D&D 4e Stalker's Mist

Question

Im the DM of a group of 40 somethings. The ranger in my group keeps dropping Stalker's Mist, either on my NPC's, or on the group itself. This makes my mobs either into a bunch of pilons, or at the very least unable to attack if they have no AoE skills. Im really very bored of this, and my group is just raking in the the loot. Please help me get around this stupid fog, I really want to kill my group.

Answer 1

Ok, there are several things you can and should do.

• First and foremost, keep them working longer. This is a daily power with the chance to change 1 encounter dramatically, there are specific tactics you can employ to discourage resting to make sure their work days are appropriately long (usually about 4 encounters/day). Don't do this regularly, but occasionally, making an extended rest penalize them for the following day can keep them from resting for a couple of encounters.

• If they're doing this a lot, you might want to stock up on monsters that have AOEs, and auras. You control the monsters in play, make your PCs work.

• Find a monster or two with a similar power, that should make things fun.

• Even the odds. This is where monster party synergy comes into play. Grab a monster who buffs to hit, a couple of monsters with solid shifting and you can generate CA, a +2 and CA will mean you've got about even odds to normal to hit a heavily obscured character (net of -1).

• Forced movement. This effect, combined with an AOE will often means your characters will be forced out of their hidey bubble and forced to attack you at will

• Use an interesting environment. Make it so that staying in a single location is problematic, which forces them to spend actions moving the cloud. Combine with dazing should have them make hard choices (do I move, attack, or move the cloud).

• Provide alternative win conditions. While this cloud is cool, and moveable, if they're trying to move through an area quickly it's not a great power. Provide missions where it's simply not useful.

• Tremorsense. NPCs with this feature don't need to see their prey. A lot of these are animal types, maybe your BBEG decided to keep one as a pet when he heard about the adventurers and their steamy cloud.

• Let them use it. most of the time this is the right strategy. This is a fairly inexpensive power, but there are other good options at this level for a Ranger. If you cater to this specific power too often you're going to annoy the player who took the power because it's cool. It's not particularly overpowered, so don't adjust too much to it.

So yeah, there is plenty you can do. Try the AOE forced movement first, that's solid, then the buffing and CA strikers. Then the tremorsense monsters. Overall though, this is a daily power, it should be used once a day and then that's all you have to deal with it.