Wizard vs. Warlock (level 20)

[Hario]

So my friend, has the inane idea that a warlock will beat a wizard at level 20, I've already explained many of the ways the wizard will win, with little effort (like maximized shivering touch). If I'm wrong prove me. Wizard will almost always beat a warlock, especially on a 1v1. (yes I've read everything on the wizard including TLN wizard's guide)

[SadisticFishing]

A warlock at level 20 (with Hellfire Warlock 3) will have more than 18 dex. The winner is the one who wins initiative, and/or gets the surprise round.

Maximize/Empower Hellfire Blast, Quicken/Maximize/Empower Hellfire Blast. Fight over.

[Quietus]

A warlock at level 20 (with Hellfire Warlock 3) will have more than 18 dex. The winner is the one who wins initiative, and/or gets the surprise round.

Maximize/Empower Hellfire Blast, Quicken/Maximize/Empower Hellfire Blast. Fight over.

I'll second this - although if you allow any book out there, the wizard can have contingencies set up to negate it. If they know they're going to 1v1, odds are pretty good the Wizard will have a contingency up that will toast the warlock pretty quickly.

[PlatinumJester]

Wizard would blow the Warlocks arse into pieces .

[Hario]

A warlock at level 20 (with Hellfire Warlock 3) will have more than 18 dex. The winner is the one who wins initiative, and/or gets the surprise round.

Maximize/Empower Hellfire Blast, Quicken/Maximize/Empower Hellfire Blast. Fight over.

Nope, Wizard wins iniative, he cast contingency, then maximized timestop, with a maximized otto's irrisitable dance, with 3 delayed fireballs and a maximized shivering touch.

[Mad Wizard]

Also, a wizard gets Celerity and Time Stop, so initiative doesn't really matter to him. Oops, lost initiative. Greater Celerity! Time Stop! Then, the wizard buffs up and kills the warlock with some sort of spell.

Edit: Heh, I just got ninja'd for the first time.

[Fishies]

Nope, Wizard wins iniative, he cast contingency, then maximized timestop, with a maximized otto's irrisitable dance, with 3 delayed fireballs and a maximized shivering touch.

12th level spell.

[Hario]

12th level spell.

Rod of Maximize (greater) completely within the wealth by level of a 20th level character

[Fishies]

Rod of Maximize (greater) completely within the wealth by level of a 20th level character

Oh! Then the wizard would probably win, I guess...

[SadisticFishing]

Celerity is an Immediate action. You can't use it when flat-footed. He who wins initiative wins.

Also: The warlock has such crazy UMD he can set up basically any combo a wizard can, as well as doing 300+ damage in a round.

[The_Snark]

It depends on this: Is the wizard forewarned? Because you can't cast Celerity while flat-footed.

If so, Foresight and Celerity and Time Stop mean that the wizard is going to win. The only chance the warlock has is to get surprise (Foresight's duration isn't long enough to have up at all times), and hit the wizard with the aforementioned metamagic'ed Hellfire Blasts.

A warlock can easily nab invisibility, which means that it's entirely possible that the warlock can have two round's worth of actions against a wizard caught totally by surprise.

If the wizard has had any time to prepare, or can get off even one action, it or even knows that it'll be fighting a warlock sometime soon, it'll win.

[Telonius]

The Wizard beats the Warlock for the same reason he beats the Sorcerer, or the archer. Blasting and HP damage do not "win" 3.5. Spell versatility does.

[Sucrose]

He who wins initiative will be the wizard. Foresight + Celerity + Maximized Time Stop= win. (Foresight negates the flatfooted condition, making immediate actions possible in all situations).

Also, if the warlock uses his UMD to do as the wizard, then a wizard beat a wizard, not a warlock. For the statement "a warlock can beat a wizard" to have any meaning at all, he must be doing things associated with warlocks rather than wizards.

Edit: ninja'd!

[Reinboom]

Sorcerer

Sorcerers can be batman as well - and use exactly the same strategies.

[SadisticFishing]

Urm, I'm AFB. What's the range on Eldritch Blast, with that invocation that makes it the longest?

Because I'm fairly sure two metaspelllikeability'd hellfire blasts win. And you don't get to roll initiative if the guy is shooting from half a mile away, unless you know he's a threat.

Basically, whoever starts with a bigger advantage wins.

If even? Whoever wings initiative.

