Grease - Uses of and effectivity.

[Scratched_back]

Hi all,

I'm playing an Eldritch Knight at the moment, currently a 9th level caster (Thankyou Practiced Spellcaster!) and I think I've come across the handiest damn spell after years of snubbing it.

In the last three sessions I've cast Grease to:

1) Make it immensely difficult to have Duergar running up stairs in a keep to stand toe-to-toe with our Dwarf Fighter parked at the top to meet the threat... stand being the operative word. He made short work of their slip-sliding.

2) Gained us tactical positions emerging from a room to a 10ft wide corridor that was full of Duergar by greasing two squares and having our Cleric bull-rushing one into another into the Grease allowing us to spill into the corridor and make a stand side-by-side.

3) Dropped a smug innately-spider-climbing Drider Wizard from hanging upside-down on the ceiling bombarding us with all sorts, right into the waiting arms of the party, who were more than a little pissed by then... he was ripped to shreds in a single round.

4) Held my action to cast Grease as a Beserker charged 70ft down a sloped corridor towards us, greasing the square 10ft in front of our frontline as he hit it, watching him slide prone to our ankles with a suprised look on his face.

I'm just stunned how useful it is. If anyone else has innovative uses of it, or amusing stories of it's first-level glory, please share them!

 

[Thanee]

Sounds like fun!

And you havn't even used it to disarm an opponent or help an ally escape from a grapple yet.


It's still only a 1st level spell, thus has an easy Reflex save DC for many opponents and the Balance check at DC 10 (or 15 for full movement) isn't that hard either... quite doable even if untrained.


I suppose the drider failed the Reflex save then? Suits him right!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Scratched_back]

...And you havn't even used it to disarm an opponent or help an ally escape from a grapple yet.

It's still only a 1st level spell, thus has an easy Reflex save DC for many opponents and the Balance check at DC 10 (or 15 for full movement) isn't that hard either... quite doable even if untrained.

I suppose the drider failed the Reflex save then? Suits him right!

Yeah, he rolled an almighty TWO. Hahah.

You're right about the DC and everything, of course, but we're big fans of common sense in our game too, so we often apply modifiers (as the spell in fact suggests).

Escaping from a grapple eyyyyy... I shall have to bear that in mind! Disarming too! Is there anything this spell can't do?

 

[Infiniti2000]

Do you have a rogue in your group? If so, remember that unless your opponent has 5 ranks in Balance, they will be considered flat-footed while in the grease. Can you say sneak attack with a ranged weapon? I thought you could.

 

[Scratched_back]

Do you have a rogue in your group? If so, remember that unless your opponent has 5 ranks in Balance, they will be considered flat-footed while in the grease. Can you say sneak attack with a ranged weapon? I thought you could.

Truly? I had no idea!

5 Ranks, or +5 total? Not many Duergar (A frequent enemy in the campaign) have 5 ranks in Balance. You're a star.

For the benefit of my DM... where's that written exactly?

 

[Sleeping Dragon]

The bard in the group I DM on Saturday used it recently to stop the group's barbarian from smashing another PC into pulp, giving the rest of the group time to calm the barbarian down. He also was going to use it to cause an enemy that was up in a tree to fall, but had already used his 1st level spell for the day.

With Silent Spell it would be fun to sneak up on someone and cast it on their sword hilt/bowstring. And of course casting it on yourself to stop from being grappled is a good move.

In a previous campaign I played in, my PC and another were under the effects of a suggestion spell and had to stop anyone from getting up a set of stairs, the other PCs in the group though tried to get past us. The wizard cast the spell at our feet to try to get us to slip, while we tried to stop the others from getting through. They were still our friends though so we weren't going to draw swords - the end result was my fighter grappling the female elf barbarian in the midst of the grease spell

 

[azhrei_fje]

5 Ranks, or +5 total? Not many Duergar (A frequent enemy in the campaign) have 5 ranks in Balance. You're a star.

He said "5 ranks" and that's what he means. Not "a balance check modifier of +5".

For the benefit of my DM... where's that written exactly?

Compliments of www.d20srd.org:

Being Attacked while Balancing
You are considered flat-footed while balancing, since you can?t move to avoid a blow, and thus you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC (if any). If you have 5 or more ranks in Balance, you aren't considered flat-footed while balancing. If you take damage while balancing, you must make another Balance check against the same DC to remain standing.

 

[Thanee]

That's in the Balance skill description:

Being Attacked while Balancing: You are considered flat-footed while balancing, since you can’t move to avoid a blow, and thus you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC (if any). If you have 5 or more ranks in Balance, you aren’t considered flat-footed while balancing. If you take damage while balancing, you must make another Balance check against the same DC to remain standing.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Lord Pendragon]

It's still only a 1st level spell, thus has an easy Reflex save DC for many opponents and the Balance check at DC 10 (or 15 for full movement) isn't that hard either... quite doable even if untrained.

Heighten Spell can fix the reflex DC, though unfortunately nothing but spell research and a new version can help that Balance check DC.

 

[Scratched_back]

...unfortunately nothing but spell research and a new version can help that Balance check DC.

That's an interesting point, how would you recommend to enhance it? If you based a 2nd level spell upon it for example what would justify it? Just higher DC? A bigger radius? I've not dabbled in spell creation before, sadly.