Pathfinder Slow nuke

[Balvenie]

Hello all,

I'm trying to come up with a non lethal way to well and truly debuff the opposition forces arrayed against my humble party, and Pathfinder has been kind enough to provide all sorts of fun tools to make that happen.  The idea that I want your feedback on is the slow spell as a nuclear option and my build is (roughly) as follows:

Race: Elf (old)
Class: Wizard (diviner) -for roleplay (and init) reasons
Int: 22 (with another 18 to move around if needed for a secondary stat besides con)
Relevant Traits: Magical lineage, and Metamagic master (Slow) (for a reduction of 2 in my metamagic application)
Relevant Feats: Spell focus/greater Spell focus, Spell Pen/Greater Spell Pen, Preferred spell (slow), Spell Secialization (slow), and Spell perfection (slow)
Meta Feats: Heighten, extend, persist, Quicken

We are starting at level 1 and at level 5 when he gets slow he can already extend it for free, later he moves up to persistent (free) and quicken (+2) and at level 15 applies quicken for free with spell perfection.

Long story short at level 15 he can cast Quickened Persistent Slow spontaneously from a 3rd level slot, with a +4 to dc and spell level, a +12 to spell pen, and requiring two saves to defeat.
Since it is spontaneously cast I can easily bump it up a spell level for extend, or any other suggestions that you have.

I'd love to get some advice on possible complimentary metamagics or other spells of possibly greater utility.
Please keep in mind that my goal is to debuff, and control, not to cast "Fine Pink Mist"

[CaptRory]

Here's my standard reply to "How do I play a wizard?" posts:


Spell Casters can do a lot to help their party.

Direct Damage is the least efficient. That doesn't mean you NEVER want to take a damage spell, but you really need to weigh damage which is something anyone can do with the stuff only spell casters can do. A wizard focused on damage is like playing a glass cannon in a party full of more durable guns of smaller caliber.

Buffs and Debuffs: In my opinion, buffs are fine but debuffs are too hit and miss. Debuffs usually have saves attached where the target gets away mostly untouched. Any really good debuff usually falls more into the next category "Battlefield Control" because it is so reliable and devastating. Buffs make the party better at what they're already good at or shore up a weakness. Example: Monks can't wear armor but need to get into the thick of combat. Throw Armor on the monk, and he's a LOT harder to hit, at least at low levels. Or hit him with Enlarge Person! Reach + Size Bonuses is a very effective melee combatant. If you know you're going up against one really tough opponent, you might find some good debuffs to sling around. It isn't usually worth it to make one of twelve identical monsters blind or slow or weak. But slowing The Boss might be worth it if he has few henchman or they're really weak compared to the party.

Battlefield Control limits the number of enemies your party has to deal with at any given time. Six heroes can't fight the entire Orcish Legion in one go. Using spells you can trap groups of enemies in webs or behind walls. You can hit groups of enemies with save or suck or save or die spells and then fight whoever makes their save. If you drop Sleep on a group of eight enemies, and four of them fall asleep, you've cut the number of guys you need to fight IN HALF. It doesn't last forever, but you can take advantage of the temporary number advantage. One spell just turned the entire battle around for your party and it didn't do any damage! Glitterdust is a great spell in that regard. It reveals invisible stuff in the area, and it blinds anyone it affects. Cast is on a group of guys, if half are blinded kill the other half then deal with the guys who can't see!

[Balvenie]

Do you then feel that in this case, where foes have two chances to fail what should be a pretty high save DC, that its too all or nothing for a 3rd level slot as a swift action? 

As to slowing 12 henchmen being inefficient, if they are  trivial threats then I agree and that's where I would wave them away with a pink mist spell, if they are not trivial then slowing them makes them trivial.

At 15th level my Int should be around 30 (25 base, +6 int headband, maybe a tome or two by then) the save on this spell would be DC27; assuming that the pathfinder charts (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/monsterCreation.html) are indicative of what we will be facing then a CR 15 critter with a strong will save has a +18 will save or a 55% percent chance of making its save the first time, with the iterative second save (from persistant) if I did my math right leaves each enemy at 69.75% chance of failing one or both saves.

