I Cast Maslow’s Hammer
Reports of Sorcerer’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Poor demon-blooded schlub… I need to get all these characters on a rotating schedule or something. Last time we saw Sorcerer before that disastrously dry desert was way back in August, and that’s too long. I know I wouldn’t want to wait eight months between sessions!
As for today’s topic, I always thought that Maslow’s Hammer would be a good name for a spell. It would be like a souped-up version of prestidigitation, dealing damage and passing out bonuses in social encounters and helping out when you’re exploring the wilderness and ordering out for Chinese when you’re hungry. Of course, fireball can already do all that. Obviously it deals damage. That’s just a no-brainer. But there’s nothing quite like the threat of a fireball to give you a circumstance bonus is those tense negotiations. And if you find yourself in need of a little brush clearing out in the woods, there are few more effective way to get rid of all that difficult terrain. I’ll admit that the Chinese food is a bit setting-dependent, but if you take the time to develop a relationship with your local Goblin Pizza joint, a fireball makes one hell of an “I’ll take an X-large with pepperoni” signal flare. I guess I’ll have to give up on designing the maslow’s hammer spell. As it turns out, that’s damn near every spell in the book already.
My point is that a limited spell selection can be a good thing. When you’ve only got a handful of spells at you’re disposal you’re forced to get creative. The sorcerers and bards and warlocks of the worlds have to stretch their imaginations and make square pegs fit round holes every single adventuring day. You wind up looking for every little nuance, squeaking advantages out of secondary effects (e.g. fireball‘s propensity for property damage or its ability to conjure improvised smoke screens). That makes for interesting play and unusual situations. And that’s at least as much fun as having the perfect spell for the situation.
What about the rest of you guys? Have you ever had a signature spell or ability that solved problems in new and unexpected ways? What was it? Let’s hear it in the comments!
EARN BONUS LOOT! Check out the The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. We’ve got a sketch feed full of Laurel’s original concept art. We’ve got early access to comics. There’s physical schwag, personalized art, and a monthly vote to see which class gets featured in the comic next. And perhaps my personal favorite, we’ve been hard at work bringing a bimonthly NSFW Handbook of Erotic Fantasy comic to the world! So come one come all. Hurry while supplies of hot elf chicks lasts!
While i’m not Jim dark magic who uses magic missile for literally every situation. I can say i have a signature spell or cantrip for my char Arkul a fat, chocolate loving, white dragonborn.
Ladies ladies, hold your applause for my original char who is totally not a stereotype brought to life in a dnd game.
I always found myself using vicious mockery on every enemy i found more or less. Due to my horrid stats ranging from a 8 in Con and Dex to a measly 14 for my charisma i can easily say that i had the worst stats in the party. Along with my self penalized exhaustion conditions that the gm would inflict upon my poor dragonborn.
I found myself using vicious mockery a lot to say the least. From using it on a boss, the DMPC, fellow party members, and commoners who shortly died from a heart attack. To say the least even i started getting bored of saying “your mother was a *****!!” Sadly i have never solved problems with it although I have created a ton of problems for the party with it. Usually resulting in Arkul getting beat up and insulted to say the last. From becoming the squeaky toy of a shadow dragon (Now with realistic voices! Buy one now!) to being thrown a mile clear into a giant pile of snow to even taking 2d10 critical emotional damage from the dmpc.
So no, i have never solved problems with vicious mockery i have caused a ton of them though!
Also a word of advice, if you suddenly see a named char from a twitch show such as critical role, acquisitions incorporated, dice camera action or etc. Start running the opposite way, the GM may not like it but it will save you a hell of a headache when you get wrapped up their plot. From playing bodyguard when there trying to kill Vecna, to taking a finger of death to the flab, to having to make con saves as you run out of a collapsing tomb with the now dying twitch char on your shoulder. To not collapse from your chars lack of athletic ability.
….Poor arkul, he will always remain the butt monkey of the game. But hey at least he has relentless endurance for free! (although its named “plaything of the gods”, but hey being the butt monkey of the gods in favor of surviving more is great trade off.)
….Just realized my grammar is atrocious, you may call me the decimator of the English language if you want.