[PlatinumJester]

Sorcerers can be batman as well - and use exactly the same strategies.

No sorcerers can be Robin. Batman's lame sidekick.

[Hario]

Except the Wizard can use a Greater Metamagic Rod of Extend Spell to keep Foresight up for a full 24 hours/day if he wants to. Then he can use Celerity to "win" initiative, and therefore the fight.

Or if you have extra feats you can take one of the feats that lower the Spell adjustment you can save yourself an expensive Rod and have it done for free. (I forget the feat's name I think its metamagic mastery)

[Citizen Joe]

Timestop doesn't allow for casting those attack spells.

Nevertheless, level 20 wizards are well aware of their health and, given the chance, will protect themselves with some sort of magic that essentially negates the first attack by anyone. They are very versatile so I won't say exactly HOW they'll do it, but the easy cop out is just use a wish to do so.

[Sucrose]

Urm, I'm AFB. What's the range on Eldritch Blast, with that invocation that makes it the longest?

Because I'm fairly sure two metaspelllikeability'd hellfire blasts win. And you don't get to roll initiative if the guy is shooting from half a mile away, unless you know he's a threat.

Basically, whoever starts with a bigger advantage wins.

If even? Whoever wings initiative.

Range is 250 feet with Eldritch Spear. I don't think that there's a longer-range one. If the warlock were able to perform an ambush, then he might be able to take down the wizard...if said wizard doesn't have a contingent spell to protect him.

Not to mention, this favors the warlock: why not give the wizard surprise? Because we all know that the warlock would be slaughtered.

[Hario]

Urm, I'm AFB. What's the range on Eldritch Blast, with that invocation that makes it the longest?

Because I'm fairly sure two metaspelllikeability'd hellfire blasts win. And you don't get to roll initiative if the guy is shooting from half a mile away, unless you know he's a threat.

Basically, whoever starts with a bigger advantage wins.

If even? Whoever wings initiative.

Nah Contingency on cast at something like (about to be hit or something that will effect the caster negatively within X space) can give you an immediate action to cast Maximized Time stop, so the attack never hits, then you follow the basic flow of things.

[Telonius]

Celerity is an Immediate action. You can't use it when flat-footed. He who wins initiative wins.

Also: The warlock has such crazy UMD he can set up basically any combo a wizard can, as well as doing 300+ damage in a round.

The same could be said for a Rogue, but a Rogue can't beat a wizard in a straight-up fight.

But look at where the argument is going. "Well, if the wizard doesn't know somebody has it in for him, and he doesn't know I'm there, and he doesn't have his spells ready for me, and happens not to see me sneaking up on him ..." Come on, if all that stuff is true, a Commoner with a rock could kill a wizard. But that doesn't make the Commoner class more powerful than the Wizard class. The thing with wizards, is that a proper Batman will always know if somebody has it in for him, will always know you're there, will always have his spells ready, and will always know if somebody's sneaking up on him. The preconditions you're describing just won't exist.

[The_Snark]

He who wins initiative will be the wizard. Foresight + Celerity + Maximized Time Stop= win. (Foresight negates the flatfooted condition, making immediate actions possible in all situations).

Foresight, however, doesn't have a long enough duration to be up for more than three hours or so. A wizard who's not expecting an attack, and doesn't have, say, a contingent Celerity, will be caught by surprise.

The wizard is, pretty clearly, better; the only scenario in which the warlock has a chance is the one in which he has the advantage of total surprise. If the wizard gets even one action in, the warlock is toast.

[AKA_Bait]

The same could be said for a Rogue, but a Rogue can't beat a wizard in a straight-up fight.

But look at where the argument is going. "Well, if the wizard doesn't know somebody has it in for him, and he doesn't know I'm there, and he doesn't have his spells ready for me, and happens not to see me sneaking up on him ..." Come on, if all that stuff is true, a Commoner with a rock could kill a wizard. But that doesn't make the Commoner class more powerful than the Wizard class. The thing with wizards, is that a proper Batman will always know if somebody has it in for him, will always know you're there, will always have his spells ready, and will always know if somebody's sneaking up on him. The preconditions you're describing just won't exist.

How... is that possible? When did high level Wizards become Omniscient? Sure they have access to lots of divination spells, but they get only so many spells per day.

[Karsh]

In other words, the Wizard will win.

