PC spinning out of control

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

He already has a defensive spell cast, overland flight. That will protect him from quite a few attacks and he can be out of melee reach.

Not enough. He can be shot at. Or roasted. Spending one round casting a defensive spell is a good idea. Otherwise he ends up dead, and can't use his big spells to help party members.

The point is this character is; aggressive to get into fights, protects his own butt, while others are dying. Where do you get the idea that others should not have the right to say something to the guy? How many popular cowards do you believe exist in combat situations?

I didn't say that. I wanted to know what the specific complaint was, since I've seen cowardly wizards played before without complaints. (In fact, any smart wizardly is cowardly, considering their generally crappy defenses.)

 

[Baramay]

Not enough. He can be shot at. Or roasted. Spending one round casting a defensive spell is a good idea. Otherwise he ends up dead, and can't use his big spells to help party members.

I didn't say that. I wanted to know what the specific complaint was, since I've seen cowardly wizards played before without complaints. (In fact, any smart wizardly is cowardly, considering their generally crappy defenses.)

I have put some thought into what I wrote. It was not meant to be a topic of debate just an example. When chosing which spells to cast one has to factor in their own existing defenses, the health of their companions, their own ability to sustains hits and the threat posed by the enemy.

The character I mentioned is a 10th level wizard with AC of 18 and 58hp. His hp were high than some of the other party members. His +3 con bonus helps alot. I could understand being more conservative if he had a -1 or even no con bonus.
Having used his most powerful spells in defense he did not have much left to change the flow of battle except lightning bolts and magic missiles.
The opponents we were facing was a 12 ECL, ie. very deadly. One character died during the fight and many others came close to death. When people die, actions come into question. If a group is having success things are overlooked. The character was told to start helping more or find new people to travel with. This comment was made after the speaker was told of his habit of looking out for #1.

If you are going to hang back and protect yourself as your meatshields absorb the brunt of attacks against you, then grab their items and leave their bodies; you should get some minions, and find a dark cave because you are going to be very lonely and not considered a hero.
Cowards should not go looking for fights.

 

[Chimera]

Having used his most powerful spells in defense he did not have much left to change the flow of battle except lightning bolts and magic missiles.

And in what universe are these insufficient???

If you are going to hang back and protect yourself as your meatshields absorb the brunt of attacks against you

Ah, see...therein lies the problem. The meatshields are NOT "absorbing the brunt of attacks" against the Wizard. The enemy, from what we can see, is ignoring the Wizard and fixating on killing his allies. This is the fault of the GM, who is not challenging the Wizard. As others have said, the whole 'Fly Invisibly while Summoning Stuff' tactic would have existed since about the afternoon of the day Magic was invented. Only terminally stupid opponents never bother to counter this tactic, which should be considered classic and well known.

My Wizard stands around in the back, protecting himself while casting spells, using scrolls and his crossbow (quite well, thankyou) when low on spells. How is he supposed to be acting any different???

then grab their items and leave their bodies

That's the real problem with that player, not any of the other stuff.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Fallstaff's Teleport Bind
Level: Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Target: One creature
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes
If you cast this spell within one round of the target creature using a teleport spell, you will be immediately teleported to where the original teleporter went. When this spell is cast, a large whirling vortex of red and black energy appears.
Material Component: A mummified monkey's hand grasping a severed monkey's ankle.


Fallstaff's Teleport Error
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 7
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Target: One creature
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes
If you cast this spell within one round of the target creature using a teleport spell, that creature must make a Will save or suffer a mishap as if it had rolled a "mishap" result on the teleportation table. The image of Lorgano, Goddess of Ill-Luck, appears for a split second where the target teleported from, holding the target’s mage sigil in her hand.
Material Component: An incorrectly drawn map

Fallstaff's Teleport Trace
Divination
Level: Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One creature
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
When this spell is cast within 10 feet of a spot where someone used a spell with the Teleportation descriptor within 5 minutes per level, the caster can tell where the teleporter went. In addition, he gains knowledge of the target area as if he had seen it casually, unless he already has better knowledge of the area. When casting this spell, the caster’s eyes appear to be covered with a white film that bears the sigil of Ptharn, god of history, seemingly formed from swollen red veins.




Those help?

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

The first problem was that he nigh untouchable, mostly due to improved invisibility and fly effects which he would maintain near constantly.

.. 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..

First thing, tell the player that the status quo is _not_ fun for you & you have difficulty justifying to yourself running a game you don't enjoy. Assuming he is a decent player & friend he'll now be onside with you & help you find a solution. In the unlikely event that this is not the case I'd dis-invite or quit, life is too short & there is so much to do.

As I see it you've got 3 problems not 2.
1) You & some of the other players have not made the transition to lower high-level play where mobility, perception & % miss chances become more significant. The sorcerer player is not doing anything wrong in this regard in fact they are pointing the direction where the play should naturally progress. The solution here is for you to further develop your encounter skills & perhaps the other players to better coordinate their characters with each others strengths.
2) The issue of balanced challenge is quite tricky & related to problem 3, the sorcerer player seems to be viewing the sorcerer as a fundamentally independent entity to the group. Without meaningful consequence to the party getting annihilated, in fact getting rewarded, the sorcerer player has learned to merely survive defeat is to advance.
3) Old characters are being discarded for new characters & these new characters are joining up with a sorcerer with a very very bad track record. Okay, it sounds like you've got a campaign where raising the dead is discouraged which is perfectly understandable.
The problems with new characters especially in a high body count campaign is that there is little player investment & character familiarization. A lack of player investment which can create a playing atmosphere where death is not is not considered so bad because you don't lose much investment. Higher level characters require more familiarization to get a grasp of the powers available & more importantly the limitations. Party strength is greatest when players run characters that they are familiar with & have created synergies with the other characters.
The problem with the sorcerer is that the wealth is concentrating in their larger then recommended treasure pool which is further encouraging this style of play.

Proposed solutions? Okay here are my suggestions:
1) Always take into consideration the mid to high level emphasis on mobility, senses & miss chances. A rule of thumb I use is to look at the higher level spells that the party (& thus stock npc encounter) can cast because monsters can often have similar powers.
2) Suck it up & plan better mixed encounters, especially ones where summoned monsters are of so-so effectiveness. Remember it is all about time in the spotlight, make sure every character gets their fair share.
3) Require the sorcerer to spend their excess wealth on party perishables that improve survivability of the party, such as potions/wands/scrolls of darkvision/exp. retreat/flight/invisibility/etc... Rationalize it however you like but make it known in no uncertain terms that it will happen.
4) Discourage new characters by carrot or stick. Carrot would be stuff like the 1 extra round rule where a normal death blow is immediately capped at -9hps. Stick would be whacking em with an extra level penalty or limiting their wealth.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I have put some thought into what I wrote. It was not meant to be a topic of debate just an example. When chosing which spells to cast one has to factor in their own existing defenses, the health of their companions, their own ability to sustains hits and the threat posed by the enemy.

I will definitely agree.

The character I mentioned is a 10th level wizard with AC of 18 and 58hp. His hp were high than some of the other party members. His +3 con bonus helps alot. I could understand being more conservative if he had a -1 or even no con bonus.

My character, same level, is a halfling. He has an AC of 17, but can buff it to 23 (+6 Improved Mage Armor, cast beforehand) and Shield (AC 31). Yeah, I know Improved Mage Armor isn't core - cut his AC by 2 if it bothers you He generally uses one defense spell per encounter (either Mirror Image or Shield, depending on what he is facing). However, there are times he must use more.

He has a Con bonus of +2 and has 48 hp. He buffs his hp by 1d10+10 hp by casting False Life. From the look of it, my character isn't as tough as yours, but has slightly better defenses.

Having used his most powerful spells in defense he did not have much left to change the flow of battle except lightning bolts and magic missiles.

My spell selection is quite different. He has 3 5th-level spells - silent dimension door, hold monster and I think summon monster V. I'd love to prepare baleful polymorph as well, but what can I do? You'll notice he does prep a defensive spell with one of his 5th-level slots.

He has two lightning bolts, one fireball, three magic missiles, two glitterdust (one heightened to 4th-level), one fear and one Otiluke's resilient sphere. Those are his most potent attack spells, anyway. He doesn't rely on just direct damage.

The opponents we were facing was a 12 ECL, ie. very deadly. One character died during the fight and many others came close to death. When people die, actions come into question. If a group is having success things are overlooked. The character was told to start helping more or find new people to travel with. This comment was made after the speaker was told of his habit of looking out for #1.

I can see where this is happening. The nastiest encounter I've been involved in (not counting a CR 12 war troll, which was a joke anyway) involved a 12th-level cleric, a 10th-level barbarian, and a 10th-level mage. The DM gives NPCs PC-value equipment, but their equipment "devalues" so we end up with a sane amount of treasure. (In short, classed NPCs become a challenge, although if the DM were better at playing spellcasters, that would probably overpower spellcasting NPCs.) I was 9th-level at the time, with pretty much the same spell selection I have now (no Silent Spell, so dimension door was down to 4th-level).

Our party has no heavy fighters, which is a problem in this kind of fight. We have a goblin rogue, a soulknife, a Dex-monkey paladin, and a cleric. (We were missing a couple of players that day.) Nonetheless, it's a larger-than-normal party. This could twist the statistics.

In this battle, I had shield prepped beforehand and cast mirror image upon combat start. (Both turned out to be useless in the battle.) I then prepared spells to roast the cleric anytime he tried to cast something. I also tried to trap him in an Otiluke's resilient sphere. This let me hurt the cleric but not the barbarian, who was spanking the other players - hard.

One time, the cleric was casting a spell and I dropped a fireball on him when he did so. He was casting heal, but he made his Reflex save. Only because of that could he (barely) make his Concentration check, healing the barbarian, who had less than 12 hp less, to full. (Grr....)

The cleric died shortly thereafter, trying to hit me with a searing light spell. (I fried him with a lightning bolt, and this time he failed the save. He didn't even live long enough to make the Concentration check.)

Only then could I assist against the barbarian. (The barby made all his saves against my attacks. I dropped him with magic missile... but no, I can't claim credit for doing much work against him. The fighter-types took and dished out a hell of a lot more damage against the barby than I did. They needed much healing at the end. I had taken maybe 15 damage from a flame strike.)

At one point, the barbarian was nearly in a position to charge me. He was glittering from the glitterdust spell he had saved against. I had retreated to a 10 foot wide hallway by that point, and couldn't see much of the action. (This was after the death of the cleric.) I was thinking I had contributed mightily already, but wished I had broken that heal spell. I decided that if the barby charged me, I was going to hide in an Otiluke's resilient sphere, which would also cut off the barbarian's retreat. (Yeah, that would have been cowardly. On the other hand, the barbarian would have flat out killed me. He was having no trouble hitting the elven paladin's AC, who could boost his higher than I could boost mine.)

The wizard NPC died so fast (I did say the DM wasn't used to using them, though) so I don't think I need to mention her tactics here

Judging from what you've said, if you were in that position, you wouldn't have sealed yourself off. You would have taken the damage, and run a small risk of being mashed. (This is assuming, of course, that the other players could rush the barbarian and protect you.) Is that right?

In the second nastiest encounter (when I gained my 10th-level), we were taken on by a warforged barbarian, a drunken master, and a light fighter of some kind. Honestly, I don't recall what that fighter-type was doing. We were on the Eberron bullet train.

We had an extra player that day - a maenad psychic warrior. The battle started when the drunken master challenged our rogue to a drinking contest. He also got the maenad drunk. The end result was a passed out rogue and a drunken maenad before the other attackers entered the room. The barbarian attacked from the car to the south, and the other two guys were attacking from the north. I was in the south of the car, and the barbarian beat my init by a lot. The car was quite small - not much room to maneuver, and I wasn't close to the fighter-types. Besides, I didn't want them taking hits for me (I didn't know the drunken master was a drunken master at the time. The drunken guy had Tumble. He could have tumbled past my allies and done something nasty to my head if I had stayed - assuming I could move away from the barbarian.)

I could have retreated southwards - I have some ranks in Tumble. However, in only one round, I would be cornered and mashed. I coudln't tumble between the warforged barbarian's legs, either. That would have given me the opportunity to cast another attack spell, however, perhaps keeping the soulknife from being mashed.

The soulknife put all of his psychic focus into one attack, and missed. (If he had hit, he may have killed the drunken master in one blow.) The barbarian cut me for twenty points of damage, which would have been 40% of my hit points, in one hit! It was only the false life which somehow ameliorated the damage percentage. There was no way I was going to survive standing there. Mirror images would get swatted too quickly, since I could get cornered and the barby could full-round them/me, boosting my AC would do nothing to help me, and stoneskin would only delay the inevitable. Even moving wouldn't save me. I had to dimension door to the car to the south. (The cleric was in that car - the third class one. Heh heh. He held the door open and buffed while I summoned a giant crocodile into the room and cast two other attack spells - I think glitterdust and magic missile.) Because dimension door effectively dazes you and summon monster is a full-round action, I lost quite a bit of time before I could jump in and help save my friends.

End result - soulknife got mashed. He lived. Barely. He always gets mashed. Our rogue woke up and contributed. Almost everyone was hurt. I lost a bit less than a third of my total hit points, taking into account false life. Only the cleric was completely unhurt - I was second least hurt (in terms of total hp taken). I think in terms of percentage the rogue was less hurt than me, but I didn't keep that good of a record. Everyone also contributed - even me. (I had also used glitterdust - it's kind of fun watching a croc crunching on a glowing piece of living metal.)

The consensus of the battle was that the soulknife suffered bad luck right at the beginning. Had he struck the drunken master (he rolled a "1"), the battle would have lasted much shorter, even if the drunken master survived the attack.

So, in this battle I had to retreat, effectively letting my friends take two rounds of beats without me being there. At least one attack would have been directed against me had I remained, and fleeing directly put the rogue in danger (he was beside me, and still drunk) and indirectly put the soulknife in danger.

Is this bad? I did contribute, blinding, grappling, and injuring a higher level character, and did have my d4 hp/level behind nearly handed to me (by the same character no less). It would have been handed to me had I stayed, though death was not assured.

And if it is bad, what would your wizard have done in the same situation?

If you are going to hang back and protect yourself as your meatshields absorb the brunt of attacks against you, then grab their items and leave their bodies; you should get some minions, and find a dark cave because you are going to be very lonely and not considered a hero.
Cowards should not go looking for fights.

IMX I'm not letting meatshields absorb the brunt of attacks against me. However, I do make sure I'm protecting myself. Something about low AC and craptacular hit points. I just avoid casting broken spells like invisibility. (Well, what I consider to be broken, anyway). If that is cowardly behavior, then so be it. That's the way the wizard class was designed, and short of serious house ruling, that is not going to change.

I heartily agree that the wizard PC in this thread should not be stealing items from the dead, however. That seems like a specific player problem, and not a battle tactics problem.

 

[Baramay]

Agreed then.

 

[Kyrian]

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.

I know Living Greyhawk houseruled this for their wealth guidelines. I just happen to like how it's phrased: "The death of a comrade is a tragedy, not a yard sale."

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Remember - PCs can end up ghosts too... stat 'em up and let the players of the dead PCs decide what revenge they want if any...

Alternately, add 'karma dice' or a variant there on - dice that can be used to boost the saves of anyone except the person using the die. I have found that characters who do not play well with others tend to get few if any thrown their way.

The Auld Grump, who stole this idea outright from the 7th Sea Gamemaster's Guide.

 

[Errant]

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.

Just remember that standard treasure reward guidelines in game are based on the idea that each PC has a standard value inventory. If your PCs are breaking the standard value inventories, you can drop the treasure rewards they're getting until their inventories match their levels again.

Characters can't argue "but I killed a CR X monsters so I should get Y gp treasures!" and if your players do you can remind them of the principle behind the "CR X = Y gp" guidelines.

In our group its an agreed rule that new PCs start with default value inventories and its understood that any treasure they find will only be enough to keep them in the default value range as they go up in levels. Last time the party lost three members the players decided to return the fallen PCs' magic (plus the share of treasure they had earned) to their next of kin.

If your players don't want to help you keep individuals' inventory values to close to default levels, just tally up the total inventory values for all current (surviving) PCs, subtract that from the total default inventory value for the group, divide the difference by the number of new PCs coming in and thats the new PCs' starting inventory. i.e. when new PCs come in make sure the group's total inventory value matches the total the DMG guidelines set. When your sorcerer has 150,000 gp in his inventory and new PCs start with 5,000 gp your players will sort out the redistribution of wealth. Either that or the new PCs will be hanging back letting the sorcerer take all the big risks.

Keeping a game balanced and fun for everyone should not be just the DM's job.