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For a single target Plane shift is far more dangerous. It can hit a single creature touched, willing or not. Send Gug to elemental plane of fire, use rest of round to have a sandwich.Okay, I'm gonna have to call BS on this one. There's no way eating a sandwich is less than a full-round action.
Well, the example's too generic anyway. First we need clarification on whether it's a standard sandwich, or whether we're using one of the sandwich archetypes from Ultimate Lunches.
Going back to the original purpose of this thread: I'm still trying to work out the fully meaning of the part of the Create Pit spell that states: "You must create the pit on a horizontal surface of sufficient size."
Does surface imply that it must be stable ground only? Would water or a tar pit count as a surface? How much does or should 'horizontal surface' limit the use of the spell, anyway?
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There are rules for what happens when the spell expires...the ground slowly raises up until its as if the pit never existed...Really? I didn't see that in the description but it makes sense.
Yea last sentence in the description says...
When the duration of the spell ends, creatures within the hole rise up with the bottom of the pit until they are standing on the surface over the course of a single round.
Going back to the original purpose of this thread: I'm still trying to work out the fully meaning of the part of the Create Pit spell that states: "You must create the pit on a horizontal surface of sufficient size."
Does surface imply that it must be stable ground only? Would water or a tar pit count as a surface? How much does or should 'horizontal surface' limit the use of the spell, anyway?
I'd say that surface means something fairly solid just looking at the RAI, or at least what I think what RAI is.
horizontal meaning no walls or significant slopes having any game effect so a slight slope shouldnt be a problem.
I'd take the pit to need a 20 by 20 area to manifest as suggested earlier in the thread.
all-in-all pretty restricting enough so that you dont fill your slots with it.
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Honestly I can't see how any logical enemy could justify going for a coup de grace under ordinary circumstances. It's like being in a firefight then instead of shooting at the guys pumping away at you with machine gun fire taking the time to bayonet corpses to make sure they're dead.
It's not just for making sure people are dead.
Color Spray -> Coup de Grace before the unconscious enemies wake up again
Sleep, Hold Person: same story
The main goal is to finish off anyone who's been temporarily immobilized before they rejoin the fight. Now that Hold Person allows a saving throw each round, there's extra hurry to slit throats fast.
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Honestly I can't see how any logical enemy could justify going for a coup de grace under ordinary circumstances.Places where I've used CdG as a DM:
1. An evil cleric of death god is adjacent to a paladin paralyzed (by a ghoul) briefly and the rest of the party is >30ft away fighting undead minions. Funny enough the Paladin made his save and lived. Suddenly the rest of the party realized that the paladin was NOW in danger...
2. A fiendish beholder (evil WotC monster with eye ray attacks as free actions) had the fighter magically slept. He moved directly over him in the next round, then the following round used a coup de grace. The players, as a whole, blamed themselves for this as it was perfectly in character and they had plenty of time to do something about it.
And a place where I've used CdG as a player:
1. An invisible cleric was supporting the enemy and bringing fallen back into the fight. There wasn't another enemy in range, so it was either take an action to kill the dropped bad guy or leave position to get a single attack on another just to see that first one get up to threaten the less defensive party members.-James
Why is it a logical tactic for PCs but not enemies? I guess this confuses me...
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Anyway, could you summon a Wall of Fire around the edges of a Pit? Forcing anyone climbing out to take the pain from trying to pass through (and everyone else just from being too close)?
The idea of casting my enemies into the Pit of Flame seems so right...
Why even bother. Just cast Wall of Fire IN the pit while they are in it. Then put a Wall of Ice as a plane over the pit so they can't climb out. Then when the pit is going to end and starts rising cast Wall of Iron and push it over on top of the pit so things get crushed as they rise up.
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Why is it a logical tactic for PCs but not enemies? I guess this confuses me...Ah sorry that's my bad it's not for the PCs usually either.
For my part I don't think in the last year or so that I've been playing with them we've had more than 1 or 2 CdG in our group, and mostly those were assassination styled ones where we either killed sleeping jailers to bust someone out or killed a liability but those were largely thematic not combat uses.
LoL then my last group did it wrong...we had a chain order of how things went...Witch puts enemy to sleep, Rogue CdG enemy, Wizard controls field, Fighter fends off enemies...Rinse and repeat. Combat was a breeze!
Just to return to my original question a few comments up: Would anyone consider water or some other unstable surface to qualify as a horizontal surface?
It seems to me that casting Create Pit on water wouldn't work but I'm uncertain that I'm right about that.
Why even bother. Just cast Wall of Fire IN the pit while they are in it. Then put a Wall of Ice as a plane over the pit so they can't climb out.Anyway, could you summon a Wall of Fire around the edges of a Pit? Forcing anyone climbing out to take the pain from trying to pass through (and everyone else just from being too close)?
The idea of casting my enemies into the Pit of Flame seems so right...
I'll need to look this up when I get home, see if the WoF is tall enough to reach the top of the pit and thus melt the WoI. >_> I'm not one of those jerk GMs who says "all ice spells start melting the instant they're cast unless you're in a cold weather climate" and I'll even be pretty lenient about hitting magically-created ice with nonmagical fire, but putting a constant magical-fire effect right next to a WoI is going to have some reaction if they're close enough.
Just to return to my original question a few comments up: Would anyone consider water or some other unstable surface to qualify as a horizontal surface?
It seems to me that casting Create Pit on water wouldn't work but I'm uncertain that I'm right about that.
This does bring up an interesting way to use Create Pit though...
If you put Create Pit on the bottom of a body of water, since it's extra dimensional space, could it drain that body of water?
This does bring up an interesting way to use Create Pit though...
If you put Create Pit on the bottom of a body of water, since it's extra dimensional space, could it drain that body of water?
That would be my follow-up question. :)
I would imagine you could not cast it on a liquid surface, but could cast it under a liquid on the solid ground the liquid rests on. The pit would fill with water, reducing the level of water in the process (assuming it is not a source that does not replenish, like a river). When the spell expires, the water will be returned to it's normal level.
So cast create pit and lower the water level, do what you need to, and when the spell expires, water rises again.
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I'll need to look this up when I get home, see if the WoF is tall enough to reach the top of the pit and thus melt the WoI. >_> I'm not one of those jerk GMs who says "all ice spells start melting the instant they're cast unless you're in a cold weather climate" and I'll even be pretty lenient about hitting magically-created ice with nonmagical fire, but putting a constant magical-fire effect right next to a WoI is going to have some reaction if they're close enough.Why even bother. Just cast Wall of Fire IN the pit while they are in it. Then put a Wall of Ice as a plane over the pit so they can't climb out.Anyway, could you summon a Wall of Fire around the edges of a Pit? Forcing anyone climbing out to take the pain from trying to pass through (and everyone else just from being too close)?
The idea of casting my enemies into the Pit of Flame seems so right...
WoF is 20 ft up. So a pit 100 ft deep wouldn't melt too fast (round being 6 seconds), and even if it did just change it to WoI and push the huge plank of iron over top...same result just no melting.
Although to be fully honest I don't think the wall of ice would melt unless brought into direct contact with a fire spell...its magically treated otherwise its worthless in any climate short of a tundra.
...and even if it did just change it to WoI and push the huge plank of iron over top...
Lol, this confused me at first. When going from Wall of (I)ce to Wall of (I)ron, you might want to avoid abbreviations...
Heavens oracle moonlight bridge revelation might be useful for this.
WoF is 20 ft up. So a pit 100 ft deep wouldn't melt too fast (round being 6 seconds), and even if it did just change it to WoI and push the huge plank of iron over top...same result just no melting.
Although to be fully honest I don't think the wall of ice would melt unless brought into direct contact with a fire spell...its magically treated otherwise its worthless in any climate short of a tundra.
Oh I agree. Hence wanting to check to see if they'd collide before making a call like "nope that wont work cause it'll melt". Since it looks like that won't be an issue then looks fine to me.
Roll your reflex save hidden, put on a big smile and say rejoice for the natural 20 you rolled.Not much worse than a cheating DM. Roll in the open or don't roll.
There is not much I roll in the open, I do not want to give my players incentive to metagame anymore than the system already does.
If people want to metagame they will if not then they won't the rolls aren't all that important.There is not much I roll in the open, I do not want to give my players incentive to metagame anymore than the system already does.Roll your reflex save hidden, put on a big smile and say rejoice for the natural 20 you rolled.Not much worse than a cheating DM. Roll in the open or don't roll.
That is a bit idealistic, if your players noticed how a roll of 3 made a successful save against a pit spell do you think he will try again, maybe another reflex spell, same thing with attacks and skill checks. Even if they do go along with it, I do not think many players find it fun to play deliberately dumb.
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There is not much I roll in the open, I do not want to give my players incentive to metagame anymore than the system already does.Roll your reflex save hidden, put on a big smile and say rejoice for the natural 20 you rolled.Not much worse than a cheating DM. Roll in the open or don't roll.
Its going to happen no matter what you do...
Even if they do go along with it, I do not think many players find it fun to play deliberately dumb.I find roleplaying games fun. I suspect that many players do as well. As you might suspect from the name it involves roleplaying.
Often that means separating what you know from what your character knows.
Some of the more memorable sessions that come to mind involve characters making mistakes. I had one fighter that believed that gricks had DR against slashing but not bludgeoning. After all his longsword did nothing, the other fighter's flail (+1) did full damage, and when he switched to a hammer he killed it (crit).
Rolling in the open helps develop trust between the players and the DM. That's very valuable. And if you're in the situation where DMs are rotated frequently (say organized play) this is near essential.
-James
I am just guessing there are a lot of people that do not trust their GM to play fair, nor do I get the excitement of seeing the GM roll dice in the open, so now I know what AC he hits on a 12.. kinda takes the immersion away for me, and yea when I do know that a creature can only hit me 1/4th the time he usually does when I go fighting defensive that is hard to ignore when your character is in serious trouble.
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Well from the threads on 'fudging' dice I know that there are a lot of DMs that frequent these boards that I wouldn't trust to tell the truth as to what they rolled.
Tell the truth? The GM is there to enable the player to explore a story, to adventure, to play their characters, the 'truth' doesn't always help do that.
In the past I've rolled crits against the same player 3 or 4 times in a row from a relatively weak enemy, terrible luck on their part, they planned well, they weren't stupid, just awful luck. Said crits would have killed them stone dead, is that a fun story? Is the player going to enjoy that? Am *I* as a the GM going to enjoy that? Nope.
So, I suppose you can happily say I 'cheated' if you like. The player gets hit, takes non crits and lives, to encounter the BBEG later and as it happens in this case, die in an epic fashion, saving his buddies lives and going out in a blaze of glory, a story my friends still talk about years later. As a game that we all play to have fun (at least my groups always have) I know which I prefer.
If the story and the fun of the group on rare occasions call for a different result to what I rolled I am 100% happy to do so, and that's why I use a screen, so it *doesn't* break immersion if they see me roll a 20 and I say the monster missed.
On topic, I'm running Kingmaker and the party arcanist has used the spells to excellent effect, making some fights much easier through intelligent use of his powers... that's what he's *supposed* to do. I fully concur with the suggestions made so far, be very aware of how the spells work they are not anywhere near as bad as others once you underestand their limitations, know exactly how easy it is to escape them and if you absolutely need to, ensure your BBEG has a means to help avoid/mitigate the spell being cast upon him if the party battling him face to face is important to the story. Don't punish the player for doing his job.