Batman's Bane: The Joker

[ShneekeyTheLost]

You know, the Joker could easily set a fatal trap for the Batman, put the player in his place for sure, so next time he'll realize "huh, if I powergame, the DM kills me, and he kills me fair..."

You're not going to be able to build a trap capable of killing an optimized Batman Wizard. It simply cannot be done. However, you can make things... exceedingly annoying for him, which is exactly what this build is designed to do.

[Epic_Wizard]

You must have an interesting group. I'd have simply hit whichever one of the three things up there was doing the actual flying with a targeted Greater Dispel Magic and brought you all back down. Or just thrown a couple of Huge Air Elementals at you to play with up there...

He revealed afterwords that the druid was only 15th level and besides I wasn't being THAT effective. I have lots of books but I haven't had a chance to use them until recently so I need to learn what to cast when. In retrospect I should have dumped Reverse Gravity early in the fight along with Greater Arcane Sight followed up by some buff removal on him.

You're not going to be able to build a trap capable of killing an optimized Batman Wizard. It simply cannot be done. However, you can make things... exceedingly annoying for him, which is exactly what this build is designed to do.

Never EVER say "it can't be done" because trust me it can. I could probably work something up that would kill off 90% of people that walked into it and probably using something simple like "you forgot to look up". Heck just use enough anti-divination spells in subtle enough places and Batman can die on the first turn of combat without ever using one of his spells. Yes it would take another Wizard to do this (probably) but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

Oh yeah and never say this to a DM. He will take it as a challenge and you will find yourself a greasy spot on the campaign setting.

[olentu]

Oh yeah and never say this to a DM. He will take it as a challenge and you will find yourself a greasy spot on the campaign setting.

Yeah this could be a very bad idea. With a determined DM you will get a trap that consists of a room containing a Simulacrum of an appropriate deity that uses Life And Death on you or something like that.

[Duff]

If there was a PrC he could get into that let him bypass scrying, alignment and truth detection, and advanced Bard casting, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Unseen Seer?, Maybe with a homebrew Bard-y bit that adds bardic music and bardic knowledge as well

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Never EVER say "it can't be done" because trust me it can. I could probably work something up that would kill off 90% of people that walked into it and probably using something simple like "you forgot to look up". Heck just use enough anti-divination spells in subtle enough places and Batman can die on the first turn of combat without ever using one of his spells. Yes it would take another Wizard to do this (probably) but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

Oh yeah and never say this to a DM. He will take it as a challenge and you will find yourself a greasy spot on the campaign setting.

In this case, I *AM* the GM, and the Joker Bard was the result of "Nothing can even CHALLENGE my Optimized Batman Wizard".

Also, I have an extreme dislike of the "Oops, you forgot to look up, the Sphere of Ahniliation just ate you, hand over your character sheet" type traps, either as a player OR as a GM.

I also am wanting to make the Joker Bard WITHOUT Homebrew. Let's face it, there's enough material out there that I don't need to.

If there was a PrC he could get into that let him bypass scrying, alignment and truth detection, and advanced Bard casting, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

There is. It's called Bard. Bards get False Vision to fool scrying, as well as Undetectable Alignment and Glibness which fools truth detection.

[TempusCCK]

Batman wizard teleports into room holding plot-important item/person. Simultaneously three traps go off in the relatively tiny room, one is an antimagic field trap, trapping the wizard, one pumps high DC Con-damage poison into the air, the other is a resetting series of arrow traps that come from tiny holes in the wall.

Batman suffocates, unable to do anything but cast the cheesy AMF do not apply spells like Wall of Force, which is absolutely not going to stop him from suffocating.

Now you just need a reason to get him into the room, shouldn't be hard...

[Eldariel]

And reasons not to divine the arrival location too.

[Yukitsu]

Yeah this could be a very bad idea. With a determined DM you will get a trap that consists of a room containing a Simulacrum of an appropriate deity that uses Life And Death on you or something like that.

This is why eschew materials is a broken feat.

[Aquillion]

This is why eschew materials is a broken feat.

Actually... while I mentioned Life and Death myself, a sufficiently determined Batman wizard can negate it. All they have to do is strike first, making an ice simulacrum of the highest Divine Rank deity in the setting who has Life and Death with orders to bring them back to life whenever they die. Presto, they're immortal. If they're worried about the original deity objecting, they can make two (or more) ice simulacrums of the highest-divine-rank deity in the setting, then send them to beat the original deity up.

(And they can also kill anyone in the setting they want by asking their pet deity to do it for them. But that's something else.)

