3.P - Spell Combos: Why They Suck and How to Fix It

[unseenmage]

I rather like the idea of combining spells for fun and profit. However, most of the time there's hardly reason to cast two spells where one save-or-die would do the trick.

Has anyone else succeeded in using a character who combined spells successfully?

Any ideas on how to make burning an extra spell slot when casting worthwhile?


Best ideas I had were single-use, custom magic items that cast both spells in rapid succession. Priced as though the second spell was Quickened regardless of whether it could be. Darn things were super expensive. Though way cheaper than the gun and siege versions.

The other idea was a rewritten version of the War Spells as presented in Dragon 309 page 44. The idea being a feat that enables a set of guidelines for researching new spells that are really two other combined spells.
Am still considering how best to implement this one...

[Telok]

Evard's Black Tentacles, Solid Fog, Cloudkill.

Swap Stinking Cloud for the tentacles to get a theme going.

It is however somewhat vulnerable to Gust of Wind, but it also rewards the PC who has it for preparing what many consider a useless spell.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Dimension lock + cloudkill + forcecage? A guaranteed kill on almost anything not immune to poison (that doesn't have access to disintegrate), with no real chance of failure. Most save or dies at least have the "save" part, while this deals with practically anything.

If you're a psion, etc, Linked Power and Twin Power with multiple synchronicitys can get you lots of standard actions at once.

[liquidformat]

Though slightly different I am surprised there isn't much written about spell interaction, like setting grease spells on fire, or using create water to coat a whole area in water then shacking grasp to hit a large group with electricity.

[Necroticplague]

Affinity Field+Fission+Bestow Power to restore my PP for the day.

[Stoic]

I call this combo Piranha-nado.


Bloodstar + Vortex of Teeth + Whirlwind of Teeth + Maw of Chaos


The Bloodstar causes someone you designate to take Constitution damage (on a failed save) every time they take damage, the other three spells cause damage every round.


Maw also causes all subjects to be dazed on a failed Will save, also causes Concentration checks.

[Kurald Galain]

A pretty good one, especially when combo'ing with your teammate, is having one PC cast Ill Omen and the second PC cast any spell that requires a save.
A hilarious combo is Aqueous Orb + any aquatic summon spell.


Dimension lock + cloudkill + forcecage?
Nope. At the level where you can cast that, literally everything you'll be facing is either immune to poison, too large for a forcecage, or capable of dispelling it easily. Here's a lengthy analysis (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?61295-Why-Forcecage-Cloudkill-is-useless).

[Fizban]

The best tech for spell combos that I would consider legit is the Candle Caster's Striped Candle ability, which lets them scribe candles with two spells that immediately go off in sequence. Other than that, any of the usual free quicken cheese is fine.

[Troacctid]

I guess one of the classics would be snowsight + obscuring snow. They both have stupidly long durations, so action economy's not an issue.

For artificers, concurrent infusions + metamagic item is pretty notorious as well.

[StreamOfTheSky]

My group used to try to think of "dual techs" with spells and such. Note there's a teamwork benefit to increase save DC of area spells if team members spam AoE spells in the same round over the same area, so a lot of times we'd just layer tons of BFC spells down (and we'd get familiars with UMD and wands to help out in that regard). Been a long time, but here's some I recall:

Burning Webs: A level 1 favorite (I had precocious apprentice to get Web early); basically you just web a lot of enemies and then set the webs on fire. 2d4 in a 20 ft radius spread is pretty deadly at low levels...
Sticky Tentacles: Web and Evard's, pretty simple but always a laugh riot
Dispel Magic Cannon: requires setting up the battlefield, but pretty effective in a choke point vs. a lot of foes. Lay down items with explosive runes cast on them. When the enemy force moves into said area, use Sculpt Spell on Dispel Magic for the 120 ft line, and intentionally fail to dispel all the explosive runes...
Cone of Unfairness: Sculpt Spell and Enlarge Spell on AMF to make a 20 ft cone. The caster readies an action each turn to shadow the victim so he can never leave the cone. The party fighter via Spellguard Ring or other means is immune to the AMF and destroys the foe at his leisure. We didn't bother thinking of a more clever name, b/c we knew after the first use the DM was going to ban the combo anyway.

I'm kinda jealous we never though of it, but two people in a group I joined later on had my favorite combo, I'll call it the "meat grinder": Reverse Gravity (set up to keep them hovering trapped in mid-air at a certain height) + Blade Barrier (running through said elevation)

[Kelb_Panthera]

Nope. At the level where you can cast that, literally everything you'll be facing is either immune to poison, too large for a forcecage, or capable of dispelling it easily. Here's a lengthy analysis (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?61295-Why-Forcecage-Cloudkill-is-useless).

There's a pretty big hole in that analysis. It's tuned to level 18 (at minimum) when the combo comes online at 13* if you use dim anchor instead of dim lock or just skip the anti-teleport spell. This was done because it's actually analyzing 2 combos and pretending it's only one. The other is the foresight-celerity-timestop combo. Even if you stick to dim lock that's still only 15*.


*11 and 13 if you're an artificer.

[Psyren]

Couple of points on this one:

1) As the replies have probably made clear, not all combos are equal. For example, "Save Debuff + Save or Suck" is weak if the first part relies on a saving throw too. But "Battlefield Control + Ongoing Effect" can be deadly, while "Battlefield Control + Short-Range Effect" helps make the latter much safer to use.

2) Even if they rely on saves, area debuffs are still useful against clustered groups of monsters (especially identical monsters), since it's unlikely all of them will succeed if the caster is optimized. For example, if a Bard is faced with multiple foes and wants to try Charming or Dominating one to help fight the others, Crushing Despair can be a useful opener to know who to hit, and has the added benefit of effectively increasing the Bard's defenses. Metamagic to increase such areas is especially useful here.

3) It's a team game; just because a given combo is impractical for one character to pull off by themselves, does not make combos as a whole bad. This is especially true if one part of a combo can be supplied by a weaker caster. Using the Bard casting Crushing Despair example, this could be a better use of their actions before your Illusionist goes than trying to do something by themselves.

4) Finally, even if you want to focus on combos provided by a single caster, there are tactics you can use to maximize action economy and offset the downside of debuffing (namely, that you did little else that round.) A debuff during a surprise round is powerful, especially an area one as noted above. Other debuffs last a long time and therefore can be used prior to combat starting if you can anticipate it. Mind Fog for example sticks around for half an hour, so you can place it advantageously ahead of time.

TL;DR there are ways to use "combos" intelligently that can increase their value proposition.

[Elkad]

Dimension lock + cloudkill + forcecage?...


There's a pretty big hole in that analysis. It's tuned to level 18 (at minimum) when the combo comes online at 13* if you use dim anchor instead of dim lock or just skip the anti-teleport spell...

Of course druid3, cleric3, bard4, paladin4, ranger4, anyone with 200gp for a potion, and potentially anyone with 100gp and UMD could be effectively-immune as well.

If they aren't out of the box in CL hours (min 3 or 4), they may* take 110d4 con damage when the Slow Poison expires though.


*depends if the Cloudkill actually poisons you or not, which isn't stated in the rules

[sleepyphoenixx]

The spell slot cost is kind of negligible. Either you get more mileage out of your low level slots instead of burning a high level one or you're in a tough fight and getting the spells out now is more important than slot conservation.

You can use your familiar to set up combos if you don't have any other casters in the party. Imbue Familiar With Spell Ability is great for that. Otherwise Celerity works (but costs another spell slot).
Psions can also set up combos with Sense Danger (MoE) + Synchronicity or "hand out" their powers with Soul Crystal (MoI).
Druids also get a number of options to cast 2 spells per round with Aberration WS.

Even setting a combo off over 2 rounds can still be useful if you have high initiative and the first one is a BFC spell.


Dimension lock + cloudkill + forcecage? A guaranteed kill on almost anything not immune to poison (that doesn't have access to disintegrate), with no real chance of failure. Most save or dies at least have the "save" part, while this deals with practically anything.

If you're a psion, etc, Linked Power and Twin Power with multiple synchronicitys can get you lots of standard actions at once.
I'd replace Cloudkill with Haboob. Sure, it only does 5d4 damage per round, but it's untyped, no-save, no-sr, blocks LoS and lasts 1 min/level.
Haboob in general combos quite well with a lot of BFC. Haboob + Wall of Thorns is one of my go-to druid combos for example. Anything with strength less than 20 that can't fly, dispel or teleport without LoS simply dies.

[Jack_Simth]

Affinity Field+Fission+Bestow Power to restore my PP for the day.

Would you consider Affinity Field to be "power or effect that pools abilities"?

[Necroticplague]

Would you consider Affinity Field to be "power or effect that pools abilities"?

No, I wouldn't, since Affinity Field doesn't pool anything, it essentially copies.