Buff, Scry, Teleport... A problem or not?

[Nail]

So, the current list of Buff-Scry-Teleport solutions are:

#1) Make sure all of the rules for teleport and scry are closely followed and "enforced".

• teleport weight limit
• Scry casting time of one hour
• Scryied person has a non-negligable chance of noticing the sensor, even without magical help.
• A quick scry-teleport probably lands you in the "viewed once" catagory of teleport miss chances.

#2) All powerful people should have scry/teleport detections and defences -- it's just part of being high level in a magic-using world.

• Detect Scrying spell or magic items.
• Have anything from Nondetection (whimpy, easily countered) to Mindblank (uber-spell, probably over-kill) as a continous (or Persistant) spell or magic item.
• Create (or adopt from splat-books) new spells and magic items that specifically counter either the scry, or the teleport, or both. Mordenkainen's Sanctum was suggested as one.
• Beef up your home base(s) with spells like Forbiddance or (Un)Hallow w/ Dimensional Anchor. (Boy, do arcane spell casters need some help here, or what?)
• Have a Greater Dispel Magic (or the like) ready for just such an unexpected visit.

#3) Rule Zero th' whole mess in some way, if you think the above solutions can't handle it.

• Change teleport: insert a "round-after" of nausea or stunning.
• Pretend that the "timeless" aspect of the Astral Plane really means that buff spells expire during teleport. ...Rather than interpreting "timeless" to mean the passage of time stops during transport. <pokes at Plane >
• Have teleport take one or more rounds, during which time either a) those at the destination can sense the in-coming teleport, or b) those pesky buff spells expire.
• Nerf scry so that half the casting time happens after the scry is complete. (Huh? <shrugs> )
• Interpret scry description to mean that you only see the person, not his surroundings...therefore you can't teleport to him.

#4) Make no changes or adjustments at all. Have the enemies use this trick first, and jus' kill off th' PCs in their sleep before they get that powerful.

• Hey, what's good fer th' goose is good fer the gander......
• Why should the NPCs be idiots?
• ....IOW, plot out the affects of the availability of this trick on your campaign......

<EDIT:Computer crashed during send.>

 

[Petrosian]

[/B][/QUOTE]

However, your classic D&D adventure is something like: party finds location with treasure and evil creatures guarding it; party hacks through progressively tougher minions; party eventually overcomes fiendish traps and confronts evil boss creature; party kills evil boss creature and loots the hoard.

In DND 3e this format is more properly named "low level classic DND adventure."

Some of the tmese described in various places, including iirc high level modules and dragon articles and the like, for DND 3e is that high level adventures are DIFFERENT than low level ones, That high level adversaries are a bit more difficult than 'beat him to a pulp" to deal with, and That high level bad guys have magic and resources too.

At second level, the broken rope bridge over a ravine is a serious challenge. At sixth level, with fly spells available, it is now just a nuisance.

At high levels the key is more often how to gather the info we need, how to get past the protections, which are no longer orcs at guardposts but magical wards and protections as well.

I think a clever party could simplify this: party uses divination and scrying magic to locate evil boss creature and hoard; party buffs up and teleports in; party slaughters surprised boss creature.

How did they discover even enough for "described" to get the scry check? How did their teleport get past the forbiddance zone around the inner areas? How did it get past the statues that keep another ward up in his bedroom? How did they handle the two magical traps, one of whom threw a wall of force around them and the second of which threw a fog cloud to block vision while the BG slips thru the secret door?

I think you are identifying something which is OBVIOUS with DND 3e but was not necessarily OBVIOUS to everyone in previous editions...

DND 3e greayhawk and Fr settings do not show us a fantasy world where significant threats for high level parties include big, stupid, unprepared sacks of hit points. The SOHP punching bags can be handled by a smart party using the high level spells wisely.

This is not a flaw, it is a feature.

Amoung other things, it will encourage big bads with enemies to do things like stay within wel defended (magically) bastions. This keeps your 15th level mage from just popping around the countryside killing 3rd level heroes... which helps to explain why the heroes are able to advance.

This can be a fine way to play as long as the players enjoy it and the DM can make it challenging and fun.

But, I think it does run counter to the classic D&D dungeon-crawl. That's what I meant by thwarting location-based encounters.

like a broken rope bridge goes out of fashion after fly spells, as the characters gain new abilities, the threats change too.

A Gm can decide that he wants the adventures at 13th level to be just like the adventures at 2nd level but with the SOHP being bigger and the damage per hit being 25 not 7 and so on. if so, he needs to significantly alter the spell lists and some class abilities to make this "the way world works."

What DND 3e basically does is to create a "way the world works" where this wont be the case. High level adventures will not be frustrated by plane shift, teleport, scrying and such but will REQUIRE THEM IN ORDER TO PROGRESS. The challenges will be quite different.

A BG who is sitting in an area wher efirst scry-teleport-buff means he is dead meat is a BIT PLAYER in a high level adventure, not the main guy.

If the Gm does not want to run those types of adventures, he needs to either stick to low levels, restarting the game after PCs reach 7th-10th, or he needs to change the classes to make this "the world."

its really not all that complex.

 

[Jeremy]

Well said Petrosian.

 

[incognito]

My DM was so frusttated with this concept, once he used it on us:

Nightime encounter, Party level 11
The attacking party scried us.
We noticed the sensor.
Nothing happened (we waited an hour).
The attacking party scried us, again.
We missed the sensor.

Wizard (illiusionist) teleports in. He is level 9.

He takes himself, a 1/2ling L3 Rogue/L4 Fighter (archer), and a L7 Psychic warrior: with Deep impact, and a +1 Mind Feeder Falcion , and a lightly equiped L6 elf finesse fighter (a chump). 450lbs total, just like in the book.

The whole party was Improved Invisible/Hasted/Bull's Str/Cat's Grace/Endurance. Keen edge was placed on the falcion. GMW on the arrows (that tied up all the wizards L3,L4 spells).

Hate last's 9 rounds The wizard spent 4 rounds (8 spells) casting up the party b4 teleport.

The invisible 1/2ling had imporved initiative, wpn focus/wpn spec PBS, Prec. Shot and Rapid Shot, a high dex, and enough STR to power a +2 might bow. He went after the Mage after moving within 30' for +2d6 sneak attack damage. Our mage was elven - and died (3 arrows, was 9d6+21 pts I believe).

Once 'ported in, the improved invisible mage cast maximized magic missles at the cleric from scrolls, the used his haste partial action to ready a magic missile of the cleric attempted to cast a spell. The cleric took 50 pts of damage and lost healing circle

The Psychic warrior with feats weapon focus, wpn spec, and power attack in addition to deep impact mated with high STR/animal affinity (3pp) used deep impact on the fighter. The fighter's touch AC was 12. He died after the second round (on a critical hit).

The chump was pretty ineffective. He went after the party Rogue, with expertise, improved disarm and grappling.

Within 4 rounds we had lost the fighter, the wizard, and the cleric (who took 75 pts of magic missile damage, before the wizard switched to L1 spells).

Yes, the rogue got away. Dust of dissaperance for a rainy day. He was trapped alone in a dungeon, but he got away.

Was this unfair? The EL for the encounter was estimated at 11

 

[Joshua Randall]

In DND 3e this format is more properly named "low level classic DND adventure."

I will concede this point. By classic I did intend to mean pre-3e, but didn't specify. As for low level, you're right about that; high level parties should face better challenges than some monster sitting on a hoard of treasure in a dungeon.

Anyway, I don't want to hijack the thread into a discussion of low level vs. high level, or classic D&D vs. 3e D&D, or dungeon crawls vs. political intrigue. Let's get back to the scry-buff-teleport issue at hand.

I think a combination of strictly enforcing the spells as written (casting times and weight limits in particular) can help. I also really like the house rule solution of stripping all spells during the teleport. Has anyone used this house rule, and if so, what were its ramifications? Did the PCs just move the buff to the end of the chain: scry-teleport-buff instead of scry-buff-teleport?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I'll throw in another possible way idea on how to counteract the B/S/T tactic:

Enemy priest casts divination: "At what point during the next day am I most likely to be assaulted by teleporting enemies?"

That seems a reasonable Divination to me; and would allow the bad guys to preplan on a significant level for an otherwise unexpected attack.

I have no problem with using the B/S/T tactic. I do think that its' imperative to deal with its limitations in a strict manner, and that will cause most of the really bad issues to go away. There are plenty of ways to protect yourself, and they have been mentioned by many.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

My DM was so frusttated with this concept, once he used it on us:

Nightime encounter, Party level 11
The attacking party scried us.
We noticed the sensor.
Nothing happened (we waited an hour).
The attacking party scried us, again.
We missed the sensor.

You are level 11 and you missed noticing the sensor? Bad roll o bad skill? If bad skill now you know not to let that skill slide. (the dcs are to low to scry on people IMO though)

Anyway I'd rate that encounter at past 11. A 9th level guy, and 3 7th level guys in it self would be about EL10. Add in pre-buffs, I think EL12, add in teleporting ambush and its EL14 IMO.

