The Invisible Flying Party Ruins my Game


Advice

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But they still need to see each other,as Espy pointed out.
This was a classic during the old days: we carefully planned the operation, the wizard cast fly & invisibilty, and after a while it dawned; we can´t see each other! Abort!

Asmo

RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8

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I've run games at much higher level than 10, and had a great deal of fun doing it.

One thing you have to do is get used to the fact that you have to use an entire new set of tactics and challenges for high level characters than low level characters.

And you can't waste time worrying about whether the party will be invisible and flying. You just assume that they WILL be invisible and flying. Or teleporting or windwalking or polymorphing or creating pits or whatever, and plan the encounter from there.

You have to adjust to the situation and keep your tactics smart. If the party is invisible and the fight seems pointless--then the enemy should realize that. If the enemy is smart, they're either going to use whatever they have at their disposal to either make the party visible or equalize the turf (become invisible themselves, use smoke items or spells to conceal themselves, etc), or they're going to RUN, because they realize the party is at a significant advantage. And likely when they run, they will head to whereever they can get some potions of see invisibility or dust of appearance so that they'll be ready next time. If they're dumb, like a pack of skeletons, in a way that's even easier. If the skeletons can't see the party, they don't register they're there. So they wander off. And if that wins the party the encounter, that's okay. The party burned resources to get past that fight, that's the point of spending those resources. (And the skeletons can be used in a later attack after the invisibility spell wears off.)

You're also totally allowed to use the same tactics. You don't need to make every enemy a spellcaster, but enemies can certainly have access to disposable magic items that can also make them invisible and fly if they don't have other means of doing so--or likewise other ways of making them concealed and mobile.

Not to mention, by 10th level, items, magic, and monsters that have some means of seeing invisibility and flying as well are not unusual at all. And also creating pits and doing awful things. There's no reason the PCs should have an unusual advantage. And again, you do not need an enemy spellcaster to make these things happen.

Now, I get first of all Sebastian was ranting, so sure Sebastian, get it out of your system, it doesn't really matter what the rest of us say.

And second of all, I get that this happened while running a module. Sometimes module and adventure writers write dumb encounters, where they don't think about the fact that DUH, of course the 10th level party will probably be flying and invisible. And that just plain sucks. And if you run it as written and the party uses an obvious trick to get out of it, you feel like you're screwed. But that's just a matter of GM prep, and again thinking about how you can respond accordingly. You either tweak the encounter, or still respond in a way that makes sense to you, not just what the module dictates.

I will repeat: there is no reason an enemy should stand and fight if it cannot perceive or knows it is outmatched by the enemy.

Dark Archive

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Pit spells are pretty low DC climb checks, remember its a -5 for climbing in a corner (DC25) or -10 (DC20) for being able to touch two opposite walls (requires a large creature or enlarge potion) for a decent ST monster this check is then pretty easy. Thats for Acid pit (which is a higher level pit spell) for the basic create pit its DC20 if your a medium creature or DC15 if your large.

You will have to track round per level spells (or have someone amongst the PCs who you can trust to do it), You will also need to more roughly keep track of min/level buffs.

Grand Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Valantrix1 wrote:
Teleporting back to Sasserine was not near as easy as you make it out to be, considering it's, if I remember correctly, over 3,000 miles from the Isle of Dread to Sasserine. At the point at which you can obtain teleport, that means at least 3 castings of the spell to reach the city. This in itself would require good knowledge of those destinations, otherwise you have an off target arrival. So I don't think it's all that easy to use teleport to travel back to Sasserine.

It's also not difficult. The sea journey to get to the Isle of Dread is about 3000 miles, but the straightline distance from Sasserine to the IoD is about half that. Per the AP, there should be at least one stop the PCs make along the jungle coast. By the time they reach level 9, they should have a mid-point between the IoD and Sasserine that they have "viewed once."

The chances of suffering a teleportation mishap are very small. If you land off-target, you're still within range of the Isle of Dread, which by this point, is a place you're very familiar with. And the more you make the trip, the more familiar you are with the 1 intermediate stop you have to make.

Until you get greater teleport, at which point all the above become moot.

-Skeld

Edit: I've gotten off-topic. Apologies. I'll try not to clutter this thread with more STAP-specific stuff. :D


imo this -> The irony of the encounter is that it was originally placed in a dungeon. The PCs made it all the way to the second to last room, but were pretty torn up by that point. In the last room was the barbarian with only 8 skeletons and his newly acquired artifact sword. The PCs teleported home, rested, and came back.

is where it went wrong. The party got to rest, and then prepare specifically for a combat. They were able to 'nova' on their spells/abilities more than usual, and this threw the balance of the encounter out.

Some possible solutions(in hindsight) : the barbarian could have found/acquired more guards/troops etc. and expected the PCs to return.

You could have told the party that if they left, he would have time to raise hundreds? of skeletons, thus adding a 'time' element and encourage the encounter right away.

The sword could have prevented teleport type magic within a certain radius.

And...sometimes it is ok to let the players benefit from good tactics, but complete the combat with description instead of dice rolling.

Silver Crusade

Like I said (as my barbarian, Mash) earlier in the thread: A barbarian walking around with potions of See Invisible and Fly isn't metagaming. That's just being prepared. I don't carry those around when playing my barbarian because I know I'll be facing invisible or flying enemies. I carry them around just in case I do. This is for a PFS PC who faces different challenges in every adventure. And at least once every 3 or 4 adventures after level 5, I ended up needing one or more of those potions.

I would assume that a mid-high level NPC would be just as well prepared, regardless of their class.


Forgive me if this has already been touched on, but I have to ask:

Aren't undead immune to mind-affecting spells like illusions, and isn't invisibility an illusion?

Dark Archive

You cant have a potion of see invisible in PFS, its a personal range spell, and I would be cautious about creating them as allowable items in a home game either

Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

Definitions of metagame may vary, but I just can't, personally, in good faith as a GM start dropping potions of see invisibility into every bad guy in a module. That's just not my style, and to the extent it causes me self-inflicted pain or fails to solve the problem, consider me to be beyond reason on that particular point. If that's how you play, fine by me, but it's just now something that appeals to me. Once I cross that line, it's only a matter of time before I also put acid resistance potions in there, or potions of levitate to get out of the acid pits, etc.

Plus, much of what I find fun about a module is seeing how the plan survives the encounter with the enemy (in this case, the PC). I try to be as faithful to the module as poissible, and when I get lucky and encounter a pre-existing ability that screws my players over, I take delight in reading the relevant passage to them word for word to show them that I'm not just using GM fiat to make the game challenging.

blope wrote:

imo this -> The irony of the encounter is that it was originally placed in a dungeon. The PCs made it all the way to the second to last room, but were pretty torn up by that point. In the last room was the barbarian with only 8 skeletons and his newly acquired artifact sword. The PCs teleported home, rested, and came back.

is where it went wrong. The party got to rest, and then prepare specifically for a combat. They were able to 'nova' on their spells/abilities more than usual, and this threw the balance of the encounter out.

Some possible solutions(in hindsight) : the barbarian could have found/acquired more guards/troops etc. and expected the PCs to return.

You could have told the party that if they left, he would have time to raise hundreds? of skeletons, thus adding a 'time' element and encourage the encounter right away.

I didn't actually expect the Spanish inquisition this time. The players had used the invisible flying party trick in prior campaigns, but this was the first time it manifested here. I expected that the wizard would use acid pit, the barbarian would laugh it off due to the sword's ability, and the skeletal archers would be able to handle flight. It just wasn't on my radar that they'd all come in flying and invisible.

Plus, part of the reason I moved the barbarian was to allow him to pick up an extra 8 skeletal archers. I wasn't certain the players would immediately hunt him down (they are doing the module in reverse order, and hit this particular encounter location first, so they didn't necessarily know how powerful the sword was), and figured I might be able to bring the barbarian back at a later date with even more skeletons (an option that would've been terminated if he was encountered hanging out in the dungeon).

Oh well, lessons learned all around.

Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

(Also, FWIW, the barbarian didn't stand around and take a pummeling - the PC barbarian went toe to toe with him once they realized that spells weren't going to be effective. The skeletal archers also landed some hits on the spellcasters, and the sorcerer was even driven below zero. I was just sick and tired of the game grinding along with the extra 2-5 rolls required for every single bad guy (17 of them) for every single attack (35 of them per round) and the general flavor that the invisible flying party brings to the game and to future encounters, some of which will be outside and will be against opponents without appropriate resources to counter such tactics.)


And if the party uses these tactics all the time then word might get out and everyone would be carrying around bags of flour or glitterdust and such...


blackbloodtroll wrote:

Hard to fly in dungeons.

Also, Dragons.

None of those tactics are going to defeat a Dragon's Blindsense and flight.

Blindsense just lets the dragon know what 5' square you are in, it does not negate the 50% miss chance for being invisible. It knows the general area you are in but not the exact. Blindsense is not the same as blindsight.


Or casting true seeing, which is only a 5th level spell and should be well within reach of any number of enemies at this level. Many outsiders have it also. For that matter, it would be very reasonable for an enemy cleric to have invisibility purge!

Also note that if the PCs don't have see invisibility then they're likely to be running into each other. Play up the difficulties that this causes.

Quick DM trick: if you have 20 enemies, assume that one of them will roll a 20 and (if they're smart) do something to target the PCs for the others.

And kudos on having the barbarian react to the party instead of waiting there to be killed. I'd probably have tried tracking the party down and attacking them at night like a good barbarian warlord, maybe with the aid of some other shamans of his tribe and/or creatures they might summon...

Oh, and one reason for dungeons: it's harder for invisible flying parties to take you out from a distance there.

And high level flying party versus non-flying n0-archery mooks: "you shoot them all. It wasn't a challenge. You gain no XP."


Banecrow wrote:
blackbloodtroll wrote:

Hard to fly in dungeons.

Also, Dragons.

None of those tactics are going to defeat a Dragon's Blindsense and flight.

Blindsense just lets the dragon know what 5' square you are in, it does not negate the 50% miss chance for being invisible. It knows the general area you are in but not the exact. Blindsense is not the same as blindsight.

True, but he knows where to breathe...


tonyz wrote:

Or casting true seeing, which is only a 5th level spell and should be well within reach of any number of enemies at this level. Many outsiders have it also. For that matter, it would be very reasonable for an enemy cleric to have invisibility purge!

Also note that if the PCs don't have see invisibility then they're likely to be running into each other. Play up the difficulties that this causes.

Quick DM trick: if you have 20 enemies, assume that one of them will roll a 20 and (if they're smart) do something to target the PCs for the others.

And kudos on having the barbarian react to the party instead of waiting there to be killed. I'd probably have tried tracking the party down and attacking them at night like a good barbarian warlord, maybe with the aid of some other shamans of his tribe and/or creatures they might summon...

Oh, and one reason for dungeons: it's harder for invisible flying parties to take you out from a distance there.

And high level flying party versus non-flying n0-archery mooks: "you shoot them all. It wasn't a challenge. You gain no XP."

you still used resources, ammunition, spell slots, and maybe consumables. the usage of those resources to mitigate the challenge does not mean that no resources were used in the fight. XP should still be given anyway. unless the fight was handwaived.


And although I haven't read kingmaker to know how it would be handled, the easiest answer is oops, you left. he got the sword and got away... Even successful tracking attempts might just find the guy's stronghold where more barbarians await, strong well rested and well prepared.

Sovereign Court

A highly regarded expert wrote:
A cleric casting see invisibility on various allies can slow that down, or a suspicious caster using glitterdust or just bags of flour.

See invisibility has a range of personal... The best way is a caster with see invisibility and glitterdust.


Well, since TC won't "metagame", most advices are useless.


You are the GM. You know everything that happens always. You are ALWAYS metagaming. Metagaming is your job, but planning an encounter that circumvents an invisibility/flight strategy isn't even what that it.

It sounds like your main problem if you don't like the omnipresence of magic items that cause powerful effects like invisibility and flight, that it's too "superhero-y". If that's true, there are a number of threads on this forum that address this and provide ways to run lower fantasy games with a consistant power level.

Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

Wrath wrote:
Readied actions are useful in this situation too. That way they fire at the square from which the attack originated as soon as the attack occurs and youve only got to consider the miss chance. Not sure skeletons can do that though, since I've always thought of them as fairly mindless undead.

I need to give a shout out to Vital Strike, which I have recently begun to appreciate when it shows up in stat blocks. It's great for when you only get a single attack due to a held action. The skeletons were smarter than your average skeleton (and your average bear), so they were able to use held actions effectively.

Wrath wrote:
On a side note, is this recent return to pathfinder for you? I thought you'd gone the 4th edition pathway. I find 4th Ed when I play it has none of those issues. Still takes ages to play, but far less one sided and rules intensive. Warhammer role play and dark heresy are the same in that regards as well.

I did spend a good 18 months or so with the Edition that be not named. I agree that it didn't suffer from this particular problem, in large part because it lacked the long duration open effect spells that are in Pathfinder. I am tempted to take a swing at Warhammer from time to time because I remember it as being fairly fast and bloody.

Wrath wrote:

Sigh, seems I've drifted into rambling now. Just letting you know I feel your pain Sebastian, and not sure there's a quick fix I'm afraid.

Cheers

Given the nature of my ramblings, it's not a problem at all. I appreciate the advice and thoughts.

Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

Caderyn wrote:
Pit spells are pretty low DC climb checks, remember its a -5 for climbing in a corner (DC25) or -10 (DC20) for being able to touch two opposite walls (requires a large creature or enlarge potion) for a decent ST monster this check is then pretty easy. Thats for Acid pit (which is a higher level pit spell) for the basic create pit its DC20 if your a medium creature or DC15 if your large.

This is tremendously helpful - thank you! That 5 point bump on the DC will make a huge difference for a lot of bad guys and the 10 point bump will do a lot to make a difference for the bigger guys. The party trapped an iron golem in an acid pit, and I ultimately gave up on trying to have him climb out because he needed (IIRC) a 19 or 20 to succeed. If I'd had it brace against walls, it likely would've made it out.

Caderyn wrote:
You will have to track round per level spells (or have someone amongst the PCs who you can trust to do it), You will also need to more roughly keep track of min/level buffs.

I revisited the question with the player of the sorcerer and he did the walk through of rounds and it worked out.

On the bright side, I'm happy that Fly is no longer 10 min/level as in 3.5.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

Fromper wrote:
Like I said (as my barbarian, Mash) earlier in the thread: A barbarian walking around with potions of See Invisible and Fly isn't metagaming. That's just being prepared.

Especially if said barbarian is himself a level 10+ character. That means he's been around long enough to see and survive a few tricks like flying invisible adventurers. Or done said tricks himself.


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A few things.

