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Continuation of thread here.
I am running Reign of Winter and seriously considering if I should ban obscuring mist, or nerf it. At the very start of the campaign, I had banned all vision blocking effects with conjunction of ways to see through(I.e. no goz mask + obscuring mist, no deeper darkness + fiendsight).
Reason being:I'm running a published AP, almost as written, as I am running mostly from phone(yay!), and know jack about the CR system. But just musing about my failings as a GM, nothing to see...
TLDR: I wish to run the mod as closely as written as possible.
Outdoors, not so much of a problem. Blame monsters for not jumping into the obscuring mist the party created. Their loss, it happens.
The problem is later there will be dungeons where there will be no way to escape into obscuring mist. The party can hide in there, shoot out of the mist, and it will shut down the caster BBEGs, which for some reason have a really weird slew of spells prepared. Suffice to say they don't have much(if any) spells to deal with obscuring mist. The next problem is that I won't even know where the party is exactly if I'm not next to them, and standing next to melee beatsticks is not good for longevity.
Am I overreacting by wanting to ban/nerf the spell? And if I do not touch how the spell works, how am I supposed to deal with it?
Primarily I only have the witch spell list to work with. No, I do not get dispel magic. Besides trading a level 3 spell for a level 1 spell is a >.< bargain.
I don't think the 20 ft radius of obscuring mist is all that damning, especially since people inside can't attack out just as much as people outside can't attack in.
Do casters in Reign of Winter really have no fire damage spells?
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Reign of Winter - what does the title say lol?
Some bbegs are specifically forbidden from even preparing fire spells.
The people inside cannot attack. That does not stop them from sending summons out, as long as the guy standing at the edge tells them which square to send their summons to attack.
I'm perfectly cool with invisibility and tossing summons, since invis is a level 2 spell, and can be glitterdusted off. Getting rid of fog clouds however, needs special spell prep which most AP's won't cater for.
This being the AP that takes a trip to WWI Russia, I'd say that there's a good amount of room for unexpected events to occur.
Use other AoE spells that have a radius larger than 20 ft.
Has your party actually used obscuring mist in this way yet or are you just guessing what they may do?
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They just did it, but it was outdoors. If they do it indoors, then it gets problematic. And I know a number of nice claustrophobic dungeons coming up.
I don't have much AE to begin with, mostly single target, and definitely not more then 20 ft.At least not at this level.
Forcing casters to move up to them with an obscuring mist wand gives me a bad feeling.
I've been a player in RoW, I've recently finished Rasputin Must Die and this is my opinion on Obscuring Mist:
At that time we were two casters who could cast obscuring mist, a druid and me, a time witch.
We both used to have that spell prepared but we couldn't abuse it because:
1. It's centered on the caster. Enemies couldn't attack us, neither could we attack them.
2. Enemies casted buffs on themselves, waiting for us to come out.
3. Weather was often awful, dispelling the mist in a few rounds.
4. Summoned creatures were not that useful in low levels. They only remained for a round or two and enemies attacked them from a distance, making them fall without dealing a lot of damage.
5. If an enemy can AoE nothing is keeping him from casting something that covers the mist's area and damaging the characters who hide in it.
Obscuring mist can be useful, indeed. We used it with a high ammount of success in many encounters, but it wasn't such a game breaking tool.
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The problem is if you stand at the edge of the mist, you can hit out without penalty(I think), but from out hitting in is a problem.
2. The witch buff list is not really very useful. You don't get mirror image, displacement, blur. False life and Mage armor should've been casted at the start of the day. Flight hex is not doing you any good if you're stuck somewhere that is only 10 ft high.
3. Uhhh...I don't think I'm going to do that to anyone. Unless the mod states wind speed.
5. I don't have much(if any) damaging AE's. Non damaging AEs - they'll just sit in there until the duration wears out.
RAW is a bit ambiguous for mist. You could choose whatever interpretation seems most balanced.
You get 20% concealment for 5 feet of mist, and full concealment for 10 feet or more (I assume it means 10 feet of mist, not 10 feet of distance). Most people include their target's square, but not their own square. That means if you stand at the edge of the mist, you get the benefit of 20% concealment, while you can attack an opponent outside the mist with no penalty. If you stand one space further back, your opponent outside the mist gets 20% concealment and you get full concealment.
If you want to make it so that the standing-in-mist advantage doesn't exist, you could say the concealment is always equal in both directions. If either or both of you is standing in mist, that's 5 feet of mist. Any mist squares between you counts as another 5 feet. That way mist is good for retreating into, but not especially good for fighting out of.
^If anything, concealment should be worse looking out. Think of a frosted glass shower enclosure -- if somebody inside puts their hand on the inside surface, you will be able to see it well enough to aim, but if they put their face up against it, they still won't be able to see you.
The module, IIRC states that ranged attacks are hampered by the weather, I think strong winds were blowing.
^If anything, concealment should be worse looking out.
When playing by the "it's easier from the inside" rules interpretation, I imagine that you can peek your head out of the fog when you're firing your bow and then back away a little if they're returning fire.
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Snow Sight (Su) Hommelstaub can see through falling snow and sleet without taking any penalties on Perception checks as long as he there is enough light for him to see normally.
The snow reduces visibility by half, imposing a –4 penalty on Perception checks and ranged attack.
Both are copied from module itself. Seems to indicate its a visibility issue.
I'm one of the players in the game. We are already in book two.
We have a fairly melee heavy group.
Aasimar Spirit Guide Oracle (I think it is Lunar mystery) with Tongues curse and a tiger as an animal companion.
Tiefling Steelblood Bloodrager with Abyssal bloodline.
