In my campaign we are planning to fight the [http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/grim-reaper]Grim Reaper[/url] who has the constant effect of foresight (the fight hasn't been planned in game by our characters, but we as the players know that it will be happening). We met him before and he placed dungeon rings on each of our characters. Eventually we would probably end up having to find him again and attack him to get them off so he can no longer bother us with his dirty work (plus we have a scythe user who really wants that scythe of his).
We have a general plan (again, not made in game but will be finalized in game when we get to that point, probably just before we go to fight him so assume he can't bring anyone new in). I'm a cavalier and we have an antipaladin on the team. I'm going to use my challenge and his Aura of Vengeance ability (I know it's smite good, our GM felt bad because we very rarely go up against good characters so he modified the smite ability so that he can use it on neutral and evil creatures but has to use extra smites to do so). There will likely be a round of setup (assuming we have to roll initiatives and can't keep everything in free action as would be the most beneficial). This is to get Eagles Splendor and use an Enlarge potion on myself and my mount. Then I'm going to charge in at him (I'll have on the Band of the Stalwart Warrior and I can automatically beat the DC of the fear aura for my mount with Indomitable Mount if she failed the will save so that won't be an issue). I'm going to use the power of the Cyclops Helm to automatically get a critical threat and with the Moment of Triumph special ability I have I automatically confirm the threat. Along with this I'll be attempting to disarm him with Mighty Charge to allow for the character who wants the scythe to try and steal it from him. I should be fine on this unless I roll a natural 1. Using Wheeling charge I'll be getting at least 25 ft away so he would have to take a move action to retrieve the scythe and another to reach me should the other player be unable to beat the fear aura.
(note-I realize he has a number of things he could do but I'm primarily trying to figure out how this spell even works)
Here is where the tricky part comes in. The damage that I will be dealing on this attack will be absurd. Assuming average rolls and assuming the GM of this dungeon maximizes his hp (476 total if he does) I'll be dropping him down to 71 hp with a worst case of him having 133 hp left and best case of 32. From here he shouldn't be that hard even at the worst case so he would certainly need to defend himself from our other party members while also trying to eliminate us. My best guess would be that he uses his Destruction spell followed by something else (summon minor reapers perhaps?) which is where my concern comes in.
I would seem like the obvious target to most enemies having just done over 400 damage to him but foresight likely changes this. Due to the fact that my save could only fail on a roll of 1 (Moment of Triumph bonus combine with Cloak of resistance (+5) and a fortitude save of 18 normally) and the fact that even if I fail I still wouldn't die (my HP is 236 now and will go up at least 6 points with a possibility to increase by 15 because we are doing this next level). Even if I can't knock his scythe out of his hand he would still have to crit to kill me with the 1 attack he gets. But would foresight tell him this? Would it be something like everyone who is a valid target prerolls their saves and he can choose whom to attack from there? Or would he determine that this could likely be a futile effort and instead focus solely on escape and/or defense?
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Foresight does exactly what it says it does:
- The caster receives warning about impending danger to the subject. (In this case, the Grim Reaper will be warned that he is about to get in combat.)
- The target cannot be surprised or flat footed. (No surprise round for you, and even if you beat the Grim Reaper's initiative, you don't get to attack flat footed AC.)
- +2 insight bonus to AC and Reflex saves.
- "The spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself."
That last point is the most troubling, as that is up to DM discretion. Note that running away is a valid option as how to best protect one's self.
A few other notes to keep in mind for this fight, though:
- The Grim Reaper is incorporeal, and thus immune to critical hits from weapons without the Ghost Touch property.
- As an incorporeal, the Grim Reaper also takes half damage from non-ghost touch magical weapons and damaging spells that do not deal force damage. Non-damaging spells only have a 50% chance of working.
- There's a lot of potential level drain here. You're going to want to get Death Ward on the entire party.
- The Minor Reapers have a fear effect. If you can become immune to fear, it's a good idea.
- A potion of Enlarge Person will not work on your mount, as it is not a humanoid.
- If the Grim Reaper chooses to retreat, it can cast Invisibility at will. You should have some way to deal with that.
- Also, as an incorporeal creature, the Grim Reaper can flee through solid objects such as walls.
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Foresight is a tricky spell, mostly because it seems to have ambiguous benefit. A 9th level spell that basically only gives +2 AC and +2 REF is absolutely pathetic. Add on that the user cannot be surprised or flat-footed and it goes from absolutely pathetic to merely pathetic. But then you add on "warnings of impending danger" and "general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself" and now the spell is barely interesting unless you maximize the most liberal reading of those quote in which case it might just barely qualify as a decent 9th level spell.
So this will always be up to each GM to figure out and make his own rulings, but as far as I am concerned, I cannot consider this to be a 9th level spell unless I assume maximum possible benefit to those quotes.
