How do your casters know which are the hardest of targets? How do they know that the minotaur they face now will be the most difficult challenge for the day? If you have six or seven encounters each day, it's impossible that it could progress linearly from easiest to hardest, unless each adventure is lockstepped on rails.
So, how do you "play smart" when you have so little information?
Well, when you're facing a known spellcaster, some cannon fodder and summoned elementals, you prioritize 1) Spellcaster, 2) Elementals, 3) Minions.
But even so, you don't just have your spellcaster lobbing spell after spell. Typically, he should cast 1-2 major spells (that
actually affect the targets) then hold fire.
That's all and fine, but, it still ignores the fact that equal CR opponents can kill PC's in one round. Not hurt, kill. That means that you HAVE to have your biggest healing available all the time, or you lose PC's.
Typically, we don't use the mega or the low level healing spells until someone is drastically wounded. The first healing spells that get expended are the medium ones. The low level ones are used either for occasional patches (such as a quick combat buff) or en masse on a single PC. Almost as a rule, the BIG heal spells aren't used until the third encounter or so.
In the interim, we use potions and the occasional wand.
And don't forget, even 1 hp of magical healing stabilizes a PC- Hello, Cure Minor Wounds cantrip!
And typically, we don't lose PCs. We've had 2 close calls (-9HP) and one death in RttToEE, and the slain PC was brought back by an NPC.
Ranged trip? Ranged disarm? I see. Houserules.
Sorry, in the interest of brevity, I sacrificed clarity.
Typically, one of the PCs in the party has a way to sunder, disarm or trip- sometimes more than one maneuver- and is built to do so with reach or at range. There are a lot of reach weapons that let you trip and/or disarm. There are feats that let you disarm and sunder with ranged weapons, and Precise shot gets rid of the penalty for firing into melee.
After a while, the soft cover penalty doesn't matter much.
What about flying opponents? Or, at higher levels, opponents who can teleport/incorporeal whatever. Heck, a simple Freedom of Movement from that enemy caster renders most of your tactics void. How do you avoid all that?
1) Well, what's sauce for the Ghoul is sauce for the Gandalf. We have access to similar tactics, letting us take the fight to those opponents. Plus, even low-level abilities can be useful against such foes. Late last year, I used a Greatspear wielding Ftr/Monk/Kensai PC with potions of Enlarge to battle a pair of dragons in their lair. They flew and flew, but they weren't outside of MY reach. That single tactic was instrumental in driving the dragons to flee.
And that PC was based on a PsyWar/Monk who used the same tactic with Expansion...which gets you 2 levels of growth.
2) Invisible and Teleporting foes still have to have room to get to you- if you know you're fighting something like that, you have to control the battlespace. That can be done with magic, alchemical items, or even smart selection of a battleground. If there is only one unoccupied or unthreatened space for your foe to T-port into, even a simple Stinking Cloud can ruin his day.
3) Incorporeal foes still have to contend with Brilliant Energy weapons and Transdimensional spells.
Whether you live or die is entirely based on how well the DM roles. Given that most creatures are more than capable of killing a PC in a single round, two rounds tops, a couple of lucky rolls on the part of the DM results in a dead PC. No amount of planning saves that. The only thing that protects you from that is having high level healing on hand.
I'd have to disagree.
First, how YOU roll has a great deal to say about victory and defeat. I (as DM) watched helplessly a few years ago when a player seemed to be luck incarnate, dropping Crit after Crit in close battles with her Paladin...using my dice, even, and rolling in the open.
Forethought- admittedly sometimes metagaming forethought- also goes a long way to increasing survivability. If your DM prefers melee over magic, building your PC with the best possible AC is going to matter more than almost any other defensive factor you can control.
Facing mummies? Bring fire. Fighting Undead in general? Bring a blunt weapon. Going to the plane of Air? Bring a good ranged weapon.
Talking is entirely situationally dependent. The other options you talk about are spell based - I thought your casters were tapped.
No, generally our casters
aren't tapped- that's part of what I'm talking about.
We just finished a battle with a Doomdreamer in RttToEE. The main mage cast 2 lightning bolts, a Magic Missile...and a Burning Hands at an illusion. That was it. (The previous encounter? A single Ice Storm, followed by a series of coup de graces with his dagger.)
The main divine caster, a Druid (there are 2 other PCs with 1-2 Druid levels, another with 2 Cleric levels
) helped out with a Summon Nature's Ally. The rest of the time, he did some minor buffs.
And before you think that we've got a bunch of other arcane powerhouses, there are 2 other arcane casters in the party- a PC with 1 Sorc level (for spiderclimb and mage armor), and a PC with 3 Spellsword levels and 3 Diviner levels. (His main function as a spellcaster has been casting buffs and gathering info.)
Considering that pretty much everything in the game is faster than the PC's, how do they run away?
1) Someone almost always has a "Wall of" something spell or item.
2) Sometimes you run before engagement.
3) Sometimes, you use the environment. Warriors are good at causing cave-ins in mines with a little chopping and flexing.
Ballocks. Modules had tons of "safe havens" built into them, even "back in the day".
4) Sometimes the situation suggests a way out. Sometimes, there isn't one. If the situation is the latter, and you don't think you can win, try surrender. Eventually, a spontaneous caster will get his spells back, a warrior will clunk a guard on his head and get the keys, or a rogue will free everyone with trickery...
Because, IME, if your DM has truly put an unwinnable encounter in front of you,
you're probably not supposed to be fighting, and talk is required or surrender and escape is part of the plotline.
Is that metagaming? To a point, yes it is. However, its also how rational people think: "If you can't win, survive." is one of the first things taught in self-defense classes, anti-interrogation training, and other forums.
And thus proving my point. You cannot play smart in that sort of situation. You just die.
No, you could avoid death by not blithely wandering off into the deep woods/jungles of a strange island fresh off the boat. If you stick close to the landing zone, you can probably fight off 1 or 2 trolls and escape. What you can't do is fight your way off the island when every direction has 10+ hungry trolls.
You could also avoid death by asking the local mariners about what islands to avoid at all costs. Or hiring one as a navigator.
Again, this isn't really metagaming. Read the accounts of any sailing voyage and you'll find that the sailors had to stop at numerous islands for restocking supplies. They seldom left shouting/running distance of the landing craft on the first landing at a particular island. When they did, it was usually with a LARGE force- 2 or more landing craft, with possibly all of the second boat being "marines."
They are playing in the low levels, I think, where wands and potions can actually matter in combat, would be my guess.
We're going through RttToEE, and are all 10th level. Call it what you will.
