Planar Binding or Summon X say "No, not really."
The Planar Binding series is dicy at best:
srd said:
Casting this spell attempts a dangerous act: to lure a creature from another plane to a specifically prepared trap, which must lie within the spell’s range. The called creature is held in the trap until it agrees to perform one service in return for its freedom.
To create the trap, you must use a magic circle spell, focused inward. The kind of creature to be bound must be known and stated. If you wish to call a specific individual, you must use that individual’s proper name in casting the spell.
The target creature is allowed a
Will saving throw. If the saving throw succeeds, the creature resists the spell. If the saving throw fails, the creature is immediately drawn to the trap (
spell resistance does not keep it from being called). The creature can escape from the trap with by successfully pitting its spell resistance against your
caster level check, by dimensional travel, or with a successful Charisma check (DC 15 + ½ your caster level + your Cha modifier). It can try each method once per day. If it breaks loose, it can flee or attack you.
You might be waiting a while to get that creature to agree to serve you. Hope you aren't under any time pressure.
A
dimensional anchor cast on the creature prevents its escape via dimensional travel. You can also employ a calling diagram (see
magic circle against evil) to make the trap more secure.
If the creature does not break free of the trap, you can keep it bound for as long as you dare. You can attempt to compel the creature to perform a service by describing the service and perhaps offering some sort of reward. You make a Charisma check opposed by the creature’s Charisma check. The check is assigned a bonus of +0 to +6 based on the nature of the service and the reward. If the creature wins the opposed check, it refuses service. New offers, bribes, and the like can be made or the old ones reoffered every 24 hours. This process can be repeated until the creature promises to serve, until it breaks free, or until you decide to get rid of it by means of some other spell. Impossible demands or unreasonable commands are never agreed to. If you roll a 1 on the Charisma check, the creature breaks free of the binding and can escape or attack you.
5% shot every attempt that the creature can flee or attack immediately - and you with no fighter!
Once the requested service is completed, the creature need only so inform you to be instantly sent back whence it came. The creature might later seek revenge. If you assign some open-ended task that the creature cannot complete though its own actions the spell remains in effect for a maximum of one day per caster level, and the creature gains an immediate chance to break free. Note that a clever recipient can subvert some instructions.
So, how many times do you pull that stunt without a group of your former victims coming after you?
As for Summon, I do so love full round casting times.
Only if the wizard is both too stupid to divine, to take Uncanny Forethough, and to be prepared in case of an attack.
In my books, any feat which is a must have should be downgraded. No option should be a no brainer. With Spell Mastery, limited access and a full round for any but the Mastered spells, I don't find this feat the same WotC's Gift to Wizards you consider it to be.
First off, "Blindsense" isn't "smell," but, more importantly, spectral hand>blindsense.
No, it's the reason Dragons need not waste a feat on Blindsense. Spectral Hands don't hold up well to breath weapons. Dragons move fast and cover large areas. If there's a nice, straight line of sight between you and a Dragon, and he was not caught unawares, I'd bet he's in range to breath weapon and either flee or close the gap for melee as he sees fit. Dragons also have pretty decent mental stats.
Cool. And do these opponents have Detect Invisibility always up?
There are mundane means of locating the appropriate location, or determining where to cast spells. Funny, the bloodhounds/rangers/whatever track them this far, then there are no more prints/tracks/scents leading away. And they don't have to find their attackers to plan, reinforce, bolster their defenses or just leave - likely with whatever they had that lead you here in the first place.
If the marauders are level eight wizards, what the hell are they doing as marauders? They could make much more money as... almost anything, really.
If you're running through my home, killing and looting, I'd call you a marauder. If you're not an adventurer, then the game gets pretty dull. I'm not sure where you see Permanency being needed - but if you and your group cannot imagine using non-magical means to accomplish anything but infliction of damage, I can see where you would start to see spellcasters as unbeatable.
Never, because the mage have protections against such things and probably won't allow itself to be hit anyways.
Good luck with that...
Because they're easy to hit.
My targets are generally not selected based on who's easy to hit. Who's the greatest threat ranks a lot higher. You vastly overestimate the defense of the Wizard. At least as compared to any game I've played in or run.
No, you're coddled, as you've never seen a mage try before.
As we will never game together, I suppose we will never know, will we?
Wizards don't care about Ray of Enfeeblement
Wizards have a habit of dumping STR. That makes STR damage a pretty serious threat.
can protect themselves from Disintegrate with defensive spells such as Mirror Image, and at the level where Slay Living comes into play, simply stay out of reach of the melee touch attack.
Sometimes, yes. Other times, the opponent can get lucky. That breath weapon gets the wizard and his images, so who cares if the Dragon knows which is which? Or he just SHUTS HIS EYES and uses Blindsense.
Hey N'raac. I've seen you invoke this before as your reasoning for it to be reasonable for the world to have a tour de force of understanding and security measures against Spellcasters; Magic items are pervasive, therefore (presumably) wizards, as a percentage of the population, is not some outrageously remote number. However, it really fails to consider a primary vector, that being time. Consider the FR timeline alone. You're talking 300000 + years of spellcasting and magic item creation, empires rising and falling to ruin, some being erased from the annals of history. Time could (probably should) be the primary reason for an influx of magic items into the world economy. At any point in history there could be an extremely remote number of spellcasters as a percentage of the populace and still there would be an easy explanation for the number of magic items. Adventurers unearthing ancient ruins and pillaging tombs has always been my explanation for any magic item prevalence. There doesn't need to be an assumption of a spellcasting as a widely practiced art.
As I said, if we assume there are very few spellcasters, that makes the spells much more mysterious. But it also begs the question how the wizard (or anyone else) finds exactly the spells and items he wants, when he wants and has the gold for them. Why is there such a ready market if no one can identify them, make use of them, etc.? Why is it so easy to locate weird spell components? And how do PC's have such standard knowledge of magical abilities if they are rare in the extreme? For that matter, how did all those unbeatable mages if the past fail to rule the world? Why aren't elves and liches in charge?
In my experience, any percentage of tavern-members approaching double digits that understands Charm Person, any percentage of lairs that are loaded to the teeth with anti-wizard contingencies (nondetection, alarm, anti-magic zones, anti-teleportation stuff) yields dissatisfication evolving into distrust evolving into disdain from spellcaster players (and fairly so I'd say).
Seems like a dissatisfaction that the wizard is not simply allowed to be omnipotent. The Forgotten Realms you use as an example seem pretty chock-full of spellcasters, in my experience. If there's a ready market for magic items, I'd expect some public awareness of them, and I'd expect planners and tacticians to consider those abilities. It seems like "magic is dripping from the trees" is very popular when the spellcaster wants a scroll of a specific 5th or 6th level spell (or a gross of Cure Light Wounds wands), but not so popular when the ramifications stop working entirely in their favour.
Says the rules. No dragon in any book I can think of has Scent.
Since every one of them has Blindsense, why would they be motivated to waste a feat on it?
What GM with a poor sense of balance would flat-out make up creatures? Why someone would use creatures not in any books as counterexample in an online discussion is beyond me.
So creating an opponent that can, in some way, challenge the omnipotence of your spellcaster demonstrates "a poor sense of balance"? Seems like a double standard there - why would a player with any sense of balance intentionally create an omnipotent wizard? Why would he expect the rules options available not to be constrained, to reduce or remove truly broken combinations?
I'm still trying to figure out why the dragon chooses a lair that those annoying humanoids can access so easily. And look at those Sorcerer levels - Alarm should be as or more universal to dragons as Uncanny Forethought is to wizards. It's not like they can use L1 spells for combat by the time they get them! [A Dragon using Rope Trick - there's an amusing picture!]
