Best ways to kill a Tier 1 caster without being one

[Earthwalker]

But when the success of the con hinges entirely on somebody essentially saying, "Hey, despite what years of empirical evidence telling you otherwise, your magic doesn't work. Because we figured it out, you can trust us. Here, drink this potion that totally isn't poison. Oh, and don't bother using any of your spells to check if we're lying or not, because they don't work, remember?" and the wizard believing it, I think your con needs a little bit of work.

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.

[BeholderSlayer]

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.

[Togo]

I did say 'use a rocket proof build'.

That was just one of many ways to kill a character. He can DD you so you can't TP away, and then have the Dragons feast on your tender flesh.

Don't need to teleport to avoid dragons. Just run away and try again later in the same day.

He could reverse gravity+Gate you to the Positive Energy Plane if you lack flight.

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.

He can Wish you dead within the Timestop, asking for the wish to take effect several rounds later.

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.

He can Shapechange (free action for a Persisted Shapechange for Incantatrix) in to a Choker and hit you with a Disjunction + Twinned Repeat Empowered Maximized Enervation (done with Incantatrix also).

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.

If you point me to your specific build (or post it) we can do a round by round comparison. While a non-caster class can be optimized to be really darn hard to kill in a standard action, a Wizard/Incantatrix will be near-impossible due to Contingencies and persisted buffs.

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.

Or just kill him slower with lower level spells like Unluck, Cloudkull, Shivering Touch, Irresistable Dance, Touch of Idiocy, Ray of Stupidity, so on and so forth.

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.

And he can say "No" to your attacks with Abrupt Jaunt, Greater Ironguard, Indomitably and Shapechanging into things you can't kill with your current gear because of their type or DR or regen or whatever.

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.

[Gametime]

But when the success of the con hinges entirely on somebody essentially saying, "Hey, despite what years of empirical evidence telling you otherwise, your magic doesn't work. Because we figured it out, you can trust us. Here, drink this potion that totally isn't poison. Oh, and don't bother using any of your spells to check if we're lying or not, because they don't work, remember?" and the wizard believing it, I think your con needs a little bit of work.

To be fair, optimized Bluff or Diplomacy can be pretty difficult to defend against. A 5th level character couldn't pull it off, but a 20th level could.

[BeholderSlayer]

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.

[BeholderSlayer]

To be fair, optimized Bluff or Diplomacy can be pretty difficult to defend against. A 5th level character couldn't pull it off, but a 20th level could.

Diplomacy is considered Mind Affecting. The wizard has Mind Blank.

[ArcanistSupreme]

To be fair, optimized Bluff or Diplomacy can be pretty difficult to defend against. A 5th level character couldn't pull it off, but a 20th level could.

Yeah, but with the gentlemen's agreement that none of the blatantly broken stuff is permitted, I think the wizard is safe from these two things, at least in this scenario.

[Gametime]

Diplomacy is considered Mind Affecting. The wizard has Mind Blank.

Do you mean it's considered such for the purposes of this exercise, or in general? If the former, I must have missed that.

[Togo]

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.

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.

Diplomacy is considered Mind Affecting. The wizard has Mind Blank.

<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.

[BeholderSlayer]

Do you mean it's considered such for the purposes of this exercise, or in general? If the former, I must have missed that.

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.

[Myth]

I did say 'use a rocket proof build'.

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.

Don't need to teleport to avoid dragons. Just run away and try again later in the same day.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!"

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.

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.

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.

Can make save, immunity to poison is easy to get, need to hit (x4)

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.

These are all excellent suggestions, but none of them are sure things.

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.

Again, excellent suggestions, but these are all counters to particular attack style. Which one are you going to use against an unknown opponent?

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 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.

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.

[BeholderSlayer]

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.

[Gametime]

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.

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.

[Tehnar]

Generally Dispels make that a non-issue (just simple chained dispel to go through all the target's items and constant buffs; it's hard to get 50 Touch AC without magic items or magical buffs), or Shapechange (it's easy to get +70 to hit with buff stacking if you really care).

Not to mention stuff like Maw of Chaos that hits and deals lots of damage, no questions asked. Simple Time Stop > Maximized Maw of Chaos > Maximized Maw of Chaos > Maximized Maw of Chaos (with Rod) is ~360 points of damage that can't be stopped without invulnerability comboes. Trust me, we had a fight between Mage and 3 Mage Slayers long ago; I was playing a Mage Slayer and that's more or less what I died to. Can't interrupt actions during Time Stop. And yes, we had our defenses covered.

Unfortunately that is true; dispel really rips through your items, even those made at CL 20. Theoretically you could have robes/gloves that block LOE to your magic items, but I find that pretty cheesy.

I wonder if there is a easy way to get a chaotic subtype though.

[hamishspence]

I wonder if there is a easy way to get a chaotic subtype though.

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.

[Adumbration]

I wonder if there is a easy way to get a chaotic subtype though.

I'm away from books, so I can't confirm but FC II has (IIRC) some feat that deals with such things.

[hamishspence]

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.

[Tehnar]

The ritual in Savage Species should work. Not exactly a cost effective way to make one immune to Maw of Chaos, but it works.

[Adumbration]

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.

Jeah, FC II, feat Ordered Chaos. Makes you keyed to chaotic alignment for the purpose of spells and other effects, making you immune to Word of Chaos and Chaos hammer etc.

[Tehnar]

Not sure that would protect you from a Maw of Chaos though.

[hamishspence]

yes, "Counts as chaotic aligned" is not quite the same thing as "has the Chaotic subtype".

[Togo]

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.

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.

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.

Let's go through it step by step, and you can find out.

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.

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.

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.

Try it and we'll see. I'm not invulnerable, noone is, but I think I've got a decent chance.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

If you can hit, sure.

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.

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.

[BeholderSlayer]

Just a comment:
List price on spells is 50 gp x Spell Level, not the price of scrolls.

[ArcanistSupreme]

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.

Setting up a situation that is skewed toward the attacker isn't a very good way to prove that the Tier-1 can be easily killed. That being said, I suppose your method of finding out would be reasonable, but keep in mind that the wizard can do the same thing.

[BeholderSlayer]

Has this thread come up, yet?

[ArcanistSupreme]

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.

[BeholderSlayer]

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.

That's not going to work, unless he's lurking around here on another handle.

[ArcanistSupreme]

That's not going to work, unless he's lurking around here on another handle.

Oh. Bummer.

[Lans]

I think making things out of riverine provides some protection against MDJ

[Togo]

Setting up a situation that is skewed toward the attacker isn't a very good way to prove that the Tier-1 can be easily killed.

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.

That being said, I suppose your method of finding out would be reasonable, but keep in mind that the wizard can do the same thing.

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.