Dumb Wizard Tricks

[Neurosis]

Level 5
Book Bomb: I learned this trick over a decade ago on the Wizards forums. Explosive Runes is the abjuration spell that just blows everything away, but only if properly prepared. So the thing is you just buy a 50gp book with a hundred pages in it, and at the end of every day cast Explosive Runes with any unused spell slots you have on each page until the book is filled. and then store that thing in a haversack or some other extradimensional space because it will kill you. at level 5 (and after casting Explosive Runes into the book a hundred times) you hand the haversack with the book bomb to somebody you absolutely trust, and when something absolutely needs to die, you ready an action to cast Dispel Magic on the book after your trusted friend uses a move action to retrieve the book bomb from the haversack and uses their standard action to throw the book bomb at the square the soon to be destroyed creature stands. the square has an AC 5, and they can throw the book bomb up to 50 feet. THEN, and this is crutial, you fail your dispel check. Any thing within 10 feet of the (not) dispelled book bomb has to make reflex save (for half) or take 6d6 force damage, and SR applies, and they have to do that 100 times. Average damage is ~2,100 damage, but that is with no successful saves so it goes down to 1,995 if they only save on a 20, and minimum average damage is ~105 if they only fail on a 1. Spell Resistance makes the calculation weird, but basically if at level 5 you went up against something with SR 15, it would half the expected damage output, Maxing out at ~937.7 and bottoming out at ~52.5 damage, depending on reflex saves. it works against everything except golems, but those can be beaten with Silent Image so who cares? This dumb combo does the "most" raw HP damage up to level 11.

But what happens if you pass your Dispel Check? The book bomb is defused and just becomes 100 pages and 100 spell slots worth of wasted effort?

Level 11
IPAD: so no joke, this came about because i was researching rules legal ways for airships to exist in 3.5, and it all starts with buying some chickens. These are crutial, 'cuz we really are about to do an actual blood sacrifice (in 3.5) to end the universe (in 3.5). You need lat least 12 chickens, or any 1 HD creature with less than 10 HP, and you should probably be on any plane in the abyss, but really any infinite outer plane will do. so you get your pen of 12 chickens near an efreet you used planer binding on in the Abyss to get 3 wishes, and the first wish is for the genie to cast Greater Consumptive Field, which will kill the chickens and add +12 to the efreet's caster level (which is now at least CL 32). the second wish is to have the efreet cast Animate Objects on the abyssal plane you're on, and due to how dumb the size rules in 3.5 are anything, and i quote, "64 ft. or more" counts as a colossal object, and an infinite abyssal plane is by definition "64 ft. or more" in every dimension, it now counts as an animated object creature. And finally for the third Wish, you wish for the efreet to, "Transport travelers. A wish can lift one creature per caster level from anywhere on any plane and place those creatures anywhere else on any plane regardless of local conditions." and drop that colossal animated abyssal plane at least 10 feet anywhere in the multiverse that you just want to not exist anymore.

"For each 200 pounds of an object’s weight, the object deals 1d6 points of damage, provided it falls at least 10 feet."

So Infinity divided by 200 is InfinityD6 damage, which basically obliterates everything in the target plane for no save, no SR, just raw the damage.

There are of course still counters to this. A properly worded contingent Plane Shift could (with a successful concentration check to defensively cast in a threatened area, touch attack, and failed will save) send the plane to a predesignated plane, obliterating someplace else; and a contingent Wish could also do that (the concentration check to defensively cast it is a little higher, but has a higher save and doesn't require an attack roll) and can even return the Inter Planar Abyss Drop to sender, and then have it bounce back and forth until someone runs out of contingencies or fails a concentration check. And of course Frenzied Berserkers will be in their deathless frenzy, frantically trying to huff their waterskins to drown away the infinite damage they just took, but those peeps were immune to HP damage anyway.

The nice thing about an IPAD is that it is weirdly scaleable. don't want to obliterate an entire plane of existance? just animate a planet or moon, asteroid, or you could even use stone shape to custom carve out a city shaped divot (seperating the divot from the moon or whatever by 1 picometer) to selectivly obliterate the offending part of the campaign world you just can't stand.

