DM Advice Requested: Higher Level Spells

[RJSmalls]

Hi all,

I was hoping I could troll the boards here to get some advice from fellow DM's or players who are comfortable in mid- to high-level campaigns. I read many of the storyhours on this site, and they have been immensely helpful, but I'm still having some difficulties grasping some issues.

The Issues:

Teleport - This just seems to take away some of the "fun" from the campaign. Part of the enjoyment was getting from Point A to Point B. Now the party can teleport around like madmen. I know there's chances for failure, but they're small. If the party wiz/sor has a Bag of Holding, he can take a couple party members per teleport spell. In short - it takes away the hard, overland or overwater journies. Am I missing something?

Rope Trick - This second level spell is better than all the Leomund spells, I think. It creates an extra-dimensional space and effectively hides the party any time they want to rest/camp. Works like a champ even within the bowels of dungeons. Any suggestions on how to handle RT?

Invisibility - It seems common now to have the PC's and the baddies they fight invisible via Improved Invisibility. It's become so prevalent it's just, well, annoying. Most of the combatants are flying, too, so the battlemat becomes a confusing place to be. Perhaps this is just how higher level combat works and I (we) need to get used to it?

Scry - Seems incredibly easy to spy on someone. Too easy, really. I even use Andy Collins' variant scry rules. How do DM's ever keep things hidden from PC's?

Bottom line: I don't want to metagame against my PC's. I don't want every baddie to have a nondetection up. I don't want every dungeon to have dimensional anchor on it. But I also want the players to have fun, and I think the existence of teleport and/or scry and what-not may be taking away from that.

One solution may be to house rule that stuff out, but I don't want to go down that road. The rules obviously work as written or no one would enjoy the higher levels. Maybe I just need to give them some more time?

I realize after reviewing the above I don't really ask any specific questions. For that I'm sorry. I'm just trying to get comfortable with some spells that weren't too common in the earlier months of the campaign.

Any suggestions, links, web sites, etc. would be appreciated!

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

As regards teleport, I think you'll find it doesn't have such a great impact as you'd think. After all, it takes a lot of effort to teleport a whole bunch of people. And as regards the bag of holding, just how big is it? Can they get inside?

Besides, at this point, travel becomes secondary. As the DM, you can still places encounters in their way, no matter how they get around. And how often do your characters actually spend ages travelling about, anyway?

Most of the rest come down to DM choice. You don't have to choose to have the party assailed by flying invisible monsters. You don't have to let them scry on everyone, just the unimportant types. Besides, even if they do scry on someone, what does that really give them? The casting time on scry is huge, plus it's fairly easy to detect.

Check around, there are some good threads on rope trick, too.

 

[MarauderX]

I used to throw lots of dispels at the higher level party I DMed until I got used to the higher level tactics. It sounds like your players are very familiar with the PCs abilities and how to use them to the max, so work with it the same way for the adventures. To me, the more planning and thought I put into how a dragon or other intellegent being might prepare for the PCs the better the game turns out. Catching them off-guard in combat is one thing; throw a few curve balls in the plot and they might be reeling from knowing the good from the bad, etc.

Let them scry the wrong guy or have the BBEG being scryed fully expect it and let them detect him doing something wrong, only disguised in some manner so that the party accuses the wrong person. It works wonders when the party makes the accusation in a large public forum then has to earn the public's trust back again. It could be more of a media war to trash the party's character, and somehow the BBEG gains from it. Just some suggestions I suppose.

Also, BBEGs or their cronies have spells galore and they use them rapidly. Having a caster go down with half his spells left isn't an efficient use IMO, and higher level parties can take the hits or make the saves on some tough spells but they get nervous about it just the same as if they were lower level.

I would limit the ways in which a party can use Rope Trick, and have knowlegeable enemies that are fully aware of it and how to 'defeat' it.

Characters thrown into a Bag of Holding IMC have to hold their breath with some penalties for being crammed in together with a load of crap, not to mention the amount of lint that the thing can hold, and even then a teleport might leave them behind.

IMC, I raise teleport by 2 levels so that it is rare to be teleported around. Not even the top wizards do it for fear of it going awry, which has been a strong indication not to use it too much.

Yeah, flying took some getting used to for us, especially with large scale battles that start miles apart. Dragons are pretty rare IMC, so having one flying towards the PCs from miles away got them into a panic as they knew that it would also have a battle plan with some vicious combinations as well as some minions to deploy, all of which could end in PCs dying if not a TPK. What helps to keep the scale relative is time and I give the PCs a rough estimate of how much they have.

 

[Camarath]

Rope Trick- You could lay traps just out side the extra-dimensional space or gather a large force just under the space and displell it in the middle of the night (or rest period). Or even abadon the entire dungeon wile they sleep. Also the spell says nothing about the air supply, so you could rule that after an hour the air supple is exhausted and must be renewed some how.

Teleport - Find spells or items that block astarl travel these will block teleportation. And the psionic power Divert Teleport is a great tool for teaching a party not to just teleport right into an enemy hide out. Also the enemys also have teleport so make the party chase the roving enemys. Also you can base high lv enemies on other planes.

Invisibility - Items of continuous See Invisibility are 12,000 and high spot bonus items work almost as well. Invisibility Purge is also a good spell, as is true seeing.

Scry - Nondetection, Detect Scrying, False Vision, Mind Blank, psionic power Remote View (Scrying) Trap, all these spell can and should be used to counter act scrying. Also use scrying against the party. Detect srying can give you a image and sense of the location of the person scrying you then you can counter scry and launch a teleport strike against the party. Also remember that the enemys can use illusions or arrange things to mislead scryers.

