the fact that 0 life force means you can no longer be raised from the dead, it's sufficient to say they can have it. Otherwise, they can have the life force.

Hmmm. I guess, as a DM I would also rule it this way (i.e. drain meaning draining of the soul). But that depends entirely on the campaign fluff, and has no basis in the core rules. And the binding spells apparently - without a soul bargaining system - refer to physical treasure as stuff you can give (or service for the bound creature) to obtain a bonus.
But I think this question is not that important for the workings of the spell, since you can simply repeat the binding until you make the opposed CHR check with one called creature for the service you need.

If it's a non-core game, giving up the souls is a personal sacrafice, as they can be traded in for EXP for crafting. Otherwise, it states that succubi avoid combat, so they don't go about slaying mortals or wreaking havoc. They seduce and kill a few people at a time.

Yep.

Same with anythings you do, however. Planar binding isn't really some horrible game breaking spell in this context, and if you prefer, wish examples can be brought up.

Well, the way you seem to interpret it - a 5th level spell giving permanent non-dispellable protection without any risks and drawbacks like slow speed and problesm with other pcs and npcs - is game breaking.

Try and run it. My wizard is up to the challenge.

I let ericgrau run it first. Will think about something after that.

That won't stop him from being spotted, because the succubi are not distracted by combat.

True, but they spot the barbarian, when he appears, when it may be too late. The charging barbarian has the least chance of success, which I already admitted. In case he has some kind of concealment from burning ruins of his tribe's huts (or even from an eversmoking bottle...:smallbiggrin:), the succubi btw. may not notice him on time.

Make a level 10 one that can manage enough damage, core only. Even 22 strength composite is only doing 6.5 damage to a skeleton per shot.

Level 10 npc orc fighter (based on elite starting arrays and the npc wealth in the DMG p.127) will, with weapon specialisation and STR 22, as well as a+1, fire composite bow do
- 1d8+8 damage
- +2 with a potion of good hope
- +1d6 flame arrows
Yielding, with the rapid shot feat and a haste active (say, from a potion) 4 attacks doing each 1d8+5 damage (taking account of the DR), +1d6, or a total of around 52 damage per round. Enough to take out almost 9HD of undead in a round. And all of the wizard's undead army in 4 rounds.
But it is likely that he will focus on the wizard, not on the minions.

However, mine is in complete cover.

When he has complete cover, this goes both ways and thus he has no line of sight and cannot attack with spells. And the cover will drop once the beholder corpse will be blown to pieces in 2 rounds by the archer. In case you take a pair of archers of CR 8 each, then in 1 round.

Even a rogue at this level will be spotted moving in at close ranges. It's a massive - to hide checks when moving. It winds up being +16 compared to +19, but you need the succubi to fail on every roll.

The npc halfling rogue at 8th level can have:
- 11 ranks (+11)
- DEX 20 (+5)
- masterwork item (+2)
- small size (+4)
- cloak of elvenkind (+5)
- the stealthy feat (+2)
For a total of +29!
Now, until the rogue is within partial range (or farther away, when he drops onto the wizard with a ring of feather falling), there are penalties of -3 to spot the 30ft minimum distance for partial charge. The -5 for normal move speed do not matter much in this circumstances.
And of course the succubi will spot the halfling once he charges, but then it's too late...:smallsmile:

Yes, because he can manage to get high in the air.

With the help of a flying potion a monk can and be faster than you are. And even with jump: the npc monk can with a simple ring of jumping, tumbling synergy, master work item, skill focus, max ranks, his speed and STR 20 have a jump skill of around +36.
Thus, he could reach quite far into the air if enlarged (with, say a potion)- it is not as if the wizard is able to fly 50ft high in all surroundings.

Darn. 5 feet short.

Which is why I said that the treant can of course also jump/hop up - the DC 10 is quite easy with his +9 jump skill for up to 15ft high (his "waist").:smallbiggrin: And it is not that likely that your wizard floats above the tree tops, unable to see what his minions do on the ground.

Spot vs. hide thwarts this one.

You cannot spot through total cover.

A monk with a spiked chain/enlarge/combat reflexes doesn't do enough damage in one hit to stop those shadows. Shadows and other incorporeals are a pain no matter what, unless you have specific tools to actually fight them. Your posited monk is most certainly not one of them.

I should have been more specific. The level 6 monk who also has the improved trip bonus feat will stop those creatures, or at least 50% of those. And a 8,325gp +1 ghost touch spiked chain with 25% of wbl spent on a single item will be available from around level 9.
That monk, unlike the wizard, will have thus
- a way to spot them before they approach (spot as class skill)
- a way to react to them even when flat-footed (combat reflexes)
- and stop several of them with a very high chance of success (the bonus feats combat reflexes and improved trip).

Behir are not intelligent creatures, nor are they capable of making the check to attack the wizard at the expense of not attacking the many much more available monsters on the floor. In addition, the succubi will hear it scuttling on the roof from 140 feet away.

True, the behir is not that intelligent. But intelligent enough to wait patientily (making no sounds, thus no listen check of the succubi apply) when it already heard the non-silent party of the wizard from outside its lair.
The behir may jump on a succubus, but I doubt that with its scent ability it will try to taste a fire giant exuding undeath smell. And something tells me that the succubus is not going to follow the demand to scout ahead and thus put it into danger.

Seriously, try running your party against that, without abusing the alignmeny expectation of the experiment. A full party loses, automatically, simply because that thing can wipe them all out with an SLA.

I think you refer to the holy word wielding air elemental template thing that Belial the Leveler came up with. Well, I think said creature is quite tough, but a diversified party certainly has a good chance against it, as I already outlined above.

Overall, do not get me wrong: once again, I like the ideas you come up with, but imo they do not show that the wizard can
1) do this without risks and drawbacks involved and
2) even with these measures (undead and demon minions) will be able to survive a surprise attack better than the non-caster characters who all have permanently higher AC, hit points, sometimes better saves and 24/7 combat options with feats.

- Giacomo

[ericgrau]

Yukitsu: I should clarify that I find PHB races preferable to any old core race, since that's what most players use. I'm not saying that should be the end-all decision for all challenges. I suggest that you adjust your race for the purpose of my challenge only, and leave it as is for the others.

After the challenge is done (and if I make it), I'd be doing a more thorough audit of your build. I prefer to know less about it until then.

[Vinotaur]

Giamoco, while I have certainly contradicted your many rule errors in regards to knowledge checks and planar binding rules, the Beholder strategy is not something that I prefer to do in actual game.

My actual strategies are quite robust, and easily protect me from all surprise attacks.

Secondly, I feel compelled to point out a few more flaws in your post:

a) It is not an "interpretation" to only allow non-Wizards Leadership. It is called, trying to bring the lesser character up to the Wizard. And please stop falsely stating that a Non-caster will have a higher leadership score. They won't.

My Core Wizard build has a higher Leadership score then any of the Core Monk builds presented in your guide at every level. The fact is that everyone maxes out their cohorts level at minimum, and Leadership score only determines followers, which are in every way inferior to the minions a Wizard is capable of obtaining.

b) You keep ignoring this, it is not about a Beholder at all, knowledge religion used on floating eye skeleton can only give you information on one of it's two abilities. And yes, it does only give information on abilities, it's exact HP is not something that knowledge provides, nor it's AB, ect.

Just abilities.

c) You are now confusing some comments about me with Yukitsu, he has no Fire Giants. Stop trying to pretend to know what is going on. You have clearly demonstrated that you do not know the protections a Wizard is capable of fielding, and that you cannot keep track of two things at once, present an encounter or don't, but stop arguing against a convenient strawman.

d) So the fighter drinks two potions, one with a duration of 5 rounds for every fight? That's not going to eat up his WBL quickly. Oh wait, it is. Not to mention the fighter can't sneak, so the Wizard has already spotted him and those two rounds consist of enemies attacking him, including AoOs, that can even be taken against his potion.

e) "No, I do not think so. I guess some talk was about the powerful use of holy word which allegedly a party of that level has no means against. Well...yes, a party of a single wizard, of course not (as envisioned by the rules).
But a party with...
- ... a cleric or bard able to cast the silence spell
- ... a monk able to charge/flyby attack in- and outside the holy word range
- ... a rogue archer attacking from way outside the holy word range
- ... a fighter with the blind-fight feat
- ....a charger barbarian simply smashing/grappling it with one strike?
etc..."

{Scrubbed}

"- ... a cleric or bard able to cast the silence spell" Excellent, except for the fact that now you can't cast spells and the aforementioned Air Elemental can still use one of it's other SLAs, or just beat you to death.

"- ... a monk able to charge/flyby attack in- and outside the holy word range"

So your Monk has a movement speed of 290ft in a single move action? Because that is what is required to start and end outside of Holy Word Range.

"- ... a rogue archer attacking from way outside the holy word range"

A Rogue Archer? You mean one not getting any SA, and not doing much damage, and that moves slower then the Elemental who will just close, if he even cares, or if he doesn't just Hold Monster the Rogue?

"- ... a fighter with the blind-fight feat"

Who can't attack because he is paralyzed. So no one would care if he had Blindsight, because he's still paralyzed.

"- ....a charger barbarian simply smashing/grappling it with one strike?
etc..."

Which of course, 1) doesn't kill the elemental. 2) The Elemental is easily strong enough and large enough to outgrapple the Barbarian 3) Grappling the Elemental does nothing to prevent it from Paralyzing the whole Party, Barbarian included with Holy Word, 4) It's an Air Elemental, it turns into a Whirlwind and suddenly the Barbarian is floating around doing no damage and taking damage, in the mean time, the Elemental flies around picking up more PCs, and then Holy Words all of them at once. Followed by four rounds of coup de gracing.

