Tactical Formations
When you’ve acquired enough magical superpowers to make Doctor Strange jealous, it’s only natural to feel like a badass. Start soloing encounters with mass suggestion or a well placed cloudkill and you may begin to think that you’re a one-wizard wrecking crew. Who needs the tin can with the great sword? I’ve got disintegrate! Lock picks? I’ll just disintegrate the door! Healing? Why would I need healing? My enemies are all disintegrated! That sense of overwhelming confidence? That’s called hubris. You’ve got to fight it, because it is the single greatest weakness of the dedicated mage.
This is, in one comic writer’s humble opinion, the problem with armchair wizardry. It is absolutely possible to look at any given encounter, go to the big book of spells that is the internet, and point out a magical solution. Just because you can do anything, however, it does not follow that you can do everything. Being the batman wizard is a laudable goal, but that’s the thing: it’s an aspiration, not a state of being. There will be times when you don’t have the perfect solution memorized and ready to go. You’ll get ambushed. You’ll be silenced. You’ll find yourself fighting underwater or in the dark. You’ll lose access to spellbook, rest, or component pouch. These are the times when you’ll have to rely on your buddies.
So I say to all you casters out there: remember your place in the marching order. Despite your many powers you are far from invulnerable. And yes, even though you are obviously the most important member of the group, and the natural leader, and the best looking, it’s best to lead from behind. Because phenomenal cosmic power doesn’t mean squat when you’re out of hp.
So how about it? Any of you guys ever fall into this trap? Have you ever seen a squishy caster run into melee like a dork? Let’s hear your tales of eviscerated wizards and overconfident sorcerers in the comments!
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We once had a magic item looted off a vampire that gave the wearer the ability to turn into a bat at will, but at the cost of your character having to roleplay thinking he or she was batman, which often involved attempting cool but risky moves, going into melee, and using batman’s characteristic voice.
I think the highlight of the item was when the Gnome wizard was shouting “WHERE IS SHE?” at a tied and bound dead goblin.
Do ya wanna know he he got those scars?
Heh. That sounds a bit like my buddy’s black blade.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/archetypes/paizo-magus-archetypes/bladebound/
The weapon only wants its wielder to be a swashbuckling badass, so the silly thing will occasionally possess its hapless magus in the name of the mission. Cool but risky moves and going into melee are part of the deal, but it’s more of a Dudley Do Right voice than Batman. Is good times.
Slightly off topic, but how do you fool about classes that force players to act in non-optimal ways from time to time? I mostly think about the paladin, and I consider it perfectly acceptable for a player to need to get the GM’s permission to play one. This lets the GM put a check on any players who they feel don’t have the roleplaying chops to pull one off without (A) making a mockery of the class, (B) pissing off the other players, and (C) forcing the game into PvP when no one wanted that.
But I could see the same sort of requirements being applied to any of a variety of swashbuckling or chaotic-stupid classes as well. One of the cardinal rules of RPing is “don’t tell other people how their characters should act or feel”, but sometimes in order to play a class…I don’t want to say “right”, perhaps I could say “play it in the way it was envisioned”, you really don’t want a player to do only what they want whenever they want.
What’s your take on it?
*meant to say “how do you feel”
Personally, I don’t like the paladin as a class. The stringent alignment and RP requirements not only make them very cookie-cutter, they’re also very bad at interacting with other PCs, NPCs, and the world in general due to those same restrictions. I’m okay with alignment restrictions like “just don’t be lawful” or “must be within one step of your deity’s alignment”, and RP restrictions like “cannot wear metal armor” or the binder class’s vestige pact thingies are fine, too. But the paladin is so heavily restricted in what it can be and do that there isn’t much point in playing one, IMO.
I like the concept of the paladin in 4e a lot better, where they are basically the military arm of a deity’s church, and you can have paladins of deities like Bane or Asmodeus just as easily as of deities like Bahamut or Torm.
