Azrael

[The_Mad_Linguist]

HIVE is chaotic, is it not?

[Bauglir]

Hey, I just thought of something. One member Wishports an assload of H.I.V.E members with a billion actions readied to Disjunction Azrael's space and then another billion with readied planeshifts to take him out of the plane. Are veils supernatural? If so that's a problem. I don't think Disjunction drops supernatural effects. I've gotta look at the wording on Initiate of Mystra, though; does it allow your spells to ignore AMFs and suchlike, or does it affect any effect you generate; if the former, you can't supernatural spell it because a supernatural ability isn't a spell.

[TheEndIsNear]

Using Dark Speech to create H.I.V.E. instead of taking Verminlord to become it yourself results in a more powerful H.I.V.E., anyway.  Regardless, here's all you need to know about H.I.V.E., pulled from BoVD:

Hivemind

As a side effect of some evil spiritual presence or dark blessing, vermin and certain animals can take on a sort of evil consciousness shared among a large group, though each individual member retains little or no intellect.  When a hivemind forms, each individual creature becomes just a tiny part of a much larger, much greater intelligence.  But even the most craven sages do not understand how or why hiveminds develop.

If at least 50 vermin or animals of the same species are arranged so that no one individual is more than 10 feed from another individual, the hivemind may come into effect.  All the creatures operate with an Intelligence of 5, even if they previously had no Intelligence score (as with vermin).  The creatures' Intelligence score increases by +1 for every 20 individuals (beyond the first 50) in the hivemind, up to an Intelligence of 10 for a hivemind of 150 creatures.  Beyond the 150-creature threshold, Intelligence increases by +1 for every 50 additional individuals.  Thus, a swarm of 500 rats would have a hivemind Intelligence of 17.  For every point of Intelligence bonus possessed by the hivemind, award each individual creature one feat and 1 skill point per Hit Die.  Intelligence-based skill bonuses increase accordingly.  So the 500 rats in the swarm (Int 17, +3 bonus) would each have 3 extra skill points and three feats.  In this case, they gain a +3 bonus on Hide checks and the feats Alertness, Skill Focus (Move Silently) and Weapon Focus (bite).

The increase to Intelligence gained for every creature in the hivemind over 50 also applies to Charisma.  So, a hivemind of 500 rats (normal Charisma score 2) has a Charisma score of 14.

If a hivemind attains a Charisma score of 18 or higher, it gains the ability to cast spells as a sorcerer.  For every point of Charisma over 17, the hivemind has one level of sorcerer.  A hivemind of 1,000 rats has a Charisma of 22, so it would cast spells as a 5th-level sorcerer, for example.  The hivemind has six cantrips, eight 1st-level spells, and six 2nd-level spells each day.  Any single creature can cast one of the hivemind's spells, but those spell slots are then lost to other creatures in the hivemind.  Creatures in a hivemind have no need for somatic or material components, and their squeaks, screeches, or clicks serve as verbal components.

When creatures in a hivemind attack, they all gain a +1 insight bonus on their attack rolls and a +1 insight bonus to their Armor Class.  Each creature knows the actions of every other member of the hivemind.  The entire hivemind is aware of what every individual is experiencing.

So, if we were to say that a 9th-level Druid casts the spell Insect Plague and then uses Dark Speech to turn the summoned swarms into a hivemind, you'd have a swarm of 4,500 vermin.  That gives the first-iteration H.I.V.E. an intelligence of 97 and a charisma of 94.  It casts spells as a 76th-level Sorcerer, with spells per day (before feats) of 6/17/17/16/16/16/16/15/15/15.  The swarm has 43 * 4500 bonus feats (193,500 total). The first-iteration H.I.V.E. takes Extra Spell, with each member of the swarm picking a different spell (essentially learning all sub-9th Sor/Wiz spells in existence).  They also take Dark Speech.  The Swarm then takes the Extra Slot feat using it's remaining feats, resulting in having a final count of 189014 8th-level spell slots.  Even if you use all your 5th+ slots for CoP, the first-iteration H.I.V.E. will out-CoP you at a rate of over 390:1.  In other words, for each year you spend using CoP to gain information, H.I.V.E. can match with a single day's preparation.

