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The Cat Goddess
2010-04-18, 05:57 AM
Okay, basically I told one of my players that a Player's Handbook only Wizard above a certain level will pretty-much always beat a Player's Handbook only Fighter of the same level.

He claimed (insanely, IMHO) that the two classes were equally balanced.

So, the challenge became... I make a level 13 Wizard, he makes a level 13 Fighter. 110,000gp worth of items, gear only from DMG & PH.

Assuming no Surprise Round.
Assuming no Preparation rounds (no casting spells before the fight starts).

One battle in a small arena (total distance, 70 feet across)
One battle in a large arena (total distance, 200 feet across)
One battle in open area (big grassland, 1000+ feet across)

What are my best spell options? I'm thinking Teleport for the larger area battles, to give myself at least 2 (or more) rounds of him doing nothing but closing the distance. Melf's Acid Arrow for stacking damage.

Is it worth getting the Quicken Spell Feat?

Octopus Jack
2010-04-18, 06:03 AM
Empowered/split Enervation is your friend, stack negative levels on him

Volthawk
2010-04-18, 06:09 AM
Forcecage? Unless your friend has a way of casting disintegration or disjunction, or has either a rod of cancellation or a sphere of annihilation, he's stuck, and if you pick the barred cage option, you can still blast him.

Also, Mind Fog. Your friend can't have that good Will saves (he only has base +4), so a good -10 on will saves will make him so much more vulnerable.

Octopus Jack
2010-04-18, 06:18 AM
Fly for all the fights would be useful to stay out of reach,
simple things like hold person can buy you time as can wall of force if you need it. If you mind fog him he will be even more unlikly to pass his will saves, then you could just dominate him and turn him into your mind slave for a while it can effectivly give you 13days preperation time

Kobold-Bard
2010-04-18, 06:19 AM
Empowered/split Enervation is your friend, stack negative levels on him


Forcecage? Unless your friend has a way of casting disintegration or disjunction, or has either a rod of cancellation or a sphere of annihilation, he's stuck, and if you pick the barred cage option, you can still blast him....

Basically this. The chance he'll bring a good bow is very low, so you can feel free to sit there and mock him for a while before Enervating him into a new undead minion.

---------------
Alternatively use Invisibility and just Summon a load of Monsters. Cackle maniacally every now and again as they were his HP down to negatives, then walk over to him and kick his character in the nuts until he hits -10.

Volthawk
2010-04-18, 06:21 AM
Summon Monster. If you use Summon Monster V, you get bearded devils, which have attacks than continue to damage him. If you use one of your 7th level slots, you get 2 to 5 of these guys. They also can rage and teleport.

Or you can get an Invisible Stalker. They kick ass.

Or summon a Babau, then cast Greater Invisibility. Every one of it's attacks will be a sneak attack..

HunterOfJello
2010-04-18, 06:21 AM
Specialize in conjuration and grab Abjurant Jaunt which lets you teleport 10 as an immediate action with times per day equal to your int mod (4 or 5).

That will stop his first 4 to 5 attacks from hitting you under any circumstance. Now you have 4 or 5 spells to cast. You should be able to kill him in 2 easy.

~~~

You could also open with low level spells just to mess with him. Mirror Image, Darkness, Glitterdust, and web are all useful Web.
Target his will and reflex saves. He'll probably have less than +6 to will total.

True Strike + Any decent damage spell should kill him easily.

Volthawk
2010-04-18, 06:22 AM
Specialize in conjuration and grab Abjurant Jaunt which lets you teleport 10 as an immediate action with times per day equal to your int mod (4 or 5).

That will stop his first 4 to 5 attacks from hitting you under any circumstance. Now you have 4 or 5 spells to cast. You should be able to kill him in 2 easy.

Player's Handbook only/core. I don't think that would include PHBII, despite the name.

Runestar
2010-04-18, 06:23 AM
Limited wish to force a -7 penalty to his next save, then Dominate Person? He should succeed only on a natural 20.

If he can't fly, then use flight to stay out of range, with wind wall to stymie ranged attacks.

Kobold-Bard
2010-04-18, 06:24 AM
Fly, use Telekinesis to disarm him, Hold Person, beat him to death with his own weapon :smallbiggrin:

Enervation, Crushing Despair etc. to drop his Fort Save. Cast Flesh to Stone. Decorate your garden with his staue-corpse.
Not the most efficient, but fun nontheless.

Volthawk
2010-04-18, 06:24 AM
Limited wish to force a -7 penalty to his next save, then Dominate Person? He should succeed only on a natural 20.

If he can't fly, then use flight to stay out of range, with wind wall to stymie ranged attacks.

Needs Mind Fog as well.

And Crushing Despair.

Runestar
2010-04-18, 06:31 AM
Needs Mind Fog as well.

And Crushing Despair.

I find mind fog quite lame. He needs to fail a will save to get a penalty to his subsequent will saves. Why not just target him with a will-save effect instead if you believe he will fail anyways?

Volthawk
2010-04-18, 06:34 AM
A new 5-step plan:

1) Lower his will saves (not entirely necessary, but it helps)

2) Feeblemind him. If he saves, cast again.

3) Through Spectral Hand, cast Touch of Idiocy. If he saves, cast again.

4) Coup de grace his unconscious body as many times as necessary to kill him.

5) Win.

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-18, 06:36 AM
Contingency (Dimension Door) is a good one for making him come to you. Directly vertical. 920 feet is a long way to cover.

After that, let's focus on things he can't resist.

Elemental damage is easy to block. Focus on non-elemental things. ForceCage + Cloudkill is good... Especially if you can Dimensional Anchor him.

Invisibility + Staying over 120 feet away + Magic Missiles could do it, in theory.

(Magic Missiles: 17.5 average damage)
(Empowered MM's: 26.25 average damage)
(Maximized MM's: 30 damage)
(Max/Empowered MM's: 38.75 damage)

So: Level 1 slots = 17.5 damage
Level 2 slots = 17.5 damage
Level 3 slots = 26.25 damage (save space for Fly and haste)
Level 4 slots = 30 damage (Save space for Greater invisibility)
Level 5 slots = 30 damage
Level 6 slots = 38.75 damage
Level 7 slots = 38.75 damage

Assuming Specialist Evoker, using ONLY bonus slots: 208.25 average damage.

Average HP of a level 13 Fighter:
10+Con (Level 1)
5.5+Con (Level 2-13)
76 + (13xCon)

To survive just your BONUS slots, he'll need a Con modifier of +11.

Keep a way to see in smoke (Wind spells are good), a way to protect from Archery (Invisibility + Range is good)...

And embarass him with Magic Missiles.

HunterOfJello
2010-04-18, 06:43 AM
1. Dominate Person
2. "Go Stand in that Corner"
3. Set up a bunch of explosive and dangerous runes.
4. "Walk over here"


~~~


I'd be good to look for spells that ignore spell resistance. He'll probably have a bunch.

Mastikator
2010-04-18, 06:47 AM
The fighter must use his gold to buy a potion of anti magic field, and throwing weapons that hit the caster with greater dispel magic (since the anti-magic field only affects the magical throwing weapons while inside the field), and the wizard has no chance to disable the anti-magic field. And any buff will wear off when the throwing weapons hit him. He won't really stand a chance against the fighter without his spells.

Basically, whoever wins initiative wins the fight.

Anterean
2010-04-18, 06:48 AM
I am a big fan of invisibility.

Remember it only breaks if you directly attack your opponent. Thus it allows you to cast your preparation spells, summon a few monsters, heck if your "arena" allows for it you could even blast pillars and such to make them fall over your opponent.

Is this super efficient ? Nah but who doesn´t like toying with an inferior opponent ?

Kobold-Bard
2010-04-18, 06:54 AM
The fighter must use his gold to buy a potion of anti magic field, and throwing weapons that hit the caster with greater dispel magic (since the anti-magic field only affects the magical throwing weapons while inside the field), and the wizard has no chance to disable the anti-magic field. And any buff will wear off when the throwing weapons hit him. He won't really stand a chance against the fighter without his spells.

Basically, whoever wins initiative wins the fight.

Alternatively the Wizard fills the arena with Cloudkill and Dimension Door's away, then watches as the Fighter's Con is slowly whittled away.

HunterOfJello
2010-04-18, 06:55 AM
Boots, Winged are 15000gp and will let you fly for 15 minutes total
Gloves of Arrow Snaring for 4000gp could be useful



a Lavender and green Ioun Stone or rod of absorption could be used by him against single target spells

Emmerask
2010-04-18, 06:56 AM
The fighter must use his gold to buy a potion of anti magic field, and throwing weapons that hit the caster with greater dispel magic (since the anti-magic field only affects the magical throwing weapons while inside the field), and the wizard has no chance to disable the anti-magic field. And any buff will wear off when the throwing weapons hit him. He won't really stand a chance against the fighter without his spells.

Basically, whoever wins initiative wins the fight.


Afaik there is no antimagic field potion using phb/dmg only (not even sure if there is one outside ^^)

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/potionsAndOils.htm

not in the list of potions available

Mastikator
2010-04-18, 07:00 AM
Is there any way you can get a anti-magic field into an item that a fighter could activate?

HunterOfJello
2010-04-18, 07:01 AM
only items that involve antimagic fields in core are scrolls

Mastikator
2010-04-18, 07:02 AM
What's the UMD to activate a scroll again? specifically a 6th level.

Emmerask
2010-04-18, 07:04 AM
Use a scroll 20 + caster level

Volthawk
2010-04-18, 07:04 AM
What's the UMD to activate a scroll again?

For a scroll of antimagic field, 31 (or 32 if it was from a Sorcerer).

You also need 16 Int (or Cha if it was from a Sorcerer), or make another DC 21 UMD check.

And a Fighter gets 2+Int mod skill points, and UMD is cross-class, so yeah...

Kobold-Bard
2010-04-18, 07:06 AM
For a scroll of antimagic field, 31 (or 32 if it was from a Sorcerer).

You also need 16 Int (or Cha if it was from a Sorcerer), or make another DC 21 UMD check.

UMD score needed to activate a scroll is 26 actually (20+spell level (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/Usemagicdevice.htm)).

So a Fighter could have 6.5 ranks, realistically a Cha of +2 Max, meaning he needs a roll of 18 without item support.

\/---- Edit: Damn, so it is. My mistake.

Volthawk
2010-04-18, 07:07 AM
UMD score needed to activate a scroll is 26 actually (20+spell level (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/Usemagicdevice.htm)).

So a Fighter could have 6.5 ranks, realistically a Cha of +2 Max, meaning he needs a roll of 18 without item support.

Nope. It's 20+caster level.

jpreem
2010-04-18, 07:08 AM
The fighter must use his gold to buy a potion of anti magic field, and throwing weapons that hit the caster with greater dispel magic (since the anti-magic field only affects the magical throwing weapons while inside the field), and the wizard has no chance to disable the anti-magic field. And any buff will wear off when the throwing weapons hit him. He won't really stand a chance against the fighter without his spells.

Basically, whoever wins initiative wins the fight.

How will the throwing wepon cast the Greater Dispel magic? You could load a dispel magic in a spell storing weapon but those allow only up to 3rd level spells.

pffh
2010-04-18, 07:08 AM
UMD score needed to activate a scroll is 26 actually (20+spell level (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/Usemagicdevice.htm)).

So a Fighter could have 6.5 ranks, realistically a Cha of +2 Max, meaning he needs a roll of 18 without item support.

Nope it's 20+caster level so he has no chance of using that scroll.

Emmerask
2010-04-18, 07:10 AM
[S]UMD score needed to activate a scroll is 26 actually (20+spell level (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/Usemagicdevice.htm)).


20+ spell level is to Decipher a written spell :smallsmile:

He could also take skill focus umd + cloak of charisma (no need for other magic items anyway because he will fight in the amf ^^
and we are using raw so masterwork umd tool for another bonus


/edit anyway this is a bit much and doesn´t show anything in the end even if the fighter would win because he would be optimized just for that one purpose everything else he would suck at ^^

Mentok
2010-04-18, 07:17 AM
If the fighter fellow is designing himself for a wizard duel and neither side is allowed to prebuff, he could be an archer with Improved Initiative and spell-storing arrows (as well as boots of speed for one extra arrow), going before you can even whip out a wind wall.

Otherwise; your best bet is a cube of force (face #3) if you can't see him at the start followed by true seeing then major image (or some other illusion) to draw him out. Once you find him, force cage + wall of stone + cloudkill.

Now personally, I'm fond of the Rod of Extend along with summon monster VII for an osyluth to trap him in an matryoshka ice prison of nightmares. By the time the fighter manages to survive that thing from over two minutes of relentless misdirection and frostbite, you'll have a full understanding of what you're fighting and can cast your second spell >.<

Volthawk
2010-04-18, 07:22 AM
Besides, the Wizard could simply go out of the AMF, considering the Fighter had used his standard action on the scroll.

Radar
2010-04-18, 07:41 AM
+1 for the Forcecage

Round 1: Solid Fog (so he won't get anywhere)
Round 2: Cloudkill
Round 3: Forcecage
Round 4: mix yourself a drink, while you wait for spells to do your work

Having a Contingent Dimension Door will prevent the fighter from doing you any harm, if he wins initiative.

Kobold-Bard
2010-04-18, 07:45 AM
...Round 4: mix yourself a drink, while you wait for spells to do your work...

Better yet conjure an unseen servant to do it for you.

Lateral
2010-04-18, 07:50 AM
Cast hold monster (higher will save than hold person), curse him for the -4 on saving throws effect, limited wish him for -7 on his next save, baleful polymorph him into a toad, ray of frost. :smallbiggrin:

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-18, 07:54 AM
Alternatively the Wizard fills the arena with Cloudkill and Dimension Door's away, then watches as the Fighter's Con is slowly whittled away.

Any fighter I build in core would have this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#necklaceofAdaptation).

It limits the effectiveness of the Cloudkill bomb.


Given that the CK bomb requires either many 5th level cloudkills, or
4th, 5th, and 7th level spells...

And is neutered by a trinket of a necklace?

Eh.

Kobold-Bard
2010-04-18, 07:56 AM
Any fighter I build in core would have this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#necklaceofAdaptation).

It limits the effectiveness of the Cloudkill bomb.

How have I never seen that before :smallconfused:

Forcecage + Enervation/blasty death it is then.

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-18, 08:05 AM
How have I never seen that before :smallconfused:

Forcecage + Enervation/blasty death it is then.

Possible, but Forcecage is unnecessarily complex. Plus, it gives Cover. An Eversmoking bottle + movement would make it very difficult to hit in there.

I'm telling you. Greater Invisibility is the boon here. Show me the items that grant See Invisibility in core. Don't say potion, either, those only work for targeted spells. The Gem of Seeing is IT, beyond Candle of Invocation Shenanigans.

Kish
2010-04-18, 08:17 AM
If you really want to make your point, I'd suggest killing the fighter in a completely different, unrelated way each of the three fights, avoiding duplicating spells. If you always use the same spell combination, I can practically guarantee you the player will be convinced those spells are overpowered and wizards are fine if those spells aren't allowed, not that wizards are overpowered.

mostlyharmful
2010-04-18, 08:49 AM
Possible, but Forcecage is unnecessarily complex. Plus, it gives Cover. An Eversmoking bottle + movement would make it very difficult to hit in there.

I'm telling you. Greater Invisibility is the boon here. Show me the items that grant See Invisibility in core. Don't say potion, either, those only work for targeted spells. The Gem of Seeing is IT, beyond Candle of Invocation Shenanigans.

Hand of Glory (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#handofGlory) is always useful and gives see invis once a day but you've got to know when to use it, it costs an action and the CL is pants.

grab a ring of invisibility and scribe overland flight into your spellbook. There's now no real reason for the mage to start combat groundbound or visible, nevermind not having extra buff rounds this is just basic travelling buffs for a high leveller.

A targetted Greater Dispel pretty much ganks any chance for the meleer, follow it up with a shatter or two on his weapon and armour if you really want to rub it in. After that you could just order your bound minions to eat him, mindgank him into your flunky or strand him in some hilariously inaccessible place like the surface of the moon or one of the Githzerai's monasteries....:smallbiggrin:

Lycanthromancer
2010-04-18, 09:01 AM
No wizard in his right mind wouldn't have cast spells sometime during the past infinity.

Use planar binding to grab a nightmare, use it to astral project yourself, hide your body in your Heward's Handy Haversack.

Also have a ring of invisibility and summon at him.

Heck, several castings of animate dead, planar binding, and a scroll or two of simulacrum and clone can give you permanent bonuses, none of which are dispellable.

You can also have a book full of max-CL explosive runes that you can toss at him using your familiar's standard action, then use an area dispel magic prepared at CL 5 to detonate the entire book, all at once. No way he's gonna be alive after that.

Of course, going cheese, cast planar binding to get an efreeti, wish for simulacrums of more efreet to get infinite wishes via loops. Make your 123,456,789 wishes all in one standard action (ie, I wish (x3) all of you would blast him with magic missiles).

No spells cast beforehand? Yeah, right. Considering you can get tons of permanent (and instantaneous) benefits for casting, if you're not casting those spells (and have access to them), you're doing it wrong.

However, if you must follow through with this lunacy, use a Otiluke's resilient sphere (or telekinetic sphere, via scroll) around yourself, then buff buff buff.

Also, take Improved Initiative, get Gloves of Dex +6, and have the highest Dex you can get, and an item (luck blade sans wishes) in case you roll low. No sense in getting low Initiative.

Also, make two setups, both using the same wizard. One without preparations at all, and one where you're fully cheesed-out with all the permanent/instantaneous/hour-per-level spells you can find, and make sure he knows you can splatter him at any time you care to.

Oh, and have a wand of Rary's mnemonic enhancer, which you used that morning. You now have an extra 150 levels of spells to levy at him.

BTW, how many ways of dealing death do you think he'd sit still for? I'm pretty sure we could come up with hundreds that are nigh impossible to avoid or defend against for a single fighter.

Evard
2010-04-18, 09:11 AM
Actually you shouldn't be fighting each others classes. You should have a third person play X monster and each of you fight said monster. Now this will take more fights and you have to find someone absolutely devious and evil so he/she won't hold back on either of you. The classes weren't meant to fight each other but monsters and NPCs.

The wizard is more powerful than the fighter BUT to show this in the game mechanics you would actually have to play the game like it was meant to be played.

Rust monsters
Any Adult Dragon
A couple Salamanders
or
A few Devils :D

See how long the fighter lasts versus the wizard and that will prove which is the better class/ stronger class

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-18, 09:15 AM
Actually you shouldn't be fighting each others classes. You should have a third person play X monster and each of you fight said monster. Now this will take more fights and you have to find someone absolutely devious and evil so he/she won't hold back on either of you. The classes weren't meant to fight each other but monsters and NPCs.

The wizard is more powerful than the fighter BUT to show this in the game mechanics you would actually have to play the game like it was meant to be played.

Rust monsters
Any Adult Dragon
A couple Salamanders
or
A few Devils :D

See how long the fighter lasts versus the wizard and that will prove which is the better class/ stronger class
This. However, the other isn't interested in logic, but in "Thok kill wizard".

Radar
2010-04-18, 09:17 AM
Any fighter I build in core would have this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#necklaceofAdaptation).

It limits the effectiveness of the Cloudkill bomb.


Given that the CK bomb requires either many 5th level cloudkills, or
4th, 5th, and 7th level spells...

And is neutered by a trinket of a necklace?

Eh.
Should have browse through available items, i guess. >_<

Anyway, I just stumbled upon Animal Growth spell. It can significantly buff a bunch of summoned animals. After applying the mentioned Greater Invisibility, summon let's say 1d3 Celestial Dire Lions (for Improved Grab and Pounce) and supersize them on the next round with Animal Growth. Solid Fog would still be usefull, to buy you some rounds to buff your summons even more.

Killer Angel
2010-04-18, 09:18 AM
Assuming no Surprise Round.
Assuming no Preparation rounds (no casting spells before the fight starts).
(snip)
Is it worth getting the Quicken Spell Feat?

We all know the fighter is dead: It can be more or less difficult depending on circumstances.
Are spells with a daily duration (overland flight) allowed? A spell like Contingency (13 day) enters in the "no casting spells before the fight starts"?
Because you know, if it's not, at that point I don't see why the fighter should have his armor on...

Yes, Quicken Spell is always useful, and at 13th lev. you can afford some.
Have fun with a quicken dispel magic versus any item he could use to escape your attack (Forcecage. Opps, so sorry for your cape of mountebank...).
I'ts also nice a quicken empowered ray of enfeeblement followed by ray of exaustion...
So many possibilities.

olelia
2010-04-18, 09:25 AM
Should have browse through available items, i guess. >_<

Anyway, I just stumbled upon Animal Growth spell. It can significantly buff a bunch of summoned animals. After applying the mentioned Greater Invisibility, summon let's say 1d3 Celestial Dire Lions (for Improved Grab and Pounce) and supersize them on the next round with Animal Growth. Solid Fog would still be usefull, to buy you some rounds to buff your summons even more.

No dice. Celestial means that it isn't an animal and can't be targeted by Animal Growth.

Soranar
2010-04-18, 09:25 AM
Improved invisibility+ flight

summon monsters, undead, planars

eventually he'll die, works around whatever magical defenses he might have

or

Improved invisibility+ flight

buff yourself to godhood

beat him in hand to hand to teach him a lesson

DragoonWraith
2010-04-18, 09:31 AM
I really think you should beat him in melee. Just because you can.

Lateral
2010-04-18, 09:37 AM
Actually you shouldn't be fighting each others classes. You should have a third person play X monster and each of you fight said monster. Now this will take more fights and you have to find someone absolutely devious and evil so he/she won't hold back on either of you. The classes weren't meant to fight each other but monsters and NPCs.

The wizard is more powerful than the fighter BUT to show this in the game mechanics you would actually have to play the game like it was meant to be played.

Rust monsters
Any Adult Dragon
A couple Salamanders
or
A few Devils :D

See how long the fighter lasts versus the wizard and that will prove which is the better class/ stronger class
Problem with that is, wizards are skooshy. If something gets in melee with you, you're dead. Although, you could conjure up some minions to be meat shields for you, then cast mass slow on your enemies and mass haste on your minions.

Amphetryon
2010-04-18, 09:37 AM
Improved Invisibility + Flight.

Geas: "Remove your armor." No save. SRD says most armor takes at least 1 minute to remove without help.

Summon as many beatsticks as you like to pound on the Fighter as he messes with the various buckles.

Kobold-Bard
2010-04-18, 09:40 AM
Problem with that is, wizards are skooshy. If something gets in melee with you, you're dead. Although, you could conjure up some minions to be meat shields for you, then cast mass slow on your enemies and mass haste on your minions.

Or Polymorph into a Troll then buff yourself.

Lateral
2010-04-18, 09:46 AM
Can you cast spells as a troll?

Eldariel
2010-04-18, 09:50 AM
"No spells cast before" is a pretty big limitation, and a pointless one at that. No Wizard has ever failed to cast spells until he's level 13; it's a completely artificial environment so that's pretty meh. 'cause things he could do:
- Lesser Planar Binding can e.g. get him a Succubus to spam SLAs and have fun, or Nightmare to use Astral Projection (in other words, invulnerability to everything ever) and Etherealness for free, Planar Binding can e.g. get him a Glabrezu (a simple CR13 brawler, but a good one) and Simulacrum could e.g. get him a Planetar with its level 17 Cleric casting; Miracle to replicate everything. All these come as consequences of just having 13th level arcane spellcasting.

Further, of course Contingency triggered to you saying certain word (speaking is a free action that can be taken out of turn order), Overland Flight, maybe couple of Extended 10 min/level spells, probably permanencied Arcane Sight, etc. You could also have a vest with dozens of Symbol-spells inscribed on them (just drop your robe as a free action at the beginning of combat and have him make saves), toss a rubber ball with a dozen Explosive Runes at 'em and cast Dispel Magic at your minimum caster level to detonate them all.

But honestly? Throw up a Windwall, spam Glitterdusts and such until he's blind and then just snipe him with whatever. Dispel his items if you feel so inclined; he'll probably have Necklace of Fireballs or some such ****. Polymorph yourself and your familiar into 12-headed Hydras or Remorzahs or some such after shared Quickened Mirror Images, Heroisms, Bull's Strengths and maybe all-day persistent Greater Magic Fang (might as well Teleport somewhere, buff up and Teleport back if you feel so inclined; chances are he cannot Greater Scry and Teleport after you).

The Glyphstone
2010-04-18, 09:51 AM
Yes - they have arms and can speak.



First, if he insists 'no buff rounds', then insist in return that his fighter starts the match without armor. He will complain about this, so offer to let him have armor, if you get the number of rounds it takes for him to armor up as buff rounds. Now it's "fair" i.e., you win.

Follow with the plan of multiple rounds, kill him a different way each time. Use Greater Invisibility/Fly/Windwall to neutralize his attacks.
-Cloudkill/Forcecage (if he has the Necklace, go to Round 2).
-Enervation spam.
-Summon Monster spam and overwhelm him.
-Stay invisible and blast him with direct damage spells over and over.
-Mind Fog, then zap him with enchantments, or just Telekinesis him all over the field.
-Buff yourself and your familiar with stat-boosters, False Life, Polymorph both of you into 12-headed hydras, cast Tenser's Transformation, then tear into him in melee. Save this for the last round, for maximum humiliation factor of being beaten at his own game.

Mushroom Ninja
2010-04-18, 09:54 AM
You don't need buff rounds as long as you can come into the battle with at least one long-term buff. If you can come into battle with contingency running (which lasts at least 13 days at this level), you've probably already won.

Kobold-Bard
2010-04-18, 09:56 AM
You don't need buff rounds as long as you can come into the battle with at least one long-term buff. If you can come into battle with contingency running (which lasts at least 13 days at this level), you've probably already won.

I think this thread has proved quite well that you need no pre-buffs. Forcecage is a killer, Invisibility is a killer, Coludkill/Summon Monsters are both killers.

Even if by some miracle the fighter does threaten the Wizard, he can just Dimension door away, Fly and stick a Wind Wall up.

Mushroom Ninja
2010-04-18, 10:04 AM
I think this thread has proved quite well that you need no pre-buffs. Forcecage is a killer, Invisibility is a killer, Coludkill/Summon Monsters are both killers.

Even if by some miracle the fighter does threaten the Wizard, he can just Dimension door away, Fly and stick a Wind Wall up.

Well, in the 70 ft. arena, you'd have to worry about winning initiative. If the fighter goes first and is able to reach you with a charge, you will almost certainly die.

I agree with you in bigger arenas, though. If you can act before the fighter reaches you, it's pretty certain that you're going to win.

Eldariel
2010-04-18, 10:07 AM
Well, in the 70 ft. arena, you'd have to worry about winning initiative. If the fighter goes first and is able to reach you with a charge, you will almost certainly die.

It's Core, that's far from granted, especially with Contingency in play (buff rounds, as I'm understanding them, mean short-term buffs). An optimized Fighter's Mounted Charge would do possibly enough, but again, Contingency means it is unlike to connect and it's not a given in the first place.

Amphetryon
2010-04-18, 10:07 AM
Well, in the 70 ft. arena, you'd have to worry about winning initiative. If the fighter goes first and is able to reach you with a charge, you will almost certainly die.

I agree with you in bigger arenas, though. If you can act before the fighter reaches you, it's pretty certain that you're going to win.
Abrupt Jaunt solves that problem outside core. Contingent DDoor can work similarly in core, assuming the Wizard is somehow charge-able at the start of the arena match.

Tinydwarfman
2010-04-18, 10:09 AM
If the wizard can't have all day buffs up, then the fighter has to put on his armor at the beginning of the arena. They're pretty much the same thing. Since when do you not have your phantom steed or overland flight always up?

Mushroom Ninja
2010-04-18, 10:10 AM
Contingent DDoor can work similarly in core, assuming the Wizard is somehow charge-able at the start of the arena match.

That's what I was saying. In the 70ft area without contingency, there's no rock-solid assurance that the wizard will win. It comes down to an initiative match.

EDIT: I'm working under the assumption that the OP's ban on preparatory spellcasting extends back indefinitely (i.e. no casting contingency 12 day before the battle).

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-18, 10:12 AM
"No preparation rounds" would indicate no short spells.

Multiday buffs are reasonable. At level 7 spells, and CL 13? Why, an Ioun Stone for +1 CL, and an Extended Contingency lasts a full month. It's hard to argue such a spell would not be long term.

Kobold-Bard
2010-04-18, 10:15 AM
"No preparation rounds" would indicate no short spells.

Multiday buffs are reasonable. At level 7 spells, and CL 13? Why, an Ioun Stone for +1 CL, and an Extended Contingency lasts a full month. It's hard to argue such a spell would not be long term.

But even assuming no long term buffs you just start with your familiar in the square in front of you, so the Fighter has to waste a turn killing it first because he can't charge past it. You can then fly off and proceed to rain down your apocalypse of choice.

mostlyharmful
2010-04-18, 10:18 AM
Problem with that is, wizards are skooshy. If something gets in melee with you, you're dead. Although, you could conjure up some minions to be meat shields for you, then cast mass slow on your enemies and mass haste on your minions.

mage armour, mirror image, displacement, blur, blink, polymorph, resilient sphere, greater invisibility, enlarge person, bull's strength, false life, fire shield, heroism, greater magic weapon and stoneskin would like a word with you. Just because it's not efficient doesn't mean mages can't own in melee.

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-18, 10:30 AM
mage armour, mirror image, displacement, blur, blink, polymorph, resilient sphere, greater invisibility, enlarge person, bull's strength, false life, fire shield, heroism, greater magic weapon and stoneskin would like a word with you. Just because it's not efficient doesn't mean mages can't own in melee.

That's a long list of buffs that won't be started with.

If you want to own in melee, you be a cleric, or a druid.

mostlyharmful
2010-04-18, 10:31 AM
That's a long list of buffs that won't be started with.

If you want to own in melee, you be a cleric, or a druid.

if it has been established that hour/cl buffs are on then you've got contingencied DimDoor. Now you have time to put them all on. Also, overland flight and invisibility (through ring) are on so what's the problem? Again, it's not that it's efficient it's that it can easily be done.

Learnedguy
2010-04-18, 10:39 AM
If the wizard can't have all day buffs up, then the fighter has to put on his armor at the beginning of the arena. They're pretty much the same thing. Since when do you not have your phantom steed or overland flight always up?

No, not allowing the Wizard to memorize any spells and the fighter to put on any armor is about the same. Anyway, why does it matter? If I were the fighter guy I wouldn't want a heavy plate anyway in this fight.

Anyway, somehow, I'm rooting for the underdog here. No offense mate, but I hope your wizard chokes on an arrow:smallbiggrin:!

When I see those pointy hats, I can't help myself but imagine putting them on fire:smallredface:

The Glyphstone
2010-04-18, 10:39 AM
Well, in the 70 ft. arena, you'd have to worry about winning initiative. If the fighter goes first and is able to reach you with a charge, you will almost certainly die.



we are talking Core-Only here, so there's no Uberchargers and no Pounce.
A 13th level Wizard with Con 16 (a fair assumption) will have 73 HP. A 13th level fighter 2-handing with a +3 weapon and Str 22 (also fair) will swing for +22, dealing 2d6+12, average 25. At maximum Power Attack, he trades +13 to-hit for +26 damage, an average hit of 51.

So even with Max power attack against unbuffed wizard AC, he has to critical hit to one-shot the wizard. Far from initiative rocket tag.


No, not allowing the Wizard to memorize any spells and the fighter to put on any armor is about the same. Anyway, why does it matter? If I were the fighter guy I wouldn't want a heavy plate anyway in this fight.

The difference is the wizard doesn't need to memorize his spells, if he did it yesterday and didn't cast any...or the day before, or the day before that. He only needs to do it once, then avoid any trouble for following days. The fighter has to take his armor off every night if he doesn't want to be Fatigued, unless he's in Medium armor and wasted a feat on Endurance specifically for this contingency.

Learnedguy
2010-04-18, 10:52 AM
The difference is the wizard doesn't need to memorize his spells, if he did it yesterday and didn't cast any...or the day before, or the day before that. He only needs to do it once, then avoid any trouble for following days. The fighter has to take his armor off every night if he doesn't want to be Fatigued, unless he's in Medium armor and wasted a feat on Endurance specifically for this contingency.

Well in that case I bet the Wizard won't have any problem with having most of his spell resources used then, assuming he's been going through the regular encounter a player character goes through daily (that is, four encounters of suitable CR)?

Saying a fighter can't have any armor because the wizard doesn't get to pre-buff is a silly argument, as the no pre-buffs goes both ways. I bet the fighter wouldn't mind using a few buffs from from magic items on his own if he could.

mostlyharmful
2010-04-18, 10:55 AM
Well in that case I bet the Wizard won't have any problem with having most of his spell resources used then, assuming he's been going through the regular encounter a player character goes through daily (that is, four encounters of suitable CR)?

Saying a fighter can't have any armor because the wizard doesn't get to pre-buff is a silly argument, as the no pre-buffs goes both way. I bet the fighter wouldn't mind using a few buffs from from magic items on his own if he could.

What? the point was that spells aren't used up if they don't get used. Saying the wizard can't cast anything beforehand is silly, it's also the only way the fighter doesn't get mullered. Saying the wizard can't have any spells even memorized as well as having none precast is frankly ludicrous.

AmberVael
2010-04-18, 10:57 AM
Saying a fighter can't have any armor because the wizard doesn't get to pre-buff is a silly argument, as the no pre-buffs goes both ways. I bet the fighter wouldn't mind using a few buffs from from magic items on his own if he could.

The Fighter puts on his armor in the morning.

I don't know about anyone else (okay, that's a lie, I know other people do this), but my casters cast a number of buffs at the same time the Fighter is putting on his armor, because they'll pretty much last 24 hours.

If you want to disallow rounds right before combat that grant buff time? Okay. But if you want to say someone can't have my buffs up that their character would have up active without fail all day, just as a Fighter would have his armor on without fail, then that's a bit of an unfair disadvantage

Eldariel
2010-04-18, 10:58 AM
we are talking Core-Only here, so there's no Uberchargers and no Pounce.
A 13th level Wizard with Con 16 (a fair assumption) will have 73 HP. A 13th level fighter 2-handing with a +3 weapon and Str 22 (also fair) will swing for +22, dealing 2d6+12, average 25. At maximum Power Attack, he trades +13 to-hit for +26 damage, an average hit of 51.

So even with Max power attack against unbuffed wizard AC, he has to critical hit to one-shot the wizard. Far from initiative rocket tag.

Like I said, Mounted Charger. You get 3xdamage or 151, easily enough. You also make the Fighter an Orc and stack up various smaller bonuses To Hit and get maybe ~+20 for ~120 or so. Either way, killing in one turn shouldn't be a problem. Flying Mount and so on, obviously. He'll even have some rudimentary area control ability in the meanwhile since this is Core and might as well.

Learnedguy
2010-04-18, 11:08 AM
What? the point was that spells aren't used up if they don't get used. Saying the wizard can't cast anything beforehand is silly, it's also the only way the fighter doesn't get mullered. Saying the wizard can't have any spells even memorized as well as having none precast is frankly ludicrous.

Well, I suppose it depends on the buff spells used. Anything with a duration to last all day can always be assumed to be active, that I admit.

I'm just saying that a fighter without armor is more like a wizard without any spells memorized than a wizard without any buffs, because the fifteen minutes after a eight hours rest that the wizard uses to learn todays spells is about the same time it would take a fighter to get inside his armor (well, I suppose that depends on the armor and if he got anyone helping him).

And in theory, a wizard would expend all of his resources in a day (A fourth per encounter I think it was), which would mean that if he doesn't memorize any during the night, he'll have to do without the next. But of course, it is an idealized scenario that probably doesn't exist in practice.

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-18, 11:09 AM
we are talking Core-Only here, so there's no Uberchargers and no Pounce.
A 13th level Wizard with Con 16 (a fair assumption) will have 73 HP. A 13th level fighter 2-handing with a +3 weapon and Str 22 (also fair) will swing for +22, dealing 2d6+12, average 25. At maximum Power Attack, he trades +13 to-hit for +26 damage, an average hit of 51.
A level 13 fighter in core can achieve far higher than that.
18(base)+2(Race, half orc)+2(level)+6(item)=28.

Also, 51 damage forces a massive damage save.

Like I said, Mounted Charger. You get 3xdamage or 151, easily enough. You also make the Fighter an Orc and stack up various smaller bonuses To Hit and get maybe ~+20 for ~120 or so. Either way, killing in one turn shouldn't be a problem. Flying Mount and so on, obviously. He'll even have some rudimentary area control ability in the meanwhile since this is Core and might as well.
Depends. If no all day buffs are on, it's reasonable to assume:
Shields are not readied, weapons are not drawn, and mounts are not ridden.

This obviates the ability to charge without quick draw (even BAB 1+ requires drawing as a part of a regular move), ubermountcharge, and the like.

And Mounting, or drawing a sword is comparable to casting a single buff.

Oslecamo
2010-04-18, 11:09 AM
Like I said, Mounted Charger. You get 3xdamage or 151, easily enough. You also make the Fighter an Orc and stack up various smaller bonuses To Hit and get maybe ~+20 for ~120 or so.

Ah, the original uber charger. Before shock trooper and and leap attack, there were valiant knights charging in horse gryphon back!



Either way, killing in one turn shouldn't be a problem. Flying Mount and so on, obviously. He'll even have some rudimentary area control ability in the meanwhile since this is Core and might as well.

Indeed, in core there's really only so much feats you can pick for each combat strategy, so a fighter actualy gets to diversify!

Eldariel
2010-04-18, 11:11 AM
Depends. If no all day buffs are on, it's reasonable to assume:
Shields are not readied, weapons are not drawn, and mounts are not ridden.

This obviates the ability to charge without quick draw (even BAB 1+ requires drawing as a part of a regular move), ubermountcharge, and the like.

And Mounting, or drawing a sword is comparable to casting a single buff.

Not a problem, mounting is a free action (as per Ride-skill), drawing lance is a free action (as per Quick Draw; it's a Core Fighter, might as well).

Learnedguy
2010-04-18, 11:11 AM
A level 13 fighter in core can achieve far higher than that.
18(base)+2(Race, half orc)+2(level)+6(item)=28.

Also, 51 damage forces a massive damage save.

Depends. If no all day buffs are on, it's reasonable to assume:
Shields are not readied, weapons are not drawn, and mounts are not ridden.

This obviates the ability to charge without quick draw (even BAB 1+ requires drawing as a part of a regular move), ubermountcharge, and the like.

And Mounting, or drawing a sword is comparable to casting a single buff.

Why wouldn't you be riding your mount? Do you bring it along for company:smallconfused:?

And weapon's can be drawn as part of a move action even if you doesn't spend a feat on doing it faster (which, in a contest of speed, might be reasonable, depending on strategy)

Nidogg
2010-04-18, 11:16 AM
That's a long list of buffs that won't be started with.

If you want to own in melee, you be a cleric, or a druid.
Cast contingency for a time stop. with quicken, your losing high level spell slots (and money for the TS)But you can just own by buffing yourself out the window in d4 rounds

Eldariel
2010-04-18, 11:16 AM
Why wouldn't you be riding your mount? Do you bring it along for company:smallconfused:?

For the same reason the Wizard didn't cast Overland Flight, Contingency and so on? The damn rules.


And weapon's can be drawn as part of a move action even if you doesn't spend a feat on doing it faster (which, in a contest of speed, might be reasonable, depending on strategy)

Not as a part of a charge as that doesn't involve a move action..



Cast contingency for a time stop. with quicken, your losing high level spell slots (and money for the TS)But you can just own by buffing yourself out the window in d4 rounds

Time Stop isn't a legal target for Contingency without Reserves of Strength and CL 27.

Flickerdart
2010-04-18, 11:19 AM
If the Fighter gets to bring a Mount, the Wizard gets to bring a mount of his choice too, such as a Nightmare or a Succubus. It's only fair.

mostlyharmful
2010-04-18, 11:20 AM
Well, I suppose it depends on the buff spells used. Anything with a duration to last all day can always be assumed to be active, that I admit.

I'm just saying that a fighter without armor is more like a wizard without any spells memorized than a wizard without any buffs, because the fifteen minutes after a eight hours rest that the wizard uses to learn todays spells is about the same time it would take a fighter to get inside his armor (well, I suppose that depends on the armor and if he got anyone helping him).

And in theory, a wizard would expend all of his resources in a day (A fourth per encounter I think it was), which would mean that if he doesn't memorize any during the night, he'll have to do without the next. But of course, it is an idealized scenario that probably doesn't exist in practice.

For a level 13 wizard you have so many options to withdraw or hide longterm there's just about no reason that the mage shouldn't be able to find safety to prepare his magic, unless you want this fighter beamed into the mages rope trick which he casts at fourteen hundred feet up in the air or to inside his tower on the moon... hm.....

A wizard without spells memorized is more like a fighter with no armour, no weapon and no equipment... that's been tied up... and can't have any of his friends available....

A wizard without spells still has his minions that he's bound or raised or made, he still has the permenant effects on himself and he still has access to the benefits his casting has created in the past. So, if the wizard doesn't have any spells memorized what say he has a dozen bound outsiders and infinite wealth instead?

