Hey all--
We have a 7th level mystic/empath face character with few combat skills using spells to do some good in battle. We've been running through the Dead Suns sequence of modules. While she already has fear at 2nd level, and the question is what should the second 3rd level attack spell be after Mind Thrust, Fear or Slow?
The considerations: other than force blast, she has no method of affecting constructs etc with no mind, so +1 for slow. Fear seems more effective in that creatures affected are pretty much removed from combat, but. . . The cone area effect seems almost a disadvantage in that nearly all the time she would want to cast fear the foes and allies are all intermingled on the map. And it's nice to get to pick another 2nd level spell when Fear gets promoted to third level. So +1 for Fear.
Whatcha all think? Fear or slow?
Considering that you'll have mind thrust, keep in mind that both fear and mind thrust are mind-affecting. That means if those are your 3rd levels, every time you face constructs, undead, or mindless creatures, that mystic will be sitting on their hands.
My vote's for slow. Fear is the stronger spell in isolation. I'd definitely pick it up eventually.
Fear only works on CR8- enemies.
Anyway, Slow is the best save or suck spell in the game. It affects everything (especially constructs which have very low will saves), it's easy to land and it is far more efficient in Starfinder than in Pathfinder. There is no valid competitor, he'll be using it from level 7 to level 20.
I have a player in my Dead Suns campaign with Slow, and just as SuperBidi said, it is an incredibly useful spell.
It basically ends encounters.
What do you mean? Fear is useful from level the level 1 version. It gets a lot bigger at 7, but it's been online the whole time.
In the case in this thread, I would suggest going with slow, because not having a spell to affect fairly common enemy types is a huge lack.
Well, the majority seems to like Slow; I'll go with it. Thanks for the input.
What do you mean? Fear is useful from level the level 1 version. It gets a lot bigger at 7, but it's been online the whole time.
The low versions of Fear have CR limits. You need the level 4 one to be useful until the end of the game. For a level 3 spells, having a CR8 limit is pretty annoying.
Also, people tend to forget about a few things about Slow:- It prevents attacks of opportunities. So, against a melee monster, you just have to move out of its reach every turn and it won't be able to attack while slowed. Also, it gives a lot of mobility to the party to be able to move through monsters like a hot knife through butter.
- It prevents trick attacks. And I've crossed quite a few operative enemies, and they very often deal a tremendous amount of damage while trick attacking and nearly nothing otherwise.
- It prevents full attack. Considering the chances to hit monsters have, if you manage to slow a big boss, you reduce his damage output by 50%. And very quickly (level 10), you start seeing monsters with 3 attacks per round.
- It works on absolutely anything and most monsters immune to mind-affecting have very low will saves (oozes, constructs, vermins).
- It reduces movement to a quarter. This one is pretty awful, but because it reduces movement by half and limit the monsters to one action per turn, most monsters will move 15-20ft as a full round action while slowed. Sometimes, it's important to avoid a monster to flee or to get to an important objective.
- It prevents monsters from flying unless they have perfect maneuvrability.
It's really a bread and butter spell. Fear is more of a situational spell, due to the area, the short range and the fact that it works only on non mind-affecting immune enemies. It doesn't make Fear a bad spell, but not one to choose at level 7 (and because you won't choose it after level 8, it's better to wait for the level 4 version).
I can see people forgetting that only creatures with perfect maneuverability can attempt to hover as a free action, but who is forgetting that staggered creatures can't use full actions and reactions?
I can see people forgetting that only creatures with perfect maneuverability can attempt to hover as a free action, but who is forgetting that staggered creatures can't use full actions and reactions?
*Hover as a swift action. Which staggered creatures still have of course.
Reactions seem easy to forget in the middle of combat.
I absolutely meant to type swift, there.
I can see people forgetting that only creatures with perfect maneuverability can attempt to hover as a free action, but who is forgetting that staggered creatures can't use full actions and reactions?
Excellent point about the reactions being disallowed while staggered. That was really the thing that tipped the scale.
I can see people forgetting that only creatures with perfect maneuverability can attempt to hover as a free action, but who is forgetting that staggered creatures can't use full actions and reactions?
You have your answer.
But, yeah, it was a list of what Slow gives, as some of the things I listed were pretty obvious.