Our last session our group got it’s butt straight up kicked. It was boss level encounter we were 8th lvl gestalt up against 11th lvl or higher bosses. We couldn’t do a thing. My wizard tried a few things to even the fight - wall of blindness / deafness and black tentacles. The enemy pretty much laughed at both, and neither spell had any effect. In return they pummeled is win damage from ranged spells and melee combat. Even our high AC Paladin got overwhelmed. So without getting too much into the “meta game” aspect how does a wizard or cleric or Paladin deal with enemies a few lvls up on them? Obviously a cr+3 is a challenging encounter. And it’s gonnna be tough. But how would you do it?
Say the following bad guys are working together in the same fight. You are lvl 8 anything.
Lvl 11 “god wizard”
Lvl 11 monk
Lvl 11 rogue
As an aside include in separate combats:(each on its own)
Lvl 11 pally
Lvl 11 barbarian
Lvl 11 fighter (melee)
Lvl 11 fighter (ranged)
Lvl 11 Druid
Thanks!
Win initiative, and Dimension door a melee character adjacent to the wizard; boxing him in if possible, then pummel him unconscious; after he goes down focus on the monk while doing your best to keep the rogue from getting sneak attack.
Of course if the GM wants you to lose, you have no chance; so maybe talk to them and make sure this is a fight you are expected to be able to win.
Sometimes, relying on the enemy to fail their saving throw is a bad bet, regardless of how well you optimize. Especially against 'boss' characters. Sometimes, hitpoint damage is usually the surest way to make sure that you can kill something.
In this kind of fight, knowing in advanced that they would have ranged capabilities, I would use a few utility spells to limit their vision (like Fog Cloud) as we approach.
What resources are you allowed to use? Any variant rules we should know about (or that we can use, like variant multiclassing?) I could probably come up with specific builds that are tailored towards eliminating specific encounters.
darthspader wrote:
Our last session our group got it’s butt straight up kicked. It was boss level encounter we were 8th lvl gestalt up against 11th lvl or higher bosses. We couldn’t do a thing. My wizard tried a few things to even the fight - wall of blindness / deafness and black tentacles. The enemy pretty much laughed at both, and neither spell had any effect. In return they pummeled is win damage from ranged spells and melee combat. Even our high AC Paladin got overwhelmed. So without getting too much into the “meta game” aspect how does a wizard or cleric or Paladin deal with enemies a few lvls up on them? Obviously a cr+3 is a challenging encounter. And it’s gonnna be tough. But how would you do it?
Say the following bad guys are working together in the same fight. You are lvl 8 anything.
Lvl 11 “god wizard”
Lvl 11 monk
Lvl 11 rogue
As an aside include in separate combats:(each on its own)
Lvl 11 pally
Lvl 11 barbarian
Lvl 11 fighter (melee)
Lvl 11 fighter (ranged)
Lvl 11 Druid
Thanks!
CR + 3 fights should be challenging, but not impossible. Now if it was the last fight of the day in a string of fights and you've expended lots of resources it could be a problem. That being said, it honestly sounds a bit fishy to me that none of you spells landed, and that the highest AC member of the party was consistently hit.
NPCs are much more challenging than monsters. A single lvl 11 NPC is a CR 10 encounter. Three of them are CR13, or for your 8th level party, APL+5. This is not a fight you are going to win straight up. Gestalt will make up for some of it, but still, you're beyond Epic on the encounter table.
You only win by leveling the playing field. You want to fight them one at a time, not all at once. You want to fight them after they've already used a lot of their daily resources (tough with a rogue or monk) but you're fresh. You want to metaphorically sneak up behind them and hit them hard before they know the fight has started. You want to find out what their weaknesses are and attack them that way.
There's no magic formula for beating a particular NPC class. Especially at higher level, the differences between builds can be huge. To make matters worse, a God Wizard is pretty much only limited by what spells they have access to.
That being said, the GM is not a neutral party here. He/she can *always* generate encounters you can't overcome. The GM knows what your party can do and can counter all your best abilities. The GM knows your weaknesses and can exploit them. For example, I was playing in a level 12 game where two of our big attacks were a Musket Master and cleric who channel-dazed opponents. The Boss fight had mooks with Steel-Mind Caps and Fickle Winds spells on them. (The Boss had been spying on us, it was a legit tactic.)
But a not-terrible GM doesn't throw a CR+5 encounter at you just to make you squirm. Perhaps they want you to take a different approach than a straight fight. Perhaps they want you to be impressed with the NPCs now so you feel more satisfied beating them after you've leveled up - and maybe more than once. You need to get a feel for what your GM is trying to do. Some GMs are willing to talk about that kind of thing straight up, others want you to figure it out for yourself. The latter might require some - possibly a lot - of non-combat roleplaying.
Everything is available. We are using gestalt characters (which is why the boss fight is cr +3 )
Keep in mind: enemy wizard has fly ability or flight cast before the fight, has access to scorching ray, disintegrate.
The monk has ranged weapons and close in monk weapons. They all have rather good saves and brushed off dc19 will and reflex saves without an issue. They also have a fairly strong AC in the mid to high 20s
Spell Immunity is a 4th-level cleric spell. You don't have Spell Turning or Protection from Spells yet, so I suggest using that one. A Ring of Counterspells is also nasty, if you can afford one. Pick a spell of up to 4th-level (IIRC) and they lose their first casting of that spell. You fought them before, so you know what they like to use.
Enervation is a 4th-level spell. When you hit an opponent with that, they not only lose prepared spells or spontaneous spell slots, but they suffer a penalty to saving throws (attack rolls and other stuff as well) of -1d4... and it stacks!
There is no saving throw against Enervation, there's just a touch attack involved. It works against non-casters, but is more powerful when used against casters.
Years ago, my PCs defeated a powerful monster like this, when it kept making its saving throws. (It also had spell resistance, but the PCs beat that each and every time.) Eventually they hit it with Enervation and only then could they magic it to death.
While it may gum up the works, carefully selected summons can turn the field of battle. I see nothing preventing you from casting Wall of Force or Resilient Sphere to protect yourself, then casting these summons, making them appear right on the NPC wizard. I would focus on summons that have good CMB checks and pin the enemy casters. At minimum the enemy martials will have to waste actions pulling the casters out. The enemy casters can deal with Wall of Force, etc, as they can probably cast Disintegrate, but that's a high-level spell that they may not have prepared or don't know, or want to use against the PCs.
Lesser Planar Ally is a 4th-level spell, and unlike Planar Binding doesn't have horrendous set up requirements of Planar Binding. Pick a creature of 6 HD or less. It's too bad you can't get a Large air elemental; IME it's difficult for something to break its grasp.
You could mess up enemy targeting with illusory disguises. The fighter might look like a rogue, and the wizard look like a cleric, etc. Until the enemy figures the "cleric" is actually a wizard, they will attract few, if any, Fortitude save spells.
And speaking of illusions... Mirror Image for the wizard. True Seeing is a high-level spell, and you can focus on anyone who has had True Seeing cast on them.
Someone made the suggestion of Obscuring Mist and similar spells. Can you find any summons that have special sensory abilities, like giant bats? They're immune to the downsides.
NPCs usually have weak saves except for their best save. Even an NPC wizard's Will save isn't that great, but their Fort save would be terrible. Blindness is a 2nd- or 3rd-level spell. You need to target the wizard's Fort with your most powerful attack spell to snuff them out immediately. Use your most powerful Will save spell against the NPC fighter. And so forth.
Pick spells that don't allow saves, but use skill checks instead. It can get ludicrous. Anything from Grease to Create X Pit can become nearly unstoppable.
Quote: My wizard tried a few things to even the fight - wall of blindness / deafness and black tentacles. Wall of what?
Quote: In return they pummeled is win damage from ranged spells and melee combat. Also a bit confusing. I think you meant they won using ranged damage spells and strong melee combat.
So its a group of 3 level 11 NPCs vs the party? Lovely. So lets break this down real fast.
Wizard: Will cast spells like they don't have anymore encounters today. Funny that. Major problem.
Monk: Excellent saves. Probably has a good AC. Not too scary otherwise.
Rogue: Honestly not too impressive except for sneak attack damage.
Having numbers is the only way you'll be able to handle them. Thankfully they don't have a healer.
Wizard: he's flying, and quite frankly you don't know what buffs he has up. It might be best to have someone just wait and disrupt his spell casting. Any significant damage will probably cause him to lose his spells. Magic Missile is kind of a standard for this, just hope he doesn't have shield up. Silence also works really well. Don't focus on killing the wizard first, just make sure he can't cast.
Monk: Have the paladin fight defensively and take him on. This is a holding action until the rest of the party can down the other two. Holding a monk is difficult, but the monk should stand and fight unless someone else looks like a better target.
Rogue: Soft target once you find him. If he is a sniper type, its a problem. If he is just a flanker, its almost impossible to stop him but easy to surround him and pound him to death quickly. Focus damage here instead of at the monk.
If the party has decent ranged capability, take out the rogue first and then go for the wizard. Otherwise, monk is second. Unfortunately you have no real way to take the flying wizard down other than sending up someone to engage him. That means making a melee type fly. But you can't afford to let the wizard cast any spells so you need to have 1 person ready to interrupt him constantly and the best one for that seems like your wizard.
One thing to say, everybody should have some sort of ranged attack. It might be a lame d6 type of thing, but not having something is unacceptable. Any full BAB class with a shortbow is going to make a wizard sweat bullets if he is constantly having his spells interrupted.
Honestly, probably the most effective thing you could do is use cover/concealment. You (presumably) have superior numbers.
Use obscuring mist. Now ranged attacks can't target you. This removes the wizard from the fight depending on the spells they have available. At the very least they have to resort to AOE spells, which are typically a lot less scary than any fort or will save you might have to make.
Then gang up on the monk or rogue. First one then the other. The rogue should be pretty well neutered in the mist, since the concealment will prevent them from sneak attacking.
Find a way to deny the monk the dex bonus to AC and they should go down pretty easy as well.
Ok some clarifying stuff.
(Great ideas so far)
Our party is 3 PC and my cohort.
We are gestalt because of low PC count.
I’m a wizard/cleric focused on battlefield control, some summons and buff/debuff. The wall in question was blindness/deafness. (It’s basically a wall that makes you blind or deaf when passing through it. A wonderful spell) also I apologize. Using my phone and auto correct is a mean mistress. The rest of our party is my lvl 6 fighter cohort, who basically just watches my back, Carries and uses a few wands if needed and otherwise guards me. The other PCs are a dwarf Paladin fighter, has a good shield and Adamantine fullplate. Very slow, but can park and tank like a bawz. Then a sorc/rogue.
The battle in question was the (I think) final fight for the destroyer cult prefab. It’s the one with the cult HQ in this cave, one of the rooms is a training room with poles coming out of this pit.
The bosses we fought most of them earlier and they fled. So we handled them ok when it was just one. This one was after the leader asked us to join them, we said no, she offered a duel we again said no (didn’t trust and they wouldn’t agree to surrender, only leave) so it was fight them all time. I believe there was 4 of them. The flying wizard, a bouncy monk chick and 2 others. One was a melee fighter. I got first action and put the blind wall up - it did jack. The wizard just flew over it, and the others went past it like it wasn’t there. We then got smoked for a ton of damage. I nearly got KO first round, and my cohort took about 40%. Rest of the group didn’t do anything either. Round 2 I tried black tentacles to deal with the grounded ones (they had crazy high cmd and just walked away) I healed a bit but got nailed for more damage. Again rest of group couldn’t do much. At this point it was the 4 of us vrs 4 of them and we were doing jack and squat. So the rogue/sorc ran in full retreat mode - I grabbed my cohort and dimension door out, unfortunately the Paladin was left behind.
Now that is just for context and background. Ive no interest in the actual scenario, and don’t want the book or anything. This is purely a tactical based discussion.
I did have enveneration prepped - but given that they probally would have killed us immediately after using - I think we GTFO’d pretty much at he last minute. Maybe could have led with it... (or done the duel) but yea. Anyway hope that clears up some stuff.
Generally speaking the party either has numbers, or it is more powerful than what its facing. You had neither advantage and that is something a GM should generally avoid.
You could do some things to bring up numbers. I hate recommending this since I hate the idea but...you can take improved familiar and choose a spellcaster with 3+ int. They should be able to use any wand on their spell list. A fairy dragon (sorcerer 3rd) with a 9th level Wand of Magic Missiles is great for shutting down spell casters. As a GM I hated this but its a valid tactic. Scummy, but valid.
Summoning can be used to temporary boost numbers. If a summoned creature can suck up 2 spells its made its value back. But the action economy on summons is bad so...iffy. You'd be better off using something like a high level Pit spell if the terrain allows you to block off some of the opponents from getting to you. Stuff like tentacles can be just ignored if your stats are good enough. A pit is a physical barrier much like a wall spell. Except you can't just physically break a pit.
It is much easier to separate opponents with a wall since it covers a greater area. You could of put the wall down to seperate 1 of them from the rest and just kill the single opponent while the rest figure a way past your wall. The only saving throw involved is if they are caught in a dangerous area. Wall of fire/blades is no good since you can choose to just suck the damage. Ice, stone, iron, force.
Of course flight ruins both of these barriers. Spells like confusion are top tier control spells. 3/4 of the time it makes the enemy useless, and it hits practically every opponent at the start of most fights. Also confusion never accidentally hits party members. As long as you are casting it at 3 or more enemies its well worth casting because someone is going to fail and as long as you get one, its worth doing.
So...part of your problem is a bad choice of spells, no offense.
You cast a save or suck spell, which are often bad choices.
Black Tentacles is a great spell...against minions or enemies you know are weaker (or your equal). It doesn't work well against anyone who out classes you because the CMB bonus is just 5 + caster level. Since CMD starts out as 10 + BAB + Str + Dex, they just need to have a combined bonus to CMD of more than 5, and then the outcome is basically the flip of a coin. Those aren't good odds for you.
A good tactic would have been to drop an actual wall, not a wall of blindness/deafness, but a wall of ice instead. Something that can't just hope to walk through and possibly ignore. Depending on the configuration of the room your in you could wall from the floor to the ceiling and leave one side open so you can control the flow of the enemy into the room and set up a choke point.
Your main task is basically not allowing the enemy wizard to do very much while the party takes down the monk and rogue. Greater Invisibility on a party member should enable them to deal with the monk pretty well. The monk will lose their dex bonus against the invisible party member. This would actually be a pretty good thing for the sorcerer rogue to cast on themselves since they will then be able to sneak attack the monk.
However, the enemy rogue is probably the weakest enemy and probably worth taking out first just to get them out of the playing field. Avoiding get flanked or other tactics that generate sneak attack and the rogue is basically worthless. Take them down quick and move onto the monk using the above tactic.
If the Rogue Sorcerer uses Greater Invisibility, and the Paladin Fighter swift action healing themselves with LoH they should do okay. While they're dealing with them you should probably be doing things to try to deal with the enemy wizard. Summons can be good for this. I don't have one to recommend off-hand, but any summons with a ranged attack that can be readied will work very well. Summon 1d3 ranged attackers that ready to hit the wizard when they cast. Lets see the wizard successfully make all the checks to cast and not lose the spell.
My party beat our CR 3+ (3+ instead of +3 because I can't remember the level gap but it was significant) the first attempt we immediately ran away after we identified the threat.
GM didn't expect us to have a second go. My rogue used his Black Market Connections to buy the important crap (true strike scroll, greater slaying arrow, poisons) which the GM didn't want to allow in such short notice but, RAW.
1-2 rounds of debuff. Dragon was dead from the Nova. Only one casualty in out overconfident wizard ( he thought he was going to be safe at the back line and refused the frost ward gel my rogue gave the rest of the party)
The most important thing is always to have an escape plan in an unwinnable fight and before any escape, getting as much information as possible for round 2 sneak
Yea in hindsight I could have used enveneration or maybe try to isolate. I’ve had a lot of success with blindness/deafness as a single target debuff - it’s won more then a few fights. Figured the wall would be just as good to take out multiple foes. Live and learn.
We did manage to mostly get away - I always keep a dimension door handy just for that purpose, and a resilient sphere as a last ditch emergency. I think in future I’ll prepare more enveneration to use on tougher targets. It’s an amazing alpha strike that can almost win a fight on its own. And black tentacles vrs monks .... yea. Not smartest move. Should have realized monks have a great cmd.
Any other suggestions?
Without reading through the rest of the posts. Concealment and %miss chances. Even if the enemy has a +20 attack roll and hits touch AC, a 50% chance to hit is always a 50% chance to hit no matter how strong the enemy is. And gang up on the caster first, by 11th level they are the most powerful and adaptable member of the enemy party.
Other than that, your GM might just be wanting to see you guys be a little creative. Assess the battlefield for anything you can use to your advantage that also makes for cool theatrical stuff. As a GM I always love it when my paladin nails a strength check to topple over a watch tower so that it crushes a monster.
And other than that it might just be too difficult of an encounter.
I have run many games and there is always a few fights that the party needs to run from. I find that if every encounter is easy and no threat it removes the challenge. Much like the fast and furious franchise. If there is no chance of someone dying then it just gets ridiculous and ends up jumping the sub. I think this was one of those times when we ended up in a fight against foes too powerful for us and we needed to run. Which we did. Everything worked out well. We did lose a party member but otherwise we learned much and my character is much less over confident and ballsy and more pragmatic and careful. And we have the fun memory of the glittering acid pit disco orgy with a bunch of cultists to remind us forever of the encounter.
darthspader wrote: We are using gestalt characters (which is why the boss fight is cr +3 ) I'm sorry, but CR+3 is barely a boss fight against normal characters. CR+3 is still noteably tipped in favor of the PCs. For the record, an even encounter, with a 50/50 chance to win (in theory i.e. discounting optimization), is CR+4. I used a a CR7 encounter (a regular patrol, nothing special) against my party of 4 lvl4 characters on the very first day of the campaign, just to set the tone of "this land is hostile".
But you fight wasn't CR+3. I don't know how gestalt should alter the CR calculation, but for normal characters, it would have been a CR+6 encounter, possibly CR+7 if the bosses are build with PC like stats and gear! CR+5/+6 respectively if you count gestalt as the equivalent of +1 level.
Much in such a fight depends on the circumstances. Do the enemies know you're coming right now? Do you have time to prepare for the fight?
My first reaction: Cast/potion Fly on everyone. Cast Invisibility on yourself, Greater Invisibility on Pala/Fighter and Sorc/Rogue. Cast whatever possible to buff initiative (Anticipate Peril, Cat's Grace) and attack/damage rolls (the S/R night polymorph, heroism, plus the usual cleric stuff). Dimension Door your party towards the Wizard. Let P/F and S/R make a flanking surprise round attack plus full attack (with Smite) each (unless the wizard has some spell up to see you, the attacks are against flat footed AC -2). Once the Wizard is finished, the other two probably can't even detect you.
Of course, that doesn't work if the enemies are prepared. But if you're up against a CR+6 encounter with no possibly surprise, cast Dimension Door and get the hell out of Dodge.
Hit that Wizard right in the face with some of this stuff.
Dust of Sneezing and Choking
Aura moderate conjuration; CL 7th
Slot none; Weight —
DESCRIPTION
This fine dust appears to be dust of appearance. If cast into the air, it causes those within a 20-foot spread to fall into fits of sneezing and coughing. Those failing a DC 15 Fortitude save take 3d6 points of Constitution damage immediately. Those who succeed on this saving throw are nonetheless disabled by choking (treat as stunned) for 5d4 rounds.
.
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Also, anything Save or Suck with Persistent Spell. You can use a Dirty Trickster to debuff pretty consistently on higher lvl targets just because he's attacking CMD and his CMB will be pretty raunchy. Paladin with high Intimidate and PowAtt/CornSmash and a Cruel weapon enchant can debuff -4 att, skills, saves, abils and -2 dmg.
Touch AC is typically the easiest to hit, so try touch spells like Touch of Idiocy (maximized or empowered if you can afford it), Ray of Exhaustion (even on a save, they're still fatigued) and Enervation can be pretty nasty debuffs and can bring their stats a little closer to your lvl.
The CR system is not designed for any normal amount of optimization, let alone focused optimization or gestalt games. If you are regularly fighting encounters that are over your CR (and equal level CR encounters should be some level of low danger, using up roughly 25%-33% of daily resources), you are playing characters that are above the assumed optimization level.
It is not a BAD thing to be playing at such an optimization level. It might even be the baseline you consider to be 'normal gameplay' but it is important to realize that you are playing above the normal assumptions of the game.
