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wearesorcerer · 4 years

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The Best Spell to Use on an Opponent

Wish.

Obviously.

...but let’s say you don’t want to cast a spell that drains XP (3.5), requires a ginormous diamond (3.P), or can make you unable to use magic ever again (5e) and regardless of edition requires you to outthink the DM so as not to get screwed over.

I’ll give you five really good effective options.

#1: FIREBALL

This is a classic for several reasons:

Fire as an invention was (and still is) an incredibly useful tool for constructive, supportive, and destructive purposes. No other energy type provides quite as much utility.

It deals a lot of damage relative to its level.

It has a long range.

The size of its AoE is rather large, if you stop to think about it.

The sphere is the best AoE shape. (”Chain” isn’t an AoE or a shape, it’s a selection of targets within a distance regardless of shape.)

This makes fireball versatile. Sure, there may be more situationally appropriate choices, but if that’s a major concern for you then you probably want to play a Wizard. Wizards* invest in wands of fireball so they can get the versatility without sacrificing their edge (variety). We’re Sorcerers here: be the wand of fireball, save your gold for something more precious.

To cite a fantastic example, in Futurama: Bender’s Game, Bender ends an encounter with a red dragon by using his wand of fireball on the river upon which his party had been canoeing. By doing so, he provides them a wall of steam to conceal their escape. Voila: fireball acting as fog cloud/invisibility/any other sense-impairing spell. Lots of spells can be used in clever ways; fireball happens to be well suited for that task, as I’ve illustrated.

*In 3.x, at least. In 5e, Wizards prepare like Pathfinder!Arcanists, which is like getting to cast like a Sorcerer but being able to switch out your spells known every day. Easy? You bet. Already overpowering for a class that was one of the best classes in the game? Ya betcha!

#2: Many Enchantments and Illusions

We’re talking effective, not necessarily ethical.¹ When Enchantments and Illusions do not outright end/bypass encounters, they tend to set them up for something else to have an arbitrarily easy time doing so.

#3: Shatter

You can break things - like the ground beneath someone’s feet (if only in a small patch) or their weapons or whatever. This is one of the many uses for fireball, but as it has a harder time killing things (and tends to ruin what phat lewt you would otherwise get), it’s not even #2 on this list of “good spells that come to mind.”

#4: (Baleful) Polymorph

5e removed the supremely unethical aspects of this spell by merging it with polymorph and making the duration shorter. By doing so, a PC caster doesn’t risk damning themself to Tartarus for permanently changing someone against their will into an animal of a different phylum and in so doing erasing their minds. On the downside, now there’s not really a way of making most villainous mages from folklore and mythology, either.

(All of the humor from this comment is gone!)

Regardless of duration, though, turning an opponent into a small (but still visible), slow, and harmless creature (like a sloth) is a surefire way of ending a fight, whether or not you squish them. Turning them into something bigger (llama), faster (cat, dog, rabbit), sturdier (turtle), or more dangerous (dog, blue-ringed octopus, viper) is where people go wrong with this.

#5: Temporal Stasis (3.x only)

There are lots and lots of spells which impede movement; these are, in general, good choices. Most of them have some sort of drawback or common resistance.

Not temporal stasis.

Timey-wimey effects are few and far between in D&D because they’re almost always considered too powerful for one reason or another. Time stop doesn’t even work like it should: you can’t do anything DIO does with ZA WARUDO!

{Time crunchy noises.}

Why? ‘Cuz D&D makes it a way of giving yourself buffs or casting delayed blast fireball a few times and nothing else: in 3.x, you can’t affect other creatures period; in 5e, the spell ends if you try to do so. You can’t simply attack people (coup de grace them, throw knives at them, drop steamrollers on top of them and then pound them into the pavement) - or even move them down flights of stairs repeatedly. ‘Cuz that would be OP for a ninth level spell to do.

