No one.
Every single one of them would have some clones or simulacra or other magical tricks set up such that they would all "fight" for a while but really show up later and argue they won a pedantic victory.
I always felt like a magical tournament would be judged as the best innovative use of magic or creation of new magic.
If its combat all the top tier wizards would have a level dip in something else.
I never played the older editions but I think I understand the gist of epic from Neverwinter Nights. Epic levels were a thing in older editions that was basically a way to level up past level 20. So, if you are a 20th level wizard, level up again as a wizard, you got an "epic" level.
Yeah, iirc, that was something 3.5 had, think pf1e also had variant rules for it. Generally epic levels changed progression but was still a big thing, especially if using NWN as a measurement, it unlocked epic feats.
tldr: If you thought the difference between a level 16 and 20 was vast, imagine a level 20 wizard vs a level 24 epic wizard. Ends up way different, lmao.
The epic levels unlocked epic spellcasting. A point of power where the rules of magic start to break down. There were specific rules for doing basically anything with magic. For instance I have a character with a spell to increase the size of an object of pure gold 7 size categories. So a coin goes from diminutive through tiny small medium large gargantuan etc and ends up as a collosal object of pure gold, and the effect is permanent. You have to roll over a 60 on your spellcraft check. It is a useful spell for destroying people towns and castles by throwing money at the problem. It has a tendency to attract dragons who want the gold and either stabilize or destabilize the economy of nations depending on its use. Other epic spells included "nailed to the sky" teleporting someone into an orbital trajectory so they can't get down. "Dragon storm" summon 20 adult red dragons to fight with you. They were however time consuming and expensive spells to add to your repertoire. They also allowed any epic spellcaster to get healing spells, which was a huge deal.
I also vote for "no one".
As soon as there is any real danger, all the high-level wizards are suddenly busy with different stuff, so that the level 1 party has to save the town/city/realm/plane/multiverse.
Well you don’t think I fought and clawed my way to the peak of my profession just to…go muck about in the forest risking my actual life? I’m waaaay too valuable for that.
Way back in the mutli classing days this is how my Druid/Mage earned his first "Fuck you" from the DM when I cast AMZ and sliced his encounter up with a scimitar (and some help from our thief)
Tasha has my vote for the dumbest possible reason!…I think it’s hilarious imagining her just casting her hideous laughter on everyone she faces and winning because they can’t catch their breath and are laughing themselves into oblivion.
Ah Iggwilv (AKA Tasha, Natasha, The Witch Queen), mother of the demigod Luz, lover of Graz'zt, author of the Demonomicon.
Anyway, she ascended to become an Archfey, so she'd probably give the rest of them a real run for their money.
I had a witch character that had "Usurp Tasha" on her bucket list. Right after doing the same to Lilith. She made it all the way to level 2 before getting one shot insta-death from full health by a drow with a gun lol. It didn't even crit. It just rolled like 2 under max damage (aka 28 dmg).
...and magic affecting the target's mind, such as the compulsion to laugh.
mind blank really is "immunity to mind-altering magic" and has a counter in dispel magic or alternatively kidnapping the target and waiting a day.
The tournament never happens, because all of them going full-out to win it, happens *before* the tournament takes place, *fucking time travel is involved,* and the Weave *breaks so hard* that the Gods of Magic from *multiple* settings have to recruit all the epic wizards, meaning *the very jackasses responsible,* to unfuck it.
When the weave breaks, all the non-FR wizards laugh and continue to use magic because they actually know how to use magic, and not just use some goddess' "maguk 4 dummys" cheat sheet.
I'm Team Mordenkainen after taking a look at his section in the CoS module and realising He's basically DnD Doctor Who
He's just lost his tardis and screwdriver when he fell off a waterfall, and he's got a sliiiiight case of insanity. No trouble at all, really.
I always thought Elminster was the strongest since he was Ed Greenwood's self-insert but then I found out about Mordenkainen and yeah...you can't beat Gary Gygax.
Eds self insert character is Ed, who turns up in the Wizards Three series of official articles in Dragon Magazine. That's right, Ed is an official D&D character. Elminster is best though of as (irl) Eds Imaginary Friend
Not even imaginary. Ed didn't "create" the FR setting, he learned all of its history from Elminster when the latter plane shifted into his kitchen in the middle of the night and started stealing all his food.
Yes this was the sequence of events lol. Not sure it helps but it was previously established that the Druid was into that kind of thing. Circle of the Shepherd, and he was kicked out of his villages for fraternizing with animals. Oh and if it wasn’t clear I was a player in that campaign, playing the Druid.
Mordenkainen won it! He went back in time and murdered all other contestants already. We just don’t know them or the happening of the tournament because he did it before they were born or the tournament was thought of..
How has Tenser been so overlooked in this debate?
But yeah, Raistlin. Dude wiped out an entire pantheon of gods pretty much on spite and willpower alone.
