I know this has been discussed elsewhere, and I've read the discussions.
Long story made short, the witch in my campaign has noticed the Sleep Hex (I don't recall the exact name ATM) and taken it. I've read a lot about it and its potential pitfalls.
Most of the concern about it being OP seems to revolve around the hex being used to one-shot single enemies who are supposed to be a challenging fight. Fair enough.
Some people advise "solutions" like fudging saves or "cheap" magic items like a necklace that causes one point of damage to the wearer every time he fails a Will save. I think those are lame and would rather deal with the problem itself.
So I house ruled that this hex works exactly as written with one change. Targets with a CR higher than the witch's level that fail their save do not fall asleep; instead they become exhausted. They can shake off this condition as a full round action, or spend a move action to become fatigued instead (another move action can be spent to remove the fatigued condition if desired).
I pitched this to the player and he said he was happy with it. I'm just wondering what people here think. Is this too restrictive? I could go level +1 or +2 as the cutoff CR for the lesser effect, I suppose.
What do people think?
Seems fair to me. Exhausted is a pretty brutal condition on it's own and well worth the time spent casting the hex.
Not sure I'd let them shake it off for free tho.. they did fail the save after all.
Save to Exhausted then save again to fatigued then save again to get free maybe?
Seems fair to me. Exhausted is a pretty brutal condition on it's own and well worth the time spent casting the hex.
Not sure I'd let them shake it off for free tho.. they did fail the save after all.
Save to Exhausted then save again to fatigued then save again to get free maybe?
Well, the idea here is that Sleep can be shaken off by someone else taking a move or standard action, or the sleeping target taking damage. Shouldn't be harder for the target to remove the condition from themselves IMO.
Also, from a game balance perspective, causing a big bad to waste one round of combat is in practice brutally debilitating.
CR limit seems a little restrictive, and the effect should either be stronger or not be so easy to shake off, IMO. Make it CR +2 and standard or full round (like it matters much, either way, round in the toilet) for a chance to roll the save again, and keep trying until successful seems fairer.
Exhausted isn't really that bad, the penalty is manageable, the main nerf is not being able to charge. Casters won't care in the slightest.
How about instead of sleep, on enemies w/ CR above the witch's level, it hits them with the "50% chance of lose your turn" of Bestow Curse?
That seems fine to me.
I really don't like action denial stuff so I would probably make it exhaustion for all, and have it last until removed as normal exhaustion.
I might also say sleep effect on creatures up to witch's Hit Dice, then exhaustion as above.
Kudos for fixing slumber hex in your campaign.
As a player, would I take a hex that allowed me to render someone exhausted as a standard action? I sure would. Exhaustion is a pretty serious effect.
If your player is alright with it, go for it. Exhaustion effects work on more enemies than sleep effects do, anyhow - so it's not a wash.
Daron Woodson
Abandoned Arts
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Work out in advance if it'll work on creatures immune to sleep but not exhaustion, like elves and dragons. Avoids nasty surprises/arguments during play.
How about instead it fatigues for the full duration with no chance to shake it off? (If you feel Exhausted is too severe.)
On the whole I like the way of thinking, it helps to avoid one-shotting-CdG in BBEG-is-alone encounters, which are a bit anticlimactic.
As for CR.. that's where party size factors in. I'm GMing a party of 7 PCs, so I calculate APL as the average of PCs +1. That would mean that single enemies generally have CR > character level, which causes this house rule to trigger more often, especially if you use CR > CL+1 or +2.
So you need to decide whether you want it to trigger often or rarely.
As for CR.. that's where party size factors in. I'm GMing a party of 7 PCs, so I calculate APL as the average of PCs +1. That would mean that single enemies generally have CR > character level, which causes this house rule to trigger more often, especially if you use CR > CL+1 or +2.
So you need to decide whether you want it to trigger often or rarely.
Good point about sleep-immune targets. I'd say they would be immune to the exhaustion, as otherwise you have the silly result of a weaker monster being immune to the spell while its more powerful version isn't.
Good point about CR as well. We have 7 players in this campaign so I will have to consider this.
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maybe you could extend the time it takes to perform the Hex upon a higher CR creature by 1 round per CR. that way, the witch could cause weaker foes to doze off quickly, but has to lull stronger foes into slumber. this will give your big bad a couple of rounds before it has to make the save.
or, you could step-scale 1-2-3 the conditions as fatigue-exhaustion-sleep upon a stronger foe (similar to shaken-frightened-panicked), so your witch is 'doing something' every round before she finally lulls the beats to sleep.
The more "slumber hex" posts I read, the more I understand why there are no other spells that cause sleep to opponents over 10 HD.
I solved the problem by removing the hex as an option in my campaigns. If the only reason a player is playing a witch is for the slumber hex, the problem is more with the player than any decision you make about how to HR it.