The first-iteration H.I.V.E. can then use CoP to determine whether or not anyone is capable of overpowering them. If someone can, the first-iteration H.I.V.E. casts Genesis, retreats to it's demiplane, UMD's a (toothipcik-sized) Staff of Swarming Insects (brought into being via Wish) to cast Insect Plague as a 9th-level Druid 16 more times, and then uses Dark Speech to unify the entirety into one massive second-iteration H.I.V.E. of 1,224,000 vermin with an Intelligence of 24,487 and a Charisma of 24,484.  They have 12,238 bonus feats per member, and when spent on Extra Slot they wind up with just shy of 15 BILLION 8th-level spells per day and 2,814 9th-level spells per day, cast at a CL of 24,866, out-CoPing you at a rate of almost 31 MILLION TO ONE.  In other words, the second-iteration H.I.V.E. can cast as many CoPs in one day as you can in 85 THOUSAND YEARS.

Owned so bad.

[KellKheraptis]

HIVE is chaotic, is it not?

I thought merely evil, as Dark Speech doesn't have a Chaotic requirement as well as an Evil one.  If it is the former only (IIRC it only had one aligned element), opens up new possibilities...might not help here, but certainly makes warlocks more fun if you wanna abuse it

Hey, I just thought of something. One member Wishports an assload of H.I.V.E members with a billion actions readied to Disjunction Azrael's space and then another billion with readied planeshifts to take him out of the plane. Are veils supernatural? If so that's a problem. I don't think Disjunction drops supernatural effects. I've gotta look at the wording on Initiate of Mystra, though; does it allow your spells to ignore AMFs and suchlike, or does it affect any effect you generate; if the former, you can't supernatural spell it because a supernatural ability isn't a spell.

His own AMF is ESA'd most likely to allow the veils to function.  And the readied disjunctions and planeshifts are all neutralized by his own infinite readied actions, available on Turn (N-1), same as HIVE can generate.  Another effective stalemate, but a pretty light show for the onlookers before they're atomized, at least.

Owned so bad.

Read the post about infinite actions vs. infinite actions.  No ownage taking place there, other than the entire plane being rendered a wasteland, and most likely the planet in it being blown into a particle field.

[Bauglir]

Actually I meant that you could use your own AMF to drop his Veils (and his Supernatural Spell buffs) if they're supernatural. If they're spell-like, they can be Disjunctioned. If they're extraordinary, what the FUCK were the people who wrote that class smoking, and where can I get some? Does Initiate of Mystra specifically refer to spells, though, or is there some weird wording that lets it apply to anything BASED on a spell?

And he loses his infinite actions when Disjunctioned; the HIVE does not. And the attacker has the advantage here; neither can know the other is coming because of Mind Blank stopping CoP, and contigencies are dealt with by the fact that the HIVE has vastly more individuals that can have true contingencies that don't require something to actually affect you in order to trigger. Even if you argue that Azrael can have as many contingencies as he has people fused into him, he loses by not having an arbitrarily large number of people fused into him (unless he replicates the HIVE's main schtick, which then DOES result in a stalemate as each opponent is identical to the other since the HIVE can mindrape a Psion into fusing them, too). Also, I think the HIVE's infinite actions diverge faster than Azrael's, although I could be wrong about how the infinities interact. It's been a while since calc, so I could very easily be wrong.

[KellKheraptis]

Actually I meant that you could use your own AMF to drop his Veils (and his Supernatural Spell buffs) if they're supernatural. If they're spell-like, they can be Disjunctioned. If they're extraordinary, what the FUCK were the people who wrote that class smoking, and where can I get some? Does Initiate of Mystra specifically refer to spells, though, or is there some weird wording that lets it apply to anything BASED on a spell?

