Help with Finishing a caster slayer build without being a caster.

[Nostrodamus]

I'm sure this my have already been addressed I'm still looking for help. I'm making a caster slayer who will be utilizing all three mage slayer feats, and spellfire wielder. Right now it's looking like: Hexblade 3/monk 2/fighter 2/ occult slayer 5.
Occult Slayer is a must, because this class is for story than optimization. Monk for saves and improved grapple and combat reflexes. Hex blade for Mettle and skills. I'll also be taking flaws for feats.
With these requirements I'm locked in for several feats; mageslayer, pierce magical concealment, pierce magical protection, improved initiative, weapon focus(a reach weapon), blind fight.
Also since this is a FR Underdark campaign, I'm looking for a race with DV. Under folk, or dwarf would be the most likely.
How can I complete this build, while at the same time improving my abilities?

[One Step Two]

Do you have access to LA buy-off? If so may I suggest using the Drow race, while the -2 con hurts for spellfire purposes, you can pay the feat tax, and go into the Kinslayer PrC from Drow of the Underdark instead of hexblade, which grants Mettle at first level, and offers Rage, Smite elves, and Deny Elf Magic to make you even harder to hit with spells, which works with anything with the Elf subtype. It has good Reflex and Will saves to boot. You can leave it early at 6th, by then you'll have shameful strike, which is a no-save sickened causing attack.

If drow isn't attractive, Duergar are amazing, and while the -4 charisma can be a pain for you spellfire DCs, Con bonus, the SLAs, save bonuses and skill bonuses are simply the best for an LA +1 race. Class wise, you can look at Black Blood Cultist for more grapple power, but Freedom of movement will be your downfall there.

Finally you can always look into the Spellfire Channeler PrC, for more capacity and ways to expend your charges, to do things like fly or gain other nifty abilities.

I hope this gives you some food for thought!

[Nostrodamus]

Sorry I forgot to mention, for races its no LA allowed. Also I've looked at spell fire chenneler, which is nice but doesn't really help at battling mages and spellcaster.
I will look at those other PrCs though.

[One Step Two]

Then may I present the Lesser Drow, LA +0, dark vision, and will allow you to enter the Kinslayer class.

[Seppo87]

Having good saves is fine, but don't forget that what makes Casters difficult to defeat is how they can easily become untouchable.

You need ways to bypass things like Forcecage, Invisibility, Fly+Windwall, Repel Metal, Teleport, Prismatic Sphere.
You need way to bypass all of them because a single one working means certain defeat for you, 100%, no chance to fight back.

There is no real way to do this with a completely mundane build, so it's sad but true that it's somewhat of a lost cause.

However, the closest you can get, if you're liberal on Magic Items use, is to get mundane flight (wings graft, raptoran etc) and items that produce Antimagic Field (Beholder eye graft, custom item)

[Lorddenorstrus]

Having good saves is fine, but don't forget that what makes Casters difficult to defeat is how they can easily become untouchable.

You need ways to bypass things like Forcecage, Invisibility, Fly+Windwall, Repel Metal, Teleport, Prismatic Sphere.
You need way to bypass all of them because a single one working means certain defeat for you, 100%, no chance to fight back.

There is no real way to do this with a completely mundane build, so it's sad but true that it's somewhat of a lost cause.

However, the closest you can get, if you're liberal on Magic Items use, is to get mundane flight (wings graft, raptoran etc) and items that produce Antimagic Field (Beholder eye graft, custom item)

I have to agree, the only way for a Mundane to defeat a caster is for the caster to not be optimized. To even judge what is necessary or whether it's even possible, we'll need to know how optimized the casters you're thinking of fighting are.

[Nostrodamus]

Having good saves is fine, but don't forget that what makes Casters difficult to defeat is how they can easily become untouchable.

You need ways to bypass things like Forcecage, Invisibility, Fly+Windwall, Repel Metal, Teleport, Prismatic Sphere.
You need way to bypass all of them because a single one working means certain defeat for you, 100%, no chance to fight back.

