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Craig1f
2008-01-24, 10:19 AM
What are people's thoughts on the Mage Slayer feat from Complete Arcane? At first I thought it was good, but the target KNOWS it can't cast defensively, and can just take a 5-foot step to cast. So, if you don't have a reach weapon out, it doesn't do a whole lot of good.

What does everyone else think? Has anyone used this feat very effectively? What about Pierce Magical Protection and Pierce Magical Concealment?

FinalJustice
2008-01-24, 11:32 AM
Have a reach weapon, have fun. I have problems with both 'pierces', as they doesn't make any sense. Auto dispeling stuff every round? Yeah, I know, noncasters are weaker, but THIS? Seriously? A int 3 freakin' orc can dispel a 20th level Wizard automatically without even know what he is doing.

Idea Man
2008-01-24, 11:47 AM
This works best if your "mage slayer" is reserving actions to chase the mage if he decides to fall back, basically making you a reactive participant instead of a proactive one. It's the melee version of counterspelling. Not as much fun, but it can be effective.

The best result of this feat is to give it to a large or larger creature with natural reach. A giant with this feat could give the caster a serious problem.

Frosty
2008-01-24, 11:53 AM
Just take a few levels of Knight. Suddenly everyone you threaten can no longer take 5-ft steps. Add in Spiked Chains and you basically shut down casters.

TK-Squared
2008-01-24, 12:31 PM
Just take a few levels of Knight. Suddenly everyone you threaten can no longer take 5-ft steps. Add in Spiked Chains and you basically shut down casters.

Or, y'know, Tome of Blood's Thicket of Blades stance.

Craig1f
2008-01-24, 12:37 PM
Unfortunately, I took Cleave instead of Mageslayer. The session ended with me just having charged a guy who teleported into our ship, and is about to strike down one of the rowmen. The guy is wearing no visibile armor, but clearly has magical armor of some sort. Combat will begin with his turn.

He's probably going to cast a nasty spell at me, and it's going to suck. A full-round attack will suck equally.

I rolled a 40 to-hit (+20 while raged, plus the duskblade cast something on me that increased my STR by 2, plus the bard is playing some song thingy, plus I rolled an 18 on the die, minus some power attacking). The DM described a few magical barriers that I powered-through on the attack.

So clearly, I regret not taking either mage-slayer or improved criticals. This DM allows retraining, so you can train for the expected encounter. I knew we were going up against magic-users.

Frosty
2008-01-24, 12:57 PM
Or, y'know, Tome of Blood's Thicket of Blades stance.

If you're gonna give advice, you should at least know the book you're talking about. It's Tome of Battle not tome of blood.

ChaosDefender24
2008-01-24, 01:01 PM
Mage Slayer works better if you're attempting a general lockdown; standstill, thicket of blades, and a long reach (spiked chain, Enlarge Person, etc.) all help in this regard.

Craig1f
2008-01-24, 01:03 PM
Yeah, I think I'll take this feat back later. I also like improved critical, which I'll trade out when I get a Keen enchantment.

Indon
2008-01-24, 01:05 PM
Have a reach weapon, have fun. I have problems with both 'pierces', as they doesn't make any sense. Auto dispeling stuff every round? Yeah, I know, noncasters are weaker, but THIS? Seriously? A int 3 freakin' orc can dispel a 20th level Wizard automatically without even know what he is doing.

From what little I've seen of them, I like the concept. D&D meleers are already basically supernaturally strong already, this sort of Norrisistic stunt (I hit you so hard that I enforce the laws of physics!) seems largely appropriate.

Craig1f
2008-01-24, 01:34 PM
Have a reach weapon, have fun. I have problems with both 'pierces', as they doesn't make any sense. Auto dispeling stuff every round? Yeah, I know, noncasters are weaker, but THIS? Seriously? A int 3 freakin' orc can dispel a 20th level Wizard automatically without even know what he is doing.

Well, Pierce Magical Protection only dispels magical enhancements to AC. It's usually other spells that you want to dispel. Mage's AC isn't usually terribly high in the first place, even with mage armor up.

Pierce Magical Concealment confuses me though. It says you ignore the miss chance from magical means, but you still don't know what square they're in right? You can't actually see them now right? It's just that, if you pick the right square, you don't have the miss chance. It's not very clear.

Craig1f
2008-01-24, 01:57 PM
Have a reach weapon, have fun. I have problems with both 'pierces', as they doesn't make any sense. Auto dispeling stuff every round? Yeah, I know, noncasters are weaker, but THIS? Seriously? A int 3 freakin' orc can dispel a 20th level Wizard automatically without even know what he is doing.

Well, Pierce Magical Protection only dispels magical enhancements to AC. It's usually other spells that you want to dispel. Mage's AC isn't usually terribly high in the first place, even with mage armor up.

Pierce Magical Concealment confuses me though. It says you ignore the miss chance from magical means, but you still don't know what square they're in right? You can't actually see them now right? It's just that, if you pick the right square, you don't have the miss chance. It's not very clear.

Frosty
2008-01-24, 02:07 PM
Basically, you ignore Blur, Displacement, Mirror Image, and other effects similar to those. You act like as if the spell wasn't even there.

Craig1f
2008-01-24, 02:11 PM
Basically, you ignore Blur, Displacement, Mirror Image, and other effects similar to those. You act like as if the spell wasn't even there.

I'm pretty sure the feat mentions invisibility as well. Does that mean that I can automatically see invisible creatures? Or does it mean that if I attack into their space, I don't have a 50% miss chance? Or am I wrong about invisible creatures?

Frosty
2008-01-24, 02:15 PM
I do not remember seeing anything about invisibility. I can't check at work, but it would be too good to just give See Invisibility this way.

bignate
2008-01-24, 02:32 PM
IMHO the feat is only good if you use a spiked chain or the reach weapon/spiked armor combo, if you are a knight, or you have thicket of blades.

but if you have those it is pretty good. just remember that swift spells dont provoke so you still wont have most casters locked down.

Craig1f
2008-01-24, 03:36 PM
IMHO the feat is only good if you use a spiked chain or the reach weapon/spiked armor combo, if you are a knight, or you have thicket of blades.

but if you have those it is pretty good. just remember that swift spells dont provoke so you still wont have most casters locked down.

On the other hand, I could finish off my build with improved unarmed attack and improved grapple. That outta prevent them from casting.

Thrawn183
2008-01-24, 03:55 PM
My interpretation is that pierce magical protection suddenly made blind-fight worthwhile.

Edit: excuse me, pierce magical concealment.

Craig1f
2008-01-24, 04:00 PM
My interpretation is that pierce magical protection suddenly made blind-fight worthwhile.

Edit: excuse me, pierce magical concealment.

Blind-fight is nice. But like most feats, it's way too circumstantial.

Thinker
2008-01-24, 04:00 PM
On the other hand, I could finish off my build with improved unarmed attack and improved grapple. That outta prevent them from casting.

Why would that be better? At least with a reach weapon you could also take Improved Trip later and do some battlefield control, too. There are other nifty things you can end up doing with the Pierce Magical Concealment, as Person Man showed.

Person_Man
2008-01-24, 04:06 PM
Any full BAB build should be able to kill any one CR appropriate target in one round, via a Charge with Pounce or a Full Attack. Spellcasters should always be killed first. So it should be rare for you to ever threaten casters in the first place anyway, and Mage Slayer will be of limited use.

Pierce Magical Concealment is wildly useful at higher levels, when its common to face Blur, Invisibility, Greater Invisibility, Displacement, etc. Just find a way to pick up Scent, Nemisis, Blindsense, Tremorsense, or something similar, so that you can locate which square your enemy is in. There are numerous ways to get it via feats, items, or class abilities.

There's also a very useful trick you might not be aware of.

Buy a Ring of Blinking. Activate Ring of Blinking (standard action). Now for the next five rounds, you have 50% Concealment against your enemies, and you strike as an invisible creature, denying enemies their Dex bonus to AC. Worried about your 20% chance of missing? Take Pierce Magical Concealment, and now you ignore it because the feat specifies that you ignore the miss chance from any magical effect. It even lists Invisibility and Ghostform (which makes the caster ethereal) as examples of effects it ignores. A great boon to any build that relies on Precision Damage, but doesn't want to burn though a Wand of Greater Invisibility.

But wait, there's more!!!

Buy a Wand of Flame Blade, or take one level of Pyrokineticist. Your attacks are now all touch attacks. You only miss on a roll of a natural 1. And while Mage Slayer and Pierce Magical Concealment lower your Caster Levels, they have no effect on Psionic Manifester Levels. So you can be a Psion or whatnot, able to replicate most magical effects, but with the benefits of the Mage Slayer feats.