And he loses his infinite actions when Disjunctioned; the HIVE does not. And the attacker has the advantage here; neither can know the other is coming because of Mind Blank stopping CoP, and contigencies are dealt with by the fact that the HIVE has vastly more individuals that can have true contingencies that don't require something to actually affect you in order to trigger. Even if you argue that Azrael can have as many contingencies as he has people fused into him, he loses by not having an arbitrarily large number of people fused into him (unless he replicates the HIVE's main schtick, which then DOES result in a stalemate as each opponent is identical to the other since the HIVE can mindrape a Psion into fusing them, too). Also, I think the HIVE's infinite actions diverge faster than Azrael's, although I could be wrong about how the infinities interact. It's been a while since calc, so I could very easily be wrong.

Maw of Chaos prevents using HIVE's AMF.  He can't get his components close enough to use it, and even if he does, he is affected by it the moment he enters range, and that section bearing the AMF dies (most likely along with a contingent MDJ to go along with it, keyed to interaction with the MoC or Consumptive Field, as that would trigger too, making Az even stronger).  They are indeed Sp (the veils), but getting to them is the trick.  And also, the deal with opposed infinite actions in this case is both time altering effects are effectively both relative and arbitrary.  As both exist outside the time stream, who goes first is now irrelevant, since that can be amended retroactively.  Last but not least, mind blank is NOT proof against CoP!  Ever!  CoP relative to yourself ALWAYS works.  That is why it is broken beyond Polymorph.

[Bauglir]

Actually I meant that you could use your own AMF to drop his Veils (and his Supernatural Spell buffs) if they're supernatural. If they're spell-like, they can be Disjunctioned. If they're extraordinary, what the FUCK were the people who wrote that class smoking, and where can I get some? Does Initiate of Mystra specifically refer to spells, though, or is there some weird wording that lets it apply to anything BASED on a spell?

And he loses his infinite actions when Disjunctioned; the HIVE does not. And the attacker has the advantage here; neither can know the other is coming because of Mind Blank stopping CoP, and contigencies are dealt with by the fact that the HIVE has vastly more individuals that can have true contingencies that don't require something to actually affect you in order to trigger. Even if you argue that Azrael can have as many contingencies as he has people fused into him, he loses by not having an arbitrarily large number of people fused into him (unless he replicates the HIVE's main schtick, which then DOES result in a stalemate as each opponent is identical to the other since the HIVE can mindrape a Psion into fusing them, too). Also, I think the HIVE's infinite actions diverge faster than Azrael's, although I could be wrong about how the infinities interact. It's been a while since calc, so I could very easily be wrong.

Maw of Chaos prevents using HIVE's AMF.  He can't get his components close enough to use it, and even if he does, he is affected by it the moment he enters range, and that section bearing the AMF dies (most likely along with a contingent MDJ to go along with it, keyed to interaction with the MoC or Consumptive Field, as that would trigger too, making Az even stronger).  They are indeed Sp (the veils), but getting to them is the trick.  And also, the deal with opposed infinite actions in this case is both time altering effects are effectively both relative and arbitrary.  As both exist outside the time stream, who goes first is now irrelevant, since that can be amended retroactively.  Last but not least, mind blank is NOT proof against CoP!  Ever!  CoP relative to yourself ALWAYS works.  That is why it is broken beyond Polymorph.

Eschew Materials for components? I'm just thinking a trick along the lines of Initiate of Mystra, which the Swarm easily has enough feats for, combined with AMF and then a Wishport readied to go off when another member casts Disjunction (the Wishport goes off before the Disjunction completes, and then the Disjunction goes off). Azrael has a finite number of non-Craft Contingent Spells available, and every single one of them goes off unless he reserved it for some reason; if he did, it doesn't matter, because the HIVE can easily send more than 2053 waves. Presumably they were all set for Greater Celerity (which, IIRC, isn't above 6th level and is thus a legal spell), but so were the Swarm's (significantly larger number) contingencies set to go off whenever somebody with line of effect to the Swarm is subject to any spell from the Celerity line (plus additional ones for every single buff in the game).

