how do you find someone who cant be found?

[Theo R Cwithin]

If there's time to prepare, maybe overlapping alarm spells in strategic places. The caster can get the guy's position to within 10ft or so if laid out well.

Solid fog to slow him down & blind him as he traverses the alarms.
Walls or force effects to try to trap him, or area effects to smack him. Does faerie fire help, if available?

Sovereign glue and a big net?

Can helping hand seek out an invisible opponent (if available)?

 

[Allegro]

Another approach would be to trap the items to make them difficult for him to steal. Craft a box which if empty casts disjunction and widened glitter dust to reduce his hide check by -40. Or get some crazy high DC contact poison for the items, or curse the items to only work for somebody named bob, who is an elf, and worships X.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

How do his adventuring companions find him?

 

[Jack Simth]

Traditional answer to the subject line:
You don't.

Slightly more helpful answer:
You don't. You make him find you. He's put a LOT of effort into being unfindable. Okay.

Type 1) He's probably not as good at spotting things as he is at hiding things. Show him what happens when you duplicate his method. Clone-of-him BBEG had the dungeon teleport-blocked by a hireling, convinces the party to brave his stronghold, and then once they're good and deep, closes off a big maze-like section, and starts sniping everyone (starting with the spelltheif). Toss a Ring of Invisibility onto the clone (command word is in Drow Sign, so as not to give away location), and whenever the problem player goes invisible, the BBEG just uses the at-will ring to wait out the actual spell. Once the problem player is visible again, BBEG switches to Improved Invisibility and goes to town. Oh yes, and the BBEG also put the keystone spell in wand/staff form, as appropriate to it's level.

Type 2) Level the playing field. Obscuring Mist makes his methods rather useless. If he's more than ten feet away from his target, he can't target his target except by guessing at a square. If he fires from less than ten feet away, his location is known, and he can be hit with an area effect. Oh yes, and Sneak Attack doesn't work.

Type 3) Terrain choice + True Seeing. Unless he's got Hide in Plain Sight (Camouflage, actually; Hide in Plain Sight does not negate the need for cover, just the restriction that you can't hide while being observed...) from somewhere, he can't hide without Cover or Concealment. If there's no actual cover/concealment in the area, and the target has True Seeing to negate the invisibility, it doesn't matter what the spellthief's Hide modifier is - he can't use the skill.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mmmmm the OP said he flies....

So he flies...meh.

Start lobbing fireballs and listen for the "Ouch!" and sniff for the singed-hair.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

As soon as they find him, start using sundering attacks to break his magic items. Then DM-up and stop letting him buy whatever he wants whenever he wants.

It sounds like this character has been allowed to get out of control and is broken...

 

[irdeggman]

As soon as they find him, start using sundering attacks to break his magic items. Then DM-up and stop letting him buy whatever he wants whenever he wants.

It sounds like this character has been allowed to get out of control and is broken...

Or he is basically a one-trick pony and put everything he has into a single "trick".

Reduce the opportunities for the "trick" and expose the character's weaknesses.

In my experience when a character focuses on one thing then they give up being able to do something else.

I personnaly never have trouble letting a character who has focused on one thing be the "best" at that, I just like to have every player get a chance to shine.

So back to reducing the opportunities to allow the character to take the center stage as it were.

Look for what his character has given up in order to be really good at his "trick" - perhaps his search and spot checks aren't that great - so have him have to deal with "invisible" enemies. In fact that might be a good idea anyway - then the DM can get "clues" as to how to deal with the PC - since obviously the player would think that his "solutions" would work ;-)

 

[meltinbradley]

dannyalcatraz- I like some of those ideas.
Duke Arioch- He has been playing since d&d came out. He knows his . He is very technical and very calculated. He's vicious and his sons suppose to be worse. Hes hard to find and if he hits you and you are not immune to crits youre probably dead.
Well, he wants to get more stuff, but im limiting him now because if he has everything and hes invincible whats the point of playing.
On the other hand, I am a 2nd edition player and with all the books in 3.5 there is just so much reading to do thats its hard for me to deal with someone like that. But he has definetely stepped up my game as a DM.
Sure, I could easily take away some of his things but I would prefer to find a way to counter him then to just through out a impossible scnario designed to deal with him and kill him, or take all of his things away. At this point it may turn into that, but I have some ideas now and you all have given me some ideas to try if they work great, if not then i might have to be a little cheap. It definetely is a lesson learned but if it steps my game up and makes me a better DM then its a good lesson rather then frustration.
Globetrotter- Anti magic fields are good, but I dont want to hinder everyone, just him. And I agree with you about letting the players do what they want to do especially if its in the rules. Everything he did was within limits of the 3.5 books for the most part. I think its important to give the players what they want if they can get it. If i come up with a campaign and they PC's dont want to do it, then i need to be able to adjust and change it. When DM's control everything and limit what you can do, or not give you what you want, or turn you into things that you dont want its not fun.
I had a DM do that to me where I had my character and he totally changed me thinking I would be happy but it pissed me off and i stopped playing. But NOW, I also think there is a limit, if you get EVERYTHING you want then it just gets boring because there is no challenge if youre doing 1000 points of damage a round, cant be found, immune to all energy, death attacks, poison etc. But I do try to cater to what people want, and if they can get it then so be it.
I am a little more exciting now because you have given me ideas to try and its going to be challenging to kill him. Its a goal I have now and I want to beat him in a fair way and not by throwing a epic level challenge rating 66 creature at him. I want to beat him at his own game.
Yes, I do have NPC's occasionally see him. But I want things also to make sense. The reason why he is what he is, is because they other PC's would punk on him and treat him badly. So he became a ghost to everyone. Waiting, got powerful, and killed some of the other PC's for what they did to him when he was weaker. They dont mess with him anymore.
orc with in- ahahhaa..the glue with the net....we were going to try that with a solar but decided it would be to expensive. Those are good ideas, i forgot to mention he has the ability to use blindsense and blind sight so i dont know how much those will help unless i give the NPCs the dark stalker feat. I like the alarms idea though, i will look into that.
allegro- I like that. Cursed items are good.
Michael- They dont find him. As I said before the other players treated him like , but now hes in a position of respect. He comes out when he wants. He is ALWAYS invisible.
Jack- I like the double idea, but with his blind sense and blinde sight, would fog protect those who wish to be covered?
Orgrok the mighty- He still a very expensive item from one of the players who died, sold it and made lots of money. But sundering does sound REAL nice.
Irdeggmen- youre right, I need to go over his character sheet again and really look at how to take advantage of him and exploit his weaknesses because they are there.
Thanks again everyone.

 

[Jack Simth]

Jack- I like the double idea, but with his blind sense and blinde sight, would fog protect those who wish to be covered?

If he's got them? Not so much. But there's other ways - what's his blindsense/blightsight based on? A Cleric with Silence could possibly fix that. Alternately, Blindesense and Blindsight don't work on incorporeal critters - a ghost spellcaster with True Seeing (the spell) would SERIOUSLY crimp his style.

 

[Dark_Juggernaut]

Ok bud, I'm your man. A month or two ago my friend wanted to make a sniper and I went nuts making him the nastiest sniper I could find. I ended up with a build for a 20th lvl character that could sneak attack at 75 feet 20 times a round and remain hidden in the same round WITHOUT the NEED for hide in plain sight (which he has). He has woodland archer so he can sneak attack through concealment once one of his shots gets past it.

Please make sure your player is taking the proper negatives for the sniping action against enemies with true-sight. He's not invisible to them so he has to re-roll his hide every time at -20. There's a pair of feats/features my sniper uses to reduce the penalty to zero, is your sniper doing the same?

My sniper used an item familiar to get his hide up to double base strength, as well as his spot and move silently.

My sniper took tanged threat and penetrating strike so he can sneak attack things immune to them if he flanks (10-15' and 60-75' away). All the ranged effects are thanks to the gnomish crossbow sight in the Arms and Equipment Guide.

This character has dark stalker as well, so yes all these alternate senses won't work. Every DM I talk to and I myself included rule that mind blank makes you immune to telepathy and mind sense.

Before I continue, know I'm genuinely interested in all this as well because I've been finding every way he can be detected and countering it in the game we're playing (I'm a PC in this one). I personally would rather my favorite min-maxed munchkinoid character to be able to handle an enemy like this, otherwise he'll have been my best template...and I don't like the thought of an unbeatable character.

Here's what I have for you:

Arcane sight A simple third level spell that gives all the effects of detect magic instantly without concentration. This will not only let enemies pinpoint his position, but know alot about his magical item composition if the NPC needs the info. I countered this with an object of nystul's aura(it's a rock, lol), making him cloaked from all basic aura detection. Does your sniper have one yet? We had to MAKE this item, as I couldn't actually find one, so maybe it won't be available to your PCs.

-On the topic of Invisibility vs Detect magic; just make sure they already have true-sight so there's no great debates-

Solid Fog Any enemy surrounded in this stuff CANNOT be sniped as no ranged attacks can pierce it. Surround your NPCs in this and let the non-snipers have a go at the fight.

Readied Actions I've been researching this one and the consensus is that readied actions take place before the action they're prepaired against, and you have to choose the square an unseen apponent is in to effectively ready against them. You take what you can from that. I think a good area spell with individual target effects will work.

Area effect fort saves You can cast a cloud kill in his general area and odds are he'll die. If you don't want to KILL the bugger then use something like stinking cloud to mess with him.

Item Familiar Give an NPC an item familiar so they have a HUGE spot check, and do whatever you want from there.

Storm Rage This 8th lvl spell in the Spell Compendium makes the caster immune to ranged attacks. You could make it half the encounter to overcome the enemy with it on, the other half is where the rogue can shine.