Entangle - A Little Too Strong For A 1st Level Spell?

[Pickaxe]

Hehe, I've been posting at length about how flawed just about everything said above is. God loves a contrarian, I suppose.

Strength scores don't ratchet up that much. Few creatures are just laughing off a DC 20 STR check. It takes a 30 STR just to get 50/50 odds.

Escape Artist? Flip through the ol' MM and look for critters with ranks in this skill. Few and far between.

You know, right after I hit the submit button, I realized that there were 3 more pages of posts, and I figured by the time I edited in "Whoops!", several people would have pointed out that I wasn't adding anything new.

In any case, I don't really agree with your argument. Strength scores don't increase rapidly, but they do increase significantly in the "big uglies" you meet at higher levels. Eight goblins in the forest are toast against a 1st level druid, needing a 20 to break out after a failed save. An ogre has a 30% chance to break out, and a hill giant has a 40% chance. As those chances go up, at some point, entangle is not your best opening move. Yes, Escape Artist is rare among monsters, but it's a little more common among certain NPCs, as is Freedom of Movement and the analogous domain power.

--Axe

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

6-8 times where you have time to cast a 1 round spell, the bad guys are tightly grouped, and the sum of opponents HD is less than 4 HD, eh?

Those are some challenging encounters......

Wow! If you are jumping to that conclusion, the problem is that your own experience is too skewed to form an opinion useful to anyone else.

Or your tactics just plain suck eggs.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

In any case, I don't really agree with your argument. Strength scores don't increase rapidly, but they do increase significantly in the "big uglies" you meet at higher levels. Eight goblins in the forest are toast against a 1st level druid, needing a 20 to break out after a failed save. An ogre has a 30% chance to break out, and a hill giant has a 40% chance. As those chances go up, at some point, entangle is not your best opening move. Yes, Escape Artist is rare among monsters, but it's a little more common among certain NPCs, as is Freedom of Movement and the analogous domain power.

Right. At some point you cannot impress people with a 1st level spell that (for the sake of argument) is almost as powerful as a 2nd level spell in some special scenario. They laugh at you for not casting a 5th or 6th level spell when it could have mattered most.

 

[green slime]

Yawn.

 

[RigaMortus2]

I get that...and that sounds cool!

...but in the games I've seen or played in or DMed, the DM doesn't quibble over how a player puts a spell effect down.

Fun is as fun does, sir.

I think it more or less comes from the fact that you can spend a good 5 - 10 minutes looking at the grid and measure and plot the "best" point to place a fireball while hitting the maximum amount of foes, and avoiding allies. Sometimes the DM just says "eyeball it, and we'll see what happens".

 

[Felon]

In any case, I don't really agree with your argument. Strength scores don't increase rapidly, but they do increase significantly in the "big uglies" you meet at higher levels. Eight goblins in the forest are toast against a 1st level druid, needing a 20 to break out after a failed save. An ogre has a 30% chance to break out, and a hill giant has a 40% chance. As those chances go up, at some point, entangle is not your best opening move. Yes, Escape Artist is rare among monsters, but it's a little more common among certain NPCs, as is Freedom of Movement and the analogous domain power.

Folks, when I read Pickaxe's statement that he doesn't really agree with me while providing evidence that certainly seems to support my position, it seemed pretty darned peculiar. So let's do the math! I'll use the statistics Pickaxe provided to see how much impact the "significant" STR increase of "big uglies" encountered at higher levels will have against this 1st-level spell.

Pickaxe cited eight goblins, so let's compare how well eight ogres (EL 8) and eight hill giants (EL 13) fare. We'll go with a nice fair save DC of 14, and round off fractions.

8 OGRES (EL 8)
Entangle is cast. With a Ref save of +0, that means three succeed and five fail. Note that this is the same failure rate the eight goblins would experience. The three who made the save have their movement halved and it's likely their entire round is spent entirely on clearing the entangle's radius.

Out of the five trapped, one makes the 20 STR check to break free. Hurray for him! But not so fast--that was a full-round action, so he's not going anywhere just yet. Next round he has to make another Ref save and has a 65% chance of failing and getting entangled all over again. Looks like he may've started celebrating prematurely. This process will continue to repeat itself for a while: one big ugly gets loose as a full-round action, and most likely winds up trapped again next round.


8 HILL GIANTS (EL 13)
Entangle is cast. Ref save +3 means half succeed and half fail. As the lucky four break formation and scramble out of the shrubbery they are hopefully wise enough to know how grateful they should be that all the entangle did was cost them their entire round.

The not-so-lucky four start making STR checks and two break free. Next round, one of those two actually makes his Ref save and can make a run for it. For all following rounds, the norm will be that one makes the STR check, and then has a 50/50 chance of making his Ref save on the following round. Pity not only them, but also the DM who has to make all of these rolls that are largely pointless.


FINAL ANALYSIS
You tell me. Did the "big uglies" fare well, even compared to eight goblins? Did the impact of the entangle scale properly to the impact a 1st-level spell should have on an EL 8 and EL 13 encounter? Consider the other 1st-level spells that entangle has been compared to in this thread (magic missile, sleep) and what impact they would have had. Personally, even if all creatures made their saves and just spent their round trying to clear the radius, I'd still consider that a pretty potent effect for a 1st-level spell to have (sort of a no-save daze monster, mass).

 

[Felon]

Wow! If you are jumping to that conclusion, the problem is that your own experience is too skewed to form an opinion useful to anyone else.

Or your tactics just plain suck eggs.

The shortcomings of the sleep spell were pretty clearly laid-out to prove that a conclusion was not being jumped to. You are making a personal attack to rebutt without providng anything substantial to back up your position.

 

[Mistwell]

Ummmmm......you sure? Help me interpret what you are saying here:

I was just agreeing with someone else, and discussing that portion that was brought up. It's not the thesis of my point, just a side comment.

 

[Mistwell]

Granted.

Allowing Entangle to use more than plants ("the very air itself...") does make this spell significantly more powerful.

Well thank goodness we can finally agree on that point at least.

That said, limiting this spell to just plants does not limit the spell so much that all of its other over-powered parameters are warranted. It's not the primary factor (as I've been saying all along.) Put another way: slapping extra limitations on a spell isn't the same as allowing extra options for a spell. It's not a linear trend. Reducing fireball so that it's only effective outside doesn't drop it to a 1st level spell!

I think this is the heart of the argument.

A first level spell? No. But a second level spell? Yeah, I think it would be. And given how many people in this thread who thought the "outdoors" portion was not that big of a limitation also thought entangle should be a second level spell instead of a first level one, that seems consistent with your theoretical outdoor-fireball logic. Limiting a spell to be outdoors only should in my opinion reduce the spell level by about one level. Reducing it by two levels (like you suggested with your outdoor-fireball) would be too much given the outdoors limitation.

If limitations did work as you contend, then there would be nothing wrong with this spell:

Dungeon Entangle
Transmutation
Level: Drd 1, Earth 1, Rgr 1
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)
Area: A stone floor inside in a 40-ft.-radius spread
Duration: 1 min./level (D)
Saving Throw: Reflex partial; see text
Spell Resistance: No

Stone floors (that are not outdoors) wrap, twist, and entwine about creatures in the area or those that enter the area, holding them fast and causing them to become entangled. The creature can break free and move half its normal speed by using a full-round action to make a DC 20 Strength check or a DC 20 Escape Artist check. A creature that succeeds on a Reflex save is not entangled but can still move at only half speed through the area. Each round on your turn, the stone floor once again attempts to entangle all creatures that have avoided or escaped entanglement.

Note: The effects of the spell may be altered somewhat, based on the nature of the entangling floor.

Yeah, I think that is a fair spell. It would only be effective on stone floors, which is somewhat common in dungeons but not all pervasive (much like plants are common but not pervasive outdoors).

And, there is a very similar one to that one already I believe. It's the city-themed entangle spell that causes detritus to coalesce around foes.

There is also the Impending Stones spell from Cityscape, which is close to the spell you just posted.

 

[Pickaxe]

FINAL ANALYSIS
You tell me. Did the "big uglies" fare well, even compared to eight goblins? Did the impact of the entangle scale properly to the impact a 1st-level spell should have on an EL 8 and EL 13 encounter? Consider the other 1st-level spells that entangle has been compared to in this thread (magic missile, sleep) and what impact they would have had. Personally, even if all creatures made their saves and just spent their round trying to clear the radius, I'd still consider that a pretty potent effect for a 1st-level spell to have (sort of a no-save daze monster, mass).

Well, the higher CR creatures certainly fare better than the goblins. The goblins are effectively done, assuming the party has any ranged attacks. Three ogres and four giants save, so they can move out of the area if they start just about anywhere except the very center. Also, those that make their Strength check can move half their speed as part of the full round action of breaking free, so those that make the Strength check progress towards escape or even get out if they are close enough. On subsequent rounds, they get a Reflex save on the druid's turn, and, failing that, they get the Strength check on their own.

So, for the ogres: 3 get out on round 1, 1-2 make the Strength check and possibly get out in round 1, and 1-2 will probably get out in the next round by saving or the Strength check.

For the hill giants: 4 out clean on round 1, 1-2 out by virtue of the Strength check and half move each round thereafter.

So, ultimately, the effect goes from annihilating the goblins to slowing down the ogres and hill giants by 1-3 rounds. That's still a nice return on a first level spell, but no more, IMO, than what you get from higher level Ray of Enfeeblement, Produce Flame, or even Magic Missile.

Again, I would not have a problem with changing the radius to 20', and that would go a long way to increasing the chance that someone gets out in a single round.

--Axe