I don't believe that I'm the only one with this problem

[Jon_Dahl]

A fight with an ooze starts. Casters #1 and #2 spend three rounds casting (greater) invisibility on themselves, followed by Fly and perhaps a Spectral Hand and/or Haste. When the casters start to attack the ooze, the third party member, who happens to be a melee-type character, has already been killed.

This is what happened to a half-orc monk PC on our previous session.

Who here recognized something familiar in this situation?

[BWR]

You mean selfish players wasting rounds on pointless casting to save their own hides at the expense of other players' characters?

Sure.


Did you want advice or did you just need to vent?

[Jon_Dahl]

You mean selfish players wasting rounds on pointless casting to save their own hides at the expense of other players' characters?

Sure.


Did you want advice or did you just need to vent?

I didn't have either on my mind. It's a thread.

[Aotrs Commander]

Is it bad that I've never been in that position?



I mean, for one, my average party size being about seven means there's never the melee guy on his own, which, the couple of times we HAVE had a very small party, the difference is very marked. But as a rule, our casters tend more to be starting with offence or party buffs.

Actually, I did have a caster who did a lot of buffs before attacking when we had that really small party. Well, almostg, he was a Psychic Warrior and he wa the tank. So he's stand there going "Force Screen. Animal Affinity. Prevenom. Dissolving Weapon. Offensive Precognition." and then WHAM, but while he was doing that with his stupid-good AC, he was at least attracting the fire...!

[Kayblis]

It's a common problem with people that frequent forums but don't have much play experience. You read about all those amazing buffs you can have and want to cast them all during play without adapting at all, so the result is usually underwhelming. There's no standard solution to the problem of players not knowing how to play as a team. You can go over the situation with them and estabilish what created the fail state of a party member's death, or show them how buffung themselves has no actual impact in the battle if you take most of the battle to buff.

I've ran into similar problems, and convincing the caster that he's actually hurting the team by being selfish tends to improve things to some extent. It won't magically(heh) make him a team player or teach him to adapt, but it's a step in the right direction. Let experience guide him from then on.

[Icarium]

There's not much to discuss tbh..

Thou hast a player problem, talkie talkie..

[Kelb_Panthera]

Some people, even those who come from MMOs, have trouble adapting to the more team-oriented nature of D&D. The fact that low-level tends to be high-lethality isn't super helpful there either. Getting them to shift gears to "save the guy being eaten" coming before "buff up to smash face" can take a bit of time.

[MisterKaws]

Get an Arcane Ooze instead and maybe make it half-dragon for good measure. Those will absolutely ignore physical fighters in favor of casters, and they're an absolute nightmare to fight as a wizard.

[noob]

A fight with an ooze starts. Casters #1 and #2 spend three rounds casting (greater) invisibility on themselves, followed by Fly and perhaps a Spectral Hand and/or Haste. When the casters start to attack the ooze, the third party member, who happens to be a melee-type character, has already been killed.

This is what happened to a half-orc monk PC on our previous session.

Who here recognized something familiar in this situation?

Those casters used the wrong casting order.
It should have been haste then flee with the fighter and cast fly on everyone then afterwards slowly kill the ooze from the air.
Fighters should not attack in melee oozes that can grapple them forever.

[Anymage]

Greater invisibility is a fourth level spell. Heavy buffing in the early rounds of combat will chew through spell slots quickly unless you're high level and/or the DM is fixated on one encounter per day. Both of which heavily favor casters.

Also, if the rest of the party vanishes on the first round, you're not unreasonable to do one of the few things monks are good at. You have good saves and a boosted movement speed. Run.

[ekarney]

As ashamed as I am to say it, I'm currently playing a character similar to those two casters.
I do have some justification however, we're in a politics heavy campaign and my Wu Jen is the face, so a lot of my spells prepared end up being not very combat focused, so the best I can do is lob a hold person and hope it works before running off.

[Jon_Dahl]

Greater invisibility is a fourth level spell. Heavy buffing in the early rounds of combat will chew through spell slots quickly unless you're high level and/or the DM is fixated on one encounter per day. Both of which heavily favor casters.

Also, if the rest of the party vanishes on the first round, you're not unreasonable to do one of the few things monks are good at. You have good saves and a boosted movement speed. Run.

It was marsh terrain: everyone was in deep bog and there was plenty of undergrowth. The ooze, a Corrupture, swam while the monk was 'running'. The ooze was able to catch the 10th-level monk easily.

[Fizban]

I've only had two types of serious caster characters: those run by reasonable team-playing optimizers, and filler NPCs run by the same players. Your caster players seem to be doing the same thing they've been doing for, what, is it years now? Since you first started sharing the events and asking for advice. They buff first, run second, and smash. . . do they ever smash?

Encounter analysis: an amphibious creature in a bog is on favorable terrain, but not usually so favorable as to be unusual Hilariously the Corrupture, as with almost all oozes, has blindisght. So the casters' Invisibility was extra pointless.

However, it should also be noted that the Corrupture is an MM4 ooze, rather than MM1, and is pretty much perfectly set up to annihilate a monk. It has DR 5/-, and deals 2d6 backlash to people who hit it with fists or natural weapons. I'll bet your Monk was using fists because Monk, and did not carry an enhanced quarterstaff and the Power Attack feat, so they're dealing squat damage while probably having low AC (because Monk) and taking automatic damage every turn they attack.. The response should be to play it smart and not engage, but they've got no way to know how outlcassed they are until they're in melee, at which point the bog prevents them from running. . .

The combination of a melee foe the Monk could not possibly beat, terrain that made it impossible for the monk to escape, and the other two players who you know from experience do not actually play as a team in the slightest, means that in this instance you pretty much set the monk up to die.

The tactic I would have advised to force the other PCs to participate would be making use of the Corrupture's trample. If they were all trudging through a bog, they should have been quite close to each other. Trample is effectively a huge AoE attack which can't miss and deals the same damage as its direct melee attack but to multiple people, and the casters' Invisibility is useless.

I'd be interested to know what range the encounter began at- standard detection range for marsh terrain is minimum 60', average 210', and a Corrupture has no Hide skill. So unless they got very unlucky or this was specially prepared, they should have had time to attack it from range. The casters buffed themselves in terror first instead of attacking, but the Monk might not have even been in range by the time they finished, if starting from that distance.

[SpicyBoi_Nezu]

I have had a similar problem, but this was caused more by a completely separate issue that I will rant about in a different thread.
Shapeshifter Druid with the ability to fly (Grapples and bites)
Typical Bard armed with a flaming long-sword
Cleric of pelor with the healing and travel domains
Ninja with the ability to turn invisible
Duskblade with all attack spells (me)
What happened was, we were at the bottom of the stairs (Except for my character, who was guarding the top of the stairs by the entrance we took) and at the bottom of the stairs, we were trying to open a locked door. The locked door opens from the inside, and 3 enemies walk out, they are now face to face with the party (except me). Not to mention that both the druid and cleric are prone, lying on the ground at the bottom of the stairs (Which we are not able to walk up due to the fact that they immediately drop us in response to weight). The enemies are NPCs with 12 character levels, we are a party in a "non-combat-based" campaign at the whopping level of 6. They are confused at first and allow us to get up, they were not expecting visitors. The cleric grabs the bard, and dimension doors to the edge of the top of the stairs (Line of sight up the stairs). The ninja used his 1/day shortened range teleport to teleport to the edge of the forest that is immediately outside the building. Druid shifts to flying form and begins to fly up the stairs. Not a word was spoken. I take a glance down the stairs as my turn. Round 1 over. Round 2 begins, the Cleric teleports back to our hideout (forgot about that in the heat of the moment), the druid flies around 120 ft, reaching the edge of the forest, ninja turns invisible and runs off into the forest. My character draws his weapon, he understands that he has no chance at escaping, and decides to die an honorable death, believing that he would distract the enemies long enough to allow the party to escape. Not a word was spoken. One of the enemies, a character capable of drawing and throwing gargantuan greatswords, applying sneak attack damage as the weapon seems to dissapear from his hands and appear in my character's chest. 48 damage, 12 health left. My character swings his sword, channeling shocking grasp, a total of around 10d6, barely a scratch. 2nd sword hits, -15 health.

