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View Full Version : [3.5] Hitting an AoO-abusing BBEG



nargbop
2010-06-12, 05:46 PM
My current party will soon battle a BBEG. Previous experience with him has shown him to have very high AC, very high saves, high Spell Resistance and Spell Turning on at all times, possibly other defenses against magic, and the ability to abuse Attacks of Opportunity. Specifically, he has Sidestep and Robilar's Gambit, and possibly other tricks, which make engaging him in melee a bad idea.

Additionally, he has many caster allies with readied counterspells. Holy Word and Reciprocal Gyre are possible only after dealing with all of them.

There's more to tell, of course, but telling would limit the imagination of the responses.

My current thought is : Give our barbarian a Heroics potion to give him Brutal Throw from Complete Adventurer. He can apply his Strength to throw ranged weapons at the BBEG, using various tricks to do as much damage as possible.

How would you hit someone almost invulnerable to spells and melee attacks?

Beorn080
2010-06-12, 05:52 PM
Funnily enough, the monk has an "advantage" here. Ethereal up to him, and grapple. I recall hearing about an antimagic torch, activate after the guy grapples him.

Alternatively, snag a scroll of Black tentacles. Nothing like an AOE auto grapple to take an AoO person out of action.

Eldariel
2010-06-12, 05:59 PM
Use the skilltrick to fake casting another spell, or something of the sort, and trash him with SR reducers (Assay Resistance, True Casting) for +20 to your SR penetration and Maw of Chaos him with total concealment to avoid countermagic. Then just incinerate him. Alternatively, use Supernatural Spell ignoring all that crap. Or Shapechange into something mean and use Supernatural Abilities.

Alternatively, have some beater use True Strike and Charge for ~1000 points (with Bounding Assault to come up to the skin) with an immense reach so Robilar's Sidestep does nothing. Overall, just have large enough reach and that'll do nothing. Or spam Chain Dispels on him or just wipe out the joker pals he's got with few random spells and focus on him.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2010-06-12, 06:07 PM
Definitely kill his counterspelling mooks, then throw orbs of X at him, assuming his Touch AC is reasonable after bypassing all those other defenses.

PId6
2010-06-12, 06:25 PM
Get an (Eternal Blade) archer with Woodland Archer and Splitting weapons, then shoot the counterspellers to death before aiming at him.

Lysander
2010-06-12, 06:34 PM
Poisoned arrows?

nargbop
2010-06-13, 12:27 PM
Other ideas :
Disabling all casters , sticking him in a forcecage with Dimension Lock and filling it with water. Dispel his Rings of Sustenance at our leisure.

The forcecage-drowning idea after somehow transporting him to another plane where his helpers can't reach him.

Turn all of his casters against him, or at least against each other. Incite Riot from PHB2 is a fun spell, but easy to resist.

Wish away all of his equipment and curse him heavily using the Candle of Invocation->Infinite Genies->Infinite Wishes trick.

Make him too healthy to live. Surround him with vivacious creatures which constantly pump him full of Positive Energy. I don't recall if the save gets harder as the number of extra hit points get higher, but I hope I can make him pop.

The Shadowmind
2010-06-13, 12:43 PM
If he is in a building/cave see about collapsing it on him.

AmberVael
2010-06-13, 12:50 PM
Wish away all of his equipment and curse him heavily using the Candle of Invocation->Infinite Genies->Infinite Wishes trick.


If you go that far, why not just wish away the DM and be done with it?

Lord Vukodlak
2010-06-13, 12:53 PM
Narg, no DM anywhere of any measure of sanity would allow the infinite wish trick to work. You might as well suggest they drop their dice so they always roll 20. It has an equal chance of working.

One possible answer is cover, with few exceptions around the rule. If you benefit from cover AoO are not possible, and unless the guy can see invisible personally it certainly help their. Concealment also works to stop AoO.

A psion could probably deal some significant damage, you can't counterspell psionics nor can psionics counterpower. So a psion would be perfectly primed to wipe out the counterspeller's
My preference would be an energy current, continual damage and hit multiple targets.
Dominating a couple of the casters could turn the fight around real quick to.

Spells that cause retributive damage, every-time your hit the enemy takes damage. Cast before entering combat. Say Fire Shield.

My gnome illusionist has a 5th level transmutation spell swarm form that lets him polymorph into a swarm of animals or vermin. Aside from gaining the general swarm traits it acts like a limited polymorph spell.
For that matter summon swarm could probably hurt him a little.

