Ridiculous amount of buffs

[Kestrel]

With apologies to Ashockney

Contingency Teleport/Contigency HEAL/Mind Blank/Spell Turning/Non-detection/Stoneskin/Improved Inivisibility/Death Ward/Freedom of Movement/Blink/Fly/Pro Energy/Shield/Mage Armor...did you say you were attacking me?

At what point does buffing become ridiculous? What would be the effect of limiting it? Does the higher level game assume that all pcs will be this buffed?

When I ran RttToEE, I got sick of this particular tactic by the pcs: Wake up at 10am, buff to the gills, clear three or four rooms, and teleport back to town to rest for the day. Rinse repeat. I believe they did this because of buffs. They wanted to make sure they had them all up before each fight.

And how does a DM prepare for something like this? Its bad enough trying to create high level npcs...figuring out buff strategies for them makes it a nightmare. For those running high level games, how do you handle it?

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

It is a big issue for me with the system as well. I'm not sure how it would work without the buffs since I haven't seen it played that way really, the players use all the time since they are in the books and so apparently vital. Higher level D&D isn't LOTR or Conan, it's Justice League.

 

[ThatGuyThere]

Dispel Magic!

Dispel Magic!

Hey, you over there - Dispel Magic!

If you're taken by surprise, Dispel Magic!
If you haven't had time to buff, Dispel Magic!
If you're surprised, unless it's reeeeeeeally important you stay standing right where you are, Dispel Magic plus Teleport, while screaming, "Guards! GUARDS!!"

Oh, and summon monsters who also Dispel Magic! And have flunkies who can Dispel Magic! And set traps that Dispel Magic.

But you're right. Buff - Scry - Teleport - Call it a Day is a standard high-level tactic. My fiancee pointed it out in one of our high-level games where the characters had started having children - Mom and Dad go to work for ten to twenty minutes a day, earn rewards that far outstrip any mere mortal, and are still back before the kids have left for school. That's just part of high-level play; you can look at it as part of the fun, if you'd like.

The only tactic I ever found was Dispel Magic (can you tell?). Use liberally. Both myself, and my players, came to hate Mord.'s Disjunction, and reached a "mutual non-aggression treaty" concerning it's use (and then ended up banning it, anyway).

 

[Kestrel]

Well, the problem with dispel magic against buffs is that its a big waste of time. If my npcs are always going to use dispel magic in a fight, then why not just save time and get rid of the buffs to begin with?

When you start dispelling them, it really becomes a nightmare. You and the players have to first roll a CL check for every single buff, then you have to totally recalculate the npcs and pcs.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Ok, so what about the core game changes to a large degree if you get rid of the buffs? Will it stop one from running published adventures do you think?

 

[Brian Compton]

When my group was doing World's Largest Dungeon, we were buffing like crazy as well, to the point where picking spells and buffing took up the better part of the night. But, you'd be surprised how much a spell like Greater Dispel or Mordenkainen's Disjunction made us pee ourselves.

In answer to your question about buffing being expected, yes...in a published adventure. Most power levels of NPC's are based around buffing being plentiful and frequently used. Thus, in many cases, especially with boss monsters, you'll see a block on tactics that shows what it will do round-by-round; this includes buffing and other spell selections. It may also discuss pre-battle preparations, when buffing is more likely to take place. WotC has started doing this, but can't speak for 3rd-party work (the aforementioned WLD did some of this too, as some fights had very scripted progressions).

Now, if you're doing your own thing, buffing can be as plentiful or rare as you allow. This just means changing the challenge rating and scaling things down. For example, in the WLD, there were some traps of just insane DC's, but the assumption was you'd have access to stat buff spells and items, maybe some skill buffers, and aid another actions. If these things aren't available, make it easier to fit what is realistic.

Also, don't be afraid to use non-standard monsters. An orc doesn't just have to be an orc- it can be half-demon or devil, half-draconic, vile, or any other number of things. Or give it class and PrC levels (that's not an orc- that's a 10th level barbarian/3rd level Eye of Grummsh!). Or be really mean and do both- you'll do some math, but, oh darn, you'll get smarter for it. Don't forget, too, that whatever spells your PC's have, NPC's also have, so have NPC casters buff away like PC's do. Either way, it puts the good and bad guys on equal playing fields.

Lastly, if there are individuals of this power running in the world, they aren't going unnoticed. PC's scry their enemies; why not have the enemies scry PC's? If there are casters opposed to the party, they WILL find patterns in PC action and they WILL make plans to deal with them. For example, using your quote from above, none of that saves against a medusa's stone gaze attack (I don't think). Since you aren't "dead" and didn't lose hit points, I'm not sure the contingency would kick in (besides, doesn't the contingency condition have to be extremely specific?). Likewise, Death Ward wouldn't kick in, and if the medusa was a caster with See Invisible, invisibility wouldn't have any effect either. Also, since it isn't a spell, Spell Turning wouldn't work either. Just make sure there's a good reason to have a medusa around so the party can't shout "grudge monster." See, problem solved That is, until someone with better rule knowledge than I shoots down my whole plan.

 

[Fishbone]

And it is a waste of an action for NPCs and monsters, too. Instead of actually doing something they have to blow a whole action on casting Dispel Magic/Greater Dispel Magic. When the monsters are already likely to be outnumbered blowing a whole action is a waste that could prove fatal.

 

[joshuakanton]

Keep track of the durations of the different spells and toward the end of the players' day have an NPC cast Dimensional Lock before they decide to leave. Then attack, the NPC don't have to wait for the players to act, they can be proactive and intelligent.

 

[Ahrimon]

What's really annoying in the game that I play in is that all the NPC opponents seem to start every fight fully buffed. While if we want to be buffed, we have to spend the first two rounds fully on the defensive. And if we take the fight to the enemy, then it's all "realistic" and 3/4 of the way through the first fight, the buffed reinforcements start to arrive and we're fighting the entire freaking place in one massive encounter.

Damned if we do. Damned if we don't.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Its threads like this that make me glad none of my players are big on the buffing thing. The occasional contingency Heal, Mass Bear's Endurance etc. but nothing like what the OP cited. That would be annoying (and I'd let the players know how boring and cowardly they are )