Author Topic: Guide to Buffing in Combat (D&D 3.5)  (Read 37292 times)

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CannibalSmith

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Guide to Buffing in Combat (D&D 3.5)
« on: May 20, 2008, 06:02:46 AM »
Note: this is a WIP. There aren't that many spells that do this, it seems. Comments welcome.


Guide to Buffing in Combat

Introduction

We all know that buffing and bashing is the way to dispense hurt. But sometimes it is the opposition that gets to buff and catch you. What to do? This guide concerns itself with finding ways to become unattackable for a few rounds so you can get those buffs up and running and is aimed at casters who buff and slug: gishes, druids, clerics, and the like.

Spells

Obviously, area control spells help here, but they target the opposition and thus may fail due to saves, spell resistance, or immunities. And that's not your style anyway. Wall spells are too high level, cannot be dismissed, and are too easy to break.

Cleric

Druid
  • 2nd
    • BurrowSC allows you to put 30 feet of earth between you and them. Naturally, this works only on ground level in non-paved areas against non-burrowing enemies. Can you cast spells while burrowing? Ask your DM.
  • 4th
    • Land WombSC allows you to hide the whole party and explicitly allows you to cast spells. Naturally, this works only on ground level in non-paved areas against non-burrowing enemies.

Wizard
  • 1st
  • 2nd
    • Invisibility still leaves you vulnerable to area attacks, but is still very good for not getting hit. Beware of Glitterdust!
  • 3rd
    • Fly works in open spaces against landbound enemies who don't have ranged attacks.
  • 4th
    • Resilient Sphere is the power shield spell. Only disintegration and teleportation can get you. Still want to drop Evocation?
  • 9th

Other

Wild Shape
Shape into a dire badger as a standard action and burrow downwards as a move action. Congratulations, you just put 10 feet of earth between you and them. Naturally, this works only on ground level in non-paved areas against non-burrowing enemies. Can you cast spells while burrowing? Ask your DM.

Bead of Force
Master Chief ripped D&D off! Drop this thing at your feet, take some damage, and enjoy up to 10 minutes of invulnerability. Moreover, it's big enough to shelter the whole party!

Boots of Temporal AccelerationMIC
Time Stop for two rounds.
« Last Edit: May 24, 2008, 06:43:55 AM by CannibalSmith »

Squirrelloid

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Re: Guide to Buffing in Combat (D&D 3.5)
« Reply #1 on: May 20, 2008, 09:18:44 AM »
There are two types of buffing in D+D.
(1) Pre-combat buffing.  These are the things you cast that will last your entire adventuring day.  Access to such abilities doesn't really start until 3rd level or so, when you can get 3+ hours out of hour/level spells, and 3 hours is generally enough for most adventures (especially at low levels).

By 10th level, 10min/level abilities become pre-combat buffs, especially in combination with extend spell (or an extend stick).  As extend sticks are cheap, its the recommended option.  They can be used as such even earlier if you have forewarning of combat or expect combat in the near future.  Even at 6th level a 10min/level spell lasts an hour.

(2) In-combat buffing.  This is generally a mugs game, unless you seriously need to cast the spell that makes you immune to whatever your opponent is doing, or have everything on a quicken stick (re:rod) to not waste actual turns doing so.  And seriously, if you have a quicken stick, you should probably be burning it throwing more offense at your opponent.

These spells have really short durations, but if you have some immediate forewarning (rogue comes back and tells you there's monsters up ahead or scry-and-die tactics) you can pile these on before charging around the corner/teleporting in.

Spells of this type that are often worth casting in combat include spells that give you a decisive mobility advantage (Expeditious Retreat at low levels, Fly or Greater Invisibility at mid levels, possibly Etherealness or Ghostform at high levels) and spells that provide blanket immunity to attack types (Protection from Evil for immunity to mind-affecting abilities, for example).

Wizards
Example #1 Type spells:
1hr/level
False Life
Mage Armor
Protection from Arrows
Greater Magic Weapon
Darkvision (should you not have it from racial abilities)
etc...

10min/level
Stoneskin
Magic Circle vs. X
etc...

Type 2 Spells:
Shield
Expeditious Retreat
(Greater) Invisibility
Fly
etc...

Abusing Buffs
Arcane casters have a few tricks for getting free long-lasting buffs out of otherwise short durations effects.  Persistent spell is the logical culprit, but the spell level adjustment is hard to swallow.  Which is where Metamagic Effect comes in (courtesy of Incantatrix).  Free metamagic applied after you cast the spell for a spellcraft check you're going to make, because you invest in it.

Divine casters have access to Divine Metamagic, which with a healthy load of turning attempts (acquired via nightsticks of course) can give you loads of freely persisted spells.

