[3.5] Question: Spell Caster Proof Campaigning for a DM newb? Other tips appreciated.

[AnonymousD&Der]

I made a previous thread, Bringing a God down to Super Human, hoping to get tips on how to deal with Uber Spell Casters.

But honestly, while the idea of weakening them a bit while boosting the weak martial classes to end all the talk of how Fighters Suck and how Wizards create new orifaces inorder to expend their extra energy raping this game is an idea that I agree with, the issue I have probably isn't the same kind, or even on the same level, of issue spoken of here.

My issue is that, as a newbie DM, and I'm very much aware it's my fault for sucking, I'm not sure how to weave an Epic Yarn (heh... Kirby) without a Spell Caster, Divine or Arcane, tearing through it. The party I'm about to have is that of a Cleric Archer, a Battle Sorceror, a Monk, and a Warblade (in before obligatory MONK SUCKS remark, and he's only in it for the roleplaying, so I doubt he cares that he sucks, or I'll try to give him a couple of more drops that would apply to him, or I might introduce him to the Tome of Battle). 2 of the characters have little way to rape a campaign. The other 2.... well I'm sure you know, even on the basic level, how effective they are at story breaking.

I want the players to have room to stomp around and do as they please, yes. At the same time, it's hard to think off challenges, plot hooks, and encounters that wouldn't eventually be trivialized by the 2 magicey types. A good first step is yes, we're starting at level 1. Another good step is ensuring I can quickly check for what spells have been learned/used, and keeping the definition of the effect of the spell borderline bound to the written text in the book for said spell.

Ultimately, I'm probably tainted by my lack of experience combined with my video game addiction. So many tropes and ideals that go for granted in game, savy players (which everyone in the group is, just not to Min Maxy level) are capable of skipping, which creates problems for someone trying to make a story:

Traveling, or paying someone to assist with travel, at least until upper levels? Spell Casters have it covered.

NPC Getting away mid-cutscene after the Battle is over/has been won? Quickened Spells say otherwise.

Need to get advice on knowing where to head next? Normally, if not always covered.

Something need to be built? What can't Magic do about it?

Need a key to get around the dungeon door? Half the time the Wizard will have ways around it, and possibly the dungeon itself.

And if they can't fix an issue themselves, they can transform or summon something that can.

I'm sure there are other examples that can be listed, but I feel these are broad enough to cover most issues. And I'm aware that most of these problems aren't things I'd have to deal with at early levels, when spell casting is little more than cute fireworks displays. How

How should I be thinking when I do get to upper levels, or are there ways around some of these listed problems?

Too Long? Didn't Read?I basically wanna be able to learn how to make a campaign in a world where Spells can completely change your world. Any tips on where I can learn, if not, any tips to help cope?

[Zaq]

You're striving at two different ends here. If you're not very, very good at making stuff up on the fly (a process which, I will note, involves remembering whatever you've come up with in the past), but you don't want to restrict what your players can do with magic . . . there's not much you can do, really. If a magic-user knows what they're doing and WANTS to mess with the campaign, well, the only things that can stop them are DM fiat (which may or may not include the banhammer), a gentleman's agreement, or simply restricting access to the craziest spells and the craziest classes (which is different from DM fiat in that it happens ahead of time, rather than during the game).

Basically, if you want players to have the ability to alter the face of the campaign world at a moment's notice (anything from "The princess lost her ring? OK, I cast Locate Item on it, Planar Bind a few archons to go retrieve it for her, and head on my merry way. What's in the harbor district?" to "OK, I'll just flood the dungeon with a couple castings of Flash Flood, then collapse it with Earthquake. We can pick through the rubble later." to "This is boring. You guys wanna go to Acheron? I've got Plane Shift prepped."), you have to be really, really good at improvising, because if you're not restricting what magic can do, the players are totally in control of where the game's happening and what they're trying to do. Now, sure, most players won't do this, but if you're consciously choosing to let them "have as much room to stomp around as they please," you have to be very, very aware of the possibility that your plans could suddenly be made totally irrelevant.

So, get good at making up NPCs on the fly. (If you have a favorite book series, game series, or some other relatively big work of fiction that you know your players aren't terribly familiar with, you can use that to pull names from.) If the PCs decide they're simply going to fly over the mountains next to the village of Plothookia and see what's on the other side, you'll need to immediately tell them what they find there. You'll need to come up with monsters capable of challenging random flying adventurers, or another town with people who want things, or SOMETHING. If you have an absurd amount of downtime, you can either plot out a rough outline of the various regions of the world ("Here There Be Halflings"), make a stack of generic NPCs who can be slotted in wherever they're needed, or both, but even then, if you're truly not restricting magic, and they really want to just flex their magical muscles, you'll still need to be a master improviser. Remember that everything you say can end up having consequences (not always BAD ones, naturally, but players are adept at remembering little details that you've forgotten and making them way more important than they were ever intended to be), so try to keep that in mind.

It's a tough path you're choosing to walk at this point. To be perfectly blunt, I'd recommend talking to the magical players and just asking them nicely to go easy on you. I can respect not wanting to apply too many restrictions to your players, but . . . well, I think I've made my point. Good luck.

[Glimbur]

It's a tough path you're choosing to walk at this point. To be perfectly blunt, I'd recommend talking to the magical players and just asking them nicely to go easy on you. I can respect not wanting to apply too many restrictions to your players, but . . . well, I think I've made my point. Good luck.

This is certainly the easiest method. If your players don't respect that, you don't have to DM. I don't like restricting players either, but if you have trouble improvising and they make you do it often your fun is in peril. And you should also be having fun.

Alternately, ask the wizard to reroll as a war mage and the cleric to reroll as... a healer? A favored soul? That's a bit easier because you know what spells to expect from them at least. It's not pretty but it is much easier than policing every spell a cleric or wizard can bring to bear. I would suggest talking to your players though... games should be fun for everyone.

[Gamer Girl]

Traveling, or paying someone to assist with travel, at least until upper levels? Spell Casters have it covered.

NPC Getting away mid-cutscene after the Battle is over/has been won? Quickened Spells say otherwise.

Need to get advice on knowing where to head next? Normally, if not always covered.

Something need to be built? What can't Magic do about it?

Need a key to get around the dungeon door? Half the time the Wizard will have ways around it, and possibly the dungeon itself.

And if they can't fix an issue themselves, they can transform or summon something that can.

A lot of DM's have this problem, boards are full of them saying so. Most think it's a rule problem, but it's not....it's a play style problem. Too many fantasy games like to go the Tolkien route of magic fantasy of the perfect level 0. You just need to crank the magic fantasy up to 11(instead of the normal game where it's about 3).

Game 1:The bad monster lives in a castle protected by a couple of spells and some guard monsters. It has a guards and wards spell active and a bunch of guardsmen trolls. The wizard alone can take care of all that...

Fantasy 11:The bad monster lives in a castle outside of time, and is protected as it's outside of time and has some time dimensional trolls guards. The wizard will need help to say the least....


Take your examples:

Travel:Yes, if your world is about the size of a postage stamp(like ''Middle Earth'') then folks can teleport or otherwise travel from place to place with magic in seconds. But what if you made your world, your whole fantasy universe bigger? Suddenly magic travel is not so easy. It's hard to move around a whole multiverse.

Escapes:What? You have never read a comic book? The easy one is the bad guy is just a clone, copy, construct, illusion, or even mook #3 dressed up to look and act like the big bad. Plus there are plenty of ways to return from death anyway. And the big bad does not need to rough it up with the group anyway, keep him back a bit. Plus the bad guys can have quickened spells(and contingencies).

Information:Divinations only cover so much, unless you as the DM give stuff away. Such spells should give vague answers, when you ask where Lord Doom is the answer is not '320 feet away to the north and he is sleeping and unprotected', but more 'he is in the kingdom of Gont'.

Construction:Sure magic can do this..but remember that everyone can do this.

Around a Dungeon Door:Well, you could have 100 doors, no spellcaster will have that many spells. Plus you can have all sorts of magic doors. And plot wise you can always make reasons of why they need to go in the dungeon.

Summoning:This just a spell effect.


A good trick is to not look at the rules when you make things. Lord Doom's castle is surrounded by Delm trees, that drain magic. You will not find Delm trees on page number something of the rules, as I just made them up.

[Zaq]

The problem with your so-called "fantasy 11" is that the nonmagical half of the party is going to get a pretty raw deal there. If everything is so butt-clenchingly intense that traditional magic only scratches the surface of it, what about the nonmagical players? What's a Monk supposed to do about "time dimensional trolls"?

[Captain Caveman]

Here is a random idea. They have special metals like mithril good for rogues as it is lighter and adamantium tough and hard to get through so that the fighter can't just knock a hole in it. Create a metal like "casters-are-jerks-ium" that gives SR. Obstacles that they try to get around just sort of fizzle out and are lost. Now that caster is down one spell that might have been useful in combat if he hadn't tried to trivialize your mighty dungeon with his ability to reshape the universe as he sees fit. This might cause some hesitation of magic hacks and the party would rather take the long road then waste precious limited magical resources not having to deal with the trapped door.

[Retech]

You could screw with them a bit.

Wizard: Mwahahahahaha manipulating time

DM: Something goes terribly wrong. The instant the spell begins, you feel the unearthly tug of another world. You arrive in a large battlefield, within the largest battle you've ever seen or heard about it. Countless men in identical attire on both sides begin firing and the sky turns black with shrapnel. Suddenly, chlorine gas begins to...

Wizard: Wait, world war one?

DM: Well, you did mess with time... The world fades away and you appear in a similar scene, but the soldiers are wearing different uniforms and firing much more powerful weaponary (20d6 damage, reflex half). Suddenly, a group of covered armored wagons begin piling in from both sides and open fire.

CR 15 Encounter: Panzer

[QuidEst]

There are a few ways I can think of to help at least mitigate the issue.

1. Include more roleplay-based portions to the plot. Interacting with nobility, and so on. For example, to minimize willy-nilly application of magic to the problem (eg. Charm Person), they may employ more powerful wizards with a focus on detecting and preventing magical influence. (This focus also makes them ill-suited for other kingdom-saving activities.) With that basic situation set up, you have your characters free to act on a tolerably equal playing field. Each character can interact with like-minded NPCs.

2. Restrict information. This is actually a DMs strongest weapon- all information originates with the DM. It may not help out a whole lot with combat balance and getting past doors, but it can help keep a plot stable.

3. Match the caster off. This shows up a few times in OotS- if you've got a caster or two, have them dealing with a caster or two while the rest of the party handles whatever else is going on.

4. Make other characters essential. If the Monk is the 'chosen one' based on a prophecy, and the only one capable of doing what must be done, the Monk is guaranteed some action. This is more to help out a character who isn't getting enough attention, and it could be hard to set up.

I haven't played much, so these are unqualified opinions.

[Gamer Girl]

The problem with your so-called "fantasy 11" is that the nonmagical half of the party is going to get a pretty raw deal there. If everything is so butt-clenchingly intense that traditional magic only scratches the surface of it, what about the nonmagical players? What's a Monk supposed to do about "time dimensional trolls"?

Not at all. The whole point is to tone down magic.

When 15 trolls are within an anti magic field, the only way to kill them is with old fashioned martial attacks. The same way a door can be made out of Anti-Magicolum, but it can still be bashed open by a barbarian.

And a time dimensional troll....well it has a 95% chance of not being effected by any spell, but has nothing to block a monk's fist or kick. And a monk of high enough level is even immune to the creatures alter age attack...

[Tvtyrant]

Not at all. The whole point is to tone down magic.

When 15 trolls are within an anti magic field, the only way to kill them is with old fashioned martial attacks.

Or an Orb caster. Actually easier with an Orb caster, since you can stand way over there and pound them one by one. Or be a cheater of mystra. Or Disjunction your way out. Heck you can even buy a scroll of disjunction at medium levels in case someone decides to send time trolls at you.

[Kantolin]

When 15 trolls are within an anti magic field, the only way to kill them is with old fashioned martial attacks. The same way a door can be made out of Anti-Magicolum, but it can still be bashed open by a barbarian.

And a time dimensional troll....well it has a 95% chance of not being effected by any spell, but has nothing to block a monk's fist or kick. And a monk of high enough level is even immune to the creatures alter age attack...