Not everything can be "fixed".
Last time I checked, you can only cast the spells you mentioned a finite amount of times in a single day. Not so with slumber.
Why ban ice tomb? You're encased in ice. Helpless, sure, but it specifies when you break through the ice, they're free. It's up to interpretation of the GM as to whether a coup de grace is an option or not because the RAW is poorly phrased.
Edited to Add: 20 hps of ice (for ice tomb) is a little over 6 inches thick. If you're someone do a coup de grace through that, I can't help you.
I can't recall the last time I've run into a CR 10+ enemy that was effected by sleep anyway.
I know this has been discussed elsewhere, and I've read the discussions.
Long story made short, the witch in my campaign has noticed the Sleep Hex (I don't recall the exact name ATM) and taken it. I've read a lot about it and its potential pitfalls.
Most of the concern about it being OP seems to revolve around the hex being used to one-shot single enemies who are supposed to be a challenging fight. Fair enough.
Some people advise "solutions" like fudging saves or "cheap" magic items like a necklace that causes one point of damage to the wearer every time he fails a Will save. I think those are lame and would rather deal with the problem itself.
So I house ruled that this hex works exactly as written with one change. Targets with a CR higher than the witch's level that fail their save do not fall asleep; instead they become exhausted. They can shake off this condition as a full round action, or spend a move action to become fatigued instead (another move action can be spent to remove the fatigued condition if desired).
I pitched this to the player and he said he was happy with it. I'm just wondering what people here think. Is this too restrictive? I could go level +1 or +2 as the cutoff CR for the lesser effect, I suppose.
What do people think?
I shared some of your concerns about the Slumber Hex, however after seeing it in play for 15 levels I will tell you it is not that bad honestly.
Until about level 5 my witch player used slumber to good effect. It saw many opponents denied several rounds. There were very few coup de grace attempts due to multiple enemies on the board.
The witch also often had to choose between keeping an ally alive via healing or trying to take out an enemy via slumber.
After level 5 slumber hex go used a lot less as saving throws increased, and sleep immunity came into play.
That is all anecdotal however.
As a GM I understand Slumber Hex can seem intimidating, it is however just another SoS or in the very worst case SoD.
I see slumber hex being a problem only in the following circumstances.
1.) The campaign in question uses only humanoid PC/NPC class level holding non-sleep immune NPS's as the main antagonists.
2.) The witch in question is very optimized for slumber hex. I.E. Ability focus + maximized Int (20 at lvl 1) + several hex feats.
3.) The Campaign in question also tends to use single non-sleep immune, ie non-dragon, non-undead, BBEG's.
If all of the above are true there might be a slight problem with slumber hex, however I think that your proposed fix is a little extreme. I personally would much rather take other hexes if I was playing in a game with this house-rule.
In short, my opinion is that slumber hex is not a problem except in some corner cases, and that if you plan on making this change you might want to address the other SoS or SoD conditions available via magic/class abilities as mentioned up-thread.
Just IMO so have fun and enjoy your game. :-)
Cause with slumber as soon as you shake them, they're awake. Even easier than breaking the ice.
Ice tomb is also a freely useable SoD spell against lone BBEGs. If CdG is allowed, it's much nastier.
If a GM allows his or her players to coup de grace through 6 inches of ice (20 hps according to Ice tomb = 0 hardness, 3 hp/in) kudos to the players. To each his own and all, but I don't do that.
And the reason I mentioned the other spells was your comment:
"the more I understand why there are no other spells that cause sleep to opponents over 10 HD." I didn't understand why sleep was so special, since there are other spells that have essentially the same effect.
Fair enough. Two of my female players are witches (13th level at the time and well designed) with accursed hex, cycling through groups with split hex on evil eye & slumber (the campaign I was running before our usual break time) was enough to make me see it as a potential problem. They even warned me before I approved their characters that I might have to "fix" slumber, but I let it fly and gave it a shot. Add in the rogue on cleanup (coup de grace duty) and the fighter (polearm master) and a lot of encounters are just trivial (urban environment at the moment).
I've got slumber in my "pending" notes, added in a potential replacement in the form of "Dazing Hex" which functions basically the same (applicable to more enemies due to it being a daze effect and not a sleep/mind-affecting), but instead of being woke up as with sleep, they get a save each round to break free (as a possible replacement).
Question: SoS and SoD stand for what? I'm not familiar with the abbreviations.
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Slumbery Hex
Slumbery Hex
A witch can slowly lull a creature within 30 feet to into a deep, magical sleep, as per the spell sleep. The creature receives a Will save to negate the effect. If the save fails, the creature becomes fatigued the first round, exhausted the second round, and finally falls asleep on the third round for an additional number of rounds equal to the witch's level. This hex can affect a creature of any HD. A sleeping creature will not wake due to noise or light, but others can rouse it with a standard action. This hex ends immediately if the creature takes damage while asleep. Whether or not the save is successful, a creature cannot be the target of this hex again for 1 day.
