I think we are agreeing re effect removal as I did say 'immune means no effect, not remove effect' e.g. you charm the caster, the caster polymorphs to an immune form. Charm no longer effects them, but the effect is still active. You dispel polymorph, caster reverts back to original form. Caster is back to being charmed as not immune and charm was never removed. Or did you mean something else?
I honestly don't think it makes any difference if we have different opinions on the suppression or removal of charm anyway. Cause to get rid of a True Polymorph without dealing damage and ending the effect anyway, you're having to roll very high on that Counterspell which seems unlikely even with high Int. And then the charm effect ends regardless at the end of the turn. But obviously, the aim is to avoid failing the charm save in the first place.
Eldarin charm lasts a minute, which is why I was pursuing the idea of using it. I was looking at beating the Tank Wizard builds, which only have Spell DC of 16/17. If you can get your success to 6/20 or better (success on 15 or more), Lucky or any other ability re-roll gives you a better than average chance of passing (14/20 with a re-roll gives 196/200 or 49% chance of failure). You'd need INT 18+ to do that against DC19.
It lasts one minute, sure. But it also ends if you do any damage to the target. So I'm guessing it won't actually last one minute. And I'm not sure about the tank build race but if gnome or elf, you get advantage on the save (Fey Ancestry and Gnome Cunning).
If the gnome or elf (which I personally prefer to variant human or custom lineage) then you'd get 65.7% which is a pretty decent chance of success. 34.3% chance of failure.
Why does everyone have the assumpion that the Wizard will be able to maje their concentration checks?
Answer: The average damage dealt by SSS is 23.25 so half that rounded down is 11... most of these wizards have a high con stat at anywhere from 18-20, resilience (Con) and/or War Caster that means if the wizard rolled a literally one they would still pass the concentration checks. not to mention if the wizard has a concentration spell up that usually means they are transformed into some other creature... which no doubt is some like CR 20 creature with over 20 Con.
So that is why we don't talk about concentration checks.
EDIT: Removed the Mistake "and like a 7-9+ proficiency bonus" as all CR 20 creatures seem to have a proficiency bonus of 6 while CR 21+ have a 7 or more Proficiency bonus although the point still stands in that since Shapechange and Clone allow the wizard to become an adult gold shadow dragon permanently then as they age their proficiency would go up to that of an ancient gold shadow dragon. But then again you could do some of the Magic Jar strategies of which still work. Even though certain others think it doesn't but by saying it doesn't work they are saying that the wizard now has infinite range range of self spells. I could go into more depth but people have said to just agree to disagree but whatever.
Why does everyone have the assumpion that the Wizard will be able to maje their concentration checks?
Answer: The average damage dealt by SSS is 23.25 so half that rounded down is 11... most of these wizards have a high con stat at anywhere from 18-20, resilience (Con) and/or War Caster that means if the wizard rolled a literally one they would still pass the concentration checks. not to mention if the wizard has a concentration spell up that usually means they are transformed into some other creature... which no doubt is some like CR 20 creature with over 20 Con and like a 7-9+ proficiency bonus.
So that is why we don't talk about concentration checks.
All of that holds true save one nitpick: cr20 creatures have a +6 proficiency bonus. Same as the wizard did before. Still not going to be bothered by dc11 concentration saves. Also, concentration might come into play with eldritch knights if they use a big slot for a damage spell. Unlikely and maybe not optimal, but it could happen, I guess.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Of course, above average damage is dealt half the time* (I know, radical concept). I don't have a probability bell curve for damage** but the chance of failing a concentration save is definitely above zero. I know we're using averages here but I would say this is one time when it's worth mentioning. Still, the chance of success will remain very high.
*Sort of. A not insignificant amount of the time the damage will be bang on average. So really just below half the time.
**I'm actually interested though so I'll probably make one sometime today. I'll post when it's done with the overall chance of concentration success on any single attack as well as over a whole turn.
Another option for the fighter is to take expertise in stealth.
Shapechange has a duration of 1 hour. The Fighter waits an hour for the Shapechange to expire before attacking.
If we're going with a white room scenario then the fighter needs to be invisible the entire time because you can't just stand very still and pretend to be a tree, you need somewhere to hide.
Ditch Gunner and take Crossbow Expert. Use a heavy crossbow cause some people take issue with that musket (personally I reckon it should be fine but still). Instead of Disarming Strike use Precision Attack to bypass the problems with shields until the argument can be resolved. Anyway, if the wizard carries two shields they benefit from only one at a time but don't lose AC when you disarm one. Ditch Mounted Combatant and Fey Touched, just use your bonus action to get advantage on attacks (this one hurts me deep inside, but we need that advantage). You now have a couple of extra feat slots. Take Lucky (it's useful and helps make up for the loss of disarmament) and take Savage Attacker for a slight damage boost to two of those attacks. One per turn.