In this one we only had a round to prepare and I’m pretty sure they knew we were coming. There was some dialogue before the fight. (Them offering us to join the cult, and then a challenge of duel - we declined both offers) they also had pretty amazing saves. Also keep in mind we were a party of 3 8th lvl vestalts and a 6th lvl single class cohort against 4 lvl 11+ bosses. We had managed to defeat (and force to flee) 3 of them when it was just them, but combined it was too much.
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darthspader wrote: We had managed to defeat (and force to flee) 3 of them when it was just them, but combined it was too much. That's because each of those were CR+3 encounters (presuming NPC wealth and +1 effective PC level to compensate for gestalt).
I kinda wonder how the got those "amazing saves", as Wizard and Rogue only have one strong save each. I suspect PC wealth and/or characters specifically build against your party.
Ryze Kuja wrote:
This fine dust appears to be dust of appearance. If cast into the air, it causes those within a 20-foot spread to fall into fits of sneezing and coughing.
You do realize that as written it is centered on the person that uses the item? If your tactic is that someone suicide bombs with it that is fine, but seriously whatever uses it is going to be effected according to RAW.
I suppose if you planed for it you could have some spell that makes you immune to the effect. Or a familiar with a death wish?
Meirril wrote: Ryze Kuja wrote:
This fine dust appears to be dust of appearance. If cast into the air, it causes those within a 20-foot spread to fall into fits of sneezing and coughing.
You do realize that as written it is centered on the person that uses the item? If your tactic is that someone suicide bombs with it that is fine, but seriously whatever uses it is going to be effected according to RAW.
I suppose if you planed for it you could have some spell that makes you immune to the effect. Or a familiar with a death wish? It doesn't say "centered on the person that uses the item" as RAW. It says if cast into the air, it causes all those within 20ft spread to sneeze and cough. So.. that would happen wherever you cast the dust. Grab a handful and toss it. If your DM wants to make the argument that it would affect you too at the point of origin of the dust throw, that's fine, it will only take a few extra steps. Either get a small bag and fill it with dust and throw it like a grenade, or put some dust in pellets and get a slingshot.
I don't think anyone in their right minds is going to throw the dust straight up in the air around themselves. If so, I'd hope they roleplay that scenario as Stuart from Mad TV, exclaiming, "LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!" <queue interpretive dance>
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Edit: Honestly, I'd just let the PC's throw it at an area without saying that it affects themselves. They would just take the extra steps to weaponize this properly to make it work if I was going to get technical on them.
My PC's: "Okay... so a handful causes 20 cubic ft burst, and a handful is approximately 5.041 ounces, so we need to get a pellet that will hold 5.041 ounces, and a custom slingshot to shoot it."
427g 7sp and 1cp later, they would have a custom made wrist rocket with a 50ft range and 12 pellets of weaponized aoe stun dust, and an hour of my session would be wasted on them looking through Ye Olde Slings and Slingshot Accessory Shop trying to figure this all out.
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I'd rather avoid this whole scenario :P Just let them throw the dust 20ft.
My issue with a liberal interpretation of how you can use the Dust of Sneezing and Choking is that it is a cursed item, it's not really something that is intended to be used against enemies unless it was a spellcaster in your party that crafted it with very specific protections against its cursed effects. I wouldn't have a problem with someone suicide bombing with it (looks awkwardly at the level 6 cohort), but allowing them to use a cursed item in such a way that does no harm to them is a little much for me.
Your big problem is your tactics earlier - work hard to prevent your enemies escaping so that they can gang up on you later...
Ryze Kuja wrote:
It doesn't say "centered on the person that uses the item" as RAW. It says if cast into the air, it causes all those within 20ft spread to sneeze and cough. So.. that would happen wherever you cast the dust. Grab a handful and toss it. If your DM wants to make the argument that it would affect you too at the point of origin of the dust throw, that's fine, it will only take a few extra steps. Either get a small bag and fill it with dust and throw it like a grenade, or put some dust in pellets and get a slingshot.
I don't think anyone in their right minds is going to throw the dust straight up in the air around themselves. If so, I'd hope they roleplay that scenario as Stuart from Mad TV, exclaiming, "LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!" <queue interpretive dance>
So you treat it like any other powder in the game and...umm...there are actually no rules for Dust type items. Every single one says what you can do with it (or fails to). But regardless this CURSED ITEM says that if you attempt to cast it into the air it causes all those within 20ft spread to sneeze and cough.
