Wizard vs Fighter with Save hacks

[Saambell]

What I really Am getting at is: If a Fighter/Whatever Can pass All but One Type of Save, Is a Wizard Crippled at Fighting them? Is there a save You would be Willing to Fail all the time at if You could Pass the other Two all the time?
And Now Story time:

Recently in the campaign i am playing in the party went up against a "Fighter?" with Loads of health, and stated by the DM to pass all Will and Fortitude saves but fail all Reflex. :smallannoyed:
This DM has Home Brewing Boss Battles as his Thing. The "Fighter?" had over 300HP and Had the above Saves. He had an anti-Flanking attack. AC, To Hit, and Damage boosts after a certain percentage of his HP was lost. In the Final section of the fight, after he lost most of his HP, he "summoned" a pair of minions to attack certain targets.
The minions were stated to be Evil Aligned, but Explicitly NOT Summoned creatures. The DM was vague on if they were even Magic. His words were "Extensions of his(the "Fighter?"'s will". :smallfrown:
I was a Level 4 Wizard/Level 3 Cleric/Level 3 Mystic Thurge.:smallcool: The rest of the party was Level 9. Fighter, Bard, Cleric, Rogue. Toss in a Death Knight and give the Rogue a Mix in (as in some/most of the abilities) of a Gambler (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Gambler_(3.5e_Class)), and you have the party. :smallsigh:
My feeling was the DM had set up a Beat Down Boss. A Big Juicy target that we were meant to slowly chip away at his heath and tough out his Attacks.
As a Wizard i was meant to fight smart. Hit him with De-Buffs and Disables. But the way the DM had it, Knowing I had a near full wand of Lightning Bolts, Was i provide Blasting coverage. The Will and Fortitude save Hax was probably to stop me from Phantasmal Killer-ing the Boss.
We ended up just Smacking him down to nothing. My 5d6 were useless for the fight, mostly 2-4 rolls on each. :smalleek:

Was there any Better way for Us to beat the Boss? What Spells would you as a Level 7 Wizard or Level 6 Cleric have chosen to make the fight easier? :smallconfused:

[ryu]

What I really Am getting at is: If a Fighter/Whatever Can pass All but One Type of Save, Is a Wizard Crippled at Fighting them? Is there a save You would be Willing to Fail all the time at if You could Pass the other Two all the time?
And Now Story time:

Recently in the campaign i am playing in the party went up against a "Fighter?" with Loads of health, and stated by the DM to pass all Will and Fortitude saves but fail all Reflex. :smallannoyed:
This DM has Home Brewing Boss Battles as his Thing. The "Fighter?" had over 300HP and Had the above Saves. He had an anti-Flanking attack. AC, To Hit, and Damage boosts after a certain percentage of his HP was lost. In the Final section of the fight, after he lost most of his HP, he "summoned" a pair of minions to attack certain targets.
The minions were stated to be Evil Aligned, but Explicitly NOT Summoned creatures. The DM was vague on if they were even Magic. His words were "Extensions of his(the "Fighter?"'s will". :smallfrown:
I was a Level 4 Wizard/Level 3 Cleric/Level 3 Mystic Thurge.:smallcool: The rest of the party was Level 9. Fighter, Bard, Cleric, Rogue. Toss in a Death Knight and give the Rogue a Mix in (as in some/most of the abilities) of a Gambler (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Gambler_(3.5e_Class)), and you have the party. :smallsigh:
My feeling was the DM had set up a Beat Down Boss. A Big Juicy target that we were meant to slowly chip away at his heath and tough out his Attacks.
As a Wizard i was meant to fight smart. Hit him with De-Buffs and Disables. But the way the DM had it, Knowing I had a near full wand of Lightning Bolts, Was i provide Blasting coverage. The Will and Fortitude save Hax was probably to stop me from Phantasmal Killer-ing the Boss.
We ended up just Smacking him down to nothing. My 5d6 were useless for the fight, mostly 2-4 rolls on each. :smalleek:

Was there any Better way for Us to beat the Boss? What Spells would you as a Level 7 Wizard or Level 6 Cleric have chosen to make the fight easier? :smallconfused:

Reflex save based battlefield control shenanigans. Use lots of grease. Congratulations. Every first level slots buys the rest of the party AT LEAST one round each to beat on him as they please. Fight over.

[eggynack]

What you should have done probably depends on what you could have done, which depends on what you had prepared, but better preparation may have helped quite a bit. I would have probably tossed out something that doesn't touch saves at all, or maybe something that doesn't touch anything at all. For example, a seventh level wizard has access to black tentacles, solid fog, enervation, polymorph, and stone shape, just out of core 4th's. You have a pile of summon monsters, a massive pile of buffs, and maybe even some animate dead based minionmancy. That's just a basic set of options. Still, this weird enemy is weird, regardless of your options.

[Story]

Was there any Better way for Us to beat the Boss? What Spells would you as a Level 7 Wizard or Level 6 Cleric have chosen to make the fight easier? :smallconfused:

Polymorph. Usually, Polymorph alone is enough to win most fights and it has great utility too. I normally prepare it several times a day.

[Eldariel]

Well, I'd honestly imagine you would be better off as a Wizard 9. That said, easy options:
- Black Tentacles
- Enervation
- Ray of Enfeeblement
- Ray of Exhaustion
- Bands of Steel [Spell Compendium]
- Web
- Solid Fog
- Summon Monster IV (you could get e.g. Lantern Archon for Light Ray spam alongside Magic Circle and possible natural 1 vs. Aura of Menace)

Just off the top of my head. There is, of course, plenty more. Tho if your team could beat him down you could just take out a Crossbow or whatever and roll a few of those. You can do something more worthwhile than burn spells on losers that your teammates can kill without help after all.

[Saambell]

Having had Very Little Suggestion that we were going to Boss Fight that day, having set out on a mission to find an item that was said to cancel magic, hoping to use that to nullify his fancy Magic Items/Buffs, I had little planning for this fight. I did have a Grease and a Solid Fog Prepped. However the Solid Fog was used at the Start of the fight to buy time for Buffs. We were figuratively dropped in a room with the guy and had to fight him with little warning. The Grease was used later in an attempt to get him to drop his sword. Again however, we had knocked him down a stage/Got him to Stage 3 of the fight and DM fiat had that he was immune to all effects until the start of his next turn, even damage. Said something along the lines of "Dark Magic Cocoons him, preventing effects" Dark Magic Possesion and Dark Runes being a Key part in the Plot of the Campaign.

[eggynack]

Well, it seems like your spells accomplished something then. You can't spell your way through random crazy fiat attacks. The more of that sort of spell you had, the better off you would have been, which is generally the case. However, you have what you have, and that stuff was reasonably useful.

[ryu]

DM fiat that blanket and silly? I would've walked. Unless you have some serious personal ties that's generally the best way to handle that type of situation.

[Saambell]

4th Level Spells: Solid Fog, Polymorph.
3rd: Stinking Cloud, Haste, Lightning Bolt.
2nd: Bear's, Prot Arrows, Web, Glitterdust, Scorching Ray.
1st: Enlarge Person, Prot Evil, Featherfall, Magic Missile, Grease, Comp Lang, Shield.

Made a MysThu because the party is very damage prone and needed a back up healer. I have heard that healing in combat is Bad, but with the fight several characters would have gone down if it weren't for the healing.

[Eldariel]

4th Level Spells: Solid Fog, Polymorph.
3rd: Stinking Cloud, Haste, Lightning Bolt.
2nd: Bear's, Prot Arrows, Web, Glitterdust, Scorching Ray.
1st: Enlarge Person, Prot Evil, Featherfall, Magic Missile, Grease, Comp Lang, Shield.

Made a MysThu because the party is very damage prone and needed a back up healer. I have heard that healing in combat is Bad, but with the fight several characters would have gone down if it weren't for the healing.

Well, you could still heal as a straight Wizard (e.g. through "Arcane Disciple"-feat from Complete Divine). That said, more spells means enemies do less damage and last a shorter time thus decreasing the amount of hits you take and the need for healing in the first place.

[Saambell]

I Play in this group Because i know these people. I have 4 friends i see with any regularity and these are them. The DM is fairer then the alternatives. He has ignored rules to our benefit and been willing to listen to rules explanation that has damaged his initial plans. He has made it clear that the only major home brewing he does is either to benefit us or for the boss fights. The only other option for a D&D group is a guy who happily kills off his player's characters.

[Spore]

This fighter SCREAMS: Break me! Oh god kill me in the most humiliating way possible.

[hymer]

Was there any Better way for Us to beat the Boss? What Spells would you as a Level 7 Wizard or Level 6 Cleric have chosen to make the fight easier? :smallconfused:

Whoah... MMO flashback.
You got railroaded hard. You ought to talk to the DM, and ask him how he'd like you to play your character, maybe he can tell you what spells to cast in what round. In fact, you can just hand him your sheet, and ask him to call you and tell you how it went.
The blue bit means sarcasm. But you really ought to talk to the DM. If he wants to railroad you, he may have thought about what you were supposed to do. Maybe he will be so kind as to give you some pointers on what role you're supposed to fill.

[Icewraith]

Generally speaking, when your DM starts pulling immunity shenanigans out of his butt to make his boss monsters last longer, it's time to start making knowledge checks and whatnot to research the same ability for yourselves. If he claims you don't have the knowledge skills to learn what it was, find the temple of knowledge where people will have the right skills. Document everything. Make obtaining these abilities an in-character goal.

After a couple weeks of this, once the DM realizes that it's very hard to completely shut down a wizard determined to find something out (especially since you're only a few levels from Teleport), he'll either have to admit that the ability doesn't exist, there's no justification for it in-game, and that he should probably stop doing that sort of thing (or if he makes it too high level or too expensive, point out what level of party he was using it on, or make every attempt to capture and steal the next boss monster's supremely expensive items), or he'll have to let you guys end up having access to the ability. Once a DM deals with the effects of PCs using his own unbalanced homebrew against him, he usually learns to be more careful.

In the end, the principle you should be following sounds something like this: Anything the DM introduces into the game world is fair game for the players to eventually acquire.

[Urpriest]

4th Level Spells: Solid Fog, Polymorph.
3rd: Stinking Cloud, Haste, Lightning Bolt.
2nd: Bear's, Prot Arrows, Web, Glitterdust, Scorching Ray.
1st: Enlarge Person, Prot Evil, Featherfall, Magic Missile, Grease, Comp Lang, Shield.

Made a MysThu because the party is very damage prone and needed a back up healer. I have heard that healing in combat is Bad, but with the fight several characters would have gone down if it weren't for the healing.

Web should have been quite handy. Coupled with Solid Fog, you could probably keep the guy pinned down for a good long while, while your Hasted party peppers them with ranged weapons.

That said, you'd eventually be reduced to backup damage, yeah.

You'll probably get access to Animate Dead relatively soon. I'd make a point of keeping this guy's body around, clearly he's got some unique racial abilities that would yield an interesting undead minion.:smallbiggrin:

[Emperor Tippy]

Answering your question, no. All 3 saves have "make or be disabled/dead" spells that target them so its only generally a matter of a few rounds before you are screwed anyways.

When I, as the DM, want to make the party hate my fighter types I don't need to make him auto-pass saves as I just make him outright immune to magic. And immune to death via HP damage.

Ah old Fighty McStabbity Jr., twelfth level compared to the level 24 of papa McStabbity but still almost as much of a pain to the party.

[Sir Chuckles]

Remember this ruling that any reasonable DM must have:
If you use it, I can use it. If I can use it, you can use it.

I sense that your group a bit inexperienced, or simply not well-read.
Straight up immunity without a magic item or something similar to explain it (Which, in turn, is also bad because then the party gains access to it) is bad. It's worse if it's not explained in terms of feats ("He stacked feats to boost those saves"), because you never know when he'll roll a nat 1 on a save.

There was soooo many better ways to combat him. Grease, web, ray of clumsiness and it's variants, shivering touch if it's allowed, dropping a boulder on him (Hey, fails reflex, boulders call for reflex), Touch spells for damage, or just buffing the party.

[FinnDarkblade]

dropping a boulder on him (Hey, fails reflex, boulders call for reflex)

I now live for the day when I can tell my DM "Rocks fall, your villain dies."