Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
My druid just hit 17th level and gained access to 9th-level spells. Here are my thoughts:
Antipathy: Once-in-a-blue-moon to use this spell, and definitely not in combat: it has an hour casting time, lasts a little over a day, and basically serves to protect a base. Sure, I could protect our home base with this, but the home base has never been attacked, and doing so would use my my one ninth-level slot. I can't see this one coming up very often at all.
Cure Critical Wounds, Mass: It's been rare I've made use of any of the mass cure spells: generally I'm much better off casting a Heal on the tank. In any case, I could heal 9 points less per party member with a 7th-level spell, or I could summon a celestial charger to heal a lot more. This one might be useful, but I'm not really seeing how it's worth it compared to 7th-level alternatives.
Elemental Swarm: Great combat spell, but see problem below.
Foresight: Very interesting. 10 min/level, +2 AC, +2 Reflex saves, no surprise, no flatfootedness. I could see this as much more useful in a campaign against lots of rogues, or if the clause about "warnings of impending danger or harm" is interpreted very broadly; as it is, though, I'm having trouble seeing it as worth the slot.
Regenerate: Useful for all those times that a body member is severed in this abstract-damage game. Healing 4d8+1 mimics a 5th-level spell; healing exhaustion or fatigue is nice for when the barbarian rages, IF we don't have time to rest for a minute or so but do have time for a 3-full-round casting time spell. Again, I just don't see this as being so great, except in very specific circumstances.
Shambler: The defense potential for these things is so huge that i think it needs errata: a stationary druid who casts this once a day can have an army of nearly 1,000 shamblers defending a forest. Its offense use is reasonably good, but see problem below.
Shapechange: holy crap, this spell is fantastic! We use Rich Burlew's shapeshifting rules, though, which majorly weakens this spell, but it's still phenomenally good. With Burlew's rules, there's a major problem: it takes me about 20 minutes to stat myself up as a new creature under his rules, dispensing with the flexibility that is a major advantage to the spell.
Storm of Vengeance: The gigantic AoE makes it useless underground. Aboveground, it could be nice against a small group of enemies, or Totally Freakin Sweet against a large group of enemies. I don't see preparing it that often unless we know we'll be facing down an army.
Summon Nature's Ally IX: Elder elementals? Celestial Chargers? 1d4+1 greater elementals? What's not to love? See problem below.
Sympathy: Spend 1,500 gp and an hour to create the ultimate flytrap. The only way I can see it being useful is if we'll be fighting a bunch of creatures with a similar trait (e.g., all evil), and we throw the metaphorical golden apple into their midst. Again, that could be pretty fun, but at 1,500 gp a pop, not something I'll do every day.
THE PROBLEM BELOW:
The party right now consists of myself, a melee-only barbarian, a mount-optimized paladin, and a monk. I'm really the only person in the party who can deal significant ranged damage; the other three deal tremendous melee damage. And on the rare occasions when I summon multiple creatures, they get snarky at me for how long my turn takes.
Three of the best spells at ninth level are predicated on summoning multiple creatures: Elemental Swarm, Shambler, and some uses of SNAIX. Elemental Swarm involves making 16 attack rolls each round on average (once the average of 8 elementals appears). Shambler involves 10, plus possible rend rolls. SNAIX may involve as few as 2, if I go for the elder elemental route.
But even then, I'll be adding melee damage to the party, which means I'll be competing directly with the other three PCs. I'd rather not compete with them.
The same problem comes about with Shapechange: using Burlew's rules, the main benefit to shapeshifting is in melee combat. Again, I'd rather not compete wtih the other players in this respect.
The major problem, it seems, is that there are no cool spells at this level in druid's other specialty areas: no area damage spells (except Storm of Vengeance, which most of the time is significantly worse than firestorm), no battlefield control spells (except Antipathy, which requires an hour's preparation on the battlefield).
Obviously, my problems are peculiar to my situation: in a party of rangers and sorcerers, my ninth-level spells would be great for provision of meatshields, and if we weren't using Burlew's rules, access to supernatural powers would be tremendously fun. But given my situation, does anyone have any advice for how to make the best use of these slots?
(FWIW, at 18th level I plan to pick up empower spell: a firestorm that does 27d6 damage could really make me giggle).
Daniel
Antipathy: Once-in-a-blue-moon to use this spell, and definitely not in combat: it has an hour casting time, lasts a little over a day, and basically serves to protect a base. Sure, I could protect our home base with this, but the home base has never been attacked, and doing so would use my my one ninth-level slot. I can't see this one coming up very often at all.
Cure Critical Wounds, Mass: It's been rare I've made use of any of the mass cure spells: generally I'm much better off casting a Heal on the tank. In any case, I could heal 9 points less per party member with a 7th-level spell, or I could summon a celestial charger to heal a lot more. This one might be useful, but I'm not really seeing how it's worth it compared to 7th-level alternatives.
Elemental Swarm: Great combat spell, but see problem below.
Foresight: Very interesting. 10 min/level, +2 AC, +2 Reflex saves, no surprise, no flatfootedness. I could see this as much more useful in a campaign against lots of rogues, or if the clause about "warnings of impending danger or harm" is interpreted very broadly; as it is, though, I'm having trouble seeing it as worth the slot.
Regenerate: Useful for all those times that a body member is severed in this abstract-damage game. Healing 4d8+1 mimics a 5th-level spell; healing exhaustion or fatigue is nice for when the barbarian rages, IF we don't have time to rest for a minute or so but do have time for a 3-full-round casting time spell. Again, I just don't see this as being so great, except in very specific circumstances.
Shambler: The defense potential for these things is so huge that i think it needs errata: a stationary druid who casts this once a day can have an army of nearly 1,000 shamblers defending a forest. Its offense use is reasonably good, but see problem below.
Shapechange: holy crap, this spell is fantastic! We use Rich Burlew's shapeshifting rules, though, which majorly weakens this spell, but it's still phenomenally good. With Burlew's rules, there's a major problem: it takes me about 20 minutes to stat myself up as a new creature under his rules, dispensing with the flexibility that is a major advantage to the spell.
Storm of Vengeance: The gigantic AoE makes it useless underground. Aboveground, it could be nice against a small group of enemies, or Totally Freakin Sweet against a large group of enemies. I don't see preparing it that often unless we know we'll be facing down an army.
Summon Nature's Ally IX: Elder elementals? Celestial Chargers? 1d4+1 greater elementals? What's not to love? See problem below.
Sympathy: Spend 1,500 gp and an hour to create the ultimate flytrap. The only way I can see it being useful is if we'll be fighting a bunch of creatures with a similar trait (e.g., all evil), and we throw the metaphorical golden apple into their midst. Again, that could be pretty fun, but at 1,500 gp a pop, not something I'll do every day.
THE PROBLEM BELOW:
The party right now consists of myself, a melee-only barbarian, a mount-optimized paladin, and a monk. I'm really the only person in the party who can deal significant ranged damage; the other three deal tremendous melee damage. And on the rare occasions when I summon multiple creatures, they get snarky at me for how long my turn takes.
Three of the best spells at ninth level are predicated on summoning multiple creatures: Elemental Swarm, Shambler, and some uses of SNAIX. Elemental Swarm involves making 16 attack rolls each round on average (once the average of 8 elementals appears). Shambler involves 10, plus possible rend rolls. SNAIX may involve as few as 2, if I go for the elder elemental route.
But even then, I'll be adding melee damage to the party, which means I'll be competing directly with the other three PCs. I'd rather not compete with them.
The same problem comes about with Shapechange: using Burlew's rules, the main benefit to shapeshifting is in melee combat. Again, I'd rather not compete wtih the other players in this respect.
The major problem, it seems, is that there are no cool spells at this level in druid's other specialty areas: no area damage spells (except Storm of Vengeance, which most of the time is significantly worse than firestorm), no battlefield control spells (except Antipathy, which requires an hour's preparation on the battlefield).
Obviously, my problems are peculiar to my situation: in a party of rangers and sorcerers, my ninth-level spells would be great for provision of meatshields, and if we weren't using Burlew's rules, access to supernatural powers would be tremendously fun. But given my situation, does anyone have any advice for how to make the best use of these slots?
(FWIW, at 18th level I plan to pick up empower spell: a firestorm that does 27d6 damage could really make me giggle).
Daniel
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