Author Topic: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?  (Read 42333 times)

Offline JohnnyMayHymn

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #20 on: December 22, 2011, 07:42:38 AM »

point taken, that's tricky maybe we can sever the bond between the animal companion and the druid(though I would argue that the abilities associated with the AC are EX(link, share spells etc...) so they should be left alone), and/or dismiss the bound creature to it's home plane and it's task is considered to be complete, how it's free to seek revenge on the wizard if it chooses to.


These are some good good ideas, but in the end, if you're aiming for a low enough 'gets beaten by mundanes' floor (such as 'get's beating by not very optimized monk) it's quite likely a more beefy caster (cleric or gish) would bash your face in without any spells whatsoever.
and that's fine, the goal is not to be "low enough" but to drastically change the balance by introducing one archetype that shuts down casters just as well as casters shut down mundane melee's

Friendly Fire (EoE): Reflect ranged & ranged touch attacks back to the original source (eg can't be shot by rays).
Rod of Absorption (Core): Absorb any spell designating you are the target (eg can't be targeted).
Ring of Freedom of Movement (Core): Immune to 99% of crowd control tactics (eg suck it god).

At this point, Fireball is one of the most useful spells to use against you but let's keep going.

A. +5 Robe of the Vagabond of Resistance (CC/MiC) + +6 Empyreal Bracers of Armor (BoED) + +5 Parry Spellstrike Gauntlet (SRD/MiC) + Ioun Stone[Pale Green Prism](Core) + Admiral's Bicorne (SW) + Ring of Evasion = +5 resistance, +1 luck, +6 sacred, +1 insight, +5 unnamed, +1 competence, and +2 moral to saves, or +21 total and Evasion to avoid those pesky area attacks.

B. Spell Resistance (Core, domain wizard with magic/protection can get it) + Daazzix's Vest (DMGII) = SR 17+CL. Minimum of 37 really but it can be so much more with some CL boosts.

C. Ritual of Shadow Walking (FR:LoD) + Martial Study(any iron heart) + Martial Study(iron heart surge) = Royally screws over tactics like Time Stop to multiple Walls of Force + Antimagic as you can IHS antimagic away and teleport interplanar style out of anything.

D. Chain Steal Summoning (CM), steal all summons the other caster brings forth, works like an uncapped dispel so see also the SR tip.

E. High Initiative + Belt of Battle (MiC), like immediate actions, swift actions can be done any time. The difference is swift can only be done on your turn. Assuming you win initiative, since a rival caster's Celerity's actions are done on your turn you can simply use a Belt of Battle to obtain a new full-round action after their casting of Celerity but before they take their actions. They cannot recast Celerity again and you're back where you started. Your turn at kicking their ass.

And there you go, lots of spell defenses but nothing preventing melee or notes of high AC so in a way weak against mundanes. Something it could readily fix but if the build isn't too powerful you can get away with saying it ran out of resources. Like not enough Persists to go around or something.

There are a few gaps in this guy's defenses, but overall he's pretty caster proof. However, if he has Freedom of Movement and teleportation he's not very weak against mundane at all. He can get out of anything as long as he doesn't get one-shotted.
maybe that's ok for now...
nice Soro, I'll check all of those later :cheers
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Offline Unbeliever

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #21 on: December 22, 2011, 10:10:45 AM »
A well-built spell-slaying TOB character might do it.  You get close, have teleportation, and then have those Mage Slayer line that shuts down their ability to cast or get away.  You'd want some way to do a ton of base damage on your weapon, too, perhaps just a high strength will do it.  My unarmed Swordsage/Crusader/Mo9 build does a pretty good job at it incidentally.  At least the Black Ethergaunts seemed to think so ...

Other ideas ... 

I once built a strong Charisma-synergy debuffer going into Witch Hunter (ToM).  His saves were insane and he had evasion and mettle, giving him some decent magical resistance.  And, he had save debuffers.  Combined with the Witch Hunter's momentary disjunction this could shut down a caster, and combined with poison it could put out their lights (their fort saves are crap, especially if you turn off all the magic they have).  But, he'd need some items to teleport or the vest of freedom of movement to deal with some of their tricks.  And, he's a full melee class, so able to hold his own against mundanes, too. 

My gold dragon supermount character -- cleric/prestige paladin/arcane heirophant -- does a pretty good job at it.  And he will qualify for spellcasting harrier soon, too.  Having a ton of dragon hit dice means your saves are god awful, and with flight, etc. you can circumvent a lot of obstacles.  You can also force casters to burn their defenses by laying down a fat maximized breath weapon. 

That being said, "casters" is really really broad.  It covers the most pages in D&D.  So, it's hard to build a character to account for all of that.

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #22 on: December 22, 2011, 10:46:39 AM »
There are a few gaps in this guy's defenses, but overall he's pretty caster proof. However, if he has Freedom of Movement and teleportation he's not very weak against mundane at all. He can get out of anything as long as he doesn't get one-shotted.
FoM isn't exactly the mundanes care to deal with. Oh I can't use a standard action to throw marbles at you to stimulate grease?Ok, Full-Attack!

Also, per the FAQ's suggestion out how to handle FoM. Boomerang Daze remains a valid method of locking down the above suggestions as I believe the feat would still work if you wielded the boomerang as an improvised melee weapon. So there is that too.

Finally Ritual of Shadow Walking's vanish into any shadow effect uses a Standard Action, you know the default for virtually everything. The scenario mentioned was going to the extreme of being caged in an antimagic field with two gated in elder dragons. It's much easier to break the antimagic to access your Su trait and teleport out than it would be to deal with them.  Such a tactic is ideal for you too. Their Gate and Time Stop plus several fifth level slots for the walls and you only spent a once per encounter maneuver to ignore it. It's a handy At-Will ability DDoor like effect that uses shadowstuff as your medium of travel at the cost of 2 temp con damage that only costs 500gp, it's so cheap why wouldn't it be included as one of your escape tactics?


Offline darqueseid

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #23 on: December 22, 2011, 01:14:24 PM »
look the long and the short of it is, any tier one caster build that you drop in here that is gonna be able to handle casters is gonna be able to handle mundane melees.  And if they can't they can get away relatively easily.   There is literally no tier one class that cant easily re-tool themselves on the fly to handle mundane melees no matter how they are built. 
-A wizard can just memorize different spells or cast the spell that lets them re do spells on the fly. 
-A cleric always has healing vs a normal mundane, which if nothing else will allow them to out last the melee.
-A Druid has shapeshift AND spells so it can easily handle any mundane melee

That's why the AMF rogue is the best option to fit the OP, for a alot of reasons.
The caster can't get away, they can't take the damage the rogue can dish out, and the AMF shuts down all their defenses(including shapeshift).  It just levels the playing field
A sufficiently built fighter could probably be a problem for a caster too, but it doesn't have the skills to sufficiently get the drop on a caster.  Whereas a rogue/assassin can easily get the drop with out magical means. 

There are only two weaknesses to note, Wall of force effects and the mage detecting the presence of the AMF with arcane sight.  Ordinarily a rogue will only attack a mage when he's not protected by wall spells, and arcane sight just means that vs wizards the AMF will have to be used in the suprise round -and hope the rogue wins initiative-which the rogue should.  Even if he doesn't win init, the mages best option is probably to run away, which means a tripping rogue can get an attack of opportunity to trip and then follow up with a full melee attack on a prone target...

Offline Shining Phoenix

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #24 on: December 22, 2011, 03:40:12 PM »
That's why the AMF rogue is the best option to fit the OP, for a alot of reasons.
The caster can't get away
Wasn't there a strategy to deal with this involving shrink item and an adamantine cone?
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Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #25 on: December 22, 2011, 04:02:18 PM »
That's why the AMF rogue is the best option to fit the OP, for a alot of reasons.
The caster can't get away
Wasn't there a strategy to deal with this involving shrink item and an adamantine cone?
Of course, no better way to endlessly troll a thread then claim the hat in rest falls faster than an arrow in motion flies or how a 30+ Str character won't just beat you with it for sport or how all fights are fought in two dimensional playing fields despite the claim of Fly being uberwtfpwningrapedu a half dozen levels ago.

Offline X-Codes

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #26 on: December 22, 2011, 05:22:54 PM »
The hilarious side-effect of all these AMF or magic-immune arguments is the fact that they are immunizing themselves against the buffs necessary even to engage the Wizard in the first place.  Yeah, you need to be able to fly, you need to be able to see invisible (true seeing is better), you need to be able to swing a massive attack bonus, and you need to be able to deal enough damage to, basically, one-round the Wizard.  Then you need to be able to hunt down whatever Clone spells the Wizard has set up to come back from the dead, just in case everything else failed catastrophically.  Without magic, you can probably manage the massive attack bonus or the necessary damage, but not both.  You can also be a flying race, but everything else pretty much requires magic.

So, yeah... there's no third-wheel in the design of D&D, you'll pretty much need to houserule one in, but it won't be pretty with the system built the way it is.

Offline Jackinthegreen

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #27 on: December 22, 2011, 06:08:33 PM »
That sounded a lot like a Basket Burner post to be honest...

The clones bit depends on how we rule AMF to work.  If we rule it prevents items attuned to the creature in the AMF from functioning (since the magic can't pass through it), then I think those clones are effectively useless.

As far as the SRD goes, the only things that ignore an AMF are wall of force, prismatic sphere, and prismatic wall.  Being inside a set of permanent walls of force has obvious drawbacks, including not being able to move them.  Permanent prismatics are likewise immovable.  Assuming it is set up though, there are various ways of getting through them including SR and good saves.

With its magic shut down though, a typical caster's defenses are limited to extraordinary stuff.  This opens up using stealth, Shock Trooper, and other things to outright kill the caster.

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #28 on: December 22, 2011, 06:56:47 PM »
<snip>a lot of don't care</snip>
Please reread the OP.

Most everyone is aware of the Magic vs Mundane problem that boils down to the mundanes losing, in a big way, repeatedly, in the alley. Now that being said, I'm not looking for 50 pages of flame war about whether mundanes can hold their own against casters I'm looking for a character that consistently hoses casters, yet has serious trouble with the mundane(melee, ranged, sneaky etc...) guys.

Here's my first crack at it:
Cloistered DMM cleric that is focused highly on anti-magic and counterspelling.
This is caster vs caster plus one of them maintains an intentional weakness to mundanes and not mundane vs caster let's troll the thread. So for example, with Extraordinary Spell Aim the first Wizard/Cleric/orwhatever projects an antimagic field at no penalty to disable the second caster.

Since a mundane would have turned to grafts or dragonborn for flight long before they could afford those expensive as hell 50k+ magic items it's likely most mundanes will be fine. After all Sneak Attack, Power Attack, Maneuvers, etc. all operate fine. As long as AC/HP takes a back seat in defenses, IE choose not to optimize the crap out of mundane defense, it'll work out.

And finally, who gives cares about Clone. It is level loss to the Wizard and XP to the victor, a win is a win no matter how much the loser whines about it later. Death is really just time out for high level characters anyway. With your worrisome comments on a mundane dealing enough damage yet taking it granted that the TO Wizard has a bazillion recovery options really does suggest you've been hitting the, drugs?, too hard today.

Offline darqueseid

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #29 on: December 23, 2011, 03:08:36 PM »
Uhh, reading comprehension?

Where in the OP did it say it was supposed to be caster vs caster? 

What the OP didn't want is a flame war that mundanes can hold thier own vs casters, not that it specifically HAD to be a caster to take out the caster.  The point of the assignment was to create a CHARACTER that can consistently hose a caster.
of which I think the AMF rogue is the best option.

The hilarious side-effect of all these AMF or magic-immune arguments is the fact that they are immunizing themselves against the buffs necessary even to engage the Wizard in the first place.  Yeah, you need to be able to fly, you need to be able to see invisible (true seeing is better), you need to be able to swing a massive attack bonus, and you need to be able to deal enough damage to, basically, one-round the Wizard.  Then you need to be able to hunt down whatever Clone spells the Wizard has set up to come back from the dead, just in case everything else failed catastrophically.  Without magic, you can probably manage the massive attack bonus or the necessary damage, but not both.  You can also be a flying race, but everything else pretty much requires magic.

So, yeah... there's no third-wheel in the design of D&D, you'll pretty much need to houserule one in, but it won't be pretty with the system built the way it is.

#1 the wizard can't be flying all the time, what makes an AMF specced rogue good is he can get the drop on said wizard anytime they land and then they can't get away. (and as somone pointed out, you can just be a flying race) they have to land to buy food, to buy items, etc. 

#2 EVERY build has the clones problem, even other casters.. unless the AMF stops it, so I don't think it has bearing on wether one build is good over another

#2 Massive damage + attack bonus?  Without magic a 20th lvl rogue build can get 5 attacks in on the wizard with +9d6 or +10d6 sneak attack damage applied to all of those.  Assuming they win initiative, which they should, more than the wiz because dex is the melee rogues stat.   So thats around 160 damage on average before the wizard even gets to act.  with a base attack bonus of +16(suprise round)/+16/+11/+6/+1 (adding dex with weapon finesse) 4 of those are more than enough to hit a wizard with no magical protections-and more than enough to kill a 20th wizard with an average around 120hps.  if they lose initiative they lose the sneak attacks, thats where a tripping capable rogue would be needed

« Last Edit: December 23, 2011, 03:11:08 PM by darqueseid »

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #30 on: December 23, 2011, 04:36:16 PM »
Where in the OP did it say it was supposed to be caster vs caster?
Well it's not limited per see but the OP certainly accepts and clearly favors it. But you do have me there even if all I've posted is caster vs caster and tend to speak more about my stuff than someone else's...

#2 Massive damage + attack bonus?  Without magic a 20th lvl rogue build can get 5 attacks in on the wizard with +9d6 or +10d6 sneak attack damage applied to all of those.
Craven adds +20 per attack so you don't even have to hit as often or skip that can go Maiming Strike. Against none-Sorcerers you could toss a PC into a coma off 16 dice worth of SA delivered through any number of attacks.

Offline X-Codes

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #31 on: December 23, 2011, 06:38:14 PM »
#1 the wizard can't be flying all the time, what makes an AMF specced rogue good is he can get the drop on said wizard anytime they land and then they can't get away. (and as somone pointed out, you can just be a flying race) they have to land to buy food, to buy items, etc.
1) http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/overlandFlight.htm
2) http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fabricate.htm
3) http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#iounStones

Flies all the time, makes whatever he needs, and doesn't have to eat.  When he sleeps, he can do so in some extradimensional space the Rogue can't access.  There are a few spells that do that in the SRD.

#2 EVERY build has the clones problem, even other casters.. unless the AMF stops it, so I don't think it has bearing on wether one build is good over another
Actually, other casters have Divination spells.  Mage's Private Sanctum will foil some, but not others.  Meanwhile, the Rogue has jack.

#3 Massive damage + attack bonus?  Without magic a 20th lvl rogue build can get 5 attacks in on the wizard with +9d6 or +10d6 sneak attack damage applied to all of those.  Assuming they win initiative, which they should, more than the wiz because dex is the melee rogues stat.   So thats around 160 damage on average before the wizard even gets to act.  with a base attack bonus of +16(suprise round)/+16/+11/+6/+1 (adding dex with weapon finesse) 4 of those are more than enough to hit a wizard with no magical protections-and more than enough to kill a 20th wizard with an average around 120hps.  if they lose initiative they lose the sneak attacks, thats where a tripping capable rogue would be needed
I could rattle off a few spells that give immunity to all that added damage, but it's a lot easier to just spend 36k gold to immunize yourself, anyway.  Also, your attack bonus here is *not* massive.  You have, best as I can figure, a +27 to hit with your best attacks, and Wizards can wind up with an AC in the 40's at higher levels, mostly on accident.

So no, Rogues are absolute trash.  They're an Expert with a slightly different chassis and a scant few meaningful class features (Evasion, mostly, Sneak Attack is just not good).

Offline X-Codes

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #32 on: December 23, 2011, 07:17:49 PM »
<snip>a lot of don't care</snip>
Please reread the OP.
Did you just totally space out on the guy suggesting that a Rogue 11/invisible blade 5/nightsong enforcer 4 has even a snowball's chance in hell of beating any kind of caster?   :fu

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #33 on: December 23, 2011, 09:09:15 PM »
<snip>a lot of don't care</snip>
Please reread the OP.
Did you just totally space out on the guy suggesting that a Rogue 11/invisible blade 5/nightsong enforcer 4 has even a snowball's chance in hell of beating any kind of caster?
I early pay attention to names unless they become known to me as douchbags.

Edit - Dampen MagicCC, imposes a (CL-7/6+1) penalty to caster level and Save DCs to any spell that affects you, including area spells. Cannot be Persisted but with some CL shenanigans you could outright drain any spell used against you to a point that it is utterly harmless.
« Last Edit: December 23, 2011, 09:39:15 PM by SorO_Lost »

Offline linklord231

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #34 on: December 23, 2011, 11:38:46 PM »
This kind of breaks the "no homebrew" rule, but when my DM got tired of my cleric auto-winning, he threw a kind of unique enemy at us.  According to him, it was some kind of variant sorcerer.  She gave up her familiar and one spell known per level, and in exchange could automatically redirect any spell cast near her as a special kind of immediate action.  To do so cost her a spell slot of the level of the redirected spell, as well as her standard action on her turn (instead of the swift action as normal for an immediate action).  It made for a more interesting encounter, since all my short duration buffs got redirected to her allies and all my Save or Dies got redirected to the party.

You could also develop a prestige class along these lines.  Give it the same kind of flavor as the Incantatrix; kind of a magical theorist who can affect spells even after they've been cast.  Have it grant the ability to change targets of spells that have already been cast (move long duration buffs, etc), take control of summons, and so on.  This would be stupidly powerful for primary casters, and would be totally pointless if it was less than 8/10 casting cuz you'd never be able to effect high level spells, so what if you limited it to only spontaneous casters, and made it progress caster level but not spells known?
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Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #35 on: December 24, 2011, 12:04:48 AM »
Reactive Counterspell (FR:MoF) let's you once per round attempt to counter spell as normal but eats up your next round's action for it. Find a Swift Action based spell and use Earth Spell to Heighten it up to counter using the same level slots.

For example, prepare an Instant Search spell Heightened to the 9th level, since Earth Spell kicks it up to 10th level you can counter any 9th level spell using you next turn's Swift Action.

Also, Sorcerers can apply metamagic on the fly using either the Familiar trading ACF or Rapid Metamagic from Complete Mage.

Offline JohnnyMayHymn

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #36 on: December 24, 2011, 11:59:51 PM »
ok so we have a few approaches, mechanics aside(not asking who does it best), what class would make the most sense having some kind of anti-caster ACF?  the most flavorful anticaster that you would want in your party (assume the ACF takes away quite a bit)

the sorcerer(or another caster) who burns spell slots to redirect spell effects/counter

the rouge who can sneak past (and disable) magic itself

the artificer(or somebody) who has a lot of antimagic trinkets

the cleric(or monk) who uses his deities power(or monk-y discipline) to rebuke/dissipate magical effects

or something else?
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Offline SolEiji

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #37 on: December 25, 2011, 12:04:56 AM »
I'd like to see monks having that power.  Not merely becaused monks need the help, but also it seems right that it is the monk who willpowers through any magical tricks and shuts them down with pressure points to cut off their supply of magic.  Plus they have the saves and SR to suggest that that's what they were supposed to be, even though they fail hard at it.
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Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #38 on: December 25, 2011, 12:50:13 AM »
ok so we have a few approaches, mechanics aside(not asking who does it best), what class would make the most sense having some kind of anti-caster ACF?
Monk.

They get
  • Higher Touch AC: Also an AFC gives reflection of the caster misses, not as good as...
  • Spell Resistance: Helps avoid many effects, if you got it sooner than why-in-the-hell-didn't-you-PrC-out? This also isn't as good as...
  • Dark Moon Disciple(shadow blend): You can't target me, nah ner nah ner nah ner.
  • Improved Evasion: Ignore or halve the effects of most area spells. It's almost as good as...
  • Blink: Replaces Evasion but it's Blink man, 50% chance stuff misses you and auto half damage from area attacks.
  • Stunning: Monks are *supposed* to Stun stuff, so if you fixed them so they could then they can prevent casters from casting.
  • Saves: Best progression possible.
  • Crap: +2 on saves vs enchantments, immune to poison (and later never, humanoid only effects).

Everyone else uses spells, and spells can do anything.

Offline Sir Giacomo

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Re: Magic vs Mundane: Third Wheel Solution?
« Reply #39 on: December 27, 2011, 10:16:07 PM »
ok so we have a few approaches, mechanics aside(not asking who does it best), what class would make the most sense having some kind of anti-caster ACF?
Monk.

So true. But you'll receive a lot of resistance to such an idea, SorO... as I did ;)

- Giacomo

PS: Grappling, dimension door (get that sun school CW tactical feat to attack after abundant step!) and etheralness are also quite good anti-caster options for the monk