I'm not planning on playing a one trick pony, and I'm not looking for one spell to rule them all; but what I am looking for is a nice trick that can be pulled out to apply favorably in many situations.  This trick uses 2 traits and 3 feats that will benefit no other spell, but leaves me with extend, persistant, and quicken, all of them solid metamagics, applicable to other spells.  I also lose nothing from my daily casting since I can prepare any spells I want and convert any that are not useful currently into Slow.

To be honest I agree with your points but I'm not sure the "standard reply" has anything to offer the question asked, I still get to pull all the BC shenanigans, I still get to buff my party, I as a player have to be begged to prepare more than 1-2 direct damage spells, my most powerful spell at first level is wall of meat, I mean enlarge the Barb.  I'm really just trying to see if I've blinded myself to shortcomings or restrictions that I hadn't looked into.

Thanks for the reply, I did carefully read it a few times (and will read it again) to make certain that I Grokked it.

[CaptRory]

I'm busy preparing for a Christmas Party tomorrow so I didn't have time to sit down and look at it closely til now and I can't really get into the weeds.

I checked the language on Slow, so long as you can hit multiple guys with it it works for me. And it targets the Will Save which tends to be pretty low for most martial guys who benefit in charging up and hitting you with spiky implements and sharp bits. If you're using the minion concept where they only have one hit point but are in every other way almost as good as other guys then slow certainly helps. Most GMs give minions special rules to keep them from being mowed down easily by things that automatically do damage to keep them from being trivial, so AoE Slow Bombs make a lot of sense there.

Just don't be surprised if the GM busts out things that are resistant to slow if you become too much of a one trick pony. You might want to read the Gentleman's Agreement in my signature.

[Balvenie]

I believe that I've read your Gentleman's agreement in the past, possibly on another board. Its definitely a nice way of phrasing the social contract necessary for a fun game.  As for the DM resisting one trick I'm a wizard I have hundreds plus I'm very upfront about what I'm building and why. 

Thanks for the thought, if you have anythings else to proffer please let me know, I'm still thinking that there might be a better option for a 3rd level spell to spam, or for feats to modify it.

[zugschef]

Slow is a weak effect/spell. Casters can still cast and bruisers can still charge. It's short range on top of that. Since it's a 3rd level spell it's unlikely to deny an opponent his iteratives (cause he's got none), too. Not worth a spell slot imo.

[Balvenie]

Those effected get to choose between a standard action or a move action, meaning one swat or one move (in addition to their swift action) a caster could still cast but I hope he is where he wants to be since my hasted teammates are running roughshod over his defenders.

The intent isn't for it to be a one size fits all win button its to be a one size fits most way to reshape the battlefield Action Economy into my side's favor. There is no friendly fire, no list of enemies immune to its effects (excepting golems/raksashas and anything else with immunity to magic) reach is easily obtainable via rod or metamagic...

I can think of lots of reasons for it to work, why doesn't it or what would work better, or make it work better?

Specifically,
can it be made to effect more than CL+4 enemies, at greater than 30 foot distance to eachother?
can it be made harder to resist than +4DC and doubling the requisite save?
Is there a better way to selectively debilitate a medium large group of foes at range without hampering my own interests?

Remember I still have all the other spells available yes I know that sleet storm doesn't allow a save but it also hampers my vision and keeps my team from accessing an area

[zugschef]

If you want to mess with action economy, drop down the hammer and cast stinking cloud.

(Btw: As said, slow doesn't prevent an opponent from charging.)

[Balvenie]

I had not previously noted that you could charge while being limited to 1 standard action, thanks for pointing that quirk out to me.

linked for anyone to reference http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Charge

On the other hand, anything dangerous enough to worry about being charged by still has to deal with all the assorted mage anti-melee defense options (mirror image, fly, invis) as well as, at higher levels, the fact that this is only a swift action for me.