There is no real way to do this with a completely mundane build, so it's sad but true that it's somewhat of a lost cause.

However, the closest you can get, if you're liberal on Magic Items use, is to get mundane flight (wings graft, raptoran etc) and items that produce Antimagic Field (Beholder eye graft, custom item)

I know all of that lol. I also know that this is a hopeless sort of build. 4 levels of Spell fire channeler gets me flight, which helps a lot. I'm not going for OP here, just improving my builds and its current abilities.
As for the rest of my short comings, that's why I'm in a party.

[Nostrodamus]

Then may I present the Lesser Drow, LA +0, dark vision, and will allow you to enter the Kinslayer class.

I'm thinking this very well be my race.

[Nostrodamus]

Do you have access to LA buy-off? If so may I suggest using the Drow race, while the -2 con hurts for spellfire purposes, you can pay the feat tax, and go into the Kinslayer PrC from Drow of the Underdark instead of hexblade, which grants Mettle at first level, and offers Rage, Smite elves, and Deny Elf Magic to make you even harder to hit with spells, which works with anything with the Elf subtype. It has good Reflex and Will saves to boot. You can leave it early at 6th, by then you'll have shameful strike, which is a no-save sickened causing attack.

If drow isn't attractive, Duergar are amazing, and while the -4 charisma can be a pain for you spellfire DCs, Con bonus, the SLAs, save bonuses and skill bonuses are simply the best for an LA +1 race. Class wise, you can look at Black Blood Cultist for more grapple power, but Freedom of movement will be your downfall there.

You have been pretty helpful. Kinslayer would've been great but it's a good group and those feats are hard core evil. Black blood cultist sounds like something associated with Malar, who is evil but I'll look into it now. That's in Faiths and Pantheons, right?

[One Step Two]

You have been pretty helpful. Kinslayer would've been great but it's a good group and those feats are hard core evil. Black blood cultist sounds like something associated with Malar, who is evil but I'll look into it now. That's in Faiths and Pantheons, right?

Champions of ruin, but it's also an evil class, you need access to rage as well, so you might want to give it a miss.

Obvious missed class is obvious: Ranger with the arcane hunter alternate class feature from complete mage for bonus damage, and it helps get you access to PrCs that need Track, you might also want to look into maxing hide and move silent, and take the Dark Stalker feat, to really sneak up on casters.

[Nostrodamus]

Champions of ruin, but it's also an evil class, you need access to rage as well, so you might want to give it a miss

Yessir! But still the new ideas, and book research are quite helpful. I found the Krinth to be a great base race, better than even the Lesser Drow, even for my current build. Right now, I think I'm going to fill the remaining levels with spellfire channeler. It is not the most optimized class for fighting spellcasters, but it does give me some cool abilities, at the least, I will take 4 levels of it, for the Flight ability and the improved healing would help the entire party in a crunch.
The final levels, I can just fill out with fighter or perhaps ranger, with the arcanist hunter variant, and the underdark variant as well. I was really hoping for another PrC that would blend well with Occult Slayer. At the end of the day, I think that trying to create a mundane spellcaster killer, is silly, but, still, this build may be the best that the rules have to offer for my vision.

[One Step Two]

The only other thing I can think that might help, because I always suggest this for melee types, is getting bitten by a were-tiger,and taking levels of warshaper.

[Azoth]

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=434572

There is a full lvl20 build workup I did a ways back for a purely mundane mage hunter. It may give some inspiration for advancement or gear to look out for.

[Nostrodamus]

The only other thing I can think that might help, because I always suggest this for melee types, is getting bitten by a were-tiger,and taking levels of warshaper.

I don't see how that makes me better at fighting Spellcasters??? And I do like that prestige class too!

[Nostrodamus]

There is a full lvl20 build workup I did a ways back for a purely mundane mage hunter. It may give some inspiration for advancement or gear to look out for.

How are you a Monk/Barbarian?? It make very little sense to me lol?

