Perfect arcane defense

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I've heard it said that with the proper spell castings a mage can be 100% invincible. Some of these spells are fairly obvious. I'm not sure, though, what it takes for complete invulnerability. Could anybody clue me in on the spellcasting sequence that makes for perfect defense?

 

Physical attacks: Stoneskin early on, later Protection from Magical Weapons. In TOB, can further be augmented by donning the Aslyferund chain (multiclass mages) or via the Hell reward that makes you immune to normal weapons as well.

Elemental attacks: Cloak of Mirroring takes care of spells aimed at you, otherwise Protection From <Element> (you hardly ever need more than two different ones at a time anyway) and most of the resistances can be boosted to 100% via items alone if you do some item swapping. Poison is taken care of using Ring of Gaxx/Anti-Venom or the Periapt of Proof against poison. Magic damage is best countered by Belt of Inertial Barrier + Protection from Magic Energy combo.

Insta-kills: Death Ward and in some rare cases Protection from Petrification. Spell Immunity: Abjuration against Imprisonment (and general anti-dispel). For soloers, SI: Conjuration against Maze and SI: Divination to keep your illusions going and Spell Shield to protect them all.

Status ailments: Chaotic Commands, Remove Fear and Freedom of Action together cover pretty much everything I can think of right now. Negative Plane Protection is usually safest to get via an item, otherwise Limited Wish will get you one that should last you through a battle.

Note that veteran gamers exploit the knowledge of what sort of attacks you're up against in the key battles and prepare for those. It's neither feasible nor necessary to be immune to everything at the same time.

For a vast majority of battles, decent Hit Points together with good saving throws (2 or below in all categories) is largely indistinguishable from complete immunity to everything.

 

Old AI enhancing mod mages use this combo:Stoneskin+Mirror Imag+Pro from magic weapons+protection from all damage types spells and then add Improved Invisibility and Spell Immunity: Divination and Abjuration.

Now what makes this combo so powerful, you can not target the mage with single target spells such as Breach or Pierce Magic to remove his protections, since he is improved invisible. True Sight is useless due to SI: Divination and Dispel Magic also fails due to SI:Abjuration.

Area effect spells such as Horrid Wilting does no damage due to protection from magic energy spell (along with elemental protection spells) Basically you can do nothing to this mage, unless you have a normal weapon, and still you need to strip his mirror images and stoneskins one by one. A Whirlwinding fighter can do this, BUT the mage still can cast them again, and will have Fireshield:Red and Blue up, so the attacking fighter will actually kill himself trying to touch the mage. If you are protagonist, you may have normal weapon immnity at ToB so you will be pretty much invincible.

Only way to break this defense, if it is used against you, cast a Chain Contingency:nearest enemy 3xRuby Rays of Reversals, and make sure you are nearest to the enemy. RRs will cancel out SI:Abjuration since it is an alteration spell, and will cancel SI: Divination. Now you can dispel magic the mage, or cast True Sight and then breach as usual. Ofcourse, the mage can have a dreaded Spell Shield spell, which will block Ruby Rays. It is supposed to block one spell protection removing effect, but sometimes it gets buggy and blocks all.

A thief with high detect illusions ability can dispel the invisibility, so it was a very good reason to tag Jan along back in Tactics and such.

Since we are talking about spell casting cheese, one dirty trick I liked was Chain Contingency:myself, 3 Project Images, when helpless. Then cast a Project Image. You will be held thus the contingency will kick in and spawn 3 more Project Images. Now you have 4 PIs fully capable, each starts casting a Time Stop with a one second delay. Then, with Improved Alacrtiy all four empty their spell books. No one can survive this (cheesy) armageddon.

Ofcourse these are all for original unmodded game or old AI enhancing mods. New mods edit and fix some spells so they are a completely another story.

 

Thanks to both of you. Oddly enough somebody opened a thread on this same issue on the official forums too. Good to compare and contrast.

 

While I agree that the combo is powerful, it's not in the least that hard to dispel. The 9th level Wish spell comes in handy here. It will provide the party with sufficient amount of Wands of Spell Striking, which can then be used to remove the enemy defences even under Improved Invisibility. Of course, illusion buffs will remain, but the mage will have no elemental/magical damage protection, Stoneskin, armor buff and protection from MW buff, so Area of effect spells will work just fine. This obviously doesn't work on liches, in which case chained Timestopping + attacks in an Iron Golem form work better IMO than continuously removing its combat and spell protections.