Oh I just wanted to say this but Custom Lineage is kinda just a better Vumen because not only do you get the choice to get Darkvison but you also get the ability to give a +2 (or 2, +1’s) to an ability score of your choice, while also getting a feat of your choice (like the Vumen) and now here is the real kicker you can choose your lineage that means you can be an elf, a half-elf, a human or even an orc or whatever maybe even a bugbear whatever you want and that means you can get meet the prerequisite of any race feat of your choice like by being a half-elf (lineage) with Elven Accuracy at level one which is amazing since if you wanted (using point buy) you could get an 18 Dex score super early. So for the samurai (I haven’t done it yet but) you could technically get an entirely new feat while still keeping everything else the same though I don’t know which feat the seppuku samurai would want/need to help deal more damage, get higher to hit, or just help out in general. So do tell if you know a feat that would help out the SS (Seppuku Samurai).
TLDR: Custom Lineage (from Tasha’s cauldron of everything) is just a better Vumen (Variant Humen).
Custom Lineage does not qualify for racial feats. Of course, Vhuman only qualifies for Prodigy, which is not that great.
The other (potential) downside to Custom Lineage is that it can't split its ASI up. It has to put 2 points into one stat. While I think it is overall better, there are certainly scenarios where you would prefer vhuman in order to place a +1 into two different stats.
Ok I don’t know what imma do with this information but I’ll just leave it here:
By starting equipment that means I can go buy a mount.. so now I have a large mount and I grab Mounted Combatant so I get advantage against all non mounted creatures that are smaller than my mount. Also the fighter has the subclass capstone Viligant Defender (Cavalier) that gives an opportunity attack as an reaction now I don’t know how useful that is but it’s… it’s there (useful for fighter somehow?).
Darts are Throwing Ranged Weapons so Archery (+2 to hit), SS (+10 to damage), and Thrown Weapon Fighting (+2 damage)… meanwhile handaxes are Throwing Melee Weapons so Dueling (+2 damage), Thrown Weapon Fighting (+2 damage) but doesn’t work with GWM (useful for fighter somehow).
So polearm master and war caster work together (opportunity attack) so the wizard could technically ward against opponents getting within melee with the threat of getting a spell cast on them (the fighter).
I guess also there is Fighting Initiate for Blind Fighting so you can “see” that the wizard could use to help get out of a blindfold strategy (not that he needs help). But there is the problem of the prerequisite of proficiency with martial weapon but that is easily remedied with a feat or race feature (Elven Weapon Training, etc).
Custom Lineage does not qualify for racial feats. Of course, Vhuman only qualifies for Prodigy, which is not that great.
Answer: After some research it seems you may be right concerning custom lineages not qualifying for racial feats. But tbh if I were to just look at how it is and how’s it word especially for how the Creature Type and Feat features text’s it is highly suggestive (or is it just me) that you “choose” your race then use the Custom Lineage stats. Creature Type: You are a humanoid. ”You determine your appearance and whether you resemble any of your kin.” Feat: You gain one feat of your choice “for which you qualify.”
As opposed to the Vumen’s. Feat: You gain one feat of your choice.
Soooooooo… for how I interpret the “for which you qualify.” It could ether be the Custom Lineage get to choose its race and therefore “qualify” for certain feats or the Vumen we all know and love has a secret superpower to choose any feat even ones he doesn’t “qualify” for. Though I do get what you say and I have seen the opposing evidence one could say but I just don’t see how it could really mean anything else…
The other (potential) downside to Custom Lineage is that it can't split its ASI up. It has to put 2 points into one stat. While I think it is overall better, there are certainly scenarios where you would prefer vhuman in order to place a +1 into two different stats.
Answer: Oh yeah I completely forgot that you can’t actually split the stat up only shift it around but that doesn’t really change it from want I would have had it originally do being +2 to a stat then feat for total + 3 on a certain stat. As for the certain scenarios the Vumen being better, yeah especially for MAD (multi ability score dependant) classes like Ranger, Paladin, Monk, and etc (depending on the rolled/bought numbers) as having two +1 may be better than a single +2 but that is just plain circumstance so it’s hard to evaluate though if I were to say which is better I’d undoubtedly have to say Custom Lineage.
Since we get our background perks and such like equipment/money and as such concerning our character that means if I were to choose the Noble as my background then take the RETAINERS variant feature while choosing to become a Knight for my background. By doing so it seems that I would be able to have my retainers with me in such a situation (keep in mind as a knight, my retainers are a squire (the Noble] and two servants [Commomers]). As I see it such retainers are on the same level of buying a mount for this fight (as in on the same level of connection to his character). That means if the Knight background is chosen you could have three retainers with now I don’t really know how they could help ether then maybe some small chip damage (might not even be able to hit without a natural 20), cover (hide behind their bodies), holding things (blankets/Objects/Etc), morale support (Help Action), or whatever but they could do something the most glaring would be something along the lines of grappling, attacking, or helping (help action) me in some way to take down the enemy (though they could be just fodder who knows).
P.S: If I were to choose the feat Aberrant Dragon Mark and reached tenth level (up to twenty) would I gain the a boon in this match up or is that much to DM reliant… I assume it is to DM reliant but still.
Since we get our background perks and such like equipment/money and as such concerning our character that means if I were to choose the Noble as my background then take the RETAINERS variant feature while choosing to become a Knight for my background. By doing so it seems that I would be able to have my retainers with me in such a situation (keep in mind as a knight, my retainers are a squire (the Noble] and two servants [Commomers]). As I see it such retainers are on the same level of buying a mount for this fight (as in on the same level of connection to his character). That means if the Knight background is chosen you could have three retainers with now I don’t really know how they could help ether then maybe some small chip damage (might not even be able to hit without a natural 20), cover (hide behind their bodies), holding things (blankets/Objects/Etc), morale support (Help Action), or whatever but they could do something the most glaring would be something along the lines of grappling, attacking, or helping (help action) me in some way to take down the enemy (though they could be just fodder who knows).
P.S: If I were to choose the feat Aberrant Dragon Mark and reached tenth level (up to twenty) would I gain the a boon in this match up or is that much to DM reliant… I assume it is to DM reliant but still.
um your retainers are not slaves and would NEVER help you fight in a life-or-death scenario
Your retainers are commoners who can perform mundane tasks for you, but they do not fight for you, will not follow you into obviously dangerous areas (such as dungeons), and will leave if they are frequently endangered or abused.
however your squire (who may or may not use the noble stat block might be able to participate, depending on the circumstances, as they are helping you to progress their own path to knighthood)
as for the Greater Abberant Dragonmark thing, it is best not to be considered due to several layers of things out of the player's controll:
1) that you are playing in an campaign set in ebberon
2) you DM must choose to use the option
3) there is approximately an 31% chance you don't gain the epic boon even if your DM is using the option, since you only have a 10% chance of gaining one each level
4) the DM chooses the boon or determines it randomly, so chances are you are not gonna get the boon you want unless your DM feels it is appropriate for the story, there is not really any potential to deliberately build your character around it
The other (potential) downside to Custom Lineage is that it can't split its ASI up. It has to put 2 points into one stat. While I think it is overall better, there are certainly scenarios where you would prefer vhuman in order to place a +1 into two different stats.
Answer: Oh yeah I completely forgot that you can’t actually split the stat up only shift it around but that doesn’t really change it from want I would have had it originally do being +2 to a stat then feat for total + 3 on a certain stat. As for the certain scenarios the Vumen being better, yeah especially for MAD (multi ability score dependant) classes like Ranger, Paladin, Monk, and etc (depending on the rolled/bought numbers) as having two +1 may be better than a single +2 but that is just plain circumstance so it’s hard to evaluate though if I were to say which is better I’d undoubtedly have to say Custom Lineage.
Speaking of monks, do you think a lvl 20 monk would do better or worse than a lvl 20 fighter in the matchup we have against the wizard?
Yes monks are generally weaker in most contexts, and are not quite able to match the burst damage a fighter can pull of with action surge, but on the other hand a lot of their features seem to be specifically good against spellcasters, stunning strike grants not only a action economy advantage but also ends concentration if it is pulled off, evasion, stillness of mind and to a lesser degree purity of body all essentially grant the monk immunity to certain spells in the wizard's arsenal (albeit ones we don't see often right here), diamond soul means that there is no save the monk will be bad and also doubles as an arguably superior version of the fighter's Indomidable feature, the empty body feature can be used to give the monk resistance to everything but force damage while also forcing the opposing wizard to have see invisibillity prepared (and potentially waste an action casting see invisibillity) if they want to see what they are fighting, and then beyond that monks have a lot of weird tricks up their sleeve for eventual problem-solving, especially when including sub classes
Might be a little off- topic but i just thought it might be an interesting side thing, seeing how another martial class deals with the king of casters
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um your retainers are not slaves and would NEVER help you fight in a life-or-death scenario
Your retainers are commoners who can perform mundane tasks for you, but they do not fight for you, will not follow you into obviously dangerous areas (such as dungeons), and will leave if they are frequently endangered or abused.
however your squire (who may or may not use the noble stat block might be able to participate, depending on the circumstances, as they are helping you to progress their own path to knighthood)
Answer: The “your retainers are not slaves…” not yet… but in all seriousness there are are quite a few ways you could justify having the retainers in the fight “if you don’t fight we will all die!” that type of thing and as for the frequently endangered and abused this could be the only time this happens or maybe they are just each brave souls, can assess the situation, or just plain realize they are in dire straits and require their knights judgement to escape (fight with you), and etc as there are many ways to have them join your cause in this fight. But yeah I’m VERY sure that your squire is a Noble while your retainers are Commoner so yeah.
as for the Greater Abberant Dragonmark thing, it is best not to be considered due to several layers of things out of the player's controll:
1) that you are playing in an campaign set in ebberon
2) you DM must choose to use the option
3) there is approximately an 31% chance you don't gain the epic boon even if your DM is using the option, since you only have a 10% chance of gaining one each level
4) the DM chooses the boon or determines it randomly, so chances are you are not gonna get the boon you want unless your DM feels it is appropriate for the story, there is not really any potential to deliberately build your character around it
Answer: Yes know it it very DM dependant but I said it because it was one of those things were it was just neat to know and if you really wanted to you could have it as the potential boon isn’t the only thing it grants but I do get what you mean as it’s true it is very finicky.
Speaking of monks, do you think a lvl 20 monk would do better or worse than a lvl 20 fighter in the matchup we have against the wizard?
Yes monks are generally weaker in most contexts, and are not quite able to match the burst damage a fighter can pull of with action surge, but on the other hand a lot of their features seem to be specifically good against spellcasters, stunning strike grants not only a action economy advantage but also ends concentration if it is pulled off, evasion, stillness of mind and to a lesser degree purity of body all essentially grant the monk immunity to certain spells in the wizard's arsenal (albeit ones we don't see often right here), diamond soul means that there is no save the monk will be bad and also doubles as an arguably superior version of the fighter's Indomidable feature, the empty body feature can be used to give the monk resistance to everything but force damage while also forcing the opposing wizard to have see invisibillity prepared (and potentially waste an action casting see invisibillity) if they want to see what they are fighting, and then beyond that monks have a lot of weird tricks up their sleeve for eventual problem-solving, especially when including sub classes
Might be a little off- topic but i just thought it might be an interesting side thing, seeing how another martial class deals with the king of casters
Answer: That was a transition if I ever saw one… but tbh the only thing the monk got running for him in all reality is Stunning Strike as everything else is just overcome by the wizard porting out of the battlefield (better option) or Forcecage since if the monk can’t do anything but the monk has some fatal flaws those being: 1. Stunning strike needs con save/countered by the wizard high con stat (at least like 16), dice manipulation/Lucky and Resilient Con + more 2. While Diamond Soul may be a better indomitable it still doesn’t help against Forcecage or much of any spells they the wizard could use like maze (of which most/all the time he will cast in himself for a quick teleport to a different dimension… 3. As for empty body sure nice invisibility as an action plus resistance for awhile oops look like the wizard disappeared… ten minutes/a week later (no more empty body)… some random ancient gold dragon teleports right in front of me then just slaps me now it my turn say I get perfect everything and somehow get like maybe 300 damage (I don’t think a monk can get that high even with all crits but whatever) I for some reason the dragon dies but it turns to snow… that’s weird but when I though the battle was over a mere 6 seconds later a second one appears now let’s say under some great miracle the monk defeats that… a third one appears this one seeming much more smart and angry proceeds to utterly decimate the the puny monk. So what happened was the wizard mazes himself/whatever to get away then proceeded to cast simulacrum after becoming an gold dragon then after some prep (contingency, spying, warding, etc) the wizard send the simulacrum of myself (a gold dragon with all my spellcasting to teleport and attack the monk oops some how that simulacrum was defeat no matter I cast wish now another simulacrum appears and that simulacrum teleports to the monk then somehow again the monk survives the wizard can just send more… or go himself to rid himself of this pesky monk. Just saying for the monk to even win against one (even if it is a simulacrum) gold dragon capable of spellcasting is nigh impossible but whatever.
In conclusion, tbh I feel like the monk may have a chance (kinda) but the fighter has a shot to win not just a chance with just PURE nova on the first turn as that’s the only way (so far) to take out such a great foe. Though even though it was a bit off topic it was nice to think about.
P.S: Ok I’ve been thinking for this match does the wizard even need a 20 intelligence since like half the spells/strategies he uses in his fights don’t really care for a high int score… plus sorry for all of the errors that are there no doubt…
Speaking of monks, do you think a lvl 20 monk would do better or worse than a lvl 20 fighter in the matchup we have against the wizard?
Yes monks are generally weaker in most contexts, and are not quite able to match the burst damage a fighter can pull of with action surge, but on the other hand a lot of their features seem to be specifically good against spellcasters, stunning strike grants not only a action economy advantage but also ends concentration if it is pulled off, evasion, stillness of mind and to a lesser degree purity of body all essentially grant the monk immunity to certain spells in the wizard's arsenal (albeit ones we don't see often right here), diamond soul means that there is no save the monk will be bad and also doubles as an arguably superior version of the fighter's Indomidable feature, the empty body feature can be used to give the monk resistance to everything but force damage while also forcing the opposing wizard to have see invisibillity prepared (and potentially waste an action casting see invisibillity) if they want to see what they are fighting, and then beyond that monks have a lot of weird tricks up their sleeve for eventual problem-solving, especially when including sub classes
Might be a little off- topic but i just thought it might be an interesting side thing, seeing how another martial class deals with the king of casters
Answer: That was a transition if I ever saw one… but tbh the only thing the monk got running for him in all reality is Stunning Strike as everything else is just overcome by the wizard porting out of the battlefield (better option) or Forcecage since if the monk can’t do anything but the monk has some fatal flaws those being: 1. Stunning strike needs con save/countered by the wizard high con stat (at least like 16), dice manipulation/Lucky and Resilient Con + more 2. While Diamond Soul may be a better indomitable it still doesn’t help against Forcecage or much of any spells they the wizard could use like maze (of which most/all the time he will cast in himself for a quick teleport to a different dimension… 3. As for empty body sure nice invisibility as an action plus resistance for awhile oops look like the wizard disappeared… ten minutes/a week later (no more empty body)… some random ancient gold dragon teleports right in front of me then just slaps me now it my turn say I get perfect everything and somehow get like maybe 300 damage (I don’t think a monk can get that high even with all crits but whatever) I for some reason the dragon dies but it turns to snow… that’s weird but when I though the battle was over a mere 6 seconds later a second one appears now let’s say under some great miracle the monk defeats that… a third one appears this one seeming much more smart and angry proceeds to utterly decimate the the puny monk. So what happened was the wizard mazes himself/whatever to get away then proceeded to cast simulacrum after becoming an gold dragon then after some prep (contingency, spying, warding, etc) the wizard send the simulacrum of myself (a gold dragon with all my spellcasting to teleport and attack the monk oops some how that simulacrum was defeat no matter I cast wish now another simulacrum appears and that simulacrum teleports to the monk then somehow again the monk survives the wizard can just send more… or go himself to rid himself of this pesky monk. Just saying for the monk to even win against one (even if it is a simulacrum) gold dragon capable of spellcasting is nigh impossible but whatever.
1) stunning strike can be applied to each attack a monk makes, and a monk can make many attacks, and is expected to have a save mod for ki effects as high as 19, if the only thing you got is a con score of 16 then you're ****ed, if the only defense you have is con proficiency chances are one of the four saving throws you make is going to fail even if it is less likely than before, and all those dice effects are limited resources that still cannot save you from pure bad luck/ rolls, something that might kick in if your only defense besides luck manipulation is a con score of 16. Only if a wizard happens to do all three, have a con score of 16, be a divination wizard and also pick up resillient (con) would that work
2) ok you got the monk and/or the fighter stuck in a cage of magical force... Now what? A monk or even most normal people can survive standing still for an hour so you'd better have a spell that can actiually harm them in there. Also using maze on yourself/ your opponent in this context is kind of like running away. Congratulations, you have now delayed the fight by 10 ish minutes, what a fantastic waste of a spell slot. Also shadow monks become your worst nightmare in this scenario as they can just kinda teleport out, so you'd need to make sure that you are not fighting them in a cave, or during the night, or in the deep sea (triton monk), and would have to make sure they can't somehow use darkness to escape (rule of cool/ DM allows you to pick up eldrich adept/ they have one level of a spell casting class bc the capstone is kinda mediocre)
3) this whole scenario both a) relies on the DM accepting the complete nonsense that is using magic jar on a polymorphed gold dragon you created, b) assumes that the wizard at half their own health is enough to take on the monk anyways, what is even the point of the middleman then? or if this scenario is the opposite and assumes that the monk can beat both dragons it implies that the strategy of sending back-to-back dragons would never work since a monk can just keep taking short rests between the wizard's long rests.
Also using similacrum in this context seems a bit like sidestepping the question, we were asking about the wizard's capabillities, not the combined capabilities of the wizard, their simulacrum, the demon they bound to their will, their entire undead army, the Greater Steed they have thanks to the wish spell, their humonculi and their familiar
also using the dragon assumption, no fighter build, no matter how well-optimized, could never deal enough damage to kill the wizard, if to kill the wizard they would have to deal 600 damage all in a single turn before they try to do anything
also i want to just propose the strat a monk could use to completely **** up all the strategies you have mentioned so far
step 0: shadow monk
step 1: use Shadow Arts to cast silence without it being counterspelled by the wizard. There are many ways this can be accomplished, from suprising the wizard so it cannot take reactions (with pass without trace, 20 Dex and proficiency in stealth that should not really be a problem), to moving out of range for counterspell before moving back in again using your high speed (only realistically possible for a tabaxi monk) to even trying to throw sand in the eyes of the wizard to disorient and blind them (as an object interaction of course)
step 2: using the remaining bonus action and reaction on your turn, make shure the ****er stays in the silence zone. Again there are several means of accomplishing this, ki-fueled strike + stunning strike might work (especially thanks to the Careful Aim feature), you could add Slasher + Martial Adept (precision attack + trip attack) to that to further slow him down and prevent that from happening, Sentinel could also be effective
step 3: perpetuate the cycle of keeping him trapped in the zone, preferably using grappling and shoving to keep them locked in the silence zone. The wizard cannot dimension door out, they cannot use maze, they cannot use forcecage, they cannot use wish, they cannot use sickening radiance, they cannot use a vast majority of spells, they are just stuck getting slowly beaten to death by a monk. If they happen to be a big fan of spells from XGtE a wizard might have a non-verbal spell that can help them here in hopes of breaking the monk's concentration, but they are for the most part just kind of stuck, as 80% of their arsenal is completely useless
step 4: eventiually the wizard will no longer have hit points remaining, might take like 10-11 rounds but it will hopefully happen before the wizard slips away through pure luck
So for instance a tabaxi monk with their only feats being Skill Expert (dex bonus, expertise in athletics) and Sentinel could reasonably have both dex 20, wis 20, an athletics modifier of +12 or +13 and everything you would need to forever trap the wizard in a hellscape of the monk's creation
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
1) stunning strike can be applied to each attack a monk makes, and a monk can make many attacks, and is expected to have a save mod for ki effects as high as 19, if the only thing you got is a con score of 16 then you're ****ed, if the only defense you have is con proficiency chances are one of the four saving throws you make is going to fail even if it is less likely than before, and all those dice effects are limited resources that still cannot save you from pure bad luck/ rolls, something that might kick in if your only defense besides luck manipulation is a con score of 16. Only if a wizard happens to do all three, have a con score of 16, be a divination wizard and also pick up resillient (con) would that work
Answer: I know you can use Stunning Strike more than once… besides you assume that all attacks hit and all’s well that ends well right? well no since at very least the wizard has AC 18 (23 with Shield spell… 25 if hobgoblin build with a shield) and assuming 4 attacks with +11 (with your strategy it is less than 4 because of casting silence is an action but whatever) you have a chance to hit of around 70% for a 18 AC, 45% for AC 23, and 35% for AC 25 per attack. So with those odds I can relatively safely say with 4 attacks at 70% to hit each you have a good chance of at least 2 (2.8) punches connecting so in turn that is two con saves at DC 19 with a like say +8 (min con 14 + resilient [con proficiency]) so the chance of success is 50% for each roll so on average he will succeed one and fail the other now using that he can just use Portent or chronal shift/convergent future to succeed the other or even lucky so the wizard is quite fine against stunning strike and that’s playing nice.