Azrael's Crafted Contingent Spells are arbitrarily many, but they require him to be affected; if he's affected by a disjunction, his crafted spells are disjoined. If he's not affected, they don't trigger.

The swarm may well die (since, as you say, they're affected instantaneously), but all its actions still go off; Azrael has his buffs still, because the veils blocked LoE, but the veils are now gone (having been Disjunctioned). Maw of Chaos is gone, as well, as are any non-supernatural effects Azrael did not have on his person (and his supernatural effects are suppressed inside an AMF). But actually, this swarm was just the one that readied to do all this when a different swarm set up its own Wishport-Disjunction-Kaboom routine, which now appears.

Incidentally, why does Mind Blank not stop CoP? Any information pertaining to the fight really is gathering information about anyone who will participate, or at least that's the way it goes. Still, I'm glad it doesn't, because anything that shifts this in favor of the offense is better; rocket tag means somebody dies, which is preferable since I want somebody to die, and the HIVE benefits equally.

EDIT: Actually, I think you need a different spell than Maw of Chaos, since it specifically only deals damage in the round in which you cast it, and at the start of each of your turns; the swarm has until Azrael's turn (in the initiative order, since it says turn and not action) comes up. Still, this really is only a particularity of the spell; another area effect with untyped damage might do it...

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Veils are spell-like.  I know, because I toyed with a mistling fey Iot7V for a while.

[Epoch16]

*Note: All thralls and believers are fused into one being.

At the risk of sounding really ignorant:  How are they fused into one being?

Here is a quote from the EPH regarding Fusion:

"Targets:  You and one touched willing creature of your type and your size or smaller."

Bolded for emphasis. And another quote:

"You cannot use Fusion on a fused being."

I assume I must be missing something here. Help me out guys.

[Bauglir]

Wait, where's that note? I know there's one about using Fission, but I missed one about Fusion (I only looked at the SRD; if it's different in the XPH, then hallelujah).

[The_Mad_Linguist]

"you cannot use fission"

That said, I can make a pretty good argument this counts as

"Same Effect More than Once in Different Strengths

In cases when two or more identical spells are operating in the same area or on the same target, but at different strengths, only the best one applies. "

[Epoch16]

Wait. Are you saying all you super optimizers missed that? Holy crap I want a gold star! 

[The_Mad_Linguist]

I've always held that stance, but some people disagree upon what "different strengths" means.

[X-Codes]

Looking at Maw of Chaos, I don't think it's actually a problem.  Azrael would have to actually get an action in before H.I.V.E. would take the damage.  It would still likely have to make a Concentration check, but the DC is a pittance at this level of play, and there's no auto-fail on skill checks.

Read it again.  For once we don't care about dazing with it.  It's the 2000+d6 per round persistent damage at arbitrarily wide range that hoses HIVE.  Individually they are insects, as the H.I.V.E. they are powerful.  MoC targets each individually.  Buh-bye.  Oh, and even if they go in with an AMF, Az has Initiate of Mystra, so they only fuck themselves.  And he can cast it as a Supernatural Spell to prevent dispelling, then persist it with metamagic effect.

The damage isn't applied when they enter the field, it's applied on the start of Azrael's turn.  All they have to do is go first, and Azrael's turn doesn't come.

@TheEndIsNear: Of course it's owned.  It's the motherfucking H.I.V.E..  The entire point of my posts is that Azrael isn't on the same level as H.I.V.E. or Pun-Pun or the Omnicificier (know I misspelled it) or anything else like that, he's just doing all the same crap Wizard 20's have been doing forever on 339 (and citing it as his own work, no less).

[Azrael]

Ignoring all that nonsense which continues to bash my character....someone has to be the bigger man and end this flamewar before it gets any larger...this is obviously some large subjective interpretation error about my demeanor and motives.

