PC spinning out of control

[Bauglir]

I had a problem in a recent game with a sorcerer. (levels 9-11ish)

The first problem was that he nigh untouchable, mostly due to improved invisibility and fly effects which he would maintain near constantly. (This was much easier in 3e where the durations were longer, and even a duration of 1m/level on improved invis could last through multiple encounters in a dungeon).

His tactic was usually to set up some distance from the combat, often around a corner and summon creatures to fight.

.. Which led to the second (and the biggest) problem. Encounters were nigh impossible to balance. Nothing could challenge this guy without first grinding up the rest of the party (and even if that were to happen he would just fly off invisibly). The end result was a lot of dead PCs. Whose gear inflated party wealth hugely as new characters were made. And most of that wealth ended up in one place. At one point I think he had over 150,000GP worth of equipment..

A common piece of advice I've seen on this board to balance spellcasters is to ensure more encounters per day. However short of blatant railroading, I cannot control when the PCs choose to rest, especially once they gain access to teleport.

Does anyone have any advice as to how a character like this can be controlled, to keep the game fun for everyone?

 

[Particle_Man]

1) If they can teleport, so can others. Others can scry them.

2) Some monsters have SR. If the sorceror can't hurt them, then it doesn't matter than he can't be hurt.

3) Some monsters can see invisible creatures. Others have blindsense or blindsight.

4) What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Put in a sorceror NPC that duplicates the tactics of the pc.

5) Protections spells (like protection from evil) stop summoned creatures.

 

[swordsmasher]

This guy is getting his friends killed, and somewhere someone's Evil cousin is gonna be pissed.

1. make the bad guy at least 2 levels higher.
2. this bad guy would study the tactics of the pc, learn them, and be ready. give him goggles of true seeing and the ability to fly faster.

3. either give him some kind of defense against spells, or trap the sorcerer in an antimagic zone.

4. if the pc plays the way you say he does, what is his alignment? surely you could tempt him by writing an adventure that deals with becoming a god, then somehow lure him into a bad trap filled with about 37.5 beholders and thier little brothers.

5. think fiendish spellstitched great red wyrm. lol

6. an army of dragonriders has descended from another part of the world, bent on conquest.

7. an assassin with supreme invisibility starts offing npc;s, then goes after the group. make it look like you are gunning for one pc in particular, then off the sorcerer. this workled in my game, and it was beautiful. as the pc's were charging down the hall to save thier knight friend from certain death, one of the pc's cohorts calls out to the spellcaster saying "i found the assassin sneaking in this way, come quick!" the pc followed and before he knew it, the asassin revealed himself by saying "Hey yooooo-shiiiii!" as yoshi turned around to confront the assassin he got a rapier through his gut, coated with deathblade poison. mwa ha ha ha haaaa... lol

8. remember, you are the DM, not him. You ruyn the game. in my game, NO pc takes other pc's gear unless it was specifically created for the group (like the dreaded wand of detect secret doors lol). at one time i had to create an adventurers guild (thanks to a newly arrived nobleman who felt adventurers whould be more watched over). it was made into law that if you were NOT a member, than 50% of the treasure you found in the dungeon gets turned over as a tax. if you were a member, only a smaller portion got taxed (like 10-15% i think), but also the guild gave the pc's some kind of coherency, etc. if you looted a corpse of your buddy, you were often kicked out of the guild, and blacklisted by other party members.

most people don't want to adventure with someone they know is going to take thier crap after they die. also, if you are allowing this one dude to collect the dead pc's crap to give to the player's new pc, i think you are doing something ethically wrong. if you are going to allow this, just throw around raise dead spells like they were buttered crumpets.

also, if this continues to happen, have the characters charter living wills with contingency spells at thier local church. when they die, thier remains are instantly transported to the church with all the gear mentioned in thier will, where the priests carry out the last will and testament of the character.

or, the dead all be all one: kill magic, a la Dragonlance's War of Souls type a thing.

suddenly, magic is on the fritz. start slowly, every magic spell has a 25% chance of failing to cast, and the durations of each spell are halved. as time progresses, raise the failure percentage, and halve durations again. work this into an adventure path so he does have a chance to stop it or whatever, but taking the magic away from the overbearing pc can sometimes give you a small advantage.

or, you could talk to the player out of the group, and tell him if he doesn't stop his behavior, thier will be repercussions. tell him that the way he is playing is not the way you want to run your game, and if he demands to continue playing this way, grab you +2 overbearing player's bane louisville slugger of clouting, and show him the door.

hope i helped! lemme know what happens, or what you think aboot me advice, eh?

kc

 

[Kweezil]

Having played through a couple of games with characters like this, I have a few thoughts:

1. Teleport - at 9th level, you can bring 3 other Medium-sized creatures with you. This might be enough to bring the whole party (depends on how many PCs you have), but if not, he'll have to leave people behind. Also, unless the character is spending a long time studying the area he's planning on teleporting back to, it will count as 'seen casually' at best, and he has a chance of mishapping. One teleport mishap is usually enough to put a player off risking teleportation unless they need to.

2. Adventures where time is a factor. These will make the players keep going when they might wish to rest for spell-recovery, and make the sorcerer be more conservative with his spells.

3. Tactical enemies. Make use of foes who can work counter his spell-tactics. An archer who readies to fire at where the fireball originates from, or better, a spellcaster who readies to cast an area dispel on the same point (this will only take off one spell, but either flight or invisibility being dispelled will be very effective). True strike is this sorcerer's worst enemy, as it allows someone to ignore the %age miss chance for his concealment.

Also, if he continues to teleport away to rest when out of spells, the surviving enemies should reinforce and rearm as well. If they have a powerful spellcaster on their side, there's nothing stopping them using the old scry-teleport assault on the PCs while they're resting (with the primary target being the sorcerer who provides their arcane firepower.)

4. Fame/Infamy. As you've described things, tales are likely to have spread of this mighty sorcerer who has defeated so many enemies, yet his allies rarely survive, and he takes their property as his own. Most people, and most governments, will not be happy to see someone as dangerous (and apparently amoral/dishonourable), and he might find things more difficult when people refuse to do business with him, and he is politely asked to leave the city. If he decides to threaten or attack someone for doing this, he'll end up outlawed, with a bounty on his head and powerful adventurers on his tail (since that seems to be how D&D cities deal with major threats).

 

[Bauglir]

1) If they can teleport, so can others. Others can scry them.

2) Some monsters have SR. If the sorceror can't hurt them, then it doesn't matter than he can't be hurt.

3) Some monsters can see invisible creatures. Others have blindsense or blindsight.

4) What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Put in a sorceror NPC that duplicates the tactics of the pc.

5) Protections spells (like protection from evil) stop summoned creatures.

To fill in some more detail we were playing RTToEE, and had gotten as far as the Crater Ridge Mines(have stopped now for a while)

I'm not sure there's going to be a problem in this case as the player in question doesn't look like he's going to be able to rejoin the game (committments).

I can easily see similar situations coming up in future games though, and I feel like I messed up letting the situation get like that in the first place.

As for the points here I did try 2, 3, and 5. I was working on introducing 4 (via a mirror of opposition). The problem is that these scenarios are the exception rather than the rule, and even with these encounters the enemy usually has the rest of the party to work through before they can touch the sorcerer.

 

[Bauglir]

8. remember, you are the DM, not him. You ruyn the game. in my game, NO pc takes other pc's gear unless it was specifically created for the group (like the dreaded wand of detect secret doors lol). at one time i had to create an adventurers guild (thanks to a newly arrived nobleman who felt adventurers whould be more watched over). it was made into law that if you were NOT a member, than 50% of the treasure you found in the dungeon gets turned over as a tax. if you were a member, only a smaller portion got taxed (like 10-15% i think), but also the guild gave the pc's some kind of coherency, etc. if you looted a corpse of your buddy, you were often kicked out of the guild, and blacklisted by other party members.

most people don't want to adventure with someone they know is going to take thier crap after they die. also, if you are allowing this one dude to collect the dead pc's crap to give to the player's new pc, i think you are doing something ethically wrong. if you are going to allow this, just throw around raise dead spells like they were buttered crumpets.

I wanted to address this point. How do I stop a PC taking other PCs' gear? That's entirely in the control of the surviving PCs. And it's pretty hard to make a case for NOT gathering equipment to help you survive in a dungeon full of dangerous monsters.

Thanks for all the good advice folks.

 

[PatrickLawinger]

I wanted to address this point. How do I stop a PC taking other PCs' gear? That's entirely in the control of the surviving PCs. And it's pretty hard to make a case for NOT gathering equipment to help you survive in a dungeon full of dangerous monsters.

