Xan_Kriegor
2015-04-08, 12:15 AM
In a PF campaign I'm playing in, I've taken on the responsibility of being the paranoid Wizard that protects the party at night so we can rest easy. Our standard procedure was having me fly ~60 ft. in the air, cast rope trick, and ferry the party members up. Admittedly these are not great measures, but they were enough until recently when two of our members decided "eh, I'll just sleep on the ground under the stars" since we were in the middle of a desert and it seemed unlikely to them they'd be attacked. Cue assassins that attacked us several levels ago, the remaining three of us wake up to our shadow(dancer)'s sentry waking us up and the two on the ground being killed in their sleep. Assassins then levitate up to us in the rope trick to finish us off, but we successfully defend ourselves and kill the assassins.
Our party consists of: Invulnerable Rager (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/barbarian/archetypes/paizo---barbarian-archetypes/invulnerable-rager) Barbarian, Rogue/Shadowdancer, Paladin, Gunslinger, and myself the Foresight (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/arcane-schools/paizo---arcane-schools/classic-arcane-schools/divination/foresight) Wizard. The Gunslinger and Barbarian are the two that died on the ground and also ~75% of our party's damage output. The Gunslinger talked to the DM and is apparently using his resurrection to redo his character a bit, switching to a Magus so that'll be interesting. We're ECL 10, about to hit level 11. I'm wondering what sort of stuff I can do to protect the party better so this doesn't happen again in the future (yeah, we'll make sure we follow protocol better. :smalltongue:)
I've done a small amount of brainstorming with the DM, but most of the ideas I've had have been countered with ways to bypass them. Casting alarm (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/alarm) would get disarmed like a magic trap... which now that I think about it shouldn't be true since it doesn't say it is a magic trap. We thought it might be since it was a stationary effect that triggered when something happened but since it doesn't have text saying it is magic trap it probably isn't. We compared it to symbol of death (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/symbol-of-death) and thought the lack of trap text was just a site error. Can you guys clarify one way or another?
Regardless, the alarm could just be dispelled and then the assassins would come in as normal. Second though was to pile everyone into the rope trick (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/rope-trick) and then fill in the rest of the eight creature limit with mounts (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/m/mount), but then the assassins dispel magic the rope trick and we're left unprotected. I could start blowing slots on just teleporting (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/teleport) us to a random city before we sleep each night and just rent rooms at the inn or something, but the assassins could just follow us to whichever town and attack us there. (side note: a party member made their save against being scried (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/scrying) recently so we know someone's tracking us, I just haven't learned detect scrying (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/detect-scrying) yet. Also the DM mentioned the assassins used shadow walk (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/e-g/elixir-of-shadewalking) to tail us.) Since we have 5 party members though (not including the Shadowdancer's shadow) I can't teleport the whole party until level 12 though.
At level 13 I was thinking mage's magnificent mansion (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/m/mage-s-magnificent-mansion) might be the final solution, but he was thinking enemies could still plane shift (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/p/plane-shift) into it or something. Is that true?
TL;DR: Is there a way to protect my party from nighttime intruders without needing to keep watch?
Our party consists of: Invulnerable Rager (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/barbarian/archetypes/paizo---barbarian-archetypes/invulnerable-rager) Barbarian, Rogue/Shadowdancer, Paladin, Gunslinger, and myself the Foresight (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/arcane-schools/paizo---arcane-schools/classic-arcane-schools/divination/foresight) Wizard. The Gunslinger and Barbarian are the two that died on the ground and also ~75% of our party's damage output. The Gunslinger talked to the DM and is apparently using his resurrection to redo his character a bit, switching to a Magus so that'll be interesting. We're ECL 10, about to hit level 11. I'm wondering what sort of stuff I can do to protect the party better so this doesn't happen again in the future (yeah, we'll make sure we follow protocol better. :smalltongue:)
I've done a small amount of brainstorming with the DM, but most of the ideas I've had have been countered with ways to bypass them. Casting alarm (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/alarm) would get disarmed like a magic trap... which now that I think about it shouldn't be true since it doesn't say it is a magic trap. We thought it might be since it was a stationary effect that triggered when something happened but since it doesn't have text saying it is magic trap it probably isn't. We compared it to symbol of death (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/symbol-of-death) and thought the lack of trap text was just a site error. Can you guys clarify one way or another?
Regardless, the alarm could just be dispelled and then the assassins would come in as normal. Second though was to pile everyone into the rope trick (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/rope-trick) and then fill in the rest of the eight creature limit with mounts (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/m/mount), but then the assassins dispel magic the rope trick and we're left unprotected. I could start blowing slots on just teleporting (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/teleport) us to a random city before we sleep each night and just rent rooms at the inn or something, but the assassins could just follow us to whichever town and attack us there. (side note: a party member made their save against being scried (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/scrying) recently so we know someone's tracking us, I just haven't learned detect scrying (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/detect-scrying) yet. Also the DM mentioned the assassins used shadow walk (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/e-g/elixir-of-shadewalking) to tail us.) Since we have 5 party members though (not including the Shadowdancer's shadow) I can't teleport the whole party until level 12 though.
At level 13 I was thinking mage's magnificent mansion (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/m/mage-s-magnificent-mansion) might be the final solution, but he was thinking enemies could still plane shift (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/p/plane-shift) into it or something. Is that true?
TL;DR: Is there a way to protect my party from nighttime intruders without needing to keep watch?