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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ruleslawyer" data-source="post: 1199908" data-attributes="member: 1757">Here's where I think you might be getting off-track, Grog. It is very, very easy for a DM to design an encounter with an EL three or four levels over the EPL that is a TPK. The encounter you're talking about has an EL three or four levels over the party's EPL. IIRC, and as jgsugden has noted, a 15th-level NPC plus nine 9th-level NPCs is a strong EL 17. With preparation (which circle magic most certainly is; it requires a coordinated advance effort by the NPCs at the start of the day), the EL is arguably HIGHER. I can build you an EL 17 dragon or half-dragon troll frenzied berserker + cleric cohort encounter that will trash 13th-14th level PCs as well. It's not a question of "crippling" the PrC, but recognizing that this encounter might need to wait a few levels. Against 17th-level PCs, this guy really isn't all that bad; a single 9th-level spell can take him out pretty easily. Some encounters do work that way.Also, I think it's a bit unfair to call the RW brokety-broke-broke when it really only works this way as an NPC class. You DO have the option, as the DM, to control how the class's power is used, and that is NOT "crippling" it. It's more like not deliberately stacking templates so as to make a BBEG immune to the PCs' attacks (something that's quite easy under core rules) or designing a vampire that walks around with its own EL +10 worth of dominated followers and spawn and keeps a steady stock of 200 temporary hit points from blood drain.[Edit: "PCs" to PrC.]</blockquote>

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