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After reading through this thread, I'd have to say the most commonly overlooked tactic (for both players and GMs) is to thoroughly familiarize yourself with the mechanics you intend to employ. ;)
Why would you want to do that? :P
But seriously, on a similar note, if you're planning to do something weird, be sure to warn the GM in advance and give him a chance to look it over before doing it in the heat of battle.
For instance, when my rogue-ish halfling gets high enough level to join the Halfling Opportunist prestige class, I intend to walk up to every GM before the game starts and ask if he's familiar with that prestige class. If not, I'll open the book and have him read the description of the Exploitive Maneuver ability, and discuss how I will be typically be using it, before it comes up in a fight.
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You mean like all the people suggesting readying actions outside of combat?
Hmm... you're right that you can't take a standard action to ready until combat has started and its your initiative, but in a lot of cases I think people are just talking about "readying actions" as a short hand for getting ready to try and take the enemy by surprise.
If, for instance, the party has taken up positions around a door with their weapons at the ready and an enemy opens the door, not expecting a fight, then I would presume that all of the party members in question count as "aware," and can act in the surprise round, while the enemy opening the door would either be "unaware" and not act, or else be forced to use his action in the surprise round to draw a weapon.
Of course, if the guy opening the door is suspicious and has his weapon at the ready and his allies on standby, then there presumably wouldn't be a surprise round at all. It's always worth trying to get surprise, though, if at all possible.
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I have a sorcerer with heighten spell and the 0-level light spell. I will use that to counter DD every now and again.
Or even a rod of lesser heighten spell would work with it or CF if you want it to last - how often will it come up?
Wasting a spell slot on CF for a sorcerer just for this purpose = not worth it though, IMO.
My next character will be a sorcerer with heighten spell, to pass out 4th level continual flames to everyone he meets.
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I have a sorcerer with heighten spell and the 0-level light spell. I will use that to counter DD every now and again.
Or even a rod of lesser heighten spell would work with it or CF if you want it to last - how often will it come up?
Wasting a spell slot on CF for a sorcerer just for this purpose = not worth it though, IMO.
My next character will be a sorcerer with heighten spell, to pass out 4th level continual flames to everyone he meets.
Where are you finding these heighten rods?
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I see the same thing BNW. I think the text regarding readied actions outside of combat are poor and unclear. It makes little to no sense to say you cannot prepare an action simply based on the expectation of something, as of yet, undetected. Of course, that is somewhat mitigated by perception checks that could allow those who you wished to surprise to avoid the ambush.
When you are out of combat, ie not completely aware of what you are going to encounter, it is challenging to properly prepare your actions. There is a moment of thought, where you have to decide to move on with said prepared action, or to abandon it. Otherwise, we would not allow the readier to cancel their action. This hesitation, may be all the opposition needs to react and beat you to the "punch." Ya know, the whole "best laid plans" thing.
That being said, if you can fully perceive the target and properly prepare your action without detection, that is not so much a readied action as it is merely surprise.
The mechanics of surprise vs. readied-actions are a bit muddled, IMO, but it just takes a little common sense and GM adjudication for it to be fair to all involved. YMMV
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I see the same thing BNW. I think the text regarding readied actions outside of combat are poor and unclear. It makes little to no sense to say you cannot prepare an action simply based on the expectation of something, as of yet, undetected. Of course, that is somewhat mitigated by perception checks that could allow those who you wished to surprise to avoid the ambush.
When you are out of combat, ie not completely aware of what you are going to encounter, it is challenging to properly prepare your actions. There is a moment of thought, where you have to decide to move on with said prepared action, or to abandon it. Otherwise, we would not allow the readier to cancel their action. This hesitation, may be all the opposition needs to react and beat you to the "punch." Ya know, the whole "best laid plans" thing.
That being said, if you can fully perceive the target and properly prepare your action without detection, that is not so much a readied action as it is merely surprise.
The mechanics of surprise vs. readied-actions are a bit muddled, IMO, but it just takes a little common sense and GM adjudication for it to be fair to all involved. YMMV
One of a few problems with the idea of readying actions outside of combat is that since readying is a standard action, you could just ready and move every turn and then always have a readied action for any battle. I tend to say, as you alluded, that a "readied action outside of combat" is tantamount to a surprise round. If you don't act on the surprise round, you don't get to go until your turn (aka, "readying for unseen things" doesn't automatically let you act on the surprise if you didn't get high enough perception).
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And it could be argued that outside of round-based combat, action types are irrelevant. When you walk down a long hallway, it is not considered a succession of move actions. It is only when you encounter some stimulus, with its own actions, that you revert to the system mechanic of rounds.
If you are traveling through an ancient catacomb, I don't really see a problem with stating, "I am standing behind [ally] with my bow drawn and ready to fire. When [ally] opens the door, I am going to shoot any creature I see inside." It is hard to believe that an unprepared creature inside would be allowed a perception check to notice the door opening, win initiative in the surprise round, and conduct a partial charge attacking [ally] before you could aim and fire, but by strict game mechanics, it could be argued so.
My point is that every situation contains its own unique circumstances and GM's should not screw players who take the time to proceed with caution and are mindful of good tactics just because the game mechanics might appear as such. Too often I have seen what BNW described, where with little to no advanced warning, the baddies are fully buffed and prepared for the PC's including surprise with what amounts to readied actions.
The game mechanics are a simulation meant to resemble, but not exactly mimic, real-life combat. I wish players and GMs alike would be mindful of that and stop trying to exploit loopholes or use strict reading of rule language to screw with the other side of the screen.
[/soapbox] :-)
Explore! Report! Cooperate!
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And it could be argued that outside of round-based combat, action types are irrelevant. When you walk down a long hallway, it is not considered a succession of move actions. It is only when you encounter some stimulus, with its own actions, that you revert to the system mechanic of rounds.
If you are traveling through an ancient catacomb, I don't really see a problem with stating, "I am standing behind [ally] with my bow drawn and ready to fire. When [ally] opens the door, I am going to shoot any creature I see inside." It is hard to believe that an unprepared creature inside would be allowed a perception check to notice the door opening, win initiative in the surprise round, and conduct a partial charge attacking [ally] before you could aim and fire, but by strict game mechanics, it could be argued so.
My point is that every situation contains its own unique circumstances and GM's should not screw players who take the time to proceed with caution and are mindful of good tactics just because the game mechanics might appear as such. Too often I have seen what BNW described, where with little to no advanced warning, the baddies are fully buffed and prepared for the PC's including surprise with what amounts to readied actions.
The game mechanics are a simulation meant to resemble, but not exactly mimic, real-life combat. I wish players and GMs alike would be mindful of that and stop trying to exploit loopholes or use strict reading of rule language to screw with the other side of the screen.
[/soapbox] :-)
Explore! Report! Cooperate!
Though I have a different stance than you on surprise/readied actions, we agree completely on what the bad outcome is and what we are trying to prevent (probably most of us here do)--I have also been unhappy with the monsters with the mysterious full buff and preparation including surprise. I'm with you 100% on your initiative against screwing overness, even if I come at it from the other side in rulings.
I guess I've seen your same logic used by GMs to defend the uber-prepped auto-surprise monster, and in one case that was particularly distressing, I've seen a GM give the monsters a free extra standard action, a pre surprise round if you will, against a character who has the class ability to always act on the surprise round, who beat the monster in initiative, and who was quite aware of the fact that the monster was behind the door because the GM said "the monster could have readied an action before combat was declared". This led the players to say "Fine then, we constantly ready an action to shoot any enemy that appears, at all times." My thought is that just like immediate actions, you shouldn't be able to interrupt the action with a readied action while you are still flat-footed, which is why both cases wouldn't work--you may know the enemy is on the other side of the door, but you still have to aim your shot and fire the bow. It might just be able to react first (if it notices you and wins initiative in the surprise round).
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Sometimes it's well worth it to suck up an attack of opportunity. If you've got a high-AC character or unharmed high-HP tank, he can draw a foe's fire, freeing other characters to move past the foe.
This is one of my kensai's frequent tactics. Move past the enemy, drawing his AoO in the process. I am now providing flanking and everybody else is free to position themselves.
