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Countering Blink
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Mark Chance
Boingy! Boingy!
Dimensional anchor, dimensional lock, minor globe of invulnerability, antimagic field, et cetera. Foes immune to sneak attack. Foes that can see ethereal creatures. Ensure that the PCs' 20% miss chance is enforced.
Elder-Basilisk
First Post
Well, let's start with the obvious question: How are your two rogue level PCs getting Blink?
They could be arcane tricksters which would give them plenty of spells to get blink but they give up a lot of hit points and casting ability to get the sneak attack. They could be using a ring of spell storing (expensive and only one use per spell mooched off the wizard) or a ring of blinking (expensive but unlimited uses). If you're using non-core rules, there may be another way like the Races of Stone Runecaster or the Arcanis val'Emman bloodline power. In all cases, except the Arcane Trickster, it is likely to cost an action in combat to activate the blink. (The Arcane Trickster could potentially quicken the blink or activate it with a contingency spell).
So, how to neutralize it at the most basic level? For limited use per day situations like the ring of spell storing, have multiple combats in the same day and don't make it immediately obvious which one is tough enough to be worth using the spell/ability. A progressive combat where enemy reinforcements arrive several rounds into the combat, a combat with illusions or creatures that appear tougher than they are, or a combat that is unusually easy ("you mean those orcs were really just first level warriors?") will all do the trick.
The next possibility and the one that work even on an unlimited use ability like the ring of blinking is to emphasize the cost of the standard action. This generally means keeping combats very short-- 1-3 rounds at a time. You can accomplish it by using extremely offensively focussed foes--wizards who cast a spell (possibly using a sudden metamagic feat) and a quickened spell and might even have imbued their familiars with a normal and a quickened spell as well or barbarians with leap attack, power attack, and shock trooper (for a full power attack heedless charge leap attack--ouch!). If the combat is going to be over in 3 rounds at the latest, giving up the first of your three actions to activate blink is a very high opportunity cost. Hit and run tactics will also make the decision to activate blink a costly one. If the bad guys are only in range for one or two actions, do you really want one of them to be blink?
A need for speed will also preclude blink. If the party is riding down a group of enemies, the last thing a PC will want to do is cast blink and blink right through his horse.
A few other thoughts: a lot of the foes that are good at hit and run attack--ethereal marauders, phase spiders, etc, present the blinking character with an interesting choice. Ordinarily, there's nothing a PC can do to them when they're ethereal. A blinking character can hurt them. OTOH, if a character is blinking, they've no reason to go material at all and the blinking character essentially ends up fighting the entire encounter by himself (and his allies have a miss chance when trying to heal him).
Other than that, and the spells that people have mentioned already (dimensional anchor, dimensional lock, see invisibility, true seeing, etc), there is a category of foes to think of--all demons tougher than a Vrock have always active true seeing--and the entire normal category of anti-rogue tactics. Fighting at ranges greater than 30', mist (fog cloud, obscuring mist, etc), or darkness (deeper darkness, etc), negate the sneak attacks of blinking foes. And, of course, striking as an invisible foe doesn't give you sneak attack against a target with uncanny dodge (ever) or the Blindfight feat (in melee). Similarly, simply being undead, plant, or a construct confers immunity to critical hits and therefore sneak attacks.
They could be arcane tricksters which would give them plenty of spells to get blink but they give up a lot of hit points and casting ability to get the sneak attack. They could be using a ring of spell storing (expensive and only one use per spell mooched off the wizard) or a ring of blinking (expensive but unlimited uses). If you're using non-core rules, there may be another way like the Races of Stone Runecaster or the Arcanis val'Emman bloodline power. In all cases, except the Arcane Trickster, it is likely to cost an action in combat to activate the blink. (The Arcane Trickster could potentially quicken the blink or activate it with a contingency spell).
So, how to neutralize it at the most basic level? For limited use per day situations like the ring of spell storing, have multiple combats in the same day and don't make it immediately obvious which one is tough enough to be worth using the spell/ability. A progressive combat where enemy reinforcements arrive several rounds into the combat, a combat with illusions or creatures that appear tougher than they are, or a combat that is unusually easy ("you mean those orcs were really just first level warriors?") will all do the trick.
The next possibility and the one that work even on an unlimited use ability like the ring of blinking is to emphasize the cost of the standard action. This generally means keeping combats very short-- 1-3 rounds at a time. You can accomplish it by using extremely offensively focussed foes--wizards who cast a spell (possibly using a sudden metamagic feat) and a quickened spell and might even have imbued their familiars with a normal and a quickened spell as well or barbarians with leap attack, power attack, and shock trooper (for a full power attack heedless charge leap attack--ouch!). If the combat is going to be over in 3 rounds at the latest, giving up the first of your three actions to activate blink is a very high opportunity cost. Hit and run tactics will also make the decision to activate blink a costly one. If the bad guys are only in range for one or two actions, do you really want one of them to be blink?
A need for speed will also preclude blink. If the party is riding down a group of enemies, the last thing a PC will want to do is cast blink and blink right through his horse.
A few other thoughts: a lot of the foes that are good at hit and run attack--ethereal marauders, phase spiders, etc, present the blinking character with an interesting choice. Ordinarily, there's nothing a PC can do to them when they're ethereal. A blinking character can hurt them. OTOH, if a character is blinking, they've no reason to go material at all and the blinking character essentially ends up fighting the entire encounter by himself (and his allies have a miss chance when trying to heal him).
Other than that, and the spells that people have mentioned already (dimensional anchor, dimensional lock, see invisibility, true seeing, etc), there is a category of foes to think of--all demons tougher than a Vrock have always active true seeing--and the entire normal category of anti-rogue tactics. Fighting at ranges greater than 30', mist (fog cloud, obscuring mist, etc), or darkness (deeper darkness, etc), negate the sneak attacks of blinking foes. And, of course, striking as an invisible foe doesn't give you sneak attack against a target with uncanny dodge (ever) or the Blindfight feat (in melee). Similarly, simply being undead, plant, or a construct confers immunity to critical hits and therefore sneak attacks.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Sagiro is an excellent DM with a most-excellent storyhour, which you really should read if you haven't seen it yet.
See here for details http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=598
(notice the low thread id? It's been going for ages!)
The reason that I bring this up is that there was a rogue in his campaign who had a ring of blink who was carving up everything left right and centre. Until the time when strange ethereal worms started getting attracted towards him each time he started blinking, and after one nasty encounter with them he started using it less and less frequently.
Some people might cry out "you're nerfing legitimately acquired magical items" but IMO there is nothing wrong with introducing additional wrinkles to the campaign to maintain overall balance and fun - and Sagiro's storyhour demonstrates that it is certainly possible to do so.
Just another option worth mentioning.
Cheers
See here for details http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=598
(notice the low thread id? It's been going for ages!)
The reason that I bring this up is that there was a rogue in his campaign who had a ring of blink who was carving up everything left right and centre. Until the time when strange ethereal worms started getting attracted towards him each time he started blinking, and after one nasty encounter with them he started using it less and less frequently.
Some people might cry out "you're nerfing legitimately acquired magical items" but IMO there is nothing wrong with introducing additional wrinkles to the campaign to maintain overall balance and fun - and Sagiro's storyhour demonstrates that it is certainly possible to do so.
Just another option worth mentioning.
Cheers
