To kill a Caster

[jguy]

I've been thinking on the best way for a melee oriented person like a fighter or barbarian to kill a caster. Assuming both are high levels since a caster can be killed by a punch to the head at low levels. Would that spellcaster hunter from complete warrior be a good idea?

Oh, quick question. Is there a feat that lets you use your fortitude saves instead of will? I swear I saw it before but can't remember

[RTGoodman]

I've been thinking on the best way for a melee oriented person like a fighter or barbarian to kill a caster. Assuming both are high levels since a caster can be killed by a punch to the head at low levels. Would that spellcaster hunter from complete warrior be a good idea?

I don't remember the "Spellcasting Hunter" from CWar, but I know the Mage Slayer line of feats from CArc is probably good for this. The big things a meleer has to do to kill a caster, since damage is still not going to be a problem for an optimized meleer, is (1) survive everything a caster can throw at him first, and (2) get past all of a casters defenses. The Mage Slayer feats definitely help on the second (since it can dispel magic and whatnot), and I know there's one that keeps a caster from casting defensively, meaning they'll have to soak up an AoO just to cast if the meleer is close enough.

Oh, quick question. Is there a feat that lets you use your fortitude saves instead of will? I swear I saw it before but can't remember

There's not one that lets you use Fort instead of Will, but Steadfast Determination (I don't know the book) lets you use your Con modifier instead of your Wis to determine your Will save. I think the only pre-requisite is Endurance.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Depends on what you mean by high level, and how well built the caster is. By about level 10, a BBEG caster can be incredibly tough to kill. By 15, the Wizard is near invincible, and the Cleric and Druid can destroy Tokyo while sleepwalking.

[jguy]

okay, for someone who isn't a caster, how does one go about killing a level 20 wizard, cleric, or druid?

[afroakuma]

Antimagic fields go a long way.
I believe the Con for Wis switching feat (and one of its brethren) were in either PHB2 or CAdv.

[monty]

okay, for someone who isn't a caster, how does one go about killing a level 20 wizard, cleric, or druid?

Take the leadership feat, and get a caster cohort.

[jguy]

Heh, I can picture a Fighter walking around with a portal anti-magic field and messing with powerful casters. Even then, I bet casters will have a way around that.

[monty]

Heh, I can picture a Fighter walking around with a portal anti-magic field and messing with powerful casters. Even then, I bet casters will have a way around that.

Wizard 19/Warblade 1. If you get in an antimagic field, Iron Heart Surge, then a quickened win spell.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Heh, I can picture a Fighter walking around with a portal anti-magic field and messing with powerful casters. Even then, I bet casters will have a way around that.

Orb spells. They're 4th level. Pretty good at killing. Or Walls of Force. Or...yeah. There's no way to kill a well-built 20th level Wizard without being a 21st level Caster.

[Gorbash]

okay, for someone who isn't a caster, how does one go about killing a level 20 wizard, cleric, or druid?

Step one: Become a Deity. Intermediate, at least.
Step two: Hope the caster doesn't win the initiative.
Step three: Profit!

[Breaw]

okay, for someone who isn't a caster, how does one go about killing a level 20 wizard, cleric, or druid?

I'm going to start with Wizard, as it is something that has been discussed at length on these boards at one time or another.

Short answer: You don't, you just don't.

Long answer: The problem with wizards is that they like living. They like living and they are paranoid.

There is a big difference in killing a high level wizard, and killing a paranoid high level wizard. Let me take a quick look at a reasonable defense plan for someone who really doesn't want to be killed.

Step 1: Prepare contingency. The spell tied to the contingency is 'Resilient sphere'

Step 2: Prepare some teleportation magic, preferably with some meta-magic to make it easier to cast. Quickened teleport as a 9th level slot is perfect, but expensive. Quickened D-Door or even just silent/still D-door or teleport will certainly suffice.

Step 3: If someone attacks and you aren't ready for them, teleport away. Go to your own plane of existence while you prepare to kill them. Scry on them, stop time, and mess them up in a serious way.

This is by no means the 'best' defensive strategy a wizard could have, but it's not bad.

If you are going to have any hope of killing a full arcane caster you are going to need to:

1) Sneak up on it. This is more or less impossible to do non-magically if they really don't want to be snuck up on. (Through use of this spell if nothing else)

2) Get an Anti-magic field around them. This spell cannot be made permanent by raw, so you'll have to figure out what sort of charge based casting you'll be using.

