Mists

[VoxRationis]

I'm looking for a spell that produces mist of sufficient size and duration to have a battlefield-level effect. Something that I can cast that will either disorient and blind a large group of enemy soldiers, or cloak a sizeable number of friendly soldiers from view. Obscuring mist and fog cloud both have radii too small to be of use in this regard. I'm not necessarily looking for rider effects or special abilities like solid fog and cloudkill have. Anyone know of something along these lines?

[Drakevarg]

Can't think of a spell, but perhaps some kind of catapult-fired alchemical contraption, like a cluster bomb of smokesticks?

[Venger]

the spell you're thinking of is murderous mist. deals 2d6 damage and ref save vs blindness, so it works on undead and constructs too even golems since it's sr no. rolls away from you at 10ft/round like cloudkill

[Drakevarg]

the spell you're thinking of is murderous mist. deals 2d6 damage and ref save vs blindness, so it works on undead and constructs too even golems since it's sr no. rolls away from you at 10ft/round like cloudkill

I think he was specifically looking for concealment, not killing. Hence why "having special abilities like cloudkill" was listed as a non-factor. He wants obscuring mist, but bigger. Can't exactly conceal the movements of allied soldiers in murderous mist, unless the movements you want to conceal are them flailing and dying.

[Elkad]

If you want a big area (2 mile radius, 3 if Druid), Control Weather is the go-to.

Blizzard, Fog, Sleet Storm, Torrential Rain, etc. All restrict visibility, some better than others.

[VoxRationis]

Oh, I should have clarified, this should be a wizard spell. I'm playing a wizard of noble birth whose house motto is "challenge not the mists," so I want some thematic spell I can cast in support of household knights.

[Drakevarg]

I mean, if we're talking about schtick of an entire noble house, it could be as simple as making it so one in 50 of your troops is a standardbearer with a level in wizard. Have them stand amidst troop formations and casting obscuring mist to conceal their numbers.

[VoxRationis]

I mean, if we're talking about schtick of an entire noble house, it could be as simple as making it so one in 50 of your troops is a standardbearer with a level in wizard. Have them stand amidst troop formations and casting obscuring mist to conceal their numbers.

Sadly, it would be difficult to ensure access to followers with wizard levels, and even having regular soldiers in units of 50 or more could be rough. More likely, I'll have a dozen or so cavalry and, if I'm lucky, a yeoman levy of archers, in support of a larger force.

[Drakevarg]

Sadly, it would be difficult to ensure access to followers with wizard levels, and even having regular soldiers in units of 50 or more could be rough. More likely, I'll have a dozen or so cavalry and, if I'm lucky, a yeoman levy of archers, in support of a larger force.

If you're talking about the Leadership feat, sure. I was thinking like troops in service of the house (which would probably use Commander Ratings from HoB rather than the Leadership feat) rather than a personal retinue. And if you can't get 50 troops or more, then you don't really need anything significantly larger than widened obscuring mist, since the spell can conceal 64 troops in its basic form.

[Silva Stormrage]

Utterdark creates 100ft/level magical darkness. If your troops have a way of seeing through magical darkness that might work.

Another option would be illusions. Create a giant illusion of mist and the enemies don't get a will save to disbelieve until they are actually IN the mist. Plus side is your allies in the mist will probably pass their saves if you tell them it's an illusion and they disbelieve a couple times.

Another option would be binding an outsider who can cast fog cloud at will. Sure each casting is only 20ft radius but they last for 10 minutes per level. You can quickly blanket a battlefield with 2-3 low CR celestials or fiends with the SLA.

Lastly you can always get the widen spell metamagic and apply it a couple times to obscuring mist or fog cloud. With metamagic reducers it isn't even that expensive.

[VoxRationis]

What sort of metamagic reducers?

[The Glyphstone]

Utterdark creates 100ft/level magical darkness. If your troops have a way of seeing through magical darkness that might work.

Another option would be illusions. Create a giant illusion of mist and the enemies don't get a will save to disbelieve until they are actually IN the mist. Plus side is your allies in the mist will probably pass their saves if you tell them it's an illusion and they disbelieve a couple times.

Another option would be binding an outsider who can cast fog cloud at will. Sure each casting is only 20ft radius but they last for 10 minutes per level. You can quickly blanket a battlefield with 2-3 low CR celestials or fiends with the SLA.

Lastly you can always get the widen spell metamagic and apply it a couple times to obscuring mist or fog cloud. With metamagic reducers it isn't even that expensive.

You can't apply metamagics recursively unless they specifically allow you to. Metabreath feats have that built in, but I don't believe Widen Spell permits stacking.

[Silva Stormrage]

What sort of metamagic reducers?

Preferably ones that can be used constantly like Arcane Thesis, practical metamagic and the like.

