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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 384822" data-attributes="member: 3146">I'm not sure what kind of campaign you run or play in but in most campaigns the limited availability of money, time (this is probably the biggest issue), and, to a lesser degree, experience prevents the kind of magical item creation. Even then, any party which relies on GMW to boost their weapons and Magic Vestment to boost their ACs will quickly find that all of their spells have been used up before they even start the adventure (I once played a 12th level transmuter focussed on buffing his party and ran into this problem). I guess that might change if you DM a party of 8 characters or so and 2/3 of them are spellcasters but that's a problem created by having a large party not one created by the system.Well, I was not writing that up to demonstrate that an NPC could whoop on the PCs but rather that a PC constructed under a different philosophy could destroy NPCs or monsters just as quickly (if not more quickly) than the buffing characters.That being said, let's play your game.Let me see touch AC of 28 would mean dex of 46 or more likely, a +5 deflection bonus (must be a massively expensive ring since Shield of Faith/Protection from evil can't be made persistent and doesn't last long), a +4 haste bonus, and a 28 dex. (Either that or a persistent shield spell but only high level wizards can have that since it's a personal range spell of too high a level to be put in a potion or reliably read from a scroll with only a single level of sor/wiz). Even so, to get a 28 dex you need to start out with a dex of 18, put four stat increases into dex, and get another +6 from an expensive item or an empowered cat's grace. That's a lot of resources--if that kind of thing is common in your party, they're either much richer than the system assumes or they need to be facing finger of death/wail of the banshee instead of disintegrate. In the wizard's case, the touch AC must come from +4 haste, -1 size (annis form), +5 deflection, +7 cover, +3 dex (average to poor cat's grace considering the annis's dex).So, what does the Transmuter do to beat this "impressive" touch AC. Starting assumptions: 12th level wizard=BAB +6. Dex 14 and cat's grace will probably give the wizard +10 to his ranged attack assuming he didn't spend feats on weapon focus, point blank, and precise shot, etc). Still that's only +10 to hit. I suppose the wizard could polymorph into a pixie and pump that up to +13 (figuring in a size bonus as well) but the wizard still needs to roll well. But a quickened true strike is only 5th level so said wizard can cast haste, a quickened true strike, and disintegrate and still have spent fewer spells than the combat monster wizard did to buff himself up.Alternately, he could just disintegrate a couple of the wizard's friends--the rogue, and bard are probably easier to hit and even a fighter probably has to roll above a ten to succeed at the disintegrate's fortitude save.It also usually has the effect that even people who are strong against that save need to roll decently in order to succeed against your high level spells. So rogues and monks are caught fairly regularly by Greater Spell Focussed reflex saves. Incidentally, Transmutation is the exception to the "generally only one save" rule. It's got reflex saves like burning hands (quite nice for a 2nd level 5d4 cone of cold imitation if you use sculpt spell on it), will saves like slow and bestow curse, and fortitude saves like blindness/deafness, Polymorph other, and disintegrate.Yup. Read the spell description. It says it counters/dispells haste and it has 1/target per level. Which makes it more properly the opposite of mass haste than of haste.It would even work on boots of speed which are specifically described as a haste effect. (The user of the boots could activate them the next round but that would still be losing the possibility of making two full round actions which is quite significant for fighters and sorcerors).I don't think of it that way either. I suppose it could become one if you focussed a character on counterspelling and used the improved counterspell, reflexive counterspell, etc. feats from MoF but that's the DM's choice and the player's choice for allowing and using those feats.Loading up on 20th level scrolls of greater dispelling is ridiculously expensive and isn't even an option in most games. Otherwise, you'll usually not have much better than a 50% chance to counterspell with a dispel magic/greater dispelling. Regular counterspelling only works if you know what the enemy will throw at you (which you shouldn't in most cases).Very true. And the effect of long term buffs is correspondingly lower the fewer fights you get into. In one fight, a bull's strength probably makes less difference than a hold person or glitterdust and a GMW probably isn't as effective as a summon monster III or a fireball. If you fight several battles during the duration of those buff spells, they begin to approach the effectiveness of direct attack spells (on a spell by spell basis). The risk, of course, is that you won't have the big firepower when it could otherwise turn the course of a combat because you used it up on buffs.These precast buffs are also quite vulnerable to dispel magic/greater dispelling which will regularly be cast.Incidentally, there are more worthwhile in-combat buffs--even at high levels. Off the top of my head:Divine Power, Righteous Might, Bear's Heart, Divine Sacrifice, Prayer, Blink, Improved Invisibility (sometimes this will be cast before combat but not always because combat is often unable to be anticipated within 7-20 minutes' accuracy), See Invisible, Protection From Arrows, Tenser's Transformation, Haste, Mass Haste, Mass Resist Elements, Shapechange, Iron Body, Lesser Aspect of the Deity, Greater Aspect of the Deity, True Seeing, Displacement, Blur, Aspect of the Deity.</blockquote>

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