What are goods classes for a hunter of mages?

[Tatsel_Ganav]

He's a half-orc, needs some wilderness survival abilities. He's okay with using magic. He needs to do exactly two things.

1) Survive harsh conditions (be they natural or supernatural)
2) Kill mages by any means necessary

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Also of note, basically any homebrew is allowed.

[Grumman]

Are you starting from scratch or is it an existing character? Does it have to be a half-orc?

[SurlySeraph]

Ranger with Favored Enemy: Arcanists. It's in Complete Mage, and does exactly what you'd think.

The Mage Slayer line of feats is good for wizard-killing, but it'll make you considerably worse at casting, if that's an issue for you.

Other than that, the Horizon Tripper build is a good place to start from.

[RagnaroksChosen]

Can we use Settin g specifica material...

I also sugest ranger regardless.

[Eldariel]

Psychic Warrior would be pretty good. Best of all? Probably a gishy Wizard or a carefully built Cleric. As always, magic must defeat magic!

[Typewriter]

Spellthief!!!

You can steal buffs that mages have given themselves, and use SA to steal the doom spells that you fear. And, if a spell targets you, you can attempt to absorb it and instead of being affected you can cast it at whomever you want as if it were cast by the original caster.

Theres a feat that makes levels of spellthief stack with arcane caster levels for certain things in...some book...I don't remember which....

It's a lot of fun to play, but the spell selection they thesmelves get is pretty limited, so without friendly mages to let you 'borrow' their spells, or enemy mages to work against, you will be somewhat limited, but I still endorse it :)

[quick_comment]

I would try to get turning (via soldier of light prc) and then go into ruby knight vindicator.

[Melamoto]

The Occult Slayer from Complete Warrior is designed around this role. Over 5 levels, it gives:

• Bonus to saves vs spells (+3 at level 5)
• +1d6 damage with a specific weapon of your choice vs spellcasters
• The ability to reflect any spell that targets him 2/day
• Deal double damage during attacks readied to disrupt casting
• Can detect magical auras (Just the number of auras)
• Weak Permanent non-detection
• Permanent Mind Blank, dismissable at will

[RagnaroksChosen]

The Occult Slayer from Complete Warrior is designed around this role. Over 5 levels, it gives:

• Bonus to saves vs spells (+3 at level 5)
• +1d6 damage with a specific weapon of your choice vs spellcasters
• The ability to reflect any spell that targets him 2/day
• Deal double damage during attacks readied to disrupt casting
• Can detect magical auras (Just the number of auras)
• Weak Permanent non-detection
• Permanent Mind Blank, dismissable at will

HMM... Seems to me this calls for some spell less ranger/fighter.
Favored enemy arcane would go well with this..
Mabye even some monk... with the ability to do double dmg for a round... would that make it x4 or x3 when you ready an attack against a spellcaster

[Myou]

The Occult Slayer from Complete Warrior is designed around this role. Over 5 levels, it gives:

• Bonus to saves vs spells (+3 at level 5)
• +1d6 damage with a specific weapon of your choice vs spellcasters
• The ability to reflect any spell that targets him 2/day
• Deal double damage during attacks readied to disrupt casting
• Can detect magical auras (Just the number of auras)
• Weak Permanent non-detection
• Permanent Mind Blank, dismissable at will

That actually seems pretty bad. Dx

[woodenbandman]

Church Inquisitor. Immune to compulsion eventually, automatically get a save to disbelieve illusions, good stuff for seeing through magical protection (pick up true seeing), and most importantly, good will and fortitude save progression. Cleric 3/Church Inquisitor 8/Some other crap. You could go RKV if you wanted, but I wouldn't necessarily. Immunity to Magic Jar is also very hot.

A good combo to help shut down casters as a divine caster is Divine Spellpower + Bead of Karma + Spell Resistance. Can get you SR of 40, which definitely helps.

[Melamoto]

That actually seems pretty bad. Dx

Didn't say it was good, just that it was designed to do that. It enters without any need for Spellcasting, so you can easily stack on the Mage-Slayer feats. You'll need more than just the Occult Slayer to be a caster-killer, but it's only 5 levels, and you can still keep your full BAB.

[Tatsel_Ganav]

Yes, he has to be half-orc. He has been talked about in-game, and is the son of the half-orc druid/barbarian hero of the last game and his half-orc mate, so yeah, half-orc. Luckily, my DM redid half-orc so it doesn't suck quite as bad.

