Reactive Armor Against Fireball

[Oli Ironbar]

I'm brainstorming mass combat situations in case our GM throws them at us later down the road in our Kingmaker campaign. Not sure if we will follow the rules exactly for the actual combat, but he does encourage theater of the mind and out of the box solutions.

One thing I'll have at my disposal will be a set of casters with level 3 spells from the leadership feat (other players are thinking about the feat too, so there could be a lot of these casters), so of course the first idea is to spam fireballs. But what happens when the GM turns around and brings his own unit of casters?

The description of the spell makes me think there should be a low tech or low level solution to defending against Fireballs:

from Fireball wrote:

You point your finger and determine the range (distance and height) at which the fireball is to burst. A glowing, pea-sized bead streaks from the pointing digit and, unless it impacts upon a material body or solid barrier prior to attaining the prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball at that point. An early impact results in an early detonation. If you attempt to send the bead through a narrow passage, such as through an arrow slit, you must “hit” the opening with a ranged touch attack, or else the bead strikes the barrier and detonates prematurely.

Are there ways to throw something in the path of the spell and cause it to detonate early?

[TxSam88]

Short answer - No.

Long answer, you'd need to find someway to have a reaction to cover yourself with a full dome of something, as the spell expands to fill the area (wrapping around walls, etc).

about the only thing I can think of is have a contingency spell that casts wall of stone as a dome covering you,

A much easier solution is to cast any of the various Protetion from energy type spells.

[DeathlessOne]

I could think of two ways, one of which is someone capable of throwing something large enough to act as a 'material body' or 'solid barrier' enough to trigger the fireball into an early impact detonation. Or putting something in the way to so so.

What could do that? Something with Rock Throwing (or equivalent), something big enough to (mostly) fill a 5ft square in which to throw, and a readied action. Or, a kineticist with the Kinetic Cover utility talent (or someone else with a similar ability) and a readied action to do so. If bead impacts the cover far enough away (because the damage is likely to blow through it anyway), the effect spread wouldn't reach the intended targets.

Of the two options, I'd go for the Kineticist as one of your group of three. The Kinetic Cover does not require burn to use, only a readied action. Also, it is a spell-like ability, so it can be used with the Quicken Spell-like ability feat, though you'd still need to be a relatively higher level to make use of that.

[Oli Ironbar]

DeathlessOne wrote:

Of the two options, I'd go for the Kineticist as one of your group of three. The Kinetic Cover does not require burn to use, only a readied action. Also, it is a spell-like ability, so it can be used with the Quicken Spell-like ability feat, though you'd still need to be a relatively higher level to make use of that.

That is a cool use of a readied action.

[DeathlessOne]

Oli Ironbar wrote:

That is a cool use of a readied action.

Absolutely. It is one of the reasons why kineticists that use that power should invest ranks into Spellcraft so that they can ready an action to put up a bit of cover to protect against a spell they 'identify' being cast and prevent said spell effect from ever reaching the intended target(s). Some elements create cover that blocks line of sight, but all elements able to use the talent block line of effect. If you are playing a kineticist and are unable to really participate in combat due to elemental resistances, inability to hit, or otherwise unable to use blasts, using kinetic cover like this is really effective.

[Pizza Lord]

Oli Ironbar wrote:

Are there ways to throw something in the path of the spell and cause it to detonate early?

There are ways. The fireball spell itself allows for early detonation if it impacts a solid body. The most obvious is readying an action to throw something suitably solid into the path of a fireball bead. That's probably not going to get you out of the blast and is not really a good use of a turn though, since you'd just be better off readying to move as soon as you see a fireball coming at you (even without knowing its exact detonation point, 30 feet should get you out of it, even 20 feet depending on its placement).

Is it easy or even worth it to ready such actions? Unlikely unless you know for sure the enemy is fireball-happy or has a wand of fireballs they use preferentially.

Keeping it low-level (3rd-level caster, so 2nd-level spells), the easiest is invisibility on a wall or other easily assembled solid object, like a kicked up or overturned large table, mantle (like a giant wooden, mobile shield crossbowman would shelter behind), or tree. At 3 minutes it gives you a little leeway in advance notice, but it requires you to be in control of the battlefield or conflict location and them not to know about the object that's going to block their fiery bead.

Understand that by 'block' in this case, it just means early impact and detonation. As a spread (S), it will still go around most barriers, so the barrier and impact should optimally be beyond the 20-foot radius (preferably catching the caster themselves).

Otherwise, a summon spell can call a material body into existence. This would require readying to do so (otherwise the bead doesn't check to hit things unless they're narrow openings, like arrow slits). Unfortunately, summon spells require a 1 round casting, so you'd need to be a summoner or other caster that casts them as a standard action to be able to ready them. If you can, you can ready to summon a creature of suitable bulk in the way. Once the caster has fired their bead, they can't claim that it flies around things or is aimed around something they didn't know was there. I'd say it would have to be Small size at least, preferably Medium. Even if the creature might be missed, technically a summoned creature moves when it appears, so it's action could specifically be to take the impact. The problem with that action is you legitimately have to be able to communicate that you want it to block the bead (that's not a normal summoned action, ie. attack enemies). And that's not easy to do with most low-level summons (which will be animals).

For low-tech solutions, I don't see many alchemical items that would create a blocker, paper wall paste probably wouldn't do it, since the paper wall is easy to punch through, so I wouldn't count it. For magic items, feather token (tree) would work, but that's 400 gp each. A generous GM might allow the feather token (fan) to block a fireball bead if it appeared suddenly, depending on how they view 'a huge flapping fan'.

[DeathlessOne]

Pizza Lord wrote:

... As a spread (S), it will still go around most barriers, so the barrier and impact should optimally be beyond the 20-foot radius (preferably catching the caster themselves).

Oh.... OH! That's delicious. I was just trying to block the effect from getting to your party. I didn't quite make the leap that if you stopped the effect right in front of the caster, you would fry them with their own spell. Kinetic Cover is ... quite dangerous to enemy spellcasters using fireball. Nice.