Ultimate Caster Build

[SenbonKageYoshi]

Alright, so a friend and I had a disagreement on the best class for a caster battle. I said a Batman would wipe the floor with any other caster, and he is making another caster to challenge me.

I need the best Lvl 20 caster build you guys can provide. The two casters will be dueling to the death. I think he might have plans to make a Countermagic Sorceror, since he claims he can counter anything I cast.

If possible, include the sourcebook for all the spells, to make it easier to find them.



Thanks.

[UglyPanda]

If you're playing a Batman Wizard correctly, then he shouldn't be able to counterspell. Counterspelling requires that you ready an action for it. If you're playing Batman, you're going to go first, thus denying him the required action needed to counterspell. Also, a ring of counterspell with a greater dispel magic in it is useful.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, celerity, maximized time stop, disjunction, dimensional anchor, etc.

[SoD]

Please note:not sure of rules.

Can you counter more than one spell a round? If not, throw something quickened, something which he doesn't want to hit (maybe a save or suck sort of thing? Maybe something that'll lower his saves or cause continuing damage forcing him to make concentration checks) so he counters it, then throw the full force thing at him.

[Kurald Galain]

Generally, you use Moment of Prescience to win initiative (or Celerity if you don't), then Time Stop to do whatever you wish.

Dispel Magic is going to be ineffective at CL 20. Greater Dispel could work, unless you either boost your caster level sky high (quite possible) or wear a Ring of Counterspells, that simply disallows one particular spell to be cast upon you. Guess which one.

Plus, he has to be able to see you in order to counterspell anything, and you can always sneak a spell in through Contingency.

[Nebo_]

Generally, you use Moment of Prescience to win initiative (or Celerity if you don't), then Time Stop to do whatever you wish.

How are you casting Celerity if you lose initiative?

[UglyPanda]

Celerity is an immediate action spell. It gives you a free standard action in exchange for being (dazed/stunned, can't remember) for one round. You use that standard action to cast your heavily metamagic'd time stop.

[MorkaisChosen]

Metamagic Rods of Whatever may be your friends. I'm not all that experienced in twinking, though...

[Saph]

You might have some problems if the guy knows what he's doing. A heavily counterspell-focused sorcerer can not only counter anything you throw at him, but bounce it straight back at you.

It's just that counterspell builds are useless for anything other than mage duels, so most people don't bother with them in normal games.

- Saph

[Chronos]

Question: Will you at any point be told what his class is, or is that just left as a surprise? It makes a huge difference: If he's playing a sorcerer or psion, then there's an excellent chance he'll have Mindblank up, meaning that you shouldn't bother with anything mind-affecting. If he's a cleric, then he'll likely have Death Ward, meaning that you shouldn't bother with most necromancy spells. If he's a druid, he'll likely have Shapechange, meaning that he can undo any polymorph you throw at him, and so on. For any given trick you can pull, there's some spell or other effect somewhere which can negate it, but it would be very difficult for him to get access to all of those spells. So if you know what he's got, then you can just throw at him whatever it is he doesn't have defenses against, but if you don't know, then you're just left guessing.

And I'm not sure that Celerity is a good idea, here... It only really works well if you can guarantee a victory in that standard action, because of the stunning afterwards, and I don't think there's anything you can do to guarantee a victory against another full caster in a single round. Even Time Stop won't cut it, since you can't directly affect others while Time Stopped, and anything indirect you do in your free rounds, he can just dispel or otherwise deal with.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

You certainly want Sudden Maximize, for use with Time Stop in your Contingency Celerity upon my being the target of an attack or action combo.

Fun spells in a Mage Duel:

Feeblemind. Seriously, you have no idea how embarasing it is to loose like this. The -4 penalty to will save for arcane casters means it actually has a good chance of landing. And having an int/cha of 1 means he can't cast jack or squat.

To make sure your Feeblemind will actually land, however, hit him up with Twin Ray Empowered Enervation. That should bring his Will save low enough that there's almost no way he'll be able to make the save.

Other than that, Sudden Max Time Stop, Delayed Blast Fireball, Delayed Blast Fireball, Delayed Blast Fireball, Delayed Blast Fireball. Sure, evocation generally isn't the best thing to throw around, but 80d6 damage will screw over nearly any caster, even if he DOES save for half.

