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

[Thanee]

In our high level campaign (characters are 18th/19th level now), we used this all the time. It seems to be a very common form of ambush, if you have the magical skills available.

Of course there are ways to limit this and there are always dangers awaiting.

So no, I don't think it's a problem, just one of the things you have to keep in mind for high level adventures!

Overlandtravel doesn't happen very often, unless you don't have to get to a specific point, which can easily be reached via teleport, or have characters in the party, that enjoy a journey and would rather travel by feet than by spell sometimes.

Bye
Thanee

 

[James McMurray]

If I can raise my friends, I can also give them a very good description of the fellow who teleported all those people in like that.

Assuming you had managed to down a potion of See Invisibiity during the ambush.

 

[bret]

Assuming you had managed to down a potion of See Invisibiity during the ambush.

Sorry, you are correct.

I'm so used to playing Rogue/Wiz just for the See Invisible, that I overlooked that. In any case, if I had been the survivor I would have been able to do it.

Then again, being able to deal with invisible creatures is always high on my priority list as a player. Blind Fight, magic items, and/or spell. Any Wizards I run that make it to 10th level +1000 xp immediately drop the 1000 XP to make See Invisible permanent.

By 10th level, a group should have been dealing with invisible opponents for at least the last 5-6 levels. They should have encountered Improved Invisibility several times as well over the last 4 or so levels.

 

[James McMurray]

Yeah, the party in my campaign uses persistant Invisibility Prge. It has made the sorcerer's choice of Invisibility and See Invisibility spells nearly obsolete, but it has saved the party more times than they even know about.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I've not been able to get to the boards for quite a while, but I'd like to thank everyone for their thoughtful input to the subject. I'm very glad that I brought the question up.

It even has its own acronym now!

BST. You know it makes sense

 

[maddman75]

I think there is a larger issue that needs to be dealt with. It isn't just a matter of heroes and bad guys popping in on each other. What about politics?

Are the leaders of the various kingdoms to scry upon each other with impunity? How can you have council meetings, or negotiations, or diplomacy, when it takes an inordinate amount of power and money to keep a place safe from prying eyes?

IMC, I say that mixing a bit of gorgon blood into the mortar of a building during construction renders the area immune to scrying. This is done in the chambers of the leaders as well as the meeting places. By this level, the PCs should have an appropriate place to rest (both PKitty's and Wulf's group have a regular base of operations.)

This would only leave the PCs vulnerable when they are camping in the wilderness or sleeping in an inn. And if you can teleport, you'll learn not to do that pretty quick if you have powerful enemies.

Quick, easy, solves the problem, and preserves the nature of the typical campaign.

 

[WizarDru]

Well, Petrosian has already put forth my general views on the subject, and I think his words stand pretty well on their own, so I won't cover that ground again.

As for the political ramifications, this is merely an extension of one of the reasons that Mage Guilds exist at all. An example would be the Overking's Court in Rauxes (in Greyhawk). It possessed a permanent enchantment on it, forcing anyone who appeared before the king to only speak the truth. Presumably the overking coerced the local guild to create said enchantment, as a service to the Great Kingdom (when it still existed). There's no reason to assume this wouldn't be the case for other functions, as well.

Either mages and clerics wouldn't provide support to most kingdoms, or they do, and it creates a mage detente. I usually see this as part of Glen Cook's general view of spellcasters...in most cases, they cancel each other out. There are only so many high level spellcasters, and usually they band together until they reach a certain level of power. A moderately high-level spellcaster might see this wisdom in garnering the king's favor. Certainly, the clergy would: witness the Theocracy of the Pale and Hextor's domination of the Great Kingdom under Ivid the Undying. Moderately high-level spellcasters would create defenses BEFORE creating enemies, in any event. To do otherwise would be to ensure that they wouldn't ever reach those moderately high levels.

And generally speaking, I don't care how powerful a spellcaster you are: you don't want the enmity of an entire country against you. Never mind the fact that most arcane spellcasters are glad (GLAD, I TELL YOU!) to advance the career at the expense of someone who has been too incautious.

 

[incognito]

BST defense

See, there are a variety of ways to pretect agasint this if you in a static home base (it's expensivem but it can be done)- it's just travel overland is not feasible once teleport becomes available to the baddies.

The one quesiton I have left regarding this thread: Has anyone seen BST used gaint parties ALREADY in a combat?

 

[Thanee]

Here's one thing (I had posted some time ago), which I used recently to give my BST-ing PCs some headache.

The evil guy (a certain Drow Sorcerer/Archmage they already killed twice, but he keeps returning with a vengeance... gotta love Clone), who is quite aware, that the PCs are still out to get him, used a Contingency False Vision spell to fool them into teleporting into a carefully prepared trap, where some Spectres and a couple Iron Golems were waiting for them in an area (the one displayed in the False vision, just without the trap and with the Dark Elf, who was meditating) with a permanent Dimensional Anchor (using Unhallow) and magical Darkness.

Luckily (for the PCs) they were using True Seeing spells before teleporting in, but it still got quite ugly for them (Wizard and Paladin dead, Cleric planeshifted away against her will), altho they managed to kill the Dark Elf again (the Wizard died after killing the Dark Elf, from rolling a 1 against the Iron Golem poison's secondary effect after 1 minute... Poor guy!).

Bye
Thanee

 

[James McMurray]

In the game I'm running, a dragon that the party had made an enemy of used BST on them. They had just dropped another evil dragon in its lair, and the Red that was using the party to hunt dragons popped in and dropped several Subdual Substituted Fireballs. The party dropped, and the dragon carted off a large chunk of change. He left a little behind and note saying thanks, and that he always liked to pay his underlings.

The party almost retired at that point, they were so pissed. But they later hunted that dragon down and gave him a thrashing.