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yes I did, because you didn't mention it. Anywhere in this thread. (I searched, just to be sure.)
But it isn't even which caster prepared better.
As you have it laid out, it is a single tactic, and it kills everything, and at some point every caster who get's 9th level spells will be using it.
And it doesn't really matter who rolls first, because the first time you run into two casters any significant distance apart, the second one kills you.
That seems like a really boring game.
As someone who has run and won arms races with the GM, it is just kind of stupid.
(for that matter, if they know you are doing this, all they really need is two casters with greater dispel, and some bait. After you beat their initiative and kill the bait, the other two hit you with greater dispel. The first dispels the extra dimensional space, spilling it's contents on the ground, the second dispels and fails, setting off all your remaining explosive runes.)
Simple Time Stop was only swift action (thanks Staff of the Master!) so you just shout at it.
Find harder?
And there's very little risk of having Explosive Runes detonate prematurely.
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Oh, I'm sure it is possible.
Just as I am sure it is possible to have a ridiculous army of undead monsters or any number of other permanent spells, if the GM allows you to accumulate magical effects unfettered. Just as I am sure it is possible to blow the WBL curve out of the water with crafting.
It is the GM's responsibility to adjudicate these things and keep them in balance.
Now, in practice, in games I have run in the past, this sort of thing tends to attract the attention of things that are attracted to extradimesional spaces and large concentrations of magic. As a GM this sounds like a wonderful opertunity to drop a scaled up version of a Hound of Tindelos (or a scaled up pack, or a scaled up pack and a huntmaster...) and have a talk about reckless accumulations of magic...
Personally, I think this is an issue best fixed by having a GM balance the encounters.
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No, I'm not going to let you stat up a monster, since there's no restrictions on the abilities you can give the monster. That's not even a contest of any sorts really and is kind of meaningless.
Almost as meaningless as your claim that you can trivially kill Cthulhu if only you are allowed to metagame the living f¥€!< out of the system.
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Interesting thought experiment Anzyr. The time stop spell seems like an obvious starting point, but I never would have thought of the explosive rune & Nalfeshnee combination.
I am just curious, what would be your back up plan if the explosive runes trick didn't work? What I mean is: in the real world one way to clean up unexploded ordinance is to blow it up. I don't think it is reasonable for all 100 explosive runes to explode at precisely the same time, so the first one to explode should destroy all the other nearby runes making them ineffective with the net result being minimal damage inflicted on Cthulhu. If the spell description specifically stated that multiple explosive runes spells in the same area stacked then fair enough.
But let's assume that all the explosive runes damage add together. What is the backup plan if Cthulhu has wished in advance to be immune to explosive runes damage? He is certainly smart enough to anticipate this tactic (or come up with a better way of circumventing this strategy in advance). It seems to me you would need multiple ways of killing him, because if there is only one way that is reasonably effective then you can guarantee that he will always be prepared for that eventuality.
I must admit if I was GM I probably wouldn't allow the time stop spell to work, Cthulhu is non-Euclidean after all and the normal rules for time and space do not apply to him! :)
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PC planning? Do you mean build planning? Because when you plan your 20 level progression while having Cthulhu's stat block in front of you, with the sole goal of "killing" Cthulhu when you reach 20th level, I do consider that pretty intense metagaming.
You're also pretty damn unambitious and wasteful, since he just pops back to R'lyeh, none the worse for wear, assuming you do "kill" him.
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By metagaming do you mean ic planning. Instead of being salty that the big monster is not that tough, maybe suggest suitable buffs so that he is harder to lame out and still in flavour
The problem is that his IC planning assumes the monster in question has not done any planning or preparation whatsoever, is entirely alone in the middle of a wide open field, and is completely unaware of his presence, and he's starting with a character in mind whose sole purpose is to kill Cthulhu once, not survive the previous 20 levels and 10 Mythic tiers worth of challenges.
Which is not the case unless your GM for some reason rolled on the random encounter table and it came up "And then a Cthulhu popped out!"
And definitely not the case for the game I'm talking about (which the OP just joined), where we've been on Cthulhu's radar since level 10 or so, and know for a fact he has an army of Star Spawn and lesser creatures surrounding him, along with who the f*%% knows what else.
Rynjin, I didn't see where Anzyr stated his assumptions. How do you know he is working with the assumption that Cthulhu was alone in a wide open field, unaware of his presence etc.?
Rynjin, I didn't see where Anzyr stated his assumptions. How do you know he is working with the assumption that Cthulhu was alone in a wide open field, unaware of his presence etc.?
Just from his general tactics.
"Well I teleport in, Time Stop, drop a bunch of Explosive Runes, summon a guy, and leave."
