Fighters vs mages at high level.

[Hypersmurf]

You still need to roll a natural 20.

Quickened True Strike?

-Hyp.

 

[Hypersmurf]

a Ring of Counterspelling (I believe that's the name of it... It lets you cast a spell into it that automatically counterspells if you have the same spell cast at you) with Mordenkainen's Disjunction in it...

This is the Ring of Counterspells that can contain one spell of 1st to 6th level, right?

-Hyp.

 

[Mr Gone]

Well really, the fighter can win with some basic stragedy provided that he wins iniative and that there is no prep before the fight. You see, a wizard that can't buff before a fight usualy gets slaughtered. take this from a DM. An archer build who wins iniative can nearly lock a wizard down by holding his action every round to interupt spellcasting. with the right build, he should be able to do so much damage that even maxed out, the wizard can never pass the concentration test.

 

[boredgremlin]

Quickened True Strike?

-Hyp.

Still means in all likelyhood you do 5d6 with desintegrate, the 12 pts from the first ball from meteor swarm (each attack is a seperate attack roll, so it only helps the first one), or You use it on enervation knocking the fighter down 8 levels, if its maximized. Taking -8 to hit and 40 HP damage. The fighter starts with a an Attack bonus of +25/+20/+15/+10.
The fighter had a +10 from Dex as an archer. A +5 bow (at least), epic weapon focus +3 for a total of at least +43/+38/+33/+28, and one extra at highest BAB because of haste.

Lets say the mage maxes out all his items for defense. 1 rings of protection (cause i only took one to give your touch spells some chance), +10, bracers of epic armor +15, (+25) Amulet of natural armor +10 (+35) total AC 45.
So the fighters first 7 arrows, (improved many shot) need a 2 to hit the mage, the next 7 need as well because of haste, then the next 7 arrows need to roll a 7. Lets ignore everything with under 50%. Since those are all likely to have hit your mage just took 21d8+105. Figuring an average 4 per dice thats 189 damage. Figuring only a +5 bow, no epic weapon, and no weapon specailization. And only with attacks at 50% or over. Lets say by some miracle that didnt kill the mage. You cant kill the fighter in the first round. Dropping him 8 levels means only his first two attacks the next round will have a 50% or over (still hasted) so thats all we will figure. Since your mage is almost certain to lose initiative. He takes another 14d8+70. for another 126. Your dead.
If the mage wins initiative he has a chance. But unless the fighter happens to fail a fort save that isnt likely to happen. With taking the feats to up his saves even the fighters will is pretty good, and his fort is still great. The fighter is easily capable of killing the wizard in one round. But the wizard needs a streak of luck to kill him, both winning initiative against a DEX based epic archer who is hasted (not likely at all) and then making him fail a save. All the fighter needs to do is hit with his attacks that have over a 50% chance.

 

[boredgremlin]

This is the Ring of Counterspells that can contain one spell of 1st to 6th level, right?

-Hyp.

Nah the ring of spell turning.

 

[Thanee]

You cant kill the fighter in the first round.

There is absolutely no need for that...

After the first round of spells, the fighter is completely disabled.
With no save. And an at least 95% chance of success.

Bye
Thanee

 

[boredgremlin]

There is absolutely no need for that...

After the first round of spells, the fighter is completely disabled.
With no save. And an at least 95% chance of success.

Bye
Thanee

You must be using 3.0 or something. There is no way for the mage to do that. Not a shot. If you would like to explain how this amazing feat is possible i will be happy to refute it. But there are only a handfull of spells that dont allow saves. Even those require touch attacks which arent easy. A quickened true strike might sneak one in. But you only get one quickened action per round. And even with ninth level energy drain maximized the fighter almost certainly does 126 damage. The 30th level mage will average 2 HP per HD. for 60 hp. Add say +2 con. its still only 120. You die by 6 pts. Even by winning initiative and having everything go the mages way the first round he still dies.

 

[Jack Simth]

Don't know about "no save", but some mean stuff can happen if the Wiz gets a turn:
Let's see ... a Wiz 30 gets 7 epic feats (some bonus Wiz, some character level, but putting them all in wiz-type feats anyway, so it doesn't much matter). Taking multispell 2-3 times permits 3-4 quickened spells in a round; three levels of Automatic Quicken Spell (which I think can be done at 30th by a pure wizard....) mean the Wiz can thus cast 4-5 spells of 9th or less per round. Greater Teleport (maximum distance for the shortest ranged spell used; use this for standard action - no AoO's!), Heightened (to 9th) Trap The Soul (Will), Heightened Finger of Death (also to 9th), Greater Teleport (go hide somewhere far, far away). If anyone can find a Save or Die reflex spell, that would be great too. For that matter, he could toss a ForceCage in at the end (no save, no SR, Force effect covers etherial travel - need to destroy the forcecage, which will usually eat up at least one turn on the part of the fighter). How many characters will survive two or three saves vs. two or three categories of saves, when the mage pumps the save DC up as high as he can?

 

[Thanee]

But you only get one quickened action per round.

Yeah. And still you can cast more than two spells per round with Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability, or Shapechange, or a few Simulacrums. And that's without epic spellcasting abilities.

But that is not even needed... for example, a quickened Greater Teleport + Otto's Irresistible Dance with a Moment of Prescience in place (which will always be in place, unless it has been used up just recently) will leave the wizard with 2+ rounds to finish off the fighter, and can always be renewed with a quickened True Strike, once it runs out.

And this is just one of many ways to disable the fighter.

How about a Fleshshiver every round?
Or Dimensional Lock + quickened Forcecage.

The 30th level mage will average 2 HP per HD. for 60 hp. Add say +2 con. its still only 120.

Uhm... even my lowly 13th level sorceress can sustain over 100 hit points, usually.

Even by winning initiative and having everything go the mages way the first round he still dies.

From what? There is nothing left after one round to threaten the wizard.

Dude, this is 30th level! Even at 20th level the fighter has no chance to win that without help and it gets only worse the higher the level goes.

The only chance, the fighter has, is to have the right magic items to defend against whatever tactic the wizard chooses. Well, that or win initiative and hope that the wizard did not prepare for that with Contingency/Chain Contingency. Not very likely that.

Regardless of how much damage you do with one attack, zero attacks still equals zero damage.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Lord Pendragon]

You see, a wizard that can't buff before a fight usualy gets slaughtered.

I'm only slightly familiar with epic-level play, but I'd imagine a high-level wizard who finds himself being attacked unexpectedly would do well to cast a Maximized Time Stop at his earliest opportunity. After five rounds of buffing, I find it hard to believe the fighter is going to have an easy time killing the mage at all, let alone in 1 round...

Then, when the Time Stop expires, the mage can start casting Quickened Gate a couple times each round, calling Great Wyrm Gold Dragons to attack the fighter, on top of the additional 2 or 3 spells he'll be tossing the fighter's way as well. The first of which would almost have to be a Quickened Mord's Disjunction, which as pointed out earlier cannot be countered by a Ring of Counterspells nor a Ring of Spell Turning.

And of course there are epic spells. I wonder how much it would cost to research an epic spell that lowered one Saving Throw, and allowed for no Save and no SR?

And of course you have to consider the possibility that the mage would have a Contingency up, a Chain Contingency and possibly an Epic Contingency up as well.

Like I said, I'm not familiar enough with the Epic Rules to say "the mage will definitely win if he gets initiative"...but it certainly seems from my perspective that it's very, very likely.