Roy Greenhilt is useless?

[brian 333]

Yup. An eight level fighter cannot heal under their own power (and items or potions won't carry them far either) and they aren't immune to natural 20s to hit. Your fighter, Brian, will die a messy death. It's just a matter of time.
Meanwhile, an 8th level wizard can Fly and cast Secure Shelter more than once a day. Your standard issue goblin will never overcome the hardness of the shelter, so the wizard can be safe from them all day long, can rest and regain spells or what you will. If you throw in a Ring of Sustenance, the wizard can do this essentially forever., raining death on the goblins from inside using 2nd and 3rd level slots.

Ending active combat ends the challenge, so the first rest ends the challenge for the character.

THACO for a less than 1hd monster is 21. By level 8 a fighter should be able to do AC 0. There are no crits in 1st ed unless your DM chooses an optional rule for her campaign. Goblins can't hit AC 0.

WE'VE ACTUALLY PLAYED THIS OUT, IT'S NOT A HYPOTHETICAL!

My apologies, I seriously underestimated the impact of soft cheese on the scenario. May I say my infinite goblins eat limburgher thrice daily, granting them a breath weapon not unlike the Horrid Wilting spell?

[Metastachydium]

Ending active combat ends the challenge, so the first rest ends the challenge for the character.

THACO for a less than 1hd monster is 21. By level 8 a fighter should be able to do AC 0. There are no crits in 1st ed unless your DM chooses an optional rule for her campaign. Goblins can't hit AC 0.

WE'VE ACTUALLY PLAYED THIS OUT, IT'S NOT A HYPOTHETICAL!

That's cute, but if that's the playtesting you keep talking about, then it's perfectly irrelevant to the discussion since literally everyone else is talking about caster supremacy in 3(.5)e. And in 3.5e, the infinite goblins will make short work of your fighter, whereas the wizard can render themself untouchable.

My apologies, I seriously underestimated the impact of soft cheese on the scenario. May I say my infinite goblins eat limburgher thrice daily, granting them a breath weapon not unlike the Horrid Wilting spell?

Cheese is death, so yes, yes you can.
(Is there a reason you picked Horrid Wilting, specifically, by the way? I don't like where this is going.)

[Ionathus]

I believe the cheese would still retain the thoughts and memories of unflavored cheese, and those give cheese most of its character.

Out of all the food groups, cheese is pretty far up there in terms of things that should never gain a consciousness.

I mean, meats and plants are at least in their raw form, give or take being cooked/preserved.

Cheese is, depending on the variety, some scary magic concoction that includes words like "coagulation," "curdling," "bacteria," "mold," and "pasteurization". I do not want cheese to retain its thoughts and memories. This feels like a great cruelty to the cheese.

Don't get me started on tofu, lutefisk, or hákarl.

[Dion]

lutefisk

Lutefisk is literally undead zombie fish; it retains none of its memories during the transformation.

This means that Wizards *can* successfully create lutefisk.

[brian 333]

That's cute, but if that's the playtesting you keep talking about, then it's perfectly irrelevant to the discussion since literally everyone else is talking about caster supremacy in 3(.5)e. And in 3.5e, the infinite goblins will make short work of your fighter, whereas the wizard can render themself untouchable.



Cheese is death, so yes, yes you can.
(Is there a reason you picked Horrid Wilting, specifically, by the way? I don't like where this is going.)

My literal example was 1st ed, not 3rd. But even in 3rd, a simple +1 regen ring will keep up with what a fighter takes in damage, and by level 12 it should be easily available. Won't work for a wizard who has many fewer hp to start with and much lower AC. He would need DR 20 and regen, which is much harder to acquire. And pointless for a wizard anyway since he has uber power already and he can save his gp to fill his spellbook with every spell in the PHB.