So if I were running that grim reaper, Foresight means that he would instantly know that you're planning to go after him the very second you begin planning it. So he has lots and lots of time to develop his general idea of how best to defend himself. He would know that you do tons of damage but only when you charge, so you will find him invisible and flying and/or surrounded by controlled undead minions that absorb your charge so you can't charge the BBEG. He'll choose controlled undead that can touch attack you and drain your levels or STR to weaken you. He'll also send a Reaper after you and keep it directly between him and you, too close for you to charge the reaper and you cannot charge around it to get to Grim Reaper. While you lose more levels.
Not to mention that the best way to prevent your charge is to just wait under the ground and make its first round of full attacks against your mount. How did you enlarge it, anyway? I'm pretty sure it can kill your mount in the first round of its attacks. That probably takes most of the wind out of your sails.
Note that you still have to save against the Fear and might become shaken if you fail, which lowers your saves against some of its other abilities.
Is your lance Ghost Touch, or do you have a way to make it temporarily Ghost Touch? if not, you're not as much of a threat as you think you are.
Foresight will tell it that are immune to Fear so it won't waste that on you, and it will know that you have a very high FORT save (even without Foresight that's a no-brainer when you see a tough fighter-ish guy charging into battle), so it would probably slap Unwilling Shield on you (hoping your WILL save is lower than your FORT) so you'll be killing yourself whenever you damage the BBEG.
It will know if your AC is too high to use its scythe (so it might go after you with incorporeal touch attacks) and drain so many levels that you'll never be a threat to it again. I hope you can see invisible because if you can't, that first attack is against AC 10 which it can't miss and will sap about 5 levels out of you, then three touch attacks against your Touch AC should probably get 5-10 more levels. After that, it ignores you until the end of combat.
Finally, it has 2x normal treasure for a CR20 creature and if I were GMing, I would absolutely generate that in advance and have him use all of it in the fight.
Side note: that's just what I think of off the top of my head without actually knowing your character - Foresight means this Grim Reaper will know your strengths and weaknesses far better than I do.
ZZTRaider wrote: Foresight does exactly what it says it does:
- The caster receives warning about impending danger to the subject. (In this case, the Grim Reaper will be warned that he is about to get in combat.)
- The target cannot be surprised or flat footed. (No surprise round for you, and even if you beat the Grim Reaper's initiative, you don't get to attack flat footed AC.)
- +2 insight bonus to AC and Reflex saves.
- "The spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself."
That last point is the most troubling, as that is up to DM discretion. Note that running away is a valid option as how to best protect one's self.
The last part was mainly what I was unsure of, the rest of it won't be an issue though because the mount (a Pegasus) has a constant detect evil so we will at least know if he's hiding from us and can go from there. I'm not sure how but we will probably figure out something when the time comes.
ZZTRaider wrote: - The Grim Reaper is incorporeal, and thus immune to critical hits from weapons without the Ghost Touch property.
- As an incorporeal, the Grim Reaper also takes half damage from non-ghost touch magical weapons and damaging spells that do not deal force damage. Non-damaging spells only have a 50% chance of working.
This is troubling. We've actually never used these rules, possibly because the GM who first added incorporeal creatures (we rotate running dungeons) mainly did so as a way to deal with my horse basically doubling my damage potential at the time. I'll have to look into either getting Ghost Touch put on my weapon (at least temporarily) or finding a way to get around this issue all together.
ZZTRaider wrote: There's a lot of potential level drain here. You're going to want to get Death Ward on the entire party.[/url] This might not be as big of an issue because as far as I'm reading the drain isn't permanent (though that many lost levels in a battle is an issue). The main concern will be the actual dying because we are trying to keep the party fully alive (levels and all) so carrying around person dust and finding someone who can do a true resurrection spell will be a pain. However having Death Ward would help so if we can find a way to bring it in (a potion mayhaps, we don't have any of those who can cast the spell on the team) we will. Possibly a separate quest or random find somewhere.
ZZTRaider wrote: The Minor Reapers have a fear effect. If you can become immune to fear, it's a good idea. True, but being a separate attack and because the Minor Reapers have to fight someone 1 v. 1 this shouldn't be a major concern. Plus, the DC is only 20 which isn't too bad.
ZZTRaider wrote: A potion of Enlarge Person will not work on your mount, as it is not a humanoid. This is true which is why I didn't add the extra damage into the total above. I have talked in the group about this plan and the GM hasn't said anything so I believe he's allowing this as a special case (similar to Dire Collar) but if he changes his mind before this then it's not a major loss.
ZZTRaider wrote: If the Grim Reaper chooses to retreat, it can cast Invisibility at will. You should have some way to deal with that. This might be a little more difficult, especially since our standard plan is just 'kill it with pain' (great plan, I know) so given the hp the Reaper will likely have left (assuming I can deal with the incorporeal thing) he will (hopefully) go down before this is a problem. Otherwise the Pegasus can continue to detect the Reaper for 60 ft (assuming he doesn't shift planes).
ZZTRaider wrote: Also, as an incorporeal creature, the Grim Reaper can flee through solid objects such as walls. This is an unpleasant issue but not something we are entirely unprepared for.