Beorn080
2010-06-13, 12:55 PM
If he is in a building/cave see about collapsing it on him.

This.

If your outside, nuke from orbit.

Inside, bring the building down around him.

Also, might I recommend a couple Greater Horn of Blasting. 40' cone, 10d6 sonic, stun for a round, and deafens for 4d6 against a save of 19 fort for no deafen and half damage.

VirOath
2010-06-13, 12:58 PM
Sidestep + Robilar's Gambit only works if you can move. Deal with the mooks then hit him with Spell Storing Nets of all flavors and tangleroots bags. Dex penalties from different sources stack, almost all are ranged weapons and this will kill his Dex score and Ref save. An effective dex score of 0 is paralyzed. Add in web and grease as desired.

Insane Reach is also a good counter for this, as an attack chain is only stopped if he can move out of range of the attack. With a reach of 15 you can hit him and not have him able to sidestep the damage. Add in Stand Still/Thicket Of Blades from custom items to lock down his movement and make his feat investment worthless.

Honestly though, it doesn't sit well with me, seeing only part of this from the side lines.

Frosty
2010-06-13, 01:04 PM
If he's flat-footed, he can't make AoOs. If possible, try to land a level 1 spell called Distract Assailant on him (from SpC). It'll cuase him to be Flat-footed, and you can now go in without worry.

VirOath
2010-06-13, 01:06 PM
If he's flat-footed, he can't make AoOs. If possible, try to land a level 1 spell called Distract Assailant on him (from SpC). It'll cuase him to be Flat-footed, and you can now go in without worry.

Doesn't work if he has Combat Reflexes, which in addition to letting you make your Dex Mod + 2 total of AoO's a round, allows you to make them while flat footed. Which is needed for the Sidestep trick.

Lord Vukodlak
2010-06-13, 01:07 PM
Sidestep + Robilar's Gambit only works if you can move. Deal with the mooks then hit him with Spell Storing Nets of all flavors and tangleroots bags. Dex penalties from different sources stack, almost all are ranged weapons and this will kill his Dex score and Ref save. An effective dex score of 0 is paralyzed. Add in web and grease as desired.


A penalty can never reduce an ability score below 1. Period, only drain and damage can reduce an ability score to 0. I would also say entanglement is a single source even if your entangled by a tanglefoot bag, a web spell, an entanglement spell and a net.

HOWEVER penalizing his dex is still a good idea. Take out his positive dex modifier and he can't make more then one AoO a round. Improved Combat Reflexes won't even help because he'll have lost the preq dex to use the feat.

Person_Man
2010-06-13, 01:14 PM
Ideas:

Win Initiative: Set up an ambush. Enemies can't ready anything if they haven't had a chance to act.
Sunder: Destroy the spell component pouches and/or holy symbols of the casters.
Nets, razor nets, lasso: Each is a touch attack. Each imposes a -4 Dex bonus. The penalties stack.
Area of Effect: If he doesn't have Evasion, this is a pretty good way to inflict damage on him and his mooks every round.
Extraordinary and Supernatural Abilities: Not effected by Spell Resistance. Is there a Binder in the group?

tyckspoon
2010-06-13, 01:21 PM
A penalty can never reduce an ability score below 1. Period, only drain and damage can reduce an ability score to 0. I would also say entanglement is a single source even if your entangled by a tanglefoot bag, a web spell, an entanglement spell and a net.


Not actually a rule. The best-known and largest single sources of penalties generally include that clause (ie, Ray of Enfeeblement, Ray of Clumsiness) but it's not a general case condition. If you can find enough different sources of penalties to drive a stat to 0, then that stat is 0.

Frosty
2010-06-13, 01:27 PM
That is a good idea. If you reduce his dex to below 13, then Distract Assailant will work just fine.

nargbop
2010-06-13, 04:04 PM
Good ideas so far.
Counters : Spells which allow saves, such as Distract Assailant, he will always succeed against. He probably has improved evasion and mettle. I cannot prove this, because his saves are so high that he's never failed a save.
He is probably a Bone Knight, so that he is immune to DEX damage and many other things.

Denying him movement is a great idea. Multiple nets and similar entangling weapons, tanglefoot bolts, and Constricting Chains spells. Harpoons thrown from multiple directions and held by the strongest creatures we can summon, tying him to one spot and forcing him to break each one individually. This might give us enough time to get rid of all of his caster allies and focus on him.

Extraordinary and Supernatural Abilities - awesome. No Binders, but we have a Malconvoker. I will review some demons.

When we actually get to the point of fighting him in melee, we will definitely be using only ranged and reach weapons.

peacenlove
2010-06-13, 04:24 PM
For the mooks: Spells that originate from a caster with total cover/concealment cannot be countered. The Shadowcaster, at high levels, makes liberal uses of uncounterable spell like and supernatural abilities and has an undispellable undetectable greater invisibility.

How high is his grapple modifier? Black tentacles/various hands and some summons can hold him in bay for your ranged attacks to work, failing that make the terrain difficult via transmute rock to mud (or other spells) or deeper darkness (cutting his speed to 1/2)

Do his mooks have high protections (especially vs death effects)? if not you can try to dominate one or 2 so you can use their abilities vs the BBEG. I suggest using the shadowcaster mystery consume essence via UMD since as casters they will have weak fortitude saves and it cannot be dispelled.

Damaging his dexterity might be a good idea but a dm might be prepared with freedom of movement and a soulfire armor. I suggest using chain dispel (found in SC) so you dispel ALL of his equipment.

Use terrain to your advantage. Most spells (including counterspells) cannot be cast where there is no line of effect. Wall of force does wonders and is difficult to bring down (it needs a caster, said caster will burn his standard action so he cannot counterspell). Similarly fog cannot be countered by true seeing.

Jerthanis
2010-06-13, 04:28 PM
Three words: Brilliant Energy Net.

Frosty
2010-06-13, 05:07 PM
Quickened spells can certainly be countered. Nothing says they can't be.

Beorn080
2010-06-13, 05:18 PM
Hmmm. I have a theory.

Is it too late to become snag a beholder polymorph and use that very nifty main eye of its to pretty much nullify everything. Even without the various eyestalks, the main eye disables all counterspelling under it, while allowing certain attacks to get through.

Knaight
2010-06-13, 05:28 PM
A direct fight sounds really, really difficult. This means go to plan b) Avoid a direct fight. Which means you need to start pulling out the underhanded tricks. Sure, collapsing a building is one of them, but hostages, human shields, blackmail, and similar stuff is probably even more effective. Convince his various support mages that they are planning to betray each other, get hostages on them and force backstabbing, etc. etc.

If you cripple all options, strip away all allies, and get some power in the mean time, he is disabled, and probably can be taken in a straight fight if it comes to that.

molten_dragon
2010-06-13, 06:23 PM
Some ideas for you.

Get hold of a ranged weapon with the binding property (MiC pg 29). Use true strike (to get through his high AC) and shoot him with the weapon, he's now barred from extradimensional travel for the next 10 minutes, with no save or SR to prevent the effect. Make sure your wizard has an action readied so that as soon as BBEG gets shot with the arrow, he uses forcecage to trap the dude. You can now take out his spellcaster buddies at your leisure. It should then be a fairly easy exercise to debuff the crap out of him with magic (plenty of ways around his high saves, SR and spell turning) and kill him.

Grappling. Seriously, just grapple everything. Summon tons of critters that can grapple and grapple all of his spellcasting buddies, then grapple him too.

We could probably offer you more options if you gave us some info about what level you are and what the party makeup is.

VirOath
2010-06-13, 06:33 PM
Good ideas so far.
Counters : Spells which allow saves, such as Distract Assailant, he will always succeed against. He probably has improved evasion and mettle. I cannot prove this, because his saves are so high that he's never failed a save.
He is probably a Bone Knight, so that he is immune to DEX damage and many other things.

Denying him movement is a great idea. Multiple nets and similar entangling weapons, tanglefoot bolts, and Constricting Chains spells. Harpoons thrown from multiple directions and held by the strongest creatures we can summon, tying him to one spot and forcing him to break each one individually. This might give us enough time to get rid of all of his caster allies and focus on him.

Extraordinary and Supernatural Abilities - awesome. No Binders, but we have a Malconvoker. I will review some demons.

When we actually get to the point of fighting him in melee, we will definitely be using only ranged and reach weapons.

Sadly, I thought it was more of an Unbeatable Fight from the original posting, but this just adds to my concerns. As stated before, best to stop looking at a direct confrontation and hit them with sneaky, low blow tactics. You're evil for a reason.

And if the DM just shuts those down, then I'm afraid he's written himself up an epic DMPC to go crush the vile evildoers. And it sucks that I'm leaning more to this as it seems as he is stacking mechanics to be untouchable to the point that I doubt that many pages of character sheets are being used.

