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BRC
2009-09-29, 12:37 PM
So, I was looking at the spell Pyrotechnics, and thinking it doesn't get much use (I've never seen it used anyway), mainly because it has just as much chance of blinding or choking the caster's party as it does the enemy, unless you're sniping with it a campfire or somthing. Then I realized a way this spell can be very effective in many situations (Besides "The enemy is gathered around a fire a good distance away"): Bullseye Lanterns
The Caster steps in front of the rest of the party with the Lantern, which is then used as the target for the spell. Since all the party can't see the fire itself, they are not effected by the blinding effect, essentially turning this spell into a cone with a 120ft range.

Any other useful tricks with spells like this?

Delwugor
2009-09-29, 12:54 PM
Tensor's Floating Disk is an instant elevator for a small character.
Mount - run right through that group of Kobolds.
Unseen Servant - close that door before more arrive, surprise the Kobolds by having the door they are guarding open seemingly on its own
Grease on that wall you just climbed will keep them away as you move up/down.
Obscuring Mist in the fork of the cave.
Combine Obscuring Mist and Alarm to create visual and audio confusion as you escape.

valadil
2009-09-29, 01:19 PM
Play a gnome or halfing. Weigh less than 40 lbs. Reduce person. Mage hand. Congratulate yourself for flying at level 1 (assuming your GM doesn't decide gnomes count as magical or attended objects).

Glimbur
2009-09-29, 01:20 PM
Helping Hand. If there's someone invisible or Hide in Plain Sight'ing around, but you have seen them before, cast Helping Hand to lead them to you. You can see the hand, which is enough of a target for a Glitterdust.

Boci
2009-09-29, 01:23 PM
Faerie fire + obscuring mist? (The former prevents the enemy benefiting from the latter)

Burley
2009-09-29, 01:32 PM
Unseen Servant - close that door before more arrive, surprise the Kobolds by having the door they are guarding open seemingly on its own

You could, possibly, use the 0-level spell Open/Close for that...:smalltongue:

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-29, 01:43 PM
@OP: Pyrotechnics is Transmutation's Glitterdust. The smoke cloud is a no-save Blindness to anyone inside it, and if they try and leave it they are still blinded for 1d4+1 rounds. Widen Spell+This=40ft radius of Blindness with no save, and 4 points of Str/Dex penalty. No SR either. Also:


Smoke Effects

A character who breathes heavy smoke must make a Fortitude save each round (DC 15, +1 per previous check) or spend that round choking and coughing. A character who chokes for 2 consecutive rounds takes 1d6 points of nonlethal damage.

Fort DC 15 +1/round or they can't take actions.



Pyrotechnics is broken.

ericgrau
2009-09-29, 01:48 PM
You could, possibly, use the 0-level spell Open/Close for that...:smalltongue:

Ah, but directing the unseen servant is a move action so you can still cast in the same round.

Claudius Maximus
2009-09-29, 02:05 PM
One of the people I play with has a Fire Elemental as an improved familiar. The two of them use Pyrotechnics to great effect.

He also uses Mage Hand on his familiar (it only weighs one pound) to help it cross water.

Aharon
2009-09-29, 02:30 PM
@Original Trick:
Wouldn't the caster need LoS to the fire, though? so he has to see the fire, and expose himself to the effect of the spell.

@Sinfire
Wouldn't the spell state that it has this effect, though? If I were on the receiving end of this, I would point out that the smoke is not necessarily "heavy smoke", whatever that is, as it obviously has different effects than normal smoke (blindness instead of concealment, mali to attributes).

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-29, 02:33 PM
@Original Trick:
Wouldn't the caster need LoS to the fire, though? so he has to see the fire, and expose himself to the effect of the spell.

@Sinfire
Wouldn't the spell state that it has this effect, though? If I were on the receiving end of this, I would point out that the smoke is not necessarily "heavy smoke", whatever that is, as it obviously has different effects than normal smoke (blindness instead of concealment, mali to attributes).

Even if it doesn't have the Dense Smoke effect (which, RAW, no effect produces dense smoke), it's still a No Save/No SR Glitterdust. That alone is a reason to have it. The party's Fighter can wade into it with a Blindfold of True Darkness (Blindsight 30ft, constant) and swing away, provided he can avoid the Str/Dex penalty.

Fiery Diamond
2009-09-29, 06:08 PM
Message = playing mind games with people, provided you're either far enough away or good at hiding or in a loud place or invisible (and really, it isn't that hard to meet at least one of those prerequisites) when you cast the spell, and then you stay out of sight afterwards. No save, so they start hearing your voice in their head without having any idea what's going on. Fun times.

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-09-29, 06:29 PM
So, I was looking at the spell Pyrotechnics, and thinking it doesn't get much use (I've never seen it used anyway), mainly because it has just as much chance of blinding or choking the caster's party as it does the enemy, unless you're sniping with it a campfire or somthing.

Fireball sets things on fire from very far away.

Korivan
2009-09-29, 06:29 PM
Grease on a flight of stairs, the DM's in the past allow for them to take falling damage as they tumble down on a failed check.

Web as something to break your (parties) fall.

deuxhero
2009-09-29, 06:34 PM
Play a gnome or halfing. Weigh less than 40 lbs. Reduce person. Mage hand. Congratulate yourself for flying at level 1 (assuming your GM doesn't decide gnomes count as magical or attended objects).

Or non-objects (official)

Claudius Maximus
2009-09-29, 07:06 PM
Or non-objects (official)

Yeah, Mage Hand doesn't normally affect objects. In the case of the familiar in my other post, we had made a houserule to allow it, since it's otherwise just a headache to have a Fire Elemental in a swamp.

BRC
2009-09-29, 07:13 PM
Fireball sets things on fire from very far away.

Ah yes, but one does not always have the benefit of distance. The Pyrotechnics+Bullseye lantern combo means you can effectively use it in almost any combat situation. Open the door only to find five goblins staring you down, Open your lamp and flash them. And yes, I know exactly what that sounds like.

The Dark Fiddler
2009-09-29, 07:23 PM
Prestidigitation.

What's that, BBEG? I can't take your world destroying plot serious whilst you're dressed in dirty lime green clothes, and your eyes are pink.

Also, I recolored your summoning circle, so instead of summoning a disembodied god of destruction, it summons two tons of lime gelatin.

Also: Soil the BBEG's eyeballs. Instant blindness.

Delwugor
2009-09-29, 08:53 PM
You could, possibly, use the 0-level spell Open/Close for that...:smalltongue:
I always think that spell requires touching the door but it doesn't. So make me think of another Unseen Servant usage ...
Send it into an occupied room and start making distractions like throwing rocks against the opposite wall ... back turned ... Rogue you're up.


Web as something to break your (parties) fall.
In the years of gaming and the number of MUs and Wizards I've played that idea has not once occurred to me. *hefts dwarven axe to Karivan*

Zaq
2009-09-29, 09:15 PM
My paralyzed gnome once used her Prestidigitation SLA to eat. Her jaw weighs less than one pound, so she used it to open her mouth, lift the food in, and move her mouth up and down to chew it.

It wasn't pretty, but she had more dignity than being fed. And since it's an SLA, she could do it even when she couldn't move.

(Sure, Prestidigitation is by no means underused, but still.)

Korivan
2009-09-29, 09:22 PM
In the years of gaming and the number of MUs and Wizards I've played that idea has not once occurred to me. *hefts dwarven axe to Karivan*

Twice I can recall this working for. Once, I used it as a safety net when we were scaling down a tunnel, turned out it was a good idea. Saved the Dwarven fighter in full plate mail.
The seconed time I was outside a tower and saw one of my companions fall. The DM let me do a special initiative check vs. the falling character. I managed to win the check and save the dude.

Delwugor
2009-09-29, 09:25 PM
Twice I can recall this working for. Once, I used it as a safety net when we were scaling down a tunnel, turned out it was a good idea. Saved the Dwarven fighter in full plate mail.
The seconed time I was outside a tower and saw one of my companions fall. The DM let me do a special initiative check vs. the falling character. I managed to win the check and save the dude.

