3.5 Magekiller. how to make?

[Shademan]

so a guy I know is trying to make a decent magekiller. but don't quite know how. aaand neither do I. Any advice for two dofuses?

wants it to be a rather martial character. And with some way to use dispel if possible (not as spell but class ability or sumfin')

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Perhaps you should make a monk?
On a somewhat more serious note, Spellthieves, Runescarred Berserkers, ToB classes, Rangers with FE: Arcanists, Psychic Warriors, and full casters work well for this role.

[mikej]

The Mageslayer feat ( CW? ) series would be a good start.

[lord_khaine]

As i understand, if you want to make a mage-killer that is not a full caster then Psionic warrior is one of the most potent choices there is, especaly if he gets his hands on a suppresion weapon.

Suppression: An opponent or object struck by this kind of weapon is subject to a targeted dispel psionics power. The wielder makes a dispel check (1d20 + 5 + manifester level, maximum +15) against a DC of 11 + the manifester level of the power to be dispelled. Bows, crossbows, and slings bestow this ability upon their ammunition, but can do so only three times per day.
Moderate psychokinesis ML 10th; Craft Psionic Arms and Armor, dispel psionics; Price +2 bonus.

Alternatively levels in swordsage would also be good.

[Xallace]

The Mageslayer feat ( CW? ) series would be a good start.

Complete Arcane, actually. The Occult Slayer PrC is in Complete Warrior.

[Longcat]

Do note that the Mage Slayer feat line explicitely lowers Caster level, not manifester or initiator level. Therefore, your best bet would be Psionic Gish, e.g. a Psychic Warrior or a Psion/Slayer.

[Raiki]

You should totally make a monk.

C'mon Pharaoh, you know some people actually might take that seriously? Think of what you would be doing to that poor character.

Anyway, let's see if I can get a few words in before the "Play a warblade" crowd chimes in.

I'd say play a psychic warrior with the "soulknife" ACF. Link here.

Really all you need to play a half-way decent mage-slayer are a few feats. Psychic Warrior gives you those, plus more. First step, take "Mageslayer" out of CArc, giving a slight boost to your will save and making it so that casters can't cast defensively while you threaten them.

Next take Persue out of one of the Eberrron books. It lets you burn an AoO to follow someone who 5-foot steps out of your threat range.

Invest your WBL and other resources into pumping your Will save and improving damage (all the better to make those precious spells fizzle). You'll also want a means of flight (boots, carpet, doesn't really matter).

Add spiked chain nonsense for extra awesome.

Them's my two coppers anyway.

~R~

Edit: Wow, ninja'd almost in my entirety. Well, what else should I expect from a forum of people this good at winning D&D.

[mabriss lethe]

There are so many different ways to start here:

Hexblade/suel arcanamach might be a good starting place. Some decent debuffs and the arcanamach's ability to dispel with a melee strike.

You could also go with the mage slayer line of feats, but avoid anything remotely casterish if you do, since each feat in the line reduces your caster level by 4.

Spellthief is a rather good mage killer by design.

using either a warblade, or a feat/item combination to get Ironheart surge is a great idea.

[Baron Malkar]

a Ranger1\Monk4\Spellfire Channeler10 is a very potent combination if you go with Favored Enemy: Arcanists. Though you do need to figure out how to get free readied actions.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

C'mon Pharaoh, you know some people actually might take that seriously? Think of what you would be doing to that poor character.

I do. I do. Muhuhaha.

[FlamingKobold]

Consider Lord_Gareth's Voidblade Eliminator.

[RagnaroksChosen]

PF... Shakes head...


any way a great anti caster is
mystic ranger with the favored enemy arcanist acf
Taking a Long bow and far shot.

Ready an action to pop the caster when you see them cast.
Use your ranger spells to increase your critting and what not...

Should be good with that.

[weenie]

The last good mage-slayer build I saw used the swiftblade PrC. It gets some really nice abilities, like making haste be (Ex), so it can't be dispelled and it gives you an extra standard action per turn. You also get Freedom of movement as an (Ex) ability, so it works even in an antimagic field. Once you get in reach of a caster cast Antimagic field on yourself and prepare an action to follow him if he moves. He will be helpless.

