Irk
2014-06-27, 03:26 PM
A little while ago, I was re-reading Person_Man's excellent Guide to Melee Combos (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?127026-3-X-Person-Man-s-Guide-to-Melee-Combos). As I was scrolling through the description of various tactics, I cam across the one on creating Difficult Terrain:
Create Difficult Terrain:
Pro: Enemies can't Charge, and have a hard time moving around. Enemies can't take 5 ft steps, and thus will always provoke AoO without Tumble. Effects enemies regardless of size. Generally doesn't require any kind of attack roll or check to use.
Con: Enemy can still move and attack. Completely pointless if the enemy isn't using melee attacks. Useless against flying enemies and many others (Scouts, high level Rangers, etc).
Level of Effort: Varies. Earth Devotion, Knight, Deepstone Sentinel, and a few other options.
Best used against: Enemies with very high Saves/checks that you need to slow down.
Commentary: This is a very common ability for casters but rare for melee builds. It's also not particularly effective unless it's used in concert with at least one other lock down combo. But if used intelligently it can be very handy in most combats.
Now I found this fascinating for the reason that I had never seen a build use this particular tactic. I probably just haven't been around long enough. Anyway, I set out to try and create some sort of build that could exploit the rules of difficult terrain. What I found was disheartening. Deepstone Sentinel and Earth Devotion required, well, stone and earth, while Knight was somewhat, though less severely, limited. Worse of all, they are ALL difficult terrain, so they can't really be stacked.
Then I remembered the Verdant Reaver. The Verdant Reaver is a Plant from MMV with the following ability:
Verdant Growth (Su) Squares adjacent to a verdant reaver
spring up with low brush and tangled roots, even if they
are actually bare stone. It costs 2 squares of movement to
enter a square of verdant growth, and the DC of Tumble
checks increases by 2 in such squares. This growth also
imposes a –2 penalty on Move Silently checks. Squares of
verdant growth revert to their normal state as soon as a
verdant reaver is no longer adjacent.
This ability is great, because it is not difficult terrain, so it can stack with the other abilities:
I take my answer from HERE (https://www.wizards.com/d20/files/v35/CarryingandExploration.rtf), it's an rtf with all the rules for movement and exploration.
The interesting part for the matter at hand is this: <Hampered Movement: Difficult terrain, obstacles, or poor visibility can hamper movement. When movement is hampered, each square moved into usually counts as two squares, effectively reducing the distance that a character can cover in a move.
If more than one condition applies, multiply together all additional costs that apply. (This is a specific exception to the normal rule for doubling)
In some situations, your movement may be so hampered that you don't have sufficient speed even to move 5 feet (1 square). In such a case, you may use a full-round action to move 5 feet (1 square) in any direction, even diagonally. Even though this looks like a 5-foot step, it's not, and thus it provokes attacks of opportunity normally. (You can't take advantage of this rule to move through impassable terrain or to move when all movement is prohibited to you.)
You can't run or charge through any square that would hamper your movement.>
Some examples of how much it would cost to move one square in different circumstances:
Difficult terrain = 2 squares ( 3 if you move diagonally)
Difficult terrain + Verdant Reaver = 4 squares (6 if you move diagonally)
Difficult terrain + Verdant Reaver + heavy fog = 8 squares (12 if moving diagonally)
Difficult terrain + Verdant Reaver + heavy fog + having to step over the corpse of a deceased ally previously mashed to pulp by the Verdant Reaver (obstacle) = 16 squares (24 if moving diagonally, and may god have mercy on your soul)
The idea behind the Verdant Knight-Druid is to use a popular spell combination along with a few other abilities to make a single square of movement around the character cost 8 squares of movement to go through.
So, without further ado:
The Verdant Knight Druid: Druid 8/Knight 3
Obscuring Snow + Snowsight hampers visibility. 2 squares
Knight 3 has Bulwark of Defense to turn threatened area into Difficult Terrain. 2 squares
Enhance Wild Shape + Assume Supernatural Ability to get the form of a Verdant Reaver along with its key ability. 2 squares
Adjacent squares will cost 8 squares to move through. With a reach weapon, further squares will cost 4. With Spike Stones, it's nearly impossible to get through to you. The problem arises in the form of teleportation, flight is somewhat negated by Obscuring Snow. Spike Stones helps to make teleportation unpleasant, but it does not ultimately stop it, while Obscuring Snow, well, obscures even if they get close Aiming spells becomes difficult with Obscuring Snow. What's nice is that the whole assemblage moves with you, so there is not recasting until your 8-hour durations run out. Until then, you can just launch spells or summon with impunity, perhaps have your animal companion bull rush anyone who teleports in too close.
This could also be adapted to a Wildshape Mystic Ranger with a knowstone, but there is not really much point, unless you wanted to do the same thing while using Sword of The Arcane Order to launch the marginally better Wizard/Sorcerer offensive spells.
Thoughts? Could more hamper-age be added?
Create Difficult Terrain:
Pro: Enemies can't Charge, and have a hard time moving around. Enemies can't take 5 ft steps, and thus will always provoke AoO without Tumble. Effects enemies regardless of size. Generally doesn't require any kind of attack roll or check to use.
Con: Enemy can still move and attack. Completely pointless if the enemy isn't using melee attacks. Useless against flying enemies and many others (Scouts, high level Rangers, etc).
Level of Effort: Varies. Earth Devotion, Knight, Deepstone Sentinel, and a few other options.
Best used against: Enemies with very high Saves/checks that you need to slow down.
Commentary: This is a very common ability for casters but rare for melee builds. It's also not particularly effective unless it's used in concert with at least one other lock down combo. But if used intelligently it can be very handy in most combats.
Now I found this fascinating for the reason that I had never seen a build use this particular tactic. I probably just haven't been around long enough. Anyway, I set out to try and create some sort of build that could exploit the rules of difficult terrain. What I found was disheartening. Deepstone Sentinel and Earth Devotion required, well, stone and earth, while Knight was somewhat, though less severely, limited. Worse of all, they are ALL difficult terrain, so they can't really be stacked.
Then I remembered the Verdant Reaver. The Verdant Reaver is a Plant from MMV with the following ability:
Verdant Growth (Su) Squares adjacent to a verdant reaver
spring up with low brush and tangled roots, even if they
are actually bare stone. It costs 2 squares of movement to
enter a square of verdant growth, and the DC of Tumble
checks increases by 2 in such squares. This growth also
imposes a –2 penalty on Move Silently checks. Squares of
verdant growth revert to their normal state as soon as a
verdant reaver is no longer adjacent.
This ability is great, because it is not difficult terrain, so it can stack with the other abilities:
I take my answer from HERE (https://www.wizards.com/d20/files/v35/CarryingandExploration.rtf), it's an rtf with all the rules for movement and exploration.
The interesting part for the matter at hand is this: <Hampered Movement: Difficult terrain, obstacles, or poor visibility can hamper movement. When movement is hampered, each square moved into usually counts as two squares, effectively reducing the distance that a character can cover in a move.
If more than one condition applies, multiply together all additional costs that apply. (This is a specific exception to the normal rule for doubling)
In some situations, your movement may be so hampered that you don't have sufficient speed even to move 5 feet (1 square). In such a case, you may use a full-round action to move 5 feet (1 square) in any direction, even diagonally. Even though this looks like a 5-foot step, it's not, and thus it provokes attacks of opportunity normally. (You can't take advantage of this rule to move through impassable terrain or to move when all movement is prohibited to you.)
You can't run or charge through any square that would hamper your movement.>
Some examples of how much it would cost to move one square in different circumstances:
Difficult terrain = 2 squares ( 3 if you move diagonally)
Difficult terrain + Verdant Reaver = 4 squares (6 if you move diagonally)
Difficult terrain + Verdant Reaver + heavy fog = 8 squares (12 if moving diagonally)
Difficult terrain + Verdant Reaver + heavy fog + having to step over the corpse of a deceased ally previously mashed to pulp by the Verdant Reaver (obstacle) = 16 squares (24 if moving diagonally, and may god have mercy on your soul)
The idea behind the Verdant Knight-Druid is to use a popular spell combination along with a few other abilities to make a single square of movement around the character cost 8 squares of movement to go through.
So, without further ado:
The Verdant Knight Druid: Druid 8/Knight 3
Obscuring Snow + Snowsight hampers visibility. 2 squares
Knight 3 has Bulwark of Defense to turn threatened area into Difficult Terrain. 2 squares
Enhance Wild Shape + Assume Supernatural Ability to get the form of a Verdant Reaver along with its key ability. 2 squares
Adjacent squares will cost 8 squares to move through. With a reach weapon, further squares will cost 4. With Spike Stones, it's nearly impossible to get through to you. The problem arises in the form of teleportation, flight is somewhat negated by Obscuring Snow. Spike Stones helps to make teleportation unpleasant, but it does not ultimately stop it, while Obscuring Snow, well, obscures even if they get close Aiming spells becomes difficult with Obscuring Snow. What's nice is that the whole assemblage moves with you, so there is not recasting until your 8-hour durations run out. Until then, you can just launch spells or summon with impunity, perhaps have your animal companion bull rush anyone who teleports in too close.
This could also be adapted to a Wildshape Mystic Ranger with a knowstone, but there is not really much point, unless you wanted to do the same thing while using Sword of The Arcane Order to launch the marginally better Wizard/Sorcerer offensive spells.
Thoughts? Could more hamper-age be added?