Antimagic field

[thorian]

A mid-high level caster always needs to be prepared for AMF. Here are a few suggeestions:

(1) Wall of Force. This spell is not affected by AMF.
(2) Cube of Force. This item creates modified versions of Wall of Force, so it can keep out AMF.
(3) Contingency. A contingency against AMF to teleport away, etc. can be had by several methods: Contingency, Chain Contingency, Spell Phylactery, Attuned Gems, Contingent Spells (from Unapproachable East), etc.
(4) Mord's Disjunction.
(5) Epic Spells:
.......(a) Destroy seed. This seed has the ability to get rid of AMF.
.......(b) Ward seed. For a DC of 1, the epic spellcaster can create a ward against AMF that lasts 24 hours and is cast the night before with a 10 minute casting time.
.......(c) contingent epic spells. Many possibilities here.
(6) Psionics are different. This solution works great if nobody in the party has access to psionics, but if one of the PC's has access to psionics they can wreak havoc on the campaign, because a lot of the checks and balances go out the window.
(7) Misc. This idea is a little off the wall, but an enemy could wear a necklace with a reduced or polymorphed boulder or stone wall, etc. When the PC with AMF approaches the item enlarges back to its normal size. It may do some damage depending on circumstances, but that is better than having the enemy hosed by AMF.
(8) Naturally strong monsters and NPC's. A orc bodyguard with the half-dragon template, or a giant, etc, etc.
(9) (Ex) abilities. Abilities of the extraordinary type are not subject to AMF.
(10) The caster should prepare a still otiluke's resilient sphere or still prismatic sphere or a contingent wall of force.
(11) Forcecage. A person in an AMF field in a forcecage is going nowhere.
(12) Reputation. A party of this level surely has a reputation that preceeds them. Enemies may know of the groups tactics and could make some simple preparations. The enemy could fly above the rogue with AMF and blast away, for instance.
(13) Traps. Have rooms with floors held together magically and lava underneath, or ceilings supported by magic columns. Should be funny when the character with AMF walks by. A 20x20 foot room with a 1x1 foot cube of stone in the center, so when the AMF'ed PC walks by, the 1x1 foot cube (which is in reality a 20x20 foot cube that has been transformed using Polymorph any Object) expands and crushes them to death.

 

[Setanta]

Everyone in the group had 15-18 class levels, so as previous mentioned by others, the fear aura wasn't too scary.

Henry- yeah, it was a satisfying encounter for all involved, as the first phase of the battle was fun. I guess I'm really asking because later in the adventure, there's another high level psion with no minions (except summons), and in an environment that's pretty neutral, but with good reasons not to just bounce out to a better environment. I have no doubt the players would have done the same thing (AMF), and since that guy is the adventure's real BBEG, that would have been anticlimatic. We stopped playing before we got to him though.

Thorian had a bunch of interesting stuff in his post. Some of these, I don't see how they're useful here, but maybe I'm just not understanding something about the rules (it's happened before...)
1- Wall of force. Sure, if the BBEG spellcaster *knows* there's an AMF in play, wall of force can keep the AMF away. I'm not sure how he would know though until it's too late, unless he took a standard action to spellcraft the AMF as it was being cast or as a magical effect already in place.
2- Cube of Force. See above.
3- Contingency. Again, not sure how the lich knows there's an AMF, unless he's already in it or spellcraft it, and if he's already in it there will be no contingency going off unless he can step out, which he can't if he's grappled.
4- Mord's Disjunction. Sure, when applicable, this would work, though the guy would still need to be aware of the AMF.
5- Epic spells. Uh, no.
6- Psionics are different. In retrospect, I wish I would have used this option. That's the way I do it in my normal campaign, but for some reason chose to go the other way for this one shot.
7- Reduced boulder. Interesting. I can see pulling off a trick like that once (more than once would get a bit silly, I think).
8- Strong minions. I can think of lots of ways to keep the mage safe with minions, but I'm just not a believer that every mage will automatically have lots of minions, so I'm really looking for ways the mage can defend himself.
9- EX abilities. Sure, but not many spellcasters have all that many of them.
10- Prepared still spells that can save him while grappled. In normal circumstances, that would work fine. Unfortunately, in this circumstance, the lich rolled poorly on initiative and went last, so he was grappled and in the field before he could act. That's fine this time, but I'd rather avoid first round TKO's with BBEG's in the future. Every once in a while that's fine, but I think a climatic fight should last at least a couple rounds.
11- Forcecage. See 1 above.
12- Reputation. In some situations, certainly, a BBEG would know the players are coming and be ready to deal with AMF if he knows they like to use it.
13- Environment. I like all the environmental solutions.

So far, it seems I'm hearing
1- Minions
2- If the guy knows there's an AMF before it nerfs him, there are several ways to deal with it
3- Cool environments that would hose someone not protected by magic

Those are all great. However, what about the mage with no minions, who doesn't know there's an AMF coming (and I mean doesn't know- I'm sure all higher level mages think about the possibilities of being attacked by someone using one), and is in a non-favourable location? I guess if the mage ever leaves his stonghold to attack something, he needs meatshields? If that's the way it is, that's a bit unfortunate.

 

[thorian]

Wall of Force, Forcecage, Prismatic Sphere, etc. are all unaffected by AMF.
The caster can cast these while in an AMF.

Contingency doesn't require that the caster know there is an AMF, the contingency would be worded something like, "If an AMF comes within 1', trigger a teleport." (or whatever you choose).

Also, spellcraft requires no time for many of its functions. The lich could use spellcraft is he sees the spell being cast or if he detects the spell is in place (via detect magic, arcane sight, etc.), which he should have permanently. Both of those uses require no time.

 

[Victim]

Wall of Force, Forcecage, Prismatic Sphere, etc. are all unaffected by AMF.
The caster can cast these while in an AMF.

Those spells aren't supressed in an AMF, but they still can't be cast in it.

 

[Setanta]

Also, spellcraft requires no time for many of its functions. The lich could use spellcraft is he sees the spell being cast or if he detects the spell is in place (via detect magic, arcane sight, etc.), which he should have permanently. Both of those uses require no time.

Huh, I hadn't noticed that they added the "no action required" in 3.5. That certainly helps mages deal with AMF, though I have mixed feelings about it overall, but that's another subject (mainly, illusions just aren't quite as useful if they can be ID'd as they're cast).

 

[Plane Sailing]

Plus even if the lich teleported to somewhere to recover he should really have planned to teleport to an extra-defensible location of some kind. If he was a psionic lich it would have been neat to use psionic-specific powers such as "Divert Teleport" in order to send incoming adventurers off to a previously scouted out, extremely hostile location.

And why on earth wasn't he mind blanked? If he had been they wouldn't have been able to scry him to follow him, and it is more easily accessible than it is for arcane casters. Remote View Trap would have been a nice touch too, especially if maximised and empowered. Nobody who casts scrying likes to recieve 4d6+48 damage at a stroke, do they? Fail their saving throw and they might even have to make a massive damage check.

Part of the problem was that the encounter started with "roll initiative". In almost any circumstances with a high level lich that I can envisage there would have been some notice prior to the encounter starting (even if just a round) and the canny lich would have prepared the wall of force between him and the entrance doorway beforehand in order to blunt the adventurers initial attacks.

Cheers

 

[sfedi]

The main defense of a lone spellcaster is to remain anonymous.

That is, information. Both ways.
Not been detected, and detect first.

 

[Setanta]

Plus even if the lich teleported to somewhere to recover he should really have planned to teleport to an extra-defensible location of some kind.

Yeah, that's my fault. I did the teleport on the fly because it was the only way I could see for him to get some time to heal up and remanifest important buffs. However, I hadn't really planned for his retreat, so I didn't have a good place for him to go. Like I said, I'm new to DMing high level stuff. I think this is the first time I've DM'd something where scry and teleport were available and used.

If he was a psionic lich it would have been neat to use psionic-specific powers such as "Divert Teleport" in order to send incoming adventurers off to a previously scouted out, extremely hostile location.

Diverting the teleport would have been nice, but he didn't know that power.

And why on earth wasn't he mind blanked? If he had been they wouldn't have been able to scry him to follow him, and it is more easily accessible than it is for arcane casters.

True, but he actually wanted to be found. He needed to kill one of the PC's.

Remote View Trap would have been a nice touch too, especially if maximised and empowered. Nobody who casts scrying likes to recieve 4d6+48 damage at a stroke, do they? Fail their saving throw and they might even have to make a massive damage check.

I forgot about that power. I'm not sure if he knew it, though. I remember when preparing I thought about giving him some cool psionic scry defenses, but I think when I realized he would *want* to be found by this particular group, I scrapped them all. Damaging the scrier would have been good though.

Part of the problem was that the encounter started with "roll initiative". In almost any circumstances with a high level lich that I can envisage there would have been some notice prior to the encounter starting (even if just a round) and the canny lich would have prepared the wall of force between him and the entrance doorway beforehand in order to blunt the adventurers initial attacks.

Is there a psionic equivalent to wall of force? It would be a moot point if I'd done the right thing and made psionics different, but since I didn't, all the force effects that aren't nuked by AMF wouldn't have helped. I don't see how I could have avoided the roll initiative situation, though. He knew they were coming, but they knew they'd be teleporting into a hostile situation. I don't see that as a surprise situation for either side, so initiative needs to be rolled. He rolled badly.

 

[fafhrd]

Is there a psionic equivalent to wall of force? It would be a moot point if I'd done the right thing and made psionics different, but since I didn't, all the force effects that aren't nuked by AMF wouldn't have helped. I don't see how I could have avoided the roll initiative situation, though. He knew they were coming, but they knew they'd be teleporting into a hostile situation. I don't see that as a surprise situation for either side, so initiative needs to be rolled. He rolled badly.

Readied actions baby. The defender's advantage is significant.