Vulgar Displays of Power: Tips For Getting The Most Out of Your Magic in Pathfinder

When most of us think of magic in fantasy RPGs, we tend to think of the big, sexy spells. How an evoker can reduce waves of enemies to ash with a well-placed fireball, or how a witch can cast lightning forth from her hand to blast an entire hallway full of enemies with her wroth. And while there is no denying that a hammer is certainly a part of your toolkit as a spellcaster, it's also important to remember that using the right tool for the right job tends to get your better results.

Even if that tool may not be as fun to use, or doesn't come with the same satisfaction as the arcane equivalent of ramming a chainsaw into your enemy's face.

Just remember, every part of the band needs to be there for the song to work.

This week I'm going to discuss magic, spells, and strategy. As with all other aspects of the game, keep in mind that these are just tips for getting the most return for your efforts. You should always play the game your way, but remember to do so with your eyes open, and with full knowledge of your available options, and the overall impact of your choices.

Shall we begin?

Hit Points Are The Least Important Part of Combat

For folks who've been through their share of combats, this statement may sound strange. After all, hit points are the most important thing in combat for most of us, because when the enemy runs out, the combat is over. So ensuring that you hurt the enemy as much as you can, as fast as you can, should be the best use of your resources, right?

Sometimes that's true. But if you're a spellcaster, ask yourself this; what spell do you have that can compete with the barbarian in a full blood frenzy when it comes to raw hit point damage? What spell can you sling that is deadlier than the well-placed stab of the rogue's sneak attack? Can your conjured storm of ice end a life more quickly than the swashbuckler's darting blade?

Most importantly, can you keep pace with those characters when you have a very limited number of spell slots, and their sword arms can go for round after round, battle after battle, without tiring?

Don't even get me started on these holier-than-most tactical nukes.

What you can do as a spellcaster, and what martial characters cannot do (barring some very unusual builds and special combinations) is alter the rules of the fight entirely. Through magic you can twist the very nature of a conflict, stacking the odds in favor of your party's side and putting the enemy at a disadvantage they may not be able to recover from.

That is a deeper use of magic, but it is one that often requires a shift in one's thinking. Moving from the mind of a warrior, whose goal is to advance and slay, to that of a general whose tactical acumen allows their allies to achieve victory through the opportunities they created.

Return on Investment For Your Actions

When it comes to tactics in RPGs, there's been a lot of discourse over the years. From what I've seen the most common general categories for offensive spells are; battlefield control, buffing, debuffing, and dealing damage. While it's true that the first three groups may not have the same visceral satisfaction as the fourth, they often achieve far greater results with significantly fewer resources expended.

Additionally, damage-dealing spells are (unfortunately) among the easiest for an enemy to minimize, or counter entirely.

Foolish adventurers, your powers cannot harm me!

For example, take the following scenario. An enemy is flying above the party, putting her out of melee range. She has spell resistance, making her difficult to hurt directly. If a spellcaster has the option to sling a lightning bolt at the enemy, or to give her close combat ally the ability to fly to charge after her, which is the better option?

Let's look at the lightning bolt. There's no attack roll necessary, but the caster does have to try to get through the enemy's spell resistance. Assuming the caster penetrates it, the target then gets a Reflex save to take half the damage. Even if the enemy doesn't have abilities like Evasion (which would reduce the damage taken to nothing on a successful save), or energy resistance (either naturally or from a prepared spell), that's two obstacles to jump over just to hurt them. At the maximum damage of the spell (10d6), you have a potential of 60 damage, but you are much more likely to get something like 30-40 damage on a halfway decent roll.

Now, let's see what would happen if the spellcaster instead opted to give the fighter or the barbarian wings.

This spell doesn't require any sort of save, and usually there's no need to overcome SR, so the chances of the spell not taking effect are practically zero, barring allies with unusual races or particular magical equipment. So, we've removed the chance of the spell just not working, and the action feeling wasted. Then, on their turn, the ally launches into the air, charging the enemy. Assuming they hit, and they are built to deal damage in melee combat, it's likely they are going to deal at least as much damage as the low end of that lightning bolt when they strike. If they're built for charging, they might deal as much or more as the high end of the spell. However, they are now in the air, and able to harry the enemy. This means the enemy is no longer free to shoot arrows or throw spells from on-high at will, which significantly hampers their ability to harm the party. And if the flying party member is able to take a full attack action on the enemy, their average damage output is likely to be far more than what any individual spell could deal... and they can do this every round until they're either knocked out, or the fly spell fades and they fall back to the ground.

One Small Pebble Can Lead To BIG Ripples

The right spell, used at the right time, can completely change the course of a fight; the key is to alter the rules of engagement in a way that takes away the enemy's capacity to harm the party either partially, or completely.

Never underestimate the effect of a little pencil in the wrong place.

For instance, take the frustrating tactic of an enemy with invisibility. Under normal circumstances the enemy vanishes, and this allows them free rein to move all over the battlefield, while also giving them advantages to strike unsuspecting foes. Something that can be devastating if that enemy also deals sneak attack damage, and members of the party don't have an ability that lets them avoid being caught unawares.

If you cast glitterdust in response, you have stripped away that enemy's cloak of invisibility, and nullified this tactic, along with its advantages. Even better, you have a chance to blind them, which gives your allies a field day when it comes to avoiding that enemy's attacks of opportunity, and getting their own precision damage in on the incapacitated foe. This one spell can take a fight that may have been lethal, and throw a monkey wrench into the enemy's gears, taking away their sucker punch and spitting in their eye to boot.

Even better, it ignores spell resistance.

The examples are as varied as there are enemies you could fight, or situations you could find yourself in. If an enemy depends on a diseased bite, or a poisoned dagger, then delay disease or delay poison is more than worth the spell slot it takes to prep, since these spells offer hours of protection against any and all threats from these avenues. This could be as small as avoiding a temporary penalty from a snake bite, or as game-changing as a drow ambush parties' knockout darts being rendered null and void, causing them to waste actions attempting to use a tactic that simply won't work. If a party is squaring off with a red dragon, then a communal protection from energy spell will prevent dozens to over a hundred of points of damage to party members by the time the beast goes down. If an enemy depends on summoned devils to rush in and maul the party, then all it takes is a simple protection from evil spell to render the summoned creatures' claws and maws completely harmless.

Whether it's sapping an enemy's strength with ray of enfeeblement, or hampering their ability to cast, run, and fight with adhesive spittle, or just making a member of your party immune to an enemy's sneak attack by casting darkness or displacement (depending on if the ambushing gang of ninja can see in the dark or not), these are spells that can affect the entire course of a fight, and which can bring big returns.

Sometimes, Though, You Do Need a Gun

A lot of players might read this and think I'm saying you should never play characters who have damaging spells because that's just a waste of time. Quite the contrary, I recommend spellcasters always have at least a few spells that can actually hurt the enemy. Because, to continue the metaphor, sometimes a hammer is the right tool for the situation.

I said, "I cast fireball."

The thing to remember is that even when deploying a blasting spell, it's important to match them up against targets they're going to have the biggest effect against.

For an example, we all know swarms take extra damage from area of effect spells. So if there's a room full of swarms, that's the time to drop your burning hands and fireball spells. If you're fighting something like a fire giant, who has a weakness against cold spells, that's when frigid touch becomes a risk worth taking, or cone of cold becomes a combat ender.

It goes deeper than just matching the template or element that hurts the most, though those are important considerations. You also need to ask which saves the enemy sucks at, and to match your spells accordingly. As an example, trying to use fire breath on an ambushing party of rogues, monks, or even a mid-level familiar likely isn't going to go well, as they tend to have high Reflex saves, and Evasion, which means the spell is likely to do nothing meaningful. But hitting those same targets with something that calls for a Will save, or a Fortitude save (such as phantasmal killer or stinking cloud respectively) could end up with a completely different result!

These things are important to remember for all spellcasters, but they become doubly important if you are opting to focus on blasting magic as your main schtick. Because if you need to crack off one spell every turn, you're going to burn through your daily allotment at a double-quick pace, which might leave you gasping by the time you get to the end of a dungeon and are down to ray of frost and some odds and ends from your feats and bloodline powers.

You Can't Un-Pull Your Trigger

The key thing to remember with spells, all spells, is that they are basically bullets in a gun. You've only got a limited amount of them per day, and once they're gone they're not coming back until you can have a lie down and a Gatorade. So any time you're going to cast a spell, ask yourself if it's necessary. Does this threat level require you to draw power from the aether and smite the foe before you? Or are you just going to take a quick breather while Slanagor the Slayer and Madrong the Bloodthirsty mop up?

Don't worry. We've got this.

Understanding your threat level, and conserving your energy, is key to strategic application of magic. For example, if you are all fighting a mindless undead with a plague aura, then destroying it before anyone can fail their saves against its disease is an imperative. However, if said undead is flanked and hemmed in by the paladin and the monk, both of whom have high armor classes and who are immune to its disease, then it doesn't actually pose that much of a threat to the party. So in this circumstance, there's no need to call down the wrath of the heavens to destroy it.

You still can, of course, but as the title suggests, doing so turns into a vulgar display of power. Because it might look cool, and feel satisfying, but if you're going to pull the trigger on a shotgun blast when you've only got a few rounds in the chamber, it's important to make sure the enemy is worth that firepower. Because if they're not, there might be a corrupt champion minotaur around the corner that would make a far meatier target.

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