How is Slumber/Restless Slumber?

[Cleftin Twain]

I really like the idea of these hexes and really wracking my brain on trying to make a build that focuses on this type of thing but am wondering if they are even worth using in the later game?

[SmallGespenst]

based on my experience with Ember, it's either great, or a wasted action. I feel like they'll fall off extremely hard against tough targets, but shutting down one target is very useful in a battle, maybe not focusing a build on them, but they're valuable too to have

[Venator]

They are very powerful at all difficulties, but the problem with that skill is it's incredibly micro intensive. Your party will auto attack enemies that are asleep, so you have to constantly make sure they're not doing that. Especially annoying when your're trying to coup de grace and a summoned skeleton decides to hit the target and cancelling your coup.

There's a cheese strategy against tough single enemy fights. You would start by slumbering the target, and reloading until it lands. After it lands, move all your chars away until combat ends. Save the game, and send one dude in to coup de grace. Keep reloading until that lands as well.

[Cleftin Twain]

Originally posted by Venator:

They are very powerful at all difficulties, but the problem with that skill is it's incredibly micro intensive. Your party will auto attack enemies that are asleep, so you have to constantly make sure they're not doing that. Especially annoying when your're trying to coup de grace and a summoned skeleton decides to hit the target and cancelling your coup.

I use TBM so that isn't really an issue. 😁

[Karf]

It's literally a coinflip. High Risk high reward since taking out a troublesome foe early on can really help in certain battles but wasting a turn in combat can kill you as well.

[There is no Mango]

Well, you can choose to do an action that will either work or not at all.
And later in game most probably not at all, and you wasted your turn.

Now, you might say it is the game. But fights in the game are fast (talking about turn base mode in core as for my experience).
If you are facing tough enemies, they will reap apart the characters they will come in contact with.

Seelah full buffed as a pure tank will usually be down in the very red after just one round of a tough opponent. These opponents have usually around 8 attacks per round.

So you need to kill them fast, there is no tanking strategy etc.
So can you really spend 3 rounds spreading hexes around + cackle when you could have rained hellfire on enemies instead and bring them half their life down or more through a few spells quickened, empowered, heightened etc ?

The saving throws of enemies are just too often successful to have the chance to play tactically.
At least, my spell penetration with Ember is high enough for spells to be reliable, why bother with curses that take a whole round then.

Even with DC pushed as much as possible for hexes, they are marginally efficient in a fight (except for the beginning of the game of course) .

[Karf]

I won't completely agree to that. Camillas Hex for example stays relevant, even saving throw gives you a timewindow with lower ac on the enemy which is often more than enough for accurate damagedealers like Delamere to get the kill for me.
But yeah, I tend to use slumber rarely later on as well. Too risky and you just have such a big ammunition depot with abundant casting.

[Draken]

It's not a coinflip. It's like any other 'save or die/suck' spell.
Anytime you have an enemy with low will save, that is not immune to sleep, Ember can take out one of those enemies per round. She can even keep up other hexes like 'protective luck' or 'evil eye' while doing so with cackle.

Compared to a regular disabling spell it has the following advantages/disadvantages:

Pro:
- The hex DC grows with witch-levels so it automatically scales with leveling unlike normal spells.
- You have unlimited uses of what is basically an instant kill spell.

Cons:
- You can't boost the DC with feats that boost spell DC. (at least I don't think you can)
- You can't make it a swift spell or use other metamagic on it.

Though there are items that rise the enemies DC against will saves or increase the DC of your hