Any respectable tier 4 fighter worth their salt has the following: black razor and a storm giant belt, GWM, and the alert feat.
You can build around dumping STR, bump up your DEX for more initiative. You can easily hit over whatever AC the wizard has, shield included, action surge and ruin their day. You'll find few things survive after you say "I attack you 8~9 times with GWM and advantage."
Under those conditions, any respectable tier 4 wizard worth their salt has the following: robe of the archmagi and a staff of the magi, War Caster, and the Fey Touched feats.
You can easily just focus on Intelligence and DEX, so you have a good bonus to initiative and AC of 20 (25 with Shield or Bladesong, 30 with Bladesong and Shield). You can easily ignore whatever attacks the Fighter makes unless they get a critical hit. If you go first, you easily win the fight by casting Invulnerability. If you don't go first, you'll have more than enough AC to survive until your turn.
then you get disarmed, no focus, the fighter just grapples you and gives you a nuggie until your invulnerability wears off, and there's nothing you can do about that.
uhhh....you do realize that grappled does nothing besides reduces movement? the wizard can still cast spells....
RAW there is no way to "disarm" a component pouch as it is worn not held.
So no they will just cast a spell and look at the fighter with a funny face and fully realize that they dumped INT
at the end of the day, a 30 AC is no big obstacle to overcome. you get an 18+ to hit with the aforementioned, and you -will- go first. It won't take long to just punch through, and you can disarm with taking up martial adept (which is easily feasible with a storm belt and dumping strength.) Yeah, wizard HP is not going to last long lol.
Any respectable tier 4 fighter worth their salt has the following: black razor and a storm giant belt, GWM, and the alert feat.
You can build around dumping STR, bump up your DEX for more initiative. You can easily hit over whatever AC the wizard has, shield included, action surge and ruin their day. You'll find few things survive after you say "I attack you 8~9 times with GWM and advantage."
Under those conditions, any respectable tier 4 wizard worth their salt has the following: robe of the archmagi and a staff of the magi, War Caster, and the Fey Touched feats.
You can easily just focus on Intelligence and DEX, so you have a good bonus to initiative and AC of 20 (25 with Shield or Bladesong, 30 with Bladesong and Shield). You can easily ignore whatever attacks the Fighter makes unless they get a critical hit. If you go first, you easily win the fight by casting Invulnerability. If you don't go first, you'll have more than enough AC to survive until your turn.
then you get disarmed, no focus, the fighter just grapples you and gives you a nuggie until your invulnerability wears off, and there's nothing you can do about that.
uhhh....you do realize that grappled does nothing besides reduces movement? the wizard can still cast spells....
RAW there is no way to "disarm" a component pouch as it is worn not held.
So no they will just cast a spell and look at the fighter with a funny face and fully realize that they dumped INT
at the end of the day, a 30 AC is no big obstacle to overcome. you get an 18+ to hit with the aforementioned, and you -will- go first. It won't take long to just punch through, and you can disarm with taking up martial adept (which is easily feasible with a storm belt and dumping strength.) Yeah, wizard HP is not going to last long lol.
They can also just... Ya know True Polymorph into a an
ancient brass dragon
And just completely wreck the fighter too. Do many options to just destroy them.
Any respectable tier 4 fighter worth their salt has the following: black razor and a storm giant belt, GWM, and the alert feat.
You can build around dumping STR, bump up your DEX for more initiative. You can easily hit over whatever AC the wizard has, shield included, action surge and ruin their day. You'll find few things survive after you say "I attack you 8~9 times with GWM and advantage."
Under those conditions, any respectable tier 4 wizard worth their salt has the following: robe of the archmagi and a staff of the magi, War Caster, and the Fey Touched feats.
You can easily just focus on Intelligence and DEX, so you have a good bonus to initiative and AC of 20 (25 with Shield or Bladesong, 30 with Bladesong and Shield). You can easily ignore whatever attacks the Fighter makes unless they get a critical hit. If you go first, you easily win the fight by casting Invulnerability. If you don't go first, you'll have more than enough AC to survive until your turn.
then you get disarmed, no focus, the fighter just grapples you and gives you a nuggie until your invulnerability wears off, and there's nothing you can do about that.
uhhh....you do realize that grappled does nothing besides reduces movement? the wizard can still cast spells....
RAW there is no way to "disarm" a component pouch as it is worn not held.
So no they will just cast a spell and look at the fighter with a funny face and fully realize that they dumped INT
at the end of the day, a 30 AC is no big obstacle to overcome. you get an 18+ to hit with the aforementioned, and you -will- go first. It won't take long to just punch through, and you can disarm with taking up martial adept (which is easily feasible with a storm belt and dumping strength.) Yeah, wizard HP is not going to last long lol.
They can also just... Ya know True Polymorph into a an
ancient brass dragon
And just completely wreck the fighter too. Do many options to just destroy them.
Sure. If you can cast it to begin with. If you can beat all that initiative and survive an action surge volley, maybe. And if you do, 300 HP is still within action surge range of downing it entirely.