1) if the outcome of a battle is obvious after people have expended a bunch of resources and all that remains is a lot of rounds of very similar dice rolling it is completely legit as a DM to handwave and say "you win after ..." and declare the cost of that victory (i.e. estimate damage or count up what folks have been casting/shooting each round) The point of the game is to have fun - if the tactics are fun keep at them - but if they become a slog and everyone DM & Players alike are clearly bored just wave your hands and declare what happens. This won't please everyone all the time - and you shouldn't do it all the time - but if you do it to keep the story moving forward and avoid time sinks I suspect your players will be very pleased (and you may progress more rapidly through the AP). I left a group a while ago which was playing through some modules in no small part because it took us far far too many play sessions to finish the single module (we rarely had more than one combat in a play session since everything seemed to take far too long)

2) At high levels you will have a LOT of buffs and the like to track. I would encourage your group to create a stand process to track buffs - the Gamemastery Buff deck is a decent starting point (but isn't perfect) - Notecards or table tents for each buff are a perfectly good option as well. Make sure to note when the buffs were cast and when they end - and then be sure to track rounds of combat. Make it a mutual responsibility to track all buffs and effects - they are a crucial part of the game but all to often it is easy to forget durations.

3) 3D combat can be hairy. One fairly simple "hack" I use in my own games as a DM or as a player is to require everything that is flying to have a die next to the mini which indicates height (I track it in 5' increments ) so you can scan the table quickly and see how high up you are, how high up other creatures are and it helps greatly with maneuvers. Tracking everything around a 3D encounter can be tricky - hovering, fly checks, banking, ascending/descending etc so don't get too caught up in every minute detail - but focus on the big stuff - make flight an advantage for those using it - but also make it a cost (for example it is very very hard to pull off a Full Attack when flying if you can't easily hover and/or don't have feats that are specifically Fly specific (fly by attack etc). This means that the flying melee types may have challenges.

(my high level cleric loves Air Walk as a way around the challenges of flying - if you can just walk on the air you can easily do things like charge on the air or stand on the air and full attack... great to cast on melee types and then see the flying monsters be very unhappy)

In terms of giving players a challenge it is also worth knowing how your party plays and tailoring encounters a bit toward them - if they tend to have a 5 minute adventuring day then consider linking encounters (in the wilderness a big battle for example might attract other predators or scavengers looking to pick over the remains of one side or the other, in a dungeon if a battle is raging it may attract attention from other inhabitants etc). Some of the most challenging adventures I've run as a DM for players have been where one encounter ran into the next resulting in 15-20+ round encounters that definitely tested the party - but not unfairly (since in that case it was their own fault for opening up closed doors and splitting the party)

It also ins't the worst thing if your players enjoy using all of their abilities for the 5 minute adventuring day to happen a few times - but make the world react to this - if they keep teleporting away after one encounter then show consequences when they return (another party came in after them and gathered up the loot in the rooms just beyond that were now ungaurded or other monsters came in to settle down in the power vacuum created in the wake of the party etc. There are also specific traps and monsters (like Haunts) that specifically do reset after some period of time. Other monsters/NPC's might have observed the battle (scrying for example) or gone through the wreckage of the battle and adjusted their own plans and preparations accordingly. In short show your players the downsides of always retreating/resting between encounters and let them judge when to continue doing that. This doesn't always require forcing their hand via a ticking time bomb type scenario.

The contrast to the 5 minute adventuring day however is equally frustrating to players and GMs alike. In a recent PFS game the party cleric and wizard (both playing pregens at 7th level since they were relatively new to PFS players) kept saving their powerful spells and buffs for whatever was next - leaving the rest of the party at real risk w/o the buffs and healing those characters would typically offer to a 5-7 level party. Sure it was good they still had resources to spare - but it certainly extended some of the encounters and made the whole process longer and harder than it had to be. If some players are using every trick they have - and others are holding back it won't be a lot of fun for either group.


Invisibility
Fly
Teleport
Scrying
Bindings

All of these spells ultimately change the entire way the game is played. If you prefer low level games just do e6 with a glacially slow advancement rates.

Adjusting to the effects of new spells and abilities is definitely a challenge but it has some rewards as well. I think the main thing is that you definitely have to change your expectations.


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Unless you sit down and have a “talk” with your players I don’t think it’s likely that they’ll stop using a tactic that has been successful for them. So you probably will have to do a little tailoring. Even then there are a few strategies that you might want to employ.

Beyond not being able to see each other, I don’t suppose anyone in the party has bothered to invest in the fly skill. So when you slap down that Blade Barrier right in their faces remind then they have to make a DC 15 fly check if they want turn more than 45 degrees or come to a dead stop.

Hitting them with spells such as Gust of Wind, Wind Wall, Control Wind and so on should at least in theory be more effective versus flying opponents. Telekinesis can force mid-air collisions. Depending on how you rule it, mid-air trips can send them plummeting to the ground.

If they insist on always buffing up before a fight, you can trick them into wasting spells on what looks tough but turns out to be easy or non-encounters.

Finally, if all else fails and you want to be really cruel, you can pull the same Invisible Flying Party trick on them.


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Heck I would just start using it on them.

I once had an invisible drow with spider climb ride on the underneath of a players flying carpet sneak attacking his buddies, was kinda fun.


