He did split the party. He has to stay away from line of sight from the party at some point. Assume you are indoors, or in a cave, or anything, really. Wizard needs line of effect to get to the rogue.
It's hardly splitting the party to go around the corner. If the party can take a move action to get into position and attack whatever's the threat as a standard action, and all members of the party can communicate with each other, the party is hardly split. This is especially true when the scout is gaining you surprise rounds you otherwise wouldn't have had (which is normal). If anything, staying together in a tiny pack when going around corners, trying to constantly maintain perfect line of effect, is a foolish plan. It means if something does get the drop on you (likely when you're not scouting) AoE effects can really ruin your day. Imagine a level 3-5 party getting hit by Glitterdust or Web, or a mid level party getting nailed by Evard's Tentacles/Solid Fog/Cloudkill in the surprise round. That's a serious liability. Having a party that's a bit more apart (I'm talking 10-15 feet between each person here, not huge distances) minimizes that liability. Remember, not all characters operate at the same ranges. Most archers are quite comfortable shooting from 150 feet back or more (there's a basic magic item that gives Far Shot and a Compound Longbow already has a 110ft range increment) and don't want to be in close, while most melees are only effective when they're within charge range (usually 40-60 feet at low levels, 100feet or more at high levels) and want to close quickly. As such, the party shouldn't be in a tight bunch... their positioning should be dictated by where they actually want to be when the fight starts. Obviously some thought has to be paid towards what happens if they're attacked from behind, but if they're clearing the place out that's less likely.
Either way, the scout is not truly splitting the party, any more than an archer is splitting the party by hanging back while the charger wades in. The scout's just in front while traveling, far enough forward that the party is unlikely to be randomly detected before the scout can find the threat, but not so much so that he's outside of the engagement range of the party.
So, someone scried on the party or something, and then told the ice devil to ambush them or it'd kill the ice devil himself. This is fairly rational from devils, allright, and not definitely "far more information than it should by rights have."
Considering the devil must have known the exact route the party was going to take (Sunic was talking about a pretty open terrain area, so this wasn't some obvious bottleneck) and evidently knew enough to identify the stealther based on type and int score alone, the devil knew quite a bit indeed. And someone else scrying to provide extra information to the devil is adding an opponent, though obviously it's not as much as adding a full opponent.
Easily.
Except Mindsight was the only thing this Devil had that made it not completely and totally helpless. It's a VERY powerful feat. You just made it completely and totally immune to getting snuck up on, EVER (at least if you're playing by the ruling that Mindsight is unstoppable, which you are). It's like swapping the Terrasque's toughness feats for the Shock Trooper line. It's a huge power up. It serious diminishes the monster's vulnerability to getting bypassed or ambushed, in fact it makes it almost impossible for anyone to detect him without being detected in turn (or it would if the stupid thing had buried itself just a foot deeper). Mindsight is a VERY significant ability, far better than any of the other feats it originally had. If it didn't have that feat, the scout in this scenario could have not only seen it, it could have done so at absolutely no risk.
One CR is worth much, much more than one character level. An encounter of correct CR should be a fair fight to a party of 4 encounter-appropriate guys. CR of +2 means 2 times the strength, basically. So if a fighter 6 was CR 6, fighter 12 should be CR 8. Fighter 24 would be CR 10, although there is an exponential effect at going to Epic, so it should probably be counted.
I'm sorry, but this is just not how the rules for CR work. Adding a character level that fits with how the creature normally fights gives +1 CR to that creature. That's just the rules. You may want this as a house rule (though it wouldn't work at all for full casters... Wizard 18ish as a CR 9? HELL NO), but that's not how the rules actually work. At all.
Do you really think that an Ice Devil who is hiding and has mindsight is stronger than two Ice Devils? Because you really make it seem like it that is the case.
