Archers vs outsiders split from unfairly powerful monsters

[Kallimakus]

Again, if you don't have cover from every direction, then you can't do that. Unless you are claiming that minions are not allowed to notice their allies dying and move?

That's the problem, hiding doesn't work that way. You don't have cover against all directions at all time, if you are doing something like this you 1) reveal your presence (not location, presence) and then 2) the enemies move in a way that denies you of your claimed cover from all of them, even the ones you don't know are there but ability to shoot them at all times.

Why would a fighter that can attack from range have enemies in more than one direction? So that should suffice. Shoot, relocate, shoot. In order to make a perception check (as move action) they only have one move left, so in this case I'd argue that the fighter can kite.Equally, shooting at different areas of the mummy horde might obfuscate the direction of attack at least to start with. Eventually the field wioll be corpsy enough to hide from all directions (except up I guess, so that is a problem.)

1) As previously explicated, the correct EL increase for a level 20 fighter facing infinity mummies + 1 Pit Fiend, even if they did count towards EL is still 20. Because the DMG specifically says that enemies that low Don't Count.

2) The idea that some random Piazo module should contradict the rules that don't have any such restriction is beyond weird. The idea that it only counts if it's not at will and during combat is crazy bonkers. One explicit comparison used in the book is Animate Dead to Fireball. Animate Dead is not used during combat and doesn't really cost resources for PCs that day at all.

3) Yes, you have declared it is cheating for the Pit Fiend to use it's abilities, that's the defense you are going to stick with. That is a terrible defense. Like I said, that's not "countering" the argument. That's basically just "whatever super flimsy terrible justification I can come up with to save the fighter, no matter how little sense it makes."

I'm not saying it's cheating at all. You are correct (and I said in one of my posts) that the undead are a trivial challenge. And likewise said that I misrecalled the fact from PF, where the rules are a bit different. And as I said, I don't know exactly how/when the EL is calculated in 3.5.

1) As I explained over and over but no one cares about because they keep believeing every dumb lie Anthro says. The Pit Fiend is not "every bit as vulnerable" he is completely immune to literally any amount of mummies.

2) No, he can't control them, but that's the point. Uncontrolled mummies still serve his purposes. And he has that ability, no matter how much people want to take it away because they know 100% beyond question the fighter loses if they don't.

This is correct. But without control over the undead, he is stuck

1) He has Persistent Image at will. So he has hundreds of images up whereever he is and several places he isn't.

2) It's an SLA so you literally get no possible chance to identify it being cast. Nor can you spellcraft it until after you have made the save.

3) You don't get a save unless you interact with it, something the Halfling won't be doing.

4) You have to know that waiting is useful, you don't, and if you do, he can literally fireball you infinitely while you wait, and refresh it with a single standard action from behind it.

5) Seeing a Persistent Image or an army of minions tells you absolutely nothing. It doesn't even tell you there is another enemy besides the mummies if you saw both, not that you can realize the image at all. Because any mummy could have class levels and have cast the image themselves.

6) Anthro's fighter literally doesn't even have spellcraft (last time I checked the build) because he had 3 skills, and those are cross class hide, MS, and Spot.

7) The Pit Fiend probably has Persistent Images of: 1) Fake cover that he can see through but you can't, 2) Fake walls that he can see through but you can't, making up pretty much any structure he wants, 3) Literally a texture map of the sky for a mile around, possibly texture map of the ground from above, giving him a gap to sit in, he can again, see through, but you can't. Several fake necromancers in the mummy horde or some other likely target to trick enemies into attacking.

Depending on the enviroment, might have more, less, or some other things.

Good points there.
Again, I come from PF, so the rules might be different in 3.5, but you totally can spellcraft SLA's. And Still Silent spells for that matter. Or if the caster is invisible, and Still and Silent. Granted, since the fighter has no spellcraft, he can't do squat. Equally, studying carefully (as a move action, say to perceive what X is) counts as interacting with the illusion (spotting small errors or somesuch).
Persistent image has limited size per illusion and its duration on the low end. So Persistent images are great if the fighter has to come to the Pit Fiend. If not, they are less useful (though potentially still great). And attacking through illusory walls is a great way to demonstrate their illusionness. (imo)

I have never said the monster should expect the fighter (well perhaps the plantar with divinations could) I have mostly not stated any tactics at all prior to this post, aside from stating really general stuff like "if trapped in a box with someone, take away or turn off their holy weapon so they can't hurt you" or "if you see a guy flying through the air on a low CR mount, just kill his mount" or "in general, fireball people from behind illusory total concealment" or "have mummies and a web of illusions" or "if you see someone drink a potion and fly up to meet you, or active winged boots and fly up to meet you, dispel them and laugh as they fall, then return to fireballing them" mostly because I was laboring under the mistaken impression that anyone at all might ever care to see how their claims work in actual games.

DMs have to know the players, and have to not metagame with monsters, it' just sort of mandatory, and any DM with much practice should be able to. Nothing I have suggested it tailored to any specific build or tactic proposed by the fighters, and metagaming is not an appropriate measure of anything, which is why I don't do it.

These are all fair points again. The fighters require a good full attack off in order to defeat the monster. And if the engagement happens on their terms, they'll likely have it. If it happens on the monster's turn, not so much. I seem to think that Fireballs are less than effective in this case though. And I think there was a trick vs the dispel, something about Magic Mouths and rod of absorption, but those are both limited, while at-will dispel is not.

Probably because someone engages it's mummy horde that is terrorizing the countryside, and it responds to that. Or you know, it gets surprise on any of the (literally every single party that has ever existed) that doesn't have invisibility at will and a jacked as **** hide skill and rely on claiming cover from all directions simultaneously.

This is a plausible scenario, and definitely likely to go the Pit Fiend's way.

So here's the thing: if you just go invisible 1) you are waiting 3 minutes before it runs out, or you say the word again.

2) you are just stalling, while the mummy horde continues to terrorize, which sort of defeats the purpose.

3) regrading the rest, you are a fighter, you have no way to guarantee tall grass, or a moderately sized rock, or that you won't need to go inside, or across a flat plane (or as above, that any given bit of cover you use isn't actually fake) or that you might not need to you know, go up in the air ever for any reason at which time you lose cover.

4) A lot harder to have cover against pit fiends flying over the area looking down, and since you don't know he's there, and he sees you the instant, mid movement that you no longer have cover relative to him, you basically get spotted.

These are fair points, although as I mentioned somewhere, I think the only threat the undead horde poses is that the ranged fighter might run out of ammo.

Creatures with both minions with True Seeing and at will illusions, as well as spellcraft checks to automatically know everything about the spell True Seeing on a 1 probably have the ability to make plans based on True Seeing.

In fact, all these plans are based around the limitations of True Seeing and See Invisibility so that no matter what any enemy has, Fighter, Wizard, Angel, whatever, that the Pit Fiend is likely to have a decent chance at surprise.

Fair points, and moving to the idea that the encounter occurs in a world.

No, they said in circumstances assumed, but then assumed a bunch of rules that don't exist, and then started assuming abilities their characters don't have, like Summon Cover IX, and then moved on to that to declaring successive Pit Fiend tactics totally cheating, and they still never got past the barrier of "The Pit Fiend has illusory defenses, and you don't have unlimited True Seeing so you don't use it before you know there is a reason to."

I did not get quite this from the posts.

Plenty were suggested, the usually go like this:

Fighter Proponent: I should always get surprise because I have 100% cover everywhere and all enemies are required to sit on the ground in plane sight waiting for me, and then we roll initiative!

Monsters: Actually the monsters should be reasonable creatures with existing defenses and plans and be taking actions while you are creeping around at 10' per round even though you don't know any enemies exist, and you are 5 miles away.

Fighter Proponent: Every part of that is cheating, monsters taking actions, cheating, monsters using abilities, cheating, monsters having goals and being reasonable, cheating.

Don't got much to say about this.