Is there anything wrong with linear Fighter-quadratic Wizard?

[Liquor Box]

But apparently this fighter is only optimized to kill wizards and other spellcasters. He can't do enough damage to defeat a character with slightly larger hit dice. So all the wizard really needs to do is take Improved Toughness as a feat and cast Heart of Earth in the morning. Then she'll have as much HP as a fighter, and the assassin won't be able to kill her.

I'm assuming, of course, that the whole reason this issue came up was because this assassin is supposedly a problem for wizards, but not fighters. Otherwise why even mention it?

I don't think anyone claimed that the fighter assassin couldn't also kill another fighter.

I think the fighter may have some advantages against the assassination attempt than the wizard (generally significantly higher hitpoints, often higher AC (I know there are ways to optimise wizard AC, but do most wizard usually have those on all the time?) amongst other things), and the wizard may have other advantages (which would vary greatly depending on the particular spell cast in advance).

I didn;t propose the scenario, but I assume it was mentioned because the poster got the impression that some people think wizards are godlike and near invulnerable to similar level fighters at high level. That they are "too powerful at high level" (to use his words) for the game to handle them. He then proposed a scenario where a fighter would more often than not kill an ordinary high level wizard.

You could go into an arms race (as many posters have) and propose that this is a wizard who would always be prepared for this particular type of attack and would never ever ever leave home unless all those defences were up (being confined to ones home for all but a few hours a day seems to me to mean a wizard has less freedom than a lvl 1 commoner), but that is not the point being made.

Of course fighters would have to worry about assassins as well. But I don;t think anyone has said that fighters a godlike near invulnerable at high levels or are too powerful for the game.

[Liquor Box]

Two of my nine...although in total fairness, the other seven were too low-level to cast it at all. Of the three other wizards I've seen played in the games I've played in that were actually at a level where it was feasible, only one of them had it up all day (although the others had it up for several hours using some lower-op CL boosting and Sudden Extend/Greater Rod Of Extend)

Also, why are you saying two hours? The post you quoted specifies how even a Wizard who isn't pulling CL shenanigans or Extending the spell in any way still manages to get over three hours.

I'm saying two hours because that was the duration proposed by another poster in another limb of the conversation, so that was in my mind.

We don;t know the actual duration because we do not know the level of the wizard involved. The scenario on page 1 only specified "high level". Troacctid assumed level 15 when discussing relative HP, someone must have assumed level 12 to propose a 2 hour duration, you seem to have proposed level 18. All are perfectly valid.

[Calthropstu]

Even assuming Epic Spellcasting is off the table (because that stuff is stupid OP), an epic character's gotta be pretty underoptimized to get pwn'd by a non-epic character. The access to epic items alone, even without WBL shenanigans, is significant, and the much better BAB/HP/Saves doesn't hurt either. Of course, it's pretty understandable if the lich was designed by the game designers: NPCs built with PC rules tend to be rather underwhelming, casters and non-casters alike.

If any non-epic non-caster is giving an epic lich wizard a run for their money, though, it would be a paladin, if only thematically. In fact, there's an interesting PrC (Hunter of the Dead, I think?) that has an ability where any undead destroyed by you can't be re-undead'd by any means...which happens to include liches destroyed by the HotD not being brought back by their phylacteries.

Lol, yes the lich was made by game designers. We were playing a ravenloft adventure path and had to decide to help strahd destroy ravenloft to go be able to go home, or help destroy strahd and prevent ravenlofts destruction. I do not remember the name of the adventure, but we opted to kill the lich, destroy ravenloft...

Then surprise attack strahd with a one shot maximized disintigrate kill, and a summoned earth elemental to find his coffin and put him down for good.

The 23rd caster lich was done in by a smite crit on a x3 weapon.

[Flickerdart]

Ahh yes, "Use ToB instead." What a fresh and exciting perspective!

Fresh and exciting doesn't exist in a game that's almost old enough to drive. Which is why it's extra fun every time someone comes in to say that no, fighters are totally a real character class, because you all missed that one thing or that other one thing and once I saw a fighter beat up a squirrel.

[Liquor Box]

Foresight and Shapechange both last 3 hours at 18th level without using CL boosters or Metamagic Rods of Extend. With CL boosters you can push 50 hour durations in a single casting of both spells. Superior Invisibility has already been dealt with, but there is a better way: Deeper Darkness+ a Ring of Darkhidden (completely invisible to all sight, including True Seeing, still able to use Blindsight).



3 hours. 6 with a metamagic rod. 12 with Sudden Extend or Master Transmorgrofist (24 with both). More with CL boosters.



Stop. Tortoises are land-dwelling reptiles. There is also no limit to free actions during surprise rounds. There are also divinations you can do 24 hours in advance to know if it is safe for you to be out of dire tortoise form. If it isn't, you instead use your Familiar (or more conveniently through Create Fetch and a means of communicating that doesn't involve you being in the same room; said Familiar would work if it is a raven).

See my conversation with Avatar Vecna regarding this In short, the question is not whether it is possible, the question is whether most wizards have it on all (or at least most) of the time.

Reduce is a spell.

Is that how you ordinarily play a wizard - only go outside when in dire tortoise form? Visit the local merchant in dire tortoise form by reducing to enter the shop and then using some work around so that you can communicate effectively and handle the merchandise? Make sure your home within the duration (however long that is with the extensions to duration you tend to have in place on your average high level wizard)?

Planar Binding and telling it to "Use Astral Projection" is a single service. You do not tell it to perform that as your Planar Binding deal. You tell it to assist you for X duration, including using its special abilities.

Or you can just hit it with Dominate Monster and say "screw the check".

I'm note sure I follow you here. Telling it to cast astral projection is a single service as you say - the spell then ends. But how do you return to the material plane without the nightmare. Where the spell reutrns to changing planes at will it is referring to the caster' will (the nightmare) not the recipient.

As for saying "assist me for x duration", that is clearly not one service. If the spell allowed you to make the outsider a slave for the duration of the spell, the spell would not include a reference to "one service".

If you set the condition during the bargaining process that the creature is free to go once it has completed a single task, then yes. But that is foolish and short-sighted.

This may be where i do nto share your understanding of the rules. I am sure you will enlighten me. The spell description says "Once the requested service is completed, the creature need only so inform you to be instantly sent back whence it came"

Nightmares have a 12 Cha. You can hit it with spells that lower/damage its Cha to inflict a penalty to the Cha check, and you can buff your Cha check in multiple ways. Or, again, Dominate Monster.

Even if the nightmare's charisma were reduced to -4, and yours was increased to +4 (say) there is a fair chance that after all that work it would still beat you.

Oh, and one more thing: Shapechanging into a Nightmare allows you to use its Astral Projection at will, skipping the Planar Binding entirely.

That may work. But every time you state "you could..." or "x would allow you to...." instead of "all wizards do" you are missing the point somewhat. This is not about whether a wizard could be built to avoid the figther's attack (I admitted it could on my first post on the subject), but the attack would succeed against most wizard's who did not have forewarning.

[ryu]

I have no doubt it is possible. But we were not talking about a wizard optimised to avoid surprise attacks by this particular fighter by having . We were talking about an ordinary wizard. How many wizards have you actually created for play that tended to have foresight up for the entirety of their waking hours?

Sure, if the fighter happens to attack during the two hours or so that foresight is up, a tactic relying on surprise wouldn't work. Sure, if you build your wizard to have foresight up constantly, then the surprise tactic wouldn't work. But most wizards do not have foresight up constantly, so the surprise attack tactic would work on most wizards.

It's not optimization to avoid surprise attacks by any fighter. It's optimization to avoid surprise attacks in general. Getting surprised in combat SUCKS. Can you even think of a reasonable encounter where you'd want to give the other side extra actions right at the start? For that matter can you think of an encounter that was a legitimate threat where being surprised didn't significantly decrease odds of general survival?

[Liquor Box]

It's not optimization to avoid surprise attacks by any fighter. It's optimization to avoid surprise attacks in general. Getting surprised in combat SUCKS. Can you even think of a reasonable encounter where you'd want to give the other side extra actions right at the start? For that matter can you think of an encounter that was a legitimate threat where being surprised didn't significantly decrease odds of general survival?

Sure, all that may be true.

Do the wizards you play always have foresight (or a substitute) active whenever the leave the house (not only when expecting trouble)? If so, this tactic may not work against your wizard (although I'm sure another might). But it would work against many wizards who are not optimised to avoid surprise attacks in general. Whether thats a question of playing a wizard worse/better or playing a wizard differently is another debate.

