Protecting the party

[Xan_Kriegor]

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?

[Geddy2112]

being the paranoid Wizard that protects the party at night so we can rest easy.


You are not paranoid. People are after you, and they are going through insane lengths to find and kill you. In my opinion, your DM is being a bit of a killer DM and pulling out the stops to kill and constantly attack the party.

The easiest option is to simply never sleep. At level 10, rings of sustenance are really cheap, and you could make them if anybody has forge ring.http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/rings/ring-of-sustenance Now, your party members only needs to sleep 2 hours a night, meaning 1-2 people asleep tops at a single time, the rest take watch. It also means you never have to eat or drink, so goodbye poison in food or drink. Get a necklace of adaptation if you are super paranoid to keep out poison gases. If you have half elves or elves in the group it means the DM can't magically put you to sleep with magic either, so make sure at least one is up if you have 2 or more.

I don't think alarm is a magical trap, but symbol of scrying is a similar effect and specifically says it is not a magical trap. These are still fairly useless since your going up against assassins who are gonna spam dispel your defenses down. Mages Magnificent Mansion can't be accessed by plane shift, because extra-dimensional spaces do not exist in any dimension and plane shift specifically says you can access any plane or dimension(but not extra-dimensional spaces). Once you get this you will be fine, and there is no way to see or enter it unlike a rope trick which has a rope as a dead giveaway. Teleport will work at level 12, but it has risks and if your DM is this hellbent on killing you, you really don't want to fail.

[(Un)Inspired]

+1 to just never sleeping again. The game doesn't include any penalties for not sleeping. If your DM wants to homebrew some ask him what they are. There's almost certainly a spell to make them go away no matter what they end up being.

[grarrrg]

Keep Watch (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/k/keep-watch) is a level 1 spell that lets you "keep watch" while not-quite-sleeping.

[Necromancy]

Mages magnificent mansion can't be breached.

Plane shift is always off target by 5 to 500 miles

Also "Since the place can be entered only through its special portal, outside conditions do not affect the mansion, nor do conditions inside it pass to the plane beyond."

[Xan_Kriegor]

I forgot about Rings of Sustenance, we should probably pick a few of those up. I haven't taken Forge Ring yet but they are cheap enough we should be able to get a few of those for the party. Our DM isn't hellbent on killing us, in all the time we've spent getting from level 1 to 10 we've only been attacked like 2-3 times at night, I'd just like to keep it at that. (EDIT: Oh, and I don't think the assassins can use Dispel Magic themselves, but that was mentioned more as a "those methods aren't foolproof" statement.)

That Keep Watch spell seems pretty cool, but I'll have to check if the source book is allowed.

Symbol of Scrying is snazzy and definitely fits my character, but spending 1,000gp per night seems like a pretty big pill to swallow unless I want to get Fortune Teller (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/fortune-teller) which I'm already starved for feats. Does allow for spamming True Seeing (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/true-seeing) though.

With regards to not needing sleep, there are actually some rules (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/basics-ability-scores/glossary#TOC-Rest) on the subject, which even still are a little incomplete as far as when penalties start applying. Regardless the penalty of fatigue can be overridden by the Paladin casting Restoration to remove it though I don't think we want to use all those slots just to not sleep.

Thanks for all your help! :smallsmile:

[Garktz]

So, you fly up 60 ft up in the air, cast rope trick, get everyone inside and rest there.

Then 2 assassins come up, at night, sucess at spotting a rope in the middle of the night, hanging 60ft up in the air, in a dessert, at a random location.
They deserve to kill you if the manage to do that again.....

Also, levitate only lets you move up and down, does not let you move horizontally, wich means, they have to be right under the rope....
Dunno, its just to weird.


I mean, the 1º time, 2 teamates were sleeping under the rope, but, as long as nobody is sleeping right under it, how are they going to find the rope at all?


You can also use magic aura on the rope so it wont ping as magic, which means, finding via perception, not detect magic.

[Gurifu]

Scrying doesn't tell the Scrier where the target is, it just lets you look at them and their immediate surroundings. The only reliable way I know about to locate somebody is with a massive binary search using hundreds of castings of Augury or a similar "ask the gods a question" magic.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Scrying doesn't tell the Scrier where the target is, it just lets you look at them and their immediate surroundings. The only reliable way I know about to locate somebody is with a massive binary search using hundreds of castings of Augury or a similar "ask the gods a question" magic.

Discern Location can do it easily, but it's high level. There were quite a few divinations that could do it at lower levels in 3.5, but i don't know how many of those exist in PF.

[Grooke]

Mages magnificent mansion can't be breached.

Plane shift is always off target by 5 to 500 miles

Also "Since the place can be entered only through its special portal, outside conditions do not affect the mansion, nor do conditions inside it pass to the plane beyond."


Another argument I read recentyl (and loved) is that the focus required for Plane Shift is:

A small, forked metal rod. The size and metal type dictates to which plane of existence or alternate dimension the spell sends the affected creatures. Forked rods keyed to certain planes or dimensions may be difficult to come by, as decided by the DM.

Good luck finding a rod keyed to a mansion that just appeared.