And of course in Pathfinder it still works (colossal creatures are still, "64 ft. or more") and it's as easy as handing your planar bound efreet 5 strands of Prayer Beads, each of which only contain a single Bead of Karma to boost its CL from 15 to 35, and only takes 2 wishes. I mean it still takes a 100,000gp in prayer beads, but think of all the gold you'll save on chicken sacrifices!

As amusing as this is, I honestly cannot think any sane DM, even a really fun, really open minded one in a really crazy, over the top game, would let you get away with these (VERY SPECIFIC) shenanigans (don't get me wrong, book bomb and giant cantrip bolt are great). For starters, without even getting into any other element of this... I just have a very hard time accepting the classification of an entire PLANE as an Object. Like essentially, I would have to say show me where it says in the RAW that a PLANE is an Object, because going on common sense alone, the sane assumption is that it isn't. Objects have certain defining traits...being breakable, being FINITE, not being the home to millions of sapient beings...that planes very manifestly DO NOT HAVE.

Anyway now I want to cast Animate Object on a gargantuan crossbow bolt. It's not efficient or powerful at all, it just amuses me.

[Pariah Dog]

You choose to fail your check. I believe you can "Take 1" on any roll you wish.

[erik]

You choose to fail your check. I believe you can "Take 1" on any roll you wish.

[Dogbert]

But what happens if you pass your Dispel Check? The book bomb is defused and just becomes 100 pages and 100 spell slots worth of wasted effort?

Ever since 2E, players can voluntarily fail checks if they so desire, so that's not an issue.

[Yak_Forger]

I was going to say that, so that you don't HAVE to roll enough dice to create a trench in your gaming table. I mean, in most cases, you'd fail the rolls somewhere between the first and fourth try, but you're never protected against such tests of fate such as rolling a dozen straight 6s or 1s in a row... I experienced the latter by myself when playing a tabletop wargame and got absolutely stomped despite having an advantage, I'd have thought someone messed with my dice if I hadn't clearly seen my opponent use the very same ones repeatedly!

[Neurosis]

I actually didn't know that you could "Take 1". But then again I've never really run into a situation where I wanted to fail a test.

Book Bomb is awesome. Honestly, I don't even consider it cheese, let alone broken. I mean casting all of those explosive runes is a HUGE investment of time, ink, and paper for a one time use megabomb. It seems very balanced to me. Also it's I like that it's very scalable I mean, if you only have time to inscribe say 12 pages of explosive runes in your book bomb before you run into an "oh shit" monster you need to use it on, that's still 72d6 force damage which is adequately excessive to kill most things at most levels of the game.

[Hicks]

Added decanter rockets and "DnD is actually stargate, really" to the OP.

[TiaC]

How about the Wizard's Hat/Tinfoil Hat defense? Antimagic Field is dangerous, but can be defeated with a bit of prep. You get a tall metal cone, big enough to stand in. Then you cast Shrink Item on it, turning it into a cloth cone which you wear as a hat. When you enter an AMF, it snaps back to full size, breaking line of effect for the AMF and letting you teleport out.

[Aharon]

How about the Wizard's Hat/Tinfoil Hat defense? Antimagic Field is dangerous, but can be defeated with a bit of prep. You get a tall metal cone, big enough to stand in. Then you cast Shrink Item on it, turning it into a cloth cone which you wear as a hat. When you enter an AMF, it snaps back to full size, breaking line of effect for the AMF and letting you teleport out.

This is strength-dependent... Even a very thin cone still weighs about 50kg, so you need a high-strength wizard

[Echoes]

How about the Wizard's Hat/Tinfoil Hat defense? Antimagic Field is dangerous, but can be defeated with a bit of prep. You get a tall metal cone, big enough to stand in. Then you cast Shrink Item on it, turning it into a cloth cone which you wear as a hat. When you enter an AMF, it snaps back to full size, breaking line of effect for the AMF and letting you teleport out.

This is strength-dependent... Even a very thin cone still weighs about 50kg, so you need a high-strength wizard

What? Why would the weight matter? It weighs as much as a cloth cone weighs while shrunk. The only time it's unshrunk is if you're in an antimagic field, in which case you're standing under it and then teleporting out with it, whereupon it returns to being a cloth hat.