[MorkaisChosen]

Take some Archmage levels and do something with them. Don't know what, but something- you lose one Metamagic feat for several possibly useful abilities...

[Squash Monster]

Wizard is one of the strongest character choices in a duel. Sorcerer might be better, but that's it.

However, the whole "batman" concept that's so popular around here is not the pinnacle of wizardry. And, what's more, it's most certainly not the best dueling wizard.

Anyway, here's what you do:

1. Win initiative. You'll want nerveskitter prepared and Improved Initiative in your featlist. If stuff from Dragon is allowed, you'll want a hummingbird familiar (there's also an elf substitution level that doubles familiar benefits: get that). There's also contingent Celerity, but initiative is still used as a tie breaker if you both have that.
2. Timestop. Bet you saw that coming.
3. Cast widened and heightened Stinking Cloud on your opponent. Quickened Greater Invisibility for yourself.
4. Cast widened Solid Fog on your opponent. For yourself, a Quickened Invisible (metamagic from Cityscape) Widened Obscuring Mist.
5. If you still have turns, go ahead and cast Black Tentacles and Sleet Storm too. I'll assume you didn't have time for these though.
6. It's your opponent's turn now. They get to make a fort save vs your Stinking Cloud, which makes them nauseated (can't cast spells). If they succeed, they have to get out of your Solid Fog and such. That's just a teleport, but hopefully they won't be able to cast spells. If they do get out, they'll have to find you. You're invisible, so they'll need a True Seeing. Unfortunately, they'll see your obscuring mist instead, since that's invisible too.
7. Your turn now. Cast your favorite spell of death and move. Having it silenced is likely a good idea.
8. Repeat your opponent trying to find you and you casting a save or die spell until they fail their save.

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

Okay, for the sake of this I'm going to assume he builds a very very good counterspell sorcerer.

1) You need to go first, this shouldn't be hard. You can use Foresight/Celerity or a Grey Elf Elven Wizard Substitution level 1 and 3, Hummingbird Familiar, Divine Insight and Improved Initiative as feats, and the Aggressive trait. This gives you and Init of Dex+23.

If he uses Foresight Celerity, point out that he is effectively playing counterspell Batman and that proving Batman can beat Batman isn't the point.

2) You need ways to counter the fact the he will be attempting to dispel. Some methods are:

Multiple Spells a round: Ocular Spell is good for this, so is quicken, use both.
Use Spell Like abilities, Archmage.

3) Essential Items: Ring of Spellbattle. Ignore everyone that says Ring of Counterspell, you want two rings of Spellbattle, and maybe the Hand that gives you another Ring slot and a third one. These things are God. Redirect any Spell, that's three straight Super Dispel Magics he is going to cast on himself. (Or Disjunctions)

If you don't have these rings you are a fool, if he doesn't he is, so you may use up all your slots throwing spells at yourself.

Ring of Enduring Arcana, like the Ring of Spellbattle it's from Magic Item Compendium. You won't wear it during the fight, but you will have been wearing it earlier when you cast all your buffs earlier.

Standard Int Boosters, Tomes of Int, that sort of thing. Probably a Rod of Quicken won't hurt.

4) If you want to be a real rat Bastard and build a not really Batman, but automatic win against casters that will instantly defeat him, this is how. Keep in mind that a Good Counterspell build can actually reflect your spells back at you, so you use only SLAs.

Wizard 5 (using the Grey Elf and Wizard sub levels as above)/Incantatrix 10/Archmage 5

You should have a +30 Init at least, Foresight and Shapechange up and you should be transformed into something with dual actions (choker/chrono whatever)

You want to use your Archamge for Spell Power, and for assorted Spell Like abilities, Ocular Enervation is one, Quicken Save or Lose is another. Choose the Save or Lose he won't be able to beat, if he's a Sorcerer he should have Mind-blank and Shapechange and maybe Veil of Undeath, so find something besides Feeblemind and Baleful Polymorph and Death effects, remember, this can be a 6th level spell thanks to Incantatrix.

Your rounds should go something like this:
Full round action: Two Ocular Enervations as SLAs (not counterspellable)
Quickened Save or Suck up to 6th level, SLA not counterable.
Cast a Save or suck of your own, Spell and counterable. You should have cast Spell Immunity and made yourself immune to this spell in case it get's countered. I actually recommend Disintegrate for this. It effects ojects, so it effects Undead/constructs (and Wizard that give themselves buffs that make them like those things) It has a Fort save, which he shouldn't have too good of one. And it does enough straight up damage to kill.

