Without diving into homebrew, what is the best character build intended for killing mages? I know the mageslayer feat is obvious, but between all the feats, species traits, class and sub-class abilities, resistances, magic items, spells, and multi-classing, what combination would be an absolute nightmare for a mage to fight? I know the ability to cast counterspell and silence would be a great boon. Any other ideas on how to make such a character with all those options? I'm imagining roughly 13th or 14th level currently with a roadmap on where to go for higher levels.
You'll likely want the Resilient feat to ensure you have both Dex and Wisdom saves. Oath of the Ancients Paladin 7th level Aura of Warding gives you and your friends within 10' resistance to damage "from spells". Just "from spells" in general, not resistance for fire or lightning, just "spells". All the time. Doesn't get better than that.
Ancients Paladin paired with Yuan-Ti Pureblood is incredibly defensive. Advantage on Saving Throws against magic, then resistance to the damage, plus they're just outright immune to poison, which is much more situational but still... full on immunity to a fairly common damage type and condition is nothing to sneeze at.
Simple: find a way to cast antimagic field as a melee fighter without losing concentration. It can completely block any spell cast at you, and prevent casters from casting spells if they are in the area.
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Pronouns: he/him/his.
My posting scheduled is irregular: sometimes I can post twice a week, sometimes twice a day. I may also respond to quick questions, but ignore harder responses in favor of time.
My location is where my character for my home game is (we're doing the wild beyond the witchlight).
"The Doomvault... Probably full of unicorns and rainbows." -An imaginary quote
Ancients Paladin paired with Yuan-Ti Pureblood is incredibly defensive. Advantage on Saving Throws against magic, then resistance to the damage, plus they're just outright immune to poison, which is much more situational but still... full on immunity to a fairly common damage type and condition is nothing to sneeze at.
Just to note that this version of the Yuan ti is now legacy so might not be allowed. The new version is still a pretty good option you still get magic resistances but are now only resistant to poison.
I think that Fey ancestry is better than magic resistance when fighting mages especially as you get to higher levels. You should be able to take a couple of hits even without resistance but hypnotic pattern puts you 9ut of the fight straight away and dominate person makes you fight for the mage.
The best character build to kill mages is a mage build. Let's see... antimagic field... power word kill... tiefling to resist meteor swarm... mage killer... maybe warlock for genie and eldritch blast... I've got!
My idea is a tiefling warlock. Make sure to take eldritch blast and agonizing, plus eldritch spear. Your goal is to meet the enemies on your own terms, which happens to be a giant desert 300 feet away where you can blast them with spear but they can't hit you. Be a genie warlock(doesn't matter which type) and take wish at 9th level, antimagic field at 8th, power word pain at 7th, and mental prison at 6th. Follow these criteria in order, if you have the spell slots to. If you don't have the spell slots, move on.
CRITERIA
Is your infernal legacy hellish rebuke available? Are you taking damage? If so, then use hellish rebuke.
On your enemy's next turn, do they have a way to attack you or force you to make a saving throw with a spell? If so, cast antimagic field. If not, move on.
Is your enemy still a danger to you? Try power word pain.
Is your enemy more than 120 feet away? If so, cast eldritch blast. If not, move on.
Is your enemy concentrating on a spell? If so, cast eldritch blast because four attacks and mage slayer is incredible for breaking concentration.
Are you concentrating on a spell? Is your opponent an elf or wizard? If not, give mental prison a go!
Still have two or more slots? Not yet muddled your enemy's mind? Try Sypnatic Static.
Still have two or more slots? Try Psychic Lance.
Do you have one slot left? If so, then can you finish the battle using only the spells that are still going and eldritch blast? If not, go ahead and drop concentration, dash away, and cast Far Step. You can escape in this manner, probably.
Aberrant mind sorcerer. Shocking grasp, counterspell, and Tasha’s mind whip. Subtle spell and quicken metamagic. Harengon for initiative and rabbit hop.
winning initiative and taking away spells/reactions ends mages.
I'm partial to Slayer Conclave Ranger with Dual Wielder, Resilient Constitution, and Mage Slayer... You've got the usual problem of not enough bonus actions, but thematically, you're badass Van Helsing! Use pass without a trace to tee up an ambush and pounce after you've got them marked.
Duergar Fighter 1 / Ranger Hunter 8+. Start as a Fighter for CON save and heavy armor prof. GWF style. Get Resilient WIS at 4 or 8. Get Steel Will from Hunter at 7. You’ll basically have proficiency in the most important saving throws (CON, WIS) and resistance against Poison, Illusion, Paralysis, Charm and Frighten. DEX saves are usually related with damage only, most likely elemental, that you can easily offset with Absorb Elements. Damage-wise you’ll be really dangerous combining a big 2d6 weapon with Hunter’s Mark and Colossus Slayer.