So you ruin every 10th word? /pedant
This is the first time I’ve seen it, but I shall henceforth imagine “/pedant” at the end of every comment in every forum. So thanks for that.
It might not say it, but I’ve always thought of Vicious Mockery as a useful “pull” spell. There’s obviously no such thing as WoW-style aggro in 5e, but you can do a pretty good impression of it if your insults are eloquent enough.
I once had a party member who killed a boss with Vicious Mockery by shouting “You’re fat” at him. Anticlimactic, but amusing nonetheless.
While I haven’t really had any spell I try to swiss army knife, aside from the general purpose all around useful spells (ah, humble Grease), I have had opportunity to use spells in more unconventional ways. One of my favorites was when we had scaled to the top of a trap-filled temple, defeated the yuan-ti guardian, and the party rogue pulled the gemstone eyes from the statue. Naturally, the temple started collapsing. I think the GM was hoping to have us race back through the temple to get out, but I decided “screw that” and had my caster jump off the edge. Now, we weren’t a high enough level to have Fly, and I didn’t have Feather Fall, and I’d used up my 2nd level slots so couldn’t cast Misty Step or Levitate. I did however have a scroll of web. I told the DM “I jump off and ready an action: when I get 30 feet above the ground, I cast web directly below me.” With that I used Web to create an impromptu trampoline/safety net, and the party quickly followed behind me. When we were all safely down I ended concentration to dissolve the webs we were entangled in and we safely watched the temple crumble behind us.
Clever! I actually had feather fall prepped right-place-right-time once. The villains were escaping in an elevator, and my wizard told everyone to jump after them.
Several rounds of not catching the elevator later: “Can’t you make this thing go any faster?”
I dismissed the spell.
AAAAAHHHHHHHH!
It was, in point of fact, the second prepared feather fall that made me a happy camper. I got to shut up the grumpy fighter and also keep everyone alive. It was a good day at the office.
Ah, feather fall is one of those spells that I always prepare if I can. I’ve even taken it on arcane trickster rogues before (and that’s a hefty price to pay, with their spell selection). Having a wayt o survive falling off of cliffs and dragons just makes life so much easier and opens up a lot of cool and awesome tactics. Whenever I learn the spell I usually don’t regret it.
Then again, there is something to be said for the barbarian’s feather fall.
Barbarian snorts in disdain at your puny d10 hit die express elevator!
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/falling-damage
I’ve always found featherfall to be so entirely situational and niche, that instead of putting a spell prep slot towards it, I just invest in creating 2 or 3 scrolls of it for emergency use.
50-150GP isn’t a huge deal if you’re only using it once in a campaign. If you find that you’re using it more frequently than that, THEN you know you need to invest in actually preparing it for the day.
For one of my crews, it was Disintegrate.
Trapped door? Disintegrate.
Locked door? Disintegrate.
Uber-powerful monster? Disintegrate.
Alpha strike? Disintegrate.
Ooh, another door that refuses to open! No locks. No traps. Just can’t seem to budge. Oh well. Disintegrate!
…
Our sorcerer was then slammed into by a column of water that impacted with 36 points of damage and knocked him off the platform. The reason the door wasn’t opening was because it was retaining flood waters and the dragon living there didn’t mind that door no longer opening. At first we took it as “The DM is getting sick of our shit…” but I started thinking that the lesson should have been “We need to do more research…” For a while I was right, though the DM started to get sick of that, too, and regardless of how well a Knowledge check was rolled, information was getting sparser and sparser as the years went on.
Heh. I guess it’s all about varying tactics. Usually I think of changing encounter styles as a GM tool. Keeping the dude who controls the universe entertained might be a valuable survival strategy in its own right though. Never go about problem solving the same way twice and you’ll wind up with fewer randomly negative results as a product of the GM’s good mood.
When I was playing a Fiend warlock known as Bobo, Fireball was also one of my go to spells.
-Trapped in a collapsing room and don’t want to have to grab a lever? Fireball, followed by pact weapon.
-Group of tightly packed drow cultists about to summon a demon? FIREBALL!
-My own teamate trying to save me from possesion via a drow staff? Why not fireball us both? Even more fun!