Playing a buffer
Buffing is not a stand alone strategy for arcane casters.  The point of arcane buffs is to make adventuring life vastly more survivable than it would be otherwise.  You'll want to compliment this with an offensive option, like save-or-lose spells.

For clerics, buffing makes them credible combat threats and can improve the combat performance of most of the party.  Quicken Spell is incredibly useful here as you'll want to be taking your attacks as well as getting off spells like Prayer or Righteous Wrath of the Faithful (i think i have that name right), Quicken Sticks or Divine Metamagic:Quicken are solid choices.

Clerics also benefit a lot from GMW and MV, which let them spend vastly less gold on their armor and weapons than otherwise.  And with persistible buffs like Divine Power and Righteous Might, an optimized buffer cleric outperforms most melee builds with full casting power.  Buffing is a way of life for a cleric, and a very good one.

Buying Time to Buff
In case the party gets caught with its pants down and really needs time to buff, there are some options.  Prismatic Sphere or Wall, Wall of Force, Wall of Stone (and possibly iron, although its not actually as useful), are all quite useful in this regard.  Leomund's Tiny Hut can be useful, especially against an opponent who wanted or needs to use ranged attacks (see also, Wind Wall).  Many spells can also seriously delay opponents, buying you time (although buffing may not be your best use of that time), such as Solid Fog, Black Tentacles, Web, or even Grease.  And a clever Illusion can possibly accomplish any of these goals, and Invisibility Sphere can hide your entire party. 

Simple movement spells can let one character stay away from creatures lacking those movement modes (or slower at them), and thus buy time to buff, but this doesn't help the party, just the enabled character.  Spells like Greater Invisibility also fit here.  Timestop similarly lets you buff yourself.  Or you can just planeshift yourself to a plane where time flows so fast a whole day passes in a fraction of a round, rememorize spells, cast buffs, planeshift back, and you can teleport to where the battle is before the next round ends.  But that's just silly.

Of course, the best way to buy time to buff is to be forewarned about what challenges you'll be facing.  This ranges from everything to a Gather Information check to divination spells the day before.  Clever players with access to sufficiently awesome divination spells should have a pretty good idea of what they'll end up facing, approximately where they'll face it, and can plan appropriately.
« Last Edit: May 20, 2008, 09:41:32 AM by Squirrelloid »
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Prime32

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Re: Guide to Buffing in Combat (D&D 3.5)
« Reply #2 on: May 20, 2008, 09:33:05 AM »
What, no Time Stop?
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Squirrelloid

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Re: Guide to Buffing in Combat (D&D 3.5)
« Reply #3 on: May 20, 2008, 09:39:38 AM »
What, no Time Stop?

Geesh, I'm giving examples here.  I suppose Timestop deserves a note... Of course, at that point planeshifting to the place where 1 day = 6sec on the prime is also a reasonable suggestion...
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CannibalSmith

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Re: Guide to Buffing in Combat (D&D 3.5)
« Reply #4 on: May 20, 2008, 09:57:47 AM »
Three hours are not enough. There are 24 hours a day. And I want this guide to be about when you're caught with your pants down (literally!). I don't want this guide to be about Persistent Spell. Or Quicken Spell.

Squirrelloid

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Re: Guide to Buffing in Combat (D&D 3.5)
« Reply #5 on: May 20, 2008, 10:09:11 AM »
Three hours are not enough. There are 24 hours a day. And I want this guide to be about when you're caught with your pants down (literally!). I don't want this guide to be about Persistent Spell. Or Quicken Spell.

Hey, I gave you a whole 3 paragraphs on buying time to buff.  (One of those options is 'go to a plane where I can spend a day preparing', but that's D+D spellcasting for you).  And Quicken Spell is a viable method of dealing with being caught with your pants down.

Of course, the point of pre-buffing is you *don't* get caught with your pants down.
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ninjarabbit

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Re: Guide to Buffing in Combat (D&D 3.5)
« Reply #6 on: May 20, 2008, 12:32:36 PM »
Another thing you have to worry about is having your buffs dispelled. There are several ways of dealing with this:

1) Get you caster level superhigh so you'll almost never be able to be debuffed

2) Counterspell the dispels, usually with a ring of counterspelling

3) Be able to rebuff quickly, time stop, planeshifting, and the ability to cast quickened buffs help here

Shadeseraph

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Re: Guide to Buffing in Combat (D&D 3.5)
« Reply #7 on: May 20, 2008, 03:05:15 PM »
Another thing you have to worry about is having your buffs dispelled. There are several ways of dealing with this:

1) Get you caster level superhigh so you'll almost never be able to be debuffed

2) Counterspell the dispels, usually with a ring of counterspelling

3) Be able to rebuff quickly, time stop, planeshifting, and the ability to cast quickened buffs help here

I like dispelling buffer for psionic buffs.

Great thread, BTW ^^.
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