[Hurkyl]

A little nitpick on "infinite": to actually continue indefinitely you would have to be able to tank an unbroken string of critical hits for max damage that are concurrent with you having an unbroken string of critical misses. (in a setting where critical hits/misses are possible, anyways)

[RatElemental]

My literal example was 1st ed, not 3rd. But even in 3rd, a simple +1 regen ring will keep up with what a fighter takes in damage, and by level 12 it should be easily available. Won't work for a wizard who has many fewer hp to start with and much lower AC. He would need DR 20 and regen, which is much harder to acquire. And pointless for a wizard anyway since he has uber power already and he can save his gp to fill his spellbook with every spell in the PHB.

The wizard beats the fighter to the punch on this feat then, as the process of becoming a lich requires only a caster level of 11. The fear aura alone will mean that most of the infinite goblins will run away instead of fighting. It also gives them a touch attack that deals 1d8+5 damage to the goblin's 1d8+1 hp and never runs out. Any goblins that survive, probably due to getting lucky on the will save and taking half, will be subjected to a further fortitude save to avoid becoming paralyzed. And if a goblin manages to survive all that and attack with its morningstar, or say sod it and throw a javelin from range, they're up against +5 AC just for being a lich and 15 dr that their nonmagical weapons can't bypass or do enough damage to overcome (no crits to help here, after all). The lich, being undead, will also never get tired, thirsty, hungry, or need to sleep like the fighter. The greatest threat they will face in this hypothetical is getting bored.

Also I don't think the ring of regeneration will help, as it's 1 hp per level per hour and infinite goblins will do a lot more damage than that with just lucky crits.

[JNAProductions]

My literal example was 1st ed, not 3rd. But even in 3rd, a simple +1 regen ring will keep up with what a fighter takes in damage, and by level 12 it should be easily available. Won't work for a wizard who has many fewer hp to start with and much lower AC. He would need DR 20 and regen, which is much harder to acquire. And pointless for a wizard anyway since he has uber power already and he can save his gp to fill his spellbook with every spell in the PHB.

A Wizard can fly for 9 hours a day at level 9, with Overland Flight.
They can rest as needed in a Rope Trick, which also lasts 9 hours at level 9.
They can shoot a Fireball out to 760'.
It'd be a slow process killing the goblins, but with the goblins eating a -10 to -12 from range, that alone will tank their accuracy enough that the Wizard need not fear death.
If we're dealing with truly infinite goblins, so eventually they'll roll enough 20s to kill the Wizard provided they can hit 'em at all... Enlarge Spell makes that Fireball is a 4th level spell and goes out to 1,520', more than the max range of a crossbow.
Slow? Yes-they'd get off two or three Fireballs every eight hours, then cast Rope Trick, take a nap, and repeat. But completely safe. Add in a Ring Of Sustenance to cut that nap time to two hours and obviate the need for food and water.

The Fighter, meanwhile, heals 1 point of damage every hour. That costs 90,000 GP, by the way, and so isn't available by WBL until level 13. (110,000 GP at that level.)

Goblins, by the way, have +2 to-hit with their morningstars for 1d6 damage, and +3 to-hit with their javelins for 1d4. Using this basic entry.
If we assume the Fighter has 23 AC or higher (not unreasonable, since all that needs is full plate, tower shield, and a 12+ Dexterity score) they're only hit on a 20. Which does mean they can ignore cover and range penalties, because they only hit on a 20 anyway!
If the Fighter gets DR 3/-, such as from Adamantine full plate (which actually puts our fighter, with the Ring Of Regeneration, OVER WBL for a 13th level PC), the goblins will find their attacks failing a lot. In fact, they'd only average 1 points of damage per hit morningstar hit, up to 4.0282 for each crit. Total damage, for a single attack? .06
Javelins do worse, obviously. .25 damage per hit, 2.0625 per crit. Total damage, for a single attack? .018

The Fighter heals at a rate of 1 HP per 600 rounds.
Each goblin in melee range (max 8) does 36 damage per 600 rounds.
Each goblin in javelin range (max a LOT) does 10.8 damage per 600 rounds.

One goblin will kill the Fighter if the Fighter chooses to rely on Adamantine full plate and a Ring Of Regeneration, let alone an infinite horde. If we assume the Fighter has 166 HP (14th level and +6 Con Mod) it takes around about 9,230 javelin attacks to kill the Fighter. Which sounds like a lot... Until you realize that there's an infinite horde of goblins, all of whom have at least one javelin. They might only hit on a nat 20, and only crit on a 20 after that, but with a range of 300' for ten range increments... Which I just double checked, and it's five range increments. So only around 2,500-3,000 goblins will be able to throw at any given moment, max.

What's the point of all this? Partially, I like doing math. But the rest of it is to emphasize that a Fighter won't be realistically doing this in 3.5, without serious cheese-and that same level of cheese can be applied to a Wizard, who will do it better. The Wizard I posted uses three spells, one feat, and one item. That's it.

[TooSoon]

Just to pile on with the posters correcting Brian, I'll add that once you get to the point you can cast forcecage you can always rest in that for the day once you run out of spells. It has a more than 24 hour duration. You then come out and continue wiping things out, and rinse and repeat. There are many, many broke spells a wizard has, some of which others have highlighted here, which make this talk of "for some situations the fighter is the better tool, for others the wizard" just off base. The caster is the better tool for probably 99% of every situation. You have to come up with really specific situations to give the fighter a greater value (e.g. they're all stuck in an AMF or something, and the caster isn't high enough level yet to overcome it somehow).

[RatElemental]

Forcecage wouldn't work, given the material component, unless the wizard has some kind of infinite ruby generator.

[Hurkyl]

And to object the other way, it has already been stated that withdrawing from the battle was the end of the challenge.

[JNAProductions]

And to object the other way, it has already been stated that withdrawing from the battle was the end of the challenge.

So then the Wizard needs to be a lich. DR 15/Bludgeoning and Magic means that, even if they could crit, they wouldn't beat the DR on a max roll. With 5 HP, a touch attack hits means the Goblin dies.

[TooSoon]

Forcecage wouldn't work, given the material component, unless the wizard has some kind of infinite ruby generator.

There are work arounds, including that some boards might not even require these components to spells... or just have a sorcerer on your team, and have them cast it.

[Peelee]

I'm not stepping into the actual debate here, just asking this to see if we can't increase silliness - if we're allowing the wizard to be a lich, then why not lich fighter as well?

[JNAProductions]

I'm not stepping into the actual debate here, just asking this to see if we can't increase silliness - if we're allowing the wizard to be a lich, then why not lich fighter as well?

Because Liches need a phylactery. Which...

Each lich must make its own phylactery, which requires the Craft Wondrous Item feat. The character must be able to cast spells and have a caster level of 11th or higher. The phylactery costs 120,000 gp and 4,800 XP to create and has a caster level equal to that of its creator at the time of creation.

[Peelee]

Because Liches need a phylactery. Which...

Sounds like nothing a convenient Wish couldn't help out with.

[JNAProductions]

Sounds like nothing a convenient Wish couldn't help out with.

Which is also something Fighters don't get native access to.

[Peelee]

Which is also something Fighters don't get native access to.

Which would be a great answer to someone not trying to increase silliness. Fighter earned a favor from a kind djinn or found a ring of three one wishes, or however you want to flavor "literally anyone can have native access to Wish once if they're lucky enough".

So bam! Lich fighter and lich wizard going at infinite goblins.

[Dion]

So bam! Lich fighter and lich wizard going at infinite goblins.

Or the fighter could turn himself into an iron golem!

[RatElemental]

Which would be a great answer to someone not trying to increase silliness. Fighter earned a favor from a kind djinn or found a ring of three one wishes, or however you want to flavor "literally anyone can have native access to Wish once if they're lucky enough".

So bam! Lich fighter and lich wizard going at infinite goblins.

Setting aside the fact that wishing for the ability to cast spells and be caster level 11 would make a fighter stop being a fighter, and also get monkey paw'd to hell and back, fighters have an easier option.

They can die.

No, seriously, ghosts can manifest indefinitely, are incorporeal (so the nomagical goblin weapons can't touch them) and still use their touch attacks. Trouble is any class can use this trick.

[Peelee]

Setting aside the fact that wishing for the ability to cast spells and be caster level 11 would make a fighter stop being a fighter

Who said anything about that? Just wish for a phylactery. Easy peasy.

[Dion]

Because Liches need a phylactery. Which...

A wizard needs 120 days to make a phylactery!

I’m pretty sure at least one of the goblins is going to roll a 20 before that.

But… all of this is moot until we decide on the topological properties of the battlefield. Are the infinite goblins able to use the commoner rail gun?

[JNAProductions]

Takes 120 days to make!

I’m pretty sure at least one of the goblins is going to roll a 20 before that!

But… all of this is moot until we decide on the topological properties of the battlefield. Are the infinite goblins able to use the commoner rail gun?

And how long does it take to make Adamantine full plate?
Or a Ring of Regeneration?

And commoner rail gun doesn't work.

[Dion]

And commoner rail gun doesn't work.

Where is THAT in the rules?

Look, this really is very silly. Can we all go back to talking about cheese?

[RatElemental]

And commoner rail gun doesn't work.

Grapple ball does, though. The infinite goblins could all stack together in one tile by grappling each other, and then all of them attempt to initiate a grapple on the fighter. Eventually one will make the 1 in a million odds of the fighter missing the attack of opportunity, hitting the fighter's touch ac, and then the fighter rolling poorly enough on the opposed grapple check. Now to escape the grapple the fighter has to beat infinite opposed grapple checks while the infinite goblins can ignore the -4 to their attacks to hit the fighter because they already needed a nat 20, but now infinite of them can attack the fighter in a given round.

[Dion]

Grapple ball does, though.

Not if the fighter uses wand of wishing to obtain the ooze template!

Ha ha! Take that, puny goblin grapple ball!

[RatElemental]

Not if the fighter uses wand of wishing to obtain the ooze template!

Ha ha! Take that, puny goblin grapple ball!

Ooze creature is a pathfinder thing, unless there's one in a source book I'm forgetting for 3.5.

[Dion]

Ooze creature is a pathfinder thing, unless there's one in a source book I'm forgetting for 3.5.

Doh! Fighters really are a useless class! They can’t even turn into an ooze!

The wizard who carries around a spare phylactery for all the times he might need to turn into a lich and fight infinite goblins is admittedly a much better character.

And the cool thing is the lich wizard doesn’t even have to worry about changing back into a regular wizard after the combat, because it’s literally infinite goblins! He’s going to fight them forever and ever and ever.

[RatElemental]

Doh! Fighters really are a useless class! They can’t even turn into an ooze!

The wizard who carries around a spare phylactery for all the times he might need to turn into a lich and fight infinite goblins for infinite years is admittedly a much better character.

I was building for the challenge, and so I made a wizard who turned himself into a lich at level 11. Such a character is able to kill infinite goblins, and so the challenge had been met. I'm sorry if you find this line of conversation boring or useless, but I took it as an interesting hypothetical and tried to think through how both a fighter and a wizard would fare against infinite goblins and what each could do to prevail. In both cases it was to turn into an undead, the wizard just gets to be a cooler undead.

[Dion]

I'm sorry if you find this line of conversation boring or useless,

No, no… I think you’re right. Carrying around a spare phylactery with you in case you ever get attacked by 1 HD goblins and need to turn into a lich is a good strategy for spellcasters.

But I wonder. Suppose Durkon used the sound tactic of turning into a lich when faced with 1 HD goblins. Obviously after the encounter he would want to turn back into a dwarf again, because Hilgya isn’t going to let a lich visit Kudzu.

Would Durkon lose a level turning back into a dwarf, like he did when he was a vampire? Or are the rules different for liches and vampires?

Boy, it’s all so confusing. If you don’t mind, I’m going to continue my much more interesting conversation about why a wizard will never replace a competent cheese monger