It doesn't say 20' from the point of impact. If you apply what it says then it goes off in your hands. This is a CURSED item. They are notorious for doing exactly what they say, and for blowing up in your face. Why do you assume this one is so convenient that you can spend a little time and sidestep the curse?
This is a useful item if you know the curse is there. You can arrange for it to go off when it hurts your enemies far more than it hurts your own party. You can combine it with a familiar, a summons, an undead minion, a golem, an animated object, or you can just run into your opponents and use it. But to get what you want you'd have to reprice the item based on what it does without the 'curse' aspect. And much like a Ring of Invisibility it would probably surge in value since what you get from it is ridiculously powerful.
Yeah, a "cursed item" that you can purposefully create and use without drawback isn't a "cursed item" and the cost of it would be substantial and based on the affect you get from it.
In this case, an item that incapacitates the enemy (regardless of a saving throw) should have an incredibly high cost.
Meirril wrote: Ryze Kuja wrote:
It doesn't say "centered on the person that uses the item" as RAW. It says if cast into the air, it causes all those within 20ft spread to sneeze and cough. So.. that would happen wherever you cast the dust. Grab a handful and toss it. If your DM wants to make the argument that it would affect you too at the point of origin of the dust throw, that's fine, it will only take a few extra steps. Either get a small bag and fill it with dust and throw it like a grenade, or put some dust in pellets and get a slingshot.
I don't think anyone in their right minds is going to throw the dust straight up in the air around themselves. If so, I'd hope they roleplay that scenario as Stuart from Mad TV, exclaiming, "LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!" <queue interpretive dance>
So you treat it like any other powder in the game and...umm...there are actually no rules for Dust type items. Every single one says what you can do with it (or fails to). But regardless this CURSED ITEM says that if you attempt to cast it into the air it causes all those within 20ft spread to sneeze and cough.
It doesn't say 20' from the point of impact. If you apply what it says then it goes off in your hands. This is a CURSED item. They are notorious for doing exactly what they say, and for blowing up in your face. Why do you assume this one is so convenient that you can spend a little time and sidestep the curse?
This is a useful item if you know the curse is there. You can arrange for it to go off when it hurts your enemies far more than it hurts your own party. You can combine it with a familiar, a summons, an undead minion, a golem, an animated object, or you can just run into your opponents and use it. But to get what you want you'd have to reprice the item based on what it does without the 'curse' aspect. And much like a Ring of Invisibility it would probably surge in value since what you get from it is ridiculously powerful. "It says what it does and it does what it says." Just because it's in the cursed items section doesn't automatically mean that it does something unintended.
It doesn't say "regardless of where you throw this or how you throw it, it always affects the thrower and 20ft around them."
Facing an equal number of same level NPCs is a CR+4 encounter. They had 3 levels beyond that. This was a CR+7 encounter.
As to spells, casting Prayer should be a given. Helps you, hurts them. Casting Haste and/or Blessing of Fervor also help you a lot. Castine Heroism is another help.
/cevah
Cevah wrote: Facing an equal number of same level NPCs is a CR+4 encounter. They had 3 levels beyond that. This was a CR+7 encounter.
As to spells, casting Prayer should be a given. Helps you, hurts them. Casting Haste and/or Blessing of Fervor also help you a lot. Castine Heroism is another help.
/cevah
Gestalt creatures count as +1cr from their normal cr so the pcs are treated as level 9 in this situation. Still a doozy of a fight though.
Not sure if this was suggested, but the wizard will buff himself and the enemy party, so taking dispel magic would be a great idea, he will likely be your biggest threat, as he will try and control a fight that will already be hard for you and make it nearly impossible. I would assume the rogue might have invisibility access, probably from the wizard, so glitterdust could pose an effective debuff and counter to that. Another thing is spell selection, a lot of the save or win type spells bank on your opponent failing saves, and these enemies have very high saves, so if I were in the situation I would focus on buffing my own party, I can't stress how important haste is to this type of encounter. Of course, when things get to difficult, a strategic withdraw is always an option, living to fight another day after some levels is always a safe option.
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