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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Marimmar" data-source="post: 252403" data-attributes="member: 1789">Virtual Immunity from Attacks(or why mages don't fear the reaper)Imagine a small lv5 party venturing forth into an adventure.Frank the fighter, Full Plate +1, Large Shield +1, Flaming Sword +1Carl the cleric, masterwork Full Plate, Large Shield +1, Heavy Mace +1Waldemar the toad loving gnome wizard, Ring of Deflection +1Before they enter the Caves of Doom, Carl casts Bull's Strength, Toughness and Magic Vestment on himself and his equipment, he now has similar HPs and AC that Frank has and deals about the same amount of damage. Waldemar casts Toughness, Cat's Grace and Mage Armor. Together with his gnome constitution bonus and his toad he now has comparable HPs to Frank as well. His AC is still a bit behind but he's not worried about it since Frank and Carl are supposed to go ahead anyway, giving him time to cast some fancy spells later.After some exploring the party encounters the first challenging monsters. They roll initiative with Waldemar going first since his cat's graced dexterity and the improved initiative feat allow him to almost always go first. Since he recons the monsters to be the fight of the day, he casts Haste and Shield, increasing his AC by a staggering 11 points! The fight continues with monsters and frontline PC tanks hacking and whacking at each other. The DM wisely chose some monsters that are capable of hitting an AC of 23 about a third of the time, thus allowing the fighter and cleric to have the impression that their armor and high HPs are worth something. Frank and Carl feel good in their role as tanks but the DM wants to challenge the party wizard as well and lets someone tumble past the frontline and attack Waldemar. The DM is a bit offended at the mage being hasted and casting two combat magics at his monsters per round but he is in for a rude surprise...The monster attacks and what resulted in a hit a third of the time against the fighter and the cleric now proves almost ineffective. He's a bit unbelieving and asks Waldemar's player to tell him how his AC got so high. Waldemar's player explains, 'Base AC10, Size AC11, Dex 16 with Cat's Grace AC14,  Mage Armor AC18, Shield AC25, Haste AC 29, Ring of Deflection +1 AC 30 and it all stacks with each other so your monsters will hit me only on a natural 20 and even if they hit me I got as many HPs as Frank so they won't be able to kill me anyway!' *gleeful grin*The DM thinks to himself, 'Oh well next time i'll adjust the monsters a bit so that they can hit AC30 about a third of the time.'The party ventures on after some retreat and rest and encounters another group of monsters. The wizard pulls of his usual spell chain and feels save once more but what is that? Sddenly the monsters hit the tanks in the front with almost every attack! Frank and Carl are overwhelmed quickly, they both feel cheated and think their AC and HPs mean nothing and start complaining. The wizard's player in the meantime manages to kill of the monsters although he took a harsh beating himself.So what happened? The DM adjusted the monsters to hit an AC that is 7 points higher than the average AC of the party. That in turn led to the demise of both fighter and cleric. Seeing that 2 of his 3 players are unhappy he's faced with a hard decision, should he allow the wizard to remain virtually untouchable for his monsters or should he propose some rules changes?People may point out the following things:the Shield spell is only facing in a single direction covering only 50% of the battlefield --- This may be true but it is also invisible and there is usually a wall or corner to retreat to so it is very difficult to find the weak spot.a Dispel Magic spell will disable the wizard and put him 'nekkid' in front of your monsters --- This may be true but it would also mean that the DM would have to include a spellcaster in every major battle and the wizard might feel useless since all his spells are always dispelled.Our group proposes that- the Shield spell provides a +4 Shield Armor bonus, thus removing the complicated facing problem and disallowing wizards to make use of enchanted mithril shields for extra protection- Mage Armor should only last 10 minutes per level so that wizards cannot cast it in the morning and have it last all day- Haste and all his bretheren be removed from all spell lists and be banned as 'broken'I'm shure other DMs faced the same problem at low mid-level. Later on it's not that important since those particular wizard spells don't get any better but monsters do. So I'd really like to know what you did.~Marimmar</blockquote>

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