DM Advice Requested: Higher Level Spells

Kerrick said:
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.

I just bought the book, and I don't see teleport stutter or teleport trace.

BTW, am I reading Freeze Tag correctly? The wizard casts it on the high BAB Paladin, who then makes a touch attack on the dragon. The dragon gets no save or spell resistance and the party gets free attacks for the four or five rounds until the hold monster wears off, at which point the caster dismisses the spell. If the dragon is still alive that is, which seems unlikely.

This is more dangerous than Harm, and is only second level!
 

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I'm in the camp that says players should be allowed (even encouraged) to use their higher-level abilities, but they should realize that the bad guys will too, and no one spell or ability can solve every problem.

Rope Trick: Recently the heroes in my campaign had dire wolves from an evil temple hunting them. Rope trick didn't protect them from being tracked or scryed upon, allowing their opponents to set up a couple of ambushes. Even better, one of the enemy spellcasters used a rope trick to hide in near the ambush, waited for the party to become fully engaged, then exited the rope trick invisibly and started lobbing fireballs! Later, when he fled (the party defeated their attackers), he flew away invisibly and the party spent several hours near the rope trick, waiting for him to come out. They're still not certain he wasn't in there the whole time - they just know they didn't catch him.

Teleport: Some GM's don't use the failure chances, which makes this spell far too powerful. With the chance of failure, a party won't use this for every day transportation. And, as Kugar mentioned, it's very easy to create adventures which force the use of teleport, allowing the party to use this ability to save the day, not wreck the story.

Invisibility and Improved Invisibility: Whenever a character goes invisible, I don't allow the other players to automatically know his/her position. They know where the character is *supposed* to be (if they planned ahead), but without see invisible or something similar, an entire party of invisible characters is liable to trip over themselves. Also, many higher-level encounters include opponents who can find invisible foes, so these spells shouldn't be an autokill by any means. On the other hand, I strongly encourage my players to scout before charging, and using invisibility on the scout is a smart choice, IMC.

Scrying: This one's tricky. It hasn't become a problem in my campaign yet, but if it does, I see a couple of factors which will help. One, I'll make sure the players know that scrying can be detected, so they shouldn't assume whatever they see is accurate - a little paranoia should go a long way. Also, they have to know who to scry upon, and when. Not even high-level wizards can scry the same person forever, certainly not without being noticed and having their target take appropriate action. In television and movies, the heroes always happen to overhear something critical - in the game, the party wizard may spend an hour learning nothing more than what the target likes for breakfast - or he may learn of the plot to kill the king. It's up to the GM to adjudicate, based on the party's actions. Scrying should never be like looking up the answers in the back of the book, so to speak.
 

Use similar tactics against your players, and see what kinds of countermeasures they develop.

Start off small; they notice scrying sensors around them a lot. After a few weeks, have unpleasant things teleport in on them. A bevy of succubi, a gang of trolls, stuff like that. Or maybe they didn't teleport; perhaps they were just hiding in a Rope Trick?

Be careful not to inflict any TPK's on them; just see what kinds of measures they can develop. And then have your NPCs do the same.
 

Regards to teleport, Dimensional Anchor is a fun spell. Party TPs in, doesn't TP out. I would rule it stops characters from entering a Rope Trick as well, since Rope Trick is an extradimensional space.
 

note that Monte Cook has writen some really good spells to do with teleportation in the Book of Eldritch Might, and some really good scrying spells in the Book of Eldritch Might 3...

As for teleport taking the fun out of travel, i say the fun for whom? for the DM maybe, but as a player I always got a great kick out of teleporting, and this made the game fun. plus i managed to roll a LOT of mishaps, so my DM enjoyed it too. I also agree with PC about the bag of holding. No way a PC is fitting in the top of that...
 

Hight level spells.

I had a high level cleric and druid not wizard but Wind Walk is kind of the same.
I looked at this way, how many random encounters roaming the country side could challenge a 15th level party. Something that powerful should be destroying the country side and killing low level adventures left an right.

Here is a little idea for you.

A powerful Lich built a lab IN the Mountain of Pain. Well there is no entrance, he just teleports into his lair. Since the party doesn't know exactly were they can't teleport in. Scry, well I took that into account, Lead lined walls and what not. Passwall in, same issue with teleporting, don't know exctly were it is. Plus that take time and I get a pet dragon that flies around the mountain.
Cleric starts casting Legend Lore and what not, why not ask Tyr, he might know. Tyr tells them that the Lich had apprentice long time ago but he is imprisioned in the Abyss. Well the party Planes shifts to the Abyss to rescue this guy who can tell them how to teleport into the liches lair.

The secret to high level spells is make them part of the adventure, not something the DM is supposed to overcome.
 

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