Batman wizard teleports into room holding plot-important item/person. Simultaneously three traps go off in the relatively tiny room, one is an antimagic field trap, trapping the wizard, one pumps high DC Con-damage poison into the air, the other is a resetting series of arrow traps that come from tiny holes in the wall.

Batman suffocates, unable to do anything but cast the cheesy AMF do not apply spells like Wall of Force, which is absolutely not going to stop him from suffocating.

Now you just need a reason to get him into the room, shouldn't be hard...

One of those 'cheesy AMF do not apply' spells, Invoke Magic, lets you cast others spells. So it wouldn't work.

Even aside from that, a proper Gate-servant preparation (using Gate to set up an extended service with an outsider who will check up on you every so often and arrange to bring you back every time you die) will negate that. You'll cost them money (depending on how they worded the extended service contract), but you won't keep them dead.


If you want a less absurdly cheesy way: Before teleporting, use Mass Teleport to send a rogue with a Telepathic Bond first to check for traps, and have them send you back an OK before you go yourself.

[shadow_archmagi]

Why not just send the telepathic Bond?

[Aquillion]

Why not just send the telepathic Bond?

Because if you had a telepathic Bond, you could just order him to solve problems for you in the first place; you wouldn't have to be an adventurer at all.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Batman wizard teleports into room holding plot-important item/person. Simultaneously three traps go off in the relatively tiny room, one is an antimagic field trap, trapping the wizard, one pumps high DC Con-damage poison into the air, the other is a resetting series of arrow traps that come from tiny holes in the wall.

Batman suffocates, unable to do anything but cast the cheesy AMF do not apply spells like Wall of Force, which is absolutely not going to stop him from suffocating.

Now you just need a reason to get him into the room, shouldn't be hard...

You see, this is what I don't like. This isn't Challenging your PC's. This is a variation on Rocks Fall, You Die. I don't want to use DM Fiat to make them enter an unwinnable position. That's cheating. I want them to be challenged, engaged, and at the end, go 'Whew... that was the toughest encounter I've ever had... but damn, that was fun".

[olentu]

Actually... while I mentioned Life and Death myself, a sufficiently determined Batman wizard can negate it. All they have to do is strike first, making an ice simulacrum of the highest Divine Rank deity in the setting who has Life and Death with orders to bring them back to life whenever they die. Presto, they're immortal. If they're worried about the original deity objecting, they can make two (or more) ice simulacrums of the highest-divine-rank deity in the setting, then send them to beat the original deity up.

I was assuming that the guy who wanted you dead was higher level then you and since Simulacrum is limited by caster level they will always be able to get a better (higher rank) deity and more of them then the PC.

[TempusCCK]

Batman has no problem bending the rules to break your game, I see no reason why you shouldn't throw a very fatal trap at him. Besides, you could easily design it to not be entirely fatal, just make batman useless and able to be killed, relying on the other members of the party to save him...

[Inyssius Tor]

Batman has no problem bending the rules to break your game, I see no reason why you shouldn't throw a very fatal trap at him.

Because that is not fun for anyone except possibly the DM, and probably not even him. He wants to challenge the party (and the wizard), not fiat any of them into uselessness.

[TempusCCK]

Not true, as a player, if I had a party member totally overshadowing me, I would thouroughly enjoying a situation where I have to save his powergaming rear.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Not true, as a player, if I had a party member totally overshadowing me, I would thouroughly enjoying a situation where I have to save his powergaming rear.

And that is exactly what Joker Bard is designed to do.

Suddenly he has discovered that he has falsely prepared for the encounter, the opponents are specifically ones that his current spell list is poorly equipped to handle, although he still has some useful things to do.

Enter the rest of the party, who are not particularly any more disadvantaged in this situation than in any other, who finally has a chance to do something other than make coffee.

[monty]

Why not just send the telepathic Bond?

A British spy with psion levels? Of course!

[TempusCCK]

And that is exactly what Joker Bard is designed to do.

Suddenly he has discovered that he has falsely prepared for the encounter, the opponents are specifically ones that his current spell list is poorly equipped to handle, although he still has some useful things to do.

Enter the rest of the party, who are not particularly any more disadvantaged in this situation than in any other, who finally has a chance to do something other than make coffee.

Like some others have pointed out before, there's some general purpose stuff that Batman will always have that will have him prepared for every encounter. I say jack up the danger for the batman, target HIS weak save for once.

[Aquillion]

And that is exactly what Joker Bard is designed to do.

Suddenly he has discovered that he has falsely prepared for the encounter, the opponents are specifically ones that his current spell list is poorly equipped to handle, although he still has some useful things to do.

