Confusion or Slow?

[vorpaljesus]

If I'm only going to prepare one of these which do you suggest and why?

Also looking at Howling Agony. This is for my Twilight Sage Arcanist with Spell focus Necromancy.

Please and thanks

[andreww]

Neither, I would prep Fear. Confusion slows the game to a crawl and may end up doing nothing. Fear disables enemies, may well force them to provoke opportunity attacks as they flee and works with your spell focus.

If forced to choose between the two I would probably go with Slow but it would depend on what sort of situation you were going into.

[Chess Pwn]

Confusion works best for groups I feel, to get them all fighting each other.
Slow works well for groups and for solo enemies and totally limits what they can do.

[CampinCarl9127]

I don't like the target area of confusion. Everybody within a 15 foot burst. It's short range and doesn't discriminate. It will put you in danger and will probably hurt your allies.

I would much prefer slow. Less devastating, but more reliable.

[Slithery D]

CampinCarl9127 wrote:

I don't like the target area of confusion. Everybody within a 15 foot burst. It's short range and doesn't discriminate. It will put you in danger and will probably hurt your allies.

I would much prefer slow. Less devastating, but more reliable.

Confusion is actually medium range, so potentially you can hit enemy groups at a distance where your party won't ever be the closest people to attack when that result comes up. But yes, it does have real practical limitations.

[Fruian Thistlefoot]

Well Slow is a 3rd level spell and confusion is a 4th level spell.

But I agree Fear>confusion when you have SF- Necromancy and (I hope) Potent Magic.

[Gwen Smith]

Slow has the advantage of not being mind affecting. Sometimes, that will be important. A wizard in our area uses slow with tanglefoot bags as an alchemical power component: slow and entangled is devastating, because it takes them at least one full round to escape.

[vorpaljesus]

Fruian Thistlefoot wrote:

Well Slow is a 3rd level spell and confusion is a 4th level spell.

But I agree Fear>confusion when you have SF- Necromancy and (I hope) Potent Magic.

Yeah just trying to avoid redundancy even though they are different levels. And i do have potent magic.

What I dont like about fear is the shape of the area and the range. And chasing down targets. But I might give it a shot since it fits thematically. Going for a Sith type guy

[TriOmegaZero]

Confusion is highly variable. If you can stick it on a group of enemies and stand back, the enemy will kill themselves for you. Or nothing will happen and you will have wasted rounds of buff durations and minutes of game time for nothing. Slow will devastate enemy offense. Go with Slow.

[CampinCarl9127]

Thanks Slithery D, I misunderstood the target area.

The spell is a little better than since you can more carefully place it. But it's still unreliable in my opinion. Confusion is only really good if you can hit a group of enemies and then slip away and let them kill each other.

[Maezer]

From a PC perspective, I find slow to much more useful. The biggest reason is that more creatures are immune to mind affecting abilities than transmutation. It also requires less coordination between party members, as confused people attacking whoever attacked them often leaves them still attacking your party.

That said, from a DM perspective. Confusion is much more fun. Parties are vastly more likely to be able to fix slow with haste, than deal with confusion. Also they are generally not immune to confusion. And as all the NPC are controlled by the DM, its generally easier to coordinate them.

Howling agony... mechanically I don't really like, though as a necromancer its thematic at least. It strikes me as an anti-melee spell (reducing AC and melee damage) but it targets fortitude which is generally the strength of melee characters.

[Drunken Irishman]

Don't forget that Slow counters and dispels Haste

[Triune]

I'm gonna disagree and say confusion, with the caveat that you need an organized group to get the most out of it.

If you win initiative or get the jump on the enemy in some other way, that spell can single handedly end encounters. Slow, on the other hand, is really only great against monsters that need to full attack. Nasty special abilities, spells, and big single attacks are not really affected.

My wizard always memorizes a couple of confusions. The only time it has failed to be great is when the enemy makes all of their saves.