Question about Initate of Sevenfold Viel

[Soft Insanity]

I'm having a silly argument while waiting for a game to start.  Another player is insisting that nothing can beat his sorcerer/viel character.  So here's my questions:
1.  Can 1-infinite ice assassins take down a veil user?  The player insists they can't.
2.  Can a dweomerkeeper's Supernatural spells pierce the veils?  The player insists they can't.

Also, please help me think of viable ways to kick but theoretically.  I already suggested the easy Thrallherd and psionics shenanigans but he insists they don't work.

[Gazzien]

I'm having a silly argument while waiting for a game to start.  Another player is insisting that nothing can beat his sorcerer/viel character.  So here's my questions:
1.  Can 1-infinite ice assassins take down a veil user?  The player insists they can't.
2.  Can a dweomerkeeper's Supernatural spells pierce the veils?  The player insists they can't.

Also, please help me think of viable ways to kick but theoretically.  I already suggested the easy Thrallherd and psionics shenanigans but he insists they don't work.

Make ubercharger, get Leadership. Use small or smaller cohort (riding on you) to Rod of Cancellation / etc the veils with a readied action when you ubercharge. Win?

This is off the top of my head, it's unlikely to be perfect.

1-Infinite IA can kill damn near anything. Especially if you IA a god, mindrape it, proxy yourself = Divine Rank 1, you win. Or IA an aleax of yourself and fuse with it. IA is really exploitable.
2-I... don't think so. Violet veil (IIRC) mimics an antimagic field for blocking spells, which even Su can't enter.

[phaedrusxy]

Psion with Burrowing Power = owned

Also, if your saves are high enough, can't you just walk right up and punch him in the face?

I remember at least one thread where a lot of possibilities for taking down an Iot7V were discussed. They're far from invincible.

[Soft Insanity]

Psion with Burrowing Power = owned

Also, if your saves are high enough, can't you just walk right up and punch him in the face?

I remember at least one thread where a lot of possibilities for taking down an Iot7V were discussed. They're far from invincible.

It's funny, that was the very first thing I used, burrowing power psion.  He insisted it wouldn't work.

[phaedrusxy]

Psion with Burrowing Power = owned

Also, if your saves are high enough, can't you just walk right up and punch him in the face?

I remember at least one thread where a lot of possibilities for taking down an Iot7V were discussed. They're far from invincible.

It's funny, that was the very first thing I used, burrowing power psion.  He insisted it wouldn't work.

   
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information,
   which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail
   to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is
   contempt prior to investigation."
(not actually Herbert Spencer)

If his objection is about the psion not being able to see through the veil, then the psion can use a Burrowing Touchsight to "see" him, then hit him with a barrage of other Burrowing powers (or use Clairvoyant Sense, which explicitly doesn't require LoS or LoE. If he objects to that, slap a Burrowing Power on it, too). Or he could just use Burrowing powers that don't require LoS.

[linklord231]

If nothing else works, Pun Pun can still kill him as an Ex abilty, no save. 

[Chemus]

I had a high level paladin once make enough saves to get through a prismatic sphere; merely took damage. Best bet is to have death ward and dimensional anchor in effect first; my character was lucky to only fail damaging rolls. So just walking into Mordor is demonstrably viable.

[phaedrusxy]

I had a high level paladin once make enough saves to get through a prismatic sphere; merely took damage. Best bet is to have death ward and dimensional anchor in effect first; my character was lucky to only fail damaging rolls. So just walking into Mordor is demonstrably viable.

In the really old "Fighter vs. Wizard" thread by Lycanthromancer, the fighter guy did this and wound up bouncing off of the spherical Wall of Stone that the Prismatic Sphere was concealing (the wizard was actually incorporeal, and hiding inside the ground beneath them both, IIRC ).

So yeah, unless the Iot7V veils work differently than the actual spells, I think with the right defenses and high saves, you can just walk up and punch him right in the face. 

[zook1shoe]

Tauric Dvati-Paragon Chronotyrn Warblade = scary as hell

A sharn martial user would get ugly too.

Invisible Spell + Shadow Weave's Insidious Magic + Ice Assassin

[SorO_Lost]

So yeah, unless the Iot7V veils work differently than the actual spells, I think with the right defenses and high saves, you can just walk up and punch him right in the face. 

Yeah you can. Iot7FV has weaknesses you can target.

Shapes
Personal: Reach Weapons utterly ignore it.
Wall: Walk around it.
Area: Burrow through it, tank it, or force them to move towards you (forcing the veils on someone grants immunity)
So of those Area is the only one to care about.

Effects
Red: 20 Fire (reflex halves)
Orange: 40 Acid (reflex halves)
Yellow: 80 Electricity (reflex halves)
Green: Death (fort reduces to 1d6 con, poison based)
Blue: Petrified (fort negs)
Indigo: Confused (will negs)
Violate: Planeshift (will negs)
IotSV can choose two, and only two, of those effects. At best you're looking at either 120 damage (pfft) or only two Save-or-Dies. High Saves is a key and in those higher levels it's easier to Save against stuff then low levels. For example, a 162,000gp investment (less than a 6th of your WBL at lv20) and equal Ability Scores means you'd Save on a roll of 2 or higher. But the assumption both your Wisdom and Constitution would be equal to a Wizard's Intelligence would take a dedicated build so you may also want to look into immunities. Dimensional Anchor, Mind-Blank, Immunity to shape altering effects (example improved binding[haagenti]), and Immunity to Poisons negates all those Save-or-Dies.

Trimming the list some we enter the Metagame. We know an Iof7FV users explicitly make usage of the Indigo Veil to negate Magical Attacks outside their Warding from hitting them. However Mind-Blank is something you'd be looking into obtaining anyway immediately counters this. A 2,160gp investment into a Drow House Insignia[delay poison] gives you 3 hours of total Poison Immunity and for 3,000gp you can pick up a Ring of Diamond Mind which can pretty much auto-negate either Petrifaction or the Planesshift. So a typical high level PC with moderate optimization only have a 50% chance of giving a damn about crossing the Veils and probably Saves against the effect anyway.

TLDR; For PvP and against someone who has offensive measures beyond "Cast a Spell", Iot7V's Wardings are barely a blip on the radar.

[Leviathan]

Reach weapons do not "utterly ignore" a personal violet veil, which "destroys all objects and effects that cross it, as if they were disintegrated." Your fancy magic reach weapon gets a save against disintegrate, of course (its bonus is 2 + 1/2 its caster level), but if it fails, it is "simply disintegrated". A personal indigo veil requires someone to enter the Iot7FV's space to cast spells at him, and I assume that, as a high-level spellcaster, the Iot7FV has more ways to prevent this from happening than just the veil's plane shift.


That said, the burrowing power psion should work. Also, the indigo veil only stops "spells or spell-like abilities", so supernatural abilities (including the dweomerkeeper's supernatural spells) can go through just fine.

[SorO_Lost]

Reach weapons do not "utterly ignore" a personal violet veil, which "destroys all objects and effects that cross it, as if they were disintegrated."

Sounds like a stupid RAW debate that you'll lose.

I mean, first off your trying to say Area effects affect worn items. This is equivalent of casting Fireball and asking the Player to make Saves for his Spiked chain, backpack, belt, and trousers. Anyone whose played D&D before already knows your wrong even if they cannot explain why. The why of course is pretty easy.

Unless the descriptive text for an effect specifies otherwise, all items carried or worn by a creature are assumed to survive a magical attack. If a creature rolls a natural 1 on its saving If a creature rolls a natural 1 on its saving throw against the effect, however, an exposed item is harmed if the attack can harm objects.

Unless the creature holding or wearing the item rolls a Natural 1, and the item is exposed (ie a cloak protects all your gear in stupid RAW), their items are utterly immune to the Violet Veil effect as it contains no descriptive text specifying items in a creature's possession are affected.

Now back up to the Personal Warding.

Any creature striking at her with a melee weapon or natural attack is subject to the veil's effect (although creatures using reach weapons are not).

A creature using a Reach Weapon is not even subject to the Veil's Effect to begin with so it's impossible for him to roll a 1.

And that's all there is to it.

[Leviathan]

The violet veil does two things, depending on what tries to cross it:

• When a creature tries to cross it, the veil plane shifts that creature away.
• When an object or effect tries to cross it, the veil disintegrates that object or effect.

A creature using a reach weapon to attack through the veil is neither plane shifted nor disintegrated: the veil explicitly exempts such a creature. However, the weapon itself still has to pass through the veil. When the weapon touches the veil, the veil disintegrates the weapon (not the creature holding the weapon). This is sort of like how you can cast dispel magic against a creature to dispel their buffs, or against a magic item to suppress its enchantments for 1d4 rounds.


