Pathfinder Is Still Bad

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Wed Mar 04, 2015 9:12 am

TMNT vs the Shredder had all the turtles together, though Leonardo deals the final blow it's only after all the turtles attacked Shredder together:

Various superhero team covers often imply a team of heroes fighting one strong villain, though what's actually inside the covers can vary.

A duo of protagonists vs one stronger villain occurs often enough:

There's also your "Team vs Boss" fights where the team loses to show how strong the boss is

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Wed Mar 04, 2015 4:16 pm

OgreBattle wrote:
But you can't just climb the CR ladder, because each CR jump increases defense and offense across the board - so a CR+2 is a decent miniboss, maybe, but a CR+4 one-shots the fighter, dodges almost every attack and effect, and whatever gets through is piddling compared to its giant pile of HP.
"and thus bounded accuracy solves the problem!"

Just to clarify my thoughts... I'm not saying there shouldn't be creatures with "must be this tall to ride" numbers. I'm saying that the official monster selection does not contain good "boss monsters" to use in order to have a good encounter that the party has a real chance to win, and that the official guidelines to match monster numbers to CR precludes having monsters that work well as boss monsters.

In 3.x/PF, assuming normal levels of optimization, a CR=level monster will usually be fighterized to death in a single round (perhaps with the help of an attack from a 3/4 BAB class, or the casting of a weak spell or whatever. In Pathfinder, it's bad enough that I'd expect the party not to suffer any meaningful loss of ressources against a single CR=Party Level opponent.

Using monsters with slightly higher CRs (1-2 above party level) will usually either force the party to burn up non-insignificant ressources or to focus-fire the monster to one-round-kill it. Alternately, they can burn some HP just taking it down the fighter way.

Using monsters with a moderately higher (3 above party level or so) extend the monster's life expectancy into the multiple rounds (as in, two or three) and will usually require burning some meaningful ressources. But that's still not enough to seriously challenge the PCs without lots of prior attrition. They are credible sources of minor attrition though.

But at CRs that are 4 or 5 above party levels, the monsters gain a significant boost over the party. The higher defenses means that the monster will last numerous extra rounds (in the 8-10 range in my experience), the extra offense it packs means that the party will take casualties (thus prolonging the fight) and you're at a very real risk of a TPK.

My point is that you need monsters between "lives two rounds, require spending a single highest-level slot and some HP to overcome" and "very probable TPK." They need higher HP but not higher AC, they need ways to mitigate save-or-dies that aren't fuck-off immunities, they need DPR that's somewhere between "piddling" and "ALL THE HP"...

Within the D20 paradigm, that probably means they're never going to be appropriate as mooks/speedbumps. And that's fine - armies made up entirely of Hill Giant Chiefs don't make thematic sense anyway.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Wed Mar 04, 2015 4:40 pm

We had a couple threads on multi-part boss monsters, where the boss was mechanically a number of creatures occupying the same square. There were issues, but it did address action economy, not dying to a single SoD, and not being off the scale with the PCs. I tried it out a few times and it worked okay. I know Koumei wrote up a few of them, but I don't know if she got to put them into practice.

Insomniac · Post by **Insomniac** » Wed Mar 04, 2015 5:11 pm

CR=Level is supposed to be a trivially easy encounter that expends 25 percent of resources or less.

If the Party is

Divine Caster
Physical Combatant
Arcane Caster
3/4 Utility Caster

It might be as easy as the Wizard casting a long duration buff on somebody before combat, another buff spell before combat or within it, somebody like the 3/4 caster buffing himself and others (Perfect time for a bard) and the Divine Caster being another Physical combatant, buffed by himself and others, whomping on somebody. A CR 10 monster individually should have no chance against a 4 member party of Druid, Wizard, Ranger, Bard for instance.

Theoretically, 3.5 and Pathfinder say that a CR 10 character should be about a 40 to 50 percent shot to beat the CR 10 character individually.