2) ok you got the monk and/or the fighter stuck in a cage of magical force... Now what? A monk or even most normal people can survive standing still for an hour so you'd better have a spell that can actiually harm them in there. Also using maze on yourself/ your opponent in this context is kind of like running away. Congratulations, you have now delayed the fight by 10 ish minutes, what a fantastic waste of a spell slot. Also shadow monks become your worst nightmare in this scenario as they can just kinda teleport out, so you'd need to make sure that you are not fighting them in a cave, or during the night, or in the deep sea (triton monk), and would have to make sure they can't somehow use darkness to escape (rule of cool/ DM allows you to pick up eldrich adept/ they have one level of a spell casting class bc the capstone is kinda mediocre)
Answer: Now that they are in a forcecage… sickening radiance (against non shadow monks but if you emiting dim light counts for shadow step I don’t know)… prep time… spell flinging, whatever wdym by “Now what?” like literally the wizard can do anything he wants while the monk just sits their unable to do anything at all.
As for maze then again wdym maze is quite literally amazing it like Forcecage (in the prep sense) but just better in every way. Also why do you keep acting as if prep doesn’t make the wizard practically a Demi-god.
In the case of the shadow monk your assuming in this whitebox scenario there is dim light/darkness of which your monk is in so he can teleport even though there definitely wouldn’t be any in the whitebox but even under the assumption that there is the monk still needs to succeed on the Cha save to even try to get out of the forcecage and that’s a lot of maybes. As for “running away” as you say, it is a perfectly viable strategy and even if it wasn’t that would mean you would have to ether force players to stay within an arena where it would then start to favour a certain character due to the enclosed space by taking this out of the white box or force characters from casting certain spells or doing certain strategies (kiting, in & out, etc) and by taking it out of the white box you have to force it into a world and therefore a setting/arena where there would be to many variables. Additionally, you can’t make these characters “realistic” as having characters be “realistic” means that you would never fight a wizard that didn’t have things prepped or a level 20 fighter without magic items etc as making them put into a world/realize them just adds to much so you just have to have it be in the whitebox scenario.
Just saying their ain’t (really at all) any “rule of cool” in this match we are going by RAW and common sense when needed (I.e. you commit suicide). Plus multiclassing is not allowed but even if it where I’d just make to many variables to form a conclusive argument especially considering that this forum is Fighter vs Wizard not something else.
3) this whole scenario both a) relies on the DM accepting the complete nonsense that is using magic jar on a polymorphed gold dragon you created, b) assumes that the wizard at half their own health is enough to take on the monk anyways, what is even the point of the middleman then? or if this scenario is the opposite and assumes that the monk can beat both dragons it implies that the strategy of sending back-to-back dragons would never work since a monk can just keep taking short rests between the wizard's long rests.
Also using similacrum in this context seems a bit like sidestepping the question, we were asking about the wizard's capabillities, not the combined capabilities of the wizard, their simulacrum, the demon they bound to their will, their entire undead army, the Greater Steed they have thanks to the wish spell, their humonculi and their familiar
Answer: That “nonsense” is completely viable by raw and say even if it was made to not work you could literally just summon a creature (demon/elemental/etc) and do it to that instead of your simulacrum as the only thing the simulacrum does hand wave plenty of complications and time by chopping it down to an easy to digest process because while you could do it in others ways it’d be just more trouble some but no less possible so yeah.
Half the hp to of an ancient gold dragon with level 20 spellcasting could easily take out a monk (besides a perhaps open hand monk maybe…). The reason why I said the monk “defeated” each of the simulacrum dragons in the example was because I wanted to highlight the absolute impossibility of the monk actually ever defeating such a dragon not to mention three of them.
Also what do you mean “the strategy of sending back-to-back dragons would never work since a monk can just keep taking short rests between the wizard's long rests” because the monk will never get a rest between fighting the dragons ever because as soon as the first one would be defeated a second would come. Just saying the chance of the monk defeating even one is almost if not entirely impossible for a monk (open hand monk aside… maybe).
Now as for the last paragraph of this section concerning the “using similacrum in this context seems a bit like sidestepping the question” in what way is it sidestepping if the wizard can get a simulacrum because a simulacrum is within the wizards capabilities as the wizard can acquire it as for the rant about the demon servant, undead army, blah blah blah, yeah so? tbh if the wizard wanted to he could do that as it is within his capabilities in this match because he could in all just first turn teleport away then just build an entire army, ascend to Demi-god status or whatever then come back after some prep and put the monk/fighter to the chopping block.
also i want to just propose the strat a monk could use to completely **** up all the strategies you have mentioned so far
step 0: shadow monk
step 1: use Shadow Arts to cast silence without it being counterspelled by the wizard. There are many ways this can be accomplished, from suprising the wizard so it cannot take reactions (with pass without trace, 20 Dex and proficiency in stealth that should not really be a problem), to moving out of range for counterspell before moving back in again using your high speed (only realistically possible for a tabaxi monk) to even trying to throw sand in the eyes of the wizard to disorient and blind them (as an object interaction of course)
step 2: using the remaining bonus action and reaction on your turn, make shure the ****er stays in the silence zone. Again there are several means of accomplishing this, ki-fueled strike + stunning strike might work (especially thanks to the Careful Aim feature), you could add Slasher + Martial Adept (precision attack + trip attack) to that to further slow him down and prevent that from happening, Sentinel could also be effective
step 3: perpetuate the cycle of keeping him trapped in the zone, preferably using grappling and shoving to keep them locked in the silence zone. The wizard cannot dimension door out, they cannot use maze, they cannot use forcecage, they cannot use wish, they cannot use sickening radiance, they cannot use a vast majority of spells, they are just stuck getting slowly beaten to death by a monk. If they happen to be a big fan of spells from XGtE a wizard might have a non-verbal spell that can help them here in hopes of breaking the monk's concentration, but they are for the most part just kind of stuck, as 80% of their arsenal is completely useless
step 4: eventiually the wizard will no longer have hit points remaining, might take like 10-11 rounds but it will hopefully happen before the wizard slips away through pure luck
So for instance a tabaxi monk with their only feats being Skill Expert (dex bonus, expertise in athletics) and Sentinel could reasonably have both dex 20, wis 20, an athletics modifier of +12 or +13 and everything you would need to forever trap the wizard in a hellscape of the monk's creation
Answer: Just saying this strategy doesn’t defeat every wizard strategy so far to be honest I’m hesitant to say it even defeats like one of them. Besides the unlikelihood as mentioned above above the wizard failing stunning strike (even with min stats, etc) your strategy still doesn’t cut it as there is the feat Metamagic Adept and you then grab subtle spell and say quickened spell because why not and now that I have subtle spell your silence does nothing… not like it did much anyway to be honest but whatever…
Also when you talk about silence yeah to even cast it you need to ether be 60ft away or you have Metamagic Adept also a BIG BLUNDER you did is assumed you could use flurry of blows/attack with bonus action on your turn after casting silence because to use flurry/attacks via bonus action you must use your action to attack but since you used your action for silence you cannot do so. Now let’s say you I guess quicken silence to use it a bonus action but that means you can’t use subtle spell so you must move away 60ft to then cast silence then move back with range which kinda just not possible even with your movement. As for surprising the wizard… like every wizard no like every build has alert so that doesn’t work.
TLDR: yeah no that doesn’t work… also Metamagic: Subtle Spell (so please don’t be like “so the only way you can win is to act like a sorcerer!” because just no your wrong).
PS: I probably missed something, didn’t address something or there may be some errors if so do tell much appreciated.
Given that the original post was deleted, we ought to factor in what sort of wizards we'd be pitting fighters against. Of optimized wizards, the big differences I see between them come from the Dex/Con split and their subclass (there's also the occasional Cha investment for the Enchantment school).
20 Dex/Int, 14 Con: dodgy gish, most likely a Bladesinger. Nigh-unhittable with attack rolls without advantage and/or abnormaly high attack bonuses. Not uncomfortable being in melee or at range.
20 Con/Int, 14 Dex: typical backliner, good at Con saves for concentration and harder to put down with save-for-half damage, but notably easier to hit with attacks. Many traditions other than Bladesinging are likely this. Mountain dwarves are very likely this with their access to medium armors.
18 Dex/Con/Int: the wizard that wanted be good at everything, sacrifices 5% success chances in the high 2 stats to give +10% success in the weaker one. Overall harder to put down, but slightly easier to defend against offensive options.
18 Con/Int/Wis: the wizard who realized that getting slapped with an EK's hold person is a death sentence (most wizards aren't fey creatures). Very difficult to lock down with save-or-suck spells and abilities. Likely avoids getting attacked in the first place with levitate or fly against plate-wearing bruisers and wall spells against archers. Another good option for mountain dwarves.
Also do not forget that the wizard can use Hypnotic Pattern in silence (and portent or Convergent Future for auto failure) and the monk is just out of the fight for a full minute while the wizard sets up something to kill them.
