Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Iaimeki 02-21-05, 05:24 AM	Most of you have probably seen this strategy before, but I've never spent the time to thoroughly min-max it outside the core. If there's a thread which covers this in detail, I'm not aware of it. Before I begin, I want to explain my purpose in posting this: I'm trying to figure out how this strategy can be improved, and how better defenses can be created against it, using non-core rules. A secondary question is, "Is this strategy more or less broken when using non-core rules?" The character: a human evoker 18/archmage 2 who has forbidden illusion and necromancy. For simplicity's sake, I will assign him male gender and the name "Throg." Throg cast the following spells on himself earlier in the day: Extended foresight, Extended shapechange, both cast using a greater metamagic rod, extend (24,500 gp). The foresight ensures Throg is not surprised. The shapechange comes up later. Assume that Throg also has an assortment of other random spells and magic items, as you expect for a 20th level mage (some such items will be mentioned explicitly later). Suppose Throg wins initative (if Throg doesn't win initiative, he has a contingency teleport, greater that whisks him away to safety). Throg, as a free action, uses shapechange to turn into a choker. Chokers have a neat supernatural ability called quickness, which allows them to take an extra standard or move action during their turn. Throg will thus be using two standard actions and casting a Quickened spell during his turn. (If Throg's DM were to disallow him from changing into a choker and using the choker's ability in the same turn, Throg would just have to spend all his time in choker-form, which is only a minor annoyance.) Throg's plan, at this point, is simple: he needs to prevent his enemy from running away, strip them of magical defenses, and then use timestop and delayed blast fireball to kill them. Throg's first standard action is to cast dimensional lock from a scroll. Throg's second action is to use a great metamagic rod, quicken (170,000 gp) to cast Mordenkainen's disjunction from a 9th-level slot. At this point, his opponent has their only real chance to escape: a contingency teleport or some such can still go off provided they have some source of spell resistance that Throg can't beat. With one of his archmage levels, Throg sacked a 5th-level spell slot to gain a +1 bonus to caster level; he also has Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration. Thus, his base bonus on the check is +25. Throg can boost his check further with a robe of the archmagi (75,000 gp) and an orange ioun ston (30,000 gp), to +28, which means even a spell resistance cast by a 20th-level cleric only works 15% of the time, and this is the best possible spell resistance available in the core at 20th level, I believe. (Using contingency against Mordenkainen's disjunction is a cagey business at best. It's unclear from the rules, and I haven't been able to find an official ruling, that says that says that the contingency doesn't get disjoined before it can trigger, since Mordenkainen's disjunction is instantaneous. Moreover, before the casting is completed, the spell doesn't exist, so it's not clear that it's possible to craft a contingency that can't be disjoined before it happens.) There are other possible contingency effects, but the only other one that might matter is antimagic field, because every other effect will just get disjoined; even then, Throg has a 22% chance of dispelling the field and thus being able to proceed as normal. When Throg's Mordenkainen's disjunction goes off, all of his enemy's cast spells vanish. If we assume Throg only started with an Intelligence of 14, his Intelligence at level 20 is 30 from stat pumps, a +5 tome of clear thought (137,500 gp), and a +6 headband of intellect (36,000 gp). Thus, the save DC for magic items to survive Throg's spell is 31. The actual chance to save is, unfortunately, very variable. The biggest problem is multiclassing cheese: if Throg's opponent has taken one level in bard, cleric, druid, monk, sorcerer, and wizard, (note that you have to switch alignments at least once during this progression) they have a +12 will save with 14 class levels left for another +7. That's without adding prestige classes to get higher saves or abusing save progressions in other ways, or abusing class features. (Here's another timing question: do the items save with their owner's Will save before Throg's Mordenkainen's disjunction? Or with only bonuses from magic items added in, because the spells get disjoined before the items save?) Suffice to say, it's possible to autosave against Throg's Mordenkainen's disjunction. However, most CR 20 monsters have saves around 20; this seems like a reasonable estimate for saves from classes and non-disjoinable ability score bonuses. If spells and magic items count for the save, it's easy enough to get full protection for one's magic items. This can make Throg's last step harder. At this point, Throg's target is stripped of all spell effects and probably has anywhere from 100%-50% of their magic items remaining. Though Throg might like to cast another Mordenkainen's disjunction to kill some of those pesty magic items, he has to launch into the final spell of his combo before his opponent acts, or else his opponent can Mordenkainen's disjunction Throg and follow with timestop. With a greater metamagic rod of maximize (121,500 gp), Throg casts Maximized Quickened Empowered Extended timestop, ending his turn. He now has at least 5 rounds to finish off his target, or rather, 15 spells. (One possible variation on this is to use Extend instead of Maximize: the low side is worse, at 4 rounds, but you also have a chance many more rounds out.) Throg has 5 each of 7th-, 8th-, and 9th-level slots (4 base, +1 from Intelligence), plus 1 evocation slot at each level. He burned 4 9th-level slots to cast foresight, timestop, shapechange, and Mordenkainen's disjunction, and fed an 8th-level slot to archmage for mastery of elements. Thus Throg has 6 7th-level slots, 5 8th-level slots, and 2 9th-level slots. He prepares 6 delayed blast fireballs in 7th-level slots, 5 Heightened delayed blast fireballs in 8th-level slots (he has no other use for 1 level adjustment metamagic), and 2 Empowered delayed blast fireballs in 9th-level slots. The first thing Throg does once timestop is up is cast greater arcane sight from a scroll to scan his opponent for any remaining magic defenses against energy attacks. He then selects an energy type using the archmage's mastery of elements ability, that his opponent is not protected against, and preferably one they're vulnerable to (after maxing Concentration, Knowledge (arcana), and Spellcraft, Throg spent all of his other skill points on Knowledges that allow him to makes checks on creatures' energy immunities). Using the previous quicken rod and a second rod, he Quickens five of the 7th-level delayed blast fireballs. Using two more greater metamagic rods, empower, he Empowers the 8th-level delayed blast fireballs. With the remaining uses in the maximize rod, he Maximizes the 9th-level delayed blast fireballs. Finally, he casts a final delayed blast fireballs from a scroll. When the timestop ends, Throg's opponent is thus hit 7 times with 20d6 fireballs (save DC 29), 5 times with 30d6 fireballs (save DC 30), and 2 times with 120 damage fireballs (save DC 31) (note that Throg has taken Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus for evocation). For most opponents, even if they make their saves, they take around 627 damage, ample to kill almost anything; a few monsters survive, but no player characters, and that's only if they make all their saves. If they have spell resistance 32, that's about 533 damage, which is still good enough. Throg's problem is evasion: to an opponent with evasion and a high enough Reflex save, his delayed blast fireballs do no damage. Luckily for Throg, the only class with good Reflex saves and good Will saves that gets evasion is monk. So, as one reasonable bound on how bad off Throg is, consider a monk who has maxed saves (If you consider the ludicrous multiclassing above, it's possible to make yourself invincible to this particular startegy. However, this entails a considerable cost, and Throg might well be able to do you in with more conventional tactics.) +12 (base) + 12 (34 Dex) +1 (pale green ioun stone) +5 (cloak of resistance) +1 (stone of good luck) +2 (lightning reflexes) = +33. However, this requires some luck on the part of the monk: rolling an 18 to put into Dex (Throg only rolled a 14 for his Int, which is much more likely) and having all their magic items survive the Mordenkainen's disjunction (since their Will save will not be as high as their Reflex save). However, even in this extreme case, the monk still takes damage from rolling natural 1s, though the amount has a high variance. The monk, with average hit dice rolls, has 270 hit points with max Con (which, again, requires a 17 or 18 on the initial roll), but only takes an average of approximately 13 damage from Throg's fireballs. With improved evasion, it is virtually impossible for the monk to roll enough 1s to die to Throg. Most opponents will be dead at this point. Most survivors will be very wounded: chances are that a realistic rogue will take more damage than the monk and have fewer hit points. In the last round of his timestop, Throg has to decide whether to stay or use his last action to use a scroll of teleport, greater. 121,500 gp 137,500 gp 170,000 gp x2 73,000 gp x2 36,000 gp 30,000 gp 75,000 gp 24,500 gp Throg is overspending his limits by about 150,000 gp. However, Throg has feats left over for item creation, wish, and a few places he could economize (in particular, using the extend rod on timestop instead of a maximize rod and swapping in another empower rod). Throg has Improved Initiative, Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus for evocation and abjuration, Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration, and Skill Focus (Spellcraft). He has Heighten Spell and two wizard feats he hasn't assigned, which he probably dedicates to item creation. If you're playing in Faerun, Throg can improve his situation slightly in the core by taking Tattoo Focus instead of Greater Spell Penetration, and taking 8 levels of red wizard (forbidding enchantment) to boost his save DC and caster level checks for evocation. Alternatively, if he wanted to max out his Mordenkainen's disjunction, he could switch his specialization to abjuration, which would cost him some spell slots and thus some damage, but improve his performance against antimagic field and his ability to disjoin magic items. Now, Throg's sister, Thrig, knew that she had to go out and buy all the rules supplements before planning her career path, so she has access to all the non-core material. The most important ability for this strategy comes from Delay Spell because it improves the flexibility of Thrig's kill. I want to know: what are good choices for spells for Thrig to use with Delay? Spell resistance is, as Throg shows, mostly irrelevant, so the spells Thrig needs diversify the saves she can choose to target or offer no save. One simple possibility that probably shouldn't work is a sack of scrolls with explosive runes on them that Thrig prepares ahead of time: she dumps the scrolls on an enemy during the timestop and Delays an area dispel magic. Since her effective caster level is so high and dispel magic has the +10 cap, she fails to dispel any of the scrolls, triggering them to explode once the timestop. Explosive runes do force damage, and thus are not subject to things that can cause problems for Throg like etherealness or incorporeality, but I suspect that most DMs, in the interest of sanity, would give the target the explosive runes' optional save. However, I'm sure there are other possibilities. I'm also looking for prestige classes with abilities that help Throg's/Thrig's strategy. Finally, non-core material probably offers defenses against this strategy. What are they, and how/can Thrig overcome them?
PhaedrusXY 02-21-05, 05:56 AM	It is absolutely legal to use Contingency to escape a Mordenkainen's Disjuction, or whatever other spell is your worst nightmare. The fact that the duration on MDJ is instantaneous has nothing to do with it. It just requires a well-worded trigger. I'd use something like "If I percieve someone begining to cast MDJ, I..." Or they could use the same contingency trigger you specified: "If I'm surprized, I...". That counters the Dimensional Lock, as well. That changes the dynamics completely. Of course, then it comes down to a "Contingency/Initiative War", but that's typical for a high level spellcaster battle. Other characters that don't have access to Contingency would very likely be hosed, except for monks as you've pointed out. But that is due mainly to the "broken-ness" of MDJ, and Metamagic rods. Realize you are at the extreme end of the game here, which is when spellcasters typically overpower everyone else. And you're using some of the most powerful magic items and spells in the core rules. So yeah, it's a really powerful tactic. But it's not unbeatable. Oh, and MDJ is not subject to Spell Resistance. So you can take that out of your calculations. Another possible counter to this would be having all the counterspell feats, and being able to counterspell either the MDJ, Timestop, or both. If you take the right feat combos, you can counterspell even if it's not your turn, you haven't readied an action, and you are surprized. (Some of this stuff isn't core, though.) And even a creature with very high Spell Resistance and/or elemental resistances (or spells in place to grant either) would have a decent chance of surviving long enough to retaliate. You'd have no way of knowing if a creature had Elemental Immunity cast on it, or which element they picked, until after the Timestop ended and all your "bombs" went off. Of course, if they get hit with the MDJ, any buffs are going to be gone. But a creature with high innate SR/Immunities would still work.
Iaimeki 02-21-05, 05:21 PM	It is absolutely legal to use Contingency to escape a Mordenkainen's Disjuction, or whatever other spell is your worst nightmare. The fact that the duration on MDJ is instantaneous has nothing to do with it. It just requires a well-worded trigger. I'd use something like "If I percieve someone begining to cast MDJ, I..." Or they could use the same contingency trigger you specified: "If I'm surprized, I...". That counters the Dimensional Lock, as well. That changes the dynamics completely. Of course, then it comes down to a "Contingency/Initiative War", but that's typical for a high level spellcaster battle. Throg's contingency works just fine . . . but effectively that's an "always run away" contingency. I haven't done an extensive analysis of teleport escape/pursuit mechanics, but I suspect that, given the existence of characters like Throg, there is no such thing as high-level combat: anything smart runs away, and everything else just sort of dies (to the side that wins initiative). Other characters that don't have access to Contingency would very likely be hosed, except for monks as you've pointed out. But that is due mainly to the "broken-ness" of MDJ, and Metamagic rods. Realize you are at the extreme end of the game here, which is when spellcasters typically overpower everyone else. And you're using some of the most powerful magic items and spells in the core rules. So yeah, it's a really powerful tactic. But it's not unbeatable. Oh, and MDJ is not subject to Spell Resistance. So you can take that out of your calculations. This build is an experiment in degeneracy. I'm trying to figure out how to make it harder to avoid, to the point where the only way to escape is to have a Throg-like contingency. The reference to SR in that section refers to dimensional lock, not Mordenkainen's disjunction. Another possible counter to this would be having all the counterspell feats, and being able to counterspell either the MDJ, Timestop, or both. If you take the right feat combos, you can counterspell even if it's not your turn, you haven't readied an action, and you are surprized. (Some of this stuff isn't core, though.) I'm pretty sure Reactive Counterspell doesn't beat Throg . . . the problem is that to use it, you give up your whole turn, meaning that Throg gets a net advantage of two spells/turn. Throg can also, potentially, use archmage to turn the key spells into spell-like abilites, making them uncounterable. And even a creature with very high Spell Resistance and/or elemental resistances (or spells in place to grant either) would have a decent chance of surviving long enough to retaliate. You'd have no way of knowing if a creature had Elemental Immunity cast on it, or which element they picked, until after the Timestop ended and all your "bombs" went off. Of course, if they get hit with the MDJ, any buffs are going to be gone. But a creature with high innate SR/Immunities would still work. Is elemental immunity a 3.5 spell? Anyway, the point of the disjuction is to eliminate such problems. My point is that there aren't any ways to get SR higher than 32 using the core rules in a CR 20 encounter, that I'm aware of. Are there ways to get global energy resistance? For most monsters, using mastery of elements to make sonicballs seems to work, and for the exceptions, you can target another energy type they aren't immune to.
UMiskatonic 02-21-05, 06:12 PM	Project image or mislead would get around this, and a certain amount of casters would have them up and running at that level. Clone or Simulacrum are also solid defenses, as is a operating magic jar spell. A rogue that high level would probably take hide in plain sight somehow, and therefore not be a valid target for anything Throg has to offer. I know that we could get into the various divination/anti-divination tactics, but I don't think this thread is the place for that. And RP-wise, wou could always hang around some unstable object that Throg wouldn't want to disjoin, cuz it's held together magically. Killing your opponent isn't much fun if you go down with him. If throg can always be a choker, than Stan can always be, say, a fire giant, and ignore the fire damage.