I thought I'd ask for some help with running NPC spell casters.
When it ends up coming to a combat encounter, I find myself having a hard time making it work well. I find encounters end up being very anti-climatic.
For me, the encounter tends to just come down to who wins initiative. If players win initiative, enemy spell casters get arrowed or webbed or fireballed, in short order.
Assuming neither side is especially prepared, npc mages don't have the AC to avoid spell loss or the HP to hold up long enough to get the time to get an effective spell off.
Another favorite tactic of my players is to cast silence on the fighter and send him in, cleaving through any bodyguards to get in melee with the mage. Once that happens, it is over.
It is a rare situation where an NPC caster lives long enough to actually cast a spell. I appreciate that my players are smart and effective ( and their PC's are Level 5-6 so they are supposed to be a force to be reckoned with), but they are beginning to think that killing mages is cake!
So how do you all run these kind of encounters? Like a goblin lair that has a shaman or witch among them? Or an NPC party with a mage?
Web has very, very short range, and you should enforce it. If a player mage is close enough to a hostile mage to cast it, he’s putting himself practically on the front line.
Fireball expands to volume; in the wilderness this is fine but indoors this is a self-inflicted TPK in the making. You should enforce this too.
As for arrows, you could use Protection from Normal Missiles, or just swap in high-AC clerics or spellswords in plate with fighting style: shield as your NPC casters, instead of mages… 4kXP to second level doesn’t matter if you don’t actually have to level them up over time.
If initiative is king, take combat casting (or whatever the name of that proficiency is, that gives you a bonus to init when casting) and give your mages Dex.
Use their own tactics against them (eg, silenced fighters). What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Even better, since NPC parties are relatively disposable, you can do things that PCs are unwilling to do, like abusing Haste, or Fireball on friendly positions.
In general it sounds like your casters need more and better meatshields. If the party fighter is cleaving through NPC fighters of equivalent level like they’re chumps, something has gone weird. In a ten-man party, my players usually bring one or two mages (a PC and a hench), one or two clerics (usually both henchmen), sometimes one explorer or other dedicated archer, and six to eight melee fighters geared and proficiencied to maximize armor class and survivability (typically two PCs of party-level and then n henchmen of party level minus 1). This seems very reasonable for NPC parties as well.
Probably my most successful encounter with an NPC spellcaster was a wilderness encounter, with a mid-level chaotic cleric mounted on a flying nightmare, 4ish knights of 4th-5th level in plate on warhorses, and 6-8 chump longbowmen. The party assumed the cleric was a high-level fighter, which bought enough time to silence their mage. The knights opened with a cavalry charge that strained the party’s fighter phalanx, the longbowmen harassed anyone who split off, and the cleric cast from the air until she ran out of spells before finally being unhorsed by thrown weapons (after which her mount still managed to down one of the PCs). It was a glorious mess.
I don't claim to have this down so I look forward to seeing other responses, but I'll take a stab anyway.
Consider character build. Battle Magic and Unflappable Casting proficiencies, Dex bonus for initiative even more than for AC. Stat shamans up as full characters if necessary.
Always have bodyguards, though it sounds like you're doing that already.
How you judge line of sight for missile fire is huge. Indoors or underground I don't necessarily let archers target a guarded or rear-rank figure, though of course that can help PCs as well if you're fair about it. Too, make sure your goblins or men-at-arms target PC casters just as much as PCs target NPC casters.
Have defensive spells up as a matter of course. Invisibility drops when you attack or cast a spell, but lacking that it lasts up to 24 hours. In the wilderness or the dungeon arrange a common marching order with your guards and just walk around like that. Mirror Image lasts an hour, which isn't all day, but is still long enough to put up at the very first sign of invaders/another party rather than waiting for combat. A mage both high level and paranoid enough may just cast it in succession for part of the day.
Potions are a caster's friend; they get a spell effect off without the same chance of disruption. Make or purchase at least one defensive spell potion and one escape spell potion. If rolling random items in a party, swap them around so the mage gets anything like that.
Think like a player character for your NPCs. If Silence is that good a mage-killer, put it on your own side's missile weapons. At two hours you can start it ahead of time if you're expecting trouble, or commission a potion in oil form to be applied at need.
If the players have a go-to strategy and there's any way that word could get around, NPCs will start to be ready for it. Some kind of ambush for when the Silenced fighter goes in after the chanting caster (who's actually a decoy this time), dogpile the fighter with nets or grappling, and a thief or assassin goes for the PC mage. Only once one or two PCs are down or engaged does the real enemy caster lose his Invisibility with his first spell.
Only once one or two PCs are down or engaged does the real enemy caster lose his Invisibility with his first spell.
I’ve done this, with a spellcasting dragon supporting an army of orcs in mass combat. Breath weapons are a hell of a way to drop invisibility. That was a bad day to be a henchman.
Mages, especially higher level mages, should have some magical things with them to escape if things to haywire. A wand of teleport (with only one charge) can make a huge difference (and can set up a recurring bad guy, too, which is always fun). Also, if you're up for some shenanigans, disguise the mage and his buff, muscular bodyguard fighter; give the fighter a huge robe or cloak to go over his plate, and give the mage easily-removed plate armor. PCs charge the fighter, thinking he's the mage, and the mage bugs out to a safe distance and, once the PCs are locked down, fireballs the lot of them. Or Earth's Teeth, if he's feeling nice towards the bodyguard.
I'm on my lunch break so I don't have a lot of time to comment. For higher level spellcssters it seemed to me that something akin to a Wand of Protection from Normal Missiles or Mirror Image would be something that they'd invest in. They can use the wand to effect some protective magic at the beginning of combat that cannot be interrupted by a normal attack.
[quote="jedavis"]
* Fireball expands to volume
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Do you mean to say that in your game, Fireball always affects a 4,000 square foot area, which defaults to a sphere, but will form other shapes based on interfering obstacles? Doesn't that mean that Fireball almost always hits roughly double the intuitive 20 ft diameter sphere, since contact with the ground makes it a half-sphere rather than a sphere?
Volume of a 20' diameter fireball is 4188 cubic feet. volume of a 10'x10'x10' hallway block is 1000 cubic feet, so if you cast it in a typical dungeon hallway you'll get something like 40' of people.
If you assume the half-sphere scenario which is unintuitive but makes sense relative to how big i usually think of fireballs being. a half sphere with a volume of 4188 cubic feet would be part of a full sphere with 8376 cubic feet, or about 25' diameter (i used this to calculate that)
My spellcasting baddies make a lot of use of Shield, Mirror Image, Invisibility, and Protection from Normal Missiles.
My sense is that a high-initiative archer is a caster's worst nightmare, and so I tend to build my spellcasters to be able to survive that, typically either by ambush (invisibility) or by protection.
Susan and Jard: Yes, that’s how I run fireball (both expansion into 4 10’ hallway cubes, and expansion of the half-sphere based on volume that would be in the ground). Looking back at the ACKS rules, that’s not actually RAW (though I really thought it was), but I’ve seen it in other OSR rulesets, and I think it’s an important balancing factor on uncapped d6/level damage.
I think I should do more to prep or stat out enemy spell casters, especially important ones. Running one out of the book misses the proficiencies and additional gear an experienced mage would have to counter attacks. Or at least, I should be rolling magic items and a template for NPC or monster spell casters before the any encounter.
I also need to 'toughen' up a little... I tend to not like to purposefully counter or block player tactics... but in a world where silence is a 2nd level spell, and spell casting works the way it does, any spell caster who has survived to higher levels probably has a counter or means of overcoming such tactics and having protective wards to prevent their spells from being disrupted.
How do you handle surprise rounds? Do you allow casting spells during surprise rounds? My players want to prebuff before encounters if they have surprise. What I do is give the enemy a hear noise throw to be aware of spell casting which if successful would negate surprise.
The way I handle the fireball and lightning bolt problem is this: if characters are in melee, you cannot cherry-pick the targets. I know it's a thing in all the grid based versions of D&D where you can drop your AoE to make sure it lands right in front of the fighters, but since combat isn't static and is supposed to be more like a scrum with constant movement back and forth, you shouldn't be able to safely drop a grenade and have zero chance of hitting your friend.
Only once has a PC accidentially killed a henchman and they have never been willing to risk it again. Fireballs and similar large destruction spells are consequently rarely used in my game, except in ambushes or outdoors and I think that makes the mage much more balanced.
It’s a one trick pony, but it’s a good trick: hostages. If the work caster has someone or something important to the players, AOE spells become pretty treacherous. It does tend to dissuade that final showdown as well, however.
Often, I like my wizard NPCs to be super evil but am okay with them being not super strong. It’s their machinations that are their strength, not their combat ability. That, and their summonings. Actually get to the wizard and they’re pleading for life or making threats they could never follow through on as their heads get lopped off.
The way I handle the fireball and lightning bolt problem is this: if characters are in melee, you cannot cherry-pick the targets. I know it's a thing in all the grid based versions of D&D where you can drop your AoE to make sure it lands right in front of the fighters, but since combat isn't static and is supposed to be more like a scrum with constant movement back and forth, you shouldn't be able to safely drop a grenade and have zero chance of hitting your friend.
Only once has a PC accidentially killed a henchman and they have never been willing to risk it again. Fireballs and similar large destruction spells are consequently rarely used in my game, except in ambushes or outdoors and I think that makes the mage much more balanced.
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I like the concept. How do you actually process it though? Do you treat melee-engaged people as one unit, or just eyeball what you think is reasonable, or what?
The way I handle the fireball and lightning bolt problem is this: if characters are in melee, you cannot cherry-pick the targets. I know it's a thing in all the grid based versions of D&D where you can drop your AoE to make sure it lands right in front of the fighters, but since combat isn't static and is supposed to be more like a scrum with constant movement back and forth, you shouldn't be able to safely drop a grenade and have zero chance of hitting your friend.
Only once has a PC accidentially killed a henchman and they have never been willing to risk it again. Fireballs and similar large destruction spells are consequently rarely used in my game, except in ambushes or outdoors and I think that makes the mage much more balanced.
-Tywyll
I like the concept. How do you actually process it though? Do you treat melee-engaged people as one unit, or just eyeball what you think is reasonable, or what?
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yeah, my players come from 3.5 and 4E where you can position the origin point of an area effect spell to the 5' square and at the exact distance to maximize the number of foes and minimize the number of allies effected.
I think this makes sense. You target a group in melee. Not a pin point location in space. I think I'll enforce this a little more strictly.
Although I wonder if positioning a spell center point can be handled like throwing oil. Have them make an attack throw and if they miss determine the point of origin in the same manner (maybe with a reduced distance)
yeah, my players come from 3.5 and 4E where you can position the origin point of an area effect spell to the 5' square and at the exact distance to maximize the number of foes and minimize the number of allies effected.
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My players used to abuse this sort of thing all the time. Anything that only required line of sight but no attack roll was subject to rampant abuse. "oh, they're shooting through a portcullis at me with +4 from cover? no problem, I'll ignite a fireball on their side, then all the eladrin will teleport behind them"
It depends on the situation. Most melee take place in dungeon corridors or small rooms so if you target a group of monsters with an aoe effect your allies will be caught inside it. Fireballs go in a straight line so throwing one in the average dungeon makes it incredibly difficult to aim over your allies and then land it with any degree of accuracy for the average wizard two or three ranks from the front, trying to see over everyone to avoid your friends.