Help building a battlefield controller

[WarKitty]

I could use a little help here. I'm playing a druid controller-type. I like doing control stuff, but we have mostly melee types with not that good ranged attacks. I keep having problems that my good control spells also hit our melee-ers. The fog spells are pretty much useless and I haven't been having great luck with the entangle spells. I just hit level 4. Got any suggestions?

Edit: DM banned spell compendium as too broken. Web supplements and world-specific books are also unavailable.

[Sinfonian]

A casting of summon swarm often makes people want to stay away from certain places. Apart from that and possibly summon nature's ally II for a hippogriff (or another possible large size critter), I don't really know.

[WarKitty]

Any decent save-or-suck or (even better) just suck spells would work too.

[Lysander]

How about Flaming Sphere? Just use a move action each round to put it wherever the enemy is. You can keep it adjacent to an ally without hurting them. Pretty ideal for forcing the enemy to move, or barring them from entering a square. And the range would let you use it to hassle enemy archers.

[Person_Man]

Low level battlefield control ideas:

• Caltrops: Very effective in low level dungeons, where monsters must pass through narrow spaces. I particularly enjoy setting up ambushes and using a low level Summoned creature or Animal Companion as a lure.
• Nets: They debuff your enemy and prevent them from Charging. If you use a trailing rope, they prevent the enemy from moving away from you unless they can beat you on a Str check, which is very important against enemy casters.
• Alchemical Items: There's a bunch of them that impose various Save or Suck effects.
• Wildshape: When you hit 5th level be sure to turn into something with the Improved Grab or Trip ability.

[WarKitty]

Low level battlefield control ideas:

• Caltrops: Very effective in low level dungeons, where monsters must pass through narrow spaces. I particularly enjoy setting up ambushes and using a low level Summoned creature or Animal Companion as a lure.
• Nets: They debuff your enemy and prevent them from Charging. If you use a trailing rope, they prevent the enemy from moving away from you unless they can beat you on a Str check, which is very important against enemy casters.
• Alchemical Items: There's a bunch of them that impose various Save or Suck effects.
• Wildshape: When you hit 5th level be sure to turn into something with the Improved Grab or Trip ability.

Ah forgot to mention this is PF/3.5. My physical ability scores SUCK (but I have 2 bonus spells of each level for my wisdom score). So the odds of me hitting anything are, well, low, and you can forget about strength checks.

[jiriku]

The problem with AoE battlefield control is that it pretty much requires some modest ranged capability. If your party doesn't have that, I'd focus on one of three tactics:

1. Use dismissable spells. Snare half the bad guys, kill the half that are running around loose, then dismiss your spell and kill the other half.
   
2. Use summon nature's ally to summon creatures with improved grab and improved trip. Trip and grapple foes. Your melee allies can beat on them while they're down.
   
3. Fog spells don't have to be useless, but you need to use them as part of a 1-2 punch. First lock down ranged combat enemies with entangle and such, then fog them. Fog spells need to be combined with something that limits mobility to keep enemies inside the fog, and works best against shooters.

A good practice though is just not to attack foes that are caught up in the BC. Hit the ones that are loose. BC isn't about incapacitating foes so you can beat on them (that's debuffing). It's about shutting down half the opponents while you deal with the other half, essentially turning a CR X encounter into two back-to-back encounters of CR X-2.

Also, focus on improving your initiative. If you can't get off a good BC spell because your allies are all mixed in with the enemy, you can fix that by going first one round 1 so you can squeeze off a spell before people move into melee range with one another.

Also consider the Sculpt Spell feat, which makes it easier to catch the bad guys in your BC without hitting the good guys.

[Psyx]

Keeeeeeellllp strand!


Amazing spell.

Utterly amazing.

[WarKitty]

Some good ideas here. I'm pretty flexible here, I just don't want to turn into a blaster. I really feel my character is more about messing the enemy up while buffing our heavy hitters.

[Keld Denar]

Haboob (Its Hot Outside) and Kelpstrand (Its Wet Outside) will probably help you a lot at the level you are at. The low level Fogs aren't really that good, especially since a lot of them are centered on yourself. Sadly, Druids don't get Solid Fog, the most fantastic of any fog spell on a power/level basis. Sure, higher level fogs are better, but they are also higher level. Solid Fog, when you get it, its really amazing and continues to be amazing for a LONG time.

Wall of Thorns is 5th level, and is probably one of the Druid's best BC spells. When you get it, abuse the heck out of it, its great. And Core. And naturally sculpted.

[WarKitty]

Haboob (Its Hot Outside) and Kelpstrand (Its Wet Outside)

Can't find sources for these? Is there a book or amazon link or something I could have?

[Sinfonian]

Haboob is in Sandstorm, pg. 117.

Don't know about Kelpstrand, thought it was in Stormwrack, but didn't see it there.

[Psyx]

Haboob was in Sandstorm. Might be in Spell Compendium, too.

Kelpstrand is in the SC. And is amazing.

HAY-MAZE-ING

[Keld Denar]

Its Cold Outside = Frostburn
Its Wet Outside = Stormwrack
Its Hot Outside = Sandstorm
Its Not Outside = Dungeonscape (alternatively, Cityscape)

And now you know. And knowing is half the battle!

[WarKitty]

Haboob was in Sandstorm. Might be in Spell Compendium, too.

Kelpstrand is in the SC. And is amazing.

HAY-MAZE-ING

SC is banned.

[Optimator]

Maybe it's in CD then?

[jiriku]

More's the pity. Kelpstrand is brutal. I think it originally appeared in one of the 3.0 books, maybe Magic of Faerun?


Soften earth and stone and plant growth are sleeper BC spells that many people don't consider, but require an outdoor setting. Wood shape and stone shape can be used to close off doors and passageways when you're indoors.

Warp wood is cripplingly good against archers and crossbowmen, but of minimal use elsewhere. Wind wall is of course a marvelous spell against archers as well.

[WarKitty]

Maybe it's in CD then?

It's not. I may see if the DM will allow me to research a custom version.

[Keld Denar]

I just checked my copy of Stormwrack, and apparently Kelpstrand was not origionally printed there. So...yea. Lame. Sorry.

[WarKitty]

Yeah I'll talk to the DM. This is an odd situation - I've got a rather min-maxed spellcaster in a party of melee characters. I'm quite capable of just blasting the heck out of everything, but that's no fun for everyone else and frankly doesn't fit with my character's personality.