Ridiculous amount of buffs

[PallidPatience]

So just as a crazy example, Mage Armor would give a character +4 AC against the next attack made against the character (perhaps with a clause that grants several more 'charges' with higher levels). Once that character was attacked and the +4 AC was used to attempt to defend itself, the mage armor disappears.

That would make Mage Armor the worst spell ever. Seriously. It would have to be a swift action -1th level spell to be worthwhile for a +4 to AC for the next attack. That's not even enough to catch up to fighters who can wear armor. If it was something like +20 to AC for the next attack, I'd feel you, but that's just a hose for any wizard/sorc.

Now, some of the other buffs I'd agree with you on, but that one in particular is almost necessary, unless you do away with ASF.

 

[DM-Rocco]

With apologies to Ashockney



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?

My players in one game (all spell casters of one kind or another) once spent 3 1/2 actual hours figuring out a buffing system that they labeled the "Royal with Cheese."

The following battle was not even close to being lost.

They did it one more time, the battle went slightly better, but things were still greatly messed up. I then banned persistant spells, level variable factors for Holy Word (which the 16th level cleric was casting at level 32, don't ask how that one got away from me) and put some limits on the players. Not very many mind you, but something had to be done. The game balance breaks down for spell caster around 13th-15th level. Somewhere in there things just get nuts. If you have an Artificier in the group, say good buy to even having a close battle again. Once they can change the type of bonus gained from an item, they can get any AC through the roof.

That being said, high level characters should have lots of protections. In a standard D&D game with a well balanced party their should always be some if not all of the protections you listed above. However, if as a DM you have, over the course of months or years, let the power level of the characters slip from you, then don't be afirad to set limits or as a last ditch effort, remove items that are giving you problems.

The natural tendency is to place harder encounters in front of them. Which is fine, to a certain point, but that can be a slippery slope as sometimes that means equiping them with gear that makes them more powerful and thus giving that gear to your party when they die. You can however have encounters at a normal encounter level and equip them with one shot items that would solve this, like giving them scrolls of Greater Dispel Magic, Scry or Break Enchantment. If that is not enough, there is always the deal breaker, Mort's Disjunction.

You can also get sly by having enemy wizards cast things like Dimensional Anchor so that party can't hit and run. However, have the wizards make bluff checks as they cast so the group spell casters don't know what spell is being cast. At the same time have some one throw a fireball their way. Then they will think that just a fireball hit them and not get it in their heads that anything is wrong until they teleport away, or try to.

 

[James Heard]

Because doing the same thing over and over again is pointlessly dull and boring - almost a definition of "uncreative". Why play a game where all you do is press the "WIN" button?

Nanoc

Why play a game to lose though? "Winning" isn't boring if the players keep wanting to do it over and over again - it might not be innovative, but if it were really boring then the players would probably go do something else.

On the other hand, who says that defeating opponents is the only measure of success in a game anyways? You can make it ridiculously easy to defeat opponents and probably still run an engaging game I'd say, you're just not going to win over any of your players who are out there to optimize their sense of wargame sorts of challenges. Heck, you can ditch fighting entirely sometimes and run a pretty nice game and make buffing completely irrelevant except in a "look what I can do/so what?" sort of way.

Personally if my players were fine with having fun with buffs? If it ain't broke don't fix it.

(On the other hand, given my druthers I'd probably ditch a lot of the "everyone always puts this sort of thing on their characters before fighting stuff" spells and try to push them as interesting class abilities and/or feats. When my spellcasters "buff" someone it should be something memorable and really awesome, not a cookie cutter collection of stat boosts.)

 

[JiffyPopTart]

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.

Start the next battle against a buffed up foe by running away for 15 minutes and then coming back. Then argue all their 1rnd/lvl and 1min/lvl buffs should be gone. For good measure lead off the first round with liberal Dispel Magics.

DS

 

[Nyeshet]

Wasn't there a spell in 3e that was in effect a Wall of Dispel or some such, whereby any creature walking through it was hit by a dispel effect? Honestly, I cannot see a BBEG not warding his sanctum with such - especially whenever he has reason to suspect trouble may be coming (such as hearing of attacks occurring in another part of his dungeon complex). Cover it with an illusory wall to remove any sign of its presence (ie: an illusion of nothing being there), and the party takes a hit just as they enter the room for the final show down. Nothing wrong with that. BBEGs are suppose to be fiendishly cunning and devious.

As for foes arriving buffed - if they can hear the party in combat a couple rooms away, I would expect them to be buffed. Indeed, even if they have only heard that combat took place nearby the day before I would expect them to be buffed - or have a buff prepared for usage at a moment's notice (perhaps in the form of a potion or two they can down as they approach the room or hear the party approaching).

I generally play by the rule that what is available to the PCs is also available to their foes. This includes buffing, magic items, PrCs, etc. I also tend to play by the rule that foes live longer by playing smarter. They *will* retreat if their numbers fall too far or they are too injured. They will plan ambushes, use tactics, swarm the PCs with fodder troops first (such as zombies, etc) to wear them down, make them start up their buffs early so they wear off not long after engaging the true foes, and so forth. I do this - and I expect the same from the players. Blindly rushing into combat is a sure way to get your character killed. And no one can really argue that any of the foes in the MMs cannot use tactics - except perhaps the Int -- (ie: mindless) vermin and occasional construct or undead or plant. After all, even the animals with only Int 2 are sometimes described as using ambushes, flanking, and tactics such as tripping, seeking out the weakest, etc. If an Int 2 creature can do all this, then any creature with Int 2+ can do this (which is well over 98% of the creatures in the MMs).

 

[Caliban]

In some cases in my home campaign, I've had the bad guys actually clear out and find a new base of operations when the PC's leave after a few enounters. Then the PC's have to track down their new lair (which will have customized defenses if they take too long).

Of course, this depends on the abilities and intelligence of the bad guys in question.

 

[ashockney]

With apologies to Ashockney?

None needed, I'm honored.

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?

At about anywhere around 12th level and up, it becomes ridiculous. The higher level game ABSOLUTELY assumes that all pcs are buffed. As others have pointed out (the royale with cheese) my example was really "big boys off the top of my head" and did not fully flesh out all the options. If you have played above 12th, and ESPECIALLY above 15th, if you're not buffed to some degree, you're dead. It is just too deadly. For both villians and players the game becomes "how do I become immune to that" and "ok, they can't be immune to everything, so which thing we can do will work".

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?

There's a number of threads out there about how to run effective high level games. I've posted in many of those, and will try to be brief. Many of the key ideas have been highlighted already:
1) Change the scope of your game - dungeon crawling is too limited in scope for high level
2) Anti-magic fields
3) Dispelling
4) Buff your villians
5) Employ more dynamic villians, especially BBEG
6) Where possible provide more "environmental" and "non-combat" challenges
7) Use MORE villians (ie, a typical encounter should outnumber the party 2:1, 3:1)

These strategies, still allow for some variety for PC's but grant you a bit of freedom as a DM to continue to challenge your PC's at higher levels. Regretably, you just don't have the kind of flexibility and freedom you do as a DM to run any appropriate EL encounter with no prior preparation, like you do from about 3rd level - 9th level, where the game plays super sweet.

A couple of notes to those who've made comments:
USING CHARACTER ABILITIES should not ever equal UNCREATIVE/UNFAIR/BORING

As a DM, I always assume if somethings put in the game, it's there for a reason, and it should be expected to be used. Characters should get the opportunity to flex their muscles.

HIGH LEVEL PLAY is TOO COMPLEX

I've written a lot about this elsewhere, so I won't beat a dead horse. Just for reference, however, what exactly were you planning on doing with your 1st - 3rd level spells? If you think you're using a fireball on anything above 15th level, you're really just kidding yourself. Buffs (particularly some of the swift action ones in the new books) become one of, if not the only, viable option to find a relevant use for these 25 of their 50 spells for the day.

 

[ashockney]

In the Immortals Handbook I limit players to a maximum of four magic items at any one time.

What if (as you say) you could only have four spells work on you at any one time as follows:

#1: Body
#2: Mind
#3: Soul
#4: Spirit

UK, dude. That is really brilliant.

You could also tie it into five key defensive categories:
AC
FORT
REF
WILL
HP

My hopes for 4E definitely include that there is room for those who want to "buff" in the game. It's fun! It's a cool element to the game, and a fun way to win. Having said that, it can be overly complex and make it unfun to have to account for as a DM. Putting a simple limit like the above out there, can allow for high level PC's to still enhance their defenses well as would be required to survive, but would make it FAR, FAR more manageable. Then, those who specialize in the buff, could have class abilities that are far superior, or allow them to enhance buffs through their meta magic that make them far superior to other, more generic, buffs.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi there ashockney!

UK, dude. That is really brilliant.

I appreciate the love dude,

although I have been thinking perhaps...

Physical
Mental
Spiritual
Magical

...would be more apropos.

Another possibility might be to have a spell-level limit based on your level (or one of your ability scores).

You could also tie it into five key defensive categories:
AC
FORT
REF
WILL
HP

Not sure if they would work as subcategories, I think you need a certain catch-all degree of ambiguity. I mean which of the above are True Seeing, Greater Magic Weapon and Fly going to fit into.

My hopes for 4E definitely include that there is room for those who want to "buff" in the game. It's fun! It's a cool element to the game, and a fun way to win. Having said that, it can be overly complex and make it unfun to have to account for as a DM. Putting a simple limit like the above out there, can allow for high level PC's to still enhance their defenses well as would be required to survive, but would make it FAR, FAR more manageable. Then, those who specialize in the buff, could have class abilities that are far superior, or allow them to enhance buffs through their meta magic that make them far superior to other, more generic, buffs.

Absolutely. Also I think it helps place more emphasis on higher-level spells rather than 20 low-level spells.

To draw up a parallel with videogames. If we contrast Doom with Halo (for example). Halo limits the number of weapons you can carry, forcing you to make a tactical choice. So your decisions have consequences, and as such Halo is the more involving game.

In buff heavy D&D games, tactics are secondary to the sheer volume of spells.

HIGH LEVEL PLAY is TOO COMPLEX

If you think its complex now, try writing books on it.

One of my goals has been to boil high/epic gaming down to the bare essentials. To a degree I think I have succeeded.

I've written a lot about this elsewhere, so I won't beat a dead horse. Just for reference, however, what exactly were you planning on doing with your 1st - 3rd level spells? If you think you're using a fireball on anything above 15th level, you're really just kidding yourself. Buffs (particularly some of the swift action ones in the new books) become one of, if not the only, viable option to find a relevant use for these 25 of their 50 spells for the day.

I have solved this problem (take a look at Automatic Metamagic Capacity and Metamagic Freedom).

http://www.immortalshandbook.com/freestuff9.htm

Basically you gain no more spells after 20th (except from increased ability scores). But using Automatic Metamagic Capacity all those 1st, 2nd and 3rd level spells become relevant even at epic levels.

 

[Korgoth]

I hate the bloody buffs.

You mean us?