I've come into a bit of a problem with one of my players and his mesmerist. While I had breezed over the occult classes I didn't see how powerful the mesmerist could be. He has walked through most challenges simply with his Hypnotic Stare and cripples most bosses I've put them against. He's starting to get a bit arrogant and reckless as little has been able to stop him outside of a swarm of enemies. Anyone have any advice on matching the mesmerist without looking like a jerk? I don't want to just kill the mesmerist but find ways to even out or properly counter his abilities as he has been high jacking most missions from the group.
Are you playing commercial adventures or your own creations? How many players are there? What level characters? Is the Mesmerist synergizing particularly well with another class?
I have a couple Mesmerist NPC villains; they aren't particularly unstoppable alone, but do make the minions tougher.
Are you playing commercial adventures or your own creations? How many players are there? What level characters? Is the Mesmerist synergizing particularly well with another class?
I have a couple Mesmerist NPC villains; they aren't particularly unstoppable alone, but do make the minions tougher.
It's my own adventure and they recently hit level 7. Depending on schedules there can be either 4 or 5 players. He's using his Hypnotic Stare a great deal to shrivel up the will saves of major NPCs and then typically follows up with hold person or blindness to cripple them before letting the rest of the group to finish them off. However it got really bad when he got his hand on Lesser Geas and now he mostly just cripples a henchman or monion and just has them fetch what they need or or kill the target while they sleep. His high charisma also has given him a good deal of NPC allies to watch his back while the rest of the group waits at the bar for him to return and he charms his way into almost anything. I feel I am missing something that the player could be fudging to his advantage so it likely is my own fault this has happened.
|
Note: blindness requires fort save, not will save. If he's using glitterdust to blind then will (and hypnotic stare helps) then he's okay but the bad guy gets to resave every round.
Spell casting, even psychic spell casting is visible and should notify others in the area something is foul. Charm Person doesn't work if there are multiple guards and the skinny guy casts a spell then one of them changes behavior. The other guard will react accordingly.
As it's a world of your creation you have to decide how common is magic knowledge among the populace and the countermeasures that need to be in place. Charm person is a 1st level spell so guards should at a minimum have ranks in sense motive and spell craft to ID spells due to training set up by the court wizard.
Small magic items can help as well. An amulet that glows in the presence to find altering magics for example would be a wise investment for anyone suspecting mental infiltration.
Generally mesmerists work well as 1 opponent. Bold stares can mitigate some immune opponents 50% of the time, but multiple opponents with immune types like golem, swarm , or undead is really the bane of a mesmerist.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
|
Well, having "a swarm" of enemies is a good idea in general; there are numerous classes and builds that will make mincemeat out of a solo boss monster. Even without hypno stare, it should be expected as tactics for any support caster to cripple enemies with spells like Hold Person or Glitterdust or Hideous Laughter or whatnot; that's why these spells exist.
A support caster is very much a force multiplier. The counter for that is increasing the number of enemies, and in fact this will probably make the entire team feel more heroic.
Regarding lesser geas, well, why would a random henchman or minion be successful in fetching or killing what they need? I suggest having a couple of these henchmen die from hazards or traps, then have the local villagers point out that mesmy isn't much of a hero by just sitting around and ordering other people to their deaths.
Well, having "a swarm" of enemies is a good idea in general; there are numerous classes and builds that will make mincemeat out of a solo boss monster. Even without hypno stare, it should be expected as tactics for any support caster to cripple enemies with spells like Hold Person or Glitterdust or Hideous Laughter or whatnot; that's why these spells exist.
A support caster is very much a force multiplier. The counter for that is increasing the number of enemies, and in fact this will probably make the entire team feel more heroic.
Regarding lesser geas, well, why would a random henchman or minion be successful in fetching or killing what they need? I suggest having a couple of these henchmen die from hazards or traps, then have the local villagers point out that mesmy isn't much of a hero by just sitting around and ordering other people to their deaths.
Oh I have plenty of enemies. The main problem seems to be that the mesmerist negates combat entirely and tends to send his thralls through enemy lines to take out the helpless leader or acquire what is needed and cause disarray. It's smart but, yeah, not exactly heroic. I'll probably use those methods against him and have people grow untrusting of such a person. If anything he may make a good villain in the future. I do admit I tend to gave a bit mpre Game of THRONES feel to my games so tactics are usually more rewarding in the long term and I tend to not use enough monsters. I should implement them more. I've been lacking in traps and stuff behind enemy lines to stop the thralls as well. All great ideas so thanks for the advice. I appreciate it.
Remember that the controlled minion's allies can still use sense motive (DC 25, so it'll only work occasionally).
Also... "A clever recipient can subvert some instructions." I'd save this for occasional use, but fetch the item with a bunch of sepia snake sigils, or stab somebody for nonlethal (depending on wording). Don't do it every time unless the target is expressly clever or the wording particularly loose, but it's good to throw in now and then.
What is likely getting overlooked is that casting is noticeable. Charm Person almost requires the target to be alone in social situations, otherwise people realize you're going around messing with people's heads.
Are folks having fun? If so, try to roll with it. Have a competing Mesmerist (or Bard/Sorcerer/Psychic etc.) show up trying to poach territory. Throw in a Psychic with the psychedelia discipline to force saves after each mind-affecting spell. Give other party members a chance to do some thug work, keeping rivals out.
Ultimately, the question is why aren't more enchanters doing this? The two handy answers are that there are unforeseen consequences, or that they ARE doing this, and the Mesmerist is eventually going to run into bigger fish.
Mesmerists' great weakness is immunity to mind-affecting.
Remember that the controlled minion's allies can still use sense motive (DC 25, so it'll only work occasionally).
Also... "A clever recipient can subvert some instructions." I'd save this for occasional use, but fetch the item with a bunch of sepia snake sigils, or stab somebody for nonlethal (depending on wording). Don't do it every time unless the target is expressly clever or the wording particularly loose, but it's good to throw in now and then.
What is likely getting overlooked is that casting is noticeable. Charm Person almost requires the target to be alone in social situations, otherwise people realize you're going around messing with people's heads.
Are folks having fun? If so, try to roll with it. Have a competing Mesmerist (or Bard/Sorcerer/Psychic etc.) show up trying to poach territory. Throw in a Psychic with the psychedelia discipline to force saves after each mind-affecting spell. Give other party members a chance to do some thug work, keeping rivals out.
Ultimately, the question is why aren't more enchanters doing this? The two handy answers are that there are unforeseen consequences, or that they ARE doing this, and the Mesmerist is eventually going to run into bigger fish.
If the party was having fun I'd totally roll with it. What he's doing is very smart and I'm shocked I never thought of it myself. However the rest of the party is kind of becoming secondary as he's kind of amassing his own little empire and it's starting to high jack the campaign. Their discontent with the situation is becoming more prevalent and they are getting more restless and reckless as he sends out more thralls. I thought maybe gangs were figuring out what he was doing to their guys and just assault the tavern the party is staying at "Chinese ax gang style" to take him out with a massive combat.
Constructs and undead. And lots of them :)
Don't ever make the mistake to create a boss mob, leave that to video games. A group of enemies is always better. Just look at it like this: one monster has one move and one standard action against those of the group. That imbalance will kill a boss mob easily.
On the other hand, using a group of enemies will bring down the mightiest of mages. They don't have to be of the groups level, they can be lower. Three sorcerers, one oracle, plus two melees of level 6 are far more dangerous than a 12 HD boss. Let them use fly, invisibility, haste and resist energy (communal) and thats a surprise for most parties (and they can fireball away if needs be, since the resist gives them an edge).
A group of archers (if I was evil, half would be rogues with the archetype and the rest fighters) using poisoned arrows are pretty nasty. And likely to achieve surprise.
There is another not-cute tactic, which few ever use: counterspelling. If the NPC caster does nothing except to block the party's big gun, he has done an excellent job. Any spontaneous caster with dispel magic will work fine...maybe with some of the bonuses to CL checks we all are so fond of :)
NPC clerics have domains, too. Some of the domain powers can be useful. Luck/Fate allows to mess with other peoples' d20 rolls.
And of course there are the NPC mesmerists, witches and their ilk, who can hand out a dose of the same medicine. After all, the mesmerist is not immune to his own spell list.
Besides the mentioned undead (a staple monster, if there is one) and constructs there are also vermin and swarms (just don't use those with a mind) and all mobs with spellresistance (a large group and your best option). All of them don't care about mindaffecting magic and consequently will saves.
Then there are those critters with gaze weapons. They are not immune to mindaffecting magic - but you have to see your target to cast on it, no? Even a fake medusa (an illusion will do) will make them look away and thereby negate the casters of the group (at least for one round).
Certain domains and feats allow messing with saving throws, like forcing or granting re-rolls or substitute a save for another. There is even a feat that allows oracles to use their CHA for saves like a paladin. Some races have saving throw bonuses vs mindaffecting magic. By raising your NPCs resilience to magic things are less of a walk-over.
You get the idea. There are many ways to challenge a caster, and you can use a variety (not all the time, of course) to spice things up now and then.
Mindaffecting magic was considered the weakest type of magic in older editions, since there were so many things immune to it. Pathfinder has changed that a bit, but many things are still as they were.
|
The easiest way to throw a wrench into the mesmerist works is with intimidate. This will give him the shaken condition and he can't cast while under its effect.
Also, charm person is great fur gathering information or getting into restricted areas. It is horrible for combat. They won't do anything suicidal and anything requiring combat is an opposed charisma check.
They aren't as all powerful is you realize their weak points.
Demoralizing will eat his swift actions, because he needs to remove shaken or cannot can't spells with emotion components. It also takes away towering ego, serving as a huge save penalty. Throw a few people with the enforcer feat and saps. Blinding will make it difficult for him to use his stare, which can help saves. And it can target CMD if saves are an issue, using dirty trick. It also makes it tough to target spells. Also, as noted above, immunity helps. And NPCs with good will saves could help reduce the pain of hypnotic stare. Cleric, Druid, Inquisitor, and Warpriest in particular, as they have good saves and are wisdom-based.
For the non-combat aspect, first talking to the player helps keep it in line, very few like being disruptive and most try to dial back power when they learn they are. Then consider things like a church of a deity of trickery taking an issue with the mesmerist on their turf. Or just a fellow mesmerist.
The easiest way to throw a wrench into the mesmerist works is with intimidate. This will give him the shaken condition and he can't cast while under its effect.
Yes, he can. V only components work fine, and he's got Suggestion on his list. He also has touch treatments to remove the condition.
I think your greatly overestimating the abilities of the Mesmerist class, a find it sub-par given what it's suppose to do. It's class feature only allows specific saves to stay competitive with a sorcerers but it will still have less spells known, usable in a day and an inferior spell list. A sorcerer is a far better enchanter.
On the point at hand I think this may be more of a case of the player convincing you on how thinks should go down rather than how these things normally play out. I've seen this thing happen before where an experienced player will convince an inexperienced DM that OP homebrew is ok, any corpse should be easily accessable for a necromancer, magic + gambling = infinite money.
Charm does not give you permanent minions unless YOU want it to, you may have the charmed enemy assist fighting strangers(not there own allies) in the area but they are unlikely to follow them around unless the Mesmerist has been fortunate enough to find nothing but slaves.
Your party is using geas and sending mind controlled minions out into the open. I would consider that insanity, you dictate the world outside there vision, protection from alignment spells all supress compulsion, geas itself says you can work around the orders. Unless you have a fixed world then chances are a lone mind controlled minion will fail. The NPC's should not be so weak as to fall for such a tactic if the PC's are high enough level to cast such magic.
There's 2 ways you can handle it.
Say you have been doing things wrong and scale back what they have access to. A party should not have access to an NPC army.
Or have a devastating encounter where an enemy caster has prepped minions with circles of protection which suppresses compulsions and allow the mind controlled creatures to attack the party.
I have only played an enchanter once before myself and would have considered it suicide to walk around with anything more than 1 or 2 mind controlled minions.
What alignment is the party? This character?
I may be with NoTongue here. I'm not sure how the Mesmerist's abilities are letting him control hordes of beings. What exact abilities is he using? Are his enemies failing every Will Save? (A -3 is far from automatic against many enemies..) What spells is he using?
I got a bad feeling someone might have misunderstood how "Charm Person" work and rule it as "Dominate Person".
I got a bad feeling someone might have misunderstood how "Charm Person" work and rule it as "Dominate Person".
What do you mean? When I ask my friend to randomly kill strangers they just do it.
Mesmerists' great weakness is immunity to mind-affecting.
Well, even that can be spotty as a countermeasure. One of the first abilities they can pick up is psychic inception, which allows him to use his stare and even get his spells out (although the enemy gets a bonus that basically counters the stare's penalties). The spells apply 50% of the time (and that doesn't mean the spell misses 50% of the time, but it stays applied but flickers on and off between rounds). That is still enough to shake up a combat.
The easiest way to throw a wrench into the mesmerist works is with intimidate. This will give him the shaken condition and he can't cast while under its effect.
That won't necessarily shut the mesmerist down, but it does limit his actions. He would have to use his swift action for a touch treatment, which means he can't target an enemy with a bold stare.
I got a bad feeling someone might have misunderstood how "Charm Person" work and rule it as "Dominate Person".What do you mean? When I ask my friend to randomly kill strangers they just do it.
Well, that falls under 'things they would do anyway'. That mostly just means that your friends are terrible people.