Now you are flying and immune to stun so the monk cannot even hit you. And since it has flyby you won't be able to use AoO on it....you will have to hold your action to do a single attack. Good luck getting through 175 hp with one attack per round before it just pecks you to death.
also a BIG BLUNDER you did is assumed you could use flurry of blows/attack with bonus action on your turn after casting silence because to use flurry/attacks via bonus action you must use your action to attack but since you used your action for silence you cannot do so.
you forgot about tasha's cauldron:
Ki-Fueled Attack
3rd-level monk feature If you spend 1 ki point or more as part of your action on your turn, you can make one attack with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon as a bonus action before the end of the turn.
there ya go, badabing badaboom you can cast silence and make an unarmed strike as a bonus action, or strike him with a sword, or shoot him with a gun if you have one of those
plus even if that bonus action unarmed strike happens to miss or the stunning strike does not go off, the wizard would still trigger an opportunity attack from the monk if they tried to move away, and if that opportunity attack hits the wizard well you're shit outa luck mate your speed is now 0 (sentinel feat) and you are no longer allowed to do anything, and thanks again to tasha's cauldron of everything the monk could spend ki to increase that attack roll by as much as +6, meaning that if the monk really needed that one opportunity attack to land, it ******* will 95% of the time unless you happen to have an armor class of 20. Remember that within the area of a silence spell, you cannot cast shield
In the case of the shadow monk your assuming in this whitebox scenario there is dim light/darkness of which your monk is in so he can teleport even though there definitely wouldn’t be any in the whitebox but even under the assumption that there is the monk still needs to succeed on the Cha save to even try to get out of the forcecage and that’s a lot of maybes.
in the case of forcecage, the creature makes a separate saving throw against the spell each time they try to teleport.
there is no ki cost associated with the teleport, you just use an bonus action to do it willy-nilly, as long as a monk has the prerequisite darkness or dim light required the monk can try and try and try and try until they finally suceed.
Plus they are proficient in charisma saving throws and can reroll their save at the cost of 1 ki
my point is the CHA save part is not that unlikely
Metamagic Adept and you then grab subtle spell and say quickened spell because why not and now that I have subtle spell your silence does nothing
tell me, is every single wizard ever made going to have the Subtle Spell metamagic option? Will even all of your proposed wizard builds have it? If they don't, is there anything a wizard could do to fight the monk who is trapping them within this bubble thanks to the sentinel feat + grappling + some other stuff? The only reliable strat i can think of is to never get grappled (and thus never get stunned on your first turn and thus probably have resilient (con)) and then cast mislead. And that relies on a wizard preparing mislead, i mean like who does that? And of course there are many ways to mislead-proof your strategy by for instance swapping a bonus to wisdom for Metamagic Adept, casting the silence spell as a bonus action via quickened spell and then using an action to grapple the wizard instead. Sure the wizard can try to escape the grapple as their action and then escape using their remaining movement, but then they would have to deal with the opportunity attack and the sentinel feat and also the monk could try to knock them prone first to help
As for “running away” as you say, it is a perfectly viable strategy and even if it wasn’t that would mean you would have to ether force players to stay within an arena where it would then start to favour a certain character due to the enclosed space by taking this out of the white box or force characters from casting certain spells or doing certain strategies (kiting, in & out, etc) and by taking it out of the white box you have to force it into a world and therefore a setting/arena where there would be to many variables
"for this white room combat scenario let's assume no prep time"
"ok"
"also the first thing my character does is run away to get some prep time"
Now let’s say you I guess quicken silence to use it a bonus action but that means you can’t use subtle spell so you must move away 60ft to then cast silence then move back with range which kinda just not possible even with your movement.
you'd allow the monk to use the metamagic adept feat? That is very convenient my good sir, as it means they can pick up the Eldrich Adept feat, cast the Darkness spell and then see themselves out using their at-will teleports, thus completely wasting your 7th level spell slot and thus completely deny any Forcecage related strategy, forcing the wizard rely on good ol' throwing demons and skeletons and whatever the hell else at the monk until they die.
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
For the prep time thing...its more that the wizard has a ton of ways to create time for themselves to set themselves up. Even if you assume no prep time before the fight the wizard has ways of giving it themselves anyway.
Wizards (and most full casters for that matter) just have too many resources to make a 1 vs 1 fight against a martial fair. Granted Monk probably has the best chance out of any of them but if you can just True Polymorph into a creature that is immune to stun 9/10 of their strategy is out the window.
Also do not forget that the wizard can use Hypnotic Pattern in silence (and portent or Convergent Future for auto failure) and the monk is just out of the fight for a full minute while the wizard sets up something to kill them.
Answer: Monk has Diamond Soul, so you can’t auto fail the monk.
Now you are flying and immune to stun so the monk cannot even hit you. And since it has flyby you won't be able to use AoO on it....you will have to hold your action to do a single attack. Good luck getting through 175 hp with one attack per round before it just pecks you to death.
Answer: That sound pretty good but like how does the “Fiery Death and Rebirth work?” also with true polymorph since you can become undead you can become say a Demilich, or leviathan or some such.
P.S: Just a recap of the “How to Become an Ancient Dragon.” First things first you must be in a safe space (able to do rests to regain slots) to do this then you do the following: Use wish to cast simulacrum, true polymorph simulacrum into a adult gold SHADOW dragon because shadow dragons are better and as they add a +3 to CR (see young red shadow dragon stat block) so +3 to a 17 CR (adult gold dragon) = 20 so you can turn into that dragon, now that you are a adult dragon you want to become a ancient dragon this can be done in a various ways most notably are Time Ravage to age yourself a lot then to get rid of the side effects, use wish, age normally, or summon/make a ghost to age you slowly, now after your simulacrum have properly aged you have the dragon use change shape into a humanoid then use magic jar to possess said dragon becoming the dragon. But of course there are many variations to this for how you want to do it like you can change the time you do magic jar or even while as the dragon cast simulacrum again to get another copy of you… so on and so forth. Additionally, when you are now a spellcasting ancient gold shadow dragon you can choose to if you want become up to any CR 27 as the ancient gold dragon has CR 24 while being a shadow dragons ups the CR by 3. So if you really wanted you could repeat this process again on a similar creature to become exceedingly power but tbh I think being the spellcasting ancient gold shadow dragon is better than like any other creature you could turn into as not only do you have that stats of a CR 27 monster but also the spellcasting of a level 20 (Chronurgist) wizard making you one of the strongest beings ever being able to defeat even godly foes by yourself (even if hard fought) like the Tarrasque (easily defeated), and maybe even Tiamat (with some time/simulacrum of your self and some good ol’prep), among other powerful beings.
3rd-level monk feature If you spend 1 ki point or more as part of your action on your turn, you can make one attack with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon as a bonus action before the end of the turn.
there ya go, badabing badaboom you can cast silence and make an unarmed strike as a bonus action, or strike him with a sword, or shoot him with a gun if you have one of those
plus even if that bonus action unarmed strike happens to miss or the stunning strike does not go off, the wizard would still trigger an opportunity attack from the monk if they tried to move away, and if that opportunity attack hits the wizard well you're shit outa luck mate your speed is now 0 (sentinel feat) and you are no longer allowed to do anything, and thanks again to tasha's cauldron of everything the monk could spend ki to increase that attack roll by as much as +6, meaning that if the monk really needed that one opportunity attack to land, it ****ing will 95% of the time unless you happen to have an armor class of 20. Remember that within the area of a silence spell, you cannot cast shield
Answer: Yeah I forgot about ki-fuelled attack but now what? Just saying at 20th level you have a 60ft movement speed. Ok imma run you through the scenarios:
1st: You move 60ft away (expending 40ft of movement), Action cast Silence, move 20ft back you are now within 40ft of the wizard now you bonus action step of the wind, now you within 5ft of the wizard with 20ft of movement to spare. You end your turn. Wizards turn…
2nd: You have Metamagic Adept (Subtle Spell). You as an action cast a silent silence and move the 20ft to engage the wizard. You use bonus action to make 1 bonus action strike (at ether disadvantage (Chronal Shift), auto miss (Portent/Convergent Future) or reroll on hit (lucky)) where if you have lucky you can help yourself a little bit with a reroll. You end your turn. Wizards turn…
3rd: You have Metamagic Adept (Quickened Spell). You move 60ft away (expending 40ft of movement), Bonus action silence, move 20ft back you are now within 40ft of the wizard now you action dash, now you are within 5ft of the wizard with 20ft of movement to spare. You end your turn. Wizards turn…
Just saying your over estimating what the monk can do on his turn by like I think… a lot.
Next… so why in the world is the wizard purposely making the monk get a AoO? So that ends the rest of that… As for Focused Aim the optional tashas feature sure it’s good? But that doesn’t matter if your stunning strike doesn’t land as the only way to win is if you stop the wizard from getting a turn.
in the case of forcecage, the creature makes a separate saving throw against the spell each time they try to teleport.
there is no ki cost associated with the teleport, you just use an bonus action to do it willy-nilly, as long as a monk has the prerequisite darkness or dim light required the monk can try and try and try and try until they finally suceed.
Plus they are proficient in charisma saving throws and can reroll their save at the cost of 1 ki
my point is the CHA save part is not that unlikely
Answer: Forcecage is just an option I could literally do almost ANYTHING to get the prep or time I want I could cast Teleport, Dimension Door, Planeshift, Timestop (plus other spells), Maze, so on and so forth you should get what I’m as if it’s not say force cage then it’s something else and I hope I don’t have to spell it out for you anymore becuase if I had I would be listing the wizards spell list at that point. I’m just saying if the wizard desires it (of which every wizard will) they will want “prep time” so they can face their foe with utmost confidence as they would be at their highest point (in power).
