I'm the druid he's talking about..
in my defense I cast an entangle spell in an earlier encounter which totally saved the bacon of our party. Nothing said there!
I cast fog cloud which saved our bacon as well when all these archers were picking us off one by one. The only one who was pissed was Krallek.
In the battle vs undead (zombies BTW) I and the sorcerer/cleric were also casting flaming spheres, heavenly fire and produce flame on all the undead baddies close to Krallek (who is chaotic neutral so he doesn't get the healing). And our tank doesn't have a ranged weapon so he's useless.
I admit I made a mistake capturing the ranger in an entangle spell, but there was no chance of his dying (we have healing powers)...he lost a lot of HP, but who hasn't that happened to?
The player Krallek also failed to mention he rolled 4 or five times and never rolled higher than a 5...dice gods were not friendly to him that night. he also refused to pull out a melee weapon and defend himself.
Next time you air our table's dirty laundry... expect to hear "I cast Warp Wood beside Krallek" MUUUUUHAHAHAHA
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Next time you air our table's dirty laundry... expect to hear "I cast Warp Wood beside Krallek" MUUUUUHAHAHAHA
I wish you guys had a webcam broadcast of your next session...
...
Incident one was at level one. ... I pull out my bow to shoot my very first arrow and the guy casts Obscuring Mist. ... Oh and the creepy crawley was nipping at our heels the whole time because he could see us just fine.
Honest mistake. How was he to know it could see through the mist?
Incident two was at level four. We encountered some ranged attackers and again he casts obscuring mist so that I had to leave my cover and enter melee. He could have cast it on SOME of the attackers so I could pick the others off but unstead he casts on all of them.
Hard to say. Depends on whether you could out-damage them in aggregate. It would have been better to mist only some foes and let you duel one or two of the attackers.
Incident three ... 8 skeletons attacked us and I was out front scouting. ... drops an entangle on top of me and the skeletons. .... The worst part is, he could have caught 7 of 8 if them with a better placement and NOT got me. After the fight ended he said that 3 of the four party members took no damage so it was a good tactic.
Idea possibly good. Placement bad. Also Alwaysafk has a good point about him holding action until you get out of the way. This one is your strongest complaint.
So am I whinning? Or is he a moron? Sound off please because he WILL read this.
Three incidents in four or more levels? He's no moron, maybe a bit careless sometimes. You are whining.
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Ok, just a few points of clarification as tonight is geek night and I fully expect to hear about this lol
1. By "all these archers were picking us off one by one" he means that the enemy archers didn't land a single shot; not even 1 point of damage. I however almost took one of them out in the first round prior to your fantastic fog cloud spell. You guys were hiding behind a wall at the time.
2. It also bears mentioning that said ranger has "undead" as my favored enemy TWICE. So thats +4 to hit and +4 damage to every single attack. However, you took me completely out of the fight AND the tank as well.
3. Yeah, sure I lived but the cleric had to burn all of his healing spells on me. Those arent for me! Those are for the tank. Thats valuable party resources you misallocated! 8)
4. By "there was no chance of his dying" he means I was down to 8 hp and lost my dex bonus to my ac and couldn't run away. I can see why one might think I was invulnerable!
5. I almost forgot a critical incident. Way back on the Shiv we were constantly being hit by snares and traps. The same druid had the spell "detect snares and pits" but refused to cast it on me when I was ahead scouting because it would ... and I quote ... "be a waste"
8)
PS who is driving tonight? you or me? if its you I need to pick up some beer so your tactics seem reasonable!
Oh and Adamantine Dragon, I will keep you posted.
First the entangle doesn't make you lose your DEX (if it would it would make rogues really happy), second obscuring mist can't be thrown, it is always centered around the caster, fog cloud can be thrown.
Now to more specific answers:
1) Nobody knew that the creepy thing had tremorsense, and really it isn't something to be expected at first level. Also maybe the druid himself had some way to see through the mist? (there is one druid archetype that does that)
2) Who can assume a 5th level archer ranger not making a DC 15 reflex save?
3) Entangle spell encompasses a very large are, it can be set wrong by mistake.
More general opinions of mine about battlefield control and including allies to your spell effects:
1) There are times that it can't be helped and allies will be caught or be made useless by a control spell, i have done both of them a few times but all of the times i judged correctly and the problem i created for the enemies was way bigger than the problem i caused to the party.
So i don't think that there is a problem if occasionally you invalidate another PC in order to hinder your enemies much.
2) There are times that you can't do otherwise and you have to include allies in a blasting spell, i had to do that once or twice and it turned out that my judgment was right and the enemies either dropped by the spell or dropped the next turn by the party (without inflicting any more damage). I have to make a note and say that i asked OOC the player who was going to be blasted if he was ok because i wanted to avoid hard feelings.
3) Mistakes can happen, either because the dice decided to not follow probability rules or because simply the player made a wrong judgment, it takes time and practice to become good at tactics (also helps to know the other characters capabilities).
on the contrary leo1925, those who fail their save are subject to the entangle condition which as the core book states is as follows ...
"An entangled creature moves at half speed, cannot run or charge, and takes a –2 penalty on all attack rolls and a –4 penalty to Dexterity.
Also, that entangle spell, as I have previously stated, could have been cast in a way that entangled 7 out of 8 enemies instead of 8 out of 8 and me. If at any of those times you cast one of those nukes on your party members you could have cast it instead on 88% of the enemies and left your party member alone, would you have still cast it on your team mate? I've already stated that this is the case.
But your point about obscuring mist is a good one. It can't be cast. It was misread by the DM and 2 other party members.
One of the things that always amuses me in playing this game is the intricate and in-depth analysis of the exact position on the game board to cast a large area of effect spell to gain the exact, precise, optimized effect on the most enemies and the fewest allies.
I play a druid as if they actually only have a split second to decide where to cast the spell. Sometimes that means I miss a bit and catch one of my allies in the effect or miss one of the enemies.
Oh well, war is hell.
Yeah, I can remember being caught in countless fireballs over the course of my career back in the day when the fireball was what? 36000 cubic feet? More than a few lightening bolts that could be rebounded off walls. At least once I was thrown off a cliff when a caster carelessly used "transmute rock to mud" on the edge of a precipice. Good times.
Oh and one edit for my post above to leo ... when I used the word "cast" I meant "throw".
Seriously, though, what kind of druid memorizes "warp wood" just so he could threaten the party ranger with it? Wouldn't that have been a better choice of spells against those pesky archers attacking us than the obscuring mist spell? It speaks volume as to his tactical know how. One final cheapshot here ... he should go back to playing a fighter where the rest of the party could just point at something and say "gronk, go hit that!"
(Using my finest fake British accent) Krallek your comments are beneath your supposed dignity sir...*shakes head with pity*
Now let's end this SPAM shall we?
Just fwiw... warp wood is an awesomely useful druid spell. I admire the druid who memorizes it and uses it skillfully.
Ok it was somewhat anticlimactic as the druid was well behaved and he even cast crowd contril spells that synergised well with the rest of the party. We even managed to work as a cohesive unit to save a fallen comrade. Troubled days are behind us now me thinks. Now to.get the sorcerer in our other game to stop dropping empowered fireballs on my rogue!
Good work tonight Mort!
Glad to hear it! :-)
Ok, we've recently started a new campaign and are now level five. I have to ask you guys a question. Is our druid a moron or am I (archery type ranger) being a whiner? The guy doesnt know how to play his character in a way that benefits the rest of the group. In fact, he is more of a hinderence than a help. At last nights game it nearly resulted in my death.
Incident one was at level one. We are on a boat and being attacked by some creepy crawly thing (souls for smuggler shiv) and its only the two of us. I pull out my bow to shoot my very first arrow and the guy casts Obscuring Mist. The mist is so big we need to retreat to the top deck of the ship but we cant see due to the mist. Oh and the creepy crawley was nipping at our heels the whole time because he could see us just fine.