[OldTrees1]

It isn't a problem solved merely by addition. You also have the problem of large sections of the most prominently visible feats being utterly terrible. The fighter problem isn't limited to classes. It permeates most every system in this game on some level or another.

Huh? How are a bunch of worthless feats still a problem once you add enough worthwhile feats that there are more than enough worthwhile feats in every category? Consider MtG for a moment. There are a bunch of completely worthless cards that nobody uses. However they made enough worthwhile cards that nobody needs to use those worthless cards. So if you add worthwhile feats it doesn't matter if there is some worthless feats out there. Just make sure there are enough worthwhile feats to cover everything and things will be good.

Again, this does not excuse WotC for producing the worthless options or for not making enough worthwhile options. I am merely saying that when the problem is lack of worthwhile options, one can fix that by addition.

[AvatarVecna]

I'm saying two hours because that was the duration proposed by another poster in another limb of the conversation, so that was in my mind.

We don;t know the actual duration because we do not know the level of the wizard involved. The scenario on page 1 only specified "high level". Troacctid assumed level 15 when discussing relative HP, someone must have assumed level 12 to propose a 2 hour duration, you seem to have proposed level 18. All are perfectly valid.

Except Foresight is a 9th lvl spell. The lowest level it can be cast at is 17 under most any circumstance, except perhaps a cheesed-out Beholder Mage. I donct think you can even craft an item of it with less than CL 17, but I could be wrong. That puts the minimum duration at 170 minutes, just under three hours.

[Calthropstu]

See my conversation with Avatar Vecna regarding this In short, the question is not whether it is possible, the question is whether most wizards have it on all (or at least most) of the time.



Is that how you ordinarily play a wizard - only go outside when in dire tortoise form? Visit the local merchant in dire tortoise form by reducing to enter the shop and then using some work around so that you can communicate effectively and handle the merchandise? Make sure your home within the duration (however long that is with the extensions to duration you tend to have in place on your average high level wizard)?


I'm note sure I follow you here. Telling it to cast astral projection is a single service as you say - the spell then ends. But how do you return to the material plane without the nightmare. Where the spell reutrns to changing planes at will it is referring to the caster' will (the nightmare) not the recipient.

As for saying "assist me for x duration", that is clearly not one service. If the spell allowed you to make the outsider a slave for the duration of the spell, the spell would not include a reference to "one service".



This may be where i do nto share your understanding of the rules. I am sure you will enlighten me. The spell description says "Once the requested service is completed, the creature need only so inform you to be instantly sent back whence it came"



Even if the nightmare's charisma were reduced to -4, and yours was increased to +4 (say) there is a fair chance that after all that work it would still beat you.



That may work. But every time you state "you could..." or "x would allow you to...." instead of "all wizards do" you are missing the point somewhat. This is not about whether a wizard could be built to avoid the figther's attack (I admitted it could on my first post on the subject), but the attack would succeed against most wizard's who did not have forewarning.

The service could easily be "Help me, best as you are able, to complete quest x. You must use all your abilities as I direct until we have succeeded."

As for the charisma check, I have gotten my sorceror to do regular planar bindings at a + 15 on his charisma check at 12th level by pfs rules. Everything he can summon with pb needs a nat 20 on the saving throw, and literally CANNOT pass the charisma check to break the prison.

He generally has a +12 to +18 over everything with 12 hd.

[Troacctid]

This is true in 3.5, but PF has plenty of reasons to go with Fighter over Barbarian, especially now that Advanced Weapon Training was created.



In 3.5, absolutely. In PF, all these classes are T4 minimum and therefore are "fun in actual play."

Well sure. That's one of the ways (actually the main way) that PF is better-designed than 3.5. Same's true for 4e and 5e.

I don't think anyone claimed that the fighter assassin couldn't also kill another fighter.

The original scenario was framed as something that would cause problems for wizards, with the implicit claim that it wouldn't cause problems for fighters and rogues. If, in actuality, non-spellcasters have no meaningful advantage against the assassin, then the whole scenario is irrelevant to this discussion, so there wouldn't be any point bringing it up in the first place.

Calthropstu can correct me if I'm off-base here, but I'm pretty sure there was an implicit claim that fighters would be able to clean up the assassin where wizards would be doomed.

[Calthropstu]

Well sure. That's one of the ways (actually the main way) that PF is better-designed than 3.5. Same's true for 4e and 5e.


The original scenario was framed as something that would cause problems for wizards, with the implicit claim that it wouldn't cause problems for fighters and rogues. If, in actuality, non-spellcasters have no meaningful advantage against the assassin, then the whole scenario is irrelevant to this discussion, so there wouldn't be any point bringing it up in the first place.

Calthropstu can correct me if I'm off-base here, but I'm pretty sure there was an implicit claim that fighters would be able to clean up the assassin where wizards would be doomed.

That was exactly the case.

A rogue would have had improved uncanny dodge, making it immune to the sneak attack which killed this wizard, and the fighter would have a massive amount of hp (coincidentally, this 18th level wizard had a mere 114 hp, while the fighter in their group had 280)

Both of them would have trounced or escaped this assassination attempt.

[Troacctid]

That was exactly the case.

A rogue would have had improved uncanny dodge, making it immune to the sneak attack which killed this wizard, and the fighter would have a massive amount of hp (coincidentally, this 18th level wizard had a mere 114 hp, while the fighter in their group had 280)

Both of them would have trounced or escaped this assassination attempt.

There you go, then. As I said, all the wizard has to do is take Improved Toughness and cast Heart of Earth every morning, and that's enough to foil the assassin. Heck, if all the druid does is cast Heart of Earth—which she's probably already been doing since 7th level anyway, since it's a fantastic spell—she's already better at surviving the attack than the fighter.

[JNAProductions]

That was exactly the case.

A rogue would have had improved uncanny dodge, making it immune to the sneak attack which killed this wizard, and the fighter would have a massive amount of hp (coincidentally, this 18th level wizard had a mere 114 hp, while the fighter in their group had 280)

Both of them would have trounced or escaped this assassination attempt.

Right... The bolded bit seems inaccurate. The Fighter would survive the first round, but how exactly is he winning with absolutely no magic left on him? Especially since this assassin, I'm sure, used poison. 7 hits of Drow Sleep poison gives him a 30% chance of rolling a 1 and falling unconscious, whereupon he's immediately going to die. And I guarantee you there's better poisons to use.

Likewise, let's actually check the damage. He's got 10d6 sneak attack, I'm pretty sure, and let's say 1d6+10 damage on the actual weapon itself. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) That means the Fighter takes 48.5*7, or 339.5 points of damage. He had 280, you said? He's dead. We could even drop sneak attack by 2d6, meaning he's only a 15th level Rogue, and the Fighter still dies.

[LTwerewolf]

Fresh and exciting doesn't exist in a game that's almost old enough to drive. Which is why it's extra fun every time someone comes in to say that no, fighters are totally a real character class, because you all missed that one thing or that other one thing and once I saw a fighter beat up a squirrel.

I'm sigging this and there's very little you can do to stop me.

[ryu]

Sure, all that may be true.

Do the wizards you play always have foresight (or a substitute) active whenever the leave the house (not only when expecting trouble)? If so, this tactic may not work against your wizard (although I'm sure another might). But it would work against many wizards who are not optimised to avoid surprise attacks in general. Whether thats a question of playing a wizard worse/better or playing a wizard differently is another debate.

Literally as soon as it's available and a whole list of other defensive buffs, contingencies, and counters to common strategies. First goal of a well-made mage is not to die. Second goal is to have powerful and relevant contributions to all possible encounters. Third is to do all of these while being as completely and utterly inexorable as possible. In short? You can't kill me, the reverse is not true, and no, you can't stop me.

Oldtrees: The problem with that proposition is that options so completely and utterly worthless that no one wants are a waste of designer resources, and more importantly function as traps for the unwary newbies. Why is this awful? Because alienating newbies off the bat is one of the fastest ways to lose a customer. It's worse in collectible card games. There every card so terrible you'd never use seen is money that have wasted. This is terrible even beyond the previous problem. Do I need to explain why making people feel they've wasted money is, like, the worst thing for business?

[Gnaeus]

Thing is - thanks to WBL, the Wizard actually gets no extra loot overall by going it alone. In fact, they get distinctly less if you consider that some of the Fighter's own purchases can either be shared or mitigate the wizard's own resource expenditures. Whereas outfitting a minion, cohort or planar bound ally would all come out of the lone wizard's own wealth.

2 real problems with that. 1. it assumes that WBL is a rule not a guideline, and that it cannot be altered by more logical play. This is not an assumption in any game I have ever been in. As I said, I was discussing it in context of a prepublished adventure where treasure is set, or a randomized sandbox where treasure is random.
2. It assumes that your wizard is Deadpool and is not only unable to exceed WBL, but is aware of WBL as a metaphysical entity. This wizard can not only casually include the fighter without any loss of money, he can fireball all the chests into slag without risk of consequence, because he will be at WBL whatever he does. You might as well say that he is aware that he is a fictional construct run by 5 people at a gaming table to prevent him from ordering his useless fighter to spend half of his WBL on consumable wands and staves that he just hands to the wizard on request.

I wouldn't say he loses little - those slots could be put to much more powerful uses than simply churning out meatshields, especially since the GM can throw unlimited spell slots in opposition (like an entire cult capable of Dismissing your summoned/called backup.)

I'm not creating undead or golems or planar binding on the day of the adventure. I'm doing it the day or the week before. My spent spell slots when I walk into the tower are completely unchanged.

Also, Dismissal is a single target mid level will SOL which allows SR. Any cultist who can dismiss my summoned outsiders can also lock down my lower will save fighter much more easily, if not turn him against me.

So, because the DM has theoretical access to unlimited spell slots, the Wizard needs to metagame and not prepare for adventures in a logical manner because he knows that the gods prefer the contributions of Steve the fighter over Steve2 the planar bound angel? Does any part of this discussion not involve the wizard metagaming?

What I will agree with however is that 3.5 and PF casters have too many spell slots at later levels - but this is what I mean about design. As it currently stands, the Wizard has so many to burn that they can afford to do "army of slaves" even when a Fighter that costs them no wealth or slots at all is waiting in the wings. This is one of the things I think 5E did right, by making non-cantrips so limited in supply and requiring higher-level slots for higher-CL effects (e.g. more damage or duration.) In PF, if I'm faced with a caster who wants to operate the way you describe, I employ the Simplified Spellcasting rules to greatly trim their daily allotment

Thats some nice Oberoni there. If the Wizard obsoletes the fighter, you just nerf the wizard, which makes fighter ok.

But I guess the wizard should metagame and not use his class abilities because he knows that planar binding things/making undead/golems/mind control over npc meatshields will result in him being punished by the gods?

If both the Fighter and the Warblade can kill the green dragon at the end of your adventure path, why do you care so much? Sure the Warblade does it considerably more easily, but a dead dragon is a dead dragon.

I don't know. Maybe if you wanted to pretend that the characters in your group were something like equals, capable of pulling their own weight? As opposed to 2 characters who can do things, the guy they point to when there is a trap, and the native porter.

[Troacctid]

Oldtrees: The problem with that proposition is that options so completely and utterly worthless that no one wants are a waste of designer resources, and more importantly function as traps for the unwary newbies. Why is this awful? Because alienating newbies off the bat is one of the fastest ways to lose a customer. It's worse in collectible card games. There every card so terrible you'd never use seen is money that have wasted. This is terrible even beyond the previous problem. Do I need to explain why making people feel they've wasted money is, like, the worst thing for business?

To be fair, newbies are probably waaay more alienated by the steep learning curve than by the imbalance between classes. The barrier to entry is real.

[ryu]

To be fair, newbies are probably waaay more alienated by the steep learning curve than by the imbalance between classes. The barrier to entry is real.

The learning curve to reach the highest echelons of power is steep. The learning curve to be orders of magnitude more competent than this game ever demands is literally just: Pick pretty much any class that isn't fighter. Experiment with abilities. You'll be good within the month. Hell there's literally classes where the baseline assumption is that you never use any of your class features and are in-fact just a worse fighter. Druid is not hard to play competently. A druid picking almost all of his relevant options at random is still more capable of contributing than necessary if he actually makes use of whatever the hell he picked.

[Calthropstu]

Right... The bolded bit seems inaccurate. The Fighter would survive the first round, but how exactly is he winning with absolutely no magic left on him? Especially since this assassin, I'm sure, used poison. 7 hits of Drow Sleep poison gives him a 30% chance of rolling a 1 and falling unconscious, whereupon he's immediately going to die. And I guarantee you there's better poisons to use.

Likewise, let's actually check the damage. He's got 10d6 sneak attack, I'm pretty sure, and let's say 1d6+10 damage on the actual weapon itself. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) That means the Fighter takes 48.5*7, or 339.5 points of damage. He had 280, you said? He's dead. We could even drop sneak attack by 2d6, meaning he's only a 15th level Rogue, and the Fighter still dies.

7 attacks, targeted at flat footed touch ac by a 17th level rogue. 7d4 + 63d6 + 54 with one dose of mage bane poison. (poisons are good for one strike only)

Average roll is just at the threshold for the fighter to survive assuming no misses.

Oh, and discounting his dr that was from wearing adamantine and a couple other items. The dagger could only do a targeted dispel, not affect items or areas. So yeah. He would have survived.

And the wxtra hp the wizard would have gotten from spells with toughness etc just wouldn't have been enough.

[OldTrees1]

Oldtrees: The problem with that proposition is that options so completely and utterly worthless that no one wants are a waste of designer resources, and more importantly function as traps for the unwary newbies. Why is this awful? Because alienating newbies off the bat is one of the fastest ways to lose a customer. It's worse in collectible card games. There every card so terrible you'd never use seen is money that have wasted. This is terrible even beyond the previous problem. Do I need to explain why making people feel they've wasted money is, like, the worst thing for business?

Um. Who are you talking to? Did you realize I was talking about how a DM could fix the mess WotC made? In every post I clearly stated that this did not excuse WotC (the game designer) so I thought you would have realized what I was talking about. Apparently Not! Adding more feats is a fix a DM can do for their table. Please take more care to actually respond to the person's posts rather than merely vomit words.

[JNAProductions]

7 attacks, targeted at flat footed touch ac by a 17th level rogue. 7d4 + 63d6 + 54 with one dose of mage bane poison. (poisons are good for one strike only)

Average roll is just at the threshold for the fighter to survive assuming no misses.

7d4=2.5*7=17.5

63d6=3.5*63=220.5

17.5+220.5+54=292

That is a dead Fighter.

Edit: And this guy is an Assassin! You say Wizards don't always have buff spells up? I say Fighters don't always wear their armor. No DR, and a crap AC.

Edit II: Also, assuming heavy adamantine armor, that's DR 3/-. That's 21 points of damage off, for 271. He only needs to roll 9 points of damage high to kill him. Let me check anydice...

81% chance of him dying in one round.

My bad! 27% chance! I thought something looked wrong.

Of course, assuming average damage, he lives... With 9 HP. How is he gonna survive round 2?

[Troacctid]

7 attacks, targeted at flat footed touch ac by a 17th level rogue. 7d4 + 63d6 + 54 with one dose of mage bane poison. (poisons are good for one strike only)

Average roll is just at the threshold for the fighter to survive assuming no misses.

Oh, and discounting his dr that was from wearing adamantine and a couple other items. The dagger could only do a targeted dispel, not affect items or areas. So yeah. He would have survived.

And the wxtra hp the wizard would have gotten from spells with toughness etc just wouldn't have been enough.

The extra HP the wizard would have gotten puts her HP total exactly 3 points shy of a single-class fighter with the same Constitution score. 15d4+45 is an average of 84 HP before Con, while the fighter's 15d10 is an average of 87. There's no reason to assume the fighter has a higher Con, because it's a secondary stat for both classes; their score should be about the same.

Also, if the fighter only has exactly enough HP to barely survive, that means the ranger and monk are dead.

[Calthropstu]

7d4=2.5*7=17.5

63d6=3.5*63=220.5

17.5+220.5+54=292

That is a dead Fighter.

Edit: And this guy is an Assassin! You say Wizards don't always have buff spells up? I say Fighters don't always wear their armor. No DR, and a crap AC.

Edit II: Also, assuming heavy adamantine armor, that's DR 3/-. That's 21 points of damage off, for 271. He only needs to roll 9 points of damage high to kill him. Let me check anydice...

81% chance of him dying in one round.

My bad! 27% chance! I thought something looked wrong.

Of course, assuming average damage, he lives... With 9 HP. How is he gonna survive round 2?

His dr was 6 if I recall, he had 3 more points added in from something. So 30 points.

So He gets to respond...
Activate his belt of heal standard action.
Rogue's turn... no sneak attack. Run.

[JNAProductions]

3 charges, I assume, heals 4d8. So that's an extra 18 HP. Assuming DR 6/-, he now has 48 HP.

7 attacks at 7d4+54 (why doesn't he have rapiers, for d8 base?) is 17.5+54 is 71.5 damage on average.

Dead Fighter.

Also, why is he lacking the Craven Feat? That'd up his damage... A lot. As in, more than enough to make the Fighter dead DR or not.

Edit: The feat in question:

Benefit
You take a -2 penalty on saving throws against fear effects. However, when making a sneak attack, you deal an extra 1 point of damage per character level.

Edit II: So, with that in mind, his damage ups by 119 on the first round. That's more than enough to make a dead Fighter.

Edit III: This is the Belt of Healing I found. let me know if it's wrong.

[Liquor Box]

Except Foresight is a 9th lvl spell. The lowest level it can be cast at is 17 under most any circumstance, except perhaps a cheesed-out Beholder Mage. I donct think you can even craft an item of it with less than CL 17, but I could be wrong. That puts the minimum duration at 170 minutes, just under three hours.

Yep, fair point.

So either the wizard in the scenario can't cast foresight at all, or it lasts at least 170 minutes, depending what level he is.

[ryu]

Um. Who are you talking to? Did you realize I was talking about how a DM could fix the mess WotC made? In every post I clearly stated that this did not excuse WotC (the game designer) so I thought you would have realized what I was talking about. Apparently Not! Adding more feats is a fix a DM can do for their table. Please take more care to actually respond to the person's posts rather than merely vomit words.

I'm talking to you. Fixing the mess WotC made in general requires removing things just as much as it requires addition. This is true whether the person performing the fixing is WotC itself wising up, a DM experimenting with the system, or a competitor. If you'd taken more time to read the post you were responding to you'd have realized the explanation for why deletion of trap options is necessary was literally direct response to the post where you questioned why such traps are a problem. At any rate considering you're agitated enough to use terms like vomit words lightly I would recommend the first course of action recommended for internet anger. Namely chill out, and perform some calming activity or another.

[Calthropstu]

3 charges, I assume, heals 4d8. So that's an extra 18 HP. Assuming DR 6/-, he now has 48 HP.

7 attacks at 7d4+54 (why doesn't he have rapiers, for d8 base?) is 17.5+54 is 71.5 damage on average.

Dead Fighter.

Also, why is he lacking the Craven Feat? That'd up his damage... A lot. As in, more than enough to make the Fighter dead DR or not.

Edit: The feat in question:

Actually, it be 7d4 + 12. 6×7 = 42 points reduced. and now he is facing a high level fighter with his weapons drawn.

Oh, and you seem to be confused when I said belt of heal. Not belt of healing. Remember how I said the PCs had access to custom magic items?

edit: He added the ability to cast heal twice per day on his belt of fortitude +5

As for the weapon, it is much much harder to hide a rapier than a dagger. This is a rogue mage slaying weapon of major importance. The harder it is for people to notice it, the easier it is to do its job.

[Liquor Box]

The original scenario was framed as something that would cause problems for wizards, with the implicit claim that it wouldn't cause problems for fighters and rogues. If, in actuality, non-spellcasters have no meaningful advantage against the assassin, then the whole scenario is irrelevant to this discussion, so there wouldn't be any point bringing it up in the first place.

Calthropstu can correct me if I'm off-base here, but I'm pretty sure there was an implicit claim that fighters would be able to clean up the assassin where wizards would be doomed.

Ok, I didn't read it as having such an implicit claim. I await calthrop's clarification.


Edit: I see he has clarified - I hadn't read it that way.
In my view whether a fighter or a wizard (or a rogue) would be more likely to survive in tha particular scenario depends on the particular builds, and much less so on the class generally.

[JNAProductions]

Actually, it be 7d4 + 12. 6×7 = 42 points reduced. and now he is facing a high level fighter with his weapons drawn.

Oh, and you seem to be confused when I said belt of heal. Not belt of healing. Remember how I said the PCs had access to custom magic items?

As for the weapon, it is much much harder to hide a rapier than a dagger. This is a rogue mage slaying weapon of major importance. The harder it is for people to notice it, the easier it is to do its job.

Did you miss the bit about Craven? That's 119 extra points of damage. He's dead.

Edit: I do concede that if said Fighter survives round one, he's got a chance. But, uh... He ain't surviving round one.]

He's looking at 119+54+7+63-42=201 damage MINIMUM. His chances of dying round one are, according to anydice...

Um... I think I broke anydice. It says 100%

Someone check my math? I used this

output 279<(7d4+63d6+54+119-42)

In anydice. That's the right way to do it, right?