[Kurald Galain]

Yeah, they tend to get bogged down in long, repetitive, and pointless discussions about the minutia of the rules involved, particularly as a result of SG's, shall we say, unique vision on what those rules actually are.

Told you so.

[Yukitsu]

What interior additions? And how can they be possible in core? Although I admit that you could put tower shields for total cover up around you as well, but those would block your line of sight - or when provided with slits - would still impair your seeing range.
But yes, I think you could armour your floating beholder skull with stuff to get at least partial cover - provided you get hold of that beholder in the first place.

There are rules for material building rules. Wood paneling and cloth included. It is reasonable to place them inside of something such that you yourself are inside of it.


You can only turn a creature with a "skeletal system" into a..well, animated skeleton. No way to do that by turning a stone statue into pure flesh. Sorry. And using stone to flesh from npc casting then starts to add heftily to your already spent 25gp/HD animated. Ah, and the statue has no HD.

As was pointed out earlier, the statue turns into a corpse, making it a legitimate target for raise undead. Frankly, I think that's a rather dumb ruling, but it is stated explicitly in the rules.


With a religion check DC of 16, you'll receive ONE bit of information pertaining to an undead creature you encounter or think about. Me thinks that a floating beholder corpse has several abilities and bits of information that are a candidate for that (note that the knowledge skill does not specify the available knowledge as only abilities):
- it flies as a supernatural ability
- it has DR/bludgeoning
- it has no skills of its own
- it gains +2 DEX
- it gets the improved initiative feat and loses all original other ones.
etc. etc.

Arguably, the latter half of this list is not useful information. Knowing something has skills of feats doesn't really tell you much as far as fighting skeletons goes.


As I pointed above, this will not help you, since you need a corpse with a skeletal system. Only (once) living beings have such systems.

Part of being a corpse of the creature is that you have bones. "an ordinary statue would become a corpse.." As well, the spell definitely can turn stone to bone, as it does so every time it counters petrification.


Walls need an action to be brought up and are static - not going to help the wizard moving around with his freak show vs an archer who 1) gets surprise attack and 2) likely wins initiative due to his higher DEX/improved initative.
And if you float 50ft high, walls are difficult to cast (wind wall does not help here, it needs to be vertical, on the ground).
And the archer - provided it wants to kill the floating caster, and not the strange fire giants, will not need to overcome the bludgeoning DR of skeletons.
Although, as conceded by me above, in that rare, rare, circumstance where your npc BBEG floats around in the skull will likely have some kind of cover that should shut down archery attacks (still, the beholder skeleton can stomach only so much arrow damage of around possibly 1d8+7 per hit, even with his DR)

Walls do work depending on range, but even more so, the distance determines the kind of spell cast to counter the archers. At long ranges, walls are very effective. At close range, solid fog it very effective.


Yes, skeletons don't moan, but their bones rattle...:smallbiggrin: Seriously - the skeleton has NO skills and thus moves silently (if ordered at all to do that) only at its DEX bonus (negatively modified in case it wears armour and does not move half speed) - likely opponents and monsters at those levels will hear them with a simple listen check - and there will be one such listen check for each of your minions (the beholder ,the large skeleton/fire giants etc.).

Yes, however, moaning is one of those DC -10 to hear things. It's that that is important to differentiate.


But there is - you see, otherwise there would be no saving throw, but rather the simple bargaining mechanism of the planar ally spells.
And the planar binding spell sets the scene nicely with the following first sentence of its description (SRD): "Casting this spell attempts a dangerous act: to lure a creature from another plane to a specifically prepared trap, which must lie within the spell’s range."

And yet it has not been shown how this is dangerous. A succubous is not a legitimate threat at level 10, barely gaining EXP for defeating one.


Yep. So that makes it already clear that it is only for the very rare party as tolerable (or evil campaigns).

Possible, but that varies by gaming group.


The spell description unfortunately is not that clear in that respect. It only warns of the danger associated with the spell, that the called creature can seek revenge (btw not that improblable since it can die really as it is called and not summoned) and that if clever will try to subvert your commands.
You see, the succubus cannot even be a bodyguard since it will "flee combat whenever it can". Again, this is a bit of information that your wizard may not happen to know with his DC 16+ knowledge-the planes check, in particular not when he is still just 10th level - barely able to cast that spell.

Actually, them booking off to the farthest away they can be is probably the most efficient way for them to warn of impending danger you can get. And since you don't want them to be physical body guards, this is all good stuff.


But we talk about the viability of a wizard build here, not about whether paladins are something that people should play in a group or not. The paladin is a choice available only in some groups, but I dare say your evil wizard build with clear signs of his evilness (undead around him) will find even rarer groups to play with. Simply because most groups will want to be more the heroic kind of guys leaning towards good.

Just play an anti hero then. An evil person who finds that good is more beneficial for the time being.


Yes, the typical "leadership is broken" argument. The problem is: you, through some innovative spell use, get a continuous 6HD outsider companion of CR7 (or more of them), and a skeletal guard, but you deny the leadership feat to the non-casters getting then the same. Why this double standard, I wonder? Both are game mechanics. Both caster and non-caster can get hundereds of followers or cohorts or companions through spell use or feats (btw., you'll possibly realise that the joker monk can also have an undead army with a wand of animate dead).

I'm stating that leadership is broken for everyone equally. Everyone can use it to great effect. Bringing it up is entirely irrelevant, as in all cases, it makes the character drastically better. Also, cost of a wand of animate dead is almost impossible to determine. Each casting has a different cost, which is why that wand is not a core wand.


The stuff you suggested contradict the rules clearly, whereas what I say is the way a DM would INTERPRET what the rules say in order to provide balance (as outlined in the DMG p. 13).
- When your wizard has leadership, a familiar plus an undead bodyguard from animate dead, as well as three succubi from planar binding, it definitely IS balanced by
- the non-caster who simply has leadership with a better cohort (+2 since he has no familiar),

This never actually changes final scores, as wizards can make a base of operations with fabricate for free, and have special powers, which balances that -2 out. No one who takes leadership will ever fall below cohort as two levels below themselves.


no costs to create the undead army, no risk involved from keeping the succubi around, no X.P. threat through the possible loss of his familiar, and a way higher stealthiness with his companion, and no mini-army is easily overcome with some area of effect spells, to boost (or an npc cleric turning undead).

Undead army is actually rather expensive. More so in fact, for a non-caster than it is for a wizard. Also, there has been no demonstrated risk in keeping succubi around.


My advice is not to readily grab the advantage of some stuff, and simply ignore the drawbacks. No houseruling needed here.
And if you believe that the usual DM will allow one player to run an army (btw which is entirely played by the DM, since they are npcs), and bans leadership for the rest of the group, I think you are mistaken.

"Jack the fighter took leadership? I take leadership as well."
"But that's not fair! The wizard already has an army!"
"Well, I wanted a bigger army."


No, I do not think so. I guess some talk was about the powerful use of holy word which allegedly a party of that level has no means against. Well...yes, a party of a single wizard, of course not (as envisioned by the rules).
But a party with...
- ... a cleric or bard able to cast the silence spell

Information of the availability wasn't given, so that requires metagame. Also, wizards also have that spell.

Edit: Woops, no they don't.


- ... a monk able to charge/flyby attack in- and outside the holy word range

Flyby attack on a monk? Seriously? Doubly because in this case, you would lose initiative, and as such, not be flying when it hit.


- ... a rogue archer attacking from way outside the holy word range

Doing no damage thanks to DR, and immunity to sneak attack, not that he can sneak attack at that range.


- ... a fighter with the blind-fight feat

Except he killed the fighter, not blinded and deafened him. At CR 11, a CR 11 half celestial air elemental instantly kills the party, no save.


- ....a charger barbarian simply smashing/grappling it with one strike?
etc...

200 foot move, holy word. Party=dead. You don't survive, and don't get to try to grapple. You don't get to try to charge.


No. This is what the PHB p. 78 states:
"In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10+ the monster's HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster. For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, the DM can give another piece of useful information."

Special powers is a specific list that is on the monster profile. Other characteristics are necessary to identify the creature. "Hmmm. A flying skull, that must be a beholder skeleton." Does mean they should be able to say "I need a flying skull. Beholder skeleton seems like a good fit." Visual characteristics of the creature are met with the initial check. Nor is that particularly useful information.


You see? All the info I listed on skeletons above are bits of useful information on the special powers or vulnerabilities. For the 13HD beholder skeleton, it would mean a religion check DC of 23+20 to know them all, or DC 43 (and again, those are only FIVE bits of information, not ALL). The information that is handed out is ENTIRELY up to the DM. Which only makes sense since otherwise the suspense of the game would be greatly reduced with players meta-gaming.

Many of those are not useful. Skills, +2 dex, improved initiative is not useful information, as those are all abstract terms that you don't get information on in character. You can make them into subjective in game terms, but then they aren't exactly useful bits of information. "Is more agile, isn't skilled."


Please do so. I like your ideas (and those of Vinotaur), but I think you have to accept you run into problems which clearly show that wizards ARE very vulnerable in levels 1-10.

I have to wait for a challenge to be posted, and no, I don't have to admit that. Your cases assume unrealisticly ideal positioning, and failed perception checks on my half of the bargain.


Hmmm. I guess, as a DM I would also rule it this way (i.e. drain meaning draining of the soul). But that depends entirely on the campaign fluff, and has no basis in the core rules. And the binding spells apparently - without a soul bargaining system - refer to physical treasure as stuff you can give (or service for the bound creature) to obtain a bonus.
But I think this question is not that important for the workings of the spell, since you can simply repeat the binding until you make the opposed CHR check with one called creature for the service you need.