Incident two was at level four. We encountered some ranged attackers and again he casts obscuring mist so that I had to leave my cover and enter melee. He could have cast it on SOME of the attackers so I could pick the others off but unstead he casts on all of them.
Incident three was last night where 8 skeletons attacked us and I was out front scouting. The moron goes and drops an entangle on top of me and the skeletons. I fail my save and am effectively rooted to the spot. I lose my dex bonus while being attacked by the enemy. Cant shoot my bow because it will draw an AOO. Our tank cant even enter combat because he doesnt want to be stuck either as a Barbarian his dex bonus is just as important. The worst part is, he could have caught 7 of 8 if them with a better placement and NOT got me. After the fight ended he said that 3 of the four party members took no damage so it was a good tactic.
So am I whinning? Or is he a moron? Sound off please because he WILL read this.
His tactics are terrible. With the level 1 thing maybe he was afraid, and unless someone had a knowledge check he had no way to know the monster could see through fogs.
It seems that as the levels go up the decisions get worse though, especially that last one.
Now I will read the rest of the thread before I respond again.
Next time you air our table's dirty laundry... expect to hear "I cast Warp Wood beside Krallek" MUUUUUHAHAHAHA
LOL.
Ok it was somewhat anticlimactic as the druid was well behaved and he even cast crowd contril spells that synergised well with the rest of the party. We even managed to work as a cohesive unit to save a fallen comrade. Troubled days are behind us now me thinks. Now to.get the sorcerer in our other game to stop dropping empowered fireballs on my rogue!
Good work tonight Mort!
I think they are out to get you. :)
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After reading all your posts:
YOU ARE WHINING
Especially about the courtyard incident:
"I did have cover as I was shooting from around a wall."
"By "all these archers were picking us off one by one" he means that the enemy archers didn't land a single shot; not even 1 point of damage. I however almost took one of them out in the first round prior to your fantastic fog cloud spell. You guys were hiding behind a wall at the time."
"At the same time, there were guys inside the building who had a hostage we needed to free."
Essentially your argument is that you could have killed the enemies one by one, one each 2 round, while your friend were doing nothing and the hostage was in the enemy hands.
"Obviously" they would have done nothing while you were killing them.
They would not have moved so that they could pick your friends and/or negate your cover, they would not have harmed the hostage, they would have done nothing beside fire at an almost immune target (or maybe you weren't so hard to hit as you clam and only lucky during the first round?).
It seem that you think that the whole party tactic should revolve around your preferred fighting style.
You have some ground about the zombie/entangle event, but I fail to get how a barbarian had problem in entering a entangle spell to dish out his damage.
To cite the spell: "Entangled creatures can attempt to break free as a move action, making a Strength or Escape Artist check."
So our barbarian (let's assume starting str 18), enraged for str 22. Let's assume the druid has wisdom 18 so the DC is 15.
The barbarian has to fail a a DC 15 reflex save (you say his Ac depend on dexterity .. what he has? 14?) with at least a +3 bonus to the save.
45% of success.
Then if he is entangled he could make a strength check to free himself DC 15 with a +6 bonus, so 60% chance of success.
At the same time he had the possibility to chose his avenue of approach against the zombies so he would only have 1 or at worst 2 of them in melee range (note that the zombies only have a partial move, so if they try to free themselves they can't attack).
It seem there is some poor spellcasting tactic here but some other problem with the melee guy too.
on the contrary leo1925, those who fail their save are subject to the entangle condition which as the core book states is as follows ...
"An entangled creature moves at half speed, cannot run or charge, and takes a –2 penalty on all attack rolls and a –4 penalty to Dexterity.
That's not the same as losing your Dex to AC. You still have your Dex to AC (you can't be sneak attacked, etc), the bonus is just 2 points lower because of the penalty.