Druid Spells that would help cheat at a boat race?

[ppf66208]

I'm playing a pathfinder campaign and we have a druid in our party. I'm trying to help him find some spells that will assist us in cheating a regatta that we have to do (it's the skulls and shackles campaign). I can't find any really good spells to effect weather for a level 8 druid, which makes me think I'm missing something. Right now all I can find is Alter Winds and then Summon Monster spells (to bring in water elementals). Any other ideas?

[jaydubs]

You can get creatures other than elementals to help pull the ship along. Dolphins, sharks, whales, etc. I'm not sure how fast (or slow) they are compared to a regatta, but I'd take a look at the call/speak with/charm/dominate animal line of spells, along with wild empathy.

There's also wild shaping into something with a swim speed, as well as casting slipstream on yourself and any animal allied.

You can also dismiss your animal companion and summon one specifically for this purpose. For instance, an 8th level druid can have a racer archetype orca, which ends up as a large creature with swim speed 90.

All of these suggestions require you to rig up some kind of rope system to allow them to pull the boat, but that probably wouldn't be too hard.

[Svata]

Or if you're on the south side of neutral, just use the orca/aquatic creatures summoned with SNA to smash the competition's boats.

[ppf66208]

You can also dismiss your animal companion and summon one specifically for this purpose. For instance, an 8th level druid can have a racer archetype orca, which ends up as a large creature with swim speed 90.

I'm not sure I understand. Summon Monster IV wouldn't last long enough for a creature of this type to be able to pull us for very long.


Or if you're on the south side of neutral, just use the orca/aquatic creatures summoned with SNA to smash the competition's boats.

That was the logic I was going for with the summoning elementals. I was hoping for something to help us move faster in addition to that though.

[JDL]

Use Control Water to raise the water at the rear of your vessel and surf the crest of the wave. There's some errata about the vessel being uncontrolled during that time though, so be careful.

[Jeff the Green]

Flaming sphere?

[atemu1234]

Control Weather, Call Lightning. Make it look like an accident.

[jaydubs]

I'm not sure I understand. Summon Monster IV wouldn't last long enough for a creature of this type to be able to pull us for very long.

I'm not talking about a summon monster spell. I'm talking about an animal companion, as per the druid class feature (so long as the druid opted for that instead of a domain). You can dismiss your regular companion, spend 24 hours praying, and get an orca instead. Then swap back once the race is over by dismissing the orca and praying some more.

[sleepyphoenixx]

If your DM allows 3.5 content there's a whole bunch of them. Wind's Favor, Standing Wave, Boreal Wind, Control Current, Favorable Wind... and those are just from memory.
If it's PF spells only i won't be much help beyond pointing you to the SRD to look through the spell lists yourself.

[madtinker]

Step 1: Purchase two identical boats.
Step 2: Find a crew of look-alikes.
Step 3: Look-alikes sail out with druid at start of race.
Step 4: Druid murders all look-alikes (get rid of the witnesses) and scuttles the boat.
Step 5: Wildshape into dolphin and rendezvous with party just before the finish line.
Step 6: Win race.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Obviously the Tsunami spell is the way to go.

[Kraken]

How much lead time do you have? Use handle animal to gain the services of whales and other large aquatic beasts to sabotage other racers. The beautiful thing about using handle animal as opposed to spells to control animals or summoned animals is that the cheating will be untraceable to you. Either it'll look like a random animal attack, or even if foul play is suspected, I don't think it's likely they'd be able to connect the attacks to anyone.

[Inevitability]

Wild Shape into a small fish, swim to opponent's boat, cast Warp Wood (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/warpWood.htm) (it even specifically calls out destroying ships) to sink the ship. Of course, if you are Good this may be hard to justify, so keep a group of dolphins at hand to safe any sailors.

[Ermac]

Fog cloud, warp wood, wood shape, control water, produce flame, faerie fire, flame strike, sleet storm, fire storm, ect.

[Honest Tiefling]

I would think that a horde of angry badgers would make it difficult to steer a ship, personally, but I have never tried either. What level is the crew? If they are low level, they're the weak point, not the ship.

How long do you have to prepare? If you can frame them for a crime and get someone else to smash their ship, all the better. Sabotage is a time-honored favorite, as is tampering with their food supplies.

[StoneCipher]

Warp wood to have the boat be much less hydrodynamic. It won't necessarily sink it and it will significantly slow them down that you'll easily win. Then you can warp wood back to normal and as long as all of your alterations were on the portions of the hull that were underwater, noone will be the wiser.

[Psyren]

At 8th level, your wild shape functions as Beast Shape 3. BS3 gives you the "jet" ability as well as huge forms. Wildshape into a Giant Squid (this is a core monster so you should know it) and grapple or tie yourself to the boat holding your allies.

Jet lets you move in a straight line as often as you want at rather extreme speeds - for a giant squid in particular, this gets you a zippy 260ft./round. Use the squid's not shabby 60ft. normal speed for double-moving around any corners and you should be set.

[stack]

The eight tentacle attacks also come in handy if your competition tries to cheat violently.

[(Un)Inspired]

What the name of that higher level Druid who's judging the race? He's probably not gonna like it if you follow any of the advice that involves attacking other ships.

Here for my advice is to kill the judge first, THEN sabotage the other ships.

[stack]

River of wind, (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/river-of-wind) if your sails can handle the force?

Buy a scroll or two of control winds? Area is too small since the spell doesn't move with the ship...