20th level fighter vs infinite 1st level wizards armed with wands.

[Calthropstu]

We all know that a 20th lvl wizard can trounce infinite lvl 1 fighters. Can we do the same in reverse?

Clarification:
For the sake of this argument, each wizard has 1 wand, a spell book with random spells in it up to lvl 1, no access to shops and some basic clothes. A dagger and a crossbow with 20 bolts. Nothing else.

[Roninblack]

I mean greater cleave should be infinite against that target at that level

[Calthropstu]

I mean greater cleave should be infinite against that target at that level

Unless they spread out or a nat 1 is rolled.

[Doctor Despair]

OK... So with infinite wizards, they will pass literally any caster level UMD check for the wands they need to make to emulate a caster level class spell list, so they send out infinite copies of every 4th or lower spell. I think the fighter needs to do one of two things:

* Win initiative 100% of the time

* Be immune to anything a level 4th or lower spell can do

I don't think the latter is realistic without TO shenanigans (reminds me of Anthrowhale's Exfighter). It's just hard to deal with literally every effect in the game all at once. To do the first, we'd need to know the maximum initiative a wizard could have at level 1. There was a thread recently with a level 1 wizard vs a level 1 fighter that had an initiative fight for a while. I think the wizard ended up with 15 initiative, although someone can correct me if I am wrong there.

So the fighter needs at least +35 to initiative. They have access to way more WBL than the wizards, so that shouldn't be an impossible task. Then, as someone else suggested, greater cleave is probably the right way to go. If there are infinite wizards, they can't be spread out, as they'd take up infinite space on the board.

With that said, we now have to deal with natural 1s. Better Lucky Than Dead deals with 1 natural 1, but we're going to roll an infinite amount of nat 1s against infinite wizards. I'm not sure if there's a way to actually deal with that, which is complicated; we can't rely on save-based poisons or things, as an infinite amount of wizards with 19/20 that fail and die still leaves us with an infinite amount of wizards. It has to be damage, and I'm not sure of another easy way to deal infinite damage as a fighter without Greater Cleave. Any ideas on how to ignore nat 1s or turn them into nat 20s or something? I could have sworn there was a feat like that, but I can't seem to find it.

[Jack_Simth]

Fighter needs:
Permanent flight.
Permanent invisibility
Better than Long range
Immunity to fatigue
Immunity to hunger
Infinite ammo
A super long range bow.

Get out of range and pepper forever.

Note that this assumes the wiz-1's don't have things they couldn't reasonably buy with PC starting cash, and don't pool wealth.

[Quentinas]

For the spell of level 4 or lesser an item with a continuos effect of globe of invulnerability? If it was only level 3 or lesser as spells the lesser globe of invulnerability was enough , the cost would be 2000x6 (spell level) x4 (based on round/level) x 11 (caster level) so 582k (in the wealth by level but is quite the amount) and i don't know if one can use dispel magic on a globe of invulnerability as dispel magic is a magic effect of 4th level or less

[Doctor Despair]

Fighter needs:
Permanent flight.
Permanent invisibility
Better than Long range
Immunity to fatigue
Immunity to hunger
Infinite ammo
A super long range bow.

Get out of range and pepper forever.

That's fair. I'm not so sure invisibility helps here though. Infinite wizards means the infinite wizards can cast See Invisibility, and have their infinite number of friends cast Guidance of the Avatar. I guess it helps if the fighter loses initiative though; as long as the wizards don't hit a nat 20 with a +10 to spot, we should be safe on the first round if we're permanently invisibile. That buys us either a round of movement, or a round to teleport with an item of some sort. We should have WBL for some sort of item with a teleportation effect.

We have to be 400 + 40/level feet away; wands are made at minimum caster level, but wands with a 4th level ranger spell would be caster level 14, so we'd have to be 965 feet away to be safe from landbound wizards due to range. Wizards will obviously fail their spot checks to get line of sight at that range anyway; we'd have to make the checks at that distance though, and have a weapon who can fire at that range increment.

So far we need...

• Permanent invisibility
• Long-range teleportation (~1000ft)
• Permanent flight.
• A spot modifier of +87
• Better than Long range weapon (at least 965ft)
• Infinite ammo
• Immunity to fatigue
• Immunity to hunger

Note that this assumes the wiz-1's don't have things they couldn't reasonably buy with PC starting cash, and don't pool wealth.

Wizard's starting WBL can probably be assumedly spent on these wands, haha

[lylsyly]

20th level fighter vs infinite 1st level wizards armed with wands.

