CombatOwl's page

No matter what level the PC's reach in my game (they are now 10th), the first thing the sorcerer does in any combat against an armed enemy is to hit the enemy's weapon with grease. The next round, he does it again against any other weapon or shield. Or maybe against the saddle the enemy sits in.

Put him in his place with your own sorcerer who does a better opening move than grease--which is really not a great choice. Make him regret wasting his opening action on something so poor as grease. I mean really, how high can that save really be? 19?

Or, better yet, stop putting the party in a position where the enemies always have their weapons in hand and whatnot. Anyone with +1 BAB can draw a weapon as part of a full attack, after all. Give the NPCs improved unarmed (or spiked gauntlets...) and let them draw their weapons AFTER the "Famed Grease Sorcerer" acts. Or, hell, use knights with locked gauntlets.

I mean, if they're at that level, and the sorcerer actually does open every fight with grease, let that become a part of the legend surrounding that character. Attach embarrassing lube-related nicknames to him and have the enemies taunt him with it. Have random street people recognize him and get a laugh out of it. Make it socially embarrassing to be a mighty sorcerer relying on such an innocuous and unimpressive spell. Let the party approach a quest giver for something to do... and have them get turned down because of the Greased Pig's reputation as a pathetic spellcaster. Grease is amazing at first level, but it's kind of sad if that's your first opening move at level 10, and enemies should totally make use of that when taunting the players. Let the kingdom's bards sing songs about the sorcerer's incompetence.

I'm not saying illegitimate, but it is so boring I want to cry. The player is a dear friend and great roleplayer, but this tactic is so useful that it never stops.

Stop letting it be useful. Give some NPCs lightning reflexes and decent Dex scores occasionally. Start using more ranged combat--grease only has a range of "close", after all. It won't be much help against a charging knight with ride-by-attack. It's entirely possible for that night to be out of the spell's range by the time he's done. There's lots of ways to work around grease, and if you want him to stop using grease then you need to adopt grease-resistant tactics.

I'm halfway to stopping play over how bored I am with sorcerers and witches who do the same thing in every fight. It's a class seemingly designed specifically to bore GM's.

Instead of considering it boring, treat it like a challenge to find ways to make grease less-than-useful.

Help me A) come up with some better counters to this tactic,

There are four main problems with the grease spell (used in the way you describe) at this level.

1) It only targets one item. Meaning that it only has a chance to disable one enemy. This is VERY poor action economy for a 10th level sorcerer, who has access to black tentacles if nothing else.
2) It has low save DCs because it's a 1st level spell. If the caster is using heighten spell to raise the DCs, then this is no longer a weakness--but a lot of players don't think about using heighten spell for that purpose.
3) It only has close range. Again, that can be addressed with metamagic, but VERY few players actually bother with that.
4) The effect it causes really isn't that disruptive to a well-trained enemy. Dropping your weapon? So what, draw your backup weapon. It's also rather easily avoided (give the enemy improved unarmed, let them use locking gauntlets, etc).

This really suggests six main methods of putting shame to grease.

First, you can choose to exploit the poor action economy of grease by using a larger number of weaker enemies. This may or may not work out well depending on the party composition. If you have people who can dish out a lot of AOE habitually, this is a poor solution. If instead the party is optimized for fighting singular bosses, then this method can work wonders.

Second, you can make use of the low save DC of grease. Lightning Reflexes and a level of Rogue gives you a +4 on your Reflex saves--that's a pretty minimal investment for a fighter but makes grease a lot less likely to work. Remember; not every fighter needs to be single classed, and not every rogue needs to be obviously dressed as such. Even better would be two levels of Rogue, since that also nets you Evasion and a rogue talent. Figure out what his save DC for grease is and find a way to get a reflex save on some NPCs that equal his grease save DC -10.

Third, exploit the close range of grease. At 10th level, he has a range of 50ft on grease. Let enemies attack from beyond 50ft. One way to do that is with archery (which is quite deadly in Pathfinder). Another way is to make use of mounted combat rules--it's entirely possible to build a mounted combat character that can one-shot the average 10th level sorcerer in one round when starting beyond the range of a close range spell.

Fourth, use enemies that just don't care about grease. Monks do not care one bit about grease. Neither, frankly, do rogues. An alchemist would also handle it wonderfully--a bomb-throwing alchemist begins throwing with his hands empty, and his bomb-making ability is a supernatural ability that isn't actually dependent on any target-able gear. Alternately, do a melee smash alchemist. Obviously another sorcerer could handle it fine. Even classes that are very equipment dependent can use locking gauntlets or unarmed combat ability to laugh off a grease spell.

The other two methods of dealing with grease are general methods of dealing with any spellcaster.

A) Use counterspelling. Let the enemies hear about the famed Grease Sorcerer, and have hired their own spellcaster to counter. Since grease is only a first level spell, even a low level spellcaster can put that 10th level sorcerer to shame with counterspell. In fact, letting a first or second level apprentice shut down his grease tactic would simply drive home the point about it.

B) Grease on an item must be targeted--use concealment to prevent him from actually targeting the equipment. Alternately, use incorporeal creatures who have a 50% chance not to be effected at all by grease.

B) learn not to hate it and all the other boringly repetitious stuff limited casters do,

Find ways to put them to shame, since they have abandoned the strength of the arcane spellcaster.

or C) decide to call it quits.

Too many ways to deal with the problem to justify that. Perhaps take a break from Pathfinder if it's getting on your nerves? Play another game for a few weeks until you get the spirit back?

EDIT: Perhaps what really bores the heck out of me is debuffing. Even a small party of four can afford to dedicate one PC to just prevent the the enemy from doing anything interesting while the others grind him down. It makes every fight boring.

Use and abuse counterspelling. Also, the Disruptive Metamagic feat can very quickly annoy spellcasting PCs.