I agree that stinking cloud is the better BC spell but it is more limited in that my team and I have to not want to be where I place it, also it causes visibility problems meaning that we can't tell if the enemy within the cloud cares about being there or not, nor what they are doing about it. 

I had considered the umbral/tenebrous/shadow grasp line to even further ramp up the suck but they wouldn't leave space for persistant and quicken. 

Thanks Zugschef

[CaptRory]

Is there a feat that makes spells invisible? Invisible Stinking Cloud? Invisible Storms? XD

[Balvenie]

There is in cityscape (3.5) but not in pathfinder

I also liked invisible obscuring mist for sneaky guys who just don't want to be seen

[CaptRory]

Any tricks for adding damage like lightning then turning it into sonic and causing deafness or any of the half-remembered crazy things I recall?

[Balvenie]

There are some great new debuff options if I want to deal damage however, if I stick with non-injurious methods, its a little more limited. No dazing, thundering, sickening without damage.

[CaptRory]

Wellllll... you only said you didn't wanna go all Pink Mist, adding scratch damage for a debuff isn't really bad. I think the BoED had options for making spell damage non-lethal if you wanted to play around with that and see if the DM would allow it.

[Balvenie]

An option that I hadn't considered until you brought it up was to go merciful spell, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.  An Evoc specialist could admix to target any element a great number of times per day, and could apply merciful, dazing, and quicken to a fireball at 15th level...

but it's still a character based on a damaging spell.

Can you think of any ways (pathfinder) to add minor (preferably non-lethal) damage to a slow spell? or another possibly lower level spell that has a very good AOE/multi target effect?

A possible additional benefit, my DM has ruled that heighten spell makes whatever spell slot you cast a spell from the level of the spell for the purposes of saves; Fireball (3rd)+ Quicken (+4) cast from a 7th level slot is a 7th level spell for purposes of saving throw and spell interactions. This does not let me freely apply heighten or to treat my free metamagics as though they were actual spell level bumps, it only counts the spell slot actually cast from.

[CaptRory]

I can't really help you too much, my games never lasted long enough or got high enough level to get that far into the weeds in character development. My most ambitious was a wizard designed around never being deprived of spellcasting based around Geometer condensing spells down to one page to get them tattooed all over his body with that feat that lets you memorize specific spells without a book to make wizard eyes to read the tattoos on his back and such.

[Balvenie]

That's pretty neat, I've never played a game that went that long either but the DM promises to make this go into early epic. The only thing I know for sure is that he's drawing heavily from an adventure called the runeforge for part of this game.

I'm playing an old elven scholar who's nation was crushed while he was a young promising student, he received a "prophetic" dream that he would become a great hero/return his lost family/<insert happy ending here> as long as he waited for the proper moment.  So he spent decades enslaved, then as a wandering vagabond, or whatever paid the rent (and the research) waiting for his "moment"

This is the reason for him being a diviner, he wants more answers than he has, and why he's first level (just waiting for opportunity).  He's going to be fanatic about the adventure once it begins and moderately insane about protecting his companions since they are prophesied (in his head) to be the key to his <happy ending>

My storyteller requested that I play a wizard because he wanted to see what kind of special hell creative solutions I could put him through.  He's very used to blaster casters, and has a hard time believing that I intend to buff/debuff and battlefield control as primary tactics.

[CaptRory]

Oh, wow, you are going to absolutely crush his game with a smartly played wizard.


I wish I could join you. Miles the Cleric of Sun Tzu (Trickery+Travel Domains) would have your back.

[Balvenie]

Nah no crushing, my wizards are force multipliers, not one man wrecking balls.

nice though on the clr o'Sun Tzu he's got a nicer red book than that Mao fellow

[CaptRory]

Hahaha ya~  =-3 Thanks. 

The GM let us make our own gods up if we wanted and I wanted a cleric of war with Trickery and Travel. I ended up writing a bunch of stuff up about him as "The Old Master" when I made my own campaign setting. (The War Gods decided to take over, but they were more gods of slaughter and duels and such. The Old Master was a man who threw in on the side of everyone else and beat them at their own game by elevating warfare to the next level and at the end was elevated to godhood.)