Healing vs. Crowd Control

[tstewt1921]

I've seen the discussion brought up several times, where crowd control is better for resources than healing, and healing should be a downtime activity. I've had a couple times where our healer (actually playing the healer class from the miniature handbook) has kept us alive. And it has made me realize that I have no clue how to make a crowd control character that will work effectively. It seems that with our DM if we try to CC a monster or summon stuff for it to attack it will ignore it and keep going after us or it will resist whatever save is needed or anything to that extent, now this could because that's how he wants it done and doesn't want his monsters just cc'd down and killed or it could be I'm not making an effect cc'er. So what would be a great crowd controller I could make, btw he absolutely hates ToB and Psionics, so if I made anything from there he would probably have me change after a while. He is also not the biggest fan of high optimization. ECL 8 will probably be the level I will be making this character.

[Crake]

One thing i noticed is that you described your DM's encounters as "it" not "they", implying that you're most often just fighting a singular monster, rather than a group of enemies? I could see a DM who mostly runs single monster encounters being more likely to just claim a monster passed the save of any hard CC like hold monster, than if it was a group of 4-5 enemies and just one getting held.

While in theory, CC is more effective, if you're fighting single enemies like that, it may be easier for your DM to swallow debuffing, rather than straight up hard CC, either using the debuff as a carrier effect, such as orb of cold's blind effect, or has a partial save effect, like waves of exhaustion dropping to fatigue (and 2 waves of exhaustion guarnateeing exhaustion, because fatigue escalates into exhaustion)

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Wizard or Sorcerer or even a Druid or Spirit Shaman are probably your best choices for crowd controls.

Have a spell that attacks each saving throw. At 1st level you have Wall of Smoke (fort), Grease (ref), and Color Spray (will). At 2nd level you have Cloud of Bewilderment (fort), Web (ref), and Glitterdust (will). Make a Wizard with max intelligence, use a race that gets a bonus like gray elf or fire elf.

On a note card list each creature type (from the back of the Monster Manual), which saves are poor for its racial hit dice, any outright immunities its type grants, and the knowledge skill used to identify creatures of that type. Put at least one rank in each of those knowledge skills and you’re automatically entitled to a check to see if you recognize every creature you encounter, no action required.

Your character with 20+ Int is smarter than the smartest person to ever live. It’s absolutely likely that he knows everything on that note card off the top of his head. Every time you encounter a creature, declare you’re rolling a knowledge check to see if you recognize it and ask what creature type it is. Even if you fail the knowledge check, you still have a good idea of what save to attack and what it’s likely immune to.

Try to hit multiple targets at once with each spell. Some spells are still effective if they make the save, like Web and Sleet Storm and Solid Fog. Specialize in Conjuration with Evocation and Enchantment prohibited. Consider being a focused specialist and also lose Abjuration or Necromancy, especially if there’s another full spellcaster in the party. Trade your familiar for Abrupt Jaunt in PH2, use that to automatically avoid attacks. Use the fighter feat list variant in UA to get Improved Initiative instead of Scribe Scroll, and trade your 5th level feat for a domain power per CC. The Magic domain allows you to use wands and staffs of spells from prohibited schools, or Planning gets you Extend Spell.

[tstewt1921]

One thing i noticed is that you described your DM's encounters as "it" not "they", implying that you're most often just fighting a singular monster, rather than a group of enemies? I could see a DM who mostly runs single monster encounters being more likely to just claim a monster passed the save of any hard CC like hold monster, than if it was a group of 4-5 enemies and just one getting held.

While in theory, CC is more effective, if you're fighting single enemies like that, it may be easier for your DM to swallow debuffing, rather than straight up hard CC, either using the debuff as a carrier effect, such as orb of cold's blind effect, or has a partial save effect, like waves of exhaustion dropping to fatigue (and 2 waves of exhaustion guarnateeing exhaustion, because fatigue escalates into exhaustion)

This is mostly the case, it is generally just one big gribbly, it's rare we have large pacts of stuff to fight, at most we would be looking at 3 monsters, and that's like a pack of wolves or something like that.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

This is mostly the case, it is generally just one big gribbly, it's rare we have large pacts of stuff to fight, at most we would be looking at 3 monsters, and that's like a pack of wolves or something like that.

In that case, strong single target spells like Ray of Enfeeblement, Ray of Exhaustion, Ray of Stupidity, Ray of Dizziness, Ray of Light, etc. may be the way to go. Those generally don’t allow a saving throw, but get Greater Spell Penetration.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Biffoniacus_Furiou
Your character with 20+ Int is smarter than the smartest person to ever live.

What’s your scale of reference for this claim?

[tstewt1921]

In that case, strong single target spells like Ray of Enfeeblement, Ray of Exhaustion, Ray of Stupidity, Ray of Dizziness, Ray of Light, etc. may be the way to go. Those generally don’t allow a saving throw, but get Greater Spell Penetration.

So taking a wizard route would be the best way to go?

[tstewt1921]

Wizard or Sorcerer or even a Druid or Spirit Shaman are probably your best choices for crowd controls.

I've notice people say that it is a strong class? What makes it strong? I'm not that familiar with the class.

[Anymage]

If you have one big monster, don't count on hard debuffs. Save or Die/Suck spells do wind up being very swingy in that you either wasted your action doing nothing, or ended the encounter right there. So while they're mechanically optimal, they could very well upset other players and/or cause your DM to start fudging things.

If you have multiple enemies, CC often winds up being superior because one enemy will often do more damage with their action than you can heal with yours. The most ideal form of this is keeping a few enemies out of the fight entirely until you're done with other ones, so those enemies don't get to attack at all while you're dealing with their buddies. You might be able to get away with buffing allies or debuffing certain enemies as a force multiplier. But if it's usually one big enemy, keeping it out of the fight also means keeping your allies from doing anything useful. And if you debuff, remember what I said about save or die/suck if you start throwing around effects that are too incapacitating.

[Zancloufer]

I've notice people say that it is a strong class? What makes it strong? I'm not that familiar with the class.

It's kind of a spontaneous druid with alternate class features. Think Favoured Soul vs Cleric. The big difference between them and other spontaneous caster though is they have ~1 less spell known BUT they can change their known spells every day.

Their class features are a bit weak if there are no incorporeal enemies but otherwise they have solid flavourful, if not slightly niche, features. If they didn't have split stat casting I they might seriously compete with Druids.

[tstewt1921]

If you have one big monster, don't count on hard debuffs. Save or Die/Suck spells do wind up being very swingy in that you either wasted your action doing nothing, or ended the encounter right there. So while they're mechanically optimal, they could very well upset other players and/or cause your DM to start fudging things.

If you have multiple enemies, CC often winds up being superior because one enemy will often do more damage with their action than you can heal with yours. The most ideal form of this is keeping a few enemies out of the fight entirely until you're done with other ones, so those enemies don't get to attack at all while you're dealing with their buddies. You might be able to get away with buffing allies or debuffing certain enemies as a force multiplier. But if it's usually one big enemy, keeping it out of the fight also means keeping your allies from doing anything useful. And if you debuff, remember what I said about save or die/suck if you start throwing around effects that are too incapacitating.

I'm playing a bard right now, with the dragonfire inspiration feat, and bare in mind it's not an optimized, at ECL 6 max I can give is +3 or +3d6 to my companions vs. like a +10 or something with all the right feats and such. He doesn't like that, the last few fights we have been in, he has cast silence in the area, making my buffing ability unable to help at all, and screwing my casting ability, as I built a buffer to help with the party as we had such low damage, the party make up is, Sorcerer (not confident in spell casting due to the background of the world), Healer, Cleric (Frontline), 2 Rogues (One dual wielder, and one who shots a crossbow without the extra feats (he's scared to get into melee)) and then a Ranger (Bow user), who is our highest source of damage, so to make it work, for people to actually bypass damage reductions and such because we have been starved of gold/resources, (I've had 63g since level and we are now 6) I add on the extra damage for us, without me, anything would be able to walk up and murder us because we have no consistent damage. I feel after typing this all out, it may be time to have a small chat with the DM about this....I don't think he will consistently block my ability, it may of just been how the last two fights were planned, but when he generally doesn't like how a character is performing he will find subtle ways to block their abilities, either by saying, well it doesn't work in this situation (rule 0), or a part of combat will be specificially against it.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

So taking a wizard route would be the best way to go?

I've notice people say that it is a strong class? What makes it strong? I'm not that familiar with the class.

Spirit Shaman is a spontaneous caster that uses the Druid spell list, and can repick its spells known every day. Druid is better in this case, as a big animal companion and/or a big wild shape form can grapple an opponent and keep them under control, which isn't often useful unless you're only facing one or two opponents. The Druid spell list gets crowd controls like Entangle, Kelpstrand, Sleet Storm, and Wall of Thorns. Most of those still screw targets that make the save (if there is one), and Kelpstrand at the higher levels has such a high bonus that it automatically succeeds against anything that doesn't have Freedom of Movement. You can take Greenbound Summoning and cast Summon Nature's Ally I for a Greenbound Dire Rat, which can immediately use its Wall of Thorns spell-like ability, then spam Entangle for the rest of the duration. So you're basically getting a 5th level crowd control for a 1st level spell slot, plus greenbound summons are significantly tankier and are almost guaranteed to last the full summon duration. Summoning one or more Greenbound Dire Lions gets you creatures that can grapple targets as well. A Ring of the Beast allows your Summon Nature's Ally spells to be treated as one level higher for what you can summon.

Wizard or Sorcerer or Druid would all be good choices in this case. Wizard is a lot better at area of effect crowd controls and general utility. Sorcerer is actually really good for learning a super good single-target no-save debuff at every spell level, especially considering how many of those are from schools you would normally ban on a specialist Wizard. Druid is probably the strongest choice for this situation, especially if you can get the best feats, wild shapes, and animal companion.

If you make a Druid just stay single-classed, pick a race that gets a Con bonus like Strongheart Water Halfling or Whisper Gnome. Take Ashbound, Greenbound Summoning, Natural Bond, Natural Spell, and SF: Conjuration + Augment Summoning. Get a Fleshraker Dinosaur as your animal companion, Natural Bond will make up for the 'level -3' drawback of having a stronger base companion.

If you make a Sorcerer, you'll want to prestige out of it asap but don't ever lose caster levels. A (Desert) Kobold is the best choice due to the Greater Draconic Rite of Passage (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a), your Draconic Reservoir spell should be something like Nerveskitter or Benign Transposition. If you can go Dragonwrought + Loredrake then absolutely do so, but definitely ask your DM before trying it. Take Versatile Spellcaster, pick up a reserve feat that deals damage like Fiery Burst so you have something to do when you're not casting spells. Take Heighten Spell which can allow you to qualify for prestige classes early with Versatile Spellcaster, and it makes your highest spell slot count toward using your reserve feat. Consider taking Ancestral Relic for a custom Runestaff (MIC p224), which basically allows you to avoid the normally limited number of spells known.

[King of Nowhere]

it's worth noting that when you get access to mass heal, then healing becomes generally superior to debuffing. unless the combat is very rocket-tag

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

it's worth noting that when you get access to mass heal, then healing becomes generally superior to debuffing. unless the combat is very rocket-tag

Not exactly, how many 9th level spell slots are you going to have available for that in a given day? You can spend lower level slots on debuffs and they're still effective in preventing opponents from dealing damage.

[Troacctid]

There are plenty of situations where healing is more effective. On the other hand, a good no-save debuff spell like kelpstrand, blinding spittle, or stolen breath can sometimes perform well above its weight class, and something like solid fog, sleet storm, or wall of force can often divide and conquer groups of enemies to turn an overwhelming fight into a trivial one.

I suggest starting by introducing just a couple control spells into your arsenal. Maybe pick up a thorn pouch (MIC) if you can find one for sale. Then start looking for places where those effects will excel. For example, if you're fighting three enemies and you can trap one of them in a wall of thorns while cutting another off from the fight at the same time, you've negated multiple rounds' worth of enemy actions where a healing spell might only have negated one round's worth of attacks or less. (Also, with a thorn pouch, it only costs you a swift action to cast.)

[Zancloufer]

it's worth noting that when you get access to mass heal, then healing becomes generally superior to debuffing. unless the combat is very rocket-tag

Not really. I would argue that summoning or attempting to Instant kill is better than a heal. Mass Heal still caps at 200 HP by level 20. On the flip side if you can (de)-buff so the party beat stick can actually hit with massive power attack penalties (or doesn't have to worry about dropping AC to do so) can do easily twice that by the time mass heal comes on. Heck an unbuffed naked CR ~20 ish dragon just face smashing can almost overcome that kind of HP regen on it's own.

[Glimbur]

Your game sounds like it diverges from assumed game in a number of ways. You've got a lot of PC's, most fights are only one critter, and the DM seems to metagame and negate abilities he feels are too good. Therefore, standard advice from the internet might not be fully applicable.

If you're looking to change the feel of the game, talk with the DM.

[Fizban]

It seems that with our DM if we try to CC a monster or summon stuff for it to attack it will ignore it and keep going after us
Two words: Tactical Positioning. Summons, like meatshielding, only work when everyone is in the proper position. If you're all standing in the right place on the right terrain (possibly altered by magic), then monsters can't just "go around" you, and they're stuck using their ranged or magical effects if they want to hit someone other than the designated meatshield or summon. But like the others have said, in general if you're only fighting one or two monsters of CR=level most of the time, summons need a lot more optimization to be aggressively useful and there's no crowd to control.

or it will resist whatever save is needed or anything to that extent,
Another thing that tends to be overlooked: while there are many monsters that have a particularly low save of a certain type, and spells that ignore SR, if your DM uses monsters that have good saves (or you don't/can't/etc their weakness) and SR while you use spells that don't ignore it, turns out magically tough monsters are magically tough. But if they are "fudging," to make their single-monster game more viable, they should own up and make it a known mechanic instead of gaslighting you.