At higher lv it become important to make the parties foes active and moble. Base dungeon crawls can become easy and boring unless speacial steps are take to makle them novel and challenging. Why would high lv enemies sit in one place when they can easily operate form six or seven rotating locations. You character have power and some independence now, so don't be afraid to throw the full force of tactics and deception at them.

 

[Kerrick]

I can recommend some spells in our new book, Arcane Strife. We've got things like teleport stutter (causes the target to take a full hour to manifest at the destination), teleport trace (finds where the teleporter has gone), divert scrying (when cast on a creature, any scrying attempts are diverted to a predetermined location), and counterscry (if you know someone's scrying on you, you can nail him). As you might have guessed, we've come up with this problem before, and we came up with unique and interesting ways to deal with it.

 

[Werewolf_26]

Here are a few ideas with dealing with these spells.


Rope Trick- If your concerned about the party who uses teleport and bags of holding together, then this should be a snap. Bag of hold + Extradimensional Space = Bad stuff happening. Either bag of holding sucked in, closing the dimensional space and destroying the bag and its contents, or everyone near might get sucked into the astral plane. Your choice. check out the portable hole discription on DMG pg 224. Most players would rather spend the night in the dangerous dungeon than leave their little magical bags of holding unguarded on the ground below.


Teleport - What evil temple or evil complex would be without a Forbiddance spell? This 6th level spell cast by evil clerics to protect areas they are concerned about both keeps people from going in if they walk in to the area, but it also prevents extradimensional travel. 60 ft cube per level (shapeable) means you can pretty much ward your main strong hold area, with out a problem. And its a permanent spell. Also keep in mind that the spell is a vocal spell, so the simple silence spell cancels it out, and deafness gives it a 20% miss cast chance.


Invisibility - More clerical spells to get rid of problems. Unhallow your site, bind invisibility purge to it. This does cover less area than the Forbiddance spell, but you can put it towards the front of your base or the inner sanctum to prevent invisibility from ruining your day. You could also have creatures with scent keeping their nose to the floor watching for unfamiliar scents. Or have your floors covered in sand, ash, or water to follow the movements of an invisible creature. They might fly at this point, so wind walls would be useful for sealing off areas (remember flying creatures are considered 1 size category smaller for purposes of wind effects on them---medium size spell casters would be considered small, and wind wall deflects small creatures).


Scry - If the villain detects the scrying, it might be better to give them false information rather than screening it. Combat the easiest spying spell with misinformation. Be ready to give the false information at any time.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I think the search for "silver bullet" solutions to particular spells is doomed to failure. What is needed is a shift in one's thinking about how to challenge the PCs.

The kinds of challenges faced by lower-level PCs are mere annoyances, or less, to high-level PCs. For example, overland travel. To a low-level PC, this can be a tremendous ordeal. For a high-level PC, overland travel can be avoided completely (via teleport and the like) or made much easier to handle.

So. Instead of trying to ramp up the same-old, same-old (e.g., "overland travel... through dimensionally anchored invisibility purged nondection areas!"), try to come up with completely different challenges for the high-level PCs. Ideally, ones that allow them to flex their hard-earned muscles (nothing frustrates the players more than being arbitrarily denied use of their powers).

If you need inspiration, read some of the high-level Story Hours; e.g., PirateCat's or Sepulchrave's (for two very different takes on high-level play).

Again -- don't try to nerf particular spells or abilities. Try to present different challenges that require creative application of the PCs' spells and abilities.

 

[Piratecat]

Some of these (such as scry, considering the report that there is no more scry skill) are changed in 3.5, which is kind of nice.

I find wind walk to be almost more disruptive to travel than teleport; it affects more of the party. And note that unlike a portable hole, you should never be able to fit a medium-sized PC into a normal-sized bag of holding. The opening (in my opinion) simply isn't big enough.

I think rope trick is fine. Light travels out of the hole, I believe, as does smell - and it isn't especially comfortable. In fact, in Sagiro's campaign we were recently dispelled out of our rope tricks at 2am. Nasty.

 

[Fenes 2]

I banned all those spells imc. Makes planning adventures much, much easier.

 

[Kugar]

Here are my 2 cents.

As heroes rise in level, think not to design encounters that diminish their power - yet instead develop situations that require their skills.

Take TP. Yup! Overland transport just got easier, but now you can pull a cool plot that requires the party to pull two levers on opposite sides of the world within five minutes, and spring it on the party with only 24 hours before the appointed time! Or maybe a dragon has a lair where it destroyed all the entrances long ago and uses TP to get in and out.

Rope Trick is a good spell to use to rest and regain spells, but if you as a DM are annoyed with it create a situation where stopping to rest has dire consequences. The clock is ticking and real heroes will dig it out.

Scrying is good! If your PCs are doing it, then assume they will in the future and use it for plot hooks. A good scry is a way to make the world seem more alive and vital if there is human activity going on around the scry area. Perhaps the BBG is hiding in crowded market and a half a dozen market goers see sense the scry sensor. Make Scry+TP+Fight harder.

The other problem you get with high level casters is that they like to rest a lot. Increasing the tension and upping the timelines sometimes makes a better game. If the party locates someone they want to beat up, maybe they learn he is just the bottom rung of a ladder - and bad things are happening as they speak. (All this = if the spell casters cast whatever they want and are never at a loss try upping the number of encounters per day.)