You can have 2 shields right? 2 bucklers of reflecting might be a good idea too. Still falls to the wall of suppression.
So what with the equalizer? There are ways to find the wizard, such as moving within the distance of the anti-magic field. Since it moves with the shield. Whats the wizard going to do? Wait it out?
Did the wizard take stealth as a skill? High perception checks could still find them while invisible, especially if they're trying to cast/buff. Just make the perception check, move near them, and then what do they do?
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Tarantula wrote: You can have 2 shields right? 2 bucklers of reflecting might be a good idea too. Still falls to the wall of suppression.
So what with the equalizer? There are ways to find the wizard, such as moving within the distance of the anti-magic field. Since it moves with the shield. Whats the wizard going to do? Wait it out?
Did the wizard take stealth as a skill? High perception checks could still find them while invisible, especially if they're trying to cast/buff. Just make the perception check, move near them, and then what do they do?
...be flying high enough that you can't reach them with the AMF? I didn't think flight was banned and AMF is only 10 feet. The martial could throw the shield at them maybe, but how's that work? How's the timing work on that? Like a brownout? Rolling blackout? The Wizard wobbles into view then right back out?
Jadis ceded initiative to her opponent.
Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
can you like pay a wizard to permanently mindblank you/pay for mindblanks for like a week and just assassinate the wizard in his sleep before the match?
poison him with a delayed action poison that doesn't kick in till the fight starts.
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Mighty Glacier wrote: My Self wrote: Wait, has anybody suggested a Half-Elf Barbarian 1 yet? Good idea. I built this:
** spoiler omitted **
Let's pit him against my arcanist (that I built earlier):
** spoiler omitted **... Hmm... Would a Dwarf do better? A Dwarf would not have the same to-hit or damage bonus, but would have either Hardy (+2 vs magic, comparable to Iron Will- but affects Reflex too), or have Magic Resistant (SR 5+level, so 20% chance of spell failure). Dwarven WIS will be higher as well. The Xenophobic alternate racial trait could tag another +1 vs mind-affecting effects, such as Sleep (Which half-elves are immune to) and Color Spray, although it won't do squat against Grease or Vanish. Mountaineer might help against Grease, although Stability is always a safe bet. Ancient Emnity might be a more useful ability than Hatred, since Wizards are probably more likely to be Elves or Half-Elves than Goblins, Orcs, or Half-Orcs, because of stat modifiers.
As I mentioned in another post, Bloodrager might be a good choice, especially so for a character who does less than insta-kill damage. Picking up the Untouchable Rager archetype ensures that you aren't a caster, while selecting the Blood Conduit archetype lets you pick up Improved Unarmed Strike, so you can make AOOs without a weapon. Perhaps a reach weapon would be better than a Greatsword, if you have a damage bonus from somewhere else (Infernal or Elemental bloodline). This would let you threaten the entirety of your 10-foot radius battlefield. So while it might not be as good on a first strike, it is certainly better prepared if it misses its first strike. Losing initiative is bad, but with better defenses, it is not *as* bad.
Perhaps a reach + unarmed strike Bloodrager *might* be better than a Barbarian, since you can threaten a lot better if you don't get crippled in the first round, although if the Arcanist gets super blasty, perhaps they could take down the softer Bloodrager.
Overall, I think Dwarves have better non-Will saves, while Half-Elves have better offense and a very nice immunity. Half-Elf was probably the right choice.
Note: You could make a blastier Arcanist by swapping Greater Spell Focus with Extra Arcanist Exploit, which could net you Potent Magic. Potent Magic lets you match your Greater Spell Focus DC (for single spells), but also has the option to boost your CL by 2. If your Arcanist had Shocking Grasp or Snowball prepared instead of Color Spray, he could lay down an average of 10.5 (3d6) damage on a successful touch attack. Shocking Grasp would be more likely to hit, but only if he won initiative. Snowball would still work if he safely retreated, and has the possible hanger-on effect of staggering. Granted, your Barbarian's touch AC is pretty high. Not a game-ender like Color Spray, but in short, the martial class's HP is not entirely unassailable, especially if you switch to a squishier class.
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Am I the only one that thinks the best way to do this would be to have them fight monsters of escalating cr until they die?
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Vidmaster7 wrote: Am I the only one that thinks the best way to do this would be to have them fight monsters of escalating cr until they die? A charm/dominate or magic jar master would love that setup.
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Still it would be more of a practical take on their abilities.
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Bob Bob Bob wrote: Tarantula wrote: You can have 2 shields right? 2 bucklers of reflecting might be a good idea too. Still falls to the wall of suppression.
So what with the equalizer? There are ways to find the wizard, such as moving within the distance of the anti-magic field. Since it moves with the shield. Whats the wizard going to do? Wait it out?
Did the wizard take stealth as a skill? High perception checks could still find them while invisible, especially if they're trying to cast/buff. Just make the perception check, move near them, and then what do they do?
...be flying high enough that you can't reach them with the AMF? I didn't think flight was banned and AMF is only 10 feet. The martial could throw the shield at them maybe, but how's that work? How's the timing work on that? Like a brownout? Rolling blackout? The Wizard wobbles into view then right back out? Can't the martial fly around with his equalizer shield on a flying mount?
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Vidmaster7 wrote: poison him with a delayed action poison that doesn't kick in till the fight starts. Poison DC's tend to be terrible and it isn't hard to boost your saves to strong levels where you are only going to fail on a 1, assuming you don't just have delay poison up.
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It wasn't really a serious comment sorry for confusion.
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Zironic wrote: Bob Bob Bob wrote: Tarantula wrote: ...
Did the wizard take stealth as a skill? High perception checks could still find them while invisible, especially if they're trying to cast/buff. Just make the perception check, move near them, and then what do they do?
...be flying high enough that you can't reach them with the AMF? I didn't think flight was banned and AMF is only 10 feet. The martial could throw the shield at them maybe, but how's that work? How's the timing work on that? Like a brownout? Rolling blackout? The Wizard wobbles into view then right back out? Can't the martial fly around with his equalizer shield on a flying mount? Sure, but making a mount survivable and continuously usable (i.e. not Mazed) is a bit of a challenge (and one you'd need to address). Especially with the restrictions on what's allowed. A mounted build would also be a much different build than what they were originally discussing, I think.
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Bob Bob Bob wrote: Zironic wrote:
Can't the martial fly around with his equalizer shield on a flying mount?
Sure, but making a mount survivable and continuously usable (i.e. not Mazed) is a bit of a challenge (and one you'd need to address). Especially with the restrictions on what's allowed. A mounted build would also be a much different build than what they were originally discussing, I think. Shouldn't the anti-magic field itself prevent the mount from being targeted directly by any spell including maze?
The entire concept of lvl 20 duels seem kind of dumb to me however, due to the sheer amount of effects which are practically uncounterable when used as written and by the time you've ruled out all the craziest effects(Such as mind blank, magic jar, time stop, metamagic rods etc) you're practically playing an entirely different game. I'd be more interested to see some duels in the lvl 5-12 range.
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Mighty Glacier wrote: My Self wrote: Wait, has anybody suggested a Half-Elf Barbarian 1 yet? Good idea. I built this:
** spoiler omitted **
Let's pit him against my arcanist (that I built earlier):
** spoiler omitted **... Another thing to note - If the Barbarian wins initiative, the Arcanist is flatfooted, and the Barbarian would charge, no? That's a +7 to hit vs. AC 14, which hits on a 7 - a 70% chance to hit.
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avr wrote: Vidmaster7 wrote: Am I the only one that thinks the best way to do this would be to have them fight monsters of escalating cr until they die? A charm/dominate or magic jar master would love that setup. you forgot necromancer...
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What would be more fun, is to take the combatants designed for the single arena fight, and throw them exactly as is to the escalating CR monster fight, or vice-versa. Take a character designed for escalating CR monster fight, and put them up in 1v1 situations.