In game where some enemies can one turn TKO a player (which Sunic has been claiming)? A single creature who has enough information to set up an ambush and has abilities set up that make it far superior at ambushing is ABSOLUTELY as strong as (and perhaps stronger than) two such creatures. Consider the following scenario: the party is moving along and sees in the distance two Half Dragon Orc Frenzied Berserkers. Both sides roll initiative. The Berserkers start running at the party. The Beguiler (or Wizard, or Factotum, or Sorcerer... whatever) drops a grease which nuetralizes both of them. The party proceeds to tear the two FBs apart. Now scenario two... it's just one Frenzied Berserker, but he's a Skulk and knows the party is coming, so he's taken 20 to hide in the underbrush off the side of the road. The party gets within the necessary charge range and in the ensuing surprise round the Skulk FB bursts out and insta-gibs the Beguiler/Wizard/Factotum/Sorcerer/whatever who would most easily counter him. If he wins initiative, he kills another party member, otherwise the party has a decent shot of taking him down (assuming someone else had a spell that would stop him from charging again). Which was harder? That second encounter was a death sentence for almost any party (if they lacked an autodetect ability with an over 60' range, they had little chance of avoiding that surprise round), while the first was only dangerous if the party lacked crowd control.
So yes, in this game, giving a monster the knowledge and abilities to ambush the party is at least as strong as giving them an equal buddy to help out.
That's not in the rules. It reads clearly: Increasing HD by 3 increases CR by 1, for Monstrous Humanoids. Spell Weaver is a monstrous humanoid. You are using rule 0 based on your preference. Using my previous analogy, that thing is about as strong as 3 spell weavers of lower level, perhaps slightly more, maybe 4. Give it CR 14.
DMG 39. "Modifying Xp Awards and Encounter Levels. An orc warband that attacks the PCs by flying over them on primitive hang gliders and dropping large rocks is not the same encounter as one in which the orcs just charge in with spears. Sometimes, the circumstances give the characters' opponents a distinct advantage. Other times, the PCs have an advantage. Adjust the Xp award and the EL depending on how greatly the circumstances change the encounter's difficulty."
It then goes on to say that an encounter which is "Significantly more difficult" is EL +1, and one which is "Twice as difficult" is El +2. Considering our Ice Devil couldn't have even seen the scout without Mindsight and almost certainly would have been dropped from a distance trivially if it wasn't ambushing (in the actual game, since it was stupid enough to have its head up it was spotted by the Cleric before it could ambush and was instantly ganked, so this has been proven true), clearly the Mindsight/Ambush scenario makes this guy at least twice as hard as he otherwise would have been. That's a +2.
In the case of your epic casting Spellweaver, just remember that increasing an associated class level increases the CR by 1 (MM 294), so if you'd added Sorcerer levels you'd be adding 1 CR per level. In the case of the Spellweaver, adding HD is just like adding Sorcerer levels. Also, the MM even states that adding too many HD will screw the CR calculations up.
And yes, some party members are expected to die sometimes. The game is supposed to be a challenge, and there's a reason spells like Raise Dead exist. Check out some of the earlier campaigns for examples of Gygaxian play... people died all the time. But that doesn't mean you're supposed to send epic level Sorcerers after level 10 parties and randomly gank members of that party without any hope.
Again, following the CR Rules, Kobold Expert 1 / Sorcerer 7 is an appropriate encounter for a party of level 1, 5% of the time.
Sorcerer 7 alone is CR 7.
Not following the CR Rules, but letting the PCs do anything they want with no retribution and only giving them encounters they should be able to beat, ends up with a world like Forgotten Realms where every pansy and their mother can reach epic levels by gardening. Epic level characters should be rare, infinitely tougher than their average counterparts and paragons amongst their kind. The whole setting will fall apart under ridiculousness when adventuring isn't dangerous busines.
I never claimed you should do that, in fact I find such games boring. However, remember what this argument is about. Sunic is claiming that being a scout will ALWAYS result in you being a corpse, and that scouting is not viable at all. His evidence was a pair of encounters, both of which a decent scout could trivially help with (Lifesight and Mindsight both detected everything easily), and in the one encounter where we saw details it turned out to be at least CR 15 for a level 10 character, indicating that this Ice Devil scenario is the upper bound of expected difficulty... and it was still easy for the scout to deal with (and would have been very dangerous without the scout, had not the Ice Devil been really stupid).
