Monks, Mage-Killing and SR Improving

[Pax]

[...]

Quickened Mordenkainen's Disjunction ...

"Oh, but my epic shield of super-charged spell-annihilation kicks your MD into the void!"

Bye
Thanee

And yet another person chooses to judge an epic game without bothering themselves to read it. Thanee, I haven't seen an event progress the way you describe even ONCE since the Exodus began.

For one - Mordenkainen's Disjunction doesn't work the way the books describe it; in an Arena - epic or not - that'd be a broken spell, in a big way: you lose all incentive NOT to cast it, since your payoff is not tied to the value of your opponent's equipment.

For two: I've built the "quickened spell monger" myself (under 3.0 rules, before 3.5 had even been released, actually), and it wasn't really worth it. Sure, you TOO can fire off spells at hyper speed. But frankly ... there're often BETTER things to do with your Epic feat options, than burn them for lots of Multispell feats.

To pull off a Quickened Timestop takes 13th level slots - 12th level, if you have 10 levels of Incantatrix. That's three epic feats.

To pull off the sort of quickened spell chain you're talking about, would take one epic feat per additional quickened spell.

At 25th level, one simply does not HAVE that many epic feat opportunities available to him. Best case, you could have ONE multispell, and the three Increased Spell Capacities, if you go Wiz(10)/Incantatrix(15).

But there are far better things to do with those epic feats, if you're an incantatrix - PGFR includes several epic feats of especial interest to an Incantatrix, in fact they each improve specific Incantatrix class abilities.

If you're convinced that the mage has nothing to worry about, then put yoru money where your mouth is. ^_^ I'll build an ECL25 monk with the Vow of Poverty, and face you - heck, we'll make it especially advantageous terrain for the wizard, and put it in the Void (an arena in the Astral plane, so one spell per round is quickened for free ... and hte monk's enhanced speed won't matter diddly, since speed is purely a function of intelligence, giving the Wizard ANOTHER advantage).

Talk is fine, but actions are better.

 

[Thanee]

And yet another person chooses to judge an epic game without bothering themselves to read it. Thanee, I haven't seen an event progress the way you describe even ONCE since the Exodus began.

I actually looked into some of those before I wrote it... and it looked quite exactly like that (without the silly part at the end, of course, just the time stop quicken shapechange monstrosity)! I couldn't be bothered to even continue to read that post, which went over like 2 pages, describing a single action.

If you're convinced that the mage has nothing to worry about, then put yoru money where your mouth is. ^_^ I'll build an ECL25 monk with the Vow of Poverty, and face you - heck, we'll make it especially advantageous terrain for the wizard, ...

Ok, I will not be in the arena, since the first step is to actually find me (and get to where I am). Since your VoP Monk has no means to solve this (both parts), because he cannot use items, I win. Easy victory.

Hey, you want to kill me, not the other way around.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Artoomis]

Can we bring this back on-topic? Ways for a monk to increase SR.

1. Epic Spell Resistance = +2, may be taken multiple times.
2. Mantle of Epic Spell Resistance. SR 40.
3. Some feat out of MotW ?!?

Others??

 

[Thanee]

then put your money where your mouth is.

Why should I want to eat my money!? *puzzled*



Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

Sorry, Artoomis.

I really don't think there is anything pre-epic, that actually increases spell resistance. Nothing that I know of.

You could get *higher* spell resistance by using the cleric spell (12+caster level), as there are some ways to boost caster level, you could actually go quite high.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Pax]

I actually looked into some of those before I wrote it... and it looked quite exactly like that (without the silly part at the end, of course, just the time stop quicken shapechange monstrosity)! I couldn't be bothered to even continue to read that post, which went over like 2 pages, describing a single action.

That's a lie, Thanee - RPOL isn't capable of multi-page posts. Posts that long would simply crash the entire thread.

Ok, I will not be in the arena, since the first step is to actually find me (and get to where I am). Since your VoP Monk has no means to solve this (both parts), because he cannot use items, I win. Easy victory.

Vow of poverty ... constant true sight.
Monk ... abundant step.
Race ... who knows.

The first rule of figuring out who might win or lose any given encounter: assume nothing.

 

[Thanee]

That's a lie, Thanee - RPOL isn't capable of multi-page posts. Posts that long would simply crash the entire thread.

I meant browser pages (as in what fits on the screen), not forum pages.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Plane Sailing]

Can we bring this back on-topic? Ways for a monk to increase SR.

1. Epic Spell Resistance = +2, may be taken multiple times.
2. Mantle of Epic Spell Resistance. SR 40.
3. Some feat out of MotW ?!?

Others??

As I indicated in my post above, you'll have to worry about the spells which bypass SR entirely. Doesn't matter if you've got SR 90, some spells just ignore it. Dealing with those is a problem.

 

[Pax]

I meant browser pages (as in what fits on the screen), not forum pages.

Bye
Thanee

Then you're using a remarkably low resolution and/or large font size. Most of the time, when a single post is huge - it's because it's for more than one creature.

I'm guessing, now, that you refered to the "Kadan vs Kili" match, and saw one of Kili's posts. Well, guess what - he was posting actions for himself and nearly a dozen summoned creatures. So that wasn't one person's single action - that was over ten creatures' collective actions. Any spells you saw quickened, were that way because the match was in the Void ... meaning the Astral Plane. That's a trait of the plane: one spell per round can count as quickened, if the caster desires it.

And mind you, summoners are (understandably) fairly rare; the range of viable summons at that level, even fighting one-on-one, is fairly narrow.

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

I'd like my 21st-level monk build to be geared towards mage-killing, so that means surviving the myriad of mage spells first, so as to be able to close with the mage and kill him.

1) Something of permanent true seeing. A must. I think it's 75000gp in Unapproachable East or MoF. There is also one in DoF.

2) If we are talking 3.5, then grappling isn't an option. (Freedom of movement is everywhere.)

3) You need to kill the mage in one round or incapacitate him. My personal favorite is Vorpal Strike. When you have 6 attacks a round, that's a 30% chance for one of them to be a 20. (Of course, you have to crit, which is a problem with iterative attacks. Luckily, 4 of your attacks are at your highest bab.)

4) But you need to get a full attack, and any mage is going to stay as far away from you as possible every round. Therefore, you need more than one attack in the first round. Dire Charge is your buddy. Along with Superior Initiative.

5) Stay away from using feats to boost your SR. Your cleric pocket buddy can SR you if you really want it, or you can buy that SR 40 item.

6) I kinda like Exceptional Deflection and Reflect Arrows (Mmmm, reflecting a Disintegrate.) As always though, defense sucks compared to offense. YMMV.

7) The feat Touch of Golden Ice in BoED is good for a monk. Same principle as vorpal. With 6 attacks, they have a 30% chance to roll a 1 on their fort save.