Thanks for all the good advice folks.

out of game- make it a rule. Wealth guidelines get blown to absolute hell if you have plenty of PC deaths and PCs loot the bodies. Make an in-game explanation, wills work, promises to send wealth back to families, etc.

In-game: lots of ways to help control it. Theft, family coming after them, target for much more powerful NPCs due to their obvious amount of wealth, etc.

Example: "Okay, which one of you sold my brother's dagger to some !@#$# peddler? You know, the simple looking one with our family crest." -said by massive vorpal-sword wielding, goggles of true-seeing wearing, near epic level fighter.

Really, character wealth in a party, if it is even, can be controlled for to a limited extent. If you aren't careful it can easily get out of hand, particularly if, like me, you use a lot of NPCs. If the PCs start being able to purchase things way out of their normal level range, you have probably need to do something. Change the "treasure" in the next few encounters to information, maps, helpful bits for RP-type kingdom/territory management or protection.
Alternately, give the PCs some sort of duchy and make them help pay for the upkeep of its roads, etc. The new territory of "PC Wealth-sucking Land" once owned by orcs and now recently conquered needs new roads, a castle, farmers/peasants to clear fields and start planting can effectively suck away wealth. Particularly if you create a political situation forcing them to take care of things on a regular basis. Hey, nice that you have that teleport spell, plan to use it several times a day to get regular reports...

 

[swordsmasher]

The new territory of "PC Wealth-sucking Land" once owned by orcs and now recently conquered needs new roads, a castle, farmers/peasants to clear fields and start planting can effectively suck away wealth. Particularly if you create a political situation forcing them to take care of things on a regular basis. Hey, nice that you have that teleport spell, plan to use it several times a day to get regular reports...

hmm, choices, choices...increase the power of my +2 demigod's bane greatsword of godslaying, or make some roads so the peasants in my domain don't rebel..lol i love this game

 

[Chimera]

I wanted to address this point. How do I stop a PC taking other PCs' gear? That's entirely in the control of the surviving PCs. And it's pretty hard to make a case for NOT gathering equipment to help you survive in a dungeon full of dangerous monsters.

Of course he'd gather it. The problem is selling it, or keeping it.

"Wait a minute. You convinced my brother to come along with you, you got him killed, then you took our family sword off his still warm body and sold it???"


I think the major problem would be convincing new people to come along with the Sorcerer when he has such a horrible reputation for SDFS, or Suddenly Dead Friend Syndrome. After all, no one knows what happened but him and the bad guys. I'm sure they'd be quite happy to spread rumors about how HE is killing these new "friends" just to rob their corpses.

If nothing else, this would most definitely attract the attention of powerful Paladins and other Good and/or Government people and make most NPCs extremely loath to deal with him, if they don't outright banish him from their communities.

 

[Squire James]

I can give a few pieces of advice, being a DM (now) who had once played such a character in the past.

1. Dead PC's Wealth: You need to destroy some magic items from time to time. The least offensive time to do this is when a character dies. Few will argue that a suit of full plate could get destroyed when its occupant is killed. Roll an "item saving throw" for all of the dead character's stuff and randomly destroy half of it. This will not stop the problem, but will hold it down a little bit.

2. "Perfect" Tactics: No tactic is really perfect, but some are difficult to handle. The best thing to do is let the tactic work most of the time, and take measures that will make that tactic a catastophic failure once in a while. Perhaps one BBEG knows the wizard likes to Fly, Greater Invisibility, and snipe at enemies from the back (all this is pretty standard wizard activity, IMO). Perhaps he sends his underlings out to handle the others, and he himself comes in from the rear leading off with a Greater Dispel Magic and Dimensional Anchor. The wizard's tactics are optimized toward foes that hang around in their numbered rooms and do nothing but (perhaps) buff themselves until the PC's arrive. If the enemies stop doing that, the tactics won't work quite so well.

3. Too-Frequent Resting: This is the real problem... a wizard can't do his uber tactic more than 1-2 times a day so he will want to rest a lot. Enforce teleport error rules, and if an error occurs run an unplanned encounter or two. If the party keeps retreating to a town, have the enemy hit the town once in a while. If the party retreats to a city, have the enemy send agents to the city to locate the PC's resting place so they can torch it (or bribe the bartender into slipping something into their drinks, if the enemy is the subtle type). In short, if the party retreats while the enemy is still hale they should expect to be harassed in some fashion.