In my current game, my players are level 11. While I throughly like Pathfinder, it still has the same problem of Save or suck spells, which are quite frustrating when designing encounters. It's fun when the players can pull a clever trick; a desperate banish on an enemy demon to save the day. But when you expect every encounter to go the similar way, it becomes very frustrating for me as the GM.
Witches are a particular problem here. Their hexes pass through spell resistance. Slumber has no HD cap and goes on will. Ice Tomb locks away an enemy until everyone else is dead, and goes on fort, with nothing what so ever that gives you immunity to it! Feats can make the witch drop several opponents a round, or try again should she fail.
The wizard is problematic as well. Pit-spells lock out opponents entire fights - those are a little easier to avoid than the slumber though, a lot of things can climb out, fly, teleport etc.
Does anyone have advice how to handle the abundance of save or sucks that my party has, aside from throwing nothing but golems at them?
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Multiple opponents who behave intelligently. Both Slumber and Ice Tomb are balanced on being able to be counteracted by literally anyone with a Standard Action (okay, anyone who can do 20 points of damage in a hit, in the case of Ice Tomb).
If you have a number of opponents, and one or more goes down to those Hexes, simply have their comrades awaken/free them on their next turn.
If there are more PCs than enemies, this helps out on action economy, but is hardly a Save Or Lose situation any more.
I tried that a few times before, though it's not viable for every encounter. Also: they have a blastermaster dragon sorcerer, who will blow up any gatherings of lower level monsters/npcs.
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I tried that a few times before, though it's not viable for every encounter. Also: they have a blastermaster dragon sorcerer, who will blow up any gatherings of lower level monsters/npcs.
Okay. Though I was more talking three or four critters approaching the PCs in badassness than 'a collection of mooks'.
Still, some other valid tactics:
-Immunity to one of the Hexes (either Cold or Sleep/Mind Effecting stuff) and a very high Save opposing the other one.
-People targeting the witch with similar effects (or anything else they can). Not an unreasonable idea at all for people familiar with the group's MO.
-Invisible or stealthed opponents who cannot be easily targeted. Can be combined with the 'waking them up' idea, with the invisible guy stepping up to wake any victims. The invisible guy can be rather pathetic except for that invisibility in that case.
-Somewhat similar to the previous, ambushes. An ambushed party (especially one with the Witch forced to defend him or her self in melee) isn't gonna result in optimal PC tactics.
-Ridiculous saves. Human Superstition Barbarian, Dwarf with Steel Soul. Antipaladin. Various other things with really high saves as enemies.
In my current game, my players are level 11. While I throughly like Pathfinder, it still has the same problem of Save or suck spells, which are quite frustrating when designing encounters. It's fun when the players can pull a clever trick; a desperate banish on an enemy demon to save the day. But when you expect every encounter to go the similar way, it becomes very frustrating for me as the GM.
Witches are a particular problem here. Their hexes pass through spell resistance. Slumber has no HD cap and goes on will. Ice Tomb locks away an enemy until everyone else is dead, and goes on fort, with nothing what so ever that gives you immunity to it! Feats can make the witch drop several opponents a round, or try again should she fail.
The wizard is problematic as well. Pit-spells lock out opponents entire fights - those are a little easier to avoid than the slumber though, a lot of things can climb out, fly, teleport etc.
Does anyone have advice how to handle the abundance of save or sucks that my party has, aside from throwing nothing but golems at them?
I used to play a Slumber Witch levels 5-10. I ended up converting him to a conjurer Wizard because the Witch's powers were trivializing encounters. Most of the issue in our group was that the GM did not target me, and I took the right precautions when he did.
My biggest advise from personal experience is to really enforce the range limitations of the hexes. Slumber et al have a 30 foot range which leaves the Witch vulnerable to a charge. My GM never used charges and I was always flying/mirror imaged.
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Archers. I don't know why everyone assumes combat should all take place in a 60 foot diameter circle. All it takes is 4 archers with longbows 100 ft out from the witch and some melee hitters to slow the party's advance forward to REALLY put a hurt on. At level 11 those archers could be putting out 2-3 arrows a round EASY at 100 ft away. Thats an average of 13.5 damage each archer each round. Toss in a wizard back by the archers to grant them some cover or have some surprises for the charging PCs and BOOM you have one hell of fight on your hands.
Use the fun stuff not many people use in games...golems. A clay golem with some undead archers and undead melee combatants in a tomb is definitely a good fight. The DR on that golem says AND so it has to be cold iron AND bludgeoning.
Using monsters that work well together. Having fast monsters run/fly around the tanks to harrass the squishses. Have melee brutes to beat up on any melee types that try to help the squishes.
Using things like battlefield control along with spells that block line of sight/effect also works. Giving the bad guys support characters is always a good idea.
That witch can only target one creature a round. Having one strong monster with a high will save helps. The others monsters can take up whatever role is needed to support the main monster.
Dispel magic is also your friend if the witch is using things like mirror image.
I'm just going to go ahead and put the pieces together from what everyone else here said...Ambush - Archers - Synergy?
Tucker's kobolds.
Sounds to me like a DM that does not know how to challenge their players.
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Sounds to me like a DM that does not know how to challenge their players.
Isn't that why they are trying to ask for advice in doing so? GMs must start somewhere and if someone pointed at them mockingly anytime they encountered a situation they didn't know how to handle, there wouldn't be nearly as many willing GMs as there are now.