Ranger sounds good, at least some of it. I was debating doing Incarnum, being a witchborn binder. They have some really fun antimagic stuff.

[Myou]

Didn't say it was good, just that it was designed to do that. It enters without any need for Spellcasting, so you can easily stack on the Mage-Slayer feats. You'll need more than just the Occult Slayer to be a caster-killer, but it's only 5 levels, and you can still keep your full BAB.

Fair enough.

[Zaq]

Warblade levels go a long way toward survivability. The Diamond Mind save-replacers and IHS* contribute a LOT toward you being able to survive the first round.

The biggest problems are still there, of course. You can't deal with Contingency, Forcecage is still no-save-just-suck, a good Wizard can put out more spell effects than you have Diamond Saves, and anything that mucks with time (damn you, Celerity! Damn you!) will still knock you on your ass.

The point is, though, being able to say "no" to a Wizard saying "save or die" is... valuable. Most of the nastiest spells don't even give you that option, of course, but it's at least a start.

Spoiler

Show

*Please don't be stupid with IHS. Yes, it's stupidly worded. You know it, I know it, we all know it. Please don't give IHS and ToB a bad name by being ridiculous with it.

The Witch Slayer, in Tome of Magic, gets a few decent defenses over five levels (Mettle in 2, Slippery Mind in 4), and Momentary Disjunction is solid gold if you can pull it off in the first place. It's not foolproof by any means, but you can try, at least.

[RagnaroksChosen]

Actualy something like this sounds good

Ranger 1/ Hexblade 3/ 2 levels of monk or rogue/ 5 occult slayer/X

Feats

For ocult slayer
Improved init
Weapon focus

Then the mage slayer feats

You could go three rogue and pick up spell sense.

eaitther way with this build you will have
Favored enemy arcanist
Char to saves
Mettle
Evasion
All the occult slayer stuff..

I think you should be pritty good with that...
I'd grab a bow and some arrows that dispell on striking (can't remember where there from)

[quick_comment]

The Witch Slayer, in Tome of Magic, gets a few decent defenses over five levels (Mettle in 2, Slippery Mind in 4), and Momentary Disjunction is solid gold if you can pull it off in the first place. It's not foolproof by any means, but you can try, at least.

Witch slayer is great in cha-focused melee builds, like a bard with snowflake wardance, iaijutsu master, etc. Otherwise you just dont have the stats to make a caster fail a will save.

[Zaq]

Witch slayer is great in cha-focused melee builds, like a bard with snowflake wardance, iaijutsu master, etc. Otherwise you just dont have the stats to make a caster fail a will save.

Too true. Even without Momentary Disjunction, though, Mettle and Slippery Mind for a 2- or 4-level investment (and no required feats, in fact... just BAB+5, K:Religion and Sense Motive 4 each, and a roleplaying/backstory encounter requirement) is a pretty sweet deal for someone who wants to improve his or her chances against spellslingers.

[Eldariel]

If you don't use magic of your own, you must focus your build on offense because that's the only way you can stand a chance. To kill a mage without spells, the mage must make a mistake. Therefore, you should build your character to capitalize on that mistake.


I personally like the Ranger 2/Fighter 1/Barbarian 1/Warblade 6/Eternal Blade 10-shell; as an archer, he can threaten lethal damage from ~1000' distance quite easily, as a melee type it only takes him one Standard Action to kill a Wizard and he can move ~120' while still full attacking in melee with no problems moving around obstacles, through rough terrain or so on.

Thanks to Diamond Mind counters, good Int, Dex & Ref+Fort, access to Iron Heart Surge & Iron Heart Focus and so on, your magical defenses are pretty good and you superior Greater Celerity on level 20. You can also achieve decent Touch AC thanks to Int+Dex focus and Int+Dex to Touch AC. The drawback is that he doesn't have Evasion nor Mettle so the defenses could be better...but you can get Evasion through the Ring and frankly, Mettle isn't all that good.

[Tatsel_Ganav]

Any comments on witch-born binder?

[Zaq]

Any comments on witch-born binder?

Just the immortal words of our friend Ackbar.

(Seriously, DON'T DO IT. You lose meldshaper levels, then get subpar abilities based on meldshaper level? WTF?)

[The Glyphstone]

You said he's willing to use magic, but I'm guessing he doesn't want to be a caster himself? Because that's the 'best' way to kill a caster, I don't think anyone argues about this (the debates are over how effective non-casters are at it, pretty much everyone agrees that casters can kill casters). They're also the best, coincidentally, at surviving in hostile environments, even extraplanar ones.

Failing that, there's plenty of decent mage-hunter classes that people have mentioned - probably some sort of Fighter/Ranger/Occult Slayer/Warblade/Eternal Blade combination.

[Grumman]

Yes, he has to be half-orc. He has been talked about in-game, and is the son of the half-orc druid/barbarian hero of the last game and his half-orc mate, so yeah, half-orc. Luckily, my DM redid half-orc so it doesn't suck quite as bad.

Pity, or I would have suggested my Drow build.

Are you using LA buyoff? Is the +3 LA Spellwarped template an option? It gives bonuses to a bunch of stats and SR that gives you more bonuses when you resist a spell.

[RelentlessImp]

Ruby Knight Vindicator breaking the action economy into itty bitty pieces.

More seriously;
Warlock. Don't scoff. A Warlock can be a fairly potent mage-killer. The following invocations, for example:

Dark Discorporation. You become a swarm, shutting down the vast majority of save-or-dies (primarily single-target, non mind-affecting).
Voracious Dispelling. Dispel all their neat little protections and deal damage.

At that point, just rip into them with ranged touch attacks via Eldritch Blast.

Alternately; a grappler build with an Antimagic Field Belt.

[quick_comment]

Everything is better with RKV, especially if your GM doesnt limit divine impetus to 1/round.

[Shpadoinkle]

The best way to beat a wizard it to be a smarter, more powerful wizard.

[ErrantX]

Howabout a Suel Arcanamach? That's what they do, afterall. It's perfectly feasible class for that sort of thing. Mix in with Duskblade and Knowledge Devotion (such a good mix for an Arcanamach) with Abjurant Champion thrown in for the swift abjurations and improved abjuration affects, something absolutely necessary for hunting mages, but the combo of Duskblade, Suel Arcanamach, and Abjurant Champion has awesome synergy. Put a level of Spellthief in there with Master Spellthief and you start stealing enemy buffs, steal spells to power your own, and so on.

Something like:Spellthief1/Duskblade10/Suel Arcanamach 4/Abjurant Champion5 would be pretty nice. Master Spellthief and Knowledge Devotion are musts. Paladin arcanamach builds are pretty awesome too with the nice Charisma synergy. Alter a basic Sorcadin build and you're gold. There's a good handbook for the arcanamach too, google it

-X

[oxinabox]

Favour enemy arcanist, and magebane weapons are broken broken broken.
Arcanist/mage bane includes anything with any spells or spell like abilities
our ranger one shop an ogre mage at lvl 6 with that.

Warlocks a good mage hunter.
Did you say Dispell at will, do damage to the mage based on spell lvl nosave?
did you say ready and action, to cast when you see the mage start to cast a spell?
But if the warlock is shutting mages down then you need someone else to be hitting him.

[Doc Roc]

Might I suggest you take a look at some of the test of spite builds and fights? :)

[Cheesegear]

Favour enemy arcanist, and magebane weapons are broken broken broken.

The thing to remember about Favoured Enemy (Arcanist), is that, at higher levels, it includes most dragons, a lot of Outsiders, and a good deal of the better kinds of undead (I'm looking at you, Lich), and, if your DM has any knowledge of the game whatsoever, probably the DM's pet BBEG (Which, incidentally are usually Outsiders, Dragons, Liches or Wizards/Necromancers). Because having a Fighter as the BBEG is asking for trouble. Hell, the DM can't even make his BBEG a Duskblade because they cast Arcane Spells too.

Favoured Enemy (Arcanist) is better described as 'Favoured Enemy (Just about anything slightly hard)' since it includes just about everything except regular Animal monsters. Unless the DM wants to make all his pets Divine-based casters.
Which isn't bad by the way.

I'd suggest Ranger/Occult Slayer. It isn't totally broken, wont ruin the DMs fun, and isn't that hard to keep track of. If you want, you can always go for the Spell-Less Variant Ranger (Complete Warrior) as well if you hate magic that much. Maybe think about Multi-ing into Paladin?

Although, a Ranger/Paladin casting Divine-based spells from his God would be totally different from Arcane casters.
"The only magic is [God Here]'s magic!" *smite*