What Spells give the DM the most headache...

[Cerubus Dark]

Don't you guys scry n' fry the players as well? Teleport and Scry are no big deal once you come to accept them for what they are: tools that both sides have.

lol, gotta try that one later.

 

[WizarDru]

And spend all their time in the room? I think not.

The last time my party used scry+teleport for hit-and-run, the npc was far away from his home and not expecting them to meddle in his affairs right now. So I decided he had no protection up (although he could cast misdirection, I decided he wouldn't do that every day without a good reason).

I didn't meant to imply that every NPC should be scry resistant. Quite the opposite. However, many high-powered opponents would have developed counter-measures, whether it be a quick escape plan (such as a daily contingency spell, quickened Dim Door or an item to buy them time), adequate defenses or more social and political defenses. Threatening innocents, bartering information or fear of retaliation are all excellent non-magical ways to keep BST in reasonable restraint, without preventing its use.

My point was that if you want to discourage such behavior, there are different ways to do it for both powerful and relatively weak NPCs, if you're willing to follow it through. If the kingdom is on a war footing, the king has an option available to him. The room doesn't have to be made of lead, just lined in the walls. And lead poisoning is easily dealt with. Sometimes B-S-T should work, and sometimes it should not. The best defense against such tactics, of course, is anonymity and indirect action on the part of the bad guys. But that's an entirely different thread.

However, when the levels get higher, certain spells will become a regular occurence for any spellcaster. Having a mindblank and several 'escape' spells memorized daily is standard. Any wise spellcaster of sufficient level has several escape routes ready without being ridiculously silly about it. An evil NPC spellcaster that draws the ire of PC adventurers had better have a plan, though, or else he gets what he deserves.

 

[nsruf]

However, when the levels get higher, certain spells will become a regular occurence for any spellcaster. Having a mindblank and several 'escape' spells memorized daily is standard. Any wise spellcaster of sufficient level has several escape routes ready without being ridiculously silly about it.

Sadly, that only works for a) spellcasters of b) sufficient level. My group is currently about level 14, so the opponents are level 12-15. So they may have dimension door, teleport, or contingency, but no mind blank. And if the party manages to engage them twice in one day, most of their protections are gone.

I already face an enormous amount of prep-time for intelligent villains, especially spellcasters, and I am afraid this is going to get worse the more different magical tactics become available to the PCs.

 

[Greybar]

One thing that many of these discussion remind me of: The lone villain concept is at a severe disadvantage to a party of heroes. As GMs, we tend to use lone villains because they are easier to conceive of, easier to run, and easier for the PCs to know and hate.

But while your stereotypical party has access to top-level divine, arcane, and direct-combat capabilities the lone villain can't match you on all three. So the counter-methods that are built into the 3.5 system may not be available to him.

To beat the Buff-Scry-Teleport, a PC group can have one of its members always have a teleport/planeshift type escape. Losing that one spell slot across the entire party isn't a big deal. Losing that one spell slot to a lone villain may be a big deal. So then you give the lone villain items to make up for his lack of breadth of power - so those items either detract from the real power items that he might have, or makes him overstuffed with treasure goodness. You also see this with many high-level monsters - demons/devils/angels all have a breadth of spelllike abilities providing combat might, defensive, antispell, and movement/teleport abilities just to keep up with the PCs.

So, anyway, this makes me think that I really have to set up major villains to have a party-type build to match the PCs - that or be substantially higher in theoretical CR while built broader (and thus less potently) just to survive.

what do you guys think?

 

[WizarDru]

One thing that many of these discussion remind me of: The lone villain concept is at a severe disadvantage to a party of heroes. As GMs, we tend to use lone villains because they are easier to conceive of, easier to run, and easier for the PCs to know and hate.

My group is currently about level 14, so the opponents are level 12-15. So they may have dimension door, teleport, or contingency, but no mind blank. And if the party manages to engage them twice in one day, most of their protections are gone.

I undertand what you're saying, but speaking as a guy with a 23rd level party of 6, I can assure that there are lots of ways to deal with the issue without falling into spell-counterspell strategies.

Greybar mentions one issue that probably plagues many...a single BBEG that is level appropriate is not going to be able to stand against a party. Any significantly powerful being at level 9+ or so is going to need an organization of flunkies, powerful allies or something to survive. If he lacks those, he needs to be very, very careful in how he threatens others, if he's to be at all usable for more than a single encounter.

Greybar also suggests, correctly, I think that if you want a BBEG, you'd best make him very powerful, and then figure out why he doesn't smash the PCs when they become a problem. Consider Grazzt from Sepulchrave's story hour, Soder from Piratecat's story hour or Fraz'UrbLuu and Orcus from my story hour. Virtually unassailable beings, early on, but they eventually come into PC target sights later on. Whether this would work in your campaign would depend on factors that only you know about.

Allow me to be shameless for a moment, and recommend the later pages of my story hour, so you can see the principle in action. One common problem for high-level characters? Too many enemies...some of whom may just be waiting for you to kill a common evil foe, and then will come after them. And again, there are often many social, political or economic reasons preventing the PCs from making BST blitzkreigs on anyone who threatens them or gets in their way. You could even structure the adventure to allow or even require BST, but have unexpected consequences for the PCs after the fact.

If you want to discuss that topic more specifically, though, I think we should start a new thread, so as not to derail this one any further.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

I definately made my GM's jaw drop the first time I used Wind Walk. We were trekking through an alternate Egypt and being able to go from 'trekking across the desert sands' to 'flying stealthily at high speed' made him scramble to keep us from jumping quite a bit ahead of what he had planned.

My cleric was so generally incompetant, though, that I'm sure I missed plenty of other opportunities to give him a headache.

 

[allenw]

I will admit that scry can be abused. We still use the 3.0 rule for detecting the sensor - giving both PCs and NPC the chance to dispel it - as well as the Will save.

That rule ("Any creature with an Intelligence score of 12 or higher can notice the sensor by making a DC 20 Intelligence check. The sensor can be dispelled as if it were an active spell") is still in 3.5, actually, hidden in the Schools of Magic discussion under "Divination."

 

[nsruf]

That rule ("Any creature with an Intelligence score of 12 or higher can notice the sensor by making a DC 20 Intelligence check. The sensor can be dispelled as if it were an active spell") is still in 3.5, actually, hidden in the Schools of Magic discussion under "Divination."

Whoah! That totally slipped by me! Talk about dumb editing in 3.5 I can't say I gave the magic chapter more than a cursory read-through. But apparently relying solely on the changes in spell descriptions between editions isn't enough.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I've got a player who summons a lot, making combat take so much longer. He details what the summons will do before his turn comes, but it still takes a long time to describe it and then do all that dice rolling.

And then comes his action... and his animal companion's action on another initiative.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Right. Alter self only allows you to change to a creature of your same type (at least in 3.5, don't know about 3.0). He needs Polymorph, which is a whole different rant

Unless he's an Outsider somehow?

Couldn't a Tiefling, Aasimar, or Genasi turn into a Ravid then?