The party left my character to die, without saying a word to him.

[denthor]

A fight with an ooze starts. Casters #1 and #2 spend three rounds casting (greater) invisibility on themselves, followed by Fly and perhaps a Spectral Hand and/or Haste. When the casters start to attack the ooze, the third party member, who happens to be a melee-type character, has already been killed.

This is what happened to a half-orc monk PC on our previous session.

Who here recognized something familiar in this situation?


I would cast spectral hand first round attack second round. Or first round ray of enfeebment. My party hated it at low levels. Took me two rounds to engage. Or I would miss with my attack roll. The monk needs to be smarter about his timing. Waiting is not a bad thing.

[Jon_Dahl]

I'd be interested to know what range the encounter began at- standard detection range for marsh terrain is minimum 60', average 210', and a Corrupture has no Hide skill. So unless they got very unlucky or this was specially prepared, they should have had time to attack it from range. The casters buffed themselves in terror first instead of attacking, but the Monk might not have even been in range by the time they finished, if starting from that distance.

It was 'crouching' in the water. This was part its hunting instinct: duck and cover. They saw marshy stuff in marsh terrain. They didn't have Knowledge (Dungeoneering), so they were oblivious of the danger. Knowledge skills are highly useful in my games. If you don't have have any ranks in Dungeoneering, you are easily duped by oozes and think that they are just terrain features (where applicable).

[Quertus]

Looks like this encounter is likely to have trained you players that self-buffing is the correct answer.

Simple reason: the guy who stood and fought dies; the buffers lived. Clearly, the buffers made the correct choice.

More complex answer: Wizards get 5 HP per 2 levels. With a decent Con, that might be 45 HP at 10th. Monks get 9 HP per 2 levels. With only a slight nod to Con, they've got maybe 60 HP. And, continuing with guesses as to the optimization level at the table, the Wizards are unlikely to have better defenses (AC, miss chance, grapple bonus) than the Monk (pre buffs)

This beastie took the Monk out while the Wizards were buffing. So, 3 rounds. Meaning at least 20 damage per round. Meaning it could have dropped the Wizards in 2 rounds - or 1, on a lucky crit. That does not encourage the Wizards to stand and fight.

No, I can easily see how the Wizards' takeaway from this could be, "what we did was right - the Monk needs to get better at buffing/fleeing".

And the Wizards wouldn't be wrong to think that - if the Monk had quaffed a potion of Flight, that would have prevented their death.

So, clearly, the party needs to get together, and devise some working tactics. Or not. The Monk can keep dieing, and that's fine.

But, if they do decide to formulate a better plan, how can you make "stand and fight" seem a valid tactic, given this encounter?

Well, first, make encounters where buffing is obviously the optimal strategy. You've got Wizards who want to buff - let them buff. Don't be the bad, punitive GM - let them have their fun, and specifically design plenty of encounters where that's obviously the correct answer.

Next, design encounters where that's obviously the incorrect answer: the villain clearly wants to get away; the party has a surprise round, after which the hostages will be sacrificed; the Monk has been grappled by a wounded ooze, and will dissolve in 3 rounds unless the Wizards kill it first. Telegraph the necessity for fast action.

But let's say that you don't want to hand-hold the players by handcrafting the encounters to the party's tactics. I can respect that. So I'm going to give you the same advice I gave to an RSoP who got to shine (heh) while the self-buffing Psion was more of a dullard (heh), died, and the party wanted him to contribute more: give the Wizards the power to persist their buffs. So, hand them both free metamagic rods of Persist spell. Then, they can have their buffs, buff the Monk, and still take useful offensive actions in combat.

Alternately, have the god of faerie mothers come down, and offer to turn the whole party into fairies / pixies. No need to spend time casting Flight and Invisibility when the whole party already has both naturally. :smallwink:

[16bearswutIdo]

Why would the wizards cast GI, Fly, AND Spectral Hand/Haste for a simple Ooze fight? They spent three in-combat rounds buffing just themselves and let their frontline die.

Your wizards be selfish, yo

[Zanos]

I think the buffs are excessive. Do you need invisibility and flight against a creature beating on some guy in melee? Just flight and some offensive spells would have been fine, and at level 10 I'd suggest they used overland flight which lasts all day.

That said the monk should have been able to get away from an ooze even on difficult terrain and shouldn't charge in unsupported. A human monk 10 has a base land speed of 60.

[Gnaeus]

Wizard 10, Wizard 10, Monk 10?

You have a lot of problems.

1. The spells they cast are not well suited to this combat. Greater Invisibility? Maybe with a rogue v something non ooze. Where’s the Polymorph?

2. Why is the monk unsupported in the front? No dominated allies? Bound outsiders? Undead? Summons? Has this group ever discussed combat tactics?

3. Monk. It’s got to be said. Yes, this sounds like an extra bad fight for him. But monks are kinda rubbish at a lot of things and are not great tanks. Playing with this kind of power imbalance requires, at least, a discussion with the casters so they know monk needs regular significant support. Even if he weren’t effectively soloing encounters I would expect routine monk death without team play. Round 1 should virtually always be Control the monster or buff the monk.

[Troacctid]

Okay, but seriously, who casts greater invisibility against an ooze? Literally EVERY ooze has blindsight! It's an ooze trait! Are your players also casting charm monster on vermin and enervation on undead? Maybe following it up with a fireball against a fire elemental?

[Jon_Dahl]

Okay, but seriously, who casts greater invisibility against an ooze? Literally EVERY ooze has blindsight! It's an ooze trait! Are your players also casting charm monster on vermin and enervation on undead? Maybe following it up with a fireball against a fire elemental?

Well, one of their (i.e. the flying casters') first attacks was to cast Fear on the ooze.

[Gnaeus]

Do they have knowledges, these wizards? Since it sounds like a pretty low skill group, maybe just roll their knowledge checks at start of each fight so that they can do stuff?

Fear is not a bad control/save the monk option but for mindless.

[Fizban]

It was 'crouching' in the water. This was part its hunting instinct: duck and cover. They saw marshy stuff in marsh terrain. They didn't have Knowledge (Dungeoneering), so they were oblivious of the danger. Knowledge skills are highly useful in my games. If you don't have have any ranks in Dungeoneering, you are easily duped by oozes and think that they are just terrain features (where applicable).
No such "hunting instinct" is listed in the strategies and tactics entry for the monster. It does give a single-minded lock-on to the first creature is sees, but I would have ignored this to make a more interesting encounter. Adding the ability to hide to a monster that doesn't have it is a clear increase in difficulty.

That said the monk should have been able to get away from an ooze even on difficult terrain and shouldn't charge in unsupported. A human monk 10 has a base land speed of 60.
Deep bogs and heavy undergrowth cost 4x, and it seems like the DM was basically just saying all PC movement was at that speed rather than making a square by square map. Which would have had the Corrupture slowed by some of the undergrowth and maybe given the monk a zig-zag that could have gome some distance by double moving through gaps in the bushes. Both make running impossible, so the monk had speed 15' vs the Corrupture's 20'. Even if they'd been able to make 25' of distance each round, they'd need to do so for three rounds and then maintain it in order to overcome the 10' reach (after originally closing to adjacent to use their own attacks). Cover from the bog is another reason trample would have been more effective.

[Chaos Jackal]

Yeah, the buffing is excessive. But there's so many things wrong with this it's just not a big deal.

For one, two casters and a monk. Mhm...

But also, it would appear that at least one of said casters tried to help (via Fear). Issue is, him and the other two just followed an outright bad course of action. Greater Invisibility? The monk likely punching an ooze of all things? Fear, again, on an ooze? Forget knowledge checks, what kind of person tries to scare an ooze? It's a pile of slime, literally.

The problem seems to lie in terrible decisions all around, rather than selfishness of the spellcasters.

[False God]

Some people, even those who come from MMOs, have trouble adapting to the more team-oriented nature of D&D. The fact that low-level tends to be high-lethality isn't super helpful there either. Getting them to shift gears to "save the guy being eaten" coming before "buff up to smash face" can take a bit of time.

