Hi,
I was wondering if it's possible to use either of the spells Warp Wood or Wood Shape against someone standing on a wooden floor/deck/stage/platform to entangle them or trap their feet in "wooden manacles" or wrap them in "belts" of wood or something similar.
What would be the effect if it was? Loss of dex bonus to doge, possible casting complications?
Thinking of rolling a druid next and was just wondering.
Thanks!
I don't see why not, at least with wood shape. At the least, I would expect those in the area to get a Reflex save to avoid it.
I don't know if warp wood gives fine enough control. It seems intended to wreck an object (or undo such a wrecking), not transform it into something different but useful.
I'd say warp wood on a wooden bridge or balcony is a very offensive spell. :) Dropping someone into a 300 foot canyon, or just off a 40 foot balcony, would be very effective.
Definitely!
I have used it in the past (so not sure if it still works this way) to warp arrows.
Useful when you need to sink a ship.
I'm not sure a boat qualifies for wood shape, unless it's a very small boat:
"Target: one touched piece of wood no larger than 10 cu. ft. + 1 cu. ft./level"
Warp wood is a better option for boats, and spells out how you adjudicate it:
"Target: 1 Small wooden object/level, all within a 20-ft. radius"
"...A boat or ship springs a leak. Warped ranged weapons are useless. A warped melee weapon causes a -4 penalty on attack rolls.
You may warp one Small or smaller object or its equivalent per caster level. A Medium object counts as two Small objects, a Large object as four, a Huge object as eight, a Gargantuan object as 16, and a Colossal object as 32."
So a level 16 druid can sink a gargantuan boat with the spell. Most of the big oceangoing boats in the game are considered "colossal," so would be out of the range unless you had an effective spellcaster level of 32 somehow. You can certainly pwn some dingies, rafts, barges, etc though.
I'm not sure a boat qualifies for wood shape, unless it's a very small boat:
"Target: one touched piece of wood no larger than 10 cu. ft. + 1 cu. ft./level
Boats are rarely crafted from one single piece of wood though.
The implications for seafaring in your game world are pretty traumatic from that ruling. Any 5th level druid can sink a warship with 1000 marines in it pretty easily. If the spell is ruled like that, navies are pointless, piracy is pointless, long distance sea faring trade is pointless, etc. That one spell wrecks whole economies. I'm not convinced that was the point of the spell.
The implications for seafaring in your game world are pretty traumatic from that ruling. Any 5th level druid can sink a warship with 1000 marines in it pretty easily. If the spell is ruled like that, navies are pointless, piracy is pointless, long distance sea faring trade is pointless, etc. That one spell wrecks whole economies. I'm not convinced that was the point of the spell.
Its not that powerful. Even with that ruling. All you need is your own druid on board to fix the damage.
also, you should cover the bottom of your ship with bronze. Then the druid cant affect is. You could also use several layers of wood.
Also, if you live in a wold where level 5 druids are running rampant, you probably have access to one level 8 cleric to cast planar ally and summon a small water elemental. For a measly 1000 gp, you can have a perfect security system for the bottom of your boat.
new skull and shackle players guide has rules for this on ships.
http://paizo.com/products/btpy8rwc
Warp Wood is listed, Wood Shape is not. I would think of Wood Shape was intended to be so significantly more powerful vs boats than Warp Wood, then the developers would have listed it in the book on pages 17 and 18 where they discuss the effects of specific spells in naval combat.
Knight Magenta:
Do I understand your comment correctly:
(2nd Level Spell) isn't all that powerful, it merely takes (8th level caster, 1000 gold, and a deal with an extraplanar creature) to protect against.
..?
Because I would say your response is definitive proof that it is that powerful. That water elemental is 10% of the cost of the whole boat.
I have used it in the past (so not sure if it still works this way) to warp arrows.
Should work fine. Ready an action "cast warp wood on the first arrow that an enemy tries to fire at me". Bam. Save or flub that attack.
Works on a lot of different weapons, too--bows, spears & polearms, darkwood armor (!).
Wouldn't a couple of well placed alchemist fires take out the average wooden ship?
Wouldn't a couple of well placed alchemist fires take out the average wooden ship?
After reviewing the Skull and Shackle rules, I find them quite good in this respect. Do bear in mind that boats tend to have crews, and crews tend to be fairly aware that their boat is on fire. (it also has rules for Passwall)
Does defoliate work on wooden materials? It would apparently put a really big hole in a live tree; I don't see why a dead tree would be any different. On the other hand, the description does say "plant life".
Note to self: If the PCs ever go back to that farm with enemies hiding in the corn, make sure the corn is dead so they can't defoliate it. (On the other hand, they could just torch the place, so it'd better be really wet as well....)
Because I would say your response is definitive proof that it is that powerful. That water elemental is 10% of the cost of the whole boat.
The real problem in the hypothetical is the druid with wildshape that swims up to the boat. That druid could just as easily sink the ship with a drill. Or he could use an adamatium dagger (easily purchasable at level 5).
Also, You ignored the two easy solutions I gave.
Drill doesn't sink a boat. That's what these are for:
http://www.landfallnavigation.com/-s5230.html
Plus, good luck drilling while you're wild shaped, and good luck swimming fast enough to keep up with a moving boat while you've got a drill in your hands. It's hard enough to scrub the bottom of your hull while you're at anchor - trust me on that one.
I wouldn't necessarily call bronzing your entire boat hull an "easy" solution, and all double-hulling does you is make them mem 2 woodshape spells, if you rule that wood shape works.
I think it's pretty clear the developers intended warp wood to be the spell to attack boats with, not wood shape. Especially after it's obvious omission in the Skull and Shackle clarifications. Skull and Shackle states fairly specifically, for instance, that Passwall isn't even an auto-sink spell, and it's a much more powerful spell than Wood Shape.
That said, I could see potentially woodshaping a rudder to make the boat turn left. Or bringing a mast down with it. Those seem well within the scope of the spell.
Rezz-thread!
Just on a offhand note, the British covered the hulls of many of their wooden warships with copper... that's why the American "turtle" submarine could not drill through the ship it attacked at anchor.
That doesn't seem likely. It's just as easy to drill through copper as wood in my experience. The British plated copper on the bottom of the boat to prevent marine growth, not as armor.
A common misconception was that Lee failed because he could not manage to bore through the copper-sheeted hull. Bushnell believed that Lee's failure was probably due to an iron plate connected to the ship's rudder hinge
Copper might simply have bound up the augur rather than stopping it. As those of you who've used a power drill know, sometimes the motor attempts to spin the drill around the hole instead of deepening the hole. The augur could have seized up to the point where turning it simply caused the sub to start to roll over instead of penetrating further into the ship's hull. Which would have been hilarious to see (from a safe distance).
The hobbyist in me says that it would probably be easier to drill through the copper plate than the oak hull, especially with a hand augur. Still, the drill could have seized when he hit the iron fitting and as a cool mental image that's hard to beat (soda came out my nose).