As far as I know, the character type that is best against mages is a monk, but being that also has drawbacks:
Although you can make yourself totally immunity to spells by investing heavily into SR feats, you will still be vulnerable to reciprocal damage shields (acid/fire/magic)
If you want to gain immunity to those, you would need to take epic resistance feats or RDD levels which would ultimately hurt your SR greatly and open yourself up for being IGMSed.
Thus what would be a reasonable trade-off against casters, both pure ones and characters which are spellswords, e.g. fighter/monk/wizards or monk/paladin/sorcerors?
Latter also have pretty high saves, which by making another spellcasting build you probably wouldn't be able to break, hence the Monk idea.
Alternatively, a Paladin could do well too by having Holy Sword which dispels on hit (hence not having to worry about recip shields) but will be an easy target for bigbys and igms due to lacking any form of viable SR.
What are your thoughts for a Mage Slayer? _________________ Inactive for a while
This is what I came up with. _________________ Two wrongs don't make a right but three lefts do.
Other than a maxed SR monk character the other obvious "mage killer" is a druid 28/shifter 11/ monk 1 (or, if you can handle a large drop in AC druid 29 shifter 11) focusing on rak form. This will give you immunity to all spells of level 8 and below, you will be able to buff your AC through wisdom buffs to the maximum +12 naturally and you will have unlimited maximised ice storm spells (doing the damage of a level 28 druid), hence avoiding any nasty acid sheath tinged melee attacks.
Your build looks quite nice Mith, but the problem, as you state it, is that you have a low AB and mages are known to have ABs in the high 60s to 70s even on low magic worlds (especially sorcerors with divine shield+EMA), thus only being able to hit them on a 20 is quite a pain.
What I'm wondering about is: On my low magic PW is really hard (nigh on impossible) to reach 40 and I found out there is a ring with 50% acid immunity (very rare) and since its a ring, you could wear 2... Now that would only leave the problem of fire resistance. I would expect that since mords cannot lower a monk's SR, that any SR between 56 and 60 is considered safe (the mage would give up trying to spam spells at you because 70+% of his spells are warded off)
Given that, is it possible to make such a mage hunter whose AB is decent enough to hit an AC in the high 60s or mid 70s and has between 56-60 SR?
Preferrably, that character should also be able to survive melee encounters with the numerous DDs so as to have an AC of 50+ (with possibly max AC bonus totally that a monk can reach (only items, not skills etc) being +18) Epic Dodge would be great, Ki+5 I think is needed to use the best monk gloves (which give +10 AB) _________________ Inactive for a while
Correct me if im wrong please.
but asa of now, Imposion is the UBER spell that cannot be stopped, and, in the proper hands, it has a very nice DC.
So, perhaps something like cleric 29/ COT 10/ Rogue 1
You should be able to reach a Wisdom of 38 by lvl 40 and have Epic Spell focus Evo. The rogue is really for UMD on the offchance that there is a spell that can stop imposion (Shadow Shield?) thatw ay, one scroll of of Mords (or two) should be able to take care of it.
Quote: Posted 06/24/05 15:23:03 (GMT) -- aluka
Correct me if im wrong please.
but asa of now, Imposion is the UBER spell that cannot be stopped, and, in the proper hands, it has a very nice DC.
So, perhaps something like cleric 29/ COT 10/ Rogue 1
You should be able to reach a Wisdom of 38 by lvl 40 and have Epic Spell focus Evo. The rogue is really for UMD on the offchance that there is a spell that can stop imposion (Shadow Shield?) thatw ay, one scroll of of Mords (or two) should be able to take care of it.
That might work against non arcane casters, but against arcane casters those wouldn't stand a chance:
Assuming you even get to go first:
Round 1 - You mord the sorceror - Sorceror casts timestop and mords you
Round 2 - Sorceror casts mords on your again and timestops
Round 3 - Sorceror casts igms and igms
Round 4 - Sorceror casts timestop and finishes you off. _________________ Inactive for a while
yeah, not even with a lot of heals spells (while hastened) could you get away form that.
well, the only alternative is a monk who can use Mords. Then he can also cast holy sword
Edited By aluka on 06/24/05 18:10
Quote: Posted 06/22/05 07:55:55 (GMT) -- GhostNWN
Your build looks quite nice Mith, but the problem, as you state it, is that you have a low AB and mages are known to have ABs in the high 60s to 70s even on low magic worlds (especially sorcerors with divine shield+EMA), thus only being able to hit them on a 20 is quite a pain.
What I'm wondering about is: On my low magic PW is really hard (nigh on impossible) to reach 40 and I found out there is a ring with 50% acid immunity (very rare) and since its a ring, you could wear 2... Now that would only leave the problem of fire resistance. I would expect that since mords cannot lower a monk's SR, that any SR between 56 and 60 is considered safe (the mage would give up trying to spam spells at you because 70+% of his spells are warded off)
Given that, is it possible to make such a mage hunter whose AB is decent enough to hit an AC in the high 60s or mid 70s and has between 56-60 SR?
Preferrably, that character should also be able to survive melee encounters with the numerous DDs so as to have an AC of 50+ (with possibly max AC bonus totally that a monk can reach (only items, not skills etc) being +18) Epic Dodge would be great, Ki+5 I think is needed to use the best monk gloves (which give +10 AB)
It seems to me there are alot of different things you're wanting in this one character.....aka... a perfect character.
You first mention the possibility of needing fire resistance. That you could do as a Monk/Sorc/RDD (or Bard if alignments weren't a problem). That gets you immune to fire but you lose monk levels and won't be able to achieve Ki+5 then.
For mages there are really only 3 options to kill them. 1. Another mage getting the jump on them or being smarter. 2. 35+ monk foucssing on SR 3. Shifter going into Rakshasa shape until they run out of spells.
If you want the monk version, I built a dwarf Monk39/Rogue1 that was all STR just to test out. My strategy was to cast Holy Sword on my kama to dispell the mage, then switch back to gauntlets and pound them to oblivian. It worked, but you are weak to a Fighter/WM. Your 1d20 gloves + 15 due to STR mod makes for a good pounding.
You mentioned going up against a DwD too so you would want higher AC, wanting Epic Dodge, and Ki+5. First off, Ki+5 means you have to be lv30 monk, Epic Dodge means you have to have atleast 5 SD levels with your 30+ monk. That forces you to be all DEX (and possibly some WIS items too for more AC). As for going against a DwD, I've not seen any DEX guys that could really damage a good DwD unless they were sneak attacks. I guess your hope would be to turn on your Monk Empty Body coupled with your AC and hope they don't roll 20's.
Personally I would try Monk30/SD5 minimum, and either Rogue or Paladin. Rogue for UMD (holy sword scroll/rod) or Paladin for Holy Avenger weapon, if you can get a Holy Avenger Kama! Starting with a DEX of 18 and going all DEX plus your Great DEX feats would give you the best AB you could hope for. I haven't built it so I wouldn't know what your final AB would be. Even if it's poor, compared to a 60's AC, a mage would still not be able to damage you and you would eventually hit them.
I guess it's all about what you want to focus on, mages or DwD's. I don't think you can be very effective at both, unless your are a shifter or maybe a cleric/sorc yourself.
BTW, Holy sword doesn't work on gauntlets!
I'm not sure why you're so hot on Ki Strike honestly. If the tests I've seen are correct (mostly by Mortiooze and some others), the attack bonuses from gloves count toward breaching damage resistance/reduction, which makes Ki Strike redundant.
I'm not sure why you're so hot on Ki Strike honestly. If the tests I've seen are correct (mostly by Mortiooze and some others), the attack bonuses from gloves count toward breaching damage resistance/reduction, which makes Ki Strike redundant.
Steve
Yes, thats totally correct Steve. The reason I need Ki+5 is really just for the (arguably) best monk gloves on the PW as it uses custom ILR.
Alternatively, I could drop Ki+5 (the gloves do soic etc damage so good vs DDs) and go more with monk getting around 58 or so SR.
I figured I probably wouldn't need fire immunity due to combining %immunity granting items and thus getting close to 50% fire immunity.
THe trouble would just be hitting the mages after they blast their spells which is not easy when they have in excess of 70 AC _________________ Inactive for a while
