Rather than abuse the poor p v. m thunderdome, or the mega thread of doom (where it would get lost), I thought I'd start up a thread here to discuss some of the things I see the 'wizard uber alles' crowd throwing down like candy that, frankly, puzzle me slightly.

Anyway: Yes, discussion of wizard and anti-wizard fighter tactics is the purpose here.  

For example: MGuy pretty much ejaculated all over himself to cast Solid Fog on round one, and I couldn't help but notice that that Lord Mistborn seems to be a fan of that sucker too in his, frankly silly, write up.  

Solid fog: Several minutes of obnoxious foggyness in a small patch.

Now, I don't know MGuy's spell list, for example, but certainly, if I were a fighter facing Lord Mistborn I'd be pretty tempted to just hang out in the fog for a while, taunting him to burn spells at me while I'm under concealment (given that his rays suffer 50% concealment from his own fog, and the fog lasts longer than his summons do by a long shot...).  Of course, he's a special case, seeing as three quarters of his character can be beaten by... just having fire resistance. Say a 700 gp potion of energy resist: Fire...


I can see the spell being a minor irritant if the wizard guy has good spells to use against the trapped fighter, or if he's clever enough to react well to a fighter hiding in the fog for a while, but I'm not sure I see it as a fight 'winner' and as Thunderdome proved, its wasted if the other guy is flying too.



One 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.



Amusingly, I can still see the ranged fighter with his composite long bow +2 or whatever shooting the flying wizard from 1650 feet away, out of range for a vast majority of spells at tenth level. Lemme see: Dex Fighter, level ten, so we're looking at an say a +6 to hit from dex, plus the bow and feats... then -20 for ten range increments to start with... he's rolling against straight AC more or less, until the wizard closes (and at 'spell distance' for long range spells he's looking at... +8 or so?) Mguy posits a default 14 ac for wizardy types, but mistborn goes for the 18...  Either way, we're tossing off quite a few arrows (two a round with rapid reload) hoping for crits for that triple damage.

Most spells are close range, however (50 feet at tenth level for scorching ray or monster summoning, for example).

So, just for fun, we can posit a mounted archer on a fast flying mount who keeps his tenth level wizard opponent at just over 800 feet distance more or less (5 range bands), negating almost all of his spells, yet still firing full attack (two arrows a round) at the wizard at +8 and +3 to hit or better, hitting the average wizard 1 and a half times a round (we haven't even started on rapid fire yet...), and particularly well protected dex wizards roughly once a round.  Protection from normal missiles is useless against magic bow (and this is a cheap-o bow for a dedicated archer, a better bow means more hits, obviously), forcing the wizard to use alternative means to defend himself/attack.

Options: Summoning an Air Elemental might work if he can make the concentration check (summoning is a full round, so he's gonna get shot during casting), but half the elemental's duration is gonna be spent chasing the fighter, even if he doesn't decide to run away for a few rounds to wear it out. Airborne Mongols don't give a fuck about movement while shooting....

A windwall, if he has it, can buy the wizard time to cast (ten rounds, of course...), as it negates the archery completely, as does a forcewall (ditto), but the distance means he's casting it on himself. These are stalling tactics at best.  Teleport allows him to close the distance (assuming a personal fly spell and not a large flying beast... or maybe with a large flying beast), but the Archer can still get outside of the close range spells before the wizard can cast again... but that opens up medium range spells and may make summoning fast air elementals somewhat more viable.

Now: One question is of course: What is our guy riding? A purchased pegasus or hippogriff are both good choicse (as fast/faster than the air elemental) but are fragile, while a Griffon is not only NOT fragile, but should the wizard try the teleport pop, it has a nasty pounce/rake full attack option that pretty much can end the fight without arrows, and it is capable of fighting off most summoned creatures at level ten without (much) help from the rider (mounted combat is good here, allowing the rider (Ride skill roughly 17 or so...) to negate hits by rolling (raising the 'average' griffon ac to 27 (ten plus skill). Note that ANY use of the mounted combat feat at this point raises the griffons natural AC (from 17, to 17+d20).

