Results 571 to 600 of 620
-
2010-10-04, 03:01 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2010
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
You are right the con needs alot more work.
on the con mens side of things in most world I play in (I have to say that as I aren't sure how magic is viewed in all your worlds) Magic is not a completely known quantity. Things like anti magic zones and where the power itself comes from is still under study.
It is in fact not science it is magic.
The wizard himself does not own a DnD rule book and does not know how all the rules of the world works (tho he knows alot fo them with high knowledge skills). Some spells do have variable effects its would take alot of work. The idea of handing out posion was all I could think of off the top of my head and its a poor choice, perhaps there is something better.SpoilerMilo - I know what you are thinking Ork, has he fired 5 shots or 6, well as this is a wand of scorching ray, the most powerful second level wand in the world. What you have to ask your self is "Do I feel Lucky", well do you, Punk.
Galkin - Erm Milo, wands have 50 charges not 6.
Milo - NEATO !!
BLAST
-
2010-10-04, 03:14 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2010
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
This really all depends what you call a Tier 1, to be honest.
And no, con men wouldn't be able to kill a wizard with poison. Poison is a laughable joke and isn't even a real threat.Last edited by BeholderSlayer; 2010-10-04 at 03:15 PM.
-
2010-10-04, 03:22 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
- Location
- London
- Gender
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
I did say 'use a rocket proof build'.
Don't need to teleport to avoid dragons. Just run away and try again later in the same day.
I have flight. Positive energy plane isn't all that dangerous. Most high level characters could literally pop in for lunch, and then saunter out again.
No, I don't think he can. That's well beyond the parameters given for wish, unless you're duplicating a particular 8th level spell.
You need to hit, and I need to fail saves, neither of which is likely. You'd be better off shapechanging into something with a good chance of hitting and choose either one or the other.
Possibly. However, with the tactics your referring to, the tier 1 caster has to decide what to cast in the first round before knowing what he's up against. Since you're casting timestop followed by a flurry of spells, it means you're basically committing to a particular tactic early on in the fight, and will suffer more if you choose something that happens to be ineffect against a particular attacker. Meanwhile, the attacker can and will customise his equipment, tactics, and so on to deal with what he knows of the target. "Don't forget the dragon repellent sir!"
So it would be more appropriate for you to come up with a specific build first, and then have other people try to kill it. Or we could go for an actual run through.
Can make save, immunity to poison is easy to get, need to hit (x4)
These are all excellent suggestions, but none of them are sure things.
Again, excellent suggestions, but these are all counters to particular attack style. Which one are you going to use against an unknown opponent?
The wizard has a great variety of options, enough to cover almost everything. But he can't keep all those options open - he has to commit himself. If he's by himself, he has to commit himself early on. If he's wrong, he may not get another chance.
-
2010-10-04, 03:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
- Gender
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
SpoilerOriginally Posted by JaronKOriginally Posted by TyndmyrOriginally Posted by Zaq
-
2010-10-04, 03:32 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2010
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
Killing a tier I is mostly dependent upon 1 thing: "how open are the wizard's options?"
If you go with "anything except being Pun-Pun" then you run into wizards doing things like casting [epic] spells before level 21, running around with NI spells, NI spell DC's, arbitrary caster levels, arbitrary numbers of actions per round, having epic mythals on their person granting obscene powers, etc.
If you start limiting options, then you have to start limiting options for the "killer" since the tier system is based on allowance of similar levels of optimization.
The very best you can hope for is a stalemate, really.
-
2010-10-04, 03:36 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2010
-
2010-10-04, 03:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2010
- Location
- Des Moines, Iowa
- Gender
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
Awesome avatar by starwoof
-
2010-10-04, 04:08 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
- Gender
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
SpoilerOriginally Posted by JaronKOriginally Posted by TyndmyrOriginally Posted by Zaq
-
2010-10-04, 04:19 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
- Location
- London
- Gender
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
Yes, but with that level of abuse allowed, you have non-tier 1 casters doing the same thing. Including running around casting [epic] spells before level 21. In which case the fact of being a tier 1 caster becomes irrelevant.
Heck, I got into a wonderful discussion about how to kill Pun-Pun*. He's tough, but nothing is invulnerable.
<frown> Diplomacy is not a spell or effect.
As it is, we're trying to avoid the really cheesy stuff, although I suspect we will at some point have to work out where to draw the line. I'm sure we've altready been considering things that would be broken by some people, and I'd certainly expect many of my ideas to be disallowed in an actual campaign.
*The four approaches we came up with broadly being SLAP, time travel, destroying whatever section of the universe Pun-Pun inhabits, and using campaign-specific material that is actually of infinite power.
-
2010-10-04, 04:22 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2010
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
In general. At least, the goal of the diplomacy check is considered so, since unless you can make the wizard fanatical I really don't think you can consider it a victory.
From the SRD:
"Treat the fanatic attitude as a mind-affecting enchantment effect for purposes of immunity, save bonuses, or being detected by the Sense Motive skill."