Pretty much.


Well, the way you seem to interpret it - a 5th level spell giving permanent non-dispellable protection without any risks and drawbacks like slow speed and problesm with other pcs and npcs - is game breaking.

For no cost, it grants additional spot and listen checks. It doesn't grant protection in the classical sense.


I let ericgrau run it first. Will think about something after that.

He stated that he won't have time, necessarily. As such, it may never happen.


True, but they spot the barbarian, when he appears, when it may be too late. The charging barbarian has the least chance of success, which I already admitted. In case he has some kind of concealment from burning ruins of his tribe's huts (or even from an eversmoking bottle...:smallbiggrin:), the succubi btw. may not notice him on time.

People notice ever smoking bottles. They aren't exactly subtle. In addition, concealment lets him make the check at all, it doesn't give him a bonus.


Level 10 npc orc fighter (based on elite starting arrays and the npc wealth in the DMG p.127) will, with weapon specialisation and STR 22, as well as a+1, fire composite bow do
- 1d8+8 damage
- +2 with a potion of good hope
- +1d6 flame arrows
Yielding, with the rapid shot feat and a haste active (say, from a potion) 4 attacks doing each 1d8+5 damage (taking account of the DR), +1d6, or a total of around 52 damage per round. Enough to take out almost 9HD of undead in a round. And all of the wizard's undead army in 4 rounds.
But it is likely that he will focus on the wizard, not on the minions.

So, he's taking down 3 potions, and I'm not noticing him, despite the fact that he can't manage hide, move silently, spot or listen. Again, you are ignoring actual in game perception checks on both sides.


When he has complete cover, this goes both ways and thus he has no line of sight and cannot attack with spells. And the cover will drop once the beholder corpse will be blown to pieces in 2 rounds by the archer. In case you take a pair of archers of CR 8 each, then in 1 round.

Yes, you do need to move to gain line of effect to cast spells. However, doing so isn't a problem.


The npc halfling rogue at 8th level can have:
- 11 ranks (+11)
- DEX 20 (+5)
- masterwork item (+2)
- small size (+4)
- cloak of elvenkind (+5)
- the stealthy feat (+2)
For a total of +29!
Now, until the rogue is within partial range (or farther away, when he drops onto the wizard with a ring of feather falling), there are penalties of -3 to spot the 30ft minimum distance for partial charge. The -5 for normal move speed do not matter much in this circumstances.

Odds of beating all the spots is still bad, and he can't get into the air with this attack without breaking his cover, rendering his hide down to 0.


And of course the succubi will spot the halfling once he charges, but then it's too late...:smallsmile:

Not really. He also can't spot his target.


With the help of a flying potion a monk can and be faster than you are. And even with jump: the npc monk can with a simple ring of jumping, tumbling synergy, master work item, skill focus, max ranks, his speed and STR 20 have a jump skill of around +36.
Thus, he could reach quite far into the air if enlarged (with, say a potion)- it is not as if the wizard is able to fly 50ft high in all surroundings.

I like how people claim wizards assume they always have the precisely right tools for the job. :smallamused: Sure, you get one attack vs. the beholder, then the wizard traps you in mid air without the ability to move. Or you had flying, and he did it before you got the first charge off, because you couldn't hide.


Which is why I said that the treant can of course also jump/hop up - the DC 10 is quite easy with his +9 jump skill for up to 15ft high (his "waist").:smallbiggrin: And it is not that likely that your wizard floats above the tree tops, unable to see what his minions do on the ground.

Yes, for a single attack. I'm not exactly worried about this one.


You cannot spot through total cover.

That's what the succubi are for.


I should have been more specific. The level 6 monk who also has the improved trip bonus feat will stop those creatures, or at least 50% of those. And a 8,325gp +1 ghost touch spiked chain with 25% of wbl spent on a single item will be available from around level 9.
That monk, unlike the wizard, will have thus
- a way to spot them before they approach (spot as class skill)
- a way to react to them even when flat-footed (combat reflexes)
- and stop several of them with a very high chance of success (the bonus feats combat reflexes and improved trip).

He doesn't have better spot than the succubi, he's not guaranteed to hit, how many monks take exotic weapon proficiency with spiked chains (your monk build didn't.) and he's not guaranteed to succeed on the trip, either. I don't recall your build having improved trip, either.

Lastly, shadows are annoying because they travel mostly in terrain features, meaning they always have half cover, or full if they need it.


True, the behir is not that intelligent. But intelligent enough to wait patientily (making no sounds, thus no listen check of the succubi apply) when it already heard the non-silent party of the wizard from outside its lair.
The behir may jump on a succubus, but I doubt that with its scent ability it will try to taste a fire giant exuding undeath smell. And something tells me that the succubus is not going to follow the demand to scout ahead and thus put it into danger.

They have no listen, so their no listen vs. my no move silently hears my group well after my group hears him.


I think you refer to the holy word wielding air elemental template thing that Belial the Leveler came up with. Well, I think said creature is quite tough, but a diversified party certainly has a good chance against it, as I already outlined above.

Seriously try it. You automatically fail.

[Yukitsu]

Yukitsu: I should clarify that I find PHB races preferable to any old core race, since that's what most players use. I'm not saying that should be the end-all decision for all challenges. I suggest that you adjust your race for the purpose of my challenge only, and leave it as is for the others.

After the challenge is done (and if I make it), I'd be doing a more thorough audit of your build. I prefer to know less about it until then.

Agh, have to redo spells. XD Oh well. Won't take too long to axe the two that I lose.

[Vinotaur]

Also, cost of a wand of animate dead is almost impossible to determine. Each casting has a different cost, which is why that wand is not a core wand.

Actually, the reason it isn't a Core Wand is because a Wand of it would allow non-evil creatures free access to it, since they could still use the wand without "committing an evil act."

Of course this hardly matters since good characters can cast evil spells.

Also, for differing costs each time, wands are to be created expending all the material components on construction.

So for example, a Wand of Animate Dead could not be used to animate more in a desecrate area. But a special one could be built to be used in desecrated areas, it would just cost much more.

By the way, the actual cost of such a wand is:

Non-Desecrate: 23,750.
Desecrate: 36,250.

The funny part is that Animate Dead is one of those spells that is very CL dependent too, so Wands are pretty bad for it.

For example, that First wand, the one that costs almost half the WBL of a level 10 character, cannot even be used to animate a Beholder Skeleton, or anything over 10 HD.

So were a level 10 Non-caster has a single minion of 10HD, at the cost of half their WBL, a level 10 Wizard could easily have 4 Fire Giant Skeletons.

Wow, Gonk fails again.

[Sir Giacomo]

Told you so.

Yep, it's horrible when people object.:smallamused:

Apart from this...

@Vintoaur:
I kindly ask you wrote in a more polite manner. I responded to the ideas in general, plus to your and Yukitsu's posts individually.

Now, having said that - it is strange you defended the beholder idea at first, and now you also say that it's not possible with the application of the knowledge rules. But thanks for agreeing with me now - although you still got some stuff wrong, because the knowledge skill description does not even use the word "abilities". I quoted the relevant passage above.

Then, on the calling creatures to march around with you thing, I think I outlined the problems associated with this. You may wish to ignore these drawbacks, but then you need to have a DM who allows this. And a DM runs the npcs including the succubi, not you.

Concerning leadership, there again appears to be a deep misunderstanding. Either the feat is allowed then everyone can have it (the wizard receiving -2 penalty for his familiar), or no-one can. Either the DM generally allows that npc companions can accompany the pcs, or you do not allow it at all, or just one per person. Is that so difficult to understand? It is balance basics.
The joker monk has no leadership feat because that is frowned upon by some posters here and I intended to provide a build that can live without it. He does not even need it.
So it's no use to compare your - still remarkably vague - build to a complete build done under different conditions, plus delivered with full tactics and examples . That's a bit cheap, don't you think?

An npc can use up any treasure as he likes, there is nothing stopping him from consuming 2000gp of potions, he is put there as part of a challenge or story by the DM. I outlined what kind of threats can come up for a wizard at level 10, and you just keep waving them away. Lacking the beholder skull around you all the time, how again are you going to stop in core a surprise archery attack from 300ft away? (-30 to spot and listen btw for the succubus).

And now, to illustrate what GROUP play and combination of the level 10 bard/fighter/rogue/monk/barbarian group I provided can do vs said elemental

"- ... a cleric or bard able to cast the silence spell" Excellent, except for the fact that now you can't cast spells and the aforementioned Air Elemental can still use one of it's other SLAs, or just beat you to death.

Does not look likely, the group I indicated all either have good reflex saves vs the whirlwind, or, in the case of a fighter archer have good enough DEX to boost the reflex saves, or as raging barbarian do not care to be in a whirlwind. They all can also melee better than the wizard in the whirlstorm. That was the point of belial the leveler: your wizard relies on spells to survive, and when he cannot cast them, he's hosed. Non-casters or even the bard? They fight on....

So your Monk has a movement speed of 290ft in a single move action? Because that is what is required to start and end outside of Holy Word Range.

Er...holy word has a range of 40ft.
And even if the elemental has a move of 100ft, it cannot cast the holy word and move in a surprise round. So it has to get within 40ft of a group full of good spotters and listeners, without move silently skill ranks. And activiating the whirlwind is a supernatural ability costing a standard action, meaning in that round again no holy word yet.

"- ... a rogue archer attacking from way outside the holy word range"

A Rogue Archer? You mean one not getting any SA, and not doing much damage, and that moves slower then the Elemental who will just close, if he even cares, or if he doesn't just Hold Monster the Rogue?

Hmmm. Nothing prevents a rogue archer to also do good damage without any sneaks. With a +1 flaming bow set to STR 14, for instance, boosted by the bard's song.

"- ... a fighter with the blind-fight feat"

Who can't attack because he is paralyzed. So no one would care if he had Blindsight, because he's still paralyzed.

The bard can cast freedom of movement. Plus, is the caster level of said Holy Word really higher than 14? Would be odd for a CR 10 creature. Otherwise, only the blindness and deafness apply.
You also once posted I think that a CL 16 holy word will kill level 10 characters. Which is wrong, of course, but it is a common mistake. The table of the holy word should be read like this: level difference 5-9: paralysed, blinded and deafened. Only 10 levels difference (or CL 20) will kill level 10 characters instantly.

"- ....a charger barbarian simply smashing/grappling it with one strike?
etc..."

Which of course, 1) doesn't kill the elemental. 2) The Elemental is easily strong enough and large enough to outgrapple the Barbarian 3) Grappling the Elemental does nothing to prevent it from Paralyzing the whole Party, Barbarian included with Holy Word, 4) It's an Air Elemental, it turns into a Whirlwind and suddenly the Barbarian is floating around doing no damage and taking damage, in the mean time, the Elemental flies around picking up more PCs, and then Holy Words all of them at once. Followed by four rounds of coup de gracing.

I am starting to get the suspicion that you often play solo games with a wizard running around with his called minions, instead of playing with a complete pc class group as envisoned by the game.
1) and 2) the elemental has big problems once grappled, because it loses its DEX bonus vs the attacks of the others (and I am not talking about the sneaks here, simply that it will lose a big chunk of its AC). I do not know its grapple check the way Belial the Leveler designed the one that flattened your wizard, but a level 10 barbarian can crank up his grapple check into the high 20s. And there is nothing preventing a monk specialised in grappling to join the fray, upping the number of grapple checks considerably.
3) once grappling and thus fixed into place, the elemental may be covered with a silence area, so no more holy words.
4) as I said, the whirlwind takes a standard action to get up, and even those the elemental picks up can still full attack it (they only can no longer move).

Will reply to Yukitsu in a different post.

- Giacomo

[Yukitsu]

Now, having said that - it is strange you defended the beholder idea at first, and now you also say that it's not possible with the application of the knowledge rules. But thanks for agreeing with me now - although you still got some stuff wrong, because the knowledge skill description does not even use the word "abilities". I quoted the relevant passage above.

Your quote includes the word "Special abilities" in bold. :smallconfused: Plus, it doesn't address that physical features must be known by default to allow identification at all.


Then, on the calling creatures to march around with you thing, I think I outlined the problems associated with this. You may wish to ignore these drawbacks, but then you need to have a DM who allows this. And a DM runs the npcs including the succubi, not you.

They rely on certain other factors to balance them out. For instance, going into town with the skeletons is harder, but commanding them to stay outside of town is possible, and succubi with their alter form ability makes it possible for the party to go into a town undisturbed. As for the issue of succubi trying to hose you, there are ways around it. My build addresses that problem, but I need a challenge before I can post it. Build is finished, but I need to post simultaneously for both sides to avoid meta gaming.


Concerning leadership, there again appears to be a deep misunderstanding. Either the feat is allowed then everyone can have it (the wizard receiving -2 penalty for his familiar), or no-one can. Either the DM generally allows that npc companions can accompany the pcs, or you do not allow it at all, or just one per person. Is that so difficult to understand? It is balance basics.

This doesn't make any particular build on par with the wizard, is the problem. Not nearly. Wizards can gain leadership + others. Other people can only get leadership. Leadership + is always going to be better than leadership. Also, it's nearly impossible to have a cohort lower than the maximum possible level, even with a familiar. The point we are trying to make is, adding in leadership doesn't fix the issue that wizards have more helpers. It merely changes the proportions of helpers each person has. And as well, wizards have much higher concentrations of high HD helpers when compared to people with leadership.


The joker monk has no leadership feat because that is frowned upon by some posters here and I intended to provide a build that can live without it. He does not even need it.
So it's no use to compare your - still remarkably vague - build to a complete build done under different conditions, plus delivered with full tactics and examples . That's a bit cheap, don't you think?

Not really. You were the one to initially mention leadership as a counter to the wizards large numbers of helpers. We're pointing out that this doesn't balance anything, because the characters simply shift the point of reference by having everyone take leadership. (I've seen this in campaign, and it was hilareous.)


An npc can use up any treasure as he likes, there is nothing stopping him from consuming 2000gp of potions, he is put there as part of a challenge or story by the DM. I outlined what kind of threats can come up for a wizard at level 10, and you just keep waving them away. Lacking the beholder skull around you all the time, how again are you going to stop in core a surprise archery attack from 300ft away? (-30 to spot and listen btw for the succubus).

Equivalently, -30 for the non-spotting fighter archer to see the group. Guess who actually sees the other first, negating his ability to spend rounds buffing?


Does not look likely, the group I indicated all either have good reflex saves vs the whirlwind, or, in the case of a fighter archer have good enough DEX to boost the reflex saves, or as raging barbarian do not care to be in a whirlwind. They all can also melee better than the wizard in the whirlstorm. That was the point of belial the leveler: your wizard relies on spells to survive, and when he cannot cast them, he's hosed. Non-casters or even the bard? They fight on....

No they don't, they are all paralyzed. At least most decent wizard builds can escape.


Er...holy word has a range of 40ft.
And even if the elemental has a move of 100ft, it cannot cast the holy word and move in a surprise round. So it has to get within 40ft of a group full of good spotters and listeners, without move silently skill ranks. And activiating the whirlwind is a supernatural ability costing a standard action, meaning in that round again no holy word yet.

If it moves downward, it can move 200 feet in a round. If it got the surprise round and won initiative, it does both before you act. Tornado form is only needed if they spend their round scattering.


Hmmm. Nothing prevents a rogue archer to also do good damage without any sneaks. With a +1 flaming bow set to STR 14, for instance, boosted by the bard's song.

Except the bard is paralyzed, unless it's the rogue/bard clumped together, in which case it's only the rogue/bard, trying to fight something after it's coup de gra'ed the other two party members, who were paralyzed.


The bard can cast freedom of movement. Plus, is the caster level of said Holy Word really higher than 14? Would be odd for a CR 10 creature. Otherwise, only the blindness and deafness apply.

Caster level is 16, which is why we've been saying it's an unfair challenge (well Vinotuar has, I've stated I can easily survive it). Also, you stated you were singing for the rogue, so you are out of range for freedom of movement for the fighter, or you are in range of the fighter and paralyzed, or in range of both, and everyone is paralyzed.


You also once posted I think that a CL 16 holy word will kill level 10 characters. Which is wrong, of course, but it is a common mistake. The table of the holy word should be read like this: level difference 5-9: paralysed, blinded and deafened. Only 10 levels difference (or CL 20) will kill level 10 characters instantly.

Paralyzed for 10s of minutes means he coup de gras everyone and that's that. At CR 11, a 21 HD half celestial air elemental does in fact instantly kill the party, so it's a blessing he didn't choose that.


sarting to get the suspicion that you often play solo games with a wizard running around with his called minions, instead of playing with a complete pc class group as envisoned by the game.
1) and 2) the elemental has big problems once grappled, because it loses its DEX bonus vs the attacks of the others (and I am not talking about the sneaks here, simply that it will lose a big chunk of its AC). I do not know its grapple check the way Belial the Leveler designed the one that flattened your wizard, but a level 10 barbarian can crank up his grapple check into the high 20s. And there is nothing preventing a monk specialised in grappling to join the fray, upping the number of grapple checks considerably.

As a huge creature, the elemental will have even specialized grapplers beat. They have +24 grapple. A barb generally comes close, but likely won't win. If he does, tornado form will beat the barbs reflex save, which is both poor and has penalties.


3) once grappling and thus fixed into place, the elemental may be covered with a silence area, so no more holy words.

Requires metagaming. Also, you aren't likely to succeed a grapple. Since you can't lock it into place, it can simply go holy word someone that isn't in the silence.


4) as I said, the whirlwind takes a standard action to get up, and even those the elemental picks up can still full attack it (they only can no longer move).

Except in all odds, they will be paralyzed.

[Fenix_of_Doom]

I admit that I missed the earlier part of this thread, but wouldn't making a good party be a very easy way to counter holy word?

I had another comment but I forgot, damnit.

[Yukitsu]

I admit that I missed the earlier part of this thread, but wouldn't making a good party be a very easy way to counter holy word?

@Giacomo
caster level=HD for holy word, I assume a CR 7 air elemental, so yea the CL is 16(HD are cheap).

Yes, however that avoids the encounter entirely as good rarely attacks good, and invites an attack from a half fiendish huge air elemental. The point of the selection was to hose the wizard for his alignment choice.

[mostlyharmful]

I admit that I missed the earlier part of this thread, but wouldn't making a good party be a very easy way to counter holy word?

Dictum, Blasphemy, Word of Chaos. The half celestial air elemental just wandered up, show me a material plane wandering monster chart with that on it, whatever the makeup of your party there'll be something the DM can do to the CR system (I call it a system, halfassed bodge is more like it) to instakill virtually everything.

[Sir Giacomo]

There are rules for material building rules. Wood paneling and cloth included. It is reasonable to place them inside of something such that you yourself are inside of it.

Yep, that's what I said.

As was pointed out earlier, the statue turns into a corpse, making it a legitimate target for raise undead. Frankly, I think that's a rather dumb ruling, but it is stated explicitly in the rules.

No, the statue turns into something of flesh that has no skeleton. The rules are pretty clear about this. What you could do is use real bones, but then you'd only get to animate the HD of the original creature. And, as I also already said, a statue has no HD.

Arguably, the latter half of this list is not useful information. Knowing something has skills of feats doesn't really tell you much as far as fighting skeletons goes.

I think that's clarified by now, even Vinotaur agrees with me. And improved initiative and the knowledge a skeleton does not have any skills at all is a very useful information if, for instance, you wish to keep them as bodyguards. And again, it is entirely up to the DM to reveal the associated information to you.

Part of being a corpse of the creature is that you have bones. "an ordinary statue would become a corpse.." As well, the spell definitely can turn stone to bone, as it does so every time it counters petrification.

The spell turns stone to bone again in case the original was a living creature. It dispels the original petrification, and can still kill the person afflicted. Read also the stone to flesh spell again on what it says about turning normal stone into flesh.

Walls do work depending on range, but even more so, the distance determines the kind of spell cast to counter the archers. At long ranges, walls are very effective. At close range, solid fog it very effective.

Well, these walls are useful- but the wizard has to survive to cast them in the first place. And an npc archer by level 8 can have 1) the surprise attack and 2) his full attack, usually killing a wizard. That's my whole point and still you refuse admitting that.

Yes, however, moaning is one of those DC -10 to hear things. It's that that is important to differentiate.

? I referred to skeletons. No skills, no big move silently bonus. Zombies are even worse, yes.

And yet it has not been shown how this is dangerous. A succubous is not a legitimate threat at level 10, barely gaining EXP for defeating one.

It charms you as a spell-like ability 1/round at DC 22 and you'll not even notice it until it's too late.

Possible, but that varies by gaming group.

That's what I said. You apparenty believe, though, that it happens often enough for your build to be representative enough - which I do not believe.

Actually, them booking off to the farthest away they can be is probably the most efficient way for them to warn of impending danger you can get. And since you don't want them to be physical body guards, this is all good stuff.

But, you see, the succubi always scouting ahead on their own will put their lives at risk against the CR the wizard wishes to face. I do not think that that is a service they will agree to.

Just play an anti hero then. An evil person who finds that good is more beneficial for the time being.

No problem about that - but it is rather the exception than the rule, in particular for group play.

I'm stating that leadership is broken for everyone equally. Everyone can use it to great effect. Bringing it up is entirely irrelevant, as in all cases, it makes the character drastically better. Also, cost of a wand of animate dead is almost impossible to determine. Each casting has a different cost, which is why that wand is not a core wand.

The wand is core. The tables in the DMG listed are only those of randomly found treasures. And with it, everyone using UMD can replicate the floating beholder trick - in case the DM allows knowing about it in the first place and provides a corpse. The wizard may be slightly ahead, but not much.

And as I said above, saying leadership is broken that gives you, say, at level 10 a loyal level 8 cohort, but thinking that several CR 7 succubi plus 40 HD of undead running around with you are not broken, is somewhat inconsistent in my eyes.

This never actually changes final scores, as wizards can make a base of operations with fabricate for free, and have special powers, which balances that -2 out. No one who takes leadership will ever fall below cohort as two levels below themselves.

? Say, your level 10 wizard has CHR 16 (cloak +2, 14 start), then his leadership score is
10+3=13. Then -2 for the familiar, 11.
Then, you cannot get a base of operations with fabricate "for free". You'll have to pay for it.
1) Being evil, it is, though, way more likely that you
get -2 for being cruel and
2) a -1 for moving around a lot (you do adventuring, don't you?)
3) risk to get -1 for each time one of your many companions die. Come one, you wish to call succubi to scout ahead and do your bidding, and you never expect this will happen?
Yep. Looks like you have most of the time a leadership score of around 8 at best, meaning at best a level 5 cohort.
The lvl 10 fighter taking that feat with equal CHR and not being forced to be evil will, however, have the level 8 cohort, plus 5 level 1 followers.

Undead army is actually rather expensive. More so in fact, for a non-caster than it is for a wizard. Also, there has been no demonstrated risk in keeping succubi around.

Yep, when your DM looks the other way. I have listed all the dangers there are, feel free to ignore them.

"Jack the fighter took leadership? I take leadership as well."
"But that's not fair! The wizard already has an army!"
"Well, I wanted a bigger army."

As I have shown, the wizard (yours in particular) will not make as big use out of leadership, while his minions have quite a few drawbacks that balance Jack the fighter's decision to just take along Alan the 8th level bard.

Information of the availability wasn't given, so that requires metagame. Also, wizards also have that spell.

Wizards do not "have" silence, although they can emulate it at higher levels than 10. But true, a holy word uttered in the middle of the party would be desastrous if not anticipated...except what about the good characters?

Flyby attack on a monk? Seriously? Doubly because in this case, you would lose initiative, and as such, not be flying when it hit.

Yep, but after it hit the monk would still be there to retaliate. The wizard? Not so much.
Plus, the elemental has no move silently skill ranks, and thus only +10 to moving silently and hide. It is not that improbable that the monk with +18 in each at least will notice it early enough to avoid being surprised.

Doing no damage thanks to DR, and immunity to sneak attack, not that he can sneak attack at that range.

As mentioned above, a rogue archer can also do damage differently than with sneaks. And, the rogue will likely also note the elemental approaching him.

Except he killed the fighter, not blinded and deafened him. At CR 11, a CR 11 half celestial air elemental instantly kills the party, no save.

Nope. Only paralysis which can be overcome by the bard in the group.

200 foot move, holy word. Party=dead. You don't survive, and don't get to try to grapple. You don't get to try to charge.

It cannot move 200ft, just 100 in a round and still do holy word. And it is not that unlikely that at least one of the party, after being warned by the good spotters, will beat the initiative check of the elemental.

Special powers is a specific list that is on the monster profile. Other characteristics are necessary to identify the creature. "Hmmm. A flying skull, that must be a beholder skeleton." Does mean they should be able to say "I need a flying skull. Beholder skeleton seems like a good fit." Visual characteristics of the creature are met with the initial check. Nor is that particularly useful information.

I was referring to the likelihood that a wizard gets the beholder idea out of thin air, not copying after seeing it in practice done by the BBEG. Again, entirely DM-dependent.

Many of those are not useful. Skills, +2 dex, improved initiative is not useful information, as those are all abstract terms that you don't get information on in character. You can make them into subjective in game terms, but then they aren't exactly useful bits of information. "Is more agile, isn't skilled."

It is useful information. There is no way around that. The knowledge skill was written that way to avoid your amount of meta-gaming.

I have to wait for a challenge to be posted, and no, I don't have to admit that. Your cases assume unrealisticly ideal positioning, and failed perception checks on my half of the bargain.

Please. Post your wizard. Then I throw challenges at you of the kind that I outlined.

Pretty much.

Yep.

For no cost, it grants additional spot and listen checks. It doesn't grant protection in the classical sense.

It has the cost of risk. And you could also summon other creatures that would protect you as a service.

He stated that he won't have time, necessarily. As such, it may never happen.

Yep, I start to realise that. It's much less time-consuming that you post your build and then we discuss.

People notice ever smoking bottles. They aren't exactly subtle. In addition, concealment lets him make the check at all, it doesn't give him a bonus.

The bottles are sublte enough. They are metal urns! You can tell they are strange with a detect magic or when they are active, which tends to be too late.:smallsmile:
Plus, regular smoke is just fine.

So, he's taking down 3 potions, and I'm not noticing him, despite the fact that he can't manage hide, move silently, spot or listen. Again, you are ignoring actual in game perception checks on both sides.

When the orc NPC shoots from 300ft away and wins initiative, your succubi first have -30 to spot and listen, and then can just stare awestruck as the arrows thud into their master.

Yes, you do need to move to gain line of effect to cast spells. However, doing so isn't a problem.

Yes. But, then readied actions can strike.

Odds of beating all the spots is still bad, and he can't get into the air with this attack without breaking his cover, rendering his hide down to 0.

A halfling rogue can also hide while flying, as long as there is concealment. Plus, he can climb before to get into an ambush situation.

Not really. He also can't spot his target.

But it will be too late. Once the charge starts, it's the surprise round (hence the name). And of course he can spot his target, since the wizard and his trek are not hiding, but moving through the dungeon or whereever. A floating large skull is not exactly something that is hidden well, btw.:smallamused:

I like how people claim wizards assume they always have the precisely right tools for the job. :smallamused: Sure, you get one attack vs. the beholder, then the wizard traps you in mid air without the ability to move. Or you had flying, and he did it before you got the first charge off, because you couldn't hide.

And I like how wizard fans react to common challenges of their levels with
1) "how unrealistic"
2) "how specialised"
3) "how unfair, a whole party would receive TPK from that"
etc.
You still assume the beholder shell provides you with full cover on all sides. This is not covered by the rules, although certainly you can try to set up defenses - depends on the DM. And a halfling rogue faced with his prey inside a floating skull would use alchemical fire to smoke the wizard out.

Yes, for a single attack. I'm not exactly worried about this one.

You should be. You get hit by the treant in the surprise round and IF you then lose that initiative, the wizard is likely dead.

That's what the succubi are for.

The succubi likewise cannot spot through full cover.

He doesn't have better spot than the succubi, he's not guaranteed to hit, how many monks take exotic weapon proficiency with spiked chains (your monk build didn't.) and he's not guaranteed to succeed on the trip, either. I don't recall your build having improved trip, either.

A monk does not even need the proficiency with the spiked chain for the touch attack to initiate the trip, that is the beauty of it. The joker monk can easily be built to have improved trip instead of improved disarm. It depends on the kind of campaign you are in - with more monsters, or with opponents often wielding arms. The disarm action can be also used to disarm spellcasters of foci and spell components.

Lastly, shadows are annoying because they travel mostly in terrain features, meaning they always have half cover, or full if they need it.

The shadows are annoying in this case, because they show how weak the wizard is in some circumstances.

They have no listen, so their no listen vs. my no move silently hears my group well after my group hears him.

A behir has a listen skill of +4. That is enough to hear people talking or not trying to move silently.

Seriously try it. You automatically fail.

How can level 10 non-casters overcome a huge half-celecstial air elemental?
Well, I do not know whether they can overcome such a maxed challenge for their level. (I admit that the CR system is tweaking here somewhat).
They certainly have often either more hits, better reflex save or spot / listen to survive the surprise round and first round. Much better than the wizard of that level.
Which is the whole point of this discussion.

- Giacomo

[Fenix_of_Doom]

Yes, however that avoids the encounter entirely as good rarely attacks good, and invites an attack from a half fiendish huge air elemental. The point of the selection was to hose the wizard for his alignment choice.

I see.

{Scrubbed}

Edit I just remembered what I wanted to say: Giacomo, having a familiar is purely optional, thus if there is ever any situation where the wizard will be at a disadvantage because of a familiar, he will simply not take a familiar.

[Yukitsu]

It can get even sillier too. A half fiend and half celestial (both, at the same time) with 20 human HD (not commoner levels) is a CR 9 encounter that can instakill the level 10 party. All of it. No save.

[Vinotaur]

{Scrubbed}

[VerdugoExplode]

I don't suppose it would be possible to just say
"How hard is it to kill a caster?"
"Pretty hard"
And leave it at that. I think this thread is going to break under the weight of these massive posts that have been occurring as of late {Scrubbed}

Just saying.

[Fenix_of_Doom]

It can get even sillier too. A half fiend and half celestial (both, at the same time) with 20 human HD (not commoner levels) is a CR 9 encounter that can instakill the level 10 party. All of it. No save.

That would be a humanoid and 20/3+6=12 2/3 not 9 and it would be neutral so it would daze itself.

[Sir Giacomo]

more stuff

I think it will be best that you post your level 10 wizard able to consistently survive surprise attacks.

The kind of non-caster surprise round attacks I have already mentioned, but I'll summarise them:
- enemy archers with enhanced bows
- enemy sneak attacks
- enemy grappling you
- enemy poisons you
- enemy entangles you
- enemy touch attacks you with something nasty (shadows etc.)
- enemy power attack charges you

Try to avoid that, but for the sake of the arguments, please no more floating beholder corpses providing full cover not covered by the rules or needing a DM with a taste for the VERY unusual.

- Giacomo

[Sir Giacomo]

{Scrubbed}

how people quote stuff out of context when they run out of arguments?
The monk was put to playtesting several times, and strangely enough, every time it started to prove my position, people quickly lost interest.
1) in the grappling test by Talic (not exactly a monk friend), the monk specialised in grappling was ahead of the others specialised in that and is so far unbeaten.
2) in a level 20 playtest with Lord_khaine as the monk it became clear quickly in the first combat encounter that yes, even at those levels monks can contribute, while the casters were surprised by what monsters at those levels can do.
3) In a level 6 playtest for the joker monk run by Illiterate Scribe, it became clear quickly that the joker monk would contribute nicely, be ready for the typical dungeon situations (like getting down a steep wall), and get his wands activated with teamplay without problem. Later, at a friend's place, I checked the adventure Sinister Spire that was the one used- the grappling tactics would have been OK for 2/3 of the encounters, and for the rest the joker monk would also have had combat options.

People challenge "build monks to overcome ancient white dragons", build monks to do 500 damage per round at level 13", "no monk can ever have an AC of 50 by ECL 10". And I do all that, in core to boost, and never get any instance saying "hey, Giacomo, guess you were right." {Scrubbed}

Very strange.

Then, on that familiar thing - yes, a wizard can certainly live without it, but it would mean giving up a net advantage in my eyes.

- Giacomo

[HolderofSecrets]

That would be a humanoid and 20/3+6=12 2/3 not 9 and it would be neutral so it would daze itself.

What about Half Feind /Half Farspawn? Chaotic Evil should work out just fine.

[Fenix_of_Doom]

Hey, Giacomo, guess you were right, about something, somewhere, sometime.(I'm to lazy to check when you actually where right)

Edit:

What about Half Feind /Half Farspawn? Chaotic Evil should work out just fine.
Where is Farspawn from? and does it kill evil creatures with 10 HD or less within 40 feat instantly?

[Yukitsu]

No, the statue turns into something of flesh that has no skeleton. The rules are pretty clear about this. What you could do is use real bones, but then you'd only get to animate the HD of the original creature. And, as I also already said, a statue has no HD.

It states explicitly that it turns into a corpse. A dead body. Dead bodies do in fact have bones, and the necessity of the target for animate undead is a corpse. Corpses consequintly have bones. If it were otherwise, statues would turn to lumpy sacks of flesh completely unrelated to a corpse, and not a corpse.


I think that's clarified by now, even Vinotaur agrees with me. And improved initiative and the knowledge a skeleton does not have any skills at all is a very useful information if, for instance, you wish to keep them as bodyguards. And again, it is entirely up to the DM to reveal the associated information to you.

I don't recall Vinotuar agreeing with you in any capacity here. Also, again, there knowing the appearance is the only necessary part of what I wish to do. You can't identify a "floating eyeball monster" by sight without seeing that it is in fact floating.


The spell turns stone to bone again in case the original was a living creature. It dispels the original petrification, and can still kill the person afflicted. Read also the stone to flesh spell again on what it says about turning normal stone into flesh.

It still explicitly states that it turns statues into corpses. Corpses have bones, unless there is some obsure reason they don't.


Well, these walls are useful- but the wizard has to survive to cast them in the first place. And an npc archer by level 8 can have 1) the surprise attack and 2) his full attack, usually killing a wizard. That's my whole point and still you refuse admitting that.

And equivalently, you refuse to admit that your supposed archer either can't see the traveling wizard first, or can't draw a bead on the wizard at all, because of precautions taken. The wizard simply isn't a legitimate target.


? I referred to skeletons. No skills, no big move silently bonus. Zombies are even worse, yes.

Having a value, at base, means your party will hear a behir before it hears you.


It charms you as a spell-like ability 1/round at DC 22 and you'll not even notice it until it's too late.

I've stated repeatedly, a wizard is immune to this from level 1 onwards.


That's what I said. You apparenty believe, though, that it happens often enough for your build to be representative enough - which I do not believe.

I've done it often enough that I know it's allowable.


But, you see, the succubi always scouting ahead on their own will put their lives at risk against the CR the wizard wishes to face. I do not think that that is a service they will agree to.

They are not scouting ahead, they are staying near the wizard. As such, it's not a particularly dangerous role.

Just play an anti hero then. An evil person who finds that good is more beneficial for the time being.


The wand is core. The tables in the DMG listed are only those of randomly found treasures. And with it, everyone using UMD can replicate the floating beholder trick - in case the DM allows knowing about it in the first place and provides a corpse. The wizard may be slightly ahead, but not much.

You're arguing partially charge wands again, aren't you? In general, if you absolutely must argue that anyone can do this, at least argue a scroll. Which frankly it fine by me. On the other hand, a scroll or wand user has no caster level, and as such, can't control more undead than the item allows. Usually 28 HD total, which isn't much compared to the wizards 40. It also costs far more to use this method than being a wizard, and it's even more ridiculous if you do this for planar bindings.


And as I said above, saying leadership is broken that gives you, say, at level 10 a loyal level 8 cohort, but thinking that several CR 7 succubi plus 40 HD of undead running around with you are not broken, is somewhat inconsistent in my eyes.

Leadership properly done is broken because of economic loops, and metaconcerted psionics. Things that are harder to do by using planar bindings or undead. Having 180 experts doing profession checks each week adds a lot of gold to your personal coffers, and breaking wealth by level that rapidly is rarely tolerable. Having a few hundred level 1s to screen you? Go wild, it's even less useful than planar bound entities. A few hundred in the shop? That's when game breaking comes into play.


? Say, your level 10 wizard has CHR 16 (cloak +2, 14 start), then his leadership score is
10+3=13. Then -2 for the familiar, 11.

Wizards by definition get special power, netting them the 12 they need. At level 10, a +4 item for charisma is also likely, if you use leadership.


Then, you cannot get a base of operations with fabricate "for free". You'll have to pay for it.
1) Being evil, it is, though, way more likely that you
get -2 for being cruel and

So don't be cruel. Also, fabricate does produce buildings for free, they just are sucky buildings. They can work on making it nicer essentially at cost, if you want them to.


2) a -1 for moving around a lot (you do adventuring, don't you?)

Goes away at higher levels. Teleport to adventure, be back right after. Being out for a few hours every day isn't moving around a lot. Even higher levels, you never leave base.


3) risk to get -1 for each time one of your many companions die. Come one, you wish to call succubi to scout ahead and do your bidding, and you never expect this will happen?

In this case, it's context specific. Follower deaths explicitly caused by you, and cohort death explicitly caused by you lowers your leadership score, not random summonables.


Yep. Looks like you have most of the time a leadership score of around 8 at best, meaning at best a level 5 cohort.

You assume far too much.


The lvl 10 fighter taking that feat with equal CHR and not being forced to be evil will, however, have the level 8 cohort, plus 5 level 1 followers.

Unless I make bad assumptions as well.


Yep, when your DM looks the other way. I have listed all the dangers there are, feel free to ignore them.

You keep ignoring that those "dangers" don't actually work.


As I have shown, the wizard (yours in particular) will not make as big use out of leadership, while his minions have quite a few drawbacks that balance Jack the fighter's decision to just take along Alan the 8th level bard.

