Tier 1 Caster Slaying: Part Deux!

[Nanoblack]

I've been going over the previous "How to slay a tier one caster without being one" thread and found all of the arguments (Well... most of them) compelling. Now that I am deeply interested in the subject, one thing that I believe was mentioned once and is the sole reason for me creating this thread:

Too many things were based off of an imagined character sheet! Every turn in the argument was "oh but he could do this" or "well he has such and such contingency". I challenge this forums best optimizers to build this uber paranoid wizard so that we can finally put an end to this argument.

EDIT: Here's the rules as presented from the last thread.

1. Despite my original post, this thread has, for the most part, been about the killing of a theoretical level 20 Wizard.
2. As such the DM is not a valid way of reasoning out of broken spells.
3. It is assumed by the majority of this fine community that, a very intelligent level 20 Wizard will take the best advantage out of his spells and protect himself to the best of his ability.
4. The following effects are assumed based on point 3:
4.1. The Wizard's real body is sitting home at his private demiplane, created via Genesis.
4.2. The Wizard will usually be using Astral Projection. If the silver cord is serverd he has Clones waiting around, or contingent Ressurections etc. So this point is moot.
4.3 Assuming we can somehow get the Wizard to step out of his home in physical form, he has taken further precautions. Those are:
4.3.1. He has cast Foresight, either extended via rod, or persisted via the Incantatrix class ability. This means he is never flatfooted.
4.3.2. He has memorized Celerity, or Greater Celerity (PHBII) which lets him act when imitative is rolled. Hence the Wizard always goes first.
4.3.3. He will cast Contact Other Plane to be even better prepared. See the vast discussion about the spell's effectiveness above.
4.3.4 He will be flying around, by virtue of his Phantom Steed, or will simply Teleport to his destination. This eliminates anyone walking up behind him as he is strolling trough the park. We are not talking about Gandalif and his walking stick here.
4.3.5. Whenever he has to rest out of the comfort of his Demiplane, he will not do so at an inn, or eat foot prepared by level 1 Commoners. He has a Magnificent Mansion at his disposal to cover for those needs. So stabbing him while he is sleeping is also quite hard to pull off.
4.5.6. Even if you are somehow able to get to him, and past Foresight + Celerity, he has Contingency and Crafted Contingencies so he can safely get away from you.


Things that have been proposed, and are remotely viable are:

Using 10 levels of Silver Key to enter his Demiplane and MMM spell.
Using Black Dog to somehow poison him.
Going action Nova in round 0 and splattering him with physical attacks.

Those however, while overcoming some of the Wizard's advantages, can't really cope with everything he's got.

Using this information from the last thread, an keeping in with this level of optimization (so no Pun-Pun level of brokenness)

A Wizard who has alotted a total of 190,000xp for those who missed it...

The total amount of xp the wizard possesses is designated to prevent XP abuse.

[Eloel]

Building the wizard is easy, selecting spells is the harder part, and is done by seeing the future. So, you'll need to give answers to a bajillion Contact Other Plane (or similar) questions before anyone can reliably select all spells.

[Nanoblack]

The important part of having it down on paper is so we know what spell slots have been consumed for what contingency. If the wizard can't feasibly perform this every day then it shouldn't be a part of this discussion.

[Mushroom Ninja]

Too many things were based off of an imagined character sheet! Every turn in the argument was "oh but he could do this" or "well he has such and such contingency". I challenge this forums best optimizers to build this uber paranoid wizard so that we can finally put an end to this argument.

What level of cheese is acceptable? Is Planar Binding on the table? Gate chaining/abuse?

[Psyren]

I challenge this forums best optimizers to build this uber paranoid wizard so that we can finally put an end to this argument.

End an argument? On the internet?

[Tvtyrant]

End an argument? On the internet?

BTW, Psyren. You are my favorite :P

[The Shadowmind]

But we can't stop arguing:

Spoiler

Show

xkcd 386

[JaronK]

You only need to cast Contact Other Plain once if you ask the right question (it involves using a handy property of the powers of two, such that the question you ask ends up being answered with a single number, but answers as many yes/no questions as you like).

We need to know the level, though. Otherwise, how can we build it?

JaronK

[Nanoblack]

1. Despite my original post, this thread has, for the most part, been about the killing of a theoretical level 20 Wizard.
2. As such the DM is not a valid way of reasoning out of broken spells.
3. It is assumed by the majority of this fine community that, a very intelligent level 20 Wizard will take the best advantage out of his spells and protect himself to the best of his ability.
4. The following effects are assumed based on point 3:
4.1. The Wizard's real body is sitting home at his private demiplane, created via Genesis.
4.2. The Wizard will usually be using Astral Projection. If the silver cord is serverd he has Clones waiting around, or contingent Ressurections etc. So this point is moot.
4.3 Assuming we can somehow get the Wizard to step out of his home in physical form, he has taken further precautions. Those are:
4.3.1. He has cast Foresight, either extended via rod, or persisted via the Incantatrix class ability. This means he is never flatfooted.
4.3.2. He has memorized Celerity, or Greater Celerity (PHBII) which lets him act when imitative is rolled. Hence the Wizard always goes first.
4.3.3. He will cast Contact Other Plane to be even better prepared. See the vast discussion about the spell's effectiveness above.
4.3.4 He will be flying around, by virtue of his Phantom Steed, or will simply Teleport to his destination. This eliminates anyone walking up behind him as he is strolling trough the park. We are not talking about Gandalif and his walking stick here.
4.3.5. Whenever he has to rest out of the comfort of his Demiplane, he will not do so at an inn, or eat foot prepared by level 1 Commoners. He has a Magnificent Mansion at his disposal to cover for those needs. So stabbing him while he is sleeping is also quite hard to pull off.
4.5.6. Even if you are somehow able to get to him, and past Foresight + Celerity, he has Contingency and Crafted Contingencies so he can safely get away from you.


Things that have been proposed, and are remotely viable are:

Using 10 levels of Silver Key to enter his Demiplane and MMM spell.
Using Black Dog to somehow poison him.
Going action Nova in round 0 and splattering him with physical attacks.

Those however, while overcoming some of the Wizard's advantages, can't really cope with everything he's got.

Using this information from the last thread, an keeping in with this level of optimization (so no Pun-Pun level of brokenness)

Level 20 Tier 1 Caster for those who missed it...

[Fishy]

You only need to cast Contact Other Plain once if you ask the right question (it involves using a handy property of the powers of two, such that the question you ask ends up being answered with a single number, but answers as many yes/no questions as you like).

If you're using binary math with Contact Other Plane, I'm using Alan Turing's Halting Paradox for Oracle Machines. If you ask the right question and hook it up to a Contingency, you can create an attack that mathematically can't be predicted by the gods themselves.

[Godskook]

Ok, to start off the series of RAW possible abilities that may or may not be allowed in this challenge at an extreme end:

Is epic spellcasting allowed?
---Yes, I can build a caster with it. Yes, he's capable of getting by level 20.

If you're using binary math with Contact Other Plane, I'm using Alan Turing's Halting Paradox for Oracle Machines. If you ask the right question and hook it up to a Contingency, you can create an attack that mathematically can't be predicted by the gods themselves.

Problem is, the gods don't necessarily use mathematical prediction in their prophetic wisdom. They could just *know*.

[Nanoblack]

For the sake of the argument I'll say no.

[Godskook]

For the sake of the argument I'll say no.

Ok, now can you start a list of all the RAW-verse stuff you're not allowing? Or at least a gist of it? It'll make building this wizard easier if we know how many hands we have to tie behind his back up front.

[Killer Angel]

Here's the rules as presented from the last thread.

(snip)

Level 20 Tier 1 Caster for those who missed it...

Why (even in the thread's title) are we still talking 'bout 20 tier 1 caster, when it's evident we're discussing lev. 20 Wizard?
I don't see any plan to defeat a lev. 20 Druid...

