Wizards who refuse to use blast spells

[cattoy]

He likes using grease spells to annoy your monsters and doesn't use blast spells?

Use Stirges.

 

[roguerouge]

What's good for the goose is good for the gander:

PC: "Web!"
BBEG: "Web!"

And stickiness ensues. Several minutes later...

BBEG: "So... where were we?"

 

[Aus_Snow]

What's good for the goose is good for the gander

QFT. Clever, or even slightly unusual magic use (for instance), courtesy of monsters/NPCs, is downright nasty. And fun.

 

[Henry]

Actually, what we do to resolve this is pretty easy. We use the D&D miniatures, or pre-printed tokens, and what I have the players do is to tear off a small corner of scrap paper for each enemy that is wounded or has a condition on them - or write it directly on the token. I make the players keep track of the damage they've done, and the conditions they've slapped on the monsters. Saves me from a lot of bookeeping. At the end of the game we toss the scrap paper in the trash, and it's done.

 

[Phlebas]

I've always allowed people to move a 5ft area with AoO as a full round acion, despite being in a greased area: crawling.

Isn't 5' crawl a move action? so 10' a round, AoO's apply and then you're out of the area affected. Also, if you're running then you carry on through slippery areas (the rules in DMG under terrain types) or you can always jump over them once you see the first monster slip

To OP

I play a similar themed wizard (conjuration master specialists) and have made a serious difference to fights with web, grease or summon monster (enough to frustrate the DM).

I have also run away screaming from aerial monsters (most flying summoned creatures are pants), water monsters and non-corporeal undead. Other things that i dont do well against - large numbers of monsters, open areas, swarms / mobs, vampires, bard style affects, things with 4 or more legs and big teeth etc etc

Maybe the better way to make blasters more effective is to make SR more like a save - eg 1/2 to 1/4 damage than an all or nothing effect. stray thought and not something i'd like to introduce without a lot of play-testing

 

[Storm Raven]

Why do the recurring villains never remember what tactics a party has used on them before? As far as I'm concerned, anytime a PC does something more than 2x in different encounters, they can develop a reputation for it.

More to the point, why do villains of any stripe always seem to act like they don't live in a world populated by spell casters? Virtually all D&D worlds are full of magic practitioners, and let's face it, even the "unusual" tactics we are talking about in this thread should be reasonably commonplace (since they should be pretty obvious to most wizards and sorcerers). NPCs should have some sort of contingency plan to deal with this sort of thing, or at the very least, be able to react reasonably effectively when a PC throws this sort of thing into play.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

More to the point, why do villains of any stripe always seem to act like they don't live in a world populated by spell casters? Virtually all D&D worlds are full of magic practitioners, and let's face it, even the "unusual" tactics we are talking about in this thread should be reasonably commonplace (since they should be pretty obvious to most wizards and sorcerers). NPCs should have some sort of contingency plan to deal with this sort of thing, or at the very least, be able to react reasonably effectively when a PC throws this sort of thing into play.

Well, what kind of contingencies are there beside "Load up on counter magic items, be a mage in the first place, or be some wacky monsters that doesn't care"? In the end, you suffer from limitations on what can actually be a BBEG. Maybe that's okay. After all, the archvillain in most fantasy stories seem to have some magical powers (or is some kind of monster).

 

[Tarek]

There's ways to counter many spells using mundane methods.

There's ways to react to spells that don't involve being at the party's mercy. Mage throws an obscuring mist to block the archers, archers pull back and let the infantry-type monsters form a line and advance through the mist. Mage drops the obscuring mist around himself? Mage is excellent target for a Fireball, since Fireball doesn't need to be visually targeted. "...specifies range and direction..."

Those kinds of things. Granted the less organized and less intelligent monsters aren't going to have tactics like this, but if I were a BBEG, and my enemies chose to hide half the battlefield, I'd use that to manuver and/or escape, maybe even mousetrap the party depending on how the dungeon/castle/lair is set up.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Hiya,

Amongst my group of friends, there has often been a conceit that wizards who resort to Fireball and Magic Missile are unoriginal and therefore poor choices. I never quite understood the logic myself, but as the DM I tried to let them play the characters they want.

The current party wizard is a level 7 character who specialises in non-damaging combat spells. His favourites include Summon Monster (always Fire Beetles or Celestial Bison), Grease, Obscuring Mist, Web, Haste and Glitterdust.

Grease and Web aren't "save-or-die" spells, but I dread them nonetheless:

a) They make creatures boring to run - oops, I failed a balance check or a reflex save, no movement for me! Nothing makes a big boss lose his aura of menace like repeatedly falling over in his square.

b) They add to the book-keeping - a Fireball kills the monsters and is done with it. A Web doesn't kill the monster, but it adds a lot of overhead to the battle, and drags them out.

c) They just aren't very heroic - it seems that most battles against powerful opponents end with the PCs rendering the NPC effectively helpless, then hacking it to bits.

I'm starting to wish for more Fireballs and Lightning Bolts

The spell caster in my game is very similar. He is mostly using Summon Monster spells and Hideous Laughter / other enchantments. The one thing I have noticed about such casters is that they are most effective against typical warrior type characters. If it has a low will save, it will be made a non factor. There is one very simple way around this. First is to try to select monsters with either decent Will saves or good spell resistance.

The other thing worth noting is that any spell that adds book keeping is generally vulnerable to Dispel Magic. All you need to do is have a caster who can turn invisible, and then toss out a Dispel when things start to get cumbersome.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[dmccoy1693]

Options I haven't seen yet (my apologizes I missed it):

Countermagic (good for all)
Ends the spell before its used, Improved Countermagic makes it more likely that your wizard will get countered (less direct knowledge about the party)

Cause Fear/Charm Monster (good against low will save summoned creatures)
Cause Fear is a 1st level spell and gets rid of the summoned monster. Now imagine charming the monster against him that he summoned.

Dismissal (good against extraplaners)
Gets rid of anything from a summon monster spell

Fly Can't be webbed/greased to midair

Silence Can't cast a spell with a verbal component if the area is silenced (just make sure that your BBEG is capable of non verbal component based spells and make sure that DC is awfully darn high.