The end of all "AntiMage" threads

[KellKheraptis]

One of the quickest solutions IMO is making everyone readily aware of Knowledge Affiliation's capstone.  Now mind you, chances are the wizard (a proper paranoid one at least) has this as well, but if you shut down his spellcasting, you buy yourself one virtual action.  If you can kill him through all his layers of defensive magic in that one action (i.e. either him using an item to time stop, or teleport, or gate, or his contingency going off if it's not regular combat yet), you stand a sliver of a chance of possibly claiming a temporary victory.

[PhaedrusXY]

One of the quickest solutions IMO is making everyone readily aware of Knowledge Affiliation's capstone.  Now mind you, chances are the wizard (a proper paranoid one at least) has this as well, but if you shut down his spellcasting, you buy yourself one virtual action.  If you can kill him through all his layers of defensive magic in that one action (i.e. either him using an item to time stop, or teleport, or gate, or his contingency going off if it's not regular combat yet), you stand a sliver of a chance of possibly claiming a temporary victory.

Contact Other Plane tells him you're going to shut down his spellcasting. So he uses a magic item instead of casting when you show up, or Gates a powerful outsider to kill you in your sleep the day before you attack.

If you can get around COP, then that might work, though. It is certainly a good start outside of house rules.

[KellKheraptis]

One of the quickest solutions IMO is making everyone readily aware of Knowledge Affiliation's capstone.  Now mind you, chances are the wizard (a proper paranoid one at least) has this as well, but if you shut down his spellcasting, you buy yourself one virtual action.  If you can kill him through all his layers of defensive magic in that one action (i.e. either him using an item to time stop, or teleport, or gate, or his contingency going off if it's not regular combat yet), you stand a sliver of a chance of possibly claiming a temporary victory.

Contact Other Plane tells him you're going to shut down his spellcasting. So he uses a magic item instead of casting when you show up, or Gates a powerful outsider to kill you in your sleep the day before you attack.

If you can get around COP, then that might work, though. It is certainly a good start outside of house rules.

Hence the last sentence.  Let's put it this way...my mages in my UM thread would be so brazen as to let the attack after activating KA connect, only to prove once and for all that they are untouchable.  And on the offchance Mr. Beatstick did actually achieve that 1 hit ko through the layers of defenses, one spell, one contingent spell, and one stored contingent spell later means he'll then be in for the surprise of his life as the last contingency before poofing to Revivify leaves a means of tracing him with scrying.  Always better to take out the whole flock instead of one single bird

[Azrael]

and, ifs, buts...

stop having these conversations...we should be well aware by now that anyone can beat anyone if they use the right character and are properly prepared; therefore, its pointless to have these back and forth banters about what your character would do to counter the other. The only thing that really matters is when it actually happens. In that case there are no and, ifs, or buts, you are either prepared or you aren't; you either make the correct choices or you don't...

[Hijax]

it should also be obvious by this point that, if COP can just give you all the knowledge you want(which i believe it can), then a wizard who uses it extensively is unbeatable. simple as that.

we should concern us more with the matter of beating a caster without COP, or one who has only used it to know the fact that an attack is coming, not the details.

in this matter, i believe readied actions is the way. if we have enough(synchronicity yay), we can foil their celerity, their contigencies, everything.

[Paradox]

and, ifs, buts...

stop having these conversations...we should be well aware by now that anyone can beat anyone if they use the right character and are properly prepared; therefore, its pointless to have these back and forth banters about what your character would do to counter the other. The only thing that really matters is when it actually happens. In that case there are no and, ifs, or buts, you are either prepared or you aren't; you either make the correct choices or you don't...

I don't see what this adds, if anything.

it should also be obvious by this point that, if COP can just give you all the knowledge you want(which i believe it can), then a wizard who uses it extensively is unbeatable. simple as that.

we should concern us more with the matter of beating a caster without COP, or one who has only used it to know the fact that an attack is coming, not the details.

in this matter, i believe readied actions is the way. if we have enough(synchronicity yay), we can foil their celerity, their contigencies, everything.

Wouldn't the wizard get false answers and not know it? And how is the ability score damage mitigated?

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Take 10 on the check, you never take damage.

And phrase your questions such that you can ask questions about other questions.

If you want to get really in depth, start using a binary encoding.  Your wizard is smarter than Knuth, Hawking, Einstein, and Telsa COMBINED, so it's completely in character.

[Littha]

And its not even like you took 6 worthless feats to get it...I mean slice through deception...yeah ooookay, how about I just create the super ultra mega anti-caster cannon that kills mages in one hit no matter what protections they have up (not that a decent caster still wouldn't beat you). Usually in order to get a significant class or feat you take a bunch of useless ones in order to justify the balance, as is the case with the initiate of the seven fold veil.

Now I'm not sure you intended it but that whole post was fairly insulting, however I felt the need to say the whole reason I came up with strong feats with low prerequisites is because the wizard does not need to take a load of useless class features to get strong ones. 9th level spells just win and insinuating that balance has anything to do with comparing casters and noncasters at the minute is stupid.

[jseah]

Littha:
Perhaps if you broke it down?

