Calling the Audible
Musical gaming puns mixed with American football? Goddamn culture is weird.
It is a bit strange to see Bard as the poster boy for inflexible character action—his class is famous for being a jack of all trades after all—but tactical tunnel vision is a danger to us all. One-trick pony builds have it worst of course. Optimized eldritch blasters and dedicated combat maneuver specialists (see Los Tiburon) are my go-to examples, but chances are you’ve seen at least one character do the same thing over and over again across multiple combats. I don’t want to pick on these builds too much, because I happen to think they’re more amusing than exasperating. More to the point, good ones will have some kind of backup strategy for those times when the one trick isn’t applicable. Far worse is something I like to the call the “one-trick mindset.”
Take my very first Pathfinder combat for example. It was Crypt of the Everflame, and our intrepid gang of teenage adventurers were getting their asses kicked. A couple of orcs had waylaid the party right outside of town, and a few lucky falchion swings had our fighter down to 2 hp. The rogue and the cleric weren’t looking much better, but my wizard was still undamaged. Since this was first level and I had a good Dex score, my armor was only a point or two worse than the fighter’s. I had nothing left in the tank except crappy crossbow shots, and was far more likely to remain conscious after an orc attack than anybody else. It was by no means an optimal situation, but I decided to make the risky play.
“I step in front of the orcs and, in my most nasally nerdy wizard voice I say, ‘Why don’t you pick on somebody your own size?'”
You should have heard the table of veteran gamers erupt in protest. The wizard stands in the back! It’s the fighter’s job to take hits! You’re going to get yourself killed!
But the situation had changed. The fighter was a more valuable piece to keep on the board, and it became necessary to use the wrong tool for the job. The orcs rolled, hit, and put my puny wizard down into unconscious-and-dying territory. The fighter survived to swing again, and I am happy to report that she missed, got KO’d the next round, and we only survived the TPK thanks to plot weirdness. It was a learning experience for everyone.
I’m still proud of that call though, and even after years of experience I think it was the right one. When the situation is dire you’ve got to think on your feet. The warlock can blow an action pulling his buddies out of black tentacles. The barbarian can break the mechanism rather than punch the minotaur. The bard can stop singing for five seconds and help man the walls. These are not optimal actions, but they are sometimes necessary. My advice is simply this: Know your best actions, but always be willing to call an audible when the situation changes. In my experience, it tends to yield better results than the one-trick mindset.
How about the rest of you guys? Have you ever seen a player hack at a ghost for negligible damage instead of sensibly retreating? How about dudes that refuse to turn off power attack against high-AC foes? Maybe you’ve seen a cleric go full heal-bot rather than casting useful buffs? Tell us your tales of inflexible adventurers down in the comments!
ADD SOME NSFW TO YOUR FANTASY! If you’ve ever been curious about that Handbook of Erotic Fantasy banner down at the bottom of the page, then you should check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. Twice a month you’ll get to see what the Handbook cast get up to when the lights go out. Adults only, 18+ years of age, etc. etc.
Well one Time, we were Fighting a Bearded Devil pathfinder System. Thanks to some Shadow encounters earlier my Fighters strength Score was drained, so i barely did any Damage.
Now the Devil ambushed us while we were resting, Coup de Gracing our Monk almost killing him. Knowing that i wouldn’t do any Damage, i went in for a Grapple, even though i wasn’t remotly build for that. I managed to wrestle the Devil to the ground, only surviving his Beard Attacks, thanks to my High Hit Points, while our Psychic melted the Devils Brains out, and the Bard healed our Monk.
I am still proud of it. I wrestled i Devil and won, and all that while i had a strenth of 11! (Usually it would be Strength 20) (Okay i mean the i survived until the Psychic killed him, but still!)
Your monk survived a coup de grace? That’s one tough dude!
Way to get in there and contribute though. A lesser player might have thrown their hands up and said, “Well I’m useless in this fight!” You went in and made the awesome happen. GJ.