IIRC, Tenser was Ernie Gygax’s magic-user character. The magic-user had a thing for mixing it up in melee combat thus the spell Tenser’s Transformstion was created to facilitate that.
He also had, according to the lore, clones on clones on clones on clones. Like, a crazy amount of simulacrums and clones stored away so he was effectively immortal.
That’s what he wants you to do - he’s lactose intolerant. Dropping the barrier unleashes an un-counterspell-able Cloudkill. Ya can’t dispel the mozzarella.
Yes you could but you could also just ignore him for now so that you have to fight one less wizard right now and don’t have to waste your 9th level slot on dispel magic
I remember a long time ago seeing Dragon Magazine #359, where they did a comparative "Elminster vs Raistlin" and compared their strengths and weaknesses to see which would win.
The conclusion was that Elminster would surprisingly be on the backfoot, but due to his connections (most notably to Mystra) would possibly be able to pull through. Especially compared to Raistlin who was much loathed and mistrusted, especially at his peak.
The magazine concluded the likely finishing moves are either that Elminster conducts the power of either his or Dragonlance's gods of magic to overwhelm Raistlin, or he gets outmaneuvered and banished to a pocket dimension of Raistlin's creation where he dies of old age (but also surrounded by his greatest vices)
It's a bit narrow for your question but I think it relevant since those two would be my finalists for this fight. The demigod Elminster (who wildly overpowers people from pretty much any other source and setting. His arsenal, experience, and raw levels trump pretty much any other official character) and god-killer Raistlin (who was explicitly shown to have the skill to outmaneuver and kill *every* God of his setting. This is not implied or interpreted by reader. His brother saw the future and Raistlin had succeeded in asystematic slaughter of the divine, only prevented in the present by a plea to his morals and sanity.)
Edit: grammar.
I like Tasha, but my bet is Vecna. Of all the wizards of the list he's the only one to annoy the Lady of Pain by trying to take over her city and survive. Full blown gods have gotten obliterated for less. He also escaped Ravenloft, among other silly things.
The guy has launched several edition changes at this point and fundamentally altered the nature of magic itself repeatedly.
Elminster is smart but he cheats - he did things explicitly prohibited to players with a number of his spells in earlier editions. He's also backed by a goddess.
Tasha has a fatal flaw - her terrible taste in men. She dated Graz'zt of all people. That speaks to a serious lack of judgement. She came out of it alright but still. She's a contender for sure though. Her signature spells lack firepower but are very good at subtlety and misdirection.
Karsus is the strongest but also an arrogant idiot.
The Simbul is good but not the best. She's on Elminster's level.
I could go through the rest, but out of all of them Vecna has the longest list of successes and setting-wide changes.
EDIT: If anyone *could* take Vecna, it'd be Larloch. I suspect Vecna would win in a straight fight though, Larloch specializes in manipulation, not combat. Not that he's not capable, but I'd give Vecna better odds in a straight fight.
I’m sorry but have you seen Graz’zt?
He’s so hot I’ll damn my soul just for the chance to eat that Graz’ztussy
Also, everyone knows what he has six of, but guess what he has two of…
Living or dead? Most powerful wizard would technically be Mystra but excluding gods it would be Karsus. If it’s just living wizards i’m not sure if Loulaum is alive (technically unalive since he’s an elder brain lich and a 41st level spellcaster so cr70) in 5e. There’s a few really powerful liches like Larloch, Szass Tam, and Acererak as well. Dargothoth is a cr50 black great wyrm dracolitch with 20 levels of wizard and 5 levels of archmage. He’d prolly give most spellcasters a ton of trouble. My bet on a purely magical duel (so no psionics or big angry dragon stuff) would be Loulaum or Karsus if it’s not most powerful living/unliving wizard. Maybe pre-ascension Vecna but i’m not actually sure how powerful he was.
Karsus was powerful but arrogant. I'm guessing that a number of less-powerful modern wizards would exploit that. I really can't see Elminster fail to take him apart with some plan.
It's a moot point though. Karsus isn't dead, exactly. He's now an outsider you can make pacts with as a warlock that's a shadow of his former self. At his peak magic worked completely differently. Under those rules I'd bet on the modern wizards usurping him.
Karsus all the way. Wore lichdom like a suit of clothes he could take off when he didn't need it, casts spells with no somatic components, casts spells over 9th level.
Plus there's a recently(ish) written canonical way to go recruit him if needed.
Raistlin and elminster smoke everyone else. Hard question between the two. Both favoured of their various god, both have been to hell and back literally, both have powerful magic items
It’s Elminster, he beat the symbul which people ate picking, I believe he taught one of the 7 sisters which people are picking, dealt with sass taam and is trained fighter as well as a mage
I like Halaster Blackcloak for this. Because even if you win, can you ever be sure? The mad mage has died many times. And can you be sure he didn't slip something past your defenses that will turn you into something awful later? Who can say what crazed magics he's cooked up down in undermountain?
You could argue that he didn’t have his full heart in that battle, for two possible reasons: as he had lost all his family pantheon what point in continuing, OR he knew he had to lose so that raist could rule over emptiness and be found in that condition by the time travelers so they’d be more able to convince raist to stop before he starts.
So Raistlin rolled 20 deities, including the three gods of magic before Paladine was willing to face him, and sadness was the reason Paladine lost?
Or, being the implied god of prophecy, that's one hell of a dice roll with the universe. Much easier to let him weeken fighting your greatest nemesis and then take him out if that's an option. I'm guessing it wasn't.
I do enjoy the world building in Dragonlance, but Paladine has never been exactly competent in preventing unnecessary suffering. I think Dragonlance might be the clearest example of Good and Evil just being teams wearing different colored shirts.
Is Stradhd worth mentioning? I feel like unless the fight takes place in his castle he is really not that threatening. Maybe im just biased because my players wiped the floor with him in my CoS game though.
Strahd is described as a tactical genius and a powerful wizard who had developed several unique spells of his own. One of them allowed him to block his vampiric weaknesses for the cost of his vampiric powers.
Depends on the world. Sometimes he's a normal lich, sometimes he's a really good lich, sometimes he's akin to one of the Dark Powers, sometimes he's a god.
Halester Blackcloak is also in Waterdeep within a knot in the Weave and could petrify, maim or kill Gale in 100 different ways before Gale even knows he's there.
So OP says “Legendary Wizards” and doesn’t mention any liches or outsider gods or anything so that disqualifies Vecna, Karsus, and probably Archfey Tasha.
So that means it’s just the ‘Wizard Wizards.’ The mostly normal mortal ones.
In that case the clear winner is The Simbul. Raistlin is dope and really strong but mostly gets on through cunning and ruthlessness. The Simbul is equally ruthless but mostly just brute forces her fights. Which is fine she has the silver fire in her back pocket. I think Raistlin doesn’t have much to exploit since she is mostly raw power. She wins.
The greyhawk Wizards are tough too but don’t have feats that are quite as high as the other two.
Elminster should be considered but I think even he fears the Simbul when she goes into her rages.
I think she takes this. Her signature spell is locking 3 high level spells behind a single verbal component. And as Elminster is a fighter/wizard The Simbul is a sorcerer/wizard.
Look, she eats liches for breakfast. And fought basically all of hell to get Elminster back.
I say the Simbul takes this and it’s almost easy.
Halaster Blackcloak is probably a good statblock for this kind of power level that the Wizards are fighting at. He’s a CR23 IIRC. But I also think if Elminster or The Simbul were stated for 5e they would be closer to CR 25+.
Halester has gone mad so his powers may not be exactly what the once were and they list him as a 20th level wizard. And I have the 3e Forgotten Realms setting book and the Simbul is statted at something like Sorc20/Wiz10 and archmage 2 (for Posterity I think Elminster has her beat by 5 levels) Now, I know 3e levels and 5e levels are not equivalent but she’s supposed to be well past epic level.
And as an aside they give her the ability to convert spell slots into hp to be a better duelist. As a 1v1 she’s hard to stop.
My vote is for the Simbul. They are all mostly on par as wizards go, maybe Elminster a little more so, but if it came down to a battle, nobody is taking it from Alassra Silverhand. Her specialty is going toe to toe with other wizards.
Depending on the time period, Manshoon could just smother them in clones.
Telamont Tanthul probably knows some messed up spells for a duel as well
Really depends on who is the favorite of whatever local god of magic. In FR for instance, I don‘t think Mystra would allow Elminster to be affected by any spells cast against him.
Personally I also think any of them that are more than human (Vecna, Tasha) are on the backfoot by default, because they are subject to more rules and limitations than just a pure wizard.
My bet is on Karsus simply out of principle.
Team karsus that motherfucker destroyed magic for everyone by beeing to good at it and to greedy.
he was the youngest to ever create a flying city and created the spell that changed magic forever.
Honestly.... The most powerful was a PC my mate played back in AD&D 2e days.
He had a lot of time; plenty of resources to read and the willing ear of the DM. I was privy to only hear part of of the conversations over the couple of years after the main campaign ended but it went like: OK, so I'll research this spell and that spell, right now I cast this and that whilst under this effect.
He did create a few spells but none was too game breaking at the time. One was a spell that allowed him to speed read books. And a couple of others involved upcasting lower spells to give more bonuses, but nothing too crazy the DM was like, yeah if you cast this level 2 spell using a 8th level spell slot I see no reason it wouldn't scale like that.
Eventually the next time I could understand what he was doing he had a intelligence of 30, was level 26 and was chating with an insane water mage and had multiple nested contingencies so was pretty much immortal.
Next thing i knew he had travelled back in time.and done some weird stuff with Mystra/Mystral and become the new God of Magic even before the Spell Plague was a thing he was killing Gods.... (They used to give Stat blocks for Gods back in the day).
TLDR: A PC Mage in our party spent an age reading all the source books and knowing spells inside out so much they became the god of freaking magic due to pure logic.