I suppose it could be debatable.
However, usually these exercises assume that you're treating both participants as PC's, and PC's are immune to diplomacy checks.
-
2010-10-04, 06:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
I'm not familiar with this term, I'm sorry. What i know is that Foresight>Celerity is damn impossible to beat, and it's still unclear that (the only way proposed to beat it) immunity to Divination is in fact, effective against Foresight.
But they can follow. 200 fly speed. They can cast Wall of Stone as well. The Wizard has mobility spells at his disposal, such as Haste, Phantom Steed, Greater Teleport etc. I'm curious how exactly are you planning on running away.
You have natural flight? Otherwise it's going to get fried by the Disjunction. Substitute the PEP with Demogorgon's layr of the Abyss then. Have fun swimming with the Aboleths. The possibilities are numerous.
He could burn XP to go above the defined parameters, but since that requires DM approval i'll lay off. But it is within the RAI for Wish.
Um... What? OK the term "hit" is used as in "I cast Disjunction, your magic goes *poof*" The spell requires no ranged, touch or other type of attack. It's an AOE burst effect. Assuming an 18 starting INT + 6 item + 5 tome = 29 Int, DC will be 10+9+9=28. So a 28 Will save for each magical item and effect on your person. Good luck with that. The Shapechange in to a Choker is so i can get an extra Standard action. I'm not using it to attack you in melee. That standard action means that, after i've fried every piece of magic on your person, I proceed to ray you in to oblivion. Or Imprison you. Whatever.
That is not fair. Either we both do it in the dark, or we both look at each other's builds and adjust ad infinitum. You can't assume knowledge on a level 20 Wizard, that's just not a common commodity. And with an "everyday" build, you'll not survive past the first round out of Timestop, because the Wizard can throw so many things you just can't prepare for all of them.
I'll make the build but won't post the spells or items before the actual fight. Unless you can show me a specific indisputable way by which you will obtain that info.
Unluck and Irresistible Dance are no-save-just-lose spells. There's a lot more where that came from. All the ray spells don't allow a save either, you should really read up on your spell descriptions. I can hit you with rays of exastion powered by some metamagic and finish you of with a metamagicked Shivering Touch that does Dex damage. All these are rays, i can squeeze them in one round via rods and metamagic. Without ray deflection (which you won't have since i've disjnoined your stuff) you die.
After frying your gear and hitting you with stuff that allows for no save or having the Dragons grapple you and eating your brain as a shapechanged Illithid the Wizard will disagree.
95% of them. You seem to think Wizards get a few spells to prepare. At 20th level, between Wands, Scrolls (lots of them), Pearls of Power and Specialization they get so much stuff you will never win a war of attrition. A Wizard can kill you with 5th level spell slots just as badly as with 8th level. Especially if that's an Incantatrix with Easy Metamagic.
The Wizard has his options. Then he has his backup options (contingencies). Then he has his oh-SHI options (scrolls of Wish, 9th level Pearls of Power etc.), then he has his items for 20th WBL like Rods of Quicken, Maximize, Empower etc. Commiting himself means going mini-nova (lol) in the Time Stop round. You still have to deal with (if you survive that is) a lot of lower level spells that are very, very broken as well. Tell me how you deal with Irresistabel Dance + Arcane Reach from Archmage? Just one example btw.
-
2010-10-04, 07:15 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2010
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
Saves, AC, all that is pointless when the wizard does something like Plane Shift to extremely hostile plane, Gate you to the plane, and plane shift himself away. This is assuming you aren't some kind of spellcaster or psionic that can plane shift, of course, but if you are, then you're on an equal tier to the caster.
Unless you possess some method of planar travel, you simply die from the effects of the hostile plane, no save. You simply lose in the face of awesome.
-
2010-10-04, 08:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
- Gender
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
The fanatic attitude is mind-affecting. Other levels of diplomacy aren't, or at least I can't find any references to them being mind-affecting. It's true that making a level 20 wizard helpful doesn't count as killing him, but if we're going with the broader goal of defeating the wizard it's a darn good start.
Assuming the wizard is a PC, diplomacy is obviously a no-go, but Bluff still works. It doesn't kill the wizard on its own (obviously), but it can be used to bypass a fair number of defenses and set up some decent shots at taking the wizard out.
Of course, a sufficiently paranoid wizard doesn't have any social interactions using his own body anyway, so you'd probably have to enact some highly improbable scheme involving befriending the wizard in Astral Projection Form, getting him to reveal the location of his demiplane, getting him to let you in to his demiplane, and then killing him. So the odds still aren't what you'd call good.SpoilerOriginally Posted by JaronKOriginally Posted by TyndmyrOriginally Posted by Zaq
-
2010-10-05, 03:31 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2005
- Location
- Zagreb
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
-
2010-10-05, 04:11 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
Savage Species has a fairly low level ritual that can grant you a subtype.
If you pass a will save by 5 or more- your alignment does not change to match the subtype.
If your own alignment is directly opposed to the subtype you want- there is a risk that the ritual will kill you though.Marut-2 Avatar by Serpentine
New Marut Avatar by Linkele
-
2010-10-05, 04:17 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2007
- Location
- Finland
- Gender
-
2010-10-05, 04:25 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
FC2's speciality is devils- which are Lawful.
FC1 has an array of chaotic feats (I think if you take more than one your alignment changes to Chaotic) but I'm not sure if any grant the Chaotic subtype.Marut-2 Avatar by Serpentine
New Marut Avatar by Linkele
-
2010-10-05, 05:53 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2005
- Location
- Zagreb
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
The ritual in Savage Species should work. Not exactly a cost effective way to make one immune to Maw of Chaos, but it works.
-
2010-10-05, 09:05 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2007
- Location
- Finland
- Gender
-
2010-10-05, 10:45 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2005
- Location
- Zagreb
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
Not sure that would protect you from a Maw of Chaos though.
-
2010-10-05, 10:50 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
yes, "Counts as chaotic aligned" is not quite the same thing as "has the Chaotic subtype".
Marut-2 Avatar by Serpentine
New Marut Avatar by Linkele
-
2010-10-05, 04:03 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
- Location
- London
- Gender
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
Oh, 'Rocket tag' is the idea that the first person to have an attack round wins, so the focus is on winning initiative. A rocket proof or rocket resistant build, rather than beat initiative, focuses on surviving attacks, or at least the first few.
Let's go through it step by step, and you can find out.
Not according to my PHB. You can't get a bigger effect by burning xp, you can get a bigger effect by actively inviting the DM to screw you over. Not something a paranoid wizard would attempt. Not twice anyway.
Try it and we'll see. I'm not invulnerable, noone is, but I think I've got a decent chance.
Of course it's not fair. We've set up a situation where the tier 1 caster is all alone and being attacked by a high level character. Why would it be fair?
Pay for the sevices of a high level bard? It won't get the spells you've learned today, but it would get the effects you've come up with in the past, so some idea of what is in the spell book, some major items, tactics you've used in the past, etc.
If you're 20th level, you have a history.
I'm happy to trust you on the build if you trust me on mine. Don't forget to pay list price for every spell in the book though. We both have ways of exploiting wealth per level to get free spells or cheap stuff, but that's a whole different contest.
If you can hit, sure.
Well, there's having a high touch AC, there's being hard to see/find, and there's immunity to mind effects. Just as an example, an undead rogue would just laugh off such an attack.
I'll sort out a build over the next few days, and we can try describing what we think would happen. Maybe you'll surprise me.
It may end up being difficult to model aspects, but I'm curious as to what you come up with.
-
2010-10-05, 04:23 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2010
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
Just a comment:
List price on spells is 50 gp x Spell Level, not the price of scrolls.Last edited by BeholderSlayer; 2010-10-05 at 04:23 PM.
-
2010-10-05, 04:36 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2010
- Location
- Des Moines, Iowa
- Gender
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
Awesome avatar by starwoof
-
2010-10-05, 04:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2010
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
Has this thread come up, yet?
-
2010-10-05, 08:46 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2010
- Location
- Des Moines, Iowa
- Gender
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
Maybe we should PM Lycanthromancer and see if he'll be the wizard, as he clearly knows what he's doing. It would make it more interesting than anything I could think of, anyway.
Awesome avatar by starwoof
-
2010-10-05, 09:49 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2010
-
2010-10-05, 09:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2010
- Location
- Des Moines, Iowa
- Gender
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
Awesome avatar by starwoof
-
2010-10-06, 03:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2009
- Location
- Michigan
- Gender
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
I think making things out of riverine provides some protection against MDJ
-
2010-10-06, 06:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
- Location
- London
- Gender
Re: Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one
Tier-1 caster. Not Tier-1. I reserve the right to use Tier-1 character levels if I need to so long as the end result is not a Tier-1 caster.
Well, it all comes to down to what we're trying to work out. I've no doubt that a wizard excels at running away, and at operating from extra-planar locations. So if the tactic involves variations on running away or not turning up at all (send in a projection and stay at home), then I'm not sure that we've proved anything useful. Similarly, I think a wizard surprised while asleep isn't terribly useful to prove anything either.
My point is three-fold. The first is that the wizard's power rests at a least partly on variability and flexibilty. This makes a wizard very powerful, but not all flexbile characters are wizards. A lot comes down to how you play, and most of the discussions I've seen on this subject are about a wizard beating a single-tactic optimisation player, or people talking about unbeatable tactics. No tactic is unbeatable.
The second is that a wizard is very good in theory. In practice, you actually have to commit to a particular tactic on what is usally limited information, and if you get it wrong, you may die. The more heavily you invest in an particular tactic, the more likely you are to get it wrong. I feel that people talking about unbeatable round 1 takedowns are missing the point about why the wizard is powerful.
The third is, hey, I have some ideas, I want to try them out. If you know they're coming, they're easy to defend against.