Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 brettlangbdl Jun 01, 2015 22:22:18	A group of adventures walks into a castle, a horde of wraiths descend upon them. Battle ensues. First round the party all cast protection from evil on themselves. The undead now all have Disadvantage on their attack rolls against the heroes. This is good for the heroes, as it makes them almost impervious to harm (as it's exceedingly bloody hard to hit anyone).   This is all well and good, but this spell makes combat with undead and fiends somewhat problematic, at least against the lesser varieties with anything under about +10 to hit (which is the majority)... It's at about this point, that its easier to say, after a few minutes of battle, you lay waste to the minions of darkness, rather than spend 15-20 minutes rolling dice when the outcome is inevitable.   Has anyone else run into this situation ? How do you deal with this ? I've always liked undead & demons as adversaries, but they have become kind-of toothless where every battle they enter they are at Disadvantage to hit ?
#2 Tiarn Jun 01, 2015 22:40:18	Your players have found a winning strategy against those types of foes.  Good for them!   Here's the thing though.  It takes a spellslot per caster (resources) and each spell is concentration.  (All of your PCs are spellcasters?  That's unusual.)  Which means that every time they do this, they're expending a spellslot each, and can cast no other spells which requires concentration.  Yeah, they're getting some hefty bonuses, it's also costing them a lot of possible other spells.   Now, all in all, I find when my players discover a great strategy, it's nothing but awesomeness.  They're happy, I'm happy for them, and it's not like my imaginary wraiths are getting their feelins hurt because the battle was "unfair" for them.  However, I understand that you don't want a constant repeat of this.  So, my number 1 advice to you is, stop using only one monster or type of monster.  Fighting just 5 wraiths is boring.  Fighting 5 demons is boring (unless they're different types and do different things.)  But there should be some variance in your encounters.   Some good advice to read would be here.
#3 Razintarr Jun 01, 2015 23:15:09	Protection from evil is a one target concentration spell that's only on the cleric, paladin and wizard spelllist. So your party is probably a cleric or two, a paladin or two and a wizard. That's a setup that is particularly powerfull against fiends and undead. Have you told your players it was going to be campaign with lots of undead? If not, it could be a case of "everybody knows Brett will use lots of fiends and undead".    Wraiths are far from mindless, even pretty smart for undead. They can make plans. The wraiths can scatter, moving through walls and ceilings, to get away from the players after they realise the players are protected, and then come back later. Or they can all gang up on one player in the hope of breaking his concentration on his protection from evil. Or they can lure the players into traps (like parts of the castle with floors that will collapse under any weight).   Your idea of skipping through combat does have merit for other combats though. I'm thinking mindless undead like skeletons, that will just keep attacking the players despite their protection. Those can get boring, and could be skipped.
#4 Dark_Kain Jun 02, 2015 0:26:26	Intelligent undeads (and demons) can use traps, spells and actively seek advantage in combat to counter protection from evil effects and have some character lose concentration. Undead encounter can also include living necromancers and demon encounters commonly includes cultists, that are not going to be affected by protection from evil at all (and are going to be more dangerous since the characters will fight them without other key buff like bless, haste etc...)   Remember that is ok to challenge the players, but expect to give them the upper end in some fights, because a party where every character can cast protection from evil is a party that is supposed to be strong aginst undeads and demons.
#5 Ralif_Redhammer Jun 02, 2015 7:11:12	I’ll agree that it’s great that the PCs are using strategy, but it’s always a bummer for a DM when a big battle ends up getting nerfed. I’d just have some of the wraiths start using the help action to cancel out the disadvantage and then target the casters to knock their concentration.   But if you wanted to skip through the combat relatively quickly, you could just let the PCs make skill checks, maybe Religion, to win the fight, with failure resulting in some amount of damage or other repercussion.
#6 iserith Jun 02, 2015 7:20:52	brettlangbdl wrote:
#7 BRJN Jun 02, 2015 14:40:22	Protection from Evil doesn't work against traps - or against Neutral persons / animals.  Have the last Wraith (or whatever) give up on the hopeless fight and flee deeper into the dungeon, seeking reinforcements.  Also, every spell runs out eventually, and semi-smart enemies might just wait for that to happen.  If the PCs are willing to burn all their spell slots, the undead have nothing but time to wait - then pounce the PCs on the way out.