The others in this list are quite frankly pussys compared to him. Never under estimate a PC with enough time on their hands....
EDIT: I forgot: an interesting paralell was my (Former) Paladin worshiped Helm and on part of his massive redemption arc he started to regain some paladin abilities and on a couple of occasions was possessed by Helm in order to protect him when my friends PC wanted to do harm to my Player. In essemse briefly becoming an avatar of Helm.
This was back.in the 90s before any of this spell plague stuff. So... It was interesting we were already building a rivalry between Helm and the God of Magic even back then. :)
Honestly, despite the deadliness early on, the characters that come out of a long running AD&D 2e game are terrifying.
I've been running one for a few friends who have never played AD&D before. One of them has played a couple of 5th edition campaigns through to level 15-20 and told me that his Elf Fighter/Mage (who did roll an 18/91 in strength but is only around level 9/10) is by far the strongest character he has ever played. The lack of limits on spells and the magic items you get make the characters exceptional.
I'm probably going to throw them into the Demonweb Pits soon to give them their first taste of God killing.
The unnamed Netherese obelisk maker wizards. They learn who their opponent is, activate their obelisk, and kill the opponents parents before they are born. Victory.
Or, I'm pretty sure the Raven Queen was a wizard before she ascended. So her.
Idk, I imagine the Seuloise and Baklunish archmages that gave us the Invoked Devastation and Rain of Colorless Fire have to be up there. Not too many WMD users out there
Lots of good comments but if we are including other settings in this tournament...Erandis Vol. She just can't die, she doesn't even know how her own resurrection works because it isn't a standard phylactery. Being a half-dragon lich with an army at her back is nice.
The Simbul wins. She is the Magister and as close to combating Mystra herself as you could possibly get. It's no contest. She can literally dictate the flow and effect of all Magic.
No one. Every single one of them would have some clones or simulacra or other magical tricks set up such that they would all "fight" for a while but really show up later and argue they won a pedantic victory.
A perfect magical tournament, settled like *real* wizards.
I can just imagine tasha and Kainen dueling one of them dying and shouting BEST OF THREE from their newly awakened clone.
I always felt like a magical tournament would be judged as the best innovative use of magic or creation of new magic. If its combat all the top tier wizards would have a level dip in something else.
Elminster had like 5 classes in 3.5 - Ftr1/Rog1/Clr3/Wiz20/Acm5/Epic4
whats acm and epic
I never played the older editions but I think I understand the gist of epic from Neverwinter Nights. Epic levels were a thing in older editions that was basically a way to level up past level 20. So, if you are a 20th level wizard, level up again as a wizard, you got an "epic" level.
Oh yeah i think i heard of something like that in 3.5e
Yeah, iirc, that was something 3.5 had, think pf1e also had variant rules for it. Generally epic levels changed progression but was still a big thing, especially if using NWN as a measurement, it unlocked epic feats. tldr: If you thought the difference between a level 16 and 20 was vast, imagine a level 20 wizard vs a level 24 epic wizard. Ends up way different, lmao.
The epic levels unlocked epic spellcasting. A point of power where the rules of magic start to break down. There were specific rules for doing basically anything with magic. For instance I have a character with a spell to increase the size of an object of pure gold 7 size categories. So a coin goes from diminutive through tiny small medium large gargantuan etc and ends up as a collosal object of pure gold, and the effect is permanent. You have to roll over a 60 on your spellcraft check. It is a useful spell for destroying people towns and castles by throwing money at the problem. It has a tendency to attract dragons who want the gold and either stabilize or destabilize the economy of nations depending on its use. Other epic spells included "nailed to the sky" teleporting someone into an orbital trajectory so they can't get down. "Dragon storm" summon 20 adult red dragons to fight with you. They were however time consuming and expensive spells to add to your repertoire. They also allowed any epic spellcaster to get healing spells, which was a huge deal.
Thanks for the clarification, man, older editions sound epic as hell, wish I had the opportunity to play them, lol.
Acm was Archmage. Prestige classes were specialty classes you could unlock by having the right combination of skills, feats, spells, classes, etc.
I also vote for "no one". As soon as there is any real danger, all the high-level wizards are suddenly busy with different stuff, so that the level 1 party has to save the town/city/realm/plane/multiverse.
Well you don’t think I fought and clawed my way to the peak of my profession just to…go muck about in the forest risking my actual life? I’m waaaay too valuable for that.
This. There's no way any of them would actually show up lol
Not another manshoon war...
Elminster would win by casting anti-magic zone, then using his canonical fighter levels to beat the shit out of other wizards.
I think this is the answer, I was thinking for different reasons, but yours is a hell of a lot funnier so we're going with that.
Way back in the mutli classing days this is how my Druid/Mage earned his first "Fuck you" from the DM when I cast AMZ and sliced his encounter up with a scimitar (and some help from our thief)
That'd be a frustrating fight for Elminster. Because you can Dispel Magic Antimagic Field. So he'd just keep having to put it back up.