Honestly this is bad form even in an MMO. Your "that one melee guy" is usually the tank, and if the tank eats it in a dungeon, the monsters are gonna eat you next. "Buffing up" before a boss fight usually means doing so before any enemies have been aggroed.

It's just inefficient gameplay. When the enemies are aggroed, it's time to smash face. Whatever you were doing before or wanted to do before the fight? Right out the window.

----------

@OP: Actually I've never had this problem. Typically my non-tanky-payers first thoughts are "buff the tank" or "blast the baddies". I don't see a whole lot of self-buffing. Sometimes "polymorph into big ol' monster", but not really "cast a bunch of time eating stuff to protect myself". Maybe one round if they do that? And it's usually some kind of group buff.

[Zanos]

Okay, but seriously, who casts greater invisibility against an ooze? Literally EVERY ooze has blindsight! It's an ooze trait! Are your players also casting charm monster on vermin and enervation on undead? Maybe following it up with a fireball against a fire elemental?
Yeah, buffing is fine. I would never engage an ooze in a bog as a squishy character on foot. But once you're flying...it only has a melee attack. Why are you bothering to be invisible and using spectral hand while your buddy dies?


Deep bogs and heavy undergrowth cost 4x, and it seems like the DM was basically just saying all PC movement was at that speed rather than making a square by square map. Which would have had the Corrupture slowed by some of the undergrowth and maybe given the monk a zig-zag that could have gome some distance by double moving through gaps in the bushes. Both make running impossible, so the monk had speed 15' vs the Corrupture's 20'. Even if they'd been able to make 25' of distance each round, they'd need to do so for three rounds and then maintain it in order to overcome the 10' reach (after originally closing to adjacent to use their own attacks). Cover from the bog is another reason trample would have been more effective.
Did OP arbitrarily drop them in the bog? I mean, I would expect PCs to have some solution to walking through a waist high 4x movement cost swamp that wasn't to just deal with it.

[noob]

So you mean your players walks in the bog instead of using varied way to progressively dessicate or unswamp the swamp?

[Jon_Dahl]

Did OP arbitrarily drop them in the bog? I mean, I would expect PCs to have some solution to walking through a waist high 4x movement cost swamp that wasn't to just deal with it.

They entered there of their own volition.

[NNescio]

Why would the wizards cast GI, Fly, AND Spectral Hand/Haste for a simple Ooze fight? They spent three in-combat rounds buffing just themselves and let their frontline die.

Your wizards be selfish, yo



Okay, but seriously, who casts greater invisibility against an ooze? Literally EVERY ooze has blindsight! It's an ooze trait! Are your players also casting charm monster on vermin and enervation on undead? Maybe following it up with a fireball against a fire elemental?

While a Corrupture is very obviously a 'slime' ooze creature (just take a look at its picture on MM IV p.37), in a swamplike environment with mud and rotting vegetation clinging to it is possible to mistake it for a plant creature (the Shambling Mound, in particular) or some other swamp nasty. Granted, it's not very... likely to make this mistake up-close (it's quite clearly an amorphous liquidlike creature that isn't made out of plants, even with zero ranks in Dungeoneering), and the jig is up anyway the moment you see the acid damage caused by its outer membrane 'sheath' (or the acid burst), but if the DM isn't being clear with the descriptions (and/or if panicking players aren't paying attention) it is quite probable for players to misidentify the creature type and use spells that are completely ineffective.

More so since the Corrupture is acting as an ambush predator in an a very 'un-oozelike' way. There are some oozes that act like this, but those usually have Disguise/Hide bonuses and are explicitly described as acting that way. The Corrupture isn't. But the DM ran it like a Shambling Mound, so it wouldn't be entirely out of place for the players to misidentify it as one.

So, what could have happened here is that the Wizzes panicked and cast Greater Invisibility when attacked by a previously 'unseen' creature (likely suspecting more unseen enemies in the background), then got hit by trample or acid burst so they cast Fly to move away, try to use Fear to CC the 'creature' but it didn't work, so they had to resort to damaging spells then realized that touching the 'creature' means they eat acid damage and that most of their damaging spells require touch so they went with Spectral Hand.

All horribly suboptimal options but I can see it happening in an unoptimized group with players who are not intimately familiar with the Wizard spell list.

(As an aside, most usual Wizard 'take-all-comers' loadouts are ill-equipped to deal with oozes in a swamplike environment. Other than Polymorph/Summon Monster X and a couple other multi-option spells that let you pick something tailored for the encounter, but those require a certain degree of system mastery and book-diving. And for less optimized groups, even the MM might count as book-diving.)

Though the Wizards really, really, should have tailored their spell selection (from core: Overland Flight/Phantom Steed, Transmute Mud to Rock, Teleport, Stinking Cloud, Solid Fog) since it was their choice to enter the swamp in the first place. Wizards don't just squelch through bogs (and get mud all over their feet and robes) if they can help it.

(And maybe use Planar Binding/necromancy or other minionmancy options since they were obviously an under-strength party.)

--

@OP: Out of curiosity, what happened to the Wizards' 5th level spell slots? Did they blow it on a previous encounter or challenge, or are they enchanters/illusionists who prepped mind-affecting spells on those slots?

[Eldariel]

Jon, I'm pretty sure your long sequence of threads has already established this: your players are just a tad special. They make random characters and roleplay them all as loners and repeatedly die and have zero concept of the system and the relative value of its mechanical options. The most interesting part is that they don't seem to learn even after a hundred character deaths.

[NNescio]

Jon, I'm pretty sure your long sequence of threads has already established this: your players are just a tad special. They make random characters and roleplay them all as loners and repeatedly die and have zero concept of the system and the relative value of its mechanical options. The most interesting part is that they don't seem to learn even after a hundred character deaths.

Wait, they are that bad? Okay, I rescind my 'excuses'. Maybe they are YOLO sort who would try to use Inflict spells on hostile undead after all, obvious DM telegraphs and setting/mechanical information be damned.

[Jon_Dahl]

--

@OP: Out of curiosity, what happened to the Wizards' 5th level spell slots? Did they blow it on a previous encounter or challenge, or are they enchanters/illusionists who prepped mind-affecting spells on those slots?

I'm not sure. I guess he usually has Cloudkill/Baleful Polymorph/Teleport. I'm guessing that he had one Teleport prepared. One possibility is that he had used his 5th-level spell earlier that day, because wanted to cast Permanency.

[Fizban]

Granted, it's not very... likely to make this mistake up-close (it's very obviously an amorphous liquidlike creature that isn't made out of plants, even with zero ranks in Dungeoneering), and the jig is up anyway the moment you see the acid damage caused by its outer membrane 'sheath' (or the acid burst)
The given italic text description (and one should always read these, as the art does not always match and can sometimes conflict with the actual stats), says "A hideous avalanche of flesh rolls down upon you, undulating like a wave of skin. Warts full of thick yellow liquid swell up continually across its mass, bursting with loud pops and spraying corrosive fluids into the air." Both qualities are made immediately obvious.

and the jig is up anyway the moment you see the acid damage caused by its outer membrane 'sheath' (or the acid burst), but if the DM isn't being clear with the descriptions (and/or if panicking players aren't paying attention) it is quite probable for players to misidentify the creature type and use spells that are completely ineffective.
As to that, well John_Dahl's Red Hand of Doom campaign journal (there's a link in their sig), is the only one I've ever seen where the party failed. On the one hand, I did indeed take them to task for not being clear and giving no indication of what the campaign was about or what the PCs should do. On the other hand, even on occasions when their players do have all the information, they still do. . . this, and I eventually switched sides and decided they had no hope regardless. John_Dahl's stories are fascinating, and remarkably consistent.

(As an aside, most usual Wizard 'take-all-comers' loadouts are ill-equipped to deal with oozes in a swamplike environment. Other than Polymorph/Summon Monster X and a couple other multi-option spells that let you pick something tailored for the encounter, but those require a certain degree of system mastery and book-diving. And for less optimized groups, even the MM might count as book-diving.)
Oddly enough, a bog is just about the only place Freezing Sphere might be useful, I'll keep that in mind as a trick next time I'm thinking about using that spell (one of the few with true multiple effects). At 6th level it wouldn't have helped here though, nor against an ooze.

[denthor]

Here's an idea. Every time I read your post it is a high level.

It will help.

1st level characters add NPC for what ever they do not create and a ranger both 4th. Both of which only come into battle after the party attempts. When the party is a3rd they leave and 2nd levels come in to fill gaps.

It always seems they are high level in this case. 6th level slots indicates 11th level or 12th.

Your players need to learn how to play(the game and together). Start slow investigation and report. 1 round combats at 1st would do this.

Your players are way over their heads if they complain we want to be stronger. Tell them they must earn it.

Someone else's story.

A bunch of were the best D&D players ever! Convinced a DM to run a high level game the DM put in 4 fireworms from the plane of fire. These best players rained fire on the worms that had 10 hit points total each. They were 15 level and died. Sounds like your players.

The players admitted after that they had never played a single game from 1st up always 10th and over. They did not know how to play.

[Jon_Dahl]

And for the record, the corrupture didn't ambush the PCs. It was just resting and saving its energy in a comfortable environment. Its body temperature and moisture levels were optimal when it was almost completely submerged in a deep bog during fresh and sunny spring days. Due its senses, it wasn't able to react before the PCs were with 60 ft. It immediately used its surprise round on 'getting up' when the PCs got within 60 ft. At that point, I gave the full description.

[noob]

And for the record, the corrupture didn't ambush the PCs. It was just resting and saving its energy in a comfortable environment. Its body temperature and moisture levels were optimal when it was almost completely submerged in a deep bog during fresh and sunny spring day. Due its senses, it wasn't able to react before the PCs were with 60 ft. It immediately used its surprise round on 'getting up' when the PCs got within 60 ft. At that point, I gave the full description.

precisely the kind of situation where mud to stone is super efficient.(if they have fifth level spells or scrolls of the most awesome spells but I guess they have neither)

[NNescio]

And for the record, the corrupture didn't ambush the PCs. It was just resting and saving its energy in a comfortable environment. Its body temperature and moisture levels were optimal when it was almost completely submerged in a deep bog during fresh and sunny spring day. Due its senses, it wasn't able to react before the PCs were with 60 ft. It immediately used its surprise round on 'getting up' when the PCs got within 60 ft. At that point, I gave the full description.

I sincerely apologize for the presumption (read too much into "hunting"). Yeah, sounds like you are running the Corrupture exactly as written, and you provided all the relevant information that a player (and the character) would need.


I'm not sure. I guess he usually has Cloudkill/Baleful Polymorph/Teleport. I'm guessing that he had one Teleport prepared. One possibility is that he had used his 5th-level spell earlier that day, because wanted to cast Permanency.

They probably should have two 5th slots (assuming both Wiz 10 or equivalent with PrCs), and likely a bonus 5th on top if they have at least INT 20.

Though by this point (judging from what other posters have said of your players) I wouldn't be surprised if they left those slots open, or were preparing something else that they didn't want to use. Would be ironic if it were Teleport because they could have just used it to save the Monk.

Oddly, they seem to have a decent(ish) idea on what general-purpose spells to pick (as spells known), but not when to use them. Huh. (Almost like they skimmed a guide or something, but this is pure speculation on my part.)

Also strange that one of the Wizards thought it would be a good idea to blow a slot on Permanency at the start of an adventuring day. Out of curiosity (again), what was the Permanency'd spell? See Invisibility?


precisely the kind of situation where mud to stone is super efficient.(if they have fifth level spells or scrolls of the most awesome spells but I guess they have neither)

They had 5ths but for some inexplicable reason they weren't using any.

[Jon_Dahl]

Also strange that one of the Wizards thought it would be a good idea to blow a slot on Permanency at the start of an adventuring day. Out of curiosity (again), what was the Permanency'd spell? See Invisibility?



Yeah, something important for me to remember. I hope that the player keeps reminding me about it :smallsmile: