Wizard vs fighter, low level melee

[emeraldstreak]

Halflings are humanoids, too, so the fighter being a Strongheart Halfling would still be vulnerable to the same Bane ability. However, again, in this matchup, the wizard has "Bane Magic (Fighter Type)" of whatever the fighter has, to represent the peak wizard build against that build of fighter.

If we went with Bloodline of Fire, we'd have to use a fire spell, which leaves exclusively Burning Hands.

Can't choose just "humanoids" though - must be a humanoid subtype as well.

Kelgore's Firebolt is superior to Burning Hands, no?

[Anthrowhale]

If the wizard is using a fire-spell, we can take Bind Vestige for Aym instead of toughness anyway.

You need two feats here: Bind Vestige and Practiced Binder as per table 1-9 in ToM which makes human worse than a Fire Elf or a Fire Hobgoblin. There's also "Fireblood dwarves" (Dragon Magic).

[Doctor Despair]

Can't choose just "humanoids" though - must be a humanoid subtype as well.

Kelgore's Firebolt is superior to Burning Hands, no?

That's true. And if the human doesn't have fire resistance or fire immunity, the bolt would do 3d6 fire + 2d6 (5-30, average 17.5), or 1d6 fire on a failed caster-level check (3-18, average 11.5). Those are pretty decent odds -- and since it doesn't use metamagic or have some stunning-rider like Reserves of Power, the wizard can cast a second one the following turn if the fighter stays up, but fails to down the wizard in the following turn.

This is nice because it means the wizard can one-shot a fighter who isn't resistant to or immune to fire damage. However, if a fighter is resistance to or immune to fire damage, we'd need to find a different spell that would do an average of 8 damage (as the Bane Magic provides an average of 7 damage). This leads to conversation below

You need two feats here: Bind Vestige and Practiced Binder as per table 1-9 in ToM which makes human worse than a Fire Elf or a Fire Hobgoblin. There's also "Fireblood dwarves" (Dragon Magic).

Fair enough; I misremembered how that feat functioned. So either a human with toughness, or a race with fire resistance. Fire Gnomes are straight-out immune to fire damage, though, which should discourage this wizard-build from using it.

Granted, that race would leave the fighter vulnerable to cold spells (and we could try to pump that damage with Snowcasting instead of Bloodline of Fire...), but then the wizard wouldn't beat a fighter without cold vulnerability/with cold resistance/immunity. I'm not sure how we should handle this shuffling of abilities. I suppose the fighter would take the fire resistance or fire immunity unless we can find a similar ability for a different attribute for a decent spell, right?

We know if the wizard goes first, they get to cast at least one spell, as they can avoid attacks of opportunity with their tower shield in the first round. If the fighter goes first, they get at least one attack against a flat-footed opponent (10 + 1 size + 4 tower shield) for a 50/50, or adding 4 more from Mage Armor if we can beat the fighter with one spell. Then, the wizard would get their one spell, and the fighter, should they survive, would get another attack, presumably increasing their winrate to over 50% if they went first.

Ideally, we want the wizard to be able to win on their first turn on average. The fighter already has spell resistance, which makes this... tough to get over a 50% win rate, as even with Bloodline of Fire, we'd fail 25% of the time (or 35% of the time without it).

Wizard goes first: Abrupt Jaunt, full cover, walk out of AOO range, cast spell. Then, caster level check for Spell Resistance (35% fail chance without a boost).
We want to deal average damage to down the fighter here, which still only means he goes down 58% of the time, if I remember correctly.
The figher is now up 63% of the time.
The fighter charges us, negating our ability to jaunt defensively, and gets an attack. Our AC is 10 + 1 (size) + 5 (dex), or 16, so the fighter needs to roll an 11 or higher to break it, which they do 50% of the time; a hit downs us.
The fighter now has won in 32% of our matches; we've won in 38%.
In the remaining 30% of cases, the wizard has to jaunt, and hope the fighter in this matchup doesn't have deformity (tall) to threaten us. Otherwise, we'd have to defensively cast (35% failure...) We have to break spell resistance again, so another 35% chance of failure. Our second spell hopefully finishes the job; assuming the damage kills the fighter, that's ~11% chance the fighter is still up and presumably wins, and ~20% chance the wizard downs him.
That's (assuming the second spell finishes them), a 58% winrate if we deal, on average, enough damage to down the fighter with one spell -- and that's if we won initiative.

If the fighter won initiative, we'd start with an AC of 15, so the fighter would hit us 55% of the time before proceeding to the normal exchange.
The wizard has a 17% chance to survive, break SR, and down the fighter with their first spell.
The fighter has a 6% chance to down the wizard with their second attack (cumulative 61%).
The wizard has a 4% chance to survive to the second spell and break SR (cumulative 21% win chance).
The wizard fails to break SR in the remaining 2% of cases, giving the fight to the fighter. That leaves the fighter with a 63% winrate if they go first, and 42% if the wizard goes first, assuming we don't pump our caster level or do significantly more damage than the fighter's HP on average.

The fighter will probably have 17 hp, 14 hp and resistance to whatever energy type we're using (unless we prepare one of each subtype), or... perhaps 14 hp and a second Soulmeld or a Maneuver that would help the fighter in this scenario. I'm not super familiar with ToB or Incarnum though...

If we swap out the second spell for Mage Armor, we could up our AC. That could swing the fighter's to-hit to 30% success, although it means if we fail the SR check, or fail to roll high enough on damage, with the first spell, the wizard probably just loses, right? We could also use our second feat to pump our damage to increase that 58% chance of downing them, or our caster level, to increase the chance to break SR...

Edit: Actually, the fighter might want to just take the L on the fire resistance and get immunity to mind-affecting again. Since we don't seem to have any non-SR spells that will do enough damage, the fighter's main threat now is Power Word Pain (3d6 damage/round for 4-16 rounds). If the wizard lands one of those, they have a nearly 100% chance of doing enough damage to down the fighter... eventually. SR doesn't help after the initial check to inflict the fighter, either, so the fighter loses their second SR check in the event the wizard passed the first one.

All in all, unless there's some game-breaking soulmeld waiting for the fighter to grab it, I'm thinking the fighter build probably looks like:

Class: Fighter
Race: Human
Feats: Shape Soulmeld (for SR 9), Willing Deformity, Deformity (Madness), Improved Initiative (I'd say combat reflexes, but the wizard can avoid our AOO with the tower shield anyway).
Equipment: Guisarme, Padded Armor, Armor Spikes, 3 potions of Faith Healing

This leaves us with a number of fire-related spells at our disposal to optimize the damage, certainly. Kelgore's Firebolt is a good one. The average 17.5 damage it does has a decent chance to down them; failing to break SR, it still does an average of 10.5, which should force the fighter to drink a potion and tank the second one -- or swing, and be downed by the second one. The fact that the fighter probably has a generous 55% chance to hit, and a spell that downs with average damage has a 58% to down the enemy, suggests that the fighter will choose to attack if we are able to do that much damage.

I think this is still in the wizard's favor overall regardless of the matchup, providing that Bane is on their opponent's type. If they go against a non-human fighter with fire resistance, they'll either not have SR or not have immunity to mind-affecting. Without the SR, our Firebolts will still do an average of 12.5; we also have our level 0 spells to do 2d6 + 1 if they're immune and we can't prepare different spells, or probably like 1d8 + 2d6 if we can prepare a different spell. Without the Madness, we can just spam Power Word Pain and turtle, so it's much more likely they give up the SR.

[Anthrowhale]

Spellward Shirt provides spell resistance 5 unless you get some essentia from somewhere (another feat?), so a wizard with Bloodline of Fire and Bane Magic casting Kelgore's Fire Bolt would have a 5% chance of failing to penetrate, otherwise doing 5d6 (expected 17.5) damage with a reflex for 1/2 damage.

[Doctor Despair]

Spellward Shirt provides spell resistance 5 unless you get some essentia from somewhere (another feat?), so a wizard with Bloodline of Fire and Bane Magic casting Kelgore's Fire Bolt would have a 5% chance of failing to penetrate, otherwise doing 5d6 (expected 17.5) damage with a reflex for 1/2 damage.

It looks like characters get essentia by character level, not by class level or class feature, at least according to the text on page 50 of Magic of Incarnum. The table itself is on page 19.