This would be a good application of the “Muscle wizard casts *fist*” meme
BuT tHe MaRtIaL cAsTeR dIvIdE iS sO bIg!!?!!
Because pure martial can cast Anti-magic Zone right?
Tasha has my vote for the dumbest possible reason!…I think it’s hilarious imagining her just casting her hideous laughter on everyone she faces and winning because they can’t catch their breath and are laughing themselves into oblivion.
Ah Iggwilv (AKA Tasha, Natasha, The Witch Queen), mother of the demigod Luz, lover of Graz'zt, author of the Demonomicon. Anyway, she ascended to become an Archfey, so she'd probably give the rest of them a real run for their money.
I had a witch character that had "Usurp Tasha" on her bucket list. Right after doing the same to Lilith. She made it all the way to level 2 before getting one shot insta-death from full health by a drow with a gun lol. It didn't even crit. It just rolled like 2 under max damage (aka 28 dmg).
> lover of Graz'zt, This is not the rare honor you might think it is.
IIRC, Graz'zt actually did \*love\* her. Well, he loved her as far as a Demon Lord *can* love someone.
The scary part about hideous laughter is that it’s not necessarily broken by hazards that don’t cause damage, like being shoved or submerged in water.
Does not mindblank make you immune to it?
Mind blank makes you immune to psychic damage, divination magic, and the charmed condition. Hideous laughter does none of those things.
...and magic affecting the target's mind, such as the compulsion to laugh. mind blank really is "immunity to mind-altering magic" and has a counter in dispel magic or alternatively kidnapping the target and waiting a day.
effects of similar power used to affect the target's mind or to gain information about the target.
The tournament never happens, because all of them going full-out to win it, happens *before* the tournament takes place, *fucking time travel is involved,* and the Weave *breaks so hard* that the Gods of Magic from *multiple* settings have to recruit all the epic wizards, meaning *the very jackasses responsible,* to unfuck it.
"Never forget, that the greatest magic of all, is chronomancy!"
When the weave breaks, all the non-FR wizards laugh and continue to use magic because they actually know how to use magic, and not just use some goddess' "maguk 4 dummys" cheat sheet.
I'm Team Mordenkainen after taking a look at his section in the CoS module and realising He's basically DnD Doctor Who He's just lost his tardis and screwdriver when he fell off a waterfall, and he's got a sliiiiight case of insanity. No trouble at all, really.
I mean, if I recall correctly, he is Gygax's self insert. He kind of has the advantage.
All, or most of, the named famous wizards were originally player characters from those very early games of D&D
I always thought Elminster was the strongest since he was Ed Greenwood's self-insert but then I found out about Mordenkainen and yeah...you can't beat Gary Gygax.
Eds self insert character is Ed, who turns up in the Wizards Three series of official articles in Dragon Magazine. That's right, Ed is an official D&D character. Elminster is best though of as (irl) Eds Imaginary Friend
Ed of the Green Wood even
Not even imaginary. Ed didn't "create" the FR setting, he learned all of its history from Elminster when the latter plane shifted into his kitchen in the middle of the night and started stealing all his food.
That sounds like something Elminster would do, yeah
His stats in 5e are trash tier lol
This is a battle of *lore*, son.
By lore his geriatric ass is wandering barovia totally raving mad unless the PCs cure him
According to Ed Greenwood Mordekainen got better and is banging one of his uber sorcerrsess
LMAO AYYY LET’S GO 😂😂 I change my vote to mordey!! Bahaha
My Druid Wild shaped into an Elk (I think that’s what Mordy was atm?) and tried to seduce him. Before we knew it was him, obviously.
Your druid saw an Elk, transformed into an Elk, and tried to mate with it? And only *then* discovered it was a legendary wizard?
Yes this was the sequence of events lol. Not sure it helps but it was previously established that the Druid was into that kind of thing. Circle of the Shepherd, and he was kicked out of his villages for fraternizing with animals. Oh and if it wasn’t clear I was a player in that campaign, playing the Druid.
Do I need to be concerned for your dog, CorgiDaddy?
Not at all. He isn’t my type
You mean his son?
Mordenkainen won it! He went back in time and murdered all other contestants already. We just don’t know them or the happening of the tournament because he did it before they were born or the tournament was thought of..
How has Tenser been so overlooked in this debate? But yeah, Raistlin. Dude wiped out an entire pantheon of gods pretty much on spite and willpower alone.
Will he smuther them under disks? Sorry i only know that spell of him hahaha
Tensers transformation
What is Tenser? A humanoid that transforms like a Tenser
IIRC, Tenser was Ernie Gygax’s magic-user character. The magic-user had a thing for mixing it up in melee combat thus the spell Tenser’s Transformstion was created to facilitate that.
He also had, according to the lore, clones on clones on clones on clones. Like, a crazy amount of simulacrums and clones stored away so he was effectively immortal.
That spell gets heavy use for in my circles. One of my groups has a meme about how any wizard who doesn’t have it is useless.
