The Eldritch Knight, if he wins initiative, can grab a bow and cast Fear on the Wizard, then shoot the Wizard in the back until the spell ends or the Wizard is dead.
By your rules, the battlefield is wide open. The Wizard will have to keep taking the Dash action and has dropped everything in his hands. So, he can't fight back.
That's assuming that the wizard fails the save.
Also the wizard could true Poly into something immune to fear as well
This is all assuming fighter wins the initiative. Before true polymorph. The saves thing is valid but still more than 50/50 in fighters favor except for chronurgist and divination, who are practically immune to these.
The main obstacle for fighter winning isn’t really doing something on their first turn, it’s going first. With most of the good fighters it’s an initiative contest the wizard typically wins. While people have come up with ways to beat the wizard tank, there probably isn’t a way to beat the initiative wizard.
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The Eldritch Knight, if he wins initiative, can grab a bow and cast Fear on the Wizard, then shoot the Wizard in the back until the spell ends or the Wizard is dead.
By your rules, the battlefield is wide open. The Wizard will have to keep taking the Dash action and has dropped everything in his hands. So, he can't fight back.
That's assuming that the wizard fails the save.
Also the wizard could true Poly into something immune to fear as well
That's why the Fighter has to win initiative, as I noted. The Wizard can't have time to cast anything.
Well even if they go first they can still cast True Poly and become a creature with legendary actions that would proc after their turn.
That assumes they cast it before the fight. The guy who sends them to the arena would look for the wizard, but only see a dragon, and leave to look for another wizard.
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'If a creature assumes the form of a legendary creature, such as through a spell, it doesn’t gain that form’s legendary actions, lair actions, or regional effects.'
'If a creature assumes the form of a legendary creature, such as through a spell, it doesn’t gain that form’s legendary actions, lair actions, or regional effects.'
This too
Precast true polymorph is overpowered in pvp or in general, but not that overpowered. Still, it isn’t being allowed. We are doing fighter vs wizard, not fighter vs insert cr 20 here. Only insanely overpowered characters are sent against creatures with cr equal to their level, because those creatures are supposed to fight 4 players at once and be of non-negligible threat, which requires being stronger than any single player. That is why polymorph, true polymorph, and shapechange are overpowered.
Shapechange and True Polymorph are broken along with Wish and arguably Gate. The fact that Shapechange let’s you be able to “replenish” legendary resistances whenever you shift form, effectively (as long as you have hp) gives you infinite LR as long as you have the HP to shift back and forth between Legendary Creatures.
Not to mention the craziness the other spells can do as the Gate spell allows a lot of interesting things to happen.
'If a creature assumes the form of a legendary creature, such as through a spell, it doesn’t gain that form’s legendary actions, lair actions, or regional effects.'
This too
Precast true polymorph is overpowered in pvp or in general, but not that overpowered. Still, it isn’t being allowed. We are doing fighter vs wizard, not fighter vs insert cr 20 here. Only insanely overpowered characters are sent against creatures with cr equal to their level, because those creatures are supposed to fight 4 players at once and be of non-negligible threat, which requires being stronger than any single player. That is why polymorph, true polymorph, and shapechange are overpowered.
Ah fair ...
But still this has become what it was always going to become: how much do you have to nerf wizard to even give a fighter a chance?
It's not really a fight is the point it's more a thought exercise on how you could possibly win as a fighter and it's pretty obvious the options are fairly limited..
I think the AC25 Tank Wizard can be beaten by a fighter built to get initiative on average, Charm and persuade.
If you can charm the wizard, you get advantage on persuasion to convince them to do all sorts of things, like, oh I don't know, waste their spell slots, dispel any effects they have running, take off their armour and shield (with your help of course), test to see how many vials of Malice it would take to blind them, get them to go prone...
With WIS and CHA 10, you just need to get to a DC of 18 to have them fail normal saving throws more than they pass on average. Thing is, wizard gets advantage against spells, but what if I told you it's possible, as an elf, to get a charm racial ability that is an innate ability, uses INT, WIS or CHA for DC, is tied to a 30 ft teleport bonus action, has a range of 10ft, isn't cast and so isn't a spell, can't be counterspelled and can be cast 6 times ? That certainly changes things doesn't it?
However, I'm not sure if it could beat the original Dread build due to Lucky, but if it could get enough charms off it might be workable. So the question is, what's the least number of turns a wizard needs to reduce a fighter to 0hp (assuming Con 10 and average hp), and what would they use to do it?
