I see a lot of suggestions for PCs to "pre-buff" before a fight. How do you usually handle this?
What I mean, my group usually just roams from room to room and fights what they find behind the door. Once they find a bad guy, I wouldn't let them sit there and pile on the buffs before the fight starts.
Is this just poor tactics on their behalf? How do you let your PCs pre-buff? This also works for BBEGs, they usually have 'before combat begins' buffs as well. How/when do you apply those?
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This is typically what a scout is for. It doesn't work all the time, but having your rogue roll a 37 on his stealth check to peek his head around the corner is typically what allows a group to pre-buff. Alternately, familiars, wildshaped druids, and divination magic helps with this, too. If they found a dungeon map, you do it right before that final, big, ominous-looking chamber (what are the odds it contains a boss?).
Basically, when's the last time you fought a big boss with absolutely 0 knowledge that you'd be fighting him when you stepped in the room? And typically, bosses know when people are traipsing about their own dungeon. Alarm is a level 1 spell, after all.
Well, the first step is long-term buffing. Spells with an hour/level or 10-minute/level duration can be cast well before you go into the dungeon, assault the troll fort, enter the dark forest, or whatever. The GM can counter these in two ways -- one is to really draw out the time so buffs expire before encounters; the other way is to have a lot of monsters around with dispelling abilities. Neither is a great solution, but keep in mind that foes can probably have these up as well.
Secondly, good scouting (sneaking, invisibility, various forms of magic) cans how you what is there while they still don't know about you. So if you're quiet you can easily put up minute/level buffs just before entering the enemy's perception zone. This, by the way, is an area where rogues and rangers shine. It's just a little tricky and dangerous to be out there without anyone else, but you need sneaky scouts unless the whole party is stealthy, and stealthier than the monsters can perceive.
Monsters can counter this with high Perceptuon sentries, scouts, and other warning methods of their own. Again, this can be the function of some traps, or things like alarm spells.
Now, if someone is casting spells right outside the door, then, yeah, the enemy are going to notice it, and start their own buffing or preparation, maybe run away, maybe call for help, maybe break out the potions, whatever. Of course, if they have no means to buff, or run away, or call for help, they've go a big problem. But that's why one designs whole dungeons rather than single encounters. Reward the PCs for finding ways to pre-empt or avoid enemy response -- and don't design encounters that can easily be pre-buffed for.
Not a problem, its something my players NEVER do. I don't want to deny them something they should be doing. So I was curious how other groups handled it.
Similarly, I'll get to play instead of GM, which is rare, so I was planning ahead for myself to introduce something new to the same group of players.
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As others have said, scouting is key. If you know there's an enemy behind the door, you can have everyone spend two rounds casting spells that only last a minute, then open the door and have 8 rounds left on the spells.
My level 6 sorcerer likes to cast shield (6 minute duration) before the group opens any door, even if they don't hear anything behind it. In dungeons with too many doors, he'd run out of level 1 spell slots that way, but it's for PFS, so the scenarios tend to be short enough to get away with it. I've also considered getting him a wand just for that.
Funniest pre-buff I've ever seen was when I GMed a level 6-7 PFS adventure. Wizard casts clairvoyance and sees that behind a particular door, there's a 5 foot entry hall, then a room, with a ghast intelligently waiting around the corner, just beyond the initial 5 foot hallway, obviously preparing to ambush the first person to enter the room. Those were the tactics listed in the scenario for that monster.
So the party casts invisibility and spider climb on pregen Kyra (level 7 cleric with phylactery of positive channeling), then opens the door and sends her in. The ghast has a readied action to attack anyone who steps into the room, but Kyra climbs up the wall and crawls along the ceiling invisibly past it. It actually had a chance to notice her due to its good perception and her lousy stealth skill in armor, but I rolled low on its perception roll. She then channels positive to hurt the ghast (and become visible) as a surprise round, and then I had them roll for initiative to start the fight.
What's wrong with "pre-buffing"? It's smart tactics by both players and bad guys. It makes sense to do so. I say, let it be.
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I don't think there's anything "wrong" about prebuffing. Some bad guys will know the party's coming and do it, while others won't. Sometimes, the party will know they're about to get into a fight and do it, and other times, they won't know until combat starts, so they won't. There really shouldn't be any problem - it's just part of the game that sometimes happens and sometimes doesn't.
What's wrong with "pre-buffing"? It's smart tactics by both players and bad guys. It makes sense to do so. I say, let it be.
It can easily lead to meta-gaming.
A lot of people don't play the exploration part of the dungeon crawl. Frankly, the mapping and plodding forward -- The hallway extends 20' forward and then hits a t-intersection where you can turn left or right. What's to the left? 20' of hallway, then the corridor turns right.... -- can get rather dull if you have two thousand feet of hallway, twenty-five turns, twelve doors, fifteen pit traps, and only four occupied rooms.
Although that's a very realistic way to build a treasure-guarding labyrinth, it's not a very cinematic one to explore. But if the GM says "okay, you wander through the hallways for about ten minutes, bypassing some pit traps, and then you come to a large set of double-doors," the party implicitly knows that this door is different from all the other doors, that there's something behind it, and now is the time to buff.
So, basically, it's a question of gaming style.
Hour/level buff spells (mage armor, greater magic weapon, magic vestment, etc) last long enough by around 8th-level that they should always be cast before the party goes adventuring. 10 min/level spells should typically be cast before the party enters an appropriate dungeon/lair-type location. 1 min/level spells may be cast, depending on circumstance (scouting, combat breaking out nearby) and time available.
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EDIT: Gah! I said get ON the plane... I meant get IN the plane, it is much more comfortable of a flight that way! George would be so dissapointed with me! (Wonders how many will get the reference)
"Get on the plane, get on the plane, **** you, I'd rather get IN the plane, it's much less windy in there."
-Greatest intellectual comedian ever
Usually, pre-combat buffing happens only when the party is forewarned.
In my current party, the cleric has a power I believe is called "Door-Sight" (or something like that). By putting his hand on the door, he can see right through it. Based on what he sees, the party may begin buffing before opening it.
The other common way this occurs is because this is an encounter that we had to flee from yesterday. Now we're back with the proper spell load-out and a plan for using it.
My group never scouts (unless I'm the one to do it). This does lead to alot of fights where the group thinks the encounter is a higher CR than it should be. In cases such as mine, there is almost never any pre-buffing.
Now, if your players are using scouts correctly and/or in-game character knowledge correctly, then I would say allow them to put up any reasonable pre-buffs. But as others have mentioned, if PCs can buff, so can monsters.
On a side note, what is to stop a BBEG from attacking them in the middle of their buffing rounds?
It is along the lines of when the airlines attempt to have you pre-board. Its physicaly impossible, no really... try it. You cannot board before you board, just doesn't work. You can, however, have a drink at the bar, buy a newspaper and an overpriced bottle of water pre-boarding (that is to say before you get on the plane). ;)
EDIT: Gah! I said get ON the plane... I meant get IN the plane, it is much more comfortable of a flight that way! George would be so dissapointed with me! (Wonders how many will get the reference)
Rest in Peace, Mr. Carlin.
My players rarely buff pre-fight. Sometimes they know a fight is coming and then they do, unless they think it's an easy fight in which case they forego buffing to save them for a later, harder fight.
My bad guys usually buff pre-fight. For one, they're not saving their spells for the second group of adventurers to invade their lair and kill their minions today. For another, the adventurers probably hacked their way through a room full of bad guys just down the hall, loud combat, fireballs, whatever, and the bad guy knows the fight is coming - the adventurers rarely have the same advantage.
I plan this in advance. I don't often put BBEG type bad guys all alone, far away from their minions, so I have an excuse for them to have their buffs in place when they are encountered. I make frequent use of spells like Alarm, or just having one minion run away from a fight to warn other bad guys in the place - then every bad guy gets buffs. I also create places where the PCs can benefit from scouting and preparing before combat (but to keep it interesting, I often put harder encounters in such places - maybe unfair, but the PCs get more XP and more loot so it's really a win/win, unless they don't scout and buff, in which case, it's a tough fight and hopefully they learn their lesson).
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The transition between non-init time and combat is a tough area to negotiate. My basic approach (modified at times depending on the playing group), is to limit out-of-combat buffs to spells with a duration of 10 minutes are longer unless the party is aware of enemies in-game, in which case the buffing is basically taking place in a potentially multi-round surprise situation with Perception possibilities for the bad guys. I do the same for the bad guys.
Published adventures with short pre-buffs built into stat blocks are a sore point for me. When they are longer term or make sense in some other fashion, that's another story. I try to encourage gaming in character; it's impossible to separate the players' knowledge and game experience from what's happening in game, but one can try. When NPCs have no reasonable in-game knowledge of an upcoming situation and are buffed to the gills with short duration buffs, it sets a precedent that I don't care for.
Let's say the party goes somewhere, not knowing what to expect, such as exploring a swamp, forest, or really massive cave system. In this case, prepared spellcasters are going to probably run with their "standard routine", and cast spells conservatively. They need to be ready for anything, and they could be traveling all day. So there might be a couple hours/level buffs running. This really isn't what I'd consider a massive pre-fight buffing buffet.
If the party knows they're about to storm a castle, or a hideout, the prepared spellcasters are probably going to prepare general-purpose spells as with the previous case, but here, they are not expecting to have their spells last all day. Instead, they'll have a coordinated pool of buffs that stack different bonus types and such, and cast 10 minute/level spells, with the intent of finishing well before that time expires. Maybe some 1 minute/level spells after a few fights, or before the ominous looking door. The party charges in, and seeks to destroy nearly every living thing in whatever stronghold they're going into. No time for searching, just get in there and kill. If an obstacle is reached, try and brute force it to get through as quickly as possible.
If the party has really good intel, such as "the bandits will come at midnight, and their leader is <XYZ>, and the lieutentant is <ABC>," this is a great amount of information, and it'll proceed much like the previous example, but the party knows better which spells to prepare, and/or which weapons to use.
Now, this is all assuming the party has some peace and quiet to do all this. If they stand right outside the door of a room with some baddies, odds are good that whatever is inside will hear all this spellcasting going on, and try to disrupt it. Or, cast spells of their own, or maybe even run away to find reinforcements. So, it's generally not a good idea to do any prep near your enemies.
Having the bad guys buff in advance is somewhat harder to pull off, since it seems the bad guys are most often (not all the time, of course) on the defensive. As the game progresses, the enemies can get as much intel on the heros as the heroes have on the enemies (e.g. when the adventurers hear "evil necromancer", they kinda know what to prepare for, same as if the bad guys hear about the good guys summoning angels, preferring certain spells, or something). Luckily, minions help sound alarms and such, so whatever villain is in the inner sanctum is ready for the intruding party, and might even be able to set traps specifically for the heroes, but I digress. Just pointing out it's a two-way street.
Edit: On the subject of time, what we do is use rough ballpark figures: "It takes 2 minutes to loot the bodies." "The pool drains in 5 minutes, revealing a tunnel." Generally, this works out well, and if buffs are about to run out, everyone's respectful, and recasts them, or maybe we might do dramatic effect: you got 10 rounds left on those buffs! Ballpark.
I believe those published adventure pre-buffs are implied to only happen if the NPC in question has sufficient time available between realizing someone is coming and combat breaking out; some even say so.
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It's a part of the game. Some builds need it more than others.
Just make sure you're not letting them pre-buff for 100% of fights, and nor should you deny them the chance to pre-buff for 100% of fights.
Variety is ever the key.
I believe those published adventure pre-buffs are implied to only happen if the NPC in question has sufficient time available between realizing someone is coming and combat breaking out; some even say so.
Generally unless there are some really extreme circumstances, or mostly mindless opponents, one encounter in a dungeon alerts most of the rest of the dungeon to trouble. Battle is loud. The dc to hear a battle 100 feat away through 2 closed doors is only 10. Given several rounds of battle per encounter, MOST of the time, enemies will know you are coming and have time to prepare unless they are very spaced out or are unintelligent.
In my group, prebuffing is usually pretty rare, because we often make sure there are gaps in encounters, and make sure players arent sure whether there is a fight on the other side of a door or an empty room. And if my players just stand behind a closed door for 4 rounds, the enemy is either going to leave, or be very ready for them. In the end it means maybe a round or two of buffing while the rogue picks the lock, but other then that, they go into the room cold.
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I believe those published adventure pre-buffs are implied to only happen if the NPC in question has sufficient time available between realizing someone is coming and combat breaking out; some even say so.
Some are pretty good about it, others less so. It's a mixed bag. I have no problem with those that are reasonable. I've seen published material that have had 3 or 4 round/level buffs built in to stat blocks based upon something like foreknowledge from an alarm spell that is a non-tactical distance away. That, for me, bursts right through the ragged transition for non-combat time to initiative time keeping.
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I use these:
Gloves of Reconnaissance
Price 2,000 gp; Aura faint divination; CL 3rd; Weight—
Each of these fingerless worked leather gloves look as though they have seen heavy use, and often bear the stains or scent of grass or wet mud. On command, the wearer can use the gloves to see and hear though solid material no more than 15 feet thick by placing both hands on that material. The gloves can be used for 10 rounds each day. The rounds need not be consecutive.
He He, Our party had a 'buff before combat' sequence that our GM treated as sacred. When most of the same folks played in my game, I had to keep them off balance (altered monster feats, etc) and one simple was to avoid a cookie cutter combat start. The second or third time the already moving foe moved out of encounter range, the calcification ended and the players got a lot sharper and more able to adjust to the chaos of combat.
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We make prodigious use of gloves of reconnaissance, if something is found we generally step back a bit, buff what we can (non rounds/lvl buffs), and go in. They would work best for someone sneaky I suppose so that the npc's on the other side of the wall are less likely to detect the party with perception checks.
Nifty item which gives a bit more credence to the pre-buffing concept and they are only 2k.
NOG. Wow, fantastic item, I wasn't aware of that. I'm gonna have to start grabbing those with my characters.
As DM: I handle it like this:
Suppose the party has scouted perfectly unnoticed, they want to cast some 1m/level or 1r/level buffs pre-fight. Sure, go ahead.
Because any spell with a verbal component requires you to speak "In a commanding voice" I generally rule that's the same as the Perception mod for "hearing the sounds of battle" -as casting is a common component of battle.
So lets say the monster is 60 feet away (DC+6), through a closed door (DC+5) and they're spellcasting (DC-10). We're talking about a dc1 perception check to hear anybody pre-buffing. So the monsters either start buffing themselves, taking advantageous positions, or simply rush out to meet the party before their fully ready.
Any of these its still probably worth it for the PCs to pre-buff if they can, but they won't get the full advantage of stacking several rounds worth of magic casting on themselves before fighting.
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Because any spell with a verbal component requires you to speak "In a commanding voice" I generally rule that's the same as the Perception mod for "hearing the sounds of battle" -as casting is a common component of battle.
So lets say the monster is 60 feet away (DC+6), through a closed door (DC+5) and they're spellcasting (DC-10). We're talking about a dc1 perception check to hear anybody pre-buffing. So the monsters either start buffing themselves, taking advantageous positions, or simply rush out to meet the party before their fully ready.
Any of these its still probably worth it for the PCs to pre-buff if they can, but they won't get the full advantage of stacking several rounds worth of magic casting on themselves before fighting.
The adjective is strong, not commanding. If that's the same for you as the screams of the injured and the clang of metal on metal, it must be a seriously loud event when your family gathers around the dinner table. ;)
Seriously, I look at a different DC, but use the same method. And whether using DC 0 (convervation), DC -10 (battle), or something between is a matter of interpretation.
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Harumph. Adventurers who go from door to door without scouting ahead AT ALL, EVER, would not last long in my dungeons.
That's because my NPCs and monsters are not passively waiting to be slaughtered by roaming murder hobos. My NPCs and monsters actually act as though they have a lick of sense.
Because any spell with a verbal component requires you to speak "In a commanding voice" I generally rule that's the same as the Perception mod for "hearing the sounds of battle" -as casting is a common component of battle.
So lets say the monster is 60 feet away (DC+6), through a closed door (DC+5) and they're spellcasting (DC-10). We're talking about a dc1 perception check to hear anybody pre-buffing. So the monsters either start buffing themselves, taking advantageous positions, or simply rush out to meet the party before their fully ready.
That's an awfully harsh interpretation of "a commanding voice" in my opinion. Unless "a commanding voice" means "screaming at the top of your lungs", I don't see how a few seconds of spellcasting could possibly be anywhere near as loud as a bunch of running and jumping around and big metal weapons slamming into metal armour and stone walls.
Personally, when I play my current favorite character (whom I refer to as Wizard) I like to open up with a Rime Versatile Evocation'ed Fireball that freezes the enemies in place for 3 turns. I have a lesser quicken rod so I can actually do it as a free action. Then, the team gets 3 turns to do their buffing, which usually starts with my casting of Haste on everyone in the party, then either an animal buff spell, or an enlarge person or something after that. Basically, I try and create a scenario every fight where we get the chance to pre-buff even if we don't actually get that chance.
You think it's a harsh interpretation? Cause I don't really. I always thought of casting as:
"YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Or something like it. So yes. Really loud.
If you didn't like that, then you could say it was a -5 mod instead, or even a +0. +0 would be normal conversation, and it's at least as strong or stronger than that! If you did that, then through a door, 60 feet away, would still be dc 11, not too hard for a monster to hear.
Do your players take Silent Spell a lot? Because I think I would under those circumstances.
actually not one of them ever has.
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For me, homebrew, it's all about assumptions. If I have a party that's doing it a lot, and I want them to feel more challenged, I'll bump up the encounters a tad to compensate. This will typically also increase the reward. On the other hand, when the party never does, I'll often remind them about it.
Remember, they're adventurers. If they're not expecting to get killed by something in the dungeon, they're stupid. They're 'at work' so to speak, so certain assumptions that seem meta-gamey probably actually aren't. Depends on the situation.
As for the sounds of buffing, I'd rather say this depends, but I'd have to look it up. Somatic components being game-rules things, it's definable for someone with the right books on hand. There's little doubt that an arcane caster needs to use a 'strong voice', unless I'm mixing up my editions. But what about divine? Can they cast buffs by praying quietly? If not by RAW, that's perhaps a good house rule, just because it's so thematically appropriate.
Heck, for the right player, I might even work up a 'deity decides' system. They pray for protection, as the religious often does, and one of their spell slots gets spent on whatever is appropriate based on what the diety might know. Maybe that's a feat idea, class feature, or a wonderous item. When's the next RPG superstar? :)
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The assertion that a "strong voice" is equivalent to the sounds of battle is pretty much laughable.
But it's still a "strong voice", not a "whisper."
So, yes, you do have to make allowances for how far your voice might carry inside a quiet dungeon if you are going to buff without detection. There are ways to do it though, including using metamagic rods or feats, or simply utilizing areas of silence.
One of the best ways to do this is for your spellcasters to make potions of common buff spells and have everyone just drink the potion before going into battle. For spells that can't be made into potions some can be cast silently using wondrous items or other magic items.
Of course that all presupposes that the PCs plan their tactics, which I know is generally frowned upon by many vociferous posters on these boards.
Of course that all presupposes that the PCs plan their tactics, which I know is generally frowned upon by many vociferous posters on these boards.
Heh. I usually am happy when my players buff pre-battle. It means they are actually using tactics and planning ahead. I enjoy the use of tactics, because it makes battles more than just, "roll dice, do damage, next foe." Well, apart from roleplaying, that is.
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I do what I always do as a GM.
I listen to what the players are doing and I think about how that interacts with what is going on around them, and then act accordingly.
Pre-buffing sometimes makes sense, sometimes alerts your enemies, sometimes allowing them to pre-buff too...
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I've been running Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil using Pathfinder rules for quite a few sessions/months now and as the vast majority of this pre-published adventure is a dungeon crawl, there have been quite a few instances where pre-buffing takes place. The thing I like most about this adventure is it specifically numbers the rooms and says things like "in room X is a bad guy and he will come to room Y's aid if he hears combat or spellcasting"
So before each session I plan 3-4 encounters and have a spreadsheet showing what creatures are in what rooms, how far out their perception goes, and what rooms will come to their aid if they hear combat or spellcasting. It's made for some rather interesting times, especially when the PCs first got into the main dungeon and pulled about a dozen rooms by openly challenging the commander of that area. Only a well-placed stinking cloud helped the PCs survive that one.
The sounds of a party are more to attitude and skill. In heavy armor, FE, most everything is tight for protective reasons and when I was SCAing, I could move real quietly with little effort...so long as I had no shield or long weapon. Compared to the 'lightly' equipped gamers that slop M:tG card boxes onto table beside the Subway bags. It's really more about the clutter and carried things.
I play a game (rarely) at a military post. Two of our players are 'scout types and a third is Armor. The noise level he generates dwarfs a 18 wheeler, while the first two are dang near ghosts.
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I used to create a GM-only colored aura in MapTool that represented a 10 result on perception checks for NPCs. It was a good reminder of when to start rolling.
I hope soon I can get something even better in Roll20, I don't doubt I will.