Has Pathfinder even tried with Boss Battle rules. 4E tried with Solos and largely failed, but hey. They at least gave it a shot.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Mar 05, 2015 12:38 am

The thing about multimonsters that rubs me the wrong way is that they're completely PC/NPC asymmetrical. Yes, pretending a bunch of dudes are actually four dudes stacked on top of eachother in a trenchcoat adds the actions and survivability needed for a boss, but now the orc barbarian king the party is trying to murder is built on a completely different structure than the orc barbarian king that is in the party.

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Thu Mar 05, 2015 2:14 am

DSMatticus wrote:The thing about multimonsters that rubs me the wrong way is that they're completely PC/NPC asymmetrical. Yes, pretending a bunch of dudes are actually four dudes stacked on top of eachother in a trenchcoat adds the actions and survivability needed for a boss, but now the orc barbarian king the party is trying to murder is built on a completely different structure than the orc barbarian king that is in the party.

I am pretty sure the very concept of a "boss monster" demands assymetrical design to make it function in any remotely balanced way.

If it makes you feel better though, you could call it a template with +2-4 CR but +8-10LA. That sort of shit happens all the time in the rules already anyway, so is as legit as any other monster design in the books.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Thu Mar 05, 2015 3:37 am

DSMatticus wrote:The thing about multimonsters that rubs me the wrong way is that they're completely PC/NPC asymmetrical.

This is a legitimate issue, but I don't think it's a fatal one. Since letting a PC play as a multi-part creature isn't (AFAICT) actually overpowered, but is a lot of extra pen-and-paper work, you could think of it as an alternate progression available to anyone but which PCs simply have no real incentive to take. Or you could restrict it to the sorts of beasts nobody really expects to have in their party. Or you could lampshade it with fluff by having all the bosses be empowered by the same antagonistic phlebotinum source.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Mar 05, 2015 3:49 am

Seerow wrote:I am pretty sure the very concept of a "boss monster" demands assymetrical design to make it function in any remotely balanced way.

DSM wrote:D&D is really big on binary results that fuck dudes up. Either you have an appropriate immunity/counter or you lose. Either you make the saving throw or you lose. Either you avoid the full attack/ubercharge or you lose. 4v1 is never really going to make an interesting fight in D&D, because 4v1 is just an exercise in iterative probability. There's no incremental progress or back and forth or thought, it's just full-on hardcounters and RNG bullshit.

D&D has problems with boss fights specifically because it is so overwhelmingly binary. Charm monster either removes you from the fight or does absolutely nothing. There is no intermediate result where people aren't removed from the fight but are one step closer to being removed from the fight.

Now imagine a hypothetical game where charm monster has different tiers of effects based on something like CAN. If you hit someone below your level with charm monster, their CAN is probably low enough that you'll get the full effect. If you hit someone above your level with charm monster, their CAN is probably high enough that you'll only apply a penalty to their CAN against future effects. And suddenly now you have the ability to move bosses towards defeat incrementally. Similarly, the boss has a higher CAN than you, so his single target attacks are downright crippling, and his multitarget attacks are still very dangerous. He gets more out of his actions than you because he is more powerful, so the fact that he's getting less of them is not as problematic.

If your game isn't fundamentally built on rocket launcher tag, boss fights aren't nearly as problematic.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Thu Mar 05, 2015 3:53 am

I meant the "bounded accuracy" as a joke about how 5e tried and flopped with their attempt, but it's still a good idea.

We had a couple threads on multi-part boss monsters, where the boss was mechanically a number of creatures occupying the same square. There were issues, but it did address action economy, not dying to a single SoD, and not being off the scale with the PCs. I tried it out a few times and it worked okay. I know Koumei wrote up a few of them, but I don't know if she got to put them into practice.

I could see such a system being an extension of D&D3.5's sunder rules. Cutting off the heads of a hydra and arms of a kraken already uses the sunder mechanic. So a dragon's wings and a beholder's eyestalks is treated as 'equipment'* that grants various effects like flight and magic rays, and like fighting a hydra losing various body parts also deals damage to the monster as a whole. Against weak foes that you can strike down with a single blow you wouldn't bother with sundering.

*Which in turn is like a "build a monster" mechanic with level appropriate parts/equipment to equip to your base monsters.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Thu Mar 05, 2015 5:17 am

The insane power increases in D&D leveling could actually solve the PC/NPC divide for Boss Monster templates. If you are supposed to be worth 4 of you in 4 levels then a template that made you function as 4 versions of you in the same body could just be a 4 or 5 level "Boss" class. A prestige class that anyone can take that makes you a boss monster. If the class doesn't advance your attributes or attacks in any really meaningful way but does increase your action economy and give you separate hp pools that can be attacked then there wouldn't need to be a divide. A PC could even take the class. It wouldn't advance spellcasting so the best you could do is be 5 levels behind the spellcaster you could have been with more actions which doesn't seem broken at all.

I also like the rules of being able to punch off Beholders eyestalks and Dragon's breath attacks. Even being able to punch a werewolf out of werewolfism seems pretty genre appropriate.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Mar 05, 2015 8:33 am

There's a prestige class called 'Big Boss' in the spoiler below inspired by Dean's above comment. It's now outdated, but I've kept it as is for the sake of the conversation which followed. Also this is the wrong thread to be posting and updating a prestige class. The most recent version can be found here.

Big Boss
"Most villains would make a witty one-liner at this point."

Requirements: You must have given at least one villainous monologue. And you should probably be like level 5 or some shit, I don't know.

Hit Die: d4
Base Attack Bonus: Half
Good Saving Throws: None
Skill Points: 2 + Intelligence Bonus
Class Skills: I so don't fucking care.

1 Crawling in My Skin
2 Take One for the Team
3 Two of a Kind
4 Extra Move Action
5 This Is Getting Crowded

Crawling in My Skin: Choose any monster whose CR is no more than your character level (or CR, if that happens to be more appropriate) minus three. So if you are a wizard 5/boss 1, that's any monster whose CR is 3 or less. Monster in this case means "does not have class levels," but otherwise go wild. Your DM can worry about advancement and whatever bullshit templates you want to apply. Whenever you gain a level, you may choose a new monster or advance/template your existing one to match your increased CR limit.

The monster you chose lives inside you, either metaphorically, spiritually, or literally. It doesn't really matter, the point is that a copy of the monster you chose shares your space (if you chose a creature larger or smaller than you, it uses your space instead of its own) and acts on your initiative completely under your control. Note that the monster does not actually physically exist except as a part of you, so it cannot provide cover or do any other bullshit like that and that for the purposes of being targeted by effects or being within an area of effect the two of you are a single creature. The person choosing targets decides whether they would like to affect you or the monster. If the ability they're using specifically allows them to target the same creature twice, they may choose differently each time. If the effect is environmental or doesn't have a clear controller, you may choose who is affected by it. If the person targeting you is unaware of your dual nature, determine who is affected randomly. Note that if your monster generates an aura or similar effect which excludes it (or to which it is immune), and that aura would be harmful to you, you can have the aura "target" the monster in order to avoid damaging yourself. The reverse of this is also true.

While you and the monster take your own standard and swift actions, the two of you share a single move action. If you forfeit that shared move action, only one of you may give up your standard action and take a full-round action instead. Any action that would move you also moves the monster and vice versa; similarly, any effect that is currently limiting the movement of either of you limits the movement of both of you. Charm, dominate, and other effects that control a character's mind and actions do not bleed through from you to your monster (or vice versa). If you fail a save against dominate person, your monster will continue to act as though it were an undominated you. Because that is what it is. Ordering you to attack your monster or vice versa is a self-destructive or suicidal order.

You have total access to the thoughts, memories, and senses of the monster, because it is actually just you, and they are your thoughts, memories, and senses. So long as one of you is alive, the other can recover hitpoints from rest (but not magical healing) even if they are "dead" at -10 hitpoints. Magical healing will resume working once the character's hitpoints are above -10.

Take One For The Team: As an immediate action, you may redirect an attack or effect targeted at you to your monster or an effect targeted at your monster to you. This includes the ability to change which of the two of you will be affected by an area of effect ability. Your monster does not gain this ability and cannot spend an immediate action to do this; only you.