Shrink item is a ridiculously useful spell for a whole host of reasons. Shrink some entirely non-magical lava or acid (which stops burning while shrunk even!), and then when you encounter someone dumb enough to cast AMF, you simply surround them with a wall of stone and drop the shrunk lava in. The hazard un-shrinks thanks to the AMF and starts being mundane lava or acid again, and voila you've made your own entirely mundane death trap. The best part is, once their AMF runs out, your shrunk hazard goes right back to being cloth, so this trick is eminently reusable.

It can also be used to bypass locks, either by shrinking the door or by shrinking the lock (to open a chest, for example). At high enough levels, you can even shrink things like bridges or sections of wall since you get 2 cubic feet per level. Really, any problem you can bypass by making something up to 1/16th it's normal size can be solved by shrink item. Fire is explicitly cited in the spell text, and a 10th-level wizard can shrink 20 cubic feet of fire down and put it in his pocket for a rainy day - if you can't think of terrible, horrible, amazing things you can do with 20 cubic feet of fire, you're not trying hard enough.

For other tricks, there's the Kindle Spellbook. Secret page is a crazy spell that lets you change the text a page shows, including explicitly changing spell text. It's also permanent, so every time you have downtime, you can expand your spellbook by simply casting secret page over and over, with the keyword simply being the name of the spell and the page number for it (Fireball, page 1. Fireball, page 2. Fireball, page 3.)

For bonus points, don't use a book - get yourself a "page" of adamantine (or even better, obdurium) and cast harden and the like to make it a ridiculously durable tablet that contains all of your spells. Best part is, this entirely bypasses the need to pay money and take all that time scribing spells, and you don't use up valuable scrolls.

For the Book Bomb, remember too that your familiar uses your skill ranks, and Ravens can speak a language, which means if you take ranks in Use Magic Device they can active magic items like wands and scrolls. Give your familiar a wand of dispel magic, and they can ready actions to dispel the book bomb when it reaches its target, saving you the trouble of spending an actual slot on doing so. Also, consider launch item (potentially also in wand form) for long-range delivery of the payload to the precise location desired.

The last trick is more of a build trick than it is a specific tactic, but every Wizard should take the Spontaneous Divination ACF from Complete Champion. For the cost of your 5th-level bonus feat, you gain the ability to spontaneously cast any Divination spells you know. This in and of itself is amazing. You can burn all your spell slots left at the end of the day on useful divinations to better prepare for tomorrow, and you can always have useful divinations on hand if the need arises without having to "waste" a prepared slot on them just in case. Also, it allows you to take the Versatile Spellcaster feat from Races of the Dragon, which simply requires the ability to spontaneously cast spells (meaning Clerics and Druids both automagically qualify as well by dint of existing). This feat lets you "trade up" spells by burning two slots of a given level to cast any spell you know of one level higher. Given how spells (roughly) double in power every spell level, this is a damn good trade a lot of the time and can let you turn lower-level slots into heavy-hitting spells when you'd otherwise be out of your big guns. Lastly (and this bit does get extra cheesy, so user beware), a Wizard's spells known is their spellbook, which means if you can snag yourself some caster level increases (2, to be precise, as you need to be able to meet the minimum caster level requirement for casting a spell of a given level), you can even burn two of your highest-level spell slots to cast a spell of the next level up, so long as you've got one scribed in your spellbook.

[Aharon]

What? Why would the weight matter? It weighs as much as a cloth cone weighs while shrunk.

Nope, it just has the composition of one:

You are able to shrink one nonmagical item (if it is within the size limit) to 1/16 of its normal size in each dimension (to about 1/4,000 the original volume and mass). This change effectively reduces the object’s size by four categories. Optionally, you can also change its now shrunken composition to a clothlike one. Objects changed by a shrink item spell can be returned to normal composition and size merely by tossing them onto any solid surface or by a word of command from the original caster. Even a burning fire and its fuel can be shrunk by this spell. Restoring the shrunken object to its normal size and composition ends the spell.

Steel and Adamantium are heavy, even 1/4000th of a dome you fit in is still pretty heavy. I did the calculation for a medium-size caster, though - small is better of.

[deaddmwalking]

Steel and Adamantium are heavy, even 1/4000th of a dome you fit in is still pretty heavy. I did the calculation for a medium-size caster, though - small is better of.

