For pregen runners, anyone using acid arrow over sleep?

[Stalker0]

The pregren wizard (both DDXP and KOTS) get to choose between acid arrow and sleep. I'm curious, how many people have given acid arrow a good college try?

I ran 2 pregen sessions and the wizard always picked sleep. Couldn't blame him, acid arrow looked like a gimped cousin compared to sleep. So who has tried out AA, and stuck with it?

 

[Timeboxer]

One of my players took Acid Arrow because I gave her the roleplaying prompt of "Doesn't like when other people tell you what spells to cast." It turned out to actually be really useful -- one of the hobgoblin BBEGs was killed by ongoing acid damage on its turn after failing its immediate saving throw.

Nothing like having one of your players pleased about a hobgoblin's impending doom.

 

[Colmarr]

I have chosen AA in the past, my main logic being that Sleeps seems to affect allies. It shouldn't, but by the wording of the character sheet it seems to. And it's much easier to place something that's effectively burst 1 (Acid Arrow) then something that is actually burst 2 (Sleep).

 

[SteveC]

I used Acid Arrow as I felt sleep was extremely weak. It slows the target, and then they receive a saving throw to avoid the effects ... no thanks. In the game I played in, the GM remarked that most of the players had chosen sleep, and many were disappointed by the Hobgoblin's ability to immediately throw it off.

Acid Arrow worked just fine for me, but your mileage may vary ...

--Steve

 

[NaturalZero]

I used Acid Arrow as I felt sleep was extremely weak. It slows the target, and then they receive a saving throw to avoid the effects ... no thanks. In the game I played in, the GM remarked that most of the players had chosen sleep, and many were disappointed by the Hobgoblin's ability to immediately throw it off.

Acid Arrow worked just fine for me, but your mileage may vary ...

--Steve

This is something that im afraid will have a huge effect on a lot of powers. Looking through KotS, i see a few powers that look pretty cool...until i realize that the effects only last a round or are negated by a successful save.

 

[MindWanderer]

I saw Acid Arrow picked more often than Sleep when I was at DDXP. I don't think anyone liked the fact that Sleep have roughly a 75% chance of doing nothing very effective.

 

[WampusCat43]

Went with AA (no, not that AA) last night. Caught three dragonshields in a group with it. Unfortunately, they were acid-resistant, so the ongoing had no effect. Still, the damage was high enough to take one well-wounded villain out and put another on the brink, where he was quickly dispatched. Haven't tried Sleep yet.

 

[DeusExMachina]

Well, the wizard in my group used sleep once to keep Meepo in raiders of oakhurst asleep for 2 rounds, which was very useful, cause he was taking down the party fast together with his deathjump spider...
Second time he used it to knock out a few orcs to gain entrance to an orc camp, also useful...

I don't think he ever decided to use Acid Arrow though, so I don't quite know how it compares. However, Sleep is definitely not week in its current incarnation, despite the fact that it takes an extra saving throw to knock people unconscious...

 

[arscott]

Acid Arrow has been the choice in most of the adventures I've run so far.

It ends up being a better choice in most cases, because it's far more useful against the white dragon at the end of my adventure than sleep is--that + to saves is huge. Since it does fairly significant initial damage, the acid arrow is more useful against elites and solos.

It was pretty nasty in my most recent game, when the player didn't target it very carefully. Nearly killed the halfling paladin.

 

[keterys]

Sleep is primarily useful as a 1 round, no save, Mass Slow. It depends on the party how good that works out for you.