Enter the rest of the party, who are not particularly any more disadvantaged in this situation than in any other, who finally has a chance to do something other than make coffee.

But I still think you're overestimating the importance of using scrying for preparation. Many Batman-style wizards don't actually do that at all; it has a lot of dangers and limitations even if the DM isn't actively trying to use it against you (it's not that hard to run into something outside of what you scryed.)

What I'm saying is, at best, you might manage to reduce the wizard from preparing ten different 'instantly win this situation' spells, down to, say, five or six 'instantly win this situation' spells. But if that's all you've got, the wizard is still going to win.

If you have the Joker actively there trying to dispel / negate the wizard's spells, then you've turned the fight into Wizard vs. Joker, with everyone else left swarming the Joker while the wizard keeps him busy, or fighting the Joker's mooks. That isn't any different than the usual situation when the party fights a high-level caster.

Not true, as a player, if I had a party member totally overshadowing me, I would thouroughly enjoying a situation where I have to save his powergaming rear.

Really? I wouldn't, not in the situation you describe. It's not my character doing anything; it's the DM using his DM-hammer to decide what happens. I would rather everyone sit down outside the game, talk about what's happening, and decide whether it's a problem, and if it is, whether to nerf the caster, buff everyone else, or do something else to deal with it.

When your party is radically different in optimization-levels, and it's obvious it's interfering with people's fun, the correct thing to do is to take the players aside and talk to them honestly about it, asking them how they feel, what they want to do about it, and so on. It's an OOC problem. It is not something you should try to address with in-character solutions like this.

Creating situations to challenge powerful characters can be fun, but these descriptions all seem to end with "and then the caster learns the error of his ways and doesn't get out of line again for fear of the DM-hammer." That's silly. If you want a player to stop doing something in particular, the solution is not to send a DM-grudgemonster after him; the solution is to take him aside and say 'hey, stop doing that' as directly and politely as possible.

Most players who overshadow the rest of the party don't even realize they're doing it; in my experience, if you talk to them, the vast majority of the time they'll tone it down and the issue will go away. If they flat-out refuse after it's pointed out, and everyone else agrees that it's hurting the game, you should probably consider whether or not you want to be playing with them anyway.

You can write an encounter around one character's weaknesses once or twice, sure, to spice things up. But doing it over and over again or writing the entire campaign's main villain against them is going to get old fast.

[ericgrau]

Neither auto-win nor auto-lose is fun. The solution is to stop people from using auto-win cheese, out of game, and to slap the guy who suggests you retaliate with auto-lose just 'cuz it's fair game.

Legend lore tells you legends about high level characters. Given the prevalence of news and his own detective skills, the comic book batman wouldn't find out anything he didn't know already. Heck, average Joe citizen might know most of such things about the famous Joker.

As for creating the Joker, check out the Wikipedia article and scroll down to "Powers and abilities."

[Thurbane]

You're not going to be able to build a trap capable of killing an optimized Batman Wizard. It simply cannot be done. However, you can make things... exceedingly annoying for him, which is exactly what this build is designed to do.

Antimagic Field trap combined with LOTS of poison?

[Epic_Wizard]

Antimagic Field trap combined with LOTS of poison?

I just meant there is something on the ceiling that he can't directly scry that proceeds to drops on him/towards him/generally make his day not very fun.

Heck a simple falling ceiling trap but with about 10 minutes of time, a teleport block, and the ceiling having an anti-magic field in a 1 inch radius around it. The Wizard can't just blast a hole or teleport them out so the rest of the party is forced to save his bacon.

Wall of force? Sure, that buys you a few rounds until someone comes along and gets the trap moving again. For maximum "oh ****" value you should have this happen a few rounds after the ceiling runs into the wall and stops moving. Then call for spot checks to see who notices the ceiling is coming down again...

Save and die is not required to challenge a power gamer. You just need to be sneakier than they are.

(as for the "you didn't look up" bit, I say that it is perfectly viable to put someone in a tough spot because they didn't check something. DM's do it all the time when the players forget to make a spot/listen/search/DD check)

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Antimagic Field trap combined with LOTS of poison?

Nah, that's the 'brute force' approach. I prefer something with a little more... finesse.

Ironically, one of the things best able to threaten a Batman Wizard is... oozes. Immune to most of the things they normally memorize, and generally weak vs blasting, which no self-respecting Batman Wizard would ever bother packing unless he specifically knew he was going to need it.

[Epic_Wizard]

Nah, that's the 'brute force' approach. I prefer something with a little more... finesse.

Ironically, one of the things best able to threaten a Batman Wizard is... oozes. Immune to most of the things they normally memorize, and generally weak vs blasting, which no self-respecting Batman Wizard would ever bother packing unless he specifically knew he was going to need it.

If Batman isn't packing at least some blasting then he isn't being creative enough in it's use. Sure using the stuff directly on a number of opponents can be problematic but there are plenty of more subtle ways to use "blasting" magic.

Forest? Lightning Bolt into the nearest tree's base along with any along that line and see where they land. Cavern? Sonic Fireball on the ceiling and watch your opponent go crunch under a sudden rock fall.

Yeah that's fun stuff. Even better when your DM is as creative as you are with spell effects and you get some unexpected results

Actually it just occurred to me...

Letting a bunch of oozes lose in a Jello factory would be right up the joker's alley

[Mercenary Pen]

Actually it just occurred to me...

Letting a bunch of oozes with class levels loose in a Jello factory would be right up the joker's alley

Fixed it for you...

Only thing more fun than oozes in a jelly factory (excuse me, I'm British), would be oozes spamming acid spells, stunning fists, bard songs and barbarian rages in a Jelly factory- just to really make certain the batman can't work out what's going to happen next...

[monty]

Fixed it for you...

Only thing more fun than oozes in a jelly factory (excuse me, I'm British), would be oozes spamming acid spells, stunning fists, bard songs and barbarian rages in a Jelly factory- just to really make certain the batman can't work out what's going to happen next...

No Int score = no class levels.

A bunch of fiendish oozes with class levels, on the other hand...

[D_Lord]

Love this so much. May the batman wizards throw their spells per day out the window, in a fit of madness. Beware of of very real world violent players.

[Aquillion]

Ironically, one of the things best able to threaten a Batman Wizard is... oozes. Immune to most of the things they normally memorize, and generally weak vs blasting, which no self-respecting Batman Wizard would ever bother packing unless he specifically knew he was going to need it.

Not really. The thing is, oozes might be immune to some of the Batman Wizard's tricks... but they suck even more for everyone else. Immune to precision damage + blindsight means most rogues can do exactly nothing. Trip is useless and grappling is worse than useless. On most -- including all the highest-level ones -- slashing and piercing weapons are also worse than useless, which makes archers ineffective. Anything focused on criticals is no good. Eats weapons and armor, so most meleers will be glad to step back and let casters handle it anyway.

Meanwhile, they have sucky touch AC and no SR, so Enervation deals with them quite handily and Ray of Enfeeblement can make them suck. Both of those are hugely popular. They have sucky will saves, so even with their immunity to mind-affecting and visual spells, Slow will handle them (and is especially crippling with their already-low movement -- at that point you can pelt them to death with rocks); this also means that Shadow Conjuration or Shadow Evocation can be freely used for blasting (or whatever else you want), with little chance that they'll make the save.

Even their low reflex save can be used against them -- as long as the caster's CL makes it big enough, Resilient Sphere can take one out of the fight until everything else has been dealt with and the whole party is lined up/buffed to beat it. Web and Grease technically work if you interpret the rules mechanically; though many DMs will probably just rule that the ooze eats through webs and ignores the important parts of Grease, there are more than enough other options to make up for it.

And choosing an ooze or whatever that can take class levels means it has at least 1 int, which means it's now vulnerable to mind-affecting spells... and still has a will-save penalty. Good luck with that.

Buffs and summons still work at full strength, at last aside from the fact that most of the people you'd usually buff are probably mostly ineffective (summons are particularly nice because it means that someone else is eating all the nasty ooze effects instead of your fighter's equipment.) Most terrain-alteration spells work pretty well, too, as long as they can't be climbed over or eaten through.

And on top of all that, even the most anti-Blasting batman wizard is going to carry an offensive wand or two, just in case. They're fairly cheap, and you never know when you might want to set something on fire or whatever from very far away, or just do a bunch of ranged damage at your leisure without wasting spell slots.

Casters -- even ones not focused on blasting -- are easily the best class for handling oozes, hands down. The fact that their biggest weakness (blasting) is something that isn't at the top of your typical Batman-wizard's priorities doesn't mean much when it's something that the rest of the party doesn't have access to at all.

[Mercenary Pen]

Even more fun would be living spells in a magic item factory...

With none of them emulating anything below a level 7 spell...

Living greater dispel magic, living prismatic sphere, living meteor swarm, living energy drain...

Add in crazy magic items to suit and even a Batman wizard is going to be having severe difficulties...