Thanks! But well the DM threw the Monk a Bone, he would have survived the Hit Point Damage if just barely, but since the Devil rolled max Damage, he would have to succeed on a Fortitude Save of 40 on lvl 5 to survive the Coup de Grace. The DM lowered the save so it was still makeable.
Fun Fact, if not for that it would have been a TPK. Because there was some Mechanism Outside to open the Dungeon, it couldn’t be opend from the inside. We Idiots closed the Doors as we fled into the Dungeon. (From a Wandering if harmless Ghost Army ) No Problem since our Monk can walk through Walls.
But without the Monk the rest of us would have starved to Death.
One time when we were doing a one-shot, it was me (a ranged monk) and just one other player (a Barbarian). We had reached the end of a dungeon and were fighting a boss vampire. The barbarian, an NPC and I charged at the vamp, but we soon started taking heavy damage. I realised that the barbarian could only survive a few more rounds before he went down, and without him acting as meat shield, the rest of us would quickly follow. So I charged forward into melee and spent one or two rounds soaking damage, then I moved behind the barbarian and, taking a look at my mass of healing potions I had bought, started shoving potions down the barbarian’s throat to stave of the damage. While the battle went on for a while, eventually, with the barbarian in the single digits and my healing potions almost depleted, we had one. Switching from ranged warrior to emergency healer had bought the rest of the party time to slay the beast
Is “beer hat” an item? feel like “beer hat” should be an item.
In the “Goblins” comic there’s a scene in which a beserker orc fills his mouth with healing potions and bites down when he’s running low on health. It’s a shame the rules don’t accommodate for that very well, because it’s pretty cool.
Can’t believe I forgot! Your comment reminded me. Yes, it is an item:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/h-l/jacket-sipping/
You don’t have to specify “American” in Football. Everywhere else uses the metric system, so they can’t play a sport with a foot-long ball. Instead they play that weird Communist Kickball sport.
Figured it was esoteric enough that international readers would need the assist. *shrug*
On behalf of the home of Football, England, we still measure distance Imperially. So the distinction was welcome and needed since everywhere else in the world American Football is separate from Football.
Question: Were you familiar with the phrase “calling an audible,” or is that purely an Americanism?
I’m American and I’ve never heard it either.
I think the correct term is unAmerican Football.
Halfling rogue going in for a grapple.
Not my character, but someone I played with a few years back. I was as surprised by the maneuvre as anyone else at the table but fact was it was actually made total sense, it was the best move.
Rogues have mediocre BAB, but do you know who has worse BAB? Wizards.
Rogues can often get away with dumping Strength and this one definitely had, but do you know who also dumps Stength? Wizards.
Halfings have a racial penalty to Strength and a size penalty to grapple checks, but do you know who is the same size and has a worse strength? Kobolds.
So when the rogue got into position to snipe the spellcaster leading the kobolds and realised that he was a lich, and Sneak Attack was worthless?
The second-worst grappler in the room deliberately started a grapple with the worst grappler in the room.
And the GM starts flicking through the boss’s spell-list looking for anything that doesn’t have a somatic component because everything else just got turned off.
Grinning ear to ear just reading that. Good gaming right there!
All I can think about is the paralyzing touch of the lich, of course, I am not sure if using paralyzing touch on a creature grappling you is a good idea, as it may result in what is commonly referred to as a death grip (making it impossible for the lich to break free). Ofcourse implementing death grips would be houserules, as there is no RAW or RAI basis for them.
“Death grip” is exactly what happened. 🙂
All-in-all it was very frustrating for that poor undead kobold.
When I was playing my fav warlock Bobo, I refused to take Eldritch Blast. I’m aware of its potential damage, but I was putting my Eld. Invocs into pact of the blade stuff. That, and it wasn’t flashy enough! NOT ENOUGH BOOM! I mean, at least compared to fireball…
I’m enjoying the heck out of my warlock at the moment. In my mind it’s bow-ranger with arcane tricks rather than nature tricks. The real fun for me has been the chain pact familiar. I’ve talked about him before, but having a little shit that can eavesdrop, carry a reduce-person’d gnome around, and wear a helm of brillianct has been a (very literal) blast.
I feel ya on the bladelock though. Eldritch blast is only fun if you put the bonus damage and knockback components onto it (especially the latter). For non-melee dudes it’s a good default action, but wands and tiefling racial spells and familiar shenanigans mean that I get to keep my other options open as well!
I played a warlock once and hated it because of how excruciatingly boring using eldrich blast every round is. (For some reason it’s a lot worse than weapon attacks every round, despite the two being mechanically identical) I think you made the right decision, sir.
See my response to Ooga Booga/Papa Nurgle above.
Weirdly, warlock has been a good source of creativity for me. Knowing that I’ve got limited fuel in the tank has prompted me to take less orthodox actions. Last session for example we were in a weird situation with two beholders: one was an enemy, the other was an ally. Thanks to some wild magic from our sorcerer, the enemy beholder had become vulnerable to piercing damage. I drew my dagger and charged while the allied beholder kept its anti-magic field on the team, protecting us from everything but its bite attack.
We stabbed that bastard to death like he was Julius Freakin’ Caesar. Good times.
This is where (5e) Sorcerers can shine, they can quicken a spell, turning it into a bonus action, leaving their action free for other things. I like the idea of a sorcerer vaporizing someone, while bandaging up a team mate, while concentrating on a spell. Multitasking at its finest.
Any particular plays that you can point towards? I’d think that the really flashy turns would involve quicken paired with magic item activation.
No examples I can find, but a significant chunk of magical items say ‘use a action to activate, making them fair game to use with quickening a spell. Not sure on staffs, rods and wands though, as many of them say ‘use an action to cast a spell’. Hold person paired with throwing a bead of force would be okay. Also a little cruel.
Question: Is there a delay between a post being submitted and showing up on the site?
Yeah. It’s an anti-SPAM thing. I have to approve manually for first-time posts or face down an army of bots. Apologies for the inconvenience.
Pathfinder; I was the group cleric, with a shield and breastplate I had a half decent AC. However, I had flat 10s for physical stats (it was my first character) so I could stand on the frontlines, I couldn’t do anything once I got there though.
Our barbarian (my RL brother) was much more effective… When he wanted to be. He had a severe case of chaotic stupid that played incredibly well off my straight flying cleric (most of it didn’t require any acting from us). Other than that, the party was full squishy casters.
So there we are, looting a tower when we hear a golem trundling down the flight of stairs towards us. My brother decides to go loot another room. Panic ensues, we begin screaming as he gives the smuggest grin and announces “I roll to search the room.”
With our only source of physical damage taking the piss, I did the only thing I could think of; body block the bottom of the stairs and take a full defence action. I wasn’t high enough level to hope to heal through any damage I would take, so that +4 to AC was my best bet. My noble cleric, with fully half the barbarian’s total hp, huddled behind his shield for four rounds as the casters plinked away at the golem’s hp with anything that didn’t apply to spell resistance.
One of my favourite RP moments of all time followed that victory; a shouting match between the cleric and barbarian that culminated with a threat of eviction from the party. Not that the barbarian really cared any more. He’d found 200 platinum in that room while the fight was going on.
It’s always struck me as a bizarre form of PVP when a party member says, “I don’t want to help in this fight. You guys deal with it.” I’m sure there are legit character moments where that would happen, but it’s almost more of a form of griefing than anything.
GJ on your shielding duties though. A lot of dudes forget that full defense in an option, but going full-on Goofy is occasionally the right play.
Once playing… some character i don’t remember, get bored of always casting the same spells, so i changed all my spellbook. Lucky for my i haved prepared gate or some other teleport spell otherwise it could be a total party kill instead of a total rest-of-the-party kill.
Question it is not “The wizard stands in the back! It’s the fighter’s job to take hits! You’re going to get yourself killed!” the kind of repetitive strategy that in case of wrathy GM could lead to a TPK. If you always use the same strategy the game gets boring, if you change, you can find an even optimal formation to get bored.
So what was your caster’s old go-to spell vs. new?
Pure necromancy originally, later Buff and i-dont-know-spells. Read two or three posts of mine and tell me what you expected?
Tell me about this strategy i was thinking. It’s based in the situation you described lately. A party is about to die, an attack of orks or other stock-heavy-brute group. Then the wizard’s player say to the DM “I run, i run in the middle of the orks group”
DM: “You will suffer OA”
WP: “Yeah, yeah, i run in the middle of their group”
DM: “You suffer…”
WP:”I cast fireball at my feets”
DM:”What?”
WP:”I cast fireball at my feets, i want the AoE centered on me”
DM:”Are you…?”
WP:”Sure? Yes. Crazy? That depends.
DM:”So the orks are set ablaze and they…”
WP:” Between the flames i grab the ork leader by the throat”
DM:”You are almost dead”
WP:”Good. I grab the ork leader with my…”
DM:”Only good arm the other blow up”
WP:”I grab him and see him into the eyes with…”
DM:”Your only good eye, full of blood, and about to fall”
WP:”Shut up and listen.”
DM:”…”
WP:”I grab him and see him into the eyes with my only good eye full of blood and say to him -Tell me, you fing beast what do you believe i am? Do you want to run to your fing mother who gives you birth or do you prefer another point-blank fireball i have more in reserve and if a die at least i will take you all with me, searing and aflame in a ocean of pain and fiery death. SO. WHAT. ARE. GONNA. DO. when i cast another one fireball and burn all of you?
I think that is the kind of non-conventional tactic you referred. So what do you think? I think you dont need to roll 20 when you can intimidate the DM.
TLDR: a crazy batshit wizard who scares even the DM
Now see, I’d have thought Dirty Harry was a ranger. Still, it is an amusing thought.
“You must be wondering: Did he prepare only one fireball today, or does he still have one left in the chamber? Well seeing as this is fireball, the most powerful etc. etc.”
I haved the idea of throwing a Dirty Harry kinda speech. Glad you like it. Don’t try it in home.
Oh jeez, healbot clerics. I chatted about the Wrath of the Righteous game where the Holy Tactician Paladin/Cleric would remind us all at the end of every fight how many of our hit points he’d healed and how crucial he was, right? He designed himself to be unable to to anything else well, and it was a waste of a character, particularly when the whole party knows that if he’d been able to swing his (cestus…really?) with any sort of worth, we wouldn’t have had to take nearly the amount of damage we did.
But my Inquisitor was Glass Cannon Extraordinaire. The optimal round-by-round was a full salvo of Bane Judgment Manyshot Rapid Shot Deadly Aim Divine Power bolts all thudding into whatever the baddest beastie was. The -actual- round by round was often him doing this twice, then running away and casting Heal on himself because the boss got fockin’ sick of my shite and made it his personal mission to turn me into meat paste.
Fortunately! Inquisitors are kind of like Divine Bards with less knowledge and more damage, so I was able to branch off and throw buffs on people or use one of my magic items to cast Shadow Evocation. Also worth noting is the “Lend Greater Judgment” spell that let the Occultist have the fullest extent of my +4s and +6s as long as I was being Judgmental.
2/3rds casters are no slouches, for real. Inquisitors and bards are midrange for everything, though, BAB and HP and casting and okay, skill ranks are pretty good. It makes for a character that can excel at something and still easily ‘manage’ to do a lot of other things.
Healbots… We have a word for someone who waits for someone to demand they be serviced: Gimp. Don’t play a gimp.
Thankfully 5E has moved away from the need for a dedicated healer.
Oh snap! I’d been under the impression that Inquisitors were 1-4 casters. Suddenly my interest in piqued!
I love me some 2/3 casters. My occultist is going gang busters right now, and everybody and their mother loves Pathfinder alchemists. I think it’s very telling that Starfinder chose 2/3 casters as their default for casting. IMHO it’s a sort of sweet spot for d20 system: enough versatility to be interesting, not so much as to be overwhelming.
2/3rds really fits the Jack of All Trades sort of character. Full casters are what they are, Excellent at casting and little else. Realistically, anyone that has 1/2 casting is a Martial character with an ‘extra trick,’ and they’re generally expected to be Excellently swinging or shooting and save their spells for before and after combat. The 2/3rds boys may not hit Excellence outright with either their swinging or their casting per se, but both of them are Very Good by themselves and if you give them a round or two to put them together, it very easily and reliably hits Excellent.
No one but an Inquisitor can extract himself out of a bad melee situation like I was put into so many times. Burst of Speed and Raven’s Flight at low/mid levels, and then when you get Heal you’re downright sustainable, though you’re absolutely playing Le Rocket Tag without fail by the time you snag 6th level spells.
If Bard closes the gate now, it’ll bisect that poor soldier. He’s being a good person by not doing it immediately.
I think that “bisected by portcullis” is a quicker death than “trampled by enemy army.”
Bisected is a certain death, and it’s a slow painful bleed-out. Trampling is only a likely death. Also Bard could use his action to pull him in.
That said, that gate looks to be 15ft wide. Bard should have two buddies next to him to hold the line while he uses Thunderwave to blow down 9 enemies at a time, sending them barreling back into their buddies, impaling them on their friends’ pikes.
We bought our Cleric the thingamabob of +2d6 Channelling, so now all he does in most fights is heal us or nuke undead. I wish he would use more lvl4 spells. Summon something! Give yourself Divine Power if you insist on melee!
Well at least his turns are quick I guess. I doesn’t take much thought to SPAM the AoEs.
Maybe you could pitch some tactics to him in-character though? I’m thinking teamwork stuff like, “If you summon a giant eagle, I can ride it and dive-bomb our enemies….”
You example of the ghost there at the end is especially amusing to me because my Fighter in a game just yesterday chose to take the action of attacking a ghost…and then turning invisible because he’s a Firbolg so that the ghost couldn’t possess him since he was the most possessable of the party. Hoping that the cleric and bard would be better able to handle it.
This…. did not turn out well. With the fearsome fighter off the table as a host, it beelined for the cleric. You know, the only guy in the party who has a feature that can force a ghost out of your ally without having to KO said ally first. And of course the cleric failed their save.
In fact, they failed the save by only a scant few points, which is apparently a theme with this ghost as my Fighter both failed his Perception check to spot the ghost in ambush by one point and failed his save vs being frightened upon seeing the ghost… again by one measly point.
So… I guess this is a story of taking the default action for the character that was ALSO the necessary action…. and it going to crap anyway because that’s how the dice gods be some days.
Unless the bard can figure out a way to get the ghost out of our cleric, the plan is probably going to be having my fighter hug (read: grapple) the cleric until the ghost gets annoyed enough to leave or is overcome by the magic of friendship. =P
Individual defenses are weird sometimes. I have a dude that likes to enlarge self / fly / attack from out of range. This effectively means that the even-squishier-than-me party members get attacked instead. I may need to reassess my strategies. :/
Sounds like you’ve got a great trope on your hands though. You’re going full-on Evil Dead with that cleric. Madness roles are imminent if you neglect to gag your prisoner, lol!
Well even if the GM doesn’t narrate things that way I’m going to be imagining that as the situation now, thanks!
(If you’re wondering if that’s sarcasm or not….. so am I?)
Later on I’m gonna have to come up with magic item stats for Maslow’s Hammer
Limited wish on a crit?
Maslow’s Golden Hammer (Lesser Artifact) (D&D 3.5)
This +4 Metalline (magic Item Compendium pg 38) light hammer deals 1d4 points of bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing damage when used as a weapon. Additionally upon striking a creature it gains the Bane property against that creature type. If it later strikes a creature of a different type the bane property changes to match the type of the new target; but it cannot change more than once every five minutes (if it strikes a creature of a different type before the five minutes is up it retains the type of bane it currently has). Additionally, it is a great tool for any job and adds a +2 circumstance bonus to any skill check in which it is employed as a tool (even if the skill wouldn’t normally use tools). The hammer can also apply any Prestidigitation effect or Mending to any object it strikes. Finally, once per day the hammer can cast Limited Wish on a creature that it critically hits (as with the vorpal property roll for the crit even on creatures that would normally be immune)
As a guy that primarily plays one-trick-pony martials (my latest gimmick being maximizing damage on dual-wielding whips in 3.5), I often end up being the guy fighting for minimal damage but minimal contribution.
I also was the only frontliner (and I guess I should say “frontliner” due to my 15 foot reach), I often took the brunt of attacks. But at least I had 9 attacks at level 11 (Without Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, due to a low Dex stat). Needless to say, I often was involved in futile actions for the sake of doing something that round. Better than offering to play Yahtzee (in character I called it dice-poker) with another martial character (which also happened in a previous game, I lost 15 gp that fight).
Whips are great for this sort of thing. Swinging from thing, disarming dudes, and pulling objects around the battlefield are all on the table for you. That’s a lot of Jackie-Chan-in-a-warehouse style fun to be had!
Yeah, and the Lasher PrC from 3E really helps with the myriad of options available to whip users.
Unrelated, but I’ve been wondering – about when did you decide to switch from the Handbook being Fighter-isms that he faithfully followed, to the Handbook being actually good advice?
I like to think it’s 50/50. Now that you mention it though, I’ll have to go back and see when we last did a Fighterism. We may be overdue for a return to form.
Perhaps the proudest play I’ve made in this line of play that got basically no credit from the party was to turn myself in in order to get a pair of dark elves to drop their “peon of the dark fire”. They had effectively put all actions against them at such a high obstacle that even the lesser deity the party had recruited was powerless against them, and there was a reasonable chance they would start taking out party members as they finished clearing out all the mooks we had bogged them down with. My plan, which got no appreciation from the other players or the GM much to my chagrin, was to hand myself over, after all, it was me they were looking for, and try to goad them into saying something. Peon of the dark fire, while powerful to the point of broken, ends if the caster says anything other than the chant to maintain it. Long story short, the plan failed miserably and I was only saved by one of our casters silencing them with a deeds point and a homebrew system. While it all worked out, I was a bit salty by the end because at that point I felt like the GM could have thrown me a bone and at least made one of them have an outburst on the order of “what!?” after some of the gossip I very nearly let slip to get them to break. Eh, I’ll let it go.
Well hey, when nothing else is working you’ve got to start thinking of unconventional options. Even if it didn’t work, it’s probably a better play than yet-another-wasted-spell. For example, it could have been a great time for Performance (comedy). GJ on the attempt says I!
So no shit there we were, about level 7 or 8, and our party had just finished up a very cold dungeon crawl to find out some answers from an ancient spirit. We had a noteworthy Giant Adventurer guest NPC with us who could have trivialized things, but we made it through without help thus far. If this sounds familiar, it was Adventure League, and I think part of a module there, but I’ll hold off on saying which one to keep spoilers.
So when an Ancient Dragon wheeled down out of the sky and threatened to wreck our faces, the smart play was to listen to the giant man as he heroically held it off and pulled a Sampson, while we ran to our ride. However, as a Spirit Guardian barbarian, I knew there was one way to tip the scales as long as I could get a hit in. So I raged, I ran forward, and I hurled an axe at the creature, scoring a grand total of three hit points off of it’s health… And giving it disadvantage to attack anyone but me.
THEN I ran with the rest of them. It did actually manage to keep one other player alive long enough for him to see that it was, in fact, a run or die situation.
Upside, we walked away from that dungeon, while it collapsed behind us, showing no signs of rising again. And that is how Mor’gho, Barbarian Chieftain, declared with absolute truthful confidence that he fought an Ancient White Dragon and won at level 8.
Hey, if you can shoot your shot and not die in the process, more power to ya. 😀