Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one

[crizh]

Silver Key can only grant access to a demi-plane if there are portals that access it. No portal, no Master of Doors access. Since "a wizard did it," there is no portal and thus no access by Silver Key.

I strongly suggest that you go and re-read the section in Manual of the Planes pertaining to Demiplanes.

I did so to inform myself during this debate. I don't like to just stick my size 13's in my gob and make a fool of myself by talking rubbish.

All Demiplanes have a Portal.

Any Demiplane that somehow did not have a Portal could not ever be accessed by anyone ever. With the possible exception of using the Breaching Obelisk but then you'd be trapped so not the best plan.

Incidentally the definition of Demiplane includes the phrase Extradimensional Space. So anyone that travels to the Ethereal and finds your Portal can use Transdimensional Spell/Power to rain pain down on your entire demiplane..

Stick a big bucket of Quintessence over the Portal and drop a Transdimensional AMF next to that and the Wizard is completely screwed.

[BeholderSlayer]

I strongly suggest that you go and re-read the section in Manual of the Planes pertaining to Demiplanes.

I did so to inform myself during this debate. I don't like to just stick my size 13's in my gob and make a fool of myself by talking rubbish.

All Demiplanes have a Portal.

Any Demiplane that somehow did not have a Portal could not ever be accessed by anyone ever. With the possible exception of using the Breaching Obelisk but then you'd be trapped so not the best plan.

Incidentally the definition of Demiplane includes the phrase Extradimensional Space. So anyone that travels to the Ethereal and finds your Portal can use Transdimensional Spell/Power to rain pain down on your entire demiplane..

Stick a big bucket of Quintessence over the Portal and drop a Transdimensional AMF next to that and the Wizard is completely screwed.

Can I get a page number on your evidence for "every demiplane has a portal?"

My understanding is that demiplanes may be accessible by a location (portal) OR certain situations. For purposes of keeping unwanted others out, the wizard's plane grants access in the situation that the wizard grants access, personally. This is from page 7 of MotP. If there is something later in the book I have overlooked, please toss me a page number.

[crizh]

Hahahahahahaha!

Lol.

Doh!^1000000

characters cannot use plane shift or similar spells to travel to or from a demiplane, except at the specific locations where the demiplane is close to its coterminous plane.

Right before it says that certain prison planes might have no portals at all.

Dumbass.

Regardless all demiplanes have the aforementioned points that are close to a coterminous plane so the point stands.

edit

If it does have a portal you can certainly specify a Portal Key just as you mentioned.

[BeholderSlayer]

heh, be careful with the language, it took me like 4 reads to figure out you were making fun of yourself

I'll have to read that quote more in context, personally.

What is stopping the wizard from disbarring entry without his express permission, even via plane shift into coterminous locations?

Like I said, I'll have to read over that section.

[Tiki Snakes]

A Prison Plane that nobody could get into would be pretty useless, really.

[ArcanistSupreme]

A Prison Plane that nobody could get into would be pretty useless, really.

Unless it was made so after the prisoner was put inside. On a related note, could a wizard build such a demiplane around himself? I mean, as long as he's never planning on leaving anyway, why not create a plane that is completely inaccessible? If he could, that kind of wraps up the whole argument. If he can't, then back to the drawing board...

[crizh]

What is stopping the wizard from disbarring entry without his express permission, even via plane shift into coterminous locations?

The lack of any text even suggesting that you can do so?

There is a number of bits in the text talking about Prison Planes that strongly indicate that there is nothing you can do about plane shifting.

Other than Forbiddance obviously. Which is what PhaedrusXY and all the other TO lunatics in the BG thread are using. Which also strongly suggests that Genesis doesn't let you do that.

[BeholderSlayer]

The lack of any text even suggesting that you can do so?

There is a number of bits in the text talking about Prison Planes that strongly indicate that there is nothing you can do about plane shifting.

Other than Forbiddance obviously. Which is what PhaedrusXY and all the other TO lunatics in the BG thread are using. Which also strongly suggests that Genesis doesn't let you do that.

There is also a lack of text suggesting you can't. The wizard created the plane after all, and unless the spell expressly forbids something (i.e. flowing time in Psionic Genesis) then it is usually assumed you can do it when it fits within the general function of the spell.

As a side example, you may cast a spell to create an Energy Transformation Field which is keyed to any spell. While the example spells have targets of other creatures, there is nothing preventing a wizard from having an Energy Transformation Field be keyed to a spell like Absorption. The wizard created it, and thus it follows the demands placed on it by its creator. Energy Transformation Field cannot, however, be keyed to a spell with an experience cost. This is explicitly stated.

The wizard creates the environment to his whim, therefore creating the coterminous zones where he sees fit and setting the conditions by which the zones can be used.

I do, however, suggest you refrain from using ad hominem attacks on people that aren't even here to defend themselves. Calling somebody a "TO lunatic" only weakens your argument, and is likely against the forum rules even if they are not present.

[Myth]

I think he meant that in a good hearted way, i know i like poking at my friends with strong words but when we both know i mean no ill intent.

Anyway, so far two cases have been presented that both are actually able to take out the lvl 20 (reasonably) optimized Wizard:

Baron Corm's Spymaster/Ghostfaced Killer build, which I haven't researched in depth as i need acess to the appropriate material (which i do have but not at this very moment) but it sounds very reasonable if he is indeed undetectable by Foresight (i have to check that very carefully) if he has some way to do both:

a) UMD a Disjunction scroll
b) full attack to kill the Wizard

Because if you do a) first to disable the contingencies, then you face all the Wizard's prepared spells and the full might of his Time Stop. If you do b) first the moment you land one hit his contingency kicks in.

crizh's build which actually uses several decent classes at level 20, but so far leaves no chance for disproof. I am no expert on Psionics so I'll turn to the rest of the Playgrounders here to review his build. It does seem solid so far. Well, the fact that you need 3+ 20 level characters with their own powerful builds (I mean relly, why are Psionics considered bad i just don't get it after what i've read here about actions and feat rearrangement)

Can some of the other potent TOers comment on these two builds in particular?

[BeholderSlayer]

links would be helpful...too many pages to search

[Chipp Zanuff]

Can some of the other potent TOers comment on these two builds in particular?

All right, Beholder_Slayer pointed this out to me and I just want to make some clarification:

Practical Optimization: For use in an actual game. These builds will be customized to meet the Original Poster's theme and restrictions, with suggestions for the DM in case the allowed sources are too restrictive for the idea to be practical.

Hypothetical Optimization: For use with statistics and mathmatic calculations. Or minor thought experiments like this thread. Potentially playable in an arena-based game where the objective isn't interaction but measuring potential.

Theoretical Optimization: Pun-Pun, Shadow Miracles, and everything else that will ruin a campaign. This is the stuff that should never be touched.

[crizh]

crizh's build

I was just defending it, I can't take the credit for it.

[Myth]

Baron Crom's build as detailed in this post. My attempt to counter. His counter to which i can answer only with books at hand.

It does look good but what i have doubts of is if he is actually immune to Foresight, and if he can both UMD and full attack at the same time.

Actually i was wrong, the original build was The Shadowmind's. crizh has been advocating for it since, and i can't really say much as i know jack about Psionics.

edit: CW Samurai'd

[crizh]

There is also a lack of text suggesting you can't.

You know that is totally the weakest argument ever.

If people like PhaedrusXY, who I respect as an extremely intelligent optimizer and who I think errs too much on the side of cutting the Wizard slack at the expense of everyone else doesn't think you can do that them I'm happy to go ahead and say he is almost certainly right.

Genesis flat-out does not give you the ability to restrict the natural accessibility of a demiplane beyond the rules presented in MotP.

