[3.5/PF] Battlefield Control Overrated?

[Wonton]

This is something I've been thinking about for a while, as my last 3 characters were a Conjurer Wizard, a Druid, and a Beguiler, so I've had a lot of experience with spell selection.

My hypothesis is: Battlefield Control spells, for the most part, are highly overrated by guide writers - and by extension, by the community in general

I believe there is an idolization of clever use of battlefield control (BC) spells that deal no damage. Players who prepare a Fireball spell are made fun of, as if it's automatically a bad strategy to do so. Hell, "Blaster Wizard" has become a pejorative, an example of a bad or inexperienced player. If you've played any of the caster classes I mentioned, you've probably read the associated handbooks/guides, and in almost all situations casters are recommended to bring BC over damage and utility. However, I can't count the number of encounters in which all of my BC proved to be ineffective, and I just wished for a damage spell or another option so that I could at least contribute somewhat to the fight. Let's look at some of the core discussion points that I think are relevant when analyzing BC:

Imaginary situations vs realistic situations

I truly believe that most guide writers have never actually played the class they are writing a guide for, or play in very unique groups with strange DMs. Common examples of errors they make include:


For a spell with vague or variable effects, only assuming the most powerful outcome (Stone Shape, Soften Earth and Stone, Walls).
Ignoring typical creatures' strengths (high Fort, high CMD)
Ignoring the behaviour of party members (especially when it comes to slow effects and area-based sight denial, see the next section below)
Ignoring creatures' special abilities that negate many forms of BC (blindsight, flight, undead traits)
Assuming every encounter has a mix of melee, ranged, and caster enemies, when in my experience, that's reserved for end-of-dungeon/end-of-arc boss fights and the like. In 80% of fights, the biggest threat is a single big melee monster, which many forms of BC are ineffective against.


Effects that are strong vs effects that do nothing


Disabling conditions (blinded, stunned, paralyzed, nauseated): Very strong. These are the true save-or-dies.
Speed reduction: Does nothing unless your party is all casters and archers. Most parties have Fighters, Barbarians, and Rogues that like to actually do stuff in melee, rather than just running away from enemies while the ranged characters slowly pick away at them. As soon as your Barbarian charges in, the enemies' halved movement speed no longer matters at all.
Area-based sight denial: This buys you a turn at most. In many cases (Your melee vs their melee), it actually does nothing unless your party has Blindsight or something of that nature.


Looking at individual spells

Let's look at some commonly-praised BC spells in detail, and see how the problems listed above apply to them:


Color Spray, Glitterdust (nerfed quite a bit in PF), Web (nerfed quite a bit in PF), Stinking Cloud: I will admit these are very powerful, especially in 3.5 where Glitterdust is pretty much a save-or-die. In Pathfinder, opponents get multiple saves against it and it is usually a shorter disable - though still one of the strongest 2nd level spells, and possibly the best BC spell as a whole (in terms of relative power for its level).
Obscuring Mist, Fog Cloud: I don't think these actually do anything - see "area-based sight denial" above. MAYBE if you're doing a complex encounter, where some of the enemies are archers on high ground/towers/platforms, you can use these to force them to move out of their position.
Soften Earth and Stone: I don't think anyone who thinks this spell is good in combat has actually read it. You can only trap creatures in thick mud if they were standing on wet earth - unless your DM always allows you to assume it just rained, this is usually not the case and this spell only halves creatures' speed - see "Effects that do nothing" section above.
Stone Shape: This is a type of spell I really dislike, because it's so vague that its power level ranges anywhere from "total garbage" to "most broken thing ever" depending on how permissive your DM is and how willing you are to abuse open-ended spell descriptions. Instantaneous, standard action, shape stone into "any shape that suits your purpose". If your DM allows you to entomb creatures in stone with this, sure. 3rd-level no-save multi-target save-or-die. Otherwise, this is utility, not battlefield control.
Sleet Storm: I do believe this is strong, but ONLY because of its absurd area (40-ft spread). Even still, it's just "area-based sight denial" + "speed reduction" from above, so it falls into the simple problem of "what if the encounter is melee vs melee".
Illusions: As strong or as weak as your DM allows. I've never found much use for these, though I admit that may just be due to a lack of imagination.
Black Tentacles: Power is highly variable, as many things have an absurd CMD/Grapple that you will never match. Of course, using this on casters/archers brings it up to the power of Color Spray and company above, but, as stated before, I think encounters of that nature are very situational.
Wall of Ice/Stone/Force/Iron: Again, I'm really not sure what kind of campaigns the people that like these spells play in. If there's a troll or a dragon, typically you're fighting it because you need to get through it to whatever is on the other side. If you just wall it off and run away, you haven't advanced the story one bit. Unless there's conveniently placed reinforcements coming from a side tunnel that you can block off, I don't see much use for wall spells. Most enemies will just move around it. And yes, I know Wall of Stone is shapeable and can be formed in a way to trap creatures - however, the surface area required to do this for larger creatures is often more than your caster level is capable of. As a final nail in the coffin, these are mid-level spells, at which point things like teleportation, flight, burrow, incorporeal creatures, and gaseous form become more and more common.


Conclusion

I will admit a few caveats:

Most of my gaming experience is in low-mid levels, so I don't know a whole lot about 6th through 9th level spells.
There ARE some very strong outliers for spells. I certainly don't mean to claim that BC as a whole is a terrible playstyle.


Finally, a lot of my arguments hinge on your DM and the type of campaign you play in. If every encounter in your game is on a 250 foot x 250 foot grid with a big boss supported by 8 weak "minion"-type creatures, a few tough "bodyguard" melee creatures, a few archers, and a caster or two, with lots of structures, cover, and high ground, then yes - I will admit that battlefield control is probably a very strong option in your game. However, I would guess that this isn't the case for most of us, and therefore those of us wishing to play spellcasters shouldn't be fooled to ONLY bring battlefield control to the table just because some handbook writer said so. A well-placed 6d6 of damage can be just as effective.

You're very welcome to post counterpoints or personal experiences with battlefield control below! :smallbiggrin:

[Troacctid]

You're supposed to use them to divide and conquer. So if there are two enemies, you block one of them out of the fight and dogpile the other. Then when the first one eventually rejoins the battle, he's all on his own and you can dogpile him too.

Action economy is a big deal in this game, and whichever side has more actions is going to have a big advantage in a fight. By cutting half the enemies out of the action, you're nerfing their side's action economy into the ground, turning what might have been a fair fight into an unfair one. Of course, killing half the enemies with damage can accomplish the same thing, but the best BFC spells tend to work regardless of the enemy's AC, saves, hit point totals, or even spell resistance, which makes them pretty strong. As a DM, some of my most dangerous (and most memorable) boss fights have been the ones with ways to block PCs out of the fight to prevent them from leveraging their numbers advantage.

I do definitely agree with you that common optimization wisdom underrates Fireball and friends. Dealing half damage even on a save is excellent, and hitting multiple enemies means that, in practice, you are dealing a LOT more damage than just 1d6/level.

[John Longarrow]

In the games I've played in, and the games I DM, seldom does the party encounter a single monster unless it falls into the category of 'lone predator'. MOST battles involve multiple enemies as they are far more challenging than a single monster. When they do face single monsters in one on group fights, normally there is a good reason for it story wise.

It sounds like you've not had a lot of the group fights. To me these are much more fun than dog pile on the big guy. They let you get tactics, planning, and group actions involved far more.

[Telok]

All spells in D&D are situational. Even your happy little Fireballs take it on the chin when faced with resistances and immunities. What you're really looking for a synergistic combos where at least one part of the combo is a spell and the power of the combo is much greater than using it's parts in isolation.

Everyone does damage in D&D, but wizards often aren't the best at it. The idea behind the control style is to be a team player and use as few spells as possible to seriously multiply the damage your team is doing or massively reduce the damage your team is taking.

As a druid I've stopped charging calvary with a delayed action and Spike Growth overlaid with Entangle. Group archery mop up on some Improved Crit, Leap Attack, knights.

As a bard I've used illusions to make half-dragon trolls stop using Flyby Attacks and close to melee with our barbarian.

As a DM I have seen players set up the combo to drop a Wall of Iron on a nasty undead (mhorg with the disguise skill, it looked worse than it really was) that they didn't want to melee. They one-shot it without making a single attack roll, just some strength checks.

Sight denial shuts down archers and single target spellcasters. Movement denial stops charges and gives your side an extra round to shoot or buff. The wall spells can provide cover to you and force or deny enemy movement.

Given the choice between casting Magic Missile or Grease at something like a giant or other melee brute I'll almost always choose Grease. Those d4's aren't enough to make a difference and if I'm lucky there's a cliff nearby for the party fighter to push him off.

[Korivan]

Over rated? Not one bit. Splitting up multiple threats/locking down small groups, hindering armies...the list goes on. All of these are quintessential if you want your big burly fighters to dominate the battlefield. I can't count how many black tentacle or mass hold monster made the difference

[J-H]

I took a Transmuter into RTEE, with no direct damage spells known and Evocation banned. It was pretty bad; we did not have nearly enough damage output. Our biggest battle was against close to a dozen hobgoblins (?) in a forest. Someone on our team dropped Obscuring Mist or something, dropping sight radius down to 5'. I could Web the archers, but they could still shoot, and I only had a couple of castings of Glitterdust, and their archers weren't clumped at all. My biggest contribution to the fight was a Color Spray that stunned their commander for one round. The second-biggest was throwing an Alchemist's Flask on the Web to do a couple of D6s of damage to a couple of them. I was wishing I had some kind of HP damage to inflict on the CC'd enemies, but I had nothing.

[Xervous]

I took a Transmuter into RTEE, with no direct damage spells known and Evocation banned. It was pretty bad; we did not have nearly enough damage output. Our biggest battle was against close to a dozen hobgoblins (?) in a forest. Someone on our team dropped Obscuring Mist or something, dropping sight radius down to 5'. I could Web the archers, but they could still shoot, and I only had a couple of castings of Glitterdust, and their archers weren't clumped at all. My biggest contribution to the fight was a Color Spray that stunned their commander for one round. The second-biggest was throwing an Alchemist's Flask on the Web to do a couple of D6s of damage to a couple of them. I was wishing I had some kind of HP damage to inflict on the CC'd enemies, but I had nothing.

What was the rest of your party composition?

[J-H]

A Monk/Fighter, A factotum, and I don't recall the other one.

[Troacctid]

I can definitely see how that would be a problem--Monks and Factotums are not too great at DPS.

[John Longarrow]

J-H,

Sounds like your party was built in a vacuum. Normally when I play I like getting together with the other players first to make sure we have all the bases covered. As DM I ask the players to get together and work out their party and often ask that they make sure they have certain areas addressed OR let me know they won't. This avoids a LOT of the issues you bring up.

[avr]

Some of this is just down to making sure you have options and using those options appropriately. Will/Reflex save stuff for the big critters, Fort save vs. the fey and the casters. Break sight lines when it is advantageous to your side only. Don't target CMD with spells in PF past the earliest levels. When dividing and conquering make sure that you don't leave an enemy spell caster time to summon and buff an army.

And yeah, some type of damage is good for when you just don't have an effective option otherwise.

If the melee types on your side are lemmings who charge into the biggest cluster of enemies no matter what you'll be doing, that's a problem whether you use stinking cloud or fireball. Working with your friends is always going to be more effective than working against them - either convince them to use different tactics or concentrate on buff spells instead.

[frost890]

That depends on play style and consequences. A one of the groups that I played with actually studied tactics. For example the dragon from "Red hand of doom" We summoned air elemental's that pinned the wings forcing it to the ground. then dropped buildings on it to pin it as we killed it. Other groups were wiped out because they did not think and just threw out a fireball(he was in the radius btw).

We attacked a caravan with 4 first level characters. the druid tossed out an entangle spell and we shoot them to death. there were 6 level five fighters. Later I found out the GM wanted to loose the fight and be driven off but that is another story. it is often more important how you use something then what you have.

[Wonton]

You're supposed to use them to divide and conquer. So if there are two enemies, you block one of them out of the fight and dogpile the other. Then when the first one eventually rejoins the battle, he's all on his own and you can dogpile him too.

Yeah, I agree, that's the basic principle of Battlefield Control... and as I said, I still think it's a strong playstyle... the question is just how do you easily separate two enemies? That's why I went into detail spell-by-spell in the "Individual Spells" section - I think most of them just don't do enough in a situation like this. If you're fighting in a small room, it may be possible to use a properly placed Wall to split them up, but if you're outdoors, I don't know that there's a whole lot you can do.


In the games I've played in, and the games I DM, seldom does the party encounter a single monster unless it falls into the category of 'lone predator'. MOST battles involve multiple enemies as they are far more challenging than a single monster. When they do face single monsters in one on group fights, normally there is a good reason for it story wise.

It sounds like you've not had a lot of the group fights. To me these are much more fun than dog pile on the big guy. They let you get tactics, planning, and group actions involved far more.

Not necessarily just solo fights. Those are definitely quite rare. It could be several monsters, it could be a mix of monsters, but the point is: most enemies are melee. There are very few ranged creatures in the Monster Manual. Pretty much the only ranged enemies you fight are humanoids with class levels, which I would say are relatively rare - and not just true of the DMs I've played with, but also of the Adventure Paths I've read. Even named enemies that DO have class levels are much more commonly Fighters/Barbarians/Rogues than archers or casters. And as I mentioned before, melee fights are troublesome as most Battlefield Control just doesn't work quite as well once allies are right on top of enemies.


As a druid I've stopped charging calvary with a delayed action and Spike Growth overlaid with Entangle. Group archery mop up on some Improved Crit, Leap Attack, knights.

As a bard I've used illusions to make half-dragon trolls stop using Flyby Attacks and close to melee with our barbarian.

As a DM I have seen players set up the combo to drop a Wall of Iron on a nasty undead (mhorg with the disguise skill, it looked worse than it really was) that they didn't want to melee. They one-shot it without making a single attack roll, just some strength checks.

Yes, you've listed some examples of Battlefield Control being useful. But I didn't claim "Battlefield Control is useless"', I claimed it's overrated. Obviously, my Conjurer Wizard was very powerful sometimes, if he was useless in every combat, I wouldn't have played him. I just claim that in a lot of situations, there may only be one spell that's all that good, and chances are, you only prepared it once or twice. In general, it's very difficult to have a spell selection that is simultaneously wide enough to cover most situations, but also deep enough to have more than 1 or 2 useful spells per combat. That's what I wanted to get across in the original post - a lot of Battlefield Control spells are strong sometimes, but useless a lot of the time, and I find that if I don't have a backup damage option, I frequently find myself with nothing useful to cast on the 2nd or 3rd round of combat.


I do definitely agree with you that common optimization wisdom underrates Fireball and friends. Dealing half damage even on a save is excellent, and hitting multiple enemies means that, in practice, you are dealing a LOT more damage than just 1d6/level.

Definitely. AoE is very underrated. Very few enemies have evasion, so on average you're doing about 3/4 of your spell's damage to multiple enemies.

[Pex]

It's not that battlefield control is overrated but that damage spells are underrated. It is not necessary for a damage spell to Win The Combat by killing the enemy by itself. Because that doesn't happen often enough people hate them and ban evocation in an instant. What damage spells are good for are two things. 1) A finishing move to mop up mooks and fodder after other party members have already damaged them. 2) Hit point attrition. Damage them enough so that the party warriors don't have to spend too many rounds dealing with them before they take on the boss.

A damage spell against the boss is fine too. It's not meant to kill in one shot. It's just a contribution to the damage the warriors are doing. Contrary to popular belief on these forums, the bad guys actually do make their saving throws. That awesome debuff they want to use to take someone out of the fight will fail because of it. Terrain control is nice and useful and often has no saving throw. Good for the spellcaster. They're supposed to have stuff that works. Damage spells work too.

[kulosle]

In general, it's very difficult to have a spell selection that is simultaneously wide enough to cover most situations, but also deep enough to have more than 1 or 2 useful spells per combat.

This is the basic point of wizards and is suppose to be their limiting factor. Wizards do have ways of getting around this and that's when their tier 1 really shines.

I would say that you are probably right. They are overrated, but it's still probably the best combat style. I always do have a damage option, but my back up to no good battlefield control is usually buff spells.

[Troacctid]

Yeah, I agree, that's the basic principle of Battlefield Control... and as I said, I still think it's a strong playstyle... the question is just how do you easily separate two enemies? That's why I went into detail spell-by-spell in the "Individual Spells" section - I think most of them just don't do enough in a situation like this. If you're fighting in a small room, it may be possible to use a properly placed Wall to split them up, but if you're outdoors, I don't know that there's a whole lot you can do.
I usually use walls. They can be pretty big, so you don't actually need to be in a small room for a lot of them. It also gives the locked-out players a chance to try and smash through it or get around it in some other way, so they aren't just twiddling their thumbs for the whole fight—although as a player, I suppose that's probably not what you're going for.

Other than that, Black Tentacles is pretty good against small monsters, since they often have poor grapple checks, and Sleet Storm is pretty good against large ones, since bigger creatures tend to have lower Dexterity. Of course, if we're against melee opponents in an outdoor area, the obvious solution is to just fly over them and auto-win.

[John Longarrow]

Not necessarily just solo fights. Those are definitely quite rare. It could be several monsters, it could be a mix of monsters, but the point is: most enemies are melee. There are very few ranged creatures in the Monster Manual. Pretty much the only ranged enemies you fight are humanoids with class levels, which I would say are relatively rare - and not just true of the DMs I've played with, but also of the Adventure Paths I've read. Even named enemies that DO have class levels are much more commonly Fighters/Barbarians/Rogues than archers or casters. And as I mentioned before, melee fights are troublesome as most Battlefield Control just doesn't work quite as well once allies are right on top of enemies.

Ah, I see the difference now. I never run a module as written. I've seen waaay to many bad choices on the part of the writers. I, and the DMs I play with, tend to have anything capable of using missile weapons use missile weapons. Even that lowly 1st level wizard is going to have several darts for when his spells don't apply. Unfortunately most module writers assume each encounter is in a vacuum and rarely take full advantage of missile weapons. To me this just speaks of poor / lazy design. When I set up a dungeon or adventure the players can count on lots of things that are not standard, including open areas with ranged combat.

You are right, play style has a LOT to do with how useful BFC is. If the DM doesn't put as much thought and effort into how the monsters fight as the players do in how their characters fight, lots of encounters become cakewalks. As DM I try to think of what the monster would do, especially if its survived at least one fight. That includes using reach/ranged weapons when it suits the monster even if they are not stated that way in the book.

[ericgrau]

BFC is good. Fireball is also good. Yes you should prepare both to have options. Yes you should also have party buffs and single target no save debuffs like ray of enfeeblement in case of solo monsters. Well, not ROE in Pathfinder since they nerfed it. But there are other ok ones like enervation. Or web is often good even against solo foes though I forget what the PF nerf is for it. Wall of force is amazing, instantly dropping the encounter level of groups. Yes, again you want to prepare solo answers and mass party buffs too. Wall of ice is also nice as a 1 round delay and because the hemisphere option can buy your party a round to recover against solo foes too. Wall of stone and iron are pretty lousy because stone is too breakable and small while iron is too small and too high level. Also don't forget solid fog both as BFC and to delay solo foes so you can buff or heal or etc. Resilient sphere is great against single targets as well, as reflex is the lowest save later and immunity is rare, though a lower CR individual from part of a group is more likely to fail his save.

Sleet storm is still good BFC because even though it slows speed it slows it enough to delay foes a round or more so that even your melee can pick off foes little by little.

Druid BFC is highly situational yes and not nearly as good as wizard BFC.

A lot of these issues come from poorly written guides rather than BFC itself. Notice how half of the best BFC is evocation, the school they tell you to ban, while a lot of the situational or defeatable BFC is conjuration (but it has some great ones too). Plus, yeah, fireball. Plus for low level PF boosted flaming sphere. You really need both schools. Plus necromancy has a lot of the single target stuff, and it's another commonly banned school in the guides. Plus PF added some more nice mass buffs such as communal spells and brand new spells too.

My typical spells for PF would be something like:
5: wall of force, who cares
4: solid fog, wall of ice, resilient sphere, dimension door, maybe enervation, greater invisibility, dazing magic missile, selective fireball; really hard to choose this level, I've actually burned 5th level slots on these before
3: haste, sleet storm, fireball, greater magic weapon (rod extended to 24 hours if possible), empowered magic missile
2: flaming sphere early, false life later, levitate, invisibility
1: later mage armor, unseen servant, feather fall, floating disk; sleep or color spray early

Been a while since I played PF so I forget the PF specific stuff I like. But I remember dazing spell and selective spell are nice. Since PF went softer on banned schools you may also notice that it's pretty easy to ban abjuration from the above. Dispel magic to have a 50:50 chance of stopping a spell is a pretty poor tradeoff for the enemy's 100% chance of casting it. But if you really do need it it's only 1 spell, so you blow the 2 slots, no biggy. Plus enchantment was always easy to ban.

[Zanos]

I honestly do agree that damage is underrated. I know it's possible to become basically immune to damage, but I haven't seen that in any sane game I have played, although I have participated in some less than sane games. But doing damage = very yes controls people forever.

But as others mentioned, battlefield control is still quite powerful. Changing a 4v4 fight in 4 individual 4v1s is extremely powerful, and clever use of low level spells like web, fogs, and illusions can do so barring unforeseen circumstances. And this comes on line much earlier than doing a ton of damage. Low level spellcasters are actually tremendously bad at doing damage unless they're abusing poorly written spells like power word pain.

Yes, some BFC spells aren't good in every situation, so I typically only prepare one cast of each spell every day. Even so, many of these situational spells aren't that situational; how often do you find yourself in a featureless expanse of ground? I doubt you'll find yourself unexpectedly in a desert or tundra at low levels, so prepare spells that suit the campaign.

Some spells, however, just weren't well balanced at all. Take Slow, which basically nerfs everything hit with it into the ground at SL 3. Compare that to a cast of fireball, and where it comes from is obvious.

Yes, someone needs to do damage. But in generally that should be left to characters who do tons of damage at will against targets you've rendered non-threatening either by division, debuffing, or buffing your canons.

If you want to get into specific build territory(I know, I know), you could always use one of the many options available to wizards that allows them to cast any spell they know with a standard or full-round action.

[Rebel7284]

Wizards shine best when they have some ideas about the types of encounters that are coming and prepare accordingly.

While battlefield control is very powerful, especially if you have a DM or campaign that favors groups of monsters, you also have to remember that buffs and debuffs are the other part of the equation. There are some of battles in which Grease is less useful than Enlarge Person and vice-versa.
There are times that Slow can "deal" a ton more damage than Fireball and vice-versa.

With a balanced application of battlefield control, buffing, and debuffing, you are certainly going to do better than just focusing on battlefield control.

While there is certainly nothing wrong with preparing some damaging spells, others have mentioned that if the rest of your party is any good at dealing damage, that often will be less effective than enabling the party with the three pillars of wizardry mentioned before.

[Psyren]

Speed reduction: Does nothing unless your party is all casters and archers. Most parties have Fighters, Barbarians, and Rogues that like to actually do stuff in melee, rather than just running away from enemies while the ranged characters slowly pick away at them. As soon as your Barbarian charges in, the enemies' halved movement speed no longer matters at all.

This is easily proven false if you think about it even briefly. For starters, melee classes only work if the monsters stay within reach; if the monsters can get past them to your ranged classes (of which there will be at least one, if there is a controller caster in the group) then the effectiveness of your melee drops. Battlefield control keeps the monsters on the business end of your melee where they can do the most damage. This is particularly notable since a lot of monsters are faster than the PCs, who are most likely to be humanoids with class levels, and tumbling besides.

Second, just because your Barbarian has charged in and begun engaging a target or targets, doesn't mean the battlefield control is no longer helpful. Control effects not only keep monsters within reach of the melee, it also allows you to keep said monsters from overwhelming the melee. You can bog or lock down a portion of the opposing force so that they are not surrounding or flanking your melee all at once, or so that your melee can focus-fire individual targets (e.g. barb + flanking rogue) without leaving other monsters free to do as they please. It allows the group to prioritize more dangerous foes like enemy casters, and leave the BSFs or FFRs on the opposing force until last.

Third and final, using battlefield control and allowing your melee to "do stuff" are not mutually exclusive. You can place effects so that they only lock down a portion of the battlefield, leaving the rest open for your melee to move in freely - aim your Black Tentacles/Solid Fog towards the back ranks of the enemy for instance and remove their archers from play. Or you can choose effects that hamper one side more than another, such as a party of elves using bursts of Widened Deep Slumber against hostile orcs.



Area-based sight denial: This buys you a turn at most. In many cases (Your melee vs their melee), it actually does nothing unless your party has Blindsight or something of that nature.


a) Yes, simply blocking vision is less effective in a melee vs. melee fight, but you have better spells for those occasions anyway. And once ranged foes enter the equation on either side, this objection dissipates rapidly.
b) This is also why the best sight denial spells do other things too, like Solid Fog, Sleet Storm or Stinking Cloud. Even Glitterdust also doubles as a rogue revealer.

[Florian]

Full-blown BFC is insofar overrated as that....
- Must actually be wanted by your group
- Changes the play style
- Needs participants with a good tactical awareness
- Needs a lot of rules mastery, else the game bogs down to a crawl
- Can ruin the fun for people who don´t want to go into it too deep
- Frankly is overkill when used in a regular module or AP

[Psyren]

If you don't have rules mastery (or at least rules facility) then you probably shouldn't be playing a controller to begin with. But class handbooks assume that you either have or are interested in acquiring that level of skill, otherwise you wouldn't be reading a handbook, you'd just be picking spells and feats that seem fun or purely for RP purposes or whatnot.

It also goes without saying that you wouldn't use a tactical character in a group that has no interest in tactics :smalltongue:

[ericgrau]

Some spells, however, just weren't well balanced at all. Take Slow, which basically nerfs everything hit with it into the ground at SL 3. Compare that to a cast of fireball, and where it comes from is obvious.
I've taken slow and done poorly compared to fireball in Pathfinder. I even specialized in transmutation and tried to pump the DC. It only works when the foe fails its save. The enemy can still do a little and it doesn't stack well with the damage your allies are doing; if the foe is about to die anyway he might be slowed for only 1 action, maybe 2 tops. And making that foe dead is better than slowing him. Unless you have a redonkulous initiative to slow everything before every single one of your allies go it's hard to coordinate "Ok I managed to slow this one guy, attack the other ones". Instead it's "Oh, finally, this one failed his save but he was almost dead anyway". And against a solo foe with high saves at least the fireball can do half damage. Plus reflex is the lowest save on average. At least there aren't a lot of foes immune to slow like there are with other will and fort save effects.

The fireballing wizard was doing much better with fireballs, though he was having trouble with other spells besides fireball. I soon picked up selective fireball and never looked back. Our fight immediately afterwards was against a group of monks with evasion. Because of selective spell I was able to hit them all and one failed his save so even in the worst case scenario it still worked out nicely.

Better non-damage spells you can get by spell level 3 would include web, sleet storm and haste. Not slow. Though I forget how PF nerfed web; I'd have to take another look at it.

[WesleyVos]

Battlefield control is overrated so long as it is used by itself. When combined with a proper amount of buffing (Enlarge Person, Bull's Strength, Haste) and Debuffing (Slow, Ray of Enfeeblement, Glitterdust), along with carefully selected feats (Cloudy Conjuration, Spell Focus, Greater Spell Focus) and alternate class features (Enhanced Summoning, for example), it is really quite powerful. Even without preparation time, battlefield control is excellent. Dimension Step by itself is invaluable, unless all you ever face are enemies that rush right at the melee fighters and ignore everyone else. And that's all at low to mid-level.

Regarding ericgrau's point, if you are only taking spells that allow opponents a save, then you aren't doing battlefield control right. Most of your spells should be no-save options, or where saving doesn't save them (Grease, for example, or Web).

[Zanos]

I've taken slow and done poorly compared to fireball in Pathfinder. I even specialized in transmutation and tried to pump the DC. It only works when the foe fails its save. The enemy can still do a little and it doesn't stack well with the damage your allies are doing; if the foe is about to die anyway he might be slowed for only 1 action, maybe 2 tops. And making that foe dead is better than slowing him. Unless you have a redonkulous initiative to slow everything before every single one of your allies go it's hard to coordinate "Ok I managed to slow this one guy, attack the other ones". Instead it's "Oh, finally, this one failed his save but he was almost dead anyway". And against a solo foe with high saves at least the fireball can do half damage. Plus reflex is the lowest save on average. At least there aren't a lot of foes immune to slow like there are with other will and fort save effects.
Wizards should have high initiative and slow is most effective on targets with lots of attacks(and it hits more than one target), which tend to have lower will saves. Poor use of the spell does not make the spell bad. You might as well complain that fireball is a bad spell because you cast it on something resistant or immune to fire.

[ericgrau]

Wizards should have high initiative...
Stop right there. Having a high initiative is not the same as going first. To beat all or at least almost all of the initiative rolls of 3 allies and some monsters you need a redonkulous initiative. Or heck even just your allies. 15 higher than everyone else would be nice.

[Zanos]

Stop right there. Having a high initiative is not the same as going first. To beat all or at least almost all of the initiative rolls of 3 allies and some monsters you need a redonkulous initiative. 15 higher than everyone else would be nice.
Having a high saving throw isn't the same as passing the save either. But it helps a lot, as you discovered.

You don't need to beat your allies either, they can delay.

[ericgrau]

You don't need to beat your allies either, they can delay.
So give everyone else the sucky initiative feat? No thanks.

Anyhoo, tried it, specialized in it, didn't work well. Way too many issues: many passed saves, poor coordination with damage, no partial effect against resistant foes, etc. I'd get one foe now and then and he'd be hurt anyway because without a +15 to initiative I'm not going first. Would have been better to just finish him off before my ally finishes him off anyway. Often before he can take his slow turn.

[Zanos]

So give everyone else the sucky initiative feat? No thanks.

Anyhoo, tried it, specialized in it, didn't work well. Way too many issues: many passed saves, poor coordination with damage, no partial effect against resistant foes, etc.
Unless they're dealing till after the turns of monsters it shouldn't matter.

Overspecialization in any one field is crippling. Slow is a potent spell when applied correctly. It's also not single target. If your enemies have high will saves or spell resistance, you should attack their other defenses, unless you're simply unlucky with monster saving throws.

[Psyren]

Slow is fine. Yeah, SR:Yes and Will negates aren't great riders, but will saves that aren't mind-affecting are nice to have in the toolbox too, and because it's a multitarget spell (not an area spell like fireball), this means two things: (a) you can safely drop it on the enemy even after your melee is mixed in with theirs, and (b) if you optimized you're probably going to affect at least one of the baddies with it, keeping it from being wasted.

[Florian]

If you don't have rules mastery (or at least rules facility) then you probably shouldn't be playing a controller to begin with. But class handbooks assume that you either have or are interested in acquiring that level of skill, otherwise you wouldn't be reading a handbook, you'd just be picking spells and feats that seem fun or purely for RP purposes or whatnot.

It also goes without saying that you wouldn't use a tactical character in a group that has no interest in tactics :smalltongue:

There´s more to it than just being tactical savvy. Doing it right would need group tactics and that is working on a meta level a lot of people are not comfortable with, as they seem to feel that it infringes too much on how they actually play their character as a character during combat.
Well, it is a common axiom that in D&D, RP ends when combat starts and diverse handbooks seem to foster that POV. (Stormwind fallacy, yes, no doubt and I´m not buying into it, but many people do)


Stop right there. Having a high initiative is not the same as going first. To beat all or at least almost all of the initiative rolls of 3 allies and some monsters you need a redonkulous initiative. Or heck even just your allies. 15 higher than everyone else would be nice.

Hm? Care to elaborate here? Having a controller with a +10 Init at lvl 1 ain´t hard to do. Man problem, in my experience, is keeping your fellow players from reaching an equal bonus.

[ericgrau]

Unless they're dealing till after the turns of monsters it shouldn't matter.

Overspecialization in any one field is crippling. Slow is a potent spell when applied correctly. It's also not single target. If your enemies have high will saves or spell resistance, you should attack their other defenses, unless you're simply unlucky with monster saving throws.

Had plenty of other spells and used them. The one I took a talent and feat(s) for didn't pan out though.

What makes you think they wouldn't have to delay after the monsters? Did I beat all their initiatives with a +15? May they tell the DM "I want to go before the first monster goes"? (nope) How do I avoid hitting damaged foes round 2? There are too many issues in practice vs just finishing off the injured baddy with a fireball, or injuring him so my ally can finish him off. Dead is better than slowed, and more consistent & reliable rather than all or nothing, since it's save half. All or nothing risks overkill, so it can be mediocre even when it does work since the guy is about to die anyway.

[Psyren]

There´s more to it than just being tactical savvy. Doing it right would need group tactics and that is working on a meta level a lot of people are not comfortable with, as they seem to feel that it infringes too much on how they actually play their character as a character during combat.
Well, it is a common axiom that in D&D, RP ends when combat starts and diverse handbooks seem to foster that POV. (Stormwind fallacy, yes, no doubt and I´m not buying into it, but many people do)

Right but as I said, if you're with a group that doesn't like group tactics, don't play a controller, it's not hard. Though it's worth pointing out that you'll need group tactics for any non-single-target strategy at all including area blasting, group buffs or even maximizing effectiveness of summons, so this is a good opportunity to educate those players that might be tactics-averse.


Man problem, in my experience, is keeping your fellow players from reaching an equal bonus.

As previously stated though, you don't actually have to beat your allies' initiative, ready and delay exist. Or you pick spells that are useful even if your allies insist on going first, e.g. a spell that can hit the enemy's back row without impeding your melee up front.

[Zanos]

Had plenty of other spells and used them. The one I took a talent and feat(s) for didn't pan out though.

What makes you think they wouldn't have to delay after the monsters? Did I beat all their initiatives with a +15? May they tell the DM "I want to go before the first monster goes"? (nope) How do I avoid hitting damaged foes round 2? There are too many issues in practice vs just finishing off the injured baddy with a fireball, or injuring him so my ally can finish him off. Dead is better than slowed, and more consistent & reliable rather than all or nothing, since it's save half. All or nothing risks overkill, so it can be mediocre even when it does work since the guy is about to die anyway.
You seem to be taking some stance that unless your initiative is "i go first", boosting it isn't useful.

I mentioned in my first post in this thread that damage was still useful. If you can cast a spell that kills something, you should, because death controls the monster forever, or at least the remainder of the encounter.

But you're less likely to kill something with a fireball than you are to affect them with a slow. As Psyren mentioned slow lets you exclude allies, and beatstick monsters tend to have bad will saves and good reflex saves. And at high levels, slow retains more effectiveness than fireball, as fire resistance becomes more common and 1d6 damage per levels becomes less impressive, not being able to take a full rounds full of actions is still quite powerful.

I'm not making an argument that you should never prepare damage spells, but debuffs and BFC will be more efficient in more situations if you can leave the damage to people in the party who don't have to expend limited resources to inflict it.

[ericgrau]

Beatstick monsters tend to have bad reflex saves, worse than their will saves.


You seem to be taking some stance that unless your initiative is "i go first", boosting it isn't useful.
Nope, see issues above. In fact, even going first doesn't solve everything with slow.

I might take slow at level 8-10 when I have lots of other options. Then I can use it once in a blue moon when there is a good opportunity that can't be done better with other spells. But before that point there are other better spells to take first, including damage.

[Florian]

Beatstick monsters tend to have bad reflex saves, worse than their will saves.

Yes.

And that leads to Dazing Spell being one of the go-to MM feats for BFC in PF and evocation being a bit op.

[Psyren]

Beatstick monsters tend to have bad reflex saves, worse than their will saves.

This is not universal; for instance, dinosaurs are beatsticks yet they tend to have much higher reflex than will. They're also big and have lots of hit points, another bane of most reflex spells.

There is also a type of monster you're not accounting for - the roguish/sneak type, particularly if those monsters have class levels too. A Wight or Babau with rogue levels can be pretty nasty in melee and will also have a high reflex save; a spell that targets will in your pocket can be very helpful there too, particularly a non-mind-affecting one for the former.

[Peat]

I'm reading Treantmonk's PF guide as we speak. He puts BFC as slightly above Buffing and Debuffing (and all above Blasting) but says it depends on circumstances and that you want something on standby if there isn't a good Control option there. He also states that his own Wizards usually have a blast or two at hand; but if you want to cause damage, then Haste trumps Fireball. There's also a long paean to the glories of the Summons spell, which starts with extolling their ability to do damage. Not sure it gets more Utility than Summons.

Obviously that's only one guide but Treantmonk's probably fairly representative and what I'm getting from that is that if anyone thinks BFC is the be all and end all of being a caster based on the guides, they're not reading it right. It's really good, but there's a lot of other really good things that are also often better answers.

[Hiro Quester]

Druid BFC is highly situational yes and not nearly as good as wizard BFC.


To be fair, entangle is excellent BFC at lower levels.

And most of a druid's BFC spells also impose significant debuffs, such as

Blood snow (con damage + nauseated),
wall of smoke (nauseated),
obscuring snow + snow sight (everyone but your friends cannot see, for hours/level)
impeding stones (knocked prone, 1/2 movement, impedes casting)
Boreal wind (very large AOE, knock back , cold damage, plus wind)
Murderous mist (60ft diam. fog, 2d6 damage, permanent blinding)
Spike growth and spike stones (damage for each 5ft movement, plus 1/2 speed movement for 24 hours),
Wall of thorns (slashing damage, yet the Druid can pass through without penalty).
Wall of water (creatures in the wall must make swim checks (DC14 +druid's wis modifier) or be trapped and can eventually drown; most casters can't swim)
Poison vines (entangle plus dex damaging poison)
Control winds and control currents can be awesome BFC, especially in a nautical setting. You own the enemy ships and how they move. Plus casters on enemy ships must concentrate to cast because of waves you create. Plus you can create a tornado at higher levels and destroy buildings or ships.
Blizzard (3ft of snow per round, 100 ft rad, long range cut off vision, movement and ranged attacks).
Call Avalanche (crushing damage plus enemies are trapped and must be slowly dug out of the snow)
Mudslide (40 ft rad damage, trapped in mud, plus 1/2 damage and 1/4 movement for those who save)


The druid's ability to prepare any of these, but spontaneously convert them into summoned nature's allies makes their situational nature somewhat incidental.

Never underestimate the BFC possibilities of a few summoned nature's allies. 1d4 tripping wolves at low levels, or 1d4 giant crocodiles or grappling bears later on can totally tie up a few enemies while the party takes on the others.

Plus SNAs also simultaneously do BFC, hit point attrition on the BBG, and mopup mooks.

[Zanos]

I'm reading Treantmonk's PF guide as we speak. He puts BFC as slightly above Buffing and Debuffing (and all above Blasting) but says it depends on circumstances and that you want something on standby if there isn't a good Control option there. He also states that his own Wizards usually have a blast or two at hand; but if you want to cause damage, then Haste trumps Fireball. There's also a long paean to the glories of the Summons spell, which starts with extolling their ability to do damage. Not sure it gets more Utility than Summons.

Obviously that's only one guide but Treantmonk's probably fairly representative and what I'm getting from that is that if anyone thinks BFC is the be all and end all of being a caster based on the guides, they're not reading it right. It's really good, but there's a lot of other really good things that are also often better answers.
Yeah. Sometimes things have a handful of HP left and it'd be really nice if it was dead right now. Some avenues of dealing damage, even with spells, are very hard to defend against.

[Deadline]

A blaster wizard isn't underpowered, it's just not taking full advantage of its power. It shouldn't be laughed at, because it's still capable of burning your face off. The Mailman sorcerer is a solidly optimized version of the blaster, and can be quite useful. That said, a wizard can do up to two things each round with his spells:

1. Contribute damage
2. Accomplish something - i.e. remove a threat (either permanently or temporarily)

#2 is more beneficial than #1. A Fireball spell can only do #1 unless you are flinging it at a wounded group, or are playing at very low levels. Throwing a Fireball spell at a bunch of CR 1/4 kobolds is a great use of the spell, as it does both #1 and #2. Throwing a Fireball spell at a bunch of fresh Skullcrusher Ogres only manages to do #1, which doesn't really take full advantage of the wizard's power. However, walling off half the Ogres from the fight for a few rounds so your melee only has to deal with half of the threat at a time is very useful.

A blaster wizard will do #1 most of the time, and #2 some of the time. Just like a Barbarian, Rogue, or Fighter. And he'll generally do it better than any of those things. But as you seem well aware, there are more effective ways of playing a wizard. BFC is very effective (assuming you aren't always fighting single monsters), but requires a great deal more consideration than flinging Fireballs. Dropping a Fog Cloud on the melee usually doesn't help (it hinders your melee from getting at them, unless you've put together some solid team tactics). Dropping it on the group of archers in the back forces those archers to reposition, during which time they are not shooting and dealing damage to your party. If you could simply kill the archers with a Fireball spell (let's say they are CR 1/4 kobolds), then throwing a Fireball at them is a superior choice to throwing a Fog Cloud at them. But if you aren't likely to kill them, your Fireball spell effectively accomplishes nothing.

And since you put the call out for personal examples, here's one from fairly recently for me:

The group consisted of a party of Kobolds (we were moving our tribe to a new warren). We ... may have really ticked off a nearby kingdom's military, and were caught by a group of mounted knights out on some open plains. An Entangle spell shut the knights down completely, and we were able to wipe out a high CR encounter without taking more than a few scrapes (a couple of the mounted enemies had crossbows). A Fireball would have injured all of the knights, but it wouldn't have killed any of them, and then they would have charged through us likely killing one or more party members.

[Florian]

I'm reading Treantmonk's PF guide as we speak. He puts BFC as slightly above Buffing and Debuffing (and all above Blasting) but says it depends on circumstances and that you want something on standby if there isn't a good Control option there. He also states that his own Wizards usually have a blast or two at hand; but if you want to cause damage, then Haste trumps Fireball. There's also a long paean to the glories of the Summons spell, which starts with extolling their ability to do damage. Not sure it gets more Utility than Summons.

Obviously that's only one guide but Treantmonk's probably fairly representative and what I'm getting from that is that if anyone thinks BFC is the be all and end all of being a caster based on the guides, they're not reading it right. It's really good, but there's a lot of other really good things that are also often better answers.