1. How can I center the Maw on myself, I thought it could only be centered on a point in space, not a person...

2. I can always add a contingency to Azrael's person (and I can have 2053 because 'craft contingent spell' allows you to have as many as your CL) alerting him just before (or after since it actually takes an amount of time to destroy a plane) a sphere would be dropped into a well of worlds and stop it from occurring...but again, we are bringing artifacts in to defeat this guy...

3.

Looking at Maw of Chaos, I don't think it's actually a problem.  Azrael would have to actually get an action in before H.I.V.E. would take the damage.  It would still likely have to make a Concentration check, but the DC is a pittance at this level of play, and there's no auto-fail on skill checks.

Read it again.  For once we don't care about dazing with it.  It's the 2000+d6 per round persistent damage at arbitrarily wide range that hoses HIVE.  Individually they are insects, as the H.I.V.E. they are powerful.  MoC targets each individually.  Buh-bye.  Oh, and even if they go in with an AMF, Az has Initiate of Mystra, so they only fuck themselves.  And he can cast it as a Supernatural Spell to prevent dispelling, then persist it with metamagic effect.

Thank you. BTW, I can also maximize and empower it infinite times (which would make the maxing pretty moot) so it does infinite damage

4. The wishporting is now prevented because of his contingency...and the contingency does act before anyone would port in, thus giving him the first action...so no more wishporting arguments please.

5. His veils prevent AMF's from touching him...I explained this before...they stop all spells and destroy all objects and effects (if you need further proof, just look at the indigo and violet layers of a prismatic wall, it even specifically mentions AMFs fail to penetrate). Also, its up to debate whether or not Disjunction would work since it both stops all spells and destroys all objects and effects...but I mean, like you said before, if you can get close enough to him you can use either initiate of mystra, or invoke magic to cast daylight and dispel magic to get rid of them...now, this is important so ill bold it, as I mentioned in the notes section of the character, it mentions nothing about not being able to have multiple instances of the same veils active on yourself...so he probably has a googleplex layers of each. However, and ill take care of this in a minute, the issue is being able to get close to him in the first place (as Kell said)...and I believe my new argument is about to end that discussion permanently...

6. Now...inspired by Kell's Maw Idea...How about Azrael widening his AMF with metamagic effect until it gets over 120 ft in radius....

That means that nothing can perceive Azrael (because of the superior invisibility) unless they have true seeing and are within 120 ft. However, since he AMF now extends beyond 120ft and true seeing effects active prior to entering the field will automatically be negated...see where I'm going with this? This means, that in order to perceive Azrael, and thus attack him in any form, you need to have the initiate of mystra feat, move into Azrael's AMF and cast it while inside (since the initiate of mystra feat only works when used within a particular field/zone, i.e. you couldn't use the initiate of mystra feat to cast it outside his field before entering and have it still operate from within), thus (and here's the kicker) in order for anyone to attack Azrael they must first spend an action of theirs while inside his field (and they will only get one because all other actions they would receive are magically suppressed) to activate their true sight which makes Azrael both aware of their presence (the touchsight), and ALWAYS able to act first before they can possibly do any harm to him. I can also add a contingency to cast time stop if anyone successfully casts a spell while within his AMF...not that I would need it.



Am I done yet...? Have I finally proved that H.I.V.E. cannot defeat him...and I won't even use childish "gamer culture" words like owned.


A question...If I empower my bloodwind, does the 20ft attack radius increase count as a "numerical" effect, thus giving me basically infinite reach if I empower it X times?


EDIT: Oh, oh, oh...I nearly forgot...I should just have Azrael make a googleplex Ice Assassins of himself (they want to kill him, but since they have to obey him without question he has ensured that they cannot possibly commit any act which would ever cause potential harm to him), each exponentially more powerful than any individual member of H.I.V.E. I can add a contingency (don't know what yet) which alerts them when hes about to be attacked by more than x people of x CL or higher so each can gain infinite actions, port in (not within his anticipate teleportation though), and assist him...there, that wasn't so hard.

