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Hey everyone,
I'm wondering if there is any advice on what to do against ranged spell spells for a melee character at higher levels. Is there any reliable defense against, for instance, disintegrate, enervation etc?
I used to have smash from the air, but that is apparently no longer legal for PFS. Displacement and mirror image seem like the next two things that come to mind, however most enemies who have access to these spells will also have true sight up. Any advice?
For reference, the character is a 2H str/cha based melee 'paladin' with high UMD in a mythril fullplate with dex 14 (16 in rage). If it would somehow help out in this area, I might consider going 1H with shields.
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Spell resistance. Or murder them before they can cast.
Edit: Not sure what greater enervation is, though.
There's the Smash from the Air feat, which is a weapon mastery feat.
Unless your Slash from the Sky was supposed to say Smash from the Air.
But yeah, you kind of have to rely on you're ranged friends and spell casters in the party to help take out the spell casters who might send spells like enervation or disintegrate your way.
I feel like I should also mention that this is more a problem for strength based melee, as dex based melee has inherently a better touch AC.
Anything that adds mischance will help.
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Spell resistance. Or murder them before they can cast.
Edit: Not sure what greater enervation is, though.
Apologies, I meant energy drain, assuming it requires a touch attack since it says it functions as enervation.
That aside, how am I supposed to get spell resistance high enough to be reliable? I know of an item that has SR 20 and a mantle of SR 21, but that is basically only a 20 or so at best percent chance it works. It seems very unreliable for the investment.
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Spell Resistance usually isn't very good unless you can get something that grants you Level + 11 CR. Since the check is versus 1d20 + caster level. Against an equal level opponent that gives them only a 45% chance to fail. Not extremely reliable. And being able to actually get that high of SR is hard.
In my experience, it's not a productive path to try to go down.
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PFS outlawed Smash From the Air?
Of course they did, it allows martials to combat spells, we can't have that.
Spell Resistance is not nearly reliable enough to invest in.
Your best bet is to close the distance and splatter their brains all over the floor before they can get off too many of those spells.
Hopefully your party is prepared to help you in this endeavor.
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A few options are available:
- (Greater)Ray Shield
- Mirrored Armor
- Mirrored Shield
- Snake Style
- Ring of Protection
There are many others, I just don't have time to research them at the moment.
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A mirrored shield helps with your touch AC versus rays (though not other ranged touch spells).
A reflecting shield or ring of spell turning provide another means of defense. They're both pretty expensive, though.
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very few pfs games have anyone with mist sight abilities. at most youl force them to burn the mist away. (even though stricktly speaking since once comanded it keep spowing out mist that might actuly be futail)
actuly ring might not be pfs legal. but getting mist is easy. there are many ways. eversmoking bottle etc.
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Vs. disintegrate your best defence is a good fort save and some hit points. Which is not to say other defences are bad to have, but that's the easy one for muscle melee. Against enervation, death ward ideally; in a normal game I'd say see whether you can get a cleric to help you out, maybe in PFS you should hang on to a scroll and use it yourself if necessary?
Potions of Blur or Displacement, anything that gives you some form of concealment, Greater Invisibility, anything that boosts Dex, AC bonuses that affect touch AC such as deflection and dodge.
High level martials need buffs to deal with high level casters, and the best buffs you can get to deal with Ranged Touch attacks are Spell Resistance, Mirror Image, Displacement/Blur, Greater Invisibility, Fly, and Haste. So either rely on your allies, or take Dangerously Curious and max UMD so you can use wands/scrolls/items on yourself.
But the best way for a martial to deal with a high level caster is to blind the caster. Almost all of their bullschnickity revolves around being able to see you and have line of sight of you. So, blind them, in any way you can. Blinding Critical with a crit-fishing build is a solid choice, but you may want to rely on your allies to cast spells that can blind them and then you can chase them down.
A Ring of Counterspells can help too, but that only affects one spell that might befall you (and your DM will know which spell to not hit you with, so that's not entirely reliable because meta).
the smoke has 2 things working for it better then other displacment\mirror image.
1: no line of sight.
2: true seeing doesn't work against it.
as i said above it seem like the ring is not pfs legal as it's not marked with that pfs legal icon in the archive.