*shrugs*

He is neither right nor wrong there.

Problem here are core dichotomies here that aren´t addressed in the guides themselves.
Mostly, that means to oppose RP with a meta level, meaning that players should have total control over their characters w/o RP or In-World concerns whereas Monsters should conform to just that.

[Peat]

*shrugs*

He is neither right nor wrong there.

Problem here are core dichotomies here that aren´t addressed in the guides themselves.
Mostly, that means to oppose RP with a meta level, meaning that players should have total control over their characters w/o RP or In-World concerns whereas Monsters should conform to just that.

Whether he is right or wrong is irrelevant; what is relevant is that the OP said that guide writers are idolising the control spell over damage and utility and leading to its general overrating, and that a look at one of the major guide writers would suggest that's not true. That's all.

[Troacctid]

Slow is fine. Yeah, SR:Yes and Will negates aren't great riders, but will saves that aren't mind-affecting are nice to have in the toolbox too, and because it's a multitarget spell (not an area spell like fireball), this means two things: (a) you can safely drop it on the enemy even after your melee is mixed in with theirs, and (b) if you optimized you're probably going to affect at least one of the baddies with it, keeping it from being wasted.

I disagree. Slow is just not a spell I want to spend an action on. Save negates, so there's a chance it just does nothing, and even if it hits, -1 to attack and AC just isn't a substantial enough penalty to justify a 3rd level slot. You take away the ability to full attack, and you reduce their mobility, but a lot of enemies don't care about either of those things because they'll just partial-charge you regardless, and enemies with devastating full attacks don't usually come in groups anyway.

It would be fantastic if it didn't allow a save, but the fact that so many enemies are immune to it, and considering that it's underwhelming even when it works...it's just a mediocre spell that I don't see myself ever wanting to prepare.

[Psyren]

I disagree. Slow is just not a spell I want to spend an action on. Save negates, so there's a chance it just does nothing, and even if it hits, -1 to attack and AC just isn't a substantial enough penalty to justify a 3rd level slot. You take away the ability to full attack, and you reduce their mobility, but a lot of enemies don't care about either of those things because they'll just partial-charge you regardless, and enemies with devastating full attacks don't usually come in groups anyway.

It would be fantastic if it didn't allow a save, but the fact that so many enemies are immune to it, and considering that it's underwhelming even when it works...it's just a mediocre spell that I don't see myself ever wanting to prepare.

Save negates normally sucks, yeah. But save negates hitting 1 target/level is bound to work on something in a big fight, and make a difference.

As for immunity, it works on just about everything that doesn't have SR. It's one of the very few will saves in the game that will hit plants, oozes, vermin and undead for instance. I can definitely see uses for it.

[Troacctid]

Save negates normally sucks, yeah. But save negates hitting 1 target/level is bound to work on something in a big fight, and make a difference.

As for immunity, it works on just about everything that doesn't have SR. It's one of the very few will saves in the game that will hit plants, oozes, vermin and undead for instance. I can definitely see uses for it.

Any creature that doesn't need to full-attack is mostly immune to it, and any creature that makes its save is actual-immune.

I find it's uncommon to fight groups of enemies where all of them have powerful full attacks. The more enemies there are, the less likely it is that they'll care about being slowed.

If I'm a 7th level Wizard and I'm facing seven enemies that are all within 30 feet of one another, I'd rather cast Fireball and toast their butts for 49d6 damage. That's equivalent to, like, a dozen greatsword hits in a single standard action. More, even, because it still deals damage even on a "miss." How's that for action economy, mmm?

[Psyren]

Any creature that doesn't need to full-attack is mostly immune to it, and any creature that makes its save is actual-immune.

Putting aside that cutting off enemy full-attacks is definitely useful (certainly your melee will thank you), stagger does far more than just shutting down full attacks. It shuts down full-round actions in general (including things like withdraw and spontaneous metamagic) as well as shutting down swift actions. That's a big deal for many creatures. It means enemies have to choose between moving and casting, or moving and concentrating on a spell, or drawing an item and using it, etc.



I find it's uncommon to fight groups of enemies where all of them have powerful full attacks. The more enemies there are, the less likely it is that they'll care about being slowed.

This doesn't make sense to me. The more enemies there are, the more likely that you will slow more than one. Each one affected more than pays for the spell slot spent - you've traded one of your standard actions for multiple move or standard (and swift) actions from the opposing force at that point. It's clear tempo advantage.



If I'm a 7th level Wizard and I'm facing seven enemies that are all within 30 feet of one another, I'd rather cast Fireball and toast their butts for 49d6 damage. That's equivalent to, like, a dozen greatsword hits in a single standard action. More, even, because it still deals damage even on a "miss." How's that for action economy, mmm?

For starters, Fireball is a 20ft. radius, not 30. Second, you've also got to hope there are no allies in that radius either, a worry slow does not share. Third and final, total damage (whether from fire or greatsword) spread across enemies isn't particularly meaningful - so long as they're still alive, you've done nothing to hamper those creatures in any way and they're free to continue flanking/full-attacking your fighters (or even you, in the case of archers.) Which one will cost your party more resources recovering from, especially if they choose to focus down one of your martials (who incidentally was probably toasted by your "catch-all-the-enemies" blast radius?)

[John Longarrow]

So give everyone else the sucky initiative feat? No thanks.

Anyhoo, tried it, specialized in it, didn't work well. Way too many issues: many passed saves, poor coordination with damage, no partial effect against resistant foes, etc. I'd get one foe now and then and he'd be hurt anyway because without a +15 to initiative I'm not going first. Would have been better to just finish him off before my ally finishes him off anyway. Often before he can take his slow turn.

I do believe you'd be better served by talking to those who successfully use battle field control, learn how they do it and under what circumstances each spell worked well rather than dismiss the style. Otherwise you should never play a melee combatant since I played one once that died the first round of combat. That MUST mean melee is useless in the game. :smallcool:

[J-H]

For starters, Fireball is a 20ft. radius, not 30.

A 20' radius produces a 40' diameter circle.

[Troacctid]

Putting aside that cutting off enemy full-attacks is definitely useful (certainly your melee will thank you), stagger does far more than just shutting down full attacks. It shuts down full-round actions in general (including things like withdraw and spontaneous metamagic) as well as shutting down swift actions. That's a big deal for many creatures. It means enemies have to choose between moving and casting, or moving and concentrating on a spell, or drawing an item and using it, etc.
It doesn't stop them from charging, withdrawing, or taking a five-foot step. Most spells are a standard action to cast and most casters stay in the back line anyway. And enemies hardly ever care about swift actions; like 99% of the Monster Manual has no use for them.


This doesn't make sense to me. The more enemies there are, the more likely that you will slow more than one. Each one affected more than pays for the spell slot spent - you've traded one of your standard actions for multiple move or standard (and swift) actions from the opposing force at that point. It's clear tempo advantage.
It's just uncommon for encounters to feature large numbers of creatures with devastating full attacks. There are exceptions, but usually, such creatures tend to be encountered solo, or in small groups of 1d3. The encounter tables in the DMG bear this out. (And as an encounter design paradigm, I happen to agree with this—giving the enemy that many attacks makes their turns take longer and makes it frustratingly easy for a player to go from healthy to -10 in a single turn, which isn't much fun for anyone involved.) Slow drops significantly in value when it's not preventing full attacks, because honestly, you really don't care that much about your enemy's move action otherwise. Holding them in place is nice if you can kite them, but it's not like they can't still charge you, and if the fight is happening in close quarters, you won't have accomplished much beyond giving them a -1 penalty. Now look at Haste, which, for the same spell slot, gives your allies +1 (essentially the same as giving the enemies -1) and offers them extra attacks and a speed boost, all without any chance of failure, and Slow comes out looking pretty crappy in comparison.


Third and final, total damage (whether from fire or greatsword) spread across enemies isn't particularly meaningful - so long as they're still alive, you've done nothing to hamper those creatures in any way and they're free to continue flanking/full-attacking your fighters (or even you, in the case of archers.) Which one will cost your party more resources recovering from, especially if they choose to focus down one of your martials (who incidentally was probably toasted by your "catch-all-the-enemies" blast radius?)

7d6 on each enemy is worth about 2 attacks from Mr. Greatsword, so if he's your main damage source, you're ending the encounter like 14 turns sooner, which denies your enemies that many full rounds' worth of actions. There aren't many debuffs you can inflict on an enemy that are more powerful than the "dead" condition.

[ryu]

Dead two or three turns from now is a much less effective debuff than unable to anything from now until death even if said death is twenty turns in the future. Key difference? The first lets the enemy take more relevant actions.

[Troacctid]

Dead two or three turns from now is a much less effective debuff than unable to anything from now until death even if said death is twenty turns in the future. Key difference? The first lets the enemy take more relevant actions.

One of the enemies is dead this turn, as soon as your ally's initiative comes up. Another is dead next turn. Another is dead the turn after that.

This is a lot better than Slow, where half the enemies will be unaffected and the other half will only maybe sometimes lose half a turn depending on the conditions.

[Psyren]

It doesn't stop them from charging, withdrawing, or taking a five-foot step. Most spells are a standard action to cast and most casters stay in the back line anyway. And enemies hardly ever care about swift actions; like 99% of the Monster Manual has no use for them.

Of course it doesn't, swift actions didn't exist in core. Later MMs/Bestiaries do have plenty of uses for them.

Partial action charges and withdrawals are far weaker strategies so you're still doing your job by preventing those, never mind the other stuff like item use.



It's just uncommon for encounters to feature large numbers of creatures with devastating full attacks. There are exceptions, but usually, such creatures tend to be encountered solo, or in small groups of 1d3. The encounter tables in the DMG bear this out. (And as an encounter design paradigm, I happen to agree with this—giving the enemy that many attacks makes their turns take longer and makes it frustratingly easy for a player to go from healthy to -10 in a single turn, which isn't much fun for anyone involved.) Slow drops significantly in value when it's not preventing full attacks, because honestly, you really don't care that much about your enemy's move action otherwise. Holding them in place is nice if you can kite them, but it's not like they can't still charge you, and if the fight is happening in close quarters, you won't have accomplished much beyond giving them a -1 penalty. Now look at Haste, which, for the same spell slot, gives your allies +1 (essentially the same as giving the enemies -1) and offers them extra attacks and a speed boost, all without any chance of failure, and Slow comes out looking pretty crappy in comparison.
...
7d6 on each enemy is worth about 2 attacks from Mr. Greatsword, so if he's your main damage source, you're ending the encounter like 14 turns sooner, which denies your enemies that many full rounds' worth of actions. There aren't many debuffs you can inflict on an enemy that are more powerful than the "dead" condition.

But a small group of 1d3/1d4 is weak for a fireball too. Your 7d6 is an average of 24 damage each at level 7, assuming they all fail their saves to boot. Not exactly earth-shattering. A pair of dire lions get hurt by it before pouncing 80ft. on a party member and one-shotting him next round. Yeah you'll win in the end, and now you have to drag the carcass back to town for a rez. A 5000gp fireball isn't really worth it.

[Devigor]

I find it interesting how most people in favor of BFC tend to think you have plenty of spells known and spell slots to do things. When you are at levels where the spells you are casting are at their most useful (which is usually the same level you just earned them), you have only 1 or 2 slots, maybe 1 or 2 bonus slots. You CAN'T have a spell prepared for every situation. I've never had a wizard who KNOWS a spell for every situation. You only get 2 at the level you unlock them and then another 2 the next level. After that you learn 2 spells best learned of the next higher spell level. Even more so, expectations of rounds in combat are slightly out of line. Most combats last anywhere from 3 to 7 rounds, in my experience. A caster really only needs to contribute for 1 to 3 of those to make the difference between winning and losing a fight. The level of contribution expected also seems skewed; a few have suggested use of combos of 2 or 3 spells when you can't even quicken 1 of them to begin with.

A 5th level wizard, in an average setup, won't have the ability to prepare 2x fireball, 2x slow, 3x web, 2x glitterdust, 2x hold person, 1x fly, 2x animalistic power, and 1x protection from energy. That alone is not going to let that player contribute to every possible fight. I'd say maybe 65% to 75% of combat encounters would benefit from those spells (mosty due to glitterdust's blinding effect and most DM's bad rolling for every other save made ever), and that preparation list gives almost no utility whatsoever.

I find that BFC = damage < out-of-combat utility, for wizards. Clerics do the best killing and buffing spells. Druids have the best BFC spells and are good at tanking/aggro (I assume most people would think it would be more important to kill a tiger that is creating a tornado to destroy EVERYTHING than to go after the guy shoving their buddies into tentacle fog). Sorcerers are best for versatility in my experience, just because they can cast a ton of Greater/Shadow Conj./Evo. spells that duplicate effects that don't have to allow interactions to be effective, and still have their spells known for dealing with other situations. Bards have Silence at a relatively low level, which by itself shuts down a lot of SLA's and spellcasting. Rangers and Paladins have some underrated spells to use to help out he main casters in BFC and utility.

My favorite kinds of spells, that usually (surprise!) actually work, are 1.) Imp. trip +combat reflexes trip-wpn. Fighter, 2.) Two-wpn. fighting Rogue, 3.) Power attack great-wpn. Barbarian, and 4.) Rapid shot archery Fighter. They do tons of damage and with moderate (sometimes boosted) dex scores have decent enough initiative rolls to effectively end a fight in round 1 and roleplay the closing lines like champs.

It takes a TEAM of whatever you're trying to do, be it spell combos, trip/sneak attack/etc. combos, to make a combat trivial. True, a mix of casters is generally much more powerful than a mix of non-casters, but the difference isn't nearly as massive as the forums I've seen seem to declare.

I mean... Even monks can be great, because they have a great chassis with the first few features they get. A monk can replace a fireball with a fly, and that can make a HUGE difference. A party full of monks is actually just as capable as any other when you have some system mastery. If each is built for a different purpose (scout for speed, glass cannon for damage, tripper for lockdown, supporter to move around to use aid another for those that need it) and they use their wealth appropriately, they can take on much more powerful enemies.

This may sound dumb but I've actually dealt with it as a DM and they were on par.

[amalcon]

Battlefield control tends to be powerful, but situational. Take something like Otiluke's Resilient Sphere. This thing is insane when it's good, potentially turning a fight with a boss and several minions into two separate fights, one against just the minions and then one against just the boss. When it's not good (i.e. you're fighting a single opponent, or a large number of comparable opponents), it's basically useless. Most other BFC spells follow the same pattern: either turning the battle massively in the caster's favor or doing stone nothing.

On the subject of Slow, I've found that spell totally bonkers -- to the point where it's on my "Don't use this or you'll rely on it too much" list. A single multi-targeted spell that basically lets the caster's team pick and choose what to engage with (because 15' partial charges just aren't that hard to avoid) just gets the job done, even if it can be less than reliable at times. This is not to dismiss other peoples' experience at all -- but it just goes to show how different things can be from one table to the next.

[Troacctid]

Partial action charges and withdrawals are far weaker strategies so you're still doing your job by preventing those, never mind the other stuff like item use.
Maybe you'll prevent them and maybe you won't. If the creature's normal plan was to move towards you and make melee attacks, leaving them with partial charges means you really aren't doing your job very well. You reduced their speed, but if that was the point, you could have accomplished it with a 1st level spell slot with no saving throw instead of a 3rd level spell with a save to negate.


But a small group of 1d3/1d4 is weak for a fireball too. Your 7d6 is an average of 24 damage each at level 7, assuming they all fail their saves to boot. Not exactly earth-shattering. A pair of dire lions get hurt by it before pouncing 80ft. on a party member and one-shotting him next round. Yeah you'll win in the end, and now you have to drag the carcass back to town for a rez. A 5000gp fireball isn't really worth it.

I know. I was starting with the assumption that it was a larger group. Once you make that assumption, there's a high probability that the enemies won't be reliant on full attacks.

Smaller groups are less likely to call for AoE effects or crowd control. In the specific case of dire lions, what you really want is, of course, Ray of Stupidity, but failing that, I'd probably default to Glitterdust, which admittedly offers a save to negate, but if it hits, it shuts them down a lot harder than Slow, and does so out of a lower-level slot.

[Psyren]

Maybe you'll prevent them and maybe you won't. If the creature's normal plan was to move towards you and make melee attacks, leaving them with partial charges means you really aren't doing your job very well. You reduced their speed, but if that was the point, you could have accomplished it with a 1st level spell slot with no saving throw instead of a 3rd level spell with a save to negate.

That partial charge is at half speed though. If you're standing that close to a melee threat or threats (why?) then I agree, something else might be better, but that should almost never be the case if the caster knows what he's doing.


I know. I was starting with the assumption that it was a larger group. Once you make that assumption, there's a high probability that the enemies won't be reliant on full attacks.

Smaller groups are less likely to call for AoE effects or crowd control. In the specific case of dire lions, what you really want is, of course, Ray of Stupidity, but failing that, I'd probably default to Glitterdust, which admittedly offers a save to negate, but if it hits, it shuts them down a lot harder than Slow, and does so out of a lower-level slot.

Except slow is useful whether you're facing two monsters, or 1, or 5, or 7. Glitterdust or a ray can easily come up short, and both have to be aimed around allies. And while Glitterdust works well against the lions, what about a pair of Ochre Jellies?

That's the point I'm ultimately trying to get across - it's another tool for the toolbox, and much more versatile than you let on. Multiple targets? Check. Spread-out enemy? Check. No friendly fire? Check. Works on any creature type in the game? Check. Etc

[Cosi]

How is this even a debate? slow is bad. The threatening actions people have are spells (or SLAs), which slow does exactly jack to mitigate, seeing as it lets people keep their standard action.

Also, slow is the same level as stinking cloud and not nearly as good.

[Troacctid]

You only get so many tools in your toolbox. I can't think of a reason why I'd prepare Slow instead of another spell that I could prepare in that slot. There are loads of better choices, and in most scenarios where it's good, other spells would be just as good or better.

I mean, it's cool if you're a Beguiler and you get it for free, but for a Wizard, it's competing with Dispel Magic, Stinking Cloud, Sleet Storm, Haste, Fireball, Suggestion, Hold Person, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, Greater Magic Weapon...and that's just in core. I can't think of a compelling reason why I'd want to prepare Slow, or even scribe it into my spellbook, when there are so many better options.

[tiercel]

How is this even a debate? slow is bad. The threatening actions people have are spells (or SLAs), which slow does exactly jack to mitigate, seeing as it lets people keep their standard action.

Also, slow is the same level as stinking cloud and not nearly as good.

Stinking cloud is strong - but unless your party is engineered to be immune to it, you probably don't want to drop it on an area that includes the rest of your party. If you are adventuring in a dungeon and/or urban environment, many encounters may begin at quite close range.

Also, it's nice to have the option to target Will saves instead of Fort saves, depending on your opponent type.

There are a lot of melee-based monsters out there, so unless your DM strongly prefers to avoid such, it's nice to have a tool effective against them (especially for those encounters which basically start with them getting in your face).

-----

Addressing the more general thread topic:

BFC spells are strong. How strong they are depends, of course, on the tactical situations you find yourself in: BFC spells make a wizard into God when used in a space large enough to drop AoEs in without hitting party members, small enough that AoEs can cover or block a group of enemies, and/or when enemies are predominated by suicidally charging melee-based monsters who don't necessarily succeed in engaging you in round 1.

BFC is harder to wield effectively if you have to actually deal with the indignity of melee before you make the battlefield into your chessboard, if the battlefield is quite large, or if your opponents actually know how to play chess too (with their own BFC and/or counters to BFC, including leaving [when possible] & simply fighting another day when you don't start with a Round 1 Advantage).

"Blasting" is sneered at because "everyone can do damage," but mages' usual advantage in this area is AoE damage. Additionally, damage is sneered at as being "binary" (since hp damage "doesn't degrade enemy effectiveness" until 0hp), but teamwork still exists: a fireball that doesn't obliterate the orcish front line still leaves it vulnerable to your melee buddy picking up the spares with 1-hit/cleave, 1 kill.

Additionally, hp damage should degrade enemy effectiveness: not in terms of minuses to attack rolls or caster level, but in terms of enemies who would like to not die. While there are certainly D&D situations and/or types of opponent where "fight to the death" is warranted, it tends to be a bit overplayed -- enemies who think they are on the losing end of a battle, because of BFC or loss of hp, should be weighing whether getting the heck out of Dodge is a viable option. (And, to the extent possible, enemies with any reasonable mental stats should be prepared to make getting the heck out of Dodge a viable option, unless they are hopelessly fanatic/arrogant.)

Compounding the issue is a related, but potentially side issue: a lot of BFC is Conjuration. And a significant amount of Conjuration is SR: No. This doesn't matter so much if opponents aren't packing SR, but if they are, getting to ignore an entire defense mechanic is strong. (Personally, I have philosophical problems with a number of "SR: No" effects, especially things like magical orb spells killing magic-"immune" golems even within "antimagic" areas, but that's another argument and a well-worn one, and is a gameplay/DM issue rather than a RAW one.)

[P.F.]

The whole "Which spells do I choose" thing rather reminds me of cards. Imagine you have maybe half the deck to choose from, and you are picking out cards to put in your hand, but you do not know which will be the trump suit yet. This is where perhaps some guides and/or optimization communities go astray, in overestimating the likelihood that Hearts (for example) will be trump in any given hand, and choosing all the best Hearts cards that are available. What you really want are the highest cards you can get from each suit, ideally in matching sets.

At-level, slow is a good card. But it's not an Ace, or even a high trump. It's like a minor trump card or the Queen of Diamonds; it works well against a large number of possible attacks, and not at all against others. The same can be said for most other battlefield control spells: when they are in the right suit, they work great. Otherwise, you need to play a different card.

In fact, this logic applies to spell types generally. Now some individual spells are simply lousy cards regardless, but amongst the face-cards of the Spells chapter, different suits work better in some circumstances, and not at all in others. BFC is only one suit, so don't pick those cards to the exclusion of all others.

[Psyren]

How is this even a debate? slow is bad. The threatening actions people have are spells (or SLAs), which slow does exactly jack to mitigate, seeing as it lets people keep their standard action.

Also, slow is the same level as stinking cloud and not nearly as good.

This is an overly simplistic worldview. Yes, spells can be the most threatening enemy actions in the game, but an unrestrained full-attack from a monster can be just as bad. Whether an evil cleric zaps you with Slay Living or a Marilith reduces you to ribbons of flesh with Multiweapon Fighting, you are just as dead either way.

In many ways the full-attack is worse - there is no saving throw or spell resistance, and non-martial PCs tend not to optimize their AC enough to keep up with the monsters' attacks.


You only get so many tools in your toolbox. I can't think of a reason why I'd prepare Slow instead of another spell that I could prepare in that slot. There are loads of better choices, and in most scenarios where it's good, other spells would be just as good or better.

I mean, it's cool if you're a Beguiler and you get it for free, but for a Wizard, it's competing with Dispel Magic, Stinking Cloud, Sleet Storm, Haste, Fireball, Suggestion, Hold Person, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, Greater Magic Weapon...and that's just in core. I can't think of a compelling reason why I'd want to prepare Slow, or even scribe it into my spellbook, when there are so many better options.

For starters, you could be a wizard who banned Enchantment and Evocation (two very common choices for such) which removes a number of your suggestions from the running immediately. And for two, we've gone over the disadvantages of some of the area attacks like Stinking Cloud at length in this thread already. Nausea is no more fun for your team than it is for the enemy, and in many cases (e.g. undead and oozes) it hurts the party more. Similarly, Dispel Magic is not going to do anything to a dire lion and Sleet Storm isn't going to do anything to an ooze. The point of a toolbox is having the right tool for the job.

[avr]

Slow is great if you're facing a pack of ghouls which have just clawed their way out of the ground around you, or a bunch of similar situations. It wouldn't be the first 3rd level spell I'd pick, or even the second, but it might well be the third or fourth.

[Wonton]

This is easily proven false if you think about it even briefly. For starters, melee classes only work if the monsters stay within reach; if the monsters can get past them to your ranged classes (of which there will be at least one, if there is a controller caster in the group) then the effectiveness of your melee drops. Battlefield control keeps the monsters on the business end of your melee where they can do the most damage. This is particularly notable since a lot of monsters are faster than the PCs, who are most likely to be humanoids with class levels, and tumbling besides.

Mmm... yes, this is true, but I find that - especially if the party has the typical Battlefield Controller caster and a big melee DPS Barbarian - most monsters will stay and fight in melee with the Barbarian. Few things have Tumble/Acrobatics, and most things don't want to take the 3d6+24 from your Barbarian's AoO. It's not a case of lazy/dumb/bad DMs, it's just a case of most enemies choosing to deal with the immediate threat in front of them rather than trying to get to the back line. It certainly does happen, but most of the time I think it's better to just use Medium+ range rather than to rely on slow effects to keep enemies away from you. I will concede this point somewhat, however, and say that I will consider slow effects "neutral", not "terrible".


Right but as I said, if you're with a group that doesn't like group tactics, don't play a controller, it's not hard. Though it's worth pointing out that you'll need group tactics for any non-single-target strategy at all including area blasting, group buffs or even maximizing effectiveness of summons, so this is a good opportunity to educate those players that might be tactics-averse.

It's not about players being tactics-averse at all. Florian summed up my viewpoint perfectly, IMO:


There´s more to it than just being tactical savvy. Doing it right would need group tactics and that is working on a meta level a lot of people are not comfortable with, as they seem to feel that it infringes too much on how they actually play their character as a character during combat. Well, it is a common axiom that in D&D, RP ends when combat starts and diverse handbooks seem to foster that POV

The player could be the most tactically savvy person on the planet, but if he's playing a 8 Int, 8 Wis Barbarian, his character shouldn't be. Yes, maybe if the Barbarian's been adventuring with the Wizard for a long time, he's learned some teamwork things like to hang back for a round until the Stinking Cloud drops, but ultimately I find that most combats don't (and I would also claim shouldn't) feature perfect synergy and teamwork. Right now I'm even playing in a group that uses the Dynamic Lighting feature of Roll20, which means that if your party is fighting around a corner, you can't actually see that part of the map. So good luck trying to perform group tactics in a situation like this. I used the phrase "unless your party behaves like a SWAT team" in the original post, and I really think it is an apt analogy. If every encounter in your game is pre-planned and starts with highly coordinated actions from all your party members - of course Battlefield Control will be godlike. I've never found this to be the case in any of the games I've played, however.


I'm reading Treantmonk's PF guide as we speak...

Obviously that's only one guide but Treantmonk's probably fairly representative and what I'm getting from that is that if anyone thinks BFC is the be all and end all of being a caster based on the guides, they're not reading it right. It's really good, but there's a lot of other really good things that are also often better answers.

Funnily enough, it is one of Treantmonk's guides that I have the biggest beef with (and the one that provided the impetus for this post) - his Pathfinder Druid guide. Obscuring Mist, Fog Cloud, and Soften Earth and Stone are listed as straight up the best level 1 and 2 Druid spells in his guide, which I disagree with on all 3 counts. His description of Soften Earth and Stone really implies that he hadn't actually read the spell and just glanced over it instead, as he assumed that enemies would always be trapped in mud upon casting it, when that only happens if the starting condition was "Wet Earth".


I find it interesting how most people in favor of BFC tend to think you have plenty of spells known and spell slots to do things. When you are at levels where the spells you are casting are at their most useful (which is usually the same level you just earned them), you have only 1 or 2 slots, maybe 1 or 2 bonus slots. You CAN'T have a spell prepared for every situation. I've never had a wizard who KNOWS a spell for every situation.

A 5th level wizard, in an average setup, won't have the ability to prepare 2x fireball, 2x slow, 3x web, 2x glitterdust, 2x hold person, 1x fly, 2x animalistic power, and 1x protection from energy. That alone is not going to let that player contribute to every possible fight. I'd say maybe 65% to 75% of combat encounters would benefit from those spells (mosty due to glitterdust's blinding effect and most DM's bad rolling for every other save made ever), and that preparation list gives almost no utility whatsoever.

YES. Another argument taken right out of my mouth. :smalltongue:

Sometimes it feels like everyone that writes those guides is playing some sort of Beguiler version of Wizard/Druid where they just have all the battlefield control spells at the ready and can cast any of them spontaneously. At best, a 5th-level Battlefield Controller Wizard will have something like Slow, Stinking Cloud, and Sleet Storm prepared. And less, if he wanted to Fly that day.


The whole "Which spells do I choose" thing rather reminds me of cards. Imagine you have maybe half the deck to choose from, and you are picking out cards to put in your hand, but you do not know which will be the trump suit yet. This is where perhaps some guides and/or optimization communities go astray, in overestimating the likelihood that Hearts (for example) will be trump in any given hand, and choosing all the best Hearts cards that are available. What you really want are the highest cards you can get from each suit, ideally in matching sets.

At-level, slow is a good card. But it's not an Ace, or even a high trump. It's like a minor trump card or the Queen of Diamonds; it works well against a large number of possible attacks, and not at all against others. The same can be said for most other battlefield control spells: when they are in the right suit, they work great. Otherwise, you need to play a different card.

In fact, this logic applies to spell types generally. Now some individual spells are simply lousy cards regardless, but amongst the face-cards of the Spells chapter, different suits work better in some circumstances, and not at all in others. BFC is only one suit, so don't pick those cards to the exclusion of all others.

Love this analogy. I really have found consistently on prepared casters that having a mix of Battlefield Control, utility, and damage (not necessarily 1/3 - 1/3 - 1/3... but a mix) is the optimal way to play. There's nothing more embarassing than having your party ask "so... we did 110 damage this round... this thing's gotta be close to death... can you just finish it off?" and realizing that your spell list consists of nothing but Fogs and Walls and Clouds.

[yellowrocket]

Those moments are when you pull out that trusty rarely used crossbow/quarter staff/Club that you carry for those moments and hope you roll a high enough attack and damage roll to finish it off with. You have d6 weapon choices they aren't the best, but they'll do damage if that's all you need.

Reminds me, I need to find a way to in game get my 3 caster players to aquire a ranged weapon and the two to upgrade from a dagger as their melee weapon.

[Seward]

So I sort of agree and I sort of don't.

Anything that involves a saving throw and doesn't do anything else if the save is made is probably overrated, and if it only affects one target is definitely overrated, at least in the second half (level 11-20) of the game. Monster saves scale faster than PC's can raise DCs and a monster who saves is a wasted action.

Area effect saves mean somebody is likely to fail, even at higher levels. So your effect is to temporarily neutralize a random enemy or two. This is pretty valuable, the party can ignore those guys, focus on the threats, then deal with them later.

Things like fog cloud block a number of actions without any chance to save, and "just work" even against stuff like true seeing. They take away ranged attacks, charge, AOO's due to reach, gaze attacks, sneak attack and all spells that have a "target" designation. That's a pretty long list of things for a 25gp scroll of obscuring mist. 3.5 Solid fog can also tie up large type monsters for a long time, again letting the party focus on the folks they can see.

A party can either stay in the fog and chew up enemies as they close, or stand outside the fog and butcher folks coming out of it. Powerful barriers like wall of stone and wall of force are similar, they turn one encounter into two little ones. Even if you are up against something like demons that can just teleport out of anythying, a wizard trading one action to imprison them for each of them using an action to get out is a good trade. The rest of the party will be butchering.

Now..all that said. If you are powerful enough to just kill one or more enemies with your action, that's a better action than most battlefield control. An enemy removed from the board by damage rather than battlefield control can't change the odds later, get help, escape or otherwise be annoying, and of course dead has no saving throw. In Pathfinder, you can build a primary caster blaster or single target damage dealer capable of simply removing enemies instead of controlling them. Of course any well designed archer can also do this, as can any melee who can get an enemy in reach of a full attack, so a lot of why battlefield control is considered awesome by the non-martial classes is that you are assuming you have a martial blender squad that is rapidly focus firing and removing the enemies not walled off/incapacitated by battlefield control.

The thing is - if what you can do is kill things, some encounters just turn into DPS races, where you try to kill the other guy before he kills you. Sometimes you will be on the wrong end of this equation (flying ranged attackers vs primary melee oriented party) and you need battlefield control to turn it into your kind of fight (again, a simple obscuring mist can force the fliers to either come into the fog into melee range, or hover around uselessly while the party uses wands of CLW to remove all damage dealt while sending out occasional forays to snipe and chew away at the attackers).

Pro tip - don't try the obscuring mist trick on Erinyes unless you are evil. It shuts down their true seeing and their impressive bow attacks and makes their rope of entanglement risky to use, but they can spam Unholy Blights forever, which have the same radius as the fog cloud. For critters like that, or flying, invisible wizards spamming fireballs, you need to get into hard cover, preferably inside a building of some kind to turn it into a close range fight.

Related to battlefield control is mobility spells, especially dimension door. Nothing will ruin an enemy day more than dropping in with a rogue and a barbarian right next to them, with delayed full attacks at the ready. And nothing will serve better as an "oh crap" button if you've got enough juice to move your whole party. Still, fly, swim or wind walk on your beat stick is a decent action, as is using something like TK to get them into position or hell, conjuring them a phantom steed long before the battle begins.

There are a lot of good tools. Battlefield control is one of them, and the best are the spells that just plain work. Battlefield control is useless without somebody in your party who deals killing amounts of damage in a short amount of time. (I've seen lots of poorly designed encounters where the bad guys had nothing but battlefield control, and the PC's just slogged through it until they chewed them up...there was nothing to actually HURT the PC's in any meaningful way or threaten them. It was just annoying). Battlefield control used to turn a big encounter into two or more easy ones though - that's a damn good use of an action.

[MyrPsychologist]

In my personal experience, I always found battlefield control significantly easier to accomplish than damage. If you're tactic is damage you'll have to be orientated in such a way as to completely obliterate a target instead of just nailing them with control or separating a party with walls and fogs. And then you have to consider resistances, immunities, and proper-setup to even use your damage effectively. Sure, at low levels this is really not a consideration but those fireballs stop looking so hot when everything and it's familiar is going to giggle at the fire type.

And this isn't even considering the fact that by focusing on damage dealing spells and setups you're going to just waste spell slots that can also be used outside of combat. As a toolbox your tools should have multiple uses, which flat damage doesn't really provide. And really, if your entire goal is to deal damage/support the party, I've always found that just summon monster and its ilk will yield FAR better mileage at all levels and provide a useful tool out of combat.

[Seward]

Additionally, hp damage should degrade enemy effectiveness: not in terms of minuses to attack rolls or caster level, but in terms of enemies who would like to not die. While there are certainly D&D situations and/or types of opponent where "fight to the death" is warranted, it tends to be a bit overplayed -- enemies who think they are on the losing end of a battle, because of BFC or loss of hp, should be weighing whether getting the heck out of Dodge is a viable option. (And, to the extent possible, enemies with any reasonable mental stats should be prepared to make getting the heck out of Dodge a viable option, unless they are hopelessly fanatic/arrogant.)

Yeah. I had a memorable encounter with an enemy wizard ("Caster Fight!") who zapped my wizard with a quite high DC phantasmal killer. There was melee stuff going on, it was a flying caster and nobody else in the party had a good way of engaging the wizard, so she chose well when she targeted my character. Several bad die rolls, rerolls and a use of a one-time-ever boon I survived the round and returned fire with something that did about 90% of the enemy hitpoints.

It went invisible, I cast see invisible. As we all had spellcraft, she knew I could see her and had more damage spells up. She could either try to take me off the board again (a fairly high percentage move. She had me beat by about 3 caster levels, so her DC's vs my saves were quite good). What she didn't have was a hitpoint option to remove me, so no matter what she tried, one lucky saving throw roll on my part and she's dead when I return fire. In this kind of engagement battlefield control would have delayed things, but not really changed them unless she had a good way to heal the damage I did on hand while I worked past whatever she used. (the fight opened with stuff her using actions to slow down my party and me countering it, that was the prequil to her targeting me directly - she wasn't getting ahead on action economy with battlefield control - we were trading actions and our party had more actions than hers did).

So she made what I considered to be an excellent call. Teleported away, abandoning her allies and her mission.

Now yeah, we had an easy time with the rest of the encounter because the main threat was gone, driven off with a single (heavily optimized) damage spell and a 150gp see invisibility scroll. But we were also then "on the clock" - we needed to finish our entire mission before 8 hours passed because we knew we had a pissed off, high level wizard with teleport on the other end of refreshing her spell slots who we KNEW could teleport right back to where were were operating.

The thing about that fight is it kind of showed a lot of stuff people talk about when playing wizards. Both of us had contributed buffs to our party, and had prebuffed to some extent (her more than me, but she was higher level so...)

She tried to use battlefield control to divide and conquer, which wasted my actions countering it. My wizard was a damage-focused caster, so wasting my actions was about half the offense the party had (had she stuck the Ph Killer, our party mix might have resulted in a TPK, or at least some people fleeing leaving bodies behind). She tried her best "remove a single target from the board" spell on the correct target. I got unlucky, (most of the time I could make one of the two saves) but only because I had "Player character" resources most enemies don't have (one free reroll an adventure, and boons from prior adventures for one-time-ever effects, one of which saved my ass). Had I been an NPC wizard, she would have won. OTOH, my damage spell would have killed her outright if she didn't have several levels on me. (even one level higher, I would have had a maximize rod or a quicken spell followup, plus I would have had echolocation running, allowing me to just kill her after she went invisible without wasting an action on see invisibility). So at that level, wizard vs wizard, a direct engagement however we were built was quickly lethal for one of us, with a large advantage to whomever went first.

When we both survived the first exchange, I know I was scared. I'd used all my saving throw tricks and if she had a second one I was looking at probably a 60-70% chance of failing. On her side, if she didn't stop me I had about a 100% chance of killing her, even with an area spell (which bypasses a good chunk of battlefield control she might have tried). She also didn't know how close she came to killing me in-character, where by using damage I had a pretty good idea how badly I'd hurt her. It probably didn't hurt that I tossed my best shot at her, which if it was a routine spell from a non-damage-optimized wizard would indicate a character about her level, not several levels lower.

So from her calculus she was facing a peer, not an inferior, one who'd stymied her battlefield control and took her best shot. Hell, the only reason I didn't turtle up or run after the phantasmal killer is that I couldn't let the party down. Everybody else in the party was lower level with worse ranged attacks by a large margin. So I hit back as hard as I could, and the fact that I did it with damage probably saved us all. If I had tried my own save-suck spell, one good save and she'd be unhurt and probably more willing to risk going to the saving throw well again on me. Battlefield control on a high level enemy wizard is also problematic if summons are something she might do, or has the right counter prepped that day (like fireballs shooting past sight-blockers, etc). My best battlefield controller primarily used that tactic to divide up melee monsters, or block ranged attacks of various kinds. Wizards are unpredictable, you don't know what they have, so you can't easily choose a spell that "just works".

[Wonton]

Another example of highly overrated Battlefield Control I just remembered is Gust of Wind. How is this a highly rated spell by any stretch of the imagination? It's a line so enemies can just step to the side and then move towards you. I mean, I haven't fought anything in a 5-ft hallway since 2nd edition. :smallconfused:

I'd prepare it if I was 13th level and just wanted something with potential utility in my low level slots, but it's not Battlefield Control unless you're in an owl-based campaign and fighting Tiny creatures is an expected part of your day. :smalltongue:

P.S. As much as I rail against BC in this thread, I want to remind people that my last 3 characters were a Conjurer Wizard, a Beguiler, and a purely spell-focused Druid (so no Animal Companion and Str too poor to do significant damage in Wild Shape). So I'm mainly posting this because I don't think it's the be-all and end-all of spellcasting strategies, and I think advice people read in handbooks regarding BC and blasting should be taken with a grain (or several handfuls) of salt. But I wouldn't keep rolling spellcasters that prepare BC spells if I hated it entirely. My Druid just hit 5 so you can bet your ass I'm going to have some fun with Sleet Storm next session. :smallamused:

[Seward]

In my personal experience, I always found battlefield control significantly easier to accomplish than damage. If you're tactic is damage you'll have to be orientated in such a way as to completely obliterate a target instead of just nailing them with control or separating a party with walls and fogs. And then you have to consider resistances, immunities, and proper-setup to even use your damage effectively. Sure, at low levels this is really not a consideration but those fireballs stop looking so hot when everything and it's familiar is going to giggle at the fire type.

And this isn't even considering the fact that by focusing on damage dealing spells and setups you're going to just waste spell slots that can also be used outside of combat. As a toolbox your tools should have multiple uses, which flat damage doesn't really provide. And really, if your entire goal is to deal damage/support the party, I've always found that just summon monster and its ilk will yield FAR better mileage at all levels and provide a useful tool out of combat.

Yes, absolutely. The focus is on obliterating the enemy and also knowing how to kill them. My wizard who went this route had all the "know how to kill things" knowledge skills and was a pathfinder Evoker (who can switch damage types on the fly), used caster level boosting feats to boost damage out of normal ranges for a given level etc. My martial characters have their own strategies, but they all involve doing high, reliable damage and having the right tool for the job (golfbag of weapons, quiver of arrow types or just having extremely high individual damage hits to overpower DR). A caster requires a big focus on doing really good damage in most situations and accepting that sometimes you'll be shut down or simply won't have enough high level spell slots to keep up.

Regarding the wasted spell slots, that's something you also want to consider if making a blaster caster. For a spontaneous caster, it's no big deal - pick a couple or three spells known focused on damage and back them up with feats, traits, bloodlines, whatever that crank up the damage and use your OTHER spells known (or perhaps wands, scrolls etc) to provide all that utility, plus some buffs and battlefield control for when your damage isn't what's needed. You use battlefield control as an "oh crap" button, instead of a first option, but it's still worthwhile.

As a prepared caster, well, my solution was to make sure I could cast my best spell spontaneously after level 5. Pathfinder has two routes to this end (Preferred spell takes an extra feat but can enter at level 5, greater spell specialization requires level 9 but you can retrain and get that feat back). Now for me, this mostly meant I could prep a good selection of area spells while using heavily modified spontaneous scorching rays as bread-and-butter. Her spellbook was also stuffed with divination and "remove barrier" spells for "looting the tomb after we've cleared it" plus a number of spells to make travel comfortable and safe. On a travel day, an infiltration day or a looting day, her blasty spells are much fewer in number or even absent, but she can always bring out her biggest, optimized gun, converting a stone shape spell into a maximized scorching ray, say.

Now for most casters it's hard to do meaningful damage that keeps up with a martial character. Even the Sor/Wiz has to put a lot of build effort into the mix. So what is really needed on them is a few "boom" slots or a spell known or two that do SOME damage (for my oracle, I had a couple revelations that did damage - only about 3 times per day between them by level 10) so you can finish off wounded bad guys. A spont caster can never go wrong with a solid damage spell in her spells known that does decent if not "obliterate them" damage. A prep caster has to be more careful, but killing wounded dudes comes up fairly often, so it's worth at least a low level slot or two, and probably another fairly high level slot if you have a decent option.

Frankly it's easier to do a damage-focused spontaneous caster, but weirdly, the prep casters can actually generate more damage a few times a day due to earlier access to high tier spell slots. The opportunity cost is a lot higher on the prep caster (damage is the sort of thing you want to spam, and prep casters prefer one or two high impact spells per combat, rounding out their contributions with lower tier spells, possibly extended with things like pearls of power).

Finally a word on summon monster. That's a spell I consider to have amazing utility OUT OF COMBAT (if you speak the four elemental languages, you can do amazing things with earth glide, using air elementals to carry party members with 100' perfect flight or to clear away fog/smoke, water elementals scouting underwater or putting out large-scale fires etc). In combat the full round casting time is a non-starter. You do nothing for an entire round, your spell is easily interrupted and even if you do succeed in casting it, a summoned monster is significantly inferior to even a mediocre martial party member. 3.5 had rapid summoning which helped a lot. If your combats take place in large areas and are slow to finish it can be worthwhile, and summoning BEFORE the fight starts can be pretty awesome. (SURPRISE, Earth elementals coming out of the floor while we kick in the door!). It isn't an accident that the Pathfinder Summoner class features a pre-summoned animal-companion-tough summoned critter that can be around all day, and if you somehow lose it you can standard-action cast a top tier summoned monster pretty damn often, to make sure you're contributing something before you go dipping into spell actions.

My wife's summoning druid used them as much for battlefield control as expecting their damage to matter (I had an archer I teamed with her, I could kill everything if given the time). My Oracle spammed lantern Archons to fight clay golems once when nobody in the party could hurt them, but one party member could tank them. (two attacks at 1d6 untyped will eventually kill anything if they're mindless). I've seen a few people do well with them, but summoned monsters take a ton of system mastery to do well in combat, can slow the fight down to a crawl as they take a large number of weak actions and tend to be hard for both the GM and player to keep track of from a meta-standpoint.

I prefer combat summons with a single strong attack (speeds up play, also gets through DR, and they tend to be durable so good as simple blockers to divide up the battlefield). Something like an earth elemental or a giant crocodile, or whatever my best flying option is against those kinds of foes. In the end summoned monsters are more like spells such as Flaming Sphere and Spiritual Weapon than a true offensive spell. Damage over time is only a good option if your party offense is weak in a given encounter and the fight will drag long enough for it to be worthwhile. If you are going to try to contribute damage, burst damage is much better, or the weakest spell you can get away with that will still kill a badly wounded opponent.

A good blaster caster requires system mastery during the build, but is fairly easy to play. A good summoner needs system mastery at the table, every round of the combat and a party that can do ok without their participation round 1 of each fight, unless you're able enough to pre-summon what you need.

[Seward]

Another example of highly overrated Battlefield Control I just remembered is Gust of Wind. How is this a highly rated spell by any stretch of the imagination? It's a line so enemies can just step to the side and then move towards you. I mean, I haven't fought anything in a 5-ft hallway since 2nd edition. :smallconfused:


Its primary use is to counter other battlefield control. I used sculpted gust of wind back in 3.5 (when GM allowed it, sculpt spell had tricky wording) to clear fog and cloudkill type effects. Even the base spell is good enough to screw up cloudkill type things even if enemies are spamming them (Nyacodaemons?) because it lasts for a full round after casting.

My sorceress valued it because it was thematic (she was a telekenetic themed sorceress), it was a battlefield control counter (so, they thought they could stop my barbarian charge with an obscuring mist? I'll stand behind the barbarian and cast gust of wind in their direction, clearing his line of sight and charge...) and also it countered my OWN battlefield control in very precise ways. I used solid fog as a bread and butter spell, and I could cut slices in it with gust of wind. Also as a level 2 spell, after level 12 I could quicken it, so I could solid fog an enemy and cut a charge lane into it for my own melee to get them access to something to kill...

I don't tend to prep it or take it as a spell known if it isn't thematic, but as a 150gp scroll, it comes up often enough to keep a scroll in your haversack if you encounter any opponents at all that like fog. It's bigger brother wind wall is a significantly better spell, but I find 3rd level spell slots or spells known under a lot more pressure, with many, many good options and 3rd level scrolls a lot pricier. It is one of those spells that if you are a spont caster and get it "for free" (eg, a sorcerer bloodline spell or oracle mystery or cleric domain slot) you will start noticing occasions where it is pretty nice to have. But if it is competing for normal L2 options, it usually loses.

All that said, yeah, it is a very situational spell. OTOH, we all experience different things. My scorching ray wizard routinely racks Knock and Shatter because people keep trying to get away from her by shutting doors. She hates that. She'll have disintegrate on tap to just blow holes in walls to pursue enemies once she gets 6th level spell slots. She had gust of wind prepped on combat days for a while (blocking sight is a common counter to her powerful zaps, and she had an early adventure involving a lot of fog that bugged her), but now that she has echolocation it's been squeezed out for buff spells.

[Psyren]

Mmm... yes, this is true, but I find that - especially if the party has the typical Battlefield Controller caster and a big melee DPS Barbarian - most monsters will stay and fight in melee with the Barbarian. Few things have Tumble/Acrobatics, and most things don't want to take the 3d6+24 from your Barbarian's AoO. It's not a case of lazy/dumb/bad DMs, it's just a case of most enemies choosing to deal with the immediate threat in front of them rather than trying to get to the back line. It certainly does happen, but most of the time I think it's better to just use Medium+ range rather than to rely on slow effects to keep enemies away from you. I will concede this point somewhat, however, and say that I will consider slow effects "neutral", not "terrible".

Again, it's not just about keeping them in range of the barbarian. Certainly that is one useful function of BFC, but the other is that you want to keep them from surrounding and overwhelming him too. If you can catch 4 tigers in your Solid Fog, you can likely shift it slightly to only catch 3, so that the one in front keeps its full speed and arrives in front of him alone, ready to get Slap-Chopped.

Also, the GM can plausibly have just about anything switch targets to your back row. Martials tend to look very imposing by design - full plate, horned helm, armor spikes, greatsword, gauntlets etc. Even a big dumb animal is likely going to consider the guy in the steel cage with the hard pointy stick a thornier target than the guy in boiled leather or the guy in a dress. The party that doesn't prepare for that eventuality is likely going to have their hands full with multiple fronts in short order.



It's not about players being tactics-averse at all. Florian summed up my viewpoint perfectly, IMO:



The player could be the most tactically savvy person on the planet, but if he's playing a 8 Int, 8 Wis Barbarian, his character shouldn't be. Yes, maybe if the Barbarian's been adventuring with the Wizard for a long time, he's learned some teamwork things like to hang back for a round until the Stinking Cloud drops, but ultimately I find that most combats don't (and I would also claim shouldn't) feature perfect synergy and teamwork. Right now I'm even playing in a group that uses the Dynamic Lighting feature of Roll20, which means that if your party is fighting around a corner, you can't actually see that part of the map. So good luck trying to perform group tactics in a situation like this. I used the phrase "unless your party behaves like a SWAT team" in the original post, and I really think it is an apt analogy. If every encounter in your game is pre-planned and starts with highly coordinated actions from all your party members - of course Battlefield Control will be godlike. I've never found this to be the case in any of the games I've played, however.

That's very easy to solve - talking is a free action after all. Against enemies who can potentially overhear you, telepathy is something that most mid/high-level parties should be shooting for. Or the wizard can have their familiar perch on the barbarian's shoulder and deliver instructions that way. If the martial character is dumb as rocks, that's more reason to follow the directions of the tactically-savvy controller caster, not less. And if the martial character is smart, problem solved.

And yes, a high-level party IS supposed to be a SWAT team. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0928.html) The ones who don't function like a well-oiled machine generally end up dead - luck can only take you so far before it runs out.



YES. Another argument taken right out of my mouth. :smalltongue:

Sometimes it feels like everyone that writes those guides is playing some sort of Beguiler version of Wizard/Druid where they just have all the battlefield control spells at the ready and can cast any of them spontaneously. At best, a 5th-level Battlefield Controller Wizard will have something like Slow, Stinking Cloud, and Sleet Storm prepared. And less, if he wanted to Fly that day.

You're missing the point - a handbook's job is to tell you what's out there, and take a stab at rating it based on probability of it making a difference. The onus is still on you to pick the options that best fit your campaign. Everyone knows Dispel Magic is great, but if you're not fighting any spellcasters, it drops to red for you.


Love this analogy. I really have found consistently on prepared casters that having a mix of Battlefield Control, utility, and damage (not necessarily 1/3 - 1/3 - 1/3... but a mix) is the optimal way to play. There's nothing more embarassing than having your party ask "so... we did 110 damage this round... this thing's gotta be close to death... can you just finish it off?" and realizing that your spell list consists of nothing but Fogs and Walls and Clouds.

I don't recall anyone saying that you shouldn't have a mix of spells. Certainly I didn't.

[John Longarrow]

As I've seen many different arguments in this thread that are based around play style, I can understand that from each perspective their points carry more weight. I cannot speak to others, but the following is the kind of low level encounter 5th level characters in my game would tend to face:

Goblin leader (ranger 3) has his 8 archers (warrior 1) hidden at a curve in the road. His shaman (druid 1) is near him. They have done some work to make sure there is grass across the road at this curve (watering it during the spring) and have a nice 50x50 open area for their ambush. The archers have put up a berm that is covered in foliage to fire from behind, thus giving them cover.

Unless the PCs can beat the rangers hide check for him and his goblins, the goblins tactics are simple; Druid casts entanglement when their quarry hits the curve, then all of them target anyone not in armor first. From the goblins perspective anyone in armor is probably going to try to move through the entangled area. Anyone NOT in armor is probably going to use a ranged attack.

Yes, this is (and should be) a difficult fight. The goblin archers are in pairs with 10' space between. They are doing a standard L formation ambush. They also have pre-set escape routes and a meet up spot if things go south. They've also been camping out here for a while. The ranger has two look out spots that he moves between to keep an eye further down the road and has had this place picked out months in advance. They are intentionally waiting for someone who looks like they have wealth and are hoping to kill a couple nice juicy victims and watch the rest run in fear.

As part of their loot, the goblins DO have a scroll of obscuring mist. The druid has it (twice) to help cover the group in case they need to escape.

This is why I find BFC to be so common in games I am in.

[Deadline]

I don't recall anyone saying that you shouldn't have a mix of spells. Certainly I didn't.

No one did. Not on this thread, and not in any of the handbooks (they all say the exact opposite, versatility is key, after all). I'm thinking this may be the main source of the disconnect here between the OP and the handbooks.

[Psyren]

No one did. Not on this thread, and not in any of the handbooks (they all say the exact opposite, versatility is key, after all). I'm thinking this may be the main source of the disconnect here between the OP and the handbooks.

I think so too. He seems to think "controller" = "prepare nothing else whatsoever for any reason."

[Wonton]

That's very easy to solve - talking is a free action after all. Against enemies who can potentially overhear you, telepathy is something that most mid/high-level parties should be shooting for. Or the wizard can have their familiar perch on the barbarian's shoulder and deliver instructions that way. If the martial character is dumb as rocks, that's more reason to follow the directions of the tactically-savvy controller caster, not less. And if the martial character is smart, problem solved.

And yes, a high-level party IS supposed to be a SWAT team. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0928.html) The ones who don't function like a well-oiled machine generally end up dead - luck can only take you so far before it runs out.

Interesting, our mindsets on this couldn't be more different. You're approaching this from a completely different direction: Sometimes party members don't work together perfectly and this is a problem to "solve". And I'm very familiar (pun intended) with some of the ways of solving that, like telepathic communication. However, I'm not interested in those solutions, because I don't even see it as a problem - sometimes the communication isn't there, the teamwork is imperfect, and IMO that's just something you have to deal with. Combat is messy and chaotic. Not everyone's goal is to make the most effective party capable of defeating every encounter. :smallconfused:

Sure, if there was some sort of cash prize for defeating CR 16 encounters as a party of four level 7 characters as quickly, efficiently, and effectively as possible, I could employ some or all of these tactics. But there isn't. And one of the tag lines from another RPG I love is "failure makes things interesting". Yes, characters are at a higher risk of death, but that doesn't make the story or gameplay any less interesting to me.

At this point you might ask "why are you reading a handbook then?", or "why do you care about optimization at all?" to which I respond: Just because I'm not interested in crafting the most perfect party that can defeat every obstacle doesn't mean I want my character to suck too. I still want to have effective things to do with my standard actions.

So I would chalk this up to a difference in playstyle. I don't really want my party to function as a SWAT team. I mean, just as flaws (lower-case f, not the 3.5 Flaws) are what make characters interesting, I would argue a party that doesn't always work together perfectly is more interesting.


I don't recall anyone saying that you shouldn't have a mix of spells. Certainly I didn't.

And I never claimed you did.


I think so too. He seems to think "controller" = "prepare nothing else whatsoever for any reason."

Now you're just being combative for no reason. Can't we find a way to get along? :smallconfused: All I wanted from this thread was to share my experiences about playing BC casters, and maybe do just the tiniest bit to dispel the stigma around preparing a Fireball.

[Psyren]

I'm confused - you keep using the word "perfect" but I never used that word myself :smallconfused: I don't think being an effective team means perfection. I also never said anything about 4 level 7s taking on CR 16. Rather, the example I linked was the Order of the Stick taking on the Vector Legion, and their levels are definitely not that far apart. (Hell, the Order still would have lost if it weren't for the Mechane's arrival, but they still held out long enough for that to happen via good tactics and teamwork.)



Now you're just being combative for no reason. Can't we find a way to get along? :smallconfused: All I wanted from this thread was to share my experiences about playing BC casters, and maybe do just the tiniest bit to dispel the stigma around preparing a Fireball.

If I offended I apologize, but clearly I wasn't the only one to read that point of view from your statements so I don't think I was being hostile. And I'm actually totally fine with preparing fireball! Quite apart from the occasional usefulness of a blasting spell (especially one that can hit swarms, oozes and whatnot), Fireball gives your toolbox something to use on objects, e.g. an enemy ship or a fleeing carriage. Stinking Cloud wouldn't help with those after all.

[John Longarrow]

So I would chalk this up to a difference in playstyle. I don't really want my party to function as a SWAT team. I mean, just as flaws (lower-case f, not the 3.5 Flaws) are what make characters interesting, I would argue a party that doesn't always work together perfectly is more interesting.

Down side, it is hard to believe a group who's been together for any length of time and is active in a dangerous occupation wouldn't emphasize team work. Real life people who hate each other and have nothing else in common can work very well together on a team. When you know doing what you need to do tactically will keep you alive you put aside personal issues and cooperate OR you are not with those individuals. They will either kick you out, you will leave, or someone dies.

I've seen characters built around RP reasons to be less than cooperative. I've also seen how difficult these builds are at survival. I've also seen them resulting in TPKs often enough that I seldom enjoy playing in groups like that.

[Wonton]

S'all good. :smallsmile:


I'm confused - you keep using the word "perfect" but I never used that word myself :smallconfused: I don't think being an effective team means perfection. I also never said anything about 4 level 7s taking on CR 16. Rather, the example I linked was the Order of the Stick taking on the Vector Legion, and their levels are definitely not that far apart. (Hell, the Order still would have lost if it weren't for the Mechane's arrival, but they still held out long enough for that to happen via good tactics and teamwork.)

Hmmm, fair enough. Well, I guess ultimately my point is: In my experience, parties just don't have enough communication/coordination/teamwork for BC to be effective a lot of the time. After all, in many encounters you are surprised by the enemy. In most, it's chaotic enough that any plan you had going in will be abandoned at some point and all you have for coordination every round is what you can communicate in 6 seconds of talking. So until you do have Telepathic Bond going, it's tough for a lot of these AoEs to be effective because once your melee have engaged their melee, neither side wants to leave due to AoOs and there's rarely an opportunity in those kind of chaotic fights for a Sleet Storm or Fog Cloud to do more good than harm.

[ryu]

S'all good. :smallsmile:



Hmmm, fair enough. Well, I guess ultimately my point is: In my experience, parties just don't have enough communication/coordination/teamwork for BC to be effective a lot of the time. After all, in many encounters you are surprised by the enemy. In most, it's chaotic enough that any plan you had going in will be abandoned at some point and all you have for coordination every round is what you can communicate in 6 seconds of talking. So until you do have Telepathic Bond going, it's tough for a lot of these AoEs to be effective because once your melee have engaged their melee, neither side wants to leave due to AoOs and there's rarely an opportunity in those kind of chaotic fights for a Sleet Storm or Fog Cloud to do more good than harm.

The simple method of solving that is called backup plans. Series of actions or tactics that work well for not dying in disadvantageous situations are some of the most important parts of teamwork. In addition I respond to situations like this by finding out how the enemy managed to surprise us, then investing in something to stop the same thing happening again. Don't make the same mistake twice. Learn from your failure, and make use of the gift of clever enemies to become a more effective team. Also if the tactic worked on you there's a good chance you'd never even considered it before. See if you can incorporate useful parts of it into your own battle strategies.

[Seward]

S'all good. :smallsmile:



Hmmm, fair enough. Well, I guess ultimately my point is: In my experience, parties just don't have enough communication/coordination/teamwork for BC to be effective a lot of the time. After all, in many encounters you are surprised by the enemy.

Weird. To me, I use battlefield control WHEN things go pear-shaped. To you know, get "control" back. When things go bad, my characters forget about all the normal things they want/intended to do and instead think "how the hell do I do something that will keep everybody alive and fighting".

When the barbarian charges and is about to be overwhelmed, or a giant boulder is rolling down the hill and a slow dude in armor can't get out of the way in time I block the massive full attacks he's about to take with a wall spell or try to move him farther away from the enemy somehow. Often something as simple as entangling an enemy (with a net or tanglefoot bag or something) or a bull rush/drag/redirect maneuver on a party member is enough to turn a full attack into one single attack. This is also the rationale behind provoking an AOO yourself so that some beat up party member can retreat safely.

When the my party is flat footed and surrounded by rogues or archers, or mounted critters with lances, or are standing around dazed staring at the dancing construct snake or need a way to withdraw out of reach I put up a sight blocking spell. Most commonly obscuring mist. Because it just plain works.

When we're getting bombarded with area spells from flying enemies, I move heaven and earth to get everybody under some kind of hard cover. Usually I can't just create it myself, but if I somehow can, you bet I will.

This sort of thing is why everybody with a splash of anything that has obscuring mist, has a scroll of it in his pack. Failing that, a smokestick and tindertwig. Anyone who can hit the broad side of a barn with a splash weapon gets a tanglefoot bag. That may be all the battlefield control I do, but I at least have that much on pretty much any character. People with actually good spells will tend to have a bit more. If the character is all about battlefield control as a primary tactic (as opposed to an "oh crap" tactic), then what they'll have to "remember" to have as an option is raw damage, buffs and mobility.

[Deadline]

All I wanted from this thread was to share my experiences about playing BC casters, and maybe do just the tiniest bit to dispel the stigma around preparing a Fireball.

What stigma?

[yellowrocket]

What stigma?

The troll is strong with this one.

[Psyren]

S'all good. :smallsmile:



Hmmm, fair enough. Well, I guess ultimately my point is: In my experience, parties just don't have enough communication/coordination/teamwork for BC to be effective a lot of the time. After all, in many encounters you are surprised by the enemy. In most, it's chaotic enough that any plan you had going in will be abandoned at some point and all you have for coordination every round is what you can communicate in 6 seconds of talking. So until you do have Telepathic Bond going, it's tough for a lot of these AoEs to be effective because once your melee have engaged their melee, neither side wants to leave due to AoOs and there's rarely an opportunity in those kind of chaotic fights for a Sleet Storm or Fog Cloud to do more good than harm.

That's not my experience at all, and I would readily wager it doesn't match most of the other folks here either.

More to the point, this is hardly unique to battlefield control - any area of effect spell is going to require coordination. If you can't place a fog spell properly, how are you going to aim a fireball? If you can't drop glowing particles on the enemy safely, how can you do the same with a swarm of bees? And so on.

[Peat]

Funnily enough, it is one of Treantmonk's guides that I have the biggest beef with (and the one that provided the impetus for this post) - his Pathfinder Druid guide. Obscuring Mist, Fog Cloud, and Soften Earth and Stone are listed as straight up the best level 1 and 2 Druid spells in his guide, which I disagree with on all 3 counts. His description of Soften Earth and Stone really implies that he hadn't actually read the spell and just glanced over it instead, as he assumed that enemies would always be trapped in mud upon casting it, when that only happens if the starting condition was "Wet Earth".


So he does and fair enough if you disagree about those specific spells, but he's not recommending bringing control over damage and utility; he's recommending bringing all three (just with damage usually in the indirect form of buffs and summons and only a few blasts).



The player could be the most tactically savvy person on the planet, but if he's playing a 8 Int, 8 Wis Barbarian, his character shouldn't be.

One would argue, somewhat tongue in cheek, that if watching pro sports has taught me nothing else, it's that Int 8 Wis 8 Barbarians can be very tactically astute if forced to study something enough! :smallwink:

Everyone's table will be different though - it's certainly very fair to suggest that most optimisation guides are written by people experiencing a fairly different style of play to others.

And honestly? My tables have probably been more similar to yours. There's never been a big enough group of guys who had the patience and mindset to be seriously tactical. When I've been a full caster, I've focused mainly on either buffing, or horrendous abuse of Colour Spray. I think there is a weakness in treating all tables the same in guides - although at the same time, the more tactical the group, the better the survival chances in my experience.

[John Longarrow]

One would argue, somewhat tongue in cheek, that if watching pro sports has taught me nothing else, it's that Int 8 Wis 8 Barbarians can be very tactically astute if forced to study something enough! :smallwink:

Ignore professional sports. Talk to someone who is serving in an infantry unit because they couldn't qualify for any other job. It does take a while for them to learn what they need to, but once they've got it down they're using some really bright folks tactics and strategy because that's how they were trained.

Same goes in D&D. Your wizard can work it through with the rest of the party on how to deal with standard encounters (ambush/clearing rooms/overrunning enemy when ambushed/dog-pile big monster/identify and separate potent enemies/ect..) and then call out what needs to happen after first contact is made.

[Deadline]

The troll is strong with this one.

Are you referring to me? Because I'm asking out of honesty. Feel free to point out this stigma if you see it (which seems to be the case, if you are calling me a troll).

I know that most Evocation spells aren't the most powerful spells around, but I'm not sure what stigma would be attached to throwing a fireball to finish off a wounded group of foes. I even mentioned it in my posts earlier as an effective use of the spell. And again, no one suggested that a wizard should only ever prepare one kind of spell in all of their spell slots.

I know Evocation is often held up as a prime choice of school to ban for Specialist Wizards, but that's a far cry from a stigma. Almost the entire school suffers the same issues (saves allowed, and SR allowed), meaning that it's not crippling to lose that school if you want to specialize (keep in mind that Necromancy and Enchantment are similarly recommended). In other words, if you have to take fewer tools in your toolbox, make sure the tools you take are more generally effective, because you have to stretch them to fit more situations.

So my question remains the same - what stigma do you see attached to Fireball (or is this in regards to Evocation in general, in which case I still don't see a stigma)?

[MyrPsychologist]

I wasn't aware that there was a stigma around blasting. I thought it was considered a lower tier, but still incredibly powerful. And it's usually stated that the proper controller setup requires so much mental setup and understanding that it's essentially a university minor. But being a "lower tier" isn't bad. Everyone plays these games how they want and that's completely subjective.

I remember being in school and spending more time planning stuff out on my Cleric than my sociology minor. Literally.

[vorpalvolta]

I've recently been playing a wizard focused on BC and it's definitely an art as far as preparing your spells each day. For me it really comes its own around levels 9-10 when you can use lower level slots for defense and utility, mid levels for buff and BC, and high level ones for summons which always provide a high level of versatility including damage. Sprinkle in a couple blasts and a save or lose and you're good to go.

Also remember wands and scrolls are your friend. You should never have nothing to do just because you picked the wrong spells today, your wand of magic missile or fireball or whatever will give you a damage option.

The main problem I have playing this type of caster is this my teammates dont take full advantage of it tactically (and also my DM often rolls ridiculously high on enemy saving throws, his dice are legendary). They have a tendency to just charge in and take their one attack and proceed to eat a full attack from enemy beatstick instead of waiting for the encounter to get laid out. Before I can Haste them or Slow the enemy, or nauseate or daze or drop them in a pit or divide them, they've already charged in and now my options are limited but more importantly they've taken a ton more damage than was necessary.

[yellowrocket]

Sorry after all the posts blasting the use of fireball I took it as a troll move. My mistake.:(

There is not a stigma against blasting, but there is a big bias against fireball in particular. So many of the people here frequently bash people who use fireball across the threads.

Blasting like bfc and efficient buffing is situational. Really in the end it's so situational that I've tried to avoid the topic except as a reader most of the time.

[John Longarrow]

I think the people who look down on Fireball are the ones who simply prefer other spells for the same effect. Fireball faces a variety of challenges since so many creatures are resistant to/immune to fire. Unless you sculpt spell it the area is hard to fit into a lot of dungeons. It is particularly useful when hunting trolls though, maybe the real reason so many bash it on line... :elan:

[J-H]

Reserve feats from CM deserve a mention - they make blasting and spell-slot management easier. There are a number of them; the earliest is Fiery Burst. As long as you have a fire spell available to cast, you can make a 5' radius fireball (Reflex save half) with 1d6 damage per level of the highest-level fire spell available.

This actually tracks pretty well with the warlock's Eldritch Blast progression. At level 5, your one Fireball is allowing you to drop 3d6 micro-bursts every round, which compares favorably to the fighter's 2d6+4 greatsword or the warlock's 3d6 EB. There's a save, but you're also hitting an AOE.

Pick a couple of reserve feats, prep spells to support them, and you have moderate blasting all day long without burning all your spell slots.

[Legato Endless]

I wasn't aware that there was a stigma around blasting. I thought it was considered a lower tier, but still incredibly powerful.

I think hyperbole misinterpretation is probably in play. Veteran players say, don't use damage spells, and it's taken as meaning don't use Fireball ever. What's meant is obviously that you shouldn't prioritize damage dealing as you've got other options, and very often those are more optimal. But people often take such statements literally or tend to feel their overemphasized.

Which they probably are, but it's necessary because DnD requires a paradigm shift from most turn based games. In the glut of turn based video games the mage exploits elemental weaknesses, bombards enemies with damage at a distance, and so on and so forth. He's not throwing up screens to divide enemy groups or obscure their vision. Just like healers in such games probably should be casting healing spells most every turn, when healbot's not the default assumption here.

[Dysjong]

Here is my two cents on the topic.

Many of you, are talking about spells and how they change the battlefield. hell many of you can outsmart me as if I were a school kid!

HOWEVER! Battlefield control also comes from what a melee character is able to do. Sure it might not be all that glourious or awe inspiring but for me, it is way more satisfying then being a caster. Currently I am in a PF group where I play a female half orc lvl 2, Skulking slayer 1 & lore warden 1. The idea is to make use of the different class features to optimise dirty trick and trip, forcing the enemy to spend their actions to either deal with what I can do! Found the build on paizos forum and asked the guy if it was alright that I made use of it.

More importently, I like a good fight, close and personale and that is thanks to R.A.Salvatore. When you read those fight scenes about either Drizzt or Artemis or some other, it is not enough with just hitting, it is also about outmaneuvering your opponent, make use of your environment and knowing your items and their limits. The same thing can be said about a fight between casters.

So no, battlefield control per say is not bad, it's more about not being a pony trick.