[JaronK]

Obviously the easiest method here is going to be any Wizard (or Archivist, actually, or even Sorcerer) who can cast Genesis simply doing so. Since you can set the planar traits to be whatever you can visualize, make it Flowing Time 1,000,000,000, Timeless, and any other traits of your choice (the rest mostly don't matter much, though ripping off the Ysgard trait that True Resurrects you every time you die in battle might be nice). Now you get 1 billion actions before anyone can do anything. This means you can battle by opening up a Gate near the target, attacking with every spell can cast within the Gate's time limit (which should kill darn near anything), and repeat until you're out of spells. Now rest for the night and repeat, memorizing new spells as needed. You can do this countless times before the enemy even gets a round to respond.

This is basically a perfect offense, and only a single spell was needed to make you basically unstoppable. Defensively, you can secure your plane so it's almost impossible to enter, using a variety of spells that make it virtually impossible to even enter the plane (and then you might as well set up traps for anyone entering). Forbiddence is a solid choice, though it's a Cleric spell... so Gate in a Solar to cast it for you. Now no one can ever enter your plane. Why bother with personal defenses when you can simply be too far from anyone to target? Now you send Astrally made copies of yourself to do the adventuring if you so desire, with your astral self retreating to your real body when you want to go into hyper kill mode... you've got a nice backup at home base (that respawns, as far as normal time is concerned, instantly if you die in battle).

JaronK

[Hida Reju]

And this thread explains why Theoretical optimization for 3.5 wizards is a headache no one should try to replicate a max power Wizard with all of the fixins.

All of this can be summed up like so.

WOTC did not read every book prior to printing a new one and has a lot of material that when pasted together creates force multipliers that are near infinite in power.

Any discussion without limiting the wizard is impossible to overcome due to power lvl being impossible to gauge.

If you put limits on the wizard then its no longer RAW therefore outside of the realm of discussion usually.

Now the question that has to be ignored is why the wizard would take these steps to protect himself. You just have to assume that they are on guard for everything at all times.

[Bayar]

Now the question that has to be ignored is why the wizard would take these steps to protect himself. You just have to assume that they are on guard for everything at all times.

This is the wizard's brain:

Left hemisphere: It's them man ! They want your brain to see why you are so smart and can cast all those spells ! You need to hide, yes. Hide well so no one can find you. They will find you so you need to kill them. Yes. Kill them all without getting killed. And if you get killed, try to return to life before they take your brain. Don't let them take your brain !

Right hemisphere: You should listen to Friend Innevitable and have fun in your very own Alpha Complex.

[Myth]

Hey I was quoted

I'd say that practical optimization is allowed for both sides.

Taking Incantatrix and Dweomerkeepr is ok, using Beholder Slayer's CL255 build is not. Wish looping, PAO racial change, not allowed.

I WAS going to build a level 20 Abrupt Jaunt Conjurer / Master Conjurer / Incantatrix / Archmage/ Iot7V with an "every day" spell list and defenses, but I got sidetracked and forgot.

I remember there being a challenger also, but last time the thread specified killing the Tier 1 (in this case, the Wizard) without using a Tier 1 class.

There are some finer aspects though, like the Foresight argument, the COP argument, how much XP do we get to spend per encounter etc.

[Psyren]

BTW, Psyren. You are my favorite :P

I just barely made my will save vs. sigging

*snip*

JaronK

*Insert inevitable modification of guidelines to try and hose this particular strategy*

[Trouvere]

I don't care what anyone says... if you've got to the point where a wizard is spending his entire life alone in extradimensional spaces in the form of a dire tortoise, just in case, you've already won.

[Gametime]

Astral Projection is a wonderful way to see the sights and sounds of other planes, if you should ever feel the need.

Considering Gate makes it possible for the wizard to kill any number of important figures and generally wreak havoc on the world, I don't think you can really claim to have won just because he never goes to a puppet show or something.

[jseah]

Here's a link to the BG boards that I linked to last time.
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boa...p?topic=3821.0

There's a few examples of 'T1 Wizard' in there, coming in varying flavours of CO.
Might have to click on a few links on the 1st post to get the builds and strategies though.

Builds on that one aren't comprehensive. Especially since they do things like 'Prepares spells according to COP answers'.