Its not too hard to make a super specialized character who is great at their one trick. I think having to have rounded characters would equalize it out more.
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Tarantula wrote: What would be more fun, is to take the combatants designed for the single arena fight, and throw them exactly as is to the escalating CR monster fight, or vice-versa. Take a character designed for escalating CR monster fight, and put them up in 1v1 situations.
Its not too hard to make a super specialized character who is great at their one trick. I think having to have rounded characters would equalize it out more.
Your escalating CR fighter will be able to perform in a 1v1 at 70-95% efficiency. Your 1v1 fighter... it's a toss-up. Some 1v1 builds are entirely nova or situational builds, but there are also many that have decent sustain. Escalating CR also poses the possible challenge of strange immunities coming into play, which could derail a specific build or render several (or most, if it's a golem) spells from a spell list useless. Plus, there's the chance you'll run into a Zygomind.
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Zygomind isn't even an encounter. It's a campaign in and of itself.
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DominusMegadeus wrote: Zygomind isn't even an encounter. It's a campaign in and of itself. Or the end of one. And five sessions later, you don't even know you have lost.
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Zironic wrote: Bob Bob Bob wrote: Zironic wrote: Can't the martial fly around with his equalizer shield on a flying mount? Sure, but making a mount survivable and continuously usable (i.e. not Mazed) is a bit of a challenge (and one you'd need to address). Especially with the restrictions on what's allowed. A mounted build would also be a much different build than what they were originally discussing, I think. Shouldn't the anti-magic field itself prevent the mount from being targeted directly by any spell including maze?
... Welcome to the Conjuration school of magic. Antimagic Field wrote: (The effects of instantaneous conjurations are not affected by an antimagic field because the conjuration itself is no longer in effect, only its result.) It's not as antimagic as you'd think.
And, again, it's usually an action to activate these things. In at least two of the contests I saw the Wizard gave up the initiative, they didn't lose (Diviner is pretty ridiculous). If they see the martial on a flying mount, they may decide not to cede the initiative and open by Mazing it (before any of the abilities could be activated).
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Reflex partial and physical damage; ranged attack to hit and physical damage; reflex for half and physical damage; potentially reflex to negate, physical damage; reflex for half.
Still, a lot better than "doesn't do anything" that most other spells fall to under anti-magic. Plus, you don't get all those magical bonuses to your saves while in anti-magic.
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Bob Bob Bob wrote: And, again, it's usually an action to activate these things. In at least two of the contests I saw the Wizard gave up the initiative, they didn't lose (Diviner is pretty ridiculous). If they see the martial on a flying mount, they may decide not to cede the initiative and open by Mazing it (before any of the abilities could be activated). The wizard that tried to maze won initiative and did try to maze. It backfired on him.
I'm thinking about creating a sohei as well, just to remove the diviner from automatically going first. I have some other thoughts for how to remove the benefit of going first as well.
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Tarantula wrote: What would be more fun, is to take the combatants designed for the single arena fight, and throw them exactly as is to the escalating CR monster fight, or vice-versa. Take a character designed for escalating CR monster fight, and put them up in 1v1 situations.
Its not too hard to make a super specialized character who is great at their one trick. I think having to have rounded characters would equalize it out more.
Jadis is very far from specialised. She has access to an enormous range of options available to her. Interestingly I think it Is the martial builds which would suffer in such a situation as they are having to sink so many resources into competing with super initiative Diviners and trying to cover for all of the different types of things casters can throw at them. Jadis has 68 different spells to call upon between level 1 and 9.
andreww wrote: Tarantula wrote: What would be more fun, is to take the combatants designed for the single arena fight, and throw them exactly as is to the escalating CR monster fight, or vice-versa. Take a character designed for escalating CR monster fight, and put them up in 1v1 situations.
Its not too hard to make a super specialized character who is great at their one trick. I think having to have rounded characters would equalize it out more.
Jadis is very far from specialised. She has access to an enormous range of options available to her. Interestingly I think it Is the martial builds which would suffer in such a situation as they are having to sink so many resources into competing with super initiative Diviners and trying to cover for all of the different types of things casters can throw at them. Jadis has 68 different spells to call upon between level 1 and 9. Yeah, that paragon surge to pick up whatever metamagic feat you need is a great trick. Hows she do against golems?
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Tarantula wrote: Yeah, that paragon surge to pick up whatever metamagic feat you need is a great trick. Hows she do against golems? Golems are stupidly vulnerable to arcane spellasters as some of the best spells are SR:No. Clerics and Oracles struggle a bit and have to rely on summons or smashing them to bits as the cleric list has few SR:No spells on it (a recent book gave them a pit spell). Druids just demolish them with melee attacks. Psychics are a bit stuck as they don't get pits, glitterdust, aqueous orb etc (although rebirth ones can get one). They are stuck with summoning or using charmed/dominated agents.
I do think that the increasing CR challenge option might be a better way of doing things.
Golems also have construct traits though, which provide immunity to a lot more.
death effects, disease, mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects), necromancy effects, paralysis, poison, sleep, stun, and any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects, or is harmless), nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, or energy drain
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Tarantula wrote: andreww wrote: Tarantula wrote: What would be more fun, is to take the combatants designed for the single arena fight, and throw them exactly as is to the escalating CR monster fight, or vice-versa. Take a character designed for escalating CR monster fight, and put them up in 1v1 situations.
Its not too hard to make a super specialized character who is great at their one trick. I think having to have rounded characters would equalize it out more.
Jadis is very far from specialised. She has access to an enormous range of options available to her. Interestingly I think it Is the martial builds which would suffer in such a situation as they are having to sink so many resources into competing with super initiative Diviners and trying to cover for all of the different types of things casters can throw at them. Jadis has 68 different spells to call upon between level 1 and 9. Yeah, that paragon surge to pick up whatever metamagic feat you need is a great trick. Hows she do against golems? Which Golems? Because flight provides an effective immunity to a surprising number of them. Take the Adamantine Golem for example. It has no ranged attacks, a reach of just 15 ft, and could only ever jump up to about 4 ft. Fly up to 50 feet and it literally can not touch you in the blank 200' arena we've been using. From there you could use any number of spells to disable the golem.
The main problem with magic is that it is too versatile to try shutting it down completely. AMF seems great until you realize that flight turns the game into a snowball fight* and golems seem fantastic until they fall into pits and you notice few of them have ranged attacks.
*Yes, its not in the PRD. Check the PRD if you want spells specific to this challenge, several have already been mentioned.
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Tarantula wrote: Golems also have construct traits though, which provide immunity to a lot more.
death effects, disease, mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects), necromancy effects, paralysis, poison, sleep, stun, and any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects, or is harmless), nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, or energy drain
They do but none of those affect the key conjuration spells which you use to dismantle them. Acid Pit will destroy a surprisingly large number of golems all on its own. As golems have no skill points they are reduced to making challenging climb checks using only their strength stat.
In an actual game I find glitterdust is good enough to deal with most constructs as it leaves them ridiculously vulnerable to being dismantled by your preferred beaststick, whether that is an animal companion, eidolon, summons, cleric/druid/oracle/magus/bard or martial character.
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Tarantula wrote: Bob Bob Bob wrote: And, again, it's usually an action to activate these things. In at least two of the contests I saw the Wizard gave up the initiative, they didn't lose (Diviner is pretty ridiculous). If they see the martial on a flying mount, they may decide not to cede the initiative and open by Mazing it (before any of the abilities could be activated). The wizard that tried to maze won initiative and did try to maze. It backfired on him.
I'm thinking about creating a sohei as well, just to remove the diviner from automatically going first. I have some other thoughts for how to remove the benefit of going first as well. That was a Reflecting shield, which works differently than a Ring of Spell Turning which is command word and thus doesn't start active (at least, I think it's different). And you'd need to stick it on a flying mount, which... how does a mount hold a shield? It'd be super obvious, at least. Maze is just my default "You don't even get to roll to resist this" spell (technically it allows SR, but is there any decent PRD way to get a good version of that on a mount?) with the upside of "and completely screws anyone who needs a more vulnerable character for some reason".
I mentioned a bunch of damage spells to cover the possibility of a bought mount (instead of an animal companion). But now that I look at it, animal companions might not be much better off. Maximized Clashing Rocks (yes, pretty wasteful) would probably kill a mount in an AMF (Quickened True Strike would basically guarantee a hit). Naturally flying companions seem to have awful Con (the two I checked, Roc and Dire Bat, both start with 9). Is there a nonmagical way to give a mount flying?
And, because it always seems to come up in these discussions, no, I don't have a side. I've just had a variation on this exact same discussion. "AMF!" "Any instantaneous Conjuration! Plus you've shut off any chance to resist, because AMF screws you too!"
It's not like a fighter can't win, they just shouldn't.
The martial should just have a portable hole full of mounts that they can use, with an open bottle of air in it so they don't suffocate beforehand. One mount goes down, whistle out the next!
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Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
Tarantula wrote: What would be more fun, is to take the combatants designed for the single arena fight, and throw them exactly as is to the escalating CR monster fight, or vice-versa. Take a character designed for escalating CR monster fight, and put them up in 1v1 situations.
Its not too hard to make a super specialized character who is great at their one trick. I think having to have rounded characters would equalize it out more.
how about a battle royal/hunger games situation?
last man standing wins, killing other players is allowed but creatures are added to the "arena".
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Bandw2 wrote: Tarantula wrote: What would be more fun, is to take the combatants designed for the single arena fight, and throw them exactly as is to the escalating CR monster fight, or vice-versa. Take a character designed for escalating CR monster fight, and put them up in 1v1 situations.
Its not too hard to make a super specialized character who is great at their one trick. I think having to have rounded characters would equalize it out more.
how about a battle royal/hunger games situation?
last man standing wins, killing other players is allowed but creatures are added to the "arena".
I would run that campaign.
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It seems like most martials fall to the "Mindblank" + "Invisible" thing casters can have going on. What about a Barbarian using Ultimate Clarity? Not a divination, so it's not directly chumped by Mind Blank.
Ultimate Clarity and Spell Sunder might be able to give a caster some pause.
Kaouse wrote: It seems like most martials fall to the "Mindblank" + "Invisible" thing casters can have going on. What about a Barbarian using Ultimate Clarity? Not a divination, so it's not directly chumped by Mind Blank.
Ultimate Clarity and Spell Sunder might be able to give a caster some pause.
Seems like it should work.
Remind me, what are the ways to rage cycle at 20th level? Asking because Ultimate Clarity is 1 round per rage.
Mighty Glacier wrote: Remind me, what are the ways to rage cycle at 20th level? Asking because Ultimate Clarity is 1 round per rage. Tireless Rage.
Seems like that is the way to go, build a 20th level barbarian with evasion give him superstition and human, get 40+ saves maybe anti magic field on a bracer or something and go to work. Rage cycle moment of clarity every round and invisibility would not work.
The superstitious archetype also gains blindsight 30 feet which could be useful for sure.
Mighty Glacier wrote: Remind me, what are the ways to rage cycle at 20th level? Asking because Ultimate Clarity is 1 round per rage. While Tireless Rage can work, I would highly suggest going for a Flawed Scarlet and Green Cabochon for 8000 gp.
It turns Fatigue into Sicken,and Exhaustion into Nauseated, effectively making you immune to fatigue. This is so casters can't hit you with something like Waves of Exhaustion (Tireless Rage doesn't make you immune to fatigue, it just makes it so Rage no longer fatigues you when you exit it, so fatigue would otherwise still counter you).
There is also a rage power that makes you immune to Sicken and Nausea, called Internal Fortitude, which you may take if you wish.
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