Level 20 Wizard Versus...

[youlookfunny]

...Anything that has enormous numbers. Huge saves, insane spell resistances, etc.

How does a wizard20 deal with them (source spells only)? No infinite loops, by the way. Just clever ways to kill despite enormous saves and huge spell resistances.

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And arbitrarily high health, naturally.

[rmg22893]

...Anything that has enormous numbers. Huge saves, insane spell resistances, etc.

How does a wizard20 deal with them (source spells only)? No infinite loops, by the way. Just clever ways to kill despite enormous saves and huge spell resistances.

edit

And arbitrarily high health, naturally.

Shapechange into some monstrosity and beat the **** out of it.

[Lateral]

Easy. Cast an Ice Assassin of that creature, and then buff it to hell and back.

[gkathellar]

I don't remember all the details, but I believe there's a method of "specimen preservation" whereby a wizard uses Forcecage, and one or two "burial" spells to permanently entrap an unmoving victim in ice, rock, packed earth, or all of the above.

[Glimbur]

...Anything that has enormous numbers. Huge saves, insane spell resistances, etc.

How does a wizard20 deal with them (source spells only)? No infinite loops, by the way. Just clever ways to kill despite enormous saves and huge spell resistances.

edit

And arbitrarily high health, naturally.

1) Perfect Defenses (or good enough, at least)
2) Hail of Stones from Spell Compendium, Fell Drain, repeat/twin/etc.
3) Repeat step 2 until target is dead.

Granted, immunity to negative levels beats that approach, but there are many ways to kill people.

[Flickerdart]

Orbs have no saves and no SR. There are many ways to jack up to-hit beyond reasonable levels. A wizard optimized for damage can put out thousands of irresistible damage per round without loops.

[Randomguy]

Gate in something with 40HD and then sit back and watch the fun, or shapechange and join in on the fun.

There's also true strike + metamagicked orb of force, but a blaster sorcerer would be better at that and it would take a while. Doom scarab spam (with all sorts of metamagic) would also work, but would take a very long time. Basically, any SR:No with either no save or save half rather than save negates will work, but that wouldn't be very optimal.

Forcecage + save or dies such as dominate person (or dominate monster) or finger of death until it rolls a natural one.

Unless something has mettle and at least some immunities (at the very least it needs freedom of movement, immunity to mind affecting and immunity to death effects) and some kind of teleportation, then it's going down eventually, even without gate or shapechange.

[Reluctance]

Are you asking about an actual in-game encounter? When it has stats of Arbitrarily High, you take a dive to avoid turning the game into an arms race.

If you're offering the fact that creatures with arbitrarily large numbers can be used to challenge a wizard, that's not balance. As a matter of fact, that you need something so far above the character's pay grade to be considered a challenge is a sign that things are grossly unbalanced.

[Eldan]

The principle usually just involves imprisoning it in something it can't get out of.

[donnerdrummel]

hey there,
transmute rock to lava (if that is a wiz spell)...
in general use the suroundings against it, summon some stuff (celestials are durable as they have healing skills most of the time, fire elementals too for damage ablilities).
on the other hand you can let it help you kill it self (or at least blow out some abilities) with clever uses of hallucinatory terrain and illusions in general.
in my opinion a wiz 20 can take on nearly anything IF he knows upfront and is prepared.

oh and at high lvls i always have a bottle or two of greenslime available.

[Gavinfoxx]

Be a Dire Tortoise, Celerity abuse, Time Stop, Forcecage. And then some burial spells...

Even it the creature has arbitrarily high hit points / skills / saves / damage / initiative, etc., that will still work.

[rmg22893]

hey there,
transmute rock to lava (if that is a wiz spell)...

The floor is now lava! AAAAAAAAAAAH!

[Morph Bark]

Unseelie Fey (Winter) Magic-Blooded Karsite (LA buyoff) Paladin of Tyranny 3/Hexblade 4/Blackguard 3/Battledancer 1/Deepwarden 5/Fist of the Forest 1/Survivor 3

Improved Uncanny Dodge, Slippery Mind, Mettle and Evasion. Cha to AC twice, Con to AC twice, Cha to saves twice versus spells and SR 10 + class level (so 30), which can be boosted with feats.

