I'm converting a PF1 encounter to PF2, and have come up against a RAW-compliance roadblock.
A flying wizard only gets two actions per turn, since he must use one action to fly, even if it's only to hover in place. That leaves 2 actions for a spell, but adding metamagic becomes impossible. Unless...
I was thinking of giving the NPC Haste, but Haste only allows Stride and Strike actions... and Stride appears to only work for land speed movement, not including flying.
Is there another way to do this? Or do I have to swap out the fly spell for something like Air Walk (through trick magic item for the primal/divine spell on an arcane wizard) to keep this guy in the air, and still use Reach Spell for a ranged touch spell attack?
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Stride: you move up to your speed
Movement in encounters: Your movement during encounter mode depends on the actions and other abilities you use. Whether you Stride, Step, Swim, or Climb, the maximum distance you can move is based on your Speed. Certain feats or magic items can grant you other movement types, allowing you to swiftly burrow, climb, fly, or swim
When you stride, you can use any applicable movement speed you possess (or a mixture of them, if appropriate).
If I am not entirely mistaken Levitate & Fly also works...
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I was thinking of giving the NPC Haste, but Haste only allows Stride and Strike actions... and Stride appears to only work for land speed movement, not including flying.
The problem isn't that stride doesn't work with a fly speed, as it totally does.
The problem is that haste gives you a stride action and not the separate fly action. The issue with flight is:
If you’re airborne at the end of your turn and didn’t use a Fly action this round, you fall.
Meaning that by RaW even if you use the Stride action to move your speed with a fly speed, you don't meet the conditions of the Fly action not to fall - as you didn't fly, you strode... in the air.
Now, with that said, as a GM, I would be more than happy to say that RaI is that taking a stride action with a fly speed is more than sufficient to meet the intended effect of the fly action to avoid falling.
IMHO, stride really should have been an umbrella action rather than a discrete action in and of itself.
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I'm converting a PF1 encounter to PF2, and have come up against a RAW-compliance roadblock.
A flying wizard only gets two actions per turn, since he must use one action to fly, even if it's only to hover in place. That leaves 2 actions for a spell, but adding metamagic becomes impossible. Unless...
I was thinking of giving the NPC Haste, but Haste only allows Stride and Strike actions... and Stride appears to only work for land speed movement, not including flying.
Is there another way to do this? Or do I have to swap out the fly spell for something like Air Walk (through trick magic item for the primal/divine spell on an arcane wizard) to keep this guy in the air, and still use Reach Spell for a ranged touch spell attack?
So I think you are going about this from the wrong direction. As an NPC they don't have to follow the same rules as a PC. Just give the NPC a special ability, like:
Magical LevityMagic McMagicface is highly adept at combining his magical actions, if he uses a metamagic feat to cast a spell that takes at least two actions, he can use the Fly action as a free action, but only to hover in place.Problem solved. it's not overpowering, since the NPC can't move, but it also allows them to still do their thing.
Alternatively, what metamagic feats were you considering? Other than quicken I can't really think of any that are PC facing that would benefit an NPC. In that case you can just give them another ability saying they can do X once per day to modify a spell as a free action.
So, it appears that there are several opinions suggesting that allowing the extra Stride action from Haste to qualify for keeping a flying wizard in the air wouldn't be a very egregious departure from the RAW.
This obviouslt also has an impact for PC wizards (or other spellcasters and MC spellcasters and non-spellcasters using fly scrolls or whatver) using the fly spell in conjunction with Haste, to preserve their action economy.
I also feel that the Stride action from Haste should be applicable to other modes of movement, whether it's fly, swim, climb, burrow or whatever. Is it a simple oversight on the part of our pals at Paizo? Or an intentional limit, meant to restrict the benefits of Haste to those using a conventional land speed?
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I was thinking of giving the NPC Haste, but Haste only allows Stride and Strike actions... and Stride appears to only work for land speed movement, not including flying.
The problem isn't that stride doesn't work with a fly speed, as it totally does.
The problem is that haste gives you a stride action and not the separate fly action. The issue with flight is:
If you’re airborne at the end of your turn and didn’t use a Fly action this round, you fall.Meaning that by RaW even if you use the Stride action to move your speed with a fly speed, you don't meet the conditions of the Fly action not to fall - as you didn't fly, you strode... in the air.
Now, with that said, as a GM, I would be more than happy to say that RaI is that taking a stride action with a fly speed is more than sufficient to meet the intended effect of the fly action to avoid falling.
IMHO, stride really should have been an umbrella action rather than a discrete action in and of itself.
Stride already is an umbrella term that means any movement you have.
Any ability that says you "Stride" can also be used for other movement speeds. You can Sudden Charge into the sky if you have a fly speed, and even underwater if you have a Swim speed. Your interpretation means you would never be able to make use of Haste to move more in an underwater setting either.
If it was restricted only to ground movement, it would specifically say that you can't use the action to fly, swim or burrow.
Alternatively, what metamagic feats were you considering? Other than quicken I can't really think of any that are PC facing that would benefit an NPC. In that case you can just give them another ability saying they can do X once per day to modify a spell as a free action.
Well, since you asked, in the PF1 encounter I was planning to port over, the flying wizard is a necromancer whose tactics involve flying out of reach, and then using Spectral Hand to cast touch spells at range.
Now, there are several problems with this in PF2.
The Spectral Hand spell says, "Whenever you Cast a Spell with a range of touch, you can have the hand crawl to a target within range along the ground, touch it, and then crawl back to you."
So logically, you couldn't use Spectral Hand while flying.
My fix was to give the guy Reach Spell metamagic, to make those touch spells from range. But to use Reach Spell, you need a third action. WIth no actions left to remain flying.
The next step was to suppose he'd pre-cast Haste, allowing him several rounds of 4 actions per turn, so he can use Reach Spell and another spell, at a 3-action cost, and still have an action left to fly, from Haste.
If we ignore an inconveniently worded caveat in the fly action itself, the Stride action from Haste can allow a flying wizard to remain flying and still use 3 actions in the round to cast spells.
IMHO, this is a better solution than to make up a special NPC-only feat allowing him to hover and do metamagic as Kelseus suggests (good idea, though, K).
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If you're really worries about his action economy, just give him the ability to hover in place.
Trigger: Your turn starts and you are Flying.
Effect: You Fly 0 feet.
Note this isn't a feat. NPCs don't have feats. They do have custom abilities very often. Never shy away from giving your NPCs any abilities you think they need to be a challenge to the PCs.
It just feels better if it's a RAW-compliant interpretation of existing PC abilities. A 7th-level necromancer could well have fly and haste at his disposal, obviating the need for a custom ability made out of whole cloth.
I'm also glad I don't have to poach the Air Walk spell from the primal or divine lists (via Trick Magic Item and a scroll).
And frankly, haste and fly need to be able to work together. I don't expect our pals at Paizo to clarify the apparent lack of synergy between these two spells, but they really ought to work together.
To Andreww: You're right, of course, but the crux of the matter is that the restrictions placed on the Haste spell were intended to avoid things like wizards casting two 2-action spells in a round, not to prevent using your haste-granted movement to keep flying in the air without falling. A strict reading of the RAW doesn't allow using the haste-granted Stride action to remain flying, but that ruling seems far too restrictive, and it should allow other modes of movement.
I guess I have to concede that it will be a houserule.
The Spectral Hand spell says, "Whenever you Cast a Spell with a range of touch, you can have the hand crawl to a target within range along the ground, touch it, and then crawl back to you."
Its very hard to adjudicate these. Clearly there is a simple case that it moves along the ground so it doesn't work with a flying caster or a flying target.
However you need to consider:
a) is it a function of natural English language (as normally we don't fly)
b) is it a deliberate balance restriction
c) is it describing the special effect of the spell and is it an appropriate limit of that special effect.
Personally I think it is not either of the first two and is just describing the special effect. But that it should not be a limit of that special effect. For starters the hand is moving 120 in the space of an action. Which doesn't make sense for a finger powered hand. A crawling hand is clearly magically powered, and essentially flying anyway to get that sort of speed. Such a thing can reasonably leap at the beginning and end of their movement without violating the special effect.
I wouldn't complain if a GM ruled either way on this.
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Stride: you move up to your speed
Movement in encounters: Your movement during encounter mode depends on the actions and other abilities you use. Whether you Stride, Step, Swim, or Climb, the maximum distance you can move is based on your Speed. Certain feats or magic items can grant you other movement types, allowing you to swiftly burrow, climb, fly, or swim
When you stride, you can use any applicable movement speed you possess (or a mixture of them, if appropriate).
Yep
I'd definitely be applying common sense and allowing the hasted action stride to count as a fly action.
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It seems to me like the intention of the tactic from PF1 is a better fit for levitate as a spell, rather than fly. It seems like there was a pretty intentional language shift there to make levitate the spell a caster would cast to get thrown up into the air and then use reach to cast touch saving throw spells.
I think it's an intentional power shift based on the dominance of flight in PF1. And that Spectral Hand was weakened on purpose, though I hesitate to say why.
Of course, in PF1 many bosses HAD to fly in order to survive the first round or two. An PF2 boss may not have to (though if using the PC paradigm to build rather than the NPC one, then maybe so.)
As mentioned, Levitate should be an answer if the boss isn't based on spell attacks and doesn't need to move particularly much (w/ Fly added if they do).
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The problem isn't that stride doesn't work with a fly speed, as it totally does.Sadly this isnt true.
Each of these special movement types has its own Speed value. Many creatures have these Speeds naturally. The various types of movement are listed below. Since the Stride action can be used only with your normal Speed, moving using one of these movement types requires using a special action, and you can’t Step while using one of these movement types. Since Speed by itself refers to your land Speed, rules text concerning these special movement types specifies the movement types to which it applies.
This feels really, really stupid as a rule, because a lot of abilities already incorporate this corresponding problem with their applications, whereas other abilities and base options don't because reasons?
Take Sudden Charge, which lets me substitute my Strides for an equivalent movement type that I have a speed for. Compare that to a bonus Haste action, which doesn't have that verbiage, and it really makes me scratch my head as to why one has better permissions than the other.
I think it's an intentional power shift based on the dominance of flight in PF1. And that Spectral Hand was weakened on purpose, though I hesitate to say why.
Of course, in PF1 many bosses HAD to fly in order to survive the first round or two. An PF2 boss may not have to (though if using the PC paradigm to build rather than the NPC one, then maybe so.)As mentioned, Levitate should be an answer if the boss isn't based on spell attacks and doesn't need to move particularly much (w/ Fly added if they do).
This just changes one problem (having to maintain flight as a non-hasted action) with another (any attack rolls you make take a -2, and you move super-slow in one direction per action).
Even combined so that you have the added freedom of movement, you suffer a -2 to attack rolls to pay for it. Might be acceptable to make a boss character not absolutely roll your party, but makes a pitiful spellcaster tactic.
Even combined so that you have the added freedom of movement, you suffer a -2 to attack rolls to pay for it. Might be acceptable to make a boss character not absolutely roll your party, but makes a pitiful spellcaster tactic.
If you relied on Levitate this turn yes, if you used an action to travel some distance and stay afloat using Fly I'd say no. And even then, using touch spells via Reach Spell still hits automatically.