Rant - "Its Overpowered.. what shall we do?"

[mythusmage]

Entangle is only broken in those games where both sides are in the habit of slaughtering their prisoners, or the players would rather see their characters dead than doing hard labor while on the lookout for opportunities to escape.

Suggestion: In the city the party runs across another band of adventurers. This one with a pair of goblins helping out with various chores. Once things are set away the two will be taken to the authorities, where they will give their parole and return home. Once home they will stay out of any fighting until formally exchanged for human (etc.) prisoners also on parole.

In line with this the group could meet fellow adventurers on parole, meaning they can't join any expedition until exchanged. Or they might encounter people in the enemy's lair who decline combat because they are on parole.

Suggestion: Party is caught by an Entangle. The kobold captors take party in hand and use them as labor (and teachers, advisors, healers depending on skills) until ransom arrives. If no ransom is forthcoming the kobolds may set conditions for release ranging from a payment to agreement to abide by certain conditions. Or the party may simply escape (with or without kobold help )

 

[greywulf]

IHoweveer, somebody moving at half-speed has a pretty good chance of not getting out of a 40 foot spread.

That's true. I don't have a problem with that at all. Entangle is entangle, after all.

ISee, I don't see where druids need the break. They're easily the most powerful class in the game. That riding dog animal companion is tougher than a 1st-level fighter.

:grin: That probably says more about your 1st level fighters then! Every class has, I believe, been branded as being "the most powerful class in the game". At the end of the day, I guess it just depends on how you play.

ITo each their own, but I'd say you are illustrating my point. You can't come up with a simple rock for this scissor.

Thing is, I don't want to play rock-paper-scissors. I don't want to know that there's always something to trump whatever the player does. I want to reward good tactics, emphasize co-operative play and enourage teamwork. Entangle is a great team spell. On their own, a druid can achieve nothing but buy some time with one. In good, honest party play, a druid with Entangle opens up a raft of options for the rest of the party - including running away!

 

[clark411]

Eh, in my eberron game our conjuror uses Evards, Stinking Cloud, Web, and Summon Undead regularly, often in conjunction. Then the warforged psiwarrior charges in, immune to the stinking cloud and typically Expansioned up to huge, swinging his 4d6+10 greatsword.

It's a real hassle to require a flowchart to see if and what monsters can do per round (Okay, first the ettin makes a fort save, then he has to make a reflex save, and if he passes he gets a full round action to be free only to make a fort save next round... okay) but by and large, it allows the wizard to be called the party rambo, and shows how effective he is.

Eventually, and i'm not saying this for everyone, they get bored of the power combos that reduce combats to a crawl and negate any of the tactical value of the game... but eh- let em enjoy it.

 

[Thanee]

My problem with the mechanics of the spells is Fly. Can you fly 5 feet above an entangle? 10 feet? How high do you need to be to be outside a spread area of effect. Spreads should spread up.

The Entangle reaches as high as the present plants can reach.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

Were I DMing, the mind flayer would have plane shifted away and come back properly lubricated.

Which would require Teleport (or similar magic), tho.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

However, when it came to a 'okay, hows this replacement' .... even with some of those suggestions included....

I chose to start a new thread in the HR forums as I felt it was not appropriate to discuss HRing a core spell in the Rules forum.

Ok, I had not read that thread, I think.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Staffan]

Were I DMing, the mind flayer would have plane shifted away and come back properly lubricated.

Plane shift doesn't have that kind of accuracy. You appear 5d% miles from your intended destination.

It works as a last-resort escape spell, but it sucks from a tactical point of view.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

The real problem in this case is a single CR 17 creature against the party. A clever party that gets a bit lucky can often take out a single high CR creature--especially if it's got an obvious and noticable weakness and/or the DM forgets about something or makes a mistake. (I played in a party of 3rd level characters who managed to take down a 15th level cleric/entropomancer through the clever use of grease, silence, tanglefoot bags, grappling, good luck, the overconfidence of an unbuffed bad guy, and the DM not realizing that shard of entropy works just fine while grappled and silenced until round 4 or so).

Yeah EBT is defnintely in need of some nerfing. So much so that my group (at 10th level) used EBT to take down that CR17 Mind flayer nast in the MM1. Work it out - thats 7 CRs higher than a normal 4 man group should be able to handle. Even though there were 8 PCs, even after some "CR adjusting" the party was still a CR16 challenge to the flayer. However, without that one spell, the story would have been far different.

Bottom line, that spell prevented the BBEG from escaping, using Mindblast etc, because it could never get free of the spell's area of effect and beat the grapple check required.

EBT. No SR, No Save. One hell of a grapple check required to avoid.

 

[Kelleris]

Which would require Teleport (or similar magic), tho.

Plane shift doesn't have that kind of accuracy. You appear 5d% miles from your intended destination.

It works as a last-resort escape spell, but it sucks from a tactical point of view.

Depending on the situation, of course. It may not be able to run at all (if it's guarding something it can't afford to lose). I probably should've added an IMC designation, since my players do tend to make themselves easy to find.

The real problem in this case is a single CR 17 creature against the party...

Actually, the real real problem is that a mind flayer sorcerer 9 does not, and never will, deserve a CR of 17, neither technicially nor de facto. Erm, unless you kitted it out with serious magical gear and/or excessive ability scores, if we're going to be really precise.

The point about characters' ability to take down lone creatures is a good one though. An artifact of the "nobody is really self-sufficient" design, perhaps. Or maybe BBEGs just need minions. The cleric/entropomancer thing sounds like a fluke, though, and those do happen occasionally.

 

[Graf]

Entangle is situationally extremely useful, like many spells.

Its also not broken provided you ensure its following the rules precisely; it works fine in most games that use minatures on maps (or where the DM is willing to argue it out with players).

Some key points:
It has a huge radius and affects everyone inside of it so it's less useful in most DnD combats because PCs get caught.
It doesn't work in most DnD environments.

If the poor Druid gets themselves into a situation where a large number of creatures with weak saves are clustered together away from the PCs in wilderness area I say you should let them be effective.