Your rules compendium quote describes how worn objects suffer "collateral damage" when the creature wearing them is subjected to a magical attack. But the veil's disintegrate is not against the creature holding the weapon - it's against the weapon itself. Disintegrate describes how it can be used against objects: "When used against an object, the ray simply disintegrates as much as one 10-foot cube of nonliving matter." Your quote from the violet veil's text exempts a creature using a reach weapon, because, unlike a creature attacking with a non-reach weapon or natural attack, the creature doesn't have to go through the veil to hit someone inside. The reach weapon goes through the veil instead, and when it touches the veil it is disintegrated.

[spacemonkey555]

Damaging Magic Items

A magic item doesn’t need to make a saving throw unless it is unattended, it is specifically targeted by the effect, or its wielder rolls a natural 1 on his save.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicItemBasics.htm

Violet Veil: At 7th level, an initiate masters the seventh and final veil: the violet veil. This barrier destroys all objects and effects that cross it, as if they were disintegrated.

Primary effect of the veil, unrelated to the other effect of plane shifting living beings.

The rules compendium quote is clearly referring to an attack targeting the creature, since it's telling you what to do when the creature rolls a 1. You could make the argument that the first and second sentence are unrelated, but that would be a bit out there, imo. It would be more clear if they had remembered to reiterate that the protection for objects was only for when the creature had to make a save, but the author forgot, so now you have a potentially absurd change in the rules depending on how you choose to interpret it.

[SorO_Lost]

You have a potentially absurd change in the rules depending on how you choose to interpret it.

No you don't.

Your rules quote is about Damaging Magic Items and I have never once spoke of an arrow or bolt nor does the rebuttal make a point of discussion that. Violet states as Disintegrate, Disintegrate has a Saving Throw, Saving Throw Rules provide exception for Carried Items.

And that's all there is to it.

[phaedrusxy]

Now I remember why I originally said "walk up and punch" the caster... to avoid all these arguments (this thread is far from the first time all of this has been... debated). A high level monk should be able to walk up and punch the Iot7V to death, with little optimization even needed (ignoring all the other stuff the Iot7V could do since he's still a wizard...). A way to reroll failed saves is probably a good idea just in case, though.

[spacemonkey555]

<snip> I have never once spoke of an arrow or bolt nor does the rebuttal make a point of discussion that. <snip>

What? I didn't even mention ammunition.

[Daniel]

Here are some of the tactics I would use against the weaknesses of the IotSV wards

1. You only get 4 uses per day.
    Use hit and run tactics and wait for a ward to wear out before re-engaging.

2. It only lasts for 1m/level.
    Prevent them from recovering spells. Provided that you can remove all of their other resources their wards only provide about 1/24 hours of invincibility.

3. It requires an immediate action to activate.
    Attack while the opponent is flatfooted or unaware of your attack and hit them in a way that ends the fight.

4. You cannot apply the effect to anyone within your space
    Enter their square by shrinking/being ethereal/grappling and then attack them normally

5. You cannot force another creature to pass through the effect.
    Be invisible/hidden and wait/force/bait them to enter your square. This will allow you to ignore the ward effect and keep your buffs.

6. Each ward is the equivalent of a spell effect.
     Dispel Magic/Disjunction/Antimagic Field/Otiluke's Suppressing Field/Wish should effect the ward since it's treated as a spell.

7. Each ward can be bypassed by a specific spell.
     Break the action economy with craft contingent spell/simulacrums/or other methods and just take the wards out. Provided that you can take 8 extra actions and have the correct spells available you can bypass the 4 pairs of wards.

8. You are not affected if you use reach weapons.
    Have a good will save and a cheap magic weapon along with a backup or use a weapon that is immune to disintegrate. An artifact would be ideal.

9. The violet veil does nothing against a non-living creature that is immune to transmutation
    An undead master of many forms with corrupted wild shape would be pretty much unaffected by it.

Misc: a. The Knowledge domain affiliation capstone negates an ability of a single creature for 1 minute 1/day. Provided that this is not limited to racial abilities then you might be able to remove Wards from the IotSV.
         b. There is no defense against Sleight of Hand. Rob them blind while they do not have their wards up.
         c. If they have foresight active then you may be able to bait them into using their wards without consuming any resources by utilizing the premonitions.

[OblivionSmurf83]

Here's a good question for everyone which is related to the OP's concerns: can the Initiate actually cast spells through his veils? If not, that significantly neuters the power.

[phaedrusxy]

Here's a good question for everyone which is related to the OP's concerns: can the Initiate actually cast spells through his veils? If not, that significantly neuters the power.

*Grabs some popcorn*