(Mind you, sleep is a 1st level spell. The main differences are that there are a few different ways to resist it [which are fairly common] and it has an HD/HP cap. You can still use it to coup de grace most monsters you encounter.)

Since such spells are rare, there’s not really a (Time) subschool or [Time] descriptor to resist and what monsters there are that have specific resistances to such effects are few and far between. (They’re usually high-level creatures themed around time magic [usually preventing time travel] and the resistances are inconsistent because of the lack of codification.)

Thus, you get temporal stasis flying under the radar. For some reason, trapping someone motionless in time (against which there is almost nothing that can resist) is fine and dandy, even if it’s permanent! You can do all of that and it’s only an 8th-level spell!

Now, you might be thinking that you could reproduce such an effect with imprisonment in 5e. You’re probably correct. The thing is, imprisonment in 5e is the equivalent of 3.x’s spell of the same name (the burial option, referencing one of the versions of how Nimue/Viviane/Morgan le Fay trapped Merlin) merged with maze (extradimensional labyrinth option; the other “hedged prison” descriptions also include versions of the Merlin myth) and binding (all of the other options). Of the three, it works most like binding outside of the general options - specifically the casting time.

In 3.x, imprisonment, maze, and temporal stasis don’t take a minute to cast; they only take a standard action (equivalent to an action).

That means you can use them in combat without much problem.

Imprisonment (3.5 version) includes temporal stasis in its effect. You might think that’s a good thing, but it’s not. Why would I waste one of my precious 9th-level spell slots (let alone a supremely rare 9th-level spell known) on a spell I could replicate with a spell one level lower (temporal stasis) and move earth (a 6th-level spell)? Yeah, that’s two spell slots, but y’know what I can use a 9th-level spell slot for? Wish. Metamagic. A lot of really useful spells, less situational spells. Za. Freakin’. Warudo. On top of all of that, there are ways to resist Abjuration effects; they aren’t common, but they exist.

Maze has the spell slot problem, plus it’s fairly easy to escape one (DC 20 Int check once per round or just wait 10 minutes) and not only are there ways of resisting both Conjuration effects in general and (Teleportation) effects specifically, but they are also more common than either of the other two options. (With two minor adjustments, Kobold Press made a “lesser” version available four spell levels earlier.)

Temporal stasis, by contrast, is a Transmutation effect. That school happens to be overly broad, so there aren’t many things with blanket resistances to it. There are plenty of things which resist (or are outright immune to) polymorphing and similar, but not time magic and not the Transmutation school. It’s main drawback is that both freedom and dispel magic can end it and these are listed as options, not as the only things which can do so. It also has a costly material component (5,000 gp of gem dust from diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires), whereas the other two do not. At 16th level, that’s a small price to pay for something that won’t have easy resistances. (Mind you, all three are affected by Spell Resistance, so it’s not like any of these are assured victory.)

Still, you want to put a villain out for good without killing them? This is how you do it. I’m not sure it’s any more ethical than straight-up murder, but in theory you could end it before eternity passes them by.

¹ I kinda wanna talk about how the typical approach to the subject of ethical vs. unethical casting (especially from semi- or non-casters) is the height of hypocrisy. Not entirely, though, but that’s likely the anxiety.

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ofsinnersandsaints · 5 years

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where do you run, chp. 2

AO3

Takes place during episode 71, where instead of Vex and Percy kissing while Keyleth replenished the ground, they have sex the night they defeat Vorugal which is unfortunate for Grog who, in this timeline, shares a wall with Vex.

For bed sharing reasons.

Grog stared at the wall and finally gave up on the sounds coming from next door stopping anytime soon.

When Scanlan made this mansion it would have made sense to give it soundproof walls, but nope, Grog could all too easily hear what was going on next door.

He left his room, glaring at Vex’s bedroom door as he passed it, and wound his way down the hallway to Keyleth’s door. When he knocked, he heard her say come in without even asking who it was.

She was sitting on her floor with books and glass jars surrounding her when he came in. There was a weird urge to lock the door when he shut it but he ignored it, putting his hands on his hips instead. “I’m here to cash in my favor.”

She looked up at him, a confused and distracted expression on her face. “I owe you a favor?”

He nodded and sat down on her bed. It wasn’t as big as his, but it would do for the night. “Yeah, remember the time you barged into my room in the middle of the night and then hogged the bed?”

“I think I remember something about that. It was yesterday, wasn’t it?” Keyleth smiled, shaking her head as she went back to whatever druid project she was working on, “Why? You hoping to hog my bed?”

“Vex is having sex in her room,” he told her dryly. “I don’t feel like listening to it.”

Her brows furrowed in a way which would have been adorable if he thought about her like that. Which he didn’t. “Who is she having sex with?”

“I assume Percy, but maybe gnomes are more her type.”

“And they’re being…loud?”

“She’s being loud, Percy I assume is laying back and thinking of Emon.” Keyleth laughed loudly at the joke, hiccupping as she brought her hand to her mouth and he considered it a personal victory to bring out that sudden burst of joy, especially considering how tough the day had been. “What are you doing?”

“Making healing potions,” she answered, laughter still in her voice as she held up one of the corked vials which had the same coloring as the stuff he routinely poured down all their throats. Not Keyleth though, he suddenly realized with a surprise. He couldn’t remember ever needing to save her. “Pike went down while we were fighting Vorugal, and if we’d all had healing potions we could have brought her back a little bit sooner, and maybe a little stronger.”

She was thinking of Pike, and there were fewer things which hit him closer to the heart than that. He was at a loss for words and cleared his throat, his eyes catching on her new prize. “Guess your fancy new stick doesn’t do everything.”

Keyleth followed his gaze to where the weird piece of wood was propped up in the corner. It was a twisty piece of magic and even he could feel the power emanating from it. “It doesn’t heal, just does damage,” she said, her mouth twisting in a kind of grimace as she looked at him. “Or at least it’s supposed to.”

Grog couldn’t help the grin, realizing his suspicions had been right. Down in the practice pit he’d pretended her earth elemental had injured him, and the bop she’d given him on his forehead had hurt, but she’d obviously realized the truth. They shared an easy smile, comradery and humor flashing between them. “The lightning was pretty vicious, those dummies didn’t know what hit them.”

“We’ll see how it does in a real combat,” she evaded. “Thanks, by the way.”

Grog looked down at her, and belatedly realized she must have taken a bath at some point.

When he’d seen in her in the foyer, with bits of dragon spread out at her feet, she’d been covered in blood up to her elbows. Once glance at most folk would take in their group and think he was the gruesome, violent one, but they vastly underestimated the pretty druid who would happily eviscerate a creature and then dissect it.

But now her skin was scrubbed clean enough he could count the freckles on her face, if he could count that high. Her hair was still a little damp at the ends and there was a clean smell filling his nostrils; the battered leather armor replaced by something dark green and soft.

“Thanks for what?”

“For the Spire.” Her smile was a little crooked as she got up, putting her hand on his knee to give herself leverage. He’d seen her create lightning, seen her pull it down from the sky to hurt the enemy, but this was the first time he believed she had it under her skin.

There was no other explanation for the sharp and electric sizzle from her skin touching his.

She sat next to him while he tried to find his balance. “You basically took on the Yenk all by yourself. If it hadn’t been for you tearing him in half, I might not have a Vestige.”

“I had to fight him,” Grog pointed out, still grumpy about how most of the fight had gone. “That fucker of a dragon kept flying off and I couldn’t get to him. You can turn into air and punch him-her?-in the face. I’m stuck on the ground.”

“But there’s a downside to magic, even with my spire,” she pointed out. “I can only use so much and then I’m depleted, but you? You can hit as many times as you want and nothing can stop you.”

“Unless, of course, I’m fighting something that can fly,” he argued.