I'm playing a bard right now, with the dragonfire inspiration feat, and bare in mind it's not an optimized, at ECL 6 max I can give is +3 or +3d6 to my companions vs. like a +10 or something with all the right feats and such. He doesn't like that, the last few fights we have been in, he has cast silence in the area, making my buffing ability unable to help at all, and screwing my casting ability, as I built a buffer to help with the party as we had such low damage,
The way you phrase that sounds like you have a deliberately antagonistic DM. Occasional foes who have reason to be using Silence are appropriate, but you haven't provided the context where a string of those fights would make sense (an organized group of foes that has specifically equipped themselves to counter their longstanding foes, your party). And you usually fight 1-3 foes? Who all just happen to have Silence'd you? Not good sign.


the party make up is, Sorcerer (not confident in spell casting due to the background of the world),
So the DM allowed them to play a class in spite of it being directly discouraged by the setting? Which is causing them to literally not play the game? Yeah, that's why you don't do that. Seems like you've got the good 'ol "low-magic" setting, only instead of the caster being OP because the rest of the party has even less magic, the DM has sufficiently scared them into doing nothing at all, when a "low-magic" setting should restrict casting classes in the first place. And it's of the "arcane=evil/dangerous/etc" variety so its not even universal.

Healer, Cleric (Frontline), 2 Rogues (One dual wielder, and one who shots a crossbow without the extra feats (he's scared to get into melee)) and then a Ranger (Bow user), who is our highest source of damage, so to make it work, for people to actually bypass damage reductions and such because we have been starved of gold/resources, (I've had 63g since level and we are now 6) I add on the extra damage for us, without me, anything would be able to walk up and murder us because we have no consistent damage. I feel after typing this all out, it may be time to have a small chat with the DM about this....
That'd be a yes. Your DM is using monsters that require specific gear, the entire reason the WBL guideline exists, without giving you the gear. If they weren't using such monsters then the "low-magic (item)" game might be okay, but clearly it's not.

And you've also got the oversized party, often fighting solo monsters. The DM may not want to handle the hassle of using more foes, but the fact is they accepted an oversized party, which requires more foes (and through more foes, empowers area spells in addition to the other advantages of the oversized party). But the party is also massively underpowered with the sorc never casting and I'll bet the single-shot crossbow rogue not knowing how to hide-cycle for sneak attacks, so even 3d6 DFI looks ridiculosly OP on even the non TWFers, and around twice the number of attackers a party would usually have. I can understand the shock, but it's the DM's fault in the first place for running a game where they're grown accustomed to PCs having no magical offense when you're, uh, supposed to have that.

I don't think he will consistently block my ability, it may of just been how the last two fights were planned, but when he generally doesn't like how a character is performing he will find subtle ways to block their abilities, either by saying, well it doesn't work in this situation (rule 0), or a part of combat will be specificially against it.
Note that this is a bit of advice in the DMG, which is pretty much wrong. The DMG says you should try to correct mechanical problems in-game first, but that section seems to have been written almost entirely from an accidentally giving out an overpowered magic item point of view. Even then, anyone can tell immediately when they're being hosed in-game for no other reason than a mechanical screw-up, and the best response is to just admit you shouldn't have allowed the mechanic in the first place. Of course the real problem here is most likely not that your DFI is OP, but rather that this game was built on a shaky foundation to start with.

[martixy]

An academic point:
There is a variant which makes healing significantly more viable:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/damageConversion.htm

Been playing it for a good while now and I can confirm, it does make healing a pretty good use of your actions.