Now I has more than H.I.V.E.

[X-Codes]

Ignoring all that nonsense which continues to bash my character....someone has to be the bigger man and end this flamewar before it gets any larger...this is obviously some large subjective interpretation error about my demeanor and motives.

Despite extremely thorough explanation and painstaking care taken to explain H.I.V.E. to you, you are clearly just too dense to comprehend the fact that your build is not as good as you think it is, and your failure to set your ego aside and acknowledge that Azrael is just a half-dozen interesting tricks ripped off of other people (tricks you clearly don't even understand given how many times you've altered the build since posting it).  Probably the last one, but I'm done with this thread.  Goodbye.

[Azrael]

K bye!

I wonder how many times Khan changed Pun-Pun and incorporated other tricks from other builds and utilized other people's ideas before he was "finished"...I wonder...

[Bauglir]

2. I can always add a contingency to Azrael's person (and I can have 2053 because 'craft contingent spell' allows you to have as many as your CL) alerting him just before (or after since it actually takes an amount of time to destroy a plane) a sphere would be dropped into a well of worlds and stop it from occurring...but again, we are bringing artifacts in to defeat this guy...

Craft Contingent Spell only has rules for things that affect you. So no, you can't have one that triggers on Wishporting or on a sphere of annihilation dropped into a Well of Many Worlds, because you aren't your demiplane or every sphere of annihilation or Well of Many Worlds in the multiverse.

3.

Looking at Maw of Chaos, I don't think it's actually a problem.  Azrael would have to actually get an action in before H.I.V.E. would take the damage.  It would still likely have to make a Concentration check, but the DC is a pittance at this level of play, and there's no auto-fail on skill checks.

Read it again.  For once we don't care about dazing with it.  It's the 2000+d6 per round persistent damage at arbitrarily wide range that hoses HIVE.  Individually they are insects, as the H.I.V.E. they are powerful.  MoC targets each individually.  Buh-bye.  Oh, and even if they go in with an AMF, Az has Initiate of Mystra, so they only fuck themselves.  And he can cast it as a Supernatural Spell to prevent dispelling, then persist it with metamagic effect.

Thank you. BTW, I can also maximize and empower it infinite times (which would make the maxing pretty moot) so it does infinite damage

As has been said before, the swarm won't take damage until Azrael's turn, and if that ever comes then the battle's over anyway. It shouldn't, though, that's the point.

5. His veils prevent AMF's from touching him...I explained this before...they stop all spells and destroy all objects and effects (if you need further proof, just look at the indigo and violet layers of a prismatic wall, it even specifically mentions AMFs fail to penetrate). Also, its up to debate whether or not Disjunction would work since it both stops all spells and destroys all objects and effects...but I mean, like you said before, if you can get close enough to him you can use either initiate of mystra, or invoke magic to cast daylight and dispel magic to get rid of them...now, this is important so ill bold it, as I mentioned in the notes section of the character, it mentions nothing about not being able to have multiple instances of the same veils active on yourself...so he probably has a googleplex layers of each. However, and ill take care of this in a minute, the issue is being able to get close to him in the first place (as Kell said)...and I believe my new argument is about to end that discussion permanently...

If your veils are immune to Disjunction, the Hive members are bringing Fine Tower Shields (which they can Wish into existence) because those grant total cover to their user and, by the same reasoning as your spell effects being protected by themselves, the Tower Shields have total cover as well. All non-targeted effects can no longer affect the HIVE. Which would also block his AMF you mention below, so I presume you don't actually want this to work. Number of veils is irrelevant; the HIVE generates an actually infinite number of members in a turn, and each can pull this trick.

6. Now...inspired by Kell's Maw Idea...How about Azrael widening his AMF with metamagic effect until it gets over 120 ft in radius....