3) Keep them in a grapple.

If you can figure out how to do those three things, you'll be good. Ultimately DMs rarely optimize a Wizards actions (although they really should, I mean... wizards generally like living), so in most campaigns it's not going to be nearly as hard as I just described.

-Breaw

[Krrth]

As a famous assassin once said "No matter how powerful the Wizard, a knife between the shoulderblades will seriously cramp his style". Of course, he WAS talking about a souleating knife but still.....


also" Killing never solves anything, but it does keep people out of your hair while you figure out what to do"

[Telonius]

okay, for someone who isn't a caster, how does one go about killing a level 20 wizard, cleric, or druid?

Wizard: Depends on how paranoid he is. If he's super-paranoid, get a bigger wizard. If he's very paranoid, accidentally. (They'll only ask about things that intend to hurt them in their divinations). Not all that paranoid: Dimensional anchor, and wear him down, make him use all of his spells. Don't let him get away, and don't let him sleep.

Cleric: Get the jump on him. This will be harder to do if he's smart about his divinations. But Clericzilla takes a few rounds to buff up. Use Disarm to snatch his Divine Focus before he can do that, or Sunder to break it. Most of the Cleric spells require a Divine Focus in order to function.

Druid: ... ask somebody else. Fresh out of ideas for that one.

[monty]

Wizard: You don't.
Sorcerer: Depends on his spell selection, but chances are you don't.
Cleric: Win initiative and kill it in one round.
Druid: Win initiative and kill it, its animal companion, and anything else it may happen to have following it around in one round.

For the last two, I recommend an Ubercharger or something similar.

[streakster]

What was the ultimate wizard defense from the Wizard v. Psion thread? Anyone have that?

As I recall, it was shapeshifting into an incorporeal form in a hemisphere of stone with a Prismatic wall and a dimensional anchor up, plus gating in dragons then gluing ring gates to their heads to cast through while they assaulted your foe. And then if you got through all that it was only your astral projection.

Is that about right? Cause that's what you'll have to plan to deal with at high levels...

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Druids and Clerics, if you can get an AMF around them(how, I have no clue) aren't horribly dangerous. The problem is reaching them past their spot/listen checks, getting past the Druid's AC, getting the AMF up, and keeping them within it's radius while you wail on them. Not easy, especially with the Druid(who gets Spot/Listen as class skills, has the AC to beat you down, may well have ranks in Tumble cross-class, and is probably feat-invested in melee).

Killing a Wizard comes down to whether or not the Wizard's player wants him to die. Using the various defenses, the Wizard is untouchable. It's not possible.

[arguskos]

Wizard: Good luck. If you can do this reliably, let us know.
Cleric: Sunder holy symbol (or other divine focus item). Kill in one round, before he goes.
Druid: Tactical Nuclear Device. Also, Squirrel Nuke.

Honestly, if you can reliably defeat any of these three with a non-caster, please, let us know, since that's damn amazing.

[jguy]

god, killing a paranoid wizard sounds like this one situation I had to figure out. It involved having to kill a target that had a powerful psychic guardian that could look into the future about 5 minutes to see hostile actions against them, and had the ability to teleport around the world.

To kill the target, I eventually had to pay a kid to shake the dudes hand, putting a tracking device on him. [Kid didn't know what the device did or why]. Then follow the two around the world until they could no longer keep going.

[streakster]

I has found it! The Lycanthromancer defense!

While within a Time-Stop (Extended via a metamagic rod), a simple 5th level spell (Wall of Stone) domed around the wizard can invalidate the need to worry about Antimagic Fields, casting while silenced or grappled, Energy Balls, Energy Bolts, Mordenkainen's Disjunctions, Crystal Shards, Ectoplasmic Cocoons, and a huge number of other spells, powers, tactics, and effects. Building a WoS inside of a Prismatic Sphere protects the WoS from taking any kind of damage until the Sphere is taken care of (and unless your psion has a Rod of Cancellation handy, he ain't taking it down). The Ring Gates I mentioned earlier could just as easily be held by some summonables, rather than glued to the foreheads of some really nasty CR 27 dragons (which I also did via Time-Stop). And guess what? Many of my summoned creatures have some very high-level casting abilities - and you'd better believe that an army of them is coming for you.