Meanwhile, I am saying that scouting is a viable party role (it shouldn't be the only thing a character does of course, which is why I made clear that you don't need to spend tons of resources on it) and that while there's some danger, it's really not that dangerous compared to any other given party role. Yes, sometimes a monster might detect you (though that should be rare, and a good scout will see that something's up) but you should have ablative defenses (like Moment of Perfect Mind, Counter Charge, and similar) to let you survive that first round while your party takes out the attacker. You're not a guaranteed instant corpse.
Also, the CR rules assume a party of four, with 3d6 or _nonelite_ array. Party with a reasonable point buy should be faced with stuff of CR+1, maybe even +2. Flaws also add to this. Most of the stuff that benefits them adds to this, really. And it assumes that DM doesn't allow them to start with scrolls of every book known to man, but limits their choices, and magic items.
Adding to this, the game was originally written expecting healbot Clerics, blaster Wizards/Sorcerers, and Druids who don't Wild Shape in combat. Basically, all T5 play. Yeah, it was a deadly game. Then again, it also assumes the DM cheats in favor of the players relatively regularly. Playing a T3 game where the DM actually follows the rules, with mostly random magic items and the occasional ability to shop for gear you needed, is basically playing close to how things were intended.
A party, even when fucked up by the DM in a royal fashion like the DMG suggests the DM should do, should still meet stuff like that Ice Devil every now and then.
Absolutely. No disagreement here. The Ice Devil is what the DMG would call a hard encounter. They shouldn't all be like this, but you should have a few once in a while. I've never said you shouldn't have encounters like this, I'm saying that encounters like this aren't EVERY encounter and that even something like this should be handlable, and that using this sort of encounter as proof that scouts aren't viable is ridiculous. It's stacked against the scout and yet a good scout can still handle this easily, so it really fails to back up the claim that scouts are just corpses in waiting.
Actually, that is fluff, not RAW. You can argue for RAI all you want, but then I bring into the equation the fact that you are also supposed to die all the fucking time. There is no RAW defense against Mindsight, as has already been established in this thread.
Which is why I put in what you should do in both cases. If Mindsight is unblockable, then it's pretty much necessary for any scout (it's easy for a Beguiler, Unseen Seer, Arcane Trickster, Factotum, or Warlock to get, via a Mindbender dip. It's actually much harder for T1 classes to get because of the skill requirements for Mindbender, and it's virtually impossible to get in any useful way for Rogues, Scouts, and Ninjas, unfortunately). If it's blockable, then being undead is critical and you should probably take it anyway if you can. Neither way makes scouts obsolete.
The spellweaver knew to go to the chameleon because it robbed a magic item store and dominated the owner to tell the names of anyone who bought anything in past year.
This is still throwing an epic spellcaster at a level 10 party, and that's just stupid. Sure, there's epic casters who really should do exactly that (I'm sure developing an epic spell that finds out who will ever be a threat to you is quite doable) but nobody plays that way because it's just silly. Who wants to play a D&D game where at the first moment of finishing character sheets your DM just says "well, you would have won, so you were killed as babies. The end."? Though really, this sort of thing is exactly why my characters who have disguise always disguise themselves as someone else when in town. No sense leaving a train unnecessarily, and it's shockingly easy to have unbeatable (practically) disguises. Normally it's to throw off CR appropriate Assassins, not crazed paranoid epic Sorcerers, but whatever.
D&D is not a game of "LOL GUYS I MAKE THE MOST EPIC MARY SUE EVER MY FATHER'S SOUL IS BOUND TO MY KATANA AND I'M IN LOVE WITH NARUTO LOL!".
This from a guy whose big argument is "I can make a level 21 Sorcerer to kill you when you're level 10 and I'm the DM" eh? Hi Mr. Pot.
It's a game form of natural evolution, as in, gimps die all the time and that's how it should be. Getting to high level is the goal, and if you die, it is not achieved. Gimps die, therefore not achieving this.
