Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one

[Sewercop]

Ah but here is the core of the misunderstanding, the people who try to kill a tier 1 caster don´t have to look at any links provided.
If this particular wizard has the build/abilities/spells/items provided by the link we just ignore this one and take on the other wizard/t1 caster that does not have these.
Remember the challenge the op proposed was about killing A tier 1 Caster not about killing a specific one

I am well aware that there are nearly unbeatable builds (t0 and t-1 builds could maybe kill them) out there but that does not mean that all t1s are build that way

Remember this?

Also, please assume the casters have adequate defenses set up, so "ambush them with arrows" doesn't quite work out at CLVL 15+

From the op in the first post. Yeah,adequate defenses means that I am a turtled up crazy paranoid wizard thinghy. Adequate for me means that most other spellcasters cant reach\touch\harm me. And that will by default exclude any stupid arrow shot at me.

Tier 1 can by definition break the game. So the thing you look for are a cleric,druid,wiz,psion thinghy that has no spells due to low stats... That one I bet you would fight against.

[Emmerask]

Still adequate is variable for me it certainly means that the caster will be protected against most forms of mundane damage protected against arrows, protected against none magical weapons, of course mind blank is pretty reasonable too etc but does adequate include wearing a tinfoil hat or communing with gods every day to know what will happen? I think that is stretching it a bit ^^

[jseah]

<...> but does adequate include wearing a tinfoil hat or communing with gods every day to know what will happen? I think that is stretching it a bit ^^

I'm curious now. May I know why?

It seems quite reasonable to me once the idea is thought of.

[Sewercop]

Still adequate is variable for me it certainly means that the caster will be protected against most forms of mundane damage protected against arrows, protected against none magical weapons but does adequate include wearing a tinfoil hat or communing with gods every day to know what will happen? I think that is stretching it a bit ^^

Well, what do you consider normal then? Probably the same as most other people do. The thing is, threads like this are like a shiny lure for people that like a challenge. Your problem? They took the side of the casters :) Cry me a river, the caster will always win unless you bring in casters or gods or dm fiat.

Yes, the little ademantium hat is normal, talking with the gods are normal, your own plane? thats just cool, got to have one!Being able to shapechange? Its cool to. Never surprised?self preservation.Resurection save games? Of,course have you any idea how much time i have used on this character?

With a sane gm? I would not even play tier 1. Why? Do you know what they can do?
Instead of downplaying tier 1`s i play something else. And I believe that most people that have knowledge about the game do the same. I have no proof of this at all, but I guess most of them like to play a little. Not just break things.

I like to theorize because it tells me whats wrong and what not to abuse, or what to leave out when I gm.
And I have fun doing this.
Instead of playing dumb,dumber I play something else.

[Radar]

Ah, but the other extreme is pointless too (attacker has no chance whatsoever)

So whats left is the middle ground which might make sense to discuss though someone has to design a decent avg t1 caster

Though what I consider too much others might consider a minimum amount of protection, for example my casters would never run around with a tinfoil/adamtine foil hat ^^

Umm... we didn't even go into extreme CO (let alone TO). Besides, the linked topic from Brilliant Gamologists contains three wizard builds with varying levels of preparation and cheese, so there you have it.
And yes, it is impossible to objectively define reasonable ammount of preparation. Still, for any effort on the wizard side, potential assassins have to put a lot more (and often specialise) to have a chance. Thus, if both sides would stay at the same level of optimisation (if it could be properly measured), the wizard still has the upper hand. It is just that much easier with all those spells.

[Gametime]

These discussions always seem to have at least one person insisting "Wizards aren't broken if you don't let them do broken things!"

It's pretty obviously true, but it's also a bit like saying "Bears aren't dangerous if they don't have teeth or claws or big heavy bodies!"

[Doug Lampert]

These discussions always seem to have at least one person insisting "Wizards aren't broken if you don't let them do broken things!"

It's pretty obviously true, but it's also a bit like saying "Bears aren't dangerous if they don't have teeth or claws or big heavy bodies!"

While I agree that in theory D&D 3.x is hopelessly broken, it's not that bad in actual practice. The thing is that as far as I can tell in most ACTUAL campaigns the wizard DOESN'T do broken things. Wizards blast, clerics heal, everyone's happy except the cleric's player who keeps insisting that his class is underpowered!

People not only actually BELIEVE that a 1000 XP cost at level 17 for gate is relevant but they also think the 45 XP cost for a fifth level utility spell on a scroll is a real cost!

Hint: Defeating a CR 17 foe at level 17 is worth 5,100 XP (1,275 XP each for a party of four) and if you're Gate Cheezing you're probably fighting higher CR foes, in fact, you are perfectly capable of soloing higher CR foes and don't actually need to share the 10,200 XP you get from a CR 19 kill. (Uh No! I wasted 10% of the XP on a gate, what shall I wish for today?)

But let's assume you are so inept or so paranoid that you fight equal CR foes and drag the rest of the party along to siphon off XP and STILL gate cheeze every encounter. You're still advancing, and in the event that you fall behind a level then the rest of the party then they only get 1,350 XP per encounter while you net 800 XP per encounter (after the gate) for standard patrol encounters. By the time they're level 19 they get 1,525 XP and even after the gate you net 1,550 XP after the gate and are catching up.

And you're with them on gear, which by that level is a substantial fraction of the Wizard's power and virtually all of the fighter's power. But lots of people still have the reaction of "Ohh! XP cost bad! Must avoid."

Sleeping in an extradimensional space with an alarm spell on the entrance is a level 1 slot + a level 2 slot. This isn't resource intensive massive effort. Yet half a dozen or more people ON THIS THREAD have suggested garking a high level wizard while he sleeps!

People just don't play that way. They don't play defense at ALL, most of the time when the fight foes with all sorts of mobility and scrying powers the foe stands, fights, and dies rather than teleporting away and using a SBT on them.

Now. This PARTICULAR thread refers explicitly to Tier 1 classes, and the Tier structure is based around a particular level of optimization, well short of PunPun but well up from filling your nineth level slots with Meteor Swarm, Power Word Kill, Wail of the Banshee, Dominate Monster, and Iron Body or playing a heal-bot cleric who's pumped charisma so his Turn Undead will still be useless.

[BeholderSlayer]

While I agree that in theory D&D 3.x is hopelessly broken, it's not that bad in actual practice. The thing is that as far as I can tell in most ACTUAL campaigns the wizard DOESN'T do broken things. Wizards blast, clerics heal, everyone's happy except the cleric's player who keeps insisting that his class is underpowered!

I <3 your last sentence in this paragraph. Epic win.

Most campaigns do have a blaster wizard, which just goes to show that most people don't play the game past level 10. Once you get into the double-digits, you better have an insanely damage optimized spellcaster to do remotely enough damage to more than tickle your enemies and make them laugh at you.

At high levels, for me at least, this means "no save just suck" spells, divide and conquer, party boosting, and summoning. If you are wasting 8th level spell slots doing things like casting Polar Ray you are wasting actions unless you have a supremely optimized cold caster. Even then, you could have spent your time having a less singular focus and performed even better.

[Sewercop]

People just don't play that way. They don't play defense at ALL, most of the time when the fight foes with all sorts of mobility and scrying powers the foe stands, fights, and dies rather than teleporting away and using a SBT on them.

In my experience, playing with some defense are the difference of having a single character a campaign or to reroll x times.

I do not how many times I have seen GM`s make a dragon fight on the ground without using spells. Or a roc that lands and fight instead of snatching a character\horse\whatever and fly away.Or other stupid things that make no sense what so ever...

How many of you guys playing melee guys have thought about what if the gm made the dragon fly? And have it tossing spells at the same time as it should have been doing....
Guess not.

Yeah, Clerics... As I said, the one we had rerolled into a fighter :( She wanted to fight. Makes me wanna cry.

[BeholderSlayer]

In my experience, playing with some defense are the difference of having a single character a campaign or to reroll x times.

I do not how many times I have seen GM`s make a dragon fight on the ground without using spells. Or a roc that lands and fight instead of snatching a character\horse\whatever and fly away.Or other stupid things that make no sense what so ever...

How many of you guys playing melee guys have thought about what if the gm made the dragon fly? And have it tossing spells at the same time as it should have been doing....
Guess not.

Yeah, Clerics... As I said, the one we had rerolled into a fighter :( She wanted to fight. Makes me wanna cry.

A lot of DM's run games that way, way too many for my tastes. If players are using weak tactics and a DM actually plays enemies intelligently, the players are likely to repeatedly die to enemies several levels below them. An intelligently played level 5 wizard can easily TPK a full party of level 10 characters poorly played.

[Myth]

Ah that. I've warned my players that they can't expect the Lich to target a Half Orc with a stick instead of the Incantatrix on the right, going nova on him.

In the preparation for an Epic game where the players have to assassinate Cyric and stop 4E from happening, one player got mad and left at character creation, because he wanted to play a very, VERY idiotic PrC from some third party fail book on fail dwarves. He uses full plate and wields two shields. I asked him how will he then make the hordes of demons attack him instead of the real threats (the casters), or how will he cope with magic. He cried imbalance and never showed up again (this is PBP).

[Whammydill]

A high level chicken-infested commoner with Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Chicken and quickdraw draws out an infinite number of chickens in one round to smother and crush the hapless wizard who never contigiencied for such a fowl occasion.

All the while the commoner with his trusty amulet of chicken immunity, which makes him immune to all things chicken related laughs at his misfortune.

Even if he manages to get out of it he has an obscene amount of chickens to deal with! What use is it to live if the prime plane is now the Plane of Fowl. I mean...poop everywhere, feathers fowling (!) all your concentration checks....man this place is for the birds. /wrist


*no this isn't serious, but I found it amusing*

[BeholderSlayer]

In the preparation for an Epic game where the players have to assassinate Cyric and stop 4E from happening,

Oh my

Spoiler

Show

[Myth]

Lvl 1 Rogue, Level 29 Centaur Monk.
Stack WIS, DEX, and CON for items and stat set-up.
Choose +2 Will Save, Fort, and Ref feats.
Focus on raising UMD to maximum.
Purchase a couple wish scrolls (you're 30th level so you'll be starting with a lot more gp.)
Take deflect missle.
Take the epic version of deflect any missle.
Take the epic version of deflect any missle infinite times per day back at the caster.
Imp Init.
Endurance.
Feat for cannot fail Fort saves on a 1.
Feat to roll all Will saves as Fort saves.
Staff of Mindblank.
Wand of Dimensional Anchor.
Glove of Storing + Wand of Nerveskitter.
Scroll of Contigency level 18.
Scroll of Anti-Magic Shell.
Contigency when a Mage's Disjunction would effect you - Anti-Magic Shell.
Staff of Hunting: Discern Location, Greater Scry, Greater Teleport.
This is a generic build with generic items, nothing too optimized but it will give just about any caster a run for their money.

Saving throw wise you should be untouchable to the wizard.
He can use orb, but it will instantly be deflected and returned back onto him. He cannot land rays or Orbs.

This has a chance of killing a wizard. Even an optimized one.

If all else fails, shapechange into a Lich. Wear item which grants immunity to vacuum. Greater Teleport into space. Wish wizard to you.

Also you can use Discern Location to find the wizard (if he does not have mindblank up) and Wish for an accurate and well painted picture of that place. Then you can greater teleport there.