I've seen Save and Suck spell lead to more TPK than any other spell.
There a few reasons for this. Sometimes it just the getting lucky with quick SoS spell allow them to take couple more encounters. Sometimes it leads to poor tactics the enemies take advantage of if they make their saves. Most often it's combination of the two.
The problem with the DM just "adapting" is that you quickly encounter the situation where the player just.. shouldn't have chosen the ability in the first place.
"aww man another creature immune to sleep?" or another set of guys who ready actions to wake their buddy up or.. well, whatever the issue is.
After 10th level the witch can take a feat to start targeting multiple foes.. also feats exist to let them recast hexes at foes who successfully save.
Myself, as the player, I solved it by not taking the SoS hexes. THe others are *more* than sufficient to annoy the baddies (and DM) without rising to the level of him having to fiat immunities and plan tactics solely to thwart my abilities.
Personally, I agree that the slumber and ice tomb hex are both over done.
Clearly it all depends on your campaign style.. some folks don't mind it and find it just fine.. myself, having the DM orient every combat encounter because of one character's abilities is an issue. And one I try to avoid.
-S
Also, remember that the spellcasters can only cast these things a limited number of times per day. Give them 4 or 5 non-trivial combat encounters in a single day, and watch them run out of their best stuff.
That works for only some of the things he talked about. The witch's Hexes can be used as many times per day as they want, but some are limited in how often they can target the same creature.
Also, remember that the spellcasters can only cast these things a limited number of times per day. Give them 4 or 5 non-trivial combat encounters in a single day, and watch them run out of their best stuff.
Nope. Witches get unlimited Hexes per day. HOWEVER, keep in mind that a lot of the hexes can only target someone once per day (unless they have accursed hex). Slumber and Frost Tomb can only be used on the same person once per day REGARDLESS of whether they make their save or not.
EDIT: Ninja'd
Sounds to me like a DM that does not know how to challenge their players.Isn't that why they are trying to ask for advice in doing so? GMs must start somewhere and if someone pointed at them mockingly anytime they encountered a situation they didn't know how to handle, there wouldn't be nearly as many willing GMs as there are now.
Which is okay if there was not already a similar discussion already going on in the Advise thread.
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Which is okay if there was not already a similar discussion already going on in the Advise thread.Sounds to me like a DM that does not know how to challenge their players.Isn't that why they are trying to ask for advice in doing so? GMs must start somewhere and if someone pointed at them mockingly anytime they encountered a situation they didn't know how to handle, there wouldn't be nearly as many willing GMs as there are now.
Which, to be fair, has a very non-descriptive title. That thread ('Am I being fair?') is not obviously about Witches, and so would be easy to miss.
There are some decent ideas here. Range is definitely a good idea, but this only defeats the Witch, rather than the Wizard. Eitherway, there are many encounters I can think of that can be very challenging. Any combination of demons/undead/golems will mess up their day. Problem is, it would become painfully obvious if I over-exposed them to that type of monster, as the campaigns primary focus is not those kind of enemies.
The problem lies in their heavy use of save or suck spells, a concern I have raised to them, though it does not seem to have stuck. I am neither as eager to use save or sucks right back at them, as it can be a percentile chance of outright dying in combat most cases. I much more prefer more balanced combats, that stretches on a bit.
I did not expect the system to have as many as it did, which unfortunately is its biggest flaw. I am considering some homebrew rules so far, making the slumber unable to effect creatures above the Witch's HD. Not sure what to do about say, the Wizards pit spell.
Edit: I will check out the Witch related thread, but my problem is, as stated in my first post, not only related to the Witch. Save or suck spells in general is a constant thorn in my games side.
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Witches are generally very fragile. They usually do not have good defensive spells. So they tend to take damage and be targeted much more easily than wizards/sorcerers.
SoDs aren't that difficult to save against normally, but the problem twofold.
1, witches have unlimited hexes for all practical purposes.
2, NPCs do not have access to the same resources as PCs. NPCs will not have all the various save bonuses and items that boosts them.
I don't think Slumber as that unbalanced, and I've played a high level witch before. I think Misfortune is much worse and affects everything. The other problem is that witches are often hex or nothing. Either the hex works, or the witch has nothing to do. It's not always the case of course, but I find that to be the case more than not.
Your nerf suggestion will not help. Against powerful monsters, it does nothing. Against weaker monsters, it still defeats them without any resources expended. If the witch has Misfortune, you'll just hate that more since rolling twice for every d20 roll is much more aggravating.
Usually the people in the group do whatever they can to keep me up, they love my buffs!
There are some decent ideas here. Range is definitely a good idea, but this only defeats the Witch, rather than the Wizard.
Not true. Our party was 2nd or 3rd level and we almost got wiped by a bunch of goblins, I remember thinking "They're just goblins". The party was escorting a wagon down a road with forest on either side. The GM put a scattering of goblin archers in the trees, with some hobgoblin melee on the road. The forest meant difficult terrain so the fighters couldn't charge. The goblins were spread out so AoE's could only catch 1 or two, plus they had cover which means extra AC vs touch attacks. Have them shoot, then hide behind the tree. If the wich can't see them she can't target them.
Another idea is use the same tactics against the heroes and see how they overcome them. It sounds like you have some really smart players that know how to be effective, use their skills to teach you how to make the baddies more effective.