All of it relies highly on false assumptions, however. The fighter with total charisma 14 and a leadership score of 12 also doesn't manage an 8, as long days traveling are more necessary for a fighter than they are for a wizard.


Wizards do not "have" silence, although they can emulate it at higher levels than 10. But true, a holy word uttered in the middle of the party would be desastrous if not anticipated...except what about the good characters?

Yes, my edit that came before this post points as much out. Also, good parties get attacked by evil beings, not good beings. A good party instantly dies to a blasphemy.


Yep, but after it hit the monk would still be there to retaliate. The wizard? Not so much.

Priority of entire group should be escaping, not fighting back.


Plus, the elemental has no move silently skill ranks, and thus only +10 to moving silently and hide. It is not that improbable that the monk with +18 in each at least will notice it early enough to avoid being surprised.

The problem is actually that you can't see it until it's about spotx10 away or closer. Since it can cover that distance in a single-2 rounds, you don't really get any options as far as masses of buffs like you propose.


As mentioned above, a rogue archer can also do damage differently than with sneaks. And, the rogue will likely also note the elemental approaching him.

He doesn't do enough that he won't die to the elemental. Also, noticing in this case saves the rogue, as everyone else doesn't have an 8000 gp bow necessarily.


Nope. Only paralysis which can be overcome by the bard in the group.

CR 9 has paralysis. CR 11 has insta death. CR 11 has a caster level of 21. Also, the bard can't cast that when paralyzed.


It cannot move 200ft, just 100 in a round and still do holy word. And it is not that unlikely that at least one of the party, after being warned by the good spotters, will beat the initiative check of the elemental.

It can move 200 by virtue of the fact that it can move downward and across. This doubles its move.


I was referring to the likelihood that a wizard gets the beholder idea out of thin air, not copying after seeing it in practice done by the BBEG. Again, entirely DM-dependent.

Player idead based on tangent knowledge they have is not up to the DM. The DM cannot say "You have the knowledge but are not creative enough to come up with that solution." That's simply not part of the game.


It is useful information. There is no way around that. The knowledge skill was written that way to avoid your amount of meta-gaming.

It's only useful if given in out of character terms, which knowledge doesn't grant you. If you say "It's more average than a typical beholder" you don't know necessarily what that means. It's not useful information.


Please. Post your wizard. Then I throw challenges at you of the kind that I outlined.

No. I'll send it to a third party, you send your challenge to a third party and they get posted at the same time. Otherwise, metagaming from your side is both likely and possible.


It has the cost of risk. And you could also summon other creatures that would protect you as a service.

It's not much risk. Not many things are well equipped to deal with flyers. As for summoning creatures to actually fight, I think that that is approaching broken. There are some very powerful low HD demons that would likely be overpowering if they were used in actual combat. I'm demonstrating I'm good at avoiding ambush without resorting to that.


Yep, I start to realise that. It's much less time-consuming that you post your build and then we discuss.

Not in any realistic sense. The spells prepared do change given changes to setting, and people constantly blurt out wierd scenarios, and say that I can't adjust prepared spells. That's just silly.


The bottles are sublte enough. They are metal urns! You can tell they are strange with a detect magic or when they are active, which tends to be too late.:smallsmile:
Plus, regular smoke is just fine.

Both forms of smoke are highly noticible, and it's not to late when I notice them, because activating either is a standard action. Which means I have a round to react.


When the orc NPC shoots from 300ft away and wins initiative, your succubi first have -30 to spot and listen, and then can just stare awestruck as the arrows thud into their master.

-30 vs. DC 0. I need an 11 on 6 rolls. He doesn't get to hide, and his own non-trained spot check is also at -30. The reality of the game is, that fighter will see my group well after I see him.


Yes. But, then readied actions can strike.

If you do so, but that you must concede occurs with penalties due to half cover and concealment.


A halfling rogue can also hide while flying, as long as there is concealment. Plus, he can climb before to get into an ambush situation.

There is no concealment at an alititude of 50 feet. As such no, he is noticible.


But it will be too late. Once the charge starts, it's the surprise round (hence the name). And of course he can spot his target, since the wizard and his trek are not hiding, but moving through the dungeon or whereever. A floating large skull is not exactly something that is hidden well, btw.:smallamused:

He can fire at the undead all he wants for what I care. What matters is, he can't hit the wizard.


And I like how wizard fans react to common challenges of their levels with
1) "how unrealistic"

Never stated that.


2) "how specialised"

Everything you're trying to use is theoretically specialized vs. wizards, so I don't care.


3) "how unfair, a whole party would receive TPK from that"

Build a party, and I'll run them through a similar challenge altered to screw the right alignment.


You still assume the beholder shell provides you with full cover on all sides. This is not covered by the rules, although certainly you can try to set up defenses - depends on the DM. And a halfling rogue faced with his prey inside a floating skull would use alchemical fire to smoke the wizard out.

I stated cover was due to added features. Rules do exist for that. As for alchemical fire, sure, go ahead. It doesn't produce much acrid smoke.


You should be. You get hit by the treant in the surprise round and IF you then lose that initiative, the wizard is likely dead.

No, the skeleton is likely dead. It's not a big deal, however.


The succubi likewise cannot spot through full cover.

They are not inside, they are outside. As such, they just shout out a warning, or whatever.


A monk does not even need the proficiency with the spiked chain for the touch attack to initiate the trip, that is the beauty of it. The joker monk can easily be built to have improved trip instead of improved disarm. It depends on the kind of campaign you are in - with more monsters, or with opponents often wielding arms. The disarm action can be also used to disarm spellcasters of foci and spell components.

This discussion on sundering/disarming components actually is an old one. But try it in the ambush if you care to.


The shadows are annoying in this case, because they show how weak the wizard is in some circumstances.

Annoying, not deadly to a wizard. However, as your monk nicely demonstrated, you have to be prepared for them in particular. Your monk for instance has to have had the ghost touch spiked chain already out and ready for some reason, you need to have an enlarge potion already drunk, and if you are attacking with a non profficient weapon, assuming your joker stats, you only have a +6 to hit, taking into account them being half in the floor, you are hitting touch vs touch AC 21. 25% chance of even hitting. That's assuming you had your spiked chain that you aren't proficient in out for some reason. A wizard similarly prepared can spam magic missile, or more likely, command/halt undead.


A behir has a listen skill of +4. That is enough to hear people talking or not trying to move silently.

Hear out to 40 feet and freeze at 40. Compare to a non-moving silently behir (they don't move silently when there is no threat) succubi hear it 190 feet away.


How can level 10 non-casters overcome a huge half-celecstial air elemental?
Well, I do not know whether they can overcome such a maxed challenge for their level. (I admit that the CR system is tweaking here somewhat).
They certainly have often either more hits, better reflex save or spot / listen to survive the surprise round and first round. Much better than the wizard of that level.
Which is the whole point of this discussion.

My build survives assuming all failures, actually.

[ericgrau]

Ah, internet arguments. This comment not to be interpreted for or against anyone. For those of you making an honest effort to have a discussion, I feel your pain.

Anyhoo I've been brainstorming on that challenge thing. Step 1 of 100 I guess.

[Yukitsu]

That would be a humanoid and 20/3+6=12 2/3 not 9 and it would be neutral so it would daze itself.

humanoid hit dice are /4, not 3. I still got it wrong, but not by much. It winds up being CR 11, which is considered fair vs. a full party.

[Yukitsu]

Try to avoid that, but for the sake of the arguments, please no more floating beholder corpses providing full cover not covered by the rules or needing a DM with a taste for the VERY unusual.

- Giacomo

It is covered in the rules. :smallannoyed: Floating beholder corpses=fine. Full cover comes from the large box that he is carrying. Method of carrying is not limited to external places (unless you want to argue that you can't hide a ring under your tongue.) so a box inside a beholder isn't wierd or relying on anything to presumptuous about the rules.

[Vexxation]

{Scrubbed}

[Mephit]

Aaaaahhhh...
The forums are alive with the sound of arguments...

...And the sound of a sheriff drawing closer...

And locks. Many, oh so many locks...

[Vinotaur]

Honestly, I see very little here worthy of being locked. Especially given the things in the 60 page thread in Gia's thread.

I mean, no one here has threatened anyone yet, or called them an ignorant buffoon.

And I haven't read past page 15 on that thread.

[Mephit]

Honestly, I see very little here worthy of being locked. Especially given the things in the 60 page thread in Gia's thread.

I mean, no one here has threatened anyone yet, or called them an ignorant buffoon.

And I haven't read past page 15 on that thread.

No, not yet. That's why the locks haven't arrived yet. But there's tension that has potential...

[Sir Giacomo]

Sigh. Last one for tonight.


Please stop lying. Lying is wrong. I never said that I agree with you, or that it is not possible. I said that I do not like doing it myself. It is easily possible.

Please stop maintaining that I lie. Lying is expressedly claiming false stuff although knowing the opposite is true.
Now, since you turn your opinion again, why then did you object replying to you as well that by the rules, the floating skeleton beholder is not possible?
But probably we are grasping at thin air here. Let's put it to rest.
You appear not to agree with anything I say, even when I prove it with the rules and examples. Meanwhile, I readily admit errors like overlooking the second magic circle use in the lesser planar binding spell. You should try it as well, it would greatly enhance this discussion.

First, once again, you have demonstrated that you know nothing about my character, please stop demonstrating it over and over. There are no Succubi.

Then please post your character and do not defend positions that are not yours. Please.

Second, there are no risks to calling creatures to serve you with Planar Binding if they have no chance of escaping your control. The only risks of the spell are that the creature might resist you successfully upon arrival. There are no risks once they have agreed to a service.

Yes, when you hope that the DM will not run the npcs appropriately. There is a possibility that they will seek revenge. There is a possibility they will subvert the commands and service agreed. All alignment-independent (though certainly higher in the case of non-good creatures). It is all in the rules. If the DM runs those npcs, it does not mean that he ignores this.

Also, regardless of who "runs" the called creatures, they are required to abide by the terms of the service. And I have arranged these terms very carefully.

Again, you get ONE service. Not several apparently bound into one.

1) Yes, and the Wizard 10 with a Cleric 8 Cohort, his 88HD worth of undead, and his called creatures performing services is in every single way superior to the Monk 10 with his level 8 Cohort of anything at all, but probably a caster, because Casters are superior to non-casters.

No, he is not, as I already outlined way above. The cohort is of lower level etc. Please post your build, we keep arguing about thin air here.

2) Please stop mentioning the -2 penalty for familiar bit. It is at best demonstrating your complete ignorance of the rules of Leadership, and at worst showing your rankly disgusting willingness to deceive those that might not know the rules. And frankly, that sort of deception is not appropriate to this discussion, even if it is your primary method of argumentation.

Please read the rules on leadership again. And please stop the insults.

1) My build does not have Leadership either, because Leadership is grossly broken and should never be used by anyone, but if he did drop a feat to take Leadership (rest assured, he has room) he would have a higher score then the Joker Monk using exactly his current build.

So then just let's drop the leadership issue, OK?

1) An NPC can also use a Candle of Evocation to call a Solar to kill someone. If a NPC literally can't fight more then one encounter because his entire wealth is tied up in potions, that is pathetic, and shows poor DMing.

An npc can do that in case he even knows solars exist (knowledge-the planes, again). And you should admit that there is a huge difference between someone using a potion with spell level 1-3 effects and someone using an item with spell level 9 effect.

2) I wave away your challenges because they do not challenge me. I have a better spot/listen then this Fighter with no MS/Hide and a large armor check penalty. He will not even see me until after I have seen him, and at that point, he will still not attack me, and he will instead be dealing with my minions, who are already close enough to charge him.

Post. The. Build. Please.

3) Once again, I still don't have a succubus. And while we are at it, what's the spot on that fighter? Because if it's less then 30, he can't even see me from 30ft away, much less attack me.

The fighter only needs spot vs enemies trying to hide. When your character can and will constantly do that, I'll be glad to find out how.

So 5 members to start with.

Yep. That was the subject of discussion. "Will this encounter mean a TPK for a party as well?". It will not.

I'll go ahead and let you in on a little secret. My Wizard can beat the encounter on his own if the elemental tries to use any tactics besides Holy Word.

Please. Show how.

Really? DC 26 at level 10 good? No, not really, In fact, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of the group would fail that more then half the time.


Yep, but they could still attack.

Also, you are under the mistaken assumption that I don't auto-pass concentration checks inside the whirlwind, thus being fully capable of casting.

I am eager to find out.

1) You do realize that during the surprise round your supposed Monk Flyby attack can't even happen right. Oh no, you didn't realize that. How cute.

How cute that you keep ignoring that the monk has spot and listen to avoid that situation, whereas the wizard does not.

2) What makes you think it has no MS ranks?

What makes you think it has? The half-celestial template leaves the skills up to the DM. And it also needs to hide, which with huge size and cross-class skill ranks can be a pain.

3) It doesn't care if you see it, because you are not a threat to it. It will just close in and kill you, since it is faster then all of you. (It's not faster then my Wizard though.)

Eager to see your wizard being faster than 100ft per round.

4) Yes, if and when it uses the Whirlwind, it will not activate Holy Word that round, it will just use it to gather you all up so that you are all within 40ft when it does use it.

Good, it gathers up the non-casters while they full attack it. Or, for that matter, grapple it. Not bad.

I think you might be confused at what qualifies as "good damage." 1d8+5+1d6 fire against DR 10/- (aka most of the time, just the fire damage, and the arrow does nothing at all) isn't good damage.

But it will add up steadly and comes on top to what the rest of the group does.

1) The Bard might be able to cast Freedom of Movement, if for some reason he isn't paralyzed too in the very very wide AoE paralysis, and if he choose FoM as one of his two bard spells known instead of Greater Invis, Hold Monster, Dominate Person, Dimension Door, or Break Enchantment, and hasn't needed to use his 1 spell that day on something else (assuming he has a high Cha enough to have a bonus spell and even be able to cast 4th level spells at all).

Yes, if all those things work out perfectly for you, the Bard can allow a single person to remain in the fight, for just a little bit.

You see, the problem is - while the celestial elemental even use the holy word? Against someone with evil creatures around, it is a safer bet than vs the usual adventuring group...:smallsmile:

2) Yes, the Holy Word is higher then 14, it's almost like someone was deliberately abusing the CR system to create a killer encounter that a level 10 party would lose to.

As I illustrated, a non-caster party may have a better chance of survival vs that outsider.

Oh Giamoco, if only you knew the rules to D&D this would be so much more fun.

You have already proven a higher number of rules mistakes and underestimations than I did. And they add up even more in your following posts.

1) Oh really, High 20s? I'm sure the flying perfect speed DR 10/- Grapple Mod of +26 is quaking in it's metaphorical boots.

The example barbarian I provided above has +28 grapple (not +27, I forgot the size bonus to STR). Looks like a problem for the elemental to me.

2) If only it cared about losing it's dex bonus to people attempting to use Archery. If only.

Well, luckily, there are still the others who can smash in with full attacks.

3) Don't lie. Lying is bad. The Elemental did not flatten my Wizard. In fact, though I took no actions on my own Init, it has yet to even prove any serious threat. In fact, it can do practically nothing at all to me outside of it's CL 16 Holy Word.

Please. Again. Dont' use the "L"-word. That is just bad manners and shows you get desperate.
Forgive me for using the metaphorical word "flattening" for "killing". I guess your wizard has a trick up his sleeve to remain standing after dying, sure. :smallsmile:

4) Once grappling, and fixed in place, the Elemental may allow you to approach so that it can Holy Word all of you at once, but otherwise, expect it to escape the grapple in a single round, not that it matters, because you still haven't reached the flying Elemental yet.

Er...wouldn't the flying elemental try to attack and carry along the party? This puts into the party's range in my book.

5) Yes, it takes a Standard action to turn into the whirlwind and then a move action to pick up half to all of the party. It then take another action to paralyze you all. And yes, you can full attack the Elemental, with it's AC 27 and concealment, it still doesn't care.

This is where the blind-fight feat comes in so handy. Most non-caster meleers should get it. And with its DEX lost in a grapple, its AC is much lower.

Now, despite getting every single question on this test wrong, I'll give you full credit if you can answer this extra special bonus question:

How do you know to use Silence when no one in your group has the knowledge check to identify the creature?

No need to get so condescending after your many mistakes. I can easily answer that: you see
1) the bard can have knowledge-the planes AND have bardic knowledge to boost, so gets two chances to know anything useful - and
2) holy word is a spell and thus can be recognised when cast or when seeing the effects (although I admit - by then it may be too late).

Part two: What happens if you do have a silence effect up?

3) the holy word spell has no effect in the area of the silence spell. Say, when centered on one of the party members.

Now, after all of this, please post your build so that I may correct your potential rules mistakes and misperceptions in more detail.
And one more request: please do not use any morphing stuff. Some of the posters here would tear you apart. Also, casting higher level stuff from scrolls like gate to obtain nasty wishes is also a no-no.

However, after your often not-so-nice expressions, allow me to convince you that IF you post a great build, I'll be the first to admit it.

- Giacomo

[Vinotaur]

I think it will be best that you post your level 10 wizard able to consistently survive surprise attacks.

I have already sent a link to another poster. I am just not revealing it due to the fact that your entire strategy revolves around knowing exactly what you are facing with no knowledge skills to actually know that, and then having just the right character/equipment to beat it.


The kind of non-caster surprise round attacks I have already mentioned, but I'll summarise them:
- enemy archers with enhanced bows

I see them first, and can kill them from there.


- enemy sneak attacks

I see them before they are within SA range. I can then kill them or incapacitate them from there.


- enemy grappling you

Enemy cannot reach me to grapple me. If he did, which he never would, then he would immediately be full attacked by my minions, followed by, if not dead, me teleporting away.


- enemy poisons you

Enemy cannot poison me, I see him first, he cannot hit me. Or I could just make the easy fort save. Or I could kill him from out of poison range.


- enemy entangles you

Enemy cannot entangle me. I see him first, I am out of his range. If he somehow managed to, well, I would not be at much of a disadvantage because my movement would not be hampered at all and I auto-succeed the Concentration checks.


- enemy touch attacks you with something nasty (shadows etc.)

I am too far away, I am faster then them. I see them before the reach me, and either my entire party ignores them or I send my minions who can't be hurt by them to kill them.


- enemy power attack charges you

Enemy cannot reach me, I see him outside of his Charge range, and Core only, his power attack means he probably misses even if I did let him charge me.

Now, present a real genuine challenge that doesn't start by assuming I stand around letting people walk up to me.

[only1doug]

If no one else has already volunteered I'll GM this encounter.

Rules:
all wizard builders PM me a L10 wizard build that you wish to have tested in random encounters.
All testers send me details of your CR10 appropriate encounter.

I'll create a new thread (probably in the PbP section) for each encounter and allow the wizard builder to control his response. I'll run the encounter based on the details created by the encounter Poster. I'll setup a 2nd commentary thread in this forum for ongoing commentary to keep the encounter focused.

What i need:

Vinotaur's wizard build

Yukitsu's wizard Build

Sir Giacomo's encounter details

any other wizard builds or encounter details that anyone wants to submit.

[Vinotaur]

{Scrubbed}