I have been working on a character and one of their more potent options (as far as spell DC's go) are things like stinking cloud, cloudkill, etc. While the conditions these apply are strong, I am having difficulty wrapping my mind around the fog cloud part of these spells.
Questions:
1. When is it a good time to drop a fog cloud?
2. When is it a bad time to drop a fog cloud?
3. Can I do anything to make a bad time for the cloud a good time (or at least a better one)?
4. Any other comments/suggestions?
EDIT: Added numerical formatting to follow Lemeres' lead.
1. At the start of a fight. That is usually when everyone is bunched together, and it is easy to target exactly who you want to target. Whether this is to catch only enemies in a poisonous kind of cloud, or hide allies in a covering cloud, depends on the situation.
2. when everyone is mixed together. Goes back to above. You do not want to catch your friends in a cloudkill.
3. Tell your allies to back away. This can be obvious to enemies, but maybe you have a nice bunched group of initiatives, or someone readies an action.
Main suggestion: fog cutting lenses for all the party as soon as you can afford them.
Be aware that cloud spells hinder visibility so people won't be able to do ranged attacks.
Dropping a fog spells against ranged enemies can be a great strategy because you will force them to get out of the cloud, but you would be also keeping them from being targeted by your own party's ranged attacks and keeping them from charging.
Fog cutting lenses/Goz masks look great for this! Expensive, but buying a pair for the frontliner and some scrolls of delay poison would go a long way I think.
What are my party's options as far as combat if I do drop a stinking cloud or a cloudkill on the enemy? Pretty much wait for the bad guys to come crawling out and focus fire? Doesn't sound too bad if they have taken con damage or are nauseated, but is there anything else they can do?
Fog cutting lenses/Goz masks look great for this! Expensive, but buying a pair for the frontliner and some scrolls of delay poison would go a long way I think.
What are my party's options as far as combat if I do drop a stinking cloud or a cloudkill on the enemy? Pretty much wait for the bad guys to come crawling out and focus fire? Doesn't sound too bad if they have taken con damage or are nauseated, but is there anything else they can do?
readied actions seem like a more formalized method of waiting... but yeah. clouds tend to be a bit flashy, center stage affairs compared with many spells. It is a rather nice ice breaker though, since the wizard in the back line doesn't like to stand in poison, so he will move forward (easier target)
If you have other casters in the party, you can have them shell the cloud with area effects. Most don't require ranged attacks which would be foiled by fog.
If your party consists of gunslingers, crossbowmen, and archers, on the other hand, then maybe don't rely on fog spells too much.
Reach also seems nice- if you can position your reach user to get AoOs on those exiting the fog.
Actually, not entirely sure on how the rules work with concealment and crossing the edge of squares.... but I am going to hope this works, since it seems cool....
All good points! I'll keep the fogs in my pocket as needed, but it seems like it probably will be a good option to start combat with at least half the time.
Besides the goggles/mask, is there anything I can provide my party with to help them join in the fun? I forgot to mention that this is for PFS, so I will have a good amount of resource to spend on consumables.
All good points! I'll keep the fogs in my pocket as needed, but it seems like it probably will be a good option to start combat with at least half the time.
Besides the goggles/mask, is there anything I can provide my party with to help them join in the fun? I forgot to mention that this is for PFS, so I will have a good amount of resource to spend on consumables.
Besides the goggles and masks? You really need more than that!?
Our Skull and Shackles party has been using fog spells and those magical items to devastating effect for nigh on ten levels! Almost nothing can stand against them due to the outrageous effectiveness of the combo.
In nearly ten levels, the only thing that could effectively harry them was a high-level druid who used control weather and dust of invisibility in advance of the confrontation.
Well at eight grand a pop, I can't be supplying the whole party with their own set! It certainly is a very powerful combination, I'm jst trying to find out if there is a work around via consumables :)
I'll be going straight sorcerer, so unfortunately flame dancer bard is off the table, but maaaaaan oh man is that an awesome ability! Eversmoking bottle, anyone?
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Well at eight grand a pop, I can't be supplying the whole party with their own set! It certainly is a very powerful combination, I'm jst trying to find out if there is a work around via consumables :)
I'll be going straight sorcerer, so unfortunately flame dancer bard is off the table, but maaaaaan oh man is that an awesome ability! Eversmoking bottle, anyone?
At low levels couldn't afford the Bottle (Fame or GP) - I use Smoke Sticks in each players belt and then use the spell spark, that way I could drop each player into a "concealment" area as needed - plus I have scrolls of Obsuring Mist to hand out to those PCs who can cast them. Other things to cause smoke/fog are cool too. (Got access to a Horn of Fog early on and am thinking of buying it)... this is actually my second Flame Dancer (my other is higher level and has the Bottle - thou she has never used it. Did the Goz Mask/bottle thing in EotT with ANOTHER PC Class and it sort of upset the Judge, so I plan to only use the Bottle as a "last resort")
Any way, YOU don't need to be the Flame Dancer (that would mess up your build) you just need to have one in your party. SO, where do you play? Maybe we can get together?
;-)
Does your GM like to have mixed encounters with tough melee types in the front and a bunch of spellcasters or ranged attackers at the rear?
If so, planting a cloud in between the two groups of enemies can block line of sight.
The other nice utility of cloud spells is to give you a round or two of buff time. If you can train your melee fighters not to immediately charge and hold back a minute, you have time to cast Haste, Bless, Enlarge Person or the like.
Also note that clouds create hampered movement. Per the movement table in the core rulebook, any situation where a creature has poor visibility means their movement is hampered, x2 cost per square. Great way to slow down pursuers and stops a charger build dead in its tracks.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/additionalRules.html#tactic al-movement
"Hampered Movement: Difficult terrain, obstacles, and poor visibility can hamper movement (see Table: Hampered Movement for details). When movement is hampered, each square moved into usually counts as two squares, effectively reducing the distance that a character can cover in a move.
Per the Obscuring Mist and all other fog spells that use its rules:
"A misty vapor arises around you. It is stationary. The vapor obscures all sight, including darkvision, beyond 5 feet."
Every square adjacent to you has concealment, and every square past this has total concealment. Thus, poor visibility applies, increasing movement cost to 2x each square. If the square also has an obstacle or difficult terrain, it would cost 4x movement. If it's poor visibility, difficult terrain and has an obstacle, it's 8x movement.
If there are no rules that negate this, that makes cloud spells eeeeeeven more awesome!
Pyrokineticists are also good at making clouds at will.
Well at eight grand a pop, I can't be supplying the whole party with their own set! It certainly is a very powerful combination, I'm jst trying to find out if there is a work around via consumables :)
I'll be going straight sorcerer, so unfortunately flame dancer bard is off the table, but maaaaaan oh man is that an awesome ability! Eversmoking bottle, anyone?
It's only 4,000 a piece if you craft them. That's what the arcanist in our party did. Equipped everyone.