MoutonRustique
Explorer
Both Mislead and Contingency are not part of the basic rules - this does not invalidate their use, but I do not have the PHB : they are not possible solutions for me or mine.This spell can be directly countered by Counterspell (as it is cast), or Mislead can be used as means to facilitate escape. For the mildly higher level wizard Contingency is an even better form of escape. And of course Move and Dash can also be used to escape.
Counterspell is not effective against a readied silence. Unless I've missed something, reactions are reserved for off-turn actions.
I agree, once in a while, is not a problem, hence my specifying that it wasn't.Every now and then, a party will have one or more of its members neutered, by various means. This not a serious consideration. If it occurs too often at a particular table, then it can be a concern.
I am thinking more of using Silence as a readied action.I'm not seeing how this works. To me, it looks as if the fight goes like this:
Cleric's turn: Cleric casts silence centered on enemy wizard.
Enemy wizard's turn: Enemy wizard moves 21 feet in any direction, then casts any spell she darned well feels like.
It can be a risk - but then again, maybe not that often. It requires that there are enemies in the initiative order between the cleric and enemy caster, that those enemies target the cleric and that they hit the cleric. Certainly possible, also certainly not always (maybe not even often.)... I suppose you could ready silence to cast in response to the wizard casting a spell... but then you risk having your concentration disrupted if someone whacks you before the wizard's turn, and the wizard still has the counterspell option.
I agree that using limited resources to dominate an encounter once in while is often the goal of spells, but it is usually by using the higher levels that one can cast - silence will not be that for very long...I've never understood this particular interpretation of "broken". Let's pretend, for a moment, that Silence works the way you suggest it does. Your Cleric has found it to be a particularly useful spell against incidental enemy spellcasters. It's a valid tactic, I mean, what is the spell for if not to screw up enemy spellcasters? Let your Cleric have her victories.
Having to custom invent things to specifically counter-act a single low-level spell is pretty much my definition of "not working as intended with important negative impact" - or "broken".He's your Big Bad. By definition, your party's typical tactics should be next to pointless against him. He's seen it all before, and he's unimpressed. That's what makes him terrifying; the party shouldn't be able to just brute force him. If he can be defeated in the same way as any other encounter, then he's not a Big Bad, he's just another encounter.
No power or spell exists to easily counter this supposedly "broken" (or anything else that supposedly breaks BBEG encounters)? You're the DM, and he's an immensely powerful figure who exists in the same world as these very powers. Invent one. You can bet your Big Bad would've done so already.
Your Big Bad didn't get to where he is today without having a crapton of contingencies.
The whole of my point isn't that there are NO escapes, it is that it will neuter a significant foe, even at higher levels, for very little cost for a significant portion of the encounter.
What I've seen so far is that fights rarely get to round 4. If the main villain is a mighty caster but he's stopped from casting for 2 rounds... that's a lot of "pow" canceled by a low-level resource...
All of this said, as I've said before, it may just be me...