So after casting enlarge person on our front line fighter (a dual wielding ranger) tonight and watching him go from full health to -13 with a 14 con before he could even get an attack off, it strikes me that my use of the spell might have been a bit... tactically unsound.
So when should enlarge person be used, and when should it be avoided?
Enlarge person is a spell with tactical advantages and disadvantages. The main disadvantage is that it drops AC enough to make a difference in most fights.
The advantages range from gaining reach to significantly improving damage and CMB potential.
So, the time to use it is when losing AC is significantly outweighed by one of the advantages, or when you can negate the AC loss with other buffs so that the fighter is no more vulnerable than he was before being enlarged.
Also, it helps if the fighter has an initiative advantage and can attack before everyone else. Usually when I've used enlarge on my melee characters I've managed initiative so that my caster or wand user is hitting the fighter right before his turn so that he gains the benefit of the str and reach, but nobody has a chance to hit him before he hits something else.
My only character that I've played that used enlarge significantly was a combat expertise build focused on reach and attacks of opportunity with CMB maneuvers as a battlefield control mechanism.
I've mainly seen it used for the reach, as a part of a "giant weapon" combo, or as just one more buff spell in a cocktail that the party happened to be able to contribute at that moment (usually including ones that improve defense).
I suspect it would get more use if I were to hint at monsters with the "swallow whole" ability, or if the party suspected they would ever encounter the "drag and drop" harpies again.
I like to see players delay their enlarge buff till right before the player being enlarged goes. Coordination makes a big difference.
Enlarge is a great buff, but it is best used in very specific situations. What happened with your situation is you cast an attack buff when the situation called for a defensive buff. Any +AC, miss chance/concealment spell would have worked well, as would the ranger being strategically defensive.
Many players make the mistake of going right in and trying to maximize the number of rounds their full attacks happen. That is usually exactly the wrong thing to do. The best option is to delay and let the enemy come to him and accept/apply some buffs. Moving forwards for a 2 weapon build is pretty poor as you gain nothing from the focus (full round attacks for lots of little hits) while exposing the character to full round enemy attacks. Its even worse charging with such a build.
While it doesn't sound like that is exactly what happened, players who use 2 handed builds tend to not think very defensively. They like to slice and dice and not focus on the important aspect of not dieing. His AC probably wasn't too hot to begin with, and enlarge person drops the AC by 2. Two results on the d20 is a significant amount, if he was only getting hit on a 17+ prebuff (and well built martials should be striving for at worst a 20% enemy hit rate), that is a 50% increase in enemy performance.
Now if you had cast a defensive buff that adds to AC or if he had fought defensively... Even a small +2 bonus cuts the enemy offense in half.
Enlarge person is more effective with a defensively minded player who has some AC to spare (enemies need a 20 to hit, often because of the 20 always hit rule) and preferably have combat reflexes and a reach weapon. Such players gain more attacks from AoO, can lock-down enemy movement from fear of the AoO, and actually need the offensive buff more than a character who is already effective offensively.
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Use it to make intimidation checks.
Use it to take additional aoo's from all of the new targets in range.
Use it to make someone harder or impossible to be swallowed.
Use it to stop someone from being carried off or forced to be dropped).
Use it circumstantially where height and weight may be relevant.
Use it to assist with disguise and bluff (my large friend is an ogre).
Use it to make natural weapon users deal much more damage.
I see Enlarge Person as primarily defensive. Depending on who (and sometimes what) it is used on, it can make for an incredible offensive tool as a damage boost (Summoner enlarging an already large or Huge Eidolon is adding +2d6 damage per hit to the Eidolons attacks).
Blur/Displacement then Enlarge Person. My imp typically sits on the Barbarian's shoulder with an Enlarge Person wand (and CLW for emergencies) allowing me to Displace.
More actions per turn is the way to go!