i checked tha build "cheater of mystra" and is surely an awesome build.But i want to ask all of you if you know of any build tha can defeat it.
how about the "cindy" build?
of course i am not talking about pun-pun..
and like any caster build, if you can lock them down inside an AMF (like aelrynth's lockdown guy) they suck at life.
==Aelryinth
how can you make a wish version of cheater?using wizard?
@max: yes, you can cast in my AMF, no you can't cast definsively and I'm threatening you in melee, none of your buffs or magic items are working while you are standing there... and if you try to leave the AMF, I stop you. The only thing you could do is try to cast a supernatural spell with your initiate feat, assuming that supernatural spell makes it not provoke an AoO. Anytime the lockdown build can make you use up a very important resource on simply trying to get away from him means he's beating you.
even if his not in an amf, his persistent buffs arent enough to do the trick?
the lockdown guy can beat the cheater, but only if he can turn on his antimagic field item while you are close enough to him for him to also threaten you.
a build completely focused on counterspelling could, in theory, force the cheater to use up all their supernatural spell effects to try to beat them, but after that, the cheater won't ever get off another spell.
are you looking for a build that will beat the cheater of mystra simply by being what it is, no equipment involved?
i like arcane characters and to be honest i was fond of incantatrix/wizard builds. but then when i checked the cheater i thought that with his amf he could beat them easily, i didn't know that celerity is that strong..
so to be honest i was looking for spellcasting builds tha are munchkin but playable (not pun pun types)
Draconic Human Sorcerer 6 / Incantatrix 10 / Archmage 4 (level adjustment is +1 so it is easily bought off, and it gives you +2 con, str, cha, +1 nat armor, natural attacks, and the dragonblood subtype.
flaws- Weak Willed, Murky-eyed
feats- Eschew Materials, Iron Will, Spell Focus (transmutation), Spell Focus (necromancy), Skill Focus (spellcraft), Versatile Spellcaster, Rapid Metamagic, Quicken Spell, Easy Metamagic (quicken spell), Arcane Thesis (greater arcane fusion)
For your 4 bonus metamagic feats from Incantatrix, you pick Twin Spell, Easy Metamagic (twin spell), Practical Metamagic (twin spell), Practical Metamagic (quicken spell)
for spells known, the absolute essentials are Celerity (4th), Arcane Fusion (5th), Greater Arcane Fusion (8th), Limited Wish (7th), Greater Bestow Curse (8th), MDJ (9th), Finger of Death (7th), Superior Invisibility (8th), Foresight (9th), Greater Blink (5th), Magic Missile (1st), Disintegrate (6th), Detonate or Wail of the Banshee (9th), and if you want to be silly Mord's Sword (7th).
Pick yourself up some choice runestaffs from the MIC to fill out missing spells known that you want, make sure you get an Orange Prism Ioun Stone, and work a Ring of Arcane Might into your gear (or add it to an existing ring).
Essentially, with Foresight up, you are immune to being caught by surprise and the flat-footed condition, which means no matter what happens, you are able to take an action at the beginning of every encounter, which means even if you lose initiative, you can still take an immediate action and cast celerity, letting you go first with a standard action. With that action, you cast a twinned Greater Arcane Fusion (8th level slot), and nova. You don't become dazed until you stop nova'ing, but if you are nova'ing you don't stop doing so until you've won the fight.
nice build but you miss empower or maximized spell,also i think in a nova a wizard has the advantage over to a sorcerer due to better metamagic offense (see cindy build).what if a wizard just cast celerity,time stops and then gate or an twin/empowered orb?
i always loved sorcerers but here in the forums they are "smashed" so often dammnit..
how he can fare against your arcane build?
All the caster level in the world doesn't help against an A-M shell or simple countering. You're down to the same tactic.
==Aelryinth
Shadowcraft mage relies upon a very unstable interpretation of Earth Spell to get what it does. Basically, it abuses caster level via Earth spell.
All the caster level in the world doesn't help against an A-M shell or simple countering. You're down to the same tactic.
==Aelryinth
but what about in an arcane duel..for example a cindy build (wizard/incantatrix/whatever/) vs a shadowcraft or another mage build.i am interested in the type of mage who can defeat others in an arcane nova.
That's not a build question, that's a spell choice and feat selection. Literally, it comes down to initiative.
Build questions are for general play. Dueling/nova....all about the spell choice.
The Cheater fo Mystra build might work for a duel. It can hold its own buffs inside a self-cast A-M shell. so, you could A-M yourself into a combat, zip over, get the other wizard in the shell, and proceed to beat him to death.
But, eh. Initiative is the truly important thing.
==Aelryinth
empower and maximize are for a damage build, not an arcane nova kill you because you rolled low on a d20 build :PAnd it would be funny to try that on a Moment of Perfect Body mage. "Ah? 1 Con, -4 to save, -7 with limited wish...okay, that takes my base +48 conc save I can take 10 on down to a 47 equivalent. Is the DC above 47? No? Okay, my turn..."
Heh.
===Aelryinth
The actual nova mechanism needs to be quite intricate. Figure that the opponent will be inside an AMF which doesn't affect his own spells- that will include Persistent buffs and stuff from the Spell Phylactery. That Spell Phylactery could include some pretty unfair buffs- in particular, Forceward. He can pull that from Divine Magician.
See, one might think that one could nova and just throw in a bunch of Orb of X spells, Twinnimaxed Orbs of Force and so on. But that's quite easy to block. Only the Fire orb and the Force orb are really that strong. Forceward owns the Force Orb, and Energy Immunity is a cleric spell. We could use Searing Spell on the Orb of Fire, which will force a save vs. the daze even if he's immune to fire (and he will be), so that could help. It will still be a long battle with him taking half damage, and any Contingent Heals might not help our case.
So we could try and Crystal Shard him, but he'll probably have as much DR as he can get from a spell. After all, if you're walking around in an AMF that doesn't bother your own spell effects, wouldn't you want a nice fat DR bonus? And that sword better be Deep Crystal if you plan on hitting him with it- Lesser Ironguard is just too tempting when you can use it inside an AMF.
So I think what you need to kill the Cheater dead is to use some bigger cheese, like Circle Magic, Master Spellthief, Greater Consumptive Field foolishness with Reserves of Strength to pull out a caster level above 100 and hit it with big gobs of Hail of Stone-style damage. No save, no SR, just pain. Or perhaps the Shrink Item Telekinesis boulders. Or maybe Sweeping Strike, Great Cleave, and a sack of toads.
I love the sack of toads kill.
==Aelryinth
I thought the whole point was that it was a swarm- that's how we know how many creatures are in it, and this how many attacks you can resolve with Sweeping Strike.
Sure a bag of some other creature would work, if it weren't a swarm, but I kind of liked the swarm kill.
or it does exist?
==Aelryinth
I personally doubt, one could even escape the cheater as a wizard sure, one could teleport, but a cleric can scry too ...
clarly, nova'ing his behind won't do you any good (as Lormandor proved) ... shapechanging into anything that could hit him dead won't work either (b/c of his AMF) ... and a "god" wizard relies on minions (aka party-members) you do not have in this particular szenario ... so I believe you're out of options here
The answer to killing him is thus to throw something really big that is shrunken at him,have it hit the AMF, and crush him flat.
Another is to have a Spell Engine up in the area so all his cast spells are sucked away. Spellcasting don't mean anything if you can't cast at all.
Under 3.5 rules, a sack of toads constitutes a swarm, and won't work like the 3.0 'bag o' rats' would.
==Aelryinth
[Citation needed] - If the sack had fewer than 1500 toads (Diminutive animals), it wouldn't be a swarm.
The cheater can cast inside a AMF, but that doesn't mean he can cast THROUGH one. Essentially, he can buff himself and keep his buffs, but he can't cast on anyone outside the AMF.
[Citation needed] - Initiate of Mystra says that if you pass the check, "the spell functions normally". I've heard some seriously rule-bending interpretations on this (up to and including "the normal function of a spell in an antimagic field is not functioning, so the spell fails"), but if the spell functions normally in the AMF (something which normally prevents spells from functioning normally), then AMF doesn't change its function. That means it doesn't block line of effect any more than it blocks the spell from happening at all - to say otherwise is to imply a distinction (between functioning and line of effect) that doesn't exist.
(I don't remember the Spell Engine at all, but for your trick to work it would have to block supernatural abilities, of which the Cheater has several, thanks to the Dwoemerkeeper - up to and including Miracle. If it blocked supernatural abilities, then yes, it would work. All the same, I'm curious as to the source, since that's one holy hell of an ability.)
Aelryinth, I've seen you do this on other threads in the Character Optimization forums as well - citing what amount to personal judgement calls as if they were holy writ. Sometimes they're right (i.e. above, reducing a swarm to 0 HP doesn't actually kill the component creatures, so you can't use Consumptive Field on a swarm), but sometimes they're wrong (i.e. any sack of toads uses swarm rules). If you're making a rules-based statement here, it's standard practice (or at least was, unless things have gotten very sloppy) to bring rules to back it up, especially if you're correcting someone else.
concerning RAW rules the spell functions normally,it had been previously discussed a lot in the official topic of the cheater.the conclusion was that the spell functions as long as you pass the check(at 20 level it is a 100% success)
imagine a cheater of mystra with dragonborn of bahamut template and wings,he can't even be reached by normal melee
IF the Dweomerkeeper can utterly ignore anti-magic, well, I guess that's yet another reason they aren't around in PF and are considered an utterly broken class.
Spell Engine is a level 8 Spell that, once activated, absorbs all magical casting and activity in the area of effect (either 10' or 30' radius/level). In return, it halves the time required to memorize spells in the same area. It can't be dispelled, but it can be destroyed by hitting it with a magical item, which destroys it and the item. If you're a spellfire wielder, you probably don't want to touch it, as you're considered a magic-bearing item for the spell ;). There was one in the second or third Spellfire book in FR.
I imagine the only truly viable counter would be to set up a character with an extremely high caster level check for Disjunction, and nuke every spell and magic item on the character, as well as tearing apart the A-M Shells, and then have summoned creatures or helpers finish them off before they can get everything back up. Would be an interesting puzzle, if nothing else!
==Aelryinth
IF a bag of toads isn't considered a swarm, then it isn't even considered a creature for purposes of mass attacks. Trying to Great Cleave your way to victory isn't going to work.
I don't argue for bag-o-rats here - in fact it clearly wouldn't work, unless you somehow had an area of effect melee attack - but again, [citation needed] on a bag of toads counting as either a swarm or no creature at all. I can't see where you're pulling that from.
(Also, it's not Great Cleave. Cleave and its bigger brother were always overrated. Here, it's Persistent Greater Consumptive Field.)
IF the Dweomerkeeper can utterly ignore anti-magic, well, I guess that's yet another reason they aren't around in PF and are considered an utterly broken class.
Yep, that's the idea. Although it's the Initiate of Mystra, not the Dwoemerkeeper, that pulls this off. It was considered cheesy even by Forgotten Realms standards and to my knowledge wasn't commonly seen off the CO boards as a result.
Spell Engine is a level 8 Spell that, once activated, absorbs all magical casting and activity in the area of effect (either 10' or 30' radius/level). In return, it halves the time required to memorize spells in the same area. It can't be dispelled, but it can be destroyed by hitting it with a magical item, which destroys it and the item. If you're a spellfire wielder, you probably don't want to touch it, as you're considered a magic-bearing item for the spell ;). There was one in the second or third Spellfire book in FR.
I imagine the only truly viable counter would be to set up a character with an extremely high caster level check for Disjunction, and nuke every spell and magic item on the character, as well as tearing apart the A-M Shells, and then have summoned creatures or helpers finish them off before they can get everything back up. Would be an interesting puzzle, if nothing else!
You still haven't cited a source. The only "spell engine" I can find is in the Spell Compendium, and it does nothing of the sort (it speeds up spell preparation and lets you swap out prepared spells, but doesn't absorb magic nor interact with magic items). The only "spellfire" books in FR are all novels, and if we're going on novels, then Kinetic Control is still around in its 2e glory instead of dramatically nerfed and restricted to epic characters.
If it's a spell effect, then it will not apply in an antimagic field for one thing - neither a natural one nor the product of a spell. The area of antimagic cancels out the area in which the other spell applies (meaning your Spell Engine area doesn't extend to the origin of the antimagic field, so the AMF still works), and if the source of the engine itself falls in the field then the entire spell engine is suppressed. Meaning it's worthless against the Cheater. Unless, of course, it was cast by *another* Initiate of Mystra who succeeds the caster level check.
(There's a reason AMF is such a game-changer. Trumping higher-level spells is a good example.)
I don't like speculating on counters without the rules text in front of me, and my indices don't seem to list it anywhere apart from the different version in the Spell Compendium - which is similar enough that I suspect you're pulling an older edition here. (You did the same thing in another thread, implying the paladin was uber and calling power points "PSP", both throwbacks to AD&D2e, so it's not outside the realm of possibility.)
First, you need a Bag of Toads. That's a sack with enough toads in it not to be a Swarm. (I thought it did work with Swarms previously, but I have repented). You need to be a Warmind, with the 5th level ability of Sweeping Strike- that's the area melee thing. And, you need Great Cleave.
The idea is, you toss the sack of toads down next to your enemy and then declare an attack on one of the toads. You declare Sweeping Strike to affect your opponent's square. Rinse and repeat for each toad, and that's a lot of attacks. If you've got something, like a Luck feat, that allows you to reroll a 1 on your attack roll, you can keep this going longer. It really helps if the DM is using the alternate Epic Level rule, 30/-10 where a 1 counts as -10, instead of an auto-miss. Surely you can still hit a toad with a -10, right?
My plan was that with a Deep Crystal weapon (to dodge Lesser Ironguard) and a high enough damage total (maybe we use a maneuver like Emerald Razor strike, right?) we might just start getting damage through those buffs. It'll come on gradually, pulling the contingency from Spell Phylactery and/or drawing a Celerity. Against Cheater we'd probably want those anti-mage feats, Pierce Magical Protections and Pierce Magical Concealment, and the one that makes it impossible to cast spells on the defensive. That supernatural ability thing the Cheater has is suppressed by the field, you can disrupt a Celerity type thing with a successful attack, and you can peel off the Fortunate Fate and Contingent Heal with steady Deep Crystal hits. I'd call that a fighting chance, right?
To beat celerity you'd have to beat it at initiative, which is technically impossible to do without your own Celerity.
Spell Engine - Yeah, this would be the 1E version, which sucked power out of the area. You sure the 2E version didn't stop spellcasting in the AoE? I seem to remember it doing so, too, but my Compendiums are 600 miles away atm...
The AMF wouldn't matter for the spell engine. Soons the spell entered the field of the Engine, it would be sucked in.
==Aelryinth
That's the 3.0 'bag of rats' trick, doing the exact same thing with Great Cleave and, say, Whirlwind attack. Every time you snuff a rat, cleave through to the real target, etc. Doesn't work...the rats are no longer considered viable targets. They either constitute a swarm, or they are harmless and not valid targets.
Ahem, no, they aren't. Both Rats and Toads are statted out individually, and in numbers less than 1500 (for Diminutive creatures) they remain individuals, not swarms. You seem to be inventing rules whole-cloth.
Things such as Great Cleave, Consumptive Field, and Death Knell all merely specify a creature dying (or dropping). They do not make any distinction as to how harmful such a creature may be. While munchkinery might argue that bacteria count, the easiest solution refers to things that have a game statistics block. This is the reason why Whirlwind was rewritten in the 3.5 revision to not trigger additional attacks. (In fact, the earliest I'm aware of any rules causing an effect to trigger on "clear threats" but not on harmless creatures was in the Tome of Battle, very late in 3.5's life, and even THERE it's selective.)
Spell Engine - Yeah, this would be the 1E version, which sucked power out of the area. You sure the 2E version didn't stop spellcasting in the AoE? I seem to remember it doing so, too, but my Compendiums are 600 miles away atm...
Because, of course, first and second edition rules are perfectly applicable in the context of 3.5, especially when there's a revision to that very spell in 3.5 itself.
It has a 3.5 version, so that's the version we use. I could not possibly care less what second edition did with it except for historical purposes. The 3.5 version does not stop spellcasting at all - in fact, it cannot be used offensively at all. Everything it does is summed up above: It lets you reprepare spells when it's cast, and it speeds up the spell preparation process. It's clearly the successor to what you describe (it has a physical focus resembling a spinning wheel at its center, it's high level (8th I believe), and it's named Spell Engine), but it's been rewritten in 3.5 to have a certain effect. That effect does NOT contain "absorbs spells".
The AMF wouldn't matter for the spell engine. Soons the spell entered the field of the Engine, it would be sucked in.
Wrong again.
In 3.5, Spell Engine doesn't absorb spells, any more than creatures are "only hit by magic weapons", Spell Resistance means a flat percentage chance to resist any spell, or Haste means you're going to get older.
Even if it DID, it would need a specific exception to Antimagic Field, because Antimagic Field specifies that any spell area that overlaps with the field is cancelled in the area of overlap, and any spell effect that originates inside the field (including emanations that you move near) is suppressed completely. I should make sure this point has hit home before continuing, but considering how long it takes to calculate THAC0, I might be here a while, so I'll move on.
There are four possible configurations here, assuming both effects are active to start and not trying to be cast. I'm also assuming that the version of Spell Engine you're thinking of is stationary but has a larger area than Antimagic Field (which is as mobile as its caster), and that the antimagic field's caster is moving towards the spell engine:
1 - Spell origins far enough apart that areas do not overlap.
2 - Spell origins close enough that there is overlap, but neither contains the other's origin.
3 - Antimagic field origin inside Spell Engine radius
4 - The AMF's caster has moved close enough to the origin of the Spell Engine and Spell Engine's origin falls within AMF's area.
1 happens all the time: there's no interaction.
2 is what I described earlier. Antimagic Field specifies that spell areas that overalp with itself are cancelled out in the area of overlap. For instance, if a cleric had cast Silence on a flagpole, and several soldiers are standing ten feet away from the flagpole in Silence's area, and I advance to ten feet away from one soldier (so he's also in Antimagic Field's area), I can talk to him, because Silence's area is cancelled in the Antimagic area. The same logic applies to Spell Engine, unless it has a specific exception.
3 is interesting. Since Spell Engine's area is cancelled in the AMF, I can stand within the radius of a spell engine and NOT be covered by its area (there's an antimagic-field-shaped hole in its area of effect, very similar to the Extraordinary Spell Aim feat or the Archmage's Mastery of Shaping High Arcana). (Using my Silence example from earlier, I'm not Silenced even though I'm standing less than 20' from the flagpole - the area under the AMF is cancelled, so I'm not in Silence's area of effect.) Thus, it is impossible for the Antimagic Field's origin to fall inside a spell engine area, unless Spell Engine has an exception for Antimagic Field.
4 is straightforwardly drawn from 3 and how the AMF spell is written. Since, as I approach, Spell Engine's area is cancelled under the field, I'm never in its area as I approach. When Spell Engine's origin falls within the AMF, it is suppressed, just like every other area effect that has its origin within an AMF. (Using the Silence example above, if I move within 10' of the flagpole, so the flagpole is within the AMF, Silence is suppressed, and the soldiers on the other side - who are not in AMF's area but were within Silence - can talk to each other normally, since Silence is suppressed while its origin is in the field).
Yes, this means AMF is unreasonably strong, especially for its level, and possibly quite confusing to boot. In other news, water is wet, the sky is blue, and the world is round. WotC even admitted this in the Rule Compendium section on antimagic. This is the primary reason the Cheater is as evil as it is.
And if you think I'm wrong, please point out where. If there is no exception for Antimagic Field, please explain why Spell Engine would trump it at each stage above. Remember the Silence example, too: if you end up making up another ruling for Spell Engine, unless it's specific for this scenario, it would also apply to Silence and every other area spell too.
I'd hate to tell a Warmind that he'd spent years mastering the confusing, subtle Talarric Texts only to be utterly unable to overcome a lowly toad.
But seriously, there's nothing in 3.5 that I'm aware of that makes a toad an illegal or illegitimate target. It's a creature, with individual statistics printed in Core, which statistics make no reference to an invulnerability-through-meaninglessness special ability.
Also, Pun Pun beats the Cheater.
The fact that you can no longer cleave off of a whirlwind strike killed the bag o rats trick, not any changes to toads or rats.
Also, Pun Pun beats the Cheater.
I explained the Bag O Toads above. It has nothing to do with Whirlwind anything. The crucial ability is Sweeping Strike, level 5 Warmind. It is entirely RAW in 3.5.
That Pun Pun beats the Cheater is pedantic.
The fact that you can no longer cleave off of a whirlwind strike killed the bag o rats trick, not any changes to toads or rats.
Also, Pun Pun beats the Cheater.
I explained the Bag O Toads above. It has nothing to do with Whirlwind anything. The crucial ability is Sweeping Strike, level 5 Warmind. It is entirely RAW in 3.5.
That Pun Pun beats the Cheater is pedantic.
My fault, I missed your post about the warmind. I skimmed through rather quickly.