DM_Blake wrote: Foresight is a tricky spell, mostly because it seems to have ambiguous benefit. A 9th level spell that basically only gives +2 AC and +2 REF is absolutely pathetic. Add on that the user cannot be surprised or flat-footed and it goes from absolutely pathetic to merely pathetic. But then you add on "warnings of impending danger" and "general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself" and now the spell is barely interesting unless you maximize the most liberal reading of those quote in which case it might just barely qualify as a decent 9th level spell.
So this will always be up to each GM to figure out and make his own rulings, but as far as I am concerned, I cannot consider this to be a 9th level spell unless I assume maximum possible benefit to those quotes.
So if I were running that grim reaper, Foresight means that he would instantly know that you're planning to go after him the very second you begin planning it. So he has lots and lots of time to develop his general idea of how best to defend himself. He would know that you do tons of damage but only when you charge, so you will find him invisible and flying and/or surrounded by controlled undead minions that absorb your charge so you can't charge the BBEG. He'll choose controlled undead that can touch attack you and drain your levels or STR to weaken you. He'll also send a Reaper after you and keep it directly between him and you, too close for you to charge the reaper and you cannot charge around it to get to Grim Reaper. While you lose more levels.
Not to mention that the best way to prevent your charge is to just wait under the ground and make its first round of full attacks against your mount. How did you enlarge it, anyway? I'm pretty sure it can kill your mount in the first round of its attacks. That probably takes most of the wind out of your sails.
Note that you still have to save against the Fear and might become shaken if you fail, which lowers your saves against some of its other abilities.
Is...
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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Michael Grate wrote: This might not be as big of an issue because as far as I'm reading the drain isn't permanent (though that many lost levels in a battle is an issue). The main concern will be the actual dying because we are trying to keep the party fully alive (levels and all) so carrying around person dust and finding someone who can do a true resurrection spell will be a pain. However having Death Ward would help so if we can find a way to bring it in (a potion mayhaps, we don't have any of those who can cast the spell on the team) we will. Possibly a separate quest or random find somewhere. Energy Drain is scary. When it's cast as a spell, it's important to remember that the saving throw doesn't come into play until after the negative levels have been present for 24 hours. The save isn't to avoid gaining negative levels, it's to prevent them from becoming permanent. The Grim Reaper can cast Energy Drain 3 times, so over 3 rounds, that's an average of 15 negative levels. If stacked on one person, that'll reduce HP by 75 and provide a -15 penalty on all d20 rolls. That's pretty painful.
The Death Touch ability isn't quite as bad -- at least then, you get a DC 33 Fortitude save to avoid the negative levels. But you're going to be making those saves potentially four times per round.
Unfortunately, you can't get potions of Death Ward; it's a 4th level spell, and potions are limited to 3rd level. You could get a wand, but it will cost 21000 gp and you'll need someone with Use Magic Device to activate it.
Michael Grate wrote: ZZTRaider wrote: If the Grim Reaper chooses to retreat, it can cast Invisibility at will. You should have some way to deal with that. This might be a little more difficult, especially since our standard plan is just 'kill it with pain' (great plan, I know) so given the hp the Reaper will likely have left (assuming I can deal with the incorporeal thing) he will (hopefully) go down before this is a problem. Otherwise the Pegasus can continue to detect the Reaper for 60 ft (assuming he doesn't shift planes). 60 ft isn't far, given that the Grim Reaper has a 60 ft fly. But Plane Shift is definitely a concern. If possible, you should bring someone with Dimensional Anchor.
ZZTRaider wrote: Energy Drain is scary. When it's cast as a spell, it's important to remember that the saving throw doesn't come into play until after the negative levels have been present for 24 hours. The save isn't to avoid gaining negative levels, it's to prevent them from becoming permanent. The Grim Reaper can cast Energy Drain 3 times, so over 3 rounds, that's an average of 15 negative levels. If stacked on one person, that'll reduce HP by 75 and provide a -15 penalty on all d20 rolls. That's pretty painful.
The Death Touch ability isn't quite as bad -- at least then, you get a DC 33 Fortitude save to avoid the negative levels. But you're going to be making those saves potentially four times per round.
Unfortunately, you can't get potions of Death Ward; it's a 4th level spell, and potions are limited to 3rd level. You could get a wand, but it will cost 21000 gp and you'll need someone with Use Magic Device to activate it.
I made this thread thinking this would be a fairly simple fight...now I see why he's a CR 20. Hmm. We're going to have to figure something out to deal with this. At the very least something to deal with the level drain post fight if worst comes to worst.
ZZTRaider wrote: 60 ft isn't far, given that the Grim Reaper has a 60 ft fly. But Plane Shift is definitely a concern. If possible, you should bring someone with Dimensional Anchor. True, but if he comes into the area of effect then it's quite likely he would have to make a double move action to get to at least my character. If we can deal with the invisibility then that reduces that problem and I'll have to check but I believe we have some option already for the plane shift.
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