Preparing to fight a Rune Lord

[MichaelCullen]

So, my group is getting ready to play Rune Lords 6 and I am trying to make sure I am prepared.

I am playing a sorcerer and want to make sure I have the proper defenses.

Here is what I have thought of so far:

Scroll of Akashic Form to negate death.

Contingency'd plane shift (with all my gear) to my own Demiplane 12 seconds after death if not yet restored to life. On my Demiplane I will have a simulacrum who is able to use a scroll of resurrection on me.

Foresight to avoid any surprises.

Moment of Prescience for when I need it.

Spell turning

Aram Zey's Trap Ward

False life

I intend to Magic Jar the first good body I come across.

I intend on wearing a large lead cone with shrink item cast on it. This way if I end up in some kind of anti magic field the cone grows to real size and provides a shelter to block line of effect, allowing me to teleport out.

Mind Blank

Heightened Awareness

My initiative is high enough to not matter

Any thoughts on what else to add?

Rest of the party is pretty balanced. Life oracle, Bard, Inquisitor, Paladin, and Zen Archer. As the resident arcane caster, I feel responsible for showing up as prepared as possible.

Please no spoilers though

[Claxon]

I've been wondering the same myself. My group is also going into the 6th book and expects to fight Karzoug.

We know Karzoug is a transmutation specialist wizard, I just haven't figured out what the most effective means of fighting transmutation magic is.

[RuyanVe]

Going first and massive damage, I'd say.

Also, it's kinda hard to become specific without spoilering...

Otherwise: You are not prepared!

Ruyan.

[Hubaris]

I'm not sure where your line for spoilers is but here are some non-spoiler tactics the book has already told you (assuming you explored the Runeforge).

1) Remember that he is a Thassalonian Transmutation specialist and thus has 2 Forbidden Schools that he can't cast from (Enchantment and Illusion).
2) Divination is never a Forbidden School in Thassalon.
3) He has lived a very long time, and they do say that 'the most careful fish ends up being the biggest'.
4) He's not stupid.

With regards to countering Transmutation magic, the best solution is to go in with Limited Wish diamond dust, as it is the school with the most breadth and thus much harder to prepare against. That and going first.

I'm worried about saying too much else.

[Claxon]

RuyanVe wrote:

Going first and massive damage, I'd say.

Also, it's kinda hard to become specific without spoilering...

Otherwise: You are not prepared!

Ruyan.

If you mean that we should have

Spoiler:

weapons that we forged using the energy from the different halls of Sins and put into the pool while we were at the runeforge, the Runeforged Weapons.

My party has those.

Currently my party consist of Archer Inquisitor (myself), an Unchained Monk, an Empiricist Investigator, an Aether Kineticist, a Winter Witch, and we had a sorcerer who died in the Runeforge from Finger of Death.

Spoiler:

The GM was gracious enough to let us turn one of the transformed fish inhabitants back into an Azlanti fighter who specialized in performing maneuvers while dual wielding whips, including dirty trick.

[Cuup]

MichaelCullen wrote:

I intend on wearing a large lead cone with shrink item cast on it. This way if I end up in some kind of anti magic field the cone grows to real size and provides a shelter to block line of effect, allowing me to teleport out.

Pretty sure this won't work. Antimagic Field doesn't say anything about line-of-effect. You're still in the effect's area; you won't be able to teleport. Giving yourself an instant cover against ranged attacks is OK, I guess, though you're putting a lot of faith in your GM to assume the cone would land perfectly straight up with no complications. Instead, I recommend you pick up a couple Scrolls of Spellbane, and include Antimagic Field as one of the spells to not function against you.

[Artoo]

Cuup wrote:

MichaelCullen wrote:

I intend on wearing a large lead cone with shrink item cast on it. This way if I end up in some kind of anti magic field the cone grows to real size and provides a shelter to block line of effect, allowing me to teleport out.

Pretty sure this won't work. Antimagic Field doesn't say anything about line-of-effect. You're still in the effect's area; you won't be able to teleport. Giving yourself an instant cover against ranged attacks is OK, I guess, though you're putting a lot of faith in your GM to assume the cone would land perfectly straight up with no complications. Instead, I recommend you pick up a couple Scrolls of Spellbane, and include Antimagic Field as one of the spells to not function against you.

Antimagic Field is an emanation, emanations are blocked by total cover.

[MichaelCullen]

Spellbane, looks beautiful, I will be adding that to the list.

[tonyz]

Don't forget all the basics:

Resist energy and protection from energy, in multiple flavors, because while everyone laughs at energy spells, Reflex saves only for half damage (unless you have evasion, which maybe you do) and there are quite a lot of targeted evocation spells as well.

(Greater) spell immunity from your buddy the cleric (or duplicated with (limited) wish), if you can figure out what Karzoug would be most likely to throw at you first off.

Normally I'd add magic circle against evil for the anti-control stuff, but at least Karzoug can't throw enchantment magic. Then again, maybe he could use wish or limited wish to duplicate some of it.

Action economy -- have enough quickened spells (or other swift actions) that you can throw multiple levels of hurt on him per round.

Death ward because at this level instant-snuff effects are horrible even if you make your save.

Dimensional anchor, because you really don't want to deal with high-level teleport shenanigans.

(Greater) dispel magic to strip him of protections and let your bruisers finish him.

Hit hard, hit fast, hit harder, hit faster. Get some stuff that will affect Karzoug even if he saves. I'm sure you can think of a few.