Somehow I neglected the reflex save on Fire Bolt. Fire Bolt may not be such a great option then for reliable damage, since that's a 50% chance to fail to down the fighter

[Anthrowhale]

It looks like characters get essentia by character level, not by class level or class feature, at least according to the text on page 50 of Magic of Incarnum. The table itself is on page 19.

I don't think that's correct. Page 19 says:

Essentia is primarily derived from class levels of meldshaping classes, but can also be gained from other sources.

Fighter is not a meldshaping class, and any source must so indicate. Table 2-1 is the maximum essentia capacity you can invest---that's why the title is "essentia capacity", not some amount of free essentia that you get with level. The text on page 50 disagrees here, but that's an editing error since page 19 is authoritative about what an essentia pool is. (It looks like they miswrote "pool" when they should have said something like "capacity".)

Somehow I neglected the reflex save on Fire Bolt. Fire Bolt may not be such a great option then for reliable damage, since that's a 50% chance to fail to down the fighter

That depends on what the fighter's dexterity is. Do you want to specify stats?

Edit: One thought is that instead of human, you could choose Azurin. That's a human without extra skill points, but with 1 point of essentia.

[Doctor Despair]

That depends on what the fighter's dexterity is. Do you want to specify stats?

I'd started out with fixed stats as I was considering these builds, but after a certain point (when it seemed, at several points, as if the wizard had a guaranteed win with certain strategies), I started slotting in 18s for both builds whenever stats came up as a hypothetically optimized build (e.g., fighter with 18s in strength, con, and dex, with a wizard with 18s in int, con, and dex, not that the wizard's int is often relevant in the damage-dealing theorycrafting). I suppose at this point the optimal fighter wouldn't have a +5 to dex, as the fighter's primary stats would be con and strength, right? So I suppose the reflex save will fail more often than not... Although there's merit to considering the fighter might tank a different stat.

Actually... as the fighter isn't using AOOs anymore, should the fighter be using a ranged weapon? Then it'd be dex to damage and attacks. I suppose that'd be optimal, right? So 18 in con and dex, tank everything else. Maybe a heavy crossbow for the d10 + dex? It has the long reload time, but the longbow would do 1d8 + dex -1, which is a little sad.

Edit:

Our fighter feat is also improved initiative, which should give the fighter a +3 initiative advantage atm... and we're not using any fighter ACFs. Are there any good ones out there?

Edit: Upon review: it doesn't look like there are any good core figher ACFs for us, as we can't be a Drow (for Hit and Run fighter) and nothing else seems particularly helpful.

Edit: One thought is that instead of human, you could choose Azurin. That's a human without extra skill points, but with 1 point of essentia.

Even in theorycrafting, is it worth playing a build without the resources for effective Craft (Underwater Basketweaving)?

On a more serious note: that's excellent.

[Anthrowhale]

Actually... as the fighter isn't using AOOs anymore, should the fighter be using a ranged weapon? Then it'd be dex to damage and attacks. I suppose that'd be optimal, right? So 18 in con and dex, tank everything else.

Dex to damage is not the default, so you may want to revise.

Our fighter feat is also improved initiative, which should give the fighter a +3 initiative advantage atm... and we're not using any fighter ACFs. Are there any good ones out there?

Hit & Run fighter (Drow of the Underdark) adds dex to damage vs. flat-footed foes and +2 to initiative.

Anyways, I think we are at an Azurin Str 8/Dex 18/Con 18/Int 8/Wis 8/Cha 8 Hit&Run fighter using padded leather armor (5 gp) and a buckler (15g) for AC 16 with feats:
Shape Soulmeld (for SR 9), Willing Deformity, Deformity (Madness), Improved Initiative (+10 total bonus).
In terms of weapons, tanking your strength nerfs everything except a crossbow, of which a light crossbow (1d8, 36gp) is probably superior as it can be fired every round.

Let's consider a Strongheart Halfling Focused Specialist Conjuration Martial wizard with Str 8/Dex 20/Con 16/Int 12/Wis 8/Cha 8 with a Toad familiar (+3 hp, 10 total) using Mage Armor and a tower shield (30gp) for AC 24 taking feats:
Improved Initiative, Bloodline of Fire, Bane Magic[Human(Humanoid)]
Skills include 2 points in tumble (cross-class) for a tumble bonus of 7.
Spells include: 3xAcid Splash, Lesser Orb of Fire, (int bonus) Nerveskitter, (Specialist) Mage Armor, (focused specialist) Lesser orb of fire.

The wizard will try to win initiative with nerveskitter for a total initiative bonus of +14 succeeding 70% of the time, drop a tower shield (move action), and then fire a lesser orb of fire for 2d8+2d6 damage. This requires a touch attack vs. AC 10 (since the fighter is flat-footed) with an attack bonus of +5, succeeding 80% of the time and dealing an expected 15 damage. Most of the time, this will knock out the fighter.

Not having combat reflexes is pretty devastating to the fighter.

[Doctor Despair]

Dex to damage is not the default, so you may want to revise.... Hit & Run fighter (Drow of the Underdark) adds dex to damage vs. flat-footed foes and +2 to initiative.

We're Azurin though, not Drow :/ However, as I'm looking at it, it looks like you're right. We are going to want to deal 4-8 damage on average, so the +4 to damage is pretty important. Looks like the fighter should be sticking with maxing con and strength -- guisarme and armor spikes.

Let's consider a Strongheart Halfling Focused Specialist Conjuration Martial wizard

Can you combine ACFs at the same level? I thought you substituted your Wizard 1 level for that ACF's level? Otherwise martial wizard would be nice for improved initiative, for sure.

with Str 8/Dex 20/Con 16/Int 12/Wis 8/Cha 8 with a Toad familiar (+3 hp, 10 total)

Being a Conjuration specialist wizard trades out your familiar, at least if we're taking Abrupt Jaunt. If we were keeping our familiar, wouldn't we want to take a hummingbird familiar and really cement that initiative lead? I agree with the stat distribution though.

using Mage Armor and a tower shield (30gp) for AC 24 taking feats:
Improved Initiative, Bloodline of Fire, Bane Magic[Human(Humanoid)]
Skills include 2 points in tumble (cross-class) for a tumble bonus of 7.
Spells include: 3xAcid Splash, Lesser Orb of Fire, (int bonus) Nerveskitter, (Specialist) Mage Armor, (focused specialist) Lesser orb of fire.

How are we preparing four level 1 spells? We have one level 1 spell by class, 1 by int bonus, and 1 specialist spell, for a total of 3 spells, right? So we'd only get one lesser orb of fire, or forgo mage armor, or forgo nerveskitter. Honestly, I'd forgotten that the fighter gets an extra spell per day, so it's nice that we get to prepare Nerve Skitter or Mage Armor in addition to two fire orbs.

The wizard will try to win initiative with nerveskitter for a total initiative bonus of +14 succeeding 70% of the time, drop a tower shield (move action), and then fire a lesser orb of fire for 2d8+2d6 damage. This requires a touch attack vs. AC 10 (since the fighter is flat-footed) with an attack bonus of +5, succeeding 80% of the time and dealing an expected 15 damage. Most of the time, this will knock out the fighter.

Not having combat reflexes is pretty devastating to the fighter.

Dropping something is a free action I think, but let's set that aside for now.

The fire orb actually does an average of 16 damage (average 9 + average 7), which bests the fighter that forgos toughness in favor of immunity to mind-affecting. That it does 16 damage is also significant, as this out-paces the healing of the Faith Healing potions, meaning that a second one has a better chance to down the fighter than the first one, should a second spell become needed. Fire resistance or toughness was pretty important, it seems.

I'm not sure I agree that combat reflexes was important here. Taking combat reflexes without reach means the wizard can five-foot step to avoid an AOO regardless. If the fighter has a reach weapon instead of the crossbow (swapping 18 dex for 18 strength), the wizard could be pushed out of using Nerveskitter, but gets an effective +5 from the fighter tanking their own dexterity. That means that the wizard could give up Nerveskitter, but use Abrupt Jaunt to pop out of range of the wizard.

