creatures that are effective against casters

[bjoern]

Had a caster join our group of big dumb fighters. He kinda outshined everyone expectedly. I was wondering if there were any creatures/tactics that would reign in his superiority without outright negating him or killing the others.
I'm aware of golems, however he uses OoF so it would be short work for him.
Then I got to thinking about Silence as a way to hinder his casting without overpowering the others.
Ideas?

[Uncle Pine]

Friendly Fire (Exemplars of Evil).

[frogglesmash]

You could put him in situations that require him to make concentration checks or loose his spells, swarms may achieve a similar effect as could grapplers.

[atemu1234]

Mind Flayers. With Improved Grapple, and ranks in hide and move silently.

[Inevitability]

Proteans. Then again, they are effective against everything.

Incorporeality + Magic Immunity (Iron Colossus) + Antimagic Field (Iron Colossus) + Split (orchre jelly) = Endless army of unstoppable shapechangers.

[kalasulmar]

Shadowslain template. Causes arcane casters to lose prepared spells or unused spell slots.

[Flickerdart]

What kind of spells does he usually prepare? You can use soft-counters (such as creatures that fly against Entangle and Grease) rather than straight up shutting him down.

[herrhauptmann]

Had a caster join our group of big dumb fighters. He kinda outshined everyone expectedly. I was wondering if there were any creatures/tactics that would reign in his superiority without outright negating him or killing the others.

The one that can reign in his superiority the most is him. Ask him to tone it down. Unless you know, you want to drive a player from the group because you're immediately shutting down everything he can do.

What is OOF?

People with Mageslayer, especially if they have reach.

What level is your game? If you're level 8, we can't exactly go suggesting Phaerrim and Shadesteel golems.

[Uncle Pine]

What is OOF?

I assumed OoF to mean Orb of Fire, which is why I suggested Friendly Fire as a soft counter (he can still use other spells, but the 1st time he get hoisted by his own spell is going to burn).

[nedz]

Kobold Spellthieves — lots of them.

[Extra Anchovies]

is going to burn

boooooooooo

[Uncle Pine]

boooooooooo

The pun wasn't made on purpose. Seriously. :smallbiggrin:

[ZamielVanWeber]

Spiked Chain and Improved Trip. Once on the ground he cannot escape and has to cast defensively on the ground. Best part is if you throw in Combat Reflexes you have a BFC champ an it doesn't look like you are gunning down the wizard; he just doesn't have the Str to resist being tripped.

Edit: Wrong weapon!

[herrhauptmann]

Orb of Fire, gotchya.


Chain Whip and Improved Trip. Once on the ground he cannot escape and has to cast defensively on the ground. Best part is if you throw in Combat Reflexes you have a BFC champ an it doesn't look like you are gunning down the wizard; he just doesn't have the Str to resist being tripped.

Spiked chain. 2hand strength bonuses, and unlike a whip it's not a "ranged attack that provokes AOOs."
Also give him steadfast boots, so he becomes an incredible threat to any chargers. He gets a set attack against them when they enter his range, and an AOO when they move out of a square he threatens. That set attack is at double damage btw, and doesn't take up an AOO.
I personally don't think you can use disarm/trip/sunder on an AOO, so I'd give him Knockdown too, this way he always gets a trip attempt if he deals 10 points of damage.

[Flickerdart]

Chain Whip and Improved Trip.
This does nothing because no kind of whip threatens.

[ZamielVanWeber]

This does nothing because no kind of whip threatens.

I meant "Spiked chain" I often nickname it "chain whip." I'll go edit that. Sorry!

[bjoern]

What kind of spells does he usually prepare? You can use soft-counters (such as creatures that fly against Entangle and Grease) rather than straight up shutting him down.

His go to spell for grounders is grease. He also uses glitterdust quite a bit. Orb of Force, Wings of Flurry, alter self for flight and NA.

One encounter had large areas of magical darkness so he couldn't target enemies so he relied on Haste and enlarge person/bulls strength.

I don't necessarily want to shut him down completely. I just want encounters to last more than a few rounds.

That's kinda why I was thinking of poking at his spell components: blindness for targeting, silence for verbal, grapple for semantic (somehow without killing him, only 30hp)

[Flickerdart]

His go to spell for grounders is grease. He also uses glitterdust quite a bit. Orb of Force, Wings of Flurry, alter self for flight and NA.

One encounter had large areas of magical darkness so he couldn't target enemies so he relied on Haste and enlarge person/bulls strength.

So he helped the party fighters kick ass? That's bad?




That's kinda why I was thinking of poking at his spell components: blindness for targeting, silence for verbal, grapple for semantic (somehow without killing him, only 30hp)
And in the meantime, what about the entire rest of the party? Focusing on him for the whole encounter is the #1 way of making them not feel engaged.

[bjoern]

So he helped the party fighters kick ass? That's bad?



And in the meantime, what about the entire rest of the party? Focusing on him for the whole encounter is the #1 way of making them not feel engaged.

It wasn't bad at all. The BFC and boosting was awesome and everyone had a good time, however that only happened because he was unable to target the enemy directly (darkness)
Any encounter where he is able to deal damage to the enemy, hell just smoke them with a ~40 damage WoF. hell use true casting to beat the SR for it and grease or glitter dust em first to bring down the dex for the reflex save.

I don't really want to give every enemy evasion (maybe a good idea)
Or maybe use better tactics to keep guys spread out from each other of use fewer and more powerful monsters rather than using a lot of weaker enemies.
A couple of the fighters have cleave so its nice to see them use that against groups of weaker enemies.

Thanks for the input.

[Malroth]

Your party is lv 7+, this means your Melee guys should be dealing about 150 damage on a full attack when hasted, the 40 damage from an orb of force shouldn't really be anything to concerned about.

[RoboEmperor]

Dispel Magic.
Dispel Magic.
Dispel Magic.

1 casting will annihilate every single buff he has in case he is polymorphing and outshining the fighters in direct combat.
1 spellcaster COUNTERSPELLING will give him like 50% spell failure. Give or take 5% for every 1 CL difference between the two.

I also give my vote to golems. Have you seen greater stone golem? He's a freaking monster and OOF won't do nearly enough damage unless it's metamagic'd like a true mailman.

[Malroth]

If I as a T1 Caster somehow manage to convince an enemy caster to spend 3 rounds dispelling my buffs instead of Dominating my barbarian friend or enervating the thief then I have done my job.

[RoboEmperor]

If I as a T1 Caster somehow manage to convince an enemy caster to spend 3 rounds dispelling my buffs instead of Dominating my barbarian friend or enervating the thief then I have done my job.

Not if your enemies outnumber you. 1 spellcaster dedicated to counterspelling, 1 spellcaster dedicated to BFC against your fighters...

or

1 wizard spending all his spells on buffs like polymorph, gets dispelled, has no spells left.

And it's not 3 rounds dispelling your buffs, it's 1 round, unless some noticeable CL difference is in play.

And even if you're right in this case, you would've "done your job" and the fighters get some of the glory so... mission accomplished!

[DMVerdandi]

Had a caster join our group of big dumb fighters. He kinda outshined everyone expectedly. I was wondering if there were any creatures/tactics that would reign in his superiority without outright negating him or killing the others.
I'm aware of golems, however he uses OoF so it would be short work for him.
Then I got to thinking about Silence as a way to hinder his casting without overpowering the others.
Ideas?

You could talk to him.
Say that you would like him to take more of a supportive role, as you want a less magical (in 3.5 no less. Ha)
feel to your game.

It's a hard call, because he actually probably optimized the best. So the one who was actually thinking critically gets penalized, and it's on everyone else that didn't choose a caster, but that is the nature of this game.

Can't really make it to high level with a pure martial party, but if there is one caster, he is going to end up outshining him, so you have to either choose all casters, or something close for everyone to be able to contribute, but they might also steamroll everything.


Suggestion for next time?
Switch out wizard,artificer, cleric, and druid for Sorcerer(or battle sorcerer),Favored soul(Or spontaneous cleric), and spirit shaman.
They still get spells, but because of the structure of the classes, they are somewhat depowered.
Or consider using the SRD spell caster to replace them all. And keep all the rest of the martial classes.

Limiting the spell selection helps.