I'd be curious to see your calculations. We know that weapons and armor made of adamantine weigh the same as their normal counterparts while mithral specifically addresses reduced weight.

In imperial units, iron and steel weigh virtually the same at ~500 per cubic foot. A cone 6' tall with radius 3' has an area of about 90 feet (91.5). If we assume a cone 1 inch think we can divide 90 by 12 for a total of 7.5 cubic feet of iron/steel. We end up with less than 4000 pounds total (3750). Since the spell description of shrink item tells us that we can divide the weight by 4,000, we end up with a cone that weighs approximately 1 pound.

I think a basecall cap is around 1/4 of a pound; and there is no reason you'd have to make the cone even 1 inch thick - if you make it 1/2 an inch it would weigh 1/2 a pound while shrunk; if you make it 1/4 of an inch it will weigh 1/4 a pound while shrunk.

[Echoes]

What? Why would the weight matter? It weighs as much as a cloth cone weighs while shrunk.

Nope, it just has the composition of one:

You are able to shrink one nonmagical item (if it is within the size limit) to 1/16 of its normal size in each dimension (to about 1/4,000 the original volume and mass). This change effectively reduces the object’s size by four categories. Optionally, you can also change its now shrunken composition to a clothlike one. Objects changed by a shrink item spell can be returned to normal composition and size merely by tossing them onto any solid surface or by a word of command from the original caster. Even a burning fire and its fuel can be shrunk by this spell. Restoring the shrunken object to its normal size and composition ends the spell.

Steel and Adamantium are heavy, even 1/4000th of a dome you fit in is still pretty heavy. I did the calculation for a medium-size caster, though - small is better of.

Uh ... a 6-foot diameter cone at the base with 8-foot side lengths comes out to a lateral surface area of about 76 sq. feet. Plugging that into some rough weight calculators for steel (assuming you started with a 1-inch thick sheet) gives us about 3103 lbs. Which, yeah, is fucking heavy. Until you divide it by 4000, meaning our hat weighs ~3/4s lb. when shrunk, which is heavier than your typical baseball cap but not exactly burdensome. It's also kind of small as a hat, to be honest, and you'd probably want to go up to something like an 8-foot diameter base, which shrinks down to ~6 inches and should make for a decently wearable hat (although depending on the exact shape of your cone might push the weight to just shy of ~2 lbs., which is still perfectly wearable even if it is substantially heavier than a baseball cap.

Now, I don't know how much heaver adamantine is than steel since the DMG doesn't specify a weight difference for armor/weapons made out of it, but I somehow doubt it's on the order of 50x heavier.

Edit: @deaddmwalking - are you factoring in the area of the base as well? I'm wondering how my larger cone is somehow a smaller surface area than yours, unless I'm just bungling the math.

[erik]

The point is you almost never have these mass/size calculations in DnD without shrink item. Making it an awesome spell.

I want a version of shrink item that lets me shrink even more cubic feet. I want to go full ant man. Steal buildings, throw enormous stone statues at people.

[deaddmwalking]

Edit: @deaddmwalking - are you factoring in the area of the base as well? I'm wondering how my larger cone is somehow a smaller surface area than yours, unless I'm just bungling the math.

Turns out I did include the base of the cone. Rather than running the numbers, I used an online calculator and didn't notice that it included the base.

If you're supposed to be inside of it after it returns to normal size, and you're wearing it like a hat, I assumed the bottom was open - I'm imagining a cone like a dunce cap with a 3' radius and a 6' height. Honestly, a smaller cone is probably practical as well if you're willing to crouch.

A strict reading of emanations (like antimagic field indicate that it can't affect creatures with full cover from the point the spell emanates from, and that it cannot go through walls - once the cone is in contact with the ground I think it qualifies.

So yeah, take almost 30 square feet from my answer and it is even easier to make it work.

[Hicks]

Anti-anti-magic hat.

[Aharon]

I don't have the original calculations available anymore - I debated them here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthre ... munity-3-5)

and did the original calculation here: (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/ ... izard?pg=1). It's not available anymore, and I haven't stored them on my hard drive, sorry.

I think we agreed a higher thickness was necessary - the original idea was to prevent monsters from just damaging the hat to restore line of effect for the AMF with the first attack of their full attack action.