Personally I think that a lot of the bad reputation Paladins have is from people playing them badly or GMs forcing players to play them badly, which in turn is because the RP requirements were presented badly. I believe that if the player and the GM both have a fair understanding of what each one wants out of the situation, and that if the paladin and the rest of the party aren’t trying to provoke one another, then you can play a 3.5 Paladin just fine.
Of course you could make the argument that if a class is orders of magnitude more complex in terms of RP requirements than anything else without fair warning, then it might still be considered poor design.
One of my favorite novels- The Deed of Paksenarrion, was supposedly written in response to the author seeing people playing Paladins badly at conventions, and wanting to show them how it should be done. If you’re familiar with D&D it borrows rather heavily and obviously for some concepts, but it’s a fine stand-alone novel as well. I read it for the first time years before I ever played D&D, and only picked up on the connections later. I used how Paladins are presented in that book as the inspiration for homebrewing my own variation, which is more “friendly role-model” and less “spanish-inquisition”.
And this is reason #203 why I will never play 3.5e or pathfinder.
Bladebound magus is a strong archetype, and I consider the weapon’s ego to be a part of its balance. Same deal with a paladin’s alignment restrictions. These classes demand that a GM take an active role in balancing the character in action, asking for the occasional Ego save or engineering “your code won’t allow you to do the thing” situations. That sort of design demands a lot of trust between GM and player, which is why you’ll see so many questions about “my paladin lost his powers, do you think it’s fair?” The utility of that sort of design will vary wildly between tables and different GM/player relationships. For example, I would hesitate to roll up a paladin for a drop-in Roll 20 game, but wouldn’t worry about it nearly as much in a home game.
In an ideal scenario, the player takes care of the built-in weakness through RP. The magus makes concessions to his intelligent sword’s demands. The paladin willingly polices himself. However, I think that a stronger design includes a hard and fast rule to govern these situations. Exalted 2e has limit breaks, but these tend to be more convoluted than I like. The best implementation I’ve seen comes from In the Company of Dragons:
https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Taninim_(5e_Race)#Draconic_Essences_and_Compulsions
Those draconic compulsions are simple, situational, and flavorful. I think that they’re my preferred solution to this design problem.
I find the “engineering situations” part is kind of risky, in that a player might feel you are unfairly punishing them. Which is why I prefer the method of getting the GM’s permission first, so that you can veto players if you don’t feel their acting-chops are up to the challenge ahead of time. Although I guess that could itself lead to accusations of favoritism.
I once had a discussion with someone who was arguing that a player wouldn’t pick a Paladin unless they constantly wanted to be thrown into complex ethical dilemmas and were at risk of failure, which IMO seemed to be a tad harsh and maybe reading into it to much, but I do like the Dragon-esse part. I might try to work something like that into some of my dragon-themed classes, like the Dragon Shaman.
How do I avoid this problem? Simple! Be a Magus with 16 CON! A greatsword never runs out of spell slots! WHO IS SQUISHY NOW, FORCES OF EVIL!?!?
In terms of Squishy Wizard situations, my first party had a battlefield control Sorcerer who was roleplayed as simultaneously a coward and arrogantly overconfident. The player was a self-admitted powergamer with more experience at Pathfinder than the rest of us and while that sounds like a recipe for disaster, he was actually using this roleplaying to REDUCE his domination of events by acting cowardly unless he thought we were in legitimate trouble, at which point he’d step in. So he’d do things like use Summon Mount to summon a pony and then hide behind the pony and shoot at things with his crossbow. He also always insisted on being last in the party lineup, which made the time he set off a haunt that everyone else had safely walked past hilarious. (On an unrelated note, enemies tended to roll unnaturally well against his Glitterdust spell, to the point that he once had a streak of three castings, each on a bunch of enemies, with one or no blindnesses per casting. So his allegedly game-breaking dominance was often less impressive than he might have hoped.)
