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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Herremann the Wise" data-source="post: 5297559" data-attributes="member: 11300">Firstly, before I go further, thank you very much for the extended response and the effort it would have taken: XP for you sir.My players are not optimizers either. However they are conversant with and highly practiced with high level play, rules and tactics.If somebody wants the McGuffin a valid tactic is let them go to the effort of getting it and then immediately taking it from them. I have found forcing time pressure on a high level group very hit and miss. As I tried to indicate to you before, letting the "time limit" expire becomes a valid tactic because just about any happening can be reversed or fixed well after the event. Unfortunately if you embrace and don't restrict the rules, high level parties can pick and choose with this "method". Or they can succeed with but a blip's difference to their resources.This tactic does not work unless you can force the wizard within the landbound proximity of the "Antimagic-dude". This can work in dungeons but then your party can more easily protect the antimagic's enemy. The only way how this realistically works is to antimagic a natural flyer (but then the antimagic'd dude is a sitting duck for the rest of the party). As for focusing on the wizard, this ends up being counter-productive as the majority of attacks in the first two rounds will not work by which time the rest of the party and the wizard has taken out the primary threat in that time. Over-targetting the wizard or programming their death works. I do not see this as a fair tactic however every game session.As you say, surprisingly effective (along with grease) at low levels... but we're talking high level here: 15th plus.Powerful spellcasters are not dumb. If they think they are a reasonable chance of losing out, they will not risk being forced back to their Simulacrum. With this, party or the enemy will ambush the other if they feel the need to act. Because of the disparity in power level you will destroy the party in the process of highly challenging the wizard.If you just have a "random" wizard taking on the party wizard with supposed ideal tactics, then you can challenge him. Story-wise though, this is a little unrealistic unless you carefully engineer it. It is not a tactic you can throw at a wizard more than once without becoming trite. It just does not make sense (in my gameworld at least anyway).It does not offer a save, offers spell resistance or will be turned back on the caster - this is not how to use a dimensional anchor. Bad guy casts it on an invisible hit point sack minion and the sack chases after the caster similar to the antimagic tactic. This is not a difficult tactic for a high level party to deal with. It is only a minor challenge.Mind Blank lasts for 24 hours. It becomes part of the wizard's early morning routine. Confusion attacks a wizards best save which a high level wiz would generally not have to make. It's a highly effective tactic against the rest of the party though (until the wizard gets to a high enough level to just mind blank the party).Occupying the rest of the party works be it with spells or creatures of significance. Then the wizard resorts to summoning/gating if necessary. To then battle this effectively, you have to up the ante further with more powerful enemies which will usually result in a challenged wizard and several dead party members. This becomes the classic issue I have continually mentioned thus far: challenge the wizard, kill the rest of the party. In the main, I prefer to challenge the rest of the party and just accept that the wizard can pick and choose his influence on the encounter.Quickened mirror image will ruin your day versus most enemies you try to inflict on the wizard. It forces enemy casters with their big targetted effects to not take the chance, forcing them to work on reducing the illusion count. [Only creatures with lifesense, true seeing or immunity to illusions can bust this and there is not many with these abilities: Dread Wraith from memory and not too much else with true seeing unless you engineer it].Extend spell combined with high level means that most effects last until dispelled. Back up scrolls means that a wizard is only a time stop away from refuelling. Again, you can crack through this raft of defenses but only if you program it, but by the time you've done this the rest of the party have had their way with an enemy that is overfocusing.These things do not work. Wizards have enough hit points to survive area of effect spells, their only real weakness unless they have energy protections in which case the efforts are wasted. As for the big longsword dude, come to daddy and let me dominate you and turn you against the harmless bowers (protection from arrows being a stock defensive spell). Same for the rogue (wizards fly almost constantly by the way at high level through the use of one effect, spell or another). The tactics you mention here do not work against a high level wizard. If they did, I wouldn't be whinging my <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> off so to speak. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Pathfinder fixed the casting defensively thing by forcing a caster level check rather than a concentration check. However, the wizard has their defences up already so in terms of defense this is moot (it only really effects attacks). As well, quickened effects do not generate attacks of opportunity. This assumes that any wizard worth their salt will have this feat by high level. YMMV.That sounds more like a mid-level wizard who got ambushed. A high level wizard has the buffs in place already (they get reset every time he learns his spells for the day). You make a good point though that an isolated NPC wizard is a completely different proposition to a party wizard with several powerful allies with them. The disparity is because generally at mid level, you have a powerful wizard but they are not surrounded by several characters of classes of an equal level. Mooks are worth almost nothing to a wizard against a PC party.This plays precisely into my point of the unkillable wizard. The first handful of attacks at them are irrelevant and wasted (and need to be wasted if you want to have a decent crack at taking down the wizard). You end up challenging the party but not the wizard OR you end up challenging the wizard but killing the party. The fine line in between is too narrow such is the power of the wizards defenses, to the point of making initiative against them virtually irrelevant.Huge kudos for the Feist reference by the way <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Its not the scrying that is necessarily the killer and it's not the rogue who stars but the cleric. This aspect of the game can be quite fun but the result is still the same - greater teleport will still work regardless of whether you have specifically scried there or not. As a once of though, sounds fun.I have gauged from your numerous responses that you have a lot of mid-level experience but have not had repeated exposure to high level (15th plus) play on both sides of the screen. I am only adamant about what I'm saying because I have seen the same pattern repeatedly. What you have presented though is an excellent primer of tactics and for this again, I thank you for your time and effort. In regards to the original post, these are all tactics that are going to greater balance a mid-level party (the sweetspot that most groups play) when combined with the pathfinder rules (rather than 3.x). Please excuse my bluntness when I say that their effectiveness is blunted against a high level wizard. At least the ones I have played and have had to DM against.My impression of the CharOp boards are that by mixing various levels of psionics with the core classes, you can get some whacky/cheesy levels of power. I have never embraced psionics myself so I don't know how true this is and what effect they would have on my game. I'm interested though in what gamerprinter was going to post. Perhaps my groups melee types are missing the boat?Spell resistance gets given to everyone before an ambush. It is a common enough occurrence that I mention it. Alternatively, the mage can trick this out in an emergency by getting the cleric to place it into a particular ring or something for latter use (the exact equipment that does this escapes me at the moment).Again, thank you very much for the extended response.Best RegardsHerremann the Wise</blockquote>

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