Long story short, VERY traumatizing for my team…
My own fiend warlock just chose Banishment over Fireball. I thought Banishment was a bit of a boring spell, but seeing fiend warlocks in the context of today’s thread just made me realize something. Banishment is actually a handy vanishing spell. Cast it on yourself and, with any luck, the thing that was about to kill you will wander away before the 1 minute is up.
Banishing yourself doesn’t work. The banished creature is incapacitated, meaning it can’t concentrate on spells.
Damn. I checked the incapacitated condition, but didn’t look under the concentration rules. Sad times. Banishment really does look like a “does one thing really well” kind of spell. Maslow would be disappointed.
Still, I guess it could save your friends from imminent doom. That’s a pretty niche scenario though.
Edit: Thought of another one! Even if you do use it on yourself, it’s still a poor man’s feather fall! Just wait until you’re about to hit, poof to the other dimension, become incapacitated, and instantly poof back. Assuming that dimensional travel doesn’t conserve momentum, you’re freaking fine. Maslow be praised!
Who needs Banishment when you have the One With Shadows Eldritch Invocation. Instant Invisibility, any time, NO SPELL SLOTS NEEDED, you just can’t move. It’s pretty feckin’ kewl.
Banishment is great! A cleric in one game saved an NPC from dying by banishing them (which slightly derailed some DM plans since she was supposed to die… oh well). But it can do so much more!
Did the rogue get caught and surrounded while sneaking ahead? BANISHMENT
I someone trapped under rubble that you can’t move without crushing them? BANISHMENT
Need to check if that King is actually an extra planar creature in disguise? BANISHMENT (just listen for the “pop”)
Is the big dumb fighter about to say something to get you all in trouble? BANISHMENT
Will the party not stop talking to that annoying NPC you’re pretty sure has no importance whatsoever? BANISHMENT
Did you get spotted by one guard while sneaking into the palace? BANISHMENT
Need a minute to recover some HP in the middle of a fight? BANISHMENT
That’s right all this and more can be yours for a single 4th level (or higher) spell slot! (except druids, bards, and rangers)
Find Familiar is my go-to spell. If I have it, I look for how any problem could be handled by the familiar. Whether it be scouting, spying, stealing, opening locked doors, setting traps, healing, using magic items, using Help, and even handling social interactions, Familiars bring a lot to the table.
As my Helm of Brilliance wearing imp Yep can attest, there are a great many possibilities in the spell. Nothing quite like having a little buddy throw down a wall of fire around you own Hunger of Hadar.
“Hey Yep! Wombo combo!”
“You mean ‘fried calamari?'”
“We’ll discuss the name later. Just cast your spell.”
Pushing dudes back into that with Eldritch Blast + repelling blast made me a happy gamer.
BTW, I did take Inspiring Leader at 8th level, so thanks for that suggestion! You and Squeak are an inspiration!
Yay! Happy to help! Also i’m not sure if I knew you and your imp had such a combo, I like it. 😀
Zone of Truth is my social jackhammer.
Cooperate and live, don’t and die.
My Paladin has solved a handful of situations by smashing things when the GM wanted us to go around. “It’s high-end Dwahven tactics. You nead a kean analytical mind ta undahstand what needs ta be smashed, and how to best smash it. Da stupid, smelly Elves will nevah grasp da intricacies of Dwahven tactics.” I should mention that my Dwarven accent is thick Brooklyn, because the Scottish thing is silly.
I remember you talking about that one a few months back. Frame the interaction in the right way and you never have to put up with GM skullduggery again!
If you’re looking for Sorcerer scripts, there’s always the fact that the Anti-party is 3/4ths Charisma, has literally no Dexterity, (Unless Barbarian is using 5E’s unarmored defense, in which case she has some, but it’s a lower priority) literally no Wisdom, and apparently Barbarian is the smartest since according to you she has a PHD due to some good rolls at character creation.
Everyone trying to be the face and talking over each other is bound to come up with them.
Now see, that is exactly the kind of script that I gravitate towards. But the bugger is that it depends on system knowledge. The average fantasy fan isn’t going to know that Paladin/Oracle/Sorcerer are all Charisma-based, so you risk losing out on the humor with a large part of your audience.
