Open air encounters fail to allow for 500' range of Fireball

[hyphz]

I mentioned this in my feedback thread on Mirrored Moon, but I think this needs a separate note.

Fireball has a 500' range. That means it can define the entire tactical situation if the environment of an encounter is open.

There is very little point throwing in flip-mats of the small area around an encounter when a PC can simply throw in balls of death from far off the map, giving the opponents the choice of approaching through the flames or retreating and making the encounter become a siege (which could then screw up the purpose of the encounter, granted the PCs must approach if the goal is to kill the opponents, but if it is simply to prevent them acting then they have already achieved that)

We had this problem with many of the previous adventures as well, even in PF1E. Opponent environments are designed according to fantasy standards, not the world as it works in PF. A castle with a single entrance is a good defense against mundane armies. It is not such in a world where one man can toss fireballs from off the map of block off that entrance with magical walls.

[ENHenry]

I remember a post about this once, where the best defense in a D&D world wouldn't be a castle, it would be an underground bunker sealed with a Forbiddance Spell and a couple of Wizards and Clerics on-staff to counteract magics. It's one of those things where, if you took the implications of the in-game magic and physics to their logical extremes, it would drastically alter many of the tropes that people find appealing in Medieval Fantasy.

[The Once and Future Kai]

And, yet, people are still complaining that magic is impotent in the playtest.

In the Fantasy supplement of Chainmail, Wizards were equivalent to Cannons. I think this fills that ancient role and I'm okay with it.

[shroudb]

in original adnd, magic was rare.

spells were powerful, but wizards were extremely fragile, nothing like what they are now, they were made of paper AND needed more xp to level up in their early stages.

think of it like in LotR. There were castles and sieges, and yes, mages would destroy those, but in most cases, the actual wars and battles rarely if ever had mages flinging spells on the walls and gates. The fighting was done by actual fighters.

Then came 3rd edition and demolished that. Magic appeared everywhere, you could go to mage-o-mart and buy whatever you wished, or even more, craft it yourself!

the new Con rules made the d4 of wizards not that crippling, and that even became d6 later on, and the magical defences somehow swayed off the path of circumstatial, short term defensive buffs (like mirror image) and started to approach armor levels.

Wizards were now equal to martials, equally common, mych easier to survive, advanced equally, and magic was everywhere.

But going from "magic is wondrous and rare and frail" to "magic is everywhere" actually changes the whole medieval setting. Something almost no one accounted for.

[Matthew Downie]

ENHenry wrote:

the best defense in a D&D world wouldn't be a castle, it would be an underground bunker

Which is why D&D worlds are full of dungeons protected by magical traps.

[ENHenry]

Matthew Downie wrote:

ENHenry wrote:

the best defense in a D&D world wouldn't be a castle, it would be an underground bunker

Which is why D&D worlds are full of dungeons protected by magical traps.

So... you're saying the monsters are the normal ones and WE'RE the villains beseiging their castles???

**mind blown**

[The Sideromancer]

Fireball itself can be fortified around, due to not damaging walls with any efficiency. A good battlement should be granting improved cover, which at least used to provide a free improved evasion.

Disintegrate putting a 10' hole wherever the caster wants, though, is going to make castles a lot less impenetrable.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

shroudb wrote:

Then came 3rd edition and demolished that. Magic appeared everywhere, you could go to mage-o-mart and buy whatever you wished, or even more, craft it yourself!

There were more than one campaign settings pre-3.x where this was the case. The big change with 3.0 was not a sudden proliferation of magic, but the removal of several balancing factors (saves and interruptions, primarily but also the increased xp requirements) and the beefing of mages' hp. Ease of crafting was a lesser, though not unimportant, factor.

[hyphz]

It's actually better for magic to be everywhere IMHO. The problem with declaring magic rare is that the PCs will still likely have a magic user with them, so if magic is rare, then suddenly everything that magic user does is an exception and nobody has planned for it because OMG what were the odds that a magic user would show up? It quickly gets a bit tiresome, especially for the other players.

[shroudb]

hyphz wrote:

It's actually better for magic to be everywhere IMHO. The problem with declaring magic rare is that the PCs will still likely have a magic user with them, so if magic is rare, then suddenly everything that magic user does is an exception and nobody has planned for it because OMG what were the odds that a magic user would show up? It quickly gets a bit tiresome, especially for the other players.

my post had nothing to do if it's better or worse for magic to be rare.

it's just fundamentally different, campaign-wise, to have it rare or common. Something that 3rd ED didn't account for at all.

on the subject of if it's better or worse.

the "average adventuring party" of adnd were actually Heroes.

wizards (rare), priests who actually got powers from the gods (unlike most average priests found in temples), fighters who were nearly unkillable, and rogues who were jack of all trades by default.

even at level 1, you were "special" and that's why you were an adventurer.

[shroudb]

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Then came 3rd edition and demolished that. Magic appeared everywhere, you could go to mage-o-mart and buy whatever you wished, or even more, craft it yourself!

There were more than one campaign settings pre-3.x where this was the case. The big change with 3.0 was not a sudden proliferation of magic, but the removal of several balancing factors (saves and interruptions, primarily but also the increased xp requirements) and the beefing of mages' hp. Ease of crafting was a lesser, though not unimportant, factor.

yes, but those setting already accounted for "magic is more common" (alquaddim and etc)

we got faerun and greyhawk as "common magic" in 3rd though, and those certainly weren't before.

Golarion also followed the faerun sensibilities despite making magic even more common than 3rd.

[hyphz]

Sure, the PCs should be heroes in the sense that they should be better at things that others.

But the problem is that when this attaches to rare magic you get.. well, exactly the same situation. Either the PC wizard ends up having an easy route to steamroll almost every encounter, because no regular enemy would have prepared to defend against a wizard I mean OMG what's the odds of one of them showing up we might as well defend against a meteor hitting Earth; or the enemies have to be both incredibly paranoid and immensely powerful.

There's a difference between a heroic rogue who can pick locks that no-one would have thought pickable, but fundamentally locking a door using a good lock is still a good idea and the same as you would have done anyway; and a wizard who can cast Fly and make height-based defenses and walls irrelevant when they are standard architecture for defense in every other scenario.

[shroudb]

hyphz wrote:

Sure, the PCs should be heroes in the sense that they should be better at things that others.

But the problem is that when this attaches to rare magic you get.. well, exactly the same situation. Either the PC wizard ends up having an easy route to steamroll almost every encounter, because no regular enemy would have prepared to defend against a wizard I mean OMG what's the odds of one of them showing up we might as well defend against a meteor hitting Earth; or the enemies have to be both incredibly paranoid and immensely powerful.

There's a difference between a heroic rogue who can pick locks that no-one would have thought pickable, but fundamentally locking a door using a good lock is still a good idea and the same as you would have done anyway; and a wizard who can cast Fly and make height-based defenses and walls irrelevant when they are standard architecture for defense in every other scenario.

old adnd wasn't "balanced". But also, wizards were made out of paper. So, yes, they were great at blowing through a campaign, but were also really easy to die. Hence why most "wizards" in the orld actually never went out adventuring but holed up in their towers.

I don't have an issue with making magic more common rather than rare.

again, my answer was more on the campaign setting. If powerful magic is common. Then you NEED to have a very different setting.

You can either have: powerful magic but rare. OR common magic but weak as far as a setting like golarion is designed. If you have powerful and common magic, then most nations would be magocracies, defenses would be way different, low level threats like hordes of goblins, even orcs, would be inconsequential and etc.

For an adventuring wizard to be a common thing it means means that wizards must be more enduring for that to make sense. And if they are made more enduring (as they have been made with much increased HP, much better defences, much easier advancement, and etc) then their magic should be way less powerful (narrative wise) or else they would have dominated the world (and we see that decrease in magic power in pf2, but many people don't like that)

[Razata]

Imagine if you could just cast a nice Dominate Person on a king in his sleep.

You now have a 9th level (PF 1.0) Wizard-king with a sucker on the throne to be the target for non-Red Mantis assassins.

In PF 2.0 they get a save every 6 seconds and it's a 6th level spell.

[MaxAstro]

My read on Golarion has always been that mages are not uncommon in the way that Dragon Blooded are not uncommon in Exalted: You are likely to walk into a town and find a wizard of some level, but non-casters still outnumber casters by something like 100-to-1 or more.

Keep in mind that the vast, vast majority of NPCs in Golarion (at least in 1e) have NPC classes. Of those, Adept is the only magic user, and going by published material, the most rare. Of NPCs who have real classes, martials still vastly outnumber casters (again, basing on creatures encountered in published material), not all casters have fireball on their spell lists, and not very many casters get high enough level to cast fireball.

PCs run into a lot of powerful spellcasters, but the PCs are exceptional and meet exceptional people and exceptional foes.

So sure, a wizard can show up and fireball your castle, and you probably have a wizard on retainer to deal with that. But you also have a castle, because an army of guys with swords is a more common threat than a rogue wizard.

Can most PC parties easily level a castle that doesn't have a decent wizard on retainer past 5th-ish level? Oh heck yes. But again - PCs are exceptional.

[MerlinCross]

Isn't also balanced by, at least in canon, most mages only hit about... level 8?

Seriously what's the highest average level most normal people in Golarion hit? Magic might be more common and the PCs can get access to all kinds of stuff but most people aren't going to see a wizard walk up to a castle and toss a fireball.

The strong spell casters are either NPCs that have retired, are employed by the king/rulers/merchant lord to STOP such a thing from happening, or are in their caves/ruins/graveyard cackling about world domination or some forgotten god(That has usually empowered them).

We can only apply the "Oh magic is everywhere why don't people account for Fireball, Fly, and Disintegration and other effects" because then we'd probably have to apply PC logic to the world/PCs.

Cause I mean if we want to try that, why doesn't the big bad have a 24 hour divination circle going to warn him about threats, and then scry fry everyone that looks at him funny. Cause that's what I would do if it's possible.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

shroudb wrote:

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Then came 3rd edition and demolished that. Magic appeared everywhere, you could go to mage-o-mart and buy whatever you wished, or even more, craft it yourself!

There were more than one campaign settings pre-3.x where this was the case. The big change with 3.0 was not a sudden proliferation of magic, but the removal of several balancing factors (saves and interruptions, primarily but also the increased xp requirements) and the beefing of mages' hp. Ease of crafting was a lesser, though not unimportant, factor.

yes, but those setting already accounted for "magic is more common" (alquaddim and etc)

we got faerun and greyhawk as "common magic" in 3rd though, and those certainly weren't before.

Golarion also followed the faerun sensibilities despite making magic even more common than 3rd.

I'm not sure what your point is.

First you say that it's 3.x's fault that there was a sudden increase in the commonality of magic and the appearance of crafting and magic shops (things which had existed before then). Now you're saying it's the fault of increasing them in GH and FR (not really in the latter case, if any pre 3.x supplements or literature is anything to go by).
And then something about Golarion...., which as far as I can tell is entirely unrelated to increase in caster power and proliferation of magic from pre3.x to post, which was what I thought you were trying to explain.
What am I missing?

[shroudb]

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Then came 3rd edition and demolished that. Magic appeared everywhere, you could go to mage-o-mart and buy whatever you wished, or even more, craft it yourself!

There were more than one campaign settings pre-3.x where this was the case. The big change with 3.0 was not a sudden proliferation of magic, but the removal of several balancing factors (saves and interruptions, primarily but also the increased xp requirements) and the beefing of mages' hp. Ease of crafting was a lesser, though not unimportant, factor.

yes, but those setting already accounted for "magic is more common" (alquaddim and etc)

we got faerun and greyhawk as "common magic" in 3rd though, and those certainly weren't before.

Golarion also followed the faerun sensibilities despite making magic even more common than 3rd.

I'm not sure what your point is.

First you say that it's 3.x's fault that there was a sudden increase in the commonality of magic and the appearance of crafting and magic shops (things which had existed before then). Now you're saying it's the fault of increasing them in GH and FR (not really in the latter case, if any pre 3.x supplements or literature is anything to go by).
And then something about Golarion...., which as far as I can tell is entirely unrelated to increase in caster power and proliferation of magic from pre3.x to post, which was what I thought you were trying to explain.
What am I missing?

adnd had settings.

in some, magic was common, in others, it was rare.

the most popular setting had it as rare. And it was modeled after magic being rare.

3rd edition made the magic common for a setting that previously had it as rare, without actually changing the setting.

pf continued this.

the classic "medieval" setting that faerun, greyhawk, and now golarion tries to follows, is build around using the old chassis of a setting that had rare but impressive magic, a setting where the common problem a mighty castle would face was to repel hordes of goblins.

only now, with common magic, most adversaries wouldn't really give a damn if there was a castle here or there.

the defenses/countermeasures/army strength/narrative of the settings fail to accommodate a paradigm of "magic is both powerful and common"

[in◆⃟]

Razata wrote:

Imagine if you could just cast a nice Dominate Person on a king in his sleep.

You now have a 9th level (PF 1.0) Wizard-king with a sucker on the throne to be the target for non-Red Mantis assassins.

In PF 2.0 they get a save every 6 seconds and it's a 6th level spell.

Which of these options allows you to tell a story where a king has been dominated and needs to be saved?

[Alyran]

in◆⃟ wrote:

Razata wrote:

Imagine if you could just cast a nice Dominate Person on a king in his sleep.

You now have a 9th level (PF 1.0) Wizard-king with a sucker on the throne to be the target for non-Red Mantis assassins.

In PF 2.0 they get a save every 6 seconds and it's a 6th level spell.

Which of these options allows you to tell a story where a king has been dominated and needs to be saved?

Neither really. As written in PF1, the king would get a save every time he gets an order he doesn't like and generally acts like a zombie at all times. Every guard and advisor would notice immediately, the king would be quarantined, and the problem dealt with; unless the spellcaster were dominating the entire court which still becomes an issue of management.

This story only ever worked because the book/GM said so and it will continue to work as such.

[Mudfoot]

hyphz wrote:

Fireball has a 500' range. That means it can define the entire tactical situation if the environment of an encounter is open.

PF1e PRD wrote:

Fireball

Range long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)

That's a minimum of 600'. Is this suddenly a new problem?

[Quandary]

Alyran wrote:

in◆⃟ wrote:

Razata wrote:

Imagine if you could just cast a nice Dominate Person on a king in his sleep.

You now have a 9th level (PF 1.0) Wizard-king with a sucker on the throne to be the target for non-Red Mantis assassins.

In PF 2.0 they get a save every 6 seconds and it's a 6th level spell.

Which of these options allows you to tell a story where a king has been dominated and needs to be saved?

Neither really. As written in PF1, the king would get a save every time he gets an order he doesn't like and generally acts like a zombie at all times. Every guard and advisor would notice immediately, the king would be quarantined, and the problem dealt with; unless the spellcaster were dominating the entire court which still becomes an issue of management.

This story only ever worked because the book/GM said so and it will continue to work as such.

Agreed, and new rules just make it important to actually have real plan on social control/engineering, and spot-Dominating other NPCs to keep King from diverging from plan, and even actually engaging with REAL socia conflict that can be manipulated or played off of for effect. If the King is sick, they will be reclused and only be in position to be making state decisions in rare meetings which can be focus of control efforts. Collapsing all that detail to one spell that just "wins" is ruining the classic plot trope.

[Quandary]

Mudfoot wrote:

hyphz wrote:

Fireball has a 500' range. That means it can define the entire tactical situation if the environment of an encounter is open.

PF1e PRD wrote:

Fireball

Range long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)

That's a minimum of 600'. Is this suddenly a new problem?

The range isn't new, so that part of problem isn't new, but a heritage problem, which many people of course want addressed in new game

...Of course, the innovation of Playtest rules has not only removed distance penalty to Perception (which would be -40 at 400ft), but made Perception automatic unless target is Stealthing or obscured (due to Full Concealment or Cover). ...Which profoundly increases usability of ultra long range spells like this. Actually spotting a target at range of ultra-long-range spells (or even Ranged Weapon max increments) was huge impediment to their theoretical range, although using them vs. very large creatures or objects was routinely much easier.

[Matthew Downie]

It's a good thing there are miniature forests every hundred feet or so in the wilderness, making it impossible to see any further than the length of the map I own.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

shroudb wrote:

adnd had settings.

in some, magic was common, in others, it was rare.

the most popular setting had it as rare. And it was modeled after magic being rare.

3rd edition made the magic common for a setting that previously had it as rare, without actually changing the setting.

pf continued this.

the classic "medieval" setting that faerun, greyhawk, and now golarion tries to follows, is build around using the old chassis of a setting that had rare but impressive magic, a setting where the common problem a mighty castle would face was to repel hordes of goblins.

only now, with common magic, most adversaries wouldn't really give a damn if there was a castle here or there.

the defenses/countermeasures/army strength/narrative of the settings fail to accommodate a paradigm of "magic is both powerful and common"

Except magic in FR, at least in 2e, was pretty common as well as powerful. There were regional variations in how common, certainly, but it's not as though there was not a ton of it around.

Even in magic-rich societies, a castle can be useful. It's a bit like how a locked door on a building can still be useful in our world: it won't stop a bunker buster but it will stop most street-level thugs from breaking in.

[Envall]

Just because something is allowed, does not mean it is intended behavior.

You can make invisible wizards flying high in the air shooting fireballs down to the ground. But that is stupid, so you ought not to do it. There is no solid arm of the law to stop you from doing bad ideas, that is left to your own intuition. You can question everything, but the reality that it gets you nowhere.

[Matthew Downie]

What's stupid? Wizards? Invisibility? Flight? Fireballs?

If a wizard can do all those things under the rules, it's stupid for them not to when confronted by, say, an army.

[Envall]

Matthew Downie wrote:

What's stupid? Wizards? Invisibility? Flight? Fireballs?

If a wizard can do all those things under the rules, it's stupid for them not to when confronted by, say, an army.

Because it fights against many people's suspension of disbelief. You can pick apart the setting, but then it becomes really hard to run an adventure in it if everyone is already ready to disbelieve it. You can call for change, but change what? Change the rules or change the setting? Changing the setting can result in setting people don't care for, changing the rules can result in ruleset people don't find fun anymore. So the best option is to not do it.

This time the doctor was right, if it hurts, don't do it.

[shroudb]

Envall wrote:

Matthew Downie wrote:

What's stupid? Wizards? Invisibility? Flight? Fireballs?

If a wizard can do all those things under the rules, it's stupid for them not to when confronted by, say, an army.

Because it fights against many people's suspension of disbelief. You can pick apart the setting, but then it becomes really hard to run an adventure in it if everyone is already ready to disbelieve it. You can call for change, but change what? Change the rules or change the setting? Changing the setting can result in setting people don't care for, changing the rules can result in ruleset people don't find fun anymore. So the best option is to not do it.

This time the doctor was right, if it hurts, don't do it.

And roleplaying a godly intelligent being with Int of 18-24 as having int 4 is not suspension of disbelief?

Wizards are beyond clever. Not playing them as such breaks immersion much more heavily.

It reminds me a rogue player of mine that was saying I was meta gaming for putting every single magical trap behind a thin sheet of lead, so that Detect magic wouldn't pick them up.

I was like "wut mate? You know the wizard has both 24 int and the detect magic on his list right? Why wouldn't he cover up his traps?"

Playing casters as morons to make a setting work is not "doctor was right" it's the doctor seeing you have gangrene and going "wear this glove so that no one notices it"

[Vidmaster7]

We let characters with super intelligence have a slight range of meta gaming to compensate for the player not being Super int. Little things that you might assume the character wouldn't know that the player knows then you figure wait I'm sure the PC could figure it out. Its kind of tempered by role playing.

... Its a little hard to explain

[Matthew Downie]

Envall wrote:

Because it fights against many people's suspension of disbelief. You can pick apart the setting, but then it becomes really hard to run an adventure in it if everyone is already ready to disbelieve it. You can call for change, but change what? Change the rules or change the setting? Changing the setting can result in setting people don't care for, changing the rules can result in ruleset people don't find fun anymore. So the best option is to not do it.

This time the doctor was right, if it hurts, don't do it.

It doesn't fight against mine. My core assumptions are that high level casters exist in this setting (but are rare) and have dangerous powers, and magic works consistently. That's what makes it a fantasy game rather than a medieval Europe simulator.

If we want to change the setting to one where wizards don't do that, then we should change the rules. For example: Greater Invisibility and Fly require some kind of Concentration so you can't use both at once. Or Fireballs have Short range. Or Potions of See Invisibility are common.

Alternatively, we can have the people of this world not be stupid. Like real soldiers facing artillery, the'll form a thin line rather than bunching up so they all get hit at once. (If a Wizard kills 5 soldiers per fireball, and there's an army of 500, he'll run out of fireballs before they run out of soldiers.) Or they bring magic of their own. Or they'll all ready an action to fire an arrow, and the instant they see the origin point of the second fireball, they'll target the spot it came from.

[Envall]

shroudb wrote:

And roleplaying a godly intelligent being with Int of 18-24 as having int 4 is not suspension of disbelief?

Wizards are beyond clever. Not playing them as such breaks immersion much more heavily.

It reminds me a rogue player of mine that was saying I was meta gaming for putting every single magical trap behind a thin sheet of lead, so that Detect magic wouldn't pick them up.

I was like "wut mate? You know the wizard has both 24 int and the detect magic on his list right? Why wouldn't he cover up his traps?"

Playing casters as morons to make a setting work is not "doctor was right" it's the doctor seeing you have gangrene and going "wear this glove so that no one notices it"

And yet all villains exist to fall.

So for whose benefit do we do GOTCHA! moments for? So the wizard is super smart and has a contingency plan for every single thing that party could imagine. Let's say players did not assume far enough and the party loses. What then? Do you WIN as GM?

[shroudb]

Envall wrote:

shroudb wrote:

And roleplaying a godly intelligent being with Int of 18-24 as having int 4 is not suspension of disbelief?

Wizards are beyond clever. Not playing them as such breaks immersion much more heavily.

It reminds me a rogue player of mine that was saying I was meta gaming for putting every single magical trap behind a thin sheet of lead, so that Detect magic wouldn't pick them up.

I was like "wut mate? You know the wizard has both 24 int and the detect magic on his list right? Why wouldn't he cover up his traps?"

Playing casters as morons to make a setting work is not "doctor was right" it's the doctor seeing you have gangrene and going "wear this glove so that no one notices it"

And yet all villains exist to fall.

So for whose benefit do we do GOTCHA! moments for? So the wizard is super smart and has a contingency plan for every single thing that party could imagine. Let's say players did not assume far enough and the party loses. What then? Do you WIN as GM?

More often not, they retreat, think another plan, and try again.

It's much more fulfilling for the players to have to think and to actually triumph, rather than waltz right in someplace and know that somehow, they'll win "just because".

I don't meta game to "win". I make smart opponents with real plans, so that the players can actually feel like they beat something meaningful rather than a bag of HP and abilities.

[Corwin Icewolf]

Mudfoot wrote:

hyphz wrote:

Fireball has a 500' range. That means it can define the entire tactical situation if the environment of an encounter is open.

PF1e PRD wrote:

Fireball

Range long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)

That's a minimum of 600'. Is this suddenly a new problem?

Of all the arguments I've seen on here, I think the one that annoys me the most is "this was a problem in pf1 too and we should therefore ignore it." Isn't it part of the point of a new edition to fix the problems with the old one?

That being said, does it really matter if you can cast a fireball from 500 feet away? I don't think I've ever been in a combat that involved near that kind of range.

If we're worried about wizards destroying castles with fireballs we should probably have NPCs build castles out of flame retardant materials such as stone.

If we're worried about wizards destroying armies, why? High level pcs can always destroy armies of lower level ones. In pf1 for sure and I recall it being mentioned they intended to keep it that way. Armies of level appropriate challenge probably have magic items that can defend against flying invisible opponents.

[Envall]

shroudb wrote:

More often not, they retreat, think another plan, and try again.

It's much more fulfilling for the players to have to think and to actually triumph, rather than waltz right in someplace and know that somehow, they'll win "just because".

I don't meta game to "win". I make smart opponents with real plans, so that the players can actually feel like they beat something meaningful rather than a bag of HP and abilities.

And they are for some reason allowed to retreat?

You are willing to make sure the wizard spents good amount of effort to making sure his traps are sprung, but will not act on it?
You are naturally not taking it to the logical conclusion because you do not want to actually TPK the party. But why did you posture the way you did originally then? Wizards are beyond clever after all, so they will kill the party.

[shroudb]

Envall wrote:

shroudb wrote:

More often not, they retreat, think another plan, and try again.

It's much more fulfilling for the players to have to think and to actually triumph, rather than waltz right in someplace and know that somehow, they'll win "just because".

I don't meta game to "win". I make smart opponents with real plans, so that the players can actually feel like they beat something meaningful rather than a bag of HP and abilities.

And they are for some reason allowed to retreat?

You are willing to make sure the wizard spents good amount of effort to making sure his traps are sprung, but will not act on it?
You are naturally not taking it to the logical conclusion because you do not want to actually TPK the party. But why did you posture the way you did originally then? Wizards are beyond clever after all, so they will kill the party.

Masking your traps vs Detect magic is actually quite easier than blocking all escape options a party usually has.

Like, you're comparing a fighter walking down the Dungeon with weapon at hand easy vs a fighter guessing his way through a maze without backtracking.

[Lyee]

I'm definitely on the side of 'some NPCs are smart and prepare for magic'.

The archmage enemy will use: Sheets of lead around magic things, teleport traps, guards that can see invis, guards are told to assume a tiny mouse running past is actually a druid, will make sure flight and passwall do not bypass all his best defenses, does not fight solo because he understands action economy, sleeps in a well-protected extra-dimensional space to avoid assassination, and uses illusions and simulacrums whenever he needs to appear in public. He's good at using magic to stay alive, and protecting himself from opponent's magic.

The evil baron without an archmage guiding him? Might have one or two of those precautions, but not all. The PCs can gather information to find which of them he uses, and play around those he doesn't!

One of my favourite villains I've run is a high priestess of Zon'Kuthon, who's used teleport traps, anti-scry precautions, uses her own teleportation to escape death, throws her simulacrum at the PCs to slow them down while she got away, etc. She's still kicking, and that's cool, she's a serious threat because of her competent use of magic.

But 90% of NPCs aren't that good, the contrast and having a full scale is valuable.

[Captain Morgan]

I don't mind fireballs having a long range. It's the artillery spell, after all. It is rare that I see that matter in combats, but we have had a few sessions where the party needs to assault an above ground fort recently and raining fireballs down was pretty satisfying to them.

One way to keep it in check a little bit though would be bump the range increment on longbows, which I think we should consider anyway. I actually like the niche created for shortbows by the volley trait, and think it is cool to have longbows as the LONG range weapon of choice. But I don't think their range increment is sufficiently better than the shortbow to let them shine in this capacity.

I also think Hunt Target should have the "within 100 feet" requirement lited, and replaced with anything you can see or hear, plus anything you can find tracks or other sufficient physical evidence of beforehand. Combine that with some fixes to snares, and you've got a really cool niche for longbow rangers where they can be master snipers and ambushers, attacking from ridiculous range and laying traps for the enemy's as they close. That's a rare enough scenario in most adventures for it to be OK for the ranger to dominate in it.

Sorry for the tangent.

[MaxAstro]

I am at the very least 1000% in agreement that Rangers need to be able to activate Hunt Target on a creature whose tracks they have found. That ability is far too iconic to not exist.

[MerlinCross]

Matthew Downie wrote:

Alternatively, we can have the people of this world not be stupid. Like real soldiers facing artillery, the'll form a thin line rather than bunching up so they all get hit at once. (If a Wizard kills 5 soldiers per fireball, and there's an army of 500, he'll run out of fireballs before they run out of soldiers.) Or they bring magic of their own. Or they'll all ready an action to fire an arrow, and the instant they see the origin point of the second fireball, they'll target the spot it came from.

They don't already?

I mean, that sounds like an RP/description based issue than a mechanics. Unless you're using the Mass Combat Rules which have their own issues.

I can see myself describing the soldiers trying to get out of the way(Depending on the range it might take a turn to hit them I might rule) or at the very least tell the players about the soldiers diving for cover as their Reflex saves.

After that it's depending on what type of army it is. If it's closer to a mob or maybe militia I can see them running. More professional, I can see them spreading out and readying arrows, with the possiblity of one of their own Mages being called up to provide defense or dispel. Maybe even healing.

I mean the GM guide has Battle Mage as a listed NPC. If a country/army can afford it(I would assume hiring a mage would cost more money or some other way like pressing them into service or fanatical cultists if evil army or patriot otherwise, YMMV) Why don't they have a mage or two? But remember, NPCs don't work like PCs so having a battle mage stop time, summon as many Lantern Archons as they can, and then buffing them; the old stand by of any 'good' wizard, is probably going to lead to player revolt regardless of how much sense in game it might make and if the NPC can do it.

[shroudb]

MerlinCross wrote:

Matthew Downie wrote:

Alternatively, we can have the people of this world not be stupid. Like real soldiers facing artillery, the'll form a thin line rather than bunching up so they all get hit at once. (If a Wizard kills 5 soldiers per fireball, and there's an army of 500, he'll run out of fireballs before they run out of soldiers.) Or they bring magic of their own. Or they'll all ready an action to fire an arrow, and the instant they see the origin point of the second fireball, they'll target the spot it came from.

They don't already?

I mean, that sounds like an RP/description based issue than a mechanics. Unless you're using the Mass Combat Rules which have their own issues.

I can see myself describing the soldiers trying to get out of the way(Depending on the range it might take a turn to hit them I might rule) or at the very least tell the players about the soldiers diving for cover as their Reflex saves.

After that it's depending on what type of army it is. If it's closer to a mob or maybe militia I can see them running. More professional, I can see them spreading out and readying arrows, with the possiblity of one of their own Mages being called up to provide defense or dispel. Maybe even healing.

I mean the GM guide has Battle Mage as a listed NPC. If a country/army can afford it(I would assume hiring a mage would cost more money or some other way like pressing them into service or fanatical cultists if evil army or patriot otherwise, YMMV) Why don't they have a mage or two? But remember, NPCs don't work like PCs so having a battle mage stop time, summon as many Lantern Archons as they can, and then buffing them; the old stand by of any 'good' wizard, is probably going to lead to player revolt regardless of how much sense in game it might make and if the NPC can do it.

Well, if we're bringing time stop levels in play, a single storm of vengeance can clear out 9.5 acres of civilians in like 12 seconds from 800ft away.

I doubt anyone can react to that in a timely fashion.

At such levels, when 8th+ spells get involved, it's pretty easy for a single caster to singlehandedly erase a city from existence.

It's just, that even with "magic is common" you don't expect a lot such casters to freely roam around.

[MerlinCross]

shroudb wrote:

Well, if we're bringing time stop levels in play, a single storm of vengeance can clear out 9.5 acres of civilians in like 12 seconds from 800ft away.

I doubt anyone can react to that in a timely fashion.

At such levels, when 8th+ spells get involved, it's pretty easy for a single caster to singlehandedly erase a city from existence.

It's just, that even with "magic is common" you don't expect a lot such casters to freely roam around.

Mmmhmm.

I think the Inner Seas World Guide has some suggestions on how many spell casters can be running around. But they don't give hard numbers like ever on what classes are running around in a city. Though as an example, Wati in Osirion probably has a decent number of Clerics, Inquisitors, and maybe a few Paladins/Warpriest. To say nothing about the adventurers moving through.

But I suppose this is only somewhat related to the topic at hand. I will admit the setting does break a bit if you look too hard at it but for homegames you can probably do what you want. Make that castle resist fire.

[Zi Mishkal]

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

That being said, does it really matter if you can cast a fireball from 500 feet away? I don't think I've ever been in a combat that involved near that kind of range.

I was. In Kingmaker. We fought a forest drake that realized it was going to die and flew away. My wizard already had fly cast and spent his move turn getting above the tree line. You can only flee so far in a round, you know, and it was still well within range.

Point finger, fire. BOOM. Great fun. Well, not for the drake. But you can't please everyone.

Getting back to the OP - 1e AD&D had fireballs have an range outside of 300' + 3'/level. It was still pretty far - on par with longbow. But the area was still only a 20' radius.

A 20' radius isn't going to help you much against an army. I've tried to make arcane casters little armies in their own right for years (if not decades) RAW and they just don't affect enough of an area over the course of a battle until they get access to 5th level spells or better. Wall of Flame (4th Level) is a start, but honestly, you can go around it. And Wall of Blindness (pass through it and save or blind) is an interesting way to incapacitate a large part of a low level army without killing it.

But you probably need to get Control Weather at 7th level to really affect more than a few hundred people at once. Now you're talking a 2 mile radius!

Long story short - Wizards can really only devastate areas very very locally. That's what made the Razmir narrative so compelling.