Oslecamo
2010-04-18, 11:25 AM
If the Fighter gets to bring a Mount, the Wizard gets to bring a mount of his choice too, such as a Nightmare or a Succubus. It's only fair.

Mount is equipment. There's listed prices for them and will come out of the fighter's budget. There's no listed prices for geting a nightmare or succubus, altough the last may serve you in return for your immortal soul

The wizard could get something like a golem or homunculus I guess since those actualy have prices.

Otherwise both sides may as well pick leadership for diplomancer bards and rise armies of mooks to duel.

Eldariel
2010-04-18, 11:27 AM
If the Fighter gets to bring a Mount, the Wizard gets to bring a mount of his choice too, such as a Nightmare or a Succubus. It's only fair.

As I understand by these stupid hypothetical rules, that's not possible with no precast spells. The Wizard would be allowed to purchase one with WBL tho, but Nightmares and Succubi are not available as such. Of course, all this is dumb since it hinges on the artificial settings where Wizard does not have all-day spells on, which is just dumb as that's never going to happen and as such, the whole fight would be completely and utterly meaningless. But yeah, it's possible to craft rules where the Fighter has a ~50% chance of winning.

Learnedguy
2010-04-18, 11:27 AM
Not as a part of a charge as that doesn't involve a move action..

That's true. Can you quick draw and still charge though? Sure, quick draw is a crappy feat, but if your whole strategy relies on being able to charge on the first round, it might be worth considering.

The part about not being allowed to mount being synonymous to not being allowed to buff though is worth thinking about. Is a mount a piece of equipment (Because it is bought with money usually) or a buff (for instance, a paladin's class feature could probably be considered a buff of sorts, as it has to be summoned first).

Personally, I'd consider the mount a piece of equipment (because it's beneficial for my argument), meaning that if you're not riding your mount, you probably left your sword at home as well. Which means you're dead, you just haven't realized it yet.

Eldariel
2010-04-18, 11:28 AM
That's true. Can you quick draw and still charge though? Sure, quick draw is a crappy feat, but if your whole strategy relies on being able to charge on the first round, it might be worth considering.

Yes, you can Quick Draw and charge. I even said as much. Twice at least.

Learnedguy
2010-04-18, 11:31 AM
Yes, you can Quick Draw and charge. I even said as much. Twice at least.

Oh. That's nice then:smallbiggrin:


For a level 13 wizard you have so many options to withdraw or hide longterm there's just about no reason that the mage shouldn't be able to find safety to prepare his magic, unless you want this fighter beamed into the mages rope trick which he casts at fourteen hundred feet up in the air or to inside his tower on the moon... hm.....

A wizard without spells memorized is more like a fighter with no armour, no weapon and no equipment... that's been tied up... and can't have any of his friends available....

A wizard without spells still has his minions that he's bound or raised or made, he still has the permenant effects on himself and he still has access to the benefits his casting has created in the past. So, if the wizard doesn't have any spells memorized what say he has a dozen bound outsiders and infinite wealth instead?

Sheesh, you could at least try to keep your arguments reasonable. Just because a wizard doesn't have any spells available doesn't automatically turn him into Stephen Hawking:smallsigh:

Anyway, what good does the level 13 wizards multitude of options for running away help in a battle? That just means he managed to tie. Personally I wouldn't be sticking around until the wizard dares showing his face again.

The wizard got many options to withdrawn. The fighter got one for walking away after the wizard chickened out of the duel.

Eldariel
2010-04-18, 11:37 AM
The wizard got many options to withdrawn. The fighter got one for walking away after the wizard chickened out of the duel.

The point was that Wizard Teleports away, throws up half a dozen buffs, Scries the Fighter, Teleports back and kicks the everloving out of him. Fighter has no such option. Not optimal but possible. Point being, with the way spells fall, the fight will always happen on the Wizard's terms.

mostlyharmful
2010-04-18, 11:38 AM
Sheesh, you could at least try to keep your arguments reasonable. Just because a wizard doesn't have any spells available doesn't automatically turn him into Stephen Hawking:smallsigh:

Anyway, what good does the level 13 wizards multitude of options for running away help in a battle? That just means he managed to tie.

Those are reasonable arguments. A wizard that uses his int and his spells he's able to set up multiple layers of protection that pretty much make this an unwinnable match if the player feels like it and from an ingame perspective it's metagaming to play the wizard as anything less since it's his life that's on the line.

And running away being a defeat is anouther meaningless rule designed with letting the fighter compete, withdrawing in complete safety, rearming/equiping and returning at a time of your choosing isn't a loss.

Fighter: Mwaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!
Mage: Teleport.
Fighter: woop! I win!
Dm: Yeah, well that sucks as a fight.
Mage: I'm not done.
DM: Yeah you are, you left.
Mage: I'm alive, I can return when I want, he can't stop me, find me, protect himself, flee or do anything really except wait for my inevitable victory.
DM: Nah, you lose.
Mage: :smallmad::smallyuk:

Learnedguy
2010-04-18, 11:40 AM
The point was that Wizard Teleports away, throws up half a dozen buffs, Scries the Fighter, Teleports back and kicks the everloving out of him. Fighter has no such option. Not optimal but possible. Point being, with the way spells fall, the fight will always happen on the Wizard's terms.

Unless the fighter wins initiative and kills the wizard on the first turn. Or give him a fake name. Would that work on a scrying spell? How does the scrying spell know who you want to scry on anyway? I can't remember reading anywhere how a scrying spell works. I mean, can you locate someone who didn't give you his name and didn't show you his face (say, he was wearing women's pantyhose on his face)?


Fighter: Mwaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!
Mage: Teleport.
Fighter: woop! I win!
Dm: Yeah, well that sucks as a fight.
Mage: I'm not done.
DM: Yeah you are, you left.
Mage: I'm alive, I can return when I want, he can't stop me, find me, protect himself, flee or do anything really except wait for my inevitable victory.
DM: Nah, you lose.
Mage: :smallmad::smallyuk:

:smallbiggrin:

Arakune
2010-04-18, 11:41 AM
Make two wizards: one that is blasty and another one that will actually win. Ask him which one he meant by "perfectly balanced".

Volthawk
2010-04-18, 11:43 AM
Unless the fighter wins initiative and kills the wizard on the first turn. Or give him a fake name. Would that work on a scrying spell? How does the scrying spell know who you want to scry on anyway? I can't remember reading anywhere how a scrying spell works:smallconfused:

Nope, you'd have met him firsthand, so you can scry on him with him getting any bonus to his saves. Hell, Mr Wizard could Scry without seeing or hearing of him, if there is 'some kind of connection'.

Eldariel
2010-04-18, 11:44 AM
Unless the fighter wins initiative and kills the wizard on the first turn. Or give him a fake name. Would that work on a scrying spell? How does the scrying spell know who you want to scry on anyway? I can't remember reading anywhere how a scrying spell works:smallconfused:

Which, again, isn't happening on any reasonable terms of engagement; as long as Wizard has his all-day abilities and has existed prior to the fight, his protections and such will be sufficient to make death unlikely at the best.

As for Scrying, see Scrying (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/scrying.htm) and more importantly, Greater Scrying (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/scryingGreater.htm). Sure, there's the save, but what do you care? He'll fail eventually and he can't act back.

mostlyharmful
2010-04-18, 11:44 AM
Unless the fighter wins initiative and kills the wizard on the first turn. Or give him a fake name. Would that work on a scrying spell? How does the scrying spell know who you want to scry on anyway? I can't remember reading anywhere how a scrying spell works:smallconfused:



:smallbiggrin:

contingency sorts that out. And 'that guy that just tried to kill me in the place I was just five minutes ago' would seem a reasonable focus, and if it isn't ruled so you're a wizard... you've got the whole school of divination which, again, the fighter doesn't.

Flickerdart
2010-04-18, 11:49 AM
Mount is equipment. There's listed prices for them and will come out of the fighter's budget. There's no listed prices for geting a nightmare or succubus, altough the last may serve you in return for your immortal soul
There are market prices for Planar Binding and such. The Wizard has simply purchased the casting of the spell. And then peddled his services for that spell so that there is no impact on his wealth.

tyckspoon
2010-04-18, 11:56 AM
Personally, I'd consider the mount a piece of equipment (because it's beneficial for my argument), meaning that if you're not riding your mount, you probably left your sword at home as well. Which means you're dead, you just haven't realized it yet.

It's equipment that needs to be activated like a buff to be used, the same way a Ring of Invisibility or Winged Boots would be. A good Ride check can obviate the action problem involved, but it still needs to be taken, and so you can't start mounted if you're going to be strict on the wizard about no prebuffs.


Basically we need more clarification on the actual terms of engagements. Are the combatants supposed to be combat-ready and simply restricted from taking specific short-term buffs/preparations for their opponent? In that case the Fighter should have his armor on, weapon out, and be mounted if applicable.. but the Wizard should also have a Mage Armor, Contingency, and have Overland Flight running/be riding a Phantom Steed, because just like the Fighter arming himself that's what a Wizard does to be generally ready for going into a potential fight. The no-buff limit would then prevent the Fighter from going 'oh, I'm about to run into a Wizard, better get my Scroll of AMF out' and the Wizard from going 'oh, I'm about to handle a Fighter, better cast Mirror Image.' This seems like the most sensible starting point for the arena matches.

If they're not meant to be combat-ready, then the Fighter still has his armor on, but he may not be mounted and his weapon is probably sheathed. The Wizard.. is still flying, still has a Contingency. Because once you have those set up there's no sane reason to *not* be using them, whereas the Fighter may be resting his mount or have needed his hands to do some other task while ambling around or is in camp or..whatever.

If they're meant to be *completely* unprepared to fight, the Fighter gets no mount, no armor, no weapon.. but the Wizard still flies and still has a Contingency, because again, he has no sane reason not to have those effects running for as long as their durations last.

Oslecamo
2010-04-18, 11:59 AM
There are market prices for Planar Binding and such. The Wizard has simply purchased the casting of the spell. And then peddled his services for that spell so that there is no impact on his wealth.

And what's exactly stoping the fighter from peddling his services to get super minions as well? Fixed wealth is fixed. The fighter ain't buying a candle of invocation to start a chain binding business as well.

Learnedguy
2010-04-18, 12:02 PM
Which, again, isn't happening on any reasonable terms of engagement; as long as Wizard has his all-day abilities and has existed prior to the fight, his protections and such will be sufficient to make death unlikely at the best.

As for Scrying, see Scrying (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/scrying.htm) and more importantly, Greater Scrying (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/scryingGreater.htm). Sure, there's the save, but what do you care? He'll fail eventually and he can't act back.

Of course he can act back. Sure, he's at a disadvantage (the moment you decided to take on a smart wizard without a bit of funny initial skullduggery meant you'd be disadvantaging yourself), but nothing is stopping him from trying to find you and get the jump on you instead. Or perhaps arranging a fancy little counter-trap a lá the Redcloak/Xykon vs V encounter. Or maybe just making escape arrangements of his own.

Of course, at this point the whole thing is turning A, Silly and B, into a duel of magic, so the whole point of the battle has gotten lost. Rather that you'd just pickpocketed his spell regents before the fight started in the first place.

Yukitsu
2010-04-18, 12:02 PM
Fighter services don't cost much. Something like, 26 gold per day or something like that?

Eldariel
2010-04-18, 12:05 PM
Of course he can act back. Sure, he's at a disadvantage (the moment you take on a smart wizard without a bit of funny initial skullduggery meant you'd be at a disadvantage), but nothing is stopping him from trying to find you and get the jump on you instead. Or maybe just making escape arrangements of his own.

Of course, at this point the whole thing is turning A, Silly and B, into a duel of magic, so the whole point of the battle has gotten lost. Rather that you'd just pickpocketed his spell regents before the fight started in the first place.

He really lacks the mobility to get to someone capable of moving 500 miles a second, and the detection to locate the same fellow. Wizard has both. It's not really silly; that's what Wizards in actual games do. Scry-'n'-Die is a famous moniker for a reason. And it's just another reason a level 13 character without Teleportation isn't really much of a player in anything big; movement without teleportation is just sad compared to the speed of teleports.

Fact is that if we step away from some stupid challenge parameters and just pit a real Wizard and a real Fighter in a real gameworld played to some degree of competency (defined as "being aware of all their relevant options and making intelligent choices with regards to which to use, which to have prepared, which feats to pick, how to spend their money and so on") against each other as they would face in a real game, the Fighter doesn't have a prayer.

Learnedguy
2010-04-18, 12:09 PM
He really lacks the mobility to get to someone capable of moving 500 miles a second, and the detection to locate the same fellow. Wizard has both. It's not really silly; that's what Wizards in actual games do. Scry-'n'-Die is a famous moniker for a reason. And it's just another reason a level 13 character without Teleportation isn't really much of a player in anything big; movement without teleportation is just sad compared to the speed of teleports.

Yeah, that's why I'm saying it's a moot point. At this point the fighter needs to start using his wealth to buy significant magic services in order to compete with the wizard, meaning he's basically a worse off, more money dependent wizard.

I was just pointing out that just because scry-and-die exist, it doesn't mean you're a walking dead man. It does though mean that you lost the initiative roll at your initial encounter:smallyuk:.

Flickerdart
2010-04-18, 12:10 PM
And what's exactly stoping the fighter from peddling his services to get super minions as well? Fixed wealth is fixed. The fighter ain't buying a candle of invocation to start a chain binding business as well.
Nothing at all, except that he can't make back the money. And that the Wizard can proceed to dispel the Fighter's stuff at his leisure.

The Glyphstone
2010-04-18, 12:10 PM
Well in that case I bet the Wizard won't have any problem with having most of his spell resources used then, assuming he's been going through the regular encounter a player character goes through daily (that is, four encounters of suitable CR)?

Saying a fighter can't have any armor because the wizard doesn't get to pre-buff is a silly argument, as the no pre-buffs goes both ways. I bet the fighter wouldn't mind using a few buffs from from magic items on his own if he could.

And what will the fighter's HP be sitting at after those same 4 encounters? The Wizard only needs to go 1 day without any encounters (which he can do, by hiding in Rope Tricks) to be refreshed. He also has many more options to escape a fight he doesn't want to spend spell slots on, by Flying/Teleporting to safety. The Fighter, assuming the "math" that CR represents, will be losing 20% of his resources - his HP - each fight..that's 80% of his health gone before he rests, and he can only recover a max of 13 HP/night, which will almost certainly be 10% or less of his total. All he can do to reduce this loss is run or ride away, and hope the monster isn't faster than he is.

If the Fighter wants buffs from magic items, he's welcome to them...he can't manage Scrolls, so he's left with Wands and the occasional Wondrous Item, which will either be low-CL or extremely expensive. Exceptions, such as Winged Boots, should be mandatory gear at this level. If they're not, bludgeon the player unconscious with the DMG, and use the time till he wakes up to buy them for him.

I did forget about the damage potential of Mounted Combat Chargers...so if the Fighter player is smart enough to build one, then it does become rocket tag again. The sort of player who thinks 'Wizards = Fighters' is psychologically more likely to equate mounted combat with Paladins though, so it's not guaranteed.

mostlyharmful
2010-04-18, 12:10 PM
Of course he can act back. Sure, he's at a disadvantage (the moment you take on a smart wizard without a bit of funny initial skullduggery meant you'd be at a disadvantage), but nothing is stopping him from trying to find you and get the jump on you instead. Or perhaps arranging a fancy little counter-trap a lá the Redcloak/Xykon vs V encounter. Or maybe just making escape arrangements of his own.

The wizard has methods of instanteous retreat, to an unspecified location that can only really be found with magic and can use magic to locate and reach the fighter. The fighter gets none of this. If the mage teleports to his bunker/hideout lair carved with disintegrate from the heart of a mountain four hundred miles away the instant his contingency activates then Gather Information won't find him, it'll locate his home cottage which he doesn't retreat to.

A mage can play this game, a fighter can't.


Of course, at this point the whole thing is turning A, Silly and B, into a duel of magic, so the whole point of the battle has gotten lost.

Not really, given that the mage can easily turn this into a game where only those who can cast have a chance... that's exactly what the problem with PvP threads. The mage could have simply won the initiative (likely given a higher dex and improved initiative) then he could just gank the BSF.


Rather that you'd just pickpocketed his spell regents before the fight started in the first place.

Eschew materials or seventeen component pouches, a lack of sleight of hand in class skills and no opertunity?

Emmerask
2010-04-18, 12:14 PM
The wizard has methods of instanteous retreat, to an unspecified location that can only really be found with magic and can use magic to locate and reach the fighter. The fighter gets none of this. If the mage teleports to his bunker/hideout lair carved with disintegrate from the heart of a mountain four hundred miles away the instant his contingency activates then Gather Information won't find him, it'll locate his home cottage which he doesn't retreat to.

A mage can play this game, a fighter can't.


A retreating mage though counts as overcoming the encounter for the fighter which means fighter wins :smalltongue:

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-18, 12:15 PM
Cast contingency for a time stop. with quicken, your losing high level spell slots (and money for the TS)But you can just own by buffing yourself out the window in d4 rounds

Ah, yes, Time Stop, in core, at level 13...

Not likely.

Make two wizards: one that is blasty and another one that will actually win. Ask him which one he meant by "perfectly balanced".
Presuming contingency is allowed? Both will. I could beat about 75-80% of enemy fighters in this type of challenge, where the only offensive spell I cast is Magic Freakin Missile...

Possibly a scroll of Disjunction, also... Or a method of knocking mount from sky. Pick any of several.

Volthawk
2010-04-18, 12:16 PM
Eschew materials or seventeen component pouches, a lack of sleight of hand in class skills and no opertunity?

Or Hide/Move Silently to actually get to the Wizard.

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-18, 12:17 PM
Or Hide/Move Silently to actually get to the Wizard.

If this place has no cover or concealment, then fat chance.

If it does, then you'd also need find him.

Volthawk
2010-04-18, 12:18 PM
If this place has no cover or concealment, then fat chance.

If it does, then you'd also need find him.

Yeah, I was just adding on to what he said. Basically, good luck trying, Mr Fighter.

Flickerdart
2010-04-18, 12:20 PM
A retreating mage though counts as overcoming the encounter for the fighter which means fighter wins :smalltongue:
How exactly does it count as overcoming if nothing has been overcome at all?

mostlyharmful
2010-04-18, 12:21 PM
A retreating mage though counts as overcoming the encounter for the fighter which means fighter wins :smalltongue:

yeah. see second to bottem post last page.

My main point here is WHY does it count as a win for the fighter? Why does it count as a retreat even? Since the mage may have anouther teleport it could just as easily be manuvering, the mage might be back in twenty seconds or twenty years and the fighter has no way to tell.

Learnedguy
2010-04-18, 12:22 PM
Eschew materials or seventeen component pouches, a lack of sleight of hand in class skills and no opertunity?

Eschew material? Really?

Anyway, seventeen component pouches are easy. Just steal the pouches. Or his clothes or whatever:smallyuk:

And no opportunity? Well obviously you're not trying hard enough! Sheesh, might as well not give the wizard a chance of ever meeting you. Then he'll have no "opportunity" to ever fight you. Or know you exist.

(obviously, at this point, you're not a fighter anymore. You're a rogue and extremely awesome:smallcool:)

Wizards are powerful through preparation. To be as powerful as a wizard, you need an equal amount of preparation (theoretically. In practice you'lll probably need a lot more preparation that that).

A fighter facing of wizard on an open field is stupid. You know why? Because he came thinking it would be a fair fight. But you know, you can't call fighting a wizard fair, because the wizards are cheating bastards. Their whole class is built around cheating and changing the rules of the game in their benefit. So the only way to beat the wizard? Cheat him back.

Volthawk
2010-04-18, 12:26 PM
Eschew material? Really?

Anyway, seventeen component pouches are easy. Just steal the pouches. Or his clothes or whatever:smallyuk:

And no opportunity? Well obviously you're not trying hard enough! Sheesh, might as well not give the wizard a chance of ever meeting you. Then he'll have no "opportunity" to ever fight you. Or know you exist.

(obviously, at this point, you're not a fighter anymore. You're a rogue and extremely awesome:smallcool:)

Wizards are powerful through preparation. To be as powerful as a wizard, you need an equal amount of preparation.

Well, like I said, good luck even stealing his pouch(es). Fighters have 2+Int mod skill points, and Sleight of Hand is cross-class, so at most you could have 8 ranks, costing 16 points, and then you'd still have to spend your other 16(or more, if you have a positive Int mod) skill points on Hide/Move Silently to actually sneak up on the wizard.

mostlyharmful
2010-04-18, 12:29 PM
Eschew material? Really?

[QUOTE=Learnedguy;8322734]Anyway, seventeen component pouches are easy. Just steal the pouches. Or his clothes or whatever:smallyuk:

It's a core mage. there's not a lot of choice. And unless you know that he's got seventeen pouches you don't go out of your way to nick them all. Plus unless you've got a bizarre hard core RAW! DM you'll eventually have a mage that notices he's being stripsearched before he loses all his stuff since.


And no opportunity? Well obviously you're not trying hard enough! Sheesh, might as well not give the wizard a chance of ever meeting you. Then he'll have no "opportunity" to ever fight you. Or know you exist.

He has Divination, pretty standerd question for a CoP is whether anyone's planning to kill him, he'll know before long so you better try to rush him fast....


(obviously, at this point, you're not a fighter anymore. You're a rogue and extremely awesome:smallcool:)

indeed.:smallwink:


Wizards are powerful through preparation. To be as powerful as a wizard, you need an equal amount of preparation.

But once said preperation is done it doesn't always need to be repeated and when it does it's clearly necessary and lots of your preperation is general not enemy specific, bound minions, clones, contingencies, mage armour, etc.....

Learnedguy
2010-04-18, 12:36 PM
But once said preperation is done it doesn't always need to be repeated and when it does it's clearly necessary and lots of your preperation is general not enemy specific, bound minions, clones, contingencies, mage armour, etc.....

Yeah, that's the unfair part about being a cheating magician.

Well, on a more positive side, wizards spends all their time learning how to cheat the game. All you need to do is cheat the player. This you can usually achieve with some generic skill points in bluff, intimidate, persuade, disguise and sleight of hand coupled with some mind games.

Anyway, we're getting derailed, this thread is about a level thirteen fighter and a level thirteen wizard staring each other down on a dramatically windy field somewhere in fearun, betting on who'll roll the better initiative. (It is a rigged game though, because the fighter has to beat the contingency guessing game as well)

JonestheSpy
2010-04-18, 12:44 PM
Once again, this thread completely misses the point. I've gone on about this before, but tat was awhile ago so it bears repeating.

Yes, once you get past a certain level, a wizard with all their spells prepared will probably beat a fighter - although if "being the first to run away" counts as losing, as it so often does in actual combat, than that changes things a bit.

But the whole idea of judging one character being "better" than another by which would win in an arena duel is ridiculously simplistic. The biggest handicap spellcasters have is that they can run out of spells, and have to constantly be judging whether a spell is worth using in a particular situation or not. And to paraphrase Snow Crash, swords don't run out of ammo. So to compare character's strengths in a situation where a spellcaster is free to blow all their spells in a single fight is just dumb.

If you really want to compare characters, they would need to be run through a series of encounters in a typical dungeon-like scenario with unknown foes. It would have to a be a situation where stopping for 8 hours to replenish spells isn't an option, but take place over a few hours, so spell durations would be a relevant factor. THEN you can actually start talking sensibly about this topic.

Flickerdart
2010-04-18, 12:47 PM
But the whole idea of judging one character being "better" than another by which would win in an arena duel is ridiculously simplistic. The biggest handicap spellcasters have is that they can run out of spells, and have to constantly be judging whether a spell is worth using in a particular situation or not. And to paraphrase Snow Crash, swords don't run out of ammo. So to compare character's strengths in a situation where a spellcaster is free to blow all their spells in a single fight is just dumb.

But Fighters run out of HP. And Mind Fog plus Dominate Person is hardly "blowing all of the Wizard's spells".

Oslecamo
2010-04-18, 12:53 PM
But Fighters run out of HP.

Not if you one-hit kill your targets before they hit you. That's one of the beauties of the mounted lance charger (and also chain-tripper to a lesser degree):smallamused:

Also, wands of CLW are much cheaper than a full set of pearls of power.



And Mind Fog plus Dominate Person is hardly "blowing all of the Wizard's spells".

You know, you need to defeat the target's will save for mind fog to work, so it's kinda redudant. Either he has enough will save to resist mind fog or then it's will save is low enough for you to shoot dominate person right away (or back to back dominate person). Either way the mind fog isn't doing much.

Learnedguy
2010-04-18, 12:53 PM
But Fighters run out of HP. And Mind Fog plus Dominate Person is hardly "blowing all of the Wizard's spells".

Last time I checked, the league fighters didn't own monopoly on health points distribution. I am fairly certain that if I stick a piece of sharpened steel in a wizard, he'll roll 1d8+[my strength modifier] in damage.

The Glyphstone
2010-04-18, 01:00 PM
Last time I checked, the league fighters didn't own monopoly on health points distribution. I am fairly certain that if I stick a piece of sharpened steel in a wizard, he'll roll 1d8+[my strength modifier] in damage.

...let me attempt translate - you're saying that fighters and wizards both take HP damage if they're hit, I think.

The part you're missing is that a Fighter must sacrifice HP to deal HP damage, because he has to engage the enemy in melee where they can hit them back. The wizard doesn't, and it's a lot easier for him to play keep-away.

If you stick sharpened steel in a wizard, he might take 1d8+Strength damage. Or he might absorb it into his Stoneskin. Or he might force you to roll a 50% miss chance from Displacement. Or he might not take any damage because you stabbed a Mirror Image. Or you might be wasting your attacks on a Projected Image while the real wizard is flying invisible above you.

DragoonWraith
2010-04-18, 01:04 PM
Once again, this thread completely misses the point. I've gone on about this before, but tat was awhile ago so it bears repeating.

Yes, once you get past a certain level, a wizard with all their spells prepared will probably beat a fighter - although if "being the first to run away" counts as losing, as it so often does in actual combat, than that changes things a bit.

But the whole idea of judging one character being "better" than another by which would win in an arena duel is ridiculously simplistic. The biggest handicap spellcasters have is that they can run out of spells, and have to constantly be judging whether a spell is worth using in a particular situation or not. And to paraphrase Snow Crash, swords don't run out of ammo. So to compare character's strengths in a situation where a spellcaster is free to blow all their spells in a single fight is just dumb.

If you really want to compare characters, they would need to be run through a series of encounters in a typical dungeon-like scenario with unknown foes. It would have to a be a situation where stopping for 8 hours to replenish spells isn't an option, but take place over a few hours, so spell durations would be a relevant factor. THEN you can actually start talking sensibly about this topic.
Past a certain level, Wizards pretty much don't run out of spell slots, either.

Learnedguy
2010-04-18, 01:05 PM
...let me attempt translate - you're saying that fighters and wizards both take HP damage if they're hit, I think.

The part you're missing is that a Fighter must sacrifice HP to deal HP damage, because he has to engage the enemy in melee where they can hit them back. The wizard doesn't, and it's a lot easier for him to play keep-away.

If you stick sharpened steel in a wizard, he might take 1d8+Strength damage. Or he might absorb it into his Stoneskin. Or he might force you to roll a 50% miss chance from Displacement. Or he might not take any damage because you stabbed a Mirror Image. Or you might be wasting your attacks on a Projected Image while the real wizard is flying invisible above you.

Likewise, if the fighter isn't one hit killing things, he might be shooting at them from a distance.

All of this doesn't matter anyway (or well, it does, but not in the way you think), no matter the way they are doing to kill the opponents, both are still spending resources to do so. And the point of the contest would be to see who's the most economic in their spending.

Beorn080
2010-04-18, 01:34 PM
Likewise, if the fighter isn't one hit killing things, he might be shooting at them from a distance.

All of this doesn't matter anyway (or well, it does, but not in the way you think), no matter the way they are doing to kill the opponents, both are still spending resources to do so. And the point of the contest would be to see who's the most economic in their spending.

Yet wizards are always the most economical with their resources. A fighter HAS to risk his life in combat, no matter what. Even ranged attacks renders him vulnerable to a return fire. A wizard, contingent teleport. Then, lesser planar binding, "Hey, kill this fighter for me, you can keep his soul." Not exactly a threat to the wizard at that point, can be cast 6 times a day, and I'm sure a continuous swarm of 6hd demons and devils will wear down any fighter. All without risking the wizards life.

Flickerdart
2010-04-18, 02:08 PM
You know, you need to defeat the target's will save for mind fog to work, so it's kinda redudant. Either he has enough will save to resist mind fog or then it's will save is low enough for you to shoot dominate person right away (or back to back dominate person). Either way the mind fog isn't doing much.
So it's one spell instead of two. That just makes me twice as right.

Likewise, if the fighter isn't one hit killing things, he might be shooting at them from a distance.
And doing nothing at all, because his damage output is pitiful without a bonus source coming from somewhere. And to be any decent at it, he has to eschew being decent at something else, and double mediocrity doesn't equal one good character.

mostlyharmful
2010-04-18, 02:11 PM
Likewise, if the fighter isn't one hit killing things, he might be shooting at them from a distance.

All of this doesn't matter anyway (or well, it does, but not in the way you think), no matter the way they are doing to kill the opponents, both are still spending resources to do so. And the point of the contest would be to see who's the most economic in their spending.

A wizard with a ring of invisibility and overland flight cast can pretty much ignore 80%+ of encounters, one with bound minions can simply waft about and watch his preperation do his work for him most of the time... then you've got just plain mean options like magic jar and dominate person to turn your tank into HIS tank at the cost of a single casting...

Nero24200
2010-04-18, 02:40 PM
You know, fighting head to head isn't a great way to solve if the classes are balanced or not. Especially if the character's are being built purely for the purposes of this encounter.

A better way might be to have one character go through a series of combats set-up by a neutral third-party (or even using a random monster generater if you feel one cannot truly be unbaised in this debate). Let's say...have the fighter go through these level appropraite encounters, then note how many encounters he is able to manage.

The wizard then attempts the same (and yes, allow things like pre-buffs since, in a typical adventuring day, the wizard is going to have his buffs active).

If the wizard last's longer than the fighter, wizard wins. Fighter lasts longer, wizard wins. Well..I say "Last's Longer", it's more a cause of who overcomes the most encounters.

Though it's unlikely the fighter player will agree to this, since a lone wizard has an obvious advantage, even more so than a typical wizard. A lone wizard won't have to worry about leaving allies behind when he/she teleports or flys over unintellegent creatures, bypassing them completely, and against certain types of foes (like humanoids or other creatures subject to enchantment spells) may even gain more allies. In short, while this test is better to gauge an adventuring play-style as opposed to a PVP playstyle, it still favours the wizard heavily, and what's worse is that your fighter friend cannot simply build an ubercharger and hope for the higher intiative to score a cheap victory.

Allanimal
2010-04-18, 03:06 PM
If the wizard last's longer than the fighter, wizard wins. Fighter lasts longer, wizard wins.

So the wizard always wins?
:)

Paulus
2010-04-18, 03:16 PM
I find this thread amusing and saddening on equal levels at the exact same time.
Poor Fighters... I mean really, is there any hope?

Zach J.
2010-04-18, 03:21 PM
Poor Fighters... I mean really, is there any hope?

My character was killed by an ogre last night. He was a fighter. Learn from my mistake. ;)

Paulus
2010-04-18, 03:27 PM
My character was killed by an ogre last night. He was a fighter. Learn from my mistake. ;)

...that's just racist. :3 Yes, that's a joke, in a way.
Cuz I mean, was it because he was a fighter, or because he was an Ogre with more strength racial bonuses etc?

Zach J.
2010-04-18, 03:29 PM
Don't you mean classist?

Sir Giacomo
2010-04-18, 03:54 PM
Okay, basically I told one of my players that a Player's Handbook only Wizard above a certain level will pretty-much always beat a Player's Handbook only Fighter of the same level.

He claimed (insanely, IMHO) that the two classes were equally balanced.

So, the challenge became... I make a level 13 Wizard, he makes a level 13 Fighter. 110,000gp worth of items, gear only from DMG & PH.

Assuming no Surprise Round.
Assuming no Preparation rounds (no casting spells before the fight starts).

One battle in a small arena (total distance, 70 feet across)
One battle in a large arena (total distance, 200 feet across)
One battle in open area (big grassland, 1000+ feet across)

What are my best spell options? I'm thinking Teleport for the larger area battles, to give myself at least 2 (or more) rounds of him doing nothing but closing the distance. Melf's Acid Arrow for stacking damage.

Is it worth getting the Quicken Spell Feat?

Some answers to your questions may be found in a core battle of 13th level wizard played by superglucose and a fighter 13th level played by me. How the combat went can be found here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=130678&highlight=superglucose+giacomo)
The match ended in a draw (indication for roughly balanced classes), and following it you will realise why.

A fighter at level 13 with the right items, combat style and feats can be quite a pain for a wizard within the core rules.

Overall for both classes at that level, consider:
- the fighter is better at general combat
- meanwhile, the wizard has the advantage in such a duel setting that he has 100% of his spells still available. This is usually not the case.
- outside of duels, the wizard has more means to get a surprise round due to better divination and research skills/spells.

- Giacomo

Tinydwarfman
2010-04-18, 04:41 PM
Some answers to your questions may be found in a core battle of 13th level wizard played by superglucose and a fighter 13th level played by me. How the combat went can be found here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=130678&highlight=superglucose+giacomo)
The match ended in a draw (indication for roughly balanced classes), and following it you will realise why.

A fighter at level 13 with the right items, combat style and feats can be quite a pain for a wizard within the core rules.

Overall for both classes at that level, consider:
- the fighter is better at general combat
- meanwhile, the wizard has the advantage in such a duel setting that he has 100% of his spells still available. This is usually not the case.
- outside of duels, the wizard has more means to get a surprise round due to better divination and research skills/spells.

- Giacomo

No offense, but that fight wasn't exactly the best indicator of balance. There have been other duels of fighter 20 vs wizard 13 where the wizard won.

FlamingKobold
2010-04-18, 04:41 PM
Giacomo, I'd like to point out that the only reason that match was a draw was because superglucose played extremely sub-optimally, and you maxed out spellcraft and umd. The combination of a poorly played wizard and a wannabe wizard can cancel out.

Tinydwarfman
2010-04-18, 04:45 PM
Giacomo, I'd like to point out that the only reason that match was a draw was because superglucose played extremely sub-optimally, and you maxed out spellcraft and umd. The combination of a poorly played wizard and a wannabe wizard can cancel out.

True Dat. Superglucose had to corrected multiple times on rules issues.

olentu
2010-04-18, 04:55 PM
Some answers to your questions may be found in a core battle of 13th level wizard played by superglucose and a fighter 13th level played by me. How the combat went can be found here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=130678&highlight=superglucose+giacomo)
The match ended in a draw (indication for roughly balanced classes), and following it you will realise why.

A fighter at level 13 with the right items, combat style and feats can be quite a pain for a wizard within the core rules.

Overall for both classes at that level, consider:
- the fighter is better at general combat
- meanwhile, the wizard has the advantage in such a duel setting that he has 100% of his spells still available. This is usually not the case.
- outside of duels, the wizard has more means to get a surprise round due to better divination and research skills/spells.

- Giacomo

Actually it looks like the other side got bored and left thus making the draw based on the players and not the classes.

Gametime
2010-04-18, 06:02 PM
Actually it looks like the other side got bored and left thus making the draw based on the players and not the classes.

Yeah, I can't really see that fight proving anything. Getting bored and calling it a draw doesn't say much about either class.

Paulus
2010-04-18, 06:04 PM
Yeah, I can't really see that fight proving anything. Getting bored and calling it a draw doesn't say much about either class.

aside from the fact they are boring. :smallsmile:
*tongue in cheek*

Boci
2010-04-18, 06:25 PM
Some answers to your questions may be found in a core battle of 13th level wizard played by superglucose and a fighter 13th level played by me. How the combat went can be found here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=130678&highlight=superglucose+giacomo)
The match ended in a draw (indication for roughly balanced classes), and following it you will realise why.

A fighter at level 13 with the right items, combat style and feats can be quite a pain for a wizard within the core rules.

Overall for both classes at that level, consider:
- the fighter is better at general combat
- meanwhile, the wizard has the advantage in such a duel setting that he has 100% of his spells still available. This is usually not the case.
- outside of duels, the wizard has more means to get a surprise round due to better divination and research skills/spells.

- Giacomo

You're forgetting something important: The wizard can change his spells every day, meaning the wizard builds were far less arena combat style specific than the fighters.

Tinydwarfman
2010-04-18, 07:04 PM
Yeah, I can't really see that fight proving anything. Getting bored and calling it a draw doesn't say much about either class.

Indeed, it just means that arenas are bad metrics for power, because stealthing means it never ends.

JonestheSpy
2010-04-19, 12:39 AM
Indeed, it just means that arenas are bad metrics for power, because stealthing means it never ends.

That's just one reason.

Really, this thread seems full of the kind of ivory tower theoretical WIZZRD RLES line of thought that has little to do with actual gameplay. For example:


Past a certain level, Wizards pretty much don't run out of spell slots, either.

Yeah they have a lots by the time they reach 13th level - but the number high level slots that would be needed to be victorious in an 13th level appropriate encounter is far smaller. When you've got a dungeon crawl ahead with a series of unknown challenges ahead, you're going to be very careful expending them if you want to make it to the other end.


A wizard with a ring of invisibility and overland flight cast can pretty much ignore 80%+ of encounters

Unless they're going through a dungeon that has, like, a door. Or a ceiling.


one with bound minions can simply waft about and watch his preperation do his work for him most of the time...

I really really wonder if the people who tout the planar binding spells as being so awesome ever bother to actually read them. They are by no means automatically successful, and not without risk. Folks seem to want to take it for granted that every casting is successful, or at least that they wouldn't have to take the consequences of any failures into account.

As for the hit point factor - mages have a lot less to spare. A 13th level mage who's doing well is probably going to have around 45 hp. A 13th level fighter with a decent CON will probably have around 105+. So any foe that makes a worthwhile encounter for a 13th level character will have a really good chance of taking a wizard down in a couple of rounds if they can engage in melee - or just start doing damage from range. That means a wizard will have to stop and try to heal mid-battle as soon as they start taking damage or risk getting killed the next round. A fighter can afford to soak up damage for a while and then deal with it once the battle is over.

Really, try and think about it in turn of facing multiple challenges in realistic circumstances, not situation where everything goes exactly right for the wizard and they have all the time in the world to prepare, and it's not nearly so one sided as some folks would like to imagine.

Eldariel
2010-04-19, 12:53 AM
I really really wonder if the people who tout the planar binding spells as being so awesome ever bother to actually read them. They are by no means automatically successful, and not without risk. Folks seem to want to take it for granted that every casting is successful, or at least that they wouldn't have to take the consequences of any failures into account.

They are without risk; sure, the fiends will make Will-saves every now and then but that doesn't matter as that simply means "nothing happens". Then, when the save is failed, the Wizard has all the time in the world to debuff the fiend's Cha and boost its own to automake the check, let alone once Moment of Prescience comes into play and autowins all those checks with 8-10 base Cha, let alone 14 or something.

Thanks to the Cha-check basically forcing them into obedience, well, life is easy. And no, don't ask my why there's a Compulsion-effect without the tag attached to a Conjuration. That's just one dumb part of the spells.


As for the hit point factor - mages have a lot less to spare. A 13th level mage who's doing well is probably going to have around 45 hp. A 13th level fighter with a decent CON will probably have around 105+. So any foe that makes a worthwhile encounter for a 13th level character will have a really good chance of taking a wizard down in a couple of rounds if they can engage in melee - or just start doing damage from range. That means a wizard will have to stop and try to heal mid-battle as soon as they start taking damage or risk getting killed the next round. A fighter can afford to soak up damage for a while and then deal with it once the battle is over.

First, Wizard with Con 14 on level 13 has 60 HP. That's about the bare minimum. Also, he has at least +2 Con item, though I don't see why not +4 already; level 13 wealth is pretty generous. That's 73 - 86 assuming max first die and averages on the following levels. Then, he's cast False Life every morning. That's an average of 15 more. So our Wizard already has around 90-100 HP. And we've only applied the obvious bonuses there.

Of course, Fighter naturally has more. 73 from class levels alone by the same assumptions as with the Wizard, but no False Life; around 125 assuming 14 base Con and +4 Con-item. 16 base Con is feasible, but that cuts into the other abilities already. Point being, on these levels HP is already more about Con and boosts and less about HD (well, there's always Barbarian but that's a different matter).


And no, Wizard doesn't stop to heal, Wizard either removes the source of the damage or makes future damage impossible, either by placing himself in a safe location or blocking the target's ability to affect his present location. It's inefficient to stop to heal through means other than Heal-spell mid-combat. Besides, the job of his defensive spells is to ensure he doesn't need to worry about that; those spells or he isn't doing his job properly if he finds himself unable to stop the ranged attacker or avoid melee.

Wizards don't just cast Contingencies, Overland Flights, Phantom Steeds, Walls of X, Solid Fogs and short term buffs like Mirror Images, Displacements and company for fun. And if he hasn't banned Evocation, that scroll of Wind Wall is there for a reason too.


Really, try and think about it in turn of facing multiple challenges in realistic circumstances, not situation where everything goes exactly right for the wizard and they have all the time in the world to prepare, and it's not nearly so one sided as some folks would like to imagine.

Don't you think people do? That's precisely why Wizards win it so bad. It's worth going through the source material and seeing why people find Wizards win such "contests" easily. They simply have the better tools regardless of what needs doing.

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-19, 12:55 AM
I guarantee this:

Give me a level 13 wizard vs a level 13 fighter, in core.

Disallow Candles of Invocation for all parties. Ban Simulacrum for all parties.

Give the fighter and wizard their choice of gear, and choice to the disposition of that gear (fighter can start riding mount, or could begin with mount adjacent to him, for example). Give the wizard spells prepared, but no buffs at all.

Start them 60 feet from each other. I could take pretty much any fighter combination available. Without difficulty at all.

Initiative would not matter.

The Cat Goddess
2010-04-19, 01:03 AM
I guarantee this:

Give me a level 13 wizard vs a level 13 fighter, in core.

Disallow Candles of Invocation for all parties. Ban Simulacrum for all parties.

Give the fighter and wizard their choice of gear, and choice to the disposition of that gear (fighter can start riding mount, or could begin with mount adjacent to him, for example). Give the wizard spells prepared, but no buffs at all.

Start them 60 feet from each other. I could take pretty much any fighter combination available. Without difficulty at all.

Initiative would not matter.

You have failed to answer the question I posed.

Of course, given any equipment I want to buy... why not get a few cross-class ranks in Handle Animal and buy a herd of cows? :smallamused:
The "Wizard" looks like an ordinary herdsman and has a bunch of cows between himself and mounted warrior... Look ma, no charging! :smallbiggrin:

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-19, 01:05 AM
You have failed to answer the question I posed.

Of course, given any equipment I want to buy... why not get a few cross-class ranks in Handle Animal and buy a herd of cows? :smallamused:
The "Wizard" looks like an ordinary herdsman and has a bunch of cows between himself and mounted warrior... Look ma, no charging! :smallbiggrin:

I was actually going to use a wagon, upturned, and underneath it. Follow with dimension door, invisibility, and buff as needed.

And I did answer your question. Many pages ago. I posited that I could do it with pretty much just Magic Missiles for kill spells.

JonestheSpy
2010-04-19, 02:01 AM
Well, PhoenixR manages to completely miss the point.



They are without risk; sure, the fiends will make Will-saves every now and then but that doesn't matter as that simply means "nothing happens".

As I said, go back and read the spell. Pay especial attention to that bit about being attacked if the summoned creature makes CHA check OR spell resistance OR can use dimensional travel out of the magic circle.



Then, when the save is failed, the Wizard has all the time in the world to debuff the fiend's Cha and boost its own to automake the check, let alone once Moment of Prescience comes into play and autowins all those checks with 8-10 base Cha, let alone 14 or something.

Um, no, you've got to hope the creature fails it's CHA check or whatever immediately after losing its will save. Why would you possibly imagine it would sit there waiting for you to cast a bunch of spells? Oh, and Moment of Prescience is beyond the ability ability of our theoretical 13th level wizard to cast.

The above is a great example of the WIZZARDS RE TEH AWESOME folks tendency to hypothesize all these unrealistic scenarios wherein everything favors the wizard and no negative results ever happen.

That's not even taking into account the way an intelligent, unwilling creature can twist commands to make its summoner's life difficult.



And no, Wizard doesn't stop to heal, Wizard either removes the source of the damage or makes future damage impossible, either by placing himself in a safe location or blocking the target's ability to affect his present location. It's inefficient to stop to heal through means other than Heal-spell mid-combat. Besides, the job of his defensive spells is to ensure he doesn't need to worry about that; those spells or he isn't doing his job properly if he finds himself unable to stop the ranged attacker or avoid melee.

Wizards don't just cast Contingencies, Overland Flights, Phantom Steeds, Walls of X, Solid Fogs and short term buffs like Mirror Images, Displacements and company for fun. And if he hasn't banned Evocation, that scroll of Wind Wall is there for a reason too.

That's all very nice in theory - I have yet to see someone illustrate how that plays out in actual multiple encounters. Sure, you can pile on the defensive spells - and then you don't have much left for offense.



Don't you think people do? That's precisely why Wizards win it so bad. It's worth going through the source material and seeing why people find Wizards win such "contests" easily. They simply have the better tools regardless of what needs doing.

From what I've seen, no, they don't.

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-19, 02:12 AM
Well, PhoenixR manages to completely miss the point.Perhaps, then, you'd care to actually STATE the point, hmm?


The above is a great example of the WIZZARDS RE TEH AWESOME folks tendency to hypothesize all these unrealistic scenarios wherein everything favors the wizard and no negative results ever happen.I see not where I did that. I've stated that the only thing I need to beat a fighter every time is... Spells memorized, and WBL, equipped and placed as I choose, no farther than adjacent to me.

No, the unrealistic scenario is:
Fighter comes across a wizard, right after that wizard wakes up and memorizes spells, but before any spells have been cast for the day. Somehow, the 28 day buff that the wizard refreshed once every two weeks has been dispelled in his sleep, and the wizard has just stood up, with a dumb look on his face, while the fighter is mounted, armored, geared, with lance lowered, and horse pawing the ground.

THAT's the unreasonable scenario. And the one that "Wizards suck hurr hurr" advocates seem to think perfectly reasonable.


That's all very nice in theory - I have yet to see someone illustrate how that plays out in actual multiple encounters. Sure, you can pile on the defensive spells - and then you don't have much left for offense.Then you've yet to see mages being played properly. It's good to know that we can identify the source of your inaccuracy. Note: I pointed out how 1 specific spell (Magic Missile) and nothing but a wizard's specialist slots (at level 13) have the capacity to do enough HP damage to fell a Fighter.

Also, note: The OP asked for nothing concerning multiple encounters. That's an arbitrary addition.

Boci
2010-04-19, 02:15 AM
As I said, go back and read the spell. Pay especial attention to that bit about being attacked if the summoned creature makes CHA check OR spell resistance OR can use dimensional travel out of the magic circle.

So use the magic circle that requires a spellcraft check for extra security.


Um, no, you've got to hope the creature fails it's CHA check or whatever immediately after losing its will save. Why would you possibly imagine it would sit there waiting for you to cast a bunch of spells?

Because it has no other option?


That's all very nice in theory - I have yet to see someone illustrate how that plays out in actual multiple encounters. Sure, you can pile on the defensive spells - and then you don't have much left for offense.

Mirror image? Displacement?

Koury
2010-04-19, 02:31 AM
For the record, I'll totally build a wizard and fight is someone else wants to build a fighter.

I don't really care or have anything to prove, but yeah, it sounds like fun, and I like building characters :smallsmile:

Boci
2010-04-19, 02:34 AM
For the record, I'll totally build a wizard and fight is someone else wants to build a fighter.

I don't really care or have anything to prove, but yeah, it sounds like fun, and I like building characters :smallsmile:

I'll give it a try. 13th level, core only, full WBL? Although you will have to explain to me how it works on this site. I've only ever played on rpol.

Koury
2010-04-19, 02:35 AM
Sure, sounds good. I'll make a OOC thread and we can get other detail things down. I'll link it here in a sec.

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-19, 02:37 AM
I'd be happy to do that too.

Koury
2010-04-19, 02:38 AM
OoC thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8329270#post8329270). Everyone is welcome to come and watch and chat and whatever.

dota600
2010-04-19, 06:54 AM
Magic is for those effeminate bookworms who does not even know how to defend him or herself if I have come to impale his or her body in my courtyard before dinner
-Vlad Drakov

I go with wizards of course but I still do not get why some people state that the fighter must not put on his armor if the wizard does not have buff before hand? How is that logical? Are they naked when they fight?

Excuse me for being creepy but I always abuse and bully the party wizard or sorcerer in our party especially if he/she is snobbish or would not let me get in their pants through one way or another.

That is also the reason why said wizards/sorcerers blast me to oblivion during our session after the ordeal they went and is also the largest reason how I learned that spellcasters can kick ass.

But still, it is worth it.:smallbiggrin:

Killer Angel
2010-04-19, 07:38 AM
I go with wizards of course but I still do not get why some people state that the fighter must not put on his armor if the wizard does not have buff before hand? How is that logical?


Because the buffs we were talking about, were things like Contingency and Overland flight, with a duration of 1 or more days, so there's absolutely no reason to pretend that a wizard cannot have active Overland flight, because he cast the spell at the morning, exactly like the fighter that put on his armor.

dota600
2010-04-19, 07:59 AM
Because the buffs we were talking about, were things like Contingency and Overland flight, with a duration of 1 or more days, so there's absolutely no reason to pretend that a wizard cannot have active Overland flight, because he cast the spell at the morning, exactly like the fighter that put on his armor.

Does it take that long to put armor than memorizing spells in the morning?

Plus the fact that putting on clothes or in this case armor is automatically assumed to be done by a fighter in the morning(because there is nothing else to be done) unlike a wizard which I assume must wisely choose which spell he/she choose in the morning. If I am correct it only takes 4 minutes to put on full plate while memorizing spells takes an hour, plus the casting time of using spells is meticulous and the spell components must be taken in place so... yeah.. I still do not see it being no buff spells = no armor. Sorry but still it does not compute to me unless there is a more solid enough reason for that to be acceptable.

But even with or without preparations wizard still has a higher chance of success.

Amphetryon
2010-04-19, 08:06 AM
Does it take that long to put armor than memorizing spells in the morning?

The only reason you'd have time to don armor and not prepare spells is scheduling the arena match within 10 minutes of first waking up, AND having a squire on hand to aid with the armor, AND the wizard had to expend all her spells the day before. I can think of no reason short of suicidal hubris why a wizard would agree to such specific stipulations.

dota600
2010-04-19, 08:17 AM
The only reason you'd have time to don armor and not prepare spells is scheduling the arena match within 10 minutes of first waking up, AND having a squire on hand to aid with the armor, AND the wizard had to expend all her spells the day before. I can think of no reason short of suicidal hubris why a wizard would agree to such specific stipulations.

Well yeah I agree with the wizard having spells beforehand in which she can use to cast during the said arena thing. Any wizard is not that suicidal to be ever let him/herself be in such a position. Even letting the wizard memorize her spell before the said fight is okey for me.

But a fighter without armor because the wizard is not allowed to have buffing spells cast beforehand is something that I cannot grasp. I can see an arena doing this just for the sake of making the match more enjoyable for the crowd than just letting the wizard do his/her "UNLIMITED POWER!!!" thing which of course makes the crowd go "BOOO!!!"

Which happens a lot of time in one of our campaign.

The Glyphstone
2010-04-19, 08:32 AM
But a fighter without armor because the wizard is not allowed to have buffing spells cast beforehand is something that I cannot grasp. I can see an arena doing this just for the sake of making the match more enjoyable for the crowd than just letting the wizard do his/her "UNLIMITED POWER!!!" thing which of course makes the crowd go "BOOO!!!"

.


Let me try.

1) The point of these 'arena fights' is to try and be a fair, unbiased comparison of if Fighters and Wizards are equally balanced vs. each other. The purpose is not to create an enjoyable match to watch for spectators.
1a) To be fair and unbiased, it would require that both characters be created and enter in the conditions they would typically adventure under.
2) Numerous Wizard spells have durations measured in days or more.
2a) This means that said spells would, unless subjected to dispelling, be active 24/7, because the wizard can re-cast them before their duration expires.
3) The proposed conditions of these 'fights' stipulate not just no buffing rounds, but that the wizard enters the fight without any active buffs.
3a) Based off Point 2a, this would require that the Wizard be subjected to an unconditional dispel before entering the arena, otherwise he would enter with his 24+ hour duration spells still active.
3b) If Point 3a occurs, then Point 1a has now been violated, since one combatant has been subjected to a handicap condition with significant effect, that would have little or no effect if applied to the other combatant.
3c) The only equivalent penalty that could be applied to the fighter without affecting the wizard would be to force both combatants to also start without armor donned.

Did that help to understand the argument path, at least, even if you don't agree with it?

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-19, 08:35 AM
Well yeah I agree with the wizard having spells beforehand in which she can use to cast during the said arena thing. Any wizard is not that suicidal to be ever let him/herself be in such a position. Even letting the wizard memorize her spell before the said fight is okey for me.

But a fighter without armor because the wizard is not allowed to have buffing spells cast beforehand is something that I cannot grasp. I can see an arena doing this just for the sake of making the match more enjoyable for the crowd than just letting the wizard do his/her "UNLIMITED POWER!!!" thing which of course makes the crowd go "BOOO!!!"

Which happens a lot of time in one of our campaign.

Let's look at it this way, dota.

At the start of the day, the fighter wakes up, dons his armor, prepares his gear, and feeds his horse.

At the start of the day, the wizard wakes up, memorizes his spells, casts any spells that will last all day with a single casting (Extended hours/level buffs, for example). Each of these buffs takes... about 3 seconds to cast.

In addition, once per month (or if expended), the wizard casts his contingency spell (extended). The casting time is 10 minutes, true. But it lasts a month.

Now, there is only one possible reason that the wizard did not have time to cast long term buffs. Ambush at dawn. In such situations, the fighter would not have armor.

Basically, you're assuming different levels of readiness.

On one side, you have the fighter, fully garbed, armored, mounted, and ready to fight.

On the other, you have the wizard, fresh from peaceful slumber, waking up with a dumb look on his face.

If we go on the "random encounters while adventuring" scenario, then both should be prepared as they would while adventuring.

Anyone can make a fighter win. Just start the wizard unconscious, with no spells prepared, and no buffs active, and start the fighter, adjacent in the surprise round, with a heavy pick.

Hobbling one side to provide an artificial advantage doesn't answer the question of "fighter vs wizard".

Arakune
2010-04-19, 08:49 AM
Ah, yes, Time Stop, in core, at level 13...

Not likely.

Presuming contingency is allowed? Both will. I could beat about 75-80% of enemy fighters in this type of challenge, where the only offensive spell I cast is Magic Freakin Missile...

Possibly a scroll of Disjunction, also... Or a method of knocking mount from sky. Pick any of several.

YOU don't count silly :smallwink:

As an challange, of course the wizard will be on foot, only using "powerfull" things like fireball and the ocasional disintegrate, will have good wis/cha/int (because he is a wizard, of course all his mental stats are good) and poor physical stats (again, wizard).

On the other hand the fighter will take all tactical feat, the best weapon, the best items and will trash the wizard.

On a serious note, it was stated by Doc Roc that the only way for a fighter to win against a wizard is to use WBL and fight like an wizard with the ocasional fighthing. It's difficult to prove, but it really makes sense.

dota600
2010-04-19, 08:54 AM
Let me try.

1) The point of these 'arena fights' is to try and be a fair, unbiased comparison of if Fighters and Wizards are equally balanced vs. each other. The purpose is not to create an enjoyable match to watch for spectators.
1a) To be fair and unbiased, it would require that both characters be created and enter in the conditions they would typically adventure under.
2) Numerous Wizard spells have durations measured in days or more.
2a) This means that said spells would, unless subjected to dispelling, be active 24/7, because the wizard can re-cast them before their duration expires.
3) The proposed conditions of these 'fights' stipulate not just no buffing rounds, but that the wizard enters the fight without any active buffs.
3a) Based off Point 2a, this would require that the Wizard be subjected to an unconditional dispel before entering the arena, otherwise he would enter with his 24+ hour duration spells still active.
3b) If Point 3a occurs, then Point 1a has now been violated, since one combatant has been subjected to a handicap condition with significant effect, that would have little or no effect if applied to the other combatant.
3c) The only equivalent penalty that could be applied to the fighter without affecting the wizard would be to force both combatants to also start without armor donned.

Did that help to understand the argument path, at least, even if you don't agree with it?

As expected from a man with a tophat. It is clear I had not grasp the small things that matter, thanks for showing me what matters most and that is to "balance a fight" in order to show which of the two class is more powerful. No prejudice and no leaning on the other side that is.
As you try to define it to me, this is no boxing in where a certain weight class will be given penalty just for the sake of making the fight enjoyable.

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-19, 08:55 AM
YOU don't count silly :smallwink:

As an challange, of course the wizard will be on foot, only using "powerfull" things like fireball and the ocasional disintegrate, will have good wis/cha/int (because he is a wizard, of course all his mental stats are good) and poor physical stats (again, wizard).

On the other hand the fighter will take all tactical feat, the best weapon, the best items and will trash the wizard.

On a serious note, it was stated by Doc Roc that the only way for a fighter to win against a wizard is to use WBL and fight like an wizard with the ocasional fighthing. It's difficult to prove, but it really makes sense.

Doc Roc is correct. You use WBL to purchase spellcasting services, items, and the like, and manipulate the less ethical abuses in the casting system to their effect.

Oddly enough, the wizard concept I had was Invisibility, basic metamagic, and Magic Missiles. Nothing fancy. It's sad that such a concept will beat pretty much any core fighter build out there.

The Glyphstone
2010-04-19, 09:00 AM
As expected from a man with a tophat. It is clear I had not grasp the small things that matter, thanks for showing me what matters most and that is to "balance a fight" in order to show which of the two class is more powerful. No prejudice and no leaning on the other side that is.
As you try to define it to me, this is no boxing in where a certain weight class will be given penalty just for the sake of making the fight enjoyable.

I'm going to assume you're not being sarcastic.:smallconfused: Penalizing a certain weight class to make the fight enjoyable is a perfectly viable idea, but to do so, it requires acknowledging that the combatants are in different weight classes to begin with. Some people do not acknowledge this, which is why these threads happen...they insist that wizards and fighters are in the same weight class to begin with, but still insist that the wizard have a handicap.

Indon
2010-04-19, 09:10 AM
Sheesh, people. Stop whining about the duel's rules, you people sound like the Wizard actually needs help.

Our level 13 Wizard has four 4th level spells, three 5th level spells, two 6th level spells, and one 7th level spell memorized - without bonus spells, which frankly we don't need.

Fourth level spells:
Polymorph.
Solid Fog.
Charm Monster.
Greater Invisibility.


Fifth level spells:
Quickened Heightened Sleep.
Dominate Person.

Sixth level spells:
Greater Dispel Magic.
Quickened Invisibility.
Hold Monster.

Seventh level spell:
Insanity - or, for extra laughs, Sequester.

Then memorize a smattering of other interesting lower-level spells like Wind Wall.

You can probably win all three combats without even resting/regaining spells.


I'm going to assume you're not being sarcastic.:smallconfused: Penalizing a certain weight class to make the fight enjoyable is a perfectly viable idea, but to do so, it requires acknowledging that the combatants are in different weight classes to begin with. Some people do not acknowledge this, which is why these threads happen...they insist that wizards and fighters are in the same weight class to begin with, but still insist that the wizard have a handicap.

Alternately, it's a claim that the need for things like preparation time to be at full combat effectiveness is a disadvantage of the Wizard - and it is.

But it isn't one that actually makes the wizard substantially weaker.

dota600
2010-04-19, 09:15 AM
I'm going to assume you're not being sarcastic.:smallconfused: Penalizing a certain weight class to make the fight enjoyable is a perfectly viable idea, but to do so, it requires acknowledging that the combatants are in different weight classes to begin with. Some people do not acknowledge this, which is why these threads happen...they insist that wizards and fighters are in the same weight class to begin with, but still insist that the wizard have a handicap.

I am not being sarcastic man, I am sorry if I ever let you think that way. I am just being thankful that you show me that this thread is not about prejudice but about on showing a match between two classes with no penalty or leaning over one side.

Like I said earlier, I still admit that it is not a fair fight though in-game so putting a penalty on one(like putting a weighted gloves on a heavier boxer) is still a choice that is available out there that is.

This happens a lot when our party joins the arena's individual fight in where the party wizard really did kick me hard during the semi-finals(bastard fly before I ever grabbed her character, I got a bow of course but the lass cast hold person before I even do a thing, things go downhill after that and the crowd[which is the DM] called out BOO!!)

The Glyphstone
2010-04-19, 09:16 AM
Alternately, it's a claim that the need for things like preparation time to be at full combat effectiveness is a disadvantage of the Wizard - and it is.

But it isn't one that actually makes the wizard substantially weaker.

The lack of pre-battle buff rounds in the fight, sure. But stripping the wizard of buffs that he could concievably have up around-the-clock is equivalent to saying that he never gets time to buff ever during his life, which is stretching versimilitude at least. There are a number of useful buffs whose duration is measured in hours/level, which at level 13, can be Extended to last longer than a day - taking those away is handicapping the wizard and skewing the fight, though whether it's a decisive skew isn't certain (me, I lean towards it turning the fight from 'wizard curbstomps' into 'likely wizard victory').

Kurald Galain
2010-04-19, 09:17 AM
I propose that the wizard is not allowed a spell component pouch, and that to be even-handed the fighter is not allowed a spell component pouch either. See? Equal and fair treatment for both.