Anyways, as a part of his “let’s have fun while we’re not screwed” approach, he had a short sword. He was not very good with his short sword. In fact, he was so bad with it that the DM would make him roll just to pull it out of its sheath. On rolling a 1 to draw (which happened more than once), the DM ruled that he just pulled the sheath (with sword still in it) off of his belt and was using that as a weapon. At one point he believed that his sword was actually rusted into the sheath and so it could only be used as a de facto club. But here’s the thing with this Sorcerer and his short sword – he was only capable of rolling three numbers while using it: 1, 19 and 20. Almost every swing he made was a 1 or a crit, seemingly dependent on which was funnier. He got KILLS with that thing, to his surprise as much as anyone else’s. And that would just drive his character to try to use the sword even more. Here’s a quote or two from the short story I wrote up following one of our battles.
Sorcerer: “I am Ignus Dragonbane, Hero of the Four Empires and Additionally Sandpoint! I have slain demons and the vile warlord Ripnugget without using a single spell! FEAR MY MASTERY OF THE BLADE!!”
*rolls 1 to draw sword, bringing the sheath with him. Enemy laughs before Ingus rolls a crit on his attack roll and kills him. Ignus starts running around swinging at things.*
Sorcerer: “IGNUS DRAGONBANE THIRSTS FOR BLOOD!!”
Cleric: “Your last name isn’t Dragonbane.”
Sorcerer: “Shut up.”
In one of our last encounters before the player retired from the campaign, the party had been ascending a very dangerous set of catwalks, having spread out thirty feet from each other to avoid putting too much weight on the rotten wood. The party Ninja had gone first but was ambushed and Ignus rushed forwards to help. Only problem, my Magus was in the way. The DM has Ignus roll an Acrobatics check to slip past me, given the narrow space and unsure footing.
Ignus: “1.”
DM: “Make a Reflex save.”
Ignus: “1.”
DM: “As you try to slip by, [my Magus] turns around and accidentally elbows you in the face, sending you over the railing and plummeting 150 feet towards a stone floor.
Ignus: “Can I cast Web to create a trampoline to break my fall?”
DM: “No.”
Ignus: “Huh.”
The player was so okay with Ignus’s final fate being to simply trip and fall to his death that he was almost disappointed when I Feather Fall’d him.
Oh, he also once tried to kill an escaping enemy that had leaped off of a building and was Feather Falling by using Summon Mount and then trying to push the mount off the building so it would land on the enemy. The DM also banned him from taking Prestidigitation because he tried to use it for everything. So he was one of Those Guys, but never quite a That Guy. Fun times.
My own plans to avoid this problem are built upon a convoluted scheme involving the scrollmaster archetype…
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/archetypes/paizo-wizard-archetypes/scrollmaster/
…inspired blade…
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/swashbuckler/archetypes/paizo-swashbuckler-archetypes/inspired-blade/
…eldritch knight…
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/core-rulebook/eldritch-knight/
…and some very generous house rulings. There will be SO MANY plumes of panache in my wizard’s hat!
Also of note, that sorcerer sounds like EXACTLY the kind of character concept that dies early. It’s amusing while it lasts, but when you write down “arrogantly overconfident” and “d6 hit die” on your sheet, you’re already doomed.
Scrollmaster looks like a fun archetype. I kind of like Bonded Wizard ( http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/archetypes/paizo-wizard-archetypes/bonded-wizard-wizard-archetype/ ) but it’s probably more for fluff than crunch.
Having “arrogantly overconfident” and “d6 hit die” is *slightly* less deadly when your right “COWARDLY” in big letters next to it. Also, he always rolled higher than average on his Hit Dice, so his HP was pretty good.
Heh. Get that sorcerer a Toughness feat, STAT!
He was way ahead of you.
THAT’S THE PROBLEM!!!
Flew into an obvious ambush with a Machinesmith two full turns before my crew caught up… and got trounced.
Another time the party mage flew up to a dungeon boss Orc magic dude all invisible like… did I mention that this boss had a hella perception check and passed the 50% miss chance? Down went our mage for that fight. Was oddly enough, a lot harder of a fight without him… who knew!?
Another time, another game, our Bard decided he needed this magic weapon that was just sitting out in the open and despite many people being here before us, nobody ever took it… who woulda thought it was cursed?!
