My solution to this has been to give all my BBEGs Hero Points(Villain Points?), along with the houserule that 1's aren't automatic failures when using hero points. This will allow the boss to survive the first few save-or-die spells that are thrown at him and get in extra actions when he really needs them. It has worked pretty well for me.
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Here's another crazy idea, make your rolls secretly and if you don't want things to end that way, roll a dice and say there are no ill effects.
Simple but effective dm fiat.
Here's another crazy idea, make your rolls secretly and if you don't want things to end that way, roll a dice and say there are no ill effects.
Simple but effective dm fiat.
Aye, but then the players discover what you've done and its very possible they feel cheated. When the GM rolls four fiat 20's in a row just to mitigate my character I feel pretty cheated personally. Similarly when the boss suddenly gains 200 hps.
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Aye, but then the players discover what you've done and its very possible they feel cheated. When the GM rolls four fiat 20's in a row just to mitigate my character I feel pretty cheated personally. Similarly when the boss suddenly gains 200 hps.Here's another crazy idea, make your rolls secretly and if you don't want things to end that way, roll a dice and say there are no ill effects.
Simple but effective dm fiat.
Agreed. Any GM caught cheating like that (and it IS cheating) is a GM that has lost the trust of all his players. Good luck keeping the game going after that!
I can think of several ways to deal with this:
1. Give the Big Bad magic items and magical abilities that can increase their resistance to it or counter it.
2. Make the Big Bad be something immune to effects that require Fortitude saves, such as a construct or an intelligent undead. They should be high enough level to fight things like liches and vampires.
3. Avoid creating solo encounters, and use minions to engage the mages and keep them from casting spells.
4. Have the Big Bad use abilities or circumstances that obscure vision. Mages generally cannot cast spells on targets they cannot see.
5. Have the Big Bad be something with gaze attacks that make it extremely dangerous to look at them.
6. Have the Big Bad or his minions use any ability or hazard that disrupts spellcasting, such as things that cause deafness, swarms, and on-going damage.
7. Make the Big Bad a shapeshifter. Shapeshifters can revert to normal form.
8. Give the Big Bad a minion that can counterspell or dispel. Really, any evil overlord should have a couple of mages like this.
9. Have the Big Bad use a decoy.
10. Have the Big Bad fight from afar or in a different room. Seriously, why would anyone want to be in the same room as someone that can turn them into a chicken?
11. Have the Big Bad not actually fight the party. This is probably the best piece of advice. It doesn't matter what level the party is -- if you have the main villain confront the party directly, they're going to get wrecked. The best villains leave the dirty work to their minions and never put themselves in a scenario where they fight the party directly unless the odds are greatly stacked in their favor.
12. Have the Big Bad be a spellcaster that cast contingency set to trigger when an enemy casts a spell on them that can instantly kill them or render them completely helpless.
13. Have the Big Bad be a caster with spell turning and potentially turn those polymorph spells back on the party!
14. Have the Big Bad spread rumors that they possess magic immunity or the ability to reflect spells back on their casters. This might lead the PCs to prepare different types of spells.
15. Make a Big Bad with Spell Resistance.
I'll stop there before this turns into a Pathfinder version of The Evil Overlord List. You should get the idea. There's plenty of things you can do without having to nerf spells and break the rules of the game.
It annoys me when people say 'just design all encounters to prevent this happening, solo encounters are bad'. Firstly, if you're running a published adventure, it's very time consuming to have to change all the encounters to avoid solo-enemy-syndrome. Secondly, if you meet The Boss and he turns into a chicken, it's going to turn the dramatic showdown into comedy no matter how many minions he has.
Even when running published adventures, you should be flexible enough to make ad hoc modifications to encounters. You don't need to systematically go through the entire book and change each encounter. That would poor preparation.
Two more possibilities. The first, make an agreement with your players that such spells will still work as promised (if saves fail) but the effect happens over a short number of rounds instead of instantly. That way, you get the RP fun of describing the changes to the character as they happen, the BBG gets to throw a few more attacks before he goes down, and the player still feels like he/she has accomplished something awesome.
Second, Mutants & Masterminds rules allows the GM to initiate GM fiat by RAW...at a cost. Pulling GM fiat gives the characters worked against a free hero point. Something similar could easily be done in Pathfinder; fiat that the villain has 3 rounds to change, and give the player who cast the spell something in return. Just use it sparingly, or it starts to feel like the rules don't matter.
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Aye, but then the players discover what you've done and its very possible they feel cheated. When the GM rolls four fiat 20's in a row just to mitigate my character I feel pretty cheated personally. Similarly when the boss suddenly gains 200 hps.Here's another crazy idea, make your rolls secretly and if you don't want things to end that way, roll a dice and say there are no ill effects.
Simple but effective dm fiat.
Do you not feel cheated when the bad guys have items and "because this is dumb" bonuses to negate something you do?
Which goes back to my original post, don't mess with it.
This isn't even magic jar shenanigans, it's DM that botched rolls and nothing more.
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this is an issue of gm unpreparedness. when you have spell casters in a group of adventurers the bbegs needs to have countermeasures.
like why didnt the bbeg have low level casters ready to "counter spell" the wizard? or even an assassin (ninja) could have been in the room to provoke aoos from the casters to stop them from casting for a round or 2.
the bbeg could have erected a wall of stone to break los, i mean you could have prevented this from occurring without making the encounter feel like "im cock blocking you the player".
in conclusion: smart villains deserve to be smart, and stupid villains deserve to be chickens lol.
If your players are having fun, you are doing it Right.
If you are taking actions to curb their fun, you are doing it Wrong.
The first statement above is about the most important guideline I've found yet for being a GM.
Two things.
Ring of Spell Turning. If I was a BBEG, this would almost have to be the second most important item to buy. (First would be something in the mind shielding/undetectable alignment category.)
Hero Points. I love them. BBEG often have a bit of spell craft points. So he can try to figure out what spell the PC is casting. OR he has been watching you earlier and knows what you typically do so just burns a point for a +8 to that save or burns 2 to recover from failing the save.
Agreed. Any GM caught cheating like that (and it IS cheating) is a GM that has lost the trust of all his players. Good luck keeping the game going after that!Aye, but then the players discover what you've done and its very possible they feel cheated. When the GM rolls four fiat 20's in a row just to mitigate my character I feel pretty cheated personally. Similarly when the boss suddenly gains 200 hps.Here's another crazy idea, make your rolls secretly and if you don't want things to end that way, roll a dice and say there are no ill effects.
Simple but effective dm fiat.
This.
in conclusion: smart villains deserve to be smart, and stupid villains deserve to be chickens lol.
Not sure I agree 100%. It sounds like "Pathfinder - How it Should Have Ended". Play the villains smart, sure, but if every villain is prepared to counter every action a player makes, it becomes a battle of wits between the DM and the Players, instead of an Action/Adventure game.
If the players DON'T like turning every enemy into a chicken, then why are they turning them into chickens?
If the players DO like turning every enemy into a chicken, then what's the problem?
In all honesty, if a player takes this spell and it doesn't do something cool every now and then, they're not gonna be real happy about it. Either ban save or die spells, which are really fun but do throw a certain massive randomness into the game, or bite the bullet and allow the spell to work now and then.
Aye, but then the players discover what you've done and its very possible they feel cheated. When the GM rolls four fiat 20's in a row just to mitigate my character I feel pretty cheated personally. Similarly when the boss suddenly gains 200 hps.
How are players finding out? I fudge (and all my players know this, so yes, I can keep a group) when the situation calls for it. Keep the climactic encounter climactic. When I do fudge, I keep my.roll secret (all my rolls,.actually), NEVER tell my players, and make sure players are never penalized by my fudging.
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in conclusion: smart villains deserve to be smart, and stupid villains deserve to be chickens lol.Not sure I agree 100%. It sounds like "Pathfinder - How it Should Have Ended". Play the villains smart, sure, but if every villain is prepared to counter every action a player makes, it becomes a battle of wits between the DM and the Players, instead of an Action/Adventure game.
except you forget that a smart enemy is more aware of magic, and what the world holds then the PC's should. so saying that it would become a battle of the wits is not at all what i was implying.
a smart enemy: knows about magic, knows how to stop magic, USUALLY gets intelligence on the people assaulting them. so a smart enemy should know you have a spell caster in your group.
a dumb enemy: walks head first into a situation with no cover or defenses against magic and gets turned into a chicken.
Aye, but then the players discover what you've done and its very possible they feel cheated. When the GM rolls four fiat 20's in a row just to mitigate my character I feel pretty cheated personally. Similarly when the boss suddenly gains 200 hps.How are players finding out? I fudge (and all my players know this, so yes, I can keep a group) when the situation calls for it. Keep the climactic encounter climactic. When I do fudge, I keep my.roll secret (all my rolls,.actually), NEVER tell my players, and make sure players are never penalized by my fudging.
"If I don't get caught" while totally valid when you don't get caught, can come back to bite you in the butt. "We talked about it before hand" is the very first thing I suggested(and usually do suggest) you do with anything. I'm not big on fudging rolls because I've seen it used to ruin my day too often. Much more often than helping it, and usually with the intention of making everyone's day more fun. If you've talked about it its an expectation and its fine, but if you haven't then its a betrayal of trust. That make sense?
Do you not feel cheated when the bad guys have items and "because this is dumb" bonuses to negate something you do?
I feel less cheated than with DM fiat, if that's what your asking. Personally I try to avoid DM fiat or tossing on specific defensive items, but I mean different groups handle things differently and want a different experience.
I'm of the "Wheedon" school of storytelling. If a huge, climactic dramatic moment comes along and is transformed into comedy - it's still a win.
Bad guy turned into a chicken just as he finishes his big speech? Pure gold.
If the players DON'T like turning every enemy into a chicken, then why are they turning them into chickens?
If the players DO like turning every enemy into a chicken, then what's the problem?
The problem is that it's poor game design. It's okay to let them get away with it once or twice, but if they're solving every problem the exact same way, then the game will get stale. In game design circles, this is called a Dominant Strategy. A GM should present challenges the players to make meaningful choices.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with the players winning the fight by other means and then turning their enemy into a chicken to finish him off.
That's a perfectly reasonable answer MrSin. I knew there was something I liked about you.;-)
Hope I didn't come off as confrontational. I didn't mean to.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with the players winning the fight by other means and then turning their enemy into a chicken to finish him off.
Should we start turning them into ducks then? How about turkeys? I mean baleful polymorph can turn them into different kinds of poultry. Add some variety to your polymorphing!
Hope I didn't come off as confrontational. I didn't mean to.
Not at all!
So the BBEG fails fort, makes will and proceeds to create an army of awakened ninja chicken assassins?
I'm sold....lets do it.
If a game element is causing you to practically re-build your entire game around it, then it's a problem.
The problem is that it's poor game design. It's okay to let them get away with it once or twice, but if they're solving every problem the exact same way, then the game will get stale. In game design circles, this is called a Dominant Strategy. A GM should present challenges the players to make meaningful choices.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with the players winning the fight by other means and then turning their enemy into a chicken to finish him off.
I think it's the GM's job to make sure every problem cant be solved the exact same way.
Even if he doesn't though, if the players get sick of it, they'll stop. If they don't stop, they're not sick of it.
There seems to be no problem here as the players certainly like this strategy, and as soon as they stop liking it, it goes away.
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I think it's the GM's job to make sure every problem cant be solved the exact same way.
Even if he doesn't though, if the players get sick of it, they'll stop. If they don't stop, they're not sick of it.
There seems to be no problem here as the players certainly like this strategy, and as soon as they stop liking it, it goes away.
Even if the players tire of an "I Win" button they are likely to keep it in reserve to throw at encounters that are an actual challenge as they develop more "I Win" buttons.
If a game element is causing you to practically re-build your entire game around it, then it's a problem.
Except many posters here don't consider "players doing things they enjoy" something that requires any adjustment at all. Thats the game working as intended. Thats what people are trying to communicate.
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You know, everyone keeps talking about how "if players are happy"...blah blah blah. But what about GMs? They should be happy too. It's crappy as a GM to have encounters ended by the sudden use of certain spells. Worse yet, players cry if you use those same spells against them.
Thats why the group I play in uses a gentleman's agreement. Any spells you use are available for use by the enemy. Expect to see your own tactics used against you. This is what keeps the like of Mage's Disjunction from popping up in the game. Why? Because players like their stuff. And you know what's good at destorying magical stuff? Mage's Disjunction. But if you destory the enemy's stuff, expect to see your stuff being destoryed.
How are players finding out? I fudge (and all my players know this, so yes, I can keep a group) when the situation calls for it. Keep the climactic encounter climactic. When I do fudge, I keep my.roll secret (all my rolls,.actually), NEVER tell my players, and make sure players are never penalized by my fudging.
Aye, but then the players discover what you've done and its very possible they feel cheated. When the GM rolls four fiat 20's in a row just to mitigate my character I feel pretty cheated personally. Similarly when the boss suddenly gains 200 hps.
I would quit your game.
In fact, I've definitely quit a very similar game in the past, because the GM continually tacked on HP to the monsters until the party was close to dying, to "keep the climactic encounter climactic."
We figured it out. It got real old real fast, because strategy was meaningless. We knew the BBEG was going to die whenever we were almost dead, no matter how smart or dumb our strategy was, and no matter how great or terrible our rolls were, so instead of the encounter being "climactic" it was, well, "lame."
Fantastically, boorishly lame.
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My experience is that baleful polymorph really isn't always that impressive unless they fail the Will save. Otherwise you've just given them a Dex bonus and Str penalty + some natural armor, and a crappy natural attack. Sure, it's nice bringing that barb down from 30 Str killing you with a greatsword but a 24 Str pigeon with 100s of hp is still somewhat respectable. About the only class that will consistently fail both saves is a rogue, and even then Diminutive is a +12 Stealth for getting away or enabling a tiny kitty sneak attack.
You know, everyone keeps talking about how "if players are happy"...blah blah blah. But what about GMs? They should be happy too.
If the players don't want the same things from a game that the GM does, that IS an issue. Its not an issue with a spell though. The solution is communication between the GM and the players.
@beej67 - last words from me, because we're off topic. I don't do it like in your experience. If the party earns an easy victory, I'm inclined to give it to them. It's when the d20 gets fickle that I step in. But your style is perfectly valid too. I don't think I'm nearly as transparent as in your experience. I try and keep it subtle.
On topic - I agree with Claxon and Krispy. A GM is a member of the group, too. He also has desires and preferences. As a player, I'm inclined to let DMs have their way. If I don't like it, I don't have to play.
How are players finding out? I fudge (and all my players know this, so yes, I can keep a group) when the situation calls for it. Keep the climactic encounter climactic. When I do fudge, I keep my.roll secret (all my rolls,.actually), NEVER tell my players, and make sure players are never penalized by my fudging.
Aye, but then the players discover what you've done and its very possible they feel cheated. When the GM rolls four fiat 20's in a row just to mitigate my character I feel pretty cheated personally. Similarly when the boss suddenly gains 200 hps.I would quit your game.
In fact, I've definitely quit a very similar game in the past, because the GM continually tacked on HP to the monsters until the party was close to dying, to "keep the climactic encounter climactic."
We figured it out. It got real old real fast, because strategy was meaningless. We knew the BBEG was going to die whenever we were almost dead, no matter how smart or dumb our strategy was, and no matter how great or terrible our rolls were, so instead of the encounter being "climactic" it was, well, "lame."
Fantastically, boorishly lame.
Totally agree. I once had a character who could petrify most enemies as much as 10 CR higher with a 90% success rate.
After a series of big battles in which my 90+% success rate didn't see a single petrified foe, I quit playing under that GM, and I let him know why. The odds of the enemies saving 20+ times in a row is SO statistically unlikely that there is no way the GM wasn't fudging.
He knew it. I knew it. The other players knew it. His game never recovered from his dishonesty. We could never trust him to be our GM again.
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You know, everyone keeps talking about how "if players are happy"...blah blah blah. But what about GMs? They should be happy too.If the players don't want the same things from a game that the GM does, that IS an issue. Its not an issue with a spell though. The solution is communication between the GM and the players.
what happens if not ALL the players are happy? If just the one doing that casting is having fun and the others start to feel ripped off?
That's far harder, Karal. I suppose the individual will meed to change to meet the needs of the group.
Ravingdork,
The build you're talking about, spell perfection essentially with GSF and some other goodies, is a big part of why I've never allowed APG in my games. Frankly, SOD/SOS builds are aggravating enough just in Core for my tastes. The fact that so many gms feel compelled to fudge does point to fundamental problems in the underlying system.
Restricting content from the beginning is totally different from outright cheating.
Also, a GM who can't handle Spell Perfection should probably stay away from high level play. There are far worse things, and in abundance too.
Enough. Back to baleful polymorph.
No problem, Lincoln. You were close to the issue anyway. :-)
I...don't see much of a problem with the spell, actually. There's two saves, one to negate, and one for partial effect. Most people have one of Fortitude and Will good. If people like this, why aren't your players going nuts for Phantasmal Killer? More useful when it works, and you can still loot the Guy.
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I have had two BBEG guys get turned into chickens so far and we are only at 10th level. I do not want to render the spell totally impossible (except sometimes) but beyond a high fort what can I do to make this spell less effective. Any way to get rerolls on saves or target counterspell or something?
Remember it is two saves.
One to see if you change at all (fort), one to see if you lose your extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like abilities, as well as the ability to cast spells (if you had the ability), and you gain the alignment, special abilities, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores of its new form in place of its own.
If you turn me into a goat, but I know I'm not a goat, it's just beast shape III. You still retain class and level (or HD), as well as all benefits deriving therefrom (such as base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points). It retains any class features and (other than spellcasting) that aren't extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like abilities.
what happens if not ALL the players are happy? If just the one doing that casting is having fun and the others start to feel ripped off?You know, everyone keeps talking about how "if players are happy"...blah blah blah. But what about GMs? They should be happy too.If the players don't want the same things from a game that the GM does, that IS an issue. Its not an issue with a spell though. The solution is communication between the GM and the players.
Then the issue still isn't one spell, its a player issue. The solution is to talk it out; if its hindering fun for the players, then find a solution or a compromise.
The issue I see here is this; Baleful Polymorph is not even a particularly good save or suck. Color Spray (while its level appropriate) is far worse, and BP the same level as things like Suffocation (I'd rather fail my first save against BP than Suffocation).
You can't just meta-against it, you'd have to meta against Save or Sucks in general.
And THAT is the sort of thing that you should allow your entire party to rebuild characters based on (effectively starting from scratch), because when you build a character, you have an expectation of how that character is going to work. Having the DM change the rules on you (by reducing the effectiveness of whatever your particular thing is) is massively unfair if its done without consent and the ability to do something else.
That said, I dont know that you really have to meta against BP or Save or Sucks, just build better encounters in general (good encounters are resistant to these sort of things). There are already a lot of good suggestions in the thread, but things like multiple foes instead of one big bad guy, consumable but potent defenses, and building your badguys forces like a party would with redundancy and condition removal (his buddy the cleric has break enchantment, or maybe his familiar has a scroll...). And don't forget Contingency.
And absolutely make sure that the guy casting Baleful Polymorph with the unmakeable save has people to Polymorph... because thats what he finds fun.
Work with the players, not against them.
EDIT: As Ciretose points out, Vorpal Rabbit situations are great fun. A duck who's got 13 levels in fighter and still has the benefit of his constant effect magic items and most of his feats is FAR from out of the fight. A monk is even more hillarious.
Oh, hey, here's another way to bypass it. Make your next BBEG a Druid with wild casting.
Oh, hey, here's another way to bypass it. Make your next BBEG a Druid with wild casting.
I have rarely ever had a big bad guy fail both saves for this spell. They usually either have a large fort save or a high will save. If they pass the fort, then no problem. If they fail the fort but pass the will, then you have a spellcasting (or other types of powers, like hexes) chicken that can still cause problems for the PC's.
I. Love. It. When this happens. Doom chicken!
EDIT: Also, the druid BBEG might still be screwed. Natural Spell notes that you can cast spells while using wild shape - but Baleful Polymorph pretty specifically ends the wild shape. I'll admit, it's a fine distinction, and I'm pretty sure a lot of GMs would let you get away with it, but I'm not sure about the official rules there.