The World of Avlis

Suppose you are in a party of 5, and you encounter 3 mages at once. Do you team up against each mage, killing one at a time, or do you engage all three at once by divvying up the attack? Consider that all three mages are responding to your presence immediately. Think of it as a mage ambush.

your 5 vs. 1st mage, THEN your 5 vs. 2nd mage, THEN your 5 vs. 3rd mage
or
2 vs. 1st mage, at the SAME TIME as 2 vs. 2nd mage, at the SAME TIME as 1 vs. 3rd mage
or
Option 3 of your own devising

Some would say, a living mage is a spellcasting mage, kill them quickly but sequentially. Others would say, a living mage that's being beaten only marginally qualifies as a spellcaster, so distrupt all of them immediately and let them die slowly.

Any thoughts? Or, too many unspecified variables?

I'd say kill them one at a time. But if you have people present with knockdown, the equation changes, because each person with knockdown can take a mage out of the fight. This is against NPC mages. Nothing is quick and easy in a fight with a mage that is PC or DM driven.

Divide, so they'll have to make concentration checks for all their spells.

You should stop attacking, and bow down at their feet, showering them with adoration and expensive gifts.

Or breach-breach-breach-empowered chain lightning will take care of all three at once.

Pathos Street wrote:You should stop attacking, and bow down at their feet, showering them with adoration and expensive gifts.

Or breach-breach-breach-empowered chain lightning will take care of all three at once.

Best stick with the grovelling. 1 mage can take out 5 others. 3 mages taking on 5 others? Hope you got plenty of gifts to give!

Seriously though, best tactic to take against a mage is to keep them moving. Having to break off and move really cramps the abillity to cast.

If youve got a mage or two or hell three in your group, and two fighters have them counter also...then they are dead but otherwise your done....if they ambush you chances are they are buffed, and a base fighter therefore has to beat past their dmg reduction, and likely their mestils which will half kill you assuming they dont have elemental shield on also. I think the offer gifts and bow is the best option. And likely theyll get the first shot off, which depending may be fatal. But if you are really that intent on attempting it, id say the knockdown and split up, either go for all or nothing, its your only chance it only takes one mage to waste a party if its being ignored

Don't let em see you coming

or

mass blind/deaf

or

gust of wind

Step 1: Spell resistance

Step 2: Hammer of the Gods and have allies rush into melee

Step 3: Continue pelting with Hammer of the Gods/ searing Ray/ other damaging spells that wont harm the party as the mages get bashed.

RTFA unless you have three or more mages on your side.

*Gets some thrall to raise the mage pride banner*

rtfa?....btw, the blindness/deafness wont work if they are manteled...will the hammer? does the spell lvl absorb apply to cleric spells too? i know, nooblet question *sulks*

Fitz10019 wrote:Suppose you are in a party of 5, and you encounter 3 mages at once. Do you team up against each mage, killing one at a time, or do you engage all three at once by divvying up the attack? Consider that all three mages are responding to your presence immediately. Think of it as a mage ambush.

your 5 vs. 1st mage, THEN your 5 vs. 2nd mage, THEN your 5 vs. 3rd mage
or
2 vs. 1st mage, at the SAME TIME as 2 vs. 2nd mage, at the SAME TIME as 1 vs. 3rd mage
or
Option 3 of your own devising

Some would say, a living mage is a spellcasting mage, kill them quickly but sequentially. Others would say, a living mage that's being beaten only marginally qualifies as a spellcaster, so distrupt all of them immediately and let them die slowly.

Any thoughts? Or, too many unspecified variables?

too many unspecified variables

it all depends on your party makeup, different classes have their different sorts of things that work against mages. in general, I'd say it's best to keep each one occupied, but that wouldn't apply to all cases.

Well Am i in this party of 5?
if so i will walk up to each mage and spam IKD on them in turn. No need to break a sweat running.
I guess the other 4 people in the group can play checkers or Cyber while thats goin on.

Crunk wrote:if so i will walk up to each mage and spam IKD on them in turn.

A mage can spam a lot of timestop-dispell-attack in the time it takes you to walk up to spam IKD.

Of course, neither tactic is especially fun or rewarding.

Crunk Norris is so fast even when walking, he doesn't even notice the timestop.

1 mage can take out 5 others.

NPCs, sure. PCs? Like to see it happen. Peregryne vs 3 much lower level sorcerers was a disaster for Mr. uber gear.

Eh.

Ask Fergus, Bragir, Imoth, Robert how well having 4:1 odds against Miette worked...

But in general yeah, if you have 3 mages against you running away might be prudent if you have no abjuration spells.

Bring some Sorcerers and make mince meat of the mages while the Sorcerers make sure the mages can't cast a single spell. I like counterspell.

4:2

And Crunk Norris, the 2 in those odds, once ate an entire cake before he realized that there was a stripper inside.

Crunk doesn't count, he got taken out in the first ten seconds of the match!

Well, then Fergus and Bragir don't count either! Still the same odds!

What I have learned from watching mage duels-competitions is:

Dont give them a sixty second countdown to buff before you charge them with your greataxe

Either side -- the 3 mages or the 5 others -- could win.

Tactics matter. Many have suggested excellent ideas, to which I'll add:

Pick your ground intelligently.

Either side can lose if they try to push a bad position. The NWN AI means non-DM-run NPCs are fanatical idiots. They'll always push a bad position, fighting pointlessly to the death. The bandit mage will always appear out of invisibility after the death of all of her comrades making one last attack before being snuffed out in return.

[rant]Note to game developers: Uhh, why is it that graphics *always* take precedence over AI scripting, which has seen little or no advance in the last 15 years? Even the old AD&D SSI game monsters acted more intelligent than their NWN counterparts; at least they surrendered or fled when overmatched by PCs.[/rant]

Facing DMs or PCs is more problematic. Make sure you were the one to initiate the fight, to pick the ground. Pushing a bad postion can mean the excessive depletion of health, spells & equipment at best, or death at the worst.

Eh...Robert was only playing. See, you be nice to some folk and this is how they repay ya!

Or you could simply do what we mages have to face every day: learn by trial and error! There is no "best" way to deal with a mage becasue as soon as you think of a strategy the next time we see you all our spells or routine will be to counter it! Its a neverending game and the only way you'll find your best approach is by testing it yourself.

Oh and btw... I eat sorcs for breakfast!

3 Counter, while the remaining 2 blast them. Job done.


Now what would happen if that group of 5 mages, bumped into a group of 3 hostile monk/druid/shifters in Dragon form, after drinking a magebane potion in a wild magic area, and wearing old school pimp boots?