Also were you wondering around or camping. If camping don't camp out in the open, rope trick basically cancels all scrying attempts, the summon a stone house spell I guess wouldn't help much except to maybe make it a fight in crowded situations which is much more difficult for the ambusher, it would make a simple glitterdust spell cover the entire room to save the day, for example(wand of glitterdust is your friend I get one just for this situation.) Also I built some gogles of darkvision/see invis for the party the scout/who ever is on guard uses them.

If wondering around I can't help you much but to say ouch. I built a amulet of non-detection for everyone in the party. And re-built it to my current caster level every time I leveled up, the party thought it was worth the expense. Also a lot of buffs are long duraiton and can hlep you a lot. My wizard cast extended stat boost spells on the party for all day protection and a persistent shield as well. Also vs sneak attacks in general, i think it is imperitive for a wiz to get him/herself a mithral buckler+1/fortification what ever you can afford. The AC doesn't help since it wont stack with your bracers of armor(that virtually all wiz have), but you at least get a 25/75/100% chance to avoid crits/sneak attacks this lets the low HP types actually survive a surprise round.

Since I curently run a game and the players are less paranoid than me I haven't let loose too much on them yet, I've been slowly building up my nastyness, and the players have slowly started to build up there defenses.

My big problem with the B/S/T, is that many times I read a story on these boards where the game went from low ambushes, not many attacks while asleep, no scying at all to a sudden B/S/T encounter at the campsite that ends up in a near TPK. If you don't set up the environment for the players to be paranoid by the time they hit 9th level or even lower, don't drop a nasty ambush like this on them and expect them to feel ok about it.

 

[Coredump]

Few things about the example:
It shows how damn effective an ambush can be. Being ready to attack a known quantity is *much* easier than just trapsing through a dungeon.

Yes B-S-T is a powerful technique. However.... I have some questions about it, and some suggestions.

I do not think it was an EL 11. Just using straight numbers 7+7=9 9+9=11, so you have an 11 and a 6th...
PLUS, they had time and ability to set up an ambush, etc. So that increases the EL. This should have been an okay encounter straight up, as is, I would put it about EL 14 or so. (but, just my opinion)

It is convenient that the Wizards party was so 'light'.

Now, he could have used scrolls, but the wizard cast *twelve* 2nd lvl, 6 3rd lvl, and 4 4th lvl spells. He only gets 4/3/2 repectively. (plus bonus illusion and intellegence)

How did the 1/2ling get 6 feats? Shouldn't he only have 4?

Now they get trickier....

You say it was night. What light sources did you have? This raises *many* questions...

If it was dark, how did they see well enough to scry, even to 'view once'?

Assuming it is good enough light, how did they not teleport right on top of you? Remember, it is dark away from the campfire, so how could they see it?
(This also brings up the more general question of how much area is seen from scrying, just 10' around the target? 100'? If a large area, how does this work when scrying indoors? I always thought of scrying as a fairly small area seen around the target; which would also 'force' them to teleport right on top of you)

Since they did teleport 'into the dark', how did the wizard see to read the scroll?

The rogue had to move within 30', so how did he get 3 arrows off in one round?

I know nothing about psychic Warriors, so no comment there. (unless his movement towards the fighter may have given an AoO)




Now, questions/comments for you:
If it is dark, and you are being scryed, having no light is a pretty good defense.(Not total, but pretty good)

When ambushed, running away is a pretty good tactic. The campfire (assuming) would only have a radius of about 20'. A full movement action yeilds no AoO's, and gets you into the dark. They can't really stay and loot, since then you can ambush them.

I would have never had the cleric cast HC as his first action. Sundering the bow, or sundering the scroll would have been my first thought. (especially the scroll) And it would have saved him 50pts of MM damage. (the readied action would not have triggered)

How badly did they want you, that they were willing to risk 25% chance of being somewhere far away, and with no spells left?


Oh well... just curious...

edit: format

 

[incognito]

shard,

Eventually the wizard/cleric had to rest.

The Rogue failed to notice the sensor.
And ELs are not increased by the situation, the XP award is.

The rope trick is the solution, I agree. Although the wizard could've dispelled it. Then all PCs are prone. And what to do with the bag of holding?

Anyway - the best solution I've seen is the Divination: When will be be attacked by a scrying teleporting party.

 

[James McMurray]

And ELs are not increased by the situation, the XP award is.

Actually, as laid out in the DMG (pg. 167, under "Modifying Encounter Levels") EL is increased due to circumstances. I believe you meant to say that CR is not increased by circumstances.

Of course, for the awarding of XP, EL doesn't matter one whit. You take the CRs and then apply a mofifier (table on pg. 167). EL is only used when determining what amount of resources an encounter will require: 20% is standard, 100% is a TPK.

I do agree with the other posters who said the encounter was EL13-14.