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I second the Snake Style recommendation. You may have to invest some resources to get your skill check reliable, but in the worst case scenario you've been "tricked" into getting a social skill as a martial.
For non-PFS, the Bulwark Style feat line is pretty good. The first two feats improve your Touch AC, while the third (and not legal) feat gives you the option to gain Total Cover against any attack as an immediate action.
Smoke tactics is a strong choice, but will often affect your allies negatively too (unless you're that bard archetype). The ring would for example result in a 25 diameter cloud of fog for a medium creature, which is sure to disrupt both your ranged and melee allies.
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PFS outlawed Smash From the Air?
Of course they did, it allows martials to combat spells, we can't have that.
To be fair, it doesn't just "combat" spells. At higher levels you basically get a 95% chance of negating any ranged touch spell as long as the AoOs last.
To be fair, it doesn't just "combat" spells. At higher levels you basically get a 95% chance of negating any ranged touch spell as long as the AoOs last.
And? What's the problem?
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Smash from the Air requires Str 13, Power Attack, BAB 9, Cut from the Air and the Weapon Training class feature (or Martial Focus Feat).
So you can't access it till at least level 9, doesn't work with dex based melee builds, and requires 2 or 3 feats to be able to block targeted spells that target touch AC.
Is it good? Sure, but many builds don't have room for the feats.
Also, the enemy has to be aware and not flat footed against the attack.
And without combat reflexes you could only block one such attack a round.
And spell casters have a lot of non-touch attack options to fall back to.
This is a great defensive power that didn't need to be nerfed or banned.
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Wow, lots of good stuff. Thanks everyone. I'd like to reply to a lot of these individually, but... um... I'm not sure how to multi-quote. Is that possible on this site?
Regarding the slightly off-topic smash from the sky/PFS ban discussion, personally I agree with Claxon that it isn't overpowered since it is a large investments of feats (4 with combat reflexes) to get a defense against one specific type of spell attacks. Let's be honest, a caster can still just maze you anyway and remove you from the fight entirely with no save or attack roll required, and has any number of other save or die or save or suck abilities to choose from. But I realize this isn't my call to make. I will however really miss the flavor of being able to parry meteor swarm attacks in the last PFS module I was in (which also featured maze on the enemy side).
Smash from the Air requires Str 13, Power Attack, BAB 9, Cut from the Air and the Weapon Training class feature (or Martial Focus Feat).
So you can't access it till at least level 9, doesn't work with dex based melee builds, and requires 2 or 3 feats to be able to block targeted spells that target touch AC.
Is it good? Sure, but many builds don't have room for the feats.
True true, for a non-fighter who doesn't care about Combat Reflexes that's 4 feats if they want to block several attacks. For a reach-based fighter it's just 2, though.
I'd say what gets my alarm bells ringing is the sheer number of times you can use the feat during a round compared to all other "once per round" equivalent feats. This is supposed to be balanced by the fact that the deflection has a risk of failure, but this risk is probably considerably lower than what the designer had in mind since you convert your high offense into defense.
I guess I'm overestimating the feat because I'm not judging it based on a low-dex character with a moderate attack bonus. My mind went straight to any of the dex builds with Power Attack, or a High Guardian.
The biggest glaring hole in Smash from Air is that it will do nothing against summons or AoE spells.
Sure, it allows you to negate some otherwise really nasty spells that don't offer saves, like Enervation. But hell, arguably those spells are the overpowered problem that this was built in response to.
And yet that has nothing to do with Smash from the Air.
Sure, a character could devote a large portion of their character wealth and development to becoming as resistant to spells as possible.
That's just building a focused character.
My bad, I thought you we're talking about why Smash from the Air would be overpowered, not just suggesting ways in which to better defend your character.
I misunderstood the purpose behind your post.
The biggest glaring hole in Smash from Air is that it will do nothing against summons or AoE spells.
Sure, it allows you to negate some otherwise really nasty spells that don't offer saves, like Enervation. But hell, arguably those spells are the overpowered problem that this was built in response to.
A well built fighter at high level can already walk through AoEs just as easily as a rogue.