Forked Thread: Noone buffs, Dispel magic scrolls suck

[Hussar]

Noumenon - I'm with you on this.

Hereticus, of the monsters you listed, "drow, githyanki, demons, devils, evil cults, dragons", only drow and dragons could do what you are talking about. Possibly the evil cults, unless they're clerics.

Yes, I agree that if your campaigns featured a wizard in the majority of encounters, then yes, the baddies can use those kind of tactics. OTOH, looking at Goodman Games, Paizo, WOTC and various other modules, I'm thinking you're pretty much in a minority here for designing adventures this way.

 

[billd91]

Deleted

 

[Umbran]

Players are engaged in a resource-management game, the GM is not.

As a practical matter, buffs are extra bookkeeping for the GM, who already has a lot of stuff on his or her plate. For the most part, in terms of adventure design and execustion, it is far more efficient for the GM to simply make the encounters at the difficulty he wants them to begin with, rather than pick a weaker enemy, and them buff them up to the level he wants them.

 

[Noumenon]

Think buffs like displacement or haste, that give the fight a different character than a mere +2 here or there.

 

[Hereticus]

... eventually found the spot they arrived at.

Track skill? Some kind of divination?

Yes, the tracking skill, with favorable terrain (mud from recent rain).

And I believe the Heroism spell grants buffs to skill checks.

Here's what my party's encounters look like at 7th level -- "two monstrous scorpions approach. You kill them. Here is a giant with a sack full of centipedes. Here are a bunch of araneas casting ray of enervation."

Hmmm araneas... the party was distracted from noticing the ambush because there was a dead aranea floating down the river... previously killed by the bad guys and floated to serve as a distraction.

It worked, we did not know what it was while it was floating toward us (described as a big hairy blob, not moving), and the Fighter on the river bank shot it with a roped arrow and was pulling it back toward shore when the ambush happened. We later cast Speak With Dead on it.

 

[Hereticus]

Players are engaged in a resource-management game, the GM is not.

As a practical matter, buffs are extra bookkeeping for the GM, who already has a lot of stuff on his or her plate. For the most part, in terms of adventure design and execustion, it is far more efficient for the GM to simply make the encounters at the difficulty he wants them to begin with, rather than pick a weaker enemy, and them buff them up to the level he wants them.

From what I recall, the DM rolled very few dice in the above mentioned encounter.

7d6 for fireball twice, and a few arrow attacks.

But he did laugh alot, watching our confusion while we got caught with our pants down.

 

[roguerouge]

Hussar, what makes you think I was talking about divinations when I used the word "scouting"? In the Age of Worms campaign I'm playing in, we've had three scouts die with nary a spell cast: ginormous grapple monster, swarm of smaller grapple monsters, and a patrol of strong soldier types. I'm not even counting the near-misses.