Vandin
2008-09-03, 12:25 PM
The group of newbies that I DM for has slowly oozed upwards in levels, recently reaching ECL 13, and I've sort of come to a realization about combat encounters. Namely, casters just aren't fun anymore.
That's kind of wide-reaching, so I'll give some examples of what I see my NPC's options as:
Utility - buffs, teleport, etc. Buffs are, of course, always useful, but at some point they will have to take an active hand in the fight, leading to..
Realistic offense - save or dies/sucks, such as Disintegrate, Feeblemind, Blasphemy, etc.
Realistic defense - a veritable plethora of hugely disabling spells, like Forcecage, Wall of Force/Ice/Stone, Resilient Sphere, Solid Fog, Black Tentacles, Power Word: Stun, etc.
Blasting - Now serving Fireball #312!
In other words, the feeling I get is that my options are either "well, you need to successfully save vs this, or you're out of the fight for 10 rounds/dead" or blasting. The first is obviously not fun, especially when "sitting out a combat" can mean two or so hours of watching, and the second gets tedious eventually.
Realistically, wouldn't a caster spend most of the time using their best spells? Sure, there might be a few scenarios where they wouldn't, perhaps they need to capture the PCs mostly unwounded, or are trying to conserve spells, or just think the PCs too far below them to worry about etc, but that can't happen in every situation.
So..am I missing something? My group really pushed for leveling speedy-like so they could have access to higher level spells and such, but I'm just not seeing how I can keep it fun.
Minor addendum after previewing: One of the things I've considered doing is expanding the fights. So, instead of it being, say, 6 vs 7, it might be 12 vs 7, with lower levels, of course. This will buy me a few levels, but soon the enemy spellcasters will be up in levels again to make it a problem again. Argh!:smallfurious:
That's kind of wide-reaching, so I'll give some examples of what I see my NPC's options as:
Utility - buffs, teleport, etc. Buffs are, of course, always useful, but at some point they will have to take an active hand in the fight, leading to..
Realistic offense - save or dies/sucks, such as Disintegrate, Feeblemind, Blasphemy, etc.
Realistic defense - a veritable plethora of hugely disabling spells, like Forcecage, Wall of Force/Ice/Stone, Resilient Sphere, Solid Fog, Black Tentacles, Power Word: Stun, etc.
Blasting - Now serving Fireball #312!
In other words, the feeling I get is that my options are either "well, you need to successfully save vs this, or you're out of the fight for 10 rounds/dead" or blasting. The first is obviously not fun, especially when "sitting out a combat" can mean two or so hours of watching, and the second gets tedious eventually.
Realistically, wouldn't a caster spend most of the time using their best spells? Sure, there might be a few scenarios where they wouldn't, perhaps they need to capture the PCs mostly unwounded, or are trying to conserve spells, or just think the PCs too far below them to worry about etc, but that can't happen in every situation.
So..am I missing something? My group really pushed for leveling speedy-like so they could have access to higher level spells and such, but I'm just not seeing how I can keep it fun.
Minor addendum after previewing: One of the things I've considered doing is expanding the fights. So, instead of it being, say, 6 vs 7, it might be 12 vs 7, with lower levels, of course. This will buy me a few levels, but soon the enemy spellcasters will be up in levels again to make it a problem again. Argh!:smallfurious: