*Spoilers below*
I taught my players to fear the Spawn of Kyuss again last night. We're in the middle of the Champion's belt and they just found the pocket of Kyuss there. We had all sorts of fun with PCs running away from the battle in fear and running back to the battle with their courage returned. The players though, really respect the damage a few spawn can do.
I think that it's this healthy respect that mothered the invention of a new use of the grease spell. The wizard (who wears skintight black leather, feels most comfortable when his body is rippling with arcane energy, occasionally deigns to twitch a finger to cast a spell, and seems to be an impersonation of Lucius Malfoy from Harry Potter) cast extended grease upon the barbarian and the monk in the party as a way to prevent the worms from sticking to them. I thought that it was quite inventive really.
But what am I to do about it? Should this really prevent worms from being deposited/flung? If not 100% of the time, then how do you decide when the worm makes it through? What penalties should a PC suffer for being covered in grease? I started out with the fact that if the barbarian power attacked, he had to make the grease spell reflex save to keep ahold of his greataxe. Anything else?
I'd love to reward the players for creativity, but I also feel that this tactic should be a bit risky. Please offer any suggestions to help. Thanks!
Given the dearth of responses to my query, I've decided to throw more words at the attempt in the hopes that more words will garner more attention. You're probably bored with my stilted sentence structure by now though and are on to the next thread. Ah well...
Some Paizo friends that I have been consulting outside the messageboards have come up with the following suggestions.
For a thrown worm, give it a 50% or 25% chance to hit a non greased spot on the target. If it does hit a greased spot, give the worm a reflex save to see if it sticks anyway.
For the touch method of depositing the worm, perhaps give the opponent a +4 to touch AC as the Spawn attempts to force the worm in through the eye slits of your helm or some such.
Not sure what to do about the slam attack and deposit worm method. Perhaps a similar treatment to the thrown worm, though maybe the worm would get a bonus to it's reflex save to stick because it is just being placed.
Now comes another question: what kind of reflex save would a worm have?
Also still wondering about the negative effects of being covered in grease.
I hope that my further words prove exciting to you and cause you to feel the itch to respond. ;-)
Don't do it too complicated, just have the spawn make a Reflex Save against the normal Spell DC. If he succeeds, the worm is on, if not, then not (you could also increase the Touch AC by 2-4, but this would again leave the slam attack). For the PCs, I would not do too much, they have to use a lot of spells for this trick anyway...grease lasts for 1 round/level, so they cannot buff before the fight and if the mage wants to grease everyone in the party, he is busy with this the whole fight. If you want to be mean, just give the PCs a -1 to attack and a -4 malus if someone wants to disarm them. You could make more but this would make it overcomplicated and increase die rolls.
I also think simplicity is the way to go. Grease is a 1st level spell, it shouldn't ruin a special ability completely.
Worms vs grease
20% miss chance (like Blur, 2nd level) a reasonable reward for an interesting use of a spell.
For touching, I would essentially rule it as a Deflection bonus. So it won't stack with other deflections, but still might have use. Say a +2 bonus. I think +4 is too much benefit from even creative use of a 1st level spell.
Worm reflex save...I'd say the virulence of the worm depends on the strength of the spawn, so use their Reflex save but factor a dex of 10.
Worm reflex save...I'd say the virulence of the worm depends on the strength of the spawn, so use their Reflex save but factor a dex of 10.
Good suggestions, thank you Yasha0006. That's a great idea with the worm reflex save. I was looking through the MM trying to find a similar critter to model the worm off of and had decided that a tiny centipede was about the same with a +2 reflex save. But your idea allows the worms to scale a bit too which is great.
Still, the DC for this first level spell is 18 and that's without the benefit of Fox's Cunning. So the worms don't have much chance anyway. But as Peruhain of Brithondy pointed out to me, the whole point of the spawn is to reproduce. They're not interested in killing anyone, they just want to get worms onto them. So if the spawn are having trouble flinging worms, they may just resort to touch attacks to deposit them.
Thanks for the input!
That's right. The wriggling wedgie of Kyuss. You end up with your panties in a wad and something wriggling inside them. Ewwww!
You know, I think the easiest way to manage it, Eltanin, is just give them a +4 bonus to their touch AC against the ranged touch attack only. For the melee touch attack, no bonus, because the spawn is going to try to drop it in your clothing or through the visor on your helmet anyhow.
The real answer to Kyuss spawn is Greater Turning. And a wand of cure disease in case that doesn't work.
You know, I think the easiest way to manage it, Eltanin, is just give them a +4 bonus to their touch AC against the ranged touch attack only. For the melee touch attack, no bonus, because the spawn is going to try to drop it in your clothing or through the visor on your helmet anyhow.
The real answer to Kyuss spawn is Greater Turning. And a wand of cure disease in case that doesn't work.
And Disciple of the Sun, for those of us who just do not want to deal with the Radiant Servant's cruddy d6 HD anymore ...
Right, forgot about those PrCs. I ran a radiant servant in Ravenloft recently. It was still rather a challenge, since you're not gonna make a turn undead check against Count Strahd . . .