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Sometimes it's well worth it to suck up an attack of opportunity. If you've got a high-AC character or unharmed high-HP tank, he can draw a foe's fire, freeing other characters to move past the foe.This is one of my kensai's frequent tactics. Move past the enemy, drawing his AoO in the process. I am now providing flanking and everybody else is free to position themselves.
My Paladin/Shadowdancer (stop LOOKING at me like that!) also does this; on top of this, she's also got Combat Reflexes and a decent DEX, so creatures moving PAST her draw an AoO.
Nothing quite like the expression on the GM's face when you crit with a ghost-touch pick-axe AoO on an underwater spectre that thinks it can fly through your threatened area with impunity...
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Umm, how did you crit a non-corporeal undead?Nothing quite like the expression on the GM's face when you crit with a ghost-touch pick-axe AoO on an underwater spectre that thinks it can fly through your threatened area with impunity...
What makes you think you can't? I just read through the "Incorporeal" entries in both the CRB Glossary and in the Universal Monster Rules, and there's nothing about prohibiting crits. Is it somewhere else?
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Bestiary:
Incorporeal Subtype: An incorporeal creature has no physical body. An incorporeal creature is immune to critical hits and precision-based damage (such as sneak attack damage) unless the attacks are made using a weapon with the ghost touch special weapon quality. In addition, creatures with the incorporeal subtype gain the incorporeal special quality.
edit: ninja'd!
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From the Incorporeal subtype: "An incorporeal creature is immune to critical hits and precision-based damage (such as sneak attack damage) unless the attacks are made using a weapon with the ghost touch special weapon quality."
Ahh, my bad. Never noticed the part about Ghost Touch allowing crits. That is interesting.
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Ah, okay. Didn't realize there was a third place it was defined. It'd be nice if that detail was in the other two places. Or in the definition of ghost touch. That kind of thing is a pet peeve of mine - like the omission of the "no personal spells" restriction in one of the two sets of potion/oil rules.
Grrr.
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I had a player in a game next to mine last night that was playing a 1st level caster and was trying to locate an invisible creature in a confined space (1 large room)....
The party knew what square it was in (or had a pretty good idea) and all of the other players readied ranged attacks.
So she casts Create Water above the suspected squares and the ones adjacent to it and made Perception checks (the GM gave them a +2 ad-hoc circumstance bonus) and were able to shoot at the invisible creature with less of a miss chance.
Any of you ever seen anyone do anything like that?
What about other ways to combat Darkness and Invisibility at lower levels?
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Any of you ever seen anyone do anything like that?
Water can be a good way of pinpointing the space occupied by the invisible creature (as is flour or other powder), but I'm not aware of any basis in the rules for it reducing the 50% miss chance. Generous GM. ;)
What about other ways to combat Darkness and Invisibility at lower levels?
For invisibility, you can buy bags of powder for a copper apiece that you can throw at a square and find out if there's an invisible creature there or not.
Once you have a little bit of cash, scrolls/wands of glitterdust (or faerie fire) are your best option.
For darkness (non-deeper), a 300gp potion of darkvision is all you need. If you can't afford that, then smokesticks or other vision-obstructing measures can at least even the odds.
For deeper darkness, you should have an oil of daylight (or the means to cast it yourself).
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Any of you ever seen anyone do anything like that?Water can be a good way of pinpointing the space occupied by the invisible creature (as is flour or other powder), but I'm not aware of any basis in the rules for it reducing the 50% miss chance. Generous GM. ;)
He was running Intro I, so I think he was trying to encourage some new players to look for the same kinds of "alternative solutions" that are coming out in this thread...
1lb of flour.
Better: 1 lb of pepper. Or chili powder. :)
-j
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Also, using soft cover to prevent AoOs.Im not sure I understand what you mean here.
You can't take an AoO if the target has cover.
So if your fighter is adjacent to the large enemy with 10ft reach (remembering that reach uses ranged rules for cover), and my wizard is right behind the fighter (in the baddy's threatened area, but getting soft cover), then I don't need to cast defensively because the baddy can't AoO through cover.
