Need some DMing advice.
My group has just started Fortress of the Stone Giants. Due to the violent nature of the adventure path to this point, most of the original party is dead, with only two of them being alive, and only one still a PC (the other deciding to run Fort Rannick and voluntarily NPC himself after his death). Unfortunately, that one character is the bane of my existence: Cerrik, fire based sorcerer.
Cerrik dominates every fight he's in. Without Cerrik, the party's effectiveness drops 50%. With him, no one else can do anything.
Cerrik has the same strategy in just about every encounter. Scorching Ray until it starts to look bad, and then Firewall. If the encounter is a boss fight, or might be tough, he starts by casting Improved Invisibility, and then Fly. Now he can do Walls of Fire and Fireballs without anyone knowing where he's at.
When the party encountered their first stone giants at the end of Hook Mountain, Cerrik went invisible, and then launched fireballs randomly until Barl died. The rest of the party did nothing.
When Longtooth perched on top of the cathedral in Sandpoint, Cerrik was already invisible and flying toward him. When Cerrik got within range of Longtooth's blindsense, it was already too late for the dragon, for Cerrik had his newly acquired Wand of Enervation. Longtooth couldn't "out-fly" Cerrik, and Cerrik couldn't miss with the wand. Longtooth barely got away three rounds later (and almost died because Cerrik decided to hit him with Suffocation for good measure during the dragon's retreat).
Cerrik invented a new pattern for his Wall of Fire. It's a spiral. If it's tight enough, large sized creatures have to pass through two or three layers of the wall to get out.
Today, Cerrik soloed the Ogre Cattle Rustlers, and in frustration I just declared the battle over once the Wall of Fire hit (druid in the party had already Spike Stoned the area making it hard for them to escape). Cerrik's player, Matt, cussed me out for ending the battle before he could roll damage, and stormed home, leaving the group stunned.
That's the problem. I'm terrified of Cerrik. The party tracked the raid against Sandpoint and did reconnaissance on their numbers. I was afraid Cerrik was going to cast Invisibility and Fly and solo the entire group from the air. He actually was asking questions about how tightly grouped they were, and how large the clearing the stone giants were camped in.
Several of the other players have also come up to me and told me that Cerrik was too powerful. A few weeks ago the party's Oracle spent the entire session trying to keep up with his low base speed while Cerrik was teleporting and flying from here to there and mopping up. It's no fun to sit at the table for five hours and not be able to roll a single dice. And at the end of this session, when Matt stormed out, one of the players stayed behind an extra half hour to talk about how to solve the problem. We didn't really come up with much of a solution.
I know spellcasters have always been super powered in these games, and that's just something you expect after you've played long enough, but it's never been this bad before. We've gotten to a point that is frustrating for everyone, myself and Matt included. I don't want to kill a character just because he designed a massively damaging sorcerer, especially when the player is really good about being in character. And I don't want to change the campaign to accommodate a single PC. I'm all about the PCs being movers and shakers in the world, but I don't want the campaign to alter itself to make the encounters PC specific. Maybe if this were homebrewed, but not a pre-written campaign. Help!
First thought: How did he outfly the Dragon? Longtooth has a base fly speed of 150 ft, while the fly spell maxes out at 60 ft. If Longtooth uses a double move, he'd get a 240 ft distance bonus compared to a caster taking one move and casting a spell.
Also, enervation is a close range spell. If your caster is 10th level, then it has a range of 50 ft, while the Dragon's blindsense goes out to 60 ft.
The duration of greater invisibility is only 1 round/level, which should give most opponents a chance to either notice the character before he becomes invisible, or during the encounter.
That spiral pattern for wall of fire sounds very cheesy. The spell description only allows for a sheet or a ring. I'd say a spiral version would be a higher level spell, simply because of the sheer amount of damage it could deal.
As for how to handle the character.. It's probably no secret that he utilizes these efficient tactics, even to his enemies. Have some of them be prepared for him with fire resistance items, and with true seeing or see invisibility. There are several spell casters of a decent level in the module, and it would certainly not be strange if they took precautions against their enemies.
Do you run the game under 3.5 rules or Pathfinder rules?
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Your caster is burning all of his spells in one encounter = your problem is the 15-minute adventuring day.
Are you using the random encounter tables? Are your NPCs responding to situations they are aware of even if they're not in the room? When you get to the fortress it should be harder to use this kind of low-level scry-and-fry tactics.
If your oracle can't keep up, I suggest letting him/her change into a cleric.
To add to Are's comments:
Fireball - every time he casts it, he pinpoints where he is. It starts as a glowing bead that streaks out from the caster to the target location. Admittedly, if he casts and then moves while invisible, he can shake up his perceived location. But pinpointing himself with a light make him vulnerable to a held action.
This is also true, pretty much, of any ray spell like enervation. When you cast it, it starts at you, revealing your location.
Wall of Fire - the spiral idea is extremely cheesy. If you can make a spiral shape for the wall, wouldn't that already be incorporated into the ring version? I'm all for players being creative with spells, but I don't think the spell is intended to allow the player to multiply the damage of the spell beyond what the ring can already accomplish. If that were possible, wouldn't that already be part of the description of the spell?
I let my PCs draw rings with wall spells, but we use the rule that you can't be affected by a spell more than once if you are forced to move through it more than once to remove yourself from the effect.
So, if a huge creature was caught in a wall of fire that filled its entire square, it could just move out and take damage once. If a large creature runs out of the spell without, at one point, all of its squares being unaffected by the spell, it only takes damage once.
Also, I hate to say it, but a lot of your problems are just coming from your misconceptions of spells.
Do the bad guys know of Dread Cerrik's Reputation?
yes?
Potions of Fire Resistance. 1st Level gives 10 points of resistance and lasts for 1 minute. 7th level gives 20 points of resistance and lasts for seven minutes. Cheaper than rings and difficult to loot-the baddies used 'em up!
You should not be allowed to 'spiral' Wall of Fire. The description explicitly states two layouts. Wall, or Ring. Nothing else.
As Titan points out, Damage once in persistent AoE spells. In that case, "Spiral away and make your spell that much smaller..."
Look at the spells available to you-From Glitterdust, to Web, to See Invisibility to Dispel Magic.
* * *
Storming away from the table because you conceded he had won a fight?
That's once.
* * *
An old man and his wife were celebrating their 75th Wedding Anniversay. One of the grandkids asked, "Grampa, how'd you make it all this time?"
Grampa replied, "Well, on our honeymoon, Gramma and I went to the Grand Canyon and rented a pair of mules to take down the trails. As we were walking, her mule stopped. She said, 'That's once!' and gave the mule a kick-it started moving again. A while down the trail it stopped again. Gramma slapped his ear and said, 'That's twice!' The mule started moving again. About the time we got the bottom that old mule stopped yet again! Gramma hopped off, pulled out a pistol and shot the mule in the head, 'That's Three!'
I jumped off my mule and demanded, 'Why the heck'd do that?'
Gramma looked me dead in the eye and said only, 'That's once'
* * *
There is hope-but you may have to ramp up your encounters. Or, if not ramp 'up' then adjust them laterally ;) Survivors learn and tactics that are repeated tend to fail.
GNOME
It also helps if your baddies get/have some AOE abilities - since for those the invisibility is not all that bad.
But as several of the other comments pointed out, make sure the stats you use for creatures is accurate. "Are" made very relevant comments in this regard.
Need some DMing advice.
My group has just started Fortress of the Stone Giants. Due to the violent nature of the adventure path to this point, most of the original party is dead, with only two of them being alive, and only one still a PC (the other deciding to run Fort Rannick and voluntarily NPC himself after his death). Unfortunately, that one character is the bane of my existence: Cerrik, fire based sorcerer.
Cerrik dominates every fight he's in. Without Cerrik, the party's effectiveness drops 50%. With him, no one else can do anything.
Cerrik has the same strategy in just about every encounter. Scorching Ray until it starts to look bad, and then Firewall. If the encounter is a boss fight, or might be tough, he starts by casting Improved Invisibility, and then Fly. Now he can do Walls of Fire and Fireballs without anyone knowing where he's at.
When the party encountered their first stone giants at the end of Hook Mountain, Cerrik went invisible, and then launched fireballs randomly until Barl died. The rest of the party did nothing.
When Longtooth perched on top of the cathedral in Sandpoint, Cerrik was already invisible and flying toward him. When Cerrik got within range of Longtooth's blindsense, it was already too late for the dragon, for Cerrik had his newly acquired Wand of Enervation. Longtooth couldn't "out-fly" Cerrik, and Cerrik couldn't miss with the wand. Longtooth barely got away three rounds later (and almost died because Cerrik decided to hit him with Suffocation for good measure during the dragon's retreat).
Cerrik invented a new pattern for his Wall of Fire. It's a spiral. If it's tight enough, large sized creatures have to pass through two or three layers of the wall to get out.
Today, Cerrik soloed the Ogre Cattle Rustlers, and in frustration I just declared the battle over once the Wall of Fire hit (druid in the party had already Spike Stoned the area
making it hard for them to escape). Cerrik's player, Matt, cussed me out for ending the
battle...
It doesn't sound like the player will easily accept that his character is effecting others fun whic is really the problem so :
1. You can alter the treasure to improve the abilities and powers of the other pc's so that the balance between party members improves2. Spiral of fire? Get rid of it.
3. If he uses his high level abilities to wipe out mooks then he won't have them to deal with bbg
4. Flying invisible sorcerer is a fine tactic, but it won't work in more confined areas. I say
let him have it to eliminate a group of mooks, but invisibility has a bunch of ways to beat it, and fire is an element many creatures have
As a final point, fighting ogres and stone giants is always going to be tough for front line fighters and a piece of cake for mobile arcane spellcasters - this will change as you get to the bottom levels of the fortress of the stone giants. We found the fighters got trashed in the 3rd & 4th parts of this ap, but they were fine in the first 2 and in the 5th. The final instalment has a lot of variables IMO.
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Lots of good advice so far.
One point I'd like to add is that it's important to remember that the goal of playing any RPG is for everyone to have a good time, ESPECIALLY the GM. After all, you put in the lion's share of the work, so if you're not having fun, something needs to be fixed. That's not you being a prima donna, that's just common sense, IMO.
But also look at it from the player's perspective. He simply created an optimized character that is highly efficient at what he does. His attitude stinks at the moment, true, but he only did what most players try to do: create a character that is fun for him to play and is good at doing what most D&D-esque PCs are supposed to do: kill things - fast.
It would be great if all players were sensitive to group dynamics and created PCs that "played well with others", but we've all had to deal with those that don't. Re-balancing an unbalanced group is sadly the GM's job. We are in a hobby with more than its share of folks who have trouble reading social clues, but them's the breaks.
Like most people who have responded so far, I would disallow the spiral wall of fire; it goes against not only the RAW, but also breaks the game. It's a 4th level spell; don't give it the power of a 5th or 6th level one.
The AP so far has strongly favored this character, in that it's been composed of magic-light foes who are really good at melee combat. That allows high-magic PCs who excel at long distance attacks, but that's about to change:
IMO, it's also not your job to slavishly follow the adventure as written, especially if it's not working for your party. If you're not having fun, change it to suit your party. I have a very useful rule that I stole from "Trailblazer". If your BBEG is getting stomped by your players (especially if it's just one player): double his or her hp. Don't change anything else, just the hp. This makes the encounter a lot longer and challenges the players to "dig deep", and makes more a much more memorable encounter. If you double the hp and it's still a walk-through, double it again. Don't do this for every encounter, otherwise you will royally piss off the players and frustrate them to no end. But the BBEG should be epic and should challenge the PCs to pull out all the stops.
A dragon out for revenge, that has encountered the sorcerer in question, can and will "spread the word". Playing purely with the as written baddies will give you plenty of lee-way in adjusting them on the fly. The part where there are two 'charmed' red dragons is where you have those two buddied up with the dragon out for revenge. Burn them ... burn them all.
All of the advice above is spot on: wall of fire does not have (S) appended to its area of effect - it is not shapeable without the 3.5 archmage prestige class as memory serves. It is not shapeable at all in Pathfinder (again, that I am aware of).
Make sure to convert the baddies' stat blocks.
Another very key factor is : Perception checks. The sorcerer has to be able to see them too. Baddies with permanent see invisible = invisibility spells no longer provide concealment at all. Making attacks penalizes the stealth bonus by -20, canceling out the benefit to Stealth provided by see invisible.
The sorcerer is at best a 10 or 11 hp/level character, with favored class, toughness and an 18 CON plus 4 hp per HD (4 +4 Con +1 toughnes +1 favored class, per level).
Fly is - as mentioned - 60', 90' with haste. An unhasted dragon or elemental is going to be able to out-speed him - and elementals that can fly are also going to be able to outmaneuver him. These creatures, especially the dragons, know what a fly spell is and the maximum movement after lobbing of attack spell (normally 60') - they can easily spend there much higher movement allowance to close in on the space where he was and "spiral of death" out until they pick him up on blindsense - at which point obliteration ensues, or perhaps a "mere" glitterdust to light his tucas up... oopsie!
Additional consumable gear suggestions: elixirs of death ward plus potions of mage armor, shield and shield of faith (all as high as the local potion brewing bad guy can provide) will correct most of the problems, with the addition of level 11 potions of resist fire 30. If he uses spectral hand the touch AC is *much* higher thanks to mage armor and shield. Dragons' touch AC is never very high even with beers of shield of faith having been swigged without taking the Dodge AND Agile Defense feats [a 3pp PRPG feat - adds additional dodge bonus to AC derived from BAB] plus the shield of faith.
And dragons can use mirror image too ... let alone nasty stuff like project image ...
Challenge him. And, more importantly, challenge the rest of the group to participate by NOT letting him hog the spotlight - or by letting him "draw all the aggression" and seeing how long he stays alive.
Depending upon how soon they will encounter the dragon out for revenge again, adding the exemplar template ramps his CR up by 3 and makes him a LOT tougher without adding an age category to him. I cannot recommend this template enough for "revenge" scenes...
You want to get evil, hang a contingent create undead that mummifies him on the spot - they have to fry him AGAIN to beat him. ^_^
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Depending upon how soon they will encounter the dragon out for revenge again, adding the exemplar template ramps his CR up by 3 and makes him a LOT tougher without adding an age category to him. I cannot recommend this template enough for "revenge" scenes.
Turin, what source is this template from? I am not familiar with it. Thanks.
Depending upon how soon they will encounter the dragon out for revenge again, adding the exemplar template ramps his CR up by 3 and makes him a LOT tougher without adding an age category to him. I cannot recommend this template enough for "revenge" scenes.Turin, what source is this template from? I am not familiar with it. Thanks.
You can find it here. As I've observed before, there are a few in there that can make you scratch your head a bit ... but then, there are some REALLY nice ones too. Exemplar is one of the nice ones.
I think several people already said it best, especially the bits of spell range (with the dragon) and wall of fire not working the way you're playing it at all.
I'd also like to add that flying invisible is quite powerful if you're always outside with unlimited maneuverability. But in dungeons, it's really quite crappy in single corridors, where doors can be shut, where you're going to get affected by AE, where you have to fire past your friends, where AE affects you and your friends, and encounters are always close (so the sorc will be in range of scent and other detection abilities).
What would you do if you were getting attacked by an invisible force? I know I'd probably run and lock myself in a safe room. If that happens, his invis will run out and he's just another sorc... potentially even backstabbed etc when he gets out.
There are lots of spells that knock invisibility out also. Faerie Fire (level 1 druid), Glitterdust (level 2 wiz/sorc), invis purge, etc. Then there's also terrain (snow, water, sand). When he casts any energy spell, he's giving away his position and can be targeted by a readied action.
Greater Invis is a 1r/level spell, doesn't last long, how many times can he do it per day?
Ray spells provoke an AoO when casting the spell but also provoke an AoO when making a touch ranged attack. He wouldn't be able to take a 5' step on a giant.
What about grappling? Have his opponents grapple him, especially if he gives up his position. Once he's grappled he can't cast anything with a somatic component (almost all spells) and invisibility doesn't even matter.
Or maybe the simplest counter, a tanglefoot bag. He gives up his position one time, someone with has a readied tanglefoot bag, hits him and entangles him for a few rounds. Meanwhile he has goop all over him, destroying his invisibility.
Fireballs might hit 3 giants at most? Armies spread out. If they have any kind of intel on this character or have a cleric, don't you think they'd have something to counter him? The sorc should be afraid to come into the giant camp imo...
Or maybe you're not challenging everyone enough. Scorching Ray doesn't exactly do a lot of damage compared to high level fighters, if scorching ray is taking enemies out solo... so would a well made fighter.
Bottom line is that DPS sorcs aren't that good, no matter how much they're min-maxed. Sure, they're annoying if they're flying around shooting fireballs, but high level mobs usually have good spell resistance and especially fire resistance. They usually also have good detection abilities. Even smart opponents can stop it from happenning by simply shutting the door or using some tactics. Let him have his fun but really, you can drop the hammer on him sometimes, easily, and there should be fights where he's next to useless (like against even a low level devil).
High level dragons have SR, but Longtooth didn't have any.
If you're not already using the Pathfinder Bestiary stats for creatures, you should. It's a big difference compared to the 3.5 versions, especially since it sounds like your PCs are using PF rules.
And I agree, post the character so we can verify it and understand.
Ok, update:
Matt is probably not coming back for a while. The other players agree that he was pretty irrational storming off like he did, and he doesn't seem to want to come back for a while. Probably for the best for all of us. That solves a lot of problems in and of itself.
As far as the Wall of Fire stuff, we were playing by 4th edition wall rules, which was a mistake. Didn't realize it was different for Pathfinder, though it's obvious in retrospect. He was heavily shaping it, and that really made certain encounters a lot easier. I mean, seriously, with the large area of Wall of Fire, it should have been blatantly obvious to all of us, but just completely overlooked.
I messed up on the dragon's fly speed, but it wouldn't have mattered. I tried to grapple several times, but the dragon only had blind sense, not blind sight, and he kept missing.
Your caster is burning all of his spells in one encounter = your problem is the 15-minute adventuring day.
Well, no, he was casting Scorching Rays and Magic Missiles until things got hairy, and then he'd throw a single fireball to end it, or throw a Wall of Fire and just sit back and wand cast magic missiles anything that came out. An 8th level sorcerer with a 22 CHA has a lot of options as far as spellcasting goes.
If your oracle can't keep up, I suggest letting him/her change into a cleric.
Player loves his Oracle, but hates his 20 ft. base land speed.
Fireball - every time he casts it, he pinpoints where he is. It starts as a glowing bead that streaks out from the caster to the target location. Admittedly, if he casts and then moves while invisible, he can shake up his perceived location. But pinpointing himself with a light make him vulnerable to a held action.
I allow my players the same thing I allow myself and the monsters: Perception checks. I would say like a DC 15 to notice something like that while engaged in melee or otherwise preoccupied, modified by distance. Might be a houserule, but it's what I've been using.
My party had had only one death at that point, and only two so far (well into the last module).
I've posted all the character deaths so far in the Rise of the Runelords Obits. A lot of those have been tactical mistakes or lucky crits. I play the game straight.
Kudos to the player though - for playing a less than optimal theme based character. (An optimal blaster sorcerer would have a mixture of damage types).
He has Magic Missiles and Lightning Bolts. And he was going to take Enervation next level specifically for boss fights. He made a fire themed character and he played it well. As far as role-playing goes, he was pretty damn good.
How much damage did the sorcerer take from the dragon's breath?
Elemental sorcerers get resistance from their element. Cerrik has fire resist 20. He took some damage, but not much. I think it was 12 points.
It seems as though the problem may be your player and not his character. He sounds like a game bully to me. I assume you have a young group as well since I can't imagine an adult player storming out of the session when he didn't get his way. If he is over 20 years old just let him go. Problem solved.
Younger. He's 25. It did take us all by surprise and we sat in a stunned silence for several minutes. He's not very mature, sure, but I don't want to pick on him too much online.
The rest of us are pretty well adjusted. Two of us are married, one is engaged. We've only got one college kid left in the group, and he's someone's younger brother. Sure, we're all under 30, but some of us are just barely. Like I said, it took us all by surprise.
And as far as changing up tactics and stuff, I do try to play the game straight. I don't fudge die rolls. I don't modify the pre-written campaign to include things that aren't around. If enemies or NPCs have info, then I adjust, but I don't just pull things out of a hat because the party makeup requires me too.
That's part of the enjoyment I get from pre-written stuff as well. It gives me a picture of what is happening at a certain moment in time, and then I can adjust as the players interact with that moment. The campaign is like a still lake, and the player's actions are pebbles, rocks, or boulders thrown into the lake. I like this analogy. The lake doesn't become a sheet of glass, a picture of a lake, contain less water, freeze over, or become a lake of fire just to suit the objects being thrown in.
I feel it's important not to modify a pre-written campaign too much. I've seen too many of them get off-track due to unforeseen consequences of a seemingly innocent lapse of consistency. Plus it keeps the playing field level. I'm not good at writing adventures, at least not the nit-picky stuff. Maybe that makes me a bad DM, but I'd rather play anyways. Someone has to DM, though, and either the other players don't want to, would want to write their own stuff (which never ends up being very good), or just don't have a grasp of the rules or of DMing to be able to do it.
My dungeons aren't static, but I don't make up random encounters or monsters to throw at the party if they're not already there, or have somewhere reasonable to come from. I allow my PCs free will, but try to nudge them in the proper direction without making it look like I am. Sometimes they ignore the plot for a while, and I adjust. And everyone seems to be enjoying it, minus the last month or so due to the tactics of our sorcerer.
And as mentioned above, I would check your own rules knowledge. The dragon should have had a nice sorcerer snack; with blindsense he doesn't need to see his target to hit with all attacks. And IMHO you should have had him charge rather than run right in the first round, so reading up on combat strategies for various monsters might be helpful for you.
Look, I haven't been playing Pathfinder for too long, but I did play 3.0/3.5 during it's entire run, and DMed a good portion of that time. Bought the 3.0 books as they were being released, one at a time, over the course of several months.
First round, Cerrik moved within range of Blindsense and used the Wand of Enervation. Dragon turned and charged. Whiffed on the miss chance. Cerrik flew to fifty feet out and Enervated it again. No AoO because of concealment from Improved Invisibility. Dragon is now down like 5 or 6 HD. I start getting worried. Dragon flies and tries to grapple. Whiffed on concealment roll again. Cerrik flies fifty feet away and enervates yet again. Dragon moves and fires breath weapon. Cerrik takes minimal damage, flies away and enervates a fourth time (has to roll a 1 to miss on range touch). Dragon has almost no HD left and turns to flee. Cerrik hits the dragon with Suffocation, dragon falls unconscious somewhere outside the city walls and is rescued by giants leaving town after 25 rounds of looting unhindered.
I hardly see where I made a rules mistake. The Wall of Fire thing, sure, as we played two years of 4th before moving back to Pathfinder and walls work differently in 4th edition.
Would you be kind enough to post the over-all make up of the rest of the party, as well?
Well, there's Cerrik, of course.
Then we have an Inquisitor of Pharasma that focuses on ranged combat (who started hitting the dragon pretty hard too the round or two the dragon and Cerrik weren't behind a building.
The druid with his "dire" tiger animal companion.
The blind, slow oracle of war or battle or whatever.
And then a monk.
I made a thread about Xanesha:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/adventurePa th/runelords/tPKKindaAgainstXaneshaHELP&page=1#5
Cerrik was like level 5 at the time, wasn't overcoming SR or something, and was easily overcome in melee (party's one melee guy left had just been petrified).
Sorry for the long post, but I hope I addressed everything.
Coming late to this and only really reading the OP, I have to wonder how it is Cerrik is always successful at getting the lay of the land.
Isn't there ever any fog? Clouds? Can any bad guys cast any illusions? Cerrik sounds well-built, but he also sounds unchallenged by any unusual conditions. I don't play any adventure paths, so I don't know how flexible they are meant to be.
But the first thing I would think of, the second time Cerrik took to the sky to scout out which group of ogres to blast first, would be that the next combat will feature concealment and maybe somebody smart enough to issue some orders to the other grunts.
Or, you could take the fight to the other PCs. A direct attack on them, featuring foes their classes might be geared toward handling, would hopefully force Cerrik to think of some other tactic than carpet bombing the entire area.
Cerrik only scouted from the sky once, and that was after the party had tracked the giants. I didn't want combat there, and was trying to impress upon the group the overwhelming force arrayed against them, so I allowed them to be on a low rise, behind some bushes, etc, and gave them bonuses to Stealth due to that. I was vague on the number of giants and bears they could see due to the size of the clearing the giants naturally had to be camping in, and that's why Cerrik cast Improved Invisibility and Fly and scouted the area. All he did was fly from one side of the clearing and back, and he had nine rounds to do it before invisibility wore off. I didn't say the day was cloudy or foggy, and this was taking place in the middle of the afternoon.
The invisibility/fly combo has only been invoked twice. It's only been needed twice. Most of the time normal invisibility works just fine.
I did make Teraktinus (or whatever that giant's name was) come back from scouting himself, and he passed his Perception check. That's what I used to scare the party away from their talk of starting a fight or an ambush right then and there. Cerrik cast Teleport to get back to town, taking most of the party with him, and the giants were hot on the heels of the druid and his dire tiger all the way back to Sandpoint. That's when I launched the attack on Sandpoint, at dusk instead of dawn. See, that's adaptation, beeches. Who said I was a bad DM?
Against Longtooth, Cerrik moves into Blindsense range, uses his wand. His round is done, the dragon knows exactly where he is (even though he still has concealment). Congratulations, he should be dead now.
Longtooth now flies within range (which will subject Cerrick to an AoO if he tries to move away, a grappling AoO) and grapples Cerrick. The rules aren't clear on grappling and it doesn't look like concealment applies and honestly, Long tooth knows where Cerrick is anyway. I can only assume that Cerrick is grappled now, Longtooth will fly away with his prize in his jaws, and Cerrick will be slowly squished.
If you don't like that, you can always move beside Cerrick and cast True Strike (which gives +20 on his next attack and ignores concealment), which will do the same thing regardless of how you want to interpret the grappling rules. Cerrick tries to move out of melee range and bam, grapple him. Longtooth should have a CMB of at least +19 and a CMD of at least +30 (that's a young dragon, not juvenile), so there's no way Cerrick is getting away. While grappled the dragon could even disarm Cerrick of the wand, with a +19 roll I'm sure it wouldn't be very hard.
Instead of letting him run all over you, you should be sending this cocky sorc home in a bodybag. Did I mention Pathfinder dragons can incinerate their foes, meaning they can't use Raise Dead?
Can't attack of opp something with total concealment. Blind sense with something with invisibility still gives them total concealment, they just know what square you're in. Longtooth knew Cerrik was there, but couldn't hit on his concealment rolls.
I didn't do True Strike right off the bat for a reason. The dragon gets hit from behind and it doesn't feel good, so he charges the impudent fool. He misses. Gets hit again, knows he's up against a spell caster, and knows that if he can grapple the spell caster is dead, so he moves to try the grapple. Misses. Breath weapon recharges (finally) and Longtooth knows he can't miss with that, and thinks it'd be an easy kill (Longtooth doesn't realize he's up against a fire based sorcerer). By this time the rest of the party catch up, and the Inquisitor starts peppering the dragon with arrows. Time for an escape, things aren't going his way. Suffocation.
Longtooth is a young, arrogant dragon. He's got an Int of 14, not 22. I was trying to play him as such. Now that he's been humiliated, if Matt sticks around, the next encounter with Longtooth is going to go much, much differently.
Can't attack of opp something with total concealment. Blind sense with something with invisibility still gives them total concealment, they just know what square you're in. Longtooth knew Cerrik was there, but couldn't hit on his concealment rolls.
I didn't do True Strike right off the bat for a reason. The dragon gets hit from behind and it doesn't feel good, so he charges the impudent fool. He misses. Gets hit again, knows he's up against a spell caster, and knows that if he can grapple the spell caster is dead, so he moves to try the grapple. Misses. Breath weapon recharges (finally) and Longtooth knows he can't miss with that, and thinks it'd be an easy kill (Longtooth doesn't realize he's up against a fire based sorcerer). By this time the rest of the party catch up, and the Inquisitor starts peppering the dragon with arrows. Time for an escape, things aren't going his way. Suffocation.
Longtooth is a young, arrogant dragon. He's got an Int of 14, not 22. I was trying to play him as such. Now that he's been humiliated, if Matt sticks around, the next encounter with Longtooth is going to go much, much differently.
So really, the sorcerer got lucky against Longtooth, because if Longtooth made one of those miss chance rolls it could have been very bad for him. Because a vital striking, power attacking 4d6+21 is going to really hurt a sorcerer. And the grapple would have ended him.
Good tactics, bad luck.
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A young arrogant dragon who is nearly 1.5xs smarter than your average person. He also, presumabley, has experience with magic, and would realize his limitations against an invisible opponent, hence, realizing he might want to cast True Strike.
Also, even if he has total concealment via his invisibility, the Dragon can make a perception check to hear him moving. Yes, he gets +20 on his Stealth check while invisbile and moving, but thats besides the point.
Also also, were you giving the dragon rerolls for his Blindsense?
Did the dragon actually die from the suffocation?
Well, there are two issues. One is that you are possibly overlooking rules that would sway the battle. Many posters above have gone into detail, and it does little good to realize these things post hoc, but you learn as you GM.
The other issue is learning to check spellcaster PCs effectively. Melee PCs are obviously checked by creatures who have lots of HP and take lots of HP with attacks. Spellcaster PCs are checked by enemy spellcaster NPCs. At these levels, you need to make Mokmurian an active force even when he's not around. Once he recognizes the PCs as a threat (and with int 24 he will) he will take countermeasures. Everything from deploying specialist monsters to exploit weaknesses to heavy surveillance.
Have the PCs start rolling will saves and perception to notice the scry sensor. Use a few encounters to make the sorcerer realize he needs to save his spells or Mok will exploit his weakness. Mok won't show himself for fear of scry and die, but he can certainly attack through proxies.
So yeah, use enemy casters to keep PC casters in line, but give them a fair chance to comprehend the new paradigm.
Also also, were you giving the dragon rerolls for his Blindsense?
No re-rolls due to Blindsense. Re-rolls due to Blind-Fight, but I didn't see anything about rerolling due to blindsense. I think you're making that stuff up.
Did the dragon actually die from the suffocation?
No, it's the one thing that I lucked out on. Even with the massive penalties to saves I managed to pull him out of it.
So, essentially: The Sorcerer was very lucky, while the Dragon was unlucky. That probably won't be the case every time, so no harm there. It looks like you ran everything as well as you could.
I think if you remove the spiral pattern possibility from his arsenal, the character would be much easier to handle for normal encounters (although the player removing himself from play also makes it easy to handle).
Hopefully the other players will get their chance in the spotlight for a while during the sorcerer's absence; who knows, maybe they'll even plead to get him back :)
Can't attack of opp something with total concealment. Blind sense with something with invisibility still gives them total concealment, they just know what square you're in. Longtooth knew Cerrik was there, but couldn't hit on his concealment rolls.
Well, like I said, with True Strike Longtooth gets to make that grapple AoO if Cerrick moves away. True Strike ignores concealment for 1 attack, Longtooth knows where Cerrick is (even if he has concealment) and can sense he's moving, so he gets to make that AoO, that's the point of the spell, ignoring concealment for 1 attack.
Regarding using bad tactics for a 14 Int juvenille dragon. I think you seriously underestimate how smart a 14 Intelligence is. Most people who play RPGs could come up these tactics I listed and they certainly aren't that smart. I think you can assume that a dragon, even a young dragon, should be able to think of anything we can think of.
Added to that, the attacking force didn't have any intel on Cerrick? They seriously knew NOTHING about him? The giants didn't have a cleric or wizard to scry a single piece of information about any defenders? They didn't have any spies, no one survived any attacks to tell them about the PCs? They didn't capture and interrogate any villagers? Not even a single goblin to tell them anything? Give me a break!!!
So don't you think a dragon, with 26-50 years of experience (and his life on the line), who is highly intelligent, with solid Intel on your PCs, can come up with good tactics? Sure he can. I'd say he could come up with something even better than True Strike + grapple.
Best case scenario, the dragon and giants set some kind of trap for Cerrick. Or maybe just something simple, like a wand of Faerie Fire, a bag of flour, 2-4 tanglefoot bags, or a huge net. Why can Cerrick's player think up cheesy tactics and the enemies can't?
Most likely scenario is you have the dragon use True Strike like I wrote and he grapples Cerrick, like I already mentioned.
Worst case scenario, the dragon should have just flown away from Cerrick (if he was using Greater Invisibility), and it would wear off in 8 rounds. The dragon is much much faster than Cerrick. Does Cerrick even have the Fly skill?
I recommend maybe searching for posts for invisibility, I'm sure this has come up many many times.
In any case, when you have a player that is pwning everything you send at him, it's important that you play quality enemies, like Longtooth, enemies that are intelligent and have intel on Cerrick, to the best of their abilities. So although Cerrick was lucky, your NPCs should have played up to their potential also.
I think you guys aren't giving Martryn enough credit. He already posted the round-by-round battle between Longtooth and the Sorcerer, and in my opinion, he did everything exactly as he should have- Longtooth is arrogant, and yes, he could have cast True Strike, but an arrogant person doesn't waste a round for a 50/50 chance- they go for it and assume they're going to succeed. There's tons of things he could have done differently, but it's so easy to tell someone what they should have done after the fact. I'm sure if the dragon had a couple better rolls (and thus killed the squishy sorcerer), nobody would be telling him how to run this NPC, even if the rest of the fight went identically.
In the end, Martryn, it came down to poor rolls. Statistically, the dragon should have won, but the dice said otherwise.
I think you guys aren't giving Martryn enough credit. There's tons of things he could have done differently, but it's so easy to tell someone what they should have done after the fact. I'm sure if the dragon had a couple better rolls (and thus killed the squishy sorcerer), nobody would be telling him how to run this NPC, even if the rest of the fight went identically.
We're giving Martryn lots of credit, but giving him credit isn't going to fix the problem.
Specifically we're trying to improve his tactics on intelligent competent enemies against invisible opponents.
I'm sure if the dragon had a couple better rolls (and thus killed the squishy sorcerer), nobody would be telling him how to run this NPC, even if the rest of the fight went identically.
If it was just one unlucky session, he wouldn't be posting here. Don't be so defensive.
If he doesn't like our suggestions and feels we're out to get him, feel free to stop posting about it and ignore our posts. Our time is valuable, we're trying to help him, not berate him.
Anyways, I'm out. Feel free to look at the many posts on tactics on how to deal with invisible opponents. In addition, rays shouldn't be that easy to use (or very damaging) in my experience.
Well, the enemy's wise to him now. They're dealing with an archwizard, lord of a country full of wizards.
It's quite reasonable to assume that this enemy will instruct his troops. Especially if they're up against a guy who's using fire all day long.
The advice the Claimer will give will go along the lines of: "Protect yourself from fire damage. Seriously. Rings, spells, whatever you find. That stuff is mostly low-level and quite effective.
And summon yourself some furies. The erinyes is on the Summon Monster list on 6th. You guys are no Thassalonian runelords, but you'll manage to summon one of them, will you? Some of the less incompetent among you will be able to summon several per spell. Those chicks are immune to fire and have constant true seeing. Bye, bye, your pyrophile wannabe!"
And even if some enemies are, let's say, in a far place that is totally cut off from the outside, they probably wise up quickly, or have a feud with some evocation fanatics and want to gear up against fire.
I can't recall if there is one in any of the modules, but where did he get a wand of enervation from? That's like 24k gp.
One of the bosses has one. I think Barl from Hook Mountain
Well, the enemy's wise to him now. They're dealing with an archwizard, lord of a country full of wizards.
It's quite reasonable to assume that this enemy will instruct his troops. Especially if they're up against a guy who's using fire all day long.
The advice the Claimer will give will go along the lines of: "Protect yourself from fire damage. Seriously. Rings, spells, whatever you find. That stuff is mostly low-level and quite effective.
And summon yourself some furies. The erinyes is on the Summon Monster list on 6th. You guys are no Thassalonian runelords, but you'll manage to summon one of them, will you? Some of the less incompetent among you will be able to summon several per spell. Those chicks are immune to fire and have constant true seeing. Bye, bye, your pyrophile wannabe!"
And even if some enemies are, let's say, in a far place that is totally cut off from the outside, they probably wise up quickly, or have a feud with some evocation fanatics and want to gear up against fire.
This is good advice and excellent roleplaying of the big K (if a little anachronistic in dialog :) ) but...
When employing this kind of countermeasure it is important that the players have a chance to figure out that there's a conspiracy informing the prepared enemies. You goal isn't to defeat the PCs, you goal is to provide enough of a challenge that they feel heroic for accomplishing things.
Even a simple "I've heard about you..." from an NPC who is about to die is enough to get the players thinking. Scale it up from there, once they get the picture there is less and less reason to hold back. Plus, by the time they take out Mokmurian, they should be nearing the top of the big K's kill list.
Magic PCs require magic opposition — if you're not employing the enemy mages in depth, you will get walked-on by PCs from 9th level onward.
Cerrik has only become a problem over the last five or six sessions. No, not a lot of enemies have an idea of his tactics. Who is supposed to be left alive? Why should the party be on anyone's radar before the end of Hook Mountain? Why would Mokmurian, much less Longtooth, care up until this point?
The tactics for Longtooth was given in the adventure. That's why he perched on top of the church. That's why he was gloating and why his breath weapon wasn't charged. That's where I got an impression on the type of NPC Longtooth was. Longtooth isn't all that experienced as the adventure describes this being the first town he's had the pleasure to raid. I was under the impression that Longtooth probably lived in the mountains somewhere for the better part of a century and was getting fat off of goats and the random ogre or something, not repelling attacks from adventurers and reading up on what wizards and sorcerers were capable of.
As far as having a 14 intelligence and coming up with tactics appropriate to that as well, I get the impression you guys are looking at this from a tactical mindset, as if this were a minis game or a game of chess. I do have a problem in my games with players running fighters with an 8 INT telling the party's wizard how best to cast his area of effect spells while in the middle of combat. Or of a raging barbarian having the foresight to 5 foot step so that the rogue can achieve a flank on it's turn. An arrogant dragon having a blast razing a town isn't going to think, "I'm going to cast a safe spell and then move close to the wizard. Surely he'll do something to drop his guard before my spell expires in six seconds." Maybe if this were 4th edition, or the DnD minis game, but there is a reason I wanted to come back and play Pathfinder.
How can you optimize tactics for a group of monsters to combat the tactics you know the PCs are going to use, and how can we justify it after the fact. I'm not asking questions about how to defeat invisibility, or how to survive more than a round with fire based spells being thrown around. I was more looking for advice on the situation and how other DMs of Rise of the Runelords have dealt with similar problems.
I can easily modify the encounters to kill off a party member. I could easily fudge rolls, give permanent True Seeing or Potions of Fire Protection to enemies, or have them swap out prepped spells for summon spells to summon monsters that they normally wouldn't. I could pretend to justify this by giving the monsters intel they wouldn't have on PCs that they shouldn't yet know much about. But one of the last things I said in the opening post was that I don't want the campaign to re-write itself just to accommodate the PCs. If the campaign reacts to the PCs, fine. If the monsters get intel and adjust tactics, ok.
If the campaign reacts to the PCs, fine. If the monsters get intel and adjust tactics, ok.
This is the gist of what several replies are saying. Mr. K has precisely the means to have that intel throughout the entire campaign. He certainly has the means to disseminate that intel to his numerous mini-onions.
Martyrn: Don't fixate on the post-mortem analysis. It can be informative, but you need to focus on generating the optimal scenario for your game in progress.
What do you need to do to create a situation where this PC feels challenged but the others are not killed? I'll tell you now, the answer is probably not "run the monsters better." The answer is probably: "respond to the PCs more actively." Do you have copies of their sheets?
Now, there is a right and a wrong way to do this. Just giving the enemies rings of fire resistance? Wrong. Having a smart NPC scry the PCs in combat, and then give his assassin agent a ring of fire resistance? Better. Having the players piece together the conspiracy that is the source of all of these countermeasures? Best.
As for the tactics outlines in Longtooth's statblocks, I always read those once and then ignore them if they didn't give me any ideas I liked. Far too many have read that "so and so fights to the death for a contrived reason." It simply isn't to my taste, and if you have been having problems, perhaps it isn't to your taste either!
EDIT: AFAIC, the watershed moment of the campaign was the Battle of Sandpoint. That's the first battle where you can be 100% assured there was a high level enemy wizard keeping an eye on the fight. This means that is the place where the PCs come to Mokmurian/Karzoug's attention for the first time. Thereafter, enemy reconnaissance (remember the PCs can spot the scry sensor!) becomes a normal part of play, and Mokmurian surely employs private sanctum. Unlike Longtooth's paltry 14 int, you now have to play a super-genius stone giant, fairly.
So I'd say that from the battle of Sandpoint on, it is fair to consider Mok's actions as a countermeasure to PCs.
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If the campaign reacts to the PCs, fine. If the monsters get intel and adjust tactics, ok.This is the gist of what several replies are saying. Mr. K has precisely the means to have that intel throughout the entire campaign. He certainly has the means to disseminate that intel to his numerous mini-onions.
** spoiler omitted **
+1
(not just him, his stuff too, like wands, scrolls, etc.)
Only if he rolls a natural 1 on his reflex save. Your stuff doesn't get destroyed just because you're hit by a Fireball.
Grappling a sorcerer isn't always the end-all-be-all, especially if the character has the Still Spell feat he can apply on the fly (like while grappled) to dimdoor or teleport out of the grapple.
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Technically... of course everyone houserules this ... but Still Spell as written is useless for a sorcerer.
you can't cast a spell with a casting time longer than "1 action" if you're grappled. When a sorcerer metamagics a spell, it becomes a full-round action to cast it, so still spells can't be cast while grappled.
:) Nitpicking because nobody actually plays this way, nor should they.
Still and all. Plenty of ways to get around invisibility. Monsters who are of a CR to deal with invisible, flying, fireballing humans know this. They don't clump up unless they're in a room small enough to make life dangerous even for an invisible flyer.
Oh, and spiral firewalls? Cheese.
You don't have to Still most teleportation spells - they are generally Verbal-only. One word and out.