Voice of Reason
2010-06-13, 06:36 PM
Well, you obviously have access to a lot of wealth. What sourcebooks are you allowed to use for this? A simple solution would be to buy a +1 weapon of some kind and add the Spellblade enhancement from the Players Guide to Faerun (I believe) for around 6,000g. Grab one in Greater Dispel Magic, and perhaps another in regular Dispel Magic, depending on caster level. Now, if they try to dispel your spells, not only does it fail, but you can direct it back at them for free next turn to dispel all of their buffs.

I would also recommend that you find a way to conceal your spellcasting so that they can't make their spellcraft checks. If they can't identify the spell, and they can't use Dispel Magic, then they really can't dispel you. I would very highly recommend that you quickly follow the act with a Lower Spell Resistance (Draconomicon, although I think it has a reprint in Spell Compendium) on the BBEG and finish him off however your casters please.

For your melee characters...reinforced +1 or higher Adamantine Tower Shields do wonders for stopping AoOs and any physical attacks in general when used for total cover. With a hardness of 22 or higher, even if the BBEG is using Adamantine himself, he won't be able to bypass the hardness on your shield, making sundering it away from you much more difficult. It may be a bit trying on their nerves (read: boring), but you know what they say about slow and steady...

Runestar
2010-06-13, 07:20 PM
What about reach weapon + enlarge person? You have 20-ft reach, so just move 10ft in front of the BBEG and attack. Whichever 5-ft step he makes, he will still be within attacking range. And if he doesn't have a reach weapon himself, he can't counterattack with robilar's gambit.

Lord Vukodlak
2010-06-13, 07:59 PM
What about reach weapon + enlarge person? You have 20-ft reach, so just move 10ft in front of the BBEG and attack. Whichever 5-ft step he makes, he will still be within attacking range. And if he doesn't have a reach weapon himself, he can't counterattack with robilar's gambit.

Assuming he's not doing the same thing with a spiked chain.

elonin
2010-06-13, 08:12 PM
If a spell caster can't make his spellcraft DC all they can use to counter is dispel magic.

JeminiZero
2010-06-13, 08:30 PM
Well, you obviously have access to a lot of wealth. What sourcebooks are you allowed to use for this? A simple solution would be to buy a +1 weapon of some kind and add the Spellblade enhancement from the Players Guide to Faerun (I believe) for around 6,000g. Grab one in Greater Dispel Magic, and perhaps another in regular Dispel Magic, depending on caster level. Now, if they try to dispel your spells, not only does it fail, but you can direct it back at them for free next turn to dispel all of their buffs.

To elaborate, Counterspells (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/castingSpells.htm) effectively select the caster of the spell as a target.

Tennis (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151109) shenanigans not withstanding, Spellblades against Dispel Magic and Greater Dispel Magic (and Dispel Psionics as well, if you are using that system), should theoretically prevent that. If you need extra weapon slots, get armor spikes, shield spikes (remember that mithril shields have no non-proficiency penalty/ASF) and look up the concealed weapons in Complete Scoundrel.

If Spellblades are not allowed, try using Spell Turning of your own.

Runestar
2010-06-13, 08:32 PM
Why they even bother to counterspell, instead of simply readying standard actions to blast casters with damage spells...:smallconfused:

Unless they have duelward or something. But being able to not only disrupt the player's spells, but also damage them is an attractive 2-for-1 offer, IMO.

Kyuu Himura
2010-06-13, 10:45 PM
1.- buy a martial script with the leaping flame maneuver... or more than one.
2.- hit BBEG with a greater dispel magic.
3.- whoever reads the martial script can initiate leaping flame once per encounter for the next hour, give it to your best grappler.
4.- have the grappler go and try to grapple, when BBEG tries to AoO him, he initiates leaping flame and teleports right nexy to BBEG, grapple. This is a supernatural ability, so no counterspelling.
5.- deal damage to the, now grappled, BBEG.

All this while you keep all the caster minions busy by whatever means you can.
Martial Scripts can be used by anyone who can read the alphabet in the one they are written.
Hope it helps

VirOath
2010-06-13, 11:56 PM
Oh, something that is on the bounds of cheese that can be of use. Have a player, or mob, with a high UMD score carry around a bunch of arrows aligned to the exact opposite of your BBEG (UMD only needed to avoid alignment conflicts).

Now you should be able to seriously weaken him or kill him. If he is Lawful Evil, then use a bundle of 20 +1 bolts with the Good and Chaos damage enhancers. Now the real trick, tricking him to pick the bundle up. The second he does, he gets 40 negative levels and should die outright. If he doesn't, then it should be a round to ambush him, hopefully.