Greyhawk is plenty full of high-level villains, it just doesn't keep shining a spotlight on them the way the Forgotten Realms does.
Iuz. Iggwilv. Eli Tomorast. Eclavdra. Warduke. Dragotha. Rary of Ket. Diraq Malcinex, the Heart of Vecna. Thessalar. Tuerny the Merciless. Lord Robilar. The Fiend-Sage of Rel Astra. St. Kargoth the Betrayer. These are just off the top of my head, and that's without even getting into other power groups like the Horned Society, the Scarlet Brotherhood, and the Boneheart/Boneshadow, all of which have operatives ranging from low levels to high.
And that's without even factoring in the good (and neutral) guys.
I'm sorry, but only someone who doesn't know Greyhawk very well would say that it has a paucity of high-level characters.
I know Greyhawk very well - I GMed it intermittently from the mid-80s and consistently from 1990 to 1997.
In the mid-80s boxed set, there are two soft-bound books. The thinner one (I can't remember now how it is labelled) sets out the class and levels of the rules of the various lands of Greyhawk. The highest level is the 18th level ruler of Stonefist (the Archcleric of Veluna may be at a similar level, I think). Many of the other rulers are between 10th and 14th level.
The average level of Circle of Eight members is in the upper teens.
This is a
total of perhaps some dozens of NPCs in this level range. On the assumption that most of them are not the enemies of the PCs, there are simply not that many scry-and-fry teleporting enemies around.
I guess one might run a campaign in which the PCs first face off against the Horned Society (before Iuz did?), then Iuz and his hangers on, then Iggwilv and Tuerny, then Vecna. But that's only one of many possible GH campaigns. (Also, Eclavdra presumably has trouble teleporting to the PCs for the same reason they have trouble teleporting out of the Vault of the Drow.)
Yes, and that's fine in some circumstances. No one is suggesting that all enemies undertake preemptive defenses or after-the-fact retaliation; sometimes you will find enemies that are simply unprepared, are unintelligent, are unable to respond, or are simply made of environmental challenges. But these are the exceptions (which allow the spellcasters their chance to shine), rather than the rule.
Again, you can elect to make such encounters the norm if you want, eschewing any enemies that have a chance to anticipate and adapt to tactics, let alone retaliate, but if you do so it's somewhat disingenuous to complain that your spellcasters keep stealing the spotlight.
People on these boards keep accusing me of being disingenuous. I wonder if they're all familiar with the definition of that word: "lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity" (from the Random House dictionary via dictionary.reference.com).
What makes you think I'm being insincere? Not everyone whose experiences and opinions differ from yours is a liar (likewise I don't suppose that you're lying about your experiences and opinions just because they differe from mine).
The real qusetion is "Are relatively static, exploration style adventures deviations from the D&D norm?" My assertion is No, they're not. Greyhawk is full of them: look at some of the scenario outlines in various Greyhawk products, or classic Greyhawk modules like ToH. Many of these involve explorations of ancient ruins or hunting for myseterious artefacts. They are not particularly time sensitive. If balance between PC options breaks down in such scenarios - because there is no cost to PC spellcasters for nova-ing and then withdrawing to rest - then at a minimum
I would expect the rulebooks to mention this. It is not hard to write an RPG rulebook that talks frankly about how the game does or doesn't handle various aspects of balance (Burning Wheel does this; so does Over the Edge).
But if such scenarios are meant to be part of what your game supports - and I don't think I'm pushing against the traditional boundaries of D&D very much by having run these sorts of scenarios - then the game shouldn't break down.
The flipside of this is that if the PC build and player resource rules assume time-sensitive scenarios in which spellcasters cannot nova then this should be expressly stated in the scenario-design guidelines.
enemy casters can pretty well be expected to nova in your typical kick-in-the-door session of play - they have invaders running about the place, intent on killing everyone, so why would they hold back anyway? Ironically, they'll be more inclined not to nova if they think that they can escape (or bargain, or surrender and be treated humanely, etc.), so that they can keep some resources in reserve and seize an opportunity that will arrive later, since they'll be alive later to seize it.
I don't quite see what this has to do with enemy NPCs scrying-and-frying.
this is fun because it's presumed that the PCs will anticipate this, and make their own adjustments accordingly when in a defensive position (e.g. when camping for the evening). That means they'll have to not only set aside resources beforehand, but also adjust their strategies to try and pursue tactics that discourage this sort of retaliation in the first place...and just like that, people are strategically planning in-character.
It's not entirely clear, but you seem to be assuming that my players don't strategically plan (whether in or out of character) and that my players don't play strategically.
I don't know the full raft of 3E options - as I've already noted, it's not my game - but in classic D&D the only teleport-exclusion spells I recall are anti-magic shell (which is 6th level for MUs and from memory has a duration of 1 turn per level) and Forbiddance in UA, which is a 6th level Cleric spell and from memory requires a holy place or somewhere similar to cast it. So locking out scry-and-fry is not all that easy (especially with UA, which makes scrying available in the form of mid-level spells like Magic Mirror). And in any event the stakes are very high - one Fireball spell can wipe out all the MUs on the PC side (d6 dice vs d4 HD). Apart from anything else, this puts a lot of weight on the GM to decide how hard to push with his/her NPCs, and those GM decisions are certainly in danger of overshadowing the significance of player choices in contributing to the overall outcome.
For me, the bottom line issue is not whether strategic play is fun or not - sometimes it can be, though these days I prefer action resolution-focused tactical play - but whether scry-and-fry is fun. I've played with a lot of it. By mutual agreement my table changed the rules to get rid of it. (First, changes to Rolemaster; then, playing 4e which doesn't have it.) I don't think anyone at my table misses it.
It's at least as big an issue as martial healing, in my view, which is to say is at least as worthy of modularisation.