Conjurer 3 / Master Conjurer 2 / Incantatrix 10 / Archmage 2 / Iot7V 3

Orange Ioun Stone, Rod of Greater Extend x 2, 9th level Pearls of Power X 2, other things i haven't thought of.

Persisted Foresight via Incantatrix. Persisted Shapechange as well.

Centaur boy appears. Greater Celerity. Cast Extended Time Stop via rod. Cast Gate and call a CR42 creature which is good at grappling. I'm being generous here, i can easily get a caster level greater then 21. Rinse and repeat. Enough big bad bastards can grapple him without trouble. Shapechange in to an illithid and proceed to eat his brain.

[ArcanistSupreme]

Conjurer 3 / Master Conjurer 2 / Incantatrix 10 / Archmage 2 / Iot7V 3

Orange Ioun Stone, Rod of Greater Extend x 2, 9th level Pearls of Power X 2, other things i haven't thought of.

Persisted Foresight via Incantatrix. Persisted Shapechange as well.

Centaur boy appears. Greater Celerity. Cast Extended Time Stop via rod. Cast Gate and call a CR42 creature which is good at grappling. I'm being generous here, i can easily get a caster level greater then 21. Rinse and repeat. Enough big bad bastards can grapple him without trouble. Shapechange in to an illithid and proceed to eat his brain.

I think that this build might be sufficiently optimized to bump it up a tier or three. Can you do it while staying at tier one?

[BeholderSlayer]

Conjurer 3 / Master Conjurer 2 / Incantatrix 10 / Archmage 2 / Iot7V 3

Orange Ioun Stone, Rod of Greater Extend x 2, 9th level Pearls of Power X 2, other things i haven't thought of.

Persisted Foresight via Incantatrix. Persisted Shapechange as well.

Centaur boy appears. Greater Celerity. Cast Extended Time Stop via rod. Cast Gate and call a CR42 creature which is good at grappling. I'm being generous here, i can easily get a caster level greater then 21. Rinse and repeat. Enough big bad bastards can grapple him without trouble. Shapechange in to an illithid and proceed to eat his brain.

I'm surprised you even bothered to dig that up, as it would be solidly stomped with little effort by a decent spell caster. Ironically, it's using mimicked spellcasting to attempt to defeat a spellcaster, and even then loses before the fight starts.

I think that this build might be sufficiently optimized to bump it up a tier or three. Can you do it while staying at tier one?

technically that is a tier one

[Myth]

I think that this build might be sufficiently optimized to bump it up a tier or three. Can you do it while staying at tier one?

Sure, the only two major players in this build that a regular vanlla Wizard does not have are Abrupt Jaunt (which will let him say "no" to the centaur's charge or grapple or whatever) and the persisted Foresight (Shapechange needs not be persisted, but i figured why not, Incantatrix gets 7+Int uses per day of this anyway(

Basically so long as we can agree that Foresight will be active (aforementioned errand running, preparedness, extend etc.), nothing changes. Gates can be re-cast via 9th level Pearls of Power. A CR30 enemy surely warrants the expendature of a few thousand XP. Casting Graymantle would be nice if he has gone for some sort of insane regeneration build.

I'm surprised you even bothered to dig that up, as it would be solidly stomped with little effort by a decent spell caster. Ironically, it's using mimicked spellcasting to attempt to defeat a spellcaster, and even then loses before the fight starts.

Hey I'm somewhat new to DnD and definitely to CharOp. I wanted to practice. I also did it for the lulz.

[ArcanistSupreme]

Sure, the only two major players in this build that a regular vanlla Wizard does not have are Abrupt Jaunt (which will let him say "no" to the centaur's charge or grapple or whatever) and the persisted Foresight (Shapechange needs not be persisted, but i figured why not, Incantatrix gets 7+Int uses per day of this anyway(

Basically so long as we can agree that Foresight will be active (aforementioned errand running, preparedness, extend etc.), nothing changes. Gates can be re-cast via 9th level Pearls of Power. A CR30 enemy surely warrants the expendature of a few thousand XP. Casting Graymantle would be nice if he has gone for some sort of insane regeneration build.

Just trying to forestall any potential disagreements about this being a fair build. Persisted 9th level spells will probably cause a fuss (even if the end result is the same), but as long as you're sure that it hasn't been bumped up to Tier 0 or -1, I guess it's okay.

[Lans]

I'll say this again when dealing with celerity get an extra standard action, and use it to ready an action to cast/activate a maximized force orb.

So belt of battle, npc, or levels of factotum.

[Gametime]

I'm not sure how extra actions help when the wizard is going first.

[137beth]

Remember this?


From the op in the first post. Yeah,adequate defenses means that I am a turtled up crazy paranoid wizard thinghy. Adequate for me means that most other spellcasters cant reach\touch\harm me. And that will by default exclude any stupid arrow shot at me.

Tier 1 can by definition break the game. So the thing you look for are a cleric,druid,wiz,psion thinghy that has no spells due to low stats... That one I bet you would fight against.

As noted many times earlier in the thread, a rogue could teleport in with a magic item and sneak attack, unless the wizard uses foresight. Which is a 9th level spell (or 8th level). At 20th level, he wouldn't be able to keep it up 24/7, except with rod of extension (which is quite cheap at 20th level). So that particular wizard COULD get 100% success rate against a rogue. But a wizard who can not cast foresight would not have a 100% chance of bypassing the rogue's sneak attack (and I mean sneaking up, not the ability), and would thus not have a 100% chance of surviving the rogue's attack. Even if you assume every wizard in the game that is high level knows foresight, what about clerics? A cleric without the knowledge domain, how do you expect a cleric to keep their guard up 24/7? If the rogue gets a surprise attack, there is a chance it will kill the cleric.
Even if the cleric DOES get the first strike, there is no absolute guarantee they will win, unless they make appropriate use of a lot of spells which don't allow a saving throw. Examples of this have been shown for the wizard, but not cleric.
As for druid, polymorphing lets them do just about anything using the unmodified polymorph rules, so a well-played druid is probably truly unbeatable by a tier-3 or lower.

But for a SORCERER, who is only tier 2, most effects the wizard makes can also be done by a sorcerer, including the effects that supposedly make the wizard unbeatable. Against a sorcerer there really isn't a fail-proof strategy for a cleric or wizard (though a druid might be able to pull it off).

NOTE: this assumes a cleric is not able to instantly kill you with a miracle. Because miracle requires a lot of judgment on the GMs part, I have not included it in my explanations. If the GM rules that miracle+xp cost is capable of instantly killing all rogues and sorcerers trying to attack it during the next 2000 years, then I don't think anything could beat that.

[ArcanistSupreme]

But a wizard who can not cast foresight would not have a 100% chance of bypassing the rogue's sneak attack (and I mean sneaking up, not the ability), and would thus not have a 100% chance of surviving the rogue's attack. Even if you assume every wizard in the game that is high level knows foresight, what about clerics? A cleric without the knowledge domain, how do you expect a cleric to keep their guard up 24/7? If the rogue gets a surprise attack, there is a chance it will kill the cleric.

Check out heavyfortification. Rogues are considered tier 4 partially because it is so easy to avoid sneak attack damage.

[Tyndmyr]

A lot of DM's run games that way, way too many for my tastes. If players are using weak tactics and a DM actually plays enemies intelligently, the players are likely to repeatedly die to enemies several levels below them. An intelligently played level 5 wizard can easily TPK a full party of level 10 characters poorly played.

Yeah. Ive played under a lot of such DMs. They are often under the impression that adding attack bonus, AC, and a pile of hp is sufficient to make a monster a challenge.

Yeaaah, no. Once players have gotten a taste for optimizing(and it comes pretty naturally), they quickly learn the power of debuffs. It's quite easy to negate any arbitrarily high attack bonus, by simply removing their ability to either locate you or act, and that makes AC and hp, at worst, an issue of time. At least, until players figure out how to mostly ignore those too.

The "kill a tier 1" can be done, with one assumption. If you can see the tier 1's build, and specifically build an entire character to target whatever minor temporary weakness he has, yes, you could kill him. Realistically, in a game setting, you do not have the advantage of such perfect information, and the odds of happening to pick the ideal strategy by chance is rather slender. Sure, a prepared tier 1 caster COULD die to a powerful and very lucky opponent, but the odds are pretty firmly on their side.

[Ozymandias9]

The "kill a tier 1" can be done, with one assumption. If you can see the tier 1's build, and specifically build an entire character to target whatever minor temporary weakness he has, yes, you could kill him. Realistically, in a game setting, you do not have the advantage of such perfect information, and the odds of happening to pick the ideal strategy by chance is rather slender. Sure, a prepared tier 1 caster COULD die to a powerful and very lucky opponent, but the odds are pretty firmly on their side.

True, but because no actually played wizard is a Schrodinger's wizard (or usually even a perfectly played Batman), you don't need perfect information of perfect spec. You merely need to be built to get and take advantage of a sufficient amount of the information.

[Killer Angel]

Check out heavyfortification.

To be fair, heavy fort. is a +5 enhancement. It's not exactly the cheapest thing to put on your armor.
Moderate fort. is way less costly and gives a solid 75%.

[Myth]

As noted many times earlier in the thread, a rogue could teleport in with a magic item and sneak attack, unless the wizard uses foresight. Which is a 9th level spell (or 8th level). At 20th level, he wouldn't be able to keep it up 24/7, except with rod of extension (which is quite cheap at 20th level). So that particular wizard COULD get 100% success rate against a rogue. But a wizard who can not cast foresight would not have a 100% chance of bypassing the rogue's sneak attack (and I mean sneaking up, not the ability), and would thus not have a 100% chance of surviving the rogue's attack.

Anticipate Teleportation, Greater. Your Rogue teleports in the middle of several angry Solars with no Wizard in sight.

[Kyrthain]

The discussion keeps going about whether the challenge is a tier 1 caster or a specific tier 1 caster.

There have been a number of solutions posted that can, in fact, work against a non-optimized, or even simply non-theoretical wizard. But as of yet, ignoring teleport through time, no-one has found a way to deal with the specific, theoretical caster.

[Radar]

The discussion keeps going about whether the challenge is a tier 1 caster or a specific tier 1 caster.

There have been a number of solutions posted that can, in fact, work against a non-optimized, or even simply non-theoretical wizard. But as of yet, ignoring teleport through time, no-one has found a way to deal with the specific, theoretical caster.

It is also worth mentioning, that most solutions used on a non-optimised wizard rely on the wizard NOT using a sensible choice of spells and employ fairly optimised characters with very specific set of items.

[Dada]

It is also worth mentioning, that most solutions used on a non-optimised wizard rely on the wizard NOT using a sensible choice of spells and employ fairly optimised characters with very specific set of items.

The problem with killing a Tier 1 caster, is that they can always counter what you selected to do. The only possible approach is to find something that the caster might not be prepared for, and cross your fingers. The less likely the caster is to be prepared, the better the choice, but there is no guaranteed solutions, short of 'rocks fall'.

[Emmerask]

The only way I see to kill an optimized t1 char would be to gather as much knowledge about the caster as possible dc45+ to avoid any suspicion. After that get a Teleport through Time item or caster who casts it for you.
After that kill the caster or any of his ancestors and he will never be born (atleast in the new timeline you have created)

Of course people will tell me that he will have already thought of it and accordingly prepared but as of yet I think no one has mentioned it until now (well I haven´t followed the whole thread page by page so somebody may have?)
So I consider one t1 caster dead now anyway

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/pg/20030409b