Then your familiar goes because of Imbue Familiar with Spell ability, casting a save or lose.

Then you cast Celerity on your familiar and Save or lose again.

Then he goes (if he is still alive) and you redirect his spells onto himself with Rings of Spellbattle. Especially awesome if he Disjunctions or Greater Dispells. Now he has no buffs, and you can break out the Mind-effecting, polymorph, and possibly insta-death effects. Remember, you aren't dazed because you cast on your familiar. Another option is to use something to become immune to the dazed condition, you should be able to manage it. If so, Celerity every round.

You need all the Pre-req feats, Ocular Spell, Quicken, ect.

[Charlie Kemek]

what are the conditions of the fight, and how much buff time? What books does he have? choose spells from books he doesn't have, and get 2 rings of counter-spelling—greater & normal dispel magic. don't prepare any mass-target spells. specialize in divination, conjuration, or transmution, and bar enchantment (because of mind blank), and/or evocation. most likely prepare lesser orbs (CArc) in lower slots. get a bunch of scrolls of greater dispel magic. be a gray elf. hey, just take maximize spell and imp int, max dex and int, cast celerity, cast maximized disintegrate and call it a day.

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

Buy rings of Spellbattle. I cannot stress this enough. All your Ring slots should be rings of spellbattle. DO NOT BUY RINGS OF COUNTERSPELLING.

[Nebo_]

Celerity is an immediate action spell. It gives you a free standard action in exchange for being (dazed/stunned, can't remember) for one round. You use that standard action to cast your heavily metamagic'd time stop.

And how is he using said immediate action while flat footed?

[DementedFellow]

Tanglefoot bags. Lots of them.

Just kidding you guys

[Zincorium]

And how is he using said immediate action while flat footed?

Foresight. And it's been mentioned. It prevents you from being flatfooted. If you're not flat footed, you get the neccessary immediate action to cast celerity which then gives you the standard action to cast time stop. This is why the combo keeps getting brought up, unless a portion of it is disabled or unusable there is no break in the chain of events that would allow your opponent to take you out before you can act.

And foresight/celerity is only neccessary if you happen to lose initiative.

[SensFan]

I've heard of Celerity often, but have never actually used it. I just skimmed through the Spell Compendium, but didn't see it. Is it in another book?

[Squash Monster]

The Celerity line of spells is in Players Handbook II, the second most powerful source for spells in D&D.

[Emperor Tippy]

How much buff time?

Take a look at this for ideas.
http://www.thetangledweb.net/addon.p..._char&cid=7809

The spell list isn't finished but you want to persist the following:
Shapechange
Superior Invisibility


Once you have those up shapechange into a Shadesteel Golem (immunity to magic and a **** ton of other stuff). Mastery of Shaping an Invisible Disjunction so that it doesn't hit you.

Cast a quickened Uber Enveneration at him. He should be dead. Oh and take Ray Extension as your next feat so that the Enveneration repeats just to be safe.

To ensure you go first take all the Initiative boosts that have already been mentioned and prepare a greater celerity. If you don't have time to buff pre battle then cast a maximized timestop (maximized with a greater rod of maximize) and buff then.

Other people can suggest items for you to buy.

[Tokiko Mima]

And how is he using said immediate action while flat footed?

It's a classic wizard trick. A Wizard with Foresight up and Celerity memorized with a standard Batman array ready can't possibly lose.

Say you're Wile E. Coyote trying to sneak up on a wizard, and drop a bolder on him/her. You drop the boulder, only to discover that Foresight has made the wizard immune to being both surprised and flat-footed. The wizard can therefore take an immediate action to cast Celerity. This grants the wizard a standard action to cast a spell, which will be Time Stop in almost all cases, usually maximized via a rod.

The wizard now has time to respond to your attack, by teleporting someplace safe, or casting spells with durations to destroy you. A good example is Cloudkill + Forcecage, which can be cast with time stopped, and unless you have a way to escape a Forcecage (like a Rod of Cancellation or a teleport) will kill anything with a Constitution score, including cartoon coyotes.

The only problem with this strategy is I've never seen anyone verify what would happen if two Wizards fought each other and both used this trick? Could they Time Stop at the same moment and negate each other's Time Stop?

[Chronos]

A good example is Cloudkill + Forcecage, which can be cast with time stopped, and unless you have a way to escape a Forcecage (like a Rod of Cancellation or a teleport) will kill anything with a Constitution score, including cartoon coyotes.

Or unless you have a way to survive a Cloudkill. Such as being a high enough level monk or druid, or having a Delay Poison spell active, or having a Hero's Feast spell active, or Shapechanging into something immune to poison, or turning into something that doesn't need to breathe (via Shapechange again, or Elemental Body, or Iron Body, or Statue, or being an Air Genasi to begin with), or having a Necklace of Adaptation, or having a Periapt of Proof against Poison, or dispelling the Cloudkill, or...

Of course, there are other nasty things you could stick into the Forcecage instead of a Cloudkill, but a high-level character should be able to deal with all of those, too. Acid Fog? The Necklace of Adaptation or Shapechange will still work, as will a Resist Energy spell. Incendiary Cloud? Same as Acid Fog. Summoned monster? Any appropriate-level foe will be able to kill it.

The only problem with this strategy is I've never seen anyone verify what would happen if two Wizards fought each other and both used this trick? Could they Time Stop at the same moment and negate each other's Time Stop?

The effects come off of the stack last-in-first-out, so whichever wizard cast Celerity last would act first. Wizards would of course know this, so if both wizards are aware that the other has access to Celerity, neither one will cast it, and you'll be left with just the regular initiative order.

[marthais]

The DBF and timestop combo suggested above was great, and it got me thinking ... I was looking in complete arcane and I found a wonderful feat called delay spell and one in CA (or CM?) called metamagic school specialization or something...Take the delay feat and stick it on 5 disintegrates (9th lvl) and replace the DBF with those...if you use a sudden quicken (or a rod) you can get in possibly over 6 (you'd need a v.high cha mod...) disintigrates in that one timestop. Throw in a few greater maximizes and Boom...200d6 (or more!) damage, some maxed.


Good luck in whatever you decide on :D

~Marthais

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

The effects come off of the stack last-in-first-out, so whichever wizard cast Celerity last would act first. Wizards would of course know this, so if both wizards are aware that the other has access to Celerity, neither one will cast it, and you'll be left with just the regular initiative order.

Or the one that lost Init would cast it, then the one that won would follow, resulting in the one that won Init going first and them both using up a spell slot.

[Frosty]

The other guy should be a Wargorged or something. Immune to level drain and a whole crapload of other stuff. Makes a lot of Batman's traits not usable. Bonus to Con also doesn't hurt.

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

The other guy should be a Wargorged or something. Immune to level drain and a whole crapload of other stuff. Makes a lot of Batman's traits not usable. Bonus to Con also doesn't hurt.

A 20th level Sorcerer can already Mindblank and Shapechange into a Ghost, adding incorporeal to the list of awesomeness. Or just Shapechange. Not to mention Veil of Undeath, which just gives you all those defenses without actually alerting anyone to your immunities.

[SensFan]

If he is building a Countermagic Sorceror build, how can I prevent him from countering the Celerity or Timestop?

edit - What is Uber Enervation?

[CASTLEMIKE]

What if he surprises you with something simple like a Contingency with Mirror Images if he loses inititative and is attacked? At level 20 that should be 8 images.

Antimagic shell isn't bad either with a contingency trigger if attacked with magic.

Maybe he took 3 levels of Cleric as a Kobold with the Ritual to get the Initiate of Mystra domain while still keeping level 9 spellcasting.

Antimagic Torc usable 1/day is only 25,000 gp.

[mostlyharmful]

What if he surprises you with something simple like a Contingency with Mirror Images if he loses inititative and is attacked? At level 20 that should be 8 images.

Then you focus on battlefield control and area affects (cloud spells, Disjunctions, Glitterdust, whatever), maybe trying to squash a true seeing in there (always a good plan vs high level casters) or a gate/summon for something big with multiple attacks/SLAs that can tie down & image strip the guy while you wind up the combo you have your heart set on.

Edit: If it all goes to poo in a handcart, how does the forum assess the Kanobi defence of retreat and come back better? Clone/Contingency/Bound Outsiders should mean Batman never gets put down for good and in a non-time-specific challenge that seems like a win to me, having an enemy that ALWAYS comes back with a better plan, more resources and better intelligence everytime seems like batmans ultimate win card.