[Nostrodamus]

Champions of ruin, but it's also an evil class, you need access to rage as well, so you might want to give it a miss.

Obvious missed class is obvious: Ranger with the arcane hunter alternate class feature from complete mage for bonus damage, and it helps get you access to PrCs that need Track, you might also want to look into maxing hide and move silent, and take the Dark Stalker feat, to really sneak up on casters.

After I post this I will post a link with my build. I am pretty happy with it. I was thinking of that Ranger Variant, and I actually may take it in swapping out a level of Fighter 2.

[Nostrodamus]

Here is my 20 level build, with my stats on the second sheet. This was pretty challenging for me, because of the restrictions, and because of the imbalance of powers and abilities in 3.5. I've come to the conclusion that the best at mundane can do to challenge a spellcaster, is have good defenses and hope to get close quickly to grapple and dispatch the caster.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing
I am still open to suggestions, and comments on the build. Thanks to all who helped me out.

[Calthropstu]

Here is my 20 level build, with my stats on the second sheet. This was pretty challenging for me, because of the restrictions, and because of the imbalance of powers and abilities in 3.5. I've come to the conclusion that the best at mundane can do to challenge a spellcaster, is have good defenses and hope to get close quickly to grapple and dispatch the caster.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing
I am still open to suggestions, and comments on the build. Thanks to all who helped me out.

There are ways to get a fast short range teleport. There are also ways to have a contingency to cast anti-magic field after you do so. All on a non caster.

At that point it is simply a matter of winning initiative.

Unless super cheese is being allowed, such as craft contingent spell, contingency for wish bull****, (I would never allow that feat in my games) you should be able to put some serious hurt on the mage in question no matter what class you are. If there's a feat that lets you attack at the end of a teleport in the surprise round, take it.

Winning initiative here will allow a full round attack action to simply obliterate this mage. No magic means no defenses, which means no tricks from the mage.

Give the person doing this an artifact for a weapon, and that wizard is toast.

[Azoth]

How are you a Monk/Barbarian?? It make very little sense to me lol?

You start out Lawful Good, and then shift your alignment to Chaotic Good. All you lose is the ability to take more Monk levels as an Ex-Monk. Not really an issue since you got all you wanted/needed out of those 2lvls. Namely a solid boost to saves and Evasion, so that the 2lvl Rogue dip can trade out its Evasion for Spell Reflection.

[Calthropstu]

You start out Lawful Good, and then shift your alignment to Chaotic Good. All you lose is the ability to take more Monk levels as an Ex-Monk. Not really an issue since you got all you wanted/needed out of those 2lvls. Namely a solid boost to saves and Evasion, so that the 2lvl Rogue dip can trade out its Evasion for Spell Reflection.

Anyone else smell some cheddar?

[Thurbane]

Witch Slayer from ToM has some good anti-caster abilities that mesh well with Occult Slayer.

You may want to dip a ToB class (or spend some feats) for Diamond Mind maneuvers, too.

[Deadline]

Anyone else smell some cheddar?

There are plenty of fantasy stories wherein a disciplined monk strays from the path and falls to selfish barbarism, so not only does it not smell like cheese, it's more genre appropriate than many concepts I've heard.

[One Step Two]

I don't see how that makes me better at fighting Spellcasters??? And I do like that prestige class too!

Simple! As a were-tiger, you shift into your tiger form, you now are large size, have improved grab and pounce. You can full attack after a charge, rake, grapple them with a size bonus, you still have access to all your feats, but lose out on magic items depending on what they are. War-shaper makes you even more brutal in your actions to boot!

I had a look at your character sheet, pretty solid, I would like to recommend dropping your str to 14, and put 18 into dex, giving you better reflex saves. you can compensate the damage loss by taking the Hit-And-Run variant fighter from Drow of the Underdark. You don't need to be a drow to take it, it gives you +2 initiative, and lets you add your dex modifier as damage if you hit a flat -footed opponent, in exchange for giving up heavy armor and tower shield proficiency.

[gorfnab]

Here is a Mage Slayer build I came up with a while ago.

Spoiler

Show

1. Ranger - B: Track, Weapon Focus: Guisarme, Arcane Hunter ACF
2. Barbarian - Spirit Totem: Lion ACF, Whirling Frenzy ACF, {Optional: City Brawler ACF (Drg#349)}
3. Barbarian - Nemisis: Arcanists, Wolf Totem ACF
4. Warblade
5. Warblade
6. Warblade - Mage Slayer
7. Warblade
8. Warblade - B: Improved Initiative
9. Crusader - Blindfight
10. Crusader
11. Occult Slayer
12. Occult Slayer - Combat Reflexes
13. Occult Slayer
14. Occult Slayer
15. Occult Slayer - Pierce Magical Concealment
16. Witch Slayer
17. Witch Slayer
18. Witch Slayer - Stand Still
19. Witch Slayer
20. Witch Slayer

Note: The levels of Occult Slayer and Witch Slayer can be switched around as needed.

Warblade nets you the maneuvers Iron Heart Surge, Moment of Perfect Mind, and Action Before Thought. You also get Uncanny Dodge

Crusader nets you the Thicket of Blade Stance (combos nicely with Stand Still, Combat Reflexes, and a reach weapon; wear spiked gauntlets or armor spikes to threaten nearby squares) and some healing maneuvers. it also nets you Indomitable Soul.

Witch Slayer nets you Mettle and Slippery Mind.

If playing human take EWP: Spiked Chain and WF: Spiked Chain instead of Guisarme

[Lorddenorstrus]

There are ways to get a fast short range teleport. There are also ways to have a contingency to cast anti-magic field after you do so. All on a non caster.

At that point it is simply a matter of winning initiative.

Unless super cheese is being allowed, such as craft contingent spell, contingency for wish bull****, (I would never allow that feat in my games) you should be able to put some serious hurt on the mage in question no matter what class you are. If there's a feat that lets you attack at the end of a teleport in the surprise round, take it.

Winning initiative here will allow a full round attack action to simply obliterate this mage. No magic means no defenses, which means no tricks from the mage.

Give the person doing this an artifact for a weapon, and that wizard is toast.

Just because I've seen you mention Anti Magic Fields across several threads now.. you do realize Wizard players came up with a counter to that.. a long long time ago right? It involved shrinking a certain material as a hat, the anti magic field undid the shrink causing the hat to expand covering the wizard entirely so they could just teleport away safely. Was it lead? God I really need someone to remind me of the material it was made from it's been to long.. That's why the biggest factor in the Mundane vs Caster theory zone is just how optimized the caster is.. a fully optimized one is immune to everything completely through aleax shenaningans etc blah op etc

[Calthropstu]

Just because I've seen you mention Anti Magic Fields across several threads now.. you do realize Wizard players came up with a counter to that.. a long long time ago right? It involved shrinking a certain material as a hat, the anti magic field undid the shrink causing the hat to expand covering the wizard entirely so they could just teleport away safely. Was it lead? God I really need someone to remind me of the material it was made from it's been to long.. That's why the biggest factor in the Mundane vs Caster theory zone is just how optimized the caster is.. a fully optimized one is immune to everything completely through aleax shenaningans etc blah op etc

See Sunder. Poke a hole in the antimagic field hat. Now, the caster is in an anti magic field, trapped inside a giant hat with nowhere to go and no way to defend himself and is simply murdered at leisure. And lead is actually very very easy to poke a hole into. Also, if that's the way you want to play this?
Take a monk in with you. Give him about a +20 - 30 initiative. The monk has haste, and every possible feat and ability that will give him extra attacks. Use each attack to steal items. You should be able to steal about 10 - 15 items. Then trigger the antimagic field.

And if you want to say "Oh but he can hide in his own plane and..."

Not in my game he can't. Any GM that allows your absolute bull**** cheese? I am not playing with. Nor am I being. You saw the responses to a simple gaining of minion hordes. DO YOU HONESTLY THINK A GM WILL ALLOW YOUR CRAP?

