Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 parinho7 Nov 01, 2009 15:00:45	Well i want a level 20 build that is mostly good against mages. I have thought of some builds but i want your opinion too. Basically what i want is a character who has very high ac and very high saves. I came up with several builds such as monk/druidic avenger/fist of the forest/sacred fist with vow of poverty and a half celestial domovoi saint paladin/monk also with vow of poverty but i couldn't reach 50 on saving throws that was my goal. The thing is that i want to duel a friend who has a very good mage build that always steels the initiative and casts extended time stop, he buffs himself and then it's very difficult to beat him. Once he beat three of us in combat (same level). I want the build  to have very high ac and saving throws, have wings on his own so he can't dispel fly or other spells like that, not waste time on casting, be imposible to hit and then beat the crap out of him slowly:P His dc's are very high that's why i want high saves. I'll also take the Enduring Life feat because he drains levels too.
#2 dumah87 Nov 01, 2009 15:11:50	As far as I know the only Mage slayer, is another Mage :D I'd suggest a cleric Initiate of Mystra, with a persistent AMF sorrounding you. If you want to try with a Warrior, I'd try with Hexblade/Paladin of Tiranny/BalckGuard/DragonDisciple.
#3 gorfnad_the_shiznit Nov 01, 2009 15:40:09	Crusaders can also make great mage slayers. Mage Slayer + Thicket of Blades stance + Standstill feat
#4 neo_leviathan Nov 01, 2009 18:21:40	There's a few different possibilities. One thing thing that I will say off the bat though, is tell your friend to read the 3.5 FAQ on the website, Time Stop CANNOT be extended, or in any way have its duration manipulated. Also, the DM rolls to see how long it lasts, he doesn't get to know how long he has while time stopped.   Anyways. There are a few ways to go. One that I've used in my campaigns is Monk 2/Hexblade 3/Occult Slayer 5/Arcanapath Monk 10 with the Mage Slayer feat chain (Dragon Compendium). Horridly good at resisting spells, but only really good against 'blaster' style mages, and not so much the 'high mage' style. This one is basically a "I resist you spells, or turn your spells back at you, you can't cast defensively while threatened by me, I dispel your defensive buffs, and then pummel you with fists to make you Blind/Deaf/Confused/Permanently forget spells". So it works well against the "I hit you and you go boom" style, but no so well against the "wall, wall, cloud, forcecage, kill" style. Another is a simple Arcane Archer build. Pick spells that will enhance your ability to hit through the concealments and defenses that he will no doubt put up (wraithstrike, true strike, whatever the 'ignore concealment' one is, etc), and attach an Antimagic Field to your arrow. You hit him, and he is now the center of an AMF for the full duration, no save, no resistances. Pummel with arrows until dead. A slightly more complicated one is to make a Blaster style mage, but also with access to all the "Celerity" style spells, and anything that you can find that will let you move during an opponent's turn. Then, just take Extraordinary Spell Aim, throw an Antimagic Field around yourself (using ESA so that you are unaffected), move so that he is within your field, and cast a shapeable Wall of some kind so that he's trapped within the field. Then just blow him to pieces.
#5 phaedrusxy Nov 01, 2009 19:28:00	There's a few different possibilities. One thing thing that I will say off the bat though, is tell your friend to read the 3.5 FAQ on the website, Time Stop CANNOT be extended, or in any way have its duration manipulated. Either you can Extend it, or you can Maximize/Empower it. If the 1d4 isn't a duration, then it is a variable effect. So either way you interpret it, yes you can make the duration longer. All that differs is how. Also, the DM rolls to see how long it lasts, he doesn't get to know how long he has while time stopped. And just where is this rule stated?
#6 neo_leviathan Nov 01, 2009 20:15:09	There's a few different possibilities. One thing thing that I will say off the bat though, is tell your friend to read the 3.5 FAQ on the website, Time Stop CANNOT be extended, or in any way have its duration manipulated. Either you can Extend it, or you can Maximize/Empower it. If the 1d4 isn't a duration, then it is a variable effect. So either way you interpret it, yes you can make the duration longer. All that differs is how. I can't find my original source now, because searching the 3.5 archives on the newfangled site is lite pulling teeth, but I'm sure I saw an "Ask Wizards" article on exactly what you could do with Time Stop, and they started at Persistent and then went from there, stating that you couldn't use any abilities to fiddle with Time Stop's duration. Also, the DM rolls to see how long it lasts, he doesn't get to know how long he has while time stopped. And just where is this rule stated? This tripped me up first time as well. Quoted from the SRD, Magic Overview, Duration section: Timed Durations: Many durations are measured in rounds, minutes, hours, or some other increment. When the time is up, the magic goes away and the spell ends. If a spell’s duration is variable the duration is rolled secretly (the caster doesn’t know how long the spell will last).
#7 phaedrusxy Nov 01, 2009 20:43:32	I can't find my original source now, because searching the 3.5 archives on the newfangled site is lite pulling teeth, but I'm sure I saw an "Ask Wizards" article on exactly what you could do with Time Stop, and they started at Persistent and then went from there, stating that you couldn't use any abilities to fiddle with Time Stop's duration. I remember the "clarification" you're talking about. It said you can't use Persistent/Extend because the 1d4+1 isn't a real duration (it's a "virtual" one). That means that the 1d4+1 is a variable effect, and you can Maximize/Empower it. They did not prohibit this. It has to be one way or the other. All it changes is which metamagic rod you use. This tripped me up first time as well. Quoted from the SRD, Magic Overview, Duration section: Timed Durations: Many durations are measured in rounds, minutes, hours, or some other increment. When the time is up, the magic goes away and the spell ends. If a spell’s duration is variable the duration is rolled secretly (the caster doesn’t know how long the spell will last).  Thanks.
#8 parinho7 Nov 01, 2009 20:45:12	Thanks for all the replies. I don't think that I can cast spells because he will counter them. He always does greater celerity so he always play first and he casts time stop so he doesn't mind the one round stunning. Some buffs that he casts are Veil of Undeath so he has a bunch of immunities, moment of prescience that gives him a +25 on one roll. He has concidered many things at his build and he keeps saying that we have seen only the 20% of what he can do. We know that he has some fate spinner levels and he can give us a -10 penalty on one saving throw that can be mortal. I fought him once and he did necrotic cyst but I don't know what else he is capable of doing. One more think. He casts a prismatic sphere and he can get out cast a spell and get in at the same round, I don't know how he does that. He also has greater blink and duelward on him. As you can see he has a lot of ways to defend himself and I don't have the time to cast spells, so I wan't my character to have high, very very high saving throws and ac to just walk (or fly) past the sphere and beat him. And by very high i mean about 50 at his saving throws. The AC is not a problem a manage to get that quite high myself:P He also has a bunch of teleports and he keeps getting away if you get close to him. So any more ideas would be nice. Thanks again.
#9 phaedrusxy Nov 01, 2009 20:52:43	You could counterspell his Greater Celerity. I'd suggest going with a cleric build, actually. They have a way to counterspell as an immediate action using Turn Undead attempts, I think. You can also access a lot of the same tricks he does with good domain choices. I don't think you have a snowball's chance in hell of beating him with a non-caster. You could try the Arcane Archer AMF trick, but he probably knows counters to that, too. (There are a couple.)
#10 neo_leviathan Nov 01, 2009 20:57:16	Parinho, another method if he's doing all that buffing and rules fudging (I'm 90% sure you can't go in and out of a Prismatic Sphere like that, since you take damage from it just like anyone else), is simple. True Seeing. A way of affecting Incorporeal creatures (to bypass Blink, Trasndimensional Spell is one if you can get the GM to let you take a rod of it, or Arcane Thesis if that's prefereble). Ready Action: When you have LoS on him (such as when he jumps out of his sphere), cast Mordenkeinen's Disjunction. Bye bye to all those spells and magic items.
#11 phaedrusxy Nov 01, 2009 21:08:06	(I'm 90% sure you can't go in and out of a Prismatic Sphere like that, since you take damage from it just like anyone else) Yes you can. It specifically says this in the spell description. All he needs to hop in and out of it is a way to move as a swift action, and there are plenty of those (Travel devotion, etc). Or he could take the Flyby Attack feat. True Seeing. A way of affecting Incorporeal creatures (to bypass Blink, Trasndimensional Spell is one if you can get the GM to let you take a rod of it, or Arcane Thesis if that's prefereble). Ready Action: When you have LoS on him (such as when he jumps out of his sphere), cast Mordenkeinen's Disjunction. Bye bye to all those spells and magic items. He'll probably make the saves on most of the items, but it will knock out his buffs. I'd expect him to be prepared for this somehow, though (Contingency, etc). He sounds like he knows his stuff.
#12 neo_leviathan Nov 01, 2009 21:56:07	(I'm 90% sure you can't go in and out of a Prismatic Sphere like that, since you take damage from it just like anyone else) Yes you can. It specifically says this in the spell description. All he needs to hop in and out of it is a way to move as a swift action, and there are plenty of those (Travel devotion, etc). Or he could take the Flyby Attack feat. Hrm.. I have no idea why but I thought you could only go through it freely once, and after that you were affected as well. Flyby attack won't help him since it's not an attack, but Mobile Casting will do the trick in that case.   I guess another option is to time stop and then use. Energy Transformation Field, The one that causes any spells cast in the area to be automatically absorbed into the field and then used to power a pre-set spell (like Mordy's Disjunction). Either way, if he's being allowed to have piles of contingencies pre-cast, allowed to use Celerity in the first round of combat before his turn, and is using the level of rules abuse that he is apparently using, beating him as Melee is going to be nearly impossible. Well.. except maybe for some kind of half iron-golem Monk with a high enough escape artist to walk through a wall of force, a way to deflect/reflect non-SR spells and a decent Flight method. Magic immunity FTW.
#13 phaedrusxy Nov 01, 2009 22:11:22	Flyby attack won't help him since it's not an attack, but Mobile Casting will do the trick in that case. Flyby Attack works. It lets you take a standard action in the middle of your move. A standard action.
#14 neo_leviathan Nov 01, 2009 22:34:35	Flyby attack won't help him since it's not an attack, but Mobile Casting will do the trick in that case. Flyby Attack works. It lets you take a standard action in the middle of your move. A standard action. *Checks Monster Feats* WTF?? Thats just nucking futs!!  I mean sure you're going to need either high fly speed or damned high maneuverability to be able to fly out, cast, and loop back into your original spot, but holy crapcakes...
#15 snakeman830 Nov 02, 2009 8:19:03	Step 1: Say Pazuzu 3 times...   No, I think one possible way would be to play an Egoist, though.  Greater Metaporphosis into a Dragonbone Golem (Immune to all magic, wether it allows SR or not.  Even Su abilities are negated)  Then just use your other powers to deal with him.  Sink points into UMD and use a Scroll of Shapechange.  Ready actions so you turn into something with good attacks when he pops up  as a free action, then use your swift to change back into the golem so he can't harm you.