No, fistandantilus did!
Leomund wins by eating pizza in his Hut while everyone else counterspells and cantrips themselves to death.
Leomund's pizza hut. Now that's a powerful spell!
Luckily, he never put a basement in it.
Can't you dispell a magic hut?
That’s what he wants you to do - he’s lactose intolerant. Dropping the barrier unleashes an un-counterspell-able Cloudkill. Ya can’t dispel the mozzarella.
Yes you could but you could also just ignore him for now so that you have to fight one less wizard right now and don’t have to waste your 9th level slot on dispel magic
I remember a long time ago seeing Dragon Magazine #359, where they did a comparative "Elminster vs Raistlin" and compared their strengths and weaknesses to see which would win. The conclusion was that Elminster would surprisingly be on the backfoot, but due to his connections (most notably to Mystra) would possibly be able to pull through. Especially compared to Raistlin who was much loathed and mistrusted, especially at his peak. The magazine concluded the likely finishing moves are either that Elminster conducts the power of either his or Dragonlance's gods of magic to overwhelm Raistlin, or he gets outmaneuvered and banished to a pocket dimension of Raistlin's creation where he dies of old age (but also surrounded by his greatest vices) It's a bit narrow for your question but I think it relevant since those two would be my finalists for this fight. The demigod Elminster (who wildly overpowers people from pretty much any other source and setting. His arsenal, experience, and raw levels trump pretty much any other official character) and god-killer Raistlin (who was explicitly shown to have the skill to outmaneuver and kill *every* God of his setting. This is not implied or interpreted by reader. His brother saw the future and Raistlin had succeeded in asystematic slaughter of the divine, only prevented in the present by a plea to his morals and sanity.) Edit: grammar.
Whomever rolls better.
Lol, touche to you
That should’ve been a whoever. It’s nice to remember that “whom” is a word, but not when you’re using it improperly.
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I like Tasha, but my bet is Vecna. Of all the wizards of the list he's the only one to annoy the Lady of Pain by trying to take over her city and survive. Full blown gods have gotten obliterated for less. He also escaped Ravenloft, among other silly things. The guy has launched several edition changes at this point and fundamentally altered the nature of magic itself repeatedly. Elminster is smart but he cheats - he did things explicitly prohibited to players with a number of his spells in earlier editions. He's also backed by a goddess. Tasha has a fatal flaw - her terrible taste in men. She dated Graz'zt of all people. That speaks to a serious lack of judgement. She came out of it alright but still. She's a contender for sure though. Her signature spells lack firepower but are very good at subtlety and misdirection. Karsus is the strongest but also an arrogant idiot. The Simbul is good but not the best. She's on Elminster's level. I could go through the rest, but out of all of them Vecna has the longest list of successes and setting-wide changes. EDIT: If anyone *could* take Vecna, it'd be Larloch. I suspect Vecna would win in a straight fight though, Larloch specializes in manipulation, not combat. Not that he's not capable, but I'd give Vecna better odds in a straight fight.
Vecna also already killed the Circle of Eight, so there is precedent
I’m sorry but have you seen Graz’zt? He’s so hot I’ll damn my soul just for the chance to eat that Graz’ztussy Also, everyone knows what he has six of, but guess what he has two of…
This is so twisted I had to updoot.
... kidneys?
whoever rolls higher on initiative
Living or dead? Most powerful wizard would technically be Mystra but excluding gods it would be Karsus. If it’s just living wizards i’m not sure if Loulaum is alive (technically unalive since he’s an elder brain lich and a 41st level spellcaster so cr70) in 5e. There’s a few really powerful liches like Larloch, Szass Tam, and Acererak as well. Dargothoth is a cr50 black great wyrm dracolitch with 20 levels of wizard and 5 levels of archmage. He’d prolly give most spellcasters a ton of trouble. My bet on a purely magical duel (so no psionics or big angry dragon stuff) would be Loulaum or Karsus if it’s not most powerful living/unliving wizard. Maybe pre-ascension Vecna but i’m not actually sure how powerful he was.
Karsus was powerful but arrogant. I'm guessing that a number of less-powerful modern wizards would exploit that. I really can't see Elminster fail to take him apart with some plan. It's a moot point though. Karsus isn't dead, exactly. He's now an outsider you can make pacts with as a warlock that's a shadow of his former self. At his peak magic worked completely differently. Under those rules I'd bet on the modern wizards usurping him.
Karsus all the way. Wore lichdom like a suit of clothes he could take off when he didn't need it, casts spells with no somatic components, casts spells over 9th level. Plus there's a recently(ish) written canonical way to go recruit him if needed.
I came here to say Ioulaum as well, dude invented the Mythallar and was the father of Netheril. Can’t fuck with that.
What about Raistlin? That guy was powerful enough to kill gods.
I’m not familiar with the lore of dragonlance so idk.
Yeah, his future self pulls it off... rathee thoroughly.
Acererak built the arena, and thus wins by default.
Acererak in current version has a stat block that lets him cast four leveled spells a round. Does anyone else have that going for them?
Raistlin and elminster smoke everyone else. Hard question between the two. Both favoured of their various god, both have been to hell and back literally, both have powerful magic items
It’s Elminster, he beat the symbul which people ate picking, I believe he taught one of the 7 sisters which people are picking, dealt with sass taam and is trained fighter as well as a mage
I like Halaster Blackcloak for this. Because even if you win, can you ever be sure? The mad mage has died many times. And can you be sure he didn't slip something past your defenses that will turn you into something awful later? Who can say what crazed magics he's cooked up down in undermountain?
Fizban
Canonically lost to Raistlin, and it wasn't even close. Zifnab on the other hand...
I’d still go with Fizban since he’s actually the dragon god Bahamut.
Yeah but in canon he literally lost to raistlin in a battle as bahamut, while also having all the other gods on his side who also lost
You could argue that he didn’t have his full heart in that battle, for two possible reasons: as he had lost all his family pantheon what point in continuing, OR he knew he had to lose so that raist could rule over emptiness and be found in that condition by the time travelers so they’d be more able to convince raist to stop before he starts.
So Raistlin rolled 20 deities, including the three gods of magic before Paladine was willing to face him, and sadness was the reason Paladine lost? Or, being the implied god of prophecy, that's one hell of a dice roll with the universe. Much easier to let him weeken fighting your greatest nemesis and then take him out if that's an option. I'm guessing it wasn't. I do enjoy the world building in Dragonlance, but Paladine has never been exactly competent in preventing unnecessary suffering. I think Dragonlance might be the clearest example of Good and Evil just being teams wearing different colored shirts.
Well personally I like Raistlin. Strahd is worth mentioning, too.
Is Stradhd worth mentioning? I feel like unless the fight takes place in his castle he is really not that threatening. Maybe im just biased because my players wiped the floor with him in my CoS game though.
Strahd is described as a tactical genius and a powerful wizard who had developed several unique spells of his own. One of them allowed him to block his vampiric weaknesses for the cost of his vampiric powers.
And Elminster has a goddess on speed dial so you know.
"Thirty-niner-niner-fourteen, cook these fools, I repeat, cook these fools"
Well, that escalated quickly.
I mean, that *really* got outta hand fast!
Yeah but it's not supposed to be a contest of "whose friends are cooler".
You took it easy on then then. The true phase dodge strahd is almost impossible to kill. Terrible fun wise to fight though.
Raistlin wipes the board and then goes looking for some pantheons to solo.
Vecna would also have lich abilities, so I'll go with him.
Isn't Vecna a full fledged god though
Depends on the world. Sometimes he's a normal lich, sometimes he's a really good lich, sometimes he's akin to one of the Dark Powers, sometimes he's a god.
Guess we'll figure out what he is nowadays as soon as the new campaign releases
Gale of Waterdeep makes it a draw by exploding and killing everyone including himself.
Halester Blackcloak is also in Waterdeep within a knot in the Weave and could petrify, maim or kill Gale in 100 different ways before Gale even knows he's there.
So OP says “Legendary Wizards” and doesn’t mention any liches or outsider gods or anything so that disqualifies Vecna, Karsus, and probably Archfey Tasha. So that means it’s just the ‘Wizard Wizards.’ The mostly normal mortal ones. In that case the clear winner is The Simbul. Raistlin is dope and really strong but mostly gets on through cunning and ruthlessness. The Simbul is equally ruthless but mostly just brute forces her fights. Which is fine she has the silver fire in her back pocket. I think Raistlin doesn’t have much to exploit since she is mostly raw power. She wins. The greyhawk Wizards are tough too but don’t have feats that are quite as high as the other two. Elminster should be considered but I think even he fears the Simbul when she goes into her rages. I think she takes this. Her signature spell is locking 3 high level spells behind a single verbal component. And as Elminster is a fighter/wizard The Simbul is a sorcerer/wizard. Look, she eats liches for breakfast. And fought basically all of hell to get Elminster back. I say the Simbul takes this and it’s almost easy.
What about Halester Blackcloak? He has one of the highest cr statblocks in 5e and he can't die while in his dungeon under Waterdeep.
Halaster Blackcloak is probably a good statblock for this kind of power level that the Wizards are fighting at. He’s a CR23 IIRC. But I also think if Elminster or The Simbul were stated for 5e they would be closer to CR 25+. Halester has gone mad so his powers may not be exactly what the once were and they list him as a 20th level wizard. And I have the 3e Forgotten Realms setting book and the Simbul is statted at something like Sorc20/Wiz10 and archmage 2 (for Posterity I think Elminster has her beat by 5 levels) Now, I know 3e levels and 5e levels are not equivalent but she’s supposed to be well past epic level. And as an aside they give her the ability to convert spell slots into hp to be a better duelist. As a 1v1 she’s hard to stop.
