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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 2794819" data-attributes="member: 1165">I will definitely agree.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 <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> 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.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.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 <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />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 <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> (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?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.</blockquote>

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