[Echoes]

I don't have the original calculations available anymore - I debated them here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthre ... munity-3-5)

and did the original calculation here: (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/ ... izard?pg=1). It's not available anymore, and I haven't stored them on my hard drive, sorry.

I think we agreed a higher thickness was necessary - the original idea was to prevent monsters from just damaging the hat to restore line of effect for the AMF with the first attack of their full attack action.

The only thing I can think is that you were calculating the mass off of the total volume of the cone, rather than only accounting for a 1-inch thick sheet.

Obdurium (from the Stronghold Builder's Guide) has hardness of 30 and 40 hp per inch of thickness. You can get that to a hardness of 40 via the hardening spell (from the Spell Compendium), which is permanent so you just do that eventually. Adamantine only pierces hardness up to 20, so even with adamantine weapons there basically isn't a monster that's going to punch through an inch of obdurium in a single attack (unless you're fighting basically PCs using Power Attack and charge modifiers to skyrocket damage), much less hardened. Even just hardened adamantine is basically impenetrable for the time you care.

That's not even accounting for immediate-action responses to the AMF coming into range - celerity is a spell and means as soon as the cone forms you just get the hell out of dodge before they even get an attack and come back in 5 rounds to murder them super hard. Hell, I'd potentially even leave the cone just so they waste their time hacking through it, that way I know where they'll be when I return.

[Kaelik]

I don't have the original calculations available anymore - I debated them here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthre ... munity-3-5)

and did the original calculation here: (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/ ... izard?pg=1). It's not available anymore, and I haven't stored them on my hard drive, sorry.

I think we agreed a higher thickness was necessary - the original idea was to prevent monsters from just damaging the hat to restore line of effect for the AMF with the first attack of their full attack action.

If they used specifically Move and then Attack, then and only then they could make one attack. But if they charged or something, then the cone blocks their charge they don't get an attack, and then it is your turn to cast teleport.

[deaddmwalking]

I don't have the original calculations available anymore - I debated them here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthre ... munity-3-5)

I'm guessing that your original calculations were incorrect, and nobody at GitP challenged them (or checked them). Proof of different sites catering to different kinds of people, probably.

Iron and Steel are both between 7000-8000 kg per cubic meter. Let's assume 7,500 kg per cubic meter as a good ballpark figure. A solid cone 2 meters tall and 1 meter radius has a volume of just over 2 cubic meters (2.09). A solid cone would have a weight of around 15000 kg (15,675 kg or close to 35k pounds). When you shrink the item, you get a weight of only 3.9 kg (8 1/2 pounds). To get a weight of 50kg, you'd need more than 12 times the volume. That's roughly a radius of 3.5 meters, height of 2 meters (6 feet high/24 feet in diameter). Maybe you were thinking of having something for the whole party? And you forgot it had empty space inside?

But hey, don't feel bad. Most people don't even bother to try to figure these kinds of things out.

[maglag]

Obdurium (from the Stronghold Builder's Guide) has hardness of 30 and 40 hp per inch of thickness. You can get that to a hardness of 40 via the hardening spell (from the Spell Compendium), which is permanent so you just do that eventually. Adamantine only pierces hardness up to 20, so even with adamantine weapons there basically isn't a monster that's going to punch through an inch of obdurium in a single attack (unless you're fighting basically PCs using Power Attack and charge modifiers to skyrocket damage), much less hardened. Even just hardened adamantine is basically impenetrable for the time you care.

Ah yes because adamantine is such a cheap widely available material you can easily afford man-sized items out of it.

And why would the enemy care what your hat is made of?

A hat is still a hat. Doesn't matter the size, if you have an hat equipped it won't become conveniently de-equipped just because it changed size, and equipment doesn't do anything to block line of effect.

Otherwise you don't even need magic, with that insane line of reasoning you just need to wear multiple layers of big bags over your head and presto, full immunity to everything!

That's not even accounting for immediate-action responses to the AMF coming into range - celerity is a spell and means as soon as the cone forms you just get the hell out of dodge before they even get an attack and come back in 5 rounds to murder them super hard. Hell, I'd potentially even leave the cone just so they waste their time hacking through it, that way I know where they'll be when I return.