Now your attacks deal 20.5 damage, and crits deal 31.5. You hit 6.474 normal hits and 2.382 crits on average (16 normal attacks and 2 without advantage from Rapid Strikes). Since everything else has been averages I'm not bothering to round these. I'm guessing that you'll hit another few (we'll say 2.6) attacks thanks to Lucky and Precision Attacks. You could hit up to five extra shop I'm just gonna head straight to the middle man. This gets us 261.05 (edited from 248.75, I just typed the wrong number, no new maths) damage. I'll go ahead and assume you reroll four ones from Savage Attacker and Piercer and get average (5.5) results. This would boost damage by a further 16 damage getting over the threshold for success at 277.05 damage. This all works RAW I hope and fixes the issues with the SSS.
I made assumptions about the number of hits you could turn to misses in this build at 2.6. I have no clue how likely it is until. 3 d20s rolled needing 17 or above to hit. That's a 1/5 chance multiplied by 3 so we'll take 0.6 extra hits from that. I'm assuming that both Precision Attacks uses can be timed to work by picking the right dice tools to maximise chances of success.
Savage Attacker and Piercer getting 16 extra comes from an expectation to roll just under 20 d10s from all expected hits and criticals. I expect 2 1s and 2 2s overall and then I did the difference from subtracting from the average dice roll. Gets around 16 damage.
Tell me if I made mistakes and I'm assuming that someone will have a bone to pick with me about the Savage Attacker, Lucky and Precision Attack numbers I've used.
Edited a couple of additions that I did wrong. From earlier edits before posting that I didn't fully update.
Nobody has an issue with the musket, it's doing damage to self that reduces hp to 0 from full, specifically worded that way to trigger an ability that is the problem. If you can quote the rule that permits this, then the build is fine. If you can't, then it's not. Haven't seen anyone quote anything other than DM fiat, and if you are going down that route, then everyone can make up something that works.
Nobody has an issue with the musket, it's doing damage to self that reduces hp to 0 from full, specifically worded that way to trigger an ability that is the problem. If you can quote the rule that permits this, then the build is fine. If you can't, then it's not. Haven't seen anyone quote anything other than DM fiat, and if you are going down that route, then everyone can make up something that works.
Oh, and savage attacker is melee, not ranged.
Ahhh thank you. Not quite enough damage then (I started this out trying for a melee build but couldn't do it without elven accuracy and non finesse weapons - which don't go well and forgot to swap out the savage attacker). And yes, I agree the self suicide thing is iffy at best.
Use a musket though, that should get you the damage difference and make it work. I'll run the numbers quickly.
Edited: Ran the numbers, no savage attacker but musket gets you 272.506 damage. Which does the trick.
Another option for the fighter is to take expertise in stealth.
Shapechange has a duration of 1 hour. The Fighter waits an hour for the Shapechange to expire before attacking.
If we're going with a white room scenario then the fighter needs to be invisible the entire time because you can't just stand very still and pretend to be a tree, you need somewhere to hide.
Yet another in the long list of ways this scenario is intentionally slanted to favor the wizard.
I wouldn't say it's intentional but it's interestingly true. While the wizard gets all their tactical benefits from their spells, a tactical fighter is expected to be making use of the terrain in order to perform at their best with a more straightforward mechanical chassis.
Nobody has an issue with the musket, it's doing damage to self that reduces hp to 0 from full, specifically worded that way to trigger an ability that is the problem. If you can quote the rule that permits this, then the build is fine. If you can't, then it's not. Haven't seen anyone quote anything other than DM fiat, and if you are going down that route, then everyone can make up something that works.
Oh, and savage attacker is melee, not ranged.
I don’t have issues with renaissance firearms. They are not op compared to other weapons. Only when futuristic firearms were brought up did I try to tune it down a bit.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Another option for the fighter is to take expertise in stealth.
Shapechange has a duration of 1 hour. The Fighter waits an hour for the Shapechange to expire before attacking.
If we're going with a white room scenario then the fighter needs to be invisible the entire time because you can't just stand very still and pretend to be a tree, you need somewhere to hide.
Yet another in the long list of ways this scenario is intentionally slanted to favor the wizard.
I wouldn't say it's intentional but it's interestingly true. While the wizard gets all their tactical benefits from their spells, a tactical fighter is expected to be making use of the terrain in order to perform at their best with a more straightforward mechanical chassis.
If anyone has an objective way to give people cover, please speak up. It will greatly benefit this fight.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Nobody has an issue with the musket, it's doing damage to self that reduces hp to 0 from full, specifically worded that way to trigger an ability that is the problem. If you can quote the rule that permits this, then the build is fine. If you can't, then it's not. Haven't seen anyone quote anything other than DM fiat, and if you are going down that route, then everyone can make up something that works.
Oh, and savage attacker is melee, not ranged.
I don’t have issues with renaissance firearms. They are not op compared to other weapons. Only when futuristic firearms were brought up did I try to tune it down a bit.
Ahhh, it's a misunderstanding on my part then. Sorry bout that. Although I admit to curiosity on the subject of whether it was achievable with only PHB weapons. Probably its, I just didn't quite get the Fear and ability balance right. Might try something with Echo Knight.
Another option for the fighter is to take expertise in stealth.
Shapechange has a duration of 1 hour. The Fighter waits an hour for the Shapechange to expire before attacking.
If we're going with a white room scenario then the fighter needs to be invisible the entire time because you can't just stand very still and pretend to be a tree, you need somewhere to hide.