[crizh]

Theoretical Optimization: Pun-Pun, Shadow Miracles, and everything else that will ruin a campaign. This is the stuff that should never be touched.

It would be nice if we could define a list of TO stuff that we won't be discussing here.

The BG thread had pretty much settled on Craft Contingent Spell, Diplomacy, CoP abuse and flowing time at the very least as being TO and not really useful.

I'd like to propose similarly Epic abuse ought to be ruled out. Yes your 20th level Wizard might theoretically have access to Epic Magic but that really moves him into Epic and out of this discussion.

[BeholderSlayer]

The thing is, this basically is a TO discussion, not a PO discussion. Saying we won't be talking about TO doesn't make sense when we ARE talking about TO, and have been since pretty much the first page.

Pun-Pun and similar things are typically even left out of a TO discussion simply because it isn't constructive to point to those exercises and claim it proves anything. A TO wizard, OTOH, has finite options when not allowed to become Pun-Pun.

There are other respected people that agree with my line of reasoning, so I am not alone.

[Myth]

Aye, there should be a middle ground. I call it reasonable TO. We don't go Pun-Pun, we don't go Wish abusing, we don't go Caster Level 280 etc.

IMO Craft Contingent Spell is not abuse of RAW like say, Ice Assassin cloning a Deity. It does what the feat was meant to do - give contingencies.

[BeholderSlayer]

Caster Level 280

I feel hated.

[Myth]

No you should feel honored that your TO build is so good it's bad

[crizh]

I agree there has to be a middle ground but it has to start with an attitude adjustment.

In the tail end of that BG thread someone was pointing out that if you side with the Wizard every time you run up against a debatable interpretation then obviously the Wizard wins.

We had this conversation in our RL game not all that long ago. Psionic Contingency was deemed unfairly overpowered compared to the magic version. We nerfed it and brought in a Craft Contingent Power feat to balance things up. You wouldn't believe the number of Psionics is teh borken conversations I've had with folks that think Arcane Magic is fine.

Inject a bit of common sense. It doesn't take a DM to tell you that at the very least you are ignoring the RAI of CoP. You want a better Divination? Find one higher than 5th level.

Flowing time. Clearly a hold over from 3.0. It's supposed to be gone from the Great Wheel so there was no need to errata the text. Every other version of Genesis got the nerf bat it doesn't take a genius to say lets take that nonsense off the table.

[Chipp Zanuff]

Every other version of Genesis got the nerf bat it doesn't take a genius to say lets take that nonsense off the table.

SRD still doesn't exclude the effect, and they had the perfect opportunity to errata it when they included Psionics in the SRD.

[Myth]

Let us, for the purpose of this exercise, agree that the Wizard will not be on his home demiplane, locked, flowing timed or otherwise, and that COP will not be 100% accurate.

Please start from "a flying, teleporting, Foresighted Wizard". I am actually wondering what happened with all the other regulars that used to post in this thread, shooting down "my rogue stabs him in his sleep" arguments, but when actually viable builds turn up no one is there to either debate or agree. I'm not on any side per say, I'm merely curious. As many builds as we find that can undoubtedly work under some conditions, i will record and keep, and then later point out when someone else has trouble killing a lvl 20 Wizard.

[ArcanistSupreme]

I am actually wondering what happened with all the other regulars that used to post in this thread, shooting down "my rogue stabs him in his sleep" arguments, but when actually viable builds turn up no one is there to either debate or agree.

Sorry, I've taken to lurking since my knowledge of higher level tricks is fairly limited, as is my knowledge of psionics in general. That and I don't really see the point of repeating myself for those that don't bother reading the rest of the thread. Now that things have been toned down a bit from the upper levels of TO, I might have more to contribute.

[crizh]

Let us, for the purpose of this exercise, agree that the Wizard will not be on his home demiplane, locked, flowing timed or otherwise, and that COP will not be 100% accurate.