Eg.
Protection from Divination
- level 5: Non-detection, always on
- level 10: Mindblank (anti-divination part of it), always on
- level 15: as Mindblank but any divination will give a normal result as if you ceased to exist at the moment of the divination (so the caster doesn't know anything is wrong), will also notify you that you got "pinged"

Pierce Magical Concealment (from whereever that is) could progress to grant at level 10, True Seeing (Ex and deactivatable)

Pierce Magical Protection could progress from ignoring direct protection spells (eg. Mage Armour), to ignoring indirect magic (eg. Shapechange), to ignoring results of magical effects (walking through Wall of Stone)
 - Perhaps this should be something you tack onto a Standard Action, so as to make it not totally broken (I full attack with full PA and ignore your magic armour!  =/)

[Littha]

I know that they are nowhere near finished, they are just ideas it was more the tone of his post that got to me.

[Azrael]

in this matter, i believe readied actions is the way. if we have enough(synchronicity yay), we can foil their celerity, their contigencies, everything.

Didn't I say this before...

Littha:
Perhaps if you broke it down?

Eg.
Protection from Divination
- level 5: Non-detection, always on
- level 10: Mindblank (anti-divination part of it), always on
- level 15: as Mindblank but any divination will give a normal result as if you ceased to exist at the moment of the divination (so the caster doesn't know anything is wrong), will also notify you that you got "pinged"

I don't know if this is your point but why don't you just errata mind blank to include protection from COP. Technically, the deity which provides answers must be using some form of divination to find out information on the target of the COP so shouldn't mind blank protect against that; I think protection from divinations in this manner is part of mind blank's intent. If that is the case then COP is no longer a problem because 90% of higher level mages should have this spell. Even if they don't someone will and thus the mage using COP for defense will come across a few enemies its not prepared for and most likely get killed by one of them.

Now I'm not sure you intended it but that whole post was fairly insulting, however I felt the need to say the whole reason I came up with strong feats with low prerequisites is because the wizard does not need to take a load of useless class features to get strong ones. 9th level spells just win and insinuating that balance has anything to do with comparing casters and noncasters at the minute is stupid.

If you are worried about 9th level spells then make the feats only available at higher levels. Being available before level 10 is too much. You also forget that ToB builds can take these feats making them even more powerful because they have semi-magical effects yet don't count as arcane or divine casters. It still causes ToB builds to be better than the average fighter. I would make them fighter only feats (as in the PHBII) and some of them only available at higher levels (which prevents multi-class dips). I would also put in a clause that a character with the vow of poverty feat cannot qualify for the last one, and vice versa.

One more thing...like the mage killer feat (or at least I think its that one) I would put a clause for the slice through deception that the enemy mage can always tell if a fighter that's attacking him has this feat.

[Negative Zero]

You also forget that ToB builds can take these feats making them even more powerful because they have semi-magical effects yet don't count as arcane or divine casters. It still causes ToB builds to be better than the average fighter. I would make them fighter only feats (as in the PHBII) and some of them only available at higher levels (which prevents multi-class dips).

Um, no. The Tome of Battle is what makes ToB builds better than the average fighter. The average fighter is terrible. Making them fighter-only feats means that real combatants, such as those who never take more than two Fighter levels, don't get them. And then they don't solve anything.

[Azrael]

Yes I understand that, you completely missed my point.

Allowing ToB builds to take these feats just makes it even more likely that no one will ever play a fighter. If you want to fix fighters then make them fighter only feats; making them more desirable as anti-mage builds. The goal is to make fighters better not ToB builds (some of which can already take out the occasional wizard).

Yes, I know no one was talking about fighters specifically, I just figured it would be a good idea to address the issue since it needs to be taken care of eventually. This seemed like a good opportunity to help out the fighter class.

Even if that's not the case my other points still stand.

[Senevri]

Way besides the point. In any case, PF Fighter is very good in it's very limited niche. For as long as it lasts, anyway.

[SorO_Lost]

Admittedly I kinda half skipped the last 4(?) pages but...
...Anyone say further comments on the adamantine hat gets shattered in one move action thing? I mean I only took into consideration that the cone was a 1ft. thick so that left 3ft. space inside for the medium creature. I figured someone would remark they are tiny and the wall is 2ft thick or something and I might have to remark about just lifting/pushing the cone over or something.

...Any one said they roll perfect 20s/100s with their 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000ft pole of some kinda of inter planer reach to instantly pick the wizard's plane, to hit him, to roll a double critical and instant kill attack where as the wizard only rolls 1s all the time thus failed every COP question?

I mean, isn't the whole point of a theoretical exercise in D&D to assume an arbitrary indifferent DM who doesn't care about what happens to his campaign world so long as all established rules are followed?

Cus that is in the realms of TO.

I mean sure, we're getting into TO here, but where do you draw the line? The only limit on the power of the wizard is literally the DM and his house rules/fiat.

And a bunch of "wizards are invincible!" people sure think there isn't a line to draw.

...Anyone call captain obvious yet?

No one ever actually put up a build and said "Ok, that's it. Let's throw down", though. There are several wizard builds there. You can go look at their stats, and build your guy specifically to take them down. There is no wishy-washy TO changing the wizards abilities around to fit the new challenger. They'll be ran exactly as is. Go for it. I'd love to see someone succeed. No one has even tried yet.

Theres plenty of fighter builds that exploits a weakness in what at the time was the favored wizard's tactic in past threads. Google them and hope WotC didn't delete them all (they probably did). The response is the wizard gets changed and claimed to originally won becuase it wasn't stated out so it could have had that option. The one thread that did try to ended up front loading it with more in game stuff than it had spells prepared and you posted in it. I pointed out you only had one contingency and your tried to counter saying you had your hat (see above) and excluding COP crap it became "well I have craft contingency so I win" (posted by someone else though) ... Umm, no you don't. You never had it.

It's never and will never be about the noncaster side changing their stats/skills/feats/abilities. It's that damn unstated wizard and COP being the only excuse as you why you think you can get away with it. RAW wise a god can block it and there is no DM fait for that so I don't know where that idea came from of why it's being thrown about. In game, the thing that things like Genesis and building your fort take place, COP fails with a diplomacy check or simply hiring a spellcasting to COP 2 hours before battle to swap tactics thus ruining the wizard's 8 hour (or one week as some have mentioned) old foresight into the day. Imagine a day where the for wizard people have their character sheets they have used in a game before get posted on the forums, laughable indeed.

Honestly you are saying the god does MEATSTICK a favor and blocks inquiry into the killing of the wizard, and it only works the first time the wizard asks?  Gee slant toward the wizard much?

I am SorO_Lost and I approve of this message.

[jseah]

^^COP can give correct answers regardless whether someone else casted a COP later or not. 
IE. Will Bob use a sword to try to hit me later?  Yes. 
Then regardless of whether Bob uses a COP to change tactics or not, he will end up using a sword to try to hit you. 
It predicts the future.  If that doesn't come to pass, then it isn't giving the right answer.


Also, RAW, gods can block it.  Also by RAW, there's no way to get a god to block it, short of diplomancy.  (which you can do on the wizard regardless and win without all the trouble)


For drawing the line at TO/CO, I'd say that COP direct questions that Mindblank can block are CO.  COP indirect questions that can't be blocked are definitely TO.  (god or no god, it is possible to get around virtually any restriction with enough questions, since you can ask ANY question, including hypothetical observers and strange if-universes)
So, get your beatstick a mindblank up at all times, and you have COP immunity.  CO-wise that is.  TO-wise, nothing blocks COP, not even gods. 

[SorO_Lost]

It predicts the future.  If that doesn't come to pass, then it isn't giving the right answer.

Then by your own words COP cannot be used like this entire thread says it does. If COP reveals you die after casting Gate, you cannot do anything but cast Gate at that moment then will die afterwards and you cannot change as it.

You should have at least considered your argument before posting it. Trying to say the future is static and predestined is a 180 turn from using COP to reveal the future to prepare correctly for it and you should have known that.

Arguments for a predestined time line are one I'd rather not go into (see my favorite dirty trick) but if someone else were to they might an option as I don't think RAW says time works one way or the other.

[Brainpiercing]

It predicts the future.  If that doesn't come to pass, then it isn't giving the right answer.

Then by your own words COP cannot be used like this entire thread says it does. If COP reveals you die after casting Gate, you cannot do anything but cast Gate at that moment then will die afterwards and you cannot change as it.

That's why you should never ask a question in a way that will make the answer definitely happen. Your preparation does not prevent what happens, rather it makes you surive it.

You should have at least considered your argument before posting it. Trying to say the future is static and predestined is a 180 turn from using COP to reveal the future to prepare correctly for it and you should have known that.

Arguments for a predestined time line are one I'd rather not go into (see my favorite dirty trick) but if someone else were to they might an option as I don't think RAW says time works one way or the other.

Well, IF you use COP to predict the future, then you have to make the future fixed for everything specific you asked about, or else a true answer wouldn't be true anymore.

[jseah]

SorO_Lost :

The way this works is basically that you can establish a protocol of action beforehand:

eg. Will the next attacker on my person be using magic or normal attacks?
If the answer is magic, I prepare Dispel Magic + Disjunction
If the answer is normal, I prepare Wind Wall + Prismatic Sphere


Then, when the situation arises, you can say, "I already knew it was going to be a physical attack from this COP question, thus I had Wind Wall prepared instead of Dispel Magic"

Instead of an actual in-game prediction, you just postpone it and allow the player to retcon actions in response to the information he should already have known.  

Under this scheme, you can have BOTH perfectly accurate predictions and ability to change the future.  

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

Littha:
Perhaps if you broke it down?

Exactly. Like with a new class. A homebrewed "Antimage" class 

And there ARE ways to beat COP, mainly by seeing to it that it isn't cast. Perhaps its time I shared my ideas...

Admittedly I kinda half skipped the last 4(?) pages but...

Noooo. Atleast read my posts. Or, Hell, I'll just include them in the OP so that way we stay on task. I don't mind the usual back and forth, but most of the COP stuff was only a tangent.

Okay fine, I added quotes of myself in the OP so people know the correct thread direction.