On the note of Abrupt Jaunt, if you keep your familiar, it does mean that, against a fighter with reach, you will have to cast defensively if you go second (or first, if they have combat reflexes). The tower shield may provide total cover, but the fighter doesn't use cover rules if their target is adjacent. Hence, Abrupt Jaunt is needed to defeat the broadest amount of fighters. I earnestly think that the wizard has the chance to have an ideal build that defeats most, if not all fighter builds more often than not, but I think having Abrupt Jaunt is important for that strategy.

So, as the wizard has demonstrated an ability to deal enough to down the fighter through SR, it seems like the fighter would want to give up Deformity (Madness) and take Toughness. This allows the fighter the option to drink potions most of the time to try to out-pace the wizard's damage, but allows the wizard to attempt Power Word Pain as a strategy.

Alternatively, we could keep Madness, but give up Shape Soulmeld and go into a race with fire resistance. I'm not sure that's ideal though, as the SR applies to almost all the spells the wizard wants to use (and helps against Fell Drain wizards), and toughness applies to every damaging spell, whereas the fire resistance, while nice, is just 5-10 points towards a specific type of spell.

So let's swap out Madness for Toughness here and see how it looks...

The wizard still goes first 70% of the time (if we can take Martial Wizard in addition to the Conjuration ACF). In those scenarios, the wizard can see that the fighter has a ranged weapon, not a reach weapon, and use Nerveskitter.

The wizard, not knowing whether or not the fighter has combat reflexes, takes a five-foot step and drops their shield as a free action. They cast the orb, hitting 80% of the time and dealing 18 damage 36% of the time. The wizard has won ~29% of the matchups where they went first.

In the remaining 64% of these damage rolls, the fighter stays up with at least 0hp. The fighter has at least 4hp in 36% of cases. This lets the fighter drink a Faith Healing potion, healing for 13, going up to 13-17 depending on the damage the wizard rolled. Alternatively, they could attack, and probably should in cases where there is a greater chance the wizard downs the fighter after they drink their potion than there is that they miss the wizard. The fighter has to break AC 10 +5 (dex) +1 (size), or 16, and has a +5 to hit, or a 50% chance. Given that...

0hp: The fighter drinks a potion (going up to 13), and the wizard fires an orb. 73% chance to down the fighter.
1hp: The fighter attacks, hitting 50% of the time. Upon hitting, the fighter does 4.5 damage -- somewhat pitiful. I'm not sure the fighter gets a second attack, so let's swap that out for a heavy crossbow and 5.5 damage. That not having dex to damage thing sure isn't fun here. The wizard has 7 hp, so that's a 40% chance to down the wizard, or a cumulative 20%. Dismal.
2hp: Fighter attacks, 50% chance to hit, 40% chance to down.
3hp: The fighter drinks a potion (16hp), and the wizard fires an orb. 46% chance to down
4+hp: The fighter drinks a potion (17hp), and the wizard fires an orb. 36% chance to down

If the fighter doesn't down the wizard on average with an attack, things don't look great. They're not much better if the fighter goes first.

The fighter instantly attacks, needing to break AC15 (tower shield, size), and doing so 55% of the time, downing the wizard 40% of the time, or a cumulative 22% of the time... and then the wizard turns around, drops their shield, and touch attacks the fighter more often than not. Even not flat-footed, the wizard just has more dex than the fighter. Again, the fighter is probably left up, but none of the scenarios look very good for the fighter.

I think the fighter wants to go for the melee build. Then, the wizard can take Mage Armor instead of Nerve Skitter and retain their same 70% chance to go first, as they need their immediate action to Abrupt Jaunt anyway. In fact, one might say that if we were trying to find an optimal wizard build into an unknown fighter, having Mage Armor active would be key regardless, so that and two copies of our offensive spell seems pretty standard.

Wizard can Abrupt Jaunt and tower shield for cover upon going first, not knowing whether the fighter has combat reflexes, and the matchup would play out the same, although the fighter has a 94% chance to down the wizard instead of a 20% chance. At the very least, that means that if the wizard goes first...

Wizard misses touch attack: 20% chance
Wizard hits touch attack, but does less than 17 damage: 55% chance of that 80% (44%)

Wizard touches and downs fighter: 29%
Fighter survives the spell with 0hp: ~7%
Fighter survives the spell with 1+hp: 64%

Fighter survives touch attack/spell, and charges the wizard, hitting (AC 20): 40% chance of that 64% (26%)
Fighter hits the wizard, and downs them with that hit: 94% of 40% of 64% (24%)

So here, if the wizard goes first, the wizard has won ~29% of the matchups, and the fighter has won ~24% of the matchups. In 7% of the matchups (0hp), the fighter drinks a potion, and is at 13hp with a 64% chance to go down to the wizard's next spell, so 4% further goes to the wizard, and a generous 3 to the fighter, assuming they hit/down the wizard (which is not a safe assumption): 33 to 27 if the wizard goes first.

If the wizard did 13 or less damage (28% chance), the fighter can down a potion to "undo" the spell and reset the math minus one spellslot. I think the fighter probably drinks if the wizard did 13 or less damage, or, alternatively, if the wizard did 17 damage exactly (9.2%, cumulative 37% chance). This has the effect of bringing the math further in the fighter's favor, as the fighter presumably gains a large advantage (more attacks) if the wizard runs out of spellslots. Bane Magic is the wizard's saving grace that prevents them from just straight-up losing if their second spell doesn't down the fighter, but it'll skew the numbers more in the fighter's favor. How, exactly, I'm not quite sure how to calculate at 1:21am, but presumably it will help reduce the odds that the fighter survives X spells and fails to hit the wizard before going down (i.e., the second-to-last step where the fighter only has a 40% chance to-hit).

If the fighter misses (38% chance), the wizard has an 80% chance to follow-up with a spell that probably has enough damage to finish the fighter, so we can probably use that split. 30 to the wizard, 8 to the fighter, or 63/35.

So what about the remaining 2% of scenarios, where the fighter deals damage, but fails to down the wizard? It's probably pretty close to 80/20, so we probably could hand both to the wizard, bringing the score up to 65/35 if the wizard goes first. It'll be a little more even with potion-chugging, but I'm not sure how much that will skew it; maybe enough to make it an even 65/40, although someone more awake/competent than me can fact-check that. Actually... I neglected that flat-footed negated dex bonuses, but not dex-penalties to AC, so it's higher than an 80% chance to break the fighter's touch AC... Literally all the math was predicated on the 80/20 split, so... Let's say that negates any benefit the potion-chugging has, for the purposes of discussion, as this seems very one-sided anyway. 65/35 split. On the other hand, notably, a fighter leaving a wizard at 0hp may leave the wizard unable to cast spells without taking a point of damage... Ah well. We'll use our already flawed figures for now as a rough estimate of how the matchup looks.

That's 70% of cases, so 45% of total matches for the wizard, and 25% for the fighter.

In the remaining 30%, the fighter goes first and gets an initial attack. The wizard has 19 AC flat-footed, but the fighter isn't charging so it's a 35% chance to hit, and 33% to down the wizard. 33% fighter victories.

Then the wizard can make their touch attack (fighter's AC is 9, not 10...), so an 85% chance to hit, a 36% chance to down the fighter, and a 9% chance to do 17 damage and force the fighter to drink a potion for the lay-up victory (5% to the wizard, 1% to the fighter). 55% chance to leave the fighter up and ready. 24% wizard victories. 41% of combats continue with a feisty fighter. 34% fighter victories; 25% wizard victories.

The fighter charges to attack with a 40% chance to hit, 94% chance to down (higher, accounting for the 2% of damaged, surviving wizard from the first blow), or a cumulative 16% chance the fighter downs the wizard here, winning. We also have another mysterious 2% of wizards surviving damaged. Presumably they aren't the same wizards as before.

In 60% of cases, the fighter whiffs, and the wizard gets another spell, presumably downing if the wizard hits their 85%. That would be 20% to the wizard, and 4% to the fighter, for a cumulative ~54% win rate for the fighter, and 45% for the wizard. Again, potion-chugging will help the fighter here, as well as those damaged wizard we didn't calculate for, so we'll call it 55/45 if the fighter goes first. That's 16.5 for the fighter, and 13.5 for the wizard.

