Don't Underestimate The Power of Battlefield Control Spells (in Pathfinder)

As I said back in Vulgar Displays of Power: Tips For Getting The Most Out of Your Magic in Pathfinder, sometimes the best spells to defeat an encounter won't do a single hit point of damage. Whether it's spells like haste, which allow the fighter and barbarian to crank out additional attacks and obscene amounts of damage, ray of enfeeblement which can leave a powerful foe sluggish and weak when they would otherwise have been a dire threat, or summon monster when you need temporary allies to help stem the tide of foes rushing toward the party, strategic use of magic is often what carries the day.

There is a particular kind of spell that doesn't get enough love in my view, though. Spells which can seem cumbersome and difficult to manage, but in the hands of a tactical player they can make all the difference. These spells are commonly referred to as battlefield control magics.

You should have surrendered. It would have been easier on all of us.

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What is Battlefield Control?

Since terminology can get confusing, a battlefield control spell is, generally speaking, any spell you cast that alters the battlefield. These spells typically alter terrain, create new hazards, or throw up boundaries that can be used to protect allies, reduce an enemy's mobility, and to generally shift the balance of how an encounter is going.

Examples generally work best, though, so here's a simple scenario to keep in mind.

The party is engaged in a battle in an opera house. Cultists with swords are fighting the party down on the stage, but they have allies up in one of the box seats who are firing crossbows down at the party. The swordsmen are a threat, but it's really the bolts that are causing the most harm. So the wizard, thinking quickly, casts wind wall. The wind wall blocks the crossbowmen's line of fire completely, rendering them a non-issue until they move to a new position, which could take several rounds. In that time the rest of the party can focus on the swordsmen, eliminate them as a threat, and then focus on a new enemy.

Just let me adjust this challenge a bit...

Whether you cast darkness so that your party has at least partial concealment from enemies that can't see in the dark, or create pit in a narrow hallway so that enemies don't have the ability to retreat without leaping over a chasm, battlefield control spells allow you to adjust the encounter so as to give your allies advantages and protection by altering the environment around them.

And it's not easy to do... but once you have the proper mindset, you can often tilt a battle with a snap of your fingers and a single, spoken word.

Tips For Getting The Most Out of Your Battlefield Control

The core concept of battlefield control spells (creating obstacles for your foes and benefits for your allies) is pretty simple. However, the same could be said when it comes to describing the basic mechanics of chess, and that doesn't mean it's an easy game to win. Which is why I'd recommend keeping the following in mind when it comes to choosing the best battlefield control spells for your party and your particular campaign.

- First, know your party members. Certain battlefield control spells are going to impact your party just as negatively as your enemies, so you need to be aware of what everyone's capabilities are. If the whole party has darkvision, for example, then darkness can be a great card to have up your sleeve for making sure the enemies are taking miss chances when they attack you. If only one or two party members can see in the dark, though, then everyone else is going to have problems. Obscuring mist is another good example, because unless the rest of the party can see what's happening (an oracle with blindsight, a rogue with fogcutter lenses, a cleric in a goz mask, etc.) then the cloud hampers you and your allies as surely as it does the enemies. This doesn't make it useless, but it does narrow its use significantly.

- Secondly, know the enemies you face. As with the darkness example, if your enemies all have darkvision then the spell doesn't actually help anyone. If you're fighting a dragon and you use obscuring mist to hide from it, its dragon senses will still allow it to pinpoint any nearby party members. Wind wall won't block spells or hurled boulders. Just as you need to know what won't hamper your party, you need to have some idea of your enemies' capabilities so that you can create effects that are actually obstacles to them. Otherwise you'll just be blowing through spells that aren't having an effect.

- Thirdly, consider the actions being taken, and the flow of combat. Throwing up a wall spell to block off a doorway is a great trick to have if a foe tries to escape, but you don't want to brick up the route prematurely in case your party members want to use it, or allies are trapped back there and can't join the fray. Additionally, throwing down pits might hamper ground-based foes who depend on melee, but if they can fly, or fire from further away, those same pits can be a problem for your allies. Don't just look at something in terms of whether it's a good move in this exact moment; ask how it will affect an encounter going forward.

- Fourth, and final for this list, remember that battlefield control spells are often there to waste an enemy's time, energy, and effort. If you throw up a wall, and half a dozen enemies have to spend their turns going over or around it in order to reach the party/to get new lines of effect so they can resume the attack, it can feel like you wasted your action. However, what you actually did was use your one turn to force multiple enemies to reposition themselves, buying your allies time. Because even if some enemies don't slip in your grease spell, or fall into your pit, the fact that the hazard is there means it's complicating the enemy's actions... and that's your job. Being the spanner in the enemy's battle plans.

Further Reading For Spellcasters

If you're a player who's looking to branch out with your spellcasters in Pathfinder, then consider some of the following reading to hit on the RP side of things, as well as the mechanics side!

- 10 Backgrounds For Your Spellcasters: Part of a short series I worked on, this list in particular is there to remind folks that just because you're a wizard, a sorcerer, a cleric, etc., that doesn't need to be all of what your character is. Flesh them out, and provide some context in order to make your character more memorable!

- 5 Tips For Playing Better Wizards: My 5 Tips series has been going on for a while, and I've tried to offer unique tips for as many classes as I can. If wizards aren't your thing, though, I've also covered sorcerers, clerics, bards, druids, alchemists, inquisitors, oracles, witches, summoners, and more!

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That's all for this week's Crunch topic! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio! Or if you'd like to read some of my books, like my alley cat noir novel Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well! And if you'd like to help support me and my work, consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron! Even a little bit of help can go a long way, trust me on that one.

