Why Wizards DON'T rule the world?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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QuidEst wrote:
Albatoonoe wrote:
I feel like Nex and Gen are a perfect demonstration why it doesn't work out. You will always be opposed by someone else and you will end up wasting a lot of time and resources to deal with it.
Or you’re more like Razmir, who succeeded but spends all his time maintaining his power while trying to figure out the secret to immortality without admitting that’s something he needs to worry about.

I feel like, of all the prominent Wizards in the history of Golarion, the only one who really serves as a role model as in "it worked out all right for him" was Old Mage Jatembe. I mean, Aroden's dead, but Jatembe is only *presumed* dead (which means, he'll be back as soon as some writer wants him back.)


Volkard Abendroth wrote:

Many of the most notable rulers of Golarion are wizards, sorcerers or witches.

  • Nethys (originally a wizard)
  • Aroden (originally a wizard)
  • Tar-Baphon
  • Geb
  • Arazni
  • Nex
  • Xin
  • all Runelords
  • Razmir
  • Abrogail Thrune II
  • Elvanna

In addition: Kelesh's power is maintained through wishcraft and bound genies.

It's not that arcane casters have not traditionally ruled large portions of Golarion, or that large portions of Golarion are not still ruled by arcane casters.

It's that there are only just so many truly powerful wizards that are willing to be burdened with the mantle of leadership. A significant number of the truly powerful simply have no desire to be locked into the never-ending and utterly mundane task of ruling a nation.

I think this brings up a lot of good points about Wizards ruling the world, the Runelords especially. I think another part of it is not everyone wants the burden and responsibilities of rulership, and so chooses not to seek it out - regardless of whether or not they are all-powerful.

Story of a Wizard-King:

In a face-to-face Kingmaker game we played in, our party's Wizard ended up being the King. We were setting up the kingdom and deciding roles, and the question is "Who has the highest Charisma?" With all of us having 14 (the Wizard was planning on binding and negotiating with outsiders). So then, when asked about roles, we have the Cavalier who has no interest in ruling (that PC actually ended up dying a couple sessions later), the Rogue that wanted to be the Spymasterand the Gunslinger who wanted Marshal so that he could really fulfill the "Wild West" motif he was going for. So it comes down to the Wizard, and me. I'm playing a Warpriest of Gorum. So when the Wizard asks me if I want to be the King, I reply, "Do you really think the warrior-priest of the god of war is going to lead a stable kingdom that doesn't try to annex its neighbors?"

The Wizard then accepted his crown - but only after the rest of us told him we either A) didn't want it, or B) were clearly not going to be a good choice for it.

He embraced it in the end - he decided that once we tamed the Stolen Lands he was going to create a permanent demiplane with Gates linked to every major city and then facilitate trade between all nations of the world, no matter the distance - for a small fee, of course.

That and live forever as the Wizard-King of Erlosung.


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Because the don't need to.

Kings/Rulers/Tyrants are driven by a fear of death and are trying to achieve immortality by creating a legacy that lasts after they are gone.

Wizards achieve immortality by not dying.


Volkard Abendroth wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Rysky wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Lantern Archon Strike force. Wizard automatically goes first via Divination shenanigans and gates lots of Lantern Archons that auto-hit for 2D6 damage each and bypass all anti-magic shenanigans. A given Demon Lord would end up killing an Astral Projection that would still have to deal with Lantern Archons shooting it to death the following round. If he kills the Lantern Archons, the Wizard can just gate in more and repeat as necessary, since he can just create an endless amount of Pearls of Power to recall his spellcasting.

1) Divination school doesn't automatically guarantee going first (though your odds aren't bad, but not assured when you're up against Mythic)

2) Lantern Archons don't auto hit, they make ranged touch attacks with a +3 bonus.

3) Pretty sure even though it says all it doesn't bypass Epic DR (since they've been around long before Mythic Adventures).

Edit: Went and double checked on this, Dev comments are that attacks like this (aka Smite) would bypass DR/Epic, but that's also from the Playtest time period so...

Fair enough. The Beholder Helm (Cyclops Helm X9) would be more than good enough for this, so a Divination Wizard isn't necessary.

If the creature is large enough, their Touch A.C. is poop. So, it's good against Dragons and Tarrasques. Demon Lords are a mite stronger, but still easily manageable by other Wizard spells or summons that he can choose from.

The text says it bypasses all DR, full stop. You could even have DR/Non-lantern Archon, and it wouldn't technically work against Lantern Archons.

There are many other things at the Wizard's disposal that he may not even need to use this kind of strategy, so debunking one strategy isn't going to help.

The truly powerful dragons and many demon lords are also 9 level spellcasters.

Anything a wizard can do, so can they, and they are a hell of a lot less fragile.

