"Create Pit" spell is creating problems


Advice

1 to 50 of 262 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | next > last >>

This spell is such a game-breaker I feel. It ends encounters so quickly. I wish the duration was "Concentration", that would help a lot. Instead I have a wizard PC casting this spell like crazy and ending encounters because most creatures that fall can't get out. Especially with the long drop and the high climb DC.

Plus, those that fall in, are so easy to kill off by throwing fireballs and such down the pit. I wish this spell made creatures hit the bottom for 1 round and then reappear back at the top. I feel this wasn't playtested thoroughly.

Anyone else having the same problems with this spell when they GM as I am?


2 people marked this as a favorite.

I straight-up don't use it in my game.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Barachiel Shina wrote:

This spell is such a game-breaker I feel. It ends encounters so quickly. I wish the duration was "Concentration", that would help a lot. Instead I have a wizard PC casting this spell like crazy and ending encounters because most creatures that fall can't get out. Especially with the long drop and the high climb DC.

Plus, those that fall in, are so easy to kill off by throwing fireballs and such down the pit. I wish this spell made creatures hit the bottom for 1 round and then reappear back at the top. I feel this wasn't playtested thoroughly.

Anyone else having the same problems with this spell when they GM as I am?

Remember that to see into the pit you either need to be able to fly (in which case by that level many enemies can also fly) or else stand at the edge and save against your own DC (admittedly with a +2 bonus to the save) or fall into your own pit and be hoisted by your own petard.

Scarab Sages

2 people marked this as a favorite.

The drop isn't that long, it has a maximum depth of 30'. At the level when the pit is most effective, a lot of things can fly out or have a climb speed. If they are stuck down there, they can still make ranged attacks, or use a tower shield for cover from above, or generate a smoke/fog cloud for concealment.

It's a very good spell, but it can be countered.

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I would just use them against the players as well ;-)

I know I've used them as a PC with a gnome illusionist (Pits! Pits EVERYWHERE!) to great effect but the GM started to incorporate things with good reflex saves and jumping ability. Dimension Door is a fairly common spell that can also make the pits only a nuisance.

Another way to deal with this is to throw more encounters at the PCs or make the encounters last longer by having reinforcements run up at round 3 of combat which will essentially double the combat duration.


It can be annoying, but spreading your bad guys out at times, make it less useful.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

In essence, it's a web spell, except it doesn't last as long (which is sort of irrelevant for a combat spell), and also deals damage. Also, adjacent creatures are at risk, whereas for web they're not. And it's harder to get rid of, and doesn't need anchor points. Finally, you can use it to get allies out of the line of fire, etc. So it's essentially an improved web spell. Web is 2nd level, so an improved version, to me, should be higher level than that.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Kirth Gersen wrote:
In essence, it's a web spell, except it doesn't last as long (which is sort of irrelevant for a combat spell), and also deals damage. Also, adjacent creatures are at risk, whereas for web they're not. And it's harder to get rid of, and doesn't need anchor points. Finally, you can use it to get allies out of the line of fire, etc. So it's essentially an improved web spell. Web is 2nd level, so an improved version, to me, should be higher level than that.

Since web is a 20-foot-radius, I think an "improved web" would be better compared to widened create pit (which is a 5th level spell, although granted, Widen Spell should probably have cost 2 levels instead of 3).


It's a much smaller area than Web.

Web has effects even if you make your save "The entire area of the web is considered difficult terrain. Anyone moving through the webs must make a combat maneuver check or Escape Artist check as part of their move action, with a DC equal to the spell's DC."

Web also provides cover.

Web is generally a better spell.


If you move through the web, it's difficult terrain and you might get stuck. If you move over the pit, you fall in and take damage and get stuck in there unless you're flying (and it's a 2nd level spell, so it comes on line long before constant flight is a given). Web provides cover, but you can stick allies in create pit and break line of effect entirely.


I agree, I hate the pit spells, mind you have a general hatred of save or die spells anyway.

But I have a special hatred for the pit spells as a second level save or die spell makes me just wanna hit my head off the wall sometimes.

I know there are a few ways around it, but it just cuts chunks out of the CR of an encounter and lowers the overall difficulty of the fight significantly that a challenging encounter becomes a cake walk.

bleh, rant.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
If you move through the web, it's difficult terrain and you might get stuck. If you move over the pit, you fall in and take damage and get stuck in there unless you're flying (and it's a 2nd level spell, so it comes on line long before constant flight is a given). Web provides cover, but you can stick allies in create pit and break line of effect entirely.

You don't need to be flying. If you move over the pit, you get to the other side with an easy DC 10 Acrobatics check--the lowest the Reflex save can be to avoid getting stuck in the web is 13, if it's off a scroll.

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16

I don't really see it as a save or die; it's crowd control. 3d6 falling damage is piddly. Phantasmal killer is save or die.

It's also much easier to bypass than web; a DC 10 Acrobatics check to jump over it is trivial for most things other than high armor check penalty types.


lol welcome to my world. The wizard in my game does uses this a lot too. Its worse when they upgrade the spell too..hungry pit, spiked pit..

I know how you feel.

Space the enimies out and maybe if you have a spell caster use dispel magic.

I hate it too as it kind of stuffs up a lot of encounters.

The Exchange

It's an encounter-stopper (particularly in APs which for some reason love to throw one enemy at a time at you), but really no worse than sleep even if it does apply to a wider range of creatures. (I'm not a fan of encounter-stopper spells in general, but this is just one of a plethora.)

Rogue Eidolon wrote:
...If you move over the pit, you get to the other side with an easy DC 10 Acrobatics check...

Actually, you'd want an Acrobatics 20 to be safe. Otherwise you'd roll a Reflex save at +2 once when you ran to the near edge of the pit, then leap (Acrobatics 10), then roll another Reflex save at +2 when landing on the far edge of the pit.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
If you move through the web, it's difficult terrain and you might get stuck. If you move over the pit, you fall in and take damage and get stuck in there unless you're flying (and it's a 2nd level spell, so it comes on line long before constant flight is a given). Web provides cover, but you can stick allies in create pit and break line of effect entirely.

Web- save and still in the Web.

Pit- save and out of the Pit.

Huge difference.

Get stuck? It's a DC 20 climb check, assuming you're smart enuf to climb in a corner. With a decent skill, you can be out in one round. And Levitate is a 2nd level spell, so is Spiderclimb.

In order to bypass Web, one needs Freedom of Movement. Even Fly won't help.


In some circumstances you can use it as an elevator.

You come to the base of a 30' high (or less) cliff. You can see the top edge, so you cast Create Pit and a part of the cliff disappears. You step into the space and wait until you get lifted up at the end of the duration. Situational, but a cool use. If higher than 30', you can at least reduce how high you must climb.

Also, don't forget to use Climb modifiers. The sides of the pit are DC 25, but if you Climb a corner you get to reduce it by 5.

Lincoln Hills wrote:
Actually, you'd want an Acrobatics 20 to be safe. Otherwise you'd roll a Reflex save at +2 once when you ran to the near edge of the pit, then leap (Acrobatics 10), then roll another Reflex save at +2 when landing on the far edge of the pit.

Nope.

Create Pit wrote:
In addition, the edges of the pit are sloped, and any creature ending its turn on a square adjacent to the pit must make a Reflex saving throw with a +2 bonus to avoid falling into it.


It's a battlefield control spell. It takes up space, it can only hit one character at a time unless they are poorly positioned tactically. It can't hit anyone Huge or larger. Flying beats it, good REF saves beat it. However, it is a very, very good spell, but it's better to divide and conquer, it doesn't end the encounter, you usually have to beat them post-pit. It's effective, but not broken.

Lincoln Hills is sort of correct, but I think the penalty only applies to when you end the round on the edge of the pit. However, I do see the logic requiring a REF save on a jumping attempt as would only be logical.


To the OP, remember the following:
1. Its 30ft down, you can only see down to target a fireball or anything else besides just lobing in an alchemist fire (for spash damage, not targeted damage) you have to stand at the Unless he is flying over the pit he cant target a fireball at the bottom of a pit. Your player cant actually do what he has been doing

2. Sleep, color spray, glitterdust, or any number of other spells can just as easily take an enemy out of the fight, without the difficulty in then actually killing the enemy.

3. You should have multiple enemies in an encounter, taking one or two out shouldnt end the encounter, it should make it easier. If more then one or two enemies are falling in, you should spread out your enemies in encounters.

4. They come back. Pits are not a very long duration. Eventually the creatures will come back up, ready to fight (assuming the fall doesnt kill them). Remember point #1 on this. Its actually quite difficult to be able to target enemies inside the pit.

As for web. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. My feeling is web has a greater potential effect if used in the best circumstances (bigger radius, creates difficult terrain, does no damage, meaning its not a risk to inoccents or allies, and the target can still be readily attacked if they get stuck in it). Where as create pit is more universally effective (no anchor points, harder to get out of if you get caught and does some damage), but doesnt have as big an impact when it goes perfectly (smaller area, puts allies and innocents at risk to harm, makes it difficult to target enemies, .

Dark Archive

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Create Pit is a complicated spell but remember it actually allows 2 chances to resist it.

Once your bad guy has failed his save against the spell he is still entitled to a immediate climb check to catch himself from actually falling into the pit.

climb skill wrote:

Catch Yourself When Falling

It’s practically impossible to catch yourself on a wall while falling. Make a Climb check (DC = wall’s DC + 20) to do so. It’s much easier to catch yourself on a slope (DC = slope’s DC + 10).

DC for climbing a slope wrote:

DC Example Surface or Activity

0 A slope too steep to walk up, or a knotted rope with a wall to brace against.

Remember all the wall spells specifically call out that there is a slope that the target slides down before falling into the pit.

That means a target who fails the save needs to make a DC 10-ish climb check to avoid falling into the pit. Now they are prone and probably flat footed while they climb up the slope and leave the area of the pit so it's still a nasty spell but it's not the complete end of the world that most GM's have been complaining about.

Now if your critter can't make that Climb check then they are still completely shut down but at least this gives you a chance.

The Exchange

Samasboy1 wrote:

Nope.

Create Pit wrote:
In addition, the edges of the pit are sloped, and any creature ending its turn on a square adjacent to the pit must make a Reflex saving throw with a +2 bonus to avoid falling into it.

Good catch! As long as the party are kind enough to accommodate the monsters by neglecting to position any warrior-types 10' from the pit (reach weapons are hilarious here), I guess it's possible to skip both Reflex saves.


Talcrion wrote:

I agree, I hate the pit spells, mind you have a general hatred of save or die spells anyway.

But I have a special hatred for the pit spells as a second level save or die spell makes me just wanna hit my head off the wall sometimes.

I know there are a few ways around it, but it just cuts chunks out of the CR of an encounter and lowers the overall difficulty of the fight significantly that a challenging encounter becomes a cake walk.

bleh, rant.

Its not save or die, its save or take 3d6 damage. What it is, is battlefield control. And yes the whole purpose of battlefield control is to make encounters easier. That is what the caster contributes to the fight. If that somehow drives you mad, how do you deal with casters at all? Is every caster that doesnt drive you mad a blaster?


Samasboy1 wrote:

In some circumstances you can use it as an elevator.

You come to the base of a 30' high (or less) cliff. You can see the top edge, so you cast Create Pit and a part of the cliff disappears. You step into the space and wait until you get lifted up at the end of the duration. Situational, but a cool use. If higher than 30', you can at least reduce how high you must climb.

That doesn't work. Create Pit doesn't make a whole in the earth. It's actually more like a portable hole that is 30ft deep. None of the earth below it is displaced.

Quote:
You create a 10-foot-by-10-foot extradimensional hole with a depth of 10 feet per two caster levels (maximum 30 feet). You must create the pit on a horizontal surface of sufficient size. Since it extends into another dimension, the pit has no weight and does not otherwise displace the original underlying material.


DrDeth wrote:
Kirth Gersen wrote:
If you move through the web, it's difficult terrain and you might get stuck. If you move over the pit, you fall in and take damage and get stuck in there unless you're flying (and it's a 2nd level spell, so it comes on line long before constant flight is a given). Web provides cover, but you can stick allies in create pit and break line of effect entirely.

Web- save and still in the Web.

Pit- save and out of the Pit.

Huge difference.

Get stuck? It's a DC 20 climb check, assuming you're smart enuf to climb in a corner. With a decent skill, you can be out in one round. And Levitate is a 2nd level spell, so is Spiderclimb.

In order to bypass Web, one needs Freedom of Movement. Even Fly won't help.

If you can climb up why cant you fly up?


Yes is easy to jump over etc but if its cast under the damn enemy and they fail the save thats it as you say ap's have a habit of 1 enemy encounters....all the other players have to do is stand on the edge and shoot...

3d6 damage is not piddly if the dice are rolling well, this is worse when the wizard chooses spike pit up to 5d6 falling dam and 2d6 from spikes, hungry pit up to max 10d6 falling dam and 4d6 damage every round.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
If you move through the web, it's difficult terrain and you might get stuck. If you move over the pit, you fall in and take damage and get stuck in there unless you're flying (and it's a 2nd level spell, so it comes on line long before constant flight is a given). Web provides cover, but you can stick allies in create pit and break line of effect entirely.

As long as you have the movement, clearing the pit is not an issue. Its a dc 10 to jump it (hint you can take 10 to jump). You are only at risk of falling in if you END your turn on the edge of the pit. So if you can move 25 feet (10ft to get running start, 10ft over the put and 5 feet past it) there is exactly zero risk in getting past a pit. After it is cast, unless people actively try to push enemies into it, it just takes up space.

The Exchange

Claxon: I think what Samasboy1's saying is that if one side of the "virtual hole" opens onto an open space, create pit does not impose a barrier to block people from crawling into the pit from that open side.

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Maps, Rulebook, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Wraith, you can fly out of a pit. Web is what you cannot fly out of.


None of my players play wizards and the ones who do play spell casters are generally only blaster sorcs lol so admittedly I have very little experience dealing with spell casters.

And yes, I was ranting so save or die may be a bit of an exaggeration, but something that takes an enemy out of the fight for the entire duration of the fight so good enough as a save or die for me.

Our fights rarely last longer than 5 or 6 rounds, We generally tend to play AP's so unless I mysteriously change the opponents they are fighting for no other reason than to counter them , which is kind of a jerk move, I find create pit dominates most fights.

It's not that it CAN'T be dealt with, it's just that dealing with it in every encounter leaves a bad taste in my mouth as it feels like the old days in 3.0 where the counter to a rogue instant killing things at high level was to throw more folks immune to rogue's at him.


simon hacker wrote:

Yes is easy to jump over etc but if its cast under the damn enemy and they fail the save thats it as you say ap's have a habit of 1 enemy encounters....all the other players have to do is stand on the edge and shoot...

3d6 damage is not piddly if the dice are rolling well, this is worse when the wizard chooses spike pit up to 5d6 falling dam and 2d6 from spikes, hungry pit up to max 10d6 falling dam and 4d6 damage every round.

1 enemy encounters are always bad. I know aps have them. They are wrong. No encounter should have 1 enemy period. Its bad encounter design. The game doesnt function well with it without jumping through massive hoops.

As for players standing on the edge and shoot (30ft down, you cant see the bottom to target it 5ft back from the edge), in order to do that, they have to save against the spell and risk falling in themselves...alone...with an injured but likely angry enemy.

Its 3d6 damage if the target fails its acrobatics check at the bottom (remember you can roll acrobatics to reduce falling damage by 10ft). Also remember that there are 2nd level spells that will do considerably more damage then that that dont require a reflex save. If 3d6 damage kills an enemy, the raging barbarian one shots it with his great axe, or heck, a scorching ray takes it out with 4d6, or a flaming sphere which gives you multiple rounds of 3d6 damage on a failed save.

As for the higher level spells...um have you seen what higher level spells can do? Haste on the party rogue, barbarian and druid(and his pet cat) does ALOT more damage then 5d6 damage once.

And hungry pit, really? Its a 5th level spell. If a pit is defeating that creature, then overland flight already beat it before the fight started... let alone the celestial dire lion that he summoned while he mockingly flies over the enemy and the cleric takes (slay living) and restores (raise dead/breath of life) life with a touch.


as a side note, I'm really not seeing web as a comparable spell, Enemies are still able to fight in a web, they can still make attacks, ranged cast spells and the such, they aren't removed from the fight like with create pit spells.

Like I said, my group generally hates magic. So it's possible I'm missing something.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Tim Statler wrote:
Wraith, you can fly out of a pit. Web is what you cannot fly out of.

I see that I misread it now.. :)

Liberty's Edge

Kirth Gersen wrote:
I straight-up don't use it in my game.

I also do not use it in my game. I think effects such as extra-dimensional spaces should be a higher level effect.

Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I make use of the spell in PFS play, but not as often as you might think. There are too many occasions when the spell can be more of a problem than a help. It all has to do with encounter and terrain design.

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Maps, Rulebook, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Create Pit isn't a problem. What is the party fighter or barbarian doing. If they move to the edge, they risk falling in. Neither has great reflex saves. And if they can see the monster, the monster can see them and use ranged attacks back.
Honestly, Grease is spammed more often and with greater effect.


Talcrion wrote:

None of my players play wizards and the ones who do play spell casters are generally only blaster sorcs lol so admittedly I have very little experience dealing with spell casters.

And yes, I was ranting so save or die may be a bit of an exaggeration, but something that takes an enemy out of the fight for the entire duration of the fight so good enough as a save or die for me.

Our fights rarely last longer than 5 or 6 rounds, We generally tend to play AP's so unless I mysteriously change the opponents they are fighting for no other reason than to counter them , which is kind of a jerk move, I find create pit dominates most fights.

It's not that it CAN'T be dealt with, it's just that dealing with it in every encounter leaves a bad taste in my mouth as it feels like the old days in 3.0 where the counter to a rogue instant killing things at high level was to throw more folks immune to rogue's at him.

Yep, totally agree, that's the problem I have, I have noticed it a lot in my game where encounters in the ap have 1 or 2 opponenets, it looks good on paper but when played out if the players have good initative then 9 times out of 10 these encounters become stale fast. I can thnk and adapt but sometimes its impossioble to do that.


Talcrion wrote:

None of my players play wizards and the ones who do play spell casters are generally only blaster sorcs lol so admittedly I have very little experience dealing with spell casters.

And yes, I was ranting so save or die may be a bit of an exaggeration, but something that takes an enemy out of the fight for the entire duration of the fight so good enough as a save or die for me.

So basically anything but a blaster caster or a battle cleric that doesnt use the bulk of his spell list is going to be a problem in your game. That is something you need to address at character creation. Most caster classes dont work well as blasters. If a normal (control) wizard is a problem in your game, you need to communicate that to your players instead of getting angry.

Mind you, I am working on an alternate ruleset that will more or less fix this problem (it removes alot of the narrative power of casters by using a more basic form of magic). You can see the begginings of it in the rogue genius product, the genius guide to the riven mage. You might want to check that out, and make any arcane caster be one of those instead. (I have to assume divine casters in your group dont do this sort of thing or it would have been a bigger problem before now).

Quote:

Our fights rarely last longer than 5 or 6 rounds, We generally tend to play AP's so unless I mysteriously change the opponents they are fighting for no other reason than to counter them , which is kind of a jerk move, I find create pit dominates most fights.

There is nothing mysterious about it. They aps are designed for 4 15 point buy non-optimized characters. If you have a battlefield control wizard in the party, chances are you dont meet these criteria.

Fixing it is easy. I use aps all the time. Take whats in the encounter. Double it. That raises the CR by 2. It also means no one shoting encounters. It means that battlefield control makes encounters easier but doesnt end them. It means the action economy is rarely in the party's favor. it does all sorts of fun things. Mind you this will make the adventure more dangerous. But obviously you were already having issues with difficulty, so seems like a nobrainer.

Quote:

It's not that it CAN'T be dealt with, it's just that dealing with it in every encounter leaves a bad taste in my mouth as it feels like the old days in 3.0 where the counter to a rogue instant killing things at high level was to throw more folks immune to rogue's at him.

Yea... so no one every played a 2handed barbarian in your 3.0 games huh? Cuz on average a rogue never held a candle to a power attacking raging barb in any of the 3.x versions of the game.

As for 'dealing' with it. You arent dealing with just that per say. Single enemy encounters are bad in general. Its not just saver or die/save or suck spells. The action economy means its really difficult for single enemy encounters to be well balanced. Either the 4(or more) actions of the party overwhelm the bad guy, or the bad guy is so powerful he is too much of a threat to any one member of the party.

Yes paizo has a bunch of them in their APs. That doesnt make it right. It is almost always a functionally bad choice regardless of party composition. Save or lose spells just make it more obvious. If the raging 2handed barbarian, the smiting paladin, and the wildshaped druid all full attack the one target, its going down in one turn anyway (unless its WAY out of CR range).


Lincoln Hills wrote:
Claxon: I think what Samasboy1's saying is that if one side of the "virtual hole" opens onto an open space, create pit does not impose a barrier to block people from crawling into the pit from that open side.

I'm having trouble imagining what you are trying to describe.

It is effectively a 10ft by 10ft opening only in the world where it is cast. Theres no side where you could climb into it. It doesn't have a depth in the real world.


Kolokotroni I agree with you but it depends on the encounters and enemies in the AP im running and the environment. I run AP's as I dont have the time or energy to write my own. If the pit gets cast and the eneny as written cant do anything other than try to get out then its not fun. Everythng you say is valid IF the enemy in the pit has access to them and they get to go first if not then its a problem.


wraithstrike wrote:
DrDeth wrote:
Kirth Gersen wrote:
If you move through the web, it's difficult terrain and you might get stuck. If you move over the pit, you fall in and take damage and get stuck in there unless you're flying (and it's a 2nd level spell, so it comes on line long before constant flight is a given). Web provides cover, but you can stick allies in create pit and break line of effect entirely.

Web- save and still in the Web.

Pit- save and out of the Pit.

Huge difference.

Get stuck? It's a DC 20 climb check, assuming you're smart enuf to climb in a corner. With a decent skill, you can be out in one round. And Levitate is a 2nd level spell, so is Spiderclimb.

In order to bypass Web, one needs Freedom of Movement. Even Fly won't help.

If you can climb up why cant you fly up?

You can certainly Fly out of a Pit. You can't just Fly out of a Web.


Talcrion wrote:

as a side note, I'm really not seeing web as a comparable spell, Enemies are still able to fight in a web, they can still make attacks, ranged cast spells and the such, they aren't removed from the fight like with create pit spells.

Like I said, my group generally hates magic. So it's possible I'm missing something.

There are different benefits and drawbacks to each spell. Web is a bigger area, and hampers foes even if they make their initial save. But as mentioned if they use ranged attacks or spells they can still use them.

On the other hand, if an enemy is melee focused (like most creatures/monsters) then if they get caught, they are just as neutralized as a pit spell AND the party has no difficulty attacking the target (remember you cant shoot something at the bottom of a pit).

Also for those single monster encounters, how is the pit spell a problem at all besides the 3d6 damage it can potentially do? So long as you properly enforce the risk and difficulty of attacking something at the bottom of the pit, then all it does is give the party a few rounds to prepare...the creature is coming back in x rounds.

Dark Archive

simon hacker wrote:

Kolokotroni I agree with you but it depends on the encounters and enemies in the AP im running and the environment. I run AP's as I dont have the time or energy to write my own. If the pit gets cast and the eneny as written cant do anything other than try to get out then its not fun. Everythng you say is valid IF the enemy in the pit has access to them and they get to go first if not then its a problem.

If you have a problem with create pit the only modification you need to do is give each bad guy a single point in the climb skill. This will keep 80+% of your creatures from falling into the pit and change the spell to simply be a 1 round delay spell. (bad guy has to spend a full round action to climb off the slope and stand up then they are back in the fight)


simon hacker wrote:

Kolokotroni I agree with you but it depends on the encounters and enemies in the AP im running and the environment. I run AP's as I dont have the time or energy to write my own. If the pit gets cast and the eneny as written cant do anything other than try to get out then its not fun. Everythng you say is valid IF the enemy in the pit has access to them and they get to go first if not then its a problem.

How is this different if the creature gets put to sleep, blinded, stunned, or flat out killed by any number of other spells on the books? The pit spells arent the problem in this case, its the whole friggan magic system.

Also like I said, fixing this problem is easy. Step one (where possible) have 5 players instead of 4. Step 2, give them 20 point buy. Step 3 encourage moderate optimization of characters. Step 4 double the enemies in every encounter. In cases where that is functionally not possible (Even named characters can have bodyguards and such) grab an equal CR enemy out of the npc guide and monster manual. This takes slightly more time then it does to print out a couple extra stat blocks. You are adding maybe 15 minutes to your prep time tops.


Talcrion wrote:

as a side note, I'm really not seeing web as a comparable spell, Enemies are still able to fight in a web, they can still make attacks, ranged cast spells and the such, they aren't removed from the fight like with create pit spells.

If you fail, you are Grappled, which means" Grappled creatures cannot move and take a –4 penalty to Dexterity. A grappled creature takes a –2 penalty on all attack rolls and combat maneuver checks, except those made to grapple or escape a grapple. In addition, grappled creatures can take no action that requires two hands to perform. A grappled character who attempts to cast a spell or use a spell-like ability must make a concentration check (DC 10 + grappler's CMB + spell level), or lose the spell. "

Also, enough web provides total cover.

Web is by far the worse spell.


You do make some good points Kolo, I'm thinking I'm just going to need to give a solid boost in opponent strength.

I'm also going to do an audit of the characters Wealth levels, one of the characters is dominating quite hard, and I have a feeling it's because he's been taking a larger share of the party funds than the others and it's just been adding up over time.


Personally, I have enemy casters use Create Pit as well. It's a very useful anti-charge tactic. Especially when the caster happens to be floating and the players don't make the rolls to notice...


Mathwei ap Niall wrote:
simon hacker wrote:

Kolokotroni I agree with you but it depends on the encounters and enemies in the AP im running and the environment. I run AP's as I dont have the time or energy to write my own. If the pit gets cast and the eneny as written cant do anything other than try to get out then its not fun. Everythng you say is valid IF the enemy in the pit has access to them and they get to go first if not then its a problem.

If you have a problem with create pit the only modification you need to do is give each bad guy a single point in the climb skill. This will keep 80+% of your creatures from falling into the pit and change the spell to simply be a 1 round delay spell. (bad guy has to spend a full round action to climb off the slope and stand up then they are back in the fight)

This is not true. How does a single point of climb get you an 80% chance of not falling in? Also a creatures climb speed is 1/4 of their base speed, so even double-moving it will take two turns to climb out of a 30 ft pit most of the time. Also the climb DC for a normal pit is 25. That is not a one point of climb triviality.


I gotta disagree Deth, At least you can TRY to do thing just at a minor penalty.

Pit you can't even do that, you just make a climb check so that you can make a second climb check so that the third turn you can TRY to do something then

Dark Archive

Create Mr. Pitt wrote:
Mathwei ap Niall wrote:
simon hacker wrote:

Kolokotroni I agree with you but it depends on the encounters and enemies in the AP im running and the environment. I run AP's as I dont have the time or energy to write my own. If the pit gets cast and the eneny as written cant do anything other than try to get out then its not fun. Everythng you say is valid IF the enemy in the pit has access to them and they get to go first if not then its a problem.

If you have a problem with create pit the only modification you need to do is give each bad guy a single point in the climb skill. This will keep 80+% of your creatures from falling into the pit and change the spell to simply be a 1 round delay spell. (bad guy has to spend a full round action to climb off the slope and stand up then they are back in the fight)
This is not true. How does a single point of climb get you an 80% chance of not falling in? Also a creatures climb speed is 1/4 of their base speed, so even double-moving it will take two turns to climb out of a 30 ft pit most of the time. Also the climb DC for a normal pit is 25. That is not a one point of climb triviality.

As I wrote earlier it's a DC 10 climb check to catch yourself from sliding down a slope and falling into a bit. This means any target who makes that check doesn't move so the only need to crawl 10 feet to be completely out of the pit's area. If they can make a DC 15 check then the move at half speed (usually 15 feet more or less).

the reason 1 point is usually enough is Climb is on 80% of the creature types out there's class skill list. This gives them 1 +3 +(Str/Dex Bonus) vs that DC 10 making this an almost automatic success to avoid falling into the pit AND making it out.
Everyone puts a point into the climb skill for a reason and this is one of those reasons.

Shadow Lodge

I have made tactical use of the Pit spells, mostly at higher levels in order to separate dangerous things that can't climb or fly well.

There was one that made the GM fume until he realized that it was as hilarious as the players found it:

he ruled that, despite being Huge size, the ooze could fall into the pit and fill it almost to the brim; it was able to climb out on its turn, but that took long enough for the cleric to Air Walk overtop of it and drop a handful of Fire Seeds on it.

The most annoying thing about the Pit spells that I've found is when they get cast in tight spaces, preventing hand-to-hand combat right after my character had invoked a special thing upon her weapon that would end if she dropped it or put it away.

Many indoor encounters happen in five-to-ten-foot-wide hallways, doorways and passages, so a pit under the enemy frontliner means we can't get to the enemy archer and spell-caster, but they can still aim at us without worrying about getting threatened.

Just so long as everyone's judicious in its use, it shouldn't be too bothersome. For extra confusing fun, however, cast it on the deck of a ship or the inside of a wagon!

1 to 50 of 262 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / "Create Pit" spell is creating problems All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.