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Safe distance is just outside of the 300 range. You enter the 300 ft. Range on you have Heroism on your Dispeller. You do not cast time stop until you can close the gap in 1 round (which is 140 ft. you should be moving 70ft per action). There really isn't a flaw in the plan, you are just not using your head when executing it.70 feet. You are probably staggered by this point and only get one action.
Cthulhu moves 200 feet per round and has a 40 foot reach. So you move to 210, then 140, then 70, then time stop... That is a lot of chances for him to hit you.
For that matter, all Cthulhu has to do is *IGNORE* you.
You fly to within 210 feet of him.
He flys 400 feet past you. 190 feet away
You now cannot catch up.
If he's really intent on ignoring somebody, the Big C has Greater Teleport at will. Why fly when you can think and *bamf* you're there? No need to consider the logistics of movement, he's just in your city, insanitying ur dudez.
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Uh, do you think DC 40 Will saves are hard for a caster to make? They aren't if you didn't know. The odds of actually falling victim the aura are extremely slim. His Fly speed is pretty far, but if he wants to run away, it is possible to catch up with a Swift Teleport. Really, this is all so obvious I feel bad posting it, but maybe this is not obvious to you?Safe distance is just outside of the 300 range. You enter the 300 ft. Range on you have Heroism on your Dispeller. You do not cast time stop until you can close the gap in 1 round (which is 140 ft. you should be moving 70ft per action). There really isn't a flaw in the plan, you are just not using your head when executing it.70 feet. You are probably staggered by this point and only get one action.
Cthulhu moves 200 feet per round and has a 40 foot reach. So you move to 210, then 140, then 70, then time stop... That is a lot of chances for him to hit you.
For that matter, all Cthulhu has to do is *IGNORE* you.
You fly to within 210 feet of him.
He flys 400 feet past you. 190 feet away
You now cannot catch up.
I'll bite, how easy? I'm coming up with a +31 Will save for a level 20 wizard with a +8 Wisdom mod (assuming 15 starting stat +5 wishes +6 item), +5 resistance item, the Iron Will feat, and Greater Heroism cast on themselves. How much higher are you looking at getting it? Because an almost 50/50 shot at failing this save is still way too high for most players comfort. And please, let's keep this non-mythic, since I think the discussion so far has revolved around that scenario.
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Anzyr seems to just be assuming that his character can do whatever he wants, and because the system does not have a rule "If you aquire more than 1,000,000 gp, there is a 20% chance each week that someone will attempt to rob you" that there is no chance that he will be robbed because the system doesn't say it can happen.
Amusingly in Conan d20 they have this "High Living" wealth rule:
Every week, all characters will spend a minimum of 50% of their current wealth on high living, if that wealth is currently over 50 silver pieces.
If you think anything said here is "specifically" for use against Cthulhu the entire thread has gone over your head.I've been following this thread for the past few days with a few chuckles, some eyerolls, and a lot of shaking of my cleanly-shaven head. As a 30+ year DM/GM/Storyteller I've made it a policy to never punish a player for a clever strategy, even if I disagree with the premise of that strategy.I fully agree. But there's a difference between a PC in an ongoing campaign developing a strategy using the resources they've been gathering during months or years of play and creating a character de novo that was optimized to fight whatever monster is being discussed.
Really? So what exactly is your caster's plan when the Explosive Runes go off and he takes 15 points of damage total because he has Resistance to force? What's your plan if he has higher initiative than you do? Or Time Stop? Or the DC of his aura is simply too high for your Will save to beat? In all of your posts you've been assuming a particular set of stats for Cthulhu. If those stats are changed, your strategy doesn't work.
Uh there is nothing in the book (besides another Caster *coughDivinationWizardcough*) that will beat a non-specific casters Initiative. You pick any monster you want out of the book instead of Cthulhu. Feel free. And again, while you seem enthralled by it, Explosive Runes are far far from the only strategy that I've suggested. If you present a creature that is immune to force damage, there are a number of other options.
Off the top of my head CerberusSeven you are missing +3 Luck and +2 more morale. Oh and you are using only a +5 Cape instead of the +8 Resistance from Mind Blank (cast yesterday, thanks Extend Spell). And your WIS is low, you should have a +4 Profane to that. (Though I Started with only an 11 so it balances out) so that's another 8 you are missing out on and wow look at that... a +39 to Will saves. Without even getting into anything neat.
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Hah, I did forget that about Mind Blank, whoops. But Greater Heroism is ALREADY a morale bonus and it's +4. Where's this huge +6 coming from? Also, kinda curious about the specific identify of the source for those luck and profane bonuses. I know you've talked about simulacrum of Succubi granting profane bonuses, but that's only a 2 point bump.
I was assuming a 15 starting stat because wizards generally don't want to skimp too much in the Constitution department. Also, either Dexterity or Charisma can be fairly important, which one depending on how you want to build said wizard (one is for ranged attacks / defenses, the other's for making bargains with NPCs & called outsiders). 15 seems pretty generous for a 20-pt buy, all things considered, and downright great for a 15-pt buy.
What, specifically, is your caster's initiative? (Also, since when are GMs limited to using monsters that are in a book?)
Explosive Runes are the tactic you chose. You didn't find out that the monster is resistant until they went off, so even if you won initiative your turn is over and it's now the monster's turn. What's Plan B? What defenses do you have against an unspecified monster?
I'm guessing he'd be popping a Moment of Prescience on the initiative check. Assuming a few relatively common factors and 20th level PC build, that probably puts his initiative in the +30ish range. Cthulhu, with his +15, will probably be acting slower than said super-wizard as a result. Not a guarantee, but still quite likely.
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I'm gonna try to break down the tactic to kill Cthulhu down into one post, so that it can just be linked instead of having to just tell people to go back and read.
Step 1:Use Blood Money to get a Free Wish, and have it mimic Legend Lore to learn where Cthulhu is. Find one of the methods here to get the requisite strength score. Combine with having an ally [Cleric or summoned] cast Heal on you immediately after casting it.
Step 1.1:Stockpile Explosive Runes over time during downtime, and have hundreds or thousands of them stored in Bags of Holding.
Step 2:Summon a Nalfeshnee, and cast Greater Heroism on it .
Step 3:Teleport both of you to within walking distance of Cthulhu.
Step 4:Have Nalfeshnee ready an action to cast Greater Dispel Magic on all of the explosive runes when it sees them next to Cthulhu.
Step 5:Use a Staff of the Master to cast Quickened Time Stop, then during the time stop, spread out all of the explosive runes next to Cthulhu.
Step 6:Cast Greater Teleport to get away from Cthulhu, and wait for the Time Stop to end.
Step 7:Watch the FireForce-works.
Plan B:Plane Shift String yourself though a bunch of different planes, making yourself hard to track, to get to your personal demiplane and rest up, then make another Cthulhu-killing strategy. This only buys time, but it does certainly buy enough for you to think about a new plan.
- Wizard wins Initiative. With an Elf wizard[often referred to as "the best"], its not too hard. Nor is it with Human.
- Wizard can find location through Legend Lore. If you have a high enough Knowledge Check, you might get more than inaccurate legends[Planes would be the appropriate one, correct?]
- Cthulhu doesn't
run away"ignore" you by flying away or using Greater Teleport to keep distance.
- Wizard can make Will Save, DC 40, consistently to not be staggered. Its not as hard as it sounds, though still has some difficulty.
- Wizard has Legend Lore, and Time Stop, prepared.
- Wizard has cast Create Greater Demiplane, has bags of holding filled with explosive runes, and has a Staff of the master.
EDIT:Just remembered something I'd meant to add, if you are a Conjurer add this into the list:Have Nalfeshnee be permanent[thank you Summoner's Charm capstone], and put Extended Mindblank[w/rod] on both of you the day before, and then have both of you be under Greater Invisibility, so that Cthulhu doesn't see you move in.
Also missed the Assumption that the GM is letting you do this[and it is all legal], and the one that Cthulhu is just the textbook version and doesn't have extra goodies[like Force resistance, Class levels, etc], and JoeJ's assumption about Cthulhu having no minions.
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What happens when the nalfeshnee goes insane?
Cthulhu is an abberation, actually. So, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) is the right check. Surprised me too.
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Two assumptions people missed:
- Cthulhu's trapped on Earth, not on Golarion. It says so canonically. How did he just suddenly get out of R'lyeh and into Golarion?
- Does the DM want you to have a chance at winning, or does he think the party is up for a Call of Cthulhu style ending for the player characters?
Judging from some of the responses here, actually defeating Cthulhu is badwrongfun and anyone (DM or player) suggesting that such is allowed should be kicked out of the group and then be run out of town.
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Cthulu has true seeing constant. Invis is useless. Also, being invisible doesn't stop them from gaining an insanity.
Cthulu has true seeing constant. Invis is useless. Also, being invisible doesn't stop them from gaining an insanity.
Only within 120 feet. See Invisibility is the one with infinite range.
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I've been following this thread for the past few days with a few chuckles, some eyerolls, and a lot of shaking of my cleanly-shaven head. As a 30+ year DM/GM/Storyteller I've made it a policy to never punish a player for a clever strategy, even if I disagree with the premise of that strategy.It's not really punishing him for the strategy. It is that he showed up with the strategy, and said "this is trivial, I just do this, this, and this, and now cthulhu is dead." But this, this and this are all things that in game could have major consequences, could fail, etc.
Given your experience, have you ever had a player make a major deal with the devil, and just shrugged, said "yup, it works." and gone on without there being any consequences down the pipe? (Especially in story teller, which is basically set up to offer the PCs deals with the devil that will come back to bite them.)
Or had a player stockpile massive resources, well beyond his peers, and then advertise those resources by killing his enemies with them and not have someone covet those resources and try to come take them?
Anzyr seems to just be assuming that his character can do whatever he wants, and because the system does not have a rule "If you aquire more than 1,000,000 gp, there is a 20% chance each week that someone will attempt to rob you" that there is no chance that he will be robbed because the system doesn't say it can happen.
A fair point, FLite. I didn't mean to imply that anyone in particular was punishing Anzyr, so accept my apologies if I offended in any way.
In my campaigns, as a character achieves higher levels, they draw more attention to themselves because of their exploits. Like celebrities, it becomes increasingly difficult for PCs not to have allies and enemies study their strategies and devise their own counter-tactics. Everyone has a pattern of behavior due to their training and experiences. If there is a pattern, it can be studied and manipulated. By the time characters in my campaign reach 15th level it is well documented by several kingdoms, organizations, cabals, churches and individuals what a PC will do in certain circumstances. By the time a PC reaches 20th level a major villan (like Cthulhu) will have a good idea what a PC will do when confronted. Naturally, counter-measures will be devised, including back-up measures and resource redundancies. This is the quality of a creature that stats cannot capture; a monster's ability to plan ahead.
Additionally, in my campaign, Cthulhu won't wake up alone. Oh, no, a high priest has minions that will prepare several years in advance to ensure their dark god awakens undisturbed. Surely, everyone can agree that a 20th level wizard like the one Anzyr describes will have drawn enough attention to himself that the cult of Cthulhu will have counter-measures in place to prevent the wizard from harming Cthulhu while he awakens? Yes, wizards have access to legend lore and vision and many other divination spells, but entities like Cthulhu do not operate in a vacuum. In the Lovecraftian tales Cthulhu had the Deep Ones serving him, awaiting his awakening. That's an entire race of thinking, plotting creatures serving a sleeping high priest. I doubt divination spells can tell a wizard about all of Cthulhu's minions.
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Only within 120 feet. See Invisibility is the one with infinite range.
They still go nuts.
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Two assumptions people missed:
- Cthulhu's trapped on Earth, not on Golarion. It says so canonically. How did he just suddenly get out of R'lyeh and into Golarion?
Form time to time R'lyeh rises. And Earth is apparently full of Cthulhu shattering steamboats. (Sorry, joke, if you missed the reference read back up thread.)
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Cthulu has true seeing constant. Invis is useless. Also, being invisible doesn't stop them from gaining an insanity.
Note the MindBlank for Invis being useless. Insanity does seem to be the most plausible thing to worry about, but the only non-immediate Insanity is Amnesia, so a 1 in Ten chance of failing. Although, there is always the argument that the Summon needs only to follow the basic instruction, doesn't need to remember anything else, and keeps its spell-like Greater Dispel Magic, which would improve the plan.
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BTW, what does Cthulhu do during all this time before the Almighty-Wizard-Who-Always-Has-Everything-Perfectly-Prepared arrives? Fiddle his thumbs tentacles or prepare something nasty?
Ultimately, do we have a lazy GM or not?
If you get amnesia it all goes bye bye. Everything. Sure, you have this dispel power but what are you doing with it? Who's that big scary dude? Who's the weird guy in a robe?
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BTW, what does Cthulhu do during all this time before the Almighty-Wizard-Who-Always-Has-Everything-Perfectly-Prepared arrives? Fiddle his
thumbstentacles or prepare something nasty?Ultimately, do we have a lazy GM or not?
Of course we do. How else would the perfectly prepared wizard win if he weren't calling the shots? At least our dolt of a GM can rest easy that he didn't have to try.
You know every possible Legend about it. Which should just about cover it.Let's pretend that's right, just for laughs.
You know EVERY legend about Cthulhu. You head is stuffed so full of contradictory information you won't have a clue what might work and what might not.
And then you are eaten by a Star-Spawn.
Actually, legends about Cthulhu will reference Star-Spawn so no he won't.
There's been answer to all your questions. A lot of these have already been stated quite explicitly in thread. Cthulhu has no time to react. He will lose initiative (guaranteed) and if he loses initiative he will die without being able to react at all.
The additional +2 morale comes from a +1 Courageous Spiked Gauntlet with Greater Magic Weapon cast on it (from yesterdays slots). And again, you cast Greater Heroism before you set out. Killing Cthulhu doesn't even take 10 minutes let alone 50... closer to 1 and most of that is waiting on the reform.
The luck bonus, figure it out yourself it's not hard.
The Profane comes from a Lilitu's Branding, since Nocticula's Profane Acension's +6 and +4 go into INT and CON respectively.
Insanity isn't an issue because the Nalfeshnee is immune to fear (read the thread to find out why!) so at worst it can be staggered which is a non-issue as it only needs a standard action to ready the dispel.
You don't need to greater teleport away either. You just need to get out the explosion radius (which is only a 20ft. radius) there's lots of ways to do this. You don't want to go to far since you need to rekill him.
If required because Cthulhu is intent on running way (ahahaha) just use a Quickened Greater Teleport (bring your Nalfeshnee with you, it can't use Teleport effect, but you can use them on it). This will give you a surprise round (you don't care about that). After which you win initiative and Cthulhu dies as detailed above.
Finally, you don't even need Explosive Runes. As said above Dazing Spell or bring an army of minions will work just fine. Really this is just sad. Half of the issues people raise show they haven't read the thread and the other half are talking about non-rule stuff.
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Cthulhu Greater Dispel Magics you(along with all of your Explosive Runes while you're on your way). You explode. Cthulhu win.
Well, you know... there is that whole contingency'd summon that's good for 30 days at a time. I was going to save it but meh.
Cthulhu Greater Dispel Magic. You expode
The only way they explode if he fails at it. Are you saying the great priest of the old gods is that bad at magic?
If it's a valid tactic for a level 20 PC then it's a valid tactic for a CR 30 great old one. You saying a level 20 wizard is bad at magic?
Cthulhu Greater Dispel Magic. You expodeThe only way they explode if he fails at it. Are you saying the great priest of the old gods is that bad at magic?
You can voluntarily choose to fail a dispel against anything except your own spells, which you automatically dispel, as I recall.
So there ISN'T any +3 luck bonus to saving throws then? 'Kay, just thought I'd check.
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You know what'd be a perfect outcome of 'defeating' Cthulu? It turns out it was its astral projection the whole time. By time you realize this that whole kingdom/town/whatever you thought you were saving is being destroyed.
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I just had a thought. Has anyone considered the idea that Cthulu casts mythic version of his spells? That means by spending mythic power he can activate any wizard spell of 8th level as mythic. This let's you do things like mythic contingency to have 6 spells on you at the same time for 30 days each. I'd use that to set up a gtr teleport and series of gates to call in reinforcements just before any effect that would kill me if I were him just for starters. Then there's mythic wish's alter fate. You know that save you need? It's a 1 cuz mythic.
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I'm gonna try to break down the tactic to kill Cthulhu down into one post, so that it can just be linked instead of having to just tell people to go back and read.
Step 1:Use Blood Money to get a Free Wish, and have it mimic Legend Lore to learn where Cthulhu is. Find one of the methods here to get the requisite strength score. Combine with having an ally [Cleric or summoned] cast Heal on you immediately after casting it.
Step 1.1:Stockpile Explosive Runes over time during downtime, and have hundreds or thousands of them stored in Bags of Holding.
Step 2:Summon a Nalfeshnee, and cast Greater Heroism on it .
Step 3:Teleport both of you to within walking distance of Cthulhu.
Step 4:Have Nalfeshnee ready an action to cast Greater Dispel Magic on all of the explosive runes when it sees them next to Cthulhu.
Step 5:Use a Staff of the Master to cast Quickened Time Stop, then during the time stop, spread out all of the explosive runes next to Cthulhu.
Step 6:Cast Greater Teleport to get away from Cthulhu, and wait for the Time Stop to end.
Step 7:Watch the
FireForce-works.Plan B:Plane Shift String yourself though a bunch of different planes, making yourself hard to track, to get to your personal demiplane and rest up, then make another Cthulhu-killing strategy. This only buys time, but it does certainly buy enough for you to think about a new plan.
** spoiler omitted **...
Thanks for clarifying the plan.
I think you would need to use something else besides a bag of holding to carry the explosive runes in order to complete step 5 of the plan. It takes a move action to remove a specific item from a bag of holding and you have a maximum of 5 move actions whilst time stop is in effect. Alternatively, if you attempt to: "spill the contents" of the bag of holding nothing will happen since time stop only speeds you up, it doesn't speed up anything else like how fast gravity works. You also wouldn't be able to "rain down" the explosive runes on Cthulhu since as soon as you let go of them they would effectively hang suspended in the air. I suppose you could have one book with many pages filled with explosive runes so that you only have to draw and place one item in front of Cthulhu, but then it would become a GM call as to whether this book counts as many explosive runes or just the one. It seems to me that to ensure the explosive runes work as intended you are stuck with a mundane container like a regular sack that you just place in front of Cthulhu without opening. But that is risky because it opens you up to enemies casting greater dispel magic at you, effectively killing you with your own bomb.
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Two assumptions people missed:
- Cthulhu's trapped on Earth, not on Golarion. It says so canonically. How did he just suddenly get out of R'lyeh and into Golarion?
- Does the DM want you to have a chance at winning, or does he think the party is up for a Call of Cthulhu style ending for the player characters?
Judging from some of the responses here, actually defeating Cthulhu is badwrongfun and anyone (DM or player) suggesting that such is allowed should be kicked out of the group and then be run out of town.
I think you are reading too much of an agenda into some people's complaints.
Which do you think is more fun for a group of players/GM. A single character who one shots the main bad guy of the campaign in 15 minutes game time, while everyone else plays angry birds on their phone? or a drawn-out complicated battle where everyone gets to contribute and which actually has high stakes?
I mean check out the Wrath of the Righteous threads. Biggest complaints in those threads are that characters become so overpowered that they steam roll most bad guys with no effort at all, making combat boring.
Personally I don't mind if PCs beat Cthulhu...that is what Pathfinder is about. But I would make it a challenging fight, and I would structure the whole campaign as leading up to that.
Incidentally, Cthulhu is on Earth, so if the PC's are going to fight him, they need to get to there. Which according to Rasputin Must Die, is pretty much a world where magic is nearly dead. There is an implication that magic works as well as it does for the volume because the bad guys are able to pull a chunk of the first world down to earth, which acts as a beacon for various supernatural beings to converge at the site. I would make the near absence of magic a plot element of visiting Earth.
Presumably Magic comes back in full when Rl'yeh (or however you spell it) returns, but Rl'yeh is also a place of non-euclidean geometry and other weird spatial phenomena. So while a party of players would have full magic abilities, any sort of magic dealing with spatial manipulation would probably (If I were GMing) have some sort of fail rate.