Need some advice on spells from the miniatures handbook

[Silveras]

I see. Your killer plan is to have a flying person with a rope dangling from them, trying to get the rope to touch the PC. Because normally the rope is hanging vertically (into a pit), you have to have that flying person throw the rope to touch the PC.

Once you do that, the PC has to fail a saving throw, and assuming that will then take damage from the fall into the pit.

Right... That's nasty, but extremely hard to get off. Why not just fireball the PC?

Cheers!

Merric, Merric, Merric ... it is in the rulebook, see ?

Section IV.
A. PLANS
1. Killer Plans
a. All "killer plans" will be needlessly complicated and allow the hero ample opportunity to foil them. Such foils can come in the form of i) early detection, ii) easy-to-disable mechanics, or iii) nigh impossible circumstances required to trigger the plan.
b. A "killer plan" which employs more than one foil mechanism gets extra credit for style.

 

[Silveras]

On a more serious note

Abraxas, it sounds like you just want people to tell you it is Ok not to allow the spells.

Guess what ? It is Ok not to allow the spells, even if the only reason is that they don't feel right to you.

 

[Abraxas]

Actually, I was hoping for more than one someone to say they've used these spells and they aren't as bad as my gut feeling tells me they are.

I like to let my players do what they want, I try to accomodate them as much as possible, but sometimes I just gotta say no - which is what I'm gonna do. To these spells and to the gent that wants to cherry pick the assasin class .

Thanks All. . .

 

[MerricB]

As for SS - even if you can't take the 5' step as part of this immediate attack it allows missle weapon users to get full attacks and an extra attack to disrupt a spell. SS legion would be even worse.

Snake's Swiftness allows the caster to effectively give up their action to allow one other character to take a single attack (not a full attack). It's utterly dependent on the strength of that character. It can be extremely effective.

Legion's Snake Swiftness is more powerful, affecting more characters than haste (though this won't apply to most PC groups), but only allows a single extra attack.

Cheers!

 

[Felon]

The reason I hesitate to let BT in is I immediately thought of a moderately easy way to kill a fighter type that fails his save against the spell. Have one of the BBEG's allies drink a potion of levitate (or have the spell cast on him) and levitate over a sufficiently deep pit (put something nasty at the bottom if you like). Once the fighter gets within range the BBEG casts BT and swaps the fighter with his flunky - the fighter immediately falls to (if not certain, then pretty darn incapacitating) doom. Not sure I want this scenario.

I encourage you to give this more thought. In this scenario, it is the pit that's the real danger, not the spell. There are all kinds of ways to get a fighter into that pit. A group of lowly kobolds, with their skill at trapmaking, could just conceal the pit and lure the fighter into charging over it. How deep a pit are we talking about here exactly? 60 feet? Look up a pit trap in the DMG and see what the CR of a 60 foot deep pit is. In the end, the wizard's prety well off just trapping the hapless fighter with a web and having all of his fighter allies standing ready to hem in and chop up their entangled enemy as he tries to slowly work his way out.

As for Snake's Swiftness & Bigby's Slapping Hand - my players try to utilize concentration of fire power as much as possible already. These will just make that worse (or better) depending on your point of view. Also SS allows a fighter to get a full attack off against a spellcaster and get a shot in to disrupt spells if the mage readies to cast this on him when the enemy spellcaster starts casting. Or at least it seems to allow it - unless you can't take a single 5' step as part of the immediate extra attack granted.

Movement isn't mentioned in the spell description, so if the wizard steps back prior to casting the fighter can't step up with him. At any rate, if the wizard's really that close, forget hacking at him--the fighter should have just dropped the sword and grappled. And at any rate, what's wrong with the druid readying a low-level spell to disrupt an enemy's spellcasting? Magic missiles do it all the time.

I'm pretty sure I'll allow CoIB - although it does cross into the divine spellcasters schtick a bit.

CoIB is the one spell you should probably not bother with. Nobody's going to cast it anyway. They could be doing much more effective things. Really, it seems like you think the PHB spells are a lot more mild than they actually are. At best, the Minis Handbook spells just keep pace.

 

[Abraxas]

Look up a pit trap in the DMG and see what the CR of a 60 foot deep pit is.

CR 3 - bump to CR 4 if water filled.
I'm not worried about what the players will do with this - I'm more concerned about what an intelligent opponent should use it for. Its to easy for me to come up with ways to use it to separate the party tanks from the rest of the group and either pound on them alone or pound on the non-combatants without them. It would just be too unbelievable for the bad guys to not use this to their advantage.

At any rate, if the wizard's really that close, forget hacking at him

The wizard doesn't have to be that close - again from the bad guy point of view - archers unload on the party while an allied 5th level wiz readies to cast SS legion when the party's wiz does his thing - potential for multiple hits in addition to the full attack & this can also work without the full attack action so the archers could move and get 2 attacks at highest BAB. Plus that attacking out of the initiative order - the Wiz is the only one that really needs initiative with this spell (or use it in an ambush - 2 attacks at full BAB in a surprise round - that would be surprising).

CoIB is the one spell you should probably not bother with.

This one was specifically requested by the player - fits the concentration of attacks mind set the group has.

 

[Benben]

Araxas,

The close range and saving throw restriction, really balance out the spell. The pit issue is a lot deadlier with silent image, and a bull rush attack.

Compare it to scorching ray, web, invisibility, blindness/deafness, or rope trick. It's an interesting combat spell that doesn't involve direct aplicaiton of damage or hampering conditions.