Cohort mounts would suggest the fast and dangerous hippogriff might be best, as its low HD is offset by the cohort (leveled) HD.  So if you have a 7 HD cohort, your 3HD Hippogriff now has (almost) Griffon HD. (7 HD).  Also, if it matters a 7HD hippogiff is Huge, making it easier so scare small children or something.  Note that all three options mentioned here are faster than a flying wizard, and only one is slower than an air elemental (curiously, I might add...). For evil fighters, a Nightmare is also a possibility, but I find it inferior, lacking the sheer balls of the griffon, and the speed of the hippogriff/pegasus. For a Cohort the Hippogriff is best (lacking a LA for cohorts), being simple, while for purchase the Griffon seems to be the best bang.

In short, Spike may just have his next Fighter for a tolerant/sandbox GM. Also, I'd probably also spend 1 feat for the spirited charge and keep a lance as a backup weapon. A 200 foot charge for triple damage is a great finishing move... for one extra feat. (160 foot for the pouncing griffon... so triple damage lance strike plus a Full Attack+rake from the Griff?  Yeech, that could end a wizard right there if you won init... safe bet is the range-bow move. Yes, virginia, it is easy to outrange wizards. Thus wizards suck and are useless... I keed!   )



Hmm... what else? Got so caught up in the fact that  'mid range' game allows fighters a reasonable chance to just... outrange wizards (and the disparity only grows as the fighter's Attack Bonus outweighs the range penalties... tenth v. wizard is the first time that a fighter can really go all out at a distance with a reasonable chance to actually hit.


Obviously, a good defense here is full concealment (Invisibility, fog clouds), but fighters can get permanent vision shit too, so its less than total, and the wiz still has to get within charge range of the griffon/rider combo to really unleash his best spells.


Binding Wizards: Well, I think I showed that a binding wizard only starts coming into his own around level 11 or so (when he can more reliably break SR, rather than get his face eaten off half* the time), and relies on the DM giving pity-fucks to the wizard in regards to what a 'service' entails. Again, the problem is that flying mongol fighter doesn't give a fuck. He outruns and out ranges almost everything.  On griffon back his only major threat is things that outrun the 80 speed griff (air elementals by twenty, nightmares by 10... with a long enough lead those are not a terrible menace and the griff can outfight the nightmare. Dragons outfly the griff as well, but are harder to bring to the fight and arguably don't really outmatch the griff plus rider unless the GM is letting the wiz charm dragons much more powerful than himself.  So, pet boy wizard just dies a little slower (depending, of course, on the number of said pets...)

On comparative speeds: At a 20 speed difference (Griffon vs Air Elemental) it takes the air elemental four rounds of movement to almost close the gap (5 foot remains) of a single range band.  SInce we suggest a tenth level mongol archer should remain outside of medium range spells (200 feet) if not long range spells (800 feet)... a comfortably challenging 5 range bands, that's twenty rounds of shooting. To match the flying mongol you need another archer. Due to the mount/feat differential, the advantage will probably still be with the mongol. If the solution is to hire/charm another tenth level mongol archer NPC, then the PC mongol archer fighter is objectively better than the PC wizard (since he can just hire his own NPC mongol archer buddies as well....), since nothing the wizard can do really affects the fight at that point.


Hmm... I'm temporarily at a loss for good wizarding tactics... I've got griffon riding archers flying through my brain right now and I'm sort of limited to the one track...  Feel free to discuss, obviously, and even argue.