Yet another in the long list of ways this scenario is intentionally slanted to favor the wizard.
I wouldn't say it's intentional but it's interestingly true. While the wizard gets all their tactical benefits from their spells, a tactical fighter is expected to be making use of the terrain in order to perform at their best with a more straightforward mechanical chassis.
If anyone has an objective way to give people cover, please speak up. It will greatly benefit this fight.
There aren't any. That's the thing, anything other than a white room is designed by people making builds meaning they'll select cover based on what suits them. The only way I could suggest is if someone were to build a specific arena for the battle that everyone agreed on - the white room is convenient for this purpose mostly but people will always disagree on what constitutes a 'fair' arena.
Mostly because every arena requires a different form of optimisation to beat and in actual play you'll likely never battle in exactly the same circumstances twice. I'd say the white room does the trick for now though. It's been the premise of a lot of this thread alongside lack of prep time and no magic items and it's too late to change now.
Fair way to provide cover would be for the wizard to cast Mirage Arcane on their first turn and essentially pick the arena though. That'd solve this debate.
Another option for the fighter is to take expertise in stealth.
Shapechange has a duration of 1 hour. The Fighter waits an hour for the Shapechange to expire before attacking.
If we're going with a white room scenario then the fighter needs to be invisible the entire time because you can't just stand very still and pretend to be a tree, you need somewhere to hide.
Yet another in the long list of ways this scenario is intentionally slanted to favor the wizard.
I wouldn't say it's intentional but it's interestingly true. While the wizard gets all their tactical benefits from their spells, a tactical fighter is expected to be making use of the terrain in order to perform at their best with a more straightforward mechanical chassis.
If anyone has an objective way to give people cover, please speak up. It will greatly benefit this fight.
There aren't any. That's the thing, anything other than a white room is designed by people making builds meaning they'll select cover based on what suits them. The only way I could suggest is if someone were to build a specific arena for the battle that everyone agreed on - the white room is convenient for this purpose mostly but people will always disagree on what constitutes a 'fair' arena.
Mostly because every arena requires a different form of optimisation to beat and in actual play you'll likely never battle in exactly the same circumstances twice. I'd say the white room does the trick for now though. It's been the premise of a lot of this thread alongside lack of prep time and no magic items and it's too late to change now.
Fair way to provide cover would be for the wizard to cast Mirage Arcane on their first turn and essentially pick the arena though. That'd solve this debate.
Answer: B-but there is a way to get/make cover that is objective... observe using the Marching Order rules and such you know while travelling a group marches in a line with usually 4 people (although it can be 2x2) and each are assigned a rank and job to do while travelling see pg 182 of the PHB on the section Marching Order:
"The adventurers should establish a marching order. A marching order makes it easier to determine which characters are affected by traps, which ones can spot hidden enemies, and which ones are the closest to those enemies when a fight breaks out.
A character might occupy the front rank, one or more middle ranks, or the back rank. Characters in the front and back ranks need enough room to travel side by side with others in their rank. When space is too tight, the marching order must change, usually by moving characters to a middle rank.
Fewer Than Three Ranks. If an adventuring party arranges its marching order with only two ranks, they are a front rank and a back rank. If there’s only one rank, it’s considered a front rank."
This shows how you can situate an adventuring part anywhere from the classic 1x4, or if needed seemingly into the 2x2 format as you can manipulate the order into either formation.
Now how to fill that marching order... quite simple grab the Knight Background and Grab two Commoners and a Noble squire that come with the Background Feature RETAINERS. In addition since Mounts and Vehicles are available you can have some horses and carts "spawn in" with the fighter along side some animals and such so you can make some cover happen quite easily as they would also follow your marching order for all intents and purposes.
But you mustn't forget that the wizard could also do this strategy and use the Marching Order and horse and carts to make some cover and barriers to make it very hard to even get eyeshot on the wizard when they are essentially surrounded by large objects/vehicles and people.
Nobody has an issue with the musket, it's doing damage to self that reduces hp to 0 from full, specifically worded that way to trigger an ability that is the problem. If you can quote the rule that permits this, then the build is fine. If you can't, then it's not. Haven't seen anyone quote anything other than DM fiat, and if you are going down that route, then everyone can make up something that works.
Oh, and savage attacker is melee, not ranged.
I don’t have issues with renaissance firearms. They are not op compared to other weapons. Only when futuristic firearms were brought up did I try to tune it down a bit.
Ahhh, it's a misunderstanding on my part then. Sorry bout that. Although I admit to curiosity on the subject of whether it was achievable with only PHB weapons. Probably its, I just didn't quite get the Fear and ability balance right. Might try something with Echo Knight.
Answer: Just saying you know Flanking exists right... so if you just take my SSS build from post #1052 and substitute Mounted Combatant for Athlete then do the fall off mount flank the wizard strategy you can get Advantage that way and remember poison coated ammunition is always a thing even if the fighter isn't using Purple Worm Poison the normal poison can potentially add up.
Another option for the fighter is to take expertise in stealth.
Shapechange has a duration of 1 hour. The Fighter waits an hour for the Shapechange to expire before attacking.