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How unlikely is it that Cthulu has already seen something like this in its incredibly long lifetime, and has Spell Immunity (or Greater) cast against Explosive Runes?
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Eh, my main issue is less that you can kill nearly anything in the game with a suitcase nuke of explosive runes (since force damage is supposed to work on damn near everything) and more that the suitcase nuke of explosive runes works at all.
It's a magic trap that blows up books. It was never intended to be a suitcase nuke.
I'd go with Boomerang's solution if someone actually tried to pull that stunt in my games, but fortunately I've never had players who would.
In short, victory through exploiting something stupid which actually works by RAW isn't impressive. =P
And Anxyr, I've read legend lore. It gives you "legends about an important person, place, or thing." I.e., the spell means that you get whatever info your GM feels you should get, and nothing more. That's a far cry from "the GM must hand you the book so you can study the stat block." Assuming that it would do that for you is between you and your GM, who at this point I'm assuming throws those sorts of tactics right back at you, and you two have some sort of ongoing arms race rivalry going.
As to the discussion of Cthulhu prepping... Heh. I wouldn't allow simulacrums of Cthulhu or any other mythic creature, even by Cthulhu. BUT, Big C has gate and mythic wish* at caster level 30. While Starspawn (who can use gate to generate their own minions) are nice, I'd be far more inclined to have Big C yanking additional Great Old Ones out of their respective prisons. (As someone else already pointed out up thread, the Starspawn can just bring themselves to Cthulhu if they have a couple days - 1 to descend en masse on the outer plane of their choice, another to all go home to R'lyeh.)
An unfettered Big C is intended to be an apocalyptic event; just a matter of the GM looking at what Cthulhu can actually do and making use of it.
* As a Great Old One, Cthulhu has access to the mythic version of every single SLA its got. This has amusing repercussions if you allow 3rd party stuff, like Legendary Games's Mythic Magic: Core Spells.
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Rynjin, I didn't see where Anzyr stated his assumptions. How do you know he is working with the assumption that Cthulhu was alone in a wide open field, unaware of his presence etc.?Just from his general tactics.
"Well I teleport in, Time Stop, drop a bunch of Explosive Runes, summon a guy, and leave."
Okay, I can see where you are coming from. It's funny I read through this thread and came to nearly the opposite conclusion, that the tactics Anzyr came up with would probably work in most circumstances unless Cthulhu specifically made plans to stop them in advance.
Question:
How does Cthulhu (or demon carrier) read 100s of explosive runes at the time to set them off in a single round?
Would not someone *read* a single rune at a time per round?
Ah right, missed that part, I was thinking of something else WRT dispel magic.
Back to the point, any PC specifically built for any encounter will normally win. But that wizard must've sucked for a ton of levels before he became the almighty Cthulhu dispeller (that Immortality power is pretty convenient).
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By the way.
Spellcasting services price: caster level * spell level * 10 gp.
20th level Piercing Explosive Runes: (spell level 4) = 800 gp.
700 = 560,000 gp
PC Wealth by level at 20th level: 880,000 gp
If the GM allows you to accumulate huge stockpiles of these, he is seriously distorting the wealth balance of the game, and the fact that you are trivializing encounters is because you have way more than the expected wealth.
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Stockpiling Explosive Runes is something I have been wanting to start since I first read the spell, and have been told is commonplace for non-PFS wizards IRL.
This makes it pretty clear that the new version of the Explosive Runes spells opens an exploit.
Definitely something a reasonable DM would have to adjust. Stretching this fairly low level special purpose spell into an "I Win" button would seriously detract from enjoyable play.
Literally every single person of power or means would have a pocket nuke if this silliness was allowed.
The new version? Explosive Runes has been doing that for over a decade now.
@ JoeJ - No, the GM would not rule that a natural 20 is automatic success on Dispel checks, because that's not what the rules are. Also summons (like the Nalfeshnee) act on your turn. So it's initiative is a non-concern.
@ FLite - that does not distort WBL balance at all. The caster is merely use their class features. That'd be like saying every spell a caster casts subtracts a cost equal to its spellcasting services cost from the casters WBL, which obviously makes absolutely no sense. One of the perks of being a caster though.
@ Cranky Dog - This caster is hardly built solely to defeat Cthulhu. This is just typical level 20 Caster stuff. There's quite a few tactics listed and that's not even mentioning the actually overpowered stuff.
@ Rynjin - My assumption was that Cthulhu had awaken and the PC was tasked to defeat him. I don't believe he would be particularly hard to locate though. That was just some general tactics that should work regardless of where he happens to be located, but if you feel there's a scenario where none of those tactics would be effect I'd be interested to hear about it.
