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I'm currently running the Asylum Stone in the Shattered Start Adventure Path. The 8th level Wizard in the party has 2 4th level spells per day and he's taken Enervation. This spell is causing absolute mayhem in the game. All he needs to do is hit with a ranged touch attack and the target loses 1d4 levels (no save but Spell Resistance applies).
In my opinion this is one of the most unbalanced spells that I've ever encountered, and I've been playing RPG's for over 30 years.
Are there any DM's out there that can give me suggestions on how to deal with this? I don't want to persecute a character out of the game, as it's all supposed to be about fun, however I'd like to balance things out a bit if I can.
Cheers
Prux.
I'm currently running the Asylum Stone in the Shattered Start Adventure Path. The 8th level Wizard in the party has 2 4th level spells per day and he's taken Enervation. This spell is causing absolute mayhem in the game. All he needs to do is hit with a ranged touch attack and the target loses 1d4 levels (no save but Spell Resistance applies).
In my opinion this is one of the most unbalanced spells that I've ever encountered, and I've been playing RPG's for over 30 years.
Are there any DM's out there that can give me suggestions on how to deal with this? I don't want to persecute a character out of the game, as it's all supposed to be about fun, however I'd like to balance things out a bit if I can.
Cheers
Prux.
I find it hard to believe that two single target spells a day - that neither slay nor incapacitate - is ruining your game. Just a thought though, getting him to burn one or more on illusions or creatures that are immune/spell resistant might help... and over time bosses may learn of that tactic and plan for it.
The spells only cause a penalty, and he if he can only do it twice a day it should not be that bad, but with that said, give the important bosses death ward.
Also don't forget to apply the penalties for firing into melee, and don't forget the cover bonus to AC for the target if someone is between the target and the caster.
The spells only cause a penalty, and he if he can only do it twice a day it should not be that bad, but with that said, give the important bosses death ward.
Also don't forget to apply the penalties for firing into melee, and don't forget the cover bonus to AC for the target if someone is between the target and the caster.
True - those last two points are overlooked far too often.
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Enervation shouldn't be that huge a deal normally, the points above are really valid, make sure he's taking all the correct penalties to hit, etc. Also, simply giving tough bosses a decent Touch AC will make a big difference if you still feel it's too powerful.
Just be careful you don't drive him away from it so he starts casting Acid Pit or Black Tentacles on all your boss fights, that'll be even worse.
To back up everyone else, enervation will (looking at the effects on a CR 8 in the monster creation guidelines) at most drop the monster to somewhere around CR 5 (it's actually anywhere from CR 4 to CR 6), which is nice (for the player), but doing so only twice per day is unlikely to unbalance things too much, unless you allow the party to dictate the pace of encounters (the much-reviled "15-minute adventuring day").
Keep the pressure on, and don't be afraid to throw a high-CR encounter in after he's used his enervation spells on weaker targets - spellcasters must be pushed to make hard choices about their spellcasting, or they will quickly dominate the game.
Yeah, Enervation's pretty rad but it's not all that and a bag of chips.
You're imparting a -1 to -4 penalty on rolls, and dealing 5-20 damage to the target. Average is gonna be -2 to rolls, and 10 damage. Which is great for a no save spell, but it's kind of a crapshoot as to whether it's going to be a better use of your action than something that can potentially impart that -2 to all rolls to multiple targets on the field (like effects that cause a target to become Shaken), or deal a great deal of damage to that one target (Scorching Ray, frex), put more bodies on the field (Summon Monster), and so on.
What I mean is it's good, but hardly a gamebreaker or a "must have" spell.
its only broken in the mythic setting. the first mythic boss my party fought had the wild arcana thing and I hit them with Enervation 4 four or five times thanks to that with some other spell every round as well. you want broken look into mythic.
