Color Spray, Glitterdust, and Invisibility

[Grayfeather]

just kidding, they aren't. This post has nothing to do with that.

Its actually asking why so many people love color spray and glitter dust. Besides being of dubious flavor the range of color spray and the save make it pretty weak. And on glitterdust sure it helps vs invis but at second well why not just cast see invis?

Both aren't bad but not the omg must haves I always hear of. Am i crazy? Set me straight.

[The Human Diversion]

Glitterdust also stands a chance to blind, and if it lands on an invisible character will allow the entire party to see what is invisible, not just the one casting see invisible. In addition, the glittery part doesn't have a save (just the blind part does) and there's no SR.

Colorspray is good at low levels because it can incapacitate multiple enemies for at least a few rounds, and it works on will save, so is often good against lower level melee-types.

Colorspray you're really only going to see at lower levels, but you'll see glitterdust at higher levels, often quickened, if only so the one casting it can mark things that the rest of the party can't see

[Jaxtile]

Color spray might have a low save on a wand, but a wizard with 18 int is rolling with a 15 DC. Your average goblin is likely to have a 50/50 chance at best to make his save. Target a group and you are nearly guaranteed to hit at least one.
Every creature hit is dead. Fullstop.
Or you could plink away with a magic missile. Sure.
Glitterdust isn't the monster it was in 3.5 but blind is one of the worst conditions out there. Lower AC, 50% miss, cannot target spells.
Anyone hit by it isn't doing much until it clears up.

[RumpinRufus]

Glitterdust isn't so that YOU can see the enemy, it's so the BSF can see the enemy.

Color Spray is awesome because it's save-or-die. If a wizard is ambushed by some thug, all he needs is a 5-foot-step and use Color Spray and the fight is won in one round. Being able to completely incapacitate one enemy is enough, the fact that it can take out multiple targets is gravy.

[Lamontius]

OMG GRAYFEATHER YOU WILL RUE THE DAY YOU POSTED THI-

Oh, okay.

For color spray, how often have you seen it used on-table? I've cast it a bunch with my elven conjuration/teleportation wizard in my RotRL campaign, with it twice essentially one-shotting encounters in the first installment of the adventure path.

[Jiggy]

Color spray is liked mainly at low levels, where having an enemy fail its save means they're out of commission. Yes, the range is risky, but it's a gamble with a big payoff: catch all the thugs in the area, and if they all fail their saves (not as unlikely as it sounds), then the encounter is over.

The difference between Glitterdust and See Invisibility is that a successful 'dust is like giving the whole party See Invis. The chance of enemies getting blinded in the process is just gravy.

[Kimera757]

Grayfeather wrote:

Its actually asking why so many people love color spray and glitter dust. Besides being of dubious flavor the range of color spray and the save make it pretty weak. And on glitterdust sure it helps vs invis but at second well why not just cast see invis?

Both aren't bad but not the omg must haves I always hear of. Am i crazy? Set me straight.

Color Spray has a lot of marks against it. It's mind-affecting and a pattern, which lots of creatures are immune to. The range is pretty lame. There's a Hit Dice "cap" as well. On the other hand, a blinded or stunned opponent is out of the fight. They only get one save, and few creatures have high Will saves at low-levels. (How often do you face goblin clerics or adepts? Let's be honest. Not that often. How about orc shamans? Also rare.) The victims (because it can hit multiple opponents) get screwed for a decent period of time. At best, you've artificially split the enemy "party" and can cut up the opponents who made their saves or weren't in the blast radius.

Glitterdust blinds multiple opponents. Blindness is incredibly powerful in Pathfinder (for the same reasons why being invisible is so powerful). Opponents get a save every turn, but it's a full-round action.

Blinded opponents have weakened melee attacks, poor ranged weapon and spell targeting, and lose their Dex bonus to AC. A blinded wizard can't cast Hold Person on you or your friends.

It's a poor man's See Invisibility, since you have to guess where the invisible opponent is. But if a creature is revealed, all your buddies can see it; that's better than See Invisibility.

[Mystically Inclined]

*Sees the title*

Oh, this is going to be full of fair and reasoned arguments. Let's go watch the bloodbath.

*Is tricked*

I think you've got your holidays mixed up. February 14th is Valentines Day, not April Fool's Day. ;)

That said, dotted. This should be genuinely interesting.

[LazarX]

Jiggy wrote:

Color spray is liked mainly at low levels, where having an enemy fail its save means they're out of commission. Yes, the range is risky, but it's a gamble with a big payoff: catch all the thugs in the area, and if they all fail their saves (not as unlikely as it sounds), then the encounter is over.

The difference between Glitterdust and See Invisibility is that a successful 'dust is like giving the whole party See Invis. The chance of enemies getting blinded in the process is just gravy.

Color Spray is important when you've got to deal with opposition you can't afford to harm, such as rowdy or pannicked citizenry. When I play LSJ, and if it's a module that stays within the city and involves ANY chance of a mob issue, color spray is going to be on my list.

[Pygon]

I was in a PFS scenario with my magus 5 the other day. We were fighting a couple of dangerous melee opponents, so I color sprayed them and shut then down for a few rounds while we took them out.

Later a ninja turned invisible on us and tried to escape. Had I had glitterdust on me, we would have caught him. It is now in my spell book.

Useful spells.

[blackbloodtroll]

Troll title?

Not cool man.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Grayfeather wrote:

just kidding, they aren't.

Not as long as the Monk, Commoner, Expert, Aristocrat, and Warrior exist they sure aren't!

[Grayfeather]

Some good points here but a few counterpoints:

Cons:
- Lots of stuff is immune to mind affecting and stunning so me thinks we need to tap the breaks on color spray = game over, high fives, loot. Even then a coup de grac isn't a sure thing anymore. And coup de grace is full round so means BSF needs likely in the AE also stunned.
- 15ft range on color spray hurts it more than I think many realize. AE kinda helps but I almost want a close range single target version.
- Blindness is not a game stopper. Many people, monsters, etc have blind sense, blind fighting or tremor sense. Suckage for casters, not so much for huge nasties
- Blindness on glitterdust is round by round save which is kinda hurts it
- The antistealth thing with it is a bigger area than faerie fire but faerie fire automatically nukes invis, concealment, blue, diplacement for minutes. I'd rather be blind for a round or two running into walls than not be able to invis, steath, or displace for up to 20 minutes. Thats a major ouch.

Pros:
- Lovin the no SR on glitterdust
- Glitterdust is conjuration, one of the better spell focuses

For a lvl 1 color spray i'm not sold on (even for a lvl 1 slot which cap so early) but glitterdust as much as I like it i see it as a maybe so far. Is there some tactics here I'm not seeing for this? If I want to stop a rogue blur stops sneak attacks just fine. Help me out here.

[RumpinRufus]

Grayfeather wrote:

Some good points here but a few counterpoints:

Cons:
- Lots of stuff is immune to mind affecting and stunning so me thinks we need to tap the breaks on color spray = game over, high fives, loot. Even then a coup de grac isn't a sure thing anymore. And coup de grace is full round so means BSF needs likely in the AE also stunned.
- 15ft range on color spray hurts it more than I think many realize. AE kinda helps but I almost want a close range single target version.
- Blindness is not a game stopper. Many people, monsters, etc have blind sense, blind fighting or tremor sense. Suckage for casters, not so much for huge nasties
- Blindness on glitterdust is round by round save which is kinda hurts it
- The antistealth thing with it is a bigger area than faerie fire but faerie fire automatically nukes invis, concealment, blue, diplacement for minutes. I'd rather be blind for a round or two running into walls than not be able to invis, steath, or displace for up to 20 minutes. Thats a major ouch.

Pros:
- Lovin the no SR on glitterdust
- Glitterdust is conjuration, one of the better spell focuses

For a lvl 1 color spray i'm not sold on (even for a lvl 1 slot which cap so early) but glitterdust as much as I like it i see it as a maybe so far. Is there some tactics here I'm not seeing for this? If I want to stop a rogue blur stops sneak attacks just fine. Help me out here.

So "doesn't ALWAYS instantly win" is enough to make you dislike a level 1 spell? Why don't you try using it in a game and then come back and tell us you're not sold?

[Douglas Muir 406]

What balances Color Spray is the extra-short range. Otherwise, it's brutal -- one of the best spells for a low-level wizard.

Yes, some things are immune to it, but at low levels not many. Unless you're facing a tomb full of zombies and skeletons, you'll pretty much always find something to zap with it. DC 14-16 Will save means most monsters of CR 3 or lower have a less than 50% chance of saving. For that matter, so do most low level PCs. I just recently came ooooh, so close to TPKing my low-level players when a wizard with Color Spray shut down half the party with a gesture. (Close but not quite... I'll try harder next time.) Players hate to have this cast at them, which suggests to me that yes, it's actually pretty good.

Again, the special short range balances it. The wizard has to step up and put his precious, squishy self within 15' of trouble. But if trouble has already shown up anyway -- thug in an alley, half a dozen gibbering goblins encircling the party, whatever -- Color Spray is your very special friend.

Doug M.

[Grayfeather]

RumpinRufus wrote:

Grayfeather wrote:

Help me out here.

So "doesn't ALWAYS instantly win" is enough to make you dislike a level 1 spell? Why don't you try using it in a game and then come back and tell us you're not sold?

Well i guess i can't argue with that, I'll give it a try. :)

[Thomas Long 175]

Grayfeather wrote:

Some good points here but a few counterpoints:

Cons:
- Lots of stuff is immune to mind affecting and stunning so me thinks we need to tap the breaks on color spray = game over, high fives, loot. Even then a coup de grac isn't a sure thing anymore. And coup de grace is full round so means BSF needs likely in the AE also stunned.
- 15ft range on color spray hurts it more than I think many realize. AE kinda helps but I almost want a close range single target version.
- Blindness is not a game stopper. Many people, monsters, etc have blind sense, blind fighting or tremor sense. Suckage for casters, not so much for huge nasties
- Blindness on glitterdust is round by round save which is kinda hurts it
- The antistealth thing with it is a bigger area than faerie fire but faerie fire automatically nukes invis, concealment, blue, diplacement for minutes. I'd rather be blind for a round or two running into walls than not be able to invis, steath, or displace for up to 20 minutes. Thats a major ouch.

1. How many things are immune to mind affecting at level 1? or 2-5 for that matter. Most of the things with lots of immunities are high level. An aoe crowd control will devastate most things designed for 1st level.

2. You don't need to coup de grace them instantly. Just knocking people out of the fight for a few rounds can really shift the favor of things. Imagine it like this. You have 2 people (the groups are people) fighting. But one person has a single round move that says for the next 4 or so rounds the other person does only half damage. I'd say thats a big deal.

3. Aoe is good so long as your caster knows how to use it right. If he's hitting his allies, he's using it wrong.

4. Once again. How many things have the blindsense at lower levels. And blindsense isn't blindsight. Blindsense lets them know you're within 30 feet. Blindsight is what allows them to know where you are, and thats a lot rarer. Tremor sense is just as rare, and very few things have blindfight.

5. Glitterdust is used to deny invisibility, which it does. It is an aoe destroyer of invisibility so that your entire party can see without so much as a save for the anti invisibility part. Blindness is just gravy.

6. Faerie fire is only available through the light domain and for druids by the looks of the spell. No one else can cast it.

[oynaz]

Combine color spray with destroy undead, and you are equipped to do a lot of damage to nearly anything you are likely to meet before level 3.

That fact makes color spray a solid choice. One of the problems for low level sorcs and wizards is fact that they risk that their spells are useless against a given foe.

This goes double for glitter dust. It is literally 2 spells in one. Facing someone invisible? Pling! There he is.
Facing something else? The same spell stand a good chance of blinding them.

[hogarth]

I've never seen Color Spray work very well (because of the short range and the need to play Tetris to avoid your fellow party members); I'd take Sleep over it any day of the week, notwithstanding the long casting time and HD limitation.

Glitterdust can be pretty good; blinding multiple foes is handy. Of course, with the save every round it's definitely not as good as 3.5 Glitterdust.

[Liz Courts]

Changed the thread title. Don't make inflammatory thread titles, thank you.

[Adamantine Dragon]

Liz Courts wrote:

Changed the thread title. Don't make inflammatory thread titles, thank you.

Yay! Thanks!

[Kimera757]

Grayfeather wrote:

Some good points here but a few counterpoints:

Cons:
- Lots of stuff is immune to mind affecting and stunning so me thinks we need to tap the breaks on color spray = game over, high fives, loot.

Usually only COUPies and dragons have these immunities (and dragons are also immune to Sleep, Color Spray's big rival). Of these, it's only natural that mind-affecting spells won't work on them anyway (it doesn't make sense to use Sleep on a zombie either).

Quote:

Even then a coup de grac isn't a sure thing anymore. And coup de grace is full round so means BSF needs likely in the AE also stunned.

My experience, in both 3.x and Pathfinder, Color Spray is one of the few ways to make a 1st-level wizard viable.

I've never caught a friend in the blast radius. Never. It doesn't really matter that CdG is a full-round action either. My friend can walk up and hit the stunned enemy once, and then next round CdG them, if that enemy is still alive. (At low levels, CdG is usually overkill. A goblin might have 5 hit points.)

Even if you can't hit your opponents at all, they're out of the fight. Go kill their friends. Splitting the party isn't just something done outside of combat.

Quote:

- 15ft range on color spray hurts it more than I think many realize. AE kinda helps but I almost want a close range single target version.

It might take a little getting used to. It's risky, that's for sure. The AoE reduces the risk (because at least one will save).

Quote:

- Blindness is not a game stopper. Many people, monsters, etc have blind sense, blind fighting or tremor sense. Suckage for casters, not so much for huge nasties

Very few creatures have these abilities at low-levels. Blind-Fight is only useful at melee range, and Glitterdust is ranged. Just stay away from the blind due.

While some creatures have ways past it, some are utterly nerfed by it. Golems, for instance. Glitterdust bypasses their magic immunity, and they're just not smart enough to deal with it.

Quote:

- Blindness on glitterdust is round by round save which is kinda hurts it

That just keeps it from being overpowered.

Quote:

- The antistealth thing with it is a bigger area than faerie fire but faerie fire automatically nukes invis, concealment, blue, diplacement for minutes. I'd rather be blind for a round or two running into walls than not be able to invis, steath, or displace for up to 20 minutes. Thats a major ouch.

I see Glitterdust as blindness first, revealing second. You have to guess where the invisible opponent is, and might miss completely. But even Faerie Fire can't auto-target something you can't see, I would think.

Pros:
- Lovin the no SR on glitterdust
- Glitterdust is conjuration, one of the better spell focuses

Quote:

glitterdust as much as I like it i see it as a maybe so far. Is there some tactics here I'm not seeing for this? If I want to stop a rogue blur stops sneak attacks just fine. Help me out here.

Blur gives you 20% miss chance and avoids sneak attacks. Glitterdust gives you a 50% miss chance and the rogue can't even find you! In addition, you might not have just gotten the rogue, you might have gotten a barbarian, or a fighter, or a wizard as well.

[Lamontius]

yeah seriously thank you Liz Courts because I was just harnessing my rogue rage like a steam locomotive if that steam locomotive were more like just a dude typing things while doing pushups on top of an actual steam locomotive

[Gaekub]

Lamontius wrote:

yeah seriously thank you Liz Courts because I was just harnessing my rogue rage like a steam locomotive if that steam locomotive were more like just a dude typing things while doing pushups on top of an actual steam locomotive

Lamontius, I... There... I...

Happy Valentines Day.

[Thomas Long 175]

Lamontius wrote:

yeah seriously thank you Liz Courts because I was just harnessing my rogue rage like a steam locomotive if that steam locomotive were more like just a dude typing things while doing pushups on top of an actual steam locomotive

But seriously they are pretty far down there in the power list :P

[sieylianna]

I've seen far more Color Sprays cast in PFS by Oracles of the Heavens than by the arcane classes combined. Awesome Display keeps it effective until you reach the level 12 cap. And Oracles have more hit points and better armor, so the close range isn't an issue.

[StreamOfTheSky]

If you can use 3E material, the Sculpt Spell feat lets you alter the area of spells for a +1 level cost. The areas include 4 cubes of 10' that don't need to be placed together, a 20 ft wide cylinder, a 20 ft radius sphere, a 120 ft line, or a 40 (or maybe 60?) ft cone.

Now, the feat does NOT let you have a spell affect beyond its range limit, so you still can't hit further than 15 ft out. Unless you use the Enlarge Spell feat / lesser metamagic rod...

[kinevon]

There is also Selective Spell, PF Metamagic which lets you exclude targets. Not cheap as a feat or a rod, but still useful.

On Glitterdust:
More casters have access to it, and it does NOT instantly tag yourself as a priority target, unlike See Invisibility.
See Invisibility: "That guy can see me? Kill him, kill him quick, and his friends, who can't see me, can't stop me, either."
Glitterdust: "Aagh! Where are they? I can't see anybody!" or "They all know where I am, killing that caster, while it would be satisfying, isn't possible because they can all see me before I can reach him."

Color Spray is great at low levels, where the enemies have low Will saves, and get up to 3d4+1 rounds where they are out of the fight at a minimum. Although I have seen one fight where the party screwed up badly enough that the 3 enemies who got Color Sprayed and failed the save actually were back in the fight before it ended (the party wound up with everyone but the Wizard down a cliff rescuing civilians, the Wizard couldn't do enough damage to kill the downed enemies, especially while trying to deal with the remaining 3 enemies still vertical... Bad party support, not a bad spell.)

[RumpinRufus]

kinevon wrote:

Color Spray is great at low levels, where the enemies have low Will saves, and get up to 3d4+1 rounds where they are out of the fight at a minimum. Although I have seen one fight where the party screwed up badly enough that the 3 enemies who got Color Sprayed and failed the save actually were back in the fight before it ended (the party wound up with everyone but the Wizard down a cliff rescuing civilians, the Wizard couldn't do enough damage to kill the downed enemies, especially while trying to deal with the remaining 3 enemies still vertical... Bad party support, not a bad spell.)

If the wizard was only dealing with 3 enemies at once instead of 6, then the Color Spray still worked.

[psionichamster]

sieylianna wrote:

I've seen far more Color Sprays cast in PFS by Oracles of the Heavens than by the arcane classes combined. Awesome Display keeps it effective until you reach the level 12 cap. And Oracles have more hit points and better armor, so the close range isn't an issue.

This.

Gnome Oracle of Heavens with Fantastic Display & Spell Focus/Greater Spell Focus = Color Spray "I Win" buttons from 2nd lvl on

[Rumtum]

Lamontius wrote:

I've cast it a bunch with my elven conjuration/teleportation wizard in my RotRL campaign, with it twice essentially one-shotting encounters in the first installment of the adventure path.

In the same AP

RoTR SPOILER!!!:

In our fight with Aldern, under the Misgivings, we were receiving a particularly nasty beatdown. When it looked like we might be gaining an advantage - Aldern managed to maneuver well enough to avoid AoO and put himself into a position where he could escape should he need to.

My elven conjuration specialist managed to blind Aldern at that point and for three rounds he flailed around ineffectually while the rest of the part took him down.

For a conjuration specialist especially - Glitterdust is the dogs baws. It's one of the few conjuration effects off the top of my head which actually targets Will (making it a good go-to for those low will save opponents when you've picked enchantment as an opposed school) as well as being an excellent AoE stealth debuffer.

[Darklone]

Let's see: Last three campaigns, our arcanies took Color Spray as first spell choice. All three campaigns, it kept us alive till level 5 more than once against ogres, orc barbarians with str 22 and other baddies.

Glitterdust: Not as often effective, but just last time we played it was a matchwinner for a level 2 group against a level 7 wizard.