Help! Nightmares are ruining my game!

[gogogome]

Ok, now I'm starting to think that wizard is a power gamer. This is what he was doing

1. He lesser planar binds a nightmare
2. After he buffs the party, he stays on the nightmare, who proceeds to spam etherealness to keep the wizard untouchable. He just cruises through the encounters, ending the etherealness briefly to cast a spell. Both he and the nightmare end ethrealness on the same turn. Next turn he casts the spell and the nightmare casts etherealness again.

Now he's doing this:
1. He planar binds 2 nightmares
2. He and 1 nightmare astrally project onto the astral plane
3. He gets the 2nd nightmare to grab his body and the 1st nightmare's and spam etherealness indefinitely

And now he's planning on doing that with the entire party.

help?

[Inevitability]

Talk to the wizard's player out of the game. Tell him he made the game Not-Fun for you and most likely some others and explain you'd like him to stop. Wizards are powerful enough, he doesn't have to do this in order to contribute to the party.

[the_david]

How could a nightmare grab the body of the wizard and the nightmare? A nightmare would at least be a heavy load, and as far as I know, nightmares don't have hands.

Possible solutions:
- Ready actions for when the nightmare drops etherealness.
- Leave the wizard in the astral plane somehow.
- Have a bunch of ethereal monsters attack the wizard, like a cauchemar or something.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Dire_Stirge has the right idea. That's pretty much the first thing you should do when you have a problem.

If that doesn't work your game is pretty much doomed. You can certainly counter everything he does as the DM, but unless you get a lot of fun out of out-lawyering and outplanning each other you probably won't enjoy it. And the rest of the party will be left by the wayside while you play wizard vs. DM, so they might as well go home.

I'd try to emphasize that it's intended to be a group game. The goal isn't to beat the other players or the DM. If he doesn't get that then he should probably look for another hobby.

[Arbane]

Congratulate him on winning D&D, and quit the game.

He's going Full Tippy. You NEVER want your players going Full Tippy.

[gogogome]

His contributions to fights are actually not bad. It's just that he's invincible and that kind of takes the fun out of the game (for me at least).

Now he's planning on being a team player and making everyone invincible.

He's not winning the fights with an i-win button, but he's just unkillable, and now the party will be unkillable. Is that ok? Am I overreacting? Should I allow the players to be immune to death and do whatever they please and play with complete reckless abandon towards their own safety? I mean, they still won't be able to kill the things they aren't suppose to kill.

I would actually allow this if it were a one-time scouting into a guaranteed death environment but...

[Mizr]

Yea, a wizard and a nightmare won't be fitting on another Nightmare for starters. Less about weight capacity and more about balance and how you're carrying them at this point.

Bust out the force effects! Greater Orbs of Force, Orbs of Force, Lesser Orbs of Force. Dimensional Anchor. Or to make an even greater twist, have his Astral Projection go awry and have him become possessed by something. Get creative.

[sleepyphoenixx]

If he wants to play high optimization (and the other players and you can keep up) there's really no reason not to.
He's hardly the only wizard in the world and unless he comes up with something really revolutionary chances are that other people have done it before. Those people likely had enemies, who would have developed counters.

There is no such thing as an unbeatable defense in D&D. Even the most paranoid and well prepared caster can be defeated with the right tools and enough time, and it doesn't sound like your player is quite at that level (yet).
You'll just have to redesign your encounters so that they are actually capable of challenging the party.

Re-read the description of Planar Binding. It specifically mentions that unreasonable services ("serve me forever") are never agreed to and that the outsider may later seek revenge. What cost does he pay for the service? Can he afford to constantly bind new Nightmares, and if so, why?
Further, constantly binding Nightmares will get a lot of them angry at you, and they are certainly intelligent enough to plan some form of retribution. It's not a "get free minions" spell by any means.
Also consider the fact that Nightmares are evil, so planar binding them is an evil spell that will change his alignment if he uses it regularly. And that brings its own set of problems.

[WeaselGuy]

-snip-

Also consider the fact that Nightmares are evil, so planar binding them is an evil spell that will change his alignment if he uses it regularly. And that brings its own set of problems.

That part right there? I don't know what the party group consists of, but surely there is somebody in the group that might object, for one reason or another, to being aided by hellhorses.

[Darrin]

He's going Full Tippy. You NEVER want your players going Full Tippy.

I think you may want to reconsider your terminology. From what I understand, Tippy has never intentionally ruined a campaign. He may play at a higher level, but only when the DM and other players are also capable of challenging each other at the same level.

I'd suggest calling this "Going Full Raistlin (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilSorcerer)" or "Going Full Henderson (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_Henderson_Scale_of_Plot_Derailment)".

[Brookshw]

This isn't that big of a deal, what's the party level? As someone pointed out, the ethereal is a nasty place with plenty of critters.

Moving on, hallowed/dimension anchor, true seeing, ghost touch weapons (or spell, or weapon crystal) aren't too uncommon. Also force effects. Intelligent enemies are often already making use of such things.

Ethereal topography doesn't always match up with the Prime, you could end up with a mountain on the ethereal where the ruin/castle/whatever is on the prime making ethereal not a useful tactic (iirc libris mortis even calls this out as an intelligent tactic for creatures setting up shop). Not every plane likewise touches on the ethereal.

Really just change adventures to match. Since he wants to do this for the party that helps keep things sort of balanced. Ish.

[Greenish]

Tell him to metagame more. Sure, it might make perfect sense from in-character standpoint for the wizard to use his great intelligence and magical muscle to turn the whole party invincible, but if it detracts from people's enjoyment of the game, he should find an excuse not to do it.

[oxybe]

WOAH. With what the OP's said, we're not close to busting out the hendersonometer yet. We're just at "Ghost Dad wizard on evil Mr.Ed" that's still a few steps removed from needing to start worrying about h-particles in the gameosphere.

As others have said, if you're having problems managing his character, tell him to tone it down. As someone who likes optimization, it's a lot easier for me to tone it down to what the GM can handle then force him to optimize harder.

Probably because if he's having trouble with my character's capabilities it's because he can't optimize harder then he currently is, and there's a point where if you're just throwing inflated numbers to beat optimization, the rest of the party might just accidentally wipe.

So talk to the wizard and let him know about your grievances.

Most optimizers are cool about toning it down: you can't play if the GM quits, right?

[DoomHat]

I'd like to introduce you to John Wick's Play Dirty.
He's the Original PDF (http://johnwickpresents.com/market/products/playdirty.html)
And here's the Kickerstarter Page (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2006204732/play-dirty-2-even-dirtier) for the follow up.

The Kickstarter page has links to comments about a lot of things to get you thinking in new was about how to run a really fun game.

The central take away, is that your player's character sheet can not protect them.
Being ethereal does not make him invincible, not by a long shot. Think about the implications of all this plane jumping. There's a lot of... 'things' lurking around in the aether, not the least of which being your wizards forcibly conscripted "friends".

[atemu1234]

Kill the Nightmare with his body using a transdimensional spell. That way, you can hit it while it flickers.

[Callin]

High op huh... have someone hire some Gith to sever his Astral Cord.

[the_david]

Is there a force spell that can be turned into a living spell?

[Necroticplague]

How is constantly being ethereal 'unbeatable'? Use readied actions to smack him when he pops onto the Material, use monsters that have a similar tactic themselves (this is pretty much the Phase Spider's modus operandi), use force effect coming from those who can see invisible (which lets you see ethereal creatures), use the Transdimensional Spell metamagic, use dimensionally-locked spaces, have adventures take place in areas not coterminous with the Ethereal. Astral Projection is only marginally harder to deal with, because that means that you simply have to have something do the above, against their helpless bodies. Also, keep in mind that Nightmares are evil outsiders, so theres a lot of stuff that can keep them from going somewhere, or banish them back to hell. Also, since he's Calling them, then that means whoever these nightmare's actually belong to is probably gonna be miffed at his horses disappearing.

[Eldan]

Congratulate him on winning D&D, and quit the game.

He's going Full Tippy. You NEVER want your players going Full Tippy.

That's not full Tippy. That's maybe about a hundred milliTippy.

A full Tippy is destroying the economy with traps, chain-wishes and messing with deities.

[The Grue]

Yeah, this is decent optimization but not nearly game-ruining. I rate it at approximately 0.4 on the Henderson Scale (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_Henderson_Scale_of_Plot_Derailment).

Etherealness isn't that unstoppable; as has been pointed out Force effects from the Material can affect ethereal creatures, and any enemies that can see invisible can see ethereal - and at the level where your wizard is planar binding things, it's not unreasonable that enemies should start having that capability even if only through consumables.

Anyway, being ethereal shuts down "hit the PCs with sticks" style combat encounters. So stop throwing big guys with heavy sticks at them and start employing more nuanced enemy tactics and varied capabilities. Magic missile for example is a force spell available at wiz/sorc 1.

[Flickerdart]

Ok, now I'm starting to think that wizard is a power gamer. This is what he was doing

1. He lesser planar binds a nightmare
2. After he buffs the party, he stays on the nightmare, who proceeds to spam etherealness to keep the wizard untouchable. He just cruises through the encounters, ending the etherealness briefly to cast a spell. Both he and the nightmare end ethrealness on the same turn. Next turn he casts the spell and the nightmare casts etherealness again.

Now he's doing this:
1. He planar binds 2 nightmares
2. He and 1 nightmare astrally project onto the astral plane
3. He gets the 2nd nightmare to grab his body and the 1st nightmare's and spam etherealness indefinitely

And now he's planning on doing that with the entire party.

help?
The best part about Planar Binding abuse is that you're taking a real creature with hopes and dreams from somewhere and forcing it to do your bidding. What is he offering the nightmare in return for this? Or is he simply forcing it to accept a raw deal through massive debuffs? What does he do when the duration on the Binding has expired? Because that Nightmare is not going to stick around, unless it's to take revenge.

The second best part about Planar Binding abuse is that these real creatures also have real acquaintances. Your wizard isn't he only one who knows the value of a Nightmare; they are a favored mount of evil Paladins, but more importantly, the Monster Manual lists them as frequently used by Night Hags as mounts.

Night Hags are nasty customers for casters, because of a little ability called Dream Haunting that lets it deny the target a night's rest and also drains Constitution, with no save. Does he sleep in a Rope Trick? Because if he doesn't, he's screwed - the hag can ride him every night to ensure he never prepares spells again. The hag also has shapeshifting powers so it can infiltrate the party as a benign (or even helpful) NPC; its SLAs can let it pretend to be a low-level spellcaster. If discovered, its Magic Missile SLA makes an excellent option for offensive tactics against an ethereal opponent, or they can go ethereal themselves and unload with whatever they feel like. You could even mix things up this way: the party encounters a Hag or two that go after the wizard while he's ethereal, and successfully inflict their disease upon him before retreating. The hag's hearthstone heals all diseases, so a convenient medicine woman they meet on the outskirts of the next village offers to take care of it for them...and thus begin the nightly terrors.

Since he's casting Planar Binding he must be at least 9th level, making these guys a more-than-fair encounter.

Or just drown him in swarms of Phase Spiders, and see how well he fights encounters when he decided to not let the party help by going ethereal and then fighting ethereal foes.

[icefractal]

I'd say the Etherealness isn't the problem here - readied actions will solve that, or [Force] effects for enemies that can get them. It's a powerful ability, but so are a lot of things you can get with Lesser Planar Binding.

Astral Project is a big problem though. IDK if he's started doing this, but combined with Plane Shift it lets you have unlimited "lives", simply re-projecting when you die. And worse, all your spells and abilities are refreshed when that happens. Want to cast your best spells a hundred times in a single day? Now you can. Worst, all your items are duplicated. So that ring of three Wishes becomes a ring of unlimited Wishes.

At that point, you've hit the Singularity and things become pointless. But even the lesser forms of Astral Projection usage get pretty nasty at 9th level. Same problem as the Efreet, really. Recommendation - either:
A) Remove Astral Projection from the Nightmare, like Pathfinder does.
B) Give Nightmares "Calling Resistance", meaning they count as a higher amount of HD for binding purposes, requiring Greater Planar Binding.
C) Make a gentlemen's agreement not to use Astral Projection via Nightmares.

[Flickerdart]

B) Give Nightmares "Calling Resistance", meaning they count as a higher amount of HD for binding purposes, requiring Greater Planar Binding.
Or just advance them. Maybe the nightmares get wise that any 9th level idiot can abuse them and the entire species engages in a kill-or-be-killed grudge match that advances a bunch of them to 7 HD and leaves the rest dead. Either way, the dignity of the creature is preserved.

[Arbane]

I'd like to introduce you to John Wick's Play Dirty.
He's the Original PDF (http://johnwickpresents.com/market/products/playdirty.html)
And here's the Kickerstarter Page (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2006204732/play-dirty-2-even-dirtier) for the follow up.


Please don't do this. Wick deliberately set out to be the most godawful abusive Killer GM _ever_, with the one stipulation that he would deny his PCs the sweet release of death. The game he wrote up in "Play Dirty" is the RPG version of one of those pre-liability-lawsuit carnival attractions that offered 50$ to anyone who can stay in the ring three minutes with Mangler Mulligan. He was TRYING to get his players to ragequit. (I've read some of that essay, and I think he needs to track down one of his players who he had sitting at the gaming table so he could ask him what he was doing every round while the guy's character was in prison, so he can apologize for wasting his time and offer to mow his lawn or something. :smallfurious: )

As for the OP's question: Let the PCs know that their enemies are trying to hire Githyanki (? the ones with the instadeath silver swords) mercenaries. That might persuade them to tone down the shenanigans slightly... or it might encourage them to find MORE INVULNERABILITY.



Astral Project is a big problem though. IDK if he's started doing this, but combined with Plane Shift it lets you have unlimited "lives", simply re-projecting when you die. And worse, all your spells and abilities are refreshed when that happens. Want to cast your best spells a hundred times in a single day? Now you can. Worst, all your items are duplicated. So that ring of three Wishes becomes a ring of unlimited Wishes.


You could just make a houserule that using astral duplicates of expendable items uses up the real ones.

[Flickerdart]

As for the OP's question: Let the PCs know that their enemies are trying to hire Githyanki (? the ones with the instadeath silver swords) mercenaries.
The silver swords are actually pretty rubbish. While they can definitely sever an astral cord, the cord's owner gets a saving throw as soon as it's struck, and if the throw is failed, he returns to his body safely. Also, the cord only stretches 5 feet from the character before disappearing, and getting close to a nightmare-riding wizard is tough.

Check out psychic wind though - Manual of the Planes, p51.

[DoomHat]

Please don't do this. Wick deliberately set out to be the most godawful abusive Killer GM _ever_, with the one stipulation that he would deny his PCs the sweet release of death. The game he wrote up in "Play Dirty" is the RPG version of one of those pre-liability-lawsuit carnival attractions that offered 50$ to anyone who can stay in the ring three minutes with Mangler Mulligan. He was TRYING to get his players to ragequit. (I've read some of that essay, and I think he needs to track down one of his players who he had sitting at the gaming table so he could ask him what he was doing every round while the guy's character was in prison, so he can apologize for wasting his time and offer to mow his lawn or something. :smallfurious: )


Its worth noting the extraordinary and specific circumstances there. That game had replaced an ongoing high lethality CoC game. He had more applicant players then he had room for at the table. Why do you think that dude with his character in jail stayed at the table? He didn't have to stay. He was having fun in sheer spite of his frustration, or he would have very understandably and very easily packed up and left.

There's a lot of great stuff you can take away from the essay in its actual context. It talks a lot about how to take your player's choices on their character-sheets into consideration, and how to customize your campaign around their interests to get them invested.

Most importantly, for the purposes of this thread, it tells you how to break munchkins (specifically munchkins) in profoundly satisfying ways.

[Urpriest]

I'd just houserule Nightmares to not have access to Astral Projection and Etherealness, and instead have access to Plane Shift and maybe Ethereal Jaunt. Creatures with a CR that low shouldn't have access to 9th level spells in general.

[Telok]

Astral Project is a big problem though. IDK if he's started doing this, but combined with Plane Shift it lets you have unlimited "lives", simply re-projecting when you die. And worse, all your spells and abilities are refreshed when that happens. Want to cast your best spells a hundred times in a single day? Now you can. Worst, all your items are duplicated. So that ring of three Wishes becomes a ring of unlimited Wishes.

At that point, you've hit the Singularity and things become pointless.

Some death effects can arguably still kill the real you.
Dispel Magic/Psionics will end the effect.
Your body is helpless while you are astrally projecting.
The Astral and Etherial planes do not touch each other, to go from one to the other you must pass through the prime.
Astral color pools may not go to the places you want or may be guarded.
The astral projection can still be rendered unconsious and imprisoned/enspelled.
Historically the githyanki have had some sort of pact with red dragons, in combination you han have enemies who can follow the players anywhere.

It's just that you've added another dimension to the game and simple land-bound melee fights have stopped working. There are NPCs in the game that are just as smart as the PCs, so all that has really happened is that you've upgraded to a smarter class of bad guy.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Why do you think that dude with his character in jail stayed at the table? He didn't have to stay. He was having fun in sheer spite of his frustration, or he would have very understandably and very easily packed up and left.

Not everyone has heard the phrase "no gaming is better than bad gaming". Not everyone can tell whether your character is merely in a bad situation, or you're actually at a bad table. Staying put and sitting there can seem easier than leaving the group forever.

[Darrin]

I'd just houserule Nightmares to not have access to Astral Projection and Etherealness, and instead have access to Plane Shift and maybe Ethereal Jaunt. Creatures with a CR that low shouldn't have access to 9th level spells in general.

Lesser Nightmares are in the Planar Handbook p. 128. The Astral Projection and Etherealness (Su)s have been removed.

[gogogome]

Thanks for the inputs everyone!

I'll just ask nicely for the guy to not do that. CL20 level 9 spells at will for a CR5 creature is ridiculous. Otherwise I'll start busting out the methods you guys mentioned here.

There is an evil wizard in the campaign. If the player doesn't stop, he'll bring a large hit squad and enter combat personally as well. He only has control of low hd creatures, so they'll act as a diversion as he goes after the nightmare with the bodies.

[Arbane]

There's a lot of great stuff you can take away from the essay in its actual context. It talks a lot about how to take your player's choices on their character-sheets into consideration, and how to customize your campaign around their interests to get them invested.

Most importantly, for the purposes of this thread, it tells you how to break munchkins (specifically munchkins) in profoundly satisfying ways.

Wick ruined one character with a disease their Immunity to Disease didn't stop.... but it DID stop the CURE. He also figured out a way to use Luck (the _advantage_) to make a character miserable. Basically, EVERYTHING on their character sheet can and would be used against them. Even the things they THOUGHT were advantages and had foolishly wasted points on. (And the 'red trolley' guy? That was shooting fish in a barrel.)

There comes a point in his bragging where I figured out that while his players THOUGHT they were playing Champions, he was actually playing Unknown Armies, and they were helping his effort to Ascend as the A**hole GM.


Dispel Magic/Psionics will end the effect.


IIRC, a Nightmare's power is (Su), and Dispel doesn't work on those for some unfathomable reason. (At least that's how (Su) powers work in Pathfinder.)


Not everyone has heard the phrase "no gaming is better than bad gaming". Not everyone can tell whether your character is merely in a bad situation, or you're actually at a bad table. Staying put and sitting there can seem easier than leaving the group forever.

Like I said, it was a challenge to their pride.


I'll just ask nicely for the guy to not do that. CL20 level 9 spells at will for a CR5 creature is ridiculous. Otherwise I'll start busting out the methods you guys mentioned here.

There is an evil wizard in the campaign. If the player doesn't stop, he'll bring a large hit squad and enter combat personally as well. He only has control of low hd creatures, so they'll act as a diversion as he goes after the nightmare with the bodies.

Sounds reasonable. Good luck!

If worse comes to worst, just remember - anything PCs can do, NPCs can do too.

[Psyren]

Pathfinder nerfed the hell out of the Nightmare (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/nightmare) so you can just use that version.