Awesome! But no self respecting dwarf worthy of the title needs saving. :smallbiggrin:

Milskidasith
2009-09-29, 09:31 PM
You know hitting a web would still be as painful as hitting the ground, right?

Korivan
2009-09-29, 09:33 PM
Awesome! But no self respecting dwarf worthy of the title needs saving. :smallbiggrin:

In 3rd edition, true. A dwarven barbarion with something for fire resistance or imunities, could survive re-entry to Earth. This was seconed edition though, and the DM had some really harsh rules for falling damage. Noone would have survived.

theMycon
2009-09-29, 09:38 PM
You know hitting a web would still be as painful as hitting the ground, right?

Unless you do so above the ground. In which case, being rather more flexible than packed earth, and thus decelerating you slower, it'll hurt about as much as falling into a net.

Delwugor
2009-09-29, 09:45 PM
In 3rd edition, true. A dwarven barbarion with something for fire resistance or imunities, could survive re-entry to Earth. This was seconed edition though, and the DM had some really harsh rules for falling damage. Noone would have survived.

Just my biased nature since Delwugor is the drunken dwarf with the big battle axe that I hide behind on the internet. :smallamused:

Tarvus
2009-09-29, 11:22 PM
I always think that spell requires touching the door but it doesn't.

No offense intended, but that is hilarious! Is the somatic component is reaching for the door knob? Seeing that "if anything resists this activity (such as a bar on a door or a lock on a chest), the spell fails."

Now, on topic there are the business opportunities of create water or gentle repose in a desert.
Polymorphing into a squirrel and spying on your enemies (polymorphing is not particularly underused or Low level though).
Reduce Person combined with Telekinesis means literally pushing people around

Lycanthromancer
2009-09-30, 12:37 AM
Mount used as a trap-springing spell?

Unseen servant to push a 100 lb cylinder of granite, to also spring traps? Also to deliver and use potions around the battlefield as a move action.

Detect magic to replace the rogue for searching out traps.

Silent image to give yourself invisibility. Make a large rock or some other object big enough for you to fit in, positioned around yourself.

Sneak attack with touch of idiocy. You don't even have to take rogue levels.

Chained dispel magic for a better-than-disjunction disjunction. Follow up with shatter to conquer THEN destroy.

Shrink item on a dome or cone that is a bit larger than you. Wear it as a hat. You're now protected against antimagic fields. Also, drop shrunken stuff from above, and have someone else ready an action to call the command word. Also great for decreasing the time needed to fabricate by a factor of, say, 16? (Also, just two words: interrogation techniques.)

Speaking of fabricate, this is useful for getting extremely expensive material components, since Crafted art items are much more expensive than unworked jewels. Cast fabricate on that 500 gp diamond to turn it into a 5,000 gp work of art, and presto! Raise dead.

Milskidasith
2009-09-30, 04:51 PM
Unless you do so above the ground. In which case, being rather more flexible than packed earth, and thus decelerating you slower, it'll hurt about as much as falling into a net.

At terminal velocity, water will kill you on impact (or, for D&D characters, do 20d6 of damage with a little bit being nonlethal)... a nigh unbreakable spider web would still hurt you as much as hitting the ground at the speed you were going at.

Fiery Diamond
2009-09-30, 05:01 PM
Actually, water will kill you because of the surface tension. With a web, we're assuming an a near-infinite amount of flexibility (unrealistic, yes, but we're playing fantasy). You'd actually probably get hurt worse from the rebound than the impact, since your body is stuck to the web and your innards are trying to fling themselves back into the sky. Massive internal damage.

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-30, 05:07 PM
Actually, water will kill you because of the surface tension. With a web, we're assuming an a near-infinite amount of flexibility (unrealistic, yes, but we're playing fantasy). You'd actually probably get hurt worse from the rebound than the impact, since your body is stuck to the web and your innards are trying to fling themselves back into the sky. Massive internal damage.

Mythbusters disproved this.


It isn't the fall that kills you. Sudden deceleration and inertia does the job. Because water is much more dense than air, you decelerate too fast upon impact. This has the effect of turning your organs into salsa.