Fog Cloud stories

[Aaedimus]

Simple question: People say fog cloud is awesome! Its a super useful spell! Prove it. What are your best stories where fog cloud saved the day? What about the time it didn't for some reason?

[Derpaligtr]

Simple question: What are your best stories where fog cloud saved the day? What about the time it didn't for some reason?

We were pretty much screwed but I dropped a quickened fog cloud on the group and used prestidigitation to make it sound like we all ran out a door that was partially being blocked by the fog cloud.

Body Snatchers chased down the hallway and we stayed put and got a short rest in and ended up ambushing said body snatchers at a later date.

[LunarDrop]

We were pretty much screwed but I dropped a quickened fog cloud on the group and used prestidigitation to make it sound like we all ran out a door that was partially being blocked by the fog cloud.

Body Snatchers chased down the hallway and we stayed put and got a short rest in and ended up ambushing said body snatchers at a later date.


That's... pretty ingenious... I'm impressed.

[kraitmarais]

In a game I was running with two players, the wizard cast fog cloud to conceal them as they snuck past a goblin sentry. It would have worked great, except they both rolled 1s on their stealth checks as they walked by. They both immediately tripped and fell flat on their faces in a great clanging of armor and clattering of weapons. :smallbiggrin:

[sithlordnergal]

I've used it in ToA against some psychic monkies. I don't know exactly what creature they were, but they were basically monkies that could use a psychic blast. The blast hit hard...only thing is they had to see you to target you. I quickly put up a Fog cloud, and they couldn't hit us anymore with their deadliest attack. I also used it against some spell casters to break line of sight. It's hard to target a spell that requires you to see a person to use it when all vision is blocked.

EDIT: Oh, I also used an Eversmoking Bottle, which does a similar thing to Fog Cloud, to stop a Bodak's death gaze.

[Derpaligtr]

That's... pretty ingenious... I'm impressed.

Thanks :)

The Sorcerer's abilities are so much fun.

[Haldir]

Use it to break line of sight, basically shutting down spellcasters and archers.

Hide in the fog. Pop out for Attack. Pop back in to hide. Abuse LOS and movement rules. Win hard.

[Tanarii]

Fog cloud doesn't shut down archers unless your DM rules they have to guess enemy locations. (I do past a certain distance, determined by passive perspection.)

Or house-rules that disadvantage for not being able to see targets isn't counteracted by advantage for the target not being able to see their attacker. (I was inadvertently doing this forever and retained it after I realized my mistake, since the default way it works is silly.)

[Theodoxus]

As a moon druid, I drop FC at the start of combat and bonus action turn into a giant spider and proceed to destroy my opponents (yay blindsight!)

First time I used it though, I was 1st level. The party ran in to engage a bunch of ruffians. I FC'd the whole area, and silliness ensued, as the DM decided that people didn't know who was beside them, so people randomly attacked allies or enemies. The ruffians' leader was dead 3 rounds before anyone noticed he wasn't attacking any more.

I yelled at my teammates to come run out of the cloud, so we could pick off the ruffians at our leisure... they... didn't understand the tactics...

Later on the same episode, we came up with a plan to FC a cave orcs were hiding in. That worked a lot better - as the orcs came blundering out of the fog and into our readied actions.

[Citan]

Fog cloud doesn't shut down archers unless your DM rules they have to guess enemy locations. (I do past a certain distance, determined by passive perspection.)

Or house-rules that disadvantage for not being able to see targets isn't counteracted by advantage for the target not being able to see their attacker. (I was inadvertently doing this forever and retained it after I realized my mistake, since the default way it works is silly.)
+100 on first part, +10 on second (kinda agree on the 'silly' part yet I kinda also understand why designers made it like so).
I try to tell players on the fly when they are automatically 'hidden' but it's kinda hard, since you have to take into account distance, wind and environment (fire making noise, shouts of people fighting, smoke hampering smell) to determine from what point onwards will the archers lose knowledge of enemy position.

[Haldir]

Fog cloud doesn't shut down archers unless your DM rules they have to guess enemy locations. (I do past a certain distance, determined by passive perspection.)

Or house-rules that disadvantage for not being able to see targets isn't counteracted by advantage for the target not being able to see their attacker. (I was inadvertently doing this forever and retained it after I realized my mistake, since the default way it works is silly.)

I'm not 100% on the official rulings, but I think for the most part any DM is gonna throw you a bone if you've obscured yourself from ranged attackers. Though honestly, just breaking LOS from spellcasters is powerful enough to justify this on any wizards list. There's just not a whole lot in the way of good reliable control early, and the low spell level/ proliferation of magic enemies means the spell stays relevant throughout your adventuring career. Just be sure to save a little bit of your movement to displace yourself in the fog so that the archers have to guess which way you moved.

