The Little Kua-Toa who Could

[Tvtyrant]

My players have mostly fought against mooks and brutes in my campaign until last weekend, and smashed their way through every encounter they met. All of that changed when they ran into Smitty, the little Kua-Toa Wizard who could.

The party is level 3 (Goliath Fighter/Barbarian, Drow Duskblade, Human Sorcerer and Changeling Factotums with extra feats) and after rolling up an Ogre Mage, some Manticores and a small army of Kua-Toa they were confident about fighting the boss and his right hand man. The boss died in 2 turns to the Duskblade alone, who dodged the return attacks and hit it with a sudden maximized shocking grasp channeled through his sword and then a normal shocking grasp.

But while our valiant Drow singlehandedly butchered the leader of the Cult of Dagon, Smitty began casting. His glitterdust blinded both the sorcerer and the goliath, his swarm kept the factotum nauseated for 3 turns, and his web caught the Duskblade and left him stuck against a tree. Each turn the wizard simply walked backwards away from the party and cast another control spell, catching another party member with each spell. Our Sorcerer panicked and threw a Fiery Burst at Smitty, catching him and a portion of the web.

Most of the party were caught in the burning web, while the Goliath charged through the burning strands and killed Smitty. By this time Smitty had survived for 5 rounds (longer than any other opponent) and the fires dropped most of the party down into the single digits.

Edit: I should mention that the Wizard was the same level as them (not the same ECL though) and had a 15 in his intelligence. If Smitty had any backup the party would have gotten slaughtered.

[CyberThread]

you see the point of folks who know it is tier 1 :) and that is one of the things that suck about NPC magic versus player magic.


NPC's can burn all the spells they want through a single battle scene, Players do not have such ease.

[BWR]

Sure they can. Also, NPCs can save their juice for later. I've never understood this argument about "PCs have to save their juice and NPCs don't". If you fight for your life, you throw everything you have at the problem. If it doesn't seem that bad, you can be a little more careful with how you spend your power. Applies to PCs and NPCs equally.
It's just a bad form of metagaming to play it otherwise.

[kreenlover]

It's just a bad form of metagaming to play it otherwise.

It really is. It's why in the Expanded Psionics Handbook they even said that an NPC should only burn a third of their daily PP on any given encounter unless they got in serious trouble. This is to avoid novaing the PCs, but also to represent the fact that they assume that they will survive to maybe fight again that day, and definitely not be killed by these piddly little 'adventurers' *scoffs* They can't defeat the boss can they? Until, oh crap, one quarter HP left, throw EVERY DANG SPELL I HAVE AT THEM!

[Tvtyrant]

It really is. It's why in the Expanded Psionics Handbook they even said that an NPC should only burn a third of their daily PP on any given encounter unless they got in serious trouble. This is to avoid novaing the PCs, but also to represent the fact that they assume that they will survive to maybe fight again that day, and definitely not be killed by these piddly little 'adventurers' *scoffs* They can't defeat the boss can they? Until, oh crap, one quarter HP left, throw EVERY DANG SPELL I HAVE AT THEM!

How many times a day do you find yourself in combat? Adventurers are different because they go around looking for fights, where a court mage has no reason to assume they are going to be in back to back fights.

[Grod_The_Giant]

NPC's can burn all the spells they want through a single battle scene, Players do not have such ease.
Given that a single "battle scene" rarely lasts long enough for anyone to get off more than a handful of spells...

[Azoth]

Given that a single "battle scene" rarely lasts long enough for anyone to get off more than a handful of spells...

I must design my encounters differently than most then. Even for an optimized party it is rare for one of my fights to end in under 10 rounds. Boss fights for my groups can very well run a caster dry if they fling a spell every round of combat. Even after I am a mean DM and may have another encounter before they can rest once bleeding the casters dry.

[Mithril Leaf]

I must design my encounters differently than most then. Even for an optimized party it is rare for one of my fights to end in under 10 rounds. Boss fights for my groups can very well run a caster dry if they fling a spell every round of combat. Even after I am a mean DM and may have another encounter before they can rest once bleeding the casters dry.

You must have a very low optimization average if your optimized parties don't take out encounters in under 10 rounds. Respectable damage from typically optimized parties (for around here) can take out encounters 4 or 5 CR higher than themselves in around 6 or 7 rounds. And since it's 4 or 5 CR higher than them, it can probably take them out in a similar amount of time.

Unless of course the only optimization that occurs is defensive in nature, and both parties just plink at each ineffectually.

[awa]

actually enough terrain features and low enough visibility can string out an encounter particularly if the enemy spreads out. since d&d is often rocket tag both side want to avoid letting the other guy get a solid shot at them so their might be a lot of maneuvering in between actual attacks so not every one attacks every round.

I have no real experience with this at higher level, and i suspect with the increased ability to see through or bypass such impediments they would have less effect.

[Runestar]

Seems like the wizard npc simply lucked out with a series of failed saving throws.

Assuming specialist wizard3 with 15 int, that's 3 2nd lv spells. He just cast glitterdust (were your goliath and caster bunched together?), summon swarm and web?

He may have locked down the party, but he also has nothing in the form of damage dealing (I take it there were no mooks left?), and eventually, his spells would simply run out.

That said, you have just discovered why battlefield control spells are so powerful.