Adding the two statistics together to account for initiative, we have:

Wizard: ~62
Fighter: ~38

Toughness helped the fighter a bit, but "wasting" a feat on spell resistance that they couldn't actually use in this matchup hurt quite a bit. I think this pretty much cements the wizard advantage for the 1v1, as I think this defeats just about every fighter build except ones that intentionally lose to most other wizard builds. For example, fire resist 5 lowers our average damage from 16 to 11, allowing the fighter to much more easily potion-chug. The fighter probably has three potions at most, so they can eliminate three of our spell slots on average. If we open up with a salvo of acid splashes (average 9 damage, so 2 will down the fighter on average), we could have 2 spells up when they're out of potions, which is enough to down the fighter, but assumes we land all our touch attacks and don't roll min damage. If we add something like a crossbow of some sort to the wizard, they can get that damage at least. I think the fire resist fighter has the battle in their favor, but I don't think it's by much, and this wizard beats most other fighters hands-down. Such a fighter could take endurance and diehard as their feats to be extra annoying, but again, I'd suggest that's unreasonable.

... I think the only thing the fighter might have left to get is some other soulmeld or a maneuver to boost their effective HP by more than 3. If there isn't anything like that, I think the thread's tenative conclusion should be that the level 1 wizard can defeat any fighter, providing that wizard has the forethought to select "Bane Magic" against that fighter's subtype. It's a little cheat-sy, as it suggests that the fighter will always be human, which is certainly not the case.

In the absence of a psychic wizard (e.g., if we aren't using Bane Magic), I don't know that a wizard has the damage to burn through any fighter's WBL of potions in the same way that this matchup can. In that sense, the fighter that takes Shape Soulmeld and Toughness, two feats that aren't super unreasonable, has a pretty good chance to beat most wizards. Without the benefit of Bane Magic, we can probably even swap out Toughness for Deformmity (Madness) again to protect from color spray and Power Word Pain again.

As others have said upthread: Madness is a bit of a fluff/rp nightmare for a PC, although it isn't impossible to play for an evil character. You can always train out of it later (if only it were so easy in real life), too. It's also fairly build-agnostic, as any wizard could have access to mind-affecting spells or abilities.

For a fighter without Madness, the SR will help. Notably, I think you keep the soulmeld you shaped even if you train out of the feat (someone mentioned doing that trick for gaining evasion, if I remember correctly), so there's no real reason not to take it for the level 1 advantage and train out when you need the feat for something else.

Overall, I'd say it seems like a generic unoptimized fighter will lose or draw to an unoptimized wizard who takes Color Spray or Power Word Pain as some of their level 1 spells. An average-level build where the fighter gets spell resistance for the early game makes it more even, providing the fighter max'd con (30% failure to break SR, then 25% chance the fighter passes the save, leads to a cumulative 48% failure rate for color spray, or 30% for PWP), but the wizard probably only needs two spells to down the fighter, and abrupt jaunt might be featured in some wizard builds to avoid fighter attacks. A hyper-optimized-level build where the fighter gets the SR and immunity to mind-affecting, maxes con, and spends all their WBL on potions from a caster of their faith is pretty heavily in favor of the fighter (as the wizard gets tricks like using a tower shield to avoid all AOOs, but doesn't have enough damage in their spellbook to down the fighter) -- until the wizard starts to become more "psychic" with their build and takes bane X for the fighter's subtype.

In conclusion: the wizard seems to win at low-levels of optimization, and the highest TO levels of optimization, but the fighter seems to win in the intervening levels. Unless there's some TOB/Incarnum shenanigans for the fighter, I don't foresee this changing much (as the wizard can Abrupt Jaunt/Tower Turtle out of threatened range for Mage Slayer and follow a similar formula, but with better spells).

[Techwarrior]

Something I'm seeing over and over in this thread is that regardless of how much each character gets Schrodinger'ed, the Wizard has access to more spells in it's book than it can prepare.

The wizard can have Color Spray, so the Fighter is required to have a way to avoid being dead to it. The wizard then has the option to not prepare Color Spray (but still have it in his book), but if the Fighter knows what spells the wizard can cast, he still needs to be able to beat a Color Spray even if it didn't get prepared. If the Fighter doesn't, the Wizard doesn't need to change his build and now can just prepare that and win.

Essentially, the Wizard has access to more strategic options than the Fighter by virtue of being able to prepare spells. I don't see why we're letting the Fighter rip it's sheet to shreds and start over from the ground up if the wizard tactically decided that it doesn't need to prepare Color Spray versus this opponent. Spell preparation should be a tactical decision once we're comparing Fighter X to Wizard Y.

[Twurps]

Something I'm seeing over and over in this thread is that regardless of how much each character gets Schrodinger'ed, the Wizard has access to more spells in it's book than it can prepare.

The wizard can have Color Spray, so the Fighter is required to have a way to avoid being dead to it. The wizard then has the option to not prepare Color Spray (but still have it in his book), but if the Fighter knows what spells the wizard can cast, he still needs to be able to beat a Color Spray even if it didn't get prepared. If the Fighter doesn't, the Wizard doesn't need to change his build and now can just prepare that and win.

Essentially, the Wizard has access to more strategic options than the Fighter by virtue of being able to prepare spells. I don't see why we're letting the Fighter rip it's sheet to shreds and start over from the ground up if the wizard tactically decided that it doesn't need to prepare Color Spray versus this opponent. Spell preparation should be a tactical decision once we're comparing Fighter X to Wizard Y.

you can look at it as the meta developing in cases where we have this matchup being repeated many times. So it's different fighters (maybe with similar builds, maybe with another build) vs different wizards. How much the wizard 'could have prepared' is less relevant, all that matters is what he actually shows up with.

If it's the same fighter vs wizard, this whole percentage game is useless, as 1 of them will be dead after the first fight.

[Anthrowhale]

W.r.t. some of the questions/comments:
(a) The wizard did not take abrupt jaunt.
(b) Focused Specialist is a variant (like specialist wizard---not an ACF) in complete mage which grants an extra spell at the cost of losing an extra school.
(c) I believe you are avoiding the WotC-endorsed 3rd party content in dragon magazine which has the hummingbird familiar.
(d) Since a focused specialist conjurer is still a wizard with scribe scroll, it is eligible for martial wizard.
(e) Your level 5 potion of faith healing costs 250gp, which exceeds wealth by level. A level 1 potion costs only 50 gp, but it only heals 9hp.
(f) The move action cost of removing a shield is given here.
(g) The "proper" method of dealing with non-dominating best response is via a Nash equilibrium. However, you really start needing computer aid to avoid mistakes.

[Vizzerdrix]

The real question we need to focus on is: Can we devise a commoner of equal level that can take both of them at the same time?

[Doctor Despair]

My responses to each in turn

W.r.t. some of the questions/comments:
(a) The wizard did not take abrupt jaunt.
(f) The move action cost of removing a shield is given here.

"Wouldn't dropping Abrupt Jaunt mean the wizard takes an AOO against a tall fighter?" he thought, before seeing point f. I'd taken for granted that dropping a shield was a free action, as someone had said it was upthread a while. That changes things for the fighter build somewhat significantly. Given the disparity in these numbers, I think the fighter should swap Improved Initiative for Combat Reflexes. A wizard with abrupt jaunt will take an AOO from a tall fighter regardless, and a wizard without abrupt jaunt will take an AOO from a regular fighter with reach. It's not clear in the passage whether or not doffing a shield triggers an AOO, but as we only get one with this build (unless we somehow jam in weapon finesse and max dex instead), let's assume it doesn't.

Wizard's AC is 16 by the time they cast the spell, or 20 if they used Mage Armor. The fighter has a +5 to hit, so they miss on a 14, or a 30% chance to-hit. If they hit, the wizard needs to make a concentration check (4 ranks, +4 bonus, so if the fighter does average damage, that check (damage hovering around 8-9) will cause the wizard to lose the spell ~50% of the time. The wizard goes down from the damage less than 20% of the time.

(c) I believe you are avoiding the WotC-endorsed 3rd party content in dragon magazine which has the hummingbird familiar.

Ah, fair enough. Toad is probably an appropriate choice, as it offers the wizard an opportunity to up their survival rate of a fighter attack from 6% to better than average (fighter deals 9 on average to the wizard's 10hp, although the wizard may be able to cast at 0hp if the DM determines the action isn't strenuous).