That means that nothing can perceive Azrael (because of the superior invisibility) unless they have true seeing and are within 120 ft. However, since he AMF now extends beyond 120ft and true seeing effects active prior to entering the field will automatically be negated...see where I'm going with this? This means, that in order to perceive Azrael, and thus attack him in any form, you need to have the initiate of mystra feat, move into Azrael's AMF and cast it while inside (since the initiate of mystra feat only works when used within a particular field/zone, i.e. you couldn't use the initiate of mystra feat to cast it outside his field before entering and have it still operate from within), thus (and here's the kicker) in order for anyone to attack Azrael they must first spend an action of theirs while inside his field (and they will only get one because all other actions they would receive are magically suppressed) to activate their true sight which makes Azrael both aware of their presence (the touchsight), and ALWAYS able to act first before they can possibly do any harm to him. I can also add a contingency to cast time stop if anyone successfully casts a spell while within his AMF...not that I would need it.

They get plenty of actions; each member of the swarm is aware of everything every other member is, which means only one member needs to detect Azrael for the others to attack effectively. Remember, since it's fully capable of doing so, the HIVE is Wishporting an infinite number of vermin in for every wave. And it can do so for an arbitrarily large number of waves within a single round. Each wave has its first member cast True Seeing on itself and the rest drop an infinite number of Disjunctions on Azrael.

EDIT: Oh, oh, oh...I nearly forgot...I should just have Azrael make a googleplex Ice Assassins of himself (they want to kill him, but since they have to obey him without question he has ensured that they cannot possibly commit any act which would ever cause potential harm to him), each exponentially more powerful than any individual member of H.I.V.E. I can add a contingency (don't know what yet) which alerts them when hes about to be attacked by more than x people of x CL or higher so each can gain infinite actions, port in (not within his anticipate teleportation though), and assist him...there, that wasn't so hard.

Now I has more than H.I.V.E.

The HIVE has an infinity of members on the instant of its creation. Azrael does not. Azrael has an arbitrarily large number of members at any given round, because unless I'm missing something, he doesn't gain more actions every iteration from new units than he expended creating them. So, actually, there are more units of the HIVE than there are of Azrael.

[Azrael]

Craft Contingent Spell only has rules for things that affect you. So no, you can't have one that triggers on Wishporting or on a sphere of annihilation dropped into a Well of Many Worlds, because you aren't your demiplane or every sphere of annihilation or Well of Many Worlds in the multiverse.

You can place another spell upon your person so that it comes into effect under some condition you dictate when casting contingency. The contingency spell and the companion spell are cast at the same time. The 10-minute casting time is the minimum total for both castings; if the companion spell has a casting time longer than 10 minutes, use that instead.

The spell to be brought into effect by the contingency must be one that affects your person and be of a spell level no higher than one-third your caster level (rounded down, maximum 6th level).

Nowhere does it say that I couldn't allow it to trigger when someone wishports in...I think you may have misread the part about "must be a spell that affects your person (i.e. a personal spell, which timestop is)." However, I would also like to note that nowhere in my 3.5 players handbook does it say "maximum 6th level." Which means either one of two things, I have a misprinted, earlier version of the 3.5 players handbook, or the SRD is wrong...either way craft contingent spell allows you to have up to 9th level spells.

If your veils are immune to Disjunction, the Hive members are bringing Fine Tower Shields (which they can Wish into existence) because those grant total cover to their user and, by the same reasoning as your spell effects being protected by themselves, the Tower Shields have total cover as well. All non-targeted effects can no longer affect the HIVE. Which would also block his AMF you mention below, so I presume you don't actually want this to work. Number of veils is irrelevant; the HIVE generates an actually infinite number of members in a turn, and each can pull this trick.

I knew someone would mention the ol'tower shield trick one of these days. I'm sure there is a damaging aura (probably sonic) that I can have active on myself and widen widen widen until it would at least match the area of my AMF, in which case the tower shields (since any magical abilities of theirs will be suppressed) should easily be destroyed...also I hope you don't think a tower shield could get through the veils? The AMF yes, but the veils would destroy them immediately, no save.

Any suggestions on that damaging aura...it obviously has to be one that would deal damage as soon as they enter...I'm sure there's something out there.

They get plenty of actions; each member of the swarm is aware of everything every other member is, which means only one member needs to detect Azrael for the others to attack effectively. Remember, since it's fully capable of doing so, the HIVE is Wishporting an infinite number of vermin in for every wave. And it can do so for an arbitrarily large number of waves within a single round. Each wave has its first member cast True Seeing on itself and the rest drop an infinite number of Disjunctions on Azrael.

Yes but can they "share senses?" They still need to be able to target him...awareness isn't the same as 'that creature being able to use anther's senses for the purpose of resolving LoS and LoE.'

Also I think it goes something like this...

1. A member of the swarm enters the 300ft mark, thus Azrael becomes aware of them, initiative is rolled, Azrael wins initiative (an assumption, but im pretty sure his 80ish initiative beats theirs).

2. They have foresight so they all activate their immediate actions thus gaining infinite actions (how do they do this btw...I don't believe anyone explained how they actually gain infinite actions); Azrael cannot stop this.

3. They approach him and make it inside his AMF, however, at that moment all their infinite actions (I assume) will be nullified, including any contingencies they might have.

4. Azrael's contingency activates because someone made it inside his field.

5. Since they no longer have infinite actions, and used up their immediate action for the turn Azrael completes his contingency and casts time stop. Within his time stop he first uses CoP to learn how many actions he will need to generate in order to beat them (lets face it, infinite is hypothetical, they have to stop generating actions at some point, which gives them x number of actions, if Azrael knows how many actions they have generated then he can generate X . X actions). Azrael then proceeds to generate that many actions, comes out of his time stop, and kills them all...all of them...everywhere...in all of existance...so they cannot generate any more on the next turn.

Besides the listed ones two assumptions were made

1. Azrael has an emanation that will destroy their tower shields (I think this is plausable, given the amount of spells out there, there has to be something...)

2. The H.I.V.E. did not, prior to battle, CoP how many actions they would need to generate in order to win the battle. If they did not Azrael does indeed beat H.I.V.E. If they did, it results in a paradox in which the only possible solution is a stalemate...and even so much as stalemating the H.I.V.E. isn't something just any Wizard can do.

The HIVE has an infinity of members on the instant of its creation. Azrael does not. Azrael has an arbitrarily large number of members at any given round, because unless I'm missing something, he doesn't gain more actions every iteration from new units than he expended creating them. So, actually, there are more units of the HIVE than there are of Azrael.

First of all, I thought the H.I.V.E. had like 4500 members or something, with the ability to gain exponentially more with respawning. Second of all Azrael can have them all the instant of his creation if he wanted to...it would be the first thing Azrael does after hes finished fusing all of his believers because he can do it all in another time-stream.

So at that point it just becomes an argument about who existed first as a char...In fact Azrael basically forces H.I.V.E. to have existed before him in order to beat him because, if they do not, his prestidigitation contingency goes off as soon as someone tries to CoP information about him or anything he has created...read the 'inevitable defeat' section in my char notes (which, btw, did exist before any of these conversations began).

So in essence the only real way to beat Azrael is to have CoPed him before he cast his contingency...hell, Azrael could even cast a bunch of CoPs to find out if anyone cast CoP about him prior to him creating the contingency...which basically forces any char that wants to defeat Azrael to attack him before his character is complete...which is a lame way to beat any char...



Azrael is a char that forces you to attack him before he was complete or its probably impossible to beat him...I don't know about you but that sounds pretty powerful to me...I think he needs a pseudonym or something like "The Paradox Lord."


To sum it up, I need help with that aura to destroy the tower shields, and I need an answer to the bloodwind question; having infinite reach might be pretty beneficial

[betrayor]

Completely off-topic but isn't Azrael that character who was Batman for a little while?
Or is he from somewhere else?