Dragons get slaughtered by the Lantern Archon Strike Force because LOLtouchac, and Demon Lords can be stymied by other spells on the Wizard list that they probably don't have access to. They'll put up a better fight than the Dragon, but they'll still lose.


bishop083 wrote:
A wizard in an anti-magic field is a scrawny man with no con and no strength. A dragon in an anti-magic field is still a dragon. And if the field covers the wizard before he casts disjunction, he is screwed. Summons won't save him. Contingency spells won't go off. Just one scrawny, probably old man against an extremely large, very strong, pissed off dragon. And if you think that dragon didn't use its money and power to investigate the wizard so it could counter all of his tricks, you are lying to yourself. Remember, wizards aren't the only ones with all those nice tools.

Wizard prepares with Spellbane and Wall of Suppression. Either spell will cancel the Anti-Magic Field, the former because it says so, and the latter because the Wizard will have a higher Caster Level. Wizard then proceeds to Lantern Archon Strike Force and kills Dragon in 2 rounds tops. Bonus points if he Time Stops prior to engaging combat to summon them and kill the Dragon before the 1st turn ends, but that's if he is pressured, which he probably isn't.


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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Matthew Downie wrote:
Ravingdork wrote:
I imagine the answer may well be "other wizards."
Plus clerics, demigods, demon lords, angels, and many other beings with Wish/Miracle-grade superpowers.
Except Wizards beat all of them no problem. There is nothing a Cleric can do that a Wizard can't, and Wizards can summon and defeat the other stuff you mentioned with just one spell.

Maybe in combat that he knows he is coming assuming, but many of these monsters won't be going head on, and if the wizard isn't mythic and/or we aren't using tactics that a GM would not allow at a table because they only exist due to unintended rule combinations there are things he can't defeat. One wizard isn't versatile enough to defeat every possible challenge. Maybe a team of wizards with each taking care of certain things. Even then they can be challenged. I really dont see one wizard build that can take on every other possible wizard build and come out ahead if many of them tried to rule. It would be like in the UFC where styles make matches. The guy who is a great striker could lose to a great wrestler, but the wrestler could lose to the guy who is not as good at striking as the guy he defeated, but is almost impossible to take down. Then you have the lesser striker losing to the great striker and the cycle continues.


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Yeah and all this ends when the great time wyrm goes back in time and murders the wizard when he's in the privy at age 5.

Did I win the 1 up war?


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
bishop083 wrote:
A wizard in an anti-magic field is a scrawny man with no con and no strength. A dragon in an anti-magic field is still a dragon. And if the field covers the wizard before he casts disjunction, he is screwed. Summons won't save him. Contingency spells won't go off. Just one scrawny, probably old man against an extremely large, very strong, pissed off dragon. And if you think that dragon didn't use its money and power to investigate the wizard so it could counter all of his tricks, you are lying to yourself. Remember, wizards aren't the only ones with all those nice tools.
Wizard prepares with Spellbane and Wall of Suppression. Either spell will cancel the Anti-Magic Field, the former because it says so, and the latter because the Wizard will have a higher Caster Level. Wizard then proceeds to Lantern Archon Strike Force and kills Dragon in 2 rounds tops. Bonus points if he Time Stops prior to engaging combat to summon them and kill the Dragon before the 1st turn ends, but that's if he is pressured, which he probably isn't.

I think wizards that want to take over the world are more worried about other wizards than dragons and demon lords.

Why are they worried about other wizards? Because those other wizards can do everything they can. They all know each other's tricks because they're all pulling those tricks from the same bag.

I doubt there are many high level wizards that are really interested in rocking the boat so much that other equally high wizards that prefer the status quo take notice.


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Tarik Blackhands wrote:

Yeah and all this ends when the great time wyrm goes back in time and murders the wizard when he's in the privy at age 5.

Did I win the 1 up war?

Haha. The Time Dragon police.

Annihilating uppity wizards in their cribs for time immemorial.


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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Dragons get slaughtered by the Lantern Archon Strike Force because LOLtouchac, and Demon Lords can be stymied by other spells on the Wizard list that they probably don't have access to. They'll put up a better fight than the Dragon, but they'll still lose

Dragons cast like sorcerers, and are as smart as any wizard. So they likely aren't fighting on the wizard's terms if they go for him. They would at least be smart enough to do something about a simple archon idea.

There really isnt much that a wizard can do that a dragon can't have a counter for, and if for the sake of argument the wizard has access to a combination of spells the dragon(s) can also do the same.

Basically anything the wizard has access to others(single and plural) can do the same.

Edit: Demon Lords would kill the wizard by proxy if they didnt feel like they could survive a direct confrontation, and like the dragons they aren't likely to engage on the wizard's terms.


wraithstrike wrote:

Dragons cast like sorcerers, and are as smart as any wizard. So they likely aren't fighting on the wizard's terms if they go for him. They would at least be smart enough to do something about a simple archon idea.