There lies your answer. No matter how fast the Fighter can mow them down he can never win.

[Doctor Despair]

20th level fighter vs infinite 1st level wizards armed with wands.

There lies your answer. No matter how fast the Fighter can mow them down he can never win.

If we establish a lock where the fighter kills wizards but cannot be killed by the wizards, given infinite time, he should be able to be considered as winning

[lylsyly]

Nope! Infinite means Infinite! If the fighter has Infinite Time then the Wizards are still Infinite! The converse is also true: a Level 20 Wizard CANNOT kill Infinite Fighters. The very definition of Infinite precludes any solution to either question!!

[Doctor Despair]

Nope! Infinite means Infinite! If the fighter has Infinite Time then the Wizards are still Infinite! The converse is also true: a Level 20 Wizard CANNOT kill Infinite Fighters. The very definition of Infinite precludes any solution to either question!!

Ok, but let's assume OP wanted to actually discuss the topic and wasn't trying to ask a trick question :p

[Saint-Just]

Probably it's the best to describe "win" or "solved" condition as one where there is no chance for a fighter to be damaged by the wizards and where fighter has a chance to damage at least one wizard. That will result in unresolvable situation which moment from moment looks like fighter winning. Either that or ability to make infinite number of attacks before the first wizard.

[JNAProductions]

You know, I see something like this, and I wonder how much is Fighter, and how much is WBL.

To put another way, could an equally well-equipped Commoner achieve the same things that this Fighter can?

[Doctor Despair]

You know, I see something like this, and I wonder how much is Fighter, and how much is WBL.

To put another way, could an equally well-equipped Commoner achieve the same things that this Fighter can?

It depends on if there's some way to consistently turn natural 1s into not-natural-1s. If there is, the Greater Cleave method can work, and it'll mostly be Fighter; if it's not, then we have to rely on invisibility/teleportation/flight/etc, and it's mostly WBL-mancy.

[Saint-Just]

Now that I think about it, the first idea (fighter is invulnerable, wizards are vulnerable) does not result in unresolvable situation. Infinity human wizards will die of old age in less than 93 years. Now, fighter with a min starting age of 16 has only 1/400 chance of living longer than that (since there is an infinite amount of wizards who are only 17 and who will live to 110 fighter needs to roll two 20's to clearly beat them) or 1/2400 for a fighter with randomly generated starting age, but surely there is some item which will add 43 years to lifespan so even a fighter with the starting age of 21 and who secretly rolled 72 for his maximum age will be able to live longer than 93 years.

Now I'd probably consider just this item + invulnerability to be cheating, but it is technically a win. Or, if you can squeeze longevity plus invulnerability plus even meager DD into WBL you can have clear win, and not just unresolvable situation. Or going the other way any strategy without longevity bonus is losing, since some wizards will outlive the fighter.

Of course if even a small fraction (that is, infinity) of the wizards don't have a maximum age it's back to the being unresolvable.

[Doctor Despair]

Now that I think about it, the first idea (fighter is invulnerable, wizards are vulnerable) does not result in unresolvable situation. Infinity human wizards will die of old age in less than 93 years. Now, fighter with a min starting age of 16 has only 1/400 chance of living longer than that (since there is an infinite amount of wizards who are only 17 and who will live to 110 fighter needs to roll two 20's to clearly beat them) or 1/2400 for a fighter with randomly generated starting age, but surely there is some item which will add 43 years to lifespan so even a fighter with the starting age of 21 and who secretly rolled 72 for his maximum age will be able to live longer than 93 years.

Now I'd probably consider just this item + invulnerability to be cheating, but it is technically a win. Or, if you can squeeze longevity plus invulnerability plus even meager DD into WBL you can have clear win, and not just unresolvable situation. Or going the other way any strategy without longevity bonus is losing, since some wizards will outlive the fighter.

OK, but since we're in a silly thought area at this point, do the level 1 wizards have the resources to use the sacrifice rules to do anything to lower their age?

Also, here's a thought: if the fighter waits out long enough, can we kill off all wizards of specific races based on food consumption? The fighter has a lot more WBL, and doesn't have infinity mouths to feed. That might have some implications. Although of course there's still infinity wizards remaining, they might all be warforged if we wait 30 days, or something to that effect.

[The_Jette]

I think some clarification would be helpful. My question is: why do the Wizards get wands? Without using money shenanigans, a 1st level wizard really should not be able to afford a wand with their starting funds. Even if they all started with max funds (120gp), a level 1 wand with a level 1 caster level costs 750 gp. And, people are talking about giving them wands with level 4 spells in them. That's a minimum of 21,000gp (that's not even touching on what one guy mentioned from the Ranger spell list having a 14th CL). Why are they being given wealth that should be far beyond their grasps? Things are hard enough on the level 20 fighter having to fight an infinite number of enemies.

[Saint-Just]

OK, but since we're in a silly thought area at this point, do the level 1 wizards have the resources to use the sacrifice rules to do anything to lower their age?

Also, here's a thought: if the fighter waits out long enough, can we kill off all wizards of specific races based on food consumption? The fighter has a lot more WBL, and doesn't have infinity mouths to feed. That might have some implications. Although of course there's still infinity wizards remaining, they might all be warforged if we wait 30 days, or something to that effect.

You don't get it. Wizards eat other wizards. And drink their blood.

(Elans also do not have a maximum age and can sustaing themselves by spending power points which they get innately, and if something that affect all warforged is unlikely having to affect both warforged and elans (aberrations) is probably too much)

[Zancloufer]

I think some clarification would be helpful. My question is: why do the Wizards get wands? Without using money shenanigans, a 1st level wizard really should not be able to afford a wand with their starting funds. Even if they all started with max funds (120gp), a level 1 wand with a level 1 caster level costs 750 gp. And, people are talking about giving them wands with level 4 spells in them. That's a minimum of 21,000gp (that's not even touching on what one guy mentioned from the Ranger spell list having a 14th CL). Why are they being given wealth that should be far beyond their grasps? Things are hard enough on the level 20 fighter having to fight an infinite number of enemies.

Partially charged wands. Also while a Wizard can have up to 110 GP they start the game with a spell book worth about ~600GP, which can by RAW be sold for 300 GP.

Still even with 410 GP they actually can't afford a level 4 wand with 1 charge as it has a cost of 420 GP per charge. As such our fighting only needs a globe of lesser invulnerability to be immune to direct wizard spell casting if limited to level 1 wizards.

[Doctor Despair]

Partially charged wands. Also while a Wizard can have up to 110 GP they start the game with a spell book worth about ~600GP, which can by RAW be sold for 300 GP.

Still even with 410 GP they actually can't afford a level 4 wand with 1 charge as it has a cost of 420 GP per charge. As such our fighting only needs a globe of lesser invulnerability to be immune to direct wizard spell casting if limited to level 1 wizards.

That still leaves us vulnerable to the globe being dispelled, but maybe we can answer that with a Spellblade? Does the Dispel Magic target the globe, or the fighter? If it has to target the fighter, then spellblade would work. Then the fighter can cut down the wizards at his leisure.

... the fighter, in this scenario, also needs to be able to either be immune to damage or to get out of range of the wizard's nonproficient unarmed strikes, as they'll roll an infinite amount of nat-20s against them.

[Wildstag]

Fighter needs:
Permanent flight.
Permanent invisibility
Better than Long range
Immunity to fatigue
Immunity to hunger
Infinite ammo
A super long range bow.

Get out of range and pepper forever.

I don't think all of this would be necessary, but that's just because I'd build differently (and probably more inefficiently).

I would take four ACFs and a couple feats to accomplish the necessary defenses to sustain combat. Dragonscale Husk, Armored Savant, Eldritch Grace, and Eldritch Juggernaut would altogether grant Resist 20 Acid/Cold/Electricity/Fire, SR 31, and Evasion against spell effects (all provided that Dragon Mag is permitted). For feats I'd take Steadfast Determination to get a

From there, I'd say you'd just need a constant Freedom of Movement effect and DR and you should be in the clear. There's a very unpopular option that gives both that I'm kinda fond of, but to mention it here would probably get me stoned. Also its armor bonus wouldn't stack with Dragonscale Husk I think, though I might be wrong on that statement. It'd also give Fast Healing or Regeneration...

From there the ranged weapon and infinite ammo is all I'd specifically consider as necessary. A +5 Composite Longbow (+4) would deal in minimum damage the maximum hit-point total of a level 1 wizard (assuming non-human). From there you'd just need infinite ammo.

It's inefficient, but it's how I'd do it. The fatigue and hunger issue seems a bit of a hurdle, but maybe a 1/day goodberry item that replenishes every day and then some random other item? You'd have to drop the other option, but eh...

[Doctor Despair]

The SR stops all SR spells, but there's too many SR: No spells that just do damage. You'd take infinite damage upon passing initiative.

Lesser Globe of Invulnerability / Spellblade seems like a safer bet (again assuming that the dispel magic has to target the fighter, not the globe).

Edit: Maybe if you had SR that high, Troll-Blooded, and immunity to nonlethal damage? Then you could throw on Fire Resist 20 and... there's gotta be a decent source of Acid Resist, too. At level 1, can a wizard do enough damage to break through resistance 20? If not, damage is in the clear.

That leaves saves. You will roll a nat 1 eventually, so there's no reason to buff our saves. Are there any SR: No spell effects at level 3 or less that will defeat the fighter that we can't get immunity for?

Ooh... but it's risky to rely on magic gear for this, too, because folks will be casting dispel magic at us. Doesn't that mean they can suppress the magical qualities of our gear?

[DMVerdandi]

Honestly, this is so bothersome because I understand that a fighter 20 with no magic items would get smoked immediately.

It's spells holding him up, and yes, the answer to that is WBL, but it's a garbage answer.
Ask yourself this, What build would you need from a level 20 fighter stark naked to beat these wizards.

Or it could be any other fellows if the book nonsense comes into play. Sorcerers, or easy bake wizards[which are to me, the standard standard], or what have you.



Can a naked level 20 fighter with feats alone take out even 100? HARD DOUBT. It would be instant.
Of course someone walking around with a globe of invulnerability homebrew item can beat low level magic. That's the rule of the spell, but that is not native to the fighter at all, and in many ways is metagaming.




Even if some insane perfect fighter with every single fighter feat in existence [and this is including...martial stances and maneuvers. ALL OF THEM] came to be

He's not dodging infinite orbs of force. It's not happening. You NEED magic to shut that down. Or a similar 5-d force. Even with martial maneuvers it's not touching it, because the physical world in d&d/pf doesnt interact that way.





Is the guy who extorted the smartest person in the class to do their homework the smartest person in the class? To some sure, but to people really understanding the spirit of the question, no. He's simply cruel. Him passing depends on external factors

1. The smartest person being alive
2.The smartest person CONTINUING
3.The teachers or any other person of authority finding out
ect.

They could be the dumbest person in the class if the police show up and have 0 tolerance.








If the fighter is relying on magic to defeat magic, then the winner is magic.

Is a level 20 wizard's craftmanship better than infinite level 1 wizards? Even then it's iffy, because they could for all things short of something dumb like a wonderous item that gives off globe of invulnerability, infinitely cast hail of stone.


It just reems you with rocks. 1d4 rocks to the face. No save, no spell resistance. Get pelted with hella rocks.
It wouldn't even take long for the chip damage to win.


I'm even fine with a fighter crafting whatever non-magical stuff they want. Give him crafting feats. Make anything you natively can.



But if we are giving this dude the magic mart, then the question is can magic mart beat them, which is STILL a maybe. Nothing they get from fighter bonus feats is going to make a difference, so this might as well be warrior vs wizards, or truly...Commoner vs wizards.

It's the gear, but 5 in mental stats with hax gear is still hax because of his gear.


It's not anything special about the class. He's just a walking hanger, UNLESS, you make it so that they can only use what they can do with the class.









If the class can't create magic items, then they shouldn't be able to buy them in an honest assessment. Because arguably, allowing the infinite wizards to pool resources and just by top grade magic items doesn't honor the spirit of the argument.









Hyperbolic time chamber fight, can Fighter 20 with WBL worth of items that they craft themselves, and equivalent materials necessary, beat infinite level 1 sorcerers. No wand necessary. Just eschew materials. Fighter gets all the prep-time they need to craft items.

Resounding no. THAT^ is how you rate the class. Not coogied down to their socks.
Can they even beat 1000 sorcerers in a row? No. Not infinite. That person would be pelted by rocks until they died. With a HIGH 200 HP, and Adamantine full plate[DR3-], it's taking a couple of rounds to kill even the best schrodinger's fighter.




the raw power of the class is seen when they are limited to their own capabilities.
fighter is D10, class abilities [bonus feats], his skills, regular feats, saves.

and whatever caster is those same things.

An equivalent WBL is fine so long as they could make those items on their own had they went the crafting route, otherwise it has nothing to do with the class whatsovever

[Doctor Despair]

Maybe we're going about this wrong. The fighter doesn't have to kill the wizards to win. Is there a way the fighter can intimidate every single wizard that has line of sight to him enough to make them flee? Or is Never Outnumbered the best we have there?

Or... is there something better than Weapon Supremacy we could use to take 10 on attack rolls for a turn?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Nope! Infinite means Infinite! If the fighter has Infinite Time then the Wizards are still Infinite! The converse is also true: a Level 20 Wizard CANNOT kill Infinite Fighters. The very definition of Infinite precludes any solution to either question!!

Actually, a wizard could set up an auto-setup where he has things to kill fighters for him. So he goes and does his own thing while he has a trap on a portal that just kills all the infinite fighters streaming through it. And the wizard can alter the battlefield itself to shelter him while he sets everything up (including said portal).

Meanwhile, a fighter has to manually kill stuff.

So the wizard can prevent the infinite fighters from reaching him forever, while he uses astral projection or whatever and goes to another plane to visit Tahiti.

[Gruftzwerg]

I'm getting addicted to templates the last days as it seems. So why don't we use some useful templates on the fighter?

e.g. the Spellwarped template (+3 LA)
most notable abilities:

Spell Resistance (Ex): A spellwarped creature gains spell resistance equal to 11 + its Hit Dice. If the creature already has spell resistance, use the greater of the two values.

Spell Absorption (Su): Whenever a spell fails to penetrate a spellwarped creature's spell resistance, the creature gains one of the following benefits, chosen at the time that the spell resolves.

• Might: The spellwarped creature gains a +4 enhancement bonus to Strength for 1 minute.
• Agility: The spellwarped creature gains a +4 enhancement bonus to Dexterity for 1 minute.
• Endurance: The spellwarped creature gains a +4 enhancement bonus to Constitution for 1 minute.
• Life: The spellwarped creature gains temporary hit points equal to 5 x the level of the failed spell.
• Speed: The spellwarped creature's base speed increases by a number of feet equal to 5 x the level of the failed spell.
• Resistance: The spellwarped creature gains resistance 10 to one energy type (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic).

With the +3LA we have 17 fighter lvls left and thus 28 SR (11+17). The wizard wands have a spell level cap of 4 and thus a maximum of 7 caster level. d20+7 can't beat 28 SR.
Choose acid resistance to ignore the possible 2d4 acid dmg from Acid Arrow (since it bypasses SR & Saves) as first buff.
After getting the buff enhancements, you can start stacking temporary HP. The ability is SU and thus doesn't follow the spellstacking limitation rules for temporary HP. Since the speed buff is untyped, it can also be stacked.

With the template the fighter shouldn't die to the wizards anymore (unless they start to use normal weapons, but getting some DR for that is not the problem imho). Now get a item to fly that can be hidden under your armor /clothes (e.g Ring of Solar Wings (BoED) hidden under gloves. 118000GP). This way it is protected from dispell attempts, since your enemies have no LOS and area dispell doesn't affect worn magic items.

Add a Great Cleave + Spiked Chain build on top and we should have a decent killspeed.

[Rynjin]

Everybody's going on about how the Fighter could just become immune to spells somehow and I'm just wondering how he deals with the wizards collectively going "Reject modernity, embrace tradition" on him and pelting him with infinite thrown rocks.

[Gusmo]

Now now, wizards are proficient with all simple weapons. We can do better than rocks, at least give them crossbows. And then cast magic weapon on the crossbows. Maybe they can afford DR bypassing ammunition?

A level 1 wizard can't qualify for energy substitution yet, but energy substitution (fire) and searing spell put on acid splash (ranged touch, 1D3, SR:NO) make a level 1 spell. If wands are in play, an infinite amount of wizards equipped with such wands would eventually kill anything not immune to searing fire damage. Unless there's a way to prevent any of them from getting close enough to use the wands.

[Quentinas]

Lesser globe of invulnerability would still save the fighter , so is a question of
Can we make a lesser globe of invulnerability that can't be dispelled by a dispel magic in a wand? If we can do that the fighter could have a continuos item of lesser globe of invulnerability (we said before that the wizards can't have a wand with a level 4 , but it would not so be different with globe of invulnerability) while maintaining the cost for a necropolitan ritual and a longbow with enough range to win even against flying wizard? Maybe even using something like a permanency of blindsight to see the eventual invisible wizard? If we can do this the figther can win as he would not have problem with any of the spell casted from the wizard , could still one shot some wizards each round and he would not die of aging or from hunger
The same thing could be done by a villager well equipped I admit, is more the power of WBL than the power of the fighter

[Rynjin]

Now now, wizards are proficient with all simple weapons. We can do better than rocks, at least give them crossbows. And then cast magic weapon on the crossbows. Maybe they can afford DR bypassing ammunition?

Yeah, but the image of a bunch of scrawny nerds with rocks beaning some heavily armored "Adventurers Weekly" reject in the head until he dies is funnier.