[Quertus]

I'm playing a bard right now, with the dragonfire inspiration feat, and bare in mind it's not an optimized, at ECL 6 max I can give is +3 or +3d6 to my companions vs. like a +10 or something with all the right feats and such. He doesn't like that, the last few fights we have been in, he has cast silence in the area, making my buffing ability unable to help at all, and screwing my casting ability, as I built a buffer to help with the party as we had such low damage, the party make up is, Sorcerer (not confident in spell casting due to the background of the world), Healer, Cleric (Frontline), 2 Rogues (One dual wielder, and one who shots a crossbow without the extra feats (he's scared to get into melee)) and then a Ranger (Bow user), who is our highest source of damage, so to make it work, for people to actually bypass damage reductions and such because we have been starved of gold/resources, (I've had 63g since level and we are now 6) I add on the extra damage for us, without me, anything would be able to walk up and murder us because we have no consistent damage. I feel after typing this all out, it may be time to have a small chat with the DM about this....I don't think he will consistently block my ability, it may of just been how the last two fights were planned, but when he generally doesn't like how a character is performing he will find subtle ways to block their abilities, either by saying, well it doesn't work in this situation (rule 0), or a part of combat will be specificially against it.

No wealth, abuse of rule 0, nerfing players who get uppity and can actually handle threats?

Just gotta say, this sounds like a horror story of a GM. Personally, I would advise you to read up on such horror stories, and make your own decision whether or not to even stay in the game.

If you are brave/foolish enough to continue playing under this GM, good luck, and tell us your horror stories later. We enjoy reading about a good trainwreck.

But it does no good for us to give you reasonable advice for a scenario where reason has already left the building, and the game is dictated by the GM's ego. So, uh, play a snarf blat, whose spoo has to much fleem? Then, in a more sane game, consider playing a Wizard, Sorcerer, Druid, etc, as others have advised.

[Eldariel]

Depends on what sources you can work with, but ultimately I would just play a Druid. This way, you provide the damage your party so sorely needs, you aren't reliant on items or anything, you have good CC that works even on a successful save or doesn't offer a save (this is key; if you can't trust your DM, just don't give them an option in the matter without actually talking things out properly), and you can generally scale up or down depending on what the party needs. ECL 8 Druid has Large Wildshape, a really solid companion, everything you need right in Core but with good bundles of expansion outside Core as well.

On this level you can have:
Tiger or Brown Bear companion

Wildshape into a similar form.

Greater Magic Fang for +1 on all weapons up for both of you 8 hours/day (16 with Extend Spell).

Natural Spell.

Some decent party buffs and such.


And lots and lots of CC starting from level 1:
Impeding Stones [Cityscape] - Roundly Ref vs. Prone and no-save -2 to attacks, ½ speed movement, Concentration to cat spells.
Entangle - Roundly Ref vs. Entangled and ½ speed movement
Wall of Smoke [Spell Compendium] - Roundly Fort vs. Nausea and obscures sight

Level 2:
Blinding Spittle [Spell Compendium] - Touch attack at -4, blind enemy on hit, no save. They can spend a turn and water wiping it off but they're still pretty FUBAR'd especially if single enemies.
Kelpstrand [Spell Compendium] - Send Kelps to grapple the opponent. Offensive roll again.
Soften Earth and Stone - Ref vs. being trapped
Summon Swarm - Annoy casters in particular with Distraction, saves vs. everything and such.

Level 3:
Sleet Storm - No save, enemies lose all vision (a huge debuff, ½ speed movement, can't know target square, 50 % miss chance even on a correct guess, AC penalty and denied Dex to AC, etc.) and make DC 10 Balance to move each round (Balance must be trained to not be flat-footed while Balancing too)
Stone Shape - Create anything like walls or stairs or such as long as you have stone to work with.

Level 4:
Languor [Spell Compendium] - Super-Ray of Enfeeblement


Then when you need it, just spontaneously summon some grapplers or whatever. Enemy can't move if they can't move. You have spontaneous access to the whole SNA list (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?255219-The-Summoner-s-Desk-Reference-D-amp-D-3-5). But seriously, summoning a bunch of trippers or grapplers is a great way to neutralize single tough enemies; they'll roll poorly eventually. Both also buff your allies sorta since grappled enemies are prime targets for Rogue sneak attack as are tripped targets (less prime for an archer but can't win 'em all; she can backup two-hand a sword or something to whack at people with +4 to hit).


Of course, you could go Wizard too, but with an adversial DM it's generally easier to pick the class that autoknows all its spells out of the box and can do a lot of stuff even without spells in case the DM decides the whole world is under AMF now or whatever. But if you do wanna run Wizard, I suggest Collegiate Wizard [Complete Arcane] to guarantee access to a decent number of spells daily and then just pick stuff like the various debuff Rays and AOE debuffs like Grease, Web, Stinking Cloud, etc. that do stuff even on successful saves.

[ChaosStar]

Their class features are a bit weak if there are no incorporeal enemies

Their abilities affect All Incorporeal Undead, All Fey, All Elementals, Anything with Astral Bodies, and spirits created through spells like Dream Sight or Woodwose.