Yeah, sometimes a good way to deal with party casters is to turn their 15-minute adventuring day into an attrition war. If they're in a dungeon (which S* basically is the AP of!) and they want to rest or retreat, let them. Then have them run into a monster or five. Relatively weak HP-wise usually works, and you can take a page out of 4e and make them "minions" that drop quickly but can do decent damage. Slam down trap walls behind them. Throw major image out all over the place! Make it a scary monster, and if they fail their Will saves the party will use at least a couple resources in an opening salvo. If not, they'll take a nasty first-round from the next monster they come up against.
Also, don't be afraid to sort of pick on casters. It might seem like a jerk move, but realistically in a world of creatures and people who are well aware of the power of magic they would go for the caster first. The party does, right? So why not the things they come up against? Sunder spell component pouches, steal holy symbols, etc. If you do it just often enough it'll freak out the casters and give the martials some time to shine saving the party. And yeah, just be thankful you don't have a conjuration wizard. I have one right now with the teleportation subschool and he's a nightmare. It's 60 lions this, and infinity thousand tentacles that....
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Yeah, sometimes a good way to deal with party casters is to turn their 15-minute adventuring day into an attrition war. If they're in a dungeon (which S* basically is the AP of!) and they want to rest or retreat, let them. Then have them run into a monster or five. Relatively weak HP-wise usually works, and you can take a page out of 4e and make them "minions" that drop quickly but can do decent damage. Slam down trap walls behind them. Throw major image out all over the place! Make it a scary monster, and if they fail their Will saves the party will use at least a couple resources in an opening salvo. If not, they'll take a nasty first-round from the next monster they come up against.
Also, don't be afraid to sort of pick on casters. It might seem like a jerk move, but realistically in a world of creatures and people who are well aware of the power of magic they would go for the caster first. The party does, right? So why not the things they come up against? Sunder spell component pouches, steal holy symbols, etc. If you do it just often enough it'll freak out the casters and give the martials some time to shine saving the party. And yeah, just be thankful you don't have a conjuration wizard. I have one right now with the teleportation subschool and he's a nightmare. It's 60 lions this, and infinity thousand tentacles that....
Puna'chong that's exactly the build he's using, Teleportation sub-school. Any advice you can give on that would be very much appreciated.
As for the teleporation subschool remember that it acts like dimension door so if he uses it, then his turn is effectively over since DD says you can't take any other actions after using it.
SU's that reference spells typically have the same limitation of that spell unless otherwise noted. So it is good for escaping, but it unless he uses it as his last action he is done until the next round.
I have not ran or played in the Shattered Star AP, but if the bad guys might notice their buddies are missing then the PC's might have trouble getting a full night's rest.
Also dont be afraid to switch out melee combatants for archers.
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As for the teleporation subschool remember that it acts like dimension door so if he uses it, then his turn is effectively over since DD says you can't take any other actions after using it.
SU's that reference spells typically have the same limitation of that spell unless otherwise noted. So it is good for escaping, but it unless he uses it as his last action he is done until the next round.
I have not ran or played in the Shattered Star AP, but if the bad guys might notice their buddies are missing then the PC's might have trouble getting a full night's rest.
Also dont be afraid to switch out melee combatants for archers.
The Shattered Star is a good AP, but it is very linear.
I guess what I was asking is or most of the fights outside where it is possible to have one fight a day, or would they be inside?
Oh, jeez, then I'm sorry =P It's a rough one to handle, because they get a fourth-level spell at level 1!!! Usually minimum 6 times per day, too. And then they get even more at level 8. Plus they're already focused on the most powerful school in Pathfinder...
So you can't grapple them, or trip them, or do anything but try to drop them in one attack. Which is fine, because the goal shouldn't be killing players. The issue is challenging them. RAW the wizard threatened by a melee creature could simply take a 5-foot step to avoid AoO, cast Create Pit, then Shift away. Not to mention that Augment Summoning and Superior Summoning means you're dealing with at least 2 other (relatively tough speed bump) critters taking up space/making damage happen while their creator won't be in melee for more than an opponent's round. Even hitting their spell component pouch doesn't prevent them from using their Shift because it's Sp and doesn't require components.