There really isnt much that a wizard can do that a dragon can't have a counter for, and if for the sake of argument the wizard has access to a combination of spells the dragon(s) can also do the same.

Basically anything the wizard has access to others(single and plural) can do the same.

Edit: Demon Lords would kill the wizard by proxy if they didnt feel like they could survive a direct confrontation, and like the dragons they aren't likely to engage on the wizard's terms.

I'm building a long term campaign with a dragon as the final BBEG.

He casts Mindblank at dawn every morning, and his lair is lined with lead sheeting. His intelligence is well into the 30's and he's an arcane caster, so he's quite familiar with the abilities of divination and scrying. So, he's put reasonable counter-measures in place.

Ie., he takes the same precautions that any other arcane caster of comparable level and resources would do to take care of his home and person.


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Saldiven wrote:
Tarik Blackhands wrote:

Yeah and all this ends when the great time wyrm goes back in time and murders the wizard when he's in the privy at age 5.

Did I win the 1 up war?

Haha. The Time Dragon police.

Annihilating uppity wizards in their cribs for time immemorial.

You don't even need that many dragons. See, wyrm Alpha gathers all his treasure into bags of holding, throws it on his back and goes back in time to a point before he packed his treasure. He promptly meets himself (with full uses of time travel and his old hoard, Dragon Beta). Beta then repeats this trick until there is an arbitrary number of great time wyrms all with their own packed horde of misc goods and anywhere between 2 and 3 time warps available. The time squad then just sits around with their arbitrary levels of wealth and time warps to go murder people who annoy them in the past. If they need more warps, they just have someone beam into the packing point and join the dragon stack.

Don't mess with time travel kids. There's one very pissed dragon and all his recursive buddies waiting for you.


@ Wraithstrike: A Wizard can very easily use one of his lower Divination spells and extreme amounts of intellect to anticipate any fights that he may face, as well as already have several contingencies (Astral Projection, Clone, et al) in place prior to pulling any stunts of facing Demon Lords and creating a reputation for himself.

Dragons only have spells known. They'd have to use retraining rules to anticipate anything the Wizard can do, and even then they take more time than any Wizard to prepare. By logic, a Wizard can very easily catch a Dragon with his pants down. (Theoretically speaking, of course.)


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Tarik Blackhands wrote:
Saldiven wrote:
Tarik Blackhands wrote:

Yeah and all this ends when the great time wyrm goes back in time and murders the wizard when he's in the privy at age 5.

Did I win the 1 up war?

Haha. The Time Dragon police.

Annihilating uppity wizards in their cribs for time immemorial.

You don't even need that many dragons. See, wyrm Alpha gathers all his treasure into bags of holding, throws it on his back and goes back in time to a point before he packed his treasure. He promptly meets himself (with full uses of time travel and his old hoard, Dragon Beta). Beta then repeats this trick until there is an arbitrary number of great time wyrms all with their own packed horde of misc goods and anywhere between 2 and 3 time warps available. The time squad then just sits around with their arbitrary levels of wealth and time warps to go murder people who annoy them in the past. If they need more warps, they just have someone beam into the packing point and join the dragon stack.

Don't mess with time travel kids. There's one very pissed dragon and all his recursive buddies waiting for you.

Except when they interact with themselves they create a temporal anomaly and ruin the world. And that's assuming Time Travel is possible, which it isn't outside of GM FIAT in this game.


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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Tarik Blackhands wrote:
Saldiven wrote:
Tarik Blackhands wrote:

Yeah and all this ends when the great time wyrm goes back in time and murders the wizard when he's in the privy at age 5.

Did I win the 1 up war?

Haha. The Time Dragon police.

Annihilating uppity wizards in their cribs for time immemorial.

You don't even need that many dragons. See, wyrm Alpha gathers all his treasure into bags of holding, throws it on his back and goes back in time to a point before he packed his treasure. He promptly meets himself (with full uses of time travel and his old hoard, Dragon Beta). Beta then repeats this trick until there is an arbitrary number of great time wyrms all with their own packed horde of misc goods and anywhere between 2 and 3 time warps available. The time squad then just sits around with their arbitrary levels of wealth and time warps to go murder people who annoy them in the past. If they need more warps, they just have someone beam into the packing point and join the dragon stack.

Don't mess with time travel kids. There's one very pissed dragon and all his recursive buddies waiting for you.

Except when they interact with themselves they create a temporal anomaly and ruin the world. And that's assuming Time Travel is possible, which it isn't outside of GM FIAT in this game.

From the srd:

Up to three times in its life, a great wyrm time dragon can travel to any point in time, taking with it a number of willing creatures equal to its Charisma modifier.

Looks like time travel is possible for the great time wyrm. And there's certainly no talk of paradoxes or similar drawbacks, it just works. Looks like Dragon Time Hitmen works fine, no fiat needed.


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So, if you encounter a time dragon in its lair, you might actually encounter four of it?


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1, 2, 4, thousands, or even millions. Depends on how many recursions he did. That said, you'd only ever enter his lair if he let you. You see, the time squad can also go forward in time and read/magic up what anyone's ever done and get his intel that way. If anyone came in hostile, guess who's getting murdered in the crib...

I love Time Wyrms being taken to their logical extreme.


I feel like a good part of the game world functioning is that the people who are in it (who are not the PCs) are not aware of all of the rules of the world in which they live and so may never have considered stuff like "Gate in the lantern archon barrage" as an option.

Which is to say that PC wizards are cleverer than NPC wizards. If a PC Wizard wanted to take over the world, they're certainly welcome to try.


I'm going to agree with a couple other people and go with "demiplanes". I swear I've seen this discussion before but the question was "why would a Wizard want to rule the world?". What does the Prime Material provide that a Wizard wants? I don't know, maybe it's something I'd only see as a high level Wizard. Personally a retirement to a permanent beach planet staffed with Ghaele Azatas sounds like a good way to pass the days. Throw in a laboratory, Astral Projection to go out exploring, it sounds like a very comfortable life.


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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

@ Wraithstrike: A Wizard can very easily use one of his lower Divination spells and extreme amounts of intellect to anticipate any fights that he may face, as well as already have several contingencies (Astral Projection, Clone, et al) in place prior to pulling any stunts of facing Demon Lords and creating a reputation for himself.

Dragons only have spells known. They'd have to use retraining rules to anticipate anything the Wizard can do, and even then they take more time than any Wizard to prepare. By logic, a Wizard can very easily catch a Dragon with his pants down. (Theoretically speaking, of course.)

Money solves any problem the dragon has. You can't make a wizard who has a setup that no dragon can solve. By the way I was in no way saying a dragon has to use the spells he knows. Scrolls, and hired help exist, and a wizard can't be assumed to catch a dragon with his pants down if the wizard cant be caught. They have the same spell list and both are highly intelligent. If one of them knows the tactic then so does the other.

The wizard has NO real advantage if he is operating alone. He will die if he can be found.

Before we go into theoretical cloning, hiding in his own demiplane, and other things, wizards are not the only ones with access to all of this. This is true even if others have to pay for it, and if those others are other wizards then nobody will really be in charge except for whoever has the best people working for them. Nobody will want to be gotten to by any of the other full casters, dragons, and demon lords so they'll stay in their safe space.

*As an example many BBEG's would have PC's killed off by level 10 due to the trouble they cause.

Now you were probably assuming wizards were working alone. In that case every wizard has the same knowledge so basically he would be in charge until he slipped up, and if he slips up then anyone of great power can get him, no matter if its a wizard or not. They just have to be in the right place to take advantage of it. After 988 years he oversleeps one day and forgets to cast mind blank. I mention the long time because it's likely to be a lich or some wizard with immortality that could amass the power and knowledge to hold off demon lords.

Hiding your rise to the top isn't easy. People talk, and spies can be placed, but if you can hold your position long enough, and cover up these holes as much as possible then you can rule for a long time.

Speaking of that if you are hiding in your demiplane or where ever you are because that other guy whose as strong as you is trying to kill you, then you also need to setup contingencies to make sure your contact never gets captured.

If this were real the paranoia would likely drive someone crazy.

Your contact is 2 minutes late. Was he dominated with some custom spell that avoids detect magic? Was it an unknown spell that just placed a suggestion, but didn't actually dominate him. In a real world situation the spells in the book would not be the only ones, and you'd have to account for every future option.


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You know, I'm going to build even further on the Time Dragon Cops. See, not only can they go forward in time for intel, they can also warp in to the future and bring back tech.

You thought the Time Dragon Hitmen were bad before? Now they've got power armor and laser cannons and all the best the far future can offer. Kneel before your Time Dragon Overlord (and his various recursive selves)!


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PossibleCabbage wrote:

I feel like a good part of the game world functioning is that the people who are in it (who are not the PCs) are not aware of all of the rules of the world in which they live and so may never have considered stuff like "Gate in the lantern archon barrage" as an option.

Which is to say that PC wizards are cleverer than NPC wizards. If a PC Wizard wanted to take over the world, they're certainly welcome to try.

I wouldn't say their any more clever. The game is just written so the PC's have a chance to actually be successful, and that is also why certain tactics are used by PC's.

Once you throw away "we must have things setup so the PC's can win" most fantasy settings fall apart because some deity or deities would actually have one of their people in power, and they can grant them whatever they need for them to have to take out some wizard/cleric/etc who is causing trouble.

They can ignore Mindblank. If mythic "Detect Scrying" can ignore mindblank then some deity who isn't limited by mortal magic can just tell his people where the clone is, and where the wizard is hiding.


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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Dragons get slaughtered by the Lantern Archon Strike Force because LOLtouchac

Actually, what happens when you send a bunch of lantern archons against a dragon is that before they even get within their 30' range for their touch attacks they all flee in panic for 5d6 rounds as their +0 will save makes it extremely unlikely they make the frightful presence save. The dragon then spends it time hunting down and eating them at its leisure.


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Remember, these wizards have to compete with literal gods.


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Tarik Blackhands wrote:

Yeah and all this ends when the great time wyrm goes back in time and murders the wizard when he's in the privy at age 5.

Did I win the 1 up war?

Well, until the wizard's army of great wyrm time dragon simulacra goes back and murders the dragon when it's just a hatchling.


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Avoron wrote:
Tarik Blackhands wrote:

Yeah and all this ends when the great time wyrm goes back in time and murders the wizard when he's in the privy at age 5.

Did I win the 1 up war?

Well, until the wizard's army of great wyrm time dragon simulacra goes back and murders the dragon when it's just a hatchling.

See the thing is, in order to make simulacra of something, the entity needs to exist first. Therefore, there will always be a Great Time Wyrm before there are wizards who are aware of it and can make a copy of it. Since its first on the list, the Dragon creates its recursive doom stack first and is thus able to counter any threat before they're even aware they made the plan.


For a lot of potential fantasy world rulers, they reach some point where they feel comfortable and can do interesting stuff and stop there. In the case of wizards I suspect magical academia acts as a honeypot for many - you get students and peers who can understand and admire your achievements, all the magical appliances to make life pleasant, time to study and create more wonders, and risk is only occasional rather than the constant that a conquerer must live with.


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All these endless hypothetical discussions regarding invincible, ultimately prepared wizards who know every spell on their list, never lose initiative, know everything about every threat in the campaign and have unbeatable DCs has really soured me on the class.


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Tarik Blackhands wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Tarik Blackhands wrote:
Saldiven wrote:
Tarik Blackhands wrote:

Yeah and all this ends when the great time wyrm goes back in time and murders the wizard when he's in the privy at age 5.

Did I win the 1 up war?

Haha. The Time Dragon police.

Annihilating uppity wizards in their cribs for time immemorial.

You don't even need that many dragons. See, wyrm Alpha gathers all his treasure into bags of holding, throws it on his back and goes back in time to a point before he packed his treasure. He promptly meets himself (with full uses of time travel and his old hoard, Dragon Beta). Beta then repeats this trick until there is an arbitrary number of great time wyrms all with their own packed horde of misc goods and anywhere between 2 and 3 time warps available. The time squad then just sits around with their arbitrary levels of wealth and time warps to go murder people who annoy them in the past. If they need more warps, they just have someone beam into the packing point and join the dragon stack.

Don't mess with time travel kids. There's one very pissed dragon and all his recursive buddies waiting for you.

Except when they interact with themselves they create a temporal anomaly and ruin the world. And that's assuming Time Travel is possible, which it isn't outside of GM FIAT in this game.

From the srd:

Up to three times in its life, a great wyrm time dragon can travel to any point in time, taking with it a number of willing creatures equal to its Charisma modifier.

Looks like time travel is possible for the great time wyrm. And there's certainly no talk of paradoxes or similar drawbacks, it just works. Looks like Dragon Time Hitmen works fine, no fiat needed.

It's not a 3 times per day or 3 times per week thing, it's 3 times ever in its lifetime. Time Dragon Hitmen aren't going to be a thing unless they find a way to circumvent that restriction. I mean, maybe if they have a Clone spell and commit suicide, it might be possible, but that would be stretching it, and it would be very inconvenient.

As for it not having paradoxes, GM FIAT would still weigh in and say that if the Time Dragon attempts to interact with himself or alters the course of history that he would (or at the very least possibly) fade out of existence due to certain courses of events not taking place. Needless to say, Time Dragons wouldn't do stupid things like go back in time to kill someone that they don't have a chance of defeating now. There are numerous sources of media that expand upon this very ideal, and outright ignoring these potential problems because the rules don't say anything is a little silly.

**EDIT** The inverse is also true if they tried to take future tech back in time to deal with a threat that they didn't have the tech for at the time. It can escalate certain wars or efforts into things that have unforeseen consequences (such as advancing a biological weapon well beyond its capabilities and creating a genocidal war machine).


wraithstrike wrote:
I wouldn't say their any more clever. The game is just written so the PC's have a chance to actually be successful, and that is also why certain tactics are used by PC's.

I figure it should be clear that PCs are cleverer than NPCs just in terms of "which diegetic entity has a person outside of the game thinking the most about what they can or should do." Like as the GM I have to divide my attention between every single person in the entire world. If one of them happens to be a Wizard, I'm not going to be able to spend as much time thinking about their tactics and preparing the perfect spell list for them as a Player can do about their personal Wizard. It's just the way the game is structured.

Just the presence of one (or really 4-5) people in the setting that are piloted by people outside of the game who can devote their entire attention to making their character be able to do things is incredibly powerful relative to what NPCs are doing.

So like the perfectly prepared God Wizard can theoretically exist in the hands of a player, it's certainly not going to exist in terms of someone I'm going to insert in the game because I usually just write down some thematically appropriate spells they're gonna cast, without worrying about them being the "best ones." Some NPC wizard who's already running a country has enough to worry about in the day-to-day operations of their organization without having time to plan their unstoppable path to world domination.


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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Tarik Blackhands wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Tarik Blackhands wrote:
Saldiven wrote:
Tarik Blackhands wrote:

Yeah and all this ends when the great time wyrm goes back in time and murders the wizard when he's in the privy at age 5.

Did I win the 1 up war?

Haha. The Time Dragon police.

Annihilating uppity wizards in their cribs for time immemorial.

You don't even need that many dragons. See, wyrm Alpha gathers all his treasure into bags of holding, throws it on his back and goes back in time to a point before he packed his treasure. He promptly meets himself (with full uses of time travel and his old hoard, Dragon Beta). Beta then repeats this trick until there is an arbitrary number of great time wyrms all with their own packed horde of misc goods and anywhere between 2 and 3 time warps available. The time squad then just sits around with their arbitrary levels of wealth and time warps to go murder people who annoy them in the past. If they need more warps, they just have someone beam into the packing point and join the dragon stack.

Don't mess with time travel kids. There's one very pissed dragon and all his recursive buddies waiting for you.

Except when they interact with themselves they create a temporal anomaly and ruin the world. And that's assuming Time Travel is possible, which it isn't outside of GM FIAT in this game.

From the srd:

Up to three times in its life, a great wyrm time dragon can travel to any point in time, taking with it a number of willing creatures equal to its Charisma modifier.

Looks like time travel is possible for the great time wyrm. And there's certainly no talk of paradoxes or similar drawbacks, it just works. Looks like Dragon Time Hitmen works fine, no fiat needed.

It's not a 3 times per day or 3 times per week thing, it's 3 times ever in its lifetime. Time Dragon Hitmen aren't going to be a thing unless they find a way to circumvent that restriction. I mean,...

Tsk tsk you're not following the time travel malark properly. When creating the doom stack of recursive dragons, they will be meeting versions of themselves that have not gone back in time and ergo have 3 uses of its ability to use at any given time. And there will always be an infinite amount of iterations that have 3 uses of that ability to draw upon to send them forward/back in time as required. But hey, lets be generous to you and fiat in some time paradox restrictions or a hard limit of 3 time travels no matter the iteration. To this end, the dragon simply uses simulcrums of himself to warp along the time line and do his dirty work that way. Each simulcrum is its own iteration and thus avoids time paradoxes and will have its own full use of time travel since its original version does. Same thing works without the potential drawback of having an arbitrary number of high ego dragons.

Oh and the Dragon will be the first to figure out this trick due to knowing his abilities before any rival short of the gods so he creates his time patrol before any person can assassinate him in the past.


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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Tarik Blackhands wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Tarik Blackhands wrote:
Saldiven wrote:
Tarik Blackhands wrote:

Yeah and all this ends when the great time wyrm goes back in time and murders the wizard when he's in the privy at age 5.

Did I win the 1 up war?

Haha. The Time Dragon police.

Annihilating uppity wizards in their cribs for time immemorial.

You don't even need that many dragons. See, wyrm Alpha gathers all his treasure into bags of holding, throws it on his back and goes back in time to a point before he packed his treasure. He promptly meets himself (with full uses of time travel and his old hoard, Dragon Beta). Beta then repeats this trick until there is an arbitrary number of great time wyrms all with their own packed horde of misc goods and anywhere between 2 and 3 time warps available. The time squad then just sits around with their arbitrary levels of wealth and time warps to go murder people who annoy them in the past. If they need more warps, they just have someone beam into the packing point and join the dragon stack.

Don't mess with time travel kids. There's one very pissed dragon and all his recursive buddies waiting for you.

Except when they interact with themselves they create a temporal anomaly and ruin the world. And that's assuming Time Travel is possible, which it isn't outside of GM FIAT in this game.

From the srd:

Up to three times in its life, a great wyrm time dragon can travel to any point in time, taking with it a number of willing creatures equal to its Charisma modifier.

Looks like time travel is possible for the great time wyrm. And there's certainly no talk of paradoxes or similar drawbacks, it just works. Looks like Dragon Time Hitmen works fine, no fiat needed.

It's not a 3 times per day or 3 times per week thing, it's 3 times ever in its lifetime. Time Dragon Hitmen aren't going to be a thing unless they find a way to circumvent that restriction. I mean,...

No problem: Kills self, breath of life. Now it has a new lifetime.


Tsukiyo wrote:

All these endless hypothetical discussions regarding invincible, ultimately prepared wizards who know every spell on their list, never lose initiative, know everything about every threat in the campaign and have unbeatable DCs has really soured me on the class.

I agree 100%. I don't think I'd ever want to make a Full Arcane Spellcaster because I'd just break the game too damn easy if I did, knowing what I know now. (If I made it when I first started playing this game, it'd probably be very ineffectual, which is a bad thing in and of itself as well.)

At least when I made a Druid, Fighter, or Bolt Ace, I had to actually try to break the game, and in each of those cases I end up failing horribly, simply because those classes can't out arms-race the GM.


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blahpers wrote:
No problem: Kills self, breath of life. Now it has a new lifetime.

No it doesn't.

If a Dragon can die of old age, but instead dies prematurely before its time has come, such as by adventurers coming to take its hoard, its "lifetime" hasn't changed, based on how resurrection rules state that it cannot bring back creatures who have died of old age, implying that each creature has a (randomly) set amount of time before its "lifetime" has ended, which means dying from being murdered doesn't actually change or alter that lifespan (since Resurrection and similar magic would still work on that subject).

Which is why the Clone option is the only feasible option, since Reincarnation won't work due to type differentials, and Clone creates a brand new body that has its own lifetime separate from what the original body's lifetime was. But even that's not a guarantee since it's not proven whether Clone functions through dying of old age, which it may not have.

And that's not including the factor that the Dragon would have to Contingency Breath of Life to revive himself, since he can't exactly rely on some passer-by to cast it the second he decides committing sudoku was a smart idea to reset his ability to travel through time. (Yes, I know it's not the right term, but it's appropriate for the shenanigans being pulled here.)


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
I agree 100%. I don't think I'd ever want to make a Full Arcane Spellcaster because I'd just break the game too damn easy if I did, knowing what I know now. (If I made it when I first started playing this game, it'd probably be very ineffectual, which is a bad thing in and of itself as well.)

I feel like "spontaneous casting" solves a lot of problems here, since if you're making a Sorcerer, Psychic, or Oracle you sort of have to bend them into a coherent theme rather than being able to do all things if you happen to have prepared correctly.

The only prepared 9-level casters I ever see in games, personally, are Witches and Shamans, who are prevented from complete dominance by their spell lists.

But it's going to take a lot to get me to play a Wizard in this system, I concur with that sentiment.


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Why would the dragon need a contingency to breath of life himself? Bound outsiders and simulcrums do the job fine, just like the same set ups ye olde wizard undoubtfully has.


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The cyber-time dragon death squad is definitely making an appearance in my game.
I really want the players to have a WTF moment


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Dragons seem to be pretty uninvolved in general, so I wouldn't count on them for much.

Of the level 17+ Wizards we do know about, they're generally running or have run a country. There are some that are competing with other high-level Wizards for control over a particular group, and some are undead and would have major crusades launched against them if they tried to take over a country of the living.

So I'm going with "not enough high-level Wizards" or "not enough interested high-level Wizards".

Spoiler:

Wizard 20+
Alaznist - Runelord, had a country.
Geb (person) - Has a country, and it's named after him.
Nex (person) - Had a country, and it's named after him.
Sorshen - Runelord, had a country.
Xanderghul - Runelord, had a country.

Wizard 20
Arazni - Controlled by Geb to run his country for him.
Echean Ansolandi - Doesn't rule a country, works as a mercenary. From the Rival Guide. He seems like something of an outlier.
Jatembe - Turned civilization around, but wasn't interested in ruling so much as helping people and fighting evil.
Karzoug - Runelord, had a country.
Tar-Baphon - Ruled a country once in life, once in death. Killed by a god and then later imprisoned by a crusade.
Xegirius Malikar - Castle on another plane.

Wizard 19
Alderpash - Runelord, had a country.
Razmir - Has a country, and it's named after him.

Wizard 18
Alicavniss Vonnarc - Second in command of one of the Drow houses (don't know if first in command is a Wizard or not), lives in her own demiplane.

Wizard 17
Abdul-Qawi - Functional ruler of an extraplanar nation.
Felandriel Morgethai - Has held a scholarly position in Andoran since before the switch to democracy. Seems to be cool with letting democracy happen.
Krune - Runelord, had a country.
Prince of Fangs - Sounds like he's working on it. Being undead can be a setback to political ambitions.
Socorro - In hiding after seeing his Wizard 20 (plus mythic) boss get imprisoned. Again, being undead can be a setback to political ambitions.
Zyra Shraen - Ruling member of the Drow. Seems like they've got a lot of Wizards jostling for power.


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Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:

The cyber-time dragon death squad is definitely making an appearance in my game.

I really want the players to have a WTF moment

Happy to be of service. For added bonus, have one of the time squad meet any prospective wizard before the initial adventure and have him heavily suggest he not go rock the boat, otherwise he may end up like his brother. When he inquires what brother have the dragon respond "exactly" and teleport/time warp to some other place/time.


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

As the title.

Everyone knows that Wizards have the capability of basically ruling over the entirety of Golarion (or whatever homebrew world you use that adheres to the traditional Pathfinder rules), but in most all of these adventure paths and such, the Wizard types aren't always the ones in a position of absolute power, which appears odd.

So, I'll start off with the first obvious answer:

"I actually am, but I'm just behind-the-scenes and nobody knows that it's me pulling all the strings. If someone truly knew my intentions and capabilities, they would try to overthrow me for abuse and corruption of power. Having a figurehead taking the heat for me lets me work without all the risk of doing what I do best, which is everything."

But, maybe there are answers that others can give that may make more sense?

I've noticed a HUGE difference in the Golarion setting and adventure paths, and what the mechanics reinforce. If you could equally easily be a fighter or a wizard, the world would be a super high magic setting. A lot like Ebberon, I'm guessing. If a peasant could learn a couple cantrips for a trait or a couple cantrips and a first level spell for their free feat, they totally would.

In game it's completely different. In skull and shackles, arcane casters are super rare, and I think the highest level arcane casters in the whole country are a level 14 lich and a level 13 bard. In strange aeons, at least in the first two books, there isn't a single arcane caster.

It's just written the way it is to make a pretty setting. The first step would be that all court mages would detect magic constantly, and every bedroom belonging to someone important enough for a name tag would have a lead lining behind the wooden paneling.

The entire question almost makes me ask WHY? Prior to reseting an old game where I had a level 15 wizard and another guys had a level 15 druid (we had already created a pocket dimension). At level 20 I was going to take immortality and the druid was going to use some kind of Reincarnate effect from some book or other for pseudo-immortality. At that point, with a personal world populated by our minions, why would two level 20 casters want to bother with the petty crap going on in the regular world (other than occasional trips for more rare spell components). Seems like level 20, nearly demi-gods would have a better use of their time than ruling a bunch of stupid peasants.


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Hmm, here are three good reasons...

Firstly wizards don’t have access to a PFSRD. Half the spells and items described above wouldn’t even be known to most wizards because they’re scattered across the universe. You can search something out to buy, learn or invent if you do know/can’t imagine what it is. Therefore not all wizards have access to demiplanes, simulacrum, clones or even lantern archon spam.

Secondly wizards aren’t carbon copy cutouts learning the same dozen Uber spells. They specialise, have their own fields of academic study and interest and limited resources not least of which is time. The descriptions above rely on the - prepared for anything - schrodingers wizard. For the reasons already given those wizards don’t exist outside players heads.

Thirdly, where there are wizard tyrants bending people to their rule, there are adventuring bands/crusades making sure they don’t get to do it for long. A wizard is still only one man/woman but a group of individuals will always have an advantage in action economy if nothing else. Also once your wizard has used their lantern archon spam their multitudinous enemies know how to counter that ability.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8

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Tsukiyo wrote:

All these endless hypothetical discussions regarding invincible, ultimately prepared wizards who know every spell on their list, never lose initiative, know everything about every threat in the campaign and have unbeatable DCs has really soured me on the class.

I hear you.. but it makes me want to play one for fun and narrative purposes rather than as an experiment in game-breaking mechanics and meta-chess with the DM


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If I could only go back in time 3 times in my life time, I would use every one of them to kill this hypothetical white room wizard every single friggan time


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I mean, there’s also the scepter of the ages. It could just be a high-level AM BARBARIAN with confusingly high mental scores keeping the world safe throughout time.


Wizards have more important things to do with their time. Like making apple pies from scratch. And once you've got the extra universe lying around, why not rule that instead?


There seems to be a high correlation between powerful overlords gaining ground and death by scrappy ragtag underdogs. It's the funniest thing...

I mean, Tar Baphon was a mythic 10 Archmage Lich Wizard 20. How do you screw THAT up? He even killed the Herald of Aroden, which is like... really hard...


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Cavall wrote:
If I could only go back in time 3 times in my life time, I would use every one of them to kill this hypothetical white room wizard every single friggan time

Yeah, in real games they run a very real risk of losing to other spellcasters, who are often dragons.

Dark Archive

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Also a point to the lantern archon death squad, there is a simple solution and its called Blasphemy. Lantern Archon's light rays have a range of 30ft, blasphemy is 40ft. So your dragons and demon lords can just ready an action to cast it the moment the lantern archon deathsquad comes even close to them, or have it as a contingency spell.


You cannot have a contingent Blasphemy. Contingency can only have spells which affect the caster linked to it.

Silver Crusade

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andreww wrote:
You cannot have a contingent Blasphemy. Contingency can only have spells which affect the caster linked to it.

Also they're limited to spells 1/3 your caster level and capped at 6th level spells.

Edit: So give the Dragon 18 levels of Inquisitor aaaaaaaaaand we're back to Time Dragon police.

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