Some of it was hanging the DM with his own rope. That stuff with the planar boundary between negative energy and void is setting-specific, for example, and the DM was clearly fine with screwing up the cosmology for his own purposes (see: some manner of Plane of Force). DM just was apparently incredibly stupid, so I wouldn't rate it as any kind of meaningful optimization accomplishment beyond the humor (which is substantial).
Here's one I remember fondly, devised to deal with a level 20 Psion abusing an invulnerability trick:
While within a Time-Stop (Extended via a metamagic rod), a simple 5th level spell (Wall of Stone) domed around the wizard can invalidate the need to worry about Antimagic Fields, casting while silenced or grappled, Energy Balls, Energy Bolts, Mordenkainen's Disjunctions, Crystal Shards, Ectoplasmic Cocoons, and a huge number of other spells, powers, tactics, and effects. Building a WoS inside of a Prismatic Sphere protects the WoS from taking any kind of damage until the Sphere is taken care of (and unless your psion has a Rod of Cancellation handy, he ain't taking it down). The Ring Gates I mentioned earlier could just as easily be held by some summonables, rather than glued to the foreheads of some really nasty CR 27 dragons (which I also did via Time-Stop). And guess what? Many of my summoned creatures have some very high-level casting abilities - and you'd better believe that an army of them is coming for you.
The only way to get in is to Metamorphosis into a creature that can burrow (which is why I'd plan on casting Wall of Iron to push over and stand on), or to teleport in (which is why I'd cast Dimensional Anchor on the walls).
I could have my familiar running around in an Antimagic Field effect. All it would have to do would be to run within 10 feet of you. Then the aforesaid dragons would likely eat you alive. If that didn't work, I'd make a Knowledge: Psionics check, likely figuring out that it was your psicrown that was giving you invulnerability, and have my dragons use their entire attack routines to sunder it (and any other equipment you were carrying, just in case).
Assuming that you managed to kill my familiar, and survived the Summoned/Gated creatures, then found ways around my turtle-shell, AND somehow got to me, I used my free time in my temporal plastic bubble to cast Shapechange, which means that I'm now an incorporeal undead, so you'll likely not be able to hurt me. And if you get past the 50% miss-chance imposed by incorporeality, I also used a Limited Wish to get a Contingencied Dimension-Door to transport me 5' underground, if something actually can damage me; since I'm incorporeal, I can exist within solid matter, so that's specifically allowed. Good luck getting to me there.
Also, to counteract your Schism effect, I have about 5 10th-level Simulacrums running around, trying to hit you with Forcecages and such (and unlike yours, they have no duration, have a full complement of spells as 10th-level casters, and don't drain any of my current resources). They were in my Bag of Holding, which I dumped out as a move-action on one of my plastic-bubble rounds, or perhaps on a later round; it doesn't matter that much.
And, assuming that you somehow managed to survive, have taken down all of my defenses, and then *killed* me, remember that it wasn't actually *me.* You've been fighting my Astral Projection this whole time, which has instantaneously returned to my real body (which is in my Bag of Holding, inert and in stasis). What this means is that I can learn from my mistakes and try to kill you all over again. By that time, you're likely down to 1/2 your power points or less, assuming that I haven't killed you after my familiar's AMF, my MKDs or my dragons' sunders and MKDs (or AMFs) take out your Timeless Body. Stat damage/drain is horrible, especially to either a manifesting stat (Int) or one of your weaker stats (Con or Cha), not to mention innumerable save-or-dies that target your rather weak Fortitude save (and that's not even including the spells that make you suffer without a single save - such as Otto's Irresistable Dance or Maze).
And to keep you and that pesky psicrystal from galavanting about with teleportation spells, my dragons and I have hit you with a half dozen Dimensional Anchor spells - touch attack, no save. You ain't going anywhere.
And, assuming you killed me AGAIN somehow (as I Extended Time-Stopped before teleporting out of the bag, and put up my defenses again), note that I had at least one Clone in my Bag of Holding (which is now me, and I could have more - note that all it costs is, at most, 1500 gp, and that I can have as many of these as I like, up to my gp limit), and that it's about to be teleporting out to keep up the barrage of spells that I've been flinging at you.
And before you start yelling about how I'm chewing through my spell-slots like mad, note that I've perhaps only actually casted a few spells from slots. The rest have been through my chock-full Rods of Absorption, and perhaps a few scrolls (and I can have tons of these, if I wanted them). Thus, I've only used a fraction of my resources thus far.
We are, at most, 15 rounds or so in. You've hardly been able to touch me, very likely, and if you have, I'm still in the running.
Still want to duel using legitimate maneuvers? Every single one of those are RAW, RAI, allowable uses of arcane power.
EDIT: In case of confusion, the above spoiler was not my work. Though I wish I could claim the credit.
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Topic: [MILK] There were 12 eggs here what did you do with them? (Happy thread?!) (Read 16286827 times)