Best way I've found is to just pressure them with arrows, honestly. If you add in one creature to every encounter whose entire purpose is to basically piss of the wizard with their bow, that at least makes them use more spell slots for greater invisibility or stoneskin. That or nuke them with fort-save stuff, like poisons or things like nauseated or staggered that remove their insane action economy. Really, you should be glad the wizard is using enervation, because at that level black tentacles is a very real thing. So is frikkin' acid pit, which doesn't really kill creatures that can't fly so much as it completely removes their ability to use any item they have...
So yeah. I mean, it sounds bad, but sometimes I just have to pick on the wizard. I actually increase the APL by 1 because of him, which usually goes towards making creatures more magic-resistant or adding some dude with good ranged attacks. Craziest part is that he's a good player, but very inexperienced with high-level play; so it could be worse!!
Shift is SU meaning it does not even provoke. What 4th level spell are they getting at level 1?
Shift is SU meaning it does not even provoke. What 4th level spell are they getting at level 1?
Checked SRD, and it is in fact Su. Hero Lab has it as Sp, which is what I was referencing. I'll probably go put in a ticket for that over there... The 4th-level spell they get at level one is, essentially, dimension door albeit at a nerfed range. In my experience, though, the range of the spell isn't what's so good about it, but rather the fact that it can be used by basically any conscious wizard to get out of a jam provided they can speak and concentrate. Arguably, the Shift ability is actually better than the spell because it doesn't provoke and is a swift action, meaning they essentially are casting a 7th-level spell. 3 + INT times per day.
SU dont require concentration or speaking. Well they might require speaking, but it has to be specifically called out for that SU.
If the higher level enemies have access to divination spells and or some bad guys escape they could know about this tactic and prepare for it.
Puna are you running an AP or home game?
SU dont require concentration or speaking. Well they might require speaking, but it has to be specifically called out for that SU.
If the higher level enemies have access to divination spells and or some bad guys escape they could know about this tactic and prepare for it.
Puna are you running an AP or home game?
Yeah, that's why I was more comparing it to the actual spell. I use Hero Lab so often that I've just started taking certain little details from that instead of the actual books =P What I mean above is that the actual spell is, arguably, worse than the ability because the ability is pretty much: 1) Do you have a swift action? [Y/N] 2) Are you conscious? [Y/N] 3) If Y & Y, K! You're out of that effect. Good job! So a wizard with this subschool has most of the utility of the spell, with multiple uses, simply lacking the actual thing's 400+ range.
This character is in a group where I'm running CotCT for the third time (not for them; it's their first time, my third). I'm actually not having too many issues with the character outside of the normal caster-martial disparity at higher levels. I've run a game with the subschool before, and it's manageable if somewhat annoying at times when the player can just say, "Oh. Then I teleport?" Mooks tend to get outclassed by just about every member of the party to some degree, but I play the more impressive/noteworthy encounters much more aggressively. Also, since I've run it before, I'm adjusting the encounters to where I imagine they'd be had Paizo released the AP a month ago. I also imagine that any creature living in a world with casters would necessarily (at higher levels) be prepared to take them down and know how they might handle such an encounter, so they play smart but the brutality comes from environmental circumstances.
Like I said above, black tentacles is probably the biggest offender because it's a multi-round, fire-and-forget area of "DON'T GO THERE!" that the wizard can bypass at will. Which is cool, it's their big fun thing. The party gets surprised by the occasional mythic monster or--gods forbid--when I actually manage to drop the wizard or the witch with things like poison or simple arrow-spam.
Honestly, players can get so upset when they get hit or encounter resistance =P It's like they don't realize that these monsters can cast black tentacles and displacement too!
I think they are about even because the spell allows you to take allies, but when I use DD, it is normally to escape so in that regard Shift is better.
LOL @ players getting upset.
I am in book 4 at the moment in CotCt as a player. My GM just updates them to PF.
Players should not think NPCs can't use tactics also.. :)
I think they are about even because the spell allows you to take allies, but when I use DD, it is normally to escape so in that regard Shift is better.
LOL @ players getting upset.
I am in book 4 at the moment in CotCt as a player. My GM just updates them to PF.
Players should not think NPCs can't use tactics also.. :)
True, but by the time wizards can, in MTG parlance, "hardcast" dimension door they've got this great new toy that's sooooooooo necessary called Dimensional Steps which is baby teleport that they can share! =D But at any rate, yeah. I rate Shift as close enough to DD to find it convenient to pretty much use them interchangeably when the subschool is concerned.
CotCT is so rockin', holy crap. I love it. I'm happy you get to experience it. I typically remake every encounter at this point, since I ran it back in 3.5, then again when the Pathfinder CRB was out (so minor adjustments), and then now. Each time to completion. So it's partly to make the encounters fresh for myself, and also to utilize all the great new stuff that's come out since APG. There are conversions over on the AP's messageboard, which I'll use in a pinch, but I like making it my own =)
My favorite player reaction was running an Eyes of the Lich Queen Eberron campaign back in 3.5 and I had a player use baleful polymorph on a dude. It worked, and they were super happy, and all was well. Until harm happened and the wizard just dropped. He got so mad that "YOU USED A SAVE OR DIE ON ME BRO WHAT THE HELL?!" that he threw his purple d20 at me, shoved his paper off the table, then huffed off.
Haven't actually played with that dude in years. He's probably off eating paint or running a massive corporation or something right now...
GMs aren't allowed to use SoD/SoS spells and effects on PCs?!
Wow, that's some world-class entitlement issues there.
Glad my players are forgiving.
To be fair, NPCs are a hell of a lot more numerous and replaceable than PCs.
NPCs are often there just to die. PCs, not so much.
I'm probably spoiled by high-level play where death is just a status condition.
I think they are about even because the spell allows you to take allies, but when I use DD, it is normally to escape so in that regard Shift is better.
LOL @ players getting upset.
I am in book 4 at the moment in CotCt as a player. My GM just updates them to PF.
Players should not think NPCs can't use tactics also.. :)True, but by the time wizards can, in MTG parlance, "hardcast" dimension door they've got this great new toy that's sooooooooo necessary called Dimensional Steps which is baby teleport that they can share! =D But at any rate, yeah. I rate Shift as close enough to DD to find it convenient to pretty much use them interchangeably when the subschool is concerned.
CotCT is so rockin', holy crap. I love it. I'm happy you get to experience it. I typically remake every encounter at this point, since I ran it back in 3.5, then again when the Pathfinder CRB was out (so minor adjustments), and then now. Each time to completion. So it's partly to make the encounters fresh for myself, and also to utilize all the great new stuff that's come out since APG. There are conversions over on the AP's messageboard, which I'll use in a pinch, but I like making it my own =)
My favorite player reaction was running an Eyes of the Lich Queen Eberron campaign back in 3.5 and I had a player use baleful polymorph on a dude. It worked, and they were super happy, and all was well. Until harm happened and the wizard just dropped. He got so mad that "YOU USED A SAVE OR DIE ON ME BRO WHAT THE HELL?!" that he threw his purple d20 at me, shoved his paper off the table, then huffed off.
Haven't actually played with that dude in years. He's probably off eating paint or running a massive corporation or something right now...
I know about the dimension door feats. I just have not used them yet. :)
Harm only took you down to one hit point in 3.5 IIRC. However I don't know why he got mad, even if it had been an actual SoD. It is not realistic to not expect a enemies to use such things unless a GM says he won't SoD a player.
I won't spam SoD's, not that PF has that many, but I will drop one occasionally.
I mostly just use them to put the fear in players occasionally. They know it could happen, so they're wary, but they only actually happen when they start getting cocky. But yeah, why wouldn't a godlike being be utilizing a fairly straightforward kill spell? There are worse things in D&D/PF than dying. Like Chemlak said, after level 7 or so it's a status condition.