Human Verminous Hunter with giant mantis as their animal companion.
We have had multiple encounters where a party member went down in the first round of combat to ranged attacks.
In the most recent encounter, my Arcanist used a scroll of Obscuring Mist to cut down on the damage we would take from the archers. I did this as my first action and still an NPC traveling with us went down before the spell went off.
Nadya went down to arrows, partially because of the Favored Enemy bonus.
Please continue to be good about spoilers, or I will have to quit reading this thread.
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So... you are ok with house-ruling concealment cancelling abilities (e.g. darkvision) out of existence... but some sort of common sense ruling like; 'two characters in adjacent squares, one just inside the mist and one just outside, both take 20% concealment penalties', is just too much of a stretch?
I think you are over-thinking it. You have already noted that there are enemies in the adventure that use concealment (AND concealment canceling perceptions). So let PCs and NPCs use the same tactics and develop the same counters.
Obscuring Mist in a hallway? Enemies can always fall back to the nearest doorway or intersection and fire into the mist from cover. Enemies all clustered together hiding in the mist... BEGGING to be hit by area effect attacks. Given that it is a cold themed campaign maybe rule that area cold effects turn 'obscuring mist' into 'momentary flurries'. Et cetera.
Actually, from what Bretl is saying it seems that the game is running right. I don't think Obscuring Mist is going to be such a deal.
Seconding this. I ran RoW and obscuring mist is a good tactical solution to some problems, but not something that makes every encounter pointless. There's really no need to complicate your life as a GM by trying to house-rule it.
Monsters aren't dumb--even dumb ones--when it comes to saving their own lives.
Also, it is just a miss chance. It's not like your PCs become immune to getting hit, it just makes it a little harder. And if the monsters go into the mist with them, the miss chance cuts both ways. Sometimes literally cuts... sometimes pokes, sometimes bludgeons.
*EDIT - That last paragraph applies globally, not just to RoW. All the times I've seen obscuring mist in play, it has certainly affected the party often enough to be less than a "get out of monster-slapping free" card.
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So as a GM your worry is basically that the NPCs/monsters as written are one-trick ponies and the players have found an efficient way to foil it.
But the players remark that that one trick is very painful and if they don't counter it they get hosed hard...
I think this is one of the downsides of trying to use prewritten material that you need to learn to live with. If you start denying players the ability to adapt to their enemies' tactics, you take away a very big part of playing.
If the prewritten material really relies on the same trick all the time, your material is just flawed.
They just did it, but it was outdoors. If they do it indoors, then it gets problematic. And I know a number of nice claustrophobic dungeons coming up.
I don't have much AE to begin with, mostly single target, and definitely not more then 20 ft.At least not at this level.
Forcing casters to move up to them with an obscuring mist wand gives me a bad feeling.
My bolding, because the word "wand" gives me a bad feeling. Are you serious, that you put a wand of Obscure Mist in the game? Is it in the module? Can you arbitrarily swap it out for something else?
Otherwise, there's a limited number of times a day that the casters can cast a spell. If they're going down that fast, maybe they deserve the chance to use the spell, at least on a even-steven basis. (If you're misted & I'm not, we both have concealment from the other.) As a novice GM for Pathfinder, running Jade Regent & now a homebrew game, I've been finding lots of rules & strategies that I didn't know about when I was just a player! So I'm very, very sympathetic.
I will tell you that modifying the module may be essential. Apparently the APs are balanced for a non-optimized party, and if you have an alert caster and martials able to coordinate with battlefield control, they will give the printed encounters fits. Obscuring mist is probably only the harbinger of trouble to come. You see, the big issue with APs, people have told me, is that they do a lot of single-foe encounters, while you can afford to add minions, usually. And minions can help you dodge single-trick ponies among your PCs. Furthermore, adding minions isn't actually that hard.
I recommend a couple of resources, starting with a wonderful article I found on these boards (to give props where they're due) -- The GM’s Guide to Creating Challenging Encounters. It's become the basis for all the adjustments I make, and given me the courage to try homebrew.
Actually finding the minions that the GM's Guide recommends is in fact pretty easy, thanks to Paizo's Bestiary Global Index. If I play with the filters, I can pull up some low-CR minions that would be thematically appropriate without much trouble. A few tips: I always turn off the non-Bestiary books unless I want characters with class levels; I haven't found a good way to use the Subtype filter; and the "Additional Filters" have wrecked complex searches for me, without being helpful in the slightest thus far, so I consider them untouchable. The CR, Type, Climate & Terrain, and Size filters have been wonderful!
Good luck!
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To expand my point: if the players are reacting intelligently to the material you're running, that's good. Means they're invested in the game.
And if the material isn't working out for you, please don't consider the printed material a holy grail that must be applied unmodified. I don't think any AP is really meant to be used "unmixed" for long. Think of it as a solid base to work from.
I got into running Iron Gods because I just didn't get around to writing up a whole homebrew setting anymore. But having a long-term story and setting as a framework to base my campaign on makes it a lot easier to focus on twiddling with only the specific the bits I really care about changing.
Primarily I only have the witch spell list to work with. No, I do not get dispel magic.
Don't you? Why not? It's on the witch list, as is Greater Dispel.
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Run spell list as written, I don't.But I suppose I could tweak...if I wanted to. I'll think about it. What's switching a few spells...
No! It's the path to the dark side! I'm not supposed to put in phanstasmal killer because I think it's funny!
But yes, based on what I've read here, I'll leave the spell as it is. And learn to jump into mist better.
The good news is shooting at someone at the edge of the mist gives 20% concealment and not 50% concealment(which I previously thought earlier).