Void domain wizard.
Use reveal weakness to force a -10 on all saves, then quickened baleful polymorph.
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First: This pretty much becomes "Who got the highest initiative? You win."
The martial grapple or otherwise lays into the caster so he can't cast.
The caster spams some max DC SoD spells on everyone else.
Sometimes you get a bit of a fight if they are all martials. But it still mostly comes down to who got initiative, then a glass cannon DPR build to take them down.
I don't think it works very well past about level 10-12.
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4) No pre-buffs or pre-battle preparations (not even hour/level)
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Completely in-character, I would be tempted to cheat this. There is a lot you can do that makes other things nearly undetectable.
Void domain wizard.
Use reveal weakness to force a -10 on all saves, then quickened baleful polymorph.
Maybe combine that with Mind Fog and find a really mean Will save spell (none come to mind right now, but I'm sure you can find one).
If you are willing to make the commitment, with the Eldritch Heritage chain, you can take the Kobold bloodline and earth glide at will. Find a way to not worry about air and you can do things like sneak attack, or touch spells, or whatever you wish to someone while you are underground. I once played a (mostly) incorporeal necromancer-type who pretty much lived underground while draining levels and raising undead... fun stuff :)
If you don't want to make that commitment, you can do something similar with a Stone Oracle (and you can get Crystal Sight, so you can see easily while you are earth gliding).
I've seen some builds where characters were pretty much immune to damage (something like 20/- or more DR) on these boards, so that may be another way to go.
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A level 19 diviner wizard with spell perfection enervation. Trait magical lineage and wayang spell hunter enervation.
Go first...start round quickened maximized empowered enervat for -6 levels.
Follow it up with time stop.
Next rounds drop area CC down.
Last round of time stop.
Hit them again with a echoing empowered maximized enervate for another -12.
Followed by quicken cloud kill.
-18 levels on top of everything that goes off when time stop ends means instant death to a cloudkill. Just laugh as you explain their is no PvP with a wizard level 18+ they just get owned.
This is all assuming no prebuffing prior to battle.
Game over.
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I imagine most people are going to have that ioun stone/wayfinder to prevent mental control.
Let them, just don't create an evil character. That ioun stone ONLY protects against spells cast by an Evil character that attempt to actively control someone (i.e. Domination, charm, suggestion, etc...), not baleful polymorph or confusion. There are numerous discussion threads and the ioun stone is clear about what spell effects it replicates (specifically Protection From Evil).
Spam Domination and hide until they die, then dominate some others. This game breaks that high up.
Oh man this sounds like the perfect use of a Beast-Bonded Witch, just Twin Soul (Su) the 2nd most powerful and work your way down. If done right you'll never even be able to die.
Or you can make a nature shaman with an ultimate familiar-companion, depending on how exactly you work this you can use all your wealth on your familiar to create a very very hit die creature that's nearly immune to everything.
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It wouldn't even be too hard at level 20...take a look at Oracles, Sorcerers, Shamans for their ridiculous at their capstone abilities. A lot of them are far from being balanced, simply because they were made with the idea in mind that nobody reaches level 20, even bloodlines/mysteries that aren't great, have ridiculous capstone.
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Sure I will give this a whirl.
#1) Against spellcasters just have a readied action, if the spell is harmful to you with a successful Spellcraft Check, eat it with the ioun stone.
#2) Against any class, combine the True-Seeing and Elemental Body III extracts so you are now a Large Earth Elemental with True Seeing. From there grapple a target and drag it underneath the earth with Earth Glide so they can suffociate to death.
#3) Toss a cloudkill bomb. If your opponent isn't immune to poison, cannot fly away, they will be suffering CON damage.
Name: Flint
Race: Dhampir (Jiang-Shi heritage)
Level: 20
Class: Alchemist (12)
Prestige class: Living Monolith (8)
Archetypes: N/A
Caster Level: 19
Maxed Skills: Spellcraft, Climb, Fly, Craft Alchemy
Immunities: Bleed, Blood Drain, Cold, Disease (Natural and Magical), Nonlethal, Paralysis, Poison, Sleep
STR 18 / DEX 11 / CON 16 / INT 18 / WIS 10 / CHA 7
Level Progression
Alchemist (1-12)
Living Monolith (13-20)
Feats
1st Level: Life-Dominant Soul
3rd Level: Improved Unarmed Strike
5th Level: Improved Grapple
7th Level: Extra Discovery (Ragdoll Mutagen)
9th Level: Greater Grapple
11th Level: Extra Discovery (Wings)
13th Level: Rapid Grappler
15th Level: Extra Discovery (Poison Bomb aka Cloudkill Bomb)
17th Level: Extra Discovery (Wings)
19th Level: Extra Discovery (Greater Mutagen)
Discoveries
Preserve Organs (2nd, 4th, 6th level)
Combine Extraction (8th Level)
Mummification (10th level)
Smoke Bomb (12th Level)
Unique Qualities
1) Healed, instead of harmed, by negative and positive energy by half the amount. Still hurt by positive energy used to harm undead.
2) Meld Into Stone (at-will)
3) Statue
4) 3/day Enlarge Person
5) 75% chance to treat critical/sneak attacks as normal damage instead.