I find it amusing though that people think this is difficult for a level 20 caster and trying to find something, anything to make this not work (it works believe me). Sorry high level caster can live on the sun. Can Cthulhu live on the Sun?
I find it amusing though that people think this is difficult for a level 20 caster and trying to find something, anything to make this not work (it works believe me). Sorry high level caster can live on the sun. Can Cthulhu live on the Sun?
I've taken a moment to look over Cthulhu's stat block. I'd have to agree that it's weak. Lots of cool atmosphere, not so much in true effectiveness.
I'm surprised they didn't riff off his title of 'High Priest' and make him a real 30th level divine caster. Instead he's got a sprinkling of SLAs.
It appears they intended for him to be defeatable. Baba Yaga is more scary.
Edit: I just checked her stat block, she's actually got 8 hit points more than Cthulhu while she is only medium size!
The new version? Explosive Runes has been doing that for over a decade now.
@ JoeJ - No, the GM would not rule that a natural 20 is automatic success on Dispel checks, because that's not what the rules are. Also summons (like the Nalfeshnee) act on your turn. So it's initiative is a non-concern.
Okay that explains the initiative. But "20 = success, 1 = failure, if a roll is allowed at all" has to be the most common house rule out there.
How does this wizard stop his high level enemies from using this combination against him?
(And he can only live on the sun if the sun god doesn't get annoyed and tell him to go away.)
If this combination hits the caster they just shrug. They then other wake up in a clone or they were an astral projection the whole time. Dying is a minor inconvenience for high level casters. And if I was being really unfair I would go the Astral Projection route since then I could use consumables (like say Explosive Runes) without actually consuming them. Ya, high level casters are really really really unfair.
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@ Cranky Dog - This caster is hardly built solely to defeat Cthulhu. This is just typical level 20 Caster stuff. There's quite a few tactics listed and that's not even mentioning the actually overpowered stuff.
It's only typical if you built him to be a lvl 20 caster from the get go and give the absolute best goodies with no bad choices.
If you show me his organic evolution from lvl 1 to 20, there would be some levels where you'd wonder why he'd take that route at that specific moment. He's spending a big chunk of his build on bypassing spell resistance in a game where the vast majority of monsters don't have any SR to speak of and a huge part of his income on preparing Explosive Runes.
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@ FLite - that does not distort WBL balance at all.
Anzyr, casting spells does not upset the WBL balance, because they are cast and consumed.
Stockpiling permanent magical effects, crafting magical items, these both distort the wealth by level balance, because they create, as you have illustrated, power imbalances.
It is the role of a good GM to moderate these effects, and balance them so that they don't unbalance the game.
A PC who is churning out 200,000 gp of gear in between every game is going to force the GM to award negative gold per encounter to preserve the wealth balance of the game.
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Yeah, I don't dispute that Anxyr's tactic would work. It just demonstrates a silly but incredibly exploitable flaw in the explosive runes spell, one which I'd expect any GM worth having the name to fix on the spot for the sake of preventing stupidity in his or her game.
I'll also agree that CR 26 to 30 creatures are underpowered (my initial reaction to the baselines chart in the Mythic book was "Really? That's it?"), and any such creature I actually ran in a game would be modified accordingly.
@ FLite - that does not distort WBL balance at all.
Anzyr, casting spells does not upset the WBL balance, because they are cast and consumed.
Stockpiling permanent magical effects, crafting magical items, these both distort the wealth by level balance, because they create, as you have illustrated, power imbalances.
It is the role of a good GM to moderate these effects, and balance them so that they don't unbalance the game.
A PC who is churning out 200,000 gp of gear in between every game is going to force the GM to award negative gold per encounter to preserve the wealth balance of the game.
No, they are long duration spells (ie. Permanent) that's their intended use. If you aren't using long duration spells to your advantage that's not the fault of the system.
If this combination hits the caster they just shrug. They then other wake up in a clone or they were an astral projection the whole time. Dying is a minor inconvenience for high level casters. And if I was being really unfair I would go the Astral Projection route since then I could use consumables (like say Explosive Runes) without actually consuming them. Ya, high level casters are really really really unfair.In other words, there's really no point in allowing PC casters of that level into the game because there's nothing they can do that isn't a complete bore for everybody at the table.
Well unless they are also casters ya pretty much. But that's been known forever, hence the linear Fighter, quadratic wizards trope. And level 20 is the pinnacle of that quadratic power. Hence why people like me would like to see martial buffed.