The only way to get in is to Metamorphosis into a creature that can burrow (which is why I'd plan on casting Wall of Iron to push over and stand on), or to teleport in (which is why I'd cast Dimensional Anchor on the walls).

I could have my familiar running around in an Antimagic Field effect. All it would have to do would be to run within 10 feet of you. Then the aforesaid dragons would likely eat you alive. If that didn't work, I'd make a Knowledge: Psionics check, likely figuring out that it was your psicrown that was giving you invulnerability, and have my dragons use their entire attack routines to sunder it (and any other equipment you were carrying, just in case).

Assuming that you managed to kill my familiar, and survived the Summoned/Gated creatures, then found ways around my turtle-shell, AND somehow got to me, I used my free time in my temporal plastic bubble to cast Shapechange, which means that I'm now an incorporeal undead, so you'll likely not be able to hurt me. And if you get past the 50% miss-chance imposed by incorporeality, I also used a Limited Wish to get a Contingencied Dimension-Door to transport me 5' underground, if something actually can damage me; since I'm incorporeal, I can exist within solid matter, so that's specifically allowed. Good luck getting to me there.

Also, to counteract your Schism effect, I have about 5 10th-level Simulacrums running around, trying to hit you with Forcecages and such (and unlike yours, they have no duration, have a full complement of spells as 10th-level casters, and don't drain any of my current resources). They were in my Bag of Holding, which I dumped out as a move-action on one of my plastic-bubble rounds, or perhaps on a later round; it doesn't matter that much.

And, assuming that you somehow managed to survive, have taken down all of my defenses, and then *killed* me, remember that it wasn't actually *me.* You've been fighting my Astral Projection this whole time, which has instantaneously returned to my real body (which is in my Bag of Holding, inert and in stasis). What this means is that I can learn from my mistakes and try to kill you all over again. By that time, you're likely down to 1/2 your power points or less, assuming that I haven't killed you after my familiar's AMF, my MKDs or my dragons' sunders and MKDs (or AMFs) take out your Timeless Body. Stat damage/drain is horrible, especially to either a manifesting stat (Int) or one of your weaker stats (Con or Cha), not to mention innumerable save-or-dies that target your rather weak Fortitude save (and that's not even including the spells that make you suffer without a single save - such as Otto's Irresistable Dance or Maze).

And to keep you and that pesky psicrystal from galavanting about with teleportation spells, my dragons and I have hit you with a half dozen Dimensional Anchor spells - touch attack, no save. You ain't going anywhere.

And, assuming you killed me AGAIN somehow (as I Extended Time-Stopped before teleporting out of the bag, and put up my defenses again), note that I had at least one Clone in my Bag of Holding (which is now me, and I could have more - note that all it costs is, at most, 1500 gp, and that I can have as many of these as I like, up to my gp limit), and that it's about to be teleporting out to keep up the barrage of spells that I've been flinging at you.

And before you start yelling about how I'm chewing through my spell-slots like mad, note that I've perhaps only actually casted a few spells from slots. The rest have been through my chock-full Rods of Absorption, and perhaps a few scrolls (and I can have tons of these, if I wanted them). Thus, I've only used a fraction of my resources thus far.

We are, at most, 15 rounds or so in. You've hardly been able to touch me, very likely, and if you have, I'm still in the running.

[jguy]

It almost seems that you kill these dudes not through a fight, but by cheating. A couple drops of poison in the dudes food, served by a trusted servant [who doesn't know the poison] would do the trick. Or a uber level assassin who can look at the wizard for 12 seconds and not seem like an enemy. [would have to involve some sort of blank mind thing]

[TempusCCK]

Eh, you're going to need judcious use of magic items. A Rogue or a Ranger might be your best bet, as they're heavily invested in sneaky stuff, with the full line of the Mage Slayer feats. It's generally considered a good option to avoid the Occult Slayer, as it doesn't offer much.

Specifically, you need two items, one of continuous Mind Blank, and the other a use activated item of Anti-magic Field. The rest can be handled with stealth.

Your objective is sneak in, get close, and let that AMF do it's thing for any regular buffs he may have on. If you get close, he can't cast without absorbing damage, now it's a matter of optimizing damage so that you can take him down before he makes a few concentration checks.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

god, killing a paranoid wizard sounds like this one situation I had to figure out. It involved having to kill a target that had a powerful psychic guardian that could look into the future about 5 minutes to see hostile actions against them, and had the ability to teleport around the world.

