| This Side |
Hey all,
First time GM here, and I just ran into a PC casting Wall of Thorns for the first time. He managed to trap 4 high level NPCs (with no save) in enough thorns that it would be practically impossible for them to get out, then lit the entire thing on fire using a Flaming Sphere. It was towards the end of a long session (and I was pretty frustrated), so I just hand-waved it and said they all died. However, this seems like an incredibly broken mechanic to kill pretty much anything, so I am hoping to have some kind of counter in the future.
My initial thought was to say that the fire damages the thorns enough to allow anyone inside to break out easily, while taking some amount of fire damage. Has anyone else encountered this and have another way of dealing with it? Or any general ideas?
| andreww |
Magical fire will damage wall of thorns but it takes 10 minutes to do so.
I might treat it as being trapped in a Forest Fire.
Wall of Thorns is very effective against people who cannot fly, burrow, dimension door, cast dispel magic etc, all of which should be fairly common at this level. Minimal fire resistance will also shut this down. A Potion of Fire Resistance (10) is 300gp.
| This Side |
The problem is, this is against NPCs who are not necessarily optimized or primed to account for contingencies like PCs might be. For example, buying a potion of fire resistance is not really an option, and I would imagine there are numerous examples where NPCs might not have burrow, dimension door, or dispel magic (though I guess I could force casters to prepare additional dispel magics, even if their stat blocks do not normally have this).
Thank you for pointing out the forest fire trap - that is probably a good mechanic to use along with making it easier for characters to escape burning thorns - it makes this a very good damaging and crowd control spell, without being an immediate death sentence.
| Pizza Lord |
Too Long: Didn't Read at end.
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Effect wall of thorny brush, up to one 10-ft. cube/level (S)
Duration 10 min./level (D)
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
A wall of thorns spell creates a barrier of very tough, pliable, tangled brush bearing needle-sharp thorns as long as a human's finger. Any creature forced into or attempting to move through a wall of thorns takes piercing damage per round of movement equal to 25 minus the creature's AC. Dexterity and dodge bonuses to AC do not count for this calculation. (Creatures with an AC of 25 or higher, without considering Dexterity and dodge bonuses, take no damage from contact with the wall.)
You can make the wall as thin as 5 feet thick, which allows you to shape the wall as a number of 10-by-10-by-5-foot blocks equal to twice your caster level. This has no effect on the damage dealt by the thorns, but any creature attempting to break through takes that much less time to force its way through the barrier.
Creatures can force their way slowly through the wall by making a Strength check as a full-round action. For every 5 points by which the check exceeds 20, a creature moves 5 feet (up to a maximum distance equal to its normal land speed). Of course, moving or attempting to move through the thorns incurs damage as described above. A creature trapped in the thorns can choose to remain motionless in order to avoid taking any more damage.
Any creature within the area of the spell when it is cast takes damage as if it had moved into the wall and is caught inside. In order to escape, it must attempt to push its way free, or it can wait until the spell ends. Creatures with the ability to pass through overgrown areas unhindered can pass through a wall of thorns at normal speed without taking damage.
A wall of thorns can be breached by slow work with edged weapons. Chopping away at the wall creates a safe passage 1 foot deep for every 10 minutes of work. Normal fire cannot harm the barrier, but magical fire burns it away in 10 minutes.
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Wall of Thorns is a love/hate relationship for me as a DM. I like the flavor, the fact that it's druid only. The fact that druids can pass through it despite it being magically manipulated growth, which usually prevents their woodland stride.
However, it is a poorly-thought out spell in terms of mechanics and usage ever since 3.0 (which it is just cut-and-paste from.) It's a wall which you can cast over creatures (not unique, but a definite power-boost), a lot of walls will just fail if you try this and it damages them just as if they had consciously tried to pass through it.
The way it's written makes it seem like it has lots of options for creatures interacting with it: they can push through, they can cut their way out, they can burn it, they can stand still and do nothing, etc. but these are all garbage when you stop to actually look at it.
A wall of thorns spell creates a barrier of very tough, pliable, tangled brush bearing needle-sharp thorns as long as a human's finger. Any creature forced into or attempting to move through a wall of thorns takes piercing damage per round of movement equal to 25 minus the creature's AC. Dexterity and dodge bonuses to AC do not count for this calculation. (Creatures with an AC of 25 or higher, without considering Dexterity and dodge bonuses, take no damage from contact with the wall.)
First off, it does damage unlike almost any spell or effect in the entire game. It's subtractive. It starts at a number and then goes down. This does prevent things like maximizing or empowering or having to roll dice (not that having to roll dice for damage at the start of a creature's turn or when it does something harmful is anything that is avoided, ie. swarms, walls of fire, etc.) I do like spells that do things in unique ways, but this is just clunky, especially when it uses a mechanic like AC which basically starts at 10. If you want low damage, why not make it a 1d4 damage per caster level? So what if it can be empowered or maximized? Then they're expending slots and at least it isn't an auto-drop for someone who otherwise gets no save, no resistance, and no chance against it.
Any creature within the area of the spell when it is cast takes damage as if it had moved into the wall and is caught inside. In order to escape, it must attempt to push its way free, or it can wait until the spell ends.
Oh, so a creature doesn't have to take the damage, other than initially. It can just stand still and motionless and do nothing. That's a fair trade-off, right? Just wait for the spell to end?
Except, it lasts 90 minutes, minimum. Not 1 round per level, not 1 minute per level, 10 minutes per level, minimum. Stand motionless for an hour and half. That is so absurd as a balancing factor to be almost laughable.
Also, it makes no provisions for creature size or shape. Obviously, no one expects every potential creature to be called out and a DM can make a call themselves, but it doesn't matter if you're a pixie or a titan or a snake, you apparently can't slither through a briar bush without having to physically push every single thorn out of the way in a 5-foot space.
A wall of thorns can be breached by slow work with edged weapons. Chopping away at the wall creates a safe passage 1 foot deep for every 10 minutes of work.
Oh, a person can chop through it? That's a fair balancing feature, right? Let's look at it: 1 foot... for 10 minutes of work.
Let's say you're trapped inside, just 10 feet. You can spend 100 minutes cutting your way out, likely taking 1-15 damage per round. Now in fairness, I would probably say with 5 minutes of work, you can clear a safe space to where you can swing and keep cutting without being considered 'within' the thorns, so no more damage for movement, but that's still 50 rounds (50-750 damage) to just clear a safe space to stand in. That's assuming it's a medium creature.
Oh but that's just if you're trapped, what if you're just cutting through it from the other side? That's still 100 minutes to get through 10 feet! That's just using it with one 10-foot cube to cut through, that's not mentioning it could be 20 or even 90-feet deep at the first level you get the spell. You could fill a 10-foot wide corridor with it. Even without doing that, it's still over an hour-and-half work to cut through 10-feet of it and then, poof, the spell is over.
And that's regardless of who or what you are. You're a pixie with a rusty dagger? 10 minutes to get through 1 foot. You're a human with a sickle? 10 minutes to get the 1 foot. You're a titan with an adamantine scythe or adamantium hedge-cutters? 10 minutes to clear 1 foot. Granted, you could say that larger creatures might clear a wider space, but it still doesn't matter systems-wise, it's absurd. This is not a balance to the spell, which otherwise holds you basically trapped and immobile for an hour and a half (potentially taking damage).
Creatures can force their way slowly through the wall by making a Strength check as a full-round action. For every 5 points by which the check exceeds 20, a creature moves 5 feet (up to a maximum distance equal to its normal land speed). Of course, moving or attempting to move through the thorns incurs damage as described above.
Oh, another mitigator? You can just make a Strength check to push through it (taking damage). Look at how it's written. They don't say you need a 20 to move, they say you need to beat a 20 by 5? Who writes like that? Why not just say DC 25 Strength check and move an additional 5 feet for every 5 you beat it? I don't know. It's just clumsy and confusing and I think it's very disingenuous.
The spell says 20, because that makes you think, "Oh, a 20 can be made by almost anyone. They just need a good roll." You really need a 25, just to move 5 feet (and take damage.) Think about that. If we were to assume... Arnold Schwarzenegger in his hey day as a fair example of a physical speciman (yes, body-builder, not necessarily the strongest man in the world, but a fair image of physicality for an example). He's probably at 18 Strength, +2 for human. 20 Strength. That's about an unreal amount of Strength for anyone. There's probably even 12th-level adventurers that don't have that (barring straight Strength focus). That means that at his best chance, he has a 5% chance of moving 5-feet (and taking damage). He needs to roll a 20, every time (and take damage 100% of the time, pass or fail.) That means, 95% of the time, you are worse off, just because you rolled a 19 or less. You don't move 5 feet, you don't move half distance (yes, combat is one a 5-foot grid but there can still be potential movement, such as only climbing up 2 feet, you still shortened the distance even if you rolled low.) You don't move 1 foot, nothing.
Oh, well, then you can at least take 20 and auto-succeed? Yeah, if you're Arnold Schwarzeneggar, but that's 2 minutes of work, so 20 rounds of auto-damage to move 5 feet.
Again, it's such an absurd chance at succeeding (with a penalty for even trying) that it scarcely counts as an option.
Normal fire cannot harm the barrier, but magical fire burns it away in 10 minutes.
Okay, somehow this plant is immune to fire. I don't know if normal briars are immune to fire, making this spell creates one that is, I don't have a problem with that.
Magical fire burns it away in 10 minutes. What does that mean? The whole spell? The entire wall? A 5-foot cube? A 10-foot cube? I can only assume the entire wall, regardless of length, shape, or wherever/what end you start the fire on.
There's no rules for creatures within it, unlike web. Maybe they take no damage. Maybe it's just part of the magical, fire-absorbing properies of this type of thorn bush that it soaks up the damage and leaves creatures within unhurt? We don't know... Magic!
TL:DR
I like the uniqueness of the spell, but it is just too poorly written and described. It really needs a lot of things cleared up and fixed.
For instance, these briars are so dense that even a snake couldn't apparently slither through them... yet there's no mention of concealment or cover if you're 5 feet, 10 feet, whatever distance into it? Maybe it was just assumed that anyone within cannot be seen (barring you having plant-sight or something that lets you see through undergrowth without hindrance.)
I would say, in all fairness, it's a wall of thorns, it's solid (so solid as to be nigh-on impenetrable to all but the most mythically monstrous creatures of strength), anyone inside (further than 5 feet) can't be seen or targeted. That will at least prevent 90 minute hold spells that let you just pincushion when they are already getting pincushioned from the spell.
As for a flaming sphere I would say it's just bumping into the wall and burning it. I certainly wouldn't let it do more fire damage than the spell itself causes (assuming you don't give a reflex save to avoid it like the spell.) You could just easily rule that the wall of thorns may burn away but that doesn't mean the flames are incredibly hot. Different things burn hotter or than others. Maybe they just crisp up and burn away like hair or bacon and causes only superficial burns, like splatted grease.
The spell makes no mention of damage to creatures caught in the fire and it does mention how the spell interacts with fire, so you can rule any way that is fair and keeps the spell from unbalancing games.
As it is, it's a huge area spell, it's shapeable (meaning they could make stacked, tree like growths to catch even fliers in it), does damage pretty much every round a target wants to do anything (which is almost every round), you can summon (create) it in the same space as a creature, it lasts over an hour, it's practically indestructible, and any effort other than magical fire, which still takes 10 minutes (100 round of which you can be doing anything from fleeing to buffing to setting an ambush), is going to take longer than the spell lasts (and it lasts a long time.) Plus the druid can just walk right through it.
So you need to decide how you are going to run it, because the way it's written is very unusual for how spells work. I would definitely have it grant total cover just flat out, that's obvious from its description of density and the mechanics of getting through it. As a houserule, you could give it SR and say that if a creature is caught in the effect at casting (not just moving in) and the caster fails to overcome it, their space is not filled with thorns. You could make the thorns do 1d4 per caster level damage (max 15d4). That has a potential to do way more damage, but also less. You could factor in AC like it originally does, which means higher level casters actually have a chance to damage creatures which would normally take no damage from the spell ever. It's your call from there though.