First of all, do these effects work like normal antimagic fields? If so, there are a few things a caster can still do from outside said field into the field - Melf's acid arrow for one, if you're sticking to core. Conjuration blasters tend to be pretty good at nuking into an antimagic field.

Unless you mean suddenly the entire zip code is covered in an anti-magic field. Of course, if you're doing that, why don't you just say, "I don't want people playing spellcasters"? It's easier, and probably more fun for everyone. :P

Same with the time dimensional trolls. Can you nuke them with anything that'd blast a golem? If so, some metamagic'd orb of force is still helping there. But, as most people seem to overlook for some reason, the popular batman-style wizards focus on making their team awesome and debuffing / battlefield control so the battle is trivial, not usually blasting themselves. The batman guide (and most wizard guides, in fact) suggest strongly that you take haste as your third level spell of choice over fireball. And are your time dimensional trolls able to ignore walls of force (But not armour? Nor the magical qualities of armour?)

Although I'm imagining this hypothetical time-dimensional-troll DM:
Wizard: Ah. I make a wall of force to block off most of the trolls so we only have to fight one at a time.
DM: They're immune to wall of force.
Wizard: ...as in it doesn't hurt them?
DM: Nono, they can walk through it.
Wizard: Ah. I solid fog them?
DM: Nope, they walk through it.
Wizard: I summon something?
DM: They walk through your summons.
Wizard: Conjuration instantaneous spells?
DM: Doesn't seem to work.
Wizard: I polymorph myself into a something and go beat on them?
DM: They're immune to the fact that you're polymorphed.
Wizard: Um. I make a knowledge check to figure out what the heck?
DM: Sorry, knowledge doesn't let you find out information. You get vague knowledge of what trolls are.
Ranger: Wait, but I've got knowledge checks too?
DM: Oh, yours work fine.
Wizard: Ah. I ask my ranger friend to tell me about these trolls?
DM: Nevermind, now you're in a giant antimagic field.
Wizard: I walk out of it?
DM: It extends for miles.
Wizard: Ah. Then I guess I end my turn. *Takes out DS and starts playing pokemon*