Concealment is Worth Far More Than We Think (in Pathfinder)

There are dozens of different tactical considerations to keep in mind when it comes to an average combat in Pathfinder. From the effective range of an attack, to battlefield positioning, to which options an enemy is more likely to be resilient to, there are so many factors that it's easy to overlook one or two in the heat of the moment. For those looking to exploit an edge, though, concealment is something that doesn't get anywhere near as much love as it should.

As such, I figured I'd talk about it today.

Shhh... did you hear that?

What is Concealment?

The short version is that concealment is any effect that blocks line of sight, though not line of effect, to a target. It might be an enemy lurking in deep shadows away from party members who don't have darkvision, the blinding rain of a storm that hampers your ability to see, illusions that confuse where someone is or isn't standing, or something as simple as billowing smoke. Even heavy underbrush provides concealment to those lurking within it.

Which is particularly handy if people are throwing axes at you.

Mechanically speaking, concealment grants a 20 percent miss chance on attacks against a target (in melee their square has to be within an effect that provides concealment, and at range the attack simply has to pass through a square that provides concealment). And if you have line of effect to a target, but not line of sight, then they have total concealment, which creates a 50 percent miss chance.

If someone is standing on the edge of a fog bank so they're obscured but you can see them, that's 20 percent. If they're deep in the fog and you can't see them at all, that's 50 percent. Make sense?

Concealment does more than grant you a miss chance to attacks targeting you, however. An enemy cannot take an attack of opportunity against you if you have total concealment, for instance, and precision damage like sneak attack doesn't apply when total concealment is present. So even if you drop down among a team of human rogues, all it takes is a billowing cloud of smoke, or a blur effect, and their most potent weapon is immediately stripped from them. When you add in that concealment allows you to make Stealth checks, thus vanishing from an enemy's view and allowing you to surprise them on a subsequent round, concealment can be a potent weapon.

Getting The Most Out of Concealment

Concealment isn't exactly new to most players. After all, it's why so many of us play PCs who have darkvision; you don't want every single monster in the dungeon to get concealment from your archer when you go down into the underground tomb, after all.

Well, somebody's shooting at us. No I can't see who!

However, most of us only think of concealment as something we gain from a magic item like a cloak of displacement, or from temporary spells we activate in combat. Some of the most common methods of gaining concealment include:

- Smokesticks: A simple alchemical item, tossing one of these into a hallway, or in front of a door you just breached, can seriously impede enemy archers and spellcasters from picking out targets as you and your allies make your way inside.

- Eversmoking Bottle: A magic item that billows smoke until it covers an entire battlefield, this magic item is ideal for creating a literal fog of war to obscure your actions and deny the enemy the ability to accurately focus fire. Perfect when combined with abilities like Cinder Sight, or with magic items like a goz mask or fogcutting lenses.

- Darkness: A basic spell or spell-like ability, a single use of darkness is one of the easiest ways to ensure that you can move freely while your enemies without darkvision aren't so lucky. This doesn't often work against monsters and other creatures, but in settings where your primary foes are humans and other surface dwellers, it can be a life saver.

- Invisibility: Whether it's with vanish, invisibility, or other spells, rendering yourself unseen is perhaps the most common way to gain concealment.

There are two primary difficulties in creating concealment. The first is that not every method of concealment will work against every foe, so you need to be sure your strategy is going to function. The second is that you need to make sure your strategy will impede the enemy without hampering your allies.

And if you want to add a third difficulty in, creating concealment often takes your entire turn, meaning that you need to take your action to change the battlefield for the benefit of yourself and your allies.

Tactics, and Denying The Enemy Options

I've said it before, but too often players each want to be the point man. We all want to be the sword that strikes the death blow, or the arrow that brings down the enemy. However, denying the enemy the ability to harm you and your allies is just as useful, while often being far more important.

Now you see me, now you don't.

Take the scenario where a group of rogues have all ganged up on one party member. That party members doesn't have the actions to extricate themselves, and they'll draw several attacks of opportunity if they try. To make matters worse, there are precision archers focusing fire as well. Thinking quickly, an ally tosses out a smokestick. It fills the area with smoke, denying the rogues their sneak attack, but also allowing the ally to retreat without drawing attacks of opportunity. That automatically denies the enemy several d6 of potential damage, as well as other crippling effects that may go with the sneak attack damage. It cost the ally their action to provide that aid, but it provided a timely shield to a party member who may not have survived otherwise.

Alternatively, say the party cleric casts obscuring mist to grant their allies concealment against an enemy force while in a courtyard. An enemy spellcaster might summon up a wind to blow that concealment away, but doing so also ate up that enemy spellcaster's action, buying the party time they wouldn't otherwise have had.

These defensive measures aren't meant to be permanent... they're meant to waste the enemy's time and resources, while providing short-term protection to you and your allies.

Concealment will not solve all your issues, as there will be enemies with blindsight, tremorsense, true seeing, and no one trick is going to automatically work against every foe. The key is to make sure you have enough different strategies that no matter what you're facing you've got something you can pull out to help you and your allies snatch victory.

Lastly, at time of writing it's the 3rd Saturday of the month, which means that my new release from Azukail Games just dropped! So if you haven't had a chance to check out 100 Superstitions For a Fantasy Setting, take a moment to give it a look.

Like, Share, and Follow For More!

That's all for this week's Crunch topic! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio! Or if you'd like to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well! And if you'd like to help support me and my work, consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron! Even a little bit of help can go a long way, trust me on that one.