Oh man… The invisible thing is such a heartbreaker for a mage! In 99% of the fights you’ll be fine, but then you’ll run into that one badass monster that can spot you.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT MAKES AN OPPORTUNITY ATTACK!?”
Oh you were flying 20′ up? Make a flight check. Not a skill you use? Well roll it anyways… you fall… take 4 damage and you are prone. Want to attack or stand up? Stand up? You provoke. Anything else? Ok, his turn.
If I recall correctly, it was my magus buddy trying to sneak into position to spellstrike a glabrezu demon. It was the same session where the whole village got turned to stone by an errant wish:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/i-wish-for-a-dragon
We have a sorcerer. An anime catgirl sorcerer. That is also a child. She’s constantly running in front of the group, and terrible at almost everything. But there is one thing she’s extremely good at: Not dying. Feather Fall, Misty Escape, Invisibility… I swear, the sole purpose of that character seems to be defying the “curiosity killed the cat” saying.
As for me, the wizard, I try to always keep a sturdy dwarf between the enemies and myself. This was not always the case: Near the start of the campaign, I tried to color spray a boss. Turns out, he was a level 4 monk, who made his save, and then proceeded to 1-shot me.
First combat of the first session of my first Pathfinder campaign. I was an evocation wizard.
“Burning hands!” I shouted at the orcs.
As it turns out, 1d4 damage in a 15′ cone does not kill orcs. It annoys them. 🙁
At that level, with that spell, I’m guessing all you did was singe any hair they had on their bodies… lol
As a level 1 Evoker I suggest Magic Missile. It only does 1d4+1 to ONE orc, but never misses and keeps you out of immediate harm (110′ range). 😉
That wizard has since learned his lesson. My new go-to is hyrdaulic push. Nothing quite so satisfying as turning on the fire hose!
I believe I’ve mentioned this story before, but back in 2014 on the 2500 mile road trip home from Seattle to D.C., I played a rather interesting and unusual game. Like, roll d20s for stats, but we only get one set of rolls; that kinda unusual.
Anyway, I played a Dwarf Druid/Barbarian with really high strength, constitution, and wisdom, but super low dex (my poor AC) and charisma. The other characters were a Half-Orc Draconic-Bloodline (Gold) Sorcerer and a Kobold grapple-focused Monk. The sorcerer also had high strength and constitution, with middling charisma and dexterity.
So in effect, our two casters were beefy. We had many fights where the Kobold spent three or four rounds wrestling one foe while us casters knocked out foes left and right, I with my Shillelagh, and the Sorcerer with his Greataxe.
I actually took the Barbarian level so we could have a better warrior character, but I ended up going down in a fight with a Orc Chieftan. My trusty steed, the Bighorn Sheep named “Rib” ended up getting the killing blow on the Orc, the very round I fell unconscious.
I ended up spending nearly 800 miles of that trip unconscious and listening to the ineptitudes of the other two, but that’s a story for another time.
Hey, druid with a shillelagh is pretty much in the Wu-Tang clan.
What kind of comic do I need to write to prompt the full story of the 800 mile ineptitude?
Something like comparing tech-levels would be relevant to the story of comparing a Beer-Hat to an Automated External Defibrillator, or perhaps attempting to use spells to emulate affects that might be vaguely related. Perhaps a “misuse of the spells are not covered under insurance” kinda thing.
Or bizarre superstitions regarding hiding the scent of blood to prevent a hunter or tracker from finding an easy to capture/consume unconscious dwarf.
Or perhaps Fighter being tasked with finding someone but without having asked what the person he’s supposed to find looks like.
Yeah, those 800 miles of impotence resulted in many whispered conversations between me and the GM (he was in the passenger seat) about whether the guys behind us were trying to be dumb or if they were naturally like that.
“misuse of the spells are not covered under insurance”
You mean something like using lightning bolt to shock a dying friend back to positive hp? Yeah, that’s got potential….
Actually, that’s rather close to how it played out. The Kobold-Player thought aloud “if Beer-Hats exist than should Defibs exist too?” The Sorcerer-Player followed the logic where neither I nor the GM could: “So like using Shocking Grasp to try and resuscitate him?”