I guess you could do a thing with everybody having a big “I’m the party face! No I am!” kind of dust cloud fight…
https://image.shutterstock.com/image-vector/battle-cloud-260nw-202511881.jpg
…with Barbarian in the foreground telling Pizza Goblin that they’re still deciding on topping or whatever. But if you lack the underlying Charisma association, that’s just a bunch of characters arguing. The trick would be working three characters into a single panel where Charisma comes up in conversation, but again, I’m trying to move away from mechanics-based jokes to make the comic more inclusive.
That said, I do like the idea of party composition affecting performance. That’s an even bigger issue with smaller parties. Hmmm…. I wonder what the holes in capability are for Team Bounty Hunter?
You could do something where the caption is “Seek out allies with a diverse skillset” while Paladin tries to Intimidate, Sorcerer tries to deceive, and Oracle tries to persuade, with their word balloons drowning each other out while Barbarian just eats the pizza.
As for TBH, 2/3rds are PF classes, so I’m not familiar with them. Is Magus basically 5E’s Eldritch Knight, and is Inquisitor basically 4E’s Avenger? (Sort of a Paladin/Monk focused on hunting down the enemies of their god)
Magus is an Intelligence-based prepared caster, Inquisitor is a Wisdom-based spontaneous caster with bonuses to things like Intimidate, Knowledge and Sense Motive, and Ranger is Wisdom-based as well.
I guess their big weakness is probably that they are very damage-focused, without much of a party face or other skills, unless intimidating people and tracking targets count. They may also all be strength-based (unless Magus is dexterity, I’m not sure).
It’s come up once or twice before in the comments, but based on her behavior Magus isn’t Int based. Looks like she took an archetype:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/archetypes/paizo-magus-archetypes/eldritch-scion/
Which is weird, because she still has a spellbook:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/remedial-mage
To which I say: she’s not Intelligence-based.
But yeah, homegirl is 100% Dexterity.
I am in a party featuring 6 PCs, 5 of whom are Charisma-based, leaving my poor 16 INT Magus to do all the thinking. I like to refer to us as a team of 5 sexy idiots and 1 nerd. A nerd who works out a lot, but still. I had to use Improved Familiar to make a KnowledgeBot because we so consistently failed all Knowledge checks. Strangely, of the 5 CHA people, only one of them is really a face – one has INT 6, one is a nervous wreck and doesn’t really roleplay, one is a stoic cop who is also obsessed with loot, and one is intentionally played as the embodiment of Lawful Stupid (and unintentionally sexually harasses everything he interacts with). So, good thing we have that Diplomancer Sorcerer! Also, my Magus is somehow the de facto team leader.
…Now that I think about it, “Five Sexy Idiots” would be a good name for a band.
D&D is great for the “good band name” game. My favorite remains “Semi-Rigid Dirigible.” The cover art would be awesome.
Aaand now I need to start a Led Zeppelin tribute band just to use that name.
To be fair, if after getting Fireballed about half the jar is still in one piece, Sorcerer probably wasn’t going to be able to open it any other way.
No demon strength. Just demon magic. Blame heredity.
So why wouldn’t Oracle ask Barbarian/Paladin to open the jar instead? They’re both brawny.
The pickles are not evil, and are therefore undeserving of violence.
As for, Barbarian she would simply eat the pickles. “I left you the juice though. That’s the best part!”
Sorcerer is the best of bad options.
Aren’t Paladins obligated to help those in need?
He’s watching out for Oracle’s sodium intake. It’s for her own good.
So Paladin doesn’t believe in “Harm reduction” policies?
“If I don’t help her, she’ll go to Sorcerer or Barbarian, and that’ll end up much worse. There will be glass everywhere, and I’ll have to clean it up.”
Ah, I see Barbarian is clearly Chaotic Neutral.
Honestly? I think they all are. 😛
My Machinesmith’s Repair ability (think reverse Destruction from Spheres of Power) came in handy quite often.
You would not believe how many people have broken things in the world.
If not a spell, then Maslow would be a fun Spellcaster name, and character concept…
A True Neutral caster who dips into everything! Need healing? Fireball? Buff? Dead raised? Maslow Deus has got ya covered!
Nice! This guy?
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/louis-porter-jr-design/machinesmith/
May I ask what kind of campaign you’re running that a machinesmith fits in? It sounds all kinds of badass.
That’s the one.
I have two actually.
One is a Warforged who was shunted out of his home world and into a more basic fantasy setting by a powerful wizard, and is trying to get home.
He was almost killed and the Artificer in the group used everything they could to save him (including some sailor who was killed when he almost died), and now he is an Ironborn.
Some higher powers have also studied him when he was captured, so there are more advanced constructs running around now (golem suits and the like).
The other is in a Steampunk setting so they fit right in.
The grandson of a war hero, he recently bought back the family heirloom (an Adamantine Earthbreaker) and is now attempting to help stop another Great War that could end an entire continent if not more.
Nice! What supplements are you using for the steampunk game? I’ve always felt like there were enough bits and pieces buried in Pathfinder to make it work, but never quite pulled them all together myself.
The setting is an original created by the DM, and she filled with a lot of 3rd party and homebrew.
The only supliment I know of is Ships of Skyborn to build vessels and manage combat between them.
I only know about that because I made the spreadsheet to auto-calculate the ship’s stats and costs.
I once killed a ghoul with dancing lights. Yes, the cantrip.
The story behind that one is that a bunch of undead (and guys using undead anatomy spells to pretend to be undead) were invading under cover of magical fog that both concealed them and buffed them. However, magical light sources pushed back the fog, so everyone who could manage a light spell threw one out. My witch pushed his dancing lights into the same square as one of the ghouls, the fog was pushed back off him, and he keeled over due to his max HP decreasing, coupled with the damage he’d taken pushing him below 0 HP.
The somatic / verbal components to dancing lights: Clap on, clap off, clap on, clap off, you’re dead now!
“As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero.”
— Vaarsuvius
Giant Senpai knows what’s up.
I rarely play Illusionists, but Silent Image is my everyspell. I made one wizened caster convince the party that he was a monk, I had a bard convince a bunch of ogres that he just threw up Wall of Stone and got a cover bonus, followed by another bluff check while he yelled ‘Pass Through Stone!’ to be untargetable while he poked them with his rapier…and another wizard with a CCTV swap where he put up an image of ‘the wall and door and fence’ while he and his partner walked behind said image, over the fence, along the wall, and through the door.
Then he screwed with the guards by turning their Tarot playing cards into Death on every card (again with Silent Image), but that story came up already. It was a fun one though.
The problem with Silent Image–and all illusion spells really–is that it’s not enough to be clever. You’ve also got to convince your GM that you’re clever. That said, you’ve convinced the shit out of me. The ‘Pass Through Stone’ thing is freaking brilliant.
Usually don’t play spellcasters however I’ve a Tiefling Fiend Bladelock w/ the Charlatan background that uses a combo of Minor Illusion and Presdigitation to create “fiendish” effects to help convince others that he’s a demon/devil and then rest of the group comes in to rescue the village he’s conning and “banish” the fiend back to the lower planes.
Hey, I’m running the same guy in Out of the Abyss! He’s a chain-lock instead of Blade pact, but otherwise identical. You can bet I’ll be pulling this as my next con. Cheers!
To quote V from GitP:
“As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of resolving approaches zero.
..
..
… An that is terrible.”
Ha! Don’t know if you noticed, but Agi quoted that same strip a few comments up. Great minds think alike!
I really like the Mending cantrip. I can’t do everything with it, but it’s a lot of fun to apply it to things people would never expect.
That half burned letter that held an essential clue? Mending gets you the whole letter.
You want to engage in a high society social event but you’ve been adventuring and are going to look like the murder hobos you are? Mending fixes your clothes up good as new, even that outfit off the villainous baron the rogue stabbed to death twenty times.
That grand mechanism operating is a problem for you but you don’t actually want to be held responsible for breaking it later? Mending can solve that problem.
You got stabbed? Mending can if you’re being technical solve that problem. I’d like to hear a convincing argument for how people aren’t objects! =P
It’s the casting time on Mending that’s always bothered me. It’s great for RP and clever in-town uses, but it seems like every time I desperately need to fix a broken portcullis in the middle of combat I’m SOL.
my oracle has a habit of using plane shift to banish creatures to the shadow realm, er, I mean the Plane of Shadow.
my witch would sometimes spend entire days in a magic jar and used it to great effect
Oh man, magic jar… Some spells I look at and go, “You know what? I don’t need to be that powerful.” Also on the list are create demiplane and shadow conjuration. These things create styles of play all their own, and it’s just that little bit too technical for me to really wrap my head around.
Props to you for making it work though! I suspect that a little bit of planning and a lot of magic jar could solve most dungeons single-handedly.
We had a problem with an assassin that hated our guts, and the DM made this single NPC out to be a real tough guy… until he came into my radius and failed a will save.
With my oracle I almost derailed the current subplot by planeshifting the boss… the boss was in possession of a couple important items we were after. If I went through with it (literally every other player said no immediately so I didn’t) that could’ve gone horribly… The DM admitted that he doesn’t know what he would’ve done at that point.
Interesting parallel with the maguffin sword in the Old Chris Perkins Iomandra campaign:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/DM_Experience_2011.pdf
I don’t think the article survived the move to the new Wizards website, but I believe his maguffin sword Fathomreaver disappeared forever, irrevocably lost in the elemental chaos. As I recall, he wound up doing quite a few rewrites, but made it work.
Well, once my party made a plan to sneak into a place built upon to the assumption that we would make a lot of noise (only time one of our stealth plans worked). We had to take out some sleeping guards, so readied some coup de graces and Fireballed the rest. Fireball collapsed the building, which was unexpected, but DID increase the amount of noise we made (“EXACTLY AS PLANNED!”) and finish off all but one of the enemies.
I once had a partymate who loved trying to use Prestidigitation for everything, only for the GM to tell him no. When that player became GM for a campaign (with most of the players being from that other campaign), we spellcasting players all conspired to NOT take Prestidigitation in order to mess with him by denying him the chance to allow it to do anything.
Lastly, my party has a Sorcerer who is built to master mental manipulation magic. Her DC for 4th-level enchantment spells is 27. Her most commonly used spells? Spiked Pit, Create Pit and Fireball. Mainly the pit-related ones. I call her the “Holymancer” (Master of all things Holey). We recently had a grueling fight of six Level 9 PCs against two CR 10 bosses (plus backup) in a confined space and by the end their were like 5 big holes in the ground. The last enemy, actually, kept climbing out of a pit, making a single attack and then falling back in (as he used all of his movement speed getting out and then ended his turn next to it). Which was funny, if annoying (it was hard for us to attack him while he was in the pit).
Prestidigitation is such a hard one! I’ve seen my share of players struggle to find the balance between “it can do a lot of stuff if you’re creative” and “it can’t do everything ya friggin munchkin.” For example, can it poke somebody in the eye and blind them in combat?
“It’s 5 lbs of force poking you in the eye! How does that not work?”
The answer depends entirely on your GM.
Funny. I actually encountered this phrase the other day and wrote it up as a Pathfinder spell.
Maslow’s Gavel
School: Evocation[Force]; Level: 5
Casting Time: 1 round
Components: V, S, F (A gilded Judge’s gavel worth 250 GP, the gavel must be previously owned by a judge or lawmaker but need not be gilded at the time of owning)
Range: Medium (100ft + 10ft/level)
Target: 1 object occupying 5 cubic feet per caster level
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fortitude Negates; Spell Resistance: Yes
Taking the form of an immense hammer the spell strike an object and deals it damage. The object takes 20 points of damage per caster level, diffused throughout the entirety of the object within the radius of the spell, thus weaker parts of the object might break prior to the harder parts. Non object beings (including plants, undead, and magically animated constructs) take no damage from the spell, but might take damage from the effects of the object being broken (A bridge collapsing for example).
The caster can lower the radius of the spell as desired during the casting of Maslow’s Gavel.
Attempting to use Maslow’s Gavel on an attended object lets the object use the attender’s save. For purposes of the spell a Large size object requires either a creature of its size attending it or a number of smaller creatures actively using it
I saw Laurel use warp wood on a siege engine once. I’ve been a fan of object-damaging spells ever since. There’s nothing quite so dramatic as watching a major part of the battlefield explode!
I always have been as well, it’s just surprising how few of them there are comparatively. It’d be awesome to play as a wizard who just has absolute control of his environment with wall spells, holes, distortions and indirectly taking enemies like he’s the protagonist of a 90’s Saturday morning cartoon.
That’d be way cooler than just chucking a few evocations and calling it good IMO
Literal battlefield control wizard? That would be a all manner of cool!
Honestly, the next time I do a primary caster I’m thinking about doing a heavily themed spell list. “Construction Sorcerer” with walls and pits would be pretty funny. Pointy hard hats for days!
“You dare question my qualifications!? Paltry Wizards could cast Tiny Hut or Magnificent Mansion, I can build a house around while you sleep!”
My (very rough) start to the character: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/8f692p/contractor_arcanist/
Well, you dont need a signature spell if you are creative, if you can make a good pc you can use any spell at the level of “summon bigger fish” and “dodge charm”.
That say i really like raise dead. Is the soul of the undead human resources department.
Insofar as I’m playing my first necromancer at the moment, I love that it’s turned my campaign into Pokemon. Find thing, defeat thing, get thing as a pet!
Gotta catch ’em all, gotta kill ’em all, gotta raise ’em all.
– Necromancers guild motto
Hahahahaha.
Opening things is easy. Opening things you want to close again…not so much.
See above for Ramsus’s thoughts on mending. 😛
So what is the Swiss army like in a fantasy setting?
Look man, it’s freaking hard translating Common to English. I got as close as I could.
I would of went with something to do with the Traveler’s Any-Tool.
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/traveler-s-any-tool/
A low cost of 250gp and you have a master work tool that do mostly anything, The true “Swiss army knife” of adventurers (even as a weapon if you doing a improvised weapon build).
I used Shrink/Enlarge (AD&D) for my Gnom illusionist together with Illusion to that extend that the GM gave up. you can lock doors with it, or unlock. You can Block Pathways, Cross Rivers etc. Was beside Illusion one of my few utility Spell, and i had it in both ways prepared. Always. When we were robbed, i used the Spell to Enlarge some Rocks in the Pathways of the thieves let them bump into the enlarged rocks and then created the Illusion of them encased by rocks… etc…
Or as AD&D Illusionist have very few combat spells: Invisbility, a Rope, a handfull of stones and enlarge. The Illusionist sneaks above the enemy enlarge the Stone… and let it go… no break in invisibility… and a big stones raining from the sky. Who needs Fireballs, they are boring and unimaginative.
*unless used to open pickle jars
I am exceptionally boring with signature spells. While I play a fair number of summoners, I tend to focus on the same few really useful spells. Mage Armor, Enlarge Person, Haste, Glitterdust, etc.
Does Summon Eidolon count? Because HALO-dropping clawed nasties into the thick of the enemy is always a delight.
I’ve always wanted to play a true chaos sorcerer. Roll for spell selection and try to make it work.
Hoo boy. I’m testing out a 4th level Verdant Merfolk sorcerer right now and the spell selection has my jaw on the floor. Three 1st level spells? ONE 2nd level spell?
I really want to try something new (this one will eventually specialize in Dazing Acid Arrow) but it’s hard not to rely on the same few classics when my list is so barren. So many spells per day feels undercut by that fact. “I have so much spell I can cast. Look at all this spell I have.”
That said Kineticist is my favorite class and that’s just a more extreme version of the Sorcerer in some ways. So maybe it isn’t worth fretting over.
Query: Does ‘Knock’ work on an overly-sealed jar lid? If, could ‘Arcane Lock’ reseal the lid?
You’re a 5e guy, right? In that case, it depends on the jar.
“The object can be a door, a box, a chest, a set of Manacles, a padlock, or another object that contains a mundane or magical means that prevents access.”
In other words, Knock will only work if it’s a child-safety lid.