I think charmed probably isn't a great idea to be honest since the charm effect (Eladrin, right?) ends as soon as you deal damage to the creature. So I guess you could stab them a bunch of times and then bonus action teleport and try to charm but even so it seems very high risk for damage prevention. Plus the wizard can just True Polymorph into a charm immune creature cause you can still do that when charmed RAW (the text says only no damage/harmful effects targeting the charmer). I'm thinking the Drow Matron Mother? Plus that way you can get a Yochlol/Glabrezu ally for your bonus action. Or various things tbh but the Drow option is probably most appealing to me. Also elf wizards will get advantage on the saves as will the probably better gnome wizards. But it's a cool idea, especially because I love charm effects in RPGs.
I might also add with the build consideration that you're getting advantage on persuasion checks, but it's still going to be pretty hard at most tables to persuade someone you just stabbed nearly to death to waste their spells (and many DMs would rule it to be in that special zone where even a Nat 20 won't make it possible). The DC is probably going to be almost impossibly high at my table, anyway. I can't speak for anyone else. You're going to need quite the investment in Cha and at least one related skill and your DPR will suffer even if your DM does allow you to persuade an enemy to hurt themself in the middle of life or death combat.
I had it in my head that charming makes them friendly. It's not RAW though (only Charm Person). I agree normally it'd be hard, if not impossible, to persuade someone that is hostile to do things, as per the DMG, but I'd argue that it's implied that charming works by making them no longer hostile by magically changing their mind. That would makes sense, they think you're friendly, so don't try to hurt you anymore, but attacking them shows that you aren't, and so the charm breaks.
As an aside, anything that forces the wizard to polymorph to remove an effect is actually a sound tactic for an EK. True Polymorph can be dispelled, and DMM (and most likely any other form that removes effects) has no Counterspell. Wizard has just lost their 9th level spell. I also believe that polymorph into an immune form wouldn't remove the effect from the caster's original form, immune means no effect, not remove effect.
So much of this contest is slanted to favor the wizard.
*There are no magic items. Magic item inclusion would favor the Fighter because they have better items that don't require attunement
*There is nowhere ranged weapon users can take advantage of cover
*Now there is *****ing that we should give the wizard a round to prepare
I'm sure that if we keep tweaking the encounter to favor the wizard enough, then the fighter will have no chance, but what will we learn from that? It just seems like ego *********ion for fans of the wizard class.
So much of this contest is slanted to favor the wizard.
*There are no magic items. Magic item inclusion would favor the Fighter because they have better items that don't require attunement
*There is nowhere ranged weapon users can take advantage of cover
*Now there is *****ing that we should give the wizard a round to prepare
I'm sure that if we keep tweaking the encounter to favor the wizard enough, then the fighter will have no chance, but what will we learn from that? It just seems like ego *********ion for fans of the wizard class.
I'm a fan of the wizard class with a massive ego, but even I agree that white room in a mid range room with no magic items favours the wizard. The no prep time is a point on the fighter side, but so much of effective fighter tactics involve positioning and use of cool magic weapons. Although it is equally true to say that the wizard at level 20 is pretty much broken when you go for power builds. And regardless of other options, the initiative wizard still isn't going to be beaten by changing these factors.
I had it in my head that charming makes them friendly. It's not RAW though (only Charm Person). I agree normally it'd be hard, if not impossible, to persuade someone that is hostile to do things, as per the DMG, but I'd argue that it's implied that charming works by making them no longer hostile by magically changing their mind. That would makes sense, they think you're friendly, so don't try to hurt you anymore, but attacking them shows that you aren't, and so the charm breaks.
As an aside, anything that forces the wizard to polymorph to remove an effect is actually a sound tactic for an EK. True Polymorph can be dispelled, and DMM (and most likely any other form that removes effects) has no Counterspell. Wizard has just lost their 9th level spell. I also believe that polymorph into an immune form wouldn't remove the effect from the caster's original form, immune means no effect, not remove effect.
First paragraph, I get where you're coming from but I think of the eladrin effect as more like a fascination effect (Pathfinder term), as opposed to friendliness. Because otherwise as a DM I'd have a problem with the social aspects of the game around that character and I have issues with equating it to the equivalent of 2 whole levelled spells. But yeah, table dependent.
Second, yup definitely that's why go Silvery Barbs or Portent or racial features etc to significantly improve the chances of successful saves. All suitable options I would say. But I disagree with the point on effect removal. I could only find this snippet from the MM (it's a niche issue so I don't blame WotC for mostly ignoring it) saying 'some creatures are immune to certain conditions'. I would say this doesn't feel like a statement that refers to the point where the condition is imposed but rather a permanent state of charm immunity from the point of becoming that creature. But it's not specific enough either way for one of us to prove the other wrong I don't think. No effect means no impact from the effect, not remove effect the way I see it in this scenario.
So much of this contest is slanted to favor the wizard.
Answer: But it also has a incredibly large no prep factor which heavily nerfs the wizard so what’s your point? And even if you say the fighter needs this or the fighter needs that remember you can’t just not compensate the wizard so the wizard also gets equal access to whatever the fighter would get.
*There are no magic items. Magic item inclusion would favor the Fighter because they have better items that don't require attunement
Answer: Yeah there isn’t magic items but let’s say we give the fighter magic items now we can’t just give the fighter a buff and nothing to the wizard so we have to also give magic items or something else to the wizard to compensate. Now if the fighter grabs something to increase their Damage all the Wizard needs is something to increase his AC to counteract the increase in damage then blah blah blah now you have changed practically nothing and if you have changed much it is because one side has like multiple legendary magic items or whatever.
*There is nowhere ranged weapon users can take advantage of cover
Answer: Ok where would you put cover that isn’t entirely and utterly subjective oh wait you can’t because there is no objective way to implement cover onto the battlefield. And if you really want cover for the fighter have them bring a blanket or a horse cart or whatever and what ever you bring will “spawn” beside you or be equipped depending on what the fighter takes (Quite literally in a previous EK build I used a blanket/item to abuse line of sight so the EK could cast his subtle spell hold person without ever getting counterspelled).
*Now there is *****ing that we should give the wizard a round to prepare
I'm sure that if we keep tweaking the encounter to favor the wizard enough, then the fighter will have no chance, but what will we learn from that? It just seems like ego *********ion for fans of the wizard class.
Answer: Language… as for the round of prep I don’t think anyone was just giving a round of prep to the wizard and if they were it was entirely hypothetical.
But if the wizard did have a round to prepare before the fighter would quite literally instantaneously lose as soon as the battle started since the wizard could just buff/transform himself, make a simulacrum via Wish, or just ready a spell like Prismatic Wall, Maze or some force construct like a wall or cage and just instantly make the fighter lose not to mention the wizard with that round of prep could technically also cast Time Stop and get a few extra turns to buff himself before the battle started.
Just saying if the Bladesinger wizard was given the ability to have Bladesong up at the start of the match a Bladesinger build could have 30+ AC with a good amount of HP and be an almost impossible to hit and now imagine if you added magic items to that Bladesinger that same Bladesinger could have an almost 40ish AC… but that is only possible if we allowed them to use a bonus action to activate their Bladesong.
While I feel like saying “I told you so” but I’ll lay off and let everyone read through to draw their own conclusions but either way for the Disarming a shield discussion I now even more so believe that yes you can knock the item from their hand.
While I feel like saying “I told you so” but I’ll lay off and let everyone read through to draw their own conclusions but either way for the Disarming a shield discussion I now even more so believe that yes you can knock the item from their hand.
Sage advice
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While I feel like saying “I told you so” but I’ll lay off and let everyone read through to draw their own conclusions but either way for the Disarming a shield discussion I now even more so believe that yes you can knock the item from their hand.
Sage advice
Answer: While yes they do use sage advice as a backing… but they use that backing to support their reasoning so while yes they use sage advice (which many would appreciate) they also use quotes and reasoning to bring them to their conclusion.
So to just say “sage advice” in an attempt to essentially disregard the entirety of their argument is very disingenuous as you are saying that the rest of their evidence doesn’t matter/exist.
What I wanted to draw attention to was not their use of sage advice but their use of other evidence, quotes, and logical reasoning to come to their conclusion in what I find a very reasonable manner.
So what I’m saying is if you want to disregard their opinion (by extension mine as well) you need to prove why they are wrong not just use two words in a futile attempt to dismiss their conclusion.
A little off topic but a stat block for another god was made being none other than Vecna The Archlich and he has 272 hp and a 18 Ac that means (if ignore Resistance to nonmagical weapons) that the SSS can in one turn Nova a literal god…
A little off topic but stat block for another god was made being none other than Vecna The Archlich and he has 272 hp and a 18 Ac that means (if ignore Resistance to nonmagical weapons) that the SSS can in one turn Nova a literal god…
Why does a god only have 272 hp? Just about any barbarian of level 20 has that much or more.
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A little off topic but stat block for another god was made being none other than Vecna The Archlich and he has 272 hp and a 18 Ac that means (if ignore Resistance (it's actually immunity btw) to nonmagical weapons) that the SSS can in one turn Nova a literal god…
Why does a god only have 272 hp? Just about any barbarian of level 20 has that much or more.
Vecna's bonus action heals 80 hp every turn there's a person within 45 feet (because it's also a teleport), which is likely often since Vecna can also teleport as a reaction up to 3 times a round (only the BA heals though). That's probably what the creators were banking on.
Fell Rebuke does also hinder the Samurai's Strength Before Death, but in the end of the day yeah you could probably nova Vecna.
This is all assuming fighter wins the initiative. Before true polymorph. The saves thing is valid but still more than 50/50 in fighters favor except for chronurgist and divination, who are practically immune to these.
The main obstacle for fighter winning isn’t really doing something on their first turn, it’s going first. With most of the good fighters it’s an initiative contest the wizard typically wins. While people have come up with ways to beat the wizard tank, there probably isn’t a way to beat the initiative wizard.
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That's why the Fighter has to win initiative, as I noted. The Wizard can't have time to cast anything.
Well even if they go first they can still cast True Poly and become a creature with legendary actions that would proc after their turn.
That assumes they cast it before the fight. The guy who sends them to the arena would look for the wizard, but only see a dragon, and leave to look for another wizard.
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You don't get legendary actions when assuming the form of legendary creatures.
MM-Errata.pdf (wizards.com)
'If a creature assumes the form of a legendary creature, such as through a spell, it doesn’t gain that form’s legendary actions, lair actions, or regional effects.'
This too
Precast true polymorph is overpowered in pvp or in general, but not that overpowered. Still, it isn’t being allowed. We are doing fighter vs wizard, not fighter vs insert cr 20 here. Only insanely overpowered characters are sent against creatures with cr equal to their level, because those creatures are supposed to fight 4 players at once and be of non-negligible threat, which requires being stronger than any single player. That is why polymorph, true polymorph, and shapechange are overpowered.
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Shapechange and True Polymorph are broken along with Wish and arguably Gate. The fact that Shapechange let’s you be able to “replenish” legendary resistances whenever you shift form, effectively (as long as you have hp) gives you infinite LR as long as you have the HP to shift back and forth between Legendary Creatures.
Not to mention the craziness the other spells can do as the Gate spell allows a lot of interesting things to happen.
Ah fair ...
But still this has become what it was always going to become: how much do you have to nerf wizard to even give a fighter a chance?
It's not really a fight is the point it's more a thought exercise on how you could possibly win as a fighter and it's pretty obvious the options are fairly limited..
I had it in my head that charming makes them friendly. It's not RAW though (only Charm Person). I agree normally it'd be hard, if not impossible, to persuade someone that is hostile to do things, as per the DMG, but I'd argue that it's implied that charming works by making them no longer hostile by magically changing their mind. That would makes sense, they think you're friendly, so don't try to hurt you anymore, but attacking them shows that you aren't, and so the charm breaks.
As an aside, anything that forces the wizard to polymorph to remove an effect is actually a sound tactic for an EK. True Polymorph can be dispelled, and DMM (and most likely any other form that removes effects) has no Counterspell. Wizard has just lost their 9th level spell. I also believe that polymorph into an immune form wouldn't remove the effect from the caster's original form, immune means no effect, not remove effect.
So much of this contest is slanted to favor the wizard.
*There are no magic items. Magic item inclusion would favor the Fighter because they have better items that don't require attunement
*There is nowhere ranged weapon users can take advantage of cover
*Now there is *****ing that we should give the wizard a round to prepare
I'm sure that if we keep tweaking the encounter to favor the wizard enough, then the fighter will have no chance, but what will we learn from that? It just seems like ego *********ion for fans of the wizard class.
I'm a fan of the wizard class with a massive ego, but even I agree that white room in a mid range room with no magic items favours the wizard. The no prep time is a point on the fighter side, but so much of effective fighter tactics involve positioning and use of cool magic weapons. Although it is equally true to say that the wizard at level 20 is pretty much broken when you go for power builds. And regardless of other options, the initiative wizard still isn't going to be beaten by changing these factors.
But still, watch your language.
Chilling kinda vibe.
First paragraph, I get where you're coming from but I think of the eladrin effect as more like a fascination effect (Pathfinder term), as opposed to friendliness. Because otherwise as a DM I'd have a problem with the social aspects of the game around that character and I have issues with equating it to the equivalent of 2 whole levelled spells. But yeah, table dependent.
