Bizarre Tactics & Combos

Two words, buddha:

Tower shield.

Tower shields totally negate AoOs. They're the rock against your scissors in the rock/paper/scissors of DnD melee combat.

What's the paper?

Greataxe. It'll chop the tower shield to flinders.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

True, but I'll have the same cover that they do against me. I think that that's one of my DMs house rules, but I'm not sure.

Also, I'll never come up against anything with a tower shield. Only one culture in our campaign setting uses shields, and we are nowhere near them.

But thanks for the heads-up, I had completely forgotten about tower shields. I'll have to come up with a feasible strategy against them (Probably power lunge & sunder).
 

The tactic to use with the tower shield vs. someone with reach is to put the shield in front of you (100% cover) then charge in. Sunder it if you like, you probably won't destroy it in one shot unless you do HUGE amounts of damage. Then, on the following round, if the target hasn't moved more than five feet away, step forward (if necessary) pull the shield out of the way and start hitting.

It's also a wonderful tactic to use against archers.

And if they keep moving back, then you've got them on the run... you can chase them away from your objective while your buddies do whatever needs to be done.
 

Wizard Spell combinations

Transmuter wizards are just fun for odd tactics. Try these.

Fly+ Invisibility+Darkvision: You are the Blackbird. Great for wilderness reconnaissance. Just count the enemy campfires and the enemies around them. Season to taste by casting Pyrotechnics on the campfires: it won't do any damage, but it'll certainly wake them up, confuse them, and cause havoc.

Fly+ Invisibility+Iron Wall: This serves as the wakeup call for those groups of enemies (like enemy wizards) that slept through your Pyrotechnics spells.

aja
 

If you have darkvision at low (or any) level, try a light
spell (zero level) on a liquid of your choice in a glass
flask. Touch attack one of the opposing archers using
darkvision from, say, 30' away. Assuming you have no light
source near you, they cannot see you (light has a 20'r).
Use the same trick on enemy wizards.

This assumes you rule that darkvision does not work
while standing in a lighted area.

This also assumes your DM allows you to treat a liquid
as an "object" for the purposes of this spell. Look at other
spells (such as silence) for the same fun.

YMMV

~D
 



Yeah. Players often propose houserules for strange tactics :D

This one is old, but nice for bards. Combine See Invisibility and Dancing Lights to pinpoint the enemy mages location for your flying fighter. It has a better range than invisibility purge and uses up no actions. Fighter still has 50% miss chance (DM could rule less for the humanoid light shape) but Blindfight could help :D

Huhm. Kobold tactics: lvl1 sorcerer apprentices with True Strike and light crossbows from nearly maximum range (800ft). But this is old too.

This one depends on DM rulings as well. Player halforc took the whole door, ripped it free and bull rushed through the corridor behind it with full cover...
 


We often cast silence on arrows, darts, or tanglefoot bags and throw them at enemy spellcasters. One idea that we've never actually done is to get a bunch of metal beads about the size of BBs, cast silence on one of them, and mix them into a tanglefoot bag before you throw it at the enemy. Depending on DM interpretation, they'd either need to scrape off all the tanglefoot goo or actually figure out which BB was silenced in order to get out of the effect.

Another questionable tactic, based on DM interpretation: I've ruled that levitation essentially negates a character's weight, so that moving them back and forth is very easy. Push a levitated character, and they'll begin drifting in the direction you push them.

Long ago, I foolishly gave a Decanter of Endless water to the (2nd edition) Chaos Wizard in the party. He attached it to his staff to create the dreaded magical weapon Stick. When he wasn't using it as a firehose to knock down enemies, he was casting levitate on himself and riding Stick around the battlefield like a particularly wet Quidditch broom :D.

Daniel
 

Remove ads

Top