If we're going with a white room scenario then the fighter needs to be invisible the entire time because you can't just stand very still and pretend to be a tree, you need somewhere to hide.
Yet another in the long list of ways this scenario is intentionally slanted to favor the wizard.
I wouldn't say it's intentional but it's interestingly true. While the wizard gets all their tactical benefits from their spells, a tactical fighter is expected to be making use of the terrain in order to perform at their best with a more straightforward mechanical chassis.
If anyone has an objective way to give people cover, please speak up. It will greatly benefit this fight.
There aren't any. That's the thing, anything other than a white room is designed by people making builds meaning they'll select cover based on what suits them. The only way I could suggest is if someone were to build a specific arena for the battle that everyone agreed on - the white room is convenient for this purpose mostly but people will always disagree on what constitutes a 'fair' arena.
Mostly because every arena requires a different form of optimisation to beat and in actual play you'll likely never battle in exactly the same circumstances twice. I'd say the white room does the trick for now though. It's been the premise of a lot of this thread alongside lack of prep time and no magic items and it's too late to change now.
Fair way to provide cover would be for the wizard to cast Mirage Arcane on their first turn and essentially pick the arena though. That'd solve this debate.
Answer: B-but there is a way to get/make cover that is objective... observe using the Marching Order rules and such you know while travelling a group marches in a line with usually 4 people (although it can be 2x2) and each are assigned a rank and job to do while travelling see pg 182 of the PHB on the section Marching Order:
"The adventurers should establish a marching order. A marching order makes it easier to determine which characters are affected by traps, which ones can spot hidden enemies, and which ones are the closest to those enemies when a fight breaks out.
A character might occupy the front rank, one or more middle ranks, or the back rank. Characters in the front and back ranks need enough room to travel side by side with others in their rank. When space is too tight, the marching order must change, usually by moving characters to a middle rank.
Fewer Than Three Ranks. If an adventuring party arranges its marching order with only two ranks, they are a front rank and a back rank. If there’s only one rank, it’s considered a front rank."
This shows how you can situate an adventuring part anywhere from the classic 1x4, or if needed seemingly into the 2x2 format as you can manipulate the order into either formation.
Now how to fill that marching order... quite simple grab the Knight Background and Grab two Commoners and a Noble squire that come with the Background Feature RETAINERS. In addition since Mounts and Vehicles are available you can have some horses and carts "spawn in" with the fighter along side some animals and such so you can make some cover happen quite easily as they would also follow your marching order for all intents and purposes.
But you mustn't forget that the wizard could also do this strategy and use the Marching Order and horse and carts to make some cover and barriers to make it very hard to even get eyeshot on the wizard when they are essentially surrounded by large objects/vehicles and people.
Nobody has an issue with the musket, it's doing damage to self that reduces hp to 0 from full, specifically worded that way to trigger an ability that is the problem. If you can quote the rule that permits this, then the build is fine. If you can't, then it's not. Haven't seen anyone quote anything other than DM fiat, and if you are going down that route, then everyone can make up something that works.
Oh, and savage attacker is melee, not ranged.
I don’t have issues with renaissance firearms. They are not op compared to other weapons. Only when futuristic firearms were brought up did I try to tune it down a bit.
Ahhh, it's a misunderstanding on my part then. Sorry bout that. Although I admit to curiosity on the subject of whether it was achievable with only PHB weapons. Probably its, I just didn't quite get the Fear and ability balance right. Might try something with Echo Knight.
Answer: Just saying you know Flanking exists right... so if you just take my SSS build from post #1052 and substitute Mounted Combatant for Athlete then do the fall off mount flank the wizard strategy you can get Advantage that way and remember poison coated ammunition is always a thing even if the fighter isn't using Purple Worm Poison the normal poison can potentially add up.
Nobody uses poisons in this game. Too much money for too little damage at the low end, and simply too much money at the high end. I don’t think it is fair to use multiple doses of poison for the battle. I am completely fine with one purple worm poison arrow though.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Nobody has an issue with the musket, it's doing damage to self that reduces hp to 0 from full, specifically worded that way to trigger an ability that is the problem. If you can quote the rule that permits this, then the build is fine. If you can't, then it's not. Haven't seen anyone quote anything other than DM fiat, and if you are going down that route, then everyone can make up something that works.
Oh, and savage attacker is melee, not ranged.
That's funny given how you reacted to the point that Wish has the casting time of a copied spell.
Think you may have me confused with someone else, I never got involved with that one.
Answer: No I have tried to use poisons before and also I have tried to argue against them awhile back so to say nobody uses poison is just wrong to say the least.
Too much money for too little damage at the low end, and simply too much money at the high end.
Answer: When did money become a problem? We have characters having half plate, muskets, carts/horses/mounts, costly material components and more yet at poisons you draw the line seems like a lack of consistency to me especially when many/everyone (except for me) said that nonmagical items are free game. My original position was that we could only use what we could get with either starting equipment or starting gold but now everything that isn't magic is free.
I don’t think it is fair to use multiple doses of poison for the battle. I am completely fine with one purple worm poison arrow though.
Answer: I could see why you don't like it but that is an entirely subjective opinion and has no basis on RAW or previously made rules. And while I do think that yes we could ignore poisonous ammunition/weapons for the sake of just trying to get damage with only the fighter build and not "outside" sources I think it is wrong to just disregard and play off poison as if it is crazy to talk about it since poison is entirely valid.
Another option for the fighter is to take expertise in stealth.
Shapechange has a duration of 1 hour. The Fighter waits an hour for the Shapechange to expire before attacking.
If we're going with a white room scenario then the fighter needs to be invisible the entire time because you can't just stand very still and pretend to be a tree, you need somewhere to hide.
Yet another in the long list of ways this scenario is intentionally slanted to favor the wizard.
I wouldn't say it's intentional but it's interestingly true. While the wizard gets all their tactical benefits from their spells, a tactical fighter is expected to be making use of the terrain in order to perform at their best with a more straightforward mechanical chassis.
If anyone has an objective way to give people cover, please speak up. It will greatly benefit this fight.
There aren't any. That's the thing, anything other than a white room is designed by people making builds meaning they'll select cover based on what suits them. The only way I could suggest is if someone were to build a specific arena for the battle that everyone agreed on - the white room is convenient for this purpose mostly but people will always disagree on what constitutes a 'fair' arena.
Mostly because every arena requires a different form of optimisation to beat and in actual play you'll likely never battle in exactly the same circumstances twice. I'd say the white room does the trick for now though. It's been the premise of a lot of this thread alongside lack of prep time and no magic items and it's too late to change now.
Fair way to provide cover would be for the wizard to cast Mirage Arcane on their first turn and essentially pick the arena though. That'd solve this debate.
Answer: B-but there is a way to get/make cover that is objective... observe using the Marching Order rules and such you know while travelling a group marches in a line with usually 4 people (although it can be 2x2) and each are assigned a rank and job to do while travelling see pg 182 of the PHB on the section Marching Order:
"The adventurers should establish a marching order. A marching order makes it easier to determine which characters are affected by traps, which ones can spot hidden enemies, and which ones are the closest to those enemies when a fight breaks out.
A character might occupy the front rank, one or more middle ranks, or the back rank. Characters in the front and back ranks need enough room to travel side by side with others in their rank. When space is too tight, the marching order must change, usually by moving characters to a middle rank.
Fewer Than Three Ranks. If an adventuring party arranges its marching order with only two ranks, they are a front rank and a back rank. If there’s only one rank, it’s considered a front rank."
This shows how you can situate an adventuring part anywhere from the classic 1x4, or if needed seemingly into the 2x2 format as you can manipulate the order into either formation.
Now how to fill that marching order... quite simple grab the Knight Background and Grab two Commoners and a Noble squire that come with the Background Feature RETAINERS. In addition since Mounts and Vehicles are available you can have some horses and carts "spawn in" with the fighter along side some animals and such so you can make some cover happen quite easily as they would also follow your marching order for all intents and purposes.
But you mustn't forget that the wizard could also do this strategy and use the Marching Order and horse and carts to make some cover and barriers to make it very hard to even get eyeshot on the wizard when they are essentially surrounded by large objects/vehicles and people.
Nobody has an issue with the musket, it's doing damage to self that reduces hp to 0 from full, specifically worded that way to trigger an ability that is the problem. If you can quote the rule that permits this, then the build is fine. If you can't, then it's not. Haven't seen anyone quote anything other than DM fiat, and if you are going down that route, then everyone can make up something that works.
Oh, and savage attacker is melee, not ranged.
I don’t have issues with renaissance firearms. They are not op compared to other weapons. Only when futuristic firearms were brought up did I try to tune it down a bit.
Ahhh, it's a misunderstanding on my part then. Sorry bout that. Although I admit to curiosity on the subject of whether it was achievable with only PHB weapons. Probably its, I just didn't quite get the Fear and ability balance right. Might try something with Echo Knight.
Answer: Just saying you know Flanking exists right... so if you just take my SSS build from post #1052 and substitute Mounted Combatant for Athlete then do the fall off mount flank the wizard strategy you can get Advantage that way and remember poison coated ammunition is always a thing even if the fighter isn't using Purple Worm Poison the normal poison can potentially add up.
Nobody uses poisons in this game. Too much money for too little damage at the low end, and simply too much money at the high end. I don’t think it is fair to use multiple doses of poison for the battle. I am completely fine with one purple worm poison arrow though.
I think Malice may be the way to go poison wise, wizard struggles with poison and status effects, and blinded shuts down a lot of spells that require the caster can see. Inhaled poisons just need to cover a 5x5 square to be effective, which means you are targeting an area not a creature, neutralising a high ac. You'd need 7 doses on average to fail a normal save at con 20 plus proficiency though, which is 1750gp iirc.
Nobody has an issue with the musket, it's doing damage to self that reduces hp to 0 from full, specifically worded that way to trigger an ability that is the problem. If you can quote the rule that permits this, then the build is fine. If you can't, then it's not. Haven't seen anyone quote anything other than DM fiat, and if you are going down that route, then everyone can make up something that works.
Oh, and savage attacker is melee, not ranged.
I don’t have issues with renaissance firearms. They are not op compared to other weapons. Only when futuristic firearms were brought up did I try to tune it down a bit.
Ahhh, it's a misunderstanding on my part then. Sorry bout that. Although I admit to curiosity on the subject of whether it was achievable with only PHB weapons. Probably its, I just didn't quite get the Fear and ability balance right. Might try something with Echo Knight.
Answer: Just saying you know Flanking exists right... so if you just take my SSS build from post #1052 and substitute Mounted Combatant for Athlete then do the fall off mount flank the wizard strategy you can get Advantage that way and remember poison coated ammunition is always a thing even if the fighter isn't using Purple Worm Poison the normal poison can potentially add up.
Poisons exist, yes, but if possible I'd rather not use them, it takes away from the fun. Use them yourself if you like but I find adding equipment beyond weapons for damage makes me feel less satisfied after the final build works.
Flanking is an optional rule, so we can't rely on that being applied.
The Echo Knight comment was intended as separate, I want to try and see if an echo knight character could be viable.
Nobody has an issue with the musket, it's doing damage to self that reduces hp to 0 from full, specifically worded that way to trigger an ability that is the problem. If you can quote the rule that permits this, then the build is fine. If you can't, then it's not. Haven't seen anyone quote anything other than DM fiat, and if you are going down that route, then everyone can make up something that works.
Oh, and savage attacker is melee, not ranged.
I don’t have issues with renaissance firearms. They are not op compared to other weapons. Only when futuristic firearms were brought up did I try to tune it down a bit.
Ahhh, it's a misunderstanding on my part then. Sorry bout that. Although I admit to curiosity on the subject of whether it was achievable with only PHB weapons. Probably its, I just didn't quite get the Fear and ability balance right. Might try something with Echo Knight.
Answer: Just saying you know Flanking exists right... so if you just take my SSS build from post #1052 and substitute Mounted Combatant for Athlete then do the fall off mount flank the wizard strategy you can get Advantage that way and remember poison coated ammunition is always a thing even if the fighter isn't using Purple Worm Poison the normal poison can potentially add up.
Poisons exist, yes, but if possible I'd rather not use them, it's takes away from the fun.
Answer: I agree that just using like 17 pieces of poisoned purple worm ammunition does take away from the fun.
Flanking is an optional rule, so we can't rely on that being applied.
Answer: So are feats… so is the Disarm tactic and firearms/futuristic weapons, so is like half the things we do on this forum as they all use optional stuff since without it the fighter (to my knowledge) is incapable of defeating the wizard. In fact any book beyond the PHB, DMG, MM could be considered optional and if we go that way even the PHB, DMG, and MM are optional since the DM has full say on what is used… So just saying something is optional doesn’t mean we should suddenly completely ignore it. The only way we could disallow Flanking without being intellectually dishonest or biased is by outright banning all optional content and I can tell you now we aren’t going to do that.
The Echo Knight comment was intended as separate, I want to try and see if an echo knight character could be viable.
Answer: I thought about many builds and the only builds that seemed viable were the Arcane Archer, Echo Knight, Eldritch Knight, and Samurai. Of those four only 2 to my knowledge are capable of actually defeating the Tank Wizard one being the EK and the the other the SSS. And I’ll tell you now I don’t have a single clue how you are gonna get the Echo Knight to deal enough damage to kill the tank wizard because I just don’t think the Echo Knight has enough attacks (10) compared to the Samurai amount (18). And although while I do think it may be possible If I or you spent a good amount of time to figure it out I feel to bridge the damage gap between the SSS and Echo Knight it would be very hard if not outright improbable.
Anyways do tell if I missed or messed up anything.
It lasts one minute, sure. But it also ends if you do any damage to the target. So I'm guessing it won't actually last one minute. And I'm not sure about the tank build race but if gnome or elf, you get advantage on the save (Fey Ancestry and Gnome Cunning).
If the gnome or elf (which I personally prefer to variant human or custom lineage) then you'd get 65.7% which is a pretty decent chance of success. 34.3% chance of failure.
Chilling kinda vibe.
Answer: The average damage dealt by SSS is 23.25 so half that rounded down is 11... most of these wizards have a high con stat at anywhere from 18-20, resilience (Con) and/or War Caster that means if the wizard rolled a literally one they would still pass the concentration checks. not to mention if the wizard has a concentration spell up that usually means they are transformed into some other creature... which no doubt is some like CR 20 creature with over 20 Con.
So that is why we don't talk about concentration checks.
EDIT: Removed the Mistake "and like a 7-9+ proficiency bonus" as all CR 20 creatures seem to have a proficiency bonus of 6 while CR 21+ have a 7 or more Proficiency bonus although the point still stands in that since Shapechange and Clone allow the wizard to become an adult gold shadow dragon permanently then as they age their proficiency would go up to that of an ancient gold shadow dragon. But then again you could do some of the Magic Jar strategies of which still work. Even though certain others think it doesn't but by saying it doesn't work they are saying that the wizard now has infinite range range of self spells. I could go into more depth but people have said to just agree to disagree but whatever.
All of that holds true save one nitpick: cr20 creatures have a +6 proficiency bonus. Same as the wizard did before. Still not going to be bothered by dc11 concentration saves. Also, concentration might come into play with eldritch knights if they use a big slot for a damage spell. Unlikely and maybe not optimal, but it could happen, I guess.
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
Of course, above average damage is dealt half the time* (I know, radical concept). I don't have a probability bell curve for damage** but the chance of failing a concentration save is definitely above zero. I know we're using averages here but I would say this is one time when it's worth mentioning. Still, the chance of success will remain very high.
*Sort of. A not insignificant amount of the time the damage will be bang on average. So really just below half the time.
**I'm actually interested though so I'll probably make one sometime today. I'll post when it's done with the overall chance of concentration success on any single attack as well as over a whole turn.
Chilling kinda vibe.
If we're going with a white room scenario then the fighter needs to be invisible the entire time because you can't just stand very still and pretend to be a tree, you need somewhere to hide.
Chilling kinda vibe.
Ditch Gunner and take Crossbow Expert. Use a heavy crossbow cause some people take issue with that musket (personally I reckon it should be fine but still). Instead of Disarming Strike use Precision Attack to bypass the problems with shields until the argument can be resolved. Anyway, if the wizard carries two shields they benefit from only one at a time but don't lose AC when you disarm one. Ditch Mounted Combatant and Fey Touched, just use your bonus action to get advantage on attacks (this one hurts me deep inside, but we need that advantage). You now have a couple of extra feat slots. Take Lucky (it's useful and helps make up for the loss of disarmament) and take Savage Attacker for a slight damage boost to two of those attacks. One per turn.
Now your attacks deal 20.5 damage, and crits deal 31.5. You hit 6.474 normal hits and 2.382 crits on average (16 normal attacks and 2 without advantage from Rapid Strikes). Since everything else has been averages I'm not bothering to round these. I'm guessing that you'll hit another few (we'll say 2.6) attacks thanks to Lucky and Precision Attacks. You could hit up to five extra shop I'm just gonna head straight to the middle man. This gets us 261.05 (edited from 248.75, I just typed the wrong number, no new maths) damage. I'll go ahead and assume you reroll four ones from Savage Attacker and Piercer and get average (5.5) results. This would boost damage by a further 16 damage getting over the threshold for success at 277.05 damage. This all works RAW I hope and fixes the issues with the SSS.
I made assumptions about the number of hits you could turn to misses in this build at 2.6. I have no clue how likely it is until. 3 d20s rolled needing 17 or above to hit. That's a 1/5 chance multiplied by 3 so we'll take 0.6 extra hits from that. I'm assuming that both Precision Attacks uses can be timed to work by picking the right dice tools to maximise chances of success.
Savage Attacker and Piercer getting 16 extra comes from an expectation to roll just under 20 d10s from all expected hits and criticals. I expect 2 1s and 2 2s overall and then I did the difference from subtracting from the average dice roll. Gets around 16 damage.
Tell me if I made mistakes and I'm assuming that someone will have a bone to pick with me about the Savage Attacker, Lucky and Precision Attack numbers I've used.
Edited a couple of additions that I did wrong. From earlier edits before posting that I didn't fully update.
Chilling kinda vibe.
Nobody has an issue with the musket, it's doing damage to self that reduces hp to 0 from full, specifically worded that way to trigger an ability that is the problem. If you can quote the rule that permits this, then the build is fine. If you can't, then it's not. Haven't seen anyone quote anything other than DM fiat, and if you are going down that route, then everyone can make up something that works.
Oh, and savage attacker is melee, not ranged.
Ahhh thank you. Not quite enough damage then (I started this out trying for a melee build but couldn't do it without elven accuracy and non finesse weapons - which don't go well and forgot to swap out the savage attacker). And yes, I agree the self suicide thing is iffy at best.
Use a musket though, that should get you the damage difference and make it work. I'll run the numbers quickly.
Edited: Ran the numbers, no savage attacker but musket gets you 272.506 damage. Which does the trick.
Chilling kinda vibe.
I wouldn't say it's intentional but it's interestingly true. While the wizard gets all their tactical benefits from their spells, a tactical fighter is expected to be making use of the terrain in order to perform at their best with a more straightforward mechanical chassis.
Chilling kinda vibe.
I don’t have issues with renaissance firearms. They are not op compared to other weapons. Only when futuristic firearms were brought up did I try to tune it down a bit.
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
If anyone has an objective way to give people cover, please speak up. It will greatly benefit this fight.
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
Ahhh, it's a misunderstanding on my part then. Sorry bout that. Although I admit to curiosity on the subject of whether it was achievable with only PHB weapons. Probably its, I just didn't quite get the Fear and ability balance right. Might try something with Echo Knight.
Chilling kinda vibe.
There aren't any. That's the thing, anything other than a white room is designed by people making builds meaning they'll select cover based on what suits them. The only way I could suggest is if someone were to build a specific arena for the battle that everyone agreed on - the white room is convenient for this purpose mostly but people will always disagree on what constitutes a 'fair' arena.
Mostly because every arena requires a different form of optimisation to beat and in actual play you'll likely never battle in exactly the same circumstances twice. I'd say the white room does the trick for now though. It's been the premise of a lot of this thread alongside lack of prep time and no magic items and it's too late to change now.
Fair way to provide cover would be for the wizard to cast Mirage Arcane on their first turn and essentially pick the arena though. That'd solve this debate.
Chilling kinda vibe.
Answer: B-but there is a way to get/make cover that is objective... observe using the Marching Order rules and such you know while travelling a group marches in a line with usually 4 people (although it can be 2x2) and each are assigned a rank and job to do while travelling see pg 182 of the PHB on the section Marching Order:
"The adventurers should establish a marching order. A marching order makes it easier to determine which characters are affected by traps, which ones can spot hidden enemies, and which ones are the closest to those enemies when a fight breaks out.
A character might occupy the front rank, one or more middle ranks, or the back rank. Characters in the front and back ranks need enough room to travel side by side with others in their rank. When space is too tight, the marching order must change, usually by moving characters to a middle rank.
Fewer Than Three Ranks. If an adventuring party arranges its marching order with only two ranks, they are a front rank and a back rank. If there’s only one rank, it’s considered a front rank."
This shows how you can situate an adventuring part anywhere from the classic 1x4, or if needed seemingly into the 2x2 format as you can manipulate the order into either formation.
Now how to fill that marching order... quite simple grab the Knight Background and Grab two Commoners and a Noble squire that come with the Background Feature RETAINERS. In addition since Mounts and Vehicles are available you can have some horses and carts "spawn in" with the fighter along side some animals and such so you can make some cover happen quite easily as they would also follow your marching order for all intents and purposes.
But you mustn't forget that the wizard could also do this strategy and use the Marching Order and horse and carts to make some cover and barriers to make it very hard to even get eyeshot on the wizard when they are essentially surrounded by large objects/vehicles and people.
Answer: Just saying you know Flanking exists right... so if you just take my SSS build from post #1052 and substitute Mounted Combatant for Athlete then do the fall off mount flank the wizard strategy you can get Advantage that way and remember poison coated ammunition is always a thing even if the fighter isn't using Purple Worm Poison the normal poison can potentially add up.
Nobody uses poisons in this game. Too much money for too little damage at the low end, and simply too much money at the high end. I don’t think it is fair to use multiple doses of poison for the battle. I am completely fine with one purple worm poison arrow though.
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
Think you may have me confused with someone else, I never got involved with that one.
Answer: No I have tried to use poisons before and also I have tried to argue against them awhile back so to say nobody uses poison is just wrong to say the least.
Answer: When did money become a problem? We have characters having half plate, muskets, carts/horses/mounts, costly material components and more yet at poisons you draw the line seems like a lack of consistency to me especially when many/everyone (except for me) said that nonmagical items are free game. My original position was that we could only use what we could get with either starting equipment or starting gold but now everything that isn't magic is free.
Answer: I could see why you don't like it but that is an entirely subjective opinion and has no basis on RAW or previously made rules. And while I do think that yes we could ignore poisonous ammunition/weapons for the sake of just trying to get damage with only the fighter build and not "outside" sources I think it is wrong to just disregard and play off poison as if it is crazy to talk about it since poison is entirely valid.
I think Malice may be the way to go poison wise, wizard struggles with poison and status effects, and blinded shuts down a lot of spells that require the caster can see. Inhaled poisons just need to cover a 5x5 square to be effective, which means you are targeting an area not a creature, neutralising a high ac. You'd need 7 doses on average to fail a normal save at con 20 plus proficiency though, which is 1750gp iirc.
Poisons exist, yes, but if possible I'd rather not use them, it takes away from the fun. Use them yourself if you like but I find adding equipment beyond weapons for damage makes me feel less satisfied after the final build works.
Flanking is an optional rule, so we can't rely on that being applied.
The Echo Knight comment was intended as separate, I want to try and see if an echo knight character could be viable.
Chilling kinda vibe.
Answer: I agree that just using like 17 pieces of poisoned purple worm ammunition does take away from the fun.
Answer: So are feats… so is the Disarm tactic and firearms/futuristic weapons, so is like half the things we do on this forum as they all use optional stuff since without it the fighter (to my knowledge) is incapable of defeating the wizard. In fact any book beyond the PHB, DMG, MM could be considered optional and if we go that way even the PHB, DMG, and MM are optional since the DM has full say on what is used… So just saying something is optional doesn’t mean we should suddenly completely ignore it. The only way we could disallow Flanking without being intellectually dishonest or biased is by outright banning all optional content and I can tell you now we aren’t going to do that.
Answer: I thought about many builds and the only builds that seemed viable were the Arcane Archer, Echo Knight, Eldritch Knight, and Samurai. Of those four only 2 to my knowledge are capable of actually defeating the Tank Wizard one being the EK and the the other the SSS. And I’ll tell you now I don’t have a single clue how you are gonna get the Echo Knight to deal enough damage to kill the tank wizard because I just don’t think the Echo Knight has enough attacks (10) compared to the Samurai amount (18). And although while I do think it may be possible If I or you spent a good amount of time to figure it out I feel to bridge the damage gap between the SSS and Echo Knight it would be very hard if not outright improbable.
Anyways do tell if I missed or messed up anything.