Second, yup definitely that's why go Silvery Barbs or Portent or racial features etc to significantly improve the chances of successful saves. All suitable options I would say. But I disagree with the point on effect removal. I could only find this snippet from the MM (it's a niche issue so I don't blame WotC for mostly ignoring it) saying 'some creatures are immune to certain conditions'. I would say this doesn't feel like a statement that refers to the point where the condition is imposed but rather a permanent state of charm immunity from the point of becoming that creature. But it's not specific enough either way for one of us to prove the other wrong I don't think. No effect means no impact from the effect, not remove effect the way I see it in this scenario.
Chilling kinda vibe.
Answer: But it also has a incredibly large no prep factor which heavily nerfs the wizard so what’s your point? And even if you say the fighter needs this or the fighter needs that remember you can’t just not compensate the wizard so the wizard also gets equal access to whatever the fighter would get.
Answer: Yeah there isn’t magic items but let’s say we give the fighter magic items now we can’t just give the fighter a buff and nothing to the wizard so we have to also give magic items or something else to the wizard to compensate. Now if the fighter grabs something to increase their Damage all the Wizard needs is something to increase his AC to counteract the increase in damage then blah blah blah now you have changed practically nothing and if you have changed much it is because one side has like multiple legendary magic items or whatever.
Answer: Ok where would you put cover that isn’t entirely and utterly subjective oh wait you can’t because there is no objective way to implement cover onto the battlefield. And if you really want cover for the fighter have them bring a blanket or a horse cart or whatever and what ever you bring will “spawn” beside you or be equipped depending on what the fighter takes (Quite literally in a previous EK build I used a blanket/item to abuse line of sight so the EK could cast his subtle spell hold person without ever getting counterspelled).
Answer: Language… as for the round of prep I don’t think anyone was just giving a round of prep to the wizard and if they were it was entirely hypothetical.
But if the wizard did have a round to prepare before the fighter would quite literally instantaneously lose as soon as the battle started since the wizard could just buff/transform himself, make a simulacrum via Wish, or just ready a spell like Prismatic Wall, Maze or some force construct like a wall or cage and just instantly make the fighter lose not to mention the wizard with that round of prep could technically also cast Time Stop and get a few extra turns to buff himself before the battle started.
Just saying if the Bladesinger wizard was given the ability to have Bladesong up at the start of the match a Bladesinger build could have 30+ AC with a good amount of HP and be an almost impossible to hit and now imagine if you added magic items to that Bladesinger that same Bladesinger could have an almost 40ish AC… but that is only possible if we allowed them to use a bonus action to activate their Bladesong.
Something makes me doubt any sensible dm would let the blanket work. A cart would work though. And bladesinger ac always was and always will be insane
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Hmm well I’ve been looking around and it seems that shields and armor aren’t the same thing as shields are show to be wielded and Armor worn even if they both said to be “Donned.”
The most influential place to support this view is this forum: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/rules-game-mechanics/13793-weilding-a-shield-wearing-armor
While I feel like saying “I told you so” but I’ll lay off and let everyone read through to draw their own conclusions but either way for the Disarming a shield discussion I now even more so believe that yes you can knock the item from their hand.
Sage advice
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Answer: While yes they do use sage advice as a backing… but they use that backing to support their reasoning so while yes they use sage advice (which many would appreciate) they also use quotes and reasoning to bring them to their conclusion.
So to just say “sage advice” in an attempt to essentially disregard the entirety of their argument is very disingenuous as you are saying that the rest of their evidence doesn’t matter/exist.
What I wanted to draw attention to was not their use of sage advice but their use of other evidence, quotes, and logical reasoning to come to their conclusion in what I find a very reasonable manner.
So what I’m saying is if you want to disregard their opinion (by extension mine as well) you need to prove why they are wrong not just use two words in a futile attempt to dismiss their conclusion.
A little off topic but a stat block for another god was made being none other than Vecna The Archlich and he has 272 hp and a 18 Ac that means (if ignore Resistance to nonmagical weapons) that the SSS can in one turn Nova a literal god…
Why does a god only have 272 hp? Just about any barbarian of level 20 has that much or more.
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Quest offer! Enter the deep dungeon here
Ctg’s blood is on the spam filter’s hands
Vecna's bonus action heals 80 hp every turn there's a person within 45 feet (because it's also a teleport), which is likely often since Vecna can also teleport as a reaction up to 3 times a round (only the BA heals though). That's probably what the creators were banking on.
Fell Rebuke does also hinder the Samurai's Strength Before Death, but in the end of the day yeah you could probably nova Vecna.
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.