I've got slumber in my "pending" notes, added in a potential replacement in the form of "Dazing Hex" which functions basically the same, but instead of being woke up, they get a save each round as a possible replacement.No action until save instead of waking, but also no coup de grace? That's not bad.
Wish I could take credit for it, but it was an idea mentioned by someone in another slumber hex thread. I really liked the idea & expanded it slightly.
Question: SoS and SoD stand for what? I'm not familiar with the abbreviations."Save or Suck" and "Save or Die".
Thanks.
Re: Rain - I really like the gradual effect of yours, though as with sleep, it still has the same problem for my group. My group consists of folks who love roleplay and we'll often have several sessions in a row with no combat - the only dice rolled are for social checks. They also, however, also love to optimize and unfortunately, they're VERY good at it. It keeps me on my toes, but it's challenging to challenge them, at times.
The problem here is more about encounter design than Slumber.
There isn't any legal way to make a single entity the equal of a full party of PCs, and that's partly the entire point of the game anyway.
Get out of the video game habit of thinking in terms of "boss fights" and the entire stupid "problem" with Slumber trivializing such encounters goes away. If you simply must have "big end fights", give your villains the benefit of a social life. If there are adventurers wandering around like a band of murder hobos, why shouldn't the "bad guys" also group up? What sense does it make, really, for an evil mastermind to try to face down every opposition all on his own? A single Elf Wizard in an enemy band of adventurers could easily crush any Witch -- make him a Foresight Diviner to win initiative and give him some Feeblemind preparations and you'll see what makes for some scary "boss fights" against Witches...
And remember that ambushes do happen. That Witch has precious few defensive measures, and she'll want all the Slumber she can get between her and a roomful of suddenly hostile Rogues who are all within Sneak-Attack distance of her during the surprise round.
That said, even if Slumber really were as scary as some incompetent magic-hating DMs (they shouldn't be DMing fantasy) would have you believe, the Witch needs a powerful offense because her defense is just terrible. By design.
Not sure I agree that all DM's who dislike this hex are "incompetent magic hating" and that they "shouldn't be DM'ing fantasy". Myself am a Witch player and I refused to take the hex. Still haven't, going on 14th level.
I'm simply not fond of any one mechanic that a class has, that forces the DM to change or alter most if not all of his encounters to compensate for it.
It shouldn't be that the DM has to make sure he has a stand-by buddy for the boss to slap him when the witch uses the hex or the encounter is a bust.
The hex needs work. Myself? I like some of the ideas on this thread. If I were to make the witch over again I might've taken some of them to the DM to see what the group thought of 'em. As it is though? No thanks.
-S
My witch is taking the ice tomb and getting a cohort with a large spike and big hammer. Coup de grace here I come.
I'm surprised everyone seems to miss the simplest answer to the sleep Hex.
Player Hexes BBEG alseep
BBEG zzzz
BBEG's tiny goblin minion "Hey boss !" and kicks him in the side
BBEG wakes up
BBEG lays the smack down on the Player ;)
I wouldn't change the Slumber Hex, yes, I do think it is OP... in certain encounters, like a lot of things are in Pathfinder (and D&D in general for that matter).
From time to time you can make encounters with enemies that are either immune or very strong against the witch's Slumber.
Slumber is a mind-affecting effect so, undead are oozes are immune, but they are not the only option. Anti-paladins* with a nice/good score in Charisma are good enemies to counter casters all together because they have nice saves, no need of cheap magic items: +3 Charisma and adding Iron Will for good measure is all what you need.
Of course, don't make these kind of enemies the only ones.
In this way, you can make the witch shines vs the enemies that are not mindless/immune or with strong will saves. And the fighters, barbarians and the like shine vs enemies that are powerful against the witches, in these encounters the witch can buff their buddies or summon creatures to assist.
Everybody has their chance to shine, and to be helpful and I think this is good, and what Pathfinder should be. What do you think?
*I say anti-paladins because the average parties are good aligned, the classical LG paladins work too for the naughty boys.
Seems like a lot of effort for a save or die spell that can be used once per target and requires a martial class near the selected target that acts before an npc can wake the sleeper.
Heck, any npc could pick up a rock and throw that, the damage, unless there's DR involved, would be enough to wake him up, even an arrow. Many bad guys would prefer a friendly arrow in the ass than his head chopped off.
Scenario #1:
GM: Fighter, make a will save!
Fighter: Agghhh nooo...failed.
GM: BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
Fighter: Time to roll up a new PC *cries*
Scenario #2:
Witch: GM, make a will save!
GM: Agghhh nooo...failed.
Witch: BWAHAHA-
GM: BANNED