The Glyphstone
2010-04-19, 09:19 AM
I propose that the wizard is not allowed a spell component pouch, and that to be even-handed the fighter is not allowed a spell component pouch either. See? Equal and fair treatment for both.

Hush, stop giving them ideas.:smallbiggrin:

dota600
2010-04-19, 09:29 AM
I propose that the wizard is not allowed a spell component pouch, and that to be even-handed the fighter is not allowed a spell component pouch either. See? Equal and fair treatment for both.

I do not know but this is like saying the fighter is not allowed a weapon and that to be even-handed because the wizard is not allowed a weapon too.:smallconfused:

Lycanthromancer
2010-04-19, 09:31 AM
I do not know but this is like saying the fighter is not allowed a weapon and that to be even-handed because the wizard is not allowed a weapon too.:smallconfused:That would be about it. The wizard could take a feat to somewhat mitigate this (Eschew Materials), but so could the fighter (Improved Unarmed Strike).

The Glyphstone
2010-04-19, 09:34 AM
Sure, let's go ahead and make it balanced for everyone!

The wizard and fighter are both forbidden spell component pouches.
Neither the wizard nor the fighter are allowed to wield weapons.
Both classes have any 'Bonus Feat' removed from their level progressions.
The two combatants must have their fingers broken pre-battle.
Each of them have all their class levels replaced with Commoner.
They must both start the match bound, gagged, and locked in an adamantine box with no air holes.

Anyone know how we could make it more fair?

dota600
2010-04-19, 09:38 AM
Sure, let's go ahead and make it balanced for everyone!

The wizard and fighter are both forbidden spell component pouches.
Neither the wizard nor the fighter are allowed to wield weapons.
Both classes have any 'Bonus Feat' removed from their level progressions.
The two combatants must have their fingers broken pre-battle.
Each of them have all their class levels replaced with Commoner.
They must both start the match bound, gagged, and locked in an adamantine box with no air holes.

Anyone know how we could make it more fair?

And this appears to be the end of the show.:smallsmile:

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-19, 09:44 AM
Sure, let's go ahead and make it balanced for everyone!

The wizard and fighter are both forbidden spell component pouches.
Neither the wizard nor the fighter are allowed to wield weapons.
Both classes have any 'Bonus Feat' removed from their level progressions.
The two combatants must have their fingers broken pre-battle.
Each of them have all their class levels replaced with Commoner.
They must both start the match bound, gagged, and locked in an adamantine box with no air holes.

Anyone know how we could make it more fair?

Automatically minimize their HP gained at each level, disallow any item that does not have the words "Sneezing and choking" in the title.

Amphetryon
2010-04-19, 09:46 AM
Automatically minimize their HP gained at each level, disallow any item that does not have the words "Sneezing and choking" in the title.

Replace the D&D rules with 'some guys hitting each other in the back yard with sticks.' :smalltongue:

Killer Angel
2010-04-19, 09:48 AM
I am not being sarcastic man, I am sorry if I ever let you think that way. I am just being thankful that you show me that this thread is not about prejudice but about on showing a match between two classes with no penalty or leaning over one side.

Like I said earlier, I still admit that it is not a fair fight though in-game so putting a penalty on one(like putting a weighted gloves on a heavier boxer) is still a choice that is available out there that is.

This happens a lot when our party joins the arena's individual fight in where the party wizard really did kick me hard during the semi-finals(bastard fly before I ever grabbed her character, I got a bow of course but the lass cast hold person before I even do a thing, things go downhill after that and the crowd[which is the DM] called out BOO!!)


While the two classes are not balanced, you can have a fair fight between the two, nerfing the wizard and having fun (as the thread fighter 20 Vs wizard 13).
But this requires the knowledge that casters are superior to fighters.
The DM of the OP, thinks that fighters and wizards are well balanced... but the starting conditions of the match aren't: if you suppose equal starting conditions, there's no way you can pretend "no daily (or weekly!) buffs for wizard", without similar restriction for the fighter, which appears to be armed, armoured, mounted, etc.

Aharon
2010-04-19, 10:17 AM
@the Planar Binding Fancrowd
Please note that,
1) you have to use a Circle against Good/Chaos/Evil/Law to bind, you can't bind anything without it.
2) This makes Eschew Materials very useful because of the "break the circle" clause meant to simulate the traditional image of demon binding.
3) RAW, even a spellcrafted Magic Circle of Protection is no surefire way to completely neutralize whatever you bound. Circle of G/C/E/L has Will negates (harmless). So whatever you try to bind first saves against your Binding, and thus might not appear at all, and then gets a save against the circle - after it is there to potentially attack you. It's also a good idea to take Spell Focus: Abjuration instead of SF: Conjuration if you focus on binding extensively.

Disclaimer:
This doesn't make binding completely unsafe, it's just less trivial to achieve the neccessary security. Especially if you consider monsters as optimized as your character, within their constraints (for example, there would be no reason whatsoever for nightmares not to be continually astrally projected and laugh at your attempts to bind them, or for efreety not to use produce flames whenever the old flame winks out and use pyrotechnics when they are bound.).

Arakune
2010-04-19, 10:39 AM
@the Planar Binding Fancrowd
Please note that,
1) you have to use a Circle against Good/Chaos/Evil/Law to bind, you can't bind anything without it.
2) This makes Eschew Materials very useful because of the "break the circle" clause meant to simulate the traditional image of demon binding.
3) RAW, even a spellcrafted Magic Circle of Protection is no surefire way to completely neutralize whatever you bound. Circle of G/C/E/L has Will negates (harmless). So whatever you try to bind first saves against your Binding, and thus might not appear at all, and then gets a save against the circle - after it is there to potentially attack you. It's also a good idea to take Spell Focus: Abjuration instead of SF: Conjuration if you focus on binding extensively.

Disclaimer:
This doesn't make binding completely unsafe, it's just less trivial to achieve the neccessary security. Especially if you consider monsters as optimized as your character, within their constraints (for example, there would be no reason whatsoever for nightmares not to be continually astrally projected and laugh at your attempts to bind them, or for efreety not to use produce flames whenever the old flame winks out and use pyrotechnics when they are bound.).

Use Magic Circle against X (24h/level for this purpose);
Create a simbol;
Take 20 (why planar bind something if you don't take your time?);
Cast Dimensional Anchor (lasts as long as the magic circle);

Net effect? A creature cannot use its spell resistance against a magic circle prepared with a diagram, and none of its abilities or attacks can cross the diagram. If the creature tries a Charisma check to break free of the trap (see the lesser planar binding spell), the DC increases by 5. The creature is immediately released if anything disturbs the diagram—even a straw laid across it. However, the creature itself cannot disturb the diagram either directly or indirectly, as noted above. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicCircleAgainstEvil.htm)

So, YES, planar bindind is completly safe, at least the attempt itself. What kind of idiot that plan to planar bind Ban Abjuration or don't have a backup abjurer anyway?

Edit: Standard Charisma check for your planar binded creature: DC 15+ 1/2 CL + Cha mod, making it 15+4 (min CL) -1~+0 for an uncharismatic wizard. Your lvl 13 wizard will have at least 15+6 ((13-1)/2) -1~+1, making it at least DC 20, and with the circle bonus it's DC 25. In other words, for a demon/devil/angel with charisma bellow 20, it's literaly impossible to scape unless you managed to capture one with higher stats or with a magical item (in that case it's free loot, yay called creatures!).

Doug Lampert
2010-04-19, 10:49 AM
How will the throwing wepon cast the Greater Dispel magic? You could load a dispel magic in a spell storing weapon but those allow only up to 3rd level spells.

The same way a potion carries Anti-magic field, potions are also limited to level 3 spells.

Aharon
2010-04-19, 10:53 AM
@Arakune


Magic Circle against Evil
[omitted]
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)


Commonly ignored, but still there.

I fully realize that a saving throw against the magic circle doesn't change the great picture - but it delays the onset of usefulness of this tactic for a few levels: the risk of that tactic increased: from 5% chance of free creature on your plane to 9,75% free creature on your plane, assuming the creature only succeeds on its will save on a 20. And the risk of something going amiss (either free creature or no creature at all) increased from 9,75% to 14,2625%. Higher Will Save creatures become more dangerous to bind, if RAW is used.

Arakune
2010-04-19, 10:59 AM
@Arakune

Commonly ignored, but still there.

I fully realize that a saving throw against the magic circle doesn't change the great picture - but it delays the onset of usefulness of this tactic for a few levels: the risk of that tactic increased: from 5% chance of free creature on your plane to 9,75% free creature on your plane, assuming the creature only succeeds on its will save on a 20. And the risk of something going amiss (either free creature or no creature at all) increased from 9,75% to 14,2625%. Higher Will Save creatures become more dangerous to bind, if RAW is used.

RAW is used, if the creature pass the save, it isn't called. If the saving throw succeeds, the creature resists the spell. If the saving throw fails, the creature is immediately drawn to the trap (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/planarBindingLesser.htm).

The magic circle against X only strenghten the original trap (planar binding).

Boci
2010-04-19, 11:02 AM
Commonly ignored, but still there.

Probably because we assume the save is for those benefitting it, hence the harmless tag. I am aware that by RAW the firnd will still get a will save, but most harmless spells that can be dangerous to certain creatures (such as undead with cure X wounds) are specifically called out in the spells text.

Chen
2010-04-19, 11:09 AM
@Arakune


Commonly ignored, but still there.

I fully realize that a saving throw against the magic circle doesn't change the great picture - but it delays the onset of usefulness of this tactic for a few levels: the risk of that tactic increased: from 5% chance of free creature on your plane to 9,75% free creature on your plane, assuming the creature only succeeds on its will save on a 20. And the risk of something going amiss (either free creature or no creature at all) increased from 9,75% to 14,2625%. Higher Will Save creatures become more dangerous to bind, if RAW is used.

Isn't the Will Save for Magic Circle for the creature it gets cast on? There's no save for emanation part of it. Considering the spell is not being cast ON the creature I don't imagine that save applies (and it certainly isn't harmless in this case).

Aharon
2010-04-19, 11:11 AM
@Chen
The designers should have made it two spells. The way it is written, the will save applies. If you argue that it shouldn't, you should also note that the spell has Range: Touch, which would mean that you first have to plane shift to the creature you intend to bind, cast the spell on it, and than use planar binding on it. Assuming you know its name, of course. And as I argue in my answer to Boci below, it doesn't matter at all wether the spell is actually harmless in this instance or not.

@Boci
Yes, but nowhere does it say that it has to be repeated in the spell text. It's just a reminder. The fireball spell text doesn't repeat that you get a save, either. The save is mentioned in the header, that suffices. In the Cure Wounds spells, it's just mentioned again for your reading comfort, the actual rule is in the Magic section:


(harmless)

The spell is usually beneficial, not harmful, but a targeted creature can attempt a saving throw if it desires.

I mentioned this was from a purely RAW point of view. Wizards are strong enough as it is, we don't need to make it easier...

@Arakune
You're wrong. Please reread the whole spell text of Lesser Planar Binding, not just the part you quoted:


Casting this spell attempts a dangerous act: to lure a creature from another plane to a specifically prepared trap, which must lie within the spell’s range. The called creature is held in the trap until it agrees to perform one service in return for its freedom.

To create the trap, you must use a magic circle spell, focused inward.

As you see, it is the other way round from what you thought: the binding is only there to draw the creature into the trap - it then gets a will save against said trap, because it was created with a Will negates (harmless) spell.

Lycanthromancer
2010-04-19, 11:17 AM
Should've been 'potentially harmless,' because it is...if you use it focused outward. Otherwise, it's not harmless at all.

But as it stands, yes, planar bound creatures do get a Will save to negate.

That's why you hit it with a ton of ghoul glyphs, readied waves of fear, bestow curses, and so on.

Of course, this is much easier if you just buy a scroll of simulacrum and make one of an efreeti, then use your wishes to get more.

Aharon
2010-04-19, 11:24 AM
@Lycanthromancer
Yes, you can do that, and a prepared caster should. But let's imagine that some casters, in their hubris, didn't note that line in the spell description (or whatever is the in game equivalent that tells them how the spell works) and didn't take those preparations :smallbiggrin:
And most creatures you might want to bind will get away with teleport if they make their save. Roughly 1 in 10 of the creatures you try to bind fleeing... adds up. Might make a nice army if the DM decides to screw with you :smalltongue:

Lycanthromancer
2010-04-19, 11:44 AM
@Lycanthromancer
Yes, you can do that, and a prepared caster should. But let's imagine that some casters, in their hubris, didn't note that line in the spell description (or whatever is the in game equivalent that tells them how the spell works) and didn't take those preparations :smallbiggrin:
And most creatures you might want to bind will get away with teleport if they make their save. Roughly 1 in 10 of the creatures you try to bind fleeing... adds up. Might make a nice army if the DM decides to screw with you :smalltongue:This is why you add a dimension lock to the room, set up a large curtain stand around the magic circle to block line of sight, and cover the walls (and ceiling, and floor) of the room at large in sheets of paper covered in explosive runes and other cheap traps. Oh, and you have an acolyte with a wand readied to dispel the papers in case the critter can't read.

Sure, the monster may escape the magic circle, but it's not getting out of the room alive unless I let it. Furthermore, I ensure that it knows this. I'm getting what I want, no matter what it tries to do.

Cogidubnus
2010-04-19, 12:03 PM
After reading three pages of this I finally stopped chuckling. It does seem to often be missed that the point of the exercise is to prove to the fighter that he can't kill a level 13 wizard. If he's going to be a donkey about casting spells beforehand, he's going to be about you taking away his armour. SO, just slap your familiar in front of you before you start and use teleport. If he argues he won, go back and cast greater invisibility instead. If not, he already sees his problem. Once you're invisible, do what you want. Cast Bull's Strength and stab him with a spear.
Other tactics for surviving his charge include huge dexterity (+6 gloves, probably), bracers of armour, amulet of natural armour, and see if he misses you on the first round. Just for funnies.

Togo
2010-04-19, 12:21 PM
The problem with buffs is that, in general, the wizard is a source of buffs, while the fighter, by virture of being a superb platform, is usually the receipient of buffs. Arranging an arena fight where the wizard casts all his spells on himself, in advance, is not a normal situation. Furthermore, a wizard generally has to pace his spellcasting, putting a limit on the spells he can cast each fight. The arena fight also removes that limitation.

Now granted, you might expect, in the normal course of busienss, for the wizard to have a few all-day buff spells up, but then in the normal course of business the fighter would also have a few buff spells up. They just wouldn't be cast by him. Asking for spells cast outside the arena to be active inside the arena is fine by me, but allow the fighter to get a few spells up too - with perhaps a limit on the expense of the spells he can get to reflect the point that he's not casting them himself. Armour is a red herring. If someone insists on it, I can just get mithril, and endurance, and sleep in it all the time. Personally, I wouldn't do that because I can't imagine someone never taking their armour off, but then I also can't imagine a wizard conducting sensitive magical experiments and research while glowing from four or five enchantments kept up all the time.

Don't get me wrong, I love the wizard. But the fact is that if you're playing one, you're not your own DM, and much of what people are describing simply isn't as effective in practice as it is in theory.

I'd be happy to play my usual close combat character against any wizard build, and I suspect I'd win most of the time, in part because it's a character I'm very familiar with and can play very well. But that would be going a little beyond core.

The point is that it's how the character is played that is settling a lot of these fights. And that's how it should be. Fighters are easier to put at a disadvantage because they're far more specialised than wizards, but that doesn't make them bad characters.

Aharon
2010-04-19, 12:24 PM
@Lycanthromancer
Well, if you have to pull out 8th level spells to ensure that what you're trying to do works, the mission is accomplished.
A scroll of Dimensional Lock costs you 6000 gp, the wand of dispel at least 11250 gp (with a dispel check of only 1d20+5, the higher you want it, the costlier).

I never said it was impossible to get the binding done safely, just that it isn't a matter of snipping your fingers and poof, you're all-mighty.

And you might still get the short straw, if you get an efreeti with feats different from the standard ones; or up to two class levels.
You can only state the kind, not what feats it will have or its exact number of hit dice (though you can prevent getting one with more hit dice than you want by simultaneously binding some outsider with 2 HD).

Lycanthromancer
2010-04-19, 12:32 PM
Something very similar happened to me, wherein I was challenged to beat someone's 20th level fighter (all splatbooks allowed, but he had to be a vanilla fighter all the way), and I had to play a wizard.

He wanted me to play a 20th level wizard. I refused, and lowered my level (wealth and all) to level 17.

He wanted to grant me 3 buff-rounds. I refused, and took 1 instead.

He offered to let me have a full complement of buffs. I refused, and went in with only a single buff of permanent duration.

He wanted me to play with all splatbooks available. I refused, and took Core only (MM + PH + DMG).

He wanted to roll for initiative after the buff round; I refused, and let him have initiative every time.

He said I'd only have a 50% chance of beating him. I told him I could kill him in the first round, every time, and in a totally different manner, no matter how many times we tried.

I built mine; he built his. We played 3 times, and I held true to my promise, and one-shotted him (twice before I even got my turn in the initiative). He got frustrated and asked me for a list of all the spell combos I planned on using. I gave him a very long and extensive list, most of which only would've failed on a natural 1 (assuming there was any chance to fail at all, and even then, I was safe from retaliation, meaning I had another round to try, since it was impossible for him to touch me, period).

He was rather...perturbed.


@Lycanthromancer
Well, if you have to pull out 8th level spells to ensure that what you're trying to do works, the mission is accomplished.
A scroll of Dimensional Lock costs you 6000 gp, the wand of dispel at least 11250 gp (with a dispel check of only 1d20+5, the higher you want it, the costlier).

I never said it was impossible to get the binding done safely, just that it isn't a matter of snipping your fingers and poof, you're all-mighty.Wizards are nothing if not prepared; if you aren't, you're not a wizard...you're just dead.

As far as expenses go, 6000 gp is totally worth it for getting three wishes from an efreeti, and the dispel can be done just as easily from a scroll or a 5th level cohort (or even just a rogue with UMD). Or a simulacrum of you. Or you yourself.

All that really matters is that the critter knows that it's gonna die if you don't get your way (and since it's called, it'll die 4 r347z.


And you might still get the short straw, if you get an efreeti with feats different from the standard ones; or up to two class levels.
You can only state the kind, not what feats it will have or its exact number of hit dice (though you can prevent getting one with more hit dice than you want by simultaneously binding some outsider with 2 HD).You get the type you want; if it has extra class levels, yay, you get a bonus.

You can always prepare planar binding at a lower CL if all you want is an efreeti, say, at its original HD (so no unwanted surprises).

Aharon
2010-04-19, 12:35 PM
Is that the same duel that featured your ring gates? That was fun to read :smallbiggrin:

Lycanthromancer
2010-04-19, 12:38 PM
Is that the same duel that featured your ring gates? That was fun to read :smallbiggrin:Yup.

Also, I edited in my response to your previous post.

~LuckyBoneDice~
2010-04-19, 01:00 PM
This is a pointless contest. Seriously. Fighter is underpowered compared to even Bard (and I think bard is useless).

Even if he can break some of your spells (I haven't a clue how, but let's be hypothetical), the second you cast Fly, the most he can do in 99% of all fighter builds is shake his fist angrilly at you.

Torvon
2010-04-19, 01:10 PM
Has this come down yet? Cba to read through 7 pages.

If this contest has happened, please let us know how the outcome was. And you might also consider what your friend, the fighter, is trying to do. He must have *something* in mind.

ta-ta
T.

~LuckyBoneDice~
2010-04-19, 01:15 PM
Has this come down yet? Cba to read through 7 pages.

If this contest has happened, please let us know how the outcome was. And you might also consider what your friend, the fighter, is trying to do. He must have *something* in mind.

ta-ta
T.

I'm assuming he may go with a Leadership-Munky build

Cogidubnus
2010-04-19, 01:49 PM
@ Lycanthromancer: Can I read an account of this duel?

Nero24200
2010-04-19, 01:51 PM
So the wizard always wins?
:)

Well, may as well skip the formalities of actually playing and just give the wizard the gold :smallbiggrin:

Though in all seriousness, that's probably my best typo yet


This is a pointless contest. Seriously. Fighter is underpowered compared to even Bard (and I think bard is useless).

I agree here wholeheartidly. I personally feel the fighter is the worst designed class in D'n'D. If someone added a houserule to a game along the lines of "You start with X feats at 1st level instead of 1 and gain 1 feat every level instead of every 3" then no one would even take the fighter at all.

If the contest was between the wizard and another martial class, then I'd reckon the martial class would stand a bit more of a chance.