Ah: Scry and Die: Amulate of Proof v detection can help, but really it still has the wizard using his actions to arrive too close to a fighter and griffon for comfort and hoping they're surprised long enough for him to negate both.  Yes, yes... sleep etc. Mongol Archer spends twenty gold getting lead foil for his stables, whatevah.  I'm actually a bit underwhelmed by solo wizard scry and die attacks, given that his surprise round is 'bamf!'.  Admittedly it is a good and valid ambush tactic, but 'good and valid ambush tactics' do not always equal 'I win buttan'.







*Yes, in the fighter v. wizard mega thread I did the math for a spell pen conjurer with a high charisma. At ninth level he gets his face eaten by his first Bearded Devil almost exactly 50% of the time. Its something like 35% of the time within one day, rising to 50% the second day.  Binding Devils that can eat your face is not without risk... unless your DM is a soft hearted wussy who hand waves away unfun rules for the wizard in a pity-fuck.

Quote from: Spike;570922So, just for fun, we can posit a mounted archer on a fast flying mount [...]

I don't think D&D has ever really had much in the way of mounted combat rules, but this ought to be requiring frequent Ride checks and significant To Hit penalties.  Mounted archery is Hard.

Quote from: daniel_ream;570935Mounted archery is Hard.

No joke.  Have you seen how much training some of those Japanese guys go through with their Yumi just for horseback firing?  They do tons of training on a wooden horse long before they ever saddle a real one.  And even then some of the best ones still miss that 8"x8" square at point blank range.

Poor dumb Spike head: Couldn't leave without suggesting one of two core bows as possibilities

+2 bow of Distance (so.... 330 range increments, 990 feet to shoot at a whopping -6 penality, allowing him to rapid shoot while on the move and still kill wizards more than he misses)

Or Oathbow (+5 against designated target, various penalites for non-targets, otherwise +2 composite Longbow by default).

Designated wizard target gets much more hurted vs. longer ranged shooting by a metric fuckton (which is roughly twice as much as an ordinary fuckton, which is where we started at...).

A tenth level Elven Aerial Mongol fighter (heh) has ten feats to play with so:

Weapon focus, specialization greater focus Comp Longbows
Mounted Combat, Mounted archery
Point Blank Shot, Far Shot, Rapid Shot
And either Animal Affinity (+2 ride), Iron Will (just in case) or, for the sheer unholy hell of it: Leadership, though spirited charge is still on the table as the ninth feat, and one more as the tenth.

Obviously high dexterity, followed by a decent CON, with wis and str more or less tied (or CHA if leadership, seriously yo. This borked concept relies on never (almost never?) being close enough to be mind blasted, much less the other kind of blasted.

So, even using shit-tastic elite array we're looking at a solid 20 Dex before magic items.  Bow is 18k, Griffon is either free (cohort) or about 5k for egg and training, 4k for gloves of dex and 5k for a 'what the hell' bracers of archery, lesser. that leaves about 17k for potions, ammo, mundane equipment, shit for the griffon (amulet of natural weapons +1 maybe, handysack (or quiver of elhonna, which isn't SRD core), maybe sweet talk a GM Into allowing 'talon-sheaths of speed' for the griffon's flight (ya never know..)

You'd figure this guy'd have arrows with adamantium heads, arrows with silver heads, arrows with cold iron heads, arrows that have been blessed or some shit... cheaper than full weapons, and combined with the bow's enchantment lets him cut through almost all DRs, and anything he CAN"T cut through? He can outrun, straight up.  Figure some str on the bow, and we're talking a guy shooting at +20, doing d8+6 dmg,  (note: With the Oathbow he can increase that to +23 and a d8+9 against his designated target....) which isn't terribly impressive, but he's doing it from the other side of town and up in the air.

I've never personally played around with archers before, though I've had low level archers I've DM'd for. One issue that crops up at tables is that DMs generally limit engagements, even in open terrain, to the size of the battlemat, meaning that with the composite longbow (for example), you'll never be outside one range band (and thus, never outside spell casting range), unless you have a fucking massive table.  Anything involving fast moving aerial combat will absolutely require expanded range squares, if only because the distances involved in just moving make a mockery of the normal sized mat...