Two of a Kind: This ability is identical to Crawling in My Skin, except the new creature living inside your face is an exact copy of you. You are now three creatures in one. Like the monster, your copy does not have its own move action and must share with the rest of you. Your copy is a valid target for Take One For the Team shenanigans. Your copy does not gain any of this class's abilities, but it does get the class levels.

Extra Move Action: You gain a second shared move action, except it may only be used to perform non-movement related tasks or traded (along with a standard action) for a full-round action.

This Is Getting Crowded: This ability is identical to Crawling in My Skin; you gain a second monster which need not be the same as the first. Like the first monster and your copy, it does not have its own move action and must share with the rest of you. Like the first, your second monster is a valid target for Take One For the Team shenanigans.

Something 5/Big Boss 1: Your big boss levels are worthless for your personal awesomeness, so you are CR 5 and have a CR 3 pet inside you. That's an EL of 6.

Something 5/Big Boss 2: You're still CR 5. Your pet is CR 4. That's between EL 6 and 7.

Something 5/Big Boss 3: You're still CR 5, but there are now two of you. Your pet is CR 5. That's between EL 7 and 8.

Something 5/Big Boss 4: You're still CR 5. There are still two of you. Your pet is CR 6. That's between EL 7 and 9.

Something 5/Big Boss 5: You're still CR 5. There are still two of you. Your pet is CR 7, and there are now two of him. That's between EL 9 and 10.

We're consistently undershooting, but not by much, and I don't think it's much of a stretch to expect handpicked combinations to hit the top ranges.

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Thu Mar 05, 2015 11:38 am

Can you still swap your Standard actions for Move actions? I probably wouldn't consider it a huge deal (better dip for speed than monk/barb tho) but you did specify that the extra dudes don't get Move actions, so...

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Mar 05, 2015 1:10 pm

The idea behind the shared move action is that:
1) Picking up a level in Big Boss doesn't immediately mean you have twice as much "free" movement for no reason.
2) No, you can't strap three full-attacking closet trolls to your back and instantly gib anyone you can reach.

Yes, you can use one of your characters like they were a better version of pounce. Yes, you can use your move action and one of your standard actions to duplicate spring attack/shot on the run. Yes, if you spend your whole round repositioning you can have 90ft* instead of 60ft*. Yes, if you spend your whole round running you can cover 150ft* instead of 120ft*.

*Actual speeds may vary.

No, you can't use one of your characters like they were a better version of pounce and cast on top of that. That would make this a crazy good dip. No, you can't double cast and double move. Sonic the Hedgewizard is stupid. No, you can't full-attack 2-4 times. Find some interesting standard action abilities instead of trying to instagib everyone within reach.

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Thu Mar 05, 2015 2:40 pm

You could always borrow the lair concept from 5e ... let characters construct a lair which gives them a ton of bonus HP and the ability to swat away most non damage effects, lets say until he is half HP.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Thu Mar 05, 2015 5:15 pm

I think regarding multiboss movement shenanigans, the comparison point should be the mounted combat rules, where rider and mount both get their full action allotment, but only one can actually use their Speed, and using that speed fiat prevents either from Full Attacking. I don't see why the components need their actual Move actions abridged under that model.

I'm also not a fan of the 'not-quite-dead' effect. I quite like the idea of running into Grendel (or whoever) after you've hacked off their arm (or whatever) and fighting them as a lower CR encounter, and that's implausible under this model. Tentatively, I'd say that Restoration affected a dead component as though it were Raise Dead, and Regenerate affected one as though it were True Resurrection. So it's easier to get back dead parts than dead friends, but not necessarily trivial.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Mar 05, 2015 10:59 pm

Preventing the Big Boss from taking multiple full attacks is not supposed to be conditional on movement, it's just supposed to be a thing all the time. Condensing a bunch of full attacks into a single character would be both very brutal focus fire and a very boring fight. I am deliberately disincentivizing four archers/three closet trolls plus a teleporting outsider.