No. No they won't. If they do... more power to ya. But in my games? Most sane games? Yeah, not a chance.

Yeah, we could all play pun-pun. Roll a die, see who goes first, that player wins. None of us want to play that.

So let's work under the assumption that the GM in question (who I believe to be the OP) has NOT allowed the idiocy you are spouting hmmm?

[Seppo87]

And if you want to say "Oh but he can hide in his own plane and..."

Not in my game he can't. Any GM that allows your absolute bull**** cheese?

You seem to be under the impression that using core spells in the intended way is cheese.
Is this the case?

DO YOU HONESTLY THINK A GM WILL ALLOW YOUR CRAP?

Calm down.

[Calthropstu]

You seem to be under the impression that using core spells in the intended way is cheese.
Is this the case?



Calm down.

Where do you see "core spells used as intended" to create "unkillable super wizards."

Shape shifting into a zodakar? Zodakar isn't core.

Most of the garbage people have spewn at me saying "wizards are unkillable" has been out of splat books that few gm's will allow.

"Book of Elements" for Genesis to create a demiplane. How is that core?

Drop that, 80% of the "unkillable" arguments go away. Now you can be reached no matter what.

Drop a bunch of the garbage from these out of the way splat books and you are now dealing with a very very killable wizard. Who hires fighters to keep him safe at night. Or teleports to a hidden location hoping not to be found.

Like in the stories.

Who has to have a place to gather his treasure and can be robbed.

Yeah that craft contingency spell? Not happening. It's not even in the SRD.

As to "calm down" I am perfectly calm.

But I will not sit by and take these guys harassing me every time I say a viable wizard slaying tactic that will genuinely work as long as the GM isn't a moron.

[Calthropstu]

Just because I've seen you mention Anti Magic Fields across several threads now.. you do realize Wizard players came up with a counter to that.. a long long time ago right? It involved shrinking a certain material as a hat, the anti magic field undid the shrink causing the hat to expand covering the wizard entirely so they could just teleport away safely. Was it lead? God I really need someone to remind me of the material it was made from it's been to long.. That's why the biggest factor in the Mundane vs Caster theory zone is just how optimized the caster is.. a fully optimized one is immune to everything completely through aleax shenaningans etc blah op etc

BTW...

please share with me where it says "anti magic field is blocked by xxxxxx material"

[Eldariel]

Couple of tricks:

• 1 level of Ranger taking "Arcane Hunter" [Complete Mage] alternative class feature gets Favored Enemy: Arcanists. Add to that Nemesis-feat [Book of Exalted Deeds] and you can sense all Arcanists within 60'. A great counter to many forms of invisibility; finding mages is all but impossible and this gives you a fighting chance.
• Legacy Weapon [Weapons of Legacy] customized to become an anti-mage tool can be a great boon. It can include detection abilities, Evasion, Mind Blank and such, but most importantly it grants featured called "Cunning" around level 13, which means you are never flat-footed. Basically, this means you can use your own immediate action abilities when a mage teleports on you. You can also get Contingency on a Legacy Weapon. Make sure it's a secondary weapon; they suck for attacking but having e.g. a Legacy Gauntlet as a utility radar/tool while you fight with real weapons is quite convenient.
• You need some non-precision way of dealing sufficient damage to kill a mage. Grapple won't do. If you somehow get a magical chance to actually land a hit, you can't afford to waste it. The caster must die lest he teleports away. The standard way to do a lot of damage while moving is Charge + Power Attack + Shock Trooper, but there are other options. The limitations in how you can move during Charge can be really pesky so I recommend that you should take some levels in Warblade or Swordsage [Tome of Battle] to learn Bounding Assault. Allows double move and treats the attack as a Charge. Combined with Lion Totem Barbarian [Complete Champion] this grants you a full attack plus double move.
• You need non-magical flight. The best way to acquire this is Feathered Wings-graft from Fiend Folio. A comparatively cheap item that grants efficient all-day flight and works non-magically. You have to save daily to avoid becoming evil but with the Diamond Mind maneuver "Moment of Perfect Mind", you'll never fail this save. Increases your mobility in general tremendously.
• Optimally you'd have both, a ranged and a melee option. I recommend having bow setup capable of one-rounding a mage. Add to that Force and Seeking, and buy some Phasing Arrows [Dragon 330] and you can threaten a kill through walls in basically any condition. This again expands the range of enemies you can hit; Dragonbone Composite Longbow has 130' range increments enabling you to oneshot a target up to 1300' away, or 1550' with Flight Arrows [Arms & Equipment Guide]. It takes some effort to pump your ranged damage sufficiently high though, but ignoring miss chances and shooting through walls opens up options.
• You definitely want Darkstalker [Lords of Madness] and Hide in Plain Sight. This is your #1 defense; if your enemy can't see you until they're dead, your job is a lot easier. It also doubles as a great defense. A mediocre form of Hide in Plain Sight can be acquired through the Dark-template [Tome of Magic], which can be acquired through Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis. A better form could be acquired through e.g. Shadow Dancer.
• Any amount of means to get extra actions or to act out of turn order is peachy. White Raven Tactics, Moment of Alacrity, Island in Time [Tome of Battle] are such options as well as various magic items (Celerity is the ultimate golden option), Crafted Contingent Spells (you can buy 'em) and so on. This is the game where Wizards have a huge edge and you need to try and catch up.
• Absolutely ensure any weapons you use are made of Thinaun. If you ever do manage to kill a mage, you want them dead. Not reviving in their Clone, not returning to their own body, not getting auto-resurrected, dead. To that end, capturing their soul with a Thinaun weapon and using it as a spell component is the most reliable means of being rid of them for good. There are too many ways to come back for killing someone to really work unless you either disable them and keep them in some really tight seal (Quintessence [Psionic Power] could work) or annihilate their very existence.
• Some item of antimagic field is pretty convenient. Just remember not to use it prematurely; it ****s you over too. If you ever get next to a Wizard with it active, you cut many of their options. Combine that with Thicket of Blades (to stop Tumble & al.) plus Mage Slayer plus Combat Reflexes plus Tripping and you should be able to lock them down by just moving next to them. This makes your move actions more powerful as it allows you to checkmate somebody without actually having the action to finish them off that round.
• Initiative pumping (Eager, Warning) gives you an extra tool as well.
• One option that could be attempted against Wizards immune to damage (e.g. under Delay Death or Regeneration + nonlethal immunity or whatever) is destroy all their equipment. To that end, it might be worth your while to have Improved Sunder and to wipe out any spell component pouches and such they have. Doesn't always work but might work in some cases.
• Iron Heart Surge [Tome of Battle] solves a lot of problems if you get creative with it, starting from enemy shaped Antimagic Fields. It's definitely something you want in your arsenal.

You can fit all of that into a single build (aside from perhaps Island in Time, which is the capstone of Eternal Blade [Tome of Battle]) but it takes some work. Even at that point, you won't reliably be able to kill them but at least you have a gameplan instead of "run at them, hope they don't see me coming and Cage me or whatever". Also, mind that they might be Astrally Projected starting from level 9 (Lesser Planar Binding can Bind a Nightmare which can use Astral Projection at will).

To that end, having something that can cut the Astral Cord or at least keeping them stuck with Antimagic Field is probably convenient. Not sure how Thinaun and Astral Projection interact but if favorably, you might be able to kill them through it. Either way, you need plenty of Thinaun equipment if you ever plan to keep them dead.

BTW...

please share with me where it says "anti magic field is blocked by xxxxxx material"

Antimagic field is an emanation. That's a feature of emanations. They only affect the area, creatures, or objects to which it has line of effect from its origin. An otherwise solid barrier needs to have a hole of at least 1 square foot to stop blocking a spell’s line of effect.