[Waazraath]

Simple question: People say fog cloud is awesome! Its a super useful spell! Prove it. What are your best stories where fog cloud saved the day? What about the time it didn't for some reason?

1) party being chased by riders
2) fog cloud, and the dropping of cantrips
3) cursus and cries and neighing from behind, and people falling from their horses, and being trampled, when pursuers drove recklessly through the mist
4) much rejoice!

[Aimeryan]

I'm not 100% on the official rulings, but I think for the most part any DM is gonna throw you a bone if you've obscured yourself from ranged attackers. Though honestly, just breaking LOS from spellcasters is powerful enough to justify this on any wizards list. There's just not a whole lot in the way of good reliable control early, and the low spell level/ proliferation of magic enemies means the spell stays relevant throughout your adventuring career. Just be sure to save a little bit of your movement to displace yourself in the fog so that the archers have to guess which way you moved.

The official rules are a bit scattered but can be pieced together:



HIDE
When you take the Hide action, you make a Dexterity (Stealth) check in an attempt to hide, following the rules in chapter 7 for hiding. If you succeed, you gain certain benefits, as described in the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" section later in this chapter.

Bolded for relevance; you are not hidden until you take the Hide action.



Stealth. Make a Dexterity (Stealth) check when you attempt to conceal yourself from enemies, slink past guards, slip away without being noticed, or sneak up on someone without being seen or heard.

Bolded for relevance; concealing yourself is a check, which requires the Hide action as per the previous quote. This makes you not heard.



HIDING
When you try to hide, make a Dexterity (Stealth) check. Until you are discovered or you stop hiding, that check's total is contested by the Wisdom (Perception) check of any creature that actively searches for signs of your presence.

You can't hide from a creature that can see you, and if you make noise (such as shouting a warning or knocking over a vase), you give away your position. An invisible creature can't be seen, so it can always try to hide. Signs of its passage might still be noticed, however, and it still has to stay quiet.

Bolded for relevance; an invisible/unseen creature needs to actively try to hide, which requires the Hide action as per the previous quote.



UNSEEN ATTACKERS AND TARGETS
Combatants often try to escape their foes' notice by hiding, casting the invisibility spell, or lurking in darkness.

When you attack a target that you can't see, you have disadvantage on the attack roll. This is true whether you're guessing the target's location or you're targeting a creature you can hear but not see. If the target isn't in the location you targeted, you automatically miss, but the DM typically just says that the attack missed, not whether you guessed the target's location correctly.

When a creature can't see you, you have advantage on attack rolls against it.

lf you are hidden -both unseen and unheard- when you make an attack, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses.

Bolded for relevance; if you can hear the target then you do not need to guess the location. You are unheard when you are hidden. Being hidden requires the Hide action. Ergo, just being invisible/unseen does not mask your location and you need to take an action to be quiet.

~~~

Unfortunately, this means fog cloud doesn't automatically obscure your location - only line of sight. Moving to a new location while unseen is not enough to be hidden - the enemy still knows exactly where you are, which means they can attack you.

As another point, fog cloud doesn't give disadvantage to attacks made into, out of, or through the cloud because the disadvantage granted is countered by the advantage given for the attacker not being able to see you in turn.

This doesn't mean it is useless - you can use it to cancel disadvantage on your attacks, or cancel advantage on the enemy attacks. You can use it to lock down spells that require sight.

~~~

Note that I don't really like this, however:

I prefer being unseen confers doubt as to your location - maybe you can indeed hear something, but unless you are a bat or have a similar ability to locate via sound you shouldn't really be able to locate via that alone (logic and/or clues may reveal/narrow it down, of course). We have a house rule where by the further away you are, the less sure you are of the location of an unseen enemy based on sound (if they are not hidden); the DM judges a rough place you think you heard the sound from, or when the DM has to guess for the creatures s/he rolls two dice (the type being judged by the distance) for the x and y offset (minus 1). If they manage to deal damage (the attack roll and damage roll occur regardless) we then make a concentration check as per the same as when concentrating on spell and taking damage - failure means the target involuntarily makes a sound, which is the signal that the location is correct.

I also prefer that some disadvantage or advantage was of a greater variety - requiring an equally greater opposite to cancel it out. As such, in regards to precise attacks like that of ranged weapons, the disadvantage of not being able to see your target would be greater than the advantage of your target not being able to see you. Maybe a house rule to try out some time.

Lastly, not keen on requiring a separate action to hide (moving should be the action; losing line of sight and previous known location, and then not making sound - to the best of your ability [check]). Maybe another house rule to look at. Negative to trying to be stealthy should be the movement speed, and just outright failing when you don't make the check.

I guess this was too complex for default 5e, though.

[sambojin]

Same as the above. Moon druid WS blindsight + Fog Cloud = good.
Longstridered Killer Whale was the stupidest thing I've tried with it. I wasn't allowed to LS zero speed animals after that. Or use echolocation out of the water.

Pffft. DMs. Am I right? 😂

[Crgaston]

Same as the above. Moon druid WS blindsight + Fog Cloud = good.
Longstridered Killer Whale was the stupidest thing I've tried with it. I wasn't allowed to LS zero speed animals after that. Or use echolocation out of the water.

Pffft. DMs. Am I right? 😂

This is hilarious. Thank you!

[sambojin]

We actually theory crafted something up on the old min/max boards using whales. Eagle barb for 1 mile sight the same as 100' sight, plus killer whale blindsight = 1 mile blindsight. Add in a Scry spell before you wildshape and you've got a 1 mile range blindsight sensor for the spell. Add in a V rune (there was a UA at some point that had a "damage in sight range" rune word thingy) for scry and die, no hiding from it. Yes, it would take a while, at 1d6 or something a turn.

Never actually used it in-game though. Whereas blindsight and vision disruptors is one of those things druids do whenever they want. You have advantage, they have disadvantage, because you *can* see them perfectly well. There's even a "Jaculi" now, for low CR blindsight and a bit of decent damage in an AL legal book, for other druid types than moon.

http://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/220567

It's like a Tomb of Annihilation add-on that I'll be grabbing tomorrow night. Just generally seems to give druids more "official'ish" WS options, for fog-cloud etc :)

[Miz_Liz]

The (level 6) party got backed into a corner by a (level 14) baddy we were clearly meant to run away from. Our ranger/warlock used all of his spell slots casting and recasting fog cloud to get us out of the building and into a crowd. He single-handedly prevented a tpk through copious use of Fog cloud.

[Ganymede]

It was in the depths of the Amber Temple when it happened.

The party was only level six when they dared to conquer its golden depths. They took no more than a dozen steps when unseen foes rained fireballs and lightning bolts upon them. The heroes were falling one after another.

At one point, the party's sorceress was given a mystical suggestion to head to the center of the room, where the spellcasters above could destroy her if she dared move. With quick thinking, she summoned a fog cloud and used it to retreat to a more advantageous position. Realizing that fog cloud coulds be used to break line of sight from a distance, she cast the spell several times; she'd leap from cover to her companions, cast the spell, and repeated the process until they regrouped. This allowed the players to escape the Amber Temple with minimal losses.

[MilkmanDanimal]

Level one party meets dragon wyrmling, manage to talk their way out of it with the dragon basically telling them they aren't worth the bother, and they should leave. They get ambushed nearby, wizard provides cover with fog cloud . . . right outside the dragon's lair. Based on the radius, it would have seeped into the lair a bit, so I decided the dragon was pissed off they hadn't taken the opportunity to leave him alone, and, when the wizard dropped the fog cloud, I dropped the dragon mini on the map and announced he was furiously charging through the cloud. Much panicking ensued, as the rogue and trickster cleric just slipped out of a door and hid while the dragon when charging down a hallway, smashing open doors while chasing after the rest of the party.

I mean, as the DM, that use of fog cloud was GREAT for me. One of the best "panic your players" moments I've ever had.

[HolyDraconus]

If I cast Fog Cloud with the Alert feat and step into it, and there's an enemy archer who makes an attack after I step into it, what does he roll?

[Derpaligtr]

If I cast Fog Cloud with the Alert feat and step into it, and there's an enemy archer who makes an attack after I step into it, what does he roll?

The archer wouldn't have been hidden from you (Hide action takes an action) so Alert doesn't matter in this situation (technically). You know the Archer can shoot at you and is out there.

You are heavily obscured in the area. You are blinded and so is the archer when looking at you (technically). Blinded makes you fail ability checks based on sight. The archer has disadvantage on their attacks against you and you have advantage on attack rolls against you.

They would roll 1d20.

[Crgaston]

The archer wouldn't have been hidden from you (Hide action takes an action) so Alert doesn't matter in this situation (technically). You know the Archer can shoot at you and is out there.



The relevant portion of Alert reads:
“Other creatures don’t gain advantage on attack rolls against you as a result of being unseen by you.“

Unseen, not Hidden. So the archer would have disadvantage from not seeing you, and there would be no advantage from you not seeing him to cancel it out. So the attack would be at disadvantage.

Nice find, HolyD. That’s useful.

[xroads]

One time my party was under assault by displacer beasts. We were low on resources so we were in no shape to be dealing with them.


Since we were at a disadvantage to attack the beasts, I cast Fog Cloud to level the playing field.
The DM decided the beasts didn't like the idea of a fair fight, so they left the fog and waited on the perimeter for it to dissipate.
Since Fog Cloud lasts an hour, I decided to cast Leomund's Tiny Hut as a ritual.
When the cloud disappeared, the beasts were left staring at a shiny purple dome of impenetrable force. :smallwink: