Forked Thread: Noone buffs, Dispel magic scrolls suck

[Noumenon]

Forked from: Dispel magic scrolls suck

We rarely go against enemies with buff spells up. 1 time in 10? If that much.

Same goes for me. In modules, it seems like almost every one devotes several encounters to setting up the BBEG so that he has time and information to buff himself. Scrying, listen checks, guards. Everyone else gets taken by surprise. So I get the impression from running modules that buffs are rare and hard to set up.

Some modules I was referring to were: Cave of Spiders (guards warn end guy to put on a big pile of buffs), The Tower of Lore cliffhanger (bad guy casts clairvoyance twice to get all buffed), another one where a yak folk sends an invisible jann around to watch the party so he can buff, etc, etc. Goodman Games is the same where the BBEG gets all the spells. Then there are a lot with just no buffs like White Plume Mountain and low level adventures.

So from Wizards' adventures I get the impression that buffs always take huge amounts of planning to set up and are only worth it for BBEGs.

The only adventure I've run that actually had a lot of different buffs going on was The Giant's Skull by Fiery Dragon. That had an alert factor system that could have all the inhabitants of the castle arming themselves and preparing with divine spells, and it was actually really great for a DM who loves magic. The only problem is the PCs play ogres in that adventure and they don't have access to dispel magic.

Our party doesn't buff much either because once a combat's started, it's too late. So Dispel Magic just doesn't do much. I memorized it for three levels in a row and never cast it. Do you commonly see enemies under 10th level with spell-like effects up? You'd need at least two for Dispel Magic to be worth it since it's a 50-50 shot.

 

[roguerouge]

Paizo tends to make use of buffs quite a bit.

 

[blargney the second]

I try to make my bad guys use buffs about as much as my players do. For the most part, that's actually not much. If someone's packing Dispel Magic around, I toss out an extra long-lasting buff or two, frequently in scroll form.

 

[Piratecat]

Certain of my bad guys at high level were often buffed out the ying-yang*. It was handy for the PCs to carry Mordenkainen's Disjunction and Greater Dispel Magic as a result.

* Buff Ying-Yang is in the Spell Compendium.

 

[Hereticus]

Certain of my bad guys at high level were often buffed out the ying-yang*. It was handy for the PCs to carry Mordenkainen's Disjunction and Greater Dispel Magic as a result.

My high level 3.5E Wizard did not like to cast Disjunction, because he wanted the treasure he would claim to still be magical.

I remember going up against a Red Wizard. I was invisible (a 9th level version of the spell) and could not be detected. Another player (not the DM) was running the Red Wizard, and cast a couple of Enlarged and Widened Disjunctions at me, hoping to get lucky. Fortunately I had Foresight cast and knew where not to be.

 

[Hereticus]

I try to make my bad guys use buffs about as much as my players do.

If you're going to hand out the experience and bling, make them earn every last gold piece!

An intelligent monster would act in the same manner as a player character who is defending their keep against an attack. In my opinion, some DMs should be more challenging.

Case in point... why would a dragon ever land if it had advantage from the sky? If a player character had such an advantage, would they land? Heck no!

 

[Remathilis]

* Buff Ying-Yang is in the Spell Compendium.

Huh. I didn't notice it in my copy. Can you transcribe it please?

 

[Runestar]

I may use buffs extensively if I felt the foes were too weak to properly challenge the PCs.

For instance, I once ran this side-trek from dungeon involving 6 young white dragons and their drider leader. Since she was a 6th lv sorc caster (and had prior warning from a kobold sentry), I had her buff the 6 dragons with mage armour, resist energy, mass bull's strength (from a scroll I have her), and capped it off with haste when they encountered the PCs.

For my PCs, the 1st round is typically spent prepping. Warblade uses adaptive style to swap in relevant maneuvers, casters spit out mass-buffs, rogue UMDs wand of greater invis.

Same for monsters. If they have a SLA usable at will (such as a balor's unholy aura), I simply assume they will refresh it every chance they get and that it is already up when the PCs approach them.

Fairly common in my game, most foes tend to at least have 1-2 buffs up. Arguably enough to make the use of dispel magic worthwhile, not enough to put a serious dent in their offensive capabilities if dispel succeeds, and not enough to overpower the PCs if dispel fails.

 

[chriton227]

In my games Dispel Magic really became valuable once the PCs and the enemies started getting access to long duration buffs (hr/level) at a sufficient level to last most of the day (Mage Armor, Greater Magic Weapon, Magic Vestments and Hero's Feast to name a few). But below about level 8, it really didn't see much use.

 

[Noumenon]

Certain of my bad guys at high level were often buffed out the ying-yang*.

Do you bother with a separate justification for each one, setting up scrying, spies, and sufficient delaying encounters so he can get them all cast? Or do you just make up the stat block and say "He'll be like this."