Assuming flying mounted shooting his attack line looks a bit like this:  +16/+16/+11... before range band penalty. Manyshot is essentially useless to him as he'll almost never be reduced to a standard attack, or at least not enough to burn a feat for the extra arrow. Obviously a better than +2 bow will increase that, as will additional dexterity (since we went cheap).

Quote from: daniel_ream;570935I don't think D&D has ever really had much in the way of mounted combat rules, but this ought to be requiring frequent Ride checks and significant To Hit penalties.  Mounted archery is Hard.

With the Mounted archer feat you're rolling -2 for a moving mount, but can full attack at will, and -4 if the mount is 'running'. THere are no additional penalties for flying mounts that I could find in the SRD.  Without the feat the penalties are much more prohibitive (-4 and -8, so yes: hard).

THe combat ride check is 20 to fight from a non-combat mount, otherwise its DC 5 to guide your mount with your knees as a free action.

Melee guys do not get full attack options, but archers do. Wizards have a dc 10+spell level check to cast from a moving mount and a dc 15+level for running mounts to cast (concentration).

As with most things D&D, once you start getting to double digit levels the checks are more nuisance than anything else.

For example: A good elven mongol archer would have a Ride skill of 19 (or 21 with a feat), making it fully possible to fight from timid pony back all day long... at level 10.,

Quote from: Spike;570943For example: A good elven mongol archer would have a Ride skill of 19 (or 21 with a feat), making it fully possible to fight from timid pony back all day long... at level 10.,

This is where I simply check out of these discussions. Once we have flying mounts any attempt to analogize from historical sources just becomes pointless.  I can gas on all day about how riding a flying mount ought to be harder to ride/fight from, that Mongol/Parthian archers still weren't all that accurate, they just could fire from horseback at all, etc. etc. but it's all just Star Destroyer vs. Starship Enterprise at that point.

You do know you can't physically use a longbow when mounted, right?

You can use a composite longbow while mounted, which I assume is what Spike is using.  Though maybe not.  That'd be a pretty big 'oops'.  

The range issue assumes that you have 1000 feet of emptiness between you and the target.  Full cover is not hard to find (though it may mean going to ground), forcing you to get closer.  If it becomes a question of moving off and coming back, teleport and such is a superior option even to a fast winged mount.  

And a winged mount, of course, must maintain air speed velocity or crash into the ground.  While it might not be easy to freeze the mount (hold monster would work, but it's a matter of getting close enough.  Invisibility could certainly work - hold monster he'd need to be within 200 feet.  Combined with a silent image as a false target can easily get the Fighter close enough to the ground.  But even if you can't hold the mount, you could try to get another creature to initiate a grapple.  While it means both sides falling, it's worse for the creature that wasn't summoned for the sole purpose of dying in a grisly way.  

Depending on the DM's interpretation, summoning a celestial griffin might be the way to go - it charges and attacks.  Once they're engaged, can they fly?  If not, sucks to be the Fighter.  

And it should go without saying, but you have to be very careful with the weight limits of flying mounts.  The griffon can fly with a load of only 300 pounds.  I'm 6'1" and weigh around 250 pounds.  Put me in full plate and I'm not able to carry a bow (or anything else).  So, hope the character kept under a light load for the mount, or he's walking on the ground and unable to take to the air.

Quote from: Spike;570922Cohort mounts would suggest the fast and dangerous hippogriff might be best, as its low HD is offset by the cohort (leveled) HD. So if you have a 7 HD cohort, your 3HD Hippogriff now has (almost) Griffon HD. (7 HD). Also, if it matters a 7HD hippogiff is Huge

It is my understanding the companion/cohort critter explicitly do not gain size regardless of HD, which is for "monsters only"

I had the misfortune of playing with a 3E cheeze munchkin powergamer who would always push these half-assed rule interpretations (such as using companions as cover to avoid opportunity attacks, etc.).