6) Tremorsense 30 feet
7) Deathwatch (Constant)
8) Detect Undead (Constant)
9) DR 3/- (+1 while affected by enlarge person)
10) Ib Stone
Items: Iridescent Spine Ioun Stone, Western (Ioun Stone), Lavendar and Green Ellipsoid (Ioun Stone), Form-Fixing Gauntlets, Band of the Stalwart Warrior, Wayfinder
Money Spent: 84,500 gold
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Sure I will give this a whirl.
** spoiler omitted **...
Also if I went 10/10 instead of 12/8...
Immunities Gained: Petrification, Death Effects, Energy Drain
Special Quality: Immortality
What is lost
1) Access to 11th level or higher discoveries. (IE: Poison Bomb aka Cloudkill Bomb)
2) The only tactic lost is the third option which relies on the fact you have poison immunity, your opponent doesn't and you use a cloudkill bomb.
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My advice would be that if some people want to have fun doing this, and you don't think it is fun, but want to ruin it to prove yourself right, you will serve yourself, and everyone else, better by simply not participating.
The only way to win is not to play.
Geysermancer. Done.
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Let's have fun with the oracle:
Oracle of Battle 20: you get more action economies, you can move and take a full round action in the same round to attack someone. Mostly a combat oracle build.
Oracle of Lore 20: Wish once per day at no cost, time stop is also on your list of spells, so even if the first round start, you can just cast time stop to buff yourself. Have Wish + Miracle on your spell list and go to town.
Lunar Oracle 20: Transform into a lycanthrope at will, you can dump all your physical stats and increase your cha, wisdom and intelligence to the maximum(play a venerable character even). Now at level 20, you can just transform into a lycanthrope and you will get all their physical might. Your lycenthrope transformation lasts hour = charisma modifier, so at least 10 hours and during that time, you can switch between hybrid, human, and animal form.
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For money issues:
Level 20 Alchemist: Grab the Philosopher's Stone grand discovery. Once per month, transform 1000 pounds of lead into gold and sells it for 50 000 gp. Rinse and repeat every month, since you can make the philosopher stone for free. Eventually after a couple of months, you will have more gold than anybody else in the arena.
There are multiple combatants?
Persistent Dazing Ball Lightning. Persistent Dazing anything really. Unless your opponents have super-optimized saves, they're f&+&ed.
If you were really feeling mean though, you could cast Acid Fog with a Quickened Wall of Force. No save, No Spell Resistance, No immunities.
At that point you can sit back and relax until they eventually die. Or you could speed things along with Magic Missile and whatnot.
If they aren't immune to poison, then Cloudkill works even better. But at that point, why not both?
I actually think that, with these rules, this is not actually unreasonable.
Diviner wizard, time stop, gate, prismatic sphere should do the trick.
No prebuffs will hurt but second round time stop plus having your solar will help.
Gate is for bring in extraplanar creatures. The GM could rule the Big T is currently on another plane, but the OP was trying to avoid GM fiat.
You know, if you can reliably have earth glide there's always the option of gating in something without a way to go underground that you can't control and just letting it wreak havoc. Think the Tarrasque would answer a summon?What Wraithstrike said. But Cthulhu is a thing.
Also GM Fiat since he may or may not come through the gate. Basically any nonstandard/unique entity is GM Fiat. Otherwise I would definitely advise this. I would also advise plane shifting or mazing yourself out of the area and let everyone kill each other. You can come in and clean up at the end. :)
I will put this here from the level 20 vs 4 level 10s thread. Tweak as you like, and go to town.
I will toss out a strategy for the level 20 character. I am not posting a full build, since what I am doing doesn't actually let the party interact with the level 20 character in any way. I will run through any relevant numbers when they come up. I am assuming that only long duration spells that are reasonable to have up for most of the day are available as buffs(not that the level 20 character will be using any)
I feel that the thing people should probably be focusing on winning initiative and killing the other side before their turn. I am assuming neither party gets buff time - .
Lvl 20 diviner wizard probably can't be beaten in that respect.
Lets look at initiative boosters (note: some of these boost ability checks - initative is a dex check)
expected Dex - 29 (16 starting + 6 belt + 5 inherent) = +9
Elf fleet footed= + 2
Improved initiative = +4
Appropriate Familiar = +4
Reactionary trait= +2
Luckstone+fate's favored trait = +2
Dueling weapon (something like a cestus)=+4
Courageous +4 weapon (on the same cestus) + moral bonus to ability checks ioun stone= +3
init competance bonus ioun stone= +1
Diviner bonus=+10
total modifier = 41
The diviner auto nat.20s, so a level 10 character needs a total modifier of 42 to have a theoretical chance of beating our diviner.So far, the diviner's race is locked into elf, Improved initiative+extra traits for reactionary and fate's favored(assuming no starting bonus traits). I quickly added up the cost of all this and it comes out to about 260k. Standard wbl is 880000, so we have about 620k left. Not bad.
Diviner goes first then.
A cl17 scroll of time stop with a maximize metamagic gem baked in (they count as material components so I can't see why this shouldn't be legal; also note that any metamagic from here on in is done with gems - it could also be done with pearls of power and a few staffs of the master, but this would require more gold) costs about 6K(purchase price). He could reasonably have 10 or so of these without putting a huge dent in his WBL
That's 5 minutes of stopped time (albeit with 1 minute spent activating scrolls). No spell slots expended, and the wizard has 560K left.
Lets look at what he can do in this time.
The wizard cannot harm the party. He can, however, disintegrate the ground underneath them (1600 per scroll). He could drop a prismatic sphere below each character (4k a scroll) - when the timestop ends they all fall and insta-die.
I can probably stop here, but note that the caster can turn polymorph into a huge dragon (FOTDIII, 3k) or something else big, hover above the party and use widened spellbane (8k) to neutralise any spell effects he doens't like, which he knows about using analyse dweomer (overland flight is a concern). If the party members have items that are troublesome, wall of suppression works too (I don't know how item will saves from analyze dweomer and time stop interact, but afaik wall of suppression beats pretty much any item or spell a level 10 party could have, so it doesn't really matter).
So far, the caster is looking at under 50k in scrolls. By actually using his spell slots, he can reduce this to just 4k for the maximize gem and 16k if he needs the walls of suppression. This uses up 5 level 9 slots, 1 level 8 slot and 5 level 6 slots (a wizard with 34 int has at least 5 of every slot)
This requires casting 15 or so spells. That is a minute and a half of apparent time. He has 2 and a half minutes left.
The only concern I have with this plan is what to do if one of the party members has natural flight. My tippy skills fail me, and I cannot actually think of a way to do this that a) offers no save and b) doesn't require a favourable GM ruling e.g. dropping big things on them using shrink object to force them into the sphere.
I suppose the caster could spend the next 25 rounds wishing up simulacrums of their favourite demon/empyreal lords for the (surviving) party members to fight, but that would almost be sporting.
Anyone got a better idea?
That should beat most characters fairly well. Blow the rest of your money on wishing for simulacrums of big scarey things while timestopped? Maybe some of the people in this thread can suggest narrow builds that don't die to this BS, and we can devise some methods of beating those narrow builds with some other BS.
I would go with the kimono for plus 4 to level since by the rules of no prebuffs you will need to spend a standard action activating the karma bead.
Maze will also be a no save time out for most characters.
You'll want to consider what quicken spell buffs you'll be casting during time stop, fly, fickle winds etc.
Abusing metamagic gems also seems the way to go in this scenario.
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If you're trying to "prove it's a bad idea" I suggest going the exact opposite direction. Build a Turtle instead of trying to "win."
Take 1 or 2 levels of a bunch of classes to get your saves through the stratosphere. Two levels of monk get you great touch AC, evasion, a couple of feats (Dodge) and +3 on all your saves. Two levels of paladin and you add your charisma to all your saves. Take Improved Iron Will, Improved Great Fortitude, and buy any item that gives you rerolls. Toughness is a must.
Go for the level 17 option for max gold. Make sure you can UMD a scroll of heal. Spend all your turns with consumables that crank up AC and saves. Ring of freedom of movement and Necklace of Adaptation of course. Read a scroll of cloudkill and just stick to the middle of it. If 9th level scrolls are allowed start with a scroll of primatic sphere to give yourself all the time you need.
Basically make it so pointless to attack you that no one does. It doesn't matter if you can't hurt anyone, you don't actually want to be the winner.
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Seems fairly effective. However, this is somewhat dependent on being able to land the enervate. It's a close range spell and still requires an attack roll.
First it is a ranged Touch attack against an enemy who is not buffed. At level 18+ he is shooting that at 70ft away. That isn't that close anymore. He also should have a minimum +11 to hit at that point. Typical Touch AC is 12-16. Just don't roll a 3 or less. The math is in the Wizard's favor.
If they have an insane touch AC like a monk during the time stop you will change strategies and/or Maze the monk to get you a very long time to buff and prepare for his return.
Go Divine Strategist.... win initiative.... and then unleash Miracle or a ubered Gate/Implosion
Don't make a turtle. The other combatants will kill each other off until there's only one, and the last man stand will grind you down over many turns. It won't prove that high levels fights are terribly balanced and boring, just that fighting your character is boring.
Stick to the plan, nuke them all from orbit, make sure as few PCs as possible get to take a turn.
Or go Diviner, win Initiative, and do the same thing, now with more Time Stop. Why Gate in one Solar when you can Gate in three?
Prob is that Divine Strategist guarantees Initiative win..... Diviner doesnt.
And Miracle is the most powerful spell in the game since technically anything is possible.
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You know, if you can reliably have earth glide there's always the option of gating in something without a way to go underground that you can't control and just letting it wreak havoc. Think the Tarrasque would answer a summon?What Wraithstrike said. But Cthulhu is a thing.
He lives on the prime Material plane (R'lyeh, Earth, to be specific), so a gate probably wouldn't work even if dread Cthulhu was so inclined.
Diviner wizard with time stop is probably the most devastating. Before anyone else can act, the wizard has dropped a half dozen buffs on herself and cast damaging, lasting area affect spells.