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Back in 3.5 I used to only care for the DPS numbers (oh thri-kreen dervish, I shall miss you and your 34 attacks per round) and if I was branching out, control could be handled by yes/no deny type spells like entangle/ black tentacles (either they are grappled or they are not). However when I moved to PF I fell in love with the wealth of tag along debuff options. From the simple metamagics like daze and rime to class features like winter oracle, Pathfinder has taught me the joy of turning my enemies into quivering balls of useless while blowing them up at the same time. So now I am curious: while still being a fairly effective character, what is the highest number of debuffs a character can deliver in one round (I left it vague because there are some pretty strong melee debuff builds as well)? Here is a couple builds I had laying around:
Crossblooded sorcerer (void touched and cold elemental) X/ winter oracle 1 (feats rime and daze): The default spells are elemental touch and snap dragon fireworks. Elemental touch gives you an extra debuff (sicken or fatigue) while snap dragon fireworks allows you to triple debuff (silence only works the round you cast) as a move action. Debuffs are: Daze, entangle, slow, silence, and fatigue. (If you level oracle instead of sorcerer, you can go spirit guide and get the crashing waves hex at lvl 16 to also add prone).
Thug unchained rogue 4/bounty hunter X (enforcer, greater dirty trick, maaaaaybe trip): Losing only 1 BAB means your CMB is surprising high for a stealthy character (and is further boosted by every SA die) and since you are using dirty tricks with your attacks I could easily see the argument for applying weapon bonuses/ weapon finesse to those checks (like with trip or sunder). Two weapon fighting for max numbers of attacks can leave a person Blind, entangled, frightened, sickened, and dibilitated (-2 to ac or attacks). At lvl 12 you qualify for dirty trick master which can nauseate or daze. Another option is shatter defenses to make them flat footed, but seeing as how they are already blind, the only thing that would boost is Sap master.
What ways do your characters have of telling people to shut up and sit down?
Hmmm an hour later and still no posts. Maybe I should have phrased my thread better (make sure I wasen't seen as bragging about my builds and really was asking about other people's)
Magus is good at debuffing. Witches are good at debuffing. Mixing the two together can be pretty impressive.
After one round of prep time to cast and hold the charge from a Rime frostbite, a hexcrafter magus (feats: Enforcer, Rime Spell, IUS & Hex Strike; arcana: wand wielder; gear: Cruel Amulet of Mighty Fists) can as a full round action:
- Use spell combat to cast blade lash from a held wand, trip, freeze, intimidate. Result: entangled, shaken, prone, fatigued.
- Unarmed strike, triggering a swift-action hex. Realistically this will usually be slumber but if you just want to max out the debuffs this hit can add sickened and misfortune.
Everything is on line at level five. As you get more cash you can throw spell-storing into the amulet for more fun. If your GM will let you get the wand into your off hand without discharging Frostbite then your initial cast can use the metamagic rod of your choice (Dazing/Sickening/Thundering). So at higher levels you can add blindness/bestow curse and dazed/deafened with the same action economy.
I'm not 100% sure that using blade lash to trigger frostbite damage lets you intimidate. In that case you can skip the prep round and cast frostbite in spellcombat, getting to sickened by doing two punches. Then they won't be prone, but they will still be trying a will save against your finisher hex (misfortune or slumber) at a -4 penalty.
The old defiler build was able to throw grappling into the mix with a dip in the white-haired witch class, but I think it's been cut down somewhat by subsequent rules changes.
Killing them is an evil act and will make you fall and you should be ashamed of yourself and and.....
You are telling me this is not a paladin thread? OFF WITH HIS HEAD!!
Heh yeah I love rime frostbite magi, but never thought to add unarmed hexes or blade lash to it. Hmmm, unfortunatly If you cast another spell, the touch spell dissipates. and I am pretty sure casting a spell from a wand would count. I think the way that would have to work is (after casting frostbite in the pre-round) non-lethal punch them (triggering frostbite, enforcer, and the hex) and then quick draw a weapon while casting blade lash through spell combat and use the free attack blade lash gives you to try and trip them. You need a damaging attack for the cruel weapon property to work so greater trip, vicious stomp, haste, or a bab of 6/1. It delays the combo by 2 levels (to get quick draw) but otherwise functions the same.
