Supposedly as a cylinder of wind, you can shoot from above or below without it getting in the way.
Alternatively, smack 'em in melee?
I' a fan of flying above myself. I see it as a Reverse gravity for ranged characters, it removes them from the fight unless the can fly or change tactics.
Yeah but reverse gravity is an 8th level spell while fickle winds is 5th maximum? It's too powerful and should be removed as it makes ranged attackers useless no matter what they do. Maybe if it only affected one target I'd say ok.
Eh, RG is a 7th; And neither impose a penalty to those attacking from the opposite method. Also both are easily dispelled or countered by a 3rd lvl spell which every character should have access to by the time players are running into either spell.
Sounds not OP to me.
Use throwing weapons. By RAW, even shurikens pass through with only a 30% miss chance, and since they're treated as ammunition you can draw them as a free action. Your GM might dude that shurikens get auto-deflected, but you can still use any other throwing weapon and only take a 30% miss chance.
Does anyone have any methods with which to overcome the Fickle Winds spell?
It seems that it eliminated most of the counters to wind wall that I've been using (Moving elsewhere for a minute [Till the duration expired, pursuit requires leaving the protection of the wall], or simply moving around it.).
At first glance, it looks like the only way to deal with it is to dispel the effect, or try to carry around a siege weapon at all times. Has anyone figured out a way to overcome its effects as a non-caster?
You yourself? Probably not much. You could hope that your party is able to do something about it and deems it worthwhile for them to use up one of their actions or prepared spells (or both) to dispel or otherwise negate it so that you can do something.
Hoping that it's a rare occurrence is another thing you can do, as if it's really common place that's generally the sign of a hostile GM.
Fly is not a good analogy. You can just get fly cast on you to counter it. Fickle Winds has no counter other than successfully dispelling it. At all. Let alone at the same spell level.
It is a broken spell and the spell it's based on (Wind Wall) is really stupid to begin with (auto-blocks arrows and bolts, but shuriken, darts, and even small rocks from the ground get a 70% pass through rate? WTF?).
If a DM used it at all, or more than EXTREMELY sparingly ("ha ha, you remember that one encounter in our 2-year-long campaign where I completely shut down your PC with that idiotic low level spell?"), I would find a new DM. Fickle Winds, Mage's Disjunction, and Feeblemind are all on my "gentleman's agreement" list when I play a caster. I confront the issue directly and pre-emptively, and ask the DM to agree never to use them if I don't.
Fly is not a good analogy. You can just get fly cast on you to counter it. Fickle Winds has no counter other than successfully dispelling it. At all. Let alone at the same spell level.
Except you can, unless I'm mistaken, cast fly to fly above the cylinder and shoot them, since above the cylinder is presumably unprotected.
It's a spell that, like Reverse Gravity, forces someone to fly, dispel, or switch their tactics.
Carry a sword.
No sane adventurer counts on being able to use his preferred combat tactic in every encounter. It's why my fighters carry bows. It's why my archers carry swords.
Sure, you won't be as effective as you would be in your element. But you won't be useless.
You could also look into picking up a Ring of Spell Storing and having a party caster toss Dispel Magic in there, so you can deal with the problem yourself.
Contingency plans, man. Always gotta have em.
Yes, your ring of spell storing w/ Dispel Magic at CL 5. I'm sure that will work wonderfully for you.
I'm all for carrying a golf bag of weapons, but Fickle Winds is ridiculous.
A melee character CAN, in fact, eventually never need a ranged weapon (though he should still carry them just in case of a real fluke of a situation or if some an ally suddenly needs a weapon) thanks to flight magic. The archer can't just get a low level buff spell and shoot through fickle winds, it will always be a foil to him no matter the level or the resources at hsi disposal.
Yes, your ring of spell storing w/ Dispel Magic at CL 5. I'm sure that will work wonderfully for you.
D'oh, I always forget about that bloody caster level bit when thinking about the Ring of Spell Storing. :p
Perhaps buy a scroll of dispel magic (of an appropriately decent caster level) and give it to one of the party's casters, asking them to burn it on Fickle Winds should it get tossed your way?
It has targets. The exact same targets line as haste and many other spells. It is an effect on the creature, not a stand alone spell effect.
Fickle winds is casted on a creature, so it's the creature CMD+5. Shouldn't be hard.
It suppresses it for 1 round, and CMD +5 can often be pretty hard. In reality, you'd want CMD +15 to actually dispel it. Which is crazy hard.
Doable with rage cycling strength surge, but still no cake walk.
For me, the dc+ 15 is extremely easy, same for CMD+5. Then again my builds are for pure sunder specialist.
Fickle winds is a fickle b$&?! Not a fan of it at all. Unless I'm the one doing it,but then it gets casted on us so....no.
RANGER SMASH!!!
dose the having a large quiver with larg ammo(carried by a horse or something) and using enlarge person work against that?
A little febreeze ought to take care of it.
Or was it Axiomatic body spray.. I forget.
I think this spell IS overpowered. It says a cylinder that encompasses ... this leads me to believe that the top and bottom also have the effect. You're basically in a can of of windwall/fickle winds. I might house rule in my campaign that magic weapons or arrows can penetrate. Somewhat similar to the AD&D protection from normal missiles. It allows a player to fly above a crowd with it (as it will most likely be used with flight) and rain down on lower foes or Orcs; creatures without magical weapons.
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I find the concept that fickle winds is overpowered hilarious. Thanks to all the feats available to archers it is the ONLY thing that can shut down an archer.
Invisible behind a giant and blinking with DR 10/-? Who cares when the archer has a Seeking weapon with improved precise shot and clustered shot. Plus he can full attack every round. Fickle winds is one of the only ways to keep the archer from simply killing everything every time at higher levels.
Fickle winds seems to imply that seeking shot would not work. Not too familiar with cluster shot though. This is coming from. GM perspective that this spell is overpowered, I currently only have a cleric so I don't range attack generally.
well, a handy dispel magic from your friendly local magic user could help, but the simplest solution involves putting down the bow and just stabbing them in the face.
What about using the Gravity Bow spell? Since arrows fired from the bow are considered to do damage as though they were large weapons, would that get past the 100% failure?
Linked for reference
Bring a bow of this or some arrows as back up. Even if your Adam is apt to use fickle winds they'll stop if yo bypass it ever time by switching bows.
There was an item in ranged tactics toolbox that allowed bypassing a wind wall as well, with a -8 penalty. Silver knocking point or something.
Good point I forgot about this one. A -8 is painful but the cost is not bad.
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I also laughed a carry a sword. Yeah dude that 1d8+5 at best is really going to scare those cr 11 monsters
"1d8+5 at best" is doing it wrong. A basic fighter or ranger with an 18 strength (pretty useful for using a bow) can do 1d8+17 with Power Attack and a +2 longsword. That's not a lot of investment for level 11.
Most archers are either Zen archers or have strength (it's good for damage with bows too). Carry a magic sword one or two plusses behind your primary weapon. Spend a feat on Power Attack. If you're a fighter, you have weapon training--there's no reason you shouldn't have bonuses with your backup fighting style. If you're a ranger, you still have favored enemy and spells. If that's not your thing, get use magic device and some wands or scrolls. It's not that hard to have some useful abilities when your primary ones don't work.
If a fire wizard came on the boards and complained "fire resistance is broken--I can't do anything" we would laugh at him. If a magic missile specialist said, "shield is broken, it makes my empowered dazing magic missiles worthless," we'd laugh at him too. Seriously, have some backup plans and spend the resources you need to in order to make them passable.
Now that thrown weapon builds are actually a good idea to make then mitigating the effectiveness of Fickle Winds and similar abilities is a real point in their favor.
Use magic device and wands could work.
Scorching ray or lightning bolt will not care about wind. Summon monster wands allows you to summon flying creatures to attack any being that flies with fickle winds as a shield.
It is still pseudo-casting, yet it is an option.
Pull back for twenty minutes.
Not always an option, but frequently is.
Generally I try to have a back up option for when my main stick isn't working. Either a switch hit choice, or a means of getting rid of what is in my way.
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I also laughed a carry a sword. Yeah dude that 1d8+5 at best is really going to scare those cr 11 monsters"1d8+5 at best" is doing it wrong. A basic fighter or ranger with an 18 strength (pretty useful for using a bow) can do 1d8+17 with Power Attack and a +2 longsword. That's not a lot of investment for level 11.
Most archers are either Zen archers or have strength .
Citation needed. Also zen archers are garbage at melee, lol.
Basically the take away is you're going to be garbage, power attack or not.
You don't need a citation for basic optimization advice.
See composite bow [mighty]. If you're confused about why having strength is a good idea for an archer who wants to do damage, there's no help for you.
The only takeaway from this exchange is that people who are not smart enough to build good archers can't figure out how to be good in melee either.
Citation needed. I nearly fell out of my chair.
A citation for the math of power attack?