I find it amusing though that people think this is difficult for a level 20 caster and trying to find something, anything to make this not work (it works believe me). Sorry high level caster can live on the sun. Can Cthulhu live on the Sun?I've taken a moment to look over Cthulhu's stat block. I'd have to agree that it's weak. Lots of cool atmosphere, not so much in true effectiveness.
I'm surprised they didn't riff off his title of 'High Priest' and make him a real 30th level divine caster. Instead he's got a sprinkling of SLAs.
It appears they intended for him to be defeatable. Baba Yaga is more scary.
Edit: I just checked her stat block, she's actually got 8 hit points more than Cthulhu while she is only medium size!
I bet someone will demand a nerf for Baba Yaga now...
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Also, someone said legend lore doesn't tell you stuff when actually if you read the spell it really does
Well, lets see.
the first legend lore takes 2d6 days and is vague and incomplete, but allows:
the second legend lore, which takes 1d10, and tells you where to find R'yleh
So that you can go there and perform the third legend lore on Chtulhu's front door step for 1d4 x 10 minutes... I think that might provoke some sort of response.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks casting divination spells on Cthulhu (or any great old one) should be grounds for an insanity / fear effect?
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Also, someone said legend lore doesn't tell you stuff when actually if you read the spell it really doesWell, lets see.
the first legend lore takes 2d6 days and is vague and incomplete, but allows:
the second legend lore, which takes 1d10, and tells you where to find R'ylehSo that you can go there and perform the third legend lore on Chtulhu's front door step for 1d4 x 10 minutes... I think that might provoke some sort of response.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks casting divination spells on Cthulhu (or any great old one) should be grounds for an insanity / fear effect?
Wish. Standard action. (Though it also eats your swift so you can pay the cost with Blood Money).
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By the way, am I the only one who thinks casting divination spells on Cthulhu (or any great old one) should be grounds for an insanity / fear effect?
Not only that, but to understand the answer you would have to voluntarily fail the saving throw, since only the insane would understand it.
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Ok what. Negative encounter gold? you would really do this as a Gm? all the monsters have no pants, too many explosive runes!
I think you need time recognize the backfire effect here Flite, your position I think is not reasonable
Hmm? I am pretty sure there are parts in the GM's guide about if players wealth becomes unbalanced for their level, it is reasonable for the GM to rebalance it. That might include destroying or taking away items.
So yes, there would be a lot more encounters with rust monsters, caryatid columns, etc (or rather with their CR 20 equivalents) That is what those monsters are there for.
Honestly, I would talk it over with the players, and work it out.
But either I would follow the suggestion made above, that the first rune to go off takes out all the others before they can explode. Or I would rule that such a powerful and obvious concentration of magic stored outside the planes attracts creatures from beyond the planes, who come to feed.
Because part of a GM's job is to keep the game fun and interesting, not just to line up trophies for you to smack down and hand you your prizes.
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Wish. Standard action. (Though it also eats your swift so you can pay the cost with Blood Money).Also, someone said legend lore doesn't tell you stuff when actually if you read the spell it really doesWell, lets see.
the first legend lore takes 2d6 days and is vague and incomplete, but allows:
the second legend lore, which takes 1d10, and tells you where to find R'ylehSo that you can go there and perform the third legend lore on Chtulhu's front door step for 1d4 x 10 minutes... I think that might provoke some sort of response.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks casting divination spells on Cthulhu (or any great old one) should be grounds for an insanity / fear effect?
Umm.... you are paying the cost of wish. With blood money.
The 25,000 gp wish...
Please tell me that is not what you are sugguesting.
(blood money inflicts 1 Strength damage +1 per 500 gp. And if you are immune to the strength damage, the spell doesn't work. So you are talking about 51 points of strength damage.)
That is a creative way anzyr and coukd definitly work. Granted its not a fail safe with as someone pointing out, cthuhlu would have a higher intiative than the summoned monster meaning if it didnt fail its save to instantly die, the bbeg would still act before the summon monster act and all the bbeg has to do is kill said summon monster and keep on moving and the plan fails.
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The Pathfinder or other D20 version of Cthulhu has stats and (in theory espoused by others on this thread) can be killed, perhaps not permanently, depending upon individual DM adjudication.
The Call of Cthulhu non D20 version of Cthulhu cannot be killed by a player character. (That is not to say that you can't somehow gather assistance from some other mythos being - hard as that may be, and remain sane.) The point of most CoC games I have played is to keep the cultists from succeeding in summoning this Old One, and numerous others. If the bad guys succeed, your player characters have lost. (Unless they joined the bad guys, but I digress.)
If it bothers people that PCs have a chance, however marginally, of defeating Cthulhu, then I recommend playing the CoC version of the game.
Just my own two pence.