One of my Savage Worlds games actually used that trick. They wound up using some kind of taser weapon + metal weapons (read: chest paddles) + medical know-how + an extremely generous GM to save a PC. I think the big difference was that this was a sci-fi setting, meaning that knowledge of defibrillators was at least plausible.
Try a Staff Magus with shillelagh.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/archetypes/paizo-magus-archetypes/staff-magus/
Also, I could see a world of fantasy magic learning enough about human biology to develop defibrillation. What I don’t find plausible is them discovering how to use defibrillation on someone who has died/is about to die of blood loss. A malfunctioning heart’s not really the issue there.
I’ve always wanted to develop a fantasy setting where the laws of physics and science simply don’t apply. The classical humors are actually present. Gravity comes from air elementals. Outer space has plenty of breathable air. Etc.
I’ve had times where our meat shields have either been absent or incapacitated and my mage would have to hastily throw on a few defensive spells and hold the line for a round or two, but never any “suicidal overconfidence” issues where my mage wandered onto the front lines and got spanked for it. I tend to either build my “mages” (which includes half-casters like the Bard, Duskblade, and Magus) for the front lines, or they tend to stay away and contribute by making the front lines better or the enemies deader from a distance.
That said, in one of my earliest 3.0 campaigns, I played a Sorcerer (back when they only had a d4 Hit Die, even) and my friend played a bow Rogue, and she would have her character hide behind mine whenever possible.
Now see, I wouldn’t class gish-type characters as mages (at least not in this situation). Melee bards and duskblades are supposed to be in melee. It’s the rare wizard that wants to stand toe-to-toe with the monsters though.
Also, I’m hoping that you and that rogue hired a mercenary with a shield or something. Somebody needs to put a body between the squishy dudes and certain doom!
Well, there were other party members – a melee cleric and a barbarian/fighter, to boot. It’s just that ours were usually together in being away from the front lines, and I had defensive options that her character didn’t because magic.
The party’s one-armed plantman wizard(long story, involves copious amounts of magic horse liquid) somehow needed up at the front of the party as they faced off against a Roc. After the giant bird ate his summoned monster the rest of the party legged it into a nearby cave, but the wizard walked up to the thing and hit it with his staff. It did not go well for him, and his death was mocked with a YMCA parody titled BIRDY.
Friggin’ horse liquid. I’m still salty about my now-useless character….
I’ve gotta know though: What are the lyrics to the BIRDY song?
Hmm, the closest I’ve personally come is having my Beguiler attack things with a spear. Because they’re a Beguiler and enchantments and illusions (and other things I had via the Mentorship feat) don’t always apply. It was still a terrible place for my character to be, but that alternative was sit around doing absolutely nothing.
Now see, I think there’s an important distinction between “Out of the way, meat shield! You’re blocking my line of fire!” and “I’ve got to do something to help my friends!” If you’re up against magic-immune enemies or standing in an antimagic field or somethign, it’s good to have some kind of option in your back pocket. My preferred solution to those situations is alchemical items, but a backup spear isn’t the worst idea in the world.
Definitely a problem now since our Barbarian got possibly erased from existence about 2 sessions ago and we’re going to face the BBEG real soon. I’m not looking forward to that.
On a different note I solved this problem by making a character whose a Sorcerer/Monk/Fighter (Eldritch Knight). Now obviously that’s not a optimized build whatsoever, I solved that by making his Str a 30. So he’s definitely a spellcaster, indeed that’s where the majority of his power comes from, he just uses that to supplement his suplexes. You expect Hold Person, what you don’t expect is a Quickened Spell Hold Person and for him to use his action to run up and drop kick you with advantage and a crit.
Well I mean… I certainly don’t expect that in my day-to-day life. It would surprise the shit out of me if a Sorcerer/Monk/Fighter walked into my office and served me up a big glass of WATAAA!
It’s certainly not an optimized build as I said before, I would hardly consider using it for standard play. I do try to have an explanation as to why the character in question can do so. Being a Red dragon who thinks being physically strong in both forms makes sense and having the years to train and practice is a good answer to why I think.
Ah yeah, so called almighty Casters,… They should be well aware of their own limitations. 1. You can prepare for almost everything, not everything. 2. If something catches you unprepared you are mincemeat.
I rarely play Casters myself, but there was this Situation in a Dungeon, where our Psychic ran out of Spells. So yeah, my Fighter was paralyzed by one (rather Dumb) Guhls, getting his Life sucked out by Shadows, but still holding on due High AC, and High Strength. Our Monk was killing the Other Shadows going after our Bard. The Sang and, used his Rapier.
Monk: “Psychic, help us damn it!” Psychic steps quite a bit away from the Battle and Waves at us helplessly, “I can’t i am out Spell slots! And i don’t have my Crossbow anymore, i sold it last time i was in town!”
Luckly the Paralyzation didn’t last long, and the Monk, and the Bard saved my Fighter from the Shadows. My Fighter smashed the Guhl, but it was definitly an “Oh Shit!” moment for all of us. Now he has a crossbow again,… i think. Maybe.
____________
Another Situation was where we were Fighting a Construct Dragon, The Monk had serious Trouble getting through the Damaged Reduction, as did my Fighter, though not as much. Our Psychic cast haste at the start of the Fight, and then promptly failed every Spell against the Spell Resistance of the Dragon. We managed to wear it down with Time, (partly through the Help of some NPC allies.)
Theoretically, youre invincible yes Wizard. practically?
You. Are . Not. Prepared.
Oh man… I feel like that Construct Dragon situation is why Pathfinder peeps love conjuration. Sneaking a few “Spell Resistance: no” spells into the lineup goes a long way towards mitigating these worst case scenario situations. For example, a wizard in my megadungeon campaign managed to one-shot a magic-immune iron golem with “create pit.” Tough to argue with that!
Well he now has a few Non-Spell Resistance Spells, he learned. Still without his Haste Buff, we might not have made it, my Fighter survived that Battle with Exactly 1 HP remaining!
That second situation is why I love plying either a Bard (great party buffers) or a Witch (good at buffing, but AWESOME at debuffing). Direct damage/effect spells are nice at lower levels, but once you start playing around CR12 and above the higher SR monsters with insane saves start coming out of the woodwork and making a caster’s life miserable!
Bard buffs (and Witch buffs/debuffs) tend to still work great, even at higher levels. Why do it yourself when you can have the BSF do it for you? lol
Getting around SR is a hell of a perk. It’s the same reason I appreciate alchemist bombs and kineticist blasts. It almost doesn’t matter what you do, so long as you can do SOMETHING to contribute. You just don’t want to be blanked by an encounter.
Things get weird at high levels, where wizards remain functionally squishy compared to level appropriate challenges and companions, yet at the same time can shrug off bizarre Rasputin-like levels of punishment from both environmental hazards and from creatures that might have made short work of them had they been encountered the previous year
Rocket tag is a very dangerous game: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RocketTagGameplay
Just had something like this happen last night at the game table. Guy in our group plays a Gnome Alchemist (mad bomber type at 8th level); not quite a wizard, but definitely squishy like one. My bard identified a Moonflower (nasty plant monster) in an adjacent room that was not actively attacking us, and warned the party that it was dangerous (DR slashing, a blinding flash, fast healing, and a nasty grab/swallow attack with high CMB). The party was in the middle of deciding how to approach the situation when the gnome charged into the room and attacked the Moonflower, expressing to our stunned group, “I got this!”.
Now, did he attack with his bombs at range? No, that would make too much sense. Instead, he runs to within 10 feet of the thing and attacked it with alchemical defoliant, which deals a WHOOPING 1d6 hit points of damage, 1 point of Strength damage, and 1 point of Constitution damage (Fortitude save negates the Strength and Constitution damage, and it made its save). That constituted the surprise round, in which NO OTHER CHARACTER in the party got to act (due to his actions), but the Moonflower did, since it was waiting for us. It did its blinding burst and rendered the WHOLE party blind (except my bard), and it did that before the gnome was even able to attack(he nearly missed because of being blinded). From there, in round one the gnome was grappled, ingested, and spat out as a Moonflower plant pod to become a Moonflower spawn (he died). The rest of the combat did not go well, although we eventually killed it (and the gnome, who would have become a Moonflower if we hadn’t). In the process we wasted more resources than we should have due to not being able to coordinate our initial attack, and having to deal with blindness for 3 rounds.
Lesson learned: Play to your character to its skills and abilities, and don’t rush off into combat without a plan simply because you think you’ve “got this”. The whole point of a party of characters is that you play off of each others strengths and weaknesses. If you play your character with a reckless personality, fine, but don’t forget that there are other players in the party, and your actions can have ramifications (both positive AND negative) to their fun time as well.
Are you sure he was a gnome and not a catfolk?
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/frickin-laser-beams
You know what I think happened though? The alchemist read “defoliant” on his sheet, thought it read “instant win button,” and so ran in. Oof.
He acted more like a distracted catfolk than a crafty gnome, that’s for sure! lol
And yes, he must have been vision impaired if he thought simple alchemical defoliant was going to save the day. 😉
In my first 5e campaign, we had a Wizard who loved to run up to groups of enemies and use Burning Hands. This always led to him being way too close to the action, and he went down many times. Finally, one day, he did Burning Hands on some Mummies, and got knocked down to 0 HP while contracting Mummy Rot. The DM had his favorite NPC, a friendly but lazy and cowardly lich, save the Wizard by removing the curse, then parting with the words, “Theren, stay out of meleeeee~”
In all of my years of gaming I’ve found that players who take (non-GISH) wizards, sorcerers, bards, etc. into direct combat only learn not to after losing several said characters. Those that do learn become better players overall…
…those that don’t get renamed “cannon fodder” in my party. 😛
A campaign at the local game shop has one player who thinks his bard is a barbarian. He keeps getting knocked out, but there’s enough healing in the party to keep him from dying.
I’m not sure how informative this example is, since the player is maybe twelve. And rarely remembers that he has spells.
My memory is a bit hazy after so many years, but I seem to recall that we were confronting an enemy spellcaster with his military cohort advancing toward us, Our trained battle mage strode boldly to the fore, shouting something at our front line fighter along the lines of, “Out of my way, you dolt; I will bathe them in flame!”
Sir Meatshield gave him the, “Really?” look, and then graciously obliged. The enemy’s disintegrate spell subsequently turned the battlemage to ash.
Thus was the “Dustpan of Mage Retrieval” added to the party inventory!
Our warlock has a problem with this. The first time it was shadows, and he managed to get out of it by dropping a fireball (or available alternative, since I think we were around third level. Next it was wolves from a random encounter, and he was knocked unconscious and had to be rescued. Next, an Annis hag tried to hug him to death. After that, dire wolves successfully ripped out his throat.
*Had. I believe you meant, “Our warlock HAD a problem with this.” 🙁
He managed to gain the favor of an angel. My paladin was too religious to do so.
Wizard: “I run up and attack the Chaos beast with my Witchlight Reservoir.”
GM: “You deal 15 fire damage. *roll* Make a Fort save.”
Wizard: “That’s a total of 5.”
GM: “You dissolve into a shifting, flowing puddle of ooze with a myriad of eyeballs and mouths all screaming in pain. You take 2 Charisma damage.”
Wizard: “Why do my wizards always get turned to goo?”
Paladin: “Um…is that fixable?”
Cleric: *Nat 1 on Knowledge: Planar check* “Nope.”
Warlock: *Nat 1 on Knowledge: Planar Check* “Nah, he’s good as gone.”
GM: “Well…this is sad.”
Lesson learned. Keep your distance from chaos beasts. Got it.
On one hand, enough spells are versatile enough that you don’t need THE perfect solution for the specific set of problems you face on a given day, since you have a bunch of good solutions that each work on a wide variety of problems.
On the other hand, many of those solutions include “and then the fighter wails on the helpless monster”. Teamwork matters, even for Batman.