“That’s why we’re a team,” she reminded him, bumping his shoulder with hers. “I’ll hit what’s far away and you can finish it off once I bring it down.”

It was pretty good plan and made him feel a little better. “Team badass.”

“Team badass,” she repeated with a grin. “And I haven’t forgotten you promised to teach me how to fight.”

Grog snorted. “I did, and as soon as we get a minute when we’re not actively running for our lives we’ll do just that.”

“Fair enough,” she conceded and they just… sat like that. Quiet and comfortable, hips nearly touching, for a full minute until she sighed.

“Well, I still have an hour left before I’m done with the potions,” but she didn’t sound excited about it. “You’re more than welcome to sleep, if you want. I just have to finish this batch or it goes bad.”

“I don’t mind staying up,” he assured her. “As long as you don’t moan while you do it.”

She turned to look at him, mischief in her eyes as she tried not to smile. “Oh, didn’t you know? That’s step three.”

“Very funny.”

Keyleth grinned, proud of her little joke, and slid back down to the floor to settle near his feet. She started grabbing ingredients and bringing them closer to her as she spoke. “You can’t blame them for it, can you? Vex and Percy, I mean. After everything we’ve been through the past couple of months, I get why they’re doing the now-or-never thing.”

“I enjoy a good now-or-never myself, but I at least have the decency to do it out of the house.”

“I’ve always said you were the most selfless one of the group.” She shifted on the ground, tucking one leg beneath her and stretching out her other leg, the nightshirt barely covered her thighs and he could see a couple of scars decorating her skin.

He tried to remember where she got them, but they’d been in so many fights it was hard to keep track.

“When we get back to civilization you can now-or-never all you want,” she was saying as she added some of the herbs to her metal bowl. Grog shrugged, uninterested in the prospect and not willing to wonder why.

“Heck, before all is said and done I might now-or-never. I want to at least once before we go up against Thordak.”

It took him a moment to understand what she was saying, and he wished he could see her face but she was staring down at her book. “Say again?”

Keyleth pushed her hair over her shoulder and shrugged, “I’m just saying if I’m going to die, I’d like to understand what the fuss about sex is before I go.”

“Don’t go to a bawdy house,” he advised her.

“Why,” she looked at him with a challenge in her eyes. “And if you say anything along the lines of my being too good-“

“No,” he interrupted, confused by her sudden flash of anger. “Who the fuck said that?”

Her green eyes narrowed at him for a moment before she let out a breath on a frustrated huff. “It doesn’t matter.”

Someone had obviously pissed her off and he’d ask her about it, but she said it didn’t matter, and he had to trust her on that. If someone needed their ass kicked, she could handle it. “I just meant, don’t find some rando because you don’t know if they’re going to be any good. If you’re going to die, the worse way to do it is after bad sex.”

“Duly noted.”

“Now that that’s settled, where are your boots?”

“I don’t know,” she went back to her potions. “I think I threw them over by the bed, why?”

Because she was clean and smelled good and they were talking about sex; he fucking needed something to do with his hands. “When we were trying to get the skin into the bag of holding you tripped.”

“I did?” she glanced up at him. “I don’t remember that.”

“It was your boots,” he told her, and got up to find them. “I figure while you’re making sure we don’t die, I’ll make sure you don’t trip in battle and make a fool of yourself.”

“Thanks,” and she sounded sincere about it. “I always forget you can do that.”

He looked at her, boots in his hand. “Do what?”

“Make things,” she answered as she lit one of her fingers on fire and held it up to the metal bowl. “It’s impressive.”

“You’re literally making life saving potions and lighting yourself on fire.”

Her eyes met his, “Yeah? And? There are a dozen people in my tribe alone who can do this. You’re the only person I know who can make boots.”

“You need to get out more,” he grumbled, searching in the bag of holding for his tools.

“You’re not wrong.”

Grog sat on the ground a few feet away from her and together they worked in silence for the rest of the hour. He was able to fix the broken sole easily enough, but there were a few holes on the sides, and the thread was kind of loose in spots, so he did what he could to patch them up.

