Quote from: Spike;570922One odd question that's been bugging me is what people would rule, if they were the DM, and a Fighter with, say, the Cape of the Mountebank or some other teleport effect to 'reach' a flying wizard (or other monster) and start a grapple.

Would you let him even try to grapple or would he just fall stupidly?

If you let him grapple, would the grappled pair fall to earth (Fast? or Slow?)

Me? I'd let the fighter guy try it. Fail the grapple and yer fucked, sure.

I've only got enough time to answer these before I have to go to work again. (If someone wants to give me a winning lottery ticket so that I can do this full time, I'd appreciate it.)

I would let the fighter attempt a grapple. If the wizard failed his concentration check and it is a spell that is keeping him flying, the pair would start to fall to the ground fast. Depending on what the wizard is using to fly, they may start to slowly drift to the ground.

Quote from: Spike;571241I'm trying to get a grasp on why the grip being in the center would make it hard to use... no, strike that... IMPOSSIBLE to use from horseback.

A man sitting on a horse is farther from the ground than a man on foot, so I know it ain't that trailing edge digging in the dirt.

Because when you're shooting a bow from horseback, you're pivoting your body to follow the target.  Having 1/2 of the bow's length below your arm makes it hard to pivot because it's constantly hitting the horse.  You'd have to shoot it sideways, and that's a lot less accurate.  There's a reason why the yumi looks like it does.

*Edit*  Here's a picture.  If that were a long bow drawn back at full draw, the bottom of the bow would be so low that it and the string would be hitting or rubbing the side of the horse.  Way too awkward to use effectively.

I know this is slightly out of school but:

Having looked at the magic item creation chart a few more times I have found the near (but not quite) ultimate fighter solution to bad-touch wizards:

For a mere 100,000 gold, you can have an unlimited use rod of absorption. That's right: For the mere cost of two rods of absorption, you can have 1 rod that works forever.  Say goodbye to every having to suck up a spell or spell-like ability that targets you directly. For bonus points, your wizarding buddies will suck your dick for the chance to blow off some of that energy to power their own minor, but necessary, utility buffs and high end whomp-em blasts...


There is a really awesome innuendo I should totally be polishing in there somewhere, but I'm too busy drooling over my rod....


For 300 gp more you can use it as a weapon, meaning it should almost always be ready to hand for those long hard fights against men in dresses...

Hmm.... yes... I see.  Its a matter of facing, which D&D waives away, regardless. Presumably anyone to your left would be shot just fine (meaning you'd actually angle to the right of your targets rather than coming straight at them, a level of granularity that D&D doesn't really want to mess with...

Thank you. That was informative.

Quote from: Spike;571250Hmm.... yes... I see.  Its a matter of facing, which D&D waives away, regardless. Presumably anyone to your left would be shot just fine (meaning you'd actually angle to the right of your targets rather than coming straight at them, a level of granularity that D&D doesn't really want to mess with...

Thank you. That was informative.

Ultimately your point still stands, because there are bows just as effective as a long bow that are fired from horseback.

Of course. And Crossbows that actually have more range as well. Bows are, from a rules standpoint, slightly simpler and more effective for a fighter, which is why I went the way I did. Tellin' a dude ya gonna shoot him once a round is a wee bit less intimidatin' at tenth...

Quote from: Sacrosanct;571247There's a reason why the yumi looks like it does.

There's actually some historical evidence that the daikyu existed in its current form for some time before being used extensively in mounted archery - that is, the design of the daikyu may not have anything to do with being used from horseback.

And just because I feel like annoying Spike some more: mounted archery (most military archery, really) was traditionally used against formations, not individual targets.  When the Romans are conveniently packed together like sardinii, you don't have to hit any one of them in particular.  I'm skeptical that a moving mounted archer could hit an individual man-sized target with any consistency.  (EDIT: at any range that matters, like outside of charging distance for pissed-off infantry).

Quote from: Spike;571253Of course. And Crossbows that actually have more range as well. .

Stupid RPGs, screwing that up.  Crossbows have much less range than bows.  The only reason they took over was because you could train a soldier to use a crossbow in 10 minutes, as opposed to 10 years for an English longbow.

Quote from: daniel_ream;571256There's actually some historical evidence that the daikyu existed in its current form for some time before being used extensively in mounted archery - that is, the design of the daikyu may not have anything to do with being used from horseback..

Well yeah, because the bow was significantly longer than a person was tall, so you couldn't really have the grip in the middle without risking the bottom getting in the way.  But because the bottom is so short compared to the top, it works for horseback archery which was a big part of the bow's history.  Just like the Mongols (who also used shorter bows).  The English longbow, OTOH, isn't really built for horseback use.  That's what I was getting at.

Quote from: Spike;571249I know this is slightly out of school but:

Having looked at the magic item creation chart a few more times I have found the near (but not quite) ultimate fighter solution to bad-touch wizards:

For a mere 100,000 gold, you can have an unlimited use rod of absorption. That's right: For the mere cost of two rods of absorption, you can have 1 rod that works forever.  Say goodbye to every having to suck up a spell or spell-like ability that targets you directly. For bonus points, your wizarding buddies will suck your dick for the chance to blow off some of that energy to power their own minor, but necessary, utility buffs and high end whomp-em blasts...


There is a really awesome innuendo I should totally be polishing in there somewhere, but I'm too busy drooling over my rod....


For 300 gp more you can use it as a weapon, meaning it should almost always be ready to hand for those long hard fights against men in dresses...

But THE IDIOT FIGHTER STILL NEEDS A REALITY BENDING SUPER GENIUS TO MAKE ONE!

Quote from: Planet Algol;571273But THE IDIOT FIGHTER STILL NEEDS A REALITY BENDING SUPER GENIUS TO MAKE ONE!

NOT TRUE!  You can just have any old cleric make it up too, and because they're so wise they'll know EXACTLY what its for and probably chuckle all the way to the forge to help you make it.

The item creation rules are pretty good, but there are some items that would have alternate pricing.

Some people think that continuously active true strike costs 2,000 gp (spell level 1 x caster level 1 x 2,000 gp).  Those people are idiots.

If the item were to be available (which it probably should never be) it would have to be priced as a +20 attack bonus; the most reasonable is (20 squared x 1000 gp = 400,000 gp).  That's less than a bonus that provides both Attack and Damage and such an item would probably be epic.

Protection From Evil is another such spell that causes problems.  The best way to price it out is by effect, not just by spell level.  

The Rod of Absorption is tricky.  The 50 stored spell levels is not directly equivalent of '50 charges'.  But I suppose you could make that argument.  It really becomes a question of game impact and whether it's more trouble than it's worth.

Moving back to actual fighter vs wizard tactics we can discuss the little used injury rules.

One assumption I've seen in the recent debates is that the wizard will somehow be actively hunting the potentially unaware fighter instead of vice versa (seen in the Panzerkraken vs MGuy thread as near as I can tell. MGuy showed up on the battlefield first, cast (before losing init) etc. PK has had to roll a spot check to see a flying mounted wizard (large object) in open sky but... and I could be mistaken, MGuy never rolled to spot PK's arrival. Working then from the assumption that MGuy was looking for PK's fighter.).

Let us say instead that Mongol Archer Elf considers all of the sky above Islandia to be his personal Turf, so when his peon villagers report back that a wizard was seen flying along over Islandia, he sets out on Griffon-back to hunt the bastard down and Make HIM PAY!

When, at last, he sees the wizard (from way way up in the sky a mile away) he readies his bow of distance, drops to 1000 feet distance so that he's travelling in the same general direction and speed of said wizard (so they'll maintain this distance indefinitely).

If the wiz seems oblivious (hey, 1000 feet and no spot skill? Its possible), he'll take his surprise round shooting, and in all likelihood hitting all three shots.

Surprise round over (or never happened because he was spotted) and probably having the initiative (Remember sample guy has +6 dex bonus and with two 'spare' feats, one is easily improved initiative (which he's got good reason to take! So I'll update sample guy to include it later...), giving him a likely advantage of +10 on the check!

Naturally the Wizard, seeing a violently hostile savage elf archer on griffon back will want to cast a spell. ANY Spell (teleport, invisibility, mirror image. Anything!).

But Mongol Archer, suspecting that this won't be a two second kill, and ready for the long fight, has readied his action rather than firing right away. When the Wizard begins to cast, the archer lets fly!

Now, he's losing his full attack option (but if he has Many-shot he could, in fact, use that (standard attack feat), so we'll be re-looking at that feat for a higher level (though we COULD take it now, I don't really want to commit to it yet).

Chances are he hits, since his attack gained a boost of +2 for not rapid-shooting, and his odds are pretty fucking good as it is.  So, barring a 1 he hits average wizard dude, doing an average of... 10 points of damage and forcing a concentration check with an absolute minimum threshold of 26... for a first level spell. Assume a third level spell (sweet spot for spell casting really...) and we're looking at at 28.

Concentration is Con Skill, so we'll assume a +2 stat bonus for the moment. Right there we're looking at a starting concentration of 15, giving us a 65% chance to disrupt the spell from an average hit. A more powerful hit, (50% possibility) or a more powerful spell (probable) gives us a 'likely' chance of disruption closer to 75%.

Here using the Oathbow would be better (and assuming a mere +2 strength bonus/bow mix), as it pushes our average damage up by 3 (and thus Conc check success down by 15%).

Of course many smarter wizards will have, oh, combat casting or a amulet of health, so we can push the damage concentration check a bit harder up. Here splurging for a better bow OR adding some form of damage booster to the arrows (wounding arrows? Four hits, -4 con, we're talking an extra 20 points of virtual damage AND -2 to concentration checks...8k gold for 50 wounding arrows... Bane:Human arrows are cheaper but more limited (what if our wizard is an elf?)

Counting variables, we're looking at a likely, but hardly garanteed spell failure from damage.  If so, our plucky archer readies another arrow to wait (Multi-shot here DRASTICALLY alters the equation, turning likely spell failure to virtually garanteed, with two hits for one attack check (if I read it right) at a measly -4.  Since we don't have it yet, when it comes online at level 11 (since we're not exactly needing anything else until greater spec at 12...) we'll actually be firing THREE arrows as a standard action for disruption (or, hell, just for the fun of it!)

As long as he keeps Random wizard pinned with disruption, he's winning. Once the wizard gets even a single spell off, the fight potentially alters.

however: Note that every single spell that is disrupted is LOST, as if it had been cast, greatly narrowing the options the wizard has. I can't stress this enough for any fighter attempting to fight a wizard: Get Initiative, use readied actions to disrupt, and only go 'full attack' once you're sure you can finish the job.  How many 'teleports' or 'invisiblilities' does the average wizard memorize for one day? how many 'dominate person' or 'hold monster' does he have to call on?

Simple fact is, any given wizard will be able to perform his chosen super-combo only once or twice a day. Wreck that and his ability to keep the fight going shrinks rapidly. Archer boy has an advantage in that he can disrupt at range, limiting wizards avoidance options.  Melee fighter has an advantage in hitting much harder, making concentration checks... much harder.


Now: once the wizard gets a spell off, as noted, the fight changes. If the wizard does something silly like a fireball, then the fighter keeps up his disruption tactic, relying on high HP and saves... though at 1000 feet distance (or 985 to avoid an extra range band penalty for our super-max distance bow style) he is actually out of reach. We won't assume the wiz will try something that foolish (though a Summons is a real possibility. Summons will be ignored in favor of disruption for the...oh... 7-8 rounds (minimum) it will take the summoned creature to get to the fight.  remember, right now we're flying away from the wizard at sixty (give or take wizard's choices.), which has to be subtracted from teh movement of the summoned creature's forward progress. Of course, if the wiz slows down and the summoned creature does non-combat moves, that will shorten the lead time... but for the moment: DIsruption.

Now, lets assume that the second or third 'save my bacon while I think' spell goes off instead.  Teleport?  If its 'out of Islandia', the Fighter chalks up a conditional Win. Lets assume that the wizard has a damn good reason to be flying over Islandia and has no intention of letting some bitch ass muggle fuck up his plans. Griffon moves away from new wizard location as fast as possible, probably moving to somewhere around 300 feet away, or at least outside medium spell range. Archer prepares another disruption attack. (ready action instead of full attack) at the still visible wizard.

Mirror Image? Archer switches back to full attack and hopefully clears three images a round while keeping distance (and waiting for next action. Note that cheap, ordinary arrows are preferred for this.

Invisibility? Well, the Eyepatch of See Invisiblity can come into play here. Barring that, we're trying to 'find' the wizard and shoot blindly at him as we keep away... including scent ability.  

Assuming summoning from invisibility, we outrun the summoned monsters until they go home (easy).

Assuming followed by an aggressive positioning teleport: Use listen and scent to pick target location and exeunt with due haste as for regular teleport, combined with full attacks at believed location of wizard using regular arrows.  Continue moving 'away' from teleported invisible wizard at best ability while shooting at believed location with cheap arrows until invisiblity wears off (ten minutes if we don't accidentally kill him first... or he launches a fireball...whatever).

However:Eyepatch of See Invisible really is the best "cheap" Solution to this problem.

What else?  Force bubble on himself? Some sort of large scale illusionary concealment?

Given that the griff can fly around comfortably out of reach longer than most (all?) spells last, and assuming the wizard is too proud/determined to flee islandia (or, disrupted his emergency teleport escape?... mongol archer wants his faaking gold, mang! and will chase him down under ordinary circumstances)... I'm missing a sure fire win for the out-ranged and disrupted wizard.

Which leaves, what?  better summoning by magic item? Archer flys and shoots better summons to death and goes back to mage hunting.  Hide and hope? Polymorph self into butterfly and sneak past?

Landing and trudging along at ground level is a weak solution. Archer stays 1000 feet up, circling and firing down upon ye, concealment or no, and it really doesn't address the range issue.

Hrmm... Stoneskin (I've proven that's an all day buff at ten): Adamantium arrows, 60gp for 50. Alternatively: Regular cheap arrows until 100 damage has been absorbed (three, four rounds of full attacks.)

Spells like stoneskin or windwall that shut down damage for a few rounds actually work somewhat better than invisibility at buying the wiz time to do other things.  The question remains: What Other Things.

There are two issues that need to be addressed: continuing damage from archery and closing the gap long enough to do something about it.

I DO see a possibility with quickened spells combined with a teleport (assuming, as always, that the teleport wasn't disrupted right off the bat (give it good odds that the wizard will use either teleport, confident of his one shot win spells, or Invisibility for his first spell. If one is disrupted the second one is still top of the charts for the second spell of choice. A pairing of invis and greater invis in one list means that three successful disruptions in a row might just end the fight (and also: averaging 30+ points of damage to a faaking wizard (and potentially -3 Con damage (so at least another 10 HP lost to con damage..., maybe 20 depending on the wiz).

Of course, some wizards would prefer to explore other, less important options while they set up their death dominoes. Windwall (IF memorized. Seriously: Who has this shit?) gives him several rounds to go invisible, lay on any short term buffs he wants and teleport. Combining teleport with quickened spells and summoned monsters provides high bang for buck over the short term, since you can bring others on the Teleporting.

So, the strong counter is a quickened spell that can be a game ender, though at level ten we're looking at a... level 1 spell? Yeesh: that's a fucker you can rely on! combined with close in summoning, invisibility and teleporting 'on top' of the archer with summoned gribblies (more summonses means less time with the gang bang squad, but then I haven't seen seven or eight summon spells in one list so its a trivial option. Assume high end summons we're looking at: fiendish griffon? (Summon V), maybe a d3 fiendish wasps? plus an additional summon IV flying critter (Fiendish giant eagle?).

At this point a 'full withdraw' is an option, as is just taking the AoO's to charge the now very close wizard and polish his ass off (dropping a wizard right on top of a griffon is just... dangerous. Of course, if he DOES have stoneskin on from the start (or added during his protected buff period), then the griff is decidedly less scary, but he's gonna strip the shit out of that stoneskin. Idea: Adamantium claw sheaths? nah, archer guy probably wouldn't bother unless really fast flying golems were a major problem. Or his own divination buddy told him to expect unexpected company. And use adamantium, but thats a low probability.


Now: I think I've worked out likely permutations for a well prepared wizard, so lets go to the white board of action.

Hunting Fighter swoops out of sky 1000 feet away from Wizard. Wizard needs to make a Spot Check at a penalty of -100 (-1 for every ten feet of distance) or he's proper fucked.  How does he find the wizard (since Fighter presumably has to make the same fucking check? He has the griffon track the wizard's scent until they are, oh, 100 feet away (-10 spot check, which the griffon's own spot negates. Taking ten, then backing off. Presumably this sort of long range hunting activity is common, so creating spot bonuses for the griff (or spending cross class skills like mad  on teh fighter and burning our ten feat on alertness (marginal, even with the elf bonus and possible wis bonus, we're looking at a 15 or so vs a free 10 that, in theory, can be boosted via magic (potions of owls wisdom on the griffon?). to be safe we'll try to spot from 150 feet out (really, since we're trailing, we'd start from something like 200 out (-20,+10, so DC 20? 15?) and work our way in until found... wizard's spot check is more like 2 or 3 in all probability, so distinct advantage here.

This, of course, presumes that the DM makes us roll to 'spot' the wizard we ALREADY know is flying over our tuff of Islandia, and whose scent trail we can follow.   Given 'prior knowledge' I think its a fair call to say we just find him at some extreme range (maybe less than 1000, but more than 2-300, or well out of wizard spot check), and with readied action we move to 1000 feet to engage, gaining surprise 95% of the time.

Rapid shooting gives us three shots (we're technically at 980 feet, for -4 for range, -2 for flying movement, but our aggregate plus is 20 so shots one and two hit at +14, shot three at +9. Wizard AC defaults to 14 (mage armor), but might go as high as 18 (Lord Mistborn's super-dex wizard... who is flat footed at the moment, but we'll ballpark it to account for other odd AC enhancements the wizard might have).  Either way the first two shots are near gauranteed and the third is highly probable. Three hits, 3d8+18 total damage. Assuming no extended duration (level 5) Stoneskin, that means we're looking at.. 31 points of damage plus -3 con from wounding arrows (for an additional -10 hp). Wizard just took 41 hp on the surprise round from our exceptionally cautious mongol elf.

Roll initiative. Mongol has +10 to his checks. High dex wizard has +4, but he's the exception to the rule. Call it a +8 advantage for Mongol. Mongol wins initiative... ah... 70% of the time? (even odds is 50. +8 works out to 40%... of the remaining 50%. Sound right?).  

Archer then holds Ready Action. Wizard (best case) casts wind-wall or Stoneskin. Archer fires (now at +16 to hit, so 95% hit chance), doing average ten points, plus another con. Wizard has taken total of 61 hp damage, and has a 28 concentration check (at -4 con...), Again, using the exception of Mistborn (18 Con), and adding something like skill focus (+3  we're looking at, post con damage, 18 Conc? Impressive, though I've never seen SF taken for concentration by a wizard, so far. Anyway: That means even odds to save the spell.  

Note: If the wiz fails he's gonna take another 10+1 con next round (71 damage), which is really conservative of the figher. Note that had the fighter just taken his initiative to full attack again (conceding the spell casting we'd be looking at a total of 91 points of damage to a tenth level wizard, which means that he is utterly, absolutely balled out. Even with an improbably 18 con starting point AND 10 maxed out HP rolls, he just hit -11 hp.  This is a highly probable success (four shots at 95% hit chance, 2 shots at..um... 80% or so (or, with high dex wizard: one at 80% and one at 55%?, with 6 5% chances for a nasty crit (doing an additional 21 points of damage over...low margin of success, but (violating pure math for ease of calculations) making it about 30% probable to happen once.  We can then pro-rate all damage based on hit percentages (to include crit probability. For ease of calculation 95% with a 5% crit (at 10 and 21 average damages) will even out to 100% because I'm fucking lazy. So five 95% equal 5 con loss and 52 damage (since the actual average is 10.5). Six is 6 points of damage once crit probability is factored in, with a half a con point lost. Total damage is 58 pure HP, and 20 or 30 points lost to con damage... rounded to 25, in utter violation of how the rules actually work. Wizard takes 83 points of pure average damage in all mathematically probable senarios and is, once again, wiped the fuck out.

But, we'll let him make that Concentration check anyway.  Lets say he had 10 points of virtual health from Necromantic vigor (or whatever), so he's got 7 hp left (or 12/2 depending on swing of that sixth point of con loss...

Uber wizard now has Wind Wall up, utterly negating all archery for ten rounds. Wind Wall is 50 feet tall and, in this case, a nice arc in front of him. Technically our Archer could climb over a round or two to get a direct line of fire over the wall, but we'll assume he's spell foolish and doesn't know he can do that.

So, round 1, 2 and 3 see our wizard draining the fuck out of healing potions, taking him back to his statistically improbable 80hp (the magic bonus HP is, of course, gone), with his con damage, however, its only 55 (impossibly averaged) HP. Round 4 he casts Stone Skin, round five he casts invisiblilty, round 6 he summons d3 critters, round 7 he summons d3 more weaker critters (so, statistically he's got three critters suitable to summon IV and III... we'll be kind once again and give him two fiendish wasp and one fiendish dire bat.  On round 8 he teleports the mess right on top of the waiting archer (who has been flying a lazy 1000(980) foot radius circle around the wind wall for seven rounds (having covered only 1140 feet, covering an arc of approximately 67 degrees...). Mongol uses eye patch of see invisible and delayed action to shoot wizard in face on same initiative count for 3 more con damage, 30 points off stone skin and 1 point of averaged penetrating damage. Wizard is now down to 30 maximum HP, with 29 actual. Archer scratches head, puzzled at tough wizard. Griffon executes full withdraw action. Random critters charge after... or rather double move and fail to keep up (if we allow fiendish griffins instead of celestial, or the wizard is not evil and can summon celestial critters, then one attack against the griffon per Celestial giant eagles (hitting 60% of the time on the charge. DM's harsh ruling is that 'full withdraw actions' prevent ride check to 'negate' one hit. Bummer dude.

Archer readies action (combat is occuring at 10 foot reach griffon distances) and attempts disruption shot against wizard on next round. Stoneskin will take the 10, with one statistically averaged additonal damage and one con point for 5 impossibly averaged loss (so 23/25 hp wizard) Griffon continues 160 foot full withdraw, pursued by statistically insignificant giant eagles (16 points done out of 75).  Wizard flys sixty, putting total engagement distance at... 260 feet, or outside of medium spell range.  Frustrated wizard casts fireball, hitting griffon and rider for 35 points of average fire damage and a saving throw of (adding evocation feat for maximum potential...) 21? Sure.

Archer has reflex save of 8 (3+4+resist 1), so he saves only 35%. Griffon has same save (permanent resist spell on mount, duh). both take 23 points (griffon is down 29 out of 75, archer is annoyed and down 23 out of arbitary amount (say 75 to be simple. Yes, super wizard had more HP than archer fighter...).

Next init, griffon full withdraws again, takes another 16 from charging eagles for 45 out of 75, and archer says fuck the wizard and full attacks him for 1 statistical point and another 15 points of con dmg loss, and knocking off an additional 30 points of stoneskin (seventy then).  Total distance between wizard and archer is now 360 feet.  Wizard has burned overland flight, stoneskin windwall, fireball, summon V and Summon IV and a teleport. In a sane world, he's dead three or four times over, but this is the perfect wizard, so he's trucking on with 7/10 HP (and how much con dmg???)

Next round wizard dies to 3 more con loss plus 2 more hp loss. His Stoneskin is gone either way. Griffon mauls one eagle and takes statistically negligable damage from the surviving summoned eagle (one hit which is Ride checked to oblivion and a 25% possible bite for d6+1 (1 point on average?).

That was a perfect wizard vs statistic conservative no-spike damage fighter. Fight drags on because wizard wins 50% average conc checks and fighter wants to be cute with disrupting shots.

Fighter fired 14 arrows of wounding (too lazy to doublecheck..), costing him 2240 GP for the arrows.  Wizard burned 3 big potions of healing (2250?), leaving him 46k WBL loot to, well, loot.  

This has NOT been an accurate representation of play, but it is illustrative of several iterations of the same actions with these given odds. Technically, the wizard might have avoided one or two points of con damage from averaged losses on third hits, but given that only once did our hero fire at the most punishing range band... so even removing one con damage hit, the fighter sill puts the wizard down, statistically, at this same time. Without the eyepatch of seeing invisible, Griffon takes three crap ass AoO's and full runs (four move) away from wizard. Fighter fires at 'center' of summon monster arrival point (due to teleport) and loses hits to concealment. Griffon continues full run for the 7 or so rounds until invisible wears off, easily avoiding all damage from summons as they can not attack. Fireball negates invisible, and the wizard gets one, maybe two good shots at it before the archer peppers him from 980 feet again (two range bands out and beyond fireballing).

A Rod:Metamagic, Quicken (35k gp for a lesser (1-3 level spells) might work. However, oddly its a standard action to activate the rod. Presumably he can use it behind the wind wall to prime a spell that he'll use later. Maybe quicken teleport? Standard action on round 7 to prime it, on 8 he jumps in with a swift action teleport and may then cast his 'game breaking' dominate person spell or hold or what have you.

However: I still believe that a readied action arrow to the face can trigger the concentration check even still.  While statistically negligable (1 point after stone skin (half a point), a spike damage possibility can trigger a real concentration check. Note that by this point the wizard is suffering from -7 or 8 con damage, and we're assuming a level five game breaker spell. this provides a tiny chance for our perfect wizard (with his 18 starting con...) to get his spell off (1 damage means he's rolling 13 vs 21? max damage means 13 v 24. Crit, aside from more or less ending ending wizard will do statistically probably 11 points after stoneskin for a 13 v 31 match-up.


So yes, provided wizard is bad ass enough (and fighter is too smart for his own good), a quicken rod can alter the dynamics of the fight. The counter to the summon bomb and mind control game changer is a potion of circle of protection used during the wind-wall. A clever ray spell remains possible, however.

I thought the Native Americans of the plains were pretty stellar in their horse archery. It was bareback, too. But someone else will have to fill in the details.

Quote from: Opaopajr;571663I thought the Native Americans of the plains were pretty stellar in their horse archery. It was bareback, too. But someone else will have to fill in the details.

One thing to remember is that mounted archery, for all cultures, was done at very close range compared to an archer on foot.  They weren't riding around 200 yards out and lobbing arrows.  Only the heavy mounted archers used volleys, and only then when they were in formation standing still before charging in.