Please start from "a flying, teleporting, Foresighted Wizard". I am actually wondering what happened with all the other regulars that used to post in this thread, shooting down "my rogue stabs him in his sleep" arguments, but when actually viable builds turn up no one is there to either debate or agree. I'm not on any side per say, I'm merely curious. As many builds as we find that can undoubtedly work under some conditions, i will record and keep, and then later point out when someone else has trouble killing a lvl 20 Wizard.

I think that is a much more reasonable proposition. It would be worth exploring some tier 3 builds. I'm pretty sure Psion can deal with that but, like I said, I reckon that's more because it's more powerful than it gets credit for.

[Ozymandias9]

Huh. I should have payed more attention. Glad that the spymaster idea went somewhere.

Realistically, something like the Spymaster build presented by Baron Crom is still going to fail if you presume sufficient paranoia. Such a build, by necessity, presumes that there is someone who the wizard is willing, under some circumstance, to allow in their actual factual physical presence. As such, it will fail under the pinnacles of CharOp present in games like Tippy runs. It should, however, be able to deal with a tier 1 in most other circumstances.

Regarding immunity to Foresight, a truly strict reading would not provide it. Foresight, as written, provides information about the person on whom it is cast: specifically, how they are going to come into harm. The spymaster capstone prevents divination from providing information about the spymaster.

However, since the spymaster would be the one doing the harming, there is at least a case to be made: I think it would fall under the same level of adjudication as, say, a divination spell for which the spymaster is not the direct target but is rather related to the information sought about the target.

It would probably help if the capstone were written a bit more exactly.

[jseah]

^Regarding immunity to divination, I think a cheaper method (by ECL) would simply to be Vecna-blooded. I don't remember it's cost but it's definitely better than 10 levels in a PrC.

Gives you immunity to divination (and protection to non-shenanigan COP), plus even nets you data about the wizard when he divines about the next attack.


The psion is likely to work against the CO caster given in the BG forum link. In fact, I would also be prepared to believe that a well-built sorceror could do the same as well.
The TO caster would likely require Silver Key or winning the war for the Breaching Obelisk.

[BeholderSlayer]

If we take away most of the crazy tier I tricks, I'd argue you'd have to take away psionic tricks like temporal abuse and eliminate the same tricks from the sorcerer's options (that one is obvious, though).

Really what this does is just limit the wizard's options. He will do things like take Improved Familiar and persist Shapechange on his pseudodragon familiar. While the wizard sleeps and adventures, the pseudodragon is a Formian Queen, and has taken the Mindsight feat from LoM (he qualifies due to natural telepathy). This gives him Mindsight out to 50 miles. Mindsight is neither [Mind Affecting] nor divination, and as such will find anybody with Mind Blank or immunity to divination, and will cover anybody approaching in mundane ways. If the spymaster tries to teleport, that is covered below.

The wizard will basically walk around Shapechanged into a Dire Tortoise, which will allow him to act in the surprise round even when there shouldn't be one (as in, I go firstest).

Psionics and other magic-users will have to contend with his Greater Anticipate Teleportation, likely Widened by use of a metamagic rod. This allows him more than ample time to prepare for combat.

[blackjack217]

Asamodious
Oh and dropping darkness when a caster is about to cast a 9th level spell is funny. I am also banned from casting wall of force right in front of flying dragons.
Also use conterspell as a sorcerer they will run out of spells first.

[BeholderSlayer]

Also use conterspell as a sorcerer they will run out of spells first.

That's highly dependent upon specific build. For example, a focused specialist Illusionist/Shadowcraft Mage/Nightmare Spinner will have 1 more spell per spell level per day than a sorcerer.

[ArcanistSupreme]

That's highly dependent upon specific build. For example, a focused specialist Illusionist/Shadowcraft Mage/Nightmare Spinner will have 1 more spell per spell level per day than a sorcerer.

Yeah, but against a multiple person party, the wizard is losing his actions. Of course, there are still contingencies to deal with, but it's something to consider.