[BeholderSlayer]

Obviously the easiest method here is going to be any Wizard (or Archivist, actually, or even Sorcerer) who can cast Genesis simply doing so. Since you can set the planar traits to be whatever you can visualize, make it Flowing Time 1,000,000,000, Timeless, and any other traits of your choice (the rest mostly don't matter much, though ripping off the Ysgard trait that True Resurrects you every time you die in battle might be nice). Now you get 1 billion actions before anyone can do anything. This means you can battle by opening up a Gate near the target, attacking with every spell can cast within the Gate's time limit (which should kill darn near anything), and repeat until you're out of spells. Now rest for the night and repeat, memorizing new spells as needed. You can do this countless times before the enemy even gets a round to respond.

This is basically a perfect offense, and only a single spell was needed to make you basically unstoppable. Defensively, you can secure your plane so it's almost impossible to enter, using a variety of spells that make it virtually impossible to even enter the plane (and then you might as well set up traps for anyone entering). Forbiddence is a solid choice, though it's a Cleric spell... so Gate in a Solar to cast it for you. Now no one can ever enter your plane. Why bother with personal defenses when you can simply be too far from anyone to target? Now you send Astrally made copies of yourself to do the adventuring if you so desire, with your astral self retreating to your real body when you want to go into hyper kill mode... you've got a nice backup at home base (that respawns, as far as normal time is concerned, instantly if you die in battle).

JaronK

Don't forget the clones...*just in case*...since there are some ways to kill (I think) that make it impossible to be resurrected.

[Invelios]

Was the point to build an optimized tier 1 or to defeat one?

I mean using manual of the plains and complete arcane, along with core you could get a build they might actually annoy the wizard at least.

With some combo of Rogue (scout/acf ranger/factotum)/Gate crasher/mage slayer.

[Psyren]

I don't care what anyone says... if you've got to the point where a wizard is spending his entire life alone in extradimensional spaces in the form of a dire tortoise, just in case, you've already won.

Right, like any deity.

[Chess435]

To stop cloning/Res, you'll need a way to soul trap him. The trigger object method sounds promising, especially when combined with sympathy and the concealing of magic auras. Probably the best way to do this is to use contact other plane/greater scrying to find out the wizard's whereabouts, pose as a merchant wherever the wizard ends up going, (mundane disguises aren't foiled by true seeing) and offer to buy magic items at ridiculous prices. If you attract the wizard's attention, do business as normal, but include a specially prepared gold piece as the trigger object on top of the sack. That just might do the trick.

[Realms of Chaos]

Hmmm, if we want to derive a spell list and only use practical optimization (no infinite loops), a couple of questions should probably be answered.
1) What are we considering to be the maximum caster level accessible to the caster? 30? 50? 100? 200?
2) What is the highest that we are assuming that the target could boost their primary ability score for long enough to benefit from bonus spell slots? By extension, answering this will help us get a ball-park estimate of the caster's spell DCs? Again, does 50 seem high enough here? I've seen builds that can get very very very high but I'm not sure if they rely on "practical optimization".

[Z3ro]

Just a quick question:

Alot of people are mentioning that the wizard in in his demi-plane, astrally projecting to protect his physical body. But you can't do that by strict RAW -

astral projection
You project your astral self onto the Astral Plane, leaving your physical body behind on the Material Plane in a state of suspended animation.

So is this a big problem, or are people just bending RAW a little?

[Nanoblack]

Was the point to build an optimized tier 1 or to defeat one?

I mean using manual of the plains and complete arcane, along with core you could get a build they might actually annoy the wizard at least.

With some combo of Rogue (scout/acf ranger/factotum)/Gate crasher/mage slayer.

The point was to build a tier 1 wizard the way any sufficiently paranoid player would. I want to see how many of these alleged uber-safeguards the wizard is capable of keeping up at all times. This way when a build to defeat him is presented, there can't be anyone to chime in and say "oh well any paranoid wizard would have this spell prepared just in case". I want to see items, spells, and feats that this character would have on an average day of his eternal toil in paranoia.

[Psyren]

So is this a big problem, or are people just bending RAW a little?

Manual of the Planes specifies that Astral Projection leaves your body on the source plane and projects your Astral form to the Astral Plane - pg. 46.