My favorite build: Scout3/ranger2/wizard2/abjrant champion3/swiftblade 10

Casts as a lvl11 wiz
18 BaB
low HP, but everything misses you 50% of the time
amazing speed
amazing initiative
+6d6 skirmish damage if you take Swift hunter and improved skirmish and your favorite enemies are never immune to it. Take favorite enemy arcanist acf and anything capable of casting will tremble before you.

[Zaydos]

The feats that come after Mage Slayer might be nice too. Pierce Magical Protection negates AC bonuses from spells and dispels the spells that grant them automatically with a hit and Pierce Magical Concealment does the same thing to magical miss chances and mirror image. My conjurer I'm making fears that combo if they could get close enough (he only has fly 1/day but several spells to summon tentacles of doom, solid fog, and draconic polymorph with a pixie familiar if it comes to it).

[ErrantX]

Tooting my own horn, but I remade the Suel Arcanamach for just such a purpose.

The original one is good still as well, but I think my redux of it makes it more effective at the the job it is trying to accomplish.

-X

[Milskidasith]

Do note that the Mage Slayer feat line explicitely lowers Caster level, not manifester or initiator level. Therefore, your best bet would be Psionic Gish, e.g. a Psychic Warrior or a Psion/Slayer.

Magic-psionic transparency: Anything that lowers caster level and doesn't specify that it's arcane or divine lowers manifester level as well. Initiator level not so much.

[ErrantX]

Magic-psionic transparency: Anything that lowers caster level and doesn't specify that it's arcane or divine lowers manifester level as well. Initiator level not so much.

I disagree with this; this feat came out after the XPH so it was crafted with psionics being known to exist. Secondly, magic-psionic transparency rules are quite clear with what they effect, feats are not one of them.

A Psi-Gish would be able to use Mage Slayer without hindrance. It says caster level (so divine or arcane, you get hit, as well as artificers and mystery users), not manifester level.

-X

[Pluto]

wants it to be a rather martial character. And with some way to use dispel if possible (not as spell but class ability or sumfin')

I like Ranger/Psion/Slayer:

More PP and powers known than the Psychic Warrior
Favored Enemy Arcanist (CMage) with Favored Power Attack (CWarrior) is delicious.
Built-in Mind Blank (better even, because you can choose what affects you... the Bard's Inspire Courage etc. still have their normal results.)
Ignore Magical Concealment without the standard casting-nerfs.

...Also, your brain tastes really really bad. And that's neat.

[noiadodh]

i found the Pursue feat, but it uses 1 action point.. making it x/day without using action points is ok?

[ex cathedra]

The feats that come after Mage Slayer might be nice too. Pierce Magical Protection negates AC bonuses from spells and dispels the spells that grant them automatically with a hit and Pierce Magical Concealment does the same thing to magical miss chances and mirror image. My conjurer I'm making fears that combo if they could get close enough (he only has fly 1/day but several spells to summon tentacles of doom, solid fog, and draconic polymorph with a pixie familiar if it comes to it).

Pierce Magical Protection requires a standard action attack, and so I'm not that fond of it. Pierce Magical Concealment is fantastic, but it has another prerequisite that's quite irksome.

[Zaydos]

I hadn't noticed that about Pierce Magical Protection, that bites. As for concealment yeah I agree that Blind-Fight is meh at best. Still worthwhile if you're fighting wizards who like to use Greater Mirror Image, displacement, and darkness to become nigh invincible.

[Aldizog]

I disagree with this; this feat came out after the XPH so it was crafted with psionics being known to exist. Secondly, magic-psionic transparency rules are quite clear with what they effect, feats are not one of them.

The only mention of psionics in Complete Arcane is in the adaptation of the mindbender class. There is no mention of it anywhere else. Are we to believe that the rest of the material in CArc ignores magic-psionic transparency because it doesn't explicitly mention it?

It seems to me to be in the spirit of the rules to say, for example, that Pierce Magical Protection ignores and dispels AC bonuses granted by psionic powers.

[ErrantX]

The only mention of psionics in Complete Arcane is in the adaptation of the mindbender class. There is no mention of it anywhere else. Are we to believe that the rest of the material in CArc ignores magic-psionic transparency because it doesn't explicitly mention it?

It seems to me to be in the spirit of the rules to say, for example, that Pierce Magical Protection ignores and dispels AC bonuses granted by psionic powers.

Actually, yes. There are plenty of psionic feats and non-psionic feats out there that don't. I don't see how this is any different. If you want to have a psion killer, you'd make a Psychic Killer feat, right? You wouldn't use Mage Slayer because it doesn't say anything about psionics in it. You'd either house rule it or make a new feat up. The rules written say nothing about affecting manifester level, even in the transparency rules, so Mage Slayer won't affect your manifester level.

-X

[Aldizog]

Actually, yes. There are plenty of psionic feats and non-psionic feats out there that don't. I don't see how this is any different. If you want to have a psion killer, you'd make a Psychic Killer feat, right? You wouldn't use Mage Slayer because it doesn't say anything about psionics in it. You'd either house rule it or make a new feat up. The rules written say nothing about affecting manifester level, even in the transparency rules, so Mage Slayer won't affect your manifester level.

I see it as all being magic. The dwarf saving throw vs. spells would also apply to power, invocations, mysteries, and whatever else new subsystems WotC thinks up. Pierce Magical Protection or Concealment would also be equally versatile.

Otherwise you render those abilities nearly irrelevant. If you expand your magic from one system to five or six, and the old defenses still only apply to one, they lose a great deal of value; it's not like defenses against magic were in need of being nerfed.

[Milskidasith]

Actually, yes. There are plenty of psionic feats and non-psionic feats out there that don't. I don't see how this is any different. If you want to have a psion killer, you'd make a Psychic Killer feat, right? You wouldn't use Mage Slayer because it doesn't say anything about psionics in it. You'd either house rule it or make a new feat up. The rules written say nothing about affecting manifester level, even in the transparency rules, so Mage Slayer won't affect your manifester level.

-X

So you want to play in a game without the psi-magic transparency, for god knows what reason, further nerfing melee and causing mages and psions to play rocket tag with each other because they can't protect themselves at all.

Good times!

[deuxhero]

Is removing the CL hit going to really make anything nasty? No? Let it work without penalties.

[PhoenixRivers]

I disagree with this; this feat came out after the XPH so it was crafted with psionics being known to exist. Secondly, magic-psionic transparency rules are quite clear with what they effect, feats are not one of them.

A Psi-Gish would be able to use Mage Slayer without hindrance. It says caster level (so divine or arcane, you get hit, as well as artificers and mystery users), not manifester level.

-X

The rule of thumb for transparency is this:

If something affects magic, and could conceivably affect psionics, it does.

This means that you can use an Ioun Stone to increase your manifester level. It also means that Mage Slayer drops Psionic Manifester Level.

The rules are pretty clear on this, and the text indicates that the burden of excluding something from this relies on the ability explicitly stating that it does not work, or the mechanics implicitly being incompatable (pearls of power cannot benefit a psion, as he doesn't have slots for his powers. Were a psion made that did use a slot system, it would.)

EDIT: There is an argument that feats are an explicit exception to the "could conceivably affect" clause, as it's not listed with "spells, spell-like abilities, and magic items" that the text uses. This would also mean that <SU> abilities are exempt from transparency. While it wouldn't cause an incredible unbalancing effect, it could become problematic with Savage Species inclusion (allowing for Spell-like abilities to be made Supernatural). I do not ascribe to this view, but it is valid.

[Zaydos]

Actually, yes. There are plenty of psionic feats and non-psionic feats out there that don't. I don't see how this is any different. If you want to have a psion killer, you'd make a Psychic Killer feat, right? You wouldn't use Mage Slayer because it doesn't say anything about psionics in it. You'd either house rule it or make a new feat up. The rules written say nothing about affecting manifester level, even in the transparency rules, so Mage Slayer won't affect your manifester level.

-X

Antipsionic Magic from the Expanded Psionics Handbook specifies that it's effects ignore transparency. If a feat doesn't specify that it ignores the rule, it doesn't ignore the rule. Chaotic Mind as well. If something ignores the rule it states it.

[Aldizog]

Is removing the CL hit going to really make anything nasty? No? Let it work without penalties.

Well, yeah, it is. Those are powerful feats. Casters don't need more power. The intention is to make them only available to pure melee/skill types, to let them close the gap a bit with the casters. The Mage Slayer line is one of the very few things in the game that a mundane character can get that a magic-using one basically can't.

[deuxhero]

If a wizard is in melee and attempting to stop people from defensive casting , he deserves what he gets :)


And it was mentioned in another thread. Anyone that must cast defensively is doing it wrong.