To kill the target, I eventually had to pay a kid to shake the dudes hand, putting a tracking device on him. [Kid didn't know what the device did or why]. Then follow the two around the world until they could no longer keep going.

Like that, only instead of Teleporting around the world, whenever they retreat they go to a private custom pocket dimension that only they can enter, that kills everyone there except them, and qualifies as the Material plane for the purposes of the Astral Projection spell when cast by the Wizard, and they don't actually leave. Rather, they Astral Project out, with massive protections, to fool anyone that thinks they are vulnerable into showing their hand, then kills 'em.

[puppyavenger]

also, any full arcane caster with 9th level spells is pretty immortal for another reason, Astral projection and Genesis.
how?

1. make friends with Deity, preferably a lawful one who owes you a favor, cast astral projection in their divine realm.
2. repeat several times,
3. cast genesis
4. astral project from impossible to reach genesis plane
5. repeat as needed
6. repeat in every stronghold or building you've got
7. awaken in new body, use all other strategies to make yourself invincible.

[jguy]

Couldn't you say...dome the city they are in with an anti-magic field, followed by some sort of stone wall on the barest edges of that, then pump it full of say...lava or some sort of gas?

Wait, this has gone from killing a caster to just outright genocide. My bad

[jguy]

Hearing all this, I have a hard time believing that the gods wouldn't be getting involved, at least the evil ones. You have caster with enough power to practically 'become' gods [just look at Vecna] so wouldn't the evil ones smite the ones that come too close just to makes sure they had no competition?

[Learnedguy]

Me, being the cowardly weasel I am, kinda like more unorthodox methods of solving my wizarding problems.

Usually I hire some faceless goons to wear him out before killing him in his sleep. Kinda bothersome if they teleport away of course, but hey, if they aren't here they can't hurt me, right?

Right?

Poison that makes them go numb also helps. Y'know, if the dagger in the back didn't help.

Now, if the caster comes for you, then you are f-----, seriously f-----.

[MeklorIlavator]

Couldn't you say...dome the city they are in with an anti-magic field, followed by some sort of stone wall on the barest edges of that, then pump it full of say...lava or some sort of gas?

Wait, this has gone from killing a caster to just outright genocide. My bad

Well, all of that would take alot of time and also breaking the rules. Plus, it still doesn't stop teleport, planshift, gate, ploymorph, etc.

Hearing all this, I have a hard time believing that the gods wouldn't be getting involved, at least the evil ones. You have caster with enough power to practically 'become' gods [just look at Vecna] so wouldn't the evil ones smite the ones that come too close just to makes sure they had no competition?

Well, the problem is that the other gods don't want [inset Deity Here] messing with the material plane too much, as by doing so he could gain too much power. That's also why gods don't just smite anyone who goes against their interest.

[jguy]

Well, all of that would take alot of time and also breaking the rules. Plus, it still doesn't stop teleport, planshift, gate, ploymorph, etc.


Well, the problem is that the other gods don't want [inset Deity Here] messing with the material plane too much, as by doing so he could gain too much power. That's also why gods don't just smite anyone who goes against their interest.

Ya, still new to the game so I don't know everything else. Also, far too many spells and magical items for me to keep track of to know every possible thing.

Poison always fascinated me for the purposes of assassination, especially since wizards have bad fort saves. Couldn't you pump someplace full of gas [oderless/tasteless] and just kill them in their sleep. [or trance]

[MeklorIlavator]

Poison always fascinated me for the purposes of assassination, especially since wizards have bad fort saves. Couldn't you pump someplace full of gas [oderless/tasteless] and just kill them in their sleep. [or trance]

How do you manage to make the place airtight and also get large amounts of poison stockpiled all within 2-8 hours? And how do you find him, anyways?

[arguskos]

Ya, still new to the game so I don't know everything else. Also, far too many spells and magical items for me to keep track of to know every possible thing.

Poison always fascinated me for the purposes of assassination, especially since wizards have bad fort saves. Couldn't you pump someplace full of gas [oderless/tasteless] and just kill them in their sleep. [or trance]

They just sleep in their Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, which you can neither find nor access, so that doesn't work that well.

Face it man, a Wizard that doesn't want to die isn't going to, short of DM/Deity Intervention.