One time he spent forever making a giant wolf companion for his optimized Druid before I looked up the rules that said animal companions don't get bigger with more HD.

So he made another, completely different PC after wasting our time making his druid.

He doesn't get to play with us anymore.

Quote from: Planet Algol;570968It is my understanding the companion/cohort critter explicitly do not gain size regardless of HD, which is for "monsters only"

I had the misfortune of playing with a 3E cheeze munchkin powergamer who would always push these half-assed rule interpretations (such as using companions as cover to avoid opportunity attacks, etc.).

One time he spent forever making a giant wolf companion for his optimized Druid before I looked up the rules that said animal companions don't get bigger with more HD.

So he made another, completely different PC after wasting our time making his druid.

He doesn't get to play with us anymore.

I've had to deal with that before.  They're trying to double dip by taking the size equivalent to the HD of the companion, then get the size mods for the larger size.  Mononoke strikes again.

I'm now imagining the Lone Ranger riding an elephant sized horse...

Quote from: deadDMwalking;570961You can use a composite longbow while mounted, which I assume is what Spike is using.  Though maybe not.  That'd be a pretty big 'oops'.

The SRD does indeed say you can us a composite longbow while mounted, but that's just ridiculous.  They have to be confusing "composite longbow" with "composite recurve bow" or something.

Quote from: daniel_ream;571039The SRD does indeed say you can us a composite longbow while mounted, but that's just ridiculous.  They have to be confusing "composite longbow" with "composite recurve bow" or something.

orly?



With one image I prove you entirely wrong on the topic of longbows (of any sort) on Horseback.

Further, the same concept is still quite possible with either a crossbow (120 foot base range vs 110 foot base range for heavy and heavy repeating crosbows) or even a comp short bow (only 70 foot base, but combined with the distance magic upgrade still pushes our base to 140, or slightly better than the non-distance c.longbow I started with...).

Quote from: Spike;571044orly?


With one image I prove you entirely wrong on the topic of longbows (of any sort) on Horseback.

Further, the same concept is still quite possible with either a crossbow (120 foot base range vs 110 foot base range for heavy and heavy repeating crosbows) or even a comp short bow (only 70 foot base, but combined with the distance magic upgrade still pushes our base to 140, or slightly better than the non-distance c.longbow I started with...).

Don't go posting your Anime trash here, Otaku!  There is obviously no way this could be used from a horse!



Although.. that's probably a Cav unit.. CURSES I FOIL MYSELF!

Quote from: Panzerkraken;571048Don't go posting your Anime trash here, Otaku!  There is obviously no way this could be used from a horse!



Although.. that's probably a Cav unit.. CURSES I FOIL MYSELF!

Foiling yourself is at least better than shitting yourself so it's a beginning right? I wonder why the wizard wouldn't go Shadowrun style and use her familiar like a "watcher" spirit for recon without using overt spells or hippogriffs? Just like that helicopter you show.

Quote from: Planet Algol;570968It is my understanding the companion/cohort critter explicitly do not gain size regardless of HD, which is for "monsters only"

.

I can't address the specifics of cohort mount rules directly, seeing that I'm roughly 5000 miles from my DMG and the SRD doesn't include any cohort rules at all.

However, as 7HD Huge hippogriffs quite explicitely exist in the wild (going by their MM entry which says 7-9HD hippogriffs are huge), I can still go get a huge hippogriff egg, raise it and have it trained as an ordinary flying mount and be exactly where I started from... which is a flying, horse eating, elphant of a hippogriff.

Or I can just stick with the 7HD and somewhat more dangerous, Giffon.

This is quite different from trying to grow an ordinary wolf or horse to huge size by raising its HD via cohort/companion rules in that horses do not grow to huge size as they gain HD (no progression to huge) and wolves do not grow to 7 HD in the wild (but can, in fact, be large... for whatever that's worth...).