Help me thwart my DM and save our life! Wand usage...

[Grundle]

And I'll be frank. The guy just *doesn't* know the rules all that well. If you can prove him wrong, he normaly goes with the correct way... but unless you can prove him wrong, he wont. So I'm trying to prove him wrong as conclusivly as I can.

1) To use a wand you must hold THAT wand in your hand just so and utter the command word. How can you really hold ten wands in your hand simultaneously, even if they are all welded together somehow?

2) The fact that it is a standard action to activate a single magic item has already been mentioned.

3) You must convince this DM that he is really screwing himself by allowing this kind of thing. A DM should never underestimate the unpredictability and resourcefulness of a group of PCs. There is a real possibility that this uber-wand could fall into the hands of the PCs. Then what would happen to his game? Even if YOU can't use it, you could always hire an NPC wizard who could!!!

4) If you can tie a bunch of wands together and have them work in concert in his world, then any PC with a meta-magic item creation feat and two brain cells to rub together will utterly destroy his game.


If your DM can not be shaken out of his fit of insanity and you must play against this NPC, I suggest that your party do the following:
Buy a boatload of tanglefoot bags and smokesticks.
For each PC in the party, tie a couple tanglefoot backs together and strap several handfuls of smokesticks to the thing (after the DM has shown you that it's OK to tie things together and use them all at once).
Everyone should always have this bag in their hands. After all, this wand-wielding bastard is out to kill you when you least expect it.
Next time the bastard appears, every PC disregards everything else and nails him with the makeshift weapon they are carrying.
At least a few of the smoke sticks will go off, preventing the wand-wielding bastard from targeting anyone. Hopefully he'll fail his save on at least one of the tanglefoot bags and be stuck in place.
Then mass-grapple this wand-weilding bastard, and take him out!

 

[Azlan]

...as an off-topic troll.

Off-topic? Yes, but not totally from out of left field.

Troll? No way!

 

[Pax]

Read the description of Tower Shield in the Player's Handbook.

The caster needs line of effect to the target. A tower shield, as a piece of your equipment, is considered part of you for targetting purposes.

Unless your tower shield has 100% cover behind something else, the caster has line of effect to you for targetted spells.

-Hyp.

Which is why you get a Darkwood Tower Shield, cast Unseen Servant, and have IT carry the shield around. HEH.

 

[Pax]

If your DM can not be shaken out of his fit of insanity and you must play against this NPC, I suggest that your party do the following:
Buy a boatload of tanglefoot bags and smokesticks.
For each PC in the party, tie a couple tanglefoot backs together and strap several handfuls of smokesticks to the thing (after the DM has shown you that it's OK to tie things together and use them all at once).
Everyone should always have this bag in their hands. After all, this wand-wielding bastard is out to kill you when you least expect it.
Next time the bastard appears, every PC disregards everything else and nails him with the makeshift weapon they are carrying.
At least a few of the smoke sticks will go off, preventing the wand-wielding bastard from targeting anyone. Hopefully he'll fail his save on at least one of the tanglefoot bags and be stuck in place.
Then mass-grapple this wand-weilding bastard, and take him out!

Two wands of Glitterdust, a wand of Obscuring Mist, a wand of Stinking Cloud, and a Wand of Silence.

Add ten Rods of Viscid Globs (MoF).

Strap them all together -- naturally, they have the same exact command word across all fifteen items. Call it a "Megarod-Thing of Doom" ... MRToD for short.

Get a flunky (Leadership, and it's Cohort, works well for this). Make sure he's, say, Cleric(1)/Wizard(1)/Bard(lots). He can recite poetry to benefit the whole party, while waiting for the BBEG to show up.

Have the flunky walk around with the MRToD out and ready all the time. Have him constantly ready an action to aim the MRToD at the BBEG, and activate it (with the identical-to-all-components single Command Word).

The BBEG ends up nauseated by the stink of a stinking cloud, in the dark, hit with Glitterdust twice, and surrounded by fog. He has also been hit TEN TIMES with the equivalent of a tanglefoot bag. And he's Silenced, as well.

...

Now, of course, EVERY PLAYER in your group of 8 has done this same ludicrous thing. So, you have eighty tanglefoot effects, plus sixteen glitterdust spells (with their resultant will saves to not go blind), 8 silence spells (and their saves), and 8 stinking cloud spells (and their saves!). If he's not glued to the floor puking his sparkly-lit guts out in a fog bank deeper than pea soup ... the GM's cheating. >8)

Plus, you have the option of forgoing the Bard levels for the flunkies, and aiming all 8 flunkies for Mystic Theurge, for absolute GOBS of eventual magical delight (and the making of more MRToD's).

 

[Mort]

I still believe in-game solutions are always better than meta-game ones.

I will have to respectfully disagree, especially with the "always".

If the problem is an out of game one – namely the players are not having fun and think the DM is lording over them/railroading them; using an “in-game” solution will only aggravate the matter.

Having a friendly talk with the DM of the “here’s why we’re upset variety,” where the players nicely say that this particular NPC is aggravating to the point of absurdity may make the DM see the problem. If not, well, that’s beyond simple advise and depends heavily on the dynamics of the group.

 

[GMVictory]

If the problem is an out of game one – namely the players are not having fun and think the DM is lording over them/railroading them; using an “in-game” solution will only aggravate the matter.

I agree. The out of game problem (railroading) cannot be solved with an in-game solution.

I still think that an in-game problem should always be solved with an in-game solution, not a meta-game one. Agree to disagree though.