[3.P] Good budget solutions for defense against Gaze Attacks

[Quiet Wizard]

Howdy, folks.

Our 11th level group is about to head into a campaign sector where the DM is going to have a LOT of monsters/foes that have a wide variety of gaze attacks. This we know from divinations and in-story knowledge we've acquired.

Truth be told, none of us have ever really dealt with numerous, wide-varietied and potent gaze attack monsters ..... so we are looking for some reasonable, budget-conscious gaze-attack defenses. Especially magic items, alchemical items, traits, etc.

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Here's our 3.P 11th level party:

Elf Diviner Wizard (PF)
Tiefling Alchemist/Fighter (PF)
Whisper Gnome Beguiler (3.5)
Human Rogue/Cleric/Black Flame Zealot (3.5)
Human Ardent (3.5)

P.S. We play 3.P using Pathfinder core rules and lots and lots of backported WotC 3.5 material. Also, I'm up for any good 3.5 or PF 3PP material as well. Thank you!

[weckar]

It depends on what the actual budget is, but any way to get a decent blindsense/blindsight/tremorsense basically negates most of all gaze attacks. There are items around to 10k gp mark for each of these, as well as spells and feats if you have those options.

[liquidformat]

Sundark Goggles for I think 10 maybe 20gp gives you +2 save against gazes, there is also a pair in frostburn that I believe does similar.

[weckar]

Ultimately, your beguiler will most likely be useless (Their focus on humanoids can be a pain), and everyone but the Fighter will want to blindfold themselves and focus on AoE.

[Kurald Galain]

Obscuring Mist is a decent counter. Very cheap and not as annoying as a blindfold.

[weckar]

Obscuring Mist is a decent counter. Very cheap and not as annoying as a blindfold.

Nor as effective, though. 50% effectiveness reduction for gaze attack and only 20% at point blank, as opposed to 100% for a blindfold.

[GreatDane]

Crystals of bent sight (MIC 25) cost only 500gp. They're crystals that attach to any shield of at least masterwork quality. They allow you to take the "avert your eyes" option against gaze attacks without suffering any miss chance on attack rolls. My players always pick one up once they've reached the level of discretionary cash where you can keep a bevy of just-in-case items on hand.

[Jack_Simth]

Level, gold budget, metamagic mitigation ability?

[Quiet Wizard]

Thank you all for your help so far! The Sundark Goggles and the Crystal of Bent Sight looks promising so far.

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Re: Jack_Simth .... We are 11th level and each character could probably allocate about 5-6K in GP to a gaze attack solution (we do a lot of pooling of resources).

I would say our metamagic mitigation is about average in regards to optimization. But I'm open to the creative ideas who may have for that.

[RNightstalker]

Blindfold of True Darkness (9,000gp-MIC 75) gives you blindsight out to 30 ft. and immunity to gaze attacks.

[skunk3]

The shield crystal of bent sight is the best option IMO. Pretty much anyone can use a mithril buckler with no proficiency needed. It's such a cheap option it's almost cheesy. Almost.

[weckar]

The shield crystal of bent sight is the best option IMO. Pretty much anyone can use a mithril buckler with no proficiency needed. It's such a cheap option it's almost cheesy. Almost. 50% effectiveness reduction of gaze effect is worse than nullification.

[Jack_Simth]

Thank you all for your help so far! The Sundark Goggles and the Crystal of Bent Sight looks promising so far.

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Re: Jack_Simth .... We are 11th level and each character could probably allocate about 5-6K in GP to a gaze attack solution (we do a lot of pooling of resources).

I would say our metamagic mitigation is about average in regards to optimization. But I'm open to the creative ideas who may have for that.
Does your party have Craft Wondrous item, time (and a little XP to burn, assuming a 3.5 base)? If you can make Blindfolds of True Darkness, you can outfit the entire party with them. Doing it that way would be 4,500 gp (and 360 xp, if a 3.5 base) per person, which is within your listed budget. Crafting requirements are easy (CL 3, See Invisibility, Craft Wondrous Item), but it would take a while (equipping a five person party would take 45 days at standard crafting speeds - 23 days if you have access to the Pathfinder rules for rushing it, less if someone has Cooperative Crafter and/or multiple folks can make them... note that in Pathfinder, you can skip requirements by taking a hit on the Spellcraft DC, if that's your base ... and it looks like EVERYONE is at least a partial caster, so that's actually pretty possible).

[Segev]

The other approach would be to ask what the gaze attacks do. Are they all medusae and bassilisks? Immunity to petrification is all you need. Do they include Bodaks and Catoblepas? Party-wide death ward should prevent those.

Now, yes, immunity to gaze attacks nips all of that in the bud if gaze attacks are the largest common denominator, but dealing with the effect rather than the vector is an option.

[Particle_Man]

For the poor Beguiler maybe invisibility plus an illusion of those made invisible putting the illusion on the opposite side of the monster from the real party. While the monster wastes time gazing at the illusion the party can get in some beats.

[Quiet Wizard]

@Jack .... Thanks for the granular info on CWI and the Blindfolds. We've got some number-crunching to do to see how many of these we can get!

@Segev .... Our DM uses a wide, wide variety of creatures. And he loves using homebrew, 3PP and he likes templating the daylights out of them to keep us from guessing/metagaming. One tip he gave us is that we should be prepared for a 50/50 split in gaze attack saving throws - FORT and WILL. Any other prognosticating is probably pointless for us. (shrug)

@Particle_Man .... Our Beguiler is an amazing player. Her character build deals equally well with undead, constructs, oozes and plants. All typical touch challenges for a Beguiler.

[Segev]

Aside from the blindfold of true sight, then, the suggestion of fog clouds, darkness, or other AoE visual obscurements are valid. All you're trying to do is give yourself Concealment the way the enemies have it when you're blinded: regular blindfolds or fighting with your eyes closed are both inexpensive. Sure, everybody's got miss chances, but EVERYBODY has them, so it's roughly evening out. And, if anybody in your party has blind-fight....

[Thurbane]

Ultimately, your beguiler will most likely be useless (Their focus on humanoids can be a pain), and everyone but the Fighter will want to blindfold themselves and focus on AoE.

Only a fairly small amount of Beguiler spells are limited to humanoid targets...