What's the best antimage?

[Amechra]

By this I mean who is the best non-pure-casting class for combating casters?

I would think it would be some variant on a Mystic Ranger of the Arcane Order w/ Favored Enemy: Arcanist and the Wise to their Ways feat.

Wise to their Ways, for those who don't know, is from Ghostwalk. It takes your Favored Enemy bonus and allows you to apply it to saves against supernatural and spell-like abilities from your Favored Enemy.

That's a +10 to all your saves at level 20. Without any amount of real optimization.

So, two questions; the first is, what is the highest Favored Enemy bonus you can get by level 20? And the second is, what's your favorite anticaster?

[Smokey_the_bear]

While my anti-caster choice varies, they all end up having Mage Slayer, Pierce Magical Concealment, and Pierce Magical Protection

[jameswilliamogle]

We've already done this several times.  Use the search function for "Anti-caster builds".

[ninjarabbit]

Barbarian and/or desert half-orc paragon with steadfast determination, dreadful wrath, intimidating rage, and imperious command, works pretty well against noncasters too.

[weenog]

Er, spells aren't spell-like abilities.  Spells aren't supernatural abilities.  Are you doing that thing again where you don't read the material you're using and get all excited over nothing, or did you just misquote and it actually works against spells in addition to spell-likes?

[BeholderSlayer]

Best Anti-caster? Another caster, obviously. 

[Amechra]

Er, spells aren't spell-like abilities.  Spells aren't supernatural abilities.  Are you doing that thing again where you don't read the material you're using and get all excited over nothing, or did you just misquote and it actually works against spells in addition to spell-likes?

Well, what are spells then?

Because last I heard, they were spell-likes.

If they aren't, thank you for telling me. It has now lost a degree of awesomeness.

[weenog]

Spells are spells.  They're their own sort of thing.  They don't fit into the category of Extraordinary, Spell-like, or Supernatural abilities if you read them.  Being most similar to spell-like abilities doesn't mean you can apply a bonus against spell-like abilities to spells.

Edit: Out of curiosity, where the hell did you hear that spells == spell-like abilities, anyway?

[The_Mad_Linguist]

psionics = psi-like abilities, but
spells <> spell-like abilities.

[weenog]

Yet another way psionic magic makes more sense than spell-based magic.

[Amechra]

psionics = psi-like abilities, but
spells <> spell-like abilities.

From here, most likely. Well not here exactly, but you get my point.

[skydragonknight]

An archer/ranged combatant. The biggest advantage (well, after divinations...get mind blank) a caster has against non-casters is fighting from a distance: take that away from them. Readied actions disrupt spells easily.

Readied actions are standard actions...get multiple with Factotum, or at least normal action+readied. So we're looking at a Factotum Manyshot build with the mage-slayer tree (pierce concealment is Mandatory, and Pierce Protection is a good opener that makes the Manyshots hit easily).

The biggest obstacle is Wind Wall. Blood-seeking arrows could arguably beat it with a 50% miss chance (shoot over the wind wall), and if those work, Seeking Blood-seeking arrows would work without the miss chance.

[gorfnad]

Warblade / Crusader Lock-Down build is fairly decent against casters.

[Catty Nebulart]

a build specializing in laying down antimagic fields? While somehow having a personal extemption? along with some extra action abilities to somehow take initiative and then locking them down.

question can a disjunction destoy contingent spells? if so twinned repeating disjunctions seem to be the order of the day.

[skydragonknight]

a build specializing in laying down antimagic fields? While somehow having a personal extemption? along with some extra action abilities to somehow take initiative and then locking them down.

question can a disjunction destoy contingent spells? if so twinned repeating disjunctions seem to be the order of the day.

An Eldritch Theurge can lay down an antimagic field emanating from their target, then finish the target off with orbs/vitriolic blast. However, I count that as a full caster (or close enough) so it's not what the OP is looking for (just giving it honorable mention).

[Widow]

Not the most powerful, but I always thought it would be funny to run around as a Gnomish Artificer (Magic of Faerun, not ebberon) with a continous antimagic field and his lightning gun.  To bad you cannot be a shadeling/stone blessed/gnomish artificer, unless you can drop the fey type to get into stone blessed without much level loss.

[Sunic_Flames]

Best Anti-caster? Another caster, obviously. 

This. All the others you can fight and kill just like any other. You might not even be aware their sole purpose in existence is to try and kill you, they get smacked down like all the other mooks.

Now a caster built to kill other casters? That's an effective character.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JackieChanAdventures

[lans]

TriGestalt Vecna Blooded Elf  Warblade/Crusader/Eternalblade//Monk/hexblade/occultslayer//Factotum

Might be missing something.

[X-Codes]

a build specializing in laying down antimagic fields? While somehow having a personal extemption? along with some extra action abilities to somehow take initiative and then locking them down.

question can a disjunction destoy contingent spells? if so twinned repeating disjunctions seem to be the order of the day.

An Eldritch Theurge can lay down an antimagic field emanating from their target, then finish the target off with orbs/vitriolic blast. However, I count that as a full caster (or close enough) so it's not what the OP is looking for (just giving it honorable mention).

Full-casting Warlock, maybe.

Wiz 1/Warlock 4/Eldrich Theurge 10/Mindbender 1/Hellfire Warlock 3/Dip-of-your-choice 1
Beyond the first 5 levels, the order in which you take levels is really whatever you feel like.

[Amechra]

Best Anti-caster? Another caster, obviously. 

This. All the others you can fight and kill just like any other. You might not even be aware their sole purpose in existence is to try and kill you, they get smacked down like all the other mooks.

Now a caster built to kill other casters? That's an effective character.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JackieChanAdventures

Jackie Chan link why?

And wouldn't being at least being Vecna Blooded (Rangers get the requisite number of spells, though not too early.) help? Wizard can't prep for you. Meaning your survival chance just went up from nil to infinitismal.