As for 'restorection,' either way a cleric or a well-stocked supply of magical healing is going to get Grendel's arm back within a day (immediately under restorection). If Grendel doesn't have access to those things, the not-quite-dead effect means he can grow his arm back through natural rest in about a week (half that with complete bed rest). I'm going to posit that any downtime sufficient for Grendel to regrow his arm naturally is also enough downtime to get his hands on a restoration+magical healing.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Thu Mar 05, 2015 11:25 pm

I really like it. I think we could do 3 versions of the same concept for Monsters, Fighters, and Mages that all had minor variations on the same underlying mechanics. If the Mage path of Big Boss lets you keep your HP in an arcane focus (like a staff or orb), a powerful magical nexus floating above you, and a familiar then that could be a slightly different flavor of the same mechanics of having 4 different HP bars and sets of actions.

angelfromanotherpin · Fri Mar 06, 2015 12:23 am

DSMatticus wrote:Preventing the Big Boss from taking multiple full attacks is not supposed to be conditional on movement, it's just supposed to be a thing all the time. Condensing a bunch of full attacks into a single character would be both very brutal focus fire and a very boring fight. I am deliberately disincentivizing four archers/three closet trolls plus a teleporting outsider.

Well, under the mounted combat comparison, the teleporting outsider also isn't a concern because teleporting outsiders can only carry 50 lbs with them and barring tiny character shenanigans, the rest of the stack wouldn't make it. Restricting full attacks as hard as you do creates an incentive to make all stacks very casty. I don't think we need that incentive.

As for 'restorection,' either way a cleric or a well-stocked supply of magical healing is going to get Grendel's arm back within a day (immediately under restorection). If Grendel doesn't have access to those things, the not-quite-dead effect means he can grow his arm back through natural rest in about a week (half that with complete bed rest). I'm going to posit that any downtime sufficient for Grendel to regrow his arm naturally is also enough downtime to get his hands on a restoration+magical healing.

You may posit that, but there's no reason it has to be true. The availability of helpful 13th-level clerics is one of those things that is extremely setting-dependent. Under your model, Grendel invariably has his arm back in short order; under my model, you can have that happen, but you can also plausibly have big bosses questing for the magic to restore their missing parts.

Vnonymous · Post by **Vnonymous** » Fri Mar 06, 2015 12:55 am

This is an aside, but I've always found it interesting how DnD makes being tiny so much more worthwhile than being huge.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Mar 06, 2015 2:33 am

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Well, under the mounted combat comparison, the teleporting outsider also isn't a concern because teleporting outsiders can only carry 50 lbs with them and barring tiny character shenanigans, the rest of the stack wouldn't make it.

I do not like any solution where grabbing a monster with single person teleport-esque effects does not give you single person teleport-esque effects. If you pick blink dog, you can dimension door.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:You may posit that, but there's no reason it has to be true. The availability of helpful 13th-level clerics is one of those things that is extremely setting-dependent. Under your model, Grendel invariably has his arm back in short order; under my model, you can have that happen, but you can also plausibly have big bosses questing for the magic to restore their missing parts.

Restoration is a 4th level cleric spell, not a 7th. I'm pretty sure Grendel can get his remaining hand on a level 7 cleric within a week.

It's really no different than exactly what you'd expect. D&D doesn't have permanent injuries, so if you stop paying attention to someone for any span of time they'll be back exactly as they were.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Fri Mar 06, 2015 3:51 am

DSMatticus wrote:I do not like any solution where grabbing a monster with single person teleport-esque effects does not give you single person teleport-esque effects. If you pick blink dog, you can dimension door.

Your preference is frankly weird to me. It's just straight-up contrary to the mechanic being a refluffing of multiple creatures standing near (or on) each other. The object is not to portray a creature who simultaneously is each of their component creatures, it's to portray a specific creature by selecting components that collectively produce the effects you want.

I also don't know if you could have chosen a worse example than a fucking Blink Dog to make a case for contagious teleportation. A blink dog has a ridiculous mobility effect and is only CR 2 because its offense is strictly bullshit and it specifically can't be used as a delivery system for badder dudes. No matter how casual you are when you slap an enormous buff on that ability for... reasons, you are still slapping an enormous buff on that ability. At that point I start to wonder what other abilities you intend to buff or debuff, and if you intend to write them down somewhere.

Restoration is a 4th level cleric spell, not a 7th. I'm pretty sure Grendel can get his remaining hand on a level 7 cleric within a week.