Any respectable tier 4 fighter worth their salt has the following: black razor and a storm giant belt, GWM, and the alert feat.
You can build around dumping STR, bump up your DEX for more initiative. You can easily hit over whatever AC the wizard has, shield included, action surge and ruin their day. You'll find few things survive after you say "I attack you 8~9 times with GWM and advantage."
Under those conditions, any respectable tier 4 wizard worth their salt has the following: robe of the archmagi and a staff of the magi, War Caster, and the Fey Touched feats.
You can easily just focus on Intelligence and DEX, so you have a good bonus to initiative and AC of 20 (25 with Shield or Bladesong, 30 with Bladesong and Shield). You can easily ignore whatever attacks the Fighter makes unless they get a critical hit. If you go first, you easily win the fight by casting Invulnerability. If you don't go first, you'll have more than enough AC to survive until your turn.
then you get disarmed, no focus, the fighter just grapples you and gives you a nuggie until your invulnerability wears off, and there's nothing you can do about that.
uhhh....you do realize that grappled does nothing besides reduces movement? the wizard can still cast spells....
RAW there is no way to "disarm" a component pouch as it is worn not held.
So no they will just cast a spell and look at the fighter with a funny face and fully realize that they dumped INT
at the end of the day, a 30 AC is no big obstacle to overcome. you get an 18+ to hit with the aforementioned, and you -will- go first. It won't take long to just punch through, and you can disarm with taking up martial adept (which is easily feasible with a storm belt and dumping strength.) Yeah, wizard HP is not going to last long lol.
They can also just... Ya know True Polymorph into a an
ancient brass dragon
And just completely wreck the fighter too. Do many options to just destroy them.
Sure. If you can cast it to begin with. If you can beat all that initiative and survive an action surge volley, maybe. And if you do, 300 HP is still within action surge range of downing it entirely.
Uh sure... You keep thinking that lol. Like I've proven already the wizard will best the fighter easily on initiative no problem.
And if you think a level 20 fighter can solo an ancient brass dragon then I have a bridge to sell you
at the end of the day, a 30 AC is no big obstacle to overcome. you get an 18+ to hit with the aforementioned, and you -will- go first. It won't take long to just punch through, and you can disarm with taking up martial adept (which is easily feasible with a storm belt and dumping strength.) Yeah, wizard HP is not going to last long lol.
This is not the first time I've seen the pro-Fighter camp claim they're going first with certainty.
at the end of the day, a 30 AC is no big obstacle to overcome. you get an 18+ to hit with the aforementioned, and you -will- go first. It won't take long to just punch through, and you can disarm with taking up martial adept (which is easily feasible with a storm belt and dumping strength.) Yeah, wizard HP is not going to last long lol.
This is not the first time I've seen the pro-Fighter camp claim they're going first with certainty.
What makes you so certain?
wizards want int, they want warcaster, they want res:con, they want dex, they want more con. Meanwhile, a fighter has so much liberty for what they take and build. Meanwhile a champion fighter, with alert and a +2 dex modifer, easily achieves +10 to their initiative roll, and that's not asking for much. They can even pick up a sentinel shield if need be for advantage on the roll.
Basically, it takes a specified wizard to stand toe-to-toe in the initiative battle against a generalized fighter.
A "generalized" wizard is way more likely to take Alert than a "generalized" fighter is. Initiative is one of the most important things to every wizard. They always want to win the initiative war so that they can lay down control effects before the enemies can wreck their friends. Honestly I can't remember a single time I've seen or heard someone talking about taking alert on their fighter other than for this comparison. Fighters are busy spending their ASIs to increase their attack stat and picking up feats to boost damage.
If the fighter has a sentinel shield then the wizard can have a weapon of warning, which is also an uncommon magic item. Again, Wizards actually really care about initiative. It's not some special motive they suddenly picked up for this dual. Your average wizard is very likely to have an item like this by level 20.
The ONLY way a Fighter has any chance is if you make this a white room encounter with 0 prep time. And then they have to both manage to win initiative (not the sure fire thing you make it out to be) AND kill the wizard in one round. If the wizard gets a single round it is over. There are a good number of spells that will effectively end the fight right away. None of these options involve hitting 8-9 attacks (another thing you seem to be glossing over as a given) and the best ones don't even involve a saving throw.
If you take this out of the white room scenario...
Your average level 20 wizard is walking around with a simulacrum, with at least one Contigency set to cast some spell that will get them out of virtually any jam (think dimension door). It doesn't matter what the initiative scores are, there is absolutely nothing a Fighter can do to meaningfully challenge that. At which point the wizard casts any number of its fight ending spells after safely distancing themselves.
Problem for the fighter is just the sheer number of different spells that wizards get.
If we assume they are prepared, even if the fighter wins initiative, the wizard could've just set a contingency to dimension door around 90ft from the fighter. Fighter can choose to action surge to get his action back but I'm pretty sure no subclass of fighter can get 90ft without using their action to dash then doing some teleport thing.
Now wizard turn. Move within 60ft. Cast polymorph. Chronurgist literally guarantees a fail (Convergent future look it up). If divination rolled low portents use those. Fighters tend not to have amazing WIS saves. Turn them into an octopus that has a 5ft movement speed on land. Fighters turn. Literally can't do anything. Wizards turn. Get within 60ft. Power Word Kill.
Done
There are also so many things other wizards can do as well. Dominate Person, Banishment, Mislead, Temporal Shunt, Forcecage, Simulacrum, Maze, Tenser Transformation, WISH, the list goes on. Also if you rolled for stats and rolled well, it lets take a bunch of useful feats that you may not have taken originally. A tenser's transformation build could really benefit from taking the dual wielder feat as a bladesinger, dual wield rapiers, do an extra 2d12 per attack as well as adding INT modifier to damage which adds up to 3d8 + 6d12 + 25 damage per round without considering crits, an AC of 23 assuming non-magical studded leather and +1 from duel wielder and a way to reduce damage dealt to you albeit quite a small amount but still, that's damage you are not taking. Even outside of tenser's transformation, using haste on yourself and using booming blade adds up to 7d8 + 35 damage (plus a potential 4d8 if you move at least 5ft) per round. (All of this damage is assuming they hit)
Overall the fighter is having a really tough time against the wizard
Now wizard turn. Move within 60ft. Cast polymorph. Chronurgist literally guarantees a fail (Convergent future look it up).
First off, fighter can use indomitable, still. second, Convergent makes it one less than is required to succeed. So if the fighter has at least 12 wisdom, they succeed, and the wizard gets 1 level of exhaustion. Which Is horrific.
Now the wizard is worse than before, with disadvantage on all attacks and saving throws.
Any respectable tier 4 fighter worth their salt has the following: black razor and a storm giant belt, GWM, and the alert feat.
You can build around dumping STR, bump up your DEX for more initiative. You can easily hit over whatever AC the wizard has, shield included, action surge and ruin their day. You'll find few things survive after you say "I attack you 8~9 times with GWM and advantage."
Under those conditions, any respectable tier 4 wizard worth their salt has the following: robe of the archmagi and a staff of the magi, War Caster, and the Fey Touched feats.
You can easily just focus on Intelligence and DEX, so you have a good bonus to initiative and AC of 20 (25 with Shield or Bladesong, 30 with Bladesong and Shield). You can easily ignore whatever attacks the Fighter makes unless they get a critical hit. If you go first, you easily win the fight by casting Invulnerability. If you don't go first, you'll have more than enough AC to survive until your turn.
then you get disarmed, no focus, the fighter just grapples you and gives you a nuggie until your invulnerability wears off, and there's nothing you can do about that.
uhhh....you do realize that grappled does nothing besides reduces movement? the wizard can still cast spells....
RAW there is no way to "disarm" a component pouch as it is worn not held.
So no they will just cast a spell and look at the fighter with a funny face and fully realize that they dumped INT
at the end of the day, a 30 AC is no big obstacle to overcome. you get an 18+ to hit with the aforementioned, and you -will- go first. It won't take long to just punch through, and you can disarm with taking up martial adept (which is easily feasible with a storm belt and dumping strength.) Yeah, wizard HP is not going to last long lol.
They can also just... Ya know True Polymorph into a an
ancient brass dragon
And just completely wreck the fighter too. Do many options to just destroy them.
Sure. If you can cast it to begin with. If you can beat all that initiative and survive an action surge volley, maybe. And if you do, 300 HP is still within action surge range of downing it entirely.
Uh sure... You keep thinking that lol. Like I've proven already the wizard will best the fighter easily on initiative no problem.
And if you think a level 20 fighter can solo an ancient brass dragon then I have a bridge to sell you
You do realize that every time the fighter hits the dragon, they have to make a constitution saving throw to maintain concentration? Sure, warcaster gives you advantage, but even then you don't last long until you're just a lv 20 wizard.
So where's my bridge... I'm thinking the london one
Now wizard turn. Move within 60ft. Cast polymorph. Chronurgist literally guarantees a fail (Convergent future look it up).
First off, fighter can use indomitable, still. second, Convergent makes it one less than is required to succeed. So if the fighter has at least 12 wisdom, they succeed, and the wizard gets 1 level of exhaustion. Which Is horrific.
Now the wizard is worse than before, with disadvantage on all attacks and saving throws.
What do you do now?
Thats not how the Convergent works...they just fail the save and yes the fighter could use indomitable if they really wanted to. The sad fact for the fighter is the wizard doesn't even need to use it as the wizard will go first and activate invuln. and just win the fight.
Or ya know turn into a f**king dragon and just smoke the ever loving crap out of the fighter. Honestly the fighter is has no real chance at all. I would put them at less than 1 in 1000000 chance to wing.
Any respectable tier 4 fighter worth their salt has the following: black razor and a storm giant belt, GWM, and the alert feat.
You can build around dumping STR, bump up your DEX for more initiative. You can easily hit over whatever AC the wizard has, shield included, action surge and ruin their day. You'll find few things survive after you say "I attack you 8~9 times with GWM and advantage."
Under those conditions, any respectable tier 4 wizard worth their salt has the following: robe of the archmagi and a staff of the magi, War Caster, and the Fey Touched feats.
You can easily just focus on Intelligence and DEX, so you have a good bonus to initiative and AC of 20 (25 with Shield or Bladesong, 30 with Bladesong and Shield). You can easily ignore whatever attacks the Fighter makes unless they get a critical hit. If you go first, you easily win the fight by casting Invulnerability. If you don't go first, you'll have more than enough AC to survive until your turn.
then you get disarmed, no focus, the fighter just grapples you and gives you a nuggie until your invulnerability wears off, and there's nothing you can do about that.
uhhh....you do realize that grappled does nothing besides reduces movement? the wizard can still cast spells....
RAW there is no way to "disarm" a component pouch as it is worn not held.
So no they will just cast a spell and look at the fighter with a funny face and fully realize that they dumped INT
at the end of the day, a 30 AC is no big obstacle to overcome. you get an 18+ to hit with the aforementioned, and you -will- go first. It won't take long to just punch through, and you can disarm with taking up martial adept (which is easily feasible with a storm belt and dumping strength.) Yeah, wizard HP is not going to last long lol.
They can also just... Ya know True Polymorph into a an
ancient brass dragon
And just completely wreck the fighter too. Do many options to just destroy them.
Sure. If you can cast it to begin with. If you can beat all that initiative and survive an action surge volley, maybe. And if you do, 300 HP is still within action surge range of downing it entirely.
Uh sure... You keep thinking that lol. Like I've proven already the wizard will best the fighter easily on initiative no problem.
And if you think a level 20 fighter can solo an ancient brass dragon then I have a bridge to sell you
You do realize that every time the fighter hits the dragon, they have to make a constitution saving throw to maintain concentration? Sure, warcaster gives you advantage, but even then you don't last long until you're just a lv 20 wizard.
So where's my bridge... I'm thinking the london one
So War Caster/Resilant CON makes it so the fighter even with max damage on a strike (2d6 + 15 = 27 max damage possible or a DC 13 Concentration save? lol...) will not be able to challenge the wizard.
If they are a dragon they simply just fly by and attack and fly away limiting the attack from the fighter to 1 measly attack per round which the dragon will laugh at. The one attack they get to make as an attack of opportunity will make the fighter feel like they are doing something I guess lol.
Any respectable tier 4 fighter worth their salt has the following: black razor and a storm giant belt, GWM, and the alert feat.
You can build around dumping STR, bump up your DEX for more initiative. You can easily hit over whatever AC the wizard has, shield included, action surge and ruin their day. You'll find few things survive after you say "I attack you 8~9 times with GWM and advantage."
Under those conditions, any respectable tier 4 wizard worth their salt has the following: robe of the archmagi and a staff of the magi, War Caster, and the Fey Touched feats.
You can easily just focus on Intelligence and DEX, so you have a good bonus to initiative and AC of 20 (25 with Shield or Bladesong, 30 with Bladesong and Shield). You can easily ignore whatever attacks the Fighter makes unless they get a critical hit. If you go first, you easily win the fight by casting Invulnerability. If you don't go first, you'll have more than enough AC to survive until your turn.
then you get disarmed, no focus, the fighter just grapples you and gives you a nuggie until your invulnerability wears off, and there's nothing you can do about that.
uhhh....you do realize that grappled does nothing besides reduces movement? the wizard can still cast spells....
RAW there is no way to "disarm" a component pouch as it is worn not held.
So no they will just cast a spell and look at the fighter with a funny face and fully realize that they dumped INT
at the end of the day, a 30 AC is no big obstacle to overcome. you get an 18+ to hit with the aforementioned, and you -will- go first. It won't take long to just punch through, and you can disarm with taking up martial adept (which is easily feasible with a storm belt and dumping strength.) Yeah, wizard HP is not going to last long lol.
They can also just... Ya know True Polymorph into a an
ancient brass dragon
And just completely wreck the fighter too. Do many options to just destroy them.
Sure. If you can cast it to begin with. If you can beat all that initiative and survive an action surge volley, maybe. And if you do, 300 HP is still within action surge range of downing it entirely.
Uh sure... You keep thinking that lol. Like I've proven already the wizard will best the fighter easily on initiative no problem.
And if you think a level 20 fighter can solo an ancient brass dragon then I have a bridge to sell you
You do realize that every time the fighter hits the dragon, they have to make a constitution saving throw to maintain concentration? Sure, warcaster gives you advantage, but even then you don't last long until you're just a lv 20 wizard.
So where's my bridge... I'm thinking the london one
So War Caster/Resilant CON makes it so the fighter even with max damage on a strike (2d6 + 15 = 27 max damage possible or a DC 13 Concentration save? lol...) will not be able to challenge the wizard.
If they are a dragon they simply just fly by and attack and fly away limiting the attack from the fighter to 1 measly attack per round which the dragon will laugh at. The one attack they get to make as an attack of opportunity will make the fighter feel like they are doing something I guess lol.
Riiiight....
So when a fighter unleashes 4 of those (up to 8 with EK), How long will they survive?
And as for flying, the fighter can take out their longbow and still fire at the wizard. The brass dragon could potentially be in more danger when they fly up.
OH and another way for the wizard to win extremely easy (its reallly adding up at this point!)
Arcane Abeyance
They simply put up a Tiny Hut that they cast into the abeyance and stir their tea as the fighter stabs the wall for 8 hours while they buff themselves lol.
Now wizard turn. Move within 60ft. Cast polymorph. Chronurgist literally guarantees a fail (Convergent future look it up).
First off, fighter can use indomitable, still. second, Convergent makes it one less than is required to succeed. So if the fighter has at least 12 wisdom, they succeed, and the wizard gets 1 level of exhaustion. Which Is horrific.
Now the wizard is worse than before, with disadvantage on all attacks and saving throws.
What do you do now?
I'm almost certain that the way that convergent future works is that takes into account bonuses. For example if the wizard has a save DC of 19 and fighter has +1 to WIS saving throws, use of convergent future gives them either an 18 to barely succeed or a 17 so that they fail. A fighter with +1 WIS and no saving throw proficiency is not likely to succeed.
Bear in mind that 1 level of exhaustion is disadvantage on ability checks which is not the worst thing that could happen to a wizard in combat.
Also there are tons of things that a wizard can do to a fighter that don't require a save. Forcecage literally locks the fighter in a nearly inescapable cage. Mislead can screw fighter up cos they can't hit what they can't see, Simulacrum can be a bother if you waste attacks hitting the simulacrum rather than the wizard, If the wizard blinks then that's another case of can't hit what you can't see, Time stop and wish can truly screw over a fighter as well. Even if wizard chooses to target a save, Fighters rarely invest in WIS, INT or CHA, especially in this build to get maximum initiative to beat out the wizard so targeting these saves will usually go well for the wizard.
Forcecage can be an issue, and when combined with faithful hound it can be a bother, but a fighter with blind fighting will see and kill the hound.
The fighter can find out the illusion with an investigation check, but the invisible guy might be a problem. If the fighter has faerie fire, see invisibility, or another spell that regains the advantage, mislead is countered as well.
Simulacrum is a big problem, however, with the few amount of hp it has, the fighter can finish it off in less than a turn.
With blink, Couldn't the fighter just take a break? You can't affect him, so He's fine.
With time stop, you can't attack other creatures, unless you just want advantage.
And as for wish, The dm will screw you over if you just wish to kill a PC.
pro-Fighter group you need to provide math on winning Initiative and your chance to hit every attack and deal enough damage to kill in one round. Otherwise you're just throwing out hyperbolic statements.
Also, no one has been able to answer how the Fighter handles the Wizard using Contingency (Dimension Door) to get out of dodge as soon as the Fighter tries to engage. They can teleport 500 feet away with their simulacrum and then reengage after the Fighter has wasted their turn trying to figure out where the heck that wizard went. And remember, there is that simulacrum too. No level 20 wizard goes around without one. That simulacrum will also have Contingency set. The Fighter has no ability to meaningfully challenge that.
Once the wizard is aware of the fighter as an enemy the Fighter gets one round (IF the fighter goes first) before they are incapacitated or otherwise neutralized as a threat. No high level wizard worth their salt is walking around without a plan for when they get jumped.
Now wizard turn. Move within 60ft. Cast polymorph. Chronurgist literally guarantees a fail (Convergent future look it up).
First off, fighter can use indomitable, still. second, Convergent makes it one less than is required to succeed. So if the fighter has at least 12 wisdom, they succeed, and the wizard gets 1 level of exhaustion. Which Is horrific.
Now the wizard is worse than before, with disadvantage on all attacks and saving throws.
What do you do now?
I'm almost certain that the way that convergent future works is that takes into account bonuses. For example if the wizard has a save DC of 19 and fighter has +1 to WIS saving throws, use of convergent future gives them either an 18 to barely succeed or a 17 so that they fail. A fighter with +1 WIS and no saving throw proficiency is not likely to succeed.
Bear in mind that 1 level of exhaustion is disadvantage on ability checks which is not the worst thing that could happen to a wizard in combat.
Also there are tons of things that a wizard can do to a fighter that don't require a save. Forcecage literally locks the fighter in a nearly inescapable cage. Mislead can screw fighter up cos they can't hit what they can't see, Simulacrum can be a bother if you waste attacks hitting the simulacrum rather than the wizard, If the wizard blinks then that's another case of can't hit what you can't see, Time stop and wish can truly screw over a fighter as well. Even if wizard chooses to target a save, Fighters rarely invest in WIS, INT or CHA, especially in this build to get maximum initiative to beat out the wizard so targeting these saves will usually go well for the wizard.
So they have a build for both melee and ranged? If they want to plink a dragon with a longbow I guess they can but they will just die with an empty quiver I guess.
If the fighter is taking both GWM and SS and maxing both STR and DEX they will not have a full CON and be down fairly quickly.
Just no way to win overall. At best they can hope to survive long enough to get one action surge off before they are demolished.
Now wizard turn. Move within 60ft. Cast polymorph. Chronurgist literally guarantees a fail (Convergent future look it up).
First off, fighter can use indomitable, still. second, Convergent makes it one less than is required to succeed. So if the fighter has at least 12 wisdom, they succeed, and the wizard gets 1 level of exhaustion. Which Is horrific.
Now the wizard is worse than before, with disadvantage on all attacks and saving throws.
What do you do now?
I'm almost certain that the way that convergent future works is that takes into account bonuses. For example if the wizard has a save DC of 19 and fighter has +1 to WIS saving throws, use of convergent future gives them either an 18 to barely succeed or a 17 so that they fail. A fighter with +1 WIS and no saving throw proficiency is not likely to succeed.
Bear in mind that 1 level of exhaustion is disadvantage on ability checks which is not the worst thing that could happen to a wizard in combat.
Also there are tons of things that a wizard can do to a fighter that don't require a save. Forcecage literally locks the fighter in a nearly inescapable cage. Mislead can screw fighter up cos they can't hit what they can't see, Simulacrum can be a bother if you waste attacks hitting the simulacrum rather than the wizard, If the wizard blinks then that's another case of can't hit what you can't see, Time stop and wish can truly screw over a fighter as well. Even if wizard chooses to target a save, Fighters rarely invest in WIS, INT or CHA, especially in this build to get maximum initiative to beat out the wizard so targeting these saves will usually go well for the wizard.
So they have a build for both melee and ranged? If they want to plink a dragon with a longbow I guess they can but they will just die with an empty quiver I guess.
If the fighter is taking both GWM and SS and maxing both STR and DEX they will not have a full CON and be down fairly quickly.
Just no way to win overall. At best they can hope to survive long enough to get one action surge off before they are demolished.
Who said they need strength? It would be good for grappling or taking the wizard's staff, but apart from that, dex fighters are good in their own right, and a better choice here. And don't talk about "Being down fairly quickly" If you're on team wizards - that is the epitome of hypocrisy.
pro-Fighter group you need to provide math on winning Initiative and your chance to hit every attack and deal enough damage to kill in one round. Otherwise you're just throwing out hyperbolic statements.
Also, no one has been able to answer how the Fighter handles the Wizard using Contingency (Dimension Door) to get out of dodge as soon as the Fighter tries to engage. They can teleport 500 feet away with their simulacrum and then reengage after the Fighter has wasted their turn trying to figure out where the heck that wizard went. And remember, there is that simulacrum too. No level 20 wizard goes around without one. That simulacrum will also have Contingency set. The Fighter has no ability to meaningfully challenge that.
Once the wizard is aware of the fighter as an enemy the Fighter gets one round (IF the fighter goes first) before they are incapacitated or otherwise neutralized as a threat. No high level wizard worth their salt is walking around without a plan for when they get jumped.
Yeah on average the wizard will win the initiative fight with little effort as they do not need a feat to achieve +10 to initiative, while the fighter has to basically go DEX fighter/champion to get close to that.
The fighter with maximum damage (GWM + PAM) will do: 8(d10 + 15) + 1d4+15 = 219 damage. That means they roll a 10 and a d10 every time....which will not happen.
If you go by averages (much better way of doing it) then you are looking at 181.5 damage. However, if you actually apply logic in the terms of AC and attack bonus it drops even further:
So on average you are looking at 126 damage average if you can get ADV on all the attacks (unlikely as you will need to spend at least one attack tripping which drops the damage even lower).
162 HP so even in the best case scenario for the fighter (Goes first, gets advantage on all hits somehow, and hits with every single hit doing at least average damage) the wizard will still have around 40 hp left.
Wizards turn Invuln. and its over.
EDIT: I used AC 20 for the Wizard because I was assuming they were a dragon as apparently a level 20 fighter can solo an ancient brass dragon no problem....
However if you wanted to just stay a wizard you would actually use and AC of 23 with shield which makes the damage even worse....
A pitiful 84 damage....which means the fighter going full ham would have to take two full action surges to just to take down a "squishy" wizard....and would have a measly 36% chance to hit every time....oof.
at the end of the day
at the end of the day, a 30 AC is no big obstacle to overcome. you get an 18+ to hit with the aforementioned, and you -will- go first. It won't take long to just punch through, and you can disarm with taking up martial adept (which is easily feasible with a storm belt and dumping strength.) Yeah, wizard HP is not going to last long lol.
They can also just... Ya know True Polymorph into a an
ancient brass dragon
And just completely wreck the fighter too. Do many options to just destroy them.
Sure. If you can cast it to begin with. If you can beat all that initiative and survive an action surge volley, maybe. And if you do, 300 HP is still within action surge range of downing it entirely.
Uh sure... You keep thinking that lol. Like I've proven already the wizard will best the fighter easily on initiative no problem.
And if you think a level 20 fighter can solo an ancient brass dragon then I have a bridge to sell you
This is not the first time I've seen the pro-Fighter camp claim they're going first with certainty.
What makes you so certain?
wizards want int, they want warcaster, they want res:con, they want dex, they want more con. Meanwhile, a fighter has so much liberty for what they take and build. Meanwhile a champion fighter, with alert and a +2 dex modifer, easily achieves +10 to their initiative roll, and that's not asking for much. They can even pick up a sentinel shield if need be for advantage on the roll.
Basically, it takes a specified wizard to stand toe-to-toe in the initiative battle against a generalized fighter.
A "generalized" wizard is way more likely to take Alert than a "generalized" fighter is. Initiative is one of the most important things to every wizard. They always want to win the initiative war so that they can lay down control effects before the enemies can wreck their friends. Honestly I can't remember a single time I've seen or heard someone talking about taking alert on their fighter other than for this comparison. Fighters are busy spending their ASIs to increase their attack stat and picking up feats to boost damage.
If the fighter has a sentinel shield then the wizard can have a weapon of warning, which is also an uncommon magic item. Again, Wizards actually really care about initiative. It's not some special motive they suddenly picked up for this dual. Your average wizard is very likely to have an item like this by level 20.
The ONLY way a Fighter has any chance is if you make this a white room encounter with 0 prep time. And then they have to both manage to win initiative (not the sure fire thing you make it out to be) AND kill the wizard in one round. If the wizard gets a single round it is over. There are a good number of spells that will effectively end the fight right away. None of these options involve hitting 8-9 attacks (another thing you seem to be glossing over as a given) and the best ones don't even involve a saving throw.
If you take this out of the white room scenario...
Your average level 20 wizard is walking around with a simulacrum, with at least one Contigency set to cast some spell that will get them out of virtually any jam (think dimension door). It doesn't matter what the initiative scores are, there is absolutely nothing a Fighter can do to meaningfully challenge that. At which point the wizard casts any number of its fight ending spells after safely distancing themselves.
Problem for the fighter is just the sheer number of different spells that wizards get.
If we assume they are prepared, even if the fighter wins initiative, the wizard could've just set a contingency to dimension door around 90ft from the fighter. Fighter can choose to action surge to get his action back but I'm pretty sure no subclass of fighter can get 90ft without using their action to dash then doing some teleport thing.
Now wizard turn. Move within 60ft. Cast polymorph. Chronurgist literally guarantees a fail (Convergent future look it up). If divination rolled low portents use those. Fighters tend not to have amazing WIS saves. Turn them into an octopus that has a 5ft movement speed on land. Fighters turn. Literally can't do anything. Wizards turn. Get within 60ft. Power Word Kill.
Done
There are also so many things other wizards can do as well. Dominate Person, Banishment, Mislead, Temporal Shunt, Forcecage, Simulacrum, Maze, Tenser Transformation, WISH, the list goes on. Also if you rolled for stats and rolled well, it lets take a bunch of useful feats that you may not have taken originally. A tenser's transformation build could really benefit from taking the dual wielder feat as a bladesinger, dual wield rapiers, do an extra 2d12 per attack as well as adding INT modifier to damage which adds up to 3d8 + 6d12 + 25 damage per round without considering crits, an AC of 23 assuming non-magical studded leather and +1 from duel wielder and a way to reduce damage dealt to you albeit quite a small amount but still, that's damage you are not taking. Even outside of tenser's transformation, using haste on yourself and using booming blade adds up to 7d8 + 35 damage (plus a potential 4d8 if you move at least 5ft) per round. (All of this damage is assuming they hit)
Overall the fighter is having a really tough time against the wizard
First off, fighter can use indomitable, still. second, Convergent makes it one less than is required to succeed. So if the fighter has at least 12 wisdom, they succeed, and the wizard gets 1 level of exhaustion. Which Is horrific.
Now the wizard is worse than before, with disadvantage on all attacks and saving throws.
What do you do now?
You do realize that every time the fighter hits the dragon, they have to make a constitution saving throw to maintain concentration? Sure, warcaster gives you advantage, but even then you don't last long until you're just a lv 20 wizard.
So where's my bridge... I'm thinking the london one
Thats not how the Convergent works...they just fail the save and yes the fighter could use indomitable if they really wanted to. The sad fact for the fighter is the wizard doesn't even need to use it as the wizard will go first and activate invuln. and just win the fight.
Or ya know turn into a f**king dragon and just smoke the ever loving crap out of the fighter. Honestly the fighter is has no real chance at all. I would put them at less than 1 in 1000000 chance to wing.
So War Caster/Resilant CON makes it so the fighter even with max damage on a strike (2d6 + 15 = 27 max damage possible or a DC 13 Concentration save? lol...) will not be able to challenge the wizard.
If they are a dragon they simply just fly by and attack and fly away limiting the attack from the fighter to 1 measly attack per round which the dragon will laugh at. The one attack they get to make as an attack of opportunity will make the fighter feel like they are doing something I guess lol.
Riiiight....
So when a fighter unleashes 4 of those (up to 8 with EK), How long will they survive?
And as for flying, the fighter can take out their longbow and still fire at the wizard. The brass dragon could potentially be in more danger when they fly up.
OH and another way for the wizard to win extremely easy (its reallly adding up at this point!)
Arcane Abeyance
They simply put up a Tiny Hut that they cast into the abeyance and stir their tea as the fighter stabs the wall for 8 hours while they buff themselves lol.
I'm almost certain that the way that convergent future works is that takes into account bonuses. For example if the wizard has a save DC of 19 and fighter has +1 to WIS saving throws, use of convergent future gives them either an 18 to barely succeed or a 17 so that they fail. A fighter with +1 WIS and no saving throw proficiency is not likely to succeed.
Bear in mind that 1 level of exhaustion is disadvantage on ability checks which is not the worst thing that could happen to a wizard in combat.
Also there are tons of things that a wizard can do to a fighter that don't require a save. Forcecage literally locks the fighter in a nearly inescapable cage. Mislead can screw fighter up cos they can't hit what they can't see, Simulacrum can be a bother if you waste attacks hitting the simulacrum rather than the wizard, If the wizard blinks then that's another case of can't hit what you can't see, Time stop and wish can truly screw over a fighter as well. Even if wizard chooses to target a save, Fighters rarely invest in WIS, INT or CHA, especially in this build to get maximum initiative to beat out the wizard so targeting these saves will usually go well for the wizard.
Forcecage can be an issue, and when combined with faithful hound it can be a bother, but a fighter with blind fighting will see and kill the hound.
The fighter can find out the illusion with an investigation check, but the invisible guy might be a problem. If the fighter has faerie fire, see invisibility, or another spell that regains the advantage, mislead is countered as well.
Simulacrum is a big problem, however, with the few amount of hp it has, the fighter can finish it off in less than a turn.
With blink, Couldn't the fighter just take a break? You can't affect him, so He's fine.
With time stop, you can't attack other creatures, unless you just want advantage.
And as for wish, The dm will screw you over if you just wish to kill a PC.
pro-Fighter group you need to provide math on winning Initiative and your chance to hit every attack and deal enough damage to kill in one round. Otherwise you're just throwing out hyperbolic statements.
Also, no one has been able to answer how the Fighter handles the Wizard using Contingency (Dimension Door) to get out of dodge as soon as the Fighter tries to engage. They can teleport 500 feet away with their simulacrum and then reengage after the Fighter has wasted their turn trying to figure out where the heck that wizard went. And remember, there is that simulacrum too. No level 20 wizard goes around without one. That simulacrum will also have Contingency set. The Fighter has no ability to meaningfully challenge that.
Once the wizard is aware of the fighter as an enemy the Fighter gets one round (IF the fighter goes first) before they are incapacitated or otherwise neutralized as a threat. No high level wizard worth their salt is walking around without a plan for when they get jumped.
So they have a build for both melee and ranged? If they want to plink a dragon with a longbow I guess they can but they will just die with an empty quiver I guess.
If the fighter is taking both GWM and SS and maxing both STR and DEX they will not have a full CON and be down fairly quickly.
Just no way to win overall. At best they can hope to survive long enough to get one action surge off before they are demolished.
Who said they need strength? It would be good for grappling or taking the wizard's staff, but apart from that, dex fighters are good in their own right, and a better choice here. And don't talk about "Being down fairly quickly" If you're on team wizards - that is the epitome of hypocrisy.
Yeah on average the wizard will win the initiative fight with little effort as they do not need a feat to achieve +10 to initiative, while the fighter has to basically go DEX fighter/champion to get close to that.
The fighter with maximum damage (GWM + PAM) will do: 8(d10 + 15) + 1d4+15 = 219 damage. That means they roll a 10 and a d10 every time....which will not happen.
If you go by averages (much better way of doing it) then you are looking at 181.5 damage. However, if you actually apply logic in the terms of AC and attack bonus it drops even further:
https://imgur.com/a/Jm3cULF
Here is a DPR calculator I used with a Champion Fighter 20 with GWM + PAM. I maxed STR, CON, and got Toughness for maximum durability.
Build is here: https://ddb.ac/characters/42280198/IfJcks
So on average you are looking at 126 damage average if you can get ADV on all the attacks (unlikely as you will need to spend at least one attack tripping which drops the damage even lower).
Here is the Level 20 Wizard: https://ddb.ac/characters/42280575/N9o8Tb
162 HP so even in the best case scenario for the fighter (Goes first, gets advantage on all hits somehow, and hits with every single hit doing at least average damage) the wizard will still have around 40 hp left.
Wizards turn Invuln. and its over.
EDIT: I used AC 20 for the Wizard because I was assuming they were a dragon as apparently a level 20 fighter can solo an ancient brass dragon no problem....
However if you wanted to just stay a wizard you would actually use and AC of 23 with shield which makes the damage even worse....
https://imgur.com/a/TZK2Bj7
A pitiful 84 damage....which means the fighter going full ham would have to take two full action surges to just to take down a "squishy" wizard....and would have a measly 36% chance to hit every time....oof.