However, I just checked and apparently widen can't be stacked multiple times on a single spell? For some reason I totally thought it could. Since you can't stack it you could just get a lesser metamagic rod of widen.

http://www.realmshelps.net/charbuild/feat/Enlarge_Spell

Enlarge spell would work better for obscuring mist due to being dirt cheap (A lesser rod is 3k) and still doubling the radius to 40ft. Still not ideal for a large army but decent.

[DrKerosene]

How high a caster level does your PC have?

Could a high level meta-magic'd Silent Image of foggy cover work for providing concealment from a % of enemys?

[BloodSnake'sCha]

What about using war spell?

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?306567-War-Spells!-Discussion-and-Application

[VoxRationis]

Currently, my character is at CL 7.

I doubt my DM will allow war magic, given how powerful it is.

Applying metamagic to an illusion or existing fog spell could work. I have never seen practical metamagic or arcane thesis before. Where are these things? PHBII or some obscure sourcebook?

[Khedrac]

A bit out of your caster level at 6th, but Guards and Wards is up to 200 square feel per caster level and can fill the entire area with fog.

[Venger]

Currently, my character is at CL 7.

I doubt my DM will allow war magic, given how powerful it is.

Applying metamagic to an illusion or existing fog spell could work. I have never seen practical metamagic or arcane thesis before. Where are these things? PHBII or some obscure sourcebook?

good call on war magic, it's unbalanced homebrew.

practical metamagic is in races of the dragon. arcane thesis is in phb2. I hope your gm's not one of those people who deems random splats "obscure"

[Fouredged Sword]

Perhaps you cannot find dedicated spellcasters to cast obscuring mist, but can you train the people you DO have access to? The Magical training feat gives any character 3 level 0 arcane spells. This allows them to use an eternal wand of Obscuring Mist without UMD checks, giving them a 3/day casting of obscuring mist. If your soldiers have the Blindfight feat they will be significantly more mobile and at a notable advantage in melee fighting in mist. Your troops would roll twice at any miss chance, their enemies would not. Archers attempting to shoot them would suffer very stiff penalties. Charging mounted attackers would need to slow or risk tripping their mounts or driving straight into pike.

For reference a person with blind fight passes a 20% miss chance something like 96% of the time. His opposition misses 20% of the time. At 10ft of standoff (a second row of with longspears) they can attack blindly (by looking at the person in front of them to tell if an enemy is in front of the front line) and hit 75% of the time and hit a flat footed enemy with an additional -2 to ac, while attacks back at him only hit 50% of the time and he retains his dex to defense.

[ATHATH]

You could take levels in the Spell Sovereign PrC and refluff your pet Living Spells to be mists/fog clouds/whatever.

[VoxRationis]

good call on war magic, it's unbalanced homebrew.

practical metamagic is in races of the dragon. arcane thesis is in phb2. I hope your gm's not one of those people who deems random splats "obscure"

I know for a fact he's fine with PHB II. I'll take a look at arcane thesis.

@Fouredged Sword: No magic mart to speak of. Having a bunch of eternal wands of obscuring mist is also unlikely. Training my soldiers in Blind-fighting doesn't sound out of the question, though.

[Fouredged Sword]

I know for a fact he's fine with PHB II. I'll take a look at arcane thesis.

@Fouredged Sword: No magic mart to speak of. Having a bunch of eternal wands of obscuring mist is also unlikely. Training my soldiers in Blind-fighting doesn't sound out of the question, though.

Can you take craft wondrous item and craft wand? Make them yourself. At 1000gp a pop you just need to spend 500gp and a handful of exp per squad. Ether that or seek out someone has the craft wand feat/craft wondrous item and use cooperative crafting rules to borrow the feats you need (multiple people can work together to craft if collectively they meet the crafting reqs.) With a little effort it shouldn't be THAT hard to find a 5th level spellcaster who will custom make the items with you for money. At 1000gp of value they take a single day to enchant. 5-10 cheep magic items spread across an army shouldn't be out of the question.

Another solid option is to embed NPC adepts into your units. NPC class spellcasters shouldn't be THAT hard to recruit. Obscuring mist is on their spell list and you can provide cheap scrolls if you expect them to need multiple castings a day. They are divine casters, so can cast in armor. Retraining your squad leaders as Expert 1 / Warrior 3 / Adept 2 seems like a reasonable thing you should be able to do. With reasonable wisdom that should give them a casting or two of obscuring mist per day. This would also give your squad leaders a familiar to aid in logistics. Intelligent messenger hawks or owls make getting orders and recon between groups of soldiers easy.

[Gnaeus]

Eversmoking bottles?

[Silva Stormrage]

Eversmoking bottles?

.... How did I miss this one. Ya ignore all my other suggested options I am seconding eversmoking bottles. this is easily the best option for you. They create an absurd amount of smoke and can be passed around to spread out the area covered.

[VoxRationis]

So I worked out a custom spell with my DM and the first draft of it is in the Homebrew section of these forums. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?537599-The-Devouring-Mists-of-Swethmore-(a-wizard-spell)-(PEACH)&p=22426608#post22426608) Please tell me what you guys think.