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I'd say if you are going to let them play a class, let them play it.
The sleep is not game breaking. They can get awakened by their friends and then they are immune from the rest of the fight. If that is the only enemy, having a 4-6 on 1 situation wasn't good for him to begin with and he was going to die.
Limiting a single class would make the player of that class not have fun any long and feel like they are being singled out maybe. This is similar to the smite evil argument and trying to weaken it. Let the players play and have fun. If they are beating fights too easy, adjust the situations so that they need some sound tactics to win instead of a single spell/power(But don't just make it hard on one player and easy on the rest). If the single target sleep is making fights too easy....the fights are too easy.
The main point is we play this game because it's fun. I assume that player chose that class because it seemed like it would be fun to play. I know I would not be happy if my class was throttled down halfway through his adventuring career.
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This part isn't true: A coup de gras is a full attack action, but it does not wait until the next round to resolve. Otherwise full attacking would not resolve until the next round.
Casting a spell with a full round action also resolves in the round it is cast -- a spell with a casting time of 1 round isn't the same and takes until the next round to cast.
A coup-de-grace is a full ROUND action, not a full attack. Full attacks are a weird subset of Full-Round actions.
From the rulebook, pg 197:
Coup de Grace: As a full-round action, you can use a
melee weapon to deliver a coup de grace (pronounced “coo
day grahs”) to a helpless opponent.
I do believe I was misreading the intent of the standard action to initiate complete full round actions, though. Thus, your point still stands.
Cutting duration to 1/2 level, minimum 1, still prevents move and CDG until level 4. Personally, I think that's fine.
And yeah, if my DM capped the HD on slumber hex via houserules in a home game I would ask to reroll or walk. It's just not that broken.
Perhaps simply a reduced effect against higher hit dice:
Hit dice <= level -- Save fails, sleep: Save successful fatigued.
Hit dice > level -- Save fails, fatigued: Save successful nothing.
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Perhaps simply a reduced effect against higher hit dice:
Hit dice <= level -- Save fails, sleep: Save successful fatigued.
Hit dice > level -- Save fails, fatigued: Save successful nothing.
Hit dice caps are inherently bad ways to do spell mechanics. CR and Hit dice are nearly completely unrelated, so at the higher levels you end up with spells that have completely inconsistent results that you have no solid way of predicting.
Basically, HD limits and HD stage spells are unpredictable. The caster doesn't know enemy HD and has no way to FIND enemy HD, so they can't be sure WHEN an enemy is worth using a spell with HD caps is useful. This is not the case for a GM. The GM knows EXACTLY how many HD his players have.
Doesn't seem all that over powered to me. I've seen wizards pull spells that BBEGs save on that would have ended the fight too had they failed. Then there is Paladin's smite. Fighter with all those critical feats and Rangers against their favored enemy. The witch seems balanced with the slumber hex to me.
I doubt I'd take the slumber hex if I played a witch. There are better hexes in my opinion like evil eye on the BBEG and works for 1 round if the save is successful, then add cackle to extend it a round as move action and keep cackling.
Perhaps simply a reduced effect against higher hit dice:
Hit dice <= level -- Save fails, sleep: Save successful fatigued.
Hit dice > level -- Save fails, fatigued: Save successful nothing.Hit dice caps are inherently bad ways to do spell mechanics. CR and Hit dice are nearly completely unrelated, so at the higher levels you end up with spells that have completely inconsistent results that you have no solid way of predicting.
Basically, HD limits and HD stage spells are unpredictable. The caster doesn't know enemy HD and has no way to FIND enemy HD, so they can't be sure WHEN an enemy is worth using a spell with HD caps is useful. This is not the case for a GM. The GM knows EXACTLY how many HD his players have.
I realize, however that's the way people are suggesting capping this, so I used similar terms for them. Personally I think the Hex is fine as is (and almost useless overall anyways).
