My players recently fought a pair of Marut. These enemies had regeneration 15 (deactivate by chaotic) and immunity to unconscious. We know the rule that normally enemies are defeated at zero hit points but creatures with regeneration can have the hero dying rules applied to them. After we downed the first enemy and it was unconscious on the ground the DM noticed that the Marut has immunity to unconscious. Should the Marut have been conscious and acting normally while having the dying condition?
Creatures with Regeneration are hard to kill. Beating them to death doesn't work on its own. You have to also deactivate the Regeneration.
Otherwise even if they aren't immune to unconscious, they will just stand back up and continue fighting.
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It's a weird edge case because normally things immune to Unconscious are things like undead that are just destroyed at 0 HP. I don't think there's any other creature that has this situation. So it's a GM call edge case.
I'd probably still have it fall unconscious as usual, on the grounds that it's not immune to Dying. Even with Regeneration you still go into Dying, you just get healed and get back up when Regeneration kicks in. So the options are:
1. "immune to Unconscious" means its immune to things like Sleep that cause Unconscious directly but can still get there from Dying
2. It means it can get Dying but keeps acting as if nothing happened.
I greatly prefer #1 here.
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It's also a problematic creature because it really isn't guaranteed that anyone in the party can actually do chaotic damage. Unlike say, fire, which you can probably improvise with a torch or something after you've beat a troll unconscious. Parties (pre-remaster) may have made sure they can do good damage because it's effective against fiends. But preparing for inevitables is not really something people normally have top of mind.
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I've gone on record a couple times now, but marut regeneration was one of the things that convinced me that alignment damage didn't belong in the game. I love the image of the nigh-invulnerable arbiter of inevitability that cannot be slowed or stopped except by it's pure antithesis... but it seriously harshes my vibe that it means that stopping this creature is a matter of character creation choices or running to the corner store to grab a niche bomb type. To me it's like a monster that can only be defeated by the Heat Metal spell. There's no counterplay, there's just already happening to have the right answer, or going to buy something that only exists for this purpose.
Anyway, I love our new holy/unholy and I'm a little sad we're probably never going to see a remastered marut. It might be cool to see if they would have just thrown in a stock regeneration defeat, or if they would have created a custom weakness that players could attempt to pull off in play.
Feels like there needs to be a more common ability/item to suppress the regeneration of a creature that is at Dying 3, without needing the specific type of damage that would normally suppress regeneration.
I wouldn't call it niche, but at the same time it's not common for PCs to try to get chaos damage. And without a forewarning from the GM, it's kind of an impossible fight.
It's also a problematic creature because it really isn't guaranteed that anyone in the party can actually do chaotic damage. Unlike say, fire, which you can probably improvise with a torch or something after you've beat a troll unconscious. Parties (pre-remaster) may have made sure they can do good damage because it's effective against fiends. But preparing for inevitables is not really something people normally have top of mind.
Yep, and there are multiple APs that drop them or similar creatures into the adventure without giving anyone a chance to pick up a chaotic rune beforehand.
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tbh "dying but still awake and coming after you" is kind of thematically neat and plays into the lore of the Marut. The narrative image of a Marut falling apart on the verge of death but still coming is wickedly cool and very on brand... but the implementation is largely just kind of annoying since it means hurting the Marut doesn't do anything unless you have this one obscure damage type (and if you do they're baically just a normal mob) if you run it that way.
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It would be much more interesting for "Outsiders" (not technically a category anymore but everyone know what I mean) if they had some method of turning off their regeneration outside of dealing damage with the correct energy type.
Imagine that you need to restrain the Outsider, bind it in a ritual circle, and then chant a specific ritual ending with its true name, and that destroy it (including the "soul energy" that created it).
Probably involves some additional potential check to learn the true name of the creature by inspecting its body.
Is it likely that you can do this quickly and easily? No.
Having the right energy type is the quick and easy way. But having an option (if difficult) to kill the outsider without it seems pretty cool to me.
I wouldn't call it niche, but at the same time it's not common for PCs to try to get chaos damage. And without a forewarning from the GM, it's kind of an impossible fight.
Especially after Remaster where alignment damage isn't even officially defined any more.
This is a different problem than OP is describing, but it is definitely a problem.
Feels like there needs to be a more common ability/item to suppress the regeneration of a creature that is at Dying 3, without needing the specific type of damage that would normally suppress regeneration.
That is a good general solution. Something like two characters using a 3-action activity for two consecutive rounds to completely destroy the creature in some manner (some narrative description decided on for each battle - based on the circumstances of the creature and what the party does have available). It isn't something that you can easily do during a fight while there are other enemies to deal with, but it also doesn't leave the battle in a perpetual and unwinnable state where you are completely unable to stop the enemy from getting back up at the start of its turn every round.
Feels like there needs to be a more common ability/item to suppress the regeneration of a creature that is at Dying 3, without needing the specific type of damage that would normally suppress regeneration.
I wouldn't call it niche, but at the same time it's not common for PCs to try to get chaos damage. And without a forewarning from the GM, it's kind of an impossible fight.
All death effects do this by going instantly to dead, do not pass dying conditions.
Common death effect spells good for regenerators are Death Knell at 2nd rank to kill them on a failed will save after they're at 0HP and Vision of Death or Toxic Cloud even on a success for half damage that reduces them to 0HP. But they don't help with the Marut who is immune to death effects as part of it's old "part construct" heritage.
What can still kill a Marut (and other regenerators) is suffocation - there's nothing in its stat block saying it doesn't breath or giving it suffocation immunity. But PF2e suffocation effects are very rare, usually require crit fails (or running down long rounds of breath holding on a regular fail), or require you to dunk an unconscious creature (oops) under water. Suffocate (premaster necromancy, so might get the death trait remastered) and Vaccum are the two "crit fail and immediately suffocate" spells I know of that could be used to kill regenerators immune to death effects. Both are incapacitation. There's also a wand that modifies the Mist spell to require you to hold your breath if you could somehow safely hold or trap an enemy in it long enough for it to run out of air.
Feels like there needs to be a more common ability/item to suppress the regeneration of a creature that is at Dying 3, without needing the specific type of damage that would normally suppress regeneration.That is a good general solution. Something like two characters using a 3-action activity for two consecutive rounds to completely destroy the creature in some manner (some narrative description decided on for each battle - based on the circumstances of the creature and what the party does have available). It isn't something that you can easily do during a fight while there are other enemies to deal with, but it also doesn't leave the battle in a perpetual and unwinnable state where you are completely unable to stop the enemy from getting back up at the start of its turn every round.
This can generally be handled by spamming cheap Death Knell scrolls until they die or dunking their unconscious head in a bucket of water until they drown. Both bypass the dying condition rules. But a Marut specifically is immune to death effects and can't be knocked unconscious, so getting it drowned/suffocated is difficult.
Yeah, Death Knell is a solution (for some creatures with Regn, but not the Marut specifically) but I don't know that it's a good one.
I don't think it's the kind of spell spontaneous casters are going to know, and I don't think it's the kind of spell prepared casters are going to prepare unless they know in advance they're going to be fighting a creature with regeneration.
I mean, Death Knell really isn't a good spell, except for this kind of use.
Not that this is a great overall solution, but suppressing regeneration of creature for the purpose of killing it seems like something Thaumaturges would be able to do.
I like the idea of having two characters perform some activity that destroys the creature. I'm now imagining one character binds/restrains the creature, but for balance reasons is required to spend all their actions involve in doing so. And another character basically chanting anathema stuff/prays/thoughts at the creature for two rounds to kill it. Although thematically I only see this working for good/evil/chaos/law/sanctified/unsanctified. But I do like the imagery of it.
Is this thing a living creature? Nonliving creatures typically have a clause in a trait somewhere that says they are destroyed at 0 HP.
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Is this thing a living creature? Nonliving creatures typically have a clause in a trait somewhere that says they are destroyed at 0 HP.
I see nothing saying that it is not a living creature. It is an outsider. An Inevitable to be specific. Which is a type of Aeon.
So it would be as much a living creature as a demon or an angel is. And it has no listed clause of being destroyed at 0 HP.
There was a time shortly after 2e went live where I hallucinated a rule that on some level still holds some appeal for me. There might have been a difference of language in an older version of the ability, but I mistakenly believed that if you increased the Wounded condition of a regenerator high enough, they would stop regaining consciousness until they had rested long enough (probably 10 minutes + however long it takes for them to regain full health) which at least allows the party to disengage or buys time for them to jury-rig some damage.
This obviously doesn't work for the marut, which wouldn't ever go unconscious in the first place, and at worst couldn't act while at 0 if the GM wanted to ad hoc an answer to what happens to a conscious but 'Dying' creature.
For this case, one might choose to treat a high enough Wounded condition as bypassing the regeneration restriction instead of just having the regenerator remain unconscious. On the one hand, it would make a regenerating foe much easier to deal with if you're missing their weakness (which can be a drawback if you wanted to drive home the sheer threat of an unchecked regenerator or force the party to get creative) but it also allows a party that has thoroughly defeated a regenerator to end the fight eventually.
I think potentially a good house rule could be something like "a creature with regeneration that would reach dying 4 is made unconscious for 10 minutes (during which time it fully regenerates) or treated as stunned 3, slowed 3, paralyzed, and immobilized until 10 minutes have elapse."
This means that at least the party has a chance to get away from the creature and disengage.
Is this thing a living creature? Nonliving creatures typically have a clause in a trait somewhere that says they are destroyed at 0 HP.I see nothing saying that it is not a living creature. It is an outsider. An Inevitable to be specific. Which is a type of Aeon.
So it would be as much a living creature as a demon or an angel is. And it has no listed clause of being destroyed at 0 HP.
So if the marut went to an unbreatheable plane, would it just suffocate and die? It says in the monitor trait that "Monitors can survive the basic environmental effects of planes in the Outer Sphere." Even the water plane, one of the inner planes, often requires you to bring some sort of air supply. Is air just not a concern in any of the outer planes?
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In the same way we can survive the basic environmental effects of the Universe but not breathe underwater, I would expect that the "basic environment" of the outer sphere is mostly not places without oxygen. Elemental Water is not an outer sphere plane, and I would assume the outer sphere otherwise has enough diversity that each of its planes has both more and less hospitable environments, such that any outsider can survive there as its home habitat, but may not be immune to every potential danger.
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I think being extreeeeemely hard to kill is a good gimmick for maruts. They'd be going in the category of unusually tricky monsters, like wily cave worms and vampires that actually play smart. Things that you don't just simply fight and kill.
However, you do need a way to end an encounter with it for parties that don't have the silver bullet (yet). 10m reboot sequence if you sufficiently trash it sounds reasonable. Or maybe you can banish them once they're down.
I can also imagine that they may be something that you really almost can't destroy, but there's instead a sort of protocol ritual to get them called off your case.
Maybe Axis just has only so many maruts and doesn't like it when they get stuck on a case for a millennium because the backlog of other cases just keeps getting bigger. If you get someone to file the proper paperwork for your case they pull off the marut to work on other things while they process your files first.
I think being extreeeeemely hard to kill is a good gimmick for maruts. They'd be going in the category of unusually tricky monsters, like wily cave worms and vampires that actually play smart. Things that you don't just simply fight and kill.
However, you do need a way to end an encounter with it for parties that don't have the silver bullet (yet). 10m reboot sequence if you sufficiently trash it sounds reasonable. Or maybe you can banish them once they're down.
I can also imagine that they may be something that you really almost can't destroy, but there's instead a sort of protocol ritual to get them called off your case.
Maybe Axis just has only so many maruts and doesn't like it when they get stuck on a case for a millennium because the backlog of other cases just keeps getting bigger. If you get someone to file the proper paperwork for your case they pull off the marut to work on other things while they process your files first.
Oh god! Paperwork and bureaucracy being the solution to your Marut problem is too on point!
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Maybe there should be a "complicated" trait for monsters. These are monsters that if you use their abilities in the way they were meant, are not a straightforward fight and done with. They're monsters that will escape, will attack you in weird ways, cause long-term damage that affects other encounters, can't be fought if you didn't bring the correct specific tools and so forth. Such as:
* Liches
* Vampires
* Cave worms
* Maruts
* Rust monsters
and so forth.
It would help advise the GM to be careful putting it on a random encounter table. Because either the encounter is a lot more involved that it was supposed to be, or people feel deflated that this special monster went down so un-specially.
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Add dragons to that list.
I feel like dragons, while being arrogant, also shouldn't be fighting anywhere near to fair fights. They should fly around using their breath weapon. They're generally faster than any party members are going to be, so even if the party can fly the dragon can still kite them around. Melee should basically never be able to get in range of the dragon (unless you somehow neutralize its flight).
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Add dragons to that list. ...
Hard agree. I kinda think dragons are too OP, and the AP writers are terrified of using them because of that.
Only seen them in APs in situations where they specifically cannot do the obvious keep away playstyle.
Pf2 also does not support any kind of variable or ramping up/down of speeds, so a dragon with >100ft of speed has the power of absurd acceleration. They can start and stop that kind of movement instantly.
And to make it even worse, dragons are spellcasters, with instruction for the GM to select spells themself. The x-factor of spells while having insane innate speed...
Plus, this is a system with no defined limitation on sustain spells. Seriously. As far as I know, it's legit RaW to tag a room/ target with a sustain spell, then zoom away while spamming sustain. You could enter a storage dimension and still Sustain that spell to melt the party. As long as they run out of healing before your 10 min time limit on Sustain is up, they are screwed.
Regarding the sustain spell thing....generally speaking the party should be able to get out of the room. You're right that a dragon could cast a spell with sustain and run away. But the party should be able to exit the area. I suppose you could have scenarios where the smart dragon traps a party in a room (perhaps with one person sized entrance and one dragon sized roof exit, and cast the spell and exit, and trip a trap that would cover both exits with something that can't be escaped....but like don't do that. That's kind of just an enhanced "rocks fall, you die" level death that almost looks fair if you squint hard enough but really isn't.
There are hazards designed to trap the party in the room they just entered. As long as the hazard is factored into the XP along with the dragon, it shouldn't be too much to handle.
Yes, the dragon could cast a spell on the party trapped in the room then Fly away, Sustaining the spell each round. But that means the dragon isn't doing much to stop the PCs from fleeing, disabling, or breaking the hazard. It's the equivalent of the BBEG leaving the room and assuming the killing device achieves its purpose.
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There are hazards designed to trap the party in the room they just entered. As long as the hazard is factored into the XP along with the dragon, it shouldn't be too much to handle.
Yes, the dragon could cast a spell on the party trapped in the room then Fly away, Sustaining the spell each round. But that means the dragon isn't doing much to stop the PCs from fleeing, disabling, or breaking the hazard. It's the equivalent of the BBEG leaving the room and assuming the killing device achieves its purpose.
My concern is that even if you mechanically factor in the trap portion, that the actual difficulty relative to that calculation won't be correct.
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I think a lot of the danger with dragons comes from Frightful Presence, which many dragons still seem to have. Many GMs interpret "entering the area" to include the area coming to you, since the alternative would make the ability near useless (since no one would willingly enter). But the ability is tantamount to "lower the levels of all enemies by one," so it would be easy for a dragon with Frightful Presence to go wipe the party to essentially win in the first few rounds of combat.
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My concern is that even if you mechanically factor in the trap portion, that the actual difficulty relative to that calculation won't be correct.
Exactly, abilities that on paper don't touch the math, like 100ft fly speed, are multipliers or maximizers that are incredibly destabilizing.
The point of the Sustain abuse is that a dragon can tag and sustain, while their speed keeps them safe from retaliation.
The moment the party escapes the zone, etc, the dragon can even begin "a normal fight," but at whatever advantage was gained from that 3-ish turn ordeal of the sustain spell.
Ooor, they can be a sapient creature that's survived a few hundred years of violence, and swoop into retaliation range only long enough to maximize the value of another sustain spell.
The ability to disengage via raw speed changes so much, lol.
Every Divine/Primal dragon with a bit of experience would know to prioritize a healing spell like Vital Beacon over the usual suspects, as that's got a huge amount of total healing, but needs 4 1A taps to get it all. And it Heightens very well, +1d10, d8, d6, d4. And is perfect for a Fly, Sustain, Tap Beacon turn, lol.
When creatures are supposed to be inhumanly smart / old-wise, etc, it's a really dangerous idea for them to also have more raw power to wield intelligently, lol.
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Actually, dragons often have 150 or even 200 foot Fly Speeds. A dragon could Fly into battle, make a tail Strike (with fantastic reach), and Fly behind a giant rock to stay on the offensive without ever being in any real danger. That's even more effective for nonspellcaster dragons since they get Draconic Momentum to recharge their breath on a crit. Except they might not even need the breath weapon if the party isn't decked out with decent single-action ranged weapons to Ready against the dragon as a counter to this tail Strike skirmish tactic.
... or even 200 foot Fly Speeds. ...
That is about to give me a bloody migraine. At some point, it's less of a "wtf were they thinking" complaint, and it instead becomes a "how tf do you justify something that obviously balance breaking?" And this has been re-canonized as recently as the Draconic Codex.
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The search list was just dragons, so I had to keep lowering the speed until at least other creatures started to join.
Feel free to browse this AoN search for creatures with any speed >99 if you want. 100ft seems to be the normal upper limit, so you'll get a good idea of what it normally requires for Paizo to stat you as a speedy dude.
Even the 100+ft mark is such a high bar, it returns 23 non-dragon non-unique results. Most are Lvl 10+
Need to drop to 80+ft for that to jump to 52 results.
And yeah, L6 young dragons already breaking into the 100ft speed club is stupid. It is very, very bizzare that out of all of their stats, dragons are genuinely the king speedsters of pathfinder. It is not normal for stats like speed to inflate so crazy high with the higher Lvl versions of creatures, wtf.
Rofl, when I filtered out [dragon] from this search, you jump from 131 to 9 results left, yet the first and last entries are Clockwork Dragon, and Siege Dragon. Ow, that stings.
Yeah, for whatever reason, Paizo are hard-locked on dragons being the speedsters of the universe. RIP adventurer bozos, because that's not in their power budgeting.
and wow at the 100 spd L3 Quickling.
It's no wonder I've never heard of this creature before, because that's just gamebreaking at that level. They even have a specific Slow weakness (though it is mostly a -2 save penalty), but to a spell the PCs won't have at L3, lol. Actually gives slow-possible Skunk Bombs a moment to shine, but Powerful Alchemy doesn't exist until L5...
Actually, the quickling looks like one of the few PL+2 bosses one could get away with throwing at a level 1 party. Its max damage on a crit is 14 against and off-guard target, so anyone with a max HP higher than 14 will never die from Massive Damage.
... a bunch of stuff about dragons and…
and wow at the 100 spd L3 Quickling.
It's no wonder I've never heard of this creature before, because that's just gamebreaking at that level. They even have a specific Slow weakness (though it is mostly a -2 save penalty), but to a spell the PCs won't have at L3, lol. Actually gives slow-possible Skunk...
Yes, quicklings are fast but you can grapple them with your best marshal class and then the rest of the group goes to town. Dragons are the same. They should be terrifying - possibly necessitating a retreat and then being better prepared with both resources and tactics for a rematch. There’s a reason that other game highlights the setting and then one type of monster. Dragons should be frightening and I like that my players go through game-experienced PTSD shivers anytime the possibility of running across one of the extremely intelligent beasts comes up.
You can even have all your party members occupy the same space (accomplished by having all but one fall prone) to force the quickling to get within Grapple range.
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While it's feasible to grapple a quickling (though you may have trouble actually succeeding at levels below it) to even attempt to grapple a (non-young) dragon you would need to have the titan wrestler feat.
Which isn't a crazy thing to have, but also not something guaranteed either.
But to your point, I think fighting any kind of dragon should be a telegraphed fight. The party should know it's coming and have an opportunity to prepare for it.
But even prepared, a dragon played intelligently where it can attempt to kite the party should be an incredibly dangerous foe where the party's first move is to try and neutralize it's speed/flight.
That said, while I'm forgetting the name there are both melee and ranged attack options that can knock a flying creature out of the sky and put them on the ground. And for most dragons, that means they end up not being able to use their flight (or at least not as effectively because they have to fly up after being knocked down). Doing that with ready actions when the dragon gets close and have the rest of the party prepared to act is probably your best bet. But also have an escape plan prepared.
A player pulling off a Ready:Grab to snag a Quickling would be super epic.
Sucks that they only get one chance. After that grab attempt, the Quickling can use their eyes to avoid PCs whenever they Ready. Love the creative idea to single-tile-dog-pile the players, but tbh that level of player thinking breaks belief. Sneaking and breaking sight could massively help, though. No darkvision. The creature's odd wall running stuff will mean a fun & nasty surprise for the players when they try to put the squishies in the corner, lol.
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Not really sure why dragons would get into reach distance to get grappled, lol.
Ranged anti-flying options are about as good as it gets, but off-hand I don't know of any that are 1A.
...which you might need if the dragon can end every turn outside your LoS.
If you *can* Ready: an anti-flying option, you have a good chance. But if you need a 2A chunk while in range to even attempt to remove their flight, you're already at too much of a disadvantage to have a real chance, imo.
You can think of any such wing-clipping actions as that PC being stunned/slowed, falling behind in the action economy in an attempt to make the fight a more "normal" encounter by removing a single abnormal stat.
(and most of these wing-clip effects really do not do the job, imo. They last for too short of time, and often allow a single action + roll to remove, meaning that PC is now spending the whole fight spamming that, so I hope everyone else can win without them.)
And don't forget that dragons are built as single foe encounters, meaning PL+X, higher saves, and they even have that anti-magic passive, just lovely.
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That said, while I'm forgetting the name there are both melee and ranged attack options that can knock a flying creature out of the sky and put them on the ground. And for most dragons, that means they end up not being able to use their flight (or at least not as effectively because they have to fly up after being knocked down). Doing that with ready actions when the dragon gets close and have the rest of the party prepared to act is probably your best bet. But also have an escape plan prepared.
Unfortunately bola shot is not compatible with readied actions as best I can tell, even with one person readying to activate the ammo and one person shooting. You definitely should be able to do that but I don’t think it technically works.
Unfortunately bola shot is not compatible with readied actions as best I can tell, even with one person readying to activate the ammo and one person shooting. You definitely should be able to do that but I don’t think it technically works..
That said, while I'm forgetting the name there are both melee and ranged attack options that can knock a flying creature out of the sky and put them on the ground. And for most dragons, that means they end up not being able to use their flight (or at least not as effectively because they have to fly up after being knocked down). Doing that with ready actions when the dragon gets close and have the rest of the party prepared to act is probably your best bet. But also have an escape plan prepared.
Well I was thinking more Sudden Leap, and I'm pretty sure there's a ranged attack feat that lets you make a trip, and if successful can drop a flying enemy to the ground.
But a good point is raised that those actions aren't 1 action activities, and a smart dragon will make sure to be well out of range of most retaliatory actions at the end of their turn.
This is one of the benefits of pf2e over 5e. 5e dragons have much more leeway to BS the players to death, since they can just swoop in, use their full range of actions (breath, multiattack, etc), and use their remaining movement to just nope out of danger. And then they can use legendary actions in-between turns to go even further!
In PF2e, if the dragon wants to get the most bang for its buck, it has to either start or end its turn in actual danger. Fly in and use Breath or Frenzy? The dragon's turn is over. Everyone Delays until after the wizard, who uses earthbind. Dragon succeeds. Dragon plummets 120 feet anyway. Now everyone can dogpile on it.
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Unfortunately bola shot is not compatible with readied actions as best I can tell, even with one person readying to activate the ammo and one person shooting. You definitely should be able to do that but I don’t think it technically works..
That said, while I'm forgetting the name there are both melee and ranged attack options that can knock a flying creature out of the sky and put them on the ground. And for most dragons, that means they end up not being able to use their flight (or at least not as effectively because they have to fly up after being knocked down). Doing that with ready actions when the dragon gets close and have the rest of the party prepared to act is probably your best bet. But also have an escape plan prepared.
Well I was thinking more Sudden Leap, and I'm pretty sure there's a ranged attack feat that lets you make a trip, and if successful can drop a flying enemy to the ground.
But a good point is raised that those actions aren't 1 action activities, and a smart dragon will make sure to be well out of range of most retaliatory actions at the end of their turn.
You may be thinking of Felling Strike. You Strike the target and cause them to fall softly on a hit and also keep them grounded for a round on a crit.
You may be thinking of Felling Strike. You Strike the target and cause them to fall softly on a hit and also keep them grounded for a round on a crit.Unfortunately bola shot is not compatible with readied actions as best I can tell, even with one person readying to activate the ammo and one person shooting. You definitely should be able to do that but I don’t think it technically works..
That said, while I'm forgetting the name there are both melee and ranged attack options that can knock a flying creature out of the sky and put them on the ground. And for most dragons, that means they end up not being able to use their flight (or at least not as effectively because they have to fly up after being knocked down). Doing that with ready actions when the dragon gets close and have the rest of the party prepared to act is probably your best bet. But also have an escape plan prepared.
Well I was thinking more Sudden Leap, and I'm pretty sure there's a ranged attack feat that lets you make a trip, and if successful can drop a flying enemy to the ground.
But a good point is raised that those actions aren't 1 action activities, and a smart dragon will make sure to be well out of range of most retaliatory actions at the end of their turn.
Yes, for melee that's definitely what I was thinking of. I thought there was a ranged option that did something similar though.
In PF2e, if the dragon wants to get the most bang for its buck, it has to either start or end its turn in actual danger. Fly in and use Breath or Frenzy? The dragon's turn is over. Everyone Delays until after the wizard, who uses earthbind. Dragon succeeds. Dragon plummets 120 feet anyway. Now everyone can dogpile on it.
As said earlier the dragon can fly in, attack, fly behind some rock. It loses a large portion of it's offensive power but is also immune to earthbind since that can't be readied. I'm not sure if there's *any* anti flight that can be readied strict raw, though multiple teammates prepping a bola shot really ought to work.
Yes, for melee that's definitely what I was thinking of. I thought there was a ranged option that did something similar though.You may be thinking of Felling Strike. You Strike the target and cause them to fall softly on a hit and also keep them grounded for a round on a crit.Unfortunately bola shot is not compatible with readied actions as best I can tell, even with one person readying to activate the ammo and one person shooting. You definitely should be able to do that but I don’t think it technically works..
That said, while I'm forgetting the name there are both melee and ranged attack options that can knock a flying creature out of the sky and put them on the ground. And for most dragons, that means they end up not being able to use their flight (or at least not as effectively because they have to fly up after being knocked down). Doing that with ready actions when the dragon gets close and have the rest of the party prepared to act is probably your best bet. But also have an escape plan prepared.
Well I was thinking more Sudden Leap, and I'm pretty sure there's a ranged attack feat that lets you make a trip, and if successful can drop a flying enemy to the ground.
But a good point is raised that those actions aren't 1 action activities, and a smart dragon will make sure to be well out of range of most retaliatory actions at the end of their turn.
It says "Make a Strike". It's not melee exclusive.
It says "Make a Strike". It's not melee exclusive.Yes, for melee that's definitely what I was thinking of. I thought there was a ranged option that did something similar though.You may be thinking of Felling Strike. You Strike the target and cause them to fall softly on a hit and also keep them grounded for a round on a crit.Unfortunately bola shot is not compatible with readied actions as best I can tell, even with one person readying to activate the ammo and one person shooting. You definitely should be able to do that but I don’t think it technically works..
That said, while I'm forgetting the name there are both melee and ranged attack options that can knock a flying creature out of the sky and put them on the ground. And for most dragons, that means they end up not being able to use their flight (or at least not as effectively because they have to fly up after being knocked down). Doing that with ready actions when the dragon gets close and have the rest of the party prepared to act is probably your best bet. But also have an escape plan prepared.
Well I was thinking more Sudden Leap, and I'm pretty sure there's a ranged attack feat that lets you make a trip, and if successful can drop a flying enemy to the ground.
But a good point is raised that those actions aren't 1 action activities, and a smart dragon will make sure to be well out of range of most retaliatory actions at the end of their turn.
Brilliant, don't know why I was thinking it was melee exclusively.
Actually, it probably can't be used well with melee unless you melee character can fly and get into range (which they probably can't with a dragon).
It also couldn't be readied, but if I'm using a dragon at "full capabilities" I probably would allow the players to ready Felling Strike if they had it. Heck, I'd even remind them to combine Felling Strike with Sudden Leap, and let them ready a Sudden Leap to use Felling Strike. I'd probably make it cost 3 actions instead of 2 to ready in this scenario, but I think it's appropriate to let characters use these kind of feats in this kind of situation.