Gnome Gloomstalker 7+. Get Resilient CON at 4 or 8. Same principle as above, but with generic advantage on every mental role. Just do regular Gloomstalker stuff with one of the most consistent DPR in the game.
Lol. I think put them all together. 7 Ancients Paladin/2 warlock (probably hexblade)/ 11 aberrant mind sorcerer yuan-ti pureblood for poison resistance and advantage on saves vs spells (the new version is spells only not all magic).
If a character has Devil's Sight, Blind Fighting, or some way to "see" without their eyes, then things like Darkness, Fog Cloud, etc. are also all very good low level anti-mage tech because many spells require you to be able to see your target or see an area within range.
Command or features that let you disarm are also great against regular [non-innate] spellcasters because you can force them to drop their spellcasting focus or component pouch and pick it up as a free action, rendering any spell with a material component unusable.
Another thing to consider is having a good initiative bonus to try to ensure you act before a caster does. Making a caster play defense is important. To that end anything that can burst is obviously good since casters typically have lower hp. Paladins are an easy choice because of the Saves aura and Smite. So is your typical Harengon Gloomstalker/Fighter. Even if you don't drop them in an action surge or round of smites, you've done your job for that fight.
For martial characters, Ring of Free Action will protect you against paralysis and restraint from spells, as well as ignore difficult terrain.
A key thing that I forgot to mention is that Silence spell is also available for Rangers. It is also present on Bard and Clerics spell list, that usually have better spells to concentrate, so I often found my Rangers casting it and completely shutting down enemy casters.
Yeah, a couple people have already hit the nail on the head here. The best build to kill mages is a mage built to kill mages.
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Half orc or Bugbear assassin with surprise at lower levels can easily kill a mage. Chance to outright kill the mage with the initial rapier backstab. Then proc two failed death saves with off hand attack. Round 2 probably has initiative over the mage, thus getting another auto critical sneak attack that probably instant kills even if the mage was a half orc who kept standing after being knocked below zero hp the first time. A level 4 assassin also can take the lucky feat to reroll a missed attack or bad initiative roll.
The possibilities are endless. A monk can stun lock a mage with two chances per round even at level 3.
Way of shadow monk. You have the mobility to get to the caster. Stunning strike to completely take them out of the fight for a turn plus advantage on attacks. Silence and darkness are good, as others have mentioned. Evasion, if they target you with a Dex save AOE.
I recently came to the conclusion that eldritch knight's features make more sense as an anti-mage martial rather than as a pitiful attempt at a gish.
The mage slayer feat is kinda terrible. Like it is good if enemy spellcasters rush you and try to cast spells in melee range and does almost nothing if they don't. And we all know how close casters like being to enemy martials... counterspell and dispel magic are purely better at actually doing what the feat thinks it can do.
I recently came to the conclusion that eldritch knight's features make more sense as an anti-mage martial rather than as a pitiful attempt at a gish.
The mage slayer feat is kinda terrible. Like it is good if enemy spellcasters rush you and try to cast spells in melee range and does almost nothing if they don't. And we all know how close casters like being to enemy martials... counterspell and dispel magic are purely better at actually doing what the feat thinks it can do.
The main benefit I see from mage slayer is the concentration disadvantage. If you make a build with eldritch blast (repelling, agonizing) and take mage slayer, then that's 4 attacks. If any hit, then the enemy is probably going to lose concentration, and if not, then maybe the next one.
Satyrs and Gnomes along with yuan-ti all have magic resistance. One of the Gith species has the shield spell which can save you from many spells and magic missile which auto hits otherwise. Shield is definitely a good spell to have because it will help with normal spells and attacks, but it also stops a magic user from just automatically killing your character with an explosion of magical missiles.
I recently came to the conclusion that eldritch knight's features make more sense as an anti-mage martial rather than as a pitiful attempt at a gish.
The mage slayer feat is kinda terrible. Like it is good if enemy spellcasters rush you and try to cast spells in melee range and does almost nothing if they don't. And we all know how close casters like being to enemy martials... counterspell and dispel magic are purely better at actually doing what the feat thinks it can do.
The main benefit I see from mage slayer is the concentration disadvantage. If you make a build with eldritch blast (repelling, agonizing) and take mage slayer, then that's 4 attacks. If any hit, then the enemy is probably going to lose concentration, and if not, then maybe the next one.