Cogidubnus
2010-04-19, 01:57 PM
I agree here wholeheartidly. I personally feel the fighter is the worst designed class in D'n'D. If someone added a houserule to a game along the lines of "You start with X feats at 1st level instead of 1 and gain 1 feat every level instead of every 3" then no one would even take the fighter at all.

If the contest was between the wizard and another martial class, then I'd reckon the martial class would stand a bit more of a chance.

You can say that again.

Eldariel
2010-04-19, 02:01 PM
Even if he can break some of your spells (I haven't a clue how, but let's be hypothetical), the second you cast Fly, the most he can do in 99% of all fighter builds is shake his fist angrilly at you.

No, he'll use an item of flight which you suppress via. Dispel. Then he'll pull out his bow and shoot ineffectually, or you can Wind Wall in a location where it takes multiple turns of move to get around it, if you feel threatened.

After that, he'll shake his fist angrily at you. If he has a flying mount, it may be prudent to make life a living hell for it so it won't be of much use anymore. But yeah, level 13 Fighter should have at least some means to fly or he's worse than useless even against random monsters.

~LuckyBoneDice~
2010-04-19, 02:05 PM
No, he'll use an item of flight which you suppress via. Dispel. Then he'll pull out his bow and shoot ineffectually, or you can Wind Wall in a location where it takes multiple turns of move to get around it, if you feel threatened.

After that, he'll shake his fist angrily at you. If he has a flying mount, it may be prudent to make life a living hell for it so it won't be of much use anymore. But yeah, level 13 Fighter should have at least some means to fly or he's worse than useless even against random monsters.

I said that simply to skip the dispel, bow block, and ect.

and even flying mounts can be wasted by 13th level. A well-metamagiced fireball or something like that would kill his mount, then he'd have to take fall damage, which would probably kill him.

Face it: He's screwed

JonestheSpy
2010-04-19, 02:41 PM
1) The point of these 'arena fights' is to try and be a fair, unbiased comparison of if Fighters and Wizards are equally balanced vs. each other. The purpose is not to create an enjoyable match to watch for spectators.


The number of people who fail to grasp that the above statement flat-out doesn't work makes my head hurt. To repeat:



Yes, once you get past a certain level, a wizard with all their spells prepared will probably beat a fighter - although if "being the first to run away" counts as losing, as it so often does in actual combat, than that changes things a bit.

But the whole idea of judging one character being "better" than another by which would win in an arena duel is ridiculously simplistic. The biggest handicap spellcasters have is that they can run out of spells, and have to constantly be judging whether a spell is worth using in a particular situation or not. And to paraphrase Snow Crash, swords don't run out of ammo. So to compare character's strengths in a situation where a spellcaster is free to blow all their spells in a single fight is just dumb.

If you really want to compare characters, they would need to be run through a series of encounters in a typical dungeon-like scenario with unknown foes. It would have to a be a situation where stopping for 8 hours to replenish spells isn't an option, but take place over a few hours, so spell durations would be a relevant factor. THEN you can actually start talking sensibly about this topic.

A fighter can drink a couple of healing potions after an encounter and then be pretty much as good as new, whereas a wizard will have expended non-replaceable resources (in the context of a series of encounters), whether they heal themselves or not. That makes a huge difference.

Boci
2010-04-19, 02:46 PM
A fighter can drink a couple of healing potions after an encounter and then be pretty much as good as new, whereas a wizard will have expended non-replaceable resources (in the context of a series of encounters), whether they heal themselves or not. That makes a huge difference.

1. Potions are far too expensive to use as your main source of healing on a regualr bases. Reliable and affordable out of combat healing requires other party members, or UMD ranks and a wand of lesser vigour/CLW.

2. Day long buffs + reserve feat.

ArcanistSupreme
2010-04-19, 02:47 PM
Why won't the wizard be able to easily recover his used spell slots? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/ropeTrick.htm)

Yukitsu
2010-04-19, 02:48 PM
A fighter can drink a couple of healing potions after an encounter and then be pretty much as good as new, whereas a wizard will have expended non-replaceable resources (in the context of a series of encounters), whether they heal themselves or not. That makes a huge difference.

For the same cost or less as the potions, the wizard can use a series of scrolls to make up any shortfall.

Kurald Galain
2010-04-19, 02:49 PM
A fighter can drink a couple of healing potions after an encounter and then be pretty much as good as new, whereas a wizard will have expended non-replaceable resources (in the context of a series of encounters), whether they heal themselves or not. That makes a huge difference.
Well, that is a good point. So just like how expendable items are generally made (a lot) more expensive for arena matches, so too, perhaps, should the wizard begin with 1/4th of his spell slots. After all, he gets one battle rather than the proverbial four-encounters-per-day.

(for more accuracy, take all spell slots, subtract buffs that last for 8 hours or more, and then divide by four)

Amphetryon
2010-04-19, 02:49 PM
The number of people who fail to grasp that the above statement flat-out doesn't work makes my head hurt. To repeat:



A fighter can drink a couple of healing potions after an encounter and then be pretty much as good as new, whereas a wizard will have expended non-replaceable resources (in the context of a series of encounters), whether they heal themselves or not. That makes a huge difference.
*cough* Rest in the rope trick/magnificent mansion/15 minute work day etc *cough*. If it's your contention that the fighter, having downed the healing potions and such, is in good enough shape to adventure in a typical D&D environment without his wizard friend, then, I have to say, you play a very different iteration of D&D than that with which I am familiar.

mostlyharmful
2010-04-19, 02:49 PM
reserve feat.

Or Magic Jar. Or Planer binding. or Dominate Person. or Shapechange. or PAO. or Control Undead. Or Permenancied Symbols...... etc.....

Tinydwarfman
2010-04-19, 02:56 PM
*cough* Rest in the rope trick/magnificent mansion/15 minute work day etc *cough*. If it's your contention that the fighter, having downed the healing potions and such, is in good enough shape to adventure in a typical D&D environment without his wizard friend, then, I have to say, you play a very different iteration of D&D than that with which I am familiar.

Not to mention that in those 15 minutes the wizard saved the world twice and became a deity. The fighter meanwhile, has just defeated a wandering patrol on the outskirts of BBEG's kingdom.

EDIT:

How about this, we make one wizard that fights against 4 of your fighters back to back, and then we'll see how many times the wizard can kill them all.

Gametime
2010-04-19, 03:07 PM
A fighter can drink a couple of healing potions after an encounter and then be pretty much as good as new, whereas a wizard will have expended non-replaceable resources (in the context of a series of encounters), whether they heal themselves or not. That makes a huge difference.

This is a fair point, but more or less irrelevant if the wizard isn't blowing at least one-fourth of "useful" spells in the fight. Since most of the strategies involved here can take the fighter out with one[i/] spell, it seems unlikely that the results will be vastly different over the course of multiple encounters.

Meanwhile, buying enough potions to heal yourself after four encounters every day is a [i]massive hit to your wealth.

Renewable resources are great and all, but when the wizard has enough non-renewable resources to defeat every single enemy he's likely to face in a day, the point becomes moot.

ArcanistSupreme
2010-04-19, 03:13 PM
And while the fighter is drinking his potions (provided the wizard didn't dominate the fighter and take them), the wizard also has ways of renewing his resources (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#pearlofPower). Granted, they are a bit more expensive, but they are also usable more than once.

JonestheSpy
2010-04-19, 03:15 PM
1. Potions are far too expensive to use as your main source of healing on a regualr bases. Reliable and affordable out of combat healing requires other party members, or UMD ranks and a wand of lesser vigour/CLW.


This is actually a good point - the rules are obviously written such that a well-balanced party has access to someone casting healing magic, not that characters would have to devote a significant amount of heir resources to healing.

To really have a fair contest, each person going through the little challenge dungeon would have a mid-level healbot to follow them and could cast a limited number of cure spells after encounters throughout. Any in-combat healing would actually have to be supplied by the character.

As for the rest of the "Rope Trick/Mansion/ 15 minute workday" nonsense, you're making my head hurt again. Go back and read what I said - a typical dungeon like scenario where stopping to rest for 8 hours isn't a feasible option. If you need a justification, say part of the scenario is that you have to rescue the virgin that's going to be sacrificed 6 hours after you go down the stairs into the first room.

Really, any DM who let's players get away with the 15 minute workday deal with ant frequency should just throw their screen into the recycling bin, lie down on the porch, and paint "WELCOME" on their forehead.

Amphetryon
2010-04-19, 03:18 PM
As I said, if your DM is consistently putting artificial time constraints on every quest in order to prevent adequate rest, you're playing a fundamentally different game of D&D than that to which I am accustomed.

ArcanistSupreme
2010-04-19, 03:20 PM
So the wizard just teleports in, saves the virgin, and teleports out. Time left over? 5 hours 59 minutes. Why can't he regain his spells slots then?

On a more serious note, healbots and in-combat healing are also bad 99% of the time. There is no reason that someone should have to waste spell slots to prepare healing spells (aside from heal, maybe).Wands of vigor and the like are your friend.

Tinydwarfman
2010-04-19, 03:27 PM
This is actually a good point - the rules are obviously written such that a well-balanced party has access to someone casting healing magic, not that characters would have to devote a significant amount of heir resources to healing.

To really have a fair contest, each person going through the little challenge dungeon would have a mid-level healbot to follow them and could cast a limited number of cure spells after encounters throughout. Any in-combat healing would actually have to be supplied by the character.

As for the rest of the "Rope Trick/Mansion/ 15 minute workday" nonsense, you're making my head hurt again. Go back and read what I said - a typical dungeon like scenario where stopping to rest for 8 hours isn't a feasible option. If you need a justification, say part of the scenario is that you have to rescue the virgin that's going to be sacrificed 6 hours after you go down the stairs into the first room.

Really, any DM who let's players get away with the 15 minute workday deal with ant frequency should just throw their screen into the recycling bin, lie down on the porch, and paint "WELCOME" on their forehead.

How is that a fair contest? You're giving the fighter the resources he needs back, while the wizard is perfectly content with no healbot at all. If that's the case, you should give the wizard whatever percentage the fighter gets in health, back to slots. So if the fighter gets full healing up to his max HP, the wizard has the ability to renew all of his slots.

Kurald Galain
2010-04-19, 03:28 PM
How is that a fair contest?

Well, perhaps it's not, but perhaps with such a handicap the wizard can still win?

The Cat Goddess
2010-04-19, 03:40 PM
Has this come down yet? Cba to read through 7 pages.

If this contest has happened, please let us know how the outcome was. And you might also consider what your friend, the fighter, is trying to do. He must have *something* in mind.

ta-ta
T.


I'm assuming he may go with a Leadership-Munky build

Actually, he specifically said "no leadership feat"... mostly because he knows I'm much better at group tactics than he is. I do know he's going two-handed Axe w/ Improved Crit though. He's got his character done (he didn't take very long (2 hours!), so I'm not expecting an amazing gear selection), but I indicated I was busy preparing the adventure for the day. Since I'm out of town this weekend, I have nearly two weeks to prepare... and he might re-build his Fighter a little. I do expect him to have a Ring of Evasion, since he knows I can't get the Orb spells.

Overall, I'm looking to build a Wizard who is not optimized for arena combat. I plan on giving her at least a few spells that would be pointless, since I'm seeing that I won't need even half my compliment of spells for this.

Paulus
2010-04-19, 03:57 PM
I love this.

Warning [Rant] ahead, don't bother unless you like rants.

The wizard has everything prepared for any occasion because he is always prepared, Where as the fighter has nothing prepared because he never prepares, The wizard has everything he needs, the fighter has nothing he needs, oh yeah well the wizard just this or the wizard just that... blah blah blah blah! Can we just get over how much love the wizard has gotten already?

Fair? FAIR? You want a true fair fight? Give the fighter access to every feat in the game, without prerequisites. And as many feats as the wizard has spells. The ultimate problem with the fighter is literally no class features. Extra feats? Anybody can have those and with prerequisites they never amount to much, or just add prerequisites to spells.

This is why they invented maneuvers which are, and they refer to this in the book itself, like combat spells. Even then you'd have to add ten more splat books full of maneuvers, which is basically just giving the fighter access to all spells only reflavored as maneuvers. And even then, maneuvers have prerequisites. SO. If you want true balance, re-flavor spells and maneuvers to BOTH have prerequisites that enforce balance. There you go.

It's a question of mechanics, the wizard has infinite possibility, where as the fighter, does not. Simply because the fighter does not have infinite possibility does NOT make them a bad character or even a bad choice, does it make them less of a character then the wizard? certainly. bad that isn't bad design of the fighter, it's bad design of the wizard and spell mechanics themselves. Why? because all full casters can break the game. This doesn't make the fighter broken. It makes the wizard, cleric, druid broken. EVEN in core. Again, the fighter is not weak, the Wizard is just too strong. Through no fault of either of them I might add.

Spells are powerful things and a wizard wold literally be nothing without them. So really it isn't the wizard a fighter is fighting, it's his spells. The Wizard has an infinite weapon. A fighter does not. How is this hard to grasp?

It isn't fighter vs. wizard it is melee combat vs. spells. Fighter and Wizard are just the so called poster classes for each, but no matter how geared a fighter may be to utilize the combat mechanics of melee, spells will always trump them because they have their own rules for each spell and spells that contradict them, or allow loop holes, and such, it's an incomplete and overly complex system with far too much added to it. Where as Melee combat has been what is always was until maneuvers. No real room for difference. Still this does not make melee combat weaker then spell casting. It makes Spell casting stronger than everything else. People always seem to blame the fighter or melee combat for being wrong or broke, when it is the spell system which is broken and over powered, but gygax help you if you try to nerf any spells or the spell system. THEN you're just evil./rant

Am I the only who understands there is nothing wrong with the fighter and wizard and everything wrong with spells? Even Maneuvers don't fix the brokenness of spells, it just emulates them correctly. Maneuvers are what spells should have been, not what combat should have been.

Spells with prerequisites, that's the way to go.
Just like feat's and Maneuvers have Prerequisites.
And by that I mean Spells should be divided into Boosts (Buffs), Strikes(Debuffs or Attacks), and Counters. with limitations on what you can use each round, and how they are refreshed and readied. Ready your spells each morning, and clerics even have a spell refresh mechanic in the crusader, and so on and so fourth. Wizards aren't broken, they just utilize what IS broken.

I think they did this with 4e, wouldn't know though. Sure would be one heck of a task prereqing all those spells and balancing them against each other. But balance is never easy when you screw something up so greatly heh.

dota600
2010-04-19, 03:59 PM
How is that a fair contest? You're giving the fighter the resources he needs back, while the wizard is perfectly content with no healbot at all. If that's the case, you should give the wizard whatever percentage the fighter gets in health, back to slots. So if the fighter gets full healing up to his max HP, the wizard has the ability to renew all of his slots.

That is like saying a lighter boxer needed to be putted with heavy gloves as same to the heavier boxer just to say they are in a "fair contest". I can say they are in a "balanced" contest(because of the fact that they are both wearing weighted gloves), but I can also confidently say they are not in a "fair" one.

Wizard still wins hands down however.

ArcanistSupreme
2010-04-19, 04:05 PM
I think a more effective illustration of the wizard's superiority would be to do all three fights without "resting." Give whoever needs it (ie the fighter) a free true resurrection between fights and keep going. Demonstrate just how many ways the wizard can take on the fighter.

Eldariel
2010-04-19, 04:06 PM
Am I the only who understands there is nothing wrong with the fighter and wizard and everything wrong with spells? Even Maneuvers don't fix the brokenness of spells, it just emulates them correctly. Maneuvers are what spells should have been, not what combat should have been.

No, you're not. It's just that Wizard is the sum of his spells so Wizard-class is basically the Spells-chapter and as such, as long as the Spells-chapter is broken, Wizard is broken.

Note though that to truly fix spells, all you need to do is pick all the spells that are more powerful than what a gameworld can handle, and cut the wings off those ones. Of course, the issue is that there's so much to fix it's almost easier to just design a new system.

The Cat Goddess
2010-04-19, 04:17 PM
Actually, the debate came up because he was complaining that I was too lenient about allowing people to take campaign specific (I'm running a Greyhawk world, but allowing Eberron & Forgotten Realms races (except Warforged) & classes.) Prestige Classes.

I had mentioned that I had found a neat FR Prestige Class, and he said "but we're not using Forgotten Realms Deities!" :smallsigh: I quickly pointed out the "Adaptation" section of the class description and further indicated that virtually any campaign specific Prestige Class could be adapted to any campaign setting.

He grumped and insisted that the game would be better balanced if we just used "core" (PH, DMG, MM1)... to which I replied that in no way was "core" 3.5 balanced past level 10. That's when he said "prove it!" and I told him to build a level 13 core-only fighter. :smalltongue:

I'm tempted to allow him any prestige classes that he can qualify for (as a Fighter) and feats out of any WotC D&D 3.5 book he wants... :smallbiggrin:

Paulus
2010-04-19, 04:20 PM
No, you're not. It's just that Wizard is the sum of his spells so Wizard-class is basically the Spells-chapter and as such, as long as the Spells-chapter is broken, Wizard is broken.

Note though that to truly fix spells, all you need to do is pick all the spells that are more powerful than what a gameworld can handle, and cut the wings off those ones. Of course, the issue is that there's so much to fix it's almost easier to just design a new system.

That's why they made 4E. Tome of Battle was just the tip of the iceberg of what needed fixing. ...I wonder if any 3rd party every tried to do this.

Now THAT would be a Spell Compendium. In fact I've always advocated A Core Book, DM guide, Monster Manual. But expand them ridiculously. Such as Monster Compendium contains ALL monsters, and that means MMI-III.
A PRC Compendium which contains all Prcs.
A Class Compendium which contains all non core classes.
A Maneuver Compendium which contains all Maneuvers.
A Spell Compendium which contains all Spells.
And if there is simply too much info, expand them into volumes like the Monster Manual did. But I digress. Spells are broken, not Fighters. Spells are too much, Fighters aren't too little. It's perspective. I guess I just get tired of Fighter and Wizard bashing when we should be spell bashing. Instead of combat bashing too.

Then again Spells are suppose to be infinite because magic is. Which is really handy in a co-op game... but not so much fun for those no magic characters. Maneuvers balances this out but now you are trying to make it fun for everyone so you have to cut back on spells, like Maneuvers did. Guess it was too big of a task for further 3... I would have called it Ultimate Three.

Also, I don't think pathfinder addressed any of this though...

Eldariel
2010-04-19, 04:22 PM
He grumped and insisted that the game would be better balanced if we just used "core" (PH, DMG, MM1)... to which I replied that in no way was "core" 3.5 balanced past level 10. That's when he said "prove it!" and I told him to build a level 13 core-only fighter. :smalltongue:

...that reminds me of a certain forumite...


I'm tempted to allow him any prestige classes that he can qualify for (as a Fighter) and feats out of any WotC D&D 3.5 book he wants... :smallbiggrin:

Eh, PrCs generate a can of worms 'cause he could just go Beholder Mage and get 9th level arcane spells or such, for example. Not all casting PrCs require Fighter-levels. But any feats shouldn't really matter.

As for your Wizard-build, just ensure you have means to actually attack him, not just control him, and ways to ensure he hasn't skimped on his saves (smashing his Will- and Ref-save with stuff like Web and Glitterdust is a decent start; then just AoE his general location with fun stuff).

Tinydwarfman
2010-04-19, 04:30 PM
Actually, the debate came up because he was complaining that I was too lenient about allowing people to take campaign specific (I'm running a Greyhawk world, but allowing Eberron & Forgotten Realms races (except Warforged) & classes.) Prestige Classes.

I had mentioned that I had found a neat FR Prestige Class, and he said "but we're not using Forgotten Realms Deities!" :smallsigh: I quickly pointed out the "Adaptation" section of the class description and further indicated that virtually any campaign specific Prestige Class could be adapted to any campaign setting.

He grumped and insisted that the game would be better balanced if we just used "core" (PH, DMG, MM1)... to which I replied that in no way was "core" 3.5 balanced past level 10. That's when he said "prove it!" and I told him to build a level 13 core-only fighter. :smalltongue:

I'm tempted to allow him any prestige classes that he can qualify for (as a Fighter) and feats out of any WotC D&D 3.5 book he wants... :smallbiggrin:

Naw, let him use any core stuff, but if you allow non-core, he'll find say the fight wasn't a good representation of core balance. Crush him 5 times in a row, and he'll see the light.


That is like saying a lighter boxer needed to be putted with heavy gloves as same to the heavier boxer just to say they are in a "fair contest". I can say they are in a "balanced" contest(because of the fact that they are both wearing weighted gloves), but I can also confidently say they are not in a "fair" one.

Wizard still wins hands down however.

