http://paizo.com/PRD/monsters/drider.html
"1/day—clairaudience/clairvoyance, deeper darkness, dispel magic, levitate, suggestion (DC 16)"
Does it mean that the drider can use ONE of those spells once a day, or does it mean it can use EACH of those spells once a day?
One more question, about deeper darkness: http://paizo.com/prd/spells/deeperDarkness.html
What's the best way to use this against PCs? do I just cast it on a PC? On their armor? Do they get a saving throw?
Or does the drider just cast it on himself so anywhere he moves to is a 60 feet area of darkness?
Each one is usable once per day. As far as the best way to use it, that’s tough. The drider is clearly not a melee combatant. He’d likely utilize deeper darkness, invisibility, faerie fire, and her web spell to effectively disorient and decimate a single foe before starting any fight.
But how can she effectively utilize deeper darkness of it creates supernatural darkness that she can't even see through?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
This depends. Remember that she only creates supernatural (darkvision proof) darkness if the surroundings were already at least dim to begin with, and what she can‘t see through the party can‘t see through either.
That being said, casting deeper darkness is not something that’s going to break invisibility, so as an ambush tactic she could stealth to the group, observe them for a little time, then hit them with deeper darkness as her surprise round standard action, effectively blinding them all. With any luck she will then go soon after and be able to lay a web spell down. Since they are blinded they can only move half there speed w/o making an acrobatics check (something that’s taking a -4 due to being effectively blinded anyways), when web goes down, save or not, you now have a 40’ diameter difficult terrain, so they really aren’t moving at all. If say their casters do fail the save, then it is going to be pretty hard for them to get to dispelling anything being grappled and all. If they were caught in a narrow corridor, the Drider is then free to blast away with lightning bolts until something either makes it out, at which point she can either flee very successfully (invisibility helps) or attempt to take them down.
These tactics are assuming there is but a single lone Drider. A pair of Drider could not only perform there ambush all in the surprise round, they could also do it twice in the same day. The important thing to consider is that the Drider is intelligent. She knows she won’t stand up to an entire group of stalwart adventurers without evening the odds (or tipping them entirely into her favor). She knows that even a successful hit and run ambush like the one described above is apt to drain significant resources from them, perhaps leaving them vulnerable to other, brutish denizens of her locale.
Is there a saving throw if she puts darkness directly onto a character?
Wouldn't she not be able to lightning bolt them since she couldn't see into the supernatural darkness to know where they are?
Firstly, there is no saving throw regardless, but because the spell requires an object, not a creature you are likely touching a rock or something similar instead of bother to get that close to them personally. Secondly, if the corridor is narrow enough, it doesn’t matter, but assuming otherwise, the Drider did see them before darkness went up, she’d likely have an idea of where to aim.
(Deeper) Darkness is a touch spell cast at an item, so the drider would most likely cast it on either a rock or one of her arrows, keeping it in a pocket, bag or similar, and take it out and throw/shoot it when she wants the effect. There is no saving throw.
Lightning bolt isn't a spell targeted at a character; rather it's a line. So it could be used into a deeper darkness, but she won't know exactly where the characters are. If it's a narrow corridor that doesn't matter, but if it's on an open plain she'll have a hard time hitting.
Note that her spell selection is just an example; she can cast spells either as a 6th level wizard, sorcerer or cleric, so depending on what type of encounter you want you might want to switch some things around.
(Deeper) darkness can be very dangerous if combined traps, pits, or any kind of fall distances. Just saying.
One way of utilizing deeper darkness would be to have her ambush the party where there is some sort of hole in the ground, especially if in a corridor where the floor has collapsed to lower levels or something like that.
Have her cast deeper darkness on a rock beforehand, hiding it in her palm, then casting Silent Image just before the party arrives - creating the illusion of a floor on top of the hole in the ground. Then when the party is in reach, she throws (or drops, if she's above them) the deeper darkness stone, and begins her regular assault (ending concentration on the silent image).
With any luck, someone in the party will move over where they remember seeing a floor where there's actually just a hole.
regards, the mean DM.