Seward
2022-04-01, 10:43 AM
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?643293-Revisiting-Pathfinder-3-5-spells-Haste-and-Ice-Storm (This thread) came to mind when I was reviewing a magic missile-based warmage build and had gotten to the 6th level spells when I was reminded of the one case ever in any version of D&D where Ottulike's freezing spell was exactly the right spell for the job.
This was a Living Greyhawk "special" adventure, one designed to be many encounters without resting and unusually difficult to do in time (kind of like a MMO speed run, it wasn't just the encounter difficulty it was that you had to do them swiftly and efficiently to get to the end).
There was a L14 warmage at the table (or 15 maybe, the campaign had tier 16 adventures but didn't let you play level 16 characters...it was a party of mostly L15 folks). It was dungeon full of undead, and the individual with a detect undead wand had found an unusually dangerous encounter up ahead. 4 large monsters hiding in a smallish pool with overwhelming auras. Nobody in the party had good options for hitting somebody underwater without getting into the water (these guys were incredibly dangerous in close quarters with both potent melee attacks and deadly auras, with 4 the damage stacks quick. the party didn't know that but assumed advancing into the pool would be stupid, especially as dude with wand was a scout that actually hadn't been spotted by the bad guys yet)
The warmage was like "I got this". Freezing sphere caught 3 of 4 in the 10' radius and froze the entire pool in surprise round. Wins init (a marshal was in the party adding +9 to initiative) blade barrier in a line that crossed all four. I figured they couldn't "move to a side of a blade barrier to avoid damage" when trapped in ice but allowed them save for half damage. (the barrier did something like 60 points of damage, the ice is no protection against that given wall of ice stats for hardness/hitpoints) 3 of the 4 broke out next turn vs the dc25 strength check but that was a full round action, and still being surrounded by ice were basically in a foxhole that didn't allow even a 5' step. Warmage drops acid fog and they all eat another round of blade barrier as they struggle out. He finishes with an empowered wall of fire (scout is still pinpointing their locations with detect undead) that did something like 90 points of damage (2d4+level+edge at about 8)*2(undead)*1.5 . dropping the 3 that had escaped, while the last one died to acid+more blade barrier+heat from being 10' from wall of fire, never escaping the ice. (2d4+edge)*2*1.5
4 six level spell slots and it was over. The rest of the party demolished some other undead that came in to see what all the trapped monster screaming was about, spoiling what could sometimes be a fairly dangerous two-front fight. Needless to say, this party finished the adventure - the rest of the group also had some pretty good moments showcasing their "yeah, I'm a badass now at level 15" stuff.
Nobody ever preps ottiluke's sphere. The only time I've ever seen it picked as a spell known was on a theoretical frost mage build I toyed with which didn't have energy substitution, as a long range cold spell option whose pathetic 10' radius could be sculpted when it wasn't used just a longer range orb of cold.
It is experiences like this that make me personally rate warmage at about tier 3 - it isn't that they are especially flexible even with eclectic learning it is that they are really freaking good at killing things AND have a lot of battlefield control tools, if some of them are unusual (like pyrotechnics). They do lack game breaking capability. I am of the camp that you ruin them if you go crazy trying to add to their spell list, losing caster levels with the Rainbow Servant or that Sandstorm class. If they take empower, there are a lot of cases where extra edge is pretty good (the entire wall of fire/fire shield/ring of blades/fire trap category of spells is very strong with empower+edge, as are empowered magic missiles or anything else they somehow got a feat to add +1/die damage on)
Part of why I rate them tier 3 though is only a warmage with a fixed spell list would ever have a niche spell like Ottiluke's Sphere available in the extremely rare situation where it might be useful. Perhaps a wizard might prep it if he had scouted and knew guards of a hardpoint lurked in the moat, but it probably wouldn't have been worth 600gp or 6 pages of a Boccob Book to scribe in the first place in the opinion of most.
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Anybody else have a story about a spell that nobody ever takes that proved useful? (perhaps on a scroll given as loot before they sold it as junk - a 1e adventure I ran had a scroll of Wizard Lock prevent a tpk by locking an incredibly sturdy door that split the encounter in half).
This was a Living Greyhawk "special" adventure, one designed to be many encounters without resting and unusually difficult to do in time (kind of like a MMO speed run, it wasn't just the encounter difficulty it was that you had to do them swiftly and efficiently to get to the end).
There was a L14 warmage at the table (or 15 maybe, the campaign had tier 16 adventures but didn't let you play level 16 characters...it was a party of mostly L15 folks). It was dungeon full of undead, and the individual with a detect undead wand had found an unusually dangerous encounter up ahead. 4 large monsters hiding in a smallish pool with overwhelming auras. Nobody in the party had good options for hitting somebody underwater without getting into the water (these guys were incredibly dangerous in close quarters with both potent melee attacks and deadly auras, with 4 the damage stacks quick. the party didn't know that but assumed advancing into the pool would be stupid, especially as dude with wand was a scout that actually hadn't been spotted by the bad guys yet)
The warmage was like "I got this". Freezing sphere caught 3 of 4 in the 10' radius and froze the entire pool in surprise round. Wins init (a marshal was in the party adding +9 to initiative) blade barrier in a line that crossed all four. I figured they couldn't "move to a side of a blade barrier to avoid damage" when trapped in ice but allowed them save for half damage. (the barrier did something like 60 points of damage, the ice is no protection against that given wall of ice stats for hardness/hitpoints) 3 of the 4 broke out next turn vs the dc25 strength check but that was a full round action, and still being surrounded by ice were basically in a foxhole that didn't allow even a 5' step. Warmage drops acid fog and they all eat another round of blade barrier as they struggle out. He finishes with an empowered wall of fire (scout is still pinpointing their locations with detect undead) that did something like 90 points of damage (2d4+level+edge at about 8)*2(undead)*1.5 . dropping the 3 that had escaped, while the last one died to acid+more blade barrier+heat from being 10' from wall of fire, never escaping the ice. (2d4+edge)*2*1.5
4 six level spell slots and it was over. The rest of the party demolished some other undead that came in to see what all the trapped monster screaming was about, spoiling what could sometimes be a fairly dangerous two-front fight. Needless to say, this party finished the adventure - the rest of the group also had some pretty good moments showcasing their "yeah, I'm a badass now at level 15" stuff.
Nobody ever preps ottiluke's sphere. The only time I've ever seen it picked as a spell known was on a theoretical frost mage build I toyed with which didn't have energy substitution, as a long range cold spell option whose pathetic 10' radius could be sculpted when it wasn't used just a longer range orb of cold.
It is experiences like this that make me personally rate warmage at about tier 3 - it isn't that they are especially flexible even with eclectic learning it is that they are really freaking good at killing things AND have a lot of battlefield control tools, if some of them are unusual (like pyrotechnics). They do lack game breaking capability. I am of the camp that you ruin them if you go crazy trying to add to their spell list, losing caster levels with the Rainbow Servant or that Sandstorm class. If they take empower, there are a lot of cases where extra edge is pretty good (the entire wall of fire/fire shield/ring of blades/fire trap category of spells is very strong with empower+edge, as are empowered magic missiles or anything else they somehow got a feat to add +1/die damage on)
Part of why I rate them tier 3 though is only a warmage with a fixed spell list would ever have a niche spell like Ottiluke's Sphere available in the extremely rare situation where it might be useful. Perhaps a wizard might prep it if he had scouted and knew guards of a hardpoint lurked in the moat, but it probably wouldn't have been worth 600gp or 6 pages of a Boccob Book to scribe in the first place in the opinion of most.
===================
Anybody else have a story about a spell that nobody ever takes that proved useful? (perhaps on a scroll given as loot before they sold it as junk - a 1e adventure I ran had a scroll of Wizard Lock prevent a tpk by locking an incredibly sturdy door that split the encounter in half).