Ah, I love it how in monsters vs wizard the monster is treated as super-retarded and will just stand there attacking an inanimate object for full 5 rounds despite there not being any sound from inside anymore.

Or that they'll just lift the object.

Or you know, as soon as AMF is near you then it's too late to cast celerity because you're already inside the AMF.

[Echoes]

Obdurium (from the Stronghold Builder's Guide) has hardness of 30 and 40 hp per inch of thickness. You can get that to a hardness of 40 via the hardening spell (from the Spell Compendium), which is permanent so you just do that eventually. Adamantine only pierces hardness up to 20, so even with adamantine weapons there basically isn't a monster that's going to punch through an inch of obdurium in a single attack (unless you're fighting basically PCs using Power Attack and charge modifiers to skyrocket damage), much less hardened. Even just hardened adamantine is basically impenetrable for the time you care.

Ah yes because adamantine is such a cheap widely available material you can easily afford man-sized items out of it.

Adamantine armor exists, and is only moderately expensive at that. Fabricate exists. This is literally a trivial issue for any mid-level wizard (which is what we're talking about).

And why would the enemy care what your hat is made of?

A hat is still a hat. Doesn't matter the size, if you have an hat equipped it won't become conveniently de-equipped just because it changed size, and equipment doesn't do anything to block line of effect.

Otherwise you don't even need magic, with that insane line of reasoning you just need to wear multiple layers of big bags over your head and presto, full immunity to everything!

What the fuck are you talking about? It's a cone that's been shrunk by magic that is being worn as a hat. When it enters an antimagic field the spell is suppressed and it turns back into a full-size cone. Or is your argument seriously that you have "equipment slots" and that once you put something on it's stuck there through some arbitrary bullshit mechanism? Because that's quite possibly the dumbest fucking meta-game nonsense I've ever heard.

That's not even accounting for immediate-action responses to the AMF coming into range - celerity is a spell and means as soon as the cone forms you just get the hell out of dodge before they even get an attack and come back in 5 rounds to murder them super hard. Hell, I'd potentially even leave the cone just so they waste their time hacking through it, that way I know where they'll be when I return.

Ah, I love it how in monsters vs wizard the monster is treated as super-retarded and will just stand there attacking an inanimate object for full 5 rounds despite there not being any sound from inside anymore.

Or that they'll just lift the object.[/i]

Sure, those things could totally happen. I actually don't care - the point is that they are spending time farting around with a fucking metal cone, and not scarpering off. Edit: Also, I don't know if you kipped over the entire discussion on just how much the cone actually weighs, but it's right around 2 tons, so lifting it isn't exactly a trivial task under normal circumstances even for your average monster. There are no doubt some monsters who could, but it's not like it's a simple endeavor to pick it up and look under it when it isn't magic'd into a hat.

Or you know, as soon as AMF is near you then it's too late to cast celerity because you're already inside the AMF.

Hence the giant metal cone that blocks line of effect, dumbass.

[Thaluikhain]

While an inventive idea, I'm not sure I'd like suddenly to have about a ton of giant metal hat spring into existence on top of my head. Seems like a lot of ways that could go wrong. If it wasn't perfectly aligned with your head, or it was but your head wasn't, for example.

[rampaging-poet]

Old-school stupid wizard trick I came across while re-reading the 2E Tome of Magic: Schrodinger's Armour.

The Wild Magic spell There/Not There affects all objects within a 10'cube. it has no saving throw, and probably no magic resist because it targets objects and not creatures though it's hard to say. Drop that 10' cube on armoured enemies and watch as 50% of their stuff just isn't there when the look for it. Every weapon, every potion, all of their armour - everything might just not exist to them, or at least not exist for one of your allies trying to stick pointy things in them. In the best case scenario and depending on interpretation of "not-there" their stuff could end up in a heap on the ground as they step away from it. Even if it's just a one-shot 50% chance an important magic item goes missing it's not a bad debuff against targets with good saving throws.

The only downside is you have to try and figure out WTF There/Not There actually does. The two examples mostly contradict each other: people can walk through "not there" doors, but "not there" boulders still somehow deflect arrows.

[Thaluikhain]

The only downside is you have to try and figure out WTF There/Not There actually does.

Yeah, seems like it'd be a good way to cause long and pointless arguments rather than anything else.