Nothin' but net

[Flickerdart]

Nets are pretty cool - they're one of the only debuffs available to a low-level mundane character, and do a pretty good job at it. Are there any ways to make them better? There's a razor net in Dragon Compendium that adds 1d6 damage whenever your victim tries to escape, but these are 50gp a pop and one use only, which makes a budget-conscious character sad. Exotic Weapon Master has few goodies (though Ranged Disarm with a net is awesome and appropriate, if mechanically weak) to offer us, and there don't seem to be any feats to improve nets.

How do you improve your nets?

[Tvtyrant]

Make yourself large so it hits more people, make it a +something to make it hit more easily, put the Teleporting property on it and throw it every single round? If it was metal you could make it burst-resistant, but as is they are going to escape from it quick.

[Flickerdart]

As far as I can tell, a net only hits one creature regardless of your size, and it seems better and cheaper to pull out new pre-folded nets rather than making attacks with the existing one at a -4 penalty.

[gallagher]

make them spell storing. for a small fee, you can now have it hold a dispell magic. you could hit them with a fireball. you could hit them with a shivering touch. it doesnt much matter, but i have a funny idea in my head where you store a buff spell in it just for giggles.

secondly, you have an attack roll. play a rogue. sneak attack. heck, play a scout if it catches your fancy. either way, IIRC an escape artist check also gets you a sneak attack.

thirdly, nets are in fact an excellent way to deliver contact poison. if you are sneak attacking, you can put on injury poison.

find ways to make it more difficult for people to make either their strength or escape artist checks. then all you have to do is make the strength check to hold onto them

then the only feat left i can think of that would help is the net and trident style feat. it is meh at best, but it is has its place

[Fax Celestis]

Elves of Golarion has durable arrows, which make it so that arrows used don't break on-use. You could reasonably reverse-engineer the effect and put it on a razor net.

[Nerdynick]

Somebody said teleporting nets. While the idea has merit as intended, I originally read it as a net that teleports an opponent entangled in it every round. Of course, while awesome sounding, it doesn't seem that useful. So perhaps if you got to teleport them into harmful places.

Alternatively, you could go the way of Jumper and have nets of Dimensional Anchor and similar spells (perhaps protection from alignment as well). Instantly trap any creature.

[Shadow Lord]

Throw a net with a teleport on it, and hope your DM lets you choose where the Teleport goes. Then send him into low earth orbit.

Alternatively, get a Net of Reduce Person, Net the enemy, put him in your backpack, and teleport into low earth orbit. Scroll of Teleport and high UMD checks required.

[Dimers]

Psi characters can call weaponry, negating the cost and weight issues. Called weapons also count as magical regardless of their enhancement bonus, if that matters.

An anointed knight (BoED) can make the net Str-poisoning to evil creatures. And it's not RAW, but given the options listed for sunder resistance, I would think most GMs would offer an option to make the net harder to burst.

[Feytalist]

Animate the net? Could be fun. I have no idea how to stat an animated net though.

[Cog]

make them spell storing. for a small fee, you can now have it hold a dispell magic. you could hit them with a fireball. you could hit them with a shivering touch. it doesnt much matter, but i have a funny idea in my head where you store a buff spell in it just for giggles.
I know this is a popular idea, but it doesn't work. Spell Storing doesn't require a successful attack roll; it requires successful damage, and a net deals no damage.

[Fouredged Sword]

Enchant it with flameing, now it does damage.

[Cog]

Flaming is less explicit, but there cannot be extra damage if there is no base damage to add it to.

[Darrin]

There's a razor net in Dragon Compendium that adds 1d6 damage whenever your victim tries to escape, but these are 50gp a pop and one use only, which makes a budget-conscious character sad.


Make the razor nets out of Aurorum wires (+4000 GP, BoED p. 38) or Shapesand (100 GP, Sandstorm p. 102). Otherwise... consider an eternal wand of make whole.

There are a few other special materials that can do energy damage (Stygian Ice from Frostburn, for example) but it's not clear if these can be made into nets. Gehennan Morghuth Iron (+4000 GP, A&EG p. 14) adds poison to a slashing weapon, but the save DC of 12 is pathetically low.

Alchemical weapon capsules (Complete Adventurer p. 121) might be able to add energy damage to a net, and perhaps a Crystal of Energy Assault, depending on how you interpret +1d6 bonus damage on a weapon that does "--" damage. A Phoenix Ash Threat Crystal should work just fine, though.

By far the most effective thing you can do with a net is probably a Blister Oil Bomb (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9742205&postcount=2) + Sovereign Glue. But if you try that there's a pretty good chance you'll get a few books thrown at your head.

Glyph Seals (1000/4000 GP, MIC p. 161) would be a must. Set the trigger as "any creature touching this net except me". Some good low-level spells for glyph seals: arcane turmoil/dispelling touch, belker claws, cloud of bewilderment, combust, hail of stone, glitterdust, power word fatigue, power word sicken, touch of idiocy.



Exotic Weapon Master has few goodies (though Ranged Disarm with a net is awesome and appropriate, if mechanically weak) to offer us, and there don't seem to be any feats to improve nets.


Net and Trident Style (Complete Warrior) could be very interesting for a Scout or Swift Hunter: 5' step, throw net, 5' step (triggers Skirmish), full attack with trident.

[Amphetryon]

I know this is a popular idea, but it doesn't work. Spell Storing doesn't require a successful attack roll; it requires successful damage, and a net deals no damage.

Razor Net fixes this problem rather handily, I'd think.

[Ashiel]

Nets are pretty cool - they're one of the only debuffs available to a low-level mundane character, and do a pretty good job at it. Are there any ways to make them better? There's a razor net in Dragon Compendium that adds 1d6 damage whenever your victim tries to escape, but these are 50gp a pop and one use only, which makes a budget-conscious character sad. Exotic Weapon Master has few goodies (though Ranged Disarm with a net is awesome and appropriate, if mechanically weak) to offer us, and there don't seem to be any feats to improve nets.

How do you improve your nets?

If you're playing 3E or PF (but not 3.5) you can't break magic weapons without using equally strong magic weapons, which means that a +1 net is effectively unbreakable by normal means, which makes it not only far more useful for catching high strength critters, but also makes it a fairly awesome investment since you don't care about the +damage aspect, a +1 net is all you'll ever need to prevent things from simply breaking it with a strength check.

Likewise, if you're under the effects of an enlarge person spell, you can entangle up to huge foes with great ease. Beware of the spellcasters who can toss giant nets via telekinesis however.

EDIT: Also since incorporeal creatures have no Strength score, a +1 ghost touch net is really mean. :P

[Darrin]

Razor Net fixes this problem rather handily, I'd think.

Not entirely. The razors only do damage if the target attempts to escape/break the net. He could abrupt jaunt, dim-door, dim-hop, teleport, shadow jump/jaunt/step/blink out of the net, or just suck up the entangle penalties and attack/move up to the usual limitations of the net/trailing rope. Sundering rather than escaping/breaking might work, too.

Making the net out of Stygian Ice would do 1d6 cold damage per round of contact, but it's not clear if you can make wires/cables/rope out of that material (fluff indicates it's not any more flexible than normal ice), the wielder has to make a Ref save to avoid damaging the ice itself (1d6 damage vs. hardness 3, assume wires = 1 HP; or if it's considered unattended, autofail the Ref save and 50% chance it destroyes itself), and it melts away in any environment above 40 degrees. Oh, and you flush 6000 GP down the drain every time a net/razor net breaks or melts.

Glyph Seal is much better than Spell Storing anyway. Cheaper, more flexible targetting, add multiple seals to the same net.

[prufock]

Flaming is less explicit, but there cannot be extra damage if there is no base damage to add it to.

Not sure I agree, though there may be some FAQ or Rules Compendium material I'm overlooking. The text:
"A flaming weapon deals an extra 1d6 points of fire damage on a successful hit."

The "base damage" is --. So -- + 1d6 = 1d6.
But then I guess -- + 1d6 = ??? is the real question.

---

As for nets: the Arms and Equipment Guide has a few fun options. Force Web (works on incorporeal creatures, harder to break), Gray Snare (turns into a gray ooze), and the Living Net (free trip attempt).

[Fouredged Sword]

I like the shapesand idea. See if your dm will let you enchant it as a weapon.

[Cog]

The "base damage" is --. So -- + 1d6 = 1d6.
But then I guess -- + 1d6 = ??? is the real question.
There's a very big difference between - and 0. See, for example, LA.

[ffone]

make them spell storing. for a small fee, you can now have it hold a dispell magic. you could hit them with a fireball. you could hit them with a shivering touch. it doesnt much matter, but i have a funny idea in my head where you store a buff spell in it just for giggles.

secondly, you have an attack roll. play a rogue. sneak attack. heck, play a scout if it catches your fancy. either way, IIRC an escape artist check also gets you a sneak attack.

thirdly, nets are in fact an excellent way to deliver contact poison. if you are sneak attacking, you can put on injury poison.

find ways to make it more difficult for people to make either their strength or escape artist checks. then all you have to do is make the strength check to hold onto them

then the only feat left i can think of that would help is the net and trident style feat. it is meh at best, but it is has its place

Hmm, to deal sneak attack, doesn't the underlaying attack need to deal damage? Nets involve an attack roll, which is one requirement, but I think there's also a 'deals damage' requirement either directly stated somewhere (?) or derived from the 'sneak attack damage type = base damage type, except negative energy if base is ability damage/drain' (and so none -> none).

The aforementioned razor nets would work, though, but it'd be expensive.

It's a neat idea, but the standby of acid flasks / alchemists' fire for touch attack sneak attacks might be better.