Published by Anonymous on 2/02/2004 10:30:00 PM
The Deadlands game went well. The evil beast that was raiding the herds is no more, although the party was quite distressed to note that upon death it seems to have somehow become a normal wolf. (Evil Laughter).
The real problem with Dustin's mage was a lack of magical defenses that should have been prepared. My spells are good. They are not THAT good. Even more important, lack of a serious response after I nuked him the first time. He really should have switched targets, that would most likely have finished the fight right there. I hate to say it, but rule number uno for smart villains is almost always HIT THE CLERIC FIRST, or at least close to it. Admittedly, he'd seen what the paladin can do, and the cleric hadn't really cut loose before except with anti-undead spells. Mostly it's just little tricks of the trade that he was missing. A 34 level wizard can have feats that will allow him to cast a spell of any level up to 9 as a free action (without special preparation) and use at least two of those quickened spells per round. He can easily have free elemental substitution (not that that was a problem) and absurd saving throw DC's (OK, that part Dustin got right) by taking a few levels of archmage.
The real problem with Dustin's mage was a lack of magical defenses that should have been prepared. My spells are good. They are not THAT good. Even more important, lack of a serious response after I nuked him the first time. He really should have switched targets, that would most likely have finished the fight right there. I hate to say it, but rule number uno for smart villains is almost always HIT THE CLERIC FIRST, or at least close to it. Admittedly, he'd seen what the paladin can do, and the cleric hadn't really cut loose before except with anti-undead spells. Mostly it's just little tricks of the trade that he was missing. A 34 level wizard can have feats that will allow him to cast a spell of any level up to 9 as a free action (without special preparation) and use at least two of those quickened spells per round. He can easily have free elemental substitution (not that that was a problem) and absurd saving throw DC's (OK, that part Dustin got right) by taking a few levels of archmage.