Unless of course I'm overlooking an exception for soft cover and AoO's, which is possible.
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Also, using soft cover to prevent AoOs.Im not sure I understand what you mean here.You can't take an AoO if the target has cover.
So if your fighter is adjacent to the large enemy with 10ft reach (remembering that reach uses ranged rules for cover), and my wizard is right behind the fighter (in the baddy's threatened area, but getting soft cover), then I don't need to cast defensively because the baddy can't AoO through cover.
Unless of course I'm overlooking an exception for soft cover and AoO's, which is possible.
Ok that I knew, lol. And I cant find anything that says softcover is an exception.
I thought Varthanna might have been saying moving from a position where you would provoke to behind an ally would then not provoke because of the softcover. :/
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Also, using soft cover to prevent AoOs.Im not sure I understand what you mean here.You can't take an AoO if the target has cover.
So if your fighter is adjacent to the large enemy with 10ft reach (remembering that reach uses ranged rules for cover), and my wizard is right behind the fighter (in the baddy's threatened area, but getting soft cover), then I don't need to cast defensively because the baddy can't AoO through cover.
Unless of course I'm overlooking an exception for soft cover and AoO's, which is possible.
If this is true, it provides a way to avoid an AoO when approaching an enemy with reach if there's already person next to the enemy. Such as...
(If X is enemy with reach, A is ally, Y is you)
__XX
__XX
__A_
____
__Y_
You can start moving forward (edit: nevermind, just forward) and then would be able to get next to them without provoking.
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Funnily enough, prior to answering your question I'd had it in my head that soft cover didn't block AoO's, and was surprised when looking it up. Definitely worth keeping in mind!
EDIT:
@Yiroep - Yeah, that looks right. AoO's happen before the triggering event, so moving from behind the ally (cover) diagonally to a space adjacent to the enemy would provoke while you're technically still considered to be in the space with cover, so no AoO.
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Also, using soft cover to prevent AoOs.Im not sure I understand what you mean here.You can't take an AoO if the target has cover.
So if your fighter is adjacent to the large enemy with 10ft reach (remembering that reach uses ranged rules for cover), and my wizard is right behind the fighter (in the baddy's threatened area, but getting soft cover), then I don't need to cast defensively because the baddy can't AoO through cover.
Unless of course I'm overlooking an exception for soft cover and AoO's, which is possible.
If this is true, it provides a way to avoid an AoO when approaching an enemy with reach if there's already person next to the enemy. Such as...
(If X is enemy with reach, A is ally, Y is you)
__XX
__XX
__A_
____
__Y_You can start moving forward (edit: nevermind, just forward) and then would be able to get next to them without provoking.
This works perfectly against a size medium opponent with a reach weapon, but Large foes are tricky, as they can count any square as the origin square (even one that is one square up in the height dimension), so they might be able to not have soft cover. Huge creatures will always be able to avoid soft cover from a single medium creature for this reason)
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Sorry - my PC has the feat. I just assumed one could buy the rod since every other type of rod is available. I have never purchased one, obviously.
I'm fairly certain that you can't make or buy a heighten spell metamagic rod. No such item appears in any book I know of, and you'd have to come up with new rules for it, or else make it prohibitively expensive, since you can heighten a spell to any level you can cast.
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A stunstone is even better for invis. creatures...
Starting a new thread on invisible creatures since my question will invariably hijack.
Any of you ever seen anyone do anything like that?Water can be a good way of pinpointing the space occupied by the invisible creature (as is flour or other powder), but I'm not aware of any basis in the rules for it reducing the 50% miss chance. Generous GM. ;)
What about other ways to combat Darkness and Invisibility at lower levels?For invisibility, you can buy bags of powder for a copper apiece that you can throw at a square and find out if there's an invisible creature there or not.
Once you have a little bit of cash, scrolls/wands of glitterdust (or faerie fire) are your best option.
For darkness (non-deeper), a 300gp potion of darkvision is all you need. If you can't afford that, then smokesticks or other vision-obstructing measures can at least even the odds.
For deeper darkness, you should have an oil of daylight (or the means to cast it yourself).