She’d need a new pair sooner rather than later though.

“Done,” she announced and he looked up in time to see her rolling her neck and shoulders and when that little gesture got him going he knew he was in a world trouble.

It had just been a while, he told himself, a few months without a woman would do this to any red-blooded male. The fact he hadn’t once thought about biting Vex’s neck, and hearing her have sex right door had caused him irritation instead of arousal, didn’t mean anything.

Next to him, completely oblivious to his internal struggle, Keyleth stared at the mess on the floor. “Screw it, I’ll clean it up in the morning. Are you ready to sleep?”

There was a flash of leg as she stood up and he didn’t trust himself to say anything more than, “Yep.”

Grog got up and headed straight for the bed; when he’d been a kid he’d slept and lived in his clothes. It wasn’t until he’d moved in Pike and Wilhand that he learned some people slept in nothing, or next to, but he could never quite get to that point. If he anything happened, he wanted to be ready, so he wore his pants to bed and usually kept his axe under his pillow.

But nothing could get to them in Scanlan’s mansion so he’d left his weapons in his room, and had walked barefoot to Keyleth’s. The only thing he still wore were his pants.

“Are you okay with the lights off?”

“I can sleep in a hailstorm, Keyleth. It don’t matter to me.”

“I wish I was like that,” she complained, and the room went dark. He didn’t have the belt on so he couldn’t see anything but he could hear her footsteps, the movement of the blankets being pulled back, and the added heat of her body when she settled a few inches away from him. “It always takes me an hour to get to sleep after lying down and if it’s too quiet or too loud I can’t sleep at all.”

Grog was surprised by the complaint because he remembered the night before, he’d gotten into bed and within a few minutes he’d heard her breath even out. He’d been paying close attention, worried she’d have a nightmare or something, but she’d slept soundly until he’d gotten up in the morning.

“Uh, I have an idea.”

“Okay?”

The bed wasn’t big, so it was an easy enough thing to reach out and find her arm, and she was a wisp of a thing so he just pulled her across the mattress towards him. “You know, when you asked me not to jump you yesterday, I kind of figured the agreement was a mutual.”

“Keyleth,” he started, his words clear, if a little sharp. “If I jump you, it’ll be with the lights on.”

“Oh.”

“After Pike died,” the words caught, and his heart squeezed painfully in his chest. It would always be a hard thing to remember, how he’d lost her and almost hadn’t gotten her back. Grog cleared his throat and tried again for casual, “She had trouble sleeping when it was too quiet, she said it reminded her of the black, so she’d sleep on my chest and listen to my heart. It helped.”

Keyleth cleared her throat and while she was still stiff as a board next to him she didn’t pull away or try to wiggle back to her side of the bed. After a second, which he figured she used to talk herself in and out of it, she pressed against his side.

Grog sighed because she wasn’t breathing. “You’re making this weird, Keyleth.”

He heard her snort but she relaxed a bit against him. “I don’t know why you expected me to be anything else but awkward.”

“You can do this,” he deadpanned. “I believe in you.”

She huffed out a laugh and moved next to him. This was a really fucking bad idea on his part, but he’d seen the proof of her sleepless nights and it was only smart to make sure they were all ready to fight at a moment’s notice.

Yeah, he told himself dryly as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, sharing a bed with the druid, her head on his chest, was definitely for the greater good.

“G’night, Keyleth.”

She murmured her good night, her breath warm against his chest as her body slowly molded itself around him.

He could feel her body relaxing, muscle by muscle. The whole point had been to help her, but having her next so close calmed him too. Settled him.

Her breathing slowed along with his heart beats and he was half way to sleep himself when her arm moved against his side and then drape over his stomach.

There was only one conclusion to come to as his heart stumbled inside his chest: He was fucked.

#grog strongjaw #keyleth #grogleth #critical role #critical role fic

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