(b) Focused Specialist is a variant (like specialist wizard---not an ACF) in complete mage which grants an extra spell at the cost of losing an extra school.
(d) Since a focused specialist conjurer is still a wizard with scribe scroll, it is eligible for martial wizard.

Fair enough on the feats, and with focused specialist, we need three spells of the same school and one of any school. Mage Armor, Nerveskitter, and two fire orbs makes sense now.

(e) Your level 5 potion of faith healing costs 250gp, which exceeds wealth by level. A level 1 potion costs only 50 gp, but it only heals 9hp.

I've never said 5 potions; I've said 3 potions in every post. Once, someone else said 5 potions and was called out by another person.

As for the amount -- you're right, it'd have to be a level 1 cleric. I was forgetting the potion cost-formula scales with caster level. So it's an effective 27hp to the fighter's 14-17, or 41-43.

(g) The "proper" method of dealing with non-dominating best response is via a Nash equilibrium. However, you really start needing computer aid to avoid mistakes.

So now we have an odd situation.

In the absence of the wizard having prepared Power Word Pain/[mind-affecting spell], the fighter doesn't need Madness.
In the absence of the wizard having prepared a spell that allows spell resistance, the fighter doesn't need Shape Soulmeld (and can, in place of Shape Soulmeld, take a race with fire resistance and +2 to con or something).
In the absence of a wizard using a fire spell, the fighter doesn't need fire resistance.
In the absence of a wizard with Abrupt Jaunt, the fighter doesn't need Tall.
In the absence of a wizard that does 14+ damage per average per spell, the fighter doesn't need toughness.

How do we reconcile this? I think we take that optimal wizard strategy and pin it against the optimal fighter strategy against it. If the wizard wins more often than not, the wizard is better outright. It's clear there's no longer a real chance at a fighter build that can win more often than not against all wizard builds.

We could juggle the wizard's prepared spells to force the fighter to take madness (e.g., keeping Power Word Pain instead of Nerveskitter. The wizard right now has a net +10 to initiative the fighter doesn't have (+6 net dex, +4 improved init, wins in ties), and wins in a tie, so 89% chance to win initiative without Nerveskitter, or 98% with Nerveskitter. If the fighter needs to keep Madness, and they could go for a Fire Elf, for -1 hp and fire resist 5 (but +2 to dex), or Fireblood Dwarf (+2 con, fire resist 5). Since there's such a massive gap in initiative, and that +2 would only grant another 2% chance to go first, let's go with the dwarf.

So we have a Fireblood Dwarf with Willing Deformity, Deformity (Madness), and Combat Reflexes.

Wizard goes first:
Wizard removes shield, then makes a touch attack, triggering AOO
Fighter swings at AC20 with armor spikes with +5 to hit, breaking it 30% of the time, dealing ~7.5 damage on average, downing the wizard 0% of the time, disabling them 17% of the time.
If hit, the wizard makes a concentration check (DC11+damage), passing ~50% of the time.
If the fighter missed (70%) or the wizard was hit, but passed (~15%), the wizard makes a touch attack (AC9 vs +5 to-hit), succeeding 85% of the time (cumulative ~73%).
Damage is (2d6-5)+(2d6), dealing 9 damage on average, downing the fighter 2.7% of the time, and disabling them 5.4% of the time.
If the wizard was hit and failed their concentration check (15%), failed their touch attack (~13%), or failed to down the fighter (~69%), the fighter gets an attack or gets to drink a potion (cumulative 97%). The wizard wins in 3% of cases.

Using these numbers, the fighter could effectively mitigate a few spellslots, as the wizard fails to deal damage 28% of the time (15% failing concentration check after a hit, 13% failing touch attack), and deals 9 or less damage with their level 1 spell 56% of the time (cumulative with the chance to break touch AC is 41%), so drinking a potion (or not drinking a potion) completely negates a spell-slot 69% of the time. However, upon following that chain, while the fighter could technically negate more than 3 spells with those 3 potions, as the wizard may fail touch AC or concentration without requiring a potion, drinking the potion would also allow the wizard an AOO unless the fighter took a five-foot step -- which would allow the wizard to take a step on their turn and avoid the AOO at all. That then reduces the chance that a fighter can ignore or negate a spellslot from 69% to 54% of the time for every potion beyond the first.

In 41% of cases, the fighter drinks a potion to negate a spell-slot.

We then repeat the math, but with a 54% chance to end up here rather than a 69% chance. I believe Acid Splash and the orb deal the same average damage (9), so it doesn't matter if the wizard runs out of fire spells. In the other 41% of cases, let's just assume that it's a wash, I suppose, as I'm not sure how to handle the potion math. Either the wizard whiffs a spell after repetition and the fighter attacks, or the wizard successfully deals more than 9 damage and the fighter attacks, or the fighter runs out of potions and must attack after either taking or not taking damage.

In any case, the fighter just attacks, breaking AC 30% of the time (can't charge if the wizard stayed adjacent). I'm not sure whether it would be optimal for the fighter to five-foot step or not. I think in this scenario, the fighter stays adjacent, counting on the value of AOOs exceeding the value of extra damage from using the guisarme over the armor spikes. A second hit would down the wizard, whereas a first hit certainly does not. The wizard is up more often than not here (goes down ~9% of the time, so 9% winrate for the fighter).

The wizard gets to cast another spell, which means another AOO that hits 30% of the time, downing the wizard if it's a second hit (which should, I think, mean another 9% winrate added to the fighter). If it's a hit, the wizard makes the concentration check 50% of the time, and breaks touch AC 85% of the time... A second successful spell would presumably down the fighter... Actually, after the first move when the wizard had to use their move action to remove their shield, I guess the wizard would just walk out of the fighter's range, right? Same risk (same AOO) but without the concentration check.

Actually, at this point, I think we can just call it for the wizard, right? The wizard effectively deals 9 damage with a 85% hitrate; the fighter gets two attacks that deal 7.5 at 30% accuracy, but has 5 more hp. Both down each other after ~2 attacks, so we could do something like...


Fighter*: Strikes with 30% accuracy (* indicates an AOO that occurs before the spell)
Wizard: Casts with 73% accuracy (first one needs concentration check)
Fighter: Strikes with 30% accuracy (9% chance of winning, 41% chance of just one hit)

Fighter*: Strikes with 30% accuracy (Entering here, there's a 41% chance that this hit would down the wizard, or ~13% win for the fighter, and a 65% chance the wizard will have been hit at least once after this attack; 78% of scenarios remaining).
Wizard: Casts with 85% accuracy (49% chance of winning, 96% chance of at least one hit) [Note: there is an artificially inflated chance the fighter survives here with the potion-drinking strategy, reducing that 49% by an undetermined amount; ignoring that for now, there are 29% of scenarios remaining]
Fighter: Strikes with 40% accuracy on a charge (12% chance this is a hit, with a 65% chance the wizard took at least one hit before this, or a cumulative 8% chance the fighter wins here; 21% of scenarios remaining).

Fighter*: Strikes with 30% accuracy (7% chance the fighter hits here, with a 76% chance the wizard was hit at least once before this, or a further 6% for the fighter; 15% of cases remaining.)
Wizard: Casts with 85% accuracy (13% chance this is a hit, with a 96% chance the wizard landed at least one spell before this, or a further 13% for the wizard; 2% of cases remaining that we'll give to the fighter with their last two attacks).

Final tally:

Wizard: 62% chance of winning
Fighter: 37% for the fighter

1% was lost to rounding math, so let's add it to the fighter in honor of potion-chugging, although it would swing the math more than 1% (but probably not enough to make it in favor of the fighter). +/- 12 is a pretty steep gap for a build tailored specifically against the fighter. The wizard used three acid splashes, with Mage Armor active, two lesser fire orbs in the bank, and Power Word Pain prepared but going unused. There's 11% of cases where the fighter got an extra attack in before the exchange started, but even if it went a little more in the fighter's favor (a generous 7/4 in favor of the fighter), that's still a 60/40 split ih favor of the wizard -- with a fighter specifically optimized against the wizard. Now, granted, the wizard is also specifically optimized against the fighter (with Bane Magic), but let the record show the fighter was afforded that same opportunity.