Possibly, but if you mount Grendel's severed arm on your wall, he doesn't have the 'remains' of the fallen creature and needs the true rez effect rather than the raise effect. I guess boss monsters could also quest for their missing parts directly, that's pretty cool too.

It's really no different than exactly what you'd expect. D&D doesn't have permanent injuries, so if you stop paying attention to someone for any span of time they'll be back exactly as they were.

D&D has no permanent injuries if you are at a sufficient level. But characters can be killed before they have access to Raise Dead, maimed before they have access to Regenerate, and disintegrated before they have access to True Rez.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Mar 06, 2015 5:27 am

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Your preference is frankly weird to me. It's just straight-up contrary to the mechanic being a refluffing of multiple creatures standing near (or on) each other. The object is not to portray a creature who simultaneously is each of their component creatures, it's to portray a specific creature by selecting components that collectively produce the effects you want.

Let's talk about your example, Grendel. Let's say Grendel is an outsider with a standard action teleport. Grendel's arm does not have a standard action teleport. Should Grendel be able to teleport? Does his arm fall off if he does? How the fuck do I make fiendish Big Bosses if all the components aren't one creature for the purposes of teleport?

angelfromanotherpin wrote:I also don't know if you could have chosen a worse example than a fucking Blink Dog to make a case for contagious teleportation. A blink dog has a ridiculous mobility effect and is only CR 2 because its offense is strictly bullshit and it specifically can't be used as a delivery system for badder dudes. No matter how casual you are when you slap an enormous buff on that ability for... reasons, you are still slapping an enormous buff on that ability. At that point I start to wonder what other abilities you intend to buff or debuff, and if you intend to write them down somewhere.

Being able to move and full attack is not the end of the world. Yes, it's very good, but cleric archers exist and can take their full attacks against anyone within 110ft. And if you grab a blink dog at Big Boss 1, that is basically the only thing you're getting for it. Big Boss is worthless for your personal awesomeness and blink dogs are worthless except for dimension door. So you gave up a level to grab a short range free action teleport that you're basically going to use like pounce except with less downsides and no charge bonuses. Seriously, that's fine. I would rather you do that than go Big Boss 5, strap four competent archers together, and have them rain full attack death on something.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:D&D has no permanent injuries if you are at a sufficient level.

Big Boss has a prereq of level 5. Sure, NPC's have access to whatever resources you say they do, but we are starting pretty damn close to "sufficient level."

But if you want opponents who are wildmen and can't scrounge up clerical healthcare (probably a fairly accurate description of Grendel), then I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader. Because I don't really care if Grendel can regrow his arm in a week. You've traded levels in a real class to be four dudes, so you're going to get those dudes back just like the wizard gets his spell slots back. Your individual components are squishy compared to other people your level. You're going to lose parts of yourself pretty often.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Mar 06, 2015 7:28 am

Here is a thread with a new version. I cleaned it up a bunch, covered some things I missed the first time, moved up the extra move action a level so it doesn't encourage you to be a caster to avoid having a nearly useless 3rd level, added a filler feature for level 4 to replace it, and added a fortitude save vs perm-death for each component (as well as the restorection mechanic). It is now possible to remove Grendel's arm.

My method of handling the action economy stayed.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Mar 06, 2015 7:37 am

Seems like you could solve most of the "boss monster" problems people have by allowing creatures to auto-pass any save they's make on an 8 if they weren't flat footed or bloodied.

You'd want to make the save DCs on "save or be inconvenienced" spells like slow easier than the DCs on "save or lose" spells like hold monster, but I submit that you'd want to do that anyway.

-Username17

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Mar 06, 2015 7:45 am

If you did both of those things together, I would find that a workable solution. Sort of. It would still be a problem that you had to either prepare bullshit like slow or not have anything to use against a boss monster. It'd be better to just have save-or-get-fucked spells downgraded into thematically similar save-or-get-mildly-inconvenienced-but-with-a-DC-bonus spells as you use them, so it's one spell slot you can use to either wreck a dude or piss off a boss. But that takes a lot of fucking work, because it involves finding all the spells and writing extra bullshit into them.