Of course, your DM will murder you if you try to play this. But you could always use it as a BBEG against cocky players.

Craig1f
2008-01-24, 04:06 PM
Why would that be better? At least with a reach weapon you could also take Improved Trip later and do some battlefield control, too. There are other nifty things you can end up doing with the Pierce Magical Concealment, as Person Man showed.

My barbarian has INT 10. He won't be able to take improved trip. I'm trying to avoid Shocktrooper cheese. And his strength is 24 out of rage, so he's already doing good damage.

I like the grappling idea, because someone can cast Enlarge Person on me. The duskblade can hit me with some animal spell that boosts my STR another 2. That puts my STR at 32 in rage, which is a +11 enhancement. Plus another 4 for improved grapple, and another 4 for my size bonus.

So, I would have a +19 to my grapple check before I even add my BaB.

Also, my Barbarian's axe is very important to him. It was given to him by his tribe. It's homebrewed to be 19-20/x2, with an enchantment that makes it +0 out of rage, but +2 in rage, for the cost of a +1 enchantment. So, he won't be using any other weapons besides his bow.

horseboy
2008-01-24, 04:08 PM
From what little I've seen of them, I like the concept. D&D meleers are already basically supernaturally strong already, this sort of Norrisistic stunt (I hit you so hard that I enforce the laws of physics!) seems largely appropriate.

I LOL'd so hard I almost choked on my butter toffee sunflower kernels.

Craig1f
2008-01-24, 04:17 PM
Any full BAB build should be able to kill any one CR appropriate target in one round, via a Charge with Pounce or a Full Attack.

If you know how much to power attack.

Karsh
2008-01-24, 04:22 PM
And while Mage Slayer and Pierce Magical Concealment lower your Caster Levels, they have no effect on Psionic Manifester Levels. So you can be a Psion or whatnot, able to replicate most magical effects, but with the benefits of the Mage Slayer feats.

I was going to say that Psionics-Magic Transparency negates this, but, reading the text of that rule... Well damn. Of course, if you rule that it doesn't apply to manifester levels, Mage Slayer and its related feats are ineffective against psionics, but that's still not too huge of a loss.

Craig1f
2008-01-24, 04:26 PM
I was going to say that Psionics-Magic Transparency negates this, but, reading the text of that rule... Well damn. Of course, if you rule that it doesn't apply to manifester levels, Mage Slayer and its related feats are ineffective against psionics, but that's still not too huge of a loss.

No Psionics in this campaign. Although, it would not work against divine magic users. We're in a war against Orcs, so there are a lot of Shamans to deal with.

Edit: Although, my understanding is that a Shaman can be a Sorcerer, Cleric, or Druid. But they just refer to all magic users as Shamans. And orcs don't have Wizards.

Frosty
2008-01-24, 04:38 PM
Good DMs will introduce terrain and other things so charging doesn't work every single time. It'd be boring to one-shot encounters every time.

Solo
2008-01-24, 04:42 PM
If you know how much to power attack.

All of it :smallbiggrin:

Craig1f
2008-01-24, 04:46 PM
All of it :smallbiggrin:

Well, as an example, in this last session, I think I described what was going on. We're after this Sorcerer, that has a habit of using enchantments. We're following him on a ship, that has at least a few dominated individuals, but we believe the captain is his ally.

So we convince the ship we're on to intercept them in the night. They start firing cannons at us, but we had a saboteur on board their ship, so their cannons are out. Someone teleported below, and I rush in to see a guy with a huge greatsword and no armor. I don't know if he's a magic user, or if he's a fighter that someone buffed up before sending him into our ship.

What's the most AC an unarmored person could have from magic? Let's say 6 dex, 5 from bracers, 5 from magic, 26? Although, we're level 9, so that would be ridiculous. Let's say 6, 2, and 2, so his AC is 20 maybe?

I can't do a full power attack on that if I want to hit on the 2nd attack.
But I figure I should be PAing for at least 5, if I'm doing 1d12+18 damage, and the attack difficulty is 0.

Frosty
2008-01-24, 04:59 PM
You can PA all you want if you're using Shock trooper.

Frosty
2008-01-24, 05:01 PM
oh, and unarmored AC can go up much, much beyond that in higher levels. Bracers of armor, Ring of Protection, Amulet of Natural Armor, 4 classes that give <stat> to AC that you can dip (incidentally, you can make it all charisma to AC)

Craig1f
2008-01-24, 05:02 PM
You can PA all you want if you're using Shock trooper.

Naw, I'm trying to avoid that cheese. I haven't taken Shock Trooper. I might get it later, as the magic-users in the group start doing more in battle than I do.

I plan to go for grappling first. But I can't afford the feats now anyway. My character has been charmed, dominated twice, and given amnesia. He's sick of failing Will saves, so he's taken Steadfast Determination and Iron Will. He's short on feats. He'll probably get three levels of holy liberator so he'll be immune to charms and compulsions.

Also, I was not able to charge this character. I had to use a standard action to attack him, because I didn't have a straight line to him. I had to run down some steps.

Craig1f
2008-01-24, 05:04 PM
oh, and unarmored AC can go up much, much beyond that in higher levels. Bracers of armor, Ring of Protection, Amulet of Natural Armor, 4 classes that give <stat> to AC that you can dip (incidentally, you can make it all charisma to AC)

So, at level 9, dude teleports into your ship and is wearing no visible armor, and carrying a big-ass sword. What would you put his AC at initially for the purpose of PA?

Edit: We'll say dex is probably 22, so +6. Ring of Protection +3, Nat armor +3, mage armor +3, so 25? I'm going to assume he's not dipping in any AC classes. Of course, I have no reason to assume that.

Frosty
2008-01-24, 05:04 PM
A cheap item from the magic item compendium is Boots of the Battle Charger. Costs you 1500 gold. 2/day you can now charge as a standard action. it has other goodies too.

Craig1f
2008-01-24, 05:06 PM
A cheap item from the magic item compendium is Boots of the Battle Charger. Costs you 1500 gold. 2/day you can now charge as a standard action. it has other goodies too.

Nice. For 2250gp, I can add that to my boots of striding and springing.

Frosty
2008-01-24, 05:06 PM
So, at level 9, dude teleports into your ship and is wearing no visible armor, and carrying a big-ass sword. What would you put his AC at initially for the purpose of PA?

At level 9? depends on my build and what else is going on. I tend not to like trading full attacks, so I'd either try to charge to finish off in one round, or I'd try to Trip with a spiked chain. Stop him from doing more damage until backup arrives. I wouldn't just straight up run to him and PA.

Craig1f
2008-01-24, 05:09 PM
At level 9? depends on my build and what else is going on. I tend not to like trading full attacks, so I'd either try to charge to finish off in one round, or I'd try to Trip with a spiked chain. Stop him from doing more damage until backup arrives. I wouldn't just straight up run to him and PA.

Well, we're on a collision course with the enemy ship. Ain't no one down there except me and the duskblade. I finished my turn 10ft from him (enlarged, animal-something'ed, raged, inspired) after damaging him for something in the 30's. The duskblade finished his turn ready to charge/flank in the next round. BBEG is up. I'm hoping my +11 will save and 100+ HP will keep me alive in the next round.

Edit: I'd have held back at charging distance, and let him finish his swing into the crewman, but my character is good, and would rather take the swing than allow someone he knows will die in one hit take the swing.

Karsh
2008-01-24, 05:10 PM
No Psionics in this campaign. Although, it would not work against divine magic users. We're in a war against Orcs, so there are a lot of Shamans to deal with.

Mage Slayer works on anyone who casts spells, divine or arcane.

Craig1f
2008-01-24, 05:11 PM
Mage Slayer works on anyone who casts spells, divine or arcane.

OH, you're right. I was thinking of favored enemy - Arcanist.

AvatarZero
2009-06-29, 05:36 PM
II'm not contributing much here, but...


The duskblade can hit me with some animal spell that boosts my STR another 2.

It's called Animalistic Power and it's in the PHB2.

I wonder how the Mage Slayer feats effect the fifth level Abjurant Champion ability that sets your caster level equal to your base attack bonus.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-06-29, 05:46 PM
I wonder how the Mage Slayer feats effect the fifth level Abjurant Champion ability that sets your caster level equal to your base attack bonus.You apply effects in the order most beneficial, IIRC. So you take the penalties, then you apply Abjurant Champion, then you add in any boosts you have.

The Rose Dragon
2009-06-29, 05:53 PM
The last post was 25th of January, guys. 2008. Show some respect for the dead.

herrhauptmann
2009-06-29, 07:30 PM
Geeze, mageslayer and friends just keep on coming back these last 2 weeks.