Wall of Thorns vs. a red dragon: did we do this right?

[Nareau]

You clearly have little or no experience with 5th level spells.

You're right.

I have a Wizard who uses Wall of Force almost every combat for exactly the purposes you describe. Dividing the enemy forces is a textbook strategy.

How exactly does your wizard do damage to large groups with a wall of force? How does he trap a 30'x30' area with it? How does he cast spells at the people trapped in it? How does he shoot them with arrows? How does he make it last 10 minutes/level? I'm guessing that he does NOT use it "for exactly the purposes" I describe.

To be perfectly blunt, if you find walls so troubling then you badly need to learn more tactics.

I don't appreciate your tone. I have clearly stated that I find wall of thorns to be far superior to the other wall spells in most cases. Nowhere have I indicated that I "find walls so troubling".

Spider

 

[Pielorinho]

How exactly does your wizard do damage to large groups with a wall of force? How does he trap a 30'x30' area with it? How does he cast spells at the people trapped in it? How does he shoot them with arrows? How does he make it last 10 minutes/level? I'm guessing that he does NOT use it "for exactly the purposes" I describe.

I completely agree with you about his tone, and want to distance myself from it. Neither of us has much experience with fifth level spells. Just as I get freaked when I see Righteous Might in action, you get shocked & appalled when you see Wall of Thorns come into play. They're powerful, but we're both learning how powerful.

That said, I see only a few of the things you described as being advantageous:

1) Damage to large groups: true, although the damage is frankly minor. Monks, poor little fleshbags with no natural or manufactured armor, are the perfect targets for the spell; most other creatures will find that their armor negates most of the damage, if not all of it.
2) Trapping a 30x30 area: true. The AoE is bigger.
3) Casting spells at people in it: this isn't an advantage, because line of effect goes both ways. Bad guys can cast spells at me, too. Indeed, because wall of thorns DOESN'T change LoE, it's less useful in terms of being able to alter the battlefield, I'd say.
4) Shooting people in it: same as above.
5) Duration: a very minor benefit. In none of the times I've cast it has the 10 minutes/level instead of 1 minute/level made a difference, and the vast majority of the time, this is true.
6) Durability: this is one that I think should change. I'd suggest it should have a lower hardness but more hit points than the other damageable wall spells.

On the other hand, it's the only real wall spell that doesn't block LoE. It's the only one that can be dispelled. It's the only one that can be damaged by fire (at least, I'd assume that you can't burn down a stone wall: the rules leave this to the DM's judgement). Wall of force can trap people without allowing a saving throw, and they cannot get out without a burrowing speed or teleportation magics.

I do think it's powerful, but I think it's on par with the other wall spells (note that we've only seen one other wall spell in use in our game, and that wasn't in combat). Nerfing it the way you suggest makes it, I believe, far less useful than other fifth level spells, and leaves the druid's spell list without any all-purpose useful combat spells (besides Summon Nature's Ally and Animal Growth, which for other reasons we're trying to avoid in our campaign).

Daniel

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I just skimmed so forgive me if I missed this, but wouldn't the huge dragon get its size bonus to barge through the wall of thorns. So um str 27*=+8, huge=+8 for a +16 check, he'd just walk right through it IMO.

Not having the text of spell and text of the dragon in front of etc. I don't know about this.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

How exactly does your wizard do damage to large groups with a wall of force? How does he trap a 30'x30' area with it? How does he cast spells at the people trapped in it? How does he shoot them with arrows? How does he make it last 10 minutes/level? I'm guessing that he does NOT use it "for exactly the purposes" I describe.


I don't appreciate your tone. I have clearly stated that I find wall of thorns to be far superior to the other wall spells in most cases. Nowhere have I indicated that I "find walls so troubling".

My apologies if you took offense.

For purposes of escaping the dragon, Wall of Force would have worked even better. There would have been no ambiguity over rules. No possibility of Dispelling. And the duration would not have mattered. 9 minutes? 90 minutes? Who cares?

Indoors it is trivial to split off enemies and overwhelm them piecemeal using a Wall of Force. The fact that the caster can dispel the WoF with an action is an enormous convenience. The tactics are not precisely the same, but they are analogous.

The main strength of WoT is it also effective outdoors because you can drop it on top of opponents.

The main weakness of the WoT is that it can be Dispelled unlike the other 5th level wall spells. WoT is also defeatable by 3rd level spells besides Dispel Magic. There is Gaseous Form, Blink, and Fly (moving UP will usually get a strong creature out of the wall in 2-3 rounds).

Anything going up against 9th level PCs without access to Dispel Magic or similar defensive options is "bringing a knife to a gun fight". I have seen plenty of powerful creatures totally hosed by 5th level spells. Wall of Thorns is hardly unique in that respect.

 

[Pielorinho]

Also, IIRC, the dragon was 10' by 20', meaning that a wall of force could just barely capture it when cast by a 10th-level PC (unless I'm figuring the AoE of a 10' radius spell incorrectly). And surely you can see that capturing it within a wall of force would have been far, far superior to capturing it within a wall of thorns: not only does the forcewall share the lack of save, but it also is undispellable and unbypassable.

Daniel

 

[Malin Genie]

You kept 2 CR 8 monks completely out of that fight (killing one, disabling the other); they were the only combatants. Further, the fact that druids can slip through the spell with ease meant that you were able to walk right up to them and attack them. That spell was largely responsible for the ease with which you won that battle.

Woodland Stride: Starting at 2nd level, a druid may move through natural thorns, briars, overgrown areas, and similar terrain at his or her normal speed and without suffering damage or other impairment. However, thorns, briars, and overgrown areas that are enchanted or magically manipulated to impede motion still affect the druid.

My italics.

How exactly did the druid 'walk right up to' the entrapped opponents?

 

[Nareau]

He read this part of the spell very carefully:

Creatures with the ability to pass through overgrown areas unhindered can pass through a wall of thorns at their normal speed without taking damage.

Spider

 

[Malin Genie]

But these are 'enchanted or magically manipulated' areas - so the druid doesn't have that ability within a Wall of Thorns - or am I missing something?

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Malin Genie,

The spell itself overrides the normal rules for Woodland Stride. You are interpretting the ability correctly, but the spell makes an explicit exception.

 

[Pielorinho]

That's my reading of it too, Ridley's Cohort. My impression of it is as follows:

The thorns created are, for their duration, considered to be extra-tough but nonmagical thorns. Spell-resistance doesn't protect you from them, any more than it protects you from the brown bear summoned by a SNA spell.

Therefore, they can be bypassed with Woodland stride, unlike the thorns animated by an Entangle spell or an assassin vine or the like. Damage resistance ought to apply to them (although this is probably a houserule).

Daniel