Crowd Control?

[Ancalagon]

A further note:

All those methods are physicals methods of crowd control, by creating obstacles to your foes.

An alternative is to mess with their minds. Illusions, charms and mindcontrols are all ways you can "control" a battle.

Ancalagon

 

[BelXiror]

Don't forget the Slow spell. Limiting people to one standard action a round can hurt.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Thanks for the ideas.

A few follow up questions.
* Are there any prestige classes that would help?

Not particularly. Elemental Savant and Mage of the Arcane Order are useful in general and a lot of people like Loremaster and Archmage (though neither particularly impresses me). However, none of them make you significantly better at this.

There might be something in Dragon or non-WotC material but I don't know about it.

* What feats would be most useful?

Most of the listed spells don't have saves and don't have SR either. So there aren't any feats that are particularly useful with this. If you play a conjurer, Spell Focus: Conjuration and Augment Summoning could be a good secondary strategy. Quicken Spell would let you put up two obstructions in one round. Improved Initiative would let you shape the battlefield before your enemies used it. Point Blank and Precise Shot would let you work a backup strategy of using ray spells to blast your foes. All of the craft feats could be useful. But nearly anything could work.

* Given a spell list focused on the examples above, would a sorcerer or wizard be more useful?

Wizard is probably better though sorceror has its merits. Sorcerors are strongest when using spells that can be usefully cast round after round after round. Battlefield control spells tend to yield diminishing returns (Are three acid fogs really that much better than two) and consequently don't play to sorcerors' strengths as much as blast spells do. But either one can work very well in this role.

 

[GakToid]

Thanks Elder-Basilisk.

Final question (until I think of some more): Are there any spells of the same theme in Magic of Faerun? (I don't have that book...yet.)

The wall of chaos/evil/good/law spells seem useful.

-Gak Toid

 

[Sejs]

Shatterfloor, particularly a Sculpted Shatterfloor.

Stone Shape is good for creating defensive barriers in area that have uh.. stone in them. Underground, for instance.

Talk to the DM if you can research versions of Entangle, Briar Web, Spike Stones and the like.

Wall of Ice is better than Wall of Fire, imo. Wall of Fire is a deterrant, Wall of Ice is a barrier.

Summoned Monsters, particularly ones that are good at grappling. Or Thoqqua. 'Cause Thoqqua rule.

Darkness (or fog) and summoned Assassin Vines.

Tasha's Uncontrollable Laughter. Otiluke's Resilient Sphere. With a thoqqua inside with the target. Did I mention thoqqua are awesome?

On the deterrant end of things - illusions. Particularly illusions of spinning barriers of whooshing, glinting. ginsu-your-ass-and-serve-you-up-in-a-stew blades. The up-side being the opponents arn't going to interract with it, because who in their right mind would stick themselves in a blender when you can just walk around it instead?

Fear on things with weak will saves. Ideally the kind of fear that makes the target drop stuff and run away in terror rather than just give 'em a case of the willies.

Blindness/Deafness, particularly on spell casters or archers.

Bestow Curse, particularly the "50% chance to lose your actions for this round" version. It's touch range though, so keep that in mind.

Cloud of Bewilderment, Belagarn's Iron Horn, and Shadow Well are all worth looking into (all from the PGtF)

 

[blargney the second]

If you want to go the cleric route, Piratecat's story hour has a priest that uses the Wall domain to tremendous effect.

-blarg

 

[GakToid]

If you want to go the cleric route, Piratecat's story hour has a priest that uses the Wall domain to tremendous effect.

I had completely forgotten about that. Maybe if Piratecat had updated his story hour more recently it would have stuck in my mind.

Is the Wall domain specific to that story hour or is it from a book?

-Gak Toid