Aria seemed to breathe in relief as Rose healed herself. She kissed the shifter, then set about binding up the two very naughty elves - and thanks to her new sight for arcane auras, it became quick and sure work to slide and shuck off the items of magic they wore: two rings piece, the elven chain, and vests underneath. She took their nonmagical bows and small swords as well. She mentioned to Rose that with one of their wands, she might be able to identify the items precisely.<br/><br/>The looting itself brought a surprise of its own: each elf, when one of his rings was slid off, abruptly darkened in color. Blonde hair became silver, and light skin became ebony. These were drow, masquerading as their kin fairer of face and heart. Aria gasped, and remarked about remembering Rose's tale of the Bedine tribes fighting off Underdark denizens during their winter 'hibernations'.<br/><br/>She doubled back for the sap - useful if interrogations went south - and woke one of the bound drow. He cursed in Undercommon, which Aria didn't know - she remembered the wizardess in Brightwater trying to 'sell' her on having a spell-of-all-tongues permanencies upon herself as well, but at the moment the tiefling was grateful she<em>couldn't</em>understand the no-doubt-vulgar howls.<br/><br/>"You already spoke Elven and Common to us well enough!" she snarled in both languages in turn. "<em>And</em>we could tell you knew, from the way you looked at one another, you know exactly who we were asking about - the one of arcane power - likely more than yourself," she smiled tauntingly - her arcane sight also let her focus on another and sense a little of the nature and power of any spellcasting they knew; both drow were wizards or sorcerers possessed of the second tier of arcane spells. She remarked as much to Rose, then told the drow, "And since your friend seemed to know this just as you did, we always have him if you prove...of no use to keep lucid, mm? Tell me of Astos."<br/><br/>The drow couldn't hide his reaction to the name, and proceeded to begrudgingly explain that he and his fellow were in fact apprentices of Astos (whom the drow assured the girls on several occasions would surely blast them beyond even the afterlife if they intended to seek him), who lived in an ancient place known (or rather translated) as Westkeep, but a few miles away. Aria asked<em>which</em>way; the drow lied visibly, and after a light backhand thrwap Aria gave his jaw with a forearm bracer, he nodded in a different direction.<br/><br/>Looking over the edge of the trilithon, Rose would've been able to mark several sets of footprints leading to and from that direction anyway, including the worn patch of grass where the two drow apparently typically climbed up onto the trilithons.<br/><br/><br/><br/>Fortunately both elves are stable b/c most or all of each's damage was from the sap.<br/><br/>Yeah, in my own experience as spellcasters, I've usually tried to go one of two (or both routes): anticipating the nature of battles (scrying, invisible-ify allies with great scouting skills, etc.) and then glaze the party with relevant buff spells,  such as the right flavor of energy resistance before a chromatic dragon. And-or debuffs during the battle, usually things like Entangle and Web against big strong monsters with no ranged capabilities, who can then be easily picked off by ranged PC attacks.<br/><br/>And there are a few bits of extreme cheese - like a 3rd level spell that does about 10 Dex damage with no save; many monsters just have 10 Dex, like all true dragons, so that's paralysis (and not the kind dragons are immune to). Gad a campaign where one PC had several +1 spell storing javelins with a copy of the spell in each, to paralyze most foes with 1-2 attacks.<br/><br/>My sense is that in a lot of contexts, caster damage seems strong (esp. against large hordes that can be caught in one area effect), and is compared to many physical attackers. but that attacking has synergistic combos (like Rose's shock trooper and high PA multipliers, or Aria's various ways to make most attacks sneak attacks, and both girls getting extra attacks from Combat Reflexes or haste/TWF and move + full attack methods), whereas casters are stuck at one spell per round (no "iterative attacks" or "spells of opportunity") and 1d6/level damage unless they twink out the metamagic (spontaneous / rods, metamagic level reducers, etc. to make a ninth-level Orb of Force that one-shots a Tarrasque). I do really like spells like Fire Storm that are 1d6/level and have the ability to be 'shaped' to hit lots of enemies and no PCs.<br/><br/>Also, I swear that at higher levels, it seems that typical Attack vs AC and DCs vs saves work out such that meant-to-attack PCs rarely miss (as with Rose and Aria) but monster saves can scale up pretty fast - and energy resistances and spell resistance become very common. The Orbs are nice being SR No and a ranged touch (enemies might tend to get worse touch ACs as as you go up in levels, since they get bigger).