~ A couple rounds later ~

Monk: Wow, I'm doing tolerably, despite a distinct lack of magical gear, ki strikes, nor that new quivering palm I got a few game sessions ago, but I'm hurt really badly. Can you heal me?
Bard: Um. Not unless the giant antimagic field has gone away, upon which our wizard friend can start playing again too.
Ranger: Not to mention, we can't really pierce through its regeneration because the giant antimagic field is negating all our magical fire weaponry.
Wizard: *looks up from DS* I actually have a vial of alchemist fire I made, but I only have one of it so it probably isn't a good idea. Unless it's immune to alchemists fire too?
DM: You don't know.
Wizard: Ah. Nope, no solutions guys.
Bard: This sucks. I wanted to be a bard so I could cast spells and buff people, but we're in antimagic field land. And poor Joe hasn't been allowed to do anything at all for the past three game sessions.
Ranger: I can't use my nifty new feather tokens either.
Monk: I'm doing things, but I feel bad since my other friends haven't gotten to actually play in the past three weeks.
Wizard: You mean play 'D&D'. I've been getting tons of pokemon leveled up.

~~~~~~~~~~~

...also if you can just make doors that are immune to knock (Which is I presume what anti-magicom doors are for), why not simply say 'no taking knock'? That seems more reasonable. ^_^

[bloodtide]

1.Add more Fantasy and Drama: Don't just have the door to the treasure open with a key, have it something like ''The laugh of a newborn baby dragon'' or ''A song of the Old Tongue sung in the Rayden style''. Otherwise make the place impossible to get into. Then the group has to somehow figure out how to get the laugh of a newborn dragon, and can't just have the wizard cast 'open vault'.


Add Consequences:If you were making a vault and you worried that some spellcaster might break in after a couple seconds and you could not protect it...what would you do? Well how about destroy it? If you don't open the vault with the three keys, then everything inside is distengrated.

This also works with things like cover a room with oil, straw, wood, and such so that fire magic will create lots of secondary problems. Or make special boom chests that explode if they come in contact with fire.

More Mooks and Minions: Don't worry about the CR tables. Just add more monsters.

High quality Monsters:When picking monsters, avoid the plain ones and go for the exotic ones. Say the bad guy has a pit that the party falls in, with some CR 5 monsters. Now you could pick dire lions for the classic 'lion pit', but animals like that are easy kills. But how about a gibbering mouther or an elemental? And when you get up levels, remember to add in more creatures with SR and magic immunities. At 10 CR a Rakshasa has a lot more magic defense then a hydra.

Spicy Monsters:Avoid the by the book monsters. Add spice. Change the feats. Dumb 'alterness' for ''improved natural attack''

[Gamer Girl]

First of all, do these effects work like normal antimagic fields? If so, there are a few things a caster can still do from outside said field into the field - Melf's acid arrow for one, if you're sticking to core. Conjuration blasters tend to be pretty good at nuking into an antimagic field.

Note we are not talking about deleting spellcasters, just not making them so overwhelming. In some games (not ever in mine), I guess some spellcasters cast like two spells an encounter and leave everyone else just sitting in the dust as they go on the solo adventure.

A normal spell caster can take out a room full of trolls with a fireball or such. But if they are in an anti magic area, they can't use their 'awesome buffed/stacked spells'(no twin maximized scorching rays, for example). Yes, they have other spells. Melf's acid arrow will hurt a troll, a maximized fireball kills a room full of trolls...see the difference.




Unless you mean suddenly the entire zip code is covered in an anti-magic field. Of course, if you're doing that, why don't you just say, "I don't want people playing spellcasters"? It's easier, and probably more fun for everyone. :P

Of course not, it was just an easy example. Using creatures with SR also works, as does environmental effects and things like darkness.




Same with the time dimensional trolls. Can you nuke them with anything that'd blast a golem? If so, some metamagic'd orb of force is still helping there.

As time dimensional trolls exist in multiple times they are immune to 95% of the spells cast at them. They can still be hit and killed with a weapon, though.



But, as most people seem to overlook for some reason, the popular batman-style wizards focus on making their team awesome and debuffing / battlefield control so the battle is trivial, not usually blasting themselves. The batman guide (and most wizard guides, in fact) suggest strongly that you take haste as your third level spell of choice over fireball.


I guess I never got this much as people never really explain it. And worse when people do, they only apply it to their games. I get that a 3rd level wizard can cast grease and maybe trip two goblins and the other 15 goblins will walk around the grease spot, I don't get how that is so over whelming. I get that a 10th level wizard can use solid fog to get some ogres, but what about phase spiders?



Game Example:
Wizard 1:Ah. I make a wall of force to block off most of the trolls so we only have to fight one at a time.
DM:The time-dimensional-trolls move through time to avoid the wall.
Group fights trolls for round 1
Wizard 1:I'll guess they can 'time teleport' around fog and I'll summon some elementals
Group, plus wizard's elementals fight in round 2
Wizard 1:I polymorph into a dire bear and attack!
Group fights in round 3-5 Everyone is active in the battle, everyone plays, everyone has fun.

[QuidEst]

Game Example:
Wizard 1:Ah. I make a wall of force to block off most of the trolls so we only have to fight one at a time.
DM:The time-dimensional-trolls move through time to avoid the wall.
Group fights trolls for round 1
Wizard 1:I'll guess they can 'time teleport' around fog and I'll summon some elementals
Group, plus wizard's elementals fight in round 2
Wizard 1:I polymorph into a dire bear and attack!
Group fights in round 3-5 Everyone is active in the battle, everyone plays, everyone has fun.
0_o? That… doesn't make sense. Avoiding a wall isn't any different than avoiding an attack, an elemental, or an arrow… I know it's over-thinking D&D monsters, but if I were playing a wizard, I would feel that it's just a cheap cop-out. I'd probably be a little annoyed and roleplay my high INT and ego instead of charging in as a bear. Create solid fog so that they move through time (back in time presumably, since the fog will still be there in the future) and blast the spot where they /were/ standing. Or use an Invisible Servant to follow one and hold a flask of Alchemist's Fire where it is so that it can't "materialize" in the present.

If, instead, the DM asked me to avoid blasting, or to restrict metamagic, I'd come up with a good roleplayable reason for it. Make a twisted wizard who enjoys the individual suffering, or a cowardly showoff who debuffs enemies to make a spectacle out of beating them in a "fair fight." But if the DM is going to work on his own keeping it balanced, I'm going to expect a certain degree of… discretion. Making me play my Wizard as a Druid via a creature nobody's heard of with funny mechanics lacks subtlety. I'd be fine if it happened once or twice, and still enjoy myself. If that's a frequent approach to me being a wizard, though, I'll be rather annoyed about all that low-level cowering with my lousy 4-sided HD, pitiful saves, and no armor.

That said, I'm actually going to be playing a Bard (who may be the only arcane caster), so it's not going to be an issue. XP

Edit: Hmm… sorry, I realized this might not be close enough to on-topic. I'd rather provide more useful suggestions rather than just comment on existing ones.

You may wish to include consequences for using too much high-level magic too openly. Spellbooks of powerful wizards probably sell for an awful lot on various markets, after all! You can set things up so that magic is best used in full force as an emergency safety net.

Also, consider giving the wizard a few chances to really shine and pull something awesome- give them a good setup. They'll be happier toning things down for the sake of plot if they've gotten to have fun messing with reality.

[Kantolin]

Personally, I'm all in favor of working with the spellcasters, not around them. ^_^

So namely, when the party sorceror gets teleport - plan around it! Allow or even encourage teleporting around places - teleport without scry isn't nearly as bad as people seem to presume, as it only gets you places you've seen.


Traveling, or paying someone to assist with travel, at least until upper levels?

Allow it! Instead of putting six random encounters as the group walks through the forest for six days to the Fortress of Doom, focus your efforts on the Fortress of Doom itself! I actually rather prefer this from my groups, and usually sneak teleport onto various people's lists, so instead of having to trudge through the swamp of random encounters, they can get to the capital and discover the courtly intrigue there or find out that it's been taken over by demons or something. ^_^


NPC Getting away mid-cutscene after the Battle is over/has been won?

It'd actually need to be immediate (or a dimensional anchor beforehand), but try to have your villains who need to chat and escape have backup plans. Having two backup plans can usually stop whatever problem is interfering with you - a villain can use meld with stone to go through a wall if he's stopped from teleporting, minions are good for occupying people...

Another option is to not have that happen in the first place too often - Do you really need the important villain to show up here and unsuccessfully fireball the party?

And once in awhile, it's nice to be able to kill a reoccuring villain, whether through magic or not. :P


Need to get advice on knowing where to head next? Normally, if not always covered.

So work with that too! I was expecting divinations from my party members, and had a couple neat riddles prepared (This particular group loved riddles), everyone got in on answering it, and it saved me from having to have a NPC say, 'Hey, maybe you should go up Mt Awful things.'


Need a key to get around the dungeon door?

That one I never particularly understood as a problem, unless you absolutely did not want them opening that door. It is very rarely relevant /how/ the PCs got through a door, whether by knock, lockpicks, or adamantine axes.

If the fear is that the party rogue will feel left out, then instead suggest strongly that the wizard PC not bother preparing knock as there's a rogue who can do that and allow the wizard to memorize invisibility instead. Or put one nonsensically difficult to unlock lock, and then a small array of other normally locked doors - so if everything gets knocked, you run out of knocks, or you can just have the rogue do most of them but still get mileage out of knock.


and possibly the dungeon itself.

That leads to the 'plan for them teleporting' again, but there's also the caveat about knowing where you're going. It's reasonable to know you need to get to the heart of the rockiron mountains, and here's how you get in, and here's directions - but unless you can get a visual of the heart itself, you can't exactly teleport to the middle. But you /can/ teleport to the mountains, shaving the two-week trip across the frigid wastelands of angst, and get to the adventuring where you discover Yuan-ti also want what's at the heart of the rockiron mountains.


Cleric Archer, a Battle Sorceror, a Monk, and a Warblade

While I know you're going to hear this quite a bit, I do think the major problem here is your monk, but for different reasons than most. ^_^

If my guess is right, the battle sorceror will want to spend the first round or two of combat buffing up before going nuts. With that setup, the BS may be pretty threatening, but the battle sorceror is notably less likely to commence game breakage compared to a normal sorceror, so you're probably okay there.

Warblades are warblades, and thus he'll be frontlining.

The cleric archer then has a differnet role entirely, so that's helpful for the party as a whole insofar as overshadowing goes.

The problem is that the monk isn't as immediately potent as the warblade when combat starts - many maneuvers are very potent standard actions, while a monk desperately needs to full attack to activate most of his potency. Then after a few rounds when people tend to not move around as much, the BS and the warblade will likely be far more potent in combat.

...but you guys might be okay with the way things work out. So I'd keep an eye on the monk - if he starts to fall behind, consider suggesting a few fixes, such as the psionic fist (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/psionicFist.htm)prestige class or any of the other things people have suggested above. ^_^ Or even have an in-game monastary of psionic fists approach him - I personally enjoy when things like that happen to me, so if he does as well that may work.


A normal spell caster can take out a room full of trolls with a fireball or such. But if they are in an anti magic area, they can't use their 'awesome buffed/stacked spells'(no twin maximized scorching rays, for example). Yes, they have other spells. Melf's acid arrow will hurt a troll, a maximized fireball kills a room full of trolls...see the difference.

Wait, I'm slightly confused. So is the problem that you don't like AOE spells?

The guides to batman wizards and the like do not at all suggest fireballing things.


--Direct Damage: These spells, by and large, suck. Occasionally, they're useful, but when a good mage wants something damaged, he tells the fighter to go hit it. If it's hard to hurt, he buffs the fighter first.

Plus! A maximized fireball does 60 damage (30 on a successful save, nothing if there's evasion). At level 10, one swing from a full BAB power attacking person with a two-handed weapon that does 0d0 damage when the character has 10 strength does 20 damage, and can swing twice on a full attack for 40 damage from base attack bonus alone.

The fireball does hit more of these tightly-packed trolls, yes, but this board's comments on overpowered wizards certainly does not come from maximized fireball slinging wizards (Especially if said maximized fireball wizards are using 7th level spell slots for it!)


Using creatures with SR also works, as does environmental effects and things like darkness.

Spell Resistance doesn't effect Wall of Force, Summon Monsters, Gate, Force Cage, solid fog, nor haste. Nor fly, nor the various orb spells. These are more of the tools that people are mentioning when they comment on too powerful wizards.


As time dimensional trolls exist in multiple times they are immune to 95% of the spells cast at them. They can still be hit and killed with a weapon, though.

Assuming a tier 1 wizard as tends to be mentioned on the boards, this would... moderately irritate them? They'd still haste and wall of force and gate in some solars or something.

But assuming your poor wizard who likes to throw empowered fireballs from 5th level spell slots, why would you do this? That's like having someone who likes lightning spells end up spending half the game in lightning immune land.

Saying 'No playing! Go sit in the corner!" for extended periods of time is not condusive to a positive gaming experience either. If you don't want your wizard using offensive spells, then be up front and tell the wizard's player this before hand, so your wizard can choose a different class. Trying to be a swordsman in rust monster land is similarly annoying.


I get that a 3rd level wizard can cast grease and maybe trip two goblins and the other 15 goblins will walk around the grease spot, I don't get how that is so over whelming.

18 goblins at level 3? Yigads! What does the fighter do in this situation? Get pelted by crossbow bolts and just as run away? 18 crossbow bolts to the face at level 3 will kill almost anyone.

Personally, though, I'd use glitterdust and enlarge person, which are two other of the typical batman spells.


Wizard 1:I'll guess they can 'time teleport' around fog and I'll summon some elementals
Group, plus wizard's elementals fight in round 2
Wizard 1:I polymorph into a dire bear and attack!
Group fights in round 3-5 Everyone is active in the battle, everyone plays, everyone has fun.

First of all... huh, so you're okay with CoDzilla, but not a supporting wizard? You're fighting a group of trolls, the wizard uses wall of force to block most of them aside so there's only a narrow passageway where they can go club your party members, your monk and ranger stand in said passageway and commence to kill trolls, while the bard buffs. Maybe you summon things behind the wall to help give the monk or ranger flanking and help, or maybe you cast haste if the bard didn't, or greater invisibility on someone, or something. Your time dimensional trolls are preventing that.

I do think I understand that you dislike blasters for whatever reason, but that's not the primary power of casters. In the above example, if wizard's summons and polymorphed wizard are potent enough, they can solve the encounter, which means the power disparity still exists.


In some games (not ever in mine), I guess some spellcasters cast like two spells an encounter and leave everyone else just sitting in the dust as they go on the solo adventure.

In your example, summon monsters and polymorph is two spells. ^_^

So is improved invisiblity or sommat. The problem with a wizard is that it's easy for a wizard to surprise you - you can look at a sorceror's spells known and make your time dimensional trolls coincidentally immune to that sorceror (Go sit in the corner!), but a wizard can change things around. Having every other enemy be arbitrarily immune to punching so the monk can't play this battle isn't a very fun solution for anyone.


In some games (not ever in mine), I guess some spellcasters...

I guess I never got this much as people never really explain it.

:smallconfused: So you have never had this problem before, and you don't actually 'get' what the problem is, but the solution is time dimensional trolls?

[marcielle]

If your players are in urban environments, the easiest thing is to make magic so common, many people PAY wizards to spell-proof them(not literally, just against certain conventionals). Magic police are also good if your casters of chaotic alignment. A sorceror in our game caused so much havoc in town a troop of sanctioned wizards ported in , locked him down and threw us all out the city Basically, the best counter to magic is more magic. Be careful though, only use this when you REALLY need to get a plot going otherwise you are just railroading. Which is just bleh.

Spells don't HAVE to be a win button. Using your ring example. You are looking at where the ring is. Unfortunately, it is far too dark to see anything more than the faint glimmer of the ring. You have a general idea of the direction but no idea as to elevation or distance. It points you to a crowded city.

Oh, also, straight from the SRD on locate object:
You cannot specify a unique item unless you have observed that particular item firsthand (not through divination).

Knowing what your wizard can do helps. Forget his blasting and damage dealing, just look out for his utility spells. If it is too much for you, remember that just because a wizard CAN learn a spell, doesn't mean you should LET him. Certain powerful ones might require a whole sidequest just to get and cost the wizard significantly more than just scribing or even be banned by local mage authorities. Learning Timestop could result in wizard aging till his CON goes down the toilet or invoking the wrath of Inevitables. Even is he can find another wizard who knows the spell, wizards are grumpy, unsociable old men who don't need your money.

[stainboy]

Don't sweat it too much. 3e's balance problems are real but they're greatly exaggerated on the internet. Most wizard/cleric/druid players simply have no idea what 4/5 of their spell list does.

The balance problems mostly show up when a certain type of player picks a core caster. Decent rules knowledge plus either a strong competitive streak or a need for constant spotlight time. Unfortunately the only way to know if you have a player like that is to run a game and see if it breaks.

[Gamer Girl]

0_o? That… doesn't make sense. Avoiding a wall isn't any different than avoiding an attack, an elemental, or an arrow… I know it's over-thinking D&D monsters, but if I were playing a wizard, I would feel that it's just a cheap cop-out. I'd probably be a little annoyed and roleplay my high INT and ego instead of charging in as a bear. Create solid fog so that they move through time (back in time presumably, since the fog will still be there in the future) and blast the spot where they /were/ standing. Or use an Invisible Servant to follow one and hold a flask of Alchemist's Fire where it is so that it can't "materialize" in the present.


My point is that there are monsters that can handle magic. A 12th level spellcaster can make lots of trouble for a group of ogers or hydras. But just look at the MM. All fiends can teleport and avoid or go around things, the vast numbers of outsiders have SR or magic abilities.

A group of troll guards will be stopped cold by solid fog or wall of force, but a group of phase spiders or demons won't even be slowed down.

It's not a cheap cop-out to use the more exotic fantasy monsters. The guards do not need to be minotaurs, they can be janni with useful magical abilities. A ettin can't do anything vs magic, but a babau demon can. Same CR, just more abilities.



Also another important point:Make the characters stay up and active for a good 10-12 game hours a day. Never let the players fight three battles and then 'rest' for the day, and then wake up and fight three battles and then 'rest' for the day. Allow no 15 minute days.

[QuidEst]

It's not a cheap cop-out to use the more exotic fantasy monsters. The guards do not need to be minotaurs, they can be janni with useful magical abilities. A ettin can't do anything vs magic, but a babau demon can. Same CR, just more abilities.

Eh, my gripe isn't with stuff like golems or phase spiders, or with unusual creatures in general. It's when you've got a breakdown of the fluff- it doesn't make sense, and is clearly there just to make life more difficult for a particular kind of character. I would see the specific example of time trolls as a challenge- something to work out until it had either a sensible explanation, or an exploitable hole.

It's good to keep some semblance of fairness. You don't just balance power, you also balance DM treatment. I would be a little ticked if I were playing a bashy warrior with a +4 magic sword and we were attacked by a swarm of rust monsters, or if I were a rogue going into a well-lit dungeon full of gelatinous cubes. The more that power can be balanced subtly or the balance can be explained well, the more fun a wizard will have. (I should note this is the opinion of a roleplay-focused person- I'd rather have a good story than a powerful character.)


Also another important point:Make the characters stay up and active for a good 10-12 game hours a day. Never let the players fight three battles and then 'rest' for the day, and then wake up and fight three battles and then 'rest' for the day. Allow no 15 minute days.
Well, it does depend on how often combat is- three battles in a dungeon is a lot different than three battles while traveling. But I agree; the casters should not be the ones to set the sleep schedule, especially when on a time-sensitive quest.


I don't think we've mentioned restricting the caster's options temporarily. For an OotS example, Vaarsuvius was turned into a lizard, and had rather limited options. It's not something that should be pulled to that degree very often, but tying a wizard up makes them think about what non-somatic spells they have. Using Silence nixes the verbal spells for a while (it can be cast on their socks or something.) Somebody could filch their supply pouch. It's good for an occasional limit, but I wouldn't use it for plot protection much.

[graeylin]

excellent advice so far, mine will fade by comparison.

Remember to keep the casters honest, and follow the rules, the real rules. Too many casters fudge here and there (ignorance, how we always played it, etc.). However, a caster MUST rest, and do very little activity, to get their 8 hours. At low levels, this can be tough... a single random encounter at night can mess them up a bit. At upper levels, they start the 15 minute work day, so you then tie them up with a time limit on completing the quest, or else something worse happens.

Watch those material components. Make them purchase what they need, don't let them eschew material components without the feat price. Need an onyx gem for that spell? they gotta have it, not just "assume" it's there.

Watch those spellbooks. Make them pay the gold price per page, per ink, per sheet, etc.. too often, cool spells find their ways into spellbooks magically. And those duplicate books are just as expensive.

Watch those casting times.. Full round, standard actions, etc.. I have seen people casting spells round after round, and one had a 10 minute casting time.. Don't let folks ignore the very few built in governors to spell casting, the complexity.

Liberally use areas of silence, webs, etc. to make it hard to physically cast a spell, and don't let them by-pass it with a shrug. If the spell has a somatic component, they need a hand free (or spend a feat). Oldie but goodie, arrows or shuriken or rocks with silence on them, tossed all over the area where the spellcasters are standing. Heck, caltrops of silence! Or, reverse it, and make caltrops of cacophany, items so loud, the words of power are drowned out, and spells don't work.

Limit metamagics. Limit free magic, and put charges on the others. A wand with 3 charges will force someone to really think about when to use it, versus a wand with 50 charges. Even better, a wand with an unknown amount... will this next use be it? Do you really want to use that staff, knowing it could be the last charge?

Watch those spell effects: areas, radius, etc.. a fireball is NOT a stealth missile, it doesn't just hit the bad guys and skip over the allies in the area. Again, make them use feats or metamagic to get those effects.

and remember to toss in your own ideas: I had some "skeletons" in a situation really toss the cleric and wizard for a loop, because they were really "bone golems", and they couldn't be turned, and had SR, immunities, etc... (And conversely, my swordsage SHINED, because it was something he could really beat upon!)



my two cents:

[Gamer Girl]

Eh, my gripe isn't with stuff like golems or phase spiders, or with unusual creatures in general. It's when you've got a breakdown of the fluff- it doesn't make sense, and is clearly there just to make life more difficult for a particular kind of character. I would see the specific example of time trolls as a challenge- something to work out until it had either a sensible explanation, or an exploitable hole.


I see a lot of games, even at levels 15+ not being so different from first level games. The evil bad guy with a bunch of orcs kidnaps a princess and locks her in his castle tower down the road. Too easy for even 10th level casters. But spice it up a little: evil bad guy with a bunch of phase spiders kidnaps a princess and locks her in a flying cloud fortress. Suddenly the adventure is much harder for the casters.

A lot of games do the 'like Earth' feel. So 99% of the world is humans or near humans, and there are only like 10 monsters in the entire world. But the world does not need to be like that. You can have a city of beholders or illithids or dragons. You can have flying continents. You can have aquatic cities. You can have cities on other planes. And so on.

[QuidEst]

I see a lot of games, even at levels 15+ not being so different from first level games. The evil bad guy with a bunch of orcs kidnaps a princess and locks her in his castle tower down the road. Too easy for even 10th level casters. But spice it up a little: evil bad guy with a bunch of phase spiders kidnaps a princess and locks her in a flying cloud fortress. Suddenly the adventure is much harder for the casters.
Sure. But the storyline should grow, not just the creatures. What use is a lousy princess to a guy who's bossing phase spiders around? The things could go assassinate the king directly in rather short order if he wanted. You gotta figure the guy's a little more subtle, given his choice of creatures and location. Tie it in with some legends, and the Bard's happy. Throw in a few shady connections to get stuff done, and the Rogue gets a chance to shine. The villain had to have gotten training somewhere- perhaps before leaving the monestary, he was a rival to the Monk's old master, who may have some clues. Monks have great saving throws, so they do pretty well agains the Wizard, and make good minions if you want to do some combat balance. The flying cloud fortress is the same thing, but for the party caster. Rogues, Bards, Fighters, Rangers, and Monks could never get up even if it were a stratus cloud fortress, so it's on the caster to come up with a solution.

[Kantolin]

But spice it up a little: evil bad guy with a bunch of phase spiders kidnaps a princess and locks her in a flying cloud fortress. Suddenly the adventure is much harder for the casters.

I'm confused. Why is a Phase Spider harder on the casters than the frontliners? 'A fighter, ranger, and monk walk into the room, they see the phase spider go ethreal'. What do they do? Wait for it to become visible and then be ambushed by it and have it go ethreal again?

The wizard can use see invisible to find it, and then peg its low will save with glitterdust or something. Or magic missile it.

Remember - wizards can change around their tactics and are encouraged to do so. If making their party's lives easier by hemming off opponents so the Ranger and monk can go beat on not-all-of-them-at-once keeps running into time dimensional trolls and phase spiders (The latter of which, as a note, would probably be halted by a wall of force due to it being a force-effect), then the wizard can go do something else powerful.

The Babau demon example is even worse, presuming it's CR6ish. The monk cannot pierce its damage reduction, and the ranger is exceptionally unlikely to be able to, and if you smack it your weapons melt. If any of them /can/ do something to it, and it spends its first turn greater teleporting past the wall of force to stand next to the wizard - well, now it's wasted its turn so the party can fully go beat on it, and next turn the wizard can clip it with Ray of exhaustion or slow or suggestion or something (Or something stronger - wall of force means it's higher level). Or another wall.

If there are a bunch of Babau demons, then once again - what does the monk do? He can't pierce their damage reduction, and every time he punches them he takes damage. The ranger might have a weapon that pierces their DR, and might make the saves for it, and is in a lot of 'mights'. The wizard's probably the best off (and the bard is probably best served using his own spells).

I mean... 'best' case scenario for the babau being threatening for the casters, they swarm the wizard and kill him, kill the bard immediately next as bards can also cast spells, then... toy around with the useless monk and probably-useless ranger who can't pierce their DR reliably?

But! Babau demons do indeed limit fireball slingin' wizards, which is something that should probably be encouraged, not limited. ^_^

[Endarire]

I know many GMs are confused as to what to expect in-game. I've made a guide for challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder parties in practice (http://antioch.snow-fall.com/~Endarire/DnD/Challenging%203.5%20and%20Pathfinder%20Parties%201 %2031%2011.doc).

In short, the nature of the game changes.

-Contemplate how to integrate magic into society so things will feel natural.

-Prepare, prepare, prepare! You're new and want to know what to do. Start by reading the spell descriptions in the Player's Handbook or SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/spellLists.htm). For the most game-changing spells, check the Challenging document.

Preparation goes beyond knowing the rules. It means knowing the setting! If you're making a homebrew world, expect to take a good long time (months of real time) writing up a spiffy starter adventure that integrates the most interesting and important details of your campaign setting. If you're using another's campaign setting, expect to spend a similar amount of time reading and understanding what's happening in the world.

-In short, there's no quick and effective answer. Learn the system and plan for things, or, less preferably, mold it into something you can handle. At least tell everyone of all your changes beforehand!

-My preferred tactic is to warn everyone to be at least tier 3. I provide a list of supported classes. All other classes are taken at the user's own risk, and players know this. Regarding the Monk, encourage him to go Unarmed Swordsage instead. He'll probably feel more useful.

-One thing people rarely mentioned is that the game assumes the party has a full arcane caster and divine caster. Creatures' CRs are largely balanced around having a full Cleric or Wizard in the party. Notice how paralysis becomes common with CR7s and above since the Cleric gets freedom of movement.

-Generally, anything you do to hurt casters hurts non-casters at least as much! Magic items are more expensive? Casters don't need 'em that much, but non-casters do. Magic is more dangerous or harder to use? There went party buffs, healing, and other support. Did magic just stop working? The casters play another game for awhile (probably a video or card game) or they came prepared (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10104.0).

-Don't be surprised that casters are powerful. By some estimates, a well-prepared and optimized Wizard can solo a game meant for a balanced party of 4 from level one (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=12366.0).

[Gamer Girl]

I'm confused. Why is a Phase Spider harder on the casters than the frontliners? 'A fighter, ranger, and monk walk into the room, they see the phase spider go ethreal'. What do they do? Wait for it to become visible and then be ambushed by it and have it go ethreal again?

Phase Spiders are not harder on casters. They are just an example of a low CR monster that a typical battle field control batman spellcaster can't stop. As apposed to how easily they can effect a group of orcs.

A phase spider encounter would be much harder then a dire lion encounter...and that's the whole point. The encounter would not be easy and the spellcaster could not just walk all over it.



The Babau demon example is even worse, presuming it's CR6ish. The monk cannot pierce its damage reduction, and the ranger is exceptionally unlikely to be able to, and if you smack it your weapons melt.

Why can't the monk attack? At even 6th level they can do enough damage once the '10' is taken away. And that's if they don't have any feats, like flying kick or iron hands or if they are of large size. And both the monk and the ranger can use the buff of align weapon from the cleric...

[tyckspoon]

Why can't the monk attack? At even 6th level they can do enough damage once the '10' is taken away. And that's if they don't have any feats, like flying kick or iron hands or if they are of large size. And both the monk and the ranger can use the buff of align weapon from the cleric...

At 2d6+ Strength? And taking 1d8 in return every time he hits the demon? That's not a pleasant trade for the Monk; even assuming a higher value like a 20 Strength, he's likely to suffer more damage in return than he inflicts, and he's trying to trade blows with something that hits better and harder than he does. It's not that the Monk can't attack- it's that doing so is a self-evidently bad idea. If his Cleric does in fact have an Align Weapon around, then that changes things, but.. well, if you have to deal with 1 babau, you probably have to deal with two or three, and unless you had prior knowledge of that somehow I doubt your Cleric bothered to prepare multiple Align Weapons (if you did have prior knowledge, hopefully your Wizard sat down with your Cleric and spent a few days writing down scrolls of the spell first.)

[Kantolin]

They are just an example of a low CR monster that a typical battle field control batman spellcaster can't stop.

Except with slow, or various other things that have been mentioned.


A phase spider encounter would be much harder then a dire lion encounter...and that's the whole point. The encounter would not be easy and the spellcaster could not just walk all over it.

Really, my problem with this isn't 'The encounter needs to be harder!'. It's that your example is pretty vicious on the physicals in the party, which is the group you're trying to help out (What with 95% magic immune time-dimensional trolls being the example). It does not help the party's physicals if the enemy keeps ethrealing away from their full attacking it and only the wizard can really go at it. :P


Why can't the monk attack? At even 6th level they can do enough damage once the '10' is taken away.

A 6th level monk does 1d8. Say he has a strength of 18, which is probably a bit high for a monk who needs multiple stats to work. They do on average 8~9 damage, which doesn't pierce it. A minority of the time, the monk can do 1 or 2 points of damage to it (If he rolls a 7 or 8 for damage). Each time he does, he takes 1d8 damage for his insolence, and thus his 6d8+con hit points are losing to the 7d8+con monster without the monster actually doing anything.

The ranger then has the problem that two-weapon fighting or archery are his two real options, and both of those are beaten in the face something fierce by damage reduction. In addition, he runs into the same problem - he's doing 1d8+strength with his main hand or bow. He's slightly better off, though, as his weapons are likely to be magical by now. Unfortunately, at 13k wealth per level, he probably doesn't have a holy weapon yet - but he might have a cold iron one, so he might be able to do some mild damage with it.

....until it breaks from the acid. He'd be pretty well off if he had a zillion cold iron arrows (for some reason), though.

It's certainly effecting them far more nastily than it is the wizard, who isn't taking damage for smacking the demon. :P Although if the fighter was some kind of nonsense ubercharger he'd have no trouble breaking through that damage reduction, so then the best option would become haste again.


And both the monk and the ranger can use the buff of align weapon from the cleric...

Yeah - party-buffing is pretty awesome. You actually seem kind of against the wizard doing stuff like walling off certain enemies then buffing the party so the ranger and monk can go murder things, though, so I'm not sure. But yeah - playing the batman wizard and going with battlefield control and party buffing is probably the most effective role a wizard can have, and we know that already. :P

(Although incidentally, in this scenario, the probelm with Czilla is that a cleric is likely better off using divine power and then going and beating things to death himself than to make one of the two-weapon ranger's two weapons able to deal some damage. And this assumes he memorized align weapon at all, which is not a general-purpose spell - haste and wall of force is almost always useful, while align weapon is fairly rarely useful unless you know you're up against alignment-based DR enemies, to compare with spiritual weapon which is more useful in general. But that's neither here nor there).

[tyckspoon]

Really, my problem with this isn't 'The encounter needs to be harder!'. It's that your example is pretty vicious on the physicals in the party, which is the group you're trying to help out (What with 95% magic immune time-dimensional trolls being the example). It does not help the party's physicals if the enemy keeps ethrealing away from their full attacking it and only the wizard can really go at it. :P
.

Well, the statblock of a Phase Spider isn't actually too bad, and it's a prime chance to make Readied Actions useful- they have low AC, so you just Ready to belt it when it shows up, and it's at a CR where most builds are not especially concerned about the difference between a Standard attack and a Full Round attack. The problem you get there is that a Phase Spider actually hunts/fights by ambushing you, biting you, and then following you around in the Ethereal until you drop dead of poison. They're not too hard to deal with if you're fighting a couple of trained/mindcontrolled guardspiders.. but you're probably gonna get somebody killed if one just decides to hunt you in the wild (and it'll probably be your Wizard/Rogue/somebody else with a poor Fort progression.)

[WinWin]

Issue as I see it is that the OP is not confident in making things up on the fly.

It is an aquired skill.

If your game paradigm follows a linear progression, where you move from encounter A to encounter B throught to encounter C, with a narrative liking these encounters together, then any kind of creative use of actions is going to upset your plans. The PC's can't use stealth to move from encounter A to C, avoiding B. Nor can they teleport or bluff their way though. Linear progression dictates that the 'plot' of your narrative has to move in sequence in order to make sense.

You may start with the goal of nerfing overpowered spellcasting, but in reality it comes down to limiting the available choices that the players can make to the specific choices you have catered for.

I suggest trying your hand at goal oriented scenarios. Simply put, lay certain objectives that need to be completed in order for a story to progress. How those objectives are completed or the order in which they are completed is irrelevant. Mix in combat and conversations with NPC's. Have the PC's run errands and place an arbitrary time limit on the adventure.

It may suck to design a dungeon full of traps and monsters only to have the group bypass that threat and tunnel right into the treasure room...But so what. If the players are having fun, then it makes for a good story. Plus you can always recycle the dungeon for the next adventure.

As you gain more experience with the system and become more familiar with the abilities of the PC's, being able to adapt your campaign becomes much easier.