:smallconfused: I'm not sure I understand your analogy.
Let me explain more clearly.
So let's say, the melee fighter needs gloves of STR for his magic items. However, the archer fighter needs gloves of DEX for his magic items. You can't give them both gloves of STR, even though they both have a STR stat, just like you can't give both a fighter and a wizard a healbot, even though they both have an HP stat. You need to give a thing of equivalent but different power to the wizard. Which is why I suggested the fighter gets his all his HP back in free healing, and then the wizard gets all of his slots back. Both of them have effectively doubled their resources.

Beorn080
2010-04-19, 04:49 PM
Here's one problem, and its similar though not as long lived as the druid factor. The wizard has a class spell, summon monster *, which is pretty much as powerful as an equivalent fighter, plus a familiar. Hard to fight three magical opponents at once.

JaronK
2010-04-19, 04:52 PM
Here's one problem, and its similar though not as long lived as the druid factor. The wizard has a class spell, summon monster *, which is pretty much as powerful as an equivalent fighter, plus a familiar. Hard to fight three magical opponents at once.

Eh, unless that familiar has particular resources devoted to it (such as Improved Familiar and buff spells) it's not really a magical opponent. But Summon Monster, Animate Dead, Planar Binding, Plague of Undead, and a variety of other spells do let you create additional warriors on the battlefield, which can REALLY tip things.

JaronK

dota600
2010-04-19, 05:02 PM
N
:smallconfused: I'm not sure I understand your analogy.
Let me explain more clearly.
So let's say, the melee fighter needs gloves of STR for his magic items. However, the archer fighter needs gloves of DEX for his magic items. You can't give them both gloves of STR, even though they both have a STR stat, just like you can't give both a fighter and a wizard a healbot, even though they both have an HP stat. You need to give a thing of equivalent but different power to the wizard. Which is why I suggested the fighter gets his all his HP back in free healing, and then the wizard gets all of his slots back. Both of them have effectively doubled their resources.

This is from my limited knowledge of the professional boxing rules but I am using it to state something on my quoted reply earlier.

In boxing, the boxers are usually arranged in weight class. From Bantamweight to Heavy weights, they are separated because of the fact that if one is more heavier he can deliver a more powerful blow than to the one who is lighter in weight. Plus the fact that a heavier fighter can take more punches because the extra weight can in theory give him more endurance than the one who is lighter in weight.

A boxer however can fight in any weight class as long as he met the standard weight(or catch weight) that is agreed on before the fight. However if one boxer does not met the catch weight they are penalized or punished with something. There are other punishment of course but one of the other punishment is giving the boxer who is a bit heavier than the agreed weight a pair of boxing gloves that are heavier than what is standard. This presumably and hopefully will give the lighter boxer a fighting chance.

The one you suggest earlier like I said is like giving the lighter boxer(the fighter) the standardized heavy gloves(the wizard gets all of his slots back) just the same as the heavier boxer(the wizard) who is already penalized(the fighter gets his all his HP back in free healing) because he is not in the catch weight in the so called attempt to make them both balanced out. They are both wearing heavy gloves which appears to be balanced but they are not in a fair fight because we all know that a heavier boxer has the trump of just being heavy(which shows that the heavy boxer is in an imbalanced fight).

All in all, you try to balanced the fight but you did not attempt it to be a fair one.:smallsmile:

Of course the reason why catch weight or weight class are invented so that a boxing match would be more enjoyable and exciting than seeing one guy punching the other one in just one blow.

Beorn080
2010-04-19, 05:03 PM
It was more for flanking and touch attacks more then anything. A nice hawk familiar would make a nice divebomber for spells that the wizard would have to get close to use.

Tinydwarfman
2010-04-19, 05:04 PM
Eh, unless that familiar has particular resources devoted to it (such as Improved Familiar and buff spells) it's not really a magical opponent. But Summon Monster, Animate Dead, Planar Binding, Plague of Undead, and a variety of other spells do let you create additional warriors on the battlefield, which can REALLY tip things.

JaronK

In my experience, you don't need to devote any resources make a familiar good other than Polymorph, which means you have two hydras instead of one! If twelve heads are good, 24 must be better!

Eldariel
2010-04-19, 05:49 PM
In my experience, you don't need to devote any resources make a familiar good other than Polymorph, which means you have two hydras instead of one! If twelve heads are good, 24 must be better!

Much earlier, Remorhaz is a nasty customer. A form you can assume as soon as you learn Polymorph, perverse Grapple-check of +23 (+19 with level 7 Wizard BAB; still plenty good as Enlarged Raging Orc Grappler Barbarian can merely match you at 29 Str, Large and Improved Grapple for +20, and his Grapple-checks don't start dealing 2d8+12+8d6 damage), beautiful Natural Armor bonus of +11, and overall being a nasty piece of work.

If you're into this sorta fighting, Mage Armor and Bull's Strength (as longterm buffs) on before shifting, maybe even Cat's Grace if you feel so inclined and even Heroism if you truly want to buff yourself (10 min/levels so they're over an hour at this level already; plenty of time to run through a dungeon and beat up some suckers) give you stats along the lines of:

To Hit: +13 for 2d8+15 & Improved Grapple (GMF on all weapons up for good measure for extra +1/+1 if you feel so inclined)
Grapple: +21 (if you really build towards this, mind, you can just pick Improved Grapple too)
AC: 26
and your Familiar is identical (except ˝ HP, but you both have some Temporary HP from False Life and such). If you have Improved Grapple, all you ever need is a touch attack to hit, but even without it (or if you just eat up the AoO; your AC is fairly good for this level and that's before accounting for any randomness like Shield before battle or such - also, you could just have Hasted yourself for a second such attack and extra AC + speed + damage), your To Hit is quite respectable.

Sure, it doesn't beat the Orc Barbarian (indeed, he has 7 BAB+9 Str+1-2 Weapon-1 Size for a total of +16-+17, 50% chance to hit you if you don't use short-term buffs like Mirror Image, Displacement, Blink or similars), but it's not terribly far, and you do beat him in Grapple now (even though he's the Grappler, while you're just a Wizard). It takes that one action in the start of the combat to throw on Polymorph; then you just move up, AoO something and profit.


EDIT: It's worth noting that Wizard+Familiar with shared buffs Polymorphed into a Remorzah have no trouble beating a real Remorzah silly (it has trouble hitting while Wizard and familiar hit just fine, the Grapple-checks are quite even though Wizard and familiar are unlike to even bother and Wizard & familiar simply have more attacks). Remorzah is a CR 7 martial opponent and this is a straight Wizard, pretending to be a martialist. Please tell me Polymorph is balanced in core.

Kish
2010-04-19, 06:15 PM
As I said, if your DM is consistently putting artificial time constraints on every quest in order to prevent adequate rest, you're playing a fundamentally different game of D&D than that to which I am accustomed.
...Adequate rest? The only alternatives are 15-minute days with no consequences at all or "the DM is artificially preventing adequate rest"?

I believe that belongs in the dictionary under "false dilemma."

The Cat Goddess
2010-04-19, 06:42 PM
EDIT: It's worth noting that Wizard+Familiar with shared buffs Polymorphed into a Remorzah have no trouble beating a real Remorzah silly (it has trouble hitting while Wizard and familiar hit just fine, the Grapple-checks are quite even though Wizard and familiar are unlike to even bother and Wizard & familiar simply have more attacks). Remorzah is a CR 7 martial opponent and this is a straight Wizard, pretending to be a martialist. Please tell me Polymorph is balanced in core.

Polymorph (and, later, Shapechange) are considered among the most broken spells in core.

Eldariel
2010-04-19, 06:57 PM
Polymorph (and, later, Shapechange) are considered among the most broken spells in core.

Preach to the choir, lass. I know. Some people around here have decided to claim it's not really broken in Core though "'cause the forms you can acquire tend to be of CR lower than your ECL and thus not too powerful." Yes. Really.

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-19, 07:05 PM
...Adequate rest? The only alternatives are 15-minute days with no consequences at all or "the DM is artificially preventing adequate rest"?

I believe that belongs in the dictionary under "false dilemma."

You can have natural time constraints, yes.

But if the DM is contriving to prevent magical means of resting by-and-large, there will be artificial constraints. The dilemma's not false. Your interpretation is.

Beorn080
2010-04-19, 07:07 PM
And don't forget, if you've taken still, silent, and eschew materials, your still a caster while almost fully emulating an entire fighter build. Granted, a weakened caster due to the decrease in how high a level you can use effectively, but its still more magic then the dedicated orc grappler.

JaronK
2010-04-19, 07:30 PM
...Adequate rest? The only alternatives are 15-minute days with no consequences at all or "the DM is artificially preventing adequate rest"?

I believe that belongs in the dictionary under "false dilemma."

The issue is how many spells Wizards have to create adequate rest. As such, the DM actually does need to use fiat to stop you.

JaronK

Kish
2010-04-19, 07:38 PM
The issue is how many spells Wizards have to create adequate rest. As such, the DM actually does need to use fiat to stop you.

JaronK
How many of those spells suspend time? All balance issues aside, I would say if you advertise that you're in an area controlled by goblins/bandits/lizardfolk who are hostile to you, and then do nothing for 23 hours and 45 minutes out of every day, it creates horrendous verisimilitude issues if the residents are still where they'd be if you'd actually gone all the way through the dungeon in one or two days. That's assuming the campaign's villain doesn't have an Evil Plan which s/he completes without opposition two weeks worth of fifteen-minute days after the campaign started (three and a half hours of adventurer activity), while you're slumbering peacefully in your Rope Trick. Or, alternatively, if the villain isn't that dangerous, at the end of that two weeks you emerge from your Rope Trick to find the dungeon was cleared out while you were sleeping and another group of adventurers is collecting your reward.

(Yes, I know someone's going to say "that's unfair DM fiat." I simply disagree; I think it's, rather goofy, DM fiat if you can expect the world to hold still for you.)

Koury
2010-04-19, 07:41 PM
How many of those spells suspend time? All balance issues aside, I would say if you advertise that you're in an area controlled by goblins/bandits/lizardfolk who are hostile to you, and then do nothing for 23 hours and 45 minutes out of every day, it creates horrendous verisimilitude issues if the residents are still where they'd be if you'd actually gone all the way through the dungeon in one or two days. That's assuming the campaign's villain doesn't have an Evil Plan which s/he completes without opposition two weeks worth of fifteen-minute days after the campaign started (three and a half hours of adventurer activity), while you're slumbering peacefully in your Rope Trick.

You're forgetting just what gets accomplished in those 15 minutes. Those goblins/bandits/lizardfolk aren't there anymore, thats for sure. Because you spent 15 minutes fireball/glitterdust/whatever-ing them all to death.

DragoonWraith
2010-04-19, 07:42 PM
You do realize that "15-minute-workday" is an exaggeration, right? High level Wizards have more than enough spell slots to much, much longer than that. Not to mention that they are more than capable of doing a ridiculous amount in an actual 15 minutes.

Beorn080
2010-04-19, 07:49 PM
In a 15 minute workday, a wizard has leveled the badguys fortress, foiled the summoning, annihilated his low level mook minions, scoured the globe for the cure to the princess's poison, and teleported directly back to her bedchamber's, as a courtesy, of course.

The fighter, of the course of an 8 hour day, maybe arrived at the tower.

DragoonWraith
2010-04-19, 07:51 PM
The fighter, of the course of an 8 hour day, maybe arrived at the tower.
Not if it's a BBEG worth his tower...

Beorn080
2010-04-19, 07:53 PM
The BBEG worth his tower lets the fighter come to it, so he can dominate him and use him as a mook. After all, why go to the cannon fodder, when it comes to you.

Tura
2010-04-19, 08:03 PM
Some people around here have decided to claim it's not really broken in Core though "'cause the forms you can acquire tend to be of CR lower than your ECL and thus not too powerful." Yes. Really.
IMHO, the problem with all the Polymorph / Shapechange / Wild Shape shenanigans is the assumption that you're playing in a vanilla world where all monsters exist. (Or, in some cases, all monsters included in core. Or in core and splatbooks A, B and C.) And moreover, that the casters are familiar with all of them.

This is a very common assumption, and a lot of people play the game like that, so I won't be rash to say it's "daft" (which would my instinctive first reaction). But at least in games I like most, it just doesn't happen like that.

The way I see it, the fact that we have 5 Monster Manuals available doesn't mean that we have to include all those creatures in the world. And it certainly doesn't mean that the characters have access to this information just because the players do. (In fact, monsters and magic items are supposedly known only to the DM - players weren't meant to read the books in the first place. :smalltongue: And while this isn't really feasible these days, it's good to remember that your character doesn't know what you know.)

The way I see it, the abundance of monster entries means simply that the DM has a lot of pre-made monsters to choose from when he's populating the world. Maybe the setting has a lot of magical beasts, or maybe it only has Unicorns. Maybe it has all sorts of dragons and dragonspawns and whatever you can find in relevant splatbooks, or maybe there are no dragons at all. Maybe it has a lot of fey, or maybe the fey were exiled millennia ago to another dimension. Maybe there are polar bears, or maybe the climate ranges from temperate to tropic. Etc.

So, a Remorzah (to use Eldariel's very good example) has a place in the setting only if the DM wishes so. And even then, the casters may or may not know about it. A wizard would have to beat a Knowledge (Nature) check of 17 to simply identify it. (I reckon he'd need to roll much higher to transform into one, though there are no rules for that and we're veering into DM's discretion territory. But I believe it makes sense.)

Conclusion: in my experience, if you establish a "roster" of known monsters before starting the game, most of the Polymorph (etc) problems simply disappear. (poof!)

P.S. Once again, I repeat that if someone enjoys playing in a setting where all monsters exist by default and people can summon or turn into them at will, then that's perfectly fine. Carry on and have fun. :smallsmile: I just wanted to note that it's not a given - and I've played many many games where such choices were limited. And people were still having fun, regardless. :)

Gametime
2010-04-19, 08:14 PM
So, a Remorzah (to use Eldariel's very good example) has a place in the setting only if the DM wishes so.

Unless the DM is specifically banning monsters that are overpowered forms for Polymorph, there are almost certainly going to be some things worth turning into. If he is doing that, it's less of a setting constraint and more of a houserule.

It's a fairly trivial knowledge check to identify a creature. If it exists, the wizard will be able to research it and turn into it, according to the rules. If you feel those rules are silly, more power to you, but this is hardly a universal decision and it does nothing to change the problems with the rules themselves.

Eldariel
2010-04-19, 08:22 PM
IMHO, the problem with all the Polymorph / Shapechange / Wild Shape shenanigans is the assumption that you're playing in a vanilla world where all monsters exist. (Or, in some cases, all monsters included in core. Or in core and splatbooks A, B and C.) And moreover, that the casters are familiar with all of them.

I don't think familiarity and existence are viable balancing mechanisms. Why? 'cause DM can't be restricted by what monsters to include on the basis that a Wizard/Druid with said monster would break the game. That just stifles creativity and overall, sucks for the DM.

Knowledge-check helps a bit, but particularly in Wizard's case, Knowledge is a class skill they tend to invest heavily in anyways and Int-based to boot; trying to restrict Wizard through forcing Knowledge-checks is like trying to restrict Barbarian by scaling damage opponents deal (Barbarians have obscene HP) - they're the very best at that and if they can't deal with it, nobody can. As such, if Wizards can't make the checks, you might as well have banned the ability since nobody can use it.


Both feel like suboptimal solutions to me, and particularly since we're exploring the world with rules as written where Hydras and Remorhazes exist, not really viable. I think the power of these abilities should be such that they're fair for the level where they are available with the power level of creatures in the Monster Manual.

Polymorph simply gives too large bonuses for too little cost. That's the principal issue. Make it give smaller bonuses; portion of the creature's power instead of all of it as the Wizard isn't skilled enough to make functional muscles of that size yet, for example.

Planar Binding's problem is different; it allows controlling the creatures you summon even though that's an enchantment, not a conjuration effect. Remove that and there's nothing wrong with the spell. It's still useful, but you at least need Dominate Monster to truly gain servants with it, and that's easy enough to block. Remove some of the restrictions on what it can bring too; if it might bring a prepared or a particularly powerful individual, the spell's reliability is such that it's always a risk to cast it.

Gate is similar to Planar Binding, except with even larger issue (no Charisma-check needed for control, autosucceeds in bringing anything, fast enough for combat use, can bring epic creatures on level 20 due to the 2xHD clause), and similar to fix. But yeah, simple Knowledge and restriction of what creatures exist is not really a viable fix in the long term unless the DM wants to stifle himself due to creatures being overpowered.

The spells should be restricted enough that they don't break the game even if the creature itself is kinda insane; PCs shouldn't have free access to all monster-powers as that's the true source of power. In fact, the game becomes bizarrely more fair if you remove Monster Manual and only allow PHB stuff for PCs (though Simulacrum is still stupid as is Contact other Plane and few others; still, most of the broken stuff draws upon giving PCs access to the Monster Manual in an insufficiently restricted manner).

Captainocaptain
2010-04-19, 10:36 PM
Just out of curiosity.
In an arena style fight where both competitors only exist to kill eachother and have basically popped into existence only long enough to do that, doesnt the fighter have the advantage?
Assuming both parties are fresh for battle, and prepared for the encounter, but only have what is explicitly stated on their character sheets, then wouldnt the fighter have his armor and weapon and mount and whatnot ready,
and the wizard would have his spells prepared, and his spell components and stuff,
but the wizard would not have any buffs or anything, neither would the fighter, but still. Assuming neither have ever done anything at all before the moment they popped into existence...
I think the wizard would still win. but it would be a much better fight than the wizard pulling god out of his hat.
Gee, not really a question in there is there...
Ok: So would this still be a level playing field? Personally I think so.

The Glyphstone
2010-04-19, 10:42 PM
If they only exist to kill each other, though, instead of being samples of their respective classes, then it's justifiable for the wizard to have tailored his prepared spells to be most efficient in an arena fight against a melee character. In that case, the fighter better pray he wins initiative, because if he loses, the match is effectively over.

Eldariel
2010-04-19, 10:50 PM
If they only exist to kill each other, though, instead of being samples of their respective classes, then it's justifiable for the wizard to have tailored his prepared spells to be most efficient in an arena fight against a melee character. In that case, the fighter better pray he wins initiative, because if he loses, the match is effectively over.

And the Wizard has more ways to win initiative and loses less by focusing on Dex; Fighter might just give up his ability to win at all if he focuses on winning the initiative. And this is ignoring silly options like Wizard simply having Tower Shield and using it for total cover or his gear including a wagon inside which he starts or whatever; since the scenario is completely contrived, that's all legal.

Basically, the issue is that the Fighter can't really let the Wizard get to act if he wants to win. Once they're both active, the Wizard can really nullify the Fighter with little effort and finish him and his leisure, while the Fighter has real trouble as much as affecting the Wizard.


And of course, while Fighter outside Core may be able to sunder the protection and kill the Wizard in one hit, outside Core the Wizard is more likely to win the Initiative too, so...

But this is completely contrived and is not in any way relevant to anything as...yeah, it's just not relevant. As long as characters don't just pop into existence (How the hell do they have anything on them anyways if they just pop into existence? Shouldn't they start by putting some damn clothes on unless they're nymphs?), it's not even scientifically interesting.

Paulus
2010-04-20, 12:16 AM
All of this just goes to show how broken casting it, yet all I see are endless threads about 'fighter fixes' and none about 'spell fixes' I can almost guarantee you no matter what you do to the fighter you will never make him able to defeat a wizard simply because the wizard has too broken a class feature in spells.

Fix the Spells not the Fighter. Prerequisite, not ban. Why if I was clever enough to balance all of these things out I would totally take every single spell in the game and separate it by schools and only allow the wizard certain schools like the sword sage, cleric certain schools like the crusader, and sorcerers certain schools like the warblade. Druid would get warblade/crusader crosses, and Bard warblade/swordsage crosses and such. Then further divide them into Buffs (boosts), Attacks or Debuffs (Strikes), Counters and Other (such as utility). And then put them into a chained system whereby the value of each spell is weighed, such as the polymorph line being so powerful can not be coupled with an equally powerful school such as conjuration so you can't summon if you transform and such.

Put limits on the kind of things magic can do outside of the character 'not being good at melee' because why is that a downside? If the character never intends to be in melee, why would he need to be good or bad in melee? Poor Hp, and attacks are pointless when your spells do so much more then you need so you would never need to go in melee anyway. All the great magics of the world always have draw backs, a Wizard's Kryptonite should not just be his spell book!

Sadly I don't know enough about spells to do so. I've never played a wizard I'm too busy trying to enjoy melee. Yet for every thread I see decrying melee in any form and see the reason is always casting, the fact monsters are usually bigger or stronger is always dead second if even that and eventually it just gets to the point where someone needs to start pointing out that maybe we should be decrying spells.

Why else is e6 considered so balanced? Limitations of spells! Certainly not because melee somehow shines here!

Seatbelt
2010-04-20, 12:30 AM
It is easier to reballance one class than it is to rework the entire vancian magic system.