Weird Yuan-ti Poison Spell/Blind Fighting Combo?

[werescythe]

So this is something I've been thinking about that could be an interesting combo. As I'm certain you all are aware of Yuan-ti Purebloods are immune to both the poisoned condition and poison damage, which means that they can cast spells like Stinking Cloud and Cloudkill on themselves and not take any damage (while harming others).

Now with both of these spells the area becomes heavily obscured (imposing the blinded condition), however I was wondering, if a Yuan-ti player were to grab the Blind Fighting Fight Style, would they be able to bypass the blinded condition for your attacks (within 10ft, which if half of the radius of both spells)?

Also if the Yuan-ti player had multiclassed into rogue for sneak attack, would they be able to perform the sneak attack in the heavily obscured area using their Blind Fighting?

Just wondering. :smallwink:

[elyktsorb]

Also if the Yuan-ti player had multiclassed into rogue for sneak attack, would they be able to perform the sneak attack in the heavily obscured area using their Blind Fighting?

Just wondering. :smallwink:

I mean yeah, but all Rogue's get Blindsense at level 14. So if you know your not getting to level 14, or just want to do it sooner there you go I suppose.

In addition, Darkness is a spell level lower than Stinking Cloud so setting yourself up with it is usually easier and comes online a level sooner than Stinking Cloud. Heck, Fog Cloud is a first level spell and there's no mussing about with poison there.

Darkness just has the benefit of being usable anywhere since Cloud spells are subject to being pushed by wind.

[Gtdead]

Yes it's legit. The problem is that poison immunity is very common so past a certain level I don't think it's worth it that much. Additionally your allies can't take advantage of the obscuring effect because it will be harmful to them, unlike a fog cloud or darkness.

It would make sense if you wanted to solo a module or something, but I don't think it's a good idea for conventional play. Unless of course everyone is Yuan Ti, in which case you may get some mileage out of it.

[Greywander]

Yes it's legit. The problem is that poison immunity is very common so past a certain level I don't think it's worth it that much.
This gets frequently overstated. I looked into this once, and it's mostly constructs, elementals, fiends, and undead who are immune to poison. That's a good chunk of monsters, but you can also typically recognize when a creature belongs to one of these creature types, so you know when to avoid using poison. Among creatures that aren't one of these types, poison immunity isn't that common.

This doesn't require yuan-ti, either, as the Periapt of Proof Against Poison exists, and doesn't require attunement. If you can commission or craft them, or buy them at a magic mart, you can get one for each party member, so that you can all be in the Stinking Cloud or Cloudkill.

Blindsight is also an effective team tactic, which can be used with Fog Cloud or Darkness to great effect. Darkness is better, since you can see out of it, e.g. to allow the mages to cast long range spells. Otherwise, mages should consider grabbing Devil's Sight instead/in addition to blindsight, though do be aware that Devil's Sight won't help with any kind of fog or cloud. It's nice to have options, though, and creatures with Devil's Sight or truesight will be able to see through Darkness anyway, so having Fog Cloud as a backup option is nice. Later on, instead of burning spell slots, you can also get an Eversmoking Bottle. But to make this effective the whole team really needs to build for it.

[Gtdead]

This gets frequently overstated. I looked into this once, and it's mostly constructs, elementals, fiends, and undead who are immune to poison. That's a good chunk of monsters, but you can also typically recognize when a creature belongs to one of these creature types, so you know when to avoid using poison. Among creatures that aren't one of these types, poison immunity isn't that common.


It may get frequently overstated, but in this case it's far from it. The OP wants to create a melee character out of it which is tricky. Investing so much and not being able to apply it against so many types isn't something I'd personally do. This isn't like choosing Fireball as a spell known on a Sorcerer and fearing that it will get resisted often. It trades a feat, the race doesn't offer any physical str increase and if you want to bring it online in a reasonable timeframe, it pretty much forces you to be a fullcaster multiclassed into either Fighter 1, or Paladin 2 (Ranger too but I doubt that you will have 13 WIS for it).

Unless you are given Gauntlets or a Belt, it takes requires a lot of effort to weaponize the poison immunity, and frankly it's not like the effect is that amazing.

[Corran]

So this is something I've been thinking about that could be an interesting combo. As I'm certain you all are aware of Yuan-ti Purebloods are immune to both the poisoned condition and poison damage, which means that they can cast spells like Stinking Cloud and Cloudkill on themselves and not take any damage (while harming others).

Now with both of these spells the area becomes heavily obscured (imposing the blinded condition), however I was wondering, if a Yuan-ti player were to grab the Blind Fighting Fight Style, would they be able to bypass the blinded condition for your attacks (within 10ft, which if half of the radius of both spells)?

Also if the Yuan-ti player had multiclassed into rogue for sneak attack, would they be able to perform the sneak attack in the heavily obscured area using their Blind Fighting?

Just wondering. :smallwink:
Yes and yes, provided the target of your attack does not have blind fighting or something similar so that you'll have advantage for your sneak attack to apply. You can also use your bonus action to hide,which is very good if time is not rushing you (eg by having your allies' hp threatened substabcially every round), but which can also be fairly good even if time is rushing you (by sacrificing some defense for offense; ie off turn sneak attacks). Remember that OA's wont usually apply inside heavy obscurement, but still get to use them because of blind fighting. No reason for anyone to stay still when fighting in heavy obscurement. As long as you and any potential allies of yours are repositioning, you can hide next to an enemy who will need to move, thus in all likelihood earning yourself some off turn sneak attack damage. The price is that you are revealing your position (assuming you had hidden successfully of course), but sometimes you just need to burn through enemy hp more quickly even if that comes at the expense of your own hp (eg because your allies might be hurting). You can pick the target of your OA both based on importance but also based on timing, the latter meaning that you can for example let enough enemies take a turn before you get to do the OA (that is by positioning yourself next to the enemy that plays last or thereabout), so that you wont risk too much by revealing your position early. But you also go the other way round and choose to hide next to an enemy that plays early, thus also revealing your position early too, that is for example if you want to draw attention onto you and away from some ally also inside the heavy obscurement.

[Greywander]

You know, I think the biggest issue with this build is that a regular Fog Cloud + Blind Fighting style already has a stronger effect than the poisoned condition. Not only is poisoning the enemy redundant (disadvantage doesn't stack), but this would work on a lot of enemies that are immune to poison, and Fog Cloud doesn't require a save. Now, it's true that poison would work on some enemies with blindsight or tremorsense (who could see through a Fog Cloud), so the two don't completely overlap, but they mostly overlap. If you do have poison immunity, then Stinking Cloud or Cloudkill would be natural upgrades to Fog Cloud, since neither of these actually uses the poisoned condition.

So I think ultimately there are some niche tricks you could do with this, but they would be niche, and you'd be better off building around a more generic Fog Cloud/Darkness + Blind Fighting style. If an enemy has blindsight or tremorsense, then you could cast Stinking Cloud instead to try and disable them. Basically, you have a core strategy with some contingencies in case that core strategy is ineffective.

[Corran]

You know, I think the biggest issue with this build is that a regular Fog Cloud + Blind Fighting style already has a stronger effect than the poisoned condition. Not only is poisoning the enemy redundant (disadvantage doesn't stack), but this would work on a lot of enemies that are immune to poison, and Fog Cloud doesn't require a save. Now, it's true that poison would work on some enemies with blindsight or tremorsense (who could see through a Fog Cloud), so the two don't completely overlap, but they mostly overlap. If you do have poison immunity, then Stinking Cloud or Cloudkill would be natural upgrades to Fog Cloud, since neither of these actually uses the poisoned condition.

So I think ultimately there are some niche tricks you could do with this, but they would be niche, and you'd be better off building around a more generic Fog Cloud/Darkness + Blind Fighting style. If an enemy has blindsight or tremorsense, then you could cast Stinking Cloud instead to try and disable them. Basically, you have a core strategy with some contingencies in case that core strategy is ineffective.
The main advantage of stinking cloud is that you can potentially deny turns. Not much other perhaps than a (few) OA(s) preventing the enemy from leaving its area, so I think that to make the most of it you need to:
A) Find a target whose turns are valuable enough to deny (after you take into account the CON save chance).
B) Find a way to keep them in. Grappling can help here (if the enemy is poisoned your chances increase, but to make the most of it you probably need athletics expertise or extra attack, or both; or zombiefied minions).

Example: Either through sneaking or through (cunning action) dashing, you find yourself close to an enemy caster. They dont have a great CON save usually, blocking their line of sight is very beneficial, and grappling them can be relatively easy if you get the chance. You probably need action surge if you dont want to rely too much to chance to pull this off, and that's assuming a favourable positioning. But at least that's a decent plan for neutralizing and taking down such enemies. Blind fighting's contribution is that it can make this attempt more viable if the caster has strong allies nearby (that is by making you endure longer, hopefully long enough to get the kill and then either flee or hit & hide). In such a situation stinking cloud is better than fog cloud or darkness because it makes it easier for you to keep the target close while it makes all enemies a little less threatening (because of the added effect -ie potentially having enemies lose turns - that fog cloud and darness wont give you).

Example 2:
a) Probably still better as a defense/stalling low level tactic. You are the wizard and a cunning enemy tries to go after you. You drop a stinking cloud and have a few bodyguard zombies attempt a grapple, earning some time for you to hide or for an ally to come and deal with the enemy.
b) Can be decent at ranged heavy parties where minions do enough of the frontlining, cause there are some options for minions that are immune to the poisoned condition.



Cloudkill has the advantage of mobility, though the movement is so restricted that it's highly situational (I am not minding the full spell effect cause it's a higher level spell which makes direct comparison not very meaningful). Ideally you want to use it when in similar scenarios to this. A long wide corridor leads to the final room of the dungeon. The boss is there and a lot of minions are guarding the corridor.

[Segev]

I'm going to second the "this is going to feel niche for all the investment" position.

I want to then go on to point out that this is an excellent tactic for a yuan-ti dungeon crawl for the monsters to be using. Have a class of temple guards or something who have blind fighting and a class of casters with cloud kill and it makes perfect sense AND is going to be really annoying for the players, giving them a thing they need to figure out a way to work around regularly for this dungeon. And, when they do work out their counter-tactic, they'll feel very clever for making the fights that much easier.