Sorry this is kind of old, but I felt it needed to be said...
I don't disagree with that at all. Of course the spell is fucking broken. That's the whole point of bringing it up all the time. The spell is so fucking broken that if you use it as written, the goddamned wizard is untouchable.
I have to disagree, at least if you use your so called "infallible" questioning method.
What is the first name of the enemy that will be the biggest threat to me in the coming week? (Let's say the answer is Bob)
2) What is the last name of the enemy that will be the biggest threat to me in the coming week? (Let's say the answer is Smith)
3) What is Bob Smith's biggest vulnerability?
4) Which of Bob Smith's capabilities poses the biggest threat to me?
5) What is the best way to counter Bob Smith's biggest threat to me?
6) What day will I face Bob Smith on?
7-12) repeat 1-6 for the second biggest threat of the week.
ok, so...
1. bob
2. smith
3. ...
Now this is where your logic becomes unraveled...you forget one thing, there are plenty of builds out there with
no weaknesses. You know just as well as anyone else that you can easily utilize spells/whatever in such a way to make your wizard completely invulnerable, therefore (especially if you utilize spells) your biggest weakness is dispelling/disjunction...
WELL CONGRATULATIONS CAPTAIN OBVIOUS! You just discovered what every wizard should already know about their enemy wizards! Dispelling, Disjunction, Antimagic Field...all of these are obvious mage-killers. Its a universal weakness...However just because its a "weakness" doesn't mean they haven't prepared for it. Therefore, you can know that these are weaknesses and attempt to use them against bob smith but it doesn't mean you wont get past his contingencies and every other little thing he has used to prepare against such occurrences.
4. Most wizards have multiple different ways to destroy other casters so even if they understand the "biggest" threat and how to counter it they will most likely have others. Honestly, if you were to get an accurate reading (at least if bob smith was one of my casters) you would probably get an answer like "craft contingent spell" or "celerity" which essentially means that my wizards specialize in action metamanagement in order to lock you out of your actions, always staying one action ahead of you so when you are out of potential actions (contingencies, celerity and the like) I will use one of my many abilities (most likely some kind of antimagic field lock) to take you out. So it really doesn't matter what answer you get...
5. Again, even if you get an accurate answer such as "you must have more actions" it doesn't mean you can actually accomplish it...with vague questions such as the ones you are asking (or even specific ones) there's really no way of knowing exactly which actions he will take and how many/what his exact contingencies are without essentially metagaming.
6. What day!?! Surely you must be joking...this must be done to the SECOND!
I mean, you can come back at me in the style of a -I use x contingency to counter your y ability- argument, but that only means that I just beat your infallible wizard because you didn't have the foresight to mention things like second as well as day in the first place...sure, you can revise your 6 steps now, after I pointed all this out to you (like many contingency arguments...which we basically agreed in another thread were pointless), but it only serves to prove that no matter what you come up with there is still a way around it...come up with another 6 steps, ill find a way around it. After all, there are universal ways of taking out casters like antimagic locks which only contingencies and blocking methods can prevent. How do you use contact other plane to discover just how many of these your enemy will have to counter yours?
I guess my point is this...
When you are facing a wizard opponent that manipulates actions themselves the only thing you can do is to attempt to manipulate actions more. Since contact other plane can only make you aware that they are going to do it its up to you to be smarter than the other player/DM and hope to god you can manage your actions more effectively than themI 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.
Here's another point I would like to make...
You're right, it is TO...but why is that playable? Once you get into TO the character no longer becomes playable in a campaign. If your wizard is sitting on a demiplane while other things do his dirty work then your character needs to be taken out of the campaign because he is no longer playable (unless its that kind of a campaign, in which case its really the DMs fault in the first place).
in order to play in a dungeons and dragons game you have to play your character as part of some form of group, your character cannot just sit there in another plane...you're no longer playing it. You can say, "oh I'm playing his minions, therefore I'm playing him," but unless its that kind of campaign then why would your DM allow that kind of shit in the first place...no...in 99% of the D&D games out there you need to play your character in a party so these shenanigans are nigh impossible.
So once you get into the realm of TO its no longer worth talking about...its pun pun...it exists, that's all...good for you, you spent all this time on something you will never get to play. When I optimize I try to optimize with the premise that the character is able to exist in the party system. Now, I agree, even within the party system wizards are unbeatable, except by other wizards...you don't even need to use contact other plane and like you said, the other wizard can just use contact other plane as well which makes it needlessly complicated.
So it doesn't really take a DM fiat to beat a caster using it...the caster (as a PC) using it never existed in the first place because hes unplayable.
EDIT
I submit it is perfectly neutral for a DM to suggest that in this epic conflict the patron god of either side has filed form COPBLOCK101 for anything regarding this conflict.
No it's not. It's blatant favoritism. I don't understand how that's not dead obvious. There are no predefined conditions, or even hints, at when a deity might block that spell. It is entirely up to DM whim. And if the whims of the DM determine the outcome of something, it is unfair and biased.
I don't think you can even use COP to it's fullest when it is PC vs. PC, or even PC "anti-mage" vs. NPC mage, though. The spell might be (nearly) Omniscient, but the DM isn't. The spell actually exceeds the DMs capacity to metagame, unless it is a PC wizard using it to defend against NPCs. In that case, the DM can just decide ahead of time how the NPCs are going to act, and answer based on that. But he can't predict the actions of a PC attacking the mage ahead of time.
So really it needs to be NPC anti-mage vs. PC/NPC mage.
Ah, yes...didn't read this. We are basically in agreement on some of this then.