Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Kiva 03-18-04, 04:36 PM	One of my players recently started taking levels of archmage. It's a high level campaign with half the players just under 20th level and the other half barely over 20th. Well, now that this archmage can mold his area effect spells and not damage allies or innocents, the bad guys suffer 50-100 pts of damage per spell the archmage throws. Any ideas on how I can humble him? I intend to use more rogues who can better save against some of his spells, but after that I'm at a loss. :(
ehrin 03-18-04, 04:51 PM	i have no experience at higher level combat, but i never back down from expressing stupid suggestions. They may not work for you, but they might for someone. arrows with silence spells on them. golems or constructs that are typically immune to damage. quasits (especially 3.0 quasits, virtually indestructible) thieves and monks insect swarms, rat swarms, kobold swarms counterspelling don't let the mage sleep at night. enforce the 24 hour rule tightly. remember these rules: . If her rest is interrupted, each interruption adds 1 hour to the total amount of time she has to rest in order to clear her mind, and she must have at least 1 hour of uninterrupted rest immediately prior to preparing her spells. and: When she prepares spells for the coming day, all the spells she has cast within the last 8 hours count against her daily limit. so, hit them with some early morning monsters, and let the mage deal with them.... the next morning, your archmage can't relearn those spells, even with a bit of rest after the attacks.
KAR 120 C 03-18-04, 05:04 PM	Burn his spellbook ;-) What you need is to find a problem that he can't solve by casting a spell at it. However so that he doesn't feel completely useless and like he's wasted his time getting to the level he's at in the classes he's got, you also need to put him in a situation where being an Archmage isnt completely useless. With the little you've given me to go on, it look like your Archmage is basically into blowing things up, but you've been limiting him so far with the old "you can kill the demon, but you'll have to take out the church with it" dilemma. All you really need to do is keep the same trick, but make it a bit more subtle. If the character wants to get the bad guys, but doesn't want to hurt allies or innocents, then all you need to do is make it far harder to tell who the allies and the innocents are. You can do this by having people with dubious motives (if you're comfortable with a political game) or by simply playing up the fact that his ability to shape his spells is limited by his IC ability to assess the situation - when you're rushed by a mob of enemies, how close are you *really* looking to see if any of them are actually just ordinary guys swept up in the rush. The important thing is this. If you've set him a problem, and he says "I cast [Spell X] and it goes away", check what Spell X does very carefully, chances are it won't solve the problem completely, and if it does, you know what to do next time.
PenderGrass 03-18-04, 05:10 PM	Any ideas on how I can humble him? IN COMBAT: *The Objective (BBEG's Lair) is situated in an Anti-Magic Zone. *Ethereal Filchers steal his Material Components while he is fighting others and is distracted. *SR OUT OF COMBAT: *His Reputation Attracts OBVIOUSLY weaker wizards looking to make a name for themselves - the old Gunslinger dilemma *Present Situations that Require something other than Magic - like baby sitting a young niece and nephew. *Plea's of help from ALL corners of the Realm come to him since he is the most Powerful Wizard in all the lands. CRAZY: Have a God tell he will die unless he can say when a Creek becomes a Stream, or when a "little ways" becomes "some distance" and so on.....
Bomba 03-18-04, 05:34 PM	A shadow adept Lich (if you use FR prestige classes) in a dead magic area worked wonders on the overcoming the magic heavy party i was DMing since then they have diversified.
PaladinSix 03-18-04, 06:20 PM	How about simply another archmage? Either a true BBEG opponent, or just another mage who is jealous of his power/reputation, etc. Nothing screws up a powerful spellcaster like another powerful spellcaster who is adept at counterspelling. For maximum annoyance, make the NPC somebody who the PC doesn't actually want to kill, or can't for political or social reasons.
Kiva 03-18-04, 08:05 PM	Thanks, everyone! Those are great suggestions. I will probably try more than one of them. :)
nevick 03-18-04, 08:37 PM	I wouldnt make his abilities totally useless at once.. or atleast less useless. i mean he has earned his right to kick butt =P. you have to give him space to prove his worth or else it will become boring real fast hehe. A few solutions would be, have enemies in waves sorta.. so he wastes the good spells 1st and then has to get around with the crappy ones for the coming 'waves'. Mix monsters, have a few be weak against magic and a few strong against magic in the same encounter. This way he can feel he did his part and still not trivialize the encounter. Give your monsters a mean intellect (GM meta gaming if you will hehe) ambushes, traps etc. Apply the old spiderman philosophy "with great power comes great responsability" or something. moral dilemmas. give him something he cant solve by blowing it up. or make his actions mean something. maybe he accedentally burns down the entire food supply for a village with a misdirected firball just cuz the hobgoblins stood by it.
Maraxus 03-18-04, 08:51 PM	He is about level 20 and deals 50-100 damage? I say this is the least think, he should do on this level. There is no need to humble him. Give bad single opponents a nice Spell-resistence and this is enough. An damage-wizard is a very nice thing for a dm. Much better than a wizard that can do: "Wail of the Banshee - Fortitude 35 save or die, everybody." (Same for dominations)
Autosponge 03-18-04, 09:06 PM	Don't forget the mage slayer feat from miniatures handbook. He can't cast defensively at all, which means AoO. Add to that things like oportunist and maybe a feint for bigtime sneak attack damage.
Andrinor SwiftFoot 03-18-04, 10:20 PM	Elemental Resistance or Immunity. Also, give a rogue a dagger that is really intelligent, gives SR and has a special Purpose to Destroy Arcane Spellcasters. And be sure to use the Epic Charts when you role it up. There is nothing like a Rogue, with a 36 Dex, Weapon Finess and a +15 Dagger that gives him a 51 SR against Arcane Spellcasters. Ask the over powered mage in the Epic game that I was playing in...:smirk:
Ulden Throatbane 03-19-04, 02:40 AM	Beholders are always good for messing with spellcasters :behold:
Eldren 03-19-04, 02:59 AM	If he's gone into Archmage, he's powerful. He's likely earned that power if the PC has been around long enough. Don't try to take that away from him. I applaud you for coming here and not saying "The Archmage is overpowered!", but instead saying, "How can I challenge him with the power he has?" :tiphat: Archmages can be a pain sometimes, especially once they've taken "Mastery of Elements" (they need never again worry about energy resistances), "Mastery of Shaping" (lets them throw about all their area-effect spells much more wantonly, as their friends aren't going to be harmed), and "Mastery of Counterspelling" (combine this with the Forgotten Realms feat "Reactive Counterspell", and you've got an Archmage who's rarely going to be taken out by direct spellcasting). Dead magic areas are one recommendation, but overuse them and they get to be boring really quick, and the player begins to suspect you're just out to get him. Throwing creatures with unreasonably high Spell Resistance is nasty, and shouldn't be done often, although the "Spell Power" High Arcana ability is now oriented more towards raising their capacity to get past Spell Resistance, rather than being oriented towards raising their spell save DCs as it was in its original 3.0 incarnation. One way to keep him busy is to have him encounter another spellcaster who ties up his resources by constantly forcing him to counterspell. This is a particularly effective tactic against someone with the aforementioned "Reactive Counterspell" feat, although its limiting abilities are, once again, minimalized somewhat if he has "Mastery of Counterspelling", as there's a good chance the spell is going to be turned back on the caster. But make sure that your enemy spellcaster is showing their willingness to cast spells that are going to have highly-undesirable effects on the entire party, and play to your Archmage's sense of duty to his friends and allies; he isn't going to want them to get blasted by enemy magic, and if he realizes he can stop that, then he should most likely take that option. If he doesn't, and the party survives the encounter, they'd be quite justified in being upset with him for not taking some of the heat off their backs when they're more than aware he had the ability to do so, but chose to forego it in an attempt to directly damage the enemy instead. It's times like this that casters need to be reminded they're often a support type as much as an offensive type. Throw creatures with higher saving throws at him. Since "Spell Power" was so horribly nerfed in 3.5, he isn't going to get his save DCs as high, and the high-save creatures are going to have a better chance of insuring he's working, at best, at half capacity. Have enemy spellcasters use the "Spring Attack" feat, and then put them in a Prismatic Sphere. Have them step out, cast, and step back in. This forces your Archmage to spend valuable resources attempting to dispel the protective sphere, and if worse comes to worse, he may get frustrated and use Mordenkainen's Disjunction, which has a nasty habit of also blasting the other magic items the enemy caster has, which the party might want. There are plenty of ways, using nothing more than the Core Rules and an intimate knowledge of those rules, to challenge high-level characters who got their power the "right" way (i.e., they worked for it). That's what makes Dungeons & Dragons such a great game. :)
myri 03-19-04, 03:49 AM	* Clerics and druids can cast the resist energy spells - 12 points/level is a lot of damage soaking * Clerics can also cast anti-magic field on themselves, rendering a lot of the archmages abilities useless. Surround said clerics with CR appropriate non-magic using monsters and have 'em take to it. * Fire shield is a specific spell for damage soaking. I'm sure there are many others I can't think of. (It's almost 4 am here.) * Counterspelling - either from a spell caster or a magic item (I'm not up on the rules myself, but counterspelling any attack spell with a wall of force say (if it's possible) gives the additional benefit of walling off attack routes and allowing enemies to regroup or flee) * Any monster with lots of spell immunities or elemental resistances is a challenge for an archmage. (Like anything immune to a rogue's backstab damage is a challenge for a rogue.) * Deny the mage line of sight on his target. Simple spells like darkness and obscuring mist are effective. Any time I play a mage I'm sure to take 'energy substitution: sonic' because there are very few creatures with sonic resistance. Great feat and similar to the problem you're having.
Quithion 03-19-04, 08:09 AM	I think a fun and Challenging story arc would be to have this archmage face off agianst his Shadow. Ie have the shadow become torn apart form him by a Sahdow Adept and brought to life. ( I would add the Shadow Template from the field folio to this) Have the Shadow "him" Challenge to a wizards duel ( Great rules on these are in Magic of Faerun) for Dominance over his body winner taking control. :smirk: If the Archmage fails to win , make the next quest the part fighting the archmage. During this time give the ousted archmage a temp pc to play. It will be a challenging, problematic, and fun expereince for all in the end. Hope this helps