Or just cast dispel magic and end the spell without a save. Or just cast magic missile and have them make 3 saves without a chance of an attack missing. Or if we are talking about being level 17+ anyway, just cast meteor swarm or power word kill or disintegrate or banishment and delete the caster along with their spell... And you can always use silvery barbs to give disadvantage on any 1 save to make the above spells even more likely to work.
Mage slayer doesn't really do anything worth giving up better feats or an ASI for, IMHO.
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Without diving into homebrew, what is the best character build intended for killing mages? I know the mageslayer feat is obvious, but between all the feats, species traits, class and sub-class abilities, resistances, magic items, spells, and multi-classing, what combination would be an absolute nightmare for a mage to fight? I know the ability to cast counterspell and silence would be a great boon. Any other ideas on how to make such a character with all those options? I'm imagining roughly 13th or 14th level currently with a roadmap on where to go for higher levels.
You'll likely want the Resilient feat to ensure you have both Dex and Wisdom saves. Oath of the Ancients Paladin 7th level Aura of Warding gives you and your friends within 10' resistance to damage "from spells". Just "from spells" in general, not resistance for fire or lightning, just "spells". All the time. Doesn't get better than that.
Ancients Paladin paired with Yuan-Ti Pureblood is incredibly defensive. Advantage on Saving Throws against magic, then resistance to the damage, plus they're just outright immune to poison, which is much more situational but still... full on immunity to a fairly common damage type and condition is nothing to sneeze at.
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Simple: find a way to cast antimagic field as a melee fighter without losing concentration. It can completely block any spell cast at you, and prevent casters from casting spells if they are in the area.
Pronouns: he/him/his.
My posting scheduled is irregular: sometimes I can post twice a week, sometimes twice a day. I may also respond to quick questions, but ignore harder responses in favor of time.
My location is where my character for my home game is (we're doing the wild beyond the witchlight).
"The Doomvault... Probably full of unicorns and rainbows." -An imaginary quote
Just to note that this version of the Yuan ti is now legacy so might not be allowed. The new version is still a pretty good option you still get magic resistances but are now only resistant to poison.
I think that Fey ancestry is better than magic resistance when fighting mages especially as you get to higher levels. You should be able to take a couple of hits even without resistance but hypnotic pattern puts you 9ut of the fight straight away and dominate person makes you fight for the mage.
Not that it's a bad idea, but finding a way to cast an 8th level spell like antimagic field is easier said than done.
The best character build to kill mages is a mage build. Let's see... antimagic field... power word kill... tiefling to resist meteor swarm... mage killer... maybe warlock for genie and eldritch blast... I've got!
My idea is a tiefling warlock. Make sure to take eldritch blast and agonizing, plus eldritch spear. Your goal is to meet the enemies on your own terms, which happens to be a giant desert 300 feet away where you can blast them with spear but they can't hit you. Be a genie warlock(doesn't matter which type) and take wish at 9th level, antimagic field at 8th, power word pain at 7th, and mental prison at 6th. Follow these criteria in order, if you have the spell slots to. If you don't have the spell slots, move on.
CRITERIA
Is your infernal legacy hellish rebuke available? Are you taking damage? If so, then use hellish rebuke.
On your enemy's next turn, do they have a way to attack you or force you to make a saving throw with a spell? If so, cast antimagic field. If not, move on.
Is your enemy still a danger to you? Try power word pain.
Is your enemy more than 120 feet away? If so, cast eldritch blast. If not, move on.
Is your enemy concentrating on a spell? If so, cast eldritch blast because four attacks and mage slayer is incredible for breaking concentration.
Are you concentrating on a spell? Is your opponent an elf or wizard? If not, give mental prison a go!
Still have two or more slots? Not yet muddled your enemy's mind? Try Sypnatic Static.
Still have two or more slots? Try Psychic Lance.
Do you have one slot left? If so, then can you finish the battle using only the spells that are still going and eldritch blast? If not, go ahead and drop concentration, dash away, and cast Far Step. You can escape in this manner, probably.
DMing:
Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Playing:
None sadly.
Optimization Guides:
Literally Too Angry to Die - A Guide to Optimizing a Barbarian
Aberrant mind sorcerer. Shocking grasp, counterspell, and Tasha’s mind whip. Subtle spell and quicken metamagic. Harengon for initiative and rabbit hop.
winning initiative and taking away spells/reactions ends mages.
I'm partial to Slayer Conclave Ranger with Dual Wielder, Resilient Constitution, and Mage Slayer... You've got the usual problem of not enough bonus actions, but thematically, you're badass Van Helsing! Use pass without a trace to tee up an ambush and pounce after you've got them marked.
Rangers!
Duergar Fighter 1 / Ranger Hunter 8+. Start as a Fighter for CON save and heavy armor prof. GWF style. Get Resilient WIS at 4 or 8. Get Steel Will from Hunter at 7. You’ll basically have proficiency in the most important saving throws (CON, WIS) and resistance against Poison, Illusion, Paralysis, Charm and Frighten. DEX saves are usually related with damage only, most likely elemental, that you can easily offset with Absorb Elements. Damage-wise you’ll be really dangerous combining a big 2d6 weapon with Hunter’s Mark and Colossus Slayer.
Gnome Gloomstalker 7+. Get Resilient CON at 4 or 8. Same principle as above, but with generic advantage on every mental role. Just do regular Gloomstalker stuff with one of the most consistent DPR in the game.
Lol. I think put them all together. 7 Ancients Paladin/2 warlock (probably hexblade)/ 11 aberrant mind sorcerer yuan-ti pureblood for poison resistance and advantage on saves vs spells (the new version is spells only not all magic).
Command or features that let you disarm are also great against regular [non-innate] spellcasters because you can force them to drop their spellcasting focus or component pouch and pick it up as a free action, rendering any spell with a material component unusable.
Another thing to consider is having a good initiative bonus to try to ensure you act before a caster does. Making a caster play defense is important. To that end anything that can burst is obviously good since casters typically have lower hp. Paladins are an easy choice because of the Saves aura and Smite. So is your typical Harengon Gloomstalker/Fighter. Even if you don't drop them in an action surge or round of smites, you've done your job for that fight.
For martial characters, Ring of Free Action will protect you against paralysis and restraint from spells, as well as ignore difficult terrain.
A key thing that I forgot to mention is that Silence spell is also available for Rangers. It is also present on Bard and Clerics spell list, that usually have better spells to concentrate, so I often found my Rangers casting it and completely shutting down enemy casters.
Yeah, a couple people have already hit the nail on the head here. The best build to kill mages is a mage built to kill mages.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Is the DM killing the mage or playing the mage?
Half orc or Bugbear assassin with surprise at lower levels can easily kill a mage. Chance to outright kill the mage with the initial rapier backstab. Then proc two failed death saves with off hand attack. Round 2 probably has initiative over the mage, thus getting another auto critical sneak attack that probably instant kills even if the mage was a half orc who kept standing after being knocked below zero hp the first time. A level 4 assassin also can take the lucky feat to reroll a missed attack or bad initiative roll.
The possibilities are endless. A monk can stun lock a mage with two chances per round even at level 3.
Way of shadow monk. You have the mobility to get to the caster. Stunning strike to completely take them out of the fight for a turn plus advantage on attacks. Silence and darkness are good, as others have mentioned. Evasion, if they target you with a Dex save AOE.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
I recently came to the conclusion that eldritch knight's features make more sense as an anti-mage martial rather than as a pitiful attempt at a gish.
The mage slayer feat is kinda terrible. Like it is good if enemy spellcasters rush you and try to cast spells in melee range and does almost nothing if they don't. And we all know how close casters like being to enemy martials... counterspell and dispel magic are purely better at actually doing what the feat thinks it can do.
The main benefit I see from mage slayer is the concentration disadvantage. If you make a build with eldritch blast (repelling, agonizing) and take mage slayer, then that's 4 attacks. If any hit, then the enemy is probably going to lose concentration, and if not, then maybe the next one.
DMing:
Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Playing:
None sadly.
Optimization Guides:
Literally Too Angry to Die - A Guide to Optimizing a Barbarian
Satyrs and Gnomes along with yuan-ti all have magic resistance. One of the Gith species has the shield spell which can save you from many spells and magic missile which auto hits otherwise. Shield is definitely a good spell to have because it will help with normal spells and attacks, but it also stops a magic user from just automatically killing your character with an explosion of magical missiles.
Or just cast dispel magic and end the spell without a save. Or just cast magic missile and have them make 3 saves without a chance of an attack missing. Or if we are talking about being level 17+ anyway, just cast meteor swarm or power word kill or disintegrate or banishment and delete the caster along with their spell... And you can always use silvery barbs to give disadvantage on any 1 save to make the above spells even more likely to work.
Mage slayer doesn't really do anything worth giving up better feats or an ASI for, IMHO.