Me and a friend were coming up with a build for a campaign we will be playing soon, and we had this crazy idea. I just want to know if this could be better or if anything could interfere with it.
Druid 10 (Circle of the moon)/ Rogue 2 with Mobile feat and assistance of a level 5 bard (Don't know if bard subclass would affect this)
Setup: Turn one, cast longstrider on self and have the bard cast haste on you.
Turn 2, cast spike growth in a preferred area and use a bonus action to wilds into an air elemental
Turn 3, grapple creature with attack but don't get into it's space, and then drag it with a bonus action dash into the spike growth, air elemental flying above the ground and dragging the creature along below it.
Turn four, dash as an action, dash as a bonus action, dash as a hasted action, run in a circle, profit.
If I'm calculating this correctly, air elementals have a fly speed of 90, plus 10 longstrider, plus 10 mobile is 110. Triple dash plus haste makes the speed 1760, and then speed is halved because of grappling rules. That's 880 feet of movement inside of the spike growth, which is 2d4 piercing per 5ft of movement. I believe that that is 176d4 piercing, or a minimum of 176, average of 440, and a Max of 704. Is that totally insane, or does this work?
Spike growth actually doesn't specify that it is the creature's movement or that the movement is in the creature's turn. Is the forced movement rule bit a general rule that I missed?
Just looked it up, you are correct spike growth doesn't specify so that works. I don't see anything specific that makes that not work. That said 3turns of setup is a steep price to pay for that damage since the opponent has free range to mess with you (damage you to break concentration on spike growth which can't be recast while wildshaped for example). And you have 1pc doing nothing but setup and another caster that is using their concentration.
Not to mention, 4 turns of setup requiring concentration from 2 party members is pretty poor economy. In 4 turns you could probably have killed/mostly killed the enemy through traditional combat.
Combat that lasts longer than 5 rounds is a rarity, and you don't want to go with a strategy that locks down 2 party members for that long no matter how much damage it does.
The 10th level Circle of the Moon Druid casting Spike Growth combined with Wild Shaping into an Air Elemental is one of the easily abused and over powered combinations in the game and it only takes one round to set it up and a second round to grapple and drag your opponent into the area of the Spike Growth spell. You're adding extras to it which isn't always a good idea, especially when those extras take as many resources to set up as they take. It's a very effective combination.
While it works, on top of what others have suggested, you're riding on a lot that you'll succeed the grapple check on the first attempt, if the creature has a higher initiative than you, you're riding on making that check twice. You blew a 2nd and 3rd level spell, no big deal at 12th level though. You and the Bard are both concentrating and it's unlikely you're actually going up against one creature; at least it is for my players. So now you have to worry about making your concentration checks if you get hit.
But, say it worked out and you got the job done, your movement is actually only 880, reduced to 440 due to forcefully moving your enemy. I think you applied your haste twice. You have a hover speed of 220. ((90 Base + 10 Longstrider + 10 Mobile)(2 Haste)). Movement: 220 A: Dash -> 440 BA: Dash -> 660 HA: Dash -> 880
Because you were more interested in knowing if the damage was correct, cut it in half and it will be. Math was correct, like I said, I think you just applied haste twice.
Overall it would be a very cool move to lay down and execute, especially if nothing goes wrong. It's worth attempting once, but I wouldn't hang your hat on using it all the time. At that level most creatures are going to survive it; even with your two other allies wailing on it from the start and the bard hitting it after finishing with haste.
/e I didn't figure in attempting the same execution the following round, which would very likely kill the creature, but you then again need to succeed another strength contest check.
Me and a friend were coming up with a build for a campaign we will be playing soon, and we had this crazy idea. I just want to know if this could be better or if anything could interfere with it.
Druid 10 (Circle of the moon)/ Rogue 2 with Mobile feat and assistance of a level 5 bard (Don't know if bard subclass would affect this)
Setup: Turn one, cast longstrider on self and have the bard cast haste on you.
Turn 2, cast spike growth in a preferred area and use a bonus action to wilds into an air elemental
Turn 3, grapple creature with attack but don't get into it's space, and then drag it with a bonus action dash into the spike growth, air elemental flying above the ground and dragging the creature along below it.
Turn four, dash as an action, dash as a bonus action, dash as a hasted action, run in a circle, profit.
If I'm calculating this correctly, air elementals have a fly speed of 90, plus 10 longstrider, plus 10 mobile is 110. Triple dash plus haste makes the speed 1760, and then speed is halved because of grappling rules. That's 880 feet of movement inside of the spike growth, which is 2d4 piercing per 5ft of movement. I believe that that is 176d4 piercing, or a minimum of 176, average of 440, and a Max of 704. Is that totally insane, or does this work?
I'd have to double check, but most movement = damage spells don't count forced movement (such as a grapple drag)
Noooooooooo!
Spike growth actually doesn't specify that it is the creature's movement or that the movement is in the creature's turn. Is the forced movement rule bit a general rule that I missed?
Just looked it up, you are correct spike growth doesn't specify so that works. I don't see anything specific that makes that not work. That said 3turns of setup is a steep price to pay for that damage since the opponent has free range to mess with you (damage you to break concentration on spike growth which can't be recast while wildshaped for example). And you have 1pc doing nothing but setup and another caster that is using their concentration.
Fair enough. I suppose there are far more sustainable builds than this, but I just wanted to know if this amount of damage was correct
Not to mention, 4 turns of setup requiring concentration from 2 party members is pretty poor economy. In 4 turns you could probably have killed/mostly killed the enemy through traditional combat.
Combat that lasts longer than 5 rounds is a rarity, and you don't want to go with a strategy that locks down 2 party members for that long no matter how much damage it does.
The 10th level Circle of the Moon Druid casting Spike Growth combined with Wild Shaping into an Air Elemental is one of the easily abused and over powered combinations in the game and it only takes one round to set it up and a second round to grapple and drag your opponent into the area of the Spike Growth spell. You're adding extras to it which isn't always a good idea, especially when those extras take as many resources to set up as they take. It's a very effective combination.
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While it works, on top of what others have suggested, you're riding on a lot that you'll succeed the grapple check on the first attempt, if the creature has a higher initiative than you, you're riding on making that check twice. You blew a 2nd and 3rd level spell, no big deal at 12th level though. You and the Bard are both concentrating and it's unlikely you're actually going up against one creature; at least it is for my players. So now you have to worry about making your concentration checks if you get hit.
But, say it worked out and you got the job done, your movement is actually only 880, reduced to 440 due to forcefully moving your enemy. I think you applied your haste twice. You have a hover speed of 220. ((90 Base + 10 Longstrider + 10 Mobile)(2 Haste)).
Movement: 220
A: Dash -> 440
BA: Dash -> 660
HA: Dash -> 880
Because you were more interested in knowing if the damage was correct, cut it in half and it will be. Math was correct, like I said, I think you just applied haste twice.
Overall it would be a very cool move to lay down and execute, especially if nothing goes wrong. It's worth attempting once, but I wouldn't hang your hat on using it all the time. At that level most creatures are going to survive it; even with your two other allies wailing on it from the start and the bard hitting it after finishing with haste.
/e I didn't figure in attempting the same execution the following round, which would very likely kill the creature, but you then again need to succeed another strength contest check.
Thanks, this was a big help. Brought up some things we didn't consider