As for the likelyhood of you succeed (to get out) sure it’s better than nothing but ether way your wasting your time while giving the wizard time (just saying there are better options in most cases than to cast Forcecage).
tell me, is every single wizard ever made going to have the Subtle Spell metamagic option? Will even all of your proposed wizard builds have it? If they don't, is there anything a wizard could do to fight the monk who is trapping them within this bubble thanks to the sentinel feat + grappling + some other stuff? The only reliable strat i can think of is to never get grappled (and thus never get stunned on your first turn and thus probably have resilient (con)) and then cast mislead. And that relies on a wizard preparing mislead, i mean like who does that? And of course there are many ways to mislead-proof your strategy by for instance swapping a bonus to wisdom for Metamagic Adept, casting the silence spell as a bonus action via quickened spell and then using an action to grapple the wizard instead. Sure the wizard can try to escape the grapple as their action and then escape using their remaining movement, but then they would have to deal with the opportunity attack and the sentinel feat and also the monk could try to knock them prone first to help
Answer: Yes in a real world not every wizard would have Metamagic Adept but also in a real world you also wouldn’t have a silence wizard assassin monk with Metamagic Adept… so what are you getting at becuase this is a specialized monk/fighter vs a specialized wizard in a whiteroom now if you want to put it in a “real world” there wouldn’t even be a matchup since in a “real world” the wizard would have won before you even knew you where going to fight and if by some godforsaken miracle you somehow “find” this wizard you would becuase the actual wizard is probably ether locked away in his own death trap of a wizard tower which is locked away in some demiplane of his design that is so filled with magic, traps, wards, spells, and the kitchen sinks that for even anyone to get near to him or even to figure out he is in a Demiplane is so impossible there is not even a point to mention his existence because for all you know he doesn’t exist.
As for your “is there anything a wizard could do to fight the monk who is trapping them within this bubble” I don’t know how about like survive one measly punch from a monk, build high AC, build high saves, control dice, become a tank, wdym “is there anything?” the wizard has so many things he could do.
Also why would the wizard like over half the time ever care if they are grappled? Sure they can’t move but like… so I can just say “I teleport 10 000 or more ft into the air” then as your fall 500ft per round you like just do whatever you want…
P.S: tbh this entire debate could be just finish by saying “I build a resist nova build with metamagic subtle spell” because with that you can just when it hits your turn say “I cast a silent wish,” DM “what do you wish for?” me “I win” of course it would be those but something that would guarantee your victory via the opponents death. But yeah whatever it better to have them “fight” than just the wizard choosing to win.
"for this white room combat scenario let's assume no prep time"
"ok"
"also the first thing my character does is run away to get some prep time"
Answer: You ether misunderstood something hardcore, are being cheeky, or plain dumb… No prep time means no prep before match not “you can’t move away to get turns…” so yeah…
you'd allow the monk to use the metamagic adept feat? That is very convenient my good sir, as it means they can pick up the Eldrich Adept feat, cast the Darkness spell and then see themselves out using their at-will teleports, thus completely wasting your 7th level spell slot and thus completely deny any Forcecage related strategy, forcing the wizard rely on good ol' throwing demons and skeletons and whatever the hell else at the monk until they die.
Answer: Who said you couldn’t use Metamagic and what’s with that “my good sir” it should’ve been common knowledge as if the wizards using it, the Eldritch Knights using it, why can’t you use it.
Huh wdym a what are you talking about you know you waste ki casting Darkness because I counterspell it wow look at that and say even if you somehow get the darkness off (is impossible) I could have Eldritch Adept: Devil Sight, or as Darkness is concentration I could just deal some damage to destroy your spell and even if you get your darkness up and I don’t wanna deal damage I can still just dispel magic it easily so what are you even talking about?
As for “throwing demons and skeletons” how about just one casting of Animate objects on some copper coins then say have my simulacrum also cast animate object on copper coins (ball bearings also work very well for tiny objects). Now when you say “until they die” sure sounds like your monks gonna be the one to bite the dust definitely not the wizard if you read all of this.
P.S: I no doubt probably didn’t cover something, or didn’t give enough detail if I missed something do tell it’s much appreciated.
I think he meant Diamond Soul, where the monk can spend a ki point to reroll a failed saving throw.
Since we seem open to expanding the discussion outside of fighters, I'd like to point out that devotion paladins can likely have the highest potential for hitting through an AC tank wizard with their Channel Divinity, granting up to +5 to their attack rolls for up to a minute (a theoretic +18 when paired with 4th level magic weapon and 20 in both Cha and your attacking stat). Problem here is that it takes an action to set up, so it's not viable in a no-prep-time scenario.
"On a failed save, the creature becomes charmed for the duration. While charmed by this spell, the creature is incapacitated and has a speed of 0."
Timeless body doesn't effect this at all?
And they can't use an action to end the Charmed condition as they cannot take actions while incapacitated
Answer: Whoops nice catch said the wrong name the feature is called Diamond Soul I somehow I guess saw timeless body title but read Diamond soul description I’ll fix that. Anyway Diamond Soul is:
”Beginning at 14th level, your mastery of ki grants you proficiency in all saving throws.
Additionally, whenever you make a saving throw and fail, you can spend 1 ki point to reroll it and take the second result.“
The bolded parts is what I was talking about sorry haha and since Hypnotic Pattern has a Wisdom saving throw the likelihood for the monk to fail is small.
Best way to defeat a high level wizard is to befriend them, ply them with drink, get them talking about all the cool tricks they know (most Wizards love to talk about how clever they are) and once you've learned enough to undo their contingencies (or pay someone to do it for you) stab them in their sleep 😉
It's not a direct way to do it, and requires careful planning and strategy, but any character can defeat a Wizard if they have enough time to learn where their clone is etc.
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Best way to defeat a high level wizard is to befriend them, ply them with drink, get them talking about all the cool tricks they know (most Wizards love to talk about how much they know)
Answer: Befriend then ehhhhh… plausible but tbh most wizard are very wary (I mean VERY) so you could befriend them maybe if you became there companion awhile back and go for the long con but nothing is guaranteed so he might pry into you or even check your intent with your partnership. As for supplying them with drink to loosen their lips depends on the wizard but most (if not all) wizards who attain such height in arcane prowess probably keep knowledge about their traps, contingencies, and other such vital information close to their chest even among “friends.”
As for them being usually egotistical yeah I feel most wizards who get up to that height to touch the ceiling may acquire a god complex but tbh I feel like as the wizard grew to know more of the world many wizards probably became more reserved for the fear of the unknown and of any stealers of secrets so in turn they became secluded hermits steeped within their own books of knowledge, fanatical ramblings, and research papers on immortality and such.
and once you've learned enough to undo their contingencies (or pay someone to do it for you) stab them in their sleep 😉
Answer: Even if you were to learn enough to surmise the activation of their contingency, there are plenty of hurdles before you even get to his door of his bedroom literally. As wizards really never sleep without some amount of protection your best bet would be to try to get him to sleep somewhere not in his magnificent mansion or wizard tower so I presume you have to set up a well know and renowned Noble to invited the wizard and before the wizard leaves the party invite him to stay only then could you get him without him being somewhere else. But then again that may not even be him but maybe an illusion or simulacrum as what self respecting wizard would leave his studies to go to a party of all things. But even so say you somehow found yourself in the room of said wizard dagger in hand how would you get rid of the contingency there are two ways ether you buy/hire something which is high enough level to dispel such a magic with ease or go roll the die and try to dispel it normally (via item).
Now that you have dispelled his contingency you still have a problem that being that there may be just a small probability that your being watched by something. Now that something could be anywhere from a golem, a simulacrum, or some type of summon or even a scrying eye.
It's not a direct way to do it, and requires careful planning and strategy, but any character can defeat a Wizard if they have enough time to learn where their clone is etc.
Answer: As for learning where there clone is besides a wish I don’t see that happening as it is ether secreted away in some secret room somewhere covered in anti-scrying and such other methods or even just on an entirely different plane of existence (demiplane, etc).
Haha that was fun to talk about but in all seriousness to be able to actually kill the wizard the difficulty would be akin to someone breaking into a metre thick adamantium box with a wooden twig.
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Oh I just wanted to say this but Custom Lineage is kinda just a better Vumen because not only do you get the choice to get Darkvison but you also get the ability to give a +2 (or 2, +1’s) to an ability score of your choice, while also getting a feat of your choice (like the Vumen) and now here is the real kicker you can choose your lineage that means you can be an elf, a half-elf, a human or even an orc or whatever maybe even a bugbear whatever you want and that means you can get meet the prerequisite of any race feat of your choice like by being a half-elf (lineage) with Elven Accuracy at level one which is amazing since if you wanted (using point buy) you could get an 18 Dex score super early.
So for the samurai (I haven’t done it yet but) you could technically get an entirely new feat while still keeping everything else the same though I don’t know which feat the seppuku samurai would want/need to help deal more damage, get higher to hit, or just help out in general. So do tell if you know a feat that would help out the SS (Seppuku Samurai).
TLDR: Custom Lineage (from Tasha’s cauldron of everything) is just a better Vumen (Variant Humen).
Custom Lineage does not qualify for racial feats. Of course, Vhuman only qualifies for Prodigy, which is not that great.
The other (potential) downside to Custom Lineage is that it can't split its ASI up. It has to put 2 points into one stat. While I think it is overall better, there are certainly scenarios where you would prefer vhuman in order to place a +1 into two different stats.
Ok I don’t know what imma do with this information but I’ll just leave it here:
By starting equipment that means I can go buy a mount.. so now I have a large mount and I grab Mounted Combatant so I get advantage against all non mounted creatures that are smaller than my mount. Also the fighter has the subclass capstone Viligant Defender (Cavalier) that gives an opportunity attack as an reaction now I don’t know how useful that is but it’s… it’s there (useful for fighter somehow?).
Darts are Throwing Ranged Weapons so Archery (+2 to hit), SS (+10 to damage), and Thrown Weapon Fighting (+2 damage)… meanwhile handaxes are Throwing Melee Weapons so Dueling (+2 damage), Thrown Weapon Fighting (+2 damage) but doesn’t work with GWM (useful for fighter somehow).
So polearm master and war caster work together (opportunity attack) so the wizard could technically ward against opponents getting within melee with the threat of getting a spell cast on them (the fighter).
I guess also there is Fighting Initiate for Blind Fighting so you can “see” that the wizard could use to help get out of a blindfold strategy (not that he needs help). But there is the problem of the prerequisite of proficiency with martial weapon but that is easily remedied with a feat or race feature (Elven Weapon Training, etc).
Answer: After some research it seems you may be right concerning custom lineages not qualifying for racial feats. But tbh if I were to just look at how it is and how’s it word especially for how the Creature Type and Feat features text’s it is highly suggestive (or is it just me) that you “choose” your race then use the Custom Lineage stats.
Creature Type: You are a humanoid. ”You determine your appearance and whether you resemble any of your kin.”
Feat: You gain one feat of your choice “for which you qualify.”
As opposed to the Vumen’s.
Feat: You gain one feat of your choice.
Soooooooo… for how I interpret the “for which you qualify.” It could ether be the Custom Lineage get to choose its race and therefore “qualify” for certain feats or the Vumen we all know and love has a secret superpower to choose any feat even ones he doesn’t “qualify” for. Though I do get what you say and I have seen the opposing evidence one could say but I just don’t see how it could really mean anything else…
Answer: Oh yeah I completely forgot that you can’t actually split the stat up only shift it around but that doesn’t really change it from want I would have had it originally do being +2 to a stat then feat for total + 3 on a certain stat. As for the certain scenarios the Vumen being better, yeah especially for MAD (multi ability score dependant) classes like Ranger, Paladin, Monk, and etc (depending on the rolled/bought numbers) as having two +1 may be better than a single +2 but that is just plain circumstance so it’s hard to evaluate though if I were to say which is better I’d undoubtedly have to say Custom Lineage.
Since we get our background perks and such like equipment/money and as such concerning our character that means if I were to choose the Noble as my background then take the RETAINERS variant feature while choosing to become a Knight for my background. By doing so it seems that I would be able to have my retainers with me in such a situation (keep in mind as a knight, my retainers are a squire (the Noble] and two servants [Commomers]). As I see it such retainers are on the same level of buying a mount for this fight (as in on the same level of connection to his character). That means if the Knight background is chosen you could have three retainers with now I don’t really know how they could help ether then maybe some small chip damage (might not even be able to hit without a natural 20), cover (hide behind their bodies), holding things (blankets/Objects/Etc), morale support (Help Action), or whatever but they could do something the most glaring would be something along the lines of grappling, attacking, or helping (help action) me in some way to take down the enemy (though they could be just fodder who knows).
P.S: If I were to choose the feat Aberrant Dragon Mark and reached tenth level (up to twenty) would I gain the a boon in this match up or is that much to DM reliant… I assume it is to DM reliant but still.
um your retainers are not slaves and would NEVER help you fight in a life-or-death scenario
however your squire (who may or may not use the noble stat block might be able to participate, depending on the circumstances, as they are helping you to progress their own path to knighthood)
as for the Greater Abberant Dragonmark thing, it is best not to be considered due to several layers of things out of the player's controll:
1) that you are playing in an campaign set in ebberon
2) you DM must choose to use the option
3) there is approximately an 31% chance you don't gain the epic boon even if your DM is using the option, since you only have a 10% chance of gaining one each level
4) the DM chooses the boon or determines it randomly, so chances are you are not gonna get the boon you want unless your DM feels it is appropriate for the story, there is not really any potential to deliberately build your character around it
Speaking of monks, do you think a lvl 20 monk would do better or worse than a lvl 20 fighter in the matchup we have against the wizard?
Yes monks are generally weaker in most contexts, and are not quite able to match the burst damage a fighter can pull of with action surge, but on the other hand a lot of their features seem to be specifically good against spellcasters, stunning strike grants not only a action economy advantage but also ends concentration if it is pulled off, evasion, stillness of mind and to a lesser degree purity of body all essentially grant the monk immunity to certain spells in the wizard's arsenal (albeit ones we don't see often right here), diamond soul means that there is no save the monk will be bad and also doubles as an arguably superior version of the fighter's Indomidable feature, the empty body feature can be used to give the monk resistance to everything but force damage while also forcing the opposing wizard to have see invisibillity prepared (and potentially waste an action casting see invisibillity) if they want to see what they are fighting, and then beyond that monks have a lot of weird tricks up their sleeve for eventual problem-solving, especially when including sub classes
Might be a little off- topic but i just thought it might be an interesting side thing, seeing how another martial class deals with the king of casters
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Answer: The “your retainers are not slaves…” not yet… but in all seriousness there are are quite a few ways you could justify having the retainers in the fight “if you don’t fight we will all die!” that type of thing and as for the frequently endangered and abused this could be the only time this happens or maybe they are just each brave souls, can assess the situation, or just plain realize they are in dire straits and require their knights judgement to escape (fight with you), and etc as there are many ways to have them join your cause in this fight. But yeah I’m VERY sure that your squire is a Noble while your retainers are Commoner so yeah.
Answer: Yes know it it very DM dependant but I said it because it was one of those things were it was just neat to know and if you really wanted to you could have it as the potential boon isn’t the only thing it grants but I do get what you mean as it’s true it is very finicky.
Answer: That was a transition if I ever saw one… but tbh the only thing the monk got running for him in all reality is Stunning Strike as everything else is just overcome by the wizard porting out of the battlefield (better option) or Forcecage since if the monk can’t do anything but the monk has some fatal flaws those being:
1. Stunning strike needs con save/countered by the wizard high con stat (at least like 16), dice manipulation/Lucky and Resilient Con + more
2. While Diamond Soul may be a better indomitable it still doesn’t help against Forcecage or much of any spells they the wizard could use like maze (of which most/all the time he will cast in himself for a quick teleport to a different dimension…
3. As for empty body sure nice invisibility as an action plus resistance for awhile oops look like the wizard disappeared… ten minutes/a week later (no more empty body)… some random ancient gold dragon teleports right in front of me then just slaps me now it my turn say I get perfect everything and somehow get like maybe 300 damage (I don’t think a monk can get that high even with all crits but whatever) I for some reason the dragon dies but it turns to snow… that’s weird but when I though the battle was over a mere 6 seconds later a second one appears now let’s say under some great miracle the monk defeats that… a third one appears this one seeming much more smart and angry proceeds to utterly decimate the the puny monk. So what happened was the wizard mazes himself/whatever to get away then proceeded to cast simulacrum after becoming an gold dragon then after some prep (contingency, spying, warding, etc) the wizard send the simulacrum of myself (a gold dragon with all my spellcasting to teleport and attack the monk oops some how that simulacrum was defeat no matter I cast wish now another simulacrum appears and that simulacrum teleports to the monk then somehow again the monk survives the wizard can just send more… or go himself to rid himself of this pesky monk. Just saying for the monk to even win against one (even if it is a simulacrum) gold dragon capable of spellcasting is nigh impossible but whatever.
In conclusion, tbh I feel like the monk may have a chance (kinda) but the fighter has a shot to win not just a chance with just PURE nova on the first turn as that’s the only way (so far) to take out such a great foe. Though even though it was a bit off topic it was nice to think about.
P.S: Ok I’ve been thinking for this match does the wizard even need a 20 intelligence since like half the spells/strategies he uses in his fights don’t really care for a high int score… plus sorry for all of the errors that are there no doubt…
1) stunning strike can be applied to each attack a monk makes, and a monk can make many attacks, and is expected to have a save mod for ki effects as high as 19, if the only thing you got is a con score of 16 then you're ****ed, if the only defense you have is con proficiency chances are one of the four saving throws you make is going to fail even if it is less likely than before, and all those dice effects are limited resources that still cannot save you from pure bad luck/ rolls, something that might kick in if your only defense besides luck manipulation is a con score of 16. Only if a wizard happens to do all three, have a con score of 16, be a divination wizard and also pick up resillient (con) would that work
2) ok you got the monk and/or the fighter stuck in a cage of magical force... Now what? A monk or even most normal people can survive standing still for an hour so you'd better have a spell that can actiually harm them in there. Also using maze on yourself/ your opponent in this context is kind of like running away. Congratulations, you have now delayed the fight by 10 ish minutes, what a fantastic waste of a spell slot. Also shadow monks become your worst nightmare in this scenario as they can just kinda teleport out, so you'd need to make sure that you are not fighting them in a cave, or during the night, or in the deep sea (triton monk), and would have to make sure they can't somehow use darkness to escape (rule of cool/ DM allows you to pick up eldrich adept/ they have one level of a spell casting class bc the capstone is kinda mediocre)
3) this whole scenario both a) relies on the DM accepting the complete nonsense that is using magic jar on a polymorphed gold dragon you created, b) assumes that the wizard at half their own health is enough to take on the monk anyways, what is even the point of the middleman then? or if this scenario is the opposite and assumes that the monk can beat both dragons it implies that the strategy of sending back-to-back dragons would never work since a monk can just keep taking short rests between the wizard's long rests.
Also using similacrum in this context seems a bit like sidestepping the question, we were asking about the wizard's capabillities, not the combined capabilities of the wizard, their simulacrum, the demon they bound to their will, their entire undead army, the Greater Steed they have thanks to the wish spell, their humonculi and their familiar
also using the dragon assumption, no fighter build, no matter how well-optimized, could never deal enough damage to kill the wizard, if to kill the wizard they would have to deal 600 damage all in a single turn before they try to do anything
also i want to just propose the strat a monk could use to completely **** up all the strategies you have mentioned so far
step 0: shadow monk
step 1: use Shadow Arts to cast silence without it being counterspelled by the wizard. There are many ways this can be accomplished, from suprising the wizard so it cannot take reactions (with pass without trace, 20 Dex and proficiency in stealth that should not really be a problem), to moving out of range for counterspell before moving back in again using your high speed (only realistically possible for a tabaxi monk) to even trying to throw sand in the eyes of the wizard to disorient and blind them (as an object interaction of course)
step 2: using the remaining bonus action and reaction on your turn, make shure the ****er stays in the silence zone. Again there are several means of accomplishing this, ki-fueled strike + stunning strike might work (especially thanks to the Careful Aim feature), you could add Slasher + Martial Adept (precision attack + trip attack) to that to further slow him down and prevent that from happening, Sentinel could also be effective
step 3: perpetuate the cycle of keeping him trapped in the zone, preferably using grappling and shoving to keep them locked in the silence zone. The wizard cannot dimension door out, they cannot use maze, they cannot use forcecage, they cannot use wish, they cannot use sickening radiance, they cannot use a vast majority of spells, they are just stuck getting slowly beaten to death by a monk. If they happen to be a big fan of spells from XGtE a wizard might have a non-verbal spell that can help them here in hopes of breaking the monk's concentration, but they are for the most part just kind of stuck, as 80% of their arsenal is completely useless
step 4: eventiually the wizard will no longer have hit points remaining, might take like 10-11 rounds but it will hopefully happen before the wizard slips away through pure luck
So for instance a tabaxi monk with their only feats being Skill Expert (dex bonus, expertise in athletics) and Sentinel could reasonably have both dex 20, wis 20, an athletics modifier of +12 or +13 and everything you would need to forever trap the wizard in a hellscape of the monk's creation
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Answer: I know you can use Stunning Strike more than once… besides you assume that all attacks hit and all’s well that ends well right? well no since at very least the wizard has AC 18 (23 with Shield spell… 25 if hobgoblin build with a shield) and assuming 4 attacks with +11 (with your strategy it is less than 4 because of casting silence is an action but whatever) you have a chance to hit of around 70% for a 18 AC, 45% for AC 23, and 35% for AC 25 per attack. So with those odds I can relatively safely say with 4 attacks at 70% to hit each you have a good chance of at least 2 (2.8) punches connecting so in turn that is two con saves at DC 19 with a like say +8 (min con 14 + resilient [con proficiency]) so the chance of success is 50% for each roll so on average he will succeed one and fail the other now using that he can just use Portent or chronal shift/convergent future to succeed the other or even lucky so the wizard is quite fine against stunning strike and that’s playing nice.
Answer: Now that they are in a forcecage… sickening radiance (against non shadow monks but if you emiting dim light counts for shadow step I don’t know)… prep time… spell flinging, whatever wdym by “Now what?” like literally the wizard can do anything he wants while the monk just sits their unable to do anything at all.
As for maze then again wdym maze is quite literally amazing it like Forcecage (in the prep sense) but just better in every way. Also why do you keep acting as if prep doesn’t make the wizard practically a Demi-god.
In the case of the shadow monk your assuming in this whitebox scenario there is dim light/darkness of which your monk is in so he can teleport even though there definitely wouldn’t be any in the whitebox but even under the assumption that there is the monk still needs to succeed on the Cha save to even try to get out of the forcecage and that’s a lot of maybes. As for “running away” as you say, it is a perfectly viable strategy and even if it wasn’t that would mean you would have to ether force players to stay within an arena where it would then start to favour a certain character due to the enclosed space by taking this out of the white box or force characters from casting certain spells or doing certain strategies (kiting, in & out, etc) and by taking it out of the white box you have to force it into a world and therefore a setting/arena where there would be to many variables. Additionally, you can’t make these characters “realistic” as having characters be “realistic” means that you would never fight a wizard that didn’t have things prepped or a level 20 fighter without magic items etc as making them put into a world/realize them just adds to much so you just have to have it be in the whitebox scenario.
Just saying their ain’t (really at all) any “rule of cool” in this match we are going by RAW and common sense when needed (I.e. you commit suicide). Plus multiclassing is not allowed but even if it where I’d just make to many variables to form a conclusive argument especially considering that this forum is Fighter vs Wizard not something else.
Answer: That “nonsense” is completely viable by raw and say even if it was made to not work you could literally just summon a creature (demon/elemental/etc) and do it to that instead of your simulacrum as the only thing the simulacrum does hand wave plenty of complications and time by chopping it down to an easy to digest process because while you could do it in others ways it’d be just more trouble some but no less possible so yeah.
Half the hp to of an ancient gold dragon with level 20 spellcasting could easily take out a monk (besides a perhaps open hand monk maybe…). The reason why I said the monk “defeated” each of the simulacrum dragons in the example was because I wanted to highlight the absolute impossibility of the monk actually ever defeating such a dragon not to mention three of them.
Also what do you mean “the strategy of sending back-to-back dragons would never work since a monk can just keep taking short rests between the wizard's long rests” because the monk will never get a rest between fighting the dragons ever because as soon as the first one would be defeated a second would come. Just saying the chance of the monk defeating even one is almost if not entirely impossible for a monk (open hand monk aside… maybe).
Now as for the last paragraph of this section concerning the “using similacrum in this context seems a bit like sidestepping the question” in what way is it sidestepping if the wizard can get a simulacrum because a simulacrum is within the wizards capabilities as the wizard can acquire it as for the rant about the demon servant, undead army, blah blah blah, yeah so? tbh if the wizard wanted to he could do that as it is within his capabilities in this match because he could in all just first turn teleport away then just build an entire army, ascend to Demi-god status or whatever then come back after some prep and put the monk/fighter to the chopping block.
Answer: Just saying this strategy doesn’t defeat every wizard strategy so far to be honest I’m hesitant to say it even defeats like one of them. Besides the unlikelihood as mentioned above above the wizard failing stunning strike (even with min stats, etc) your strategy still doesn’t cut it as there is the feat Metamagic Adept and you then grab subtle spell and say quickened spell because why not and now that I have subtle spell your silence does nothing… not like it did much anyway to be honest but whatever…
Also when you talk about silence yeah to even cast it you need to ether be 60ft away or you have Metamagic Adept also a BIG BLUNDER you did is assumed you could use flurry of blows/attack with bonus action on your turn after casting silence because to use flurry/attacks via bonus action you must use your action to attack but since you used your action for silence you cannot do so. Now let’s say you I guess quicken silence to use it a bonus action but that means you can’t use subtle spell so you must move away 60ft to then cast silence then move back with range which kinda just not possible even with your movement.
As for surprising the wizard… like every wizard no like every build has alert so that doesn’t work.
TLDR: yeah no that doesn’t work… also Metamagic: Subtle Spell (so please don’t be like “so the only way you can win is to act like a sorcerer!” because just no your wrong).
PS: I probably missed something, didn’t address something or there may be some errors if so do tell much appreciated.
Given that the original post was deleted, we ought to factor in what sort of wizards we'd be pitting fighters against. Of optimized wizards, the big differences I see between them come from the Dex/Con split and their subclass (there's also the occasional Cha investment for the Enchantment school).
20 Dex/Int, 14 Con: dodgy gish, most likely a Bladesinger. Nigh-unhittable with attack rolls without advantage and/or abnormaly high attack bonuses. Not uncomfortable being in melee or at range.
20 Con/Int, 14 Dex: typical backliner, good at Con saves for concentration and harder to put down with save-for-half damage, but notably easier to hit with attacks. Many traditions other than Bladesinging are likely this. Mountain dwarves are very likely this with their access to medium armors.
18 Dex/Con/Int: the wizard that wanted be good at everything, sacrifices 5% success chances in the high 2 stats to give +10% success in the weaker one. Overall harder to put down, but slightly easier to defend against offensive options.
18 Con/Int/Wis: the wizard who realized that getting slapped with an EK's hold person is a death sentence (most wizards aren't fey creatures). Very difficult to lock down with save-or-suck spells and abilities. Likely avoids getting attacked in the first place with levitate or fly against plate-wearing bruisers and wall spells against archers. Another good option for mountain dwarves.
Also do not forget that the wizard can use Hypnotic Pattern in silence (and portent or Convergent Future for auto failure) and the monk is just out of the fight for a full minute while the wizard sets up something to kill them.
..like use True Polymorph to become a creature that is immune to stun like a Phoenix: Phoenix - Monsters - D&D Beyond (dndbeyond.com)
Now you are flying and immune to stun so the monk cannot even hit you. And since it has flyby you won't be able to use AoO on it....you will have to hold your action to do a single attack. Good luck getting through 175 hp with one attack per round before it just pecks you to death.
you forgot about tasha's cauldron:
there ya go, badabing badaboom you can cast silence and make an unarmed strike as a bonus action, or strike him with a sword, or shoot him with a gun if you have one of those
plus even if that bonus action unarmed strike happens to miss or the stunning strike does not go off, the wizard would still trigger an opportunity attack from the monk if they tried to move away, and if that opportunity attack hits the wizard well you're shit outa luck mate your speed is now 0 (sentinel feat) and you are no longer allowed to do anything, and thanks again to tasha's cauldron of everything the monk could spend ki to increase that attack roll by as much as +6, meaning that if the monk really needed that one opportunity attack to land, it ******* will 95% of the time unless you happen to have an armor class of 20. Remember that within the area of a silence spell, you cannot cast shield
in the case of forcecage, the creature makes a separate saving throw against the spell each time they try to teleport.
there is no ki cost associated with the teleport, you just use an bonus action to do it willy-nilly, as long as a monk has the prerequisite darkness or dim light required the monk can try and try and try and try until they finally suceed.
Plus they are proficient in charisma saving throws and can reroll their save at the cost of 1 ki
my point is the CHA save part is not that unlikely
tell me, is every single wizard ever made going to have the Subtle Spell metamagic option? Will even all of your proposed wizard builds have it? If they don't, is there anything a wizard could do to fight the monk who is trapping them within this bubble thanks to the sentinel feat + grappling + some other stuff? The only reliable strat i can think of is to never get grappled (and thus never get stunned on your first turn and thus probably have resilient (con)) and then cast mislead. And that relies on a wizard preparing mislead, i mean like who does that? And of course there are many ways to mislead-proof your strategy by for instance swapping a bonus to wisdom for Metamagic Adept, casting the silence spell as a bonus action via quickened spell and then using an action to grapple the wizard instead. Sure the wizard can try to escape the grapple as their action and then escape using their remaining movement, but then they would have to deal with the opportunity attack and the sentinel feat and also the monk could try to knock them prone first to help
"for this white room combat scenario let's assume no prep time"
"ok"
"also the first thing my character does is run away to get some prep time"
you'd allow the monk to use the metamagic adept feat? That is very convenient my good sir, as it means they can pick up the Eldrich Adept feat, cast the Darkness spell and then see themselves out using their at-will teleports, thus completely wasting your 7th level spell slot and thus completely deny any Forcecage related strategy, forcing the wizard rely on good ol' throwing demons and skeletons and whatever the hell else at the monk until they die.
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
For the prep time thing...its more that the wizard has a ton of ways to create time for themselves to set themselves up. Even if you assume no prep time before the fight the wizard has ways of giving it themselves anyway.
Wizards (and most full casters for that matter) just have too many resources to make a 1 vs 1 fight against a martial fair. Granted Monk probably has the best chance out of any of them but if you can just True Polymorph into a creature that is immune to stun 9/10 of their strategy is out the window.
Answer: Monk has Diamond Soul, so you can’t auto fail the monk.
Answer: That sound pretty good but like how does the “Fiery Death and Rebirth work?” also with true polymorph since you can become undead you can become say a Demilich, or leviathan or some such.
P.S: Just a recap of the “How to Become an Ancient Dragon.” First things first you must be in a safe space (able to do rests to regain slots) to do this then you do the following: Use wish to cast simulacrum, true polymorph simulacrum into a adult gold SHADOW dragon because shadow dragons are better and as they add a +3 to CR (see young red shadow dragon stat block) so +3 to a 17 CR (adult gold dragon) = 20 so you can turn into that dragon, now that you are a adult dragon you want to become a ancient dragon this can be done in a various ways most notably are Time Ravage to age yourself a lot then to get rid of the side effects, use wish, age normally, or summon/make a ghost to age you slowly, now after your simulacrum have properly aged you have the dragon use change shape into a humanoid then use magic jar to possess said dragon becoming the dragon.
But of course there are many variations to this for how you want to do it like you can change the time you do magic jar or even while as the dragon cast simulacrum again to get another copy of you… so on and so forth. Additionally, when you are now a spellcasting ancient gold shadow dragon you can choose to if you want become up to any CR 27 as the ancient gold dragon has CR 24 while being a shadow dragons ups the CR by 3. So if you really wanted you could repeat this process again on a similar creature to become exceedingly power but tbh I think being the spellcasting ancient gold shadow dragon is better than like any other creature you could turn into as not only do you have that stats of a CR 27 monster but also the spellcasting of a level 20 (Chronurgist) wizard making you one of the strongest beings ever being able to defeat even godly foes by yourself (even if hard fought) like the Tarrasque (easily defeated), and maybe even Tiamat (with some time/simulacrum of your self and some good ol’prep), among other powerful beings.
EDIT: Whoops wrong name now fixed.
"On a failed save, the creature becomes charmed for the duration. While charmed by this spell, the creature is incapacitated and has a speed of 0."
Timeless body doesn't effect this at all?
And they can't use an action to end the Charmed condition as they cannot take actions while incapacitated
Answer: Yeah I forgot about ki-fuelled attack but now what? Just saying at 20th level you have a 60ft movement speed. Ok imma run you through the scenarios:
1st: You move 60ft away (expending 40ft of movement), Action cast Silence, move 20ft back you are now within 40ft of the wizard now you bonus action step of the wind, now you within 5ft of the wizard with 20ft of movement to spare. You end your turn. Wizards turn…
2nd: You have Metamagic Adept (Subtle Spell). You as an action cast a silent silence and move the 20ft to engage the wizard. You use bonus action to make 1 bonus action strike (at ether disadvantage (Chronal Shift), auto miss (Portent/Convergent Future) or reroll on hit (lucky)) where if you have lucky you can help yourself a little bit with a reroll. You end your turn. Wizards turn…
3rd: You have Metamagic Adept (Quickened Spell). You move 60ft away (expending 40ft of movement), Bonus action silence, move 20ft back you are now within 40ft of the wizard now you action dash, now you are within 5ft of the wizard with 20ft of movement to spare. You end your turn. Wizards turn…
Just saying your over estimating what the monk can do on his turn by like I think… a lot.
Next… so why in the world is the wizard purposely making the monk get a AoO? So that ends the rest of that… As for Focused Aim the optional tashas feature sure it’s good? But that doesn’t matter if your stunning strike doesn’t land as the only way to win is if you stop the wizard from getting a turn.
Answer: Forcecage is just an option I could literally do almost ANYTHING to get the prep or time I want I could cast Teleport, Dimension Door, Planeshift, Timestop (plus other spells), Maze, so on and so forth you should get what I’m as if it’s not say force cage then it’s something else and I hope I don’t have to spell it out for you anymore becuase if I had I would be listing the wizards spell list at that point. I’m just saying if the wizard desires it (of which every wizard will) they will want “prep time” so they can face their foe with utmost confidence as they would be at their highest point (in power).
As for the likelyhood of you succeed (to get out) sure it’s better than nothing but ether way your wasting your time while giving the wizard time (just saying there are better options in most cases than to cast Forcecage).
Answer: Yes in a real world not every wizard would have Metamagic Adept but also in a real world you also wouldn’t have a silence wizard assassin monk with Metamagic Adept… so what are you getting at becuase this is a specialized monk/fighter vs a specialized wizard in a whiteroom now if you want to put it in a “real world” there wouldn’t even be a matchup since in a “real world” the wizard would have won before you even knew you where going to fight and if by some godforsaken miracle you somehow “find” this wizard you would becuase the actual wizard is probably ether locked away in his own death trap of a wizard tower which is locked away in some demiplane of his design that is so filled with magic, traps, wards, spells, and the kitchen sinks that for even anyone to get near to him or even to figure out he is in a Demiplane is so impossible there is not even a point to mention his existence because for all you know he doesn’t exist.
As for your “is there anything a wizard could do to fight the monk who is trapping them within this bubble” I don’t know how about like survive one measly punch from a monk, build high AC, build high saves, control dice, become a tank, wdym “is there anything?” the wizard has so many things he could do.
Also why would the wizard like over half the time ever care if they are grappled? Sure they can’t move but like… so I can just say “I teleport 10 000 or more ft into the air” then as your fall 500ft per round you like just do whatever you want…
P.S: tbh this entire debate could be just finish by saying “I build a resist nova build with metamagic subtle spell” because with that you can just when it hits your turn say “I cast a silent wish,” DM “what do you wish for?” me “I win” of course it would be those but something that would guarantee your victory via the opponents death. But yeah whatever it better to have them “fight” than just the wizard choosing to win.
Answer: You ether misunderstood something hardcore, are being cheeky, or plain dumb… No prep time means no prep before match not “you can’t move away to get turns…” so yeah…
Answer: Who said you couldn’t use Metamagic and what’s with that “my good sir” it should’ve been common knowledge as if the wizards using it, the Eldritch Knights using it, why can’t you use it.
Huh wdym a what are you talking about you know you waste ki casting Darkness because I counterspell it wow look at that and say even if you somehow get the darkness off (is impossible) I could have Eldritch Adept: Devil Sight, or as Darkness is concentration I could just deal some damage to destroy your spell and even if you get your darkness up and I don’t wanna deal damage I can still just dispel magic it easily so what are you even talking about?
As for “throwing demons and skeletons” how about just one casting of Animate objects on some copper coins then say have my simulacrum also cast animate object on copper coins (ball bearings also work very well for tiny objects). Now when you say “until they die” sure sounds like your monks gonna be the one to bite the dust definitely not the wizard if you read all of this.
P.S: I no doubt probably didn’t cover something, or didn’t give enough detail if I missed something do tell it’s much appreciated.
TLDR: Yeah… nope.
I think he meant Diamond Soul, where the monk can spend a ki point to reroll a failed saving throw.
Since we seem open to expanding the discussion outside of fighters, I'd like to point out that devotion paladins can likely have the highest potential for hitting through an AC tank wizard with their Channel Divinity, granting up to +5 to their attack rolls for up to a minute (a theoretic +18 when paired with 4th level magic weapon and 20 in both Cha and your attacking stat). Problem here is that it takes an action to set up, so it's not viable in a no-prep-time scenario.
Answer: Whoops nice catch said the wrong name the feature is called Diamond Soul I somehow I guess saw timeless body title but read Diamond soul description I’ll fix that. Anyway Diamond Soul is:
”Beginning at 14th level, your mastery of ki grants you proficiency in all saving throws.
Additionally, whenever you make a saving throw and fail, you can spend 1 ki point to reroll it and take the second result.“
The bolded parts is what I was talking about sorry haha and since Hypnotic Pattern has a Wisdom saving throw the likelihood for the monk to fail is small.
Best way to defeat a high level wizard is to befriend them, ply them with drink, get them talking about all the cool tricks they know (most Wizards love to talk about how clever they are) and once you've learned enough to undo their contingencies (or pay someone to do it for you) stab them in their sleep 😉
It's not a direct way to do it, and requires careful planning and strategy, but any character can defeat a Wizard if they have enough time to learn where their clone is etc.
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Answer: Befriend then ehhhhh… plausible but tbh most wizard are very wary (I mean VERY) so you could befriend them maybe if you became there companion awhile back and go for the long con but nothing is guaranteed so he might pry into you or even check your intent with your partnership. As for supplying them with drink to loosen their lips depends on the wizard but most (if not all) wizards who attain such height in arcane prowess probably keep knowledge about their traps, contingencies, and other such vital information close to their chest even among “friends.”
As for them being usually egotistical yeah I feel most wizards who get up to that height to touch the ceiling may acquire a god complex but tbh I feel like as the wizard grew to know more of the world many wizards probably became more reserved for the fear of the unknown and of any stealers of secrets so in turn they became secluded hermits steeped within their own books of knowledge, fanatical ramblings, and research papers on immortality and such.
Answer: Even if you were to learn enough to surmise the activation of their contingency, there are plenty of hurdles before you even get to his door of his bedroom literally. As wizards really never sleep without some amount of protection your best bet would be to try to get him to sleep somewhere not in his magnificent mansion or wizard tower so I presume you have to set up a well know and renowned Noble to invited the wizard and before the wizard leaves the party invite him to stay only then could you get him without him being somewhere else. But then again that may not even be him but maybe an illusion or simulacrum as what self respecting wizard would leave his studies to go to a party of all things. But even so say you somehow found yourself in the room of said wizard dagger in hand how would you get rid of the contingency there are two ways ether you buy/hire something which is high enough level to dispel such a magic with ease or go roll the die and try to dispel it normally (via item).
Now that you have dispelled his contingency you still have a problem that being that there may be just a small probability that your being watched by something. Now that something could be anywhere from a golem, a simulacrum, or some type of summon or even a scrying eye.
Answer: As for learning where there clone is besides a wish I don’t see that happening as it is ether secreted away in some secret room somewhere covered in anti-scrying and such other methods or even just on an entirely different plane of existence (demiplane, etc).
Haha that was fun to talk about but in all seriousness to be able to actually kill the wizard the difficulty would be akin to someone breaking into a metre thick adamantium box with a wooden twig.