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I disagree with the description of higher levels as being like a superhero game. I liken it to some sort of fantasy version of black ops. Substituting magic for technology, it seems like parties at that level are more like a fantasy SEAL Team trying to slip into a bad guy's lair with a wide array of cutting-edge magical spells and devices and a compact but lethal arsenal of the latest magical weaponry intent on causing as much death and destruction as they can (except the treasure, of course). They often seem to prefer to try to catch the bad guy unaware (literally asleep or in the bath, if at all possible), substituting scry-buff-teleport for spy satellites and stealth choppers to conduct surprise raids. They try to stay hidden as as much as possible and utilize brutally effective tactics to keep the enemy off guard and control the battlefield (aided by their array of magical tricks, of course). They never EVER give the bad guys a fair fight if they can possibly avoid it. (And the bad guys don't tend to survive to become recurring villains like they do with superheros). I am not making a judgement call on anyone's play style here, just observing how games at that level seem to play out to me.

Dark Archive

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Sebastian wrote:

I played Pathfinder last night with a party of three/four characters - an 11th level sorcerer, his cleric companion (~8th level?), a 10th level barbarian, and a 10th level fighter/rogue. They were tracking a 13th level barbarian who'd managed to raise 16 skeletal warriors using a magical artifact sword. The players are smart, so they broke out the old Invisible Flying Party chestnut - everyone in the group was suited up with Greater Invisibility and Fly. Here's how combat went:

Me: The skeleton archers attack!
*roll Perception check*
*pause to discuss whether Perception check is passive or active, try to determine modifiers to Perception check, ultimately conclude that the DC to find the location of an invisible opponent is DC 40, but with a -20 to the DC because the person is in combat*
*roll miss chance twice for every skeleton (two iterative attacks)*
*roll attack and damage for each attack that goes through*
*remind targets to make Fly checks*
*targets make Fly checks*

And so on.

After two hours of grinding combat, the party won the battle, but also defeated my desire to ever run a game in which the party gets to 10th level.

I'm not sure I have a point, except to say how much I hate the invisible flying party and high level play generally. Any encounter with an opponent without a ranged attack or ability to fly, might as well read "give PCs xp, don't bother rolling dice." (This applies even in dungeons because the sorcerer has a spell to create a pit beneath a foe, trapping them and removing them from combat unless they have a ranged attack, a fly or climb speed, or awesome climb skill).

Again, I don't really have a point to all of this, I just wanted to whine.

I have run several campaigns from 1-18th level, and so I can tell you with some certainty that you need to expect this to happen as smart player's get access to more and more powerful magics. If the players know the spells better than you, they are going to own you until you get a better grip of what tactics/magic counters what. Yes, I know its frustrating, but sometimes its the best teacher for a new DM. Being a DM is never about winning or losing, its about telling and refereeing a story. If you are getting upset when the player's honestly and fairly beat one of your encounters, then you are not being a good neutral referee. You are trying to "win" too much.

You are not frustrated at high level play, you are frustrated because you don't know how to counter their magical tactics and use the monsters at their maximum effectiveness. Your experience is not uncommon for DM's who are having their first high level experience. There's a simple fix for that: go back to the rulebooks and the forums and learn how to counter what they are doing.

Its just a fact I have learned from years of being a DM.

Dark Archive

MaxKaladin wrote:
I disagree with the description of higher levels as being like a superhero game. I liken it to some sort of fantasy version of black ops. Substituting magic for technology, it seems like parties at that level are more like a fantasy SEAL Team trying to slip into a bad guy's lair with a wide array of cutting-edge magical spells and devices and a compact but lethal arsenal of the latest magical weaponry intent on causing as much death and destruction as they can (except the treasure, of course). They often seem to prefer to try to catch the bad guy unaware (literally asleep or in the bath, if at all possible), substituting scry-buff-teleport for spy satellites and stealth choppers to conduct surprise raids. They try to stay hidden as as much as possible and utilize brutally effective tactics to keep the enemy off guard and control the battlefield (aided by their array of magical tricks, of course). They never EVER give the bad guys a fair fight if they can possibly avoid it. (And the bad guys don't tend to survive to become recurring villains like they do with superheros). I am not making a judgement call on anyone's play style here, just observing how games at that level seem to play out to me.

DM'ing low level is like playing checkers and DM'ing Mid levels is like chess, and running high level games is like playing 4 games of chess simultaneously.


Sebastian wrote:

I played Pathfinder last night with a party of three/four characters - an 11th level sorcerer, his cleric companion (~8th level?), a 10th level barbarian, and a 10th level fighter/rogue. They were tracking a 13th level barbarian who'd managed to raise 16 skeletal warriors using a magical artifact sword. The players are smart, so they broke out the old Invisible Flying Party chestnut - everyone in the group was suited up with Greater Invisibility and Fly. Here's how combat went:

...

Please don't take offense, but it sounds to me like a rookie GM mistake.

Your badguy was horribly ill equipped to survive a 10th level party, and to boot he doesn't even make sense in your game world. How did the badguy get that powerful anyway, without access to friends who know magic? Has he been living under a rock? How did this badguy barbarian even acquire the magical artifact sword? What, was it under another nearby rock? Did he bash his way through the crypt where it was, ignoring traps and other magical obstacles?

Next time you run this encounter, take your Barbarian badguy who knows no magic and can't deal at all with anything 10th level on his own, and give him a Druid friend. Control Winds and Faerie Fire destroy the party's flying tricks, while also doing falling damage. Note the lack of saves for either spell. Give the Druid a Scirocco staff for added fun, since the skeletal warriors have SR and are immune to fatigue.


vuron wrote:

Invisibility

Fly
Teleport
Scrying
Bindings

All of these spells ultimately change the entire way the game is played. If you prefer low level games just do e6 with a glacially slow advancement rates.

Adjusting to the effects of new spells and abilities is definitely a challenge but it has some rewards as well. I think the main thing is that you definitely have to change your expectations.

We put some limitations on scry and teleport in our game, because those two not only impact the way the game is played, they also effectively impact the entire world. There's no reason for long distance trade, for instance, once someone has teleport. And there's no reason to leave your house at all once you have teleport and scry, just scry on your target, teleport there, kill, win, teleport back, have a nice cup of tea.

Our game broke the game world up into archipelagos, each of which has a different old earth pantheon tied to it, and chopped the range for scry and teleport off at the coastline. That way inter-ocean trade still exists as a 'real thing.' Otherwise, the economic impacts of magic are too profound to make your game world make any sense.


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Big Lemon wrote:

You are the GM. You know everything that happens always. You are ALWAYS metagaming. Metagaming is your job, but planning an encounter that circumvents an invisibility/flight strategy isn't even what that it.

I don't really get this reasoning. When a character acts on player knowledge we call it meta. Isn't it the same if a NPC acts on discrete DM knowledge?

Silver Crusade

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@beej67: Sebastian was running a module encounter, so the bad guy was preset. The only "mistake," if any, was having the bad guy exit his lair where the terrain had been to his advantage. The story provides for the how and why behind the sword and the skeletons. In the tomb, the barbarian can be a pretty fearsome foe.

Spoiler:
His sword casts a CL20 Dispel Magic anytime he's targeted with a spell, and his melee is impressive, but all meant for a fight in somewhat close quarters...aka the tomb he was in.


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Grimmy wrote:


I don't really get this reasoning. When a character acts on player knowledge we call it meta. Isn't it the same if a NPC acts on discrete DM knowledge?

Its worse, as the DM is entrusted with more responsibility.

Part of that responsibility is to roleplay the NPCs.. and they certainly should not be omniscient. Honestly some of the most fun I've had on either side of the 'screen' is where the players see an NPC making an understandable mistake from what information they must have.

To the original poster:

The game changes as the party levels. Some people are less comfortable and ready for certain levels of the game. Don't play or run those until you are.

-James


james maissen wrote:
Grimmy wrote:


I don't really get this reasoning. When a character acts on player knowledge we call it meta. Isn't it the same if a NPC acts on discrete DM knowledge?

Its worse, as the DM is entrusted with more responsibility.

Part of that responsibility is to roleplay the NPCs.. and they certainly should not be omniscient. Honestly some of the most fun I've had on either side of the 'screen' is where the players see an NPC making an understandable mistake from what information they must have.

-James

Agreed.

Silver Crusade

True, but the NPCs should also be prepared for the probable tactics of their enemies. Any mid level adventurer knows he should have a way to deal with invisible and flying enemies. Why should NPCs not know the same thing and have the necessary equipment for it? Again, that's not metagaming. That's just the NPC being smart.

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beej67 wrote:
Sebastian wrote:

I played Pathfinder last night with a party of three/four characters - an 11th level sorcerer, his cleric companion (~8th level?), a 10th level barbarian, and a 10th level fighter/rogue. They were tracking a 13th level barbarian who'd managed to raise 16 skeletal warriors using a magical artifact sword. The players are smart, so they broke out the old Invisible Flying Party chestnut - everyone in the group was suited up with Greater Invisibility and Fly. Here's how combat went:

...

Please don't take offense, but it sounds to me like a rookie GM mistake.

Your badguy was horribly ill equipped to survive a 10th level party, and to boot he doesn't even make sense in your game world. How did the badguy get that powerful anyway, without access to friends who know magic? Has he been living under a rock? How did this badguy barbarian even acquire the magical artifact sword? What, was it under another nearby rock? Did he bash his way through the crypt where it was, ignoring traps and other magical obstacles?

Next time you run this encounter, take your Barbarian badguy who knows no magic and can't deal at all with anything 10th level on his own, and give him a Druid friend. Control Winds and Faerie Fire destroy the party's flying tricks, while also doing falling damage. Note the lack of saves for either spell. Give the Druid a Scirocco staff for added fun, since the skeletal warriors have SR and are immune to fatigue.

As another poster noted, he was running from a module, so there are limitations to what he could do without having to deviate significantly from the module.

That said, he also should have followed the module closely enough to not have the fight outside, as the other poster also noted. Which makes me want to reiterate--enemies should not be stupid, especially 10th level enemies. If they are in a fight where the PCs are at a significant advantage due to spells, terrain, etc. then enemies should feel free to retreat and do whatever it takes to regain the advantage in a future combat.

I disagree with you, beej67, that the way to "fix" a high level melee character is to give them a spellcaster friend. That should not be necessary. Certainly, any high level melee character will have access to magic of some kind, be it their own unusual capabilities (barbarian rage powers for example, many of which could actually let you bash your way through a tomb to get an artifact and come out relatively unscathed, esp. combined with barbarian trap sense), or treasure that they have bought, borrowed, stolen, or made.

Also also reiterate to the general thread discussion that it would NOT be unusual for a 10th level character to have some way of defeating invisibility and have some way to fly if they needed to. This is not metagaming. This is common sense. A character who has gotten to 10th level has likely dealt with invisible and/or flying monsters and would come to learn through personal experience that these things can happen and one should be prepared for it. Having your NPCs exhibit forethought and common sense and planning is not metagaming, it is designing a world with a good deal of verisimilitude.

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I guess what confuses me about the fact that every monster/NPC above CR 10 or so should have the ability to deal with flying/invisible opponents is that...well...they don't. Maybe everyone here has a different version of the various modules, APs, Bestiaries and NPC Codex which includes stats and abilities for every CR 10+ creature/encounter to allow them to deal with flight, invisibility, pit traps, teleportation, tripping, and every other high level extremely effective tactic that a party run by highly competent players can perform. If so, I'd appreciate if you sent me a copy. I apparently have an out of date set of books that allow for the possibility that some foes will be defeated by certain high level tactics.

I also missed the section of the campaign setting where it describes the way in which every city, nation state, and petty dictator in the game world prepares for these obvious high-level tactics. Given that everyone in the gaming world should be aware of such tactics and have a contingency plan for such an event, I'm surprised that it's not well detailed in those volumes.

Maybe my reading comprehension is just really bad. For example, just the other day, I was reading a thread about someone complaining that they didn't like a particular high level tactic, largely because it slows the game and makes it grindingly unfun and potentially non-interactive, and I interpreted that to mean that the GM was an us against them type who didn't know how to run the game, and quite possibly suffered a head injury from falling off the turnip cart.

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No disrespect intended to the many of you who have provided helpful advice. There's a lot of good stuff in this thread, and I appreciate (most of) the suggestions.

Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

Wriggle Wyrm wrote:


Beyond not being able to see each other, I don’t suppose anyone in the party has bothered to invest in the fly skill. So when you slap down that Blade Barrier right in their faces remind then they have to make a DC 15 fly check if they want turn more than 45 degrees or come to a dead stop.

The sorcerer invested in Fly, but he is the only one. I mostly didn't have the brain space to enforce the Fly rules, and the fact that the skill introduced yet another set of checks is a component of the grind that I find frustrating about the invisible flying party tactic. That said, maybe strict enforcement of the Fly rules is an important check on the power of that spell, and maybe I just need to dig in and learn those rules inside and out.


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Invisibility is definitely a pain to deal with once improved invisibility becomes a common tactic.

One possible solution is to create single shot wondrous items that have an Invisibility Purge effect within a certain radius. It wouldn't be a cheap solution but it could definitely give martial NPCs a single shot method of defeating invisibility at least within a small radius.

Unfortunately echolocation is a 4th level spell so the ability to make a potion of echolocation doesn't exist and echolocation as a permanent magical effect has a massive price tag.

But honestly at a certain challenge rating you have to assume that muggle NPCs (most martial class builds) are going to be curbstomped by the PCs using advanced tactics.

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Sebastian wrote:


Maybe my reading comprehension is just really bad. For example, just the other day, I was reading a thread about someone complaining that they didn't like a particular high level tactic, largely because it slows the game and makes it grindingly unfun and potentially non-interactive, and I interpreted that to mean that the GM was an us against them type who didn't know how to run the game, and quite possibly suffered a head injury from falling off the turnip cart.

That's interesting. Maybe I am misinterpreting things as well. Because I swore I read a thread recently where a GM complained of his being able to deal well with a tactic the PCs repeatedly used. While some responders certainly could have worded their replies more diplomatically, most people really wanted to just help and offer solutions to how to avoid that situation and deal with that tactic--and of course knowing it should go without saying that the advice, like all RPG advice, is circumstantial and may need to be tweaked for individual situations. Instead of simply accepting or ignoring the advice as he chose, the OP took the posters' intent to help as a personal attack and accused many responders of being wrong and metagaming. Even though he belatedly thanked some people for some suggestions, the thread therefore was ultimately a waste of time for everyone. It's sad when these things happen, isn't it?

Sovereign Court

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We don't really WANT a world where high-level villains have to have magical assistants. But if you're a villain in a PF world, you have to realize that you'll be facing heavy-magic opposition, and at least have a plan. Let's talk about strategies to deal with this situation:

Greater Invisibility on the whole party
* Use some Dust of Appearance to make them visible. Or a bag of flour. Or UMD->Scroll of Glitterdust. Ready actions to throw nets at any square they attack from.

* Take away the advantage: cast Darkness spells. Unless that party has Darkvision, they need to either make light (revealing themselves) or face you on equal terms (not seeing).

* Stall. GI has a round/level duration and it's nontrivial to cast it on the whole party. If you can drag out the combat with a lot of evasive maneuvers, the duration will run out. Then you hit the spell-deprived sorcerer.

* Traps: lure the invisible enemy into the trapped room. You know where the traps are; they don't, they're pursuing you, not taking the time to check for traps.

* Restrict the area: go into a smaller area, so that they have to semi-reveal where they are if they want to confront you. In a 15x15ft room, there's only so many places you can hide. Dense forests can also do this job.

Teleporting Party

* Players will assume that the dungeon stays relatively the same if they teleport out and back again. They may expect traps to be reset. They don't expect you to set traps specifically for them, now that you know they're coming. For example, rig the ceiling to collapse in the room they teleported out of, if you pull a rope. They come back in, you drop it on them. Make sure that traps are obviously made to counter the tactics the PCs used last time they stopped by in that dungeon. When they learn this, they won't want to teleport out - that means the enemy has time to prepare custom traps, now knowing the party's tactics! (Inspired by Star Trek; the Borg adapt to everything you do.)


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Lots of excellent points already stated, but I have a few comments of my own.

1. This is a major reason I run my own campaigns instead of running modules or adventure packs.
2. "Run Away" is not only the least effectively used PC tactic, it is probably even less effectively used by GMs.
3. Even if running an adventure path it is completely within the GM's power to adjust tactics for the NPCs based on the PC's choice of tactics.
4. As many others have pointed out, once you get to level 10 you should be expecting invisibility and flying.
5. However, it appears the PC's caster in this encounter cast eight or more spells prior to the fight. At best this is a remarkable luxury for a team to have against any reasonably competent boss who should have some sort of minion watching for enemies casting spells with impunity within combat radius of him. At worst, by the time the last spells were being cast, the first spells should have been on the verge of wearing off. Yes this means some bookkeeping, but if you don't track spell duration for these encounter-dominating spells, you can expect encounters to be dominated by them. Greater Invisibility is a round-per-level duration for a reason. This sort of encounter is the reason.
6. Once a combatant is aware of invisible opponents I tend to come up with circumstance modifiers to the perception checks needed to locate them. An invisible spellcaster casting spells is going to be plainly heard and that should give the enemy some idea of where they are.
7. If you think encounters are dominated by spells at level 10.... wait 'til you reach level 15.

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Adamantine Dragon wrote:


7. If you think encounters are dominated by spells at level 10.... wait 'til you reach level 15.

I really don't want to think about that. I may be forced to take the advice in this thread and flee the encounter, possibly locking the door behind me so the players can't follow as I burn the campaign notes and swear to never play Pathfinder again.


Sebastian wrote:
Adamantine Dragon wrote:


7. If you think encounters are dominated by spells at level 10.... wait 'til you reach level 15.
I really don't want to think about that. I may be forced to take the advice in this thread and flee the encounter, possibly locking the door behind me so the players can't follow as I burn the campaign notes and swear to never play Pathfinder again.

Heh... this is, in fact, a major reason I think the game just breaks down once you get to level 15 or so. Level 12 is still somewhat comprehensible, but only just. Level 20 spellcaster play is like playing god.


Adamantine Dragon wrote:
Level 20 spellcaster play is like playing god.

That's what I like about it. :-)


Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:
Adamantine Dragon wrote:
Level 20 spellcaster play is like playing god.
That's what I like about it. :-)

Well, that's fine, but in my mind there are better game systems for playing gods or super heroes.


By the way, I share the opinion that the Create Pit line of spells make fights slow down to a crawl. After the first time I saw it used in combat (by me), it's been on my list of "speedbumps to fun" along with 3.5E Solid Fog and the like.

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The party is using sound tactics, which should produce some easy victories. Their enemies may also learn from those victories, adopting countermeasures and adding wrinkles to forestall the party's actions.

Keep in mind that the skeletal warriors may have significant knowledge retained from before their deaths. They may manage to communicate this lore with their boss.

A few examples:

Pit spells: fly, levitate, spider climb, silent image (so the pit is cast to trap an illusionary double), expendable doubles dressed as the BBEG, readied actions to shoot arrows at characters casting (Which should still be audible, even if the caster is not visible)...

Scry and fry: move locations or set up a trap at the probable teleport ingress location. Remember, teleport encourages casters to target a familiar location. Canny foes keep interior decorators to routinely change their lairs around: The place that was familiar becomes next week's deathtrap.

Invisibility: Closed doors and other obstacles that must be moved provide frustrating delays for invisible folks. See invisible and glitter dust help tremendously, but mud, flour, and rain can decrease the invisible party's advantage.

Imagine the party's frustration if the villain's lair had a trapped entrance door that goes off if anyone tries to open it without blocking the light (being visible) or without weight on the floor (thus triggering if an attacking flyer tries to enter). Mud-encrusted hangings can make it difficult for intruders to pass through the area without caking themselves in filth...

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