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A failed apprentice makes a foolish Master
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
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Chronomancer wizards -- let me try anyway...
L10 Chronomancer wizard enters the room, winks, and five L4 concentration spells, and one L5 concentration spell happen simultaneously (requires just under an hour of prep, L10 feature, catnap spell, a lot of spell slots (11 L3 or higher), and a bunch of familiars).
DM: dafuq
L15 Chronomancer wizard enters the room, winks, and burns three legendary resistances and forces a failed save, autokilling the BBEG.
DM: ah, but that'll be four points of exhaustion!
Chronomancer: (shrugs) I magic jarred into this critter who is immune to exhaustion and can now force anyone to fail at any time without recourse.
DM: dafuq?
I mean Chronomancers are outright banned at my table anyway because they are wildly unbalanced. I love Matt Mercer but he does not know how to create a balanced class at all.
That being said, nothing here works from what I understand. You'd have to elaborate more for me to figure that out.
~~First off, you're relying entirely on spells you have no guarantee of ever getting. You're a wizard. You don't get to just choose spells willy nilly. You find those and you copy them into your book or you learn from some other means. No guarantee of those means.~~ I'm fucking stupid
Second, all of your Mote stuff requires "under an hour of prep", true, but each mote only lasts an hour. So unless you're sitting outside of the BBEGs door and ready to throw it at him then this also isn't working.
Third, not sure what you're doing that is allowing 'simultaneous' casting of all of those spells at once. Each mote requires an action. So unless you're somehow stacking 5 spells all into one mote at the same time then you're just not doing that.
Fourth, the idea that your 15th level Chronomancer is going to 'autokill' the bbeg is laughable. Especially considering forcing a failure of a save requires a reaction from you so you're doing it once per turn.
Fifth, entire based off of the idea that you're going to have a level 10 Chronomancer and a level 15 Chronomancer in the same party. Which... good luck finding any DM who's willing to allow that.
Sixth, magic jar into a creature with no recourse? You mean other than the fact that the DM is the one deciding what creatures are nearby, if any? Then there's the fact that you must be 100ft within your body at all times. So you're just leaving your body there on the ground for any minion to destroy and kill which leaves you stuck in the creature. Until you then die of course.
Dafuq is definitely used but it's more out of confusion of why you'd think that'd ever work, not that it would.
What?
Wizards can choose two spells each level without having to find them.
I think all that falls under "at my table"
Well, no, since it's a clearly written class feature that doesn't mention anything to do with DM discretion. Except in the sense that everything is DM discretion, but in that case discussing any rules at all is pointless.
Remind me, what's Rule #1?
See the second sentence.
"This is my house rule."
"You can't do that! Unless it's some kind of house rule!"
If the possibility of such drastic house rules have to be accounted for it's not really possible to discuss balance.
I think "go on a quest for new spells" is infinitely more interesting than "the spells get teleported into your brain somehow, just don't think about it"
That's
...almost entirely unrelated to what I said?
Only dealing with the L10 scenario.
(1) You get to choose two new spells at level up, in addition to those you find elsewhere. Assuming your DM hasn't restricted sourcebooks.
(2) This is where catnap is required. It shortens a short rest to ten minutes (at the cost of an L3 slot). This allows you to create new motes before the previous ones have expired.
(3) the motes are being triggered by familiars, who can become the concentration holder. How do you get that many familiars? Well, you give your familiar motes with Find Familiar and have them crush them.
Furthermore, each familiar can then dismiss their familiar to their pocket dimension for unbreakable concentration.
Everything works, rules as written. Broken? Yes.
That is a pretty huge assumption. However I somehow did forget you just get to choose levels at level up. I don't fuckin know how.
This is super pedantic but considering everything relies on specifics, you just killed your train by saying "by crushing the mote". If the mote is destroyed then the spell disappears and you do not regain spell slot. A creature has to use its action to cast the spell for it to do so.
That being said, all of this relies pretty heavily on you taking this rest within an hours travel from the BBEG. The motes themselves only last an hour. So you can have a ton of familiars up but the beads that they have to activate? Those have a timer. The vast majority of situations will simply not allow you to be that close to the BBEG and have enough time that he doesn't notice people chilling and preparing to explode his life.
It would still not be instant casting. Each familiar, in combat, rolls its own individual initiative and gains its own turn. So you would swarm the initiative with different familiars with spells, sure, but the likelihood of instant casting is essentially 0%. Not entirely, but the odds are so insanely low that they would all go at the same time at the start of initiative.
It requires an action to dismiss a familiar so you cannot cast the spell and then dismiss them for unbreakable concentration.
I mean it works in theory, kinda, but it would never work in practice.
I agree. It's very situational, requires huge investment in prep, an extra five slots (for catnap), familiars all ready to go, probably a surprise round to get all the spells off together, and a bunch of other insane ideal circumstances. A smart enemy wouldn't be caught flat-footed like that either.
The less broken things are just to give your other party members their own familiar, give other party members a single wizard self buff (like Shadow Blade), or combat cast something like Leomunds Tiny Hut. All of which requires downtime or precombat prep.
Wizards are broken in general. This one is just more broken than others.
But again, only broken if your DM doesn't have a spine. It relies entirely on getting everything you need and hitting green lights at every intersection. That's just not... realistic.
L15 scenario. The above are two entirely separate scenarios -- I was not assuming two chronomancers in the same party.
Let's simplify this from an action economy perspective so we aren't running into the reaction limits. Let's assuming combat lasts four rounds, and on each of the first three rounds, you cast Polymorph (killer whale), and use your Chronal Shift to force a reroll if they save, generally with the goal of burning legendary resistances. Obviously this works better with a bigger party casting save or suck, to burn them faster (you can only Chronal Shift once per round though) or you can use the L10 trick above if well prepared. Great, in the fourth round, you cast Polymorph (killer whale) again and force them to fail the save as a reaction. Take one point of exhaustion. Easy enough, right?
Well, magic jar is fun, but requires serious prep to reduce the risks. An L15 wizard should already have a lair where they can leave their body safely, and they'd need to capture their target and bring them to their lair. This is why I chose L15 for this scenario instead of L14, because you need access to the spell. Assuming your wizard has a Researcher background or something (so you can handwave the meta), you can use locate person to find a CR12 Duergar Despot who has immunity to exhaustion. They exist in Forgotten Realms at least. Your DM might rule they don't exist, and then you'll have a harder time finding a humanoid immune to exhaustion to capture to magic jar into. That whole capture scenario would be an amazing multi-session mini-arc.
So worst case scenario, the DM says such a target doesn't exist. Well, then you have to wait until L17 to pull this shit off. True Polymorph can create a humanoid that is immune to exhaustion (there are dozens of them!) to create a magic jar target. Or you can use Wish (also broken) to summon such a creature, or simply wish yourself immune to exhaustion.
I mean, if you're an L17 wizard, you're basically god anyway. But the Chronomancer can pull off godhood at L15 if they can become immune to exhaustion with magic jar.
Even at L14, with the exhaustion penalty, it's stupidly strong.
Side note: killer whale is my go to. It's huge, thus hard to carry away by minions; has a huge bag of hitpoints, hard for minions to slap once to return back to BBEG form; and has a speed of zero on land. A good BBEG will have contingencied dimension door or something, so it isn't foolproof. You can try to trap them in Mordenkainens Magnificent Mansion or something that prevents escape through teleportation, but that adds another layer.
Did I mention that wizards are broken?
Again... relies entirely on assumptions.
You have two massive assumptions there which rely entirely on the DM doing what you want, being passive, or by the BBEG being completely alone. If the BBEG counterspells then you have to change your plan. If the DM has minions at all with counterspell, change of plan. Honestly really just if there are minions at all it'll change the plan because you don't get to just stand there doing whatever you want without the bosses goons immediately focusing heavily on you.
This is really driving my point home for me. You keep making the assumption on all of your plans that the DM will just give you want you want. That you'll have a lair, you'll be able to find a non-exhaustable creature and that the DM would allow for a quest to go get this creature and do what you want with it.
Yes and the worst case scenario of that situation is that you fail the questline because you were waiting to gain two levels to try to build something broken. This is another major assumption that the DM and the BBEG will be completely passive and give you want you want, that being those two levels. Also if you wish to be "immune to exhaustion" there is a decent chance you're going to die considering the Wish spell is pretty clear that it is often a monkeys paw type scenario. The Wish spell doesn't say you can get immunity to exhaustion so there's no clearcut rules on it. The closest is that you can resistance to a magical effect but whether exhaustion in this situation is considered magical is a debate and left ultimately up to the DM. So you're making another assumption on whether that spell could even work in the first place.
Every single part of that plan hinders entirely on you getting what you want from the DM, DM never saying no and the BBEG being extremely passive. This would only work in theory because any DM with a spine would immediately laugh and say "Good luck" knowing that it would never happen. These types of "broken" characters are literally what the meme is talking about.
And different people play for different reasons. When I'm DMing, I'd be tickled pink that the player is engaging with the world, attempting to shape it, and not just riding the rails. When I'm playing, I select tables where sandboxes are encouraged.
Party wants to build a lair? DM brain wheels turning... I'm going to run a tower defense scenario or two! That'll be epic for them! Clearly a rival mad mage doesn't like them encroaching on his monopoly on lairs in this forest... Or whatever.
There's a lot of spells in the game that have things like: if cast every day for a year. How the hell are players in an urgent scenario ever going to cast Teleportation Circle in their lair for a year? Nevermind the thousands of gold that'll cost. If the player comes to me with a plan though, Imma roll with it, throw up some obstacles, toss some roleplayer scenarios in, maybe have the BBEG find out about their plans and attempt to disrupt, etc. And after handwaving some downtime, and rewarding them with their permanent circle in their lair, everyone will have had a great time :)
Ok cool. You accend to godhood and become God of lonewolf badass pedants. See you next week.
Everyone else that actually showed up to play this final game for fun, the "BBEG" was just his main minion, the real BBEG is auto summoned here when he dies. What do you do?
Meow
😺