Get grafts that grant burrow, flight and swim speeds, eliminate the need for food, water and breathing.


Then what happens? Simple. Spells that allow neither saves nor SR and that do not require attack rolls. Most of these involves summoning stuff, essentially breaking the action economy. If you take such kinds of spells out of the equation, there's stuff like forcecage maybe, but then you only neutralize him for so long.

[gkathellar]

The floor is now lava! AAAAAAAAAAAH!

Hilariously, any amount of fire resistance provides total immunity to lava damage.

[Silva Stormrage]

Hilariously, any amount of fire resistance provides total immunity to lava damage.

Wait what? I fire resistance negates lava damage? How?

[gkathellar]

Check the rules on lava.

[Gavinfoxx]

"An immunity or resistance to fire serves as an immunity to lava or magma. However, a creature immune to fire might still drown if completely immersed in lava."

Oh man. I wonder if that was intended. Or if they just left out "or resistance"...

[Silva Stormrage]

"An immunity or resistance to fire serves as an immunity to lava or magma. However, a creature immune to fire might still drown if completely immersed in lava."

Oh man. I wonder if that was intended. Or if they just left out "or resistance"...

100% sure that was NOT intended. How do you stop drowning again?

[Glimbur]

Unseelie Fey (Winter) Magic-Blooded Karsite (LA buyoff) Paladin of Tyranny 3/Hexblade 4/Blackguard 3/Battledancer 1/Deepwarden 5/Fist of the Forest 1/Survivor 3

Improved Uncanny Dodge, Slippery Mind, Mettle and Evasion. Cha to AC twice, Con to AC twice, Cha to saves twice versus spells and SR 10 + class level (so 30), which can be boosted with feats.

Get grafts that grant burrow, flight and swim speeds, eliminate the need for food, water and breathing.


Then what happens? Simple. Spells that allow neither saves nor SR and that do not require attack rolls. Most of these involves summoning stuff, essentially breaking the action economy. If you take such kinds of spells out of the equation, there's stuff like forcecage maybe, but then you only neutralize him for so long.

SR 30 isn't actually that great at level 20, if the caster knows to build to get around it. There are at least two spells that give a +10 to beat SR, and sometimes CL is boosted anyway (for Holy Word et al shenanigans, for example.) Those will be some pretty good saves, and the AC should be nontrivial. Fell Drain Hail of Stones will still work... slowly.

As a benefit, that build gets nearly full BAB and seems to have most of its feats left so it could be useful in a party, not just defensively.

[Psyren]

The principle usually just involves imprisoning it in something it can't get out of.

This. I forget which thread I was reading where someone's playgroup ended up on a plane with a giant forcecage full of water, and the Tarrasque floating in it, continually drowning and reviving.

[Hirax]

Chronotyryn is my prefered shapechange form for its double actions. Anyways, reposting this from another thread with some light editing:

Foresight+celerity means the wizard acts first. Third eye clarity negates daze.
Celerity action: Time stop.
Time stop 1: Cast undermaster, pull weirdstone from handy haversack (or any other method to stop teleportation, etherealness, etc.).
Time stop 2: cast forcecage, use undermaster's souped up move earth to dump up to 750' cubic feet of earth onto the forcecage.

The enemy is now trapped, and if they won initiative, they have a round to act. They can't teleport, be ethereal, etc, and destroying the forcecage dooms them. Escape artist could get them through the forcecage if they were given 10 rounds (the time required for the applicable escape artist check), but not through the mound of earth. Assuming they don't get out in that round, dismiss the forcecage so the enemy is buried in the ensuing cave in, and in the same round cast frostfell, encasing their now buried body in everfrost. No save, no SR, no attack roll. Use move earth again to extract them in a nice 20x20x20' cube and put the enemy on ice in a trophy case.

Will they die? Maybe not, but they're permanently disabled. If you do want to kill them for whatever reason then you have an indefinite amount of time to build the perfect mouse trap so that they will die. But a live trophy is more fun than a dead one anyway.

For reference, Frostburn lists the DC to break through 5' of ice as 60, and the DMG has the break DC for 5' of unworked stone as 65. Pick whichever of those you feel to be appropriate for everfrost, and bear in mind that those DCs are given with the assumption that you're not encased in them while trying to break them. They're given with the assumption that you can get leverage, momentum, etc. So, what's the strength check DC for breaking out of a 20x20x20' cube of everfrost while you have no meaningful ability to move? That's well into homebrew territory, but even a legendary dreadnought is going to have a tough time getting out, and it's pretty easy for the wizard to just encase you again, but in a bigger cube. For fun, the wizard can cast invisibility on their trophy cube and make it permanent, for better display purposes. The wizard can continue to cast move earth to reposition the person within, if they want.

[Psyren]

Two problems with Weirdstone though:

- It's a Faerun-specific item, so it arguably only exists in that setting.
- It stops three specific forms of travel: ethereal, astral, and conjuration (teleportation.) This covers the majority of them, but there are still a few missing.

[Hirax]

Eh, it's only dimensional lock and nondetection put into a magic item, so it could be crafted outside of faerun theoretically. Otherwise you need to go to the trouble of making dimensional lock supernatural so that it isn't thwarted by arbitrarily high SR, which is doable, but annoying. Also, what non-casters get shadow walk-like abilities? I'm sure there are a couple, but I don't think there are many, typically such abilities are forms of dimension door. This is the case with shadowdancers, for instance.

[Psyren]

Eh, it's only dimensional lock and nondetection put into a magic item, so it could be crafted outside of faerun theoretically.

Those spells may be used in its creation, but the actual process is more complicated than that. Neither spell has a 6-mile range for instance.

Otherwise you need to go to the trouble of making dimensional lock supernatural so that it isn't thwarted by arbitrarily high SR, which is doable, but annoying.

Even a supernatural DL is still an emanation; this means that once you enact the second part of your trap (burying them), you've broken line of effect and they're free to teleport to safety.

Also, what non-casters get shadow walk-like abilities?

The OP didn't specify non-casters as the opponent though; he specified non-wizards. You could be up against a Warlock or Beguiler for instance, or even just somebody that can UMD to escape.

[Hirax]

Even a supernatural DL is still an emanation; this means that once you enact the second part of your trap (burying them), you've broken line of effect and they're free to teleport to safety.

Center the DL on the victim. The space they occupy is still open for the purposes of the effect in my mind. I don't believe creatures block LOE. I'll settle for not killing casters, that's an entirely different ballgame.

[Psyren]

Center the DL on the victim. The space they occupy is still open for the purposes of the effect in my mind. I don't believe creatures block LOE. I'll settle for not killing casters, that's an entirely different ballgame.

They can still break LoE themselves, e.g. whipping out their tent (with a floor) and closing the flap before porting. A Contingency would probably be easier though.

Out of curiosity, how would a Wizard 20 make DL supernatural?

[Hirax]

Supernatural transformation is used to make spells supernatural. Usually archmage is used to make the desired spell an SLA. I'm not sure how a wizard alone would do it, but against arbitrarily high SR an archmage level probably isn't too much to ask. In the back of my head there's a voice saying there's a way to do it with a wizard, but I'm not going to go dumpster diving for it. Or just use a weirdstone. Using an item from a faerun book that utilizies no setting specific mechanics (such as regions) is hardly sketchy given the whimsical premises presented in the OP.

At any rate, I'm hazy on what you're proposing with the tent, mechanically. How would that work in terms of action economy? Plus, you're not even going to be aware that you're under the effects of a dimensional lock; it's a dc 23 spellcraft check to figure that out, and that's if you see it being cast. It's 28 if you're trying to figure it out based on the emanation. That's a tall order for a non-caster, and there are no magic items that boost spellcraft checks significantly (one of the few niceties casters don't get). And you need to win initiative to even get a round to act before you're encased, so that also needs to be throttled up to even have a chance at acting.

[Psyren]

For the second time - the OP never said "Wizard 20 vs. Muggle." He said "Wizard 20 vs. non-Wizard." Plenty of other classes get Spellcraft. Or even if they don't, "enormous numbers" can mean skills as well, including both Spellcraft and UMD, and the wealth to make the latter worthwhile.

Secondly, Su Transformation working on anything that comes from class levels is DM fiat territory at best, and doesn't apply in this case anyway since Wizard 19/AM 1 is not a wizard 20 and therefore fails the challenge prima facie.

Third and final, the OP also said "spells only" for the wizard, so even if you can somehow finagle a Faerun-specific item into a setting-generic challenge, it wouldn't be allowed.

The underlying point being that your copypaste tactic, while formidable, is not insurmountable.

[Hirax]

And again, I don't intend for it to work against casters. The reason I'm assuming the creature isn't a full caster is because if it's another wizard, or a cleric, psion, druid, sorcerer, dread necro, beguiler, warmage, or other full caster, then they simply become something akin to super Cindy or lesser pun-pun, until boundaries are given to "enormous numbers...etc." Or maybe he meant a trapperkeeper of psionic fusioned creatures from infinitytuple nines thread. Either way, boundaries on what's available and what numbers are enormous need to be put in place, otherwise this would be an impossible challenge. With no boundaries on the OP, all it would take is their pun-pun initiative to get the jump, their pun-pun spot check to find anyone, and their pun-pun caster level to make maw of chaos, blasphemy, or anything similar a 1 hit kill button (spell depends on class). Or perhaps their pun-pun casting modifier to make any save or doom spell have an impossible DC. Their pun-pun spot checks and caster levels also allow them to do this at range that makes it impossible for you to target them with anything.

That's probably not what the OP meant, so I put arbitrary boundaries down, and you and everyone else are doing the same, because it's necessary. Nobody has any basis to tell anybody else that the boundaries they're giving the incredibly vague creature in the OP are wrong. Your assumption that it could be a caster with high skill checks is just as valid as my assumption that it isn't a caster. And therefore if and when you post methods to kill the creature, I won't read your post using my vision of the creature, I'll use yours if you've specified what it is.

Taking a step back and examining realistic amounts of SR, the only way for a non-caster to get enough SR to be safe from a dimensional lock would be to become a forsaker, but that's a losing proposition. If they're somehow getting more than 40 SR through means other than being a forsaker, it's probably safe to assume that whatever arbitrarily large numbers being used can also just twitch their muscles and break the everfrost anyway. We don't know, since we're talking about something even scarier than Schrodinger's wizard, we're talking about Schrodinger's anything. Then your still mostly undefined tent method, which I am legitimately curious about, because it sounds useful for several other things.

And not to get side tracked, but I don't see a problem with supernatural transformation unless you can point me to somewhere that has innate spell-like ability defined as a game term in a way that excludes an archmage's SLA. The ability becomes inherent to you, is with you no matter where you go or what you do, and the ability to use it can't be dispelled or swapped, as opposed to SLAs from magic items like an angelhelm, or temporary effects such as undermaster. That's about as innate as you get, so in the absence of clear game language, it passes the language test as far as I'm concerned. But if the archmage level matters I guess it's moot, I'll hope someone else wanders in that knows or recalls how to get an SLA as just a wizard.

[Morph Bark]

SR 30 isn't actually that great at level 20, if the caster knows to build to get around it. There are at least two spells that give a +10 to beat SR, and sometimes CL is boosted anyway (for Holy Word et al shenanigans, for example.) Those will be some pretty good saves, and the AC should be nontrivial. Fell Drain Hail of Stones will still work... slowly.

As a benefit, that build gets nearly full BAB and seems to have most of its feats left so it could be useful in a party, not just defensively.

Not to mention that if it stands next to the wizard, he gets -6 on all saves. Get some items like one for teleportation, a belt of battle and a something that gets him nauseated or frightened or worse, or even stunned or dazed. You'll need to be careful with your WBL to make sure he doesn't see you coming and so you are immune to some spells like dispel and disjunction.

I just noticed he cannot get into Deepwarden due to race restrictions, but you could replace Karsite with a templated Dwarf that gets SR. Or just screw SR and go with an awakened golem with class levels.