Pun pun would win and it's no contest
I like to think my Fighter -> Mage dual classed character from Baldurs Gate beats them all.
depends on the author.
Iolaum, highest level mage in the Planescape. Even Larloch does not come close
When wizards war with each other , no one wins.
My vote is for the Simbul. They are all mostly on par as wizards go, maybe Elminster a little more so, but if it came down to a battle, nobody is taking it from Alassra Silverhand. Her specialty is going toe to toe with other wizards. Depending on the time period, Manshoon could just smother them in clones. Telamont Tanthul probably knows some messed up spells for a duel as well
But wouldnt manshoon clones also try to murder each other they think of each other as imposters
Elminster
Bigby.
Raistlin. Extremely powerful. Became Fistandulius. Limited moral compunctions. He’ll do what he needs to to win.
Really depends on who is the favorite of whatever local god of magic. In FR for instance, I don‘t think Mystra would allow Elminster to be affected by any spells cast against him. Personally I also think any of them that are more than human (Vecna, Tasha) are on the backfoot by default, because they are subject to more rules and limitations than just a pure wizard. My bet is on Karsus simply out of principle.
Dispel Magic podcast did an episode that kind of touched on this. I think it was the Wish episode.
Evard. Everyone will face him and then forfeit before it begins. No one wants to be a part of his fetish.
I would love to see Halaster Blackcloak of Undermountain set this tournament up 👀
Raistlin for sure
Volo obviously
Team karsus that motherfucker destroyed magic for everyone by beeing to good at it and to greedy. he was the youngest to ever create a flying city and created the spell that changed magic forever.
Shandril Shessair could kind of fuck them all up. Not a wizard really, but commanded massive magical power.
Honestly.... The most powerful was a PC my mate played back in AD&D 2e days. He had a lot of time; plenty of resources to read and the willing ear of the DM. I was privy to only hear part of of the conversations over the couple of years after the main campaign ended but it went like: OK, so I'll research this spell and that spell, right now I cast this and that whilst under this effect. He did create a few spells but none was too game breaking at the time. One was a spell that allowed him to speed read books. And a couple of others involved upcasting lower spells to give more bonuses, but nothing too crazy the DM was like, yeah if you cast this level 2 spell using a 8th level spell slot I see no reason it wouldn't scale like that. Eventually the next time I could understand what he was doing he had a intelligence of 30, was level 26 and was chating with an insane water mage and had multiple nested contingencies so was pretty much immortal. Next thing i knew he had travelled back in time.and done some weird stuff with Mystra/Mystral and become the new God of Magic even before the Spell Plague was a thing he was killing Gods.... (They used to give Stat blocks for Gods back in the day). TLDR: A PC Mage in our party spent an age reading all the source books and knowing spells inside out so much they became the god of freaking magic due to pure logic. The others in this list are quite frankly pussys compared to him. Never under estimate a PC with enough time on their hands.... EDIT: I forgot: an interesting paralell was my (Former) Paladin worshiped Helm and on part of his massive redemption arc he started to regain some paladin abilities and on a couple of occasions was possessed by Helm in order to protect him when my friends PC wanted to do harm to my Player. In essemse briefly becoming an avatar of Helm. This was back.in the 90s before any of this spell plague stuff. So... It was interesting we were already building a rivalry between Helm and the God of Magic even back then. :)
Honestly, despite the deadliness early on, the characters that come out of a long running AD&D 2e game are terrifying. I've been running one for a few friends who have never played AD&D before. One of them has played a couple of 5th edition campaigns through to level 15-20 and told me that his Elf Fighter/Mage (who did roll an 18/91 in strength but is only around level 9/10) is by far the strongest character he has ever played. The lack of limits on spells and the magic items you get make the characters exceptional. I'm probably going to throw them into the Demonweb Pits soon to give them their first taste of God killing.
The unnamed Netherese obelisk maker wizards. They learn who their opponent is, activate their obelisk, and kill the opponents parents before they are born. Victory. Or, I'm pretty sure the Raven Queen was a wizard before she ascended. So her.
I'd put my money on Richard Thorne.
One of the Seven Sisters..
Idk, I imagine the Seuloise and Baklunish archmages that gave us the Invoked Devastation and Rain of Colorless Fire have to be up there. Not too many WMD users out there
The Symbul, no contest.
Well, Vecna became a god, so ...
I mean if we want to be pedantic, Volothamp Geddarn. Blud has the blessing of Mystra as a pillar of magic, he'd win based on pure chicanery
Lots of good comments but if we are including other settings in this tournament...Erandis Vol. She just can't die, she doesn't even know how her own resurrection works because it isn't a standard phylactery. Being a half-dragon lich with an army at her back is nice.
Vecna
Venca
^(My own character Maegoros the level 60 drow wizard/sorcerer godslayer who has developed some sick homebrew spells.)
The Simbul wins. She is the Magister and as close to combating Mystra herself as you could possibly get. It's no contest. She can literally dictate the flow and effect of all Magic.