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I realize, however that's the way people are suggesting capping this, so I used similar terms for them. Personally I think the Hex is fine as is (and almost useless overall anyways).Situational to be sure. Useless, I think not.
Definitely doesn't NEED a nerf.
Again, I haven't really played the class but standing from where I sit none of us are really seeing how it's playing out in his campaign world. You say it's "situational" and that makes it acceptable but what if that situational nature comes up a lot more frequently in his campaign?
Keep in mind one of the largest gripes about the ranger is the situation nature of favored enemy which makes his power very swingy. I see something like this being similar. If a power is either a day ender or worthless depending on the situation then it's not a great power because no one is happy.
Paizo changed turn undead for this exact reason.
IMO the whole idea of a SoD as an at-will ability is just bad.
That's what I think as well. Either it's so lousy that I would never use it (e.g. the Enchantment school's Dazing Touch) or I'm tempted to just spam it over and over again.
Just tossing an idea out there, what if the sleep hex was interrupt-able and had a casting time of 1 round?
Just tossing an idea out there, what if the sleep hex was interrupt-able and had a casting time of 1 round?
One round for a possibility of affecting one creature and I don't even know if I'm going to get it off?
Would you cast that spell? I most certainly never would.
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My gf's half-orc Witch has gotten pretty good mileage out of Slumber + Greataxe. It hasn't made her the overpowered superstar of the party, but the DM does seem concerned about it. On the one hand, if you Slumber a mook that's probably about the same as blowing him up, chopping him in half, etc - no big deal. If you Slumber a BBEG that's kind of a pain in the DM's dicebag though.
Our DM feels that Protection from <Witch's Alignment> would stop the ability from working. Protection from Chaos potions are only 50gp, and 1st level caster buddies are free. The problem with that is knowing the Witch's alignment.
As an aside, I personally don't like coup de grace much. I'm only a little wary of True Neutral NPC Witches spamming Slumber us, but I've also had problems with CDG as a DM. One of my storylines has a lot of ghoul and ghasts. The PCs should make most of the Fort saves easily, but of course somebody rolls a 1, and then it is a big emergency to go save them before one of the enemies gets a turn. I'd kind of rather see CDG just be an auto-hit/auto-crit and leave it at that. If you feel like this would weaken CDG too much I guess you could raise the multiplier of the weapon by x1 (swords etc would do x3, axes x4). Either way it would turn Slumber (and ghouls) from SoD into an auto crit (which still seems like a pretty nice power to me). The enemy also ends up prone, so really it would be tough for him to survive, but at least there's a fighting chance.
I agree here on the initial thought....but I don't think that the ability is anything more than the other abilities displayed by the PRPG classes. I don't remember what she has for a DC on the Will save but I seem to see a decent amount of dudes making their saves, like maybe 50/50. I haven't seen her doing anything more impressive than the rest of the group or anything that stands out as a "wow, that has got to be banned/nerfed!" type of thing.
BTW, Devilkiller and I are in the same group for all you other posters so I know of which he is speaking.....I think our DM is just a bit miffed that one BBEG finally fell to the ability recently. Now if she used her mind to whip out a psionic construct that is better than just about any straight-up meleeist in the group then maybe he would.......nevermind. ;P
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Also, just for reference here....
CDG is not a sure-fire death. If the witch hits on the first round of a combat and the BBEG fails the save or sleep, the CDG is just a big fort save. A fort save that is probably pretty high but if it failed it's will save then it's modifier for fort is probably pretty high also. Then it wakes up.
Most of the time in our game the sleeper is awaken by an ally before we can get off a CDG anyway. If it worked on one BBEG then whats the harm? So one combat ended easily due to good luck and a strategy. Every combat doesn't need to be the relentless decreasing of hit points until finally, exhausted and weak and with resources dwindling dangerously, the party wins.
I think a lot of the fear being displayed here over this power is mostly unjustified.
As the witch in Devilkiller's and Fake Healer's game, I can tell you:
* Yup, if you dump Str for Int, you can't kill something with a CDG even with a greataxe. I hate rolling for damage...
* My DC is 19. That's 5 from Int, 2 from levels, and 2 from Ability Focus, pretty much as good as it could possibly be at this level. I'd say Fake Healer's right, they make the saves about half the time: last session, I remember two who made the save, and three who failed. Of the failed, one was woken up immediately (they lost two turns to my one, so barely better than Daze), one was badly coup de graced by me and didn't die, and one was woken up by a hit from (a summoned) Nauseated Eagle. Not SO shiny...
That said, I think that if someone wanted to nerf Slumber, it would be better to go after the duration than to add a HD limit. Slumber is already useless against many sorts of creatures because it's just sleep, basically.
Maybe even a change to Evil Eye duration (based on Int) rather than on caster level, so it's not useless at first level and great at fifteenth. A five or six round duration means that it can't be used to take enemies out of the fight permanently but to delay them, hinder them, and break apart the battle into more easily managed chunks.
Every combat doesn't need to be the relentless decreasing of hit points until finally, exhausted and weak and with resources dwindling dangerously, the party wins.
One of the most memorable End of Campaign battles EVER ended with the SuperBBEG dying to a VORPAL crit after several failures to confirm and luck rerolls. The only things that player had ever rolled 20s on before were undead and such, and we'd been making fun of him for getting the vorpal... but he killed the end boss in one hit.
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Why are you CDGing them anyhow? Seems like it would be better to finish of the rest of the party and then let your rogue or fighter CDG them.
The way I see it slumber is a divide and conquer spell. You put one guy out so your party can focus on killing the rest. The witch is probably better doing something else other than finishing off a downed enemy.
Nerfing abilities are problematic, to say the least. This should not be much of an issue here, given that the witch is under testing. However, I do not agree that issues like this are easily solved.
As a DM, you will need to adapt the adventures you play to fit the players. It's a pretty big job, especially on higher levels, already. Adding to it because a player wants to use a certain ability doesn't help any. Most DMs would rather, I think, use the prep time they have to adapt things to the players, not the characters' abilities. There are better things to do here than to make sure to add 2-6 vermins or undead to every major encounter and to add mooks to every BBEG fight.
Fudging is not an option, or otherwise put: A DM should never be forced to fudge to deal with a character ability - that's just bad balancing by the people publishing the material.
So what to do? The ability needs to be restricted somehow. HD is a very poor restriction, for reasons mentioned above. A save every round would be better, and a touch range, and I would be satisfied. If it sounds extreme, I would be prepared to remove the once per day limit instead.
As a DM, you will need to adapt the adventures you play to fit the players. It's a pretty big job, especially on higher levels, already. Adding to it because a player wants to use a certain ability doesn't help any. Most DMs would rather, I think, use the prep time they have to adapt things to the players, not the characters' abilities. There are better things to do here than to make sure to add 2-6 vermins or undead to every major encounter and to add mooks to every BBEG fight.
I could not disagree with this more. Adapting your adventure to what your PCs can do is the principle job of the DM. Every party can do something different, no 2 parties are the same. You HAVE to adapt. If you arent then you are just some guy reading the adventure to the players, you are not DMing.
I dont have any experience with the hex itself, no one in my game has played a witch yet. But if someone did, i would adapt encounters to deal with it, just as I would with a smiting paladin, a high damage output archer fighter, a god(controller) wizard, or anything else.
I dont have any experience with the hex itself, no one in my game has played a witch yet. But if someone did, i would adapt encounters to deal with it, just as I would with a smiting paladin, a high damage output archer fighter, a god(controller) wizard, or anything else.
This is reasonable advice, although I would put in a caveat about using the playtest version of a class. If I'm the GM, I have no qualms about making adjustments to something that's not an "official" class in the first place. YMMV, of course.
As the witch in Devilkiller's and Fake Healer's game, I can tell you:
* Yup, if you dump Str for Int, you can't kill something with a CDG even with a greataxe. I hate rolling for damage...
* My DC is 19. That's 5 from Int, 2 from levels, and 2 from Ability Focus, pretty much as good as it could possibly be at this level. I'd say Fake Healer's right, they make the saves about half the time: last session, I remember two who made the save, and three who failed. Of the failed, one was woken up immediately (they lost two turns to my one, so barely better than Daze), one was badly coup de graced by me and didn't die, and one was woken up by a hit from (a summoned) Nauseated Eagle. Not SO shiny...
That said, I think that if someone wanted to nerf Slumber, it would be better to go after the duration than to add a HD limit. Slumber is already useless against many sorts of creatures because it's just sleep, basically.
Maybe even a change to Evil Eye duration (based on Int) rather than on caster level, so it's not useless at first level and great at fifteenth. A five or six round duration means that it can't be used to take enemies out of the fight permanently but to delay them, hinder them, and break apart the battle into more easily managed chunks.
Every combat doesn't need to be the relentless decreasing of hit points until finally, exhausted and weak and with resources dwindling dangerously, the party wins.One of the most memorable End of Campaign battles EVER ended with the SuperBBEG dying to a VORPAL crit after several failures to confirm and luck rerolls. The only things that player had ever rolled 20s on before were undead and such, and we'd been making fun of him for getting the vorpal... but he killed the end boss in one hit.
Good arguments from all... I am curious how strong your starting scores are. The witch in my game on the AP I'm running had 17 points and did NOT start with a 20 to INT. Because of this, the ability isn't overpowered. Her DC to save is 14 right now and she will probably bump it up later with ability focus.
The only two things to be fixed in my opinion are the same thing two other threads have already flamed about: Putting a BBEG by themselves and giving players outrageously high point buys (or stat rolls). Look at the LoF pregens and see how far off the characters are, instead of nerfing the class.
Honestly, I'm not the type to get in the middle of a game and leave, but I have been in a game where I played a necromancer and all the undead in the dungeon crawl were immune to nearly all the abilities I had. I explained to the DM at the end of the game that it was my first and last game with him. It's one thing to tell a player up front your class functions differently, but another to wait until they've built the character and played with them before pulling that crap. Character invalidation just isn't cool. YMMV.
Good arguments from all... I am curious how strong your starting scores are. The witch in my game on the AP I'm running had 17 points and did NOT start with a 20 to INT. Because of this, the ability isn't overpowered. Her DC to save is 14 right now and she will probably bump it up later with ability focus.
I'm not sure who you were curious about, but we used (I think) 20 point buy. With 15 point buy, some might still go for the 18 Int (pre-race); totally dump Str, Wis and Cha, buy 14s in Dex and Con and you'd really only suffer in the skills Heal and Use Magic Device, and have a penalty to your good save.
I want to comment that you might end up with a more reasonable Int score if you make folks roll, but it might be just that I tend to roll for crap... what are the odds on getting any 18s with 4d6 drop one?
... so we have changed it to uses per day or 3 + int which is what the player wanted.
I'd go for that in a heartbeat. I'm not sure I've yet used Slumber 8x/day. That's barely a nerf... the only thing it really does is soothe the folks whose sensibilities are bothered by an "at-will Save or Die."
As a DM, you will need to adapt the adventures you play to fit the players. It's a pretty big job, especially on higher levels, already. Adding to it because a player wants to use a certain ability doesn't help any. Most DMs would rather, I think, use the prep time they have to adapt things to the players, not the characters' abilities. There are better things to do here than to make sure to add 2-6 vermins or undead to every major encounter and to add mooks to every BBEG fight.
I could not disagree with this more. Adapting your adventure to what your PCs can do is the principle job of the DM. Every party can do something different, no 2 parties are the same. You HAVE to adapt. If you arent then you are just some guy reading the adventure to the players, you are not DMing.
I dont have any experience with the hex itself, no one in my game has played a witch yet. But if someone did, i would adapt encounters to deal with it, just as I would with a smiting paladin, a high damage output archer fighter, a god(controller) wizard, or anything else.
If DMing were only rules, hit points and XP per minute, you'd be right. However, giving people a good time is not only about that, and I will claim the right to call myself a DM anyway. It's a job consisting of improvisation, creating moods, tension and relief, it's depicting characters, it's creating and understanding settings, and so much more as well. And while I do check adventures for encounters that will not work and either adapt them or remove them, no ability should ever be so all-encompassing that almost every encounter will need rules work to avoid disaster. As I said: If I have a set amount of prep time, I prefer spending that time to tweaking the encounters so that every PLAYER will have a good time, rather than doing lots of work to balance one character's abilities.
It's also been stated that this usually isn't a problem. That might be true. Not everyone who has a bizarre loophole uses it. But in the hands of the wrong player, it still spells disaster, and it's better to have an ability that is balanced, than one that works only with the right player. It is also worth noting that even if a player wouldn't normally abuse his character's ability, add enough danger and stress in the situation, and most will. So, while they won't crash the normal game, once things ramp up toward a big showdown, you'll have to deal with the situation every time.
In short, a player should be entirely free to use everything his character can do any way he/she likes.
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Where the witch and slumber hex really breaks a GM's heart is in Pathfinder Society where the slumber hex, mostly likely pimped out with a max Int and later on magic items bought to enhance that stat, can end a BBEG in a round. Having run close to 20 scenarios now almost all the end bosses have been human/oid with few of them having any or enough minions with high enough initiatives to give the boss a good wake up shake before they are pinned down.
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It's interesting that, 2 years later, there are still folks out there who think the Slumber hex is a bit too much.
The sleep hex is fine the way that it is. I have a 4th level witch with the sleep hex. I have used it several times and only once has it been able to work and it was on a crocodile. I have never been able to get it off on a BBEG or even a humanoid. Blindness on the other hand has taken out 2 bad guys!
Holy thread necromancy, Batman!
This.
Also, just use some friggin' Half-Elves or Elves for BBEGs if you're having that many problems.
I have often wondered why everyone emphasizes the slapping someone awake....
From the sleep spell.....
"Sleeping creatures are helpless. Slapping or wounding awakens an affected creature, but normal noise does not. Awakening a creature is a standard action (an application of the aid another action)."
Normal noise is the phrase that pays here! Yelling bloody murder should allow (as a standard action) the ability to awaken the slumbering individual, also loud explosions, etc.
I added the emphasis to normal noise in the text of the document.
The reason for the slapping is to force an action that isn't free. Also loud noises don't always wake people. I've seen babies sleeping 40 yards from howitzers firing during 4th of July celebrations.
I have a DM that requires a Fort save to wake up, after a successful Perception check. :(
That's not me is it? I usually just require a fort save to wake up, not a successful perception check and a fort save. If it is me, talk to me at the next game, I think there's some confusion going on.
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Apparantly it's GMs with the same mentality as Cranewings that made me the monstrous Optimizer I am today. When a GM blatantly declares that "yes you can play that" without letting the player know you don't want them to and then proceeding to basically gun for that character it creates bigger problems. Also eventually they'll get sick of it and make it so they can say "Why yes I did put your monster to sleep I then proceeded to roundhouse kick the other 4 to death in 1 round please stop pestering my character".
To put it another way I played a control Wizard in Second Darkness that a friend was running. Mostly area control with some things like ray of enfeeblement and other debuffs. The other party members decided I wasn't pulling my weight when every fight was made easier due to my contributions that made them all look like badasses. So the next fight I said if you really feel that I'm not contributing I'll sit this fight out and I did. My wizard was tired of being badmouthed and sat back to watch his allies fight. It was almost a TPK till he finally stepped in and ended it. Just because you don't like an ability because it makes it "more difficult" to GM for doesn't mean you should do your best to stomp it out of existence or restrict it unless your entire table is willing to restrict it. Gaming is a group activity and very rarely is it a Dictatorship.
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Robert Jordan... good for you on being a self described "monstrous Optimizer" now kindly step aside so GMs can tell stories and not engage in some ridiculous arms race of number crunching.
Sad thing about the Slumber Hex is that it requires the GM to radically alter the APs or modules he's running. Either to replace the human/oid with undead, constructs or oozes or add significantly more minions on a battlemap as a wake-up squad. The other option is to tinker with the stats to raise the will save significantly. If you run PFS like I do, too bad. Your stuck with a pretty darn hard save or suck roll thats probably going to end the game early.
My biggest beef with the Slumber Hex is that when Pathfinder came out they made a lot of efforts to move away from the save or suck philosophy of previous incarnations of our beloved game. But with the Witch they seemed to reverse that philosophy in a big way. It scales, its a fast cast (as compared to sleep), doesnt have to be memorized, and goes right past SR.
Very perceptive of you. ;) I've just rolled with it, and I may be conflating separate encounters into one.
Damn gnomes.
I think the confusion is about who's making the perception rolls. I roll to see when it occurs at night, and I usually say 'Make a perception roll' without specifying who. The only perception roll that counts is the people who are awake at the time. I just don't specify that at the table. Since I'm usually looking at the creatures to refamiliarize myself with their abilities right before they attack, I don't realize you're expecting your perception roll made while asleep to mean anything.
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No change is needed besides these humans are now elves, don't even need to bother moving stats. Just do it to a few let the witch be good at something most of the time. they are a full caster but they have a limiting list.
Compared to other hexes, is it to good? Yes but it is not game breaking anymore than crane wing, optimized dps, or wizards. If I was going to limit it it would be to make it a full round action full action.
I see where you are coming from Paris and Ken. I did allow it for the first book of LoF but the problem was what Fergie has commented on. Many of the boss fights that were suppose to be difficult came dwon to a will save and many of the enemies had barely no will save. This made many of the encounters easier. I adjusted accordingly but it was ruining many encounters. My option to the player was the following:
Can only sleep a creature of equal HD or less.
Ability remains that same but is only usable 2 + int times per day.
The last option was that if function like the sleep spell in all ways.I did change the dynamics of many encounters to limit how effective it would be during the first book of the adventure. Doing this also changes the usefulness of the spell anyways so I gave the player the option on what he wanted to do instead of being a dink about it.
Just read Abrahams post. I am inclined to agree with you and maybe I will think further on this. My problem was constantly spamming the ability. It would be like giving the wizards infinite magic missiles or something usable only once per target. I also had to limit detect magic because all casters would just use it ridiculously. Maybe I will change it to uses per day.
Thanks for the input.
I wouldn't restrict it like this, it makes the power useless. Most CR appropriate encounters have more HD than the players. Even some APL -1 encounters have more HD than the players. NPC of NPC class count as Level -2 for CR. So a CR 3 warrior is a level 5 warrior with 5 HD, that's CR +2 encounter for APL 3 party to fight 2 warrior. Even regular class levels count level -1 for CR.
I wouldn't restrict this but give those with Higher HD a bonus to the save for each HD they are have more than witch. 1 still fails of course you may want to house rule that too but I'd leave it myself.
Aha! That may be it. I just get thrown by the fort save houserule is all.
Well, it's a houserule because I've never been able to find anything about waking up. There's a perception penalty for being asleep, but nothing about perception allowing you to wake up. So I've always just used a fort save with a DC based on the perception DCs/etc.
I could switch to perception instead, no skin off my nose. :) Of course, you'd sleep through a hurricane with that +10 penalty for being asleep.
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If I have players that are really, really insistent on playing something stupid like a sleep witch, I do have a strategy. I just double the encounter, or close to it, feed the witch something she can put to sleep, then focus her down that round. Then the real encounter can continue for the players that made fun characters.
You not liking it does not make it stupid.