And also: hey, sleep is as much a debuff as Daze is so by all means, make them pass out.
Using a wand is not casting a spell. That part I am confident in. You can't spellstrike with it but it doesn't discharge held spells.
The question is whether you have to do:
Round 1: Cast spell with wand in hand, holding charge.
Or if you can do:
Round 1: Cast spell with rod in hand, holding charge. Drop rod and spring-load wand into hand.
I personally envision the "charge" as being crackling energy hovering around your primary hand. On that view you can put a wand into your off hand no problem. If your DM says the charge suffuses your whole body then this wouldn't work (although to be fair on this view any time you suffer a melee attack your attacker should be eating a charge).
The blade lash trip is hitting them with a weapon in a way that results in causing non lethal damage. Some people argue for a strict interpretation of the Enforcer ability where the non-lethal damage has to come from the weapon attack instead of a spell attached to it. If your DM is of that school then the punch-punch method is a reasonable fallback.
ETA: My original interest in this idea came from the fact that I liked being a witch and debuffing people but I didn't like not getting to punch anything.
Do you have a source for holding a charge and casting from a wand? I tend to love long duration spells (frost bite, chill touch, produce flame) so if that is the case that would help so many characters.
As for holding the charge, I always assumed you picked a hand and then whether you used that hand to touch something or not determined if the spell dissipated (and the FAQ seems to back that up: "Furthermore, the weaponless magus could pick up a weapon (even that same weapon) with that hand without automatically discharging the spell") so as long as you chose the hand that was holding the weapon as the hand holding the charge as well, you can do whatever you like with your off hand (including holding a wand).
I shouldn't have written with such certainty. The forum posts I've seen on the topic were more heated than I remembered, and the FAQ less conclusive:
No. Unless they specifically state otherwise, feats and abilities that modify spells you cast only affect actual spellcasting, not using magic items that emulate spellcasting or work like spellcasting.
So run this by your GM ahead of time and be prepared to talk about it a bit and if necessary gracefully accept a contrary ruling. I will offer a couple of points in favor of the "no dissipation" argument:
(1) The wand uses its maker's stats rather than yours, and can be used by non-magic users. This suggests that it runs on its own "magical circulatory system" and that running a spell through it won't disrupt the one you're maintaining. This is consistent with the description of a wand as something that "emulate[s]" spellcasting or "work[s] like" spellcasting.
(2) Treating a wand as spellcasting leads in what is IMO an even more broken direction. In particular, the magus would then be able to spellstrike with spells cast from a wand.
@avoron: Hahaha as big a fan of gestalt as I am it is fairly uncommon to actually play in. I think I have waaaaay too many other fun builds I would want to play in such a case (like the sorcerer/oracle). That being said, I had never considered fury's fall for toppling metamagic. Going back and re-reading the feat it seems perfectly clear it would work though. I'll have to keep that in mind. Because I love round/lvl spells I think I would prefer adding toppling to spiritual weapon and have it just keep knocking them down every round while I aimlessly wander off somewhere.
@chuffster: yeah you had me convinced after your second comment when I went to rule check and couldn't find anything to support my side. I was hoping there would be a more clear FAQ but as a DM and as a player it makes perfect sense to me that If you rule wand casting doesn't apply any of the benifiets of casting then it should suffer the downsides.
@myself: huh, I honestly don't know how I feel about that feat. leaving the DC without a stat opens it to both str and dex fighters but means that the DC at lvl 11 will be 21 rather than 15+stat. I think most times that will lower the DC but on the other hand means you can use the feat without min-maxing for it. Most Fort saves for cr 11 are 10-14 so rolling a 7-11 should make the save. 50% odds is about what we should be aiming for so that is pretty good.