That actually doesn't change my tentative conclusion, I think, from my previous post. Once you start giving free divination to characters from their level 0 spawns when they select races, feats, etc, the wizard will come out on top, but without that, the fighter should have access to powerful tools that let them negate most of a wizard's tools, save for at low levels of optimization without SR/Madness when Power Word Pain is an almost automatic "I win or draw, but you definitely die."

I suppose the only things left that a fighter could do against this build would be some obscure TOB/Incarnum thing, or grappling, right? This wizard is specifically vulnerable to a grappler. Grappling means that the fighter can lock down the wizard, force concentration checks, and deal damage with opposed grapples instead of by breaking AC. If we had abrupt jaunt and five-foot stepped every turn (to be 5 feet away so the fighter can't charge), we could abrupt jaunt after their five-foot step/move but before their attack; that makes us a little worse into the generic non-grappling matchup, of course, but it's notable that every fighter with 18 strength andpossibly a size category advantage can grapple us. So it helps in the generic matchup, too. It does not help against a fighter with deformity (tall) who doesn't need to take a move action to reach us, but that means they don't have immunity to mind-affecting, so we can use our first spell to Power Word Pain them and put them on the clock while they try to grapple us. Food for thought; I think it's probably most optimal to trade out the toad familiar for Abrupt Jaunt.

The real question we need to focus on is: Can we devise a commoner of equal level that can take both of them at the same time?

If I remember correctly, chicken-infested is Dragon Magazine, so probably not :p

[Quertus]

It would be fun, when all was said and done, to have both a "history of evolution" graph, and a "Fighter vs Wizard win/loss ratio" table, showing how reach build would fare against each opposing build.

(f) The move action cost of removing a shield is given here.

Ah, good - I don't have to bring this one up.

[Anthrowhale]

I agree that abrupt jaunt is good against someone with combat reflexes. It's also worth noting that Tumble can be used reasonably effectively as an alternative for a high dex wizard. Essentially, the strategy is: (1) Win initiative (2) tumble away (3) cast spell. For the spell, a bane magic sunstroke deals 4d6 (~=14) nonlethal damage which cannot be easily healed.

[Techwarrior]

you can look at it as the meta developing in cases where we have this matchup being repeated many times. So it's different fighters (maybe with similar builds, maybe with another build) vs different wizards. How much the wizard 'could have prepared' is less relevant, all that matters is what he actually shows up with.

If it's the same fighter vs wizard, this whole percentage game is useless, as 1 of them will be dead after the first fight.

That doesn't change the fact that the Wizard having access to Color Spray means the Fighter is required to have an out to it. The fact that he didn't prepare doesn't mean he couldn't have prepared it.

Again, I'm only bringing this up because I've seen more than one person say something along the lines of "Well the Fighter can just drop Mind Affecting immunity," and they can't. If the Fighter didn't have an out to Color Spray, the Wizard can and should just use that opportunity to win.

[Twurps]

The wizard right now has a net +10 to initiative the fighter doesn't have (+6 net dex, +4 improved init, wins in ties)

What dex are you giving the fighter and why? I guess you gave the wizard an 18 in dex, which is fair enough, but why wouldn't the fighter have 18 or at least 16 in dex as well?

the wizard makes a touch attack (AC9 vs +5 to-hit), succeeding 85% of the time

AC9? Again it seems the fighter got the short end of the stick on the dex distribution here?

Finally: using 2 feats to get over 'power word pain' here seems a bit wastefull. Power word pain seems to be doing nowhere near the amount of damage the other spells are doing by now. casting it means the wizard falls behind in the damage dealing department, instead of gets ahead. So that leaves the fighter 2 feats.
Improved initiative is high on the list. the other could be improved grapple?

But lets for starters make the race a fire elf (with a dex bonus), improved initiative and toughness. The toughness equals out the con penalty a elf gets. the dex bonus and improved initiative make it so the initiative game is fully equal. and the 20 dex will significantly lower the 'to hit' chance of the wizard with his orbs. That alone should make a big difference in the math.

[emeraldstreak]

A Fighter who doesn't need Soulmeld nor Fire resistance, but needs hit points, can be Daelkyr Halfblood with brood leech.

A Wizard with Bloodline of Fire must be human to meet prereqs.

A reminder that Whisper Gnomes can block spellcasting near them, and additonally can block Power Words and Sonic Snaps directed against them regardless of range.

Also, I dont think we've fully explored high Dex builds, nor high Saves builds like Deep Dwarf.

As for the wizard, there's the option to trade the familiar for an animal companion, but the RAW isn't clear if level 1 wizard counts for level 1 druid. If so, the companion is dangerous with Share Spells.

The wizard can be a domain wizard too.

[Twurps]

A Fighter who doesn't need Soulmeld nor Fire resistance, but needs hit points, can be Daelkyr Halfblood with brood leech.

A Wizard with Bloodline of Fire must be human to meet prereqs.

A reminder that Whisper Gnomes can block spellcasting near them, and additonally can block Power Words and Sonic Snaps directed against them regardless of range.

Also, I dont think we've fully explored high Dex builds, nor high Saves builds like Deep Dwarf.

As for the wizard, there's the option to trade the familiar for an animal companion, but the RAW isn't clear if level 1 wizard counts for level 1 druid. If so, the companion is dangerous with Share Spells.

The wizard can be a domain wizard too.

So far, it looks like the fire resistance is paying off. Do I'm not to partial to Daelkyr Halfblood.
Whisper Gnome sounds good. it has a dex bonus, and con bonus. Both are good. strength penalty might hurt a bit, but the 1/day silence might make up for it. I saw I fire-Dwarf being used, and if that's possible, a fire-whisper Gnome should also be doable. Although as I read it, a dwarf needs to be 'earthy' and a gnome tends to 'air'. First time I read the chapter though. I've never used these variants.

I'm not sure what a high saves build would help, as so far saves have not mattered. So I'd go with the whisper Gnome for sure if the fire-variant of it is possible. might even be doable without the fire resistence.

[DeTess]

We're Azurin though, not Drow :/ However, as I'm looking at it, it looks like you're right. We are going to want to deal 4-8 damage on average, so the +4 to damage is pretty important. Looks like the fighter should be sticking with maxing con and strength -- guisarme and armor spikes.

Just a small note that might help with theorycrafting: the hit-and-run figther ACF does not have a racial prerequisite by RAW. RAI might be different (it is listed in a book about drow, under a heading called 'drow fighter'), but by RAW its only prerequisite is 'fighter level 1st' (and you not having traded away the relevant class features already).

[Twurps]

Just a small note that might help with theorycrafting: the hit-and-run figther ACF does not have a racial prerequisite by RAW. RAI might be different (it is listed in a book about drow, under a heading called 'drow fighter'), but by RAW its only prerequisite is 'fighter level 1st' (and you not having traded away the relevant class features already).

Yeah, that's a strickt upgrade for any of the fighter builds so far, as both a shield and armor have been totally useless.

So: Whisper gnome/fire elf with hit and run fighter ACF has >61% of winning initiative vs a 'non-nerveskitter' wizard.

option1: We take whisper gnome, activate 'silence' centered on the wizard which negates most wizard spells.

option2: We take fire wood elf and whack away at the wizard, hoping dex to damage will 1 shot the wizard. At this point, once we do damage we're pretty much good, but the wizard is still holding his tower shield at this point right? so I don't like those chances.

Actually just realized. Fighter can use the tower shield to it's advantage in a grapple. The wizard is not proficient, so incurs huge penalties on the opposed strength check in a grapple.

Option3: fire wood elf goes for a touch attack against a flat footed wizard holding his tower shield. a 16 base strength gives a net +4 to hit. (don't really like those odds). The opposed grapple for the wizard comes at -4 (small) -10 (tower shield non-proficiency) - strenght diffence: so lets be mild and call it a -16.

Once grappled, the wizard is pretty much dead in the water, but the overall chance of making the grapple in round 1 is <50%

I like the whisper gnome silence tactics best I think.

[Zarvistic]

I don't know if any of the fighter builds can afford to give up a feat or two for luck feats, but they could be interesting, especially Lucky Start.

[Anthrowhale]

There is no such thing as "fire wood elf".

If you want to make claims about winning initiative, we would need to examine a specific build.

[Doctor Despair]

I agree that abrupt jaunt is good against someone with combat reflexes. It's also worth noting that Tumble can be used reasonably effectively as an alternative for a high dex wizard. Essentially, the strategy is: (1) Win initiative (2) tumble away (3) cast spell. For the spell, a bane magic sunstroke deals 4d6 (~=14) nonlethal damage which cannot be easily healed.

Tumble is OK, although I don't think you can take 10 on that check, so it falls flat compared to Abrupt Jaunt for the purposes of avoiding aoos.

Sunstroke is so close to being viable. That it checks Spell Resistance is a major flag against it. The average damage is just a little too low, too. It helps against this fighter, but it makes us worse against literally every other fighter. I think the Lesser Orb of Fire is the only route we have to do 2d8 base spell damage at the moment, and it doesn't check Spell Resistance, so against any other opponent it will do 16 damage on average, safely downing the average fighter and many optimized fighters. I don't think we want to give that up, especially given we still seem to have a favorable matchup against a fire resist fighter.

That doesn't change the fact that the Wizard having access to Color Spray means the Fighter is required to have an out to it. The fact that he didn't prepare doesn't mean he couldn't have prepared it.

Again, I'm only bringing this up because I've seen more than one person say something along the lines of "Well the Fighter can just drop Mind Affecting immunity," and they can't. If the Fighter didn't have an out to Color Spray, the Wizard can and should just use that opportunity to win.

You're right that if we were trying to prove that there is a fighter can never be defeated by a wizard, we would have to keep the immunity. However, we started this exercise by asking: which would win more on average, fighters or wizards? We started considering a bunch of strategies wizards and fighters might persue, and now we've reached a point where we are asking: is there a fighter that can beat this wizard? It seems like this wizard beats any level 1 fighter more often than not, even if the fighter directly optimizes against them.

Out of deference to that thought, however, I did use a spellslot for Power Word Pain in the above build, so that the fighter would need to keep their Madness or else never win the fight (as it's a no save, no roll spell). We have one regular slot, and three slots for conjuration spells, so we did have room for it.

What dex are you giving the fighter and why? I guess you gave the wizard an 18 in dex, which is fair enough, but why wouldn't the fighter have 18 or at least 16 in dex as well?


AC9? Again it seems the fighter got the short end of the stick on the dex distribution here?

Finally: using 2 feats to get over 'power word pain' here seems a bit wastefull. Power word pain seems to be doing nowhere near the amount of damage the other spells are doing by now. casting it means the wizard falls behind in the damage dealing department, instead of gets ahead. So that leaves the fighter 2 feats.
Improved initiative is high on the list. the other could be improved grapple?

But lets for starters make the race a fire elf (with a dex bonus), improved initiative and toughness. The toughness equals out the con penalty a elf gets. the dex bonus and improved initiative make it so the initiative game is fully equal. and the 20 dex will significantly lower the 'to hit' chance of the wizard with his orbs. That alone should make a big difference in the math.

That fighter build was using 8 dex, 18 strength, 18 con. The fighter needs as much con as possible to avoid being downed on average, as even with fire resist the orb does 11 damage on average. I suppose that means the minimum con the fighter could have would be 12 or 14 (depending on whether we think the fighter being disabled is essentially a death sentence), although it significantly increases the chances that the wizard just one-taps the fighter. That would make room for a little more dex. However, that the wizard has room for Improved Initiative and the fighter doesn't won't help much with initiative, although the touch AC going up by 1 or 2 would be nice.

Power Word Pain does 3d6 per round for 4-16 rounds (average: 105 damage). If the fighter is hit with a Power Word Pain, the fighter will die. There is no maybe about it. If the fighter has no spell resistance and no immunity, the wizard should hit the fighter with the word and immediately run away. Using Abrupt Jaunt to get a 10-foot lead and using a full round action to run means the fighter won't catch them until they go down. It is a very good spell, so having one prepared means this fighter must have an answer for it.

Improved Grapple might be worth swapping out Combat Reflexes for though.

A Fighter who doesn't need Soulmeld nor Fire resistance, but needs hit points, can be Daelkyr Halfblood with brood leech.

A Wizard with Bloodline of Fire must be human to meet prereqs.

A reminder that Whisper Gnomes can block spellcasting near them, and additonally can block Power Words and Sonic Snaps directed against them regardless of range.

Also, I dont think we've fully explored high Dex builds, nor high Saves builds like Deep Dwarf.

As for the wizard, there's the option to trade the familiar for an animal companion, but the RAW isn't clear if level 1 wizard counts for level 1 druid. If so, the companion is dangerous with Share Spells.

The wizard can be a domain wizard too.

The fighter does need fire resistance, sadly; I don't think the Halfblood adds a cumulative 10hp to the fighter to compensate.

Good point on the racial prereq; so the wizard's dex is going to be 18, not 20.

Whisper Gnome's ability is great, but the wizard will do 16 damage on average, and the fighter doesn't have the spare feat for toughness, so the fighter would have to go first to not just... lose in that case. The wizard wins initiative most of the time though, so that's not ideal. Additionally, Silence is a 20-foot emanation, so that would require the wizard to abrupt jaunt out of range of AOOs, walk out, and then cast orbs of fire at the fighter inside, but wouldn't preclude the wizard from hitting them with spells. :/ I was really excited for a moment, but I don't think it helps us here.

Dex builds (ranged) lose AOOs, so that's notable. With Abrupt Jaunt, our AOOs aren't super relevant though, so it might be worth exploring dex builds (with Hit and Run Fighter). High-save builds don't seem super helpful since the wizard isn't targeting our saves. Likewise, grapple builds look promising.

I'm unsure of the merits/raw of getting an animal companion. It could be helpful to have an animal to body-block the fighter. The fighter would just walk around the animal companion and trigger the aoo, of course, but that's something. I'm not sure it's more valuable than Abrupt Jaunt though.

A domain wizard cannot also be a specialist wizard

So far, it looks like the fire resistance is paying off. Do I'm not to partial to Daelkyr Halfblood.
Whisper Gnome sounds good. it has a dex bonus, and con bonus. Both are good. strength penalty might hurt a bit, but the 1/day silence might make up for it. I saw I fire-Dwarf being used, and if that's possible, a fire-whisper Gnome should also be doable. Although as I read it, a dwarf needs to be 'earthy' and a gnome tends to 'air'. First time I read the chapter though. I've never used these variants.

I'm not sure what a high saves build would help, as so far saves have not mattered. So I'd go with the whisper Gnome for sure if the fire-variant of it is possible. might even be doable without the fire resistence.

We were using Fireblood Dwarf, not fire variant dwarf. It was pointed out that the chapter seems to suggest that you can only do the variants listed in the chapter by RAW. If that's not accurate, we could do a fire variant Strongheart Halfling or something to get our feat back, but I didn't see any template rules that would specifically allow us to make our own. Do you see anything?

Just a small note that might help with theorycrafting: the hit-and-run figther ACF does not have a racial prerequisite by RAW. RAI might be different (it is listed in a book about drow, under a heading called 'drow fighter'), but by RAW its only prerequisite is 'fighter level 1st' (and you not having traded away the relevant class features already).

Oh, that's funny. No reason not to take it then. Maybe we were raised by drow.

[emeraldstreak]

I'm unsure of the merits/raw of getting an animal companion. It could be helpful to have an animal to body-block the fighter. The fighter would just walk around the animal companion and trigger the aoo, of course, but that's something. I'm not sure it's more valuable than Abrupt Jaunt though.[/B]

The animal companion tactic would be - the wizard still starts next to the fighter per our condition - with the companion nearby; then 5ft steps so that the companion provides cover, then casts Enlarge Person on himself, which is shared with the companion per a special rule. The companion is a medium animal with Trip, most likely Riding Dog, which in this moment becomes Large with Trip.

The tricky part is the wizard doesn't really get Druid-quality link for commanding the animal, so he might have to get Handle Animal and "push" it as a standard action - unless it's already on guard order...?


Also, the most literal reading of the option is that a level 1 wizard counts as level 0 druid - which doesn't make sense, but such is the RAW.

[Twurps]

Power Word Pain does 3d6 per round for 4-16 rounds (average: 105 damage). If the fighter is hit with a Power Word Pain, the fighter will die.

I was going with 1d6 per round. I guess I forgot to factor in Bane magic. my bad. Does bane magic apply to all rounds though? I don't see that in the text (but nothing against it either. I guess it doesn't really matter. After one round of 3d6, even 1d6 a round is deadly.

Improved Grapple might be worth swapping out Combat Reflexes for though.

Agreed. more below

Good point on the racial prereq; so the wizard's dex is going to be 18, not 20.

That's going to impact the impact the math both on the initiative, and on the 'to hit' with the orbs. So here's me hoping you have the original math in a spreadsheet somewhere, where you can easily replace the 20 with 18. I'd really like to know the revised numbers, but it's a lot of math...

Whisper Gnome's ability is great, but the wizard will do 16 damage on average, and the fighter doesn't have the spare feat for toughness, so the fighter would have to go first to not just... lose in that case. The wizard wins initiative most of the time though, so that's not ideal. Additionally, Silence is a 20-foot emanation, so that would require the wizard to abrupt jaunt out of range of AOOs, walk out, and then cast orbs of fire at the fighter inside, but wouldn't preclude the wizard from hitting them with spells. :/ I was really excited for a moment, but I don't think it helps us here.

Dex builds (ranged) lose AOOs, so that's notable. With Abrupt Jaunt, our AOOs aren't super relevant though, so it might be worth exploring dex builds (with Hit and Run Fighter). High-save builds don't seem super helpful since the wizard isn't targeting our saves. Likewise, grapple builds look promising.

I calculated the whisper gnome winning initiative more often than not with the +2 from hit and run tactics. (all else being equal). And that was before the wizards dex dropped to 18. I didn't account for the fact that Silence has to be centered on the gnome. That's a bit annoying for sure. I really like the hit and run dex build though, and whisper gnome might still be a good race for it.

We were using Fireblood Dwarf, not fire variant dwarf. It was pointed out that the chapter seems to suggest that you can only do the variants listed in the chapter by RAW. If that's not accurate, we could do a fire variant Strongheart Halfling or something to get our feat back, but I didn't see any template rules that would specifically allow us to make our own. Do you see anything?

I agree on 'not making our own', I didn't know about Fireblood Dwarf so got that confused.

There is no such thing as "fire wood elf".

Elves are by raw eligable for the 'races of fire' variant out of UA. I saw no reason why that wouldn't hold up for wood elves as well. I could make arguments either way to be honest, and this thread is to much fun to devolve into a RAW debate on it. So I'll stick to fire high elf instead.

If you want to make claims about winning initiative, we would need to examine a specific build.

I'm pretty sure I gave a build, with enough detail to do the math on initiative (which I also did). but that's a moot point by now, due to the wizard's dex having been adjusted. and also because:

I don't know if any of the fighter builds can afford to give up a feat or two for luck feats, but they could be interesting, especially Lucky Start.

Great idea. So it's time for some new math.

So new plan: Maximize dex, take advantage of the tower shield. Grapple the wizard so it can't cast anything, and win. For now, I'll fully focus on offense and making in work in round 1. See how far we get. We can always go back to 'defending against whatever the wizard has' later, but I think we're heading down a dead end there. (Because wizards are versatile I guess? who knew?) Also for now: I'm fully focusing on this 1 wizard build, holding a tower shield.

Race: Wood elf (minus the fire part! offense remember).
Stats: We were doing 32 points buy I guess. Then its 18 dex, 16 strength 14 con (rest at 8) before racial adjustment brings dex to 20 and strength to 18.
ACF: hit and run tactics. for +2 on initiative.
Feats: improved initiative, Lucky start

Without Lucky start: Wizard is stuck at 18 dex, has improved initiative but no hit and run, so that puts the fighter at +4 and winning ties, or a 66% of winning initiative.
Calculating the effect of Lucky start is a nightmare (there's a thread on this forum somewhere, that ran longer than this entire thread, just to figure out the math). I think the effect ranges somewhere between +5 and +0.5 with the lower end of the spectrum only being relevant if we need extreme numbers. (like: only succeeding on a 20). With a +4 and winning ties, even if he wizard rolled a 20, we 'only' need 16. So I'll take a +3 average untill somebody comes up with better math.
That extra +3 gives the fighter a win% of 77%

now there's 2 routes we can take: I want to explore grappling, but lets try and make the best of our ACF with an attack first. Our fighter attacks with a flask of alchemist fire. this is a ranged touch attack against a flat-footed medium opponent, so AC10. We Have +5 dex, and +1 BAB, so a +6 meaning we hit on a 4, or 85% of the time. total hit chance is 77%*85%=65% IF we hit the wizard takes 1d6+5 fire damage for an average of 8. That's nearly enough to kill him, but more importantly: he's now on fire and can either spend a full round action putting out the fire, or take an additional 1d6 fire damage.

I actually think this comes out better than grappling, as that requires the same touch attack, but with a worse modifier as strength<dex, and an additional opposed check. (with massive penalties due to the wizards towershield, but the fighter could still fail that check)

come to think of it: Is there anything preventing the fighter from taking improved initiative 2 times, for a bonus of +4 (with more solid math at least from me) for an 80% initiative win-rate and a total 68% chance of hitting?

[Anthrowhale]

The advantage of Tumble is that it doesn't cost a familiar or a swift action, both of which are valuable commodities.

W.r.t. Bane Magic Sunstroke, I agree that it's a specialized choice for a fire resistant build.

W.r.t. animal companion, perhaps a more extreme version is something like: Wild Cohort [Riding Dog] + least dragonmark (making) + precast Summon Marked Homonculus[Arbalester] x2 + precast Mount + Power Word Pain + Tower Shield + Animal companion [Riding dog] + Improved Initiative + Leather armor + light crossbow + bolts, then (usually) win initiative, tell the menagerie to attack, and run away on your mount (using it for cover if possible). Power Word:Pain is there to take care of fighters that try to skimp on immunity to mind-affecting. The fighter needs either a high initiative (= low hit points or low strength and Improved Initiative) or a Combat Reflexes to get in an attack. And the wizards AC is fairly high (20 (=10+4(dex)+2(leather)+4(Tower Shield)) or 24 if taking cover behind the mount works). Furthermore, between 2 crossbow attacks/round and 2 riding dogs, the fighter will likely die even if the wizard is killed.

[Anthrowhale]

Race: Wood elf (minus the fire part! offense remember).
Stats: We were doing 32 points buy I guess. Then its 18 dex, 16 strength 14 con (rest at 8) before racial adjustment brings dex to 20 and strength to 18.
ACF: hit and run tactics. for +2 on initiative.
Feats: improved initiative, Lucky start

The difficulty with an initiative race is that the wizard can always win, because the wizard and fighter have access to the same number of feats, while nerveskitter is superior to hit&run fighter.

Incidentally, Danger Sense is superior to Lucky Start.. I believe the highest end initiative winner is a strongheart halfling with Dex 20, Improved Initiative, Lucky Start, Danger Sense, and Nerveskitter. That's initiative+14 with one reroll-replace and one reroll-take-the-top.

[Doctor Despair]

The difficulty with an initiative race is that the wizard can always win, because the wizard and fighter have access to the same number of feats, while nerveskitter is superior to hit&run fighter.

Incidentally, Danger Sense is superior to Lucky Start.. I believe the highest end initiative winner is a strongheart halfling with Dex 20, Improved Initiative, Lucky Start, Danger Sense, and Nerveskitter. That's initiative+14 with one reroll-replace and one reroll-take-the-top.

It's of note that the wizard has a finite amount of spells known: 3+ int modifier at level 1, right? Food for thought.

It's also of note that, as a focused specialist, three of our spells must be conjuration. That means we either get Power Word Pain or Nerveskitter, and if we use Nerveskitter, it means we can't Abrupt Jaunt on our first turn, which is a tidy boost to the fighter with Combat Reflexes. I think the optimal wizard into a blind opponent (save for having Bane Magic: (Fighter's Subtype)) would have Power Word Pain rather than Nerveskitter for those reasons.

...

On an unrelated side-note, I suppose, for the purposes of an in-universe explanation for all this meta-shifting and TO planning, we could give the characters starting gold + a 530-gold-coupon for their local Psion-Mart for a psychic reformation (still less WBL than they should have by level 2). It doesn't help with race selection, of course, but it's something. :P