That's like saying that you think a Fighter could beat X because under a very specific set of circumstances, he could roll a nat 20 and confirm the crit with a Vorpal weapon. You can't rely on specifics. On average, and more often than not, a Wizard will decimate a Warlock. And assuming that a Wizard doesn't have a Contingent something-or-other is just preposterous. Depending on how cheesy we're being, the Wiz may very well have hundreds of Contingencies per the Craft Contingent Spell feat.

[AKA_Bait]

In other words, the Wizard will win.

That's like saying that you think a Fighter could beat X because under a very specific set of circumstances, he could roll a nat 20 and confirm the crit with a Vorpal weapon. You can't rely on specifics. On average, and more often than not, a Wizard will decimate a Warlock. And assuming that a Wizard doesn't have a Contingent something-or-other is just preposterous. Depending on how cheesy we're being, the Wiz may very well have hundreds of Contingencies per the Craft Contingent Spell feat.

Can't you only have one contingency spell active at a time?

Also, I'm not so sure it's preposterous. Saying that a Warlock will win if it gets the iniative or a surprise round isn't on par with saying the fighter could roll a 20 and confirm the crit with a vorpal weapon since rolling a nat 20, owning a vorpal weapon, and getting right in the face of the wizard are not key concepts for the class. Being sneaky is a key concept for a Warlock as much as being smart is one for a wizard.

[Ramos]

A proper Batman will always know if somebody has it in for him.

Not unless he casts many divinations that have a fail chance and are unclear at best. And this eats away spell slots.

Will always know you're there.

Mind Blank, Lead full plate armor, Ring of sequester, antimagic+hide skill, weirding stone or any other technique that automatically blocks divination.

Will always have his spells ready

Not if you're invisibly, undetectably sneaking on him and wait until after he's expended his spells for the day-or at least most of them.

And will always know if somebody's sneaking up on him.

Nope. Antimagic+hide, Mind Blank, Nondetection, Lead full plate, weirding stone and similar techniques.



OR, you can simply have a higher hide check than his spot and a higher spot than his hide (easy) and start blasting him before he makes his spot checks.

[Reinboom]

Foresight, however, doesn't have a long enough duration to be up for more than three hours or so. A wizard who's not expecting an attack, and doesn't have, say, a contingent Celerity, will be caught by surprise.

This is why you extend it via metamagic rod. 6 hours and 40 minutes. 2 of these will do. (that's 2 out of 4 - or 5 with enough int items - 9th level spells).

[OverdrivePrime]

How... is that possible? When did high level Wizards become Omniscient? Sure they have access to lots of divination spells, but they get only so many spells per day.

When they hit 17th level.


All these series of "ifs" really show how unbalanced this is. Any class could beat a wizard if the situation is tipped in their favor enough. A Level 1 orc with a heavy pick sneaks up and Coup de Graces the wizard when the wizard is passed out drunk. Oh noes! Orcs are crazy broken!

Not to mention that it's ridiculous to compare the power between wizards and warlocks by staging a duel. Solo each through a level 20 adventure. Who makes it out alive and with the most EXP? I'm bettin' on Batman.

[Ulzgoroth]

HP damage can win. Wizards are fragile. A wizard being hammered with a single fireball has a very real chance of dying instantly. At level 11, take a quickened scorching ray (3x4d6 ranged touch) and a maximized fireball (60), and get back to me about HP damage not winning. At level 20, make it a quickened empowered DBF and a maximized empowered DBF...for what's surely a very inefficient way of doing things, but at 1.5x20d6 (105 average) + 120 + 0.5x20d6 (35 average) -> 260 damage it ought to convert any Wiz-20 without fireproofing into a greasy cloud unless they make reflex saves. Blasting monsters may be weak, but blasting people with your level in d4s is another matter. While a warlock can't deal quite that kind of damage, they can still get enough...

The problem is that with full time-manipulation cheese it's nearly impossible to get even a surprise round worth of hits in on a wizard, unless you're using time stop yourself.

[Reinboom]

Also, another important thing being brushed aside is that this is treating that the warlock is a wizard hunter without the vice versa being true.
If the warlock knows the wizard is a threat enough to "surprise round" it, then why doesn't the wizard know the opposite? Is this not a special circumstance?

--
If they both know each other is a threat, the wizard wins.
Otherwise it depends on who's hunting who. And even then, the wizard can still win.