You still haven't shown how anything's a gimp. If anything, your crazy paranoid Sorcerer guy should be killing the serious threats (all T1 casters in the world), not the T3s and below who aren't major threats. Your argument here is nonsensical, and the conclusion sucks: that everyone has to play a T1 caster with world shattering power or go home. I hate to break it to you, but there's a good reason most fantasy stories don't have T1 level protagonists. They're boring as heck to play if you actually use them at full power. I had a DM ask me to make the strongest character I could once. I threw together a Binder 1/Archivist 3/Divine Adaptation Anima Mage 10/Tenebrous Apostate 5/Tainted Sorcerer 1, figured out that I could easily have endless wealth and power without even leaving the starting town, and was bored before I even played him (which is why I instantly quit that game).
Seriously: Mechanical trap, search DC 28, Disable Device DC 15, Reflex DC 24, 5d6 damage. CR 2.
Now assume a rogue 3, who got off with the elite array, which is the average representation of 4d6 drop lowest. Say he has the second highest in con and highest in dex, third highest in Int? +1 Int, 6 Ranks. +7 Search. Autofail. Reflex DC 24. He has +5 reflex saves, with evasion. 19+ succeeds, so he has 10% chance of evading out of it. He has 6+2d6+6 HP, for 12+2d6, averaging at 19. 5d6 won't kill him on average, sure, as it only averages to 17.5 damage. It still has real chances of knocking him unconscious, though. 35.973% chance to drop him to 0, to be exact. And that is counting in the 10% chance he makes the save. And that trap was CR 1 lower than the rogues EL. 2nd level rogue would only have 13.5 health on average, and would be down to 0 at 76.32% probability, again counting the chance he makes the save. 5.292% chance to die outright, if you wondered.
And without that Rogue, it's whoever else was in front who dies, so what's your point here? You seem to be trying to claim that anyone who's not a T1 caster is a "gimp" and doomed to die, but a Wizard would be just as screwed here (a Crusader or Barbarian or something might stand a chance, are you trying to say that Wizards are gimps and Crusaders and Barbarians are the only ones that aren't?).
By the way, an Elite Array Necropolitan Whispergnome (the kind of character I bring to games that are that deadly, as opposed to more standard games where I'm likely to bring a rather more lively halfling, or perhaps a breathing Whispergnome) at level 3, who bothered to have a descecrated evil alter when he was turned, has 31 hit points at level 3. He'll just take that hit and look quite annoyed about the whole thing, but he won't die or go unconscious (at least it's very unlikely). With Int 15, Dex 16 (appropriate for a Factotum), and 6 ranks he's got a +8 to search... slight chance of seeing the thing! But yes, some of the traps are kinda underconned. And as a note I'm aware that you rarely go into Necropolitan that early. You can afford it at that point but it's a lot of money for that level, and I tend to wait until a major Metropolis comes along in hopes of getting the services of a UA Necromancer or Dread Necromancer 8 to help with the procedure as it makes you a lot tougher.
Either way, I fail to see how either of your examples proves that scouts are "gimps." The first one just through an epic caster at level 10 party, which would kill any class type easily and would, it seems to me, more likely target the bigger threats (the Wizard could kill him trivially easily if he ever hit level 17, for example). And the trap example would kill a Wizard or Sorcerer easier than a Rogue, so that's not really relevant here either. What exactly are you trying to say?
And to be clear, nobody's arguing that scout types (especially Factotums or Rogues) are stronger than Wizards or Clerics in general. Only that scouting is a useful thing to do for a party, that in many ways it's more useful than just trying to spam divinations all the time (which is what Sunic was claiming worked better), and that it's quite possible to do it without being at such great risk that you're guaranteed (or even more likely than other roles) to die.
Certainly, Traps become easier to deal with at higher levels when you actually have the skills dedicated to deal with it... once you have things like Eyes of the Eagle and Admiral's Bicorn and such to get your skills appropriately high (and if you are playing a game where the DM keeps chucking such traps at you, there's a feat that lets you use dex for Search and Disable Device. With Brains over Brawn you get Int + Dex. That helps). But Factotums are BETTER at dealing with it than Wizards, and you seemed to be trying to say that everyone should be a Wizard, so what are you going for here? I mean, you could be saying that anyone in front will die so you should just send something disposable like a reserve feat created minion, but if the trap is actually an alarm trap instead of a damage trap that's a terrible plan. So what is it you're going for?
JaronK