Wizard + Dungeon Door = Invincible Wizard?

[Appleseeth]

I've been a bit annoyed with the party's wizard lately. I've been sending them through a sizeable dungeon, with doors and every combat, he simply sits behind the door and attacks from there, while the rest of the part moves in and actually engages the enemy. I know this is part of the wizard's job, but I was wondering if I'm missing something in my encounter design that could improve upon that might get the wizard to move into the actual encounter area.

Should I use more lurkers? I don't use many as it is. The entire party also has taken Improved Initiative, so the start of every combat usually goes like so:
1. Wizard: blow up everyone in the room.
2. Everyone in the party attacks the monsters and blocks the path to the wizard.
3. Monster go.

I like to go with some simulationism in my game, and some things to just make the game better. I use unrealistically large encounter areas, but not every room can have a 10-20 foot wide doorway. I also like to keep the encounters in theme, which kinda prohibits me from say, attaching say, vine horror to a gnoll encounter group.

Any suggestions?

 

[Dalzig]

Use non-linear dungeon design. Have a group of enemies go around and flank the party. All of a sudden, the wizard is facing four creatures by himself.

Probably the biggest hurdle in dungeon designing in 4e is to stop making linear one-room-per-fight dungeons. Make it so two or three rooms constitute an encounter. Make the aforementioned ways to flank the party. If you have to, resort to hidden passages that are hard (not impossible) to find and have the monsters use them.

 

[James McMurray]

Skirmishers will help too. Many of them have ways to shift multiple squares or alternative movement that can take them past the party's front lines.

 

[Gruns]

1. Add your own artillery that does the same exact thing.
2. Send in the reinforcements from behind the wizard.
3. Don't start every encounter with "There's a door. You hear monsters on the other side. What do you do?"
4. Simply change the room layout to offer more doors, wider doorways, or no good access to the rest of the room from the doorway.
...
In the middle of the fight, one of the badguys hits a switch and a portcullis drops down in the doorway, cutting the wizard of from the rest of the party. This should get the wizard panicky... Roll a D20 behind the screen, and tell him he hears noises coming down the corrider from behind. Someone may or may not spot the control panel to the portcullus and point it out to the rogue who better get some Thievery success in a hurry...
Lots of things to do, really. I think the biggest thing would be to simply break the status quo and just change the way you've been doing things.
Later!
Gruns

 

[Tony Vargas]

A little foyer messes with the door-as-chokepoint strategy. A 10' long, 5' wide entry hall severely contricts LoS for anyone staying behind, and forces those who want to melee to enter the room, and spread out a bit on the other side (otherwise, /they/ are bottleknecked). 10' wide isn't as dramatic.

More complex medieval castles had a /barbican/, an extended passage through the courtain wall, with arrow slits and murder holes to keep the enemy confined and under fire after they battered down the gate. Same concept.

Irregular shaped rooms, or substantial cover blocking LoS from the door to portions of the room can have the same effect, forcing the party to move in, and the ranged attackers, like the wizard, to follow, in order to engage the inhabitants effectively.

You can also open things up by having connecting passages, so that enemies in one room can get out to come at the party kicking in thier door from another direction. Reinforcements serve the same purpose.

Keep the enemy, and the environment, dynamic and challenging. It makes the game more interesting.

 

[Rechan]

Nothing like a trap to go off either. Something that makes the door an actual threat; either it's actually a monster in disguise (a mimic?), a trap door underneath the door, or the door is false, rigged as an alarm (and the enemies come pouring in from the other avenues), or even trying to open the door summons monsters into the room the PCs are currently standing in.

Beyond just the door, think of the room beyond. Is it a trap? Imagine an illusionary set of monsters, built to have people rush in and attack them - and then anyone that rushes in is stuck in the room, while the real monsters come in from behind. What if there 'are no monsters' in the room because they heard the party battling, and thus are all hiding? What if the doorway is under a dark effect (Thus blocking LoS for anyone standing in the doorway)? Or the door is a literal portal; in order to go into the "room", you have to step into the portal and now you're in the middle of a new environment.

But I agree with designing a non-linear dungeon. Or a dungeon with, well, no doors; a cave complex, for instance.

 

[arcseed]

Honestly, I don't know that it's a problem. If the wizard's healing surges aren't getting used, that's a fair bit of party resources that are essentially wasted, making the party that much more fragile. Find nice soft leaders or strikers to beat down hard instead. It's not like the wizard is that much softer, or that much more valuable, to make a big deal out of it.

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

As someone who has played wizards from 2E on, I can tell you that this is always what a wizard will do. It always has been, and pretty much always will be, the most ideal strategy for a wizard.

If you want to pressure the wizard a bit more, as others have suggested, run an encounter that puts the wizard at risk should he stay outside the room.

The trick here, though, is to make sure the encounter is fair. And by fair, I mean that it doesn't seem like you are out to get the wizard. Before the encounter, let the PCs get a good bearing on the encounter locale; I suggest a set of 2-3 rooms adjacent to a hallway. The rooms may be connected, and they all connect to the hall.

In the first room, have the PCs enter a combat that might seem difficult, but isn't. Example: 2 Normal Monsters, and 4 or so minions. Give the monsters some obvious terrain advantages, like difficult terrain seperating the PCs from the opponents, who are ranged attackers, or an environmental hazard, like fire, so the Players look at the encounter, and perceive the terrain and monster placement as tough. They shouldn't be able to tell by the number of foes that the minions are, well minions. They will think this is a medium-to-hard encounter, and will use their best tactics. The wizard will do his thing...

As the battle begins, the inevitable noise of combat draws the real foes (2-3 normal monsters, and maybe 4-8 minions) into the combat on the 2nd round. (They might not all arrive the 2nd round, but this turn of events should occur then) They enter from the other rooms into the hall, (or maybe 1 enters into the monster-side of the original room) rushing the wizard and trying to flank the party. They probably should not be able to kill the wizard (or all be able to reach him) but their presence should pose a threat unless the Defenders get in gear or the wizard moves to whatever other advantageous terrain you placed.

Remember - The door strategy only works if the terrain you use allows it to. It certainly does not work in wilderness encounters. (Especially if the foes have the PCs encircled or are mostly ranged attackers) It also depends on the monster roles, and really, how merciful you are as a DM. You could easily have Lurkers jump out of the shadows and attack the weaker members of the party. That doesn't mean you should.

 

[DDogwood]

There's a good encounter in the published adventure Keep on the Shadowfell which features a battle against small-sized creatures who can crawl through a series of tunnels to outflank the PCs. The concept can be applied in a lot of different ways. For example, it's pretty reasonable that Kobolds would have secret exits from their rooms that they could use to send skirmishers around to hit the Wizard. Other creatures might have ways of calling for reinforcements.

I'm guessing that you already know that you can break the wizard of this habit with as few as two or three encounters that make the "stand outside the door and blast" tactic ineffective.

 

[Oompa]

What powers does he use to see through the door??