Cornugon Smash is a classic. The other fun one off of that is the Dazzling Display -> Shatter Defenses feat chain. Once you land one hit you get to go against their flat footed AC more or less until they're dead.
One point regarding the magus above: if you're just going for the one-hitter quitter the most efficient thing to do is probably just to dump an ill omen on them before your slumber-punch. You can do it with a spell-storing amulet, a wand-wielding familiar, or spell combat. Ill omen doesn't offer a save, which means that they will be forced to beat your slumber DC twice through a -2 penalty to stay awake.
Your GM might even appreciate the fact that you're not making him keep track of a million conditions. But OTOH you miss out on the fun of making enemies suffer under a million conditions.
Is there any way to force nauseated on bad guys? That's one that I always hate suffering through (@#$#ing stinking clouds!).
Yeah I typically go for enforcer instead of cornugon smash because I hardly ever play full BAB classes anymore (too tempting to max damage and leave other aspects of the character on the wayside) and usually play in mid to low level campaigns, but if you can qualify for both enforcer and cornugon smash, cornugon smash will always be the better feat (need non-lethal? power attack with a sap!).
Yeah I typically go for enforcer instead of cornugon smash because I hardly ever play full BAB classes anymore (too tempting to max damage and leave other aspects of the character on the wayside) and usually play in mid to low level campaigns, but if you can qualify for both enforcer and cornugon smash, cornugon smash will always be the better feat (need non-lethal? power attack with a sap!).
Four levels in druid and the Shaping Focus feat let you turn into a Weedwhip at 8th level. Weedwhips are very interesting plant creatures. They have 3 primary tentacle attacks that carry with them a nasty contact poison: 1 round of nausea, 1/round for 6 rounds, cured by 2 consecutive saves. And with Ability Focus (wild shape), this poison has a DC of 17+Wis. Have fun handing out loads of nausea to your enemies.
But wait - there's more. Weedwhips have a reach of 15 feet, which according to general consensus, you gain with wild shape. Ordinary Weedwhips have the ability Languid Whips, which prevents them from threatening or making attacks of opportunity with their tentacles. But that's an extraordinary ability, and you don't gain it with wild shape. So you can get loads of attacks of opportunity with your 15 foot reach and Combat Reflexes, and every single one will carry with it a nauseating poison.
That is brutal. Nauseated is a very short step down from Dazed as the worst possible condition IMO.
How do you figure the DC for the poison? The d20pfsrd just lists it as DC 12. It also describes the poison as an extraordinary ability. Is there some exception that gives you access to the poison but not the languid whips?
Well wildshape (based of plantshape I at this level) gives you poison because it is listed in the spell as doing so. The languid whips is not something the spell says it gives you so technically you don't get it. Usually the DC for creature's poison is 10+con+1/2 HD but for transmutation spells (which wildshape acts like) it is the same DC as the spell. Wildshape is weird in this aspect. on one hand, plantshape is a 5th level spell so DC should be 15+stat (which most people rule to be wisdom.) but on the other hand, it is a SU ability which doesn't have a default stat or specified spell level. Therefore people rule it (like poison originally) as 1/2HD +stat where stat is....either wisdom (because druid), whichever stat the base creature uses (like con), or cha (because that is what spell like abilities default to). Pretty confusing right? Avoron assumed 1/2hd+wis and tossed ability focus on for an additional +3.
I found this a while back when looking for something similar, I just didn't want to keep up with all the negatives that hit and missed every round so I went another route.
With a 20pt buy the best race option I can think of is Human
STR 13 DEX 14 CON 14 WIS 10 INT 18 CHA 7
Note: A 2 level dip in White Haired Witch is needed to REALLY up the Debuffs and action Economy on this build.
Traits: Magical Lineage (Frostbite), Wayang Spellhunter (Frigid Touch)
1 (Witch 1) (White Haired Witch archetype) Feats: Rime Spell, Combat Reflexes
(King Crab familiar, Strength or Wisdom Patron)
2 (Witch 2) - Constrict
3 (Magus 1) Spell Combat, Arcane Pool Feat: Power Attack
4 (Magus 2) Spellstrike
5 (Magus 3) Arcana- Arcane Accuracy Feat: Final Embrace
6 (Magus 4) Hex Arcana- Prehensile Hair
7 (Magus 5) Feat: Cornugon Smash Bonus Feat: Extra Arcana (Flight Hex)
8 (Magus 6) Arcana: Spell Scars
9 (Magus 7) Medium Armor, Knowledge Pool Feat: Lunge
10 (Magus8) Improved spell combat
11 (Magus9) Arcana: Hasted Assault Feat: Elemental Spell (Acid or Cold)
12 (Magus10) Fighter Training
13 (Magus11) Spell Recall Bonus Feat: Sickening Spell
14 (Magus12) Hex Arcana: Ice Tomb
15 (Magus 13) Heavy Armor
Why it's good:
At 7th level a prepared Defiler can inflict Grappled, Staggered, Fatigued, Entangled, Prone and Shaken onto a target with a single standard action. If he decides to make a full action he can also add Blind to that target.
The bad:
It’s a dedicated melee build with lower HP’s than any other and has delayed getting access to Heavy armor until 15th level.
How it works:
This build hinges around using your Hair natural attack for ALL your attack actions. As your only natural attack it is always at Full Bab and does 1-1/2 times your Strength bonus on damage rolls. Since you use your Intelligence bonus in place of strength every time you boost your Int you boost your melee to-hit and damage. Taking two levels of Witch grants three important benefits.
1. An always on Natural attack that can never be sundered, disarmed or stolen.
2. A superior Grab ability that naturally doesn’t make you grappled while you are grappling (everyone else has to take a -20 on each grapple check to get this)
3. A Constrict ability that is based off your Intelligence and works with Power Attack.
Now this is a de-buff build so our go to spells are Frostbite (rimed) and Frigid Touch mixed with Power Attack and Cornugon Smash all channeled through 4 different combat maneuvers (Sunder, Trip, Dirty Trick & Disarm).
Note: All combat maneuvers are attack rolls, anything that is activated by a successful hit are activated by a successful combat maneuver as well.
Combat begins by activating your Prehensile Hair and using your arcane pool to get the +attack on it as high as you can and moving into position to respond to any AoO provoking action. At your first chance Spellstrike a Rimmed Frostbite and attempt a combat maneuver (Trip or Dirty Trick is best) on a target 10’ away (try to always power attack this if you can).
(This will be at full Bab + Int Bonus +Arcane pool Bonus +Arcane Accuracy Bonus -Power attack Penalty vs. targets CMD)
If successful this will trip the target, and inflict the Fatigued, Prone and Entangled condition as well as 1D6+your Magus level non-lethal damage.
(Prone is -4 to attacks and CMD, Fatigue is -2 to Dex and Str for another -2 to attacks and CMD, Entangled is another -2 to attacks and -4 to Dex for another -2 to attacks and a concentration check to cast spells. Total = -6 to Dex, -2 to Str for a -4 to attacks, -8 CMD, -3 to AC)
This also triggers your Grab ability so now make a Grapple check against their CMD -8. If you succeed then move them to any square adjacent to you (automatic action) and inflict Constrict Damage against the target. (1D4 + 1.5x Int modifier + Power attack Bonus). This will also activate your Cornugon Smash Feat so also make an Intimidate check now to demoralize them to inflict the Shaken Condition.
(Adding the Grapple condition reduces Dex by an additional -4, Attack rolls and Combat Maneuvers by 2, and adds another concentration check to cast, Shaken reduces attacks, saves, skill checks and ability checks by 2 more. Total = -10 to Dex, -2 to Str, -10 to attacks, -2 to saves, skill checks and ability checks and requires 2 Concentration checks to cast a spell)
All of this is done with a single standard action. If you decide to use Spell combat all of the above will happen with the addition at the end to cast an additional spell (which will end the charges from Frostbite), we usually use a Frigid touch spell to inflict 4D6 damage and the staggered condition (it is recommended to either use a Metamagic on this, either Rime, Sickened or Empower).
All together the target should be Prone, Fatigued, Entangled, Grappled, Shaken, Staggered and Flanked. At higher levels you can add Sickened and Blind as well.
A Defiler should invest in an Amulet of Mighty Fist:Spell Storing (not needed but truly worth it) and keep either a Blindness, Rimed Frigid Touch or Bestow Curse in it at all times with Blindness being the most effective.
With this build raising your Int as high as you can is paramount since it powers ALL of your combat ability (attacks, damage, CMB, etc) followed by either your Dex (for more AoO’s, and reflex saves) or Con (to absorb all the damage that will be thrown your way the first time you use this trick). Keep your Intimidate as high as you can (class skill from your Witch dip), and get as many +hit bonuses as possible to make sure you can always succeed on your Combat Maneuvers.
If you would like to do more damage while doing this, always remember releasing a target from a grapple is a free action and the spell from spell combat can go after all your normal attacks. So after the steps above release the target and do a normal attack with the hair triggering everything again for more damage, THEN do the spell combat for the Frigid touch spell for a third touch attack (this requires you to have pre-cast the Frostbite in a previous round).
Also for nauseated, a martial can pull it off with Dirty Trick at level 11. Dirty Trick Master lets you slap someone with a worse Dirty Trick if you hit a previous hit target with it again. If you invest in it, which means you took Quick Dirty Trick, you can do this with two successful attacks in a round, and since they're nauseated they can't take the standard action to remove the effect.
By later in the game, this means you can nauseate at least 2-3 combatants a round, all without giving them a saving throw, since you roll against their CMD, and if this is your combat tactic you're probably going to win.
Interesting stuff with plant shape. I don't love the 10 foot movement speed... if you just wanted maximum hilarity you could go with five levels in witch/hexcrafter and create a flying merry-go-round of doom.
Good to see some love for the straight martial in this thread re: dirty tricks. I'm not a huge fan of just running head first into the opposing CMD but if you specialize in it you've got a chance. It's just so annoying how somebody who (say) dedicates themselves to tripping can get at best a +4 from feats while a first level spell casually throws +10 onto an attempt. I do like how nausea locks them out of removal. Dazzled into dazed also looks pretty tasty.
I found this a while back when looking for something similar, I just didn't want to keep up with all the negatives that hit and missed every round so I went another route.
The defiler relies on some pretty aggressive interpretations of the rules. Specifically you have to interpret this message board post (full text from Sean K Reynolds: "Spell combat uses hands (a natural weapon that's part of that hand qualifies). There ya go.") as including "hair" within the category of "natural attacks associated with a hand" and therefore eligible for spell combat per the FAQ. You also have to convince your GM that the white haired witch hair and prehensile hair hex hair stack.
If you lose on both of those rulings you can't use the hair for spell combat and you can't combine the reach and the ungrappled grappling.
@korthis: a good suggestion (white haired witch add grappled to the frost magus listed above) but yeah there are some loose interpretations there. I'm not sure dirty tricks can qualify for an attack with grab, even if it does, neither that nor the grapple is using power attack to trigger corngon smash, without 4 levels in white haired archtype you don't get trip, and as far as I can tell you used 4 swift actions (hair trip, hair constrict, accurate strike, arcane pool)
@JDP: yeah I love dirty tricks (and dirty trick master if I could ever play a campaign where I reach 11BAB). I actually prefer dirty tricks on the bounty hunter slayer archtype like I mentioned in the first post. Not only do you get as many dirty tricks as you get attacks (with a bonus on CMB), but you still do normal damage (minus sneak attack) so you can enforcer/corngon smash and use thug rogue to boost it up to frightened. That way their turn is them trying to run away from you while blind, entangled, and nauseated (spoiler: they can't)
@avoron: Ah. Huh, don't know why I was thinking ability focus was a plus 3 instead of a plus 2. Sorry I assumed you had done 1/2 HD instead of 5th lvl spell DC. Heh I wonder if wildshape will ever get the FAQ it deserves?
Oh so all this talk of spell storing reminded me of a fun high level debuff build I had made: Dm had house ruled that I could take both the duel cursed oracle archetype and the spirit guide archetype (since the only overlap was class skills gained from the mystery). I took the lunar mystery for an animal companion and so that all my inflict wound spells cause confusion. One of the shaman hexes (from spirit guide archetype) was crashing waves which makes any damaging spell force a save vs prone. The AC had a amulet of might fists with spell storing which I would cast ill omen on. 1st round of combat my tiger would pounce on the BEG triggering ill omen on him, and then i'd cast mass inflict light wounds forcing a save vs confusion, daze (metamagic), and being knocked prone (BEG rolls 3d20 and takes lowest number due to misfortune revelation and ill omen). Not as many debuffs as these other builds we have been listing, but confusion is such a fun tag along debuff that I had to mention it (and the fact that he rolls 3 times vs it and takes the lowest save all but guarantees he fails).
Does anyone know of a way to toss additional debuffs on either fire or water spells? because I've been throwing around an idea for a "steam caster" undine using the shaman's crashing waves hex but can't think of any other debuffs to add to it.
Does anyone know of a way to toss additional debuffs on either fire or water spells? because I've been throwing around an idea for a "steam caster" undine using the shaman's crashing waves hex but can't think of any other debuffs to add to it.
Fire spells are only specifically called out in the extremely underwhelming Flaring Spell metamagic, which dazzles.
Thundering Spell (deafened), Sickening Spell (sickened), and Dazing Spell (dazed) don't care about the spell type.
One that we haven't mentioned yet is Concussive Spell. That one throws a -2 penalty on attacks and saving throws that stacks with everything. The only problem is that it only works with sonic spells.
If you really want to go deep into the metamagic you could grab Tenebrous Spell, Umbral Spell, and Shadow Grasp. An umbral shadow grasp bestow curse would plunge the target into a ten foot circle of magical darkness and entangle them for as long as they're in the darkness. That could actually be kind of hilarious to do to a non-darkvision character.
No rods exist for Umbral Spell or Shadow Grasp, sadly.
Thug unchained rogue 4/bounty hunter X (enforcer, greater dirty trick, maaaaaybe trip): Losing only 1 BAB means your CMB is surprising high for a stealthy character (and is further boosted by every SA die) and since you are using dirty tricks with your attacks I could easily see the argument for applying weapon bonuses/ weapon finesse to those checks (like with trip or sunder). Two weapon fighting for max numbers of attacks can leave a person Blind, entangled, frightened, sickened, and dibilitated (-2 to ac or attacks). At lvl 12 you qualify for dirty trick master which can nauseate or daze. Another option is shatter defenses to make...
Thug is pretty good on its own. Once you reach lvl 10 you get Double Debiliation or Dispelling Attack which both are amazing.
Early on I like Slow Reactions as another very unique debuff.
One that we haven't mentioned yet is Concussive Spell. That one throws a -2 penalty on attacks and saving throws that stacks with everything. The only problem is that it only works with sonic spells.
Concusive Sound Burst is actually pretty decent for a 4th level cleric spell.
A simple heavens oracle with awesome display and color spray can spam the stunned condition, which is about the worst there is short of paralyzed or helpless (which is also a possible result of that spell.) No, dazed isn't as bad as it gets. Add the spirit guide archetype and you have debuff hexes, though not in the same round until you get quicken spell. The same character can have toppling spiritual weapon cast without interfering too much with their action economy.
I am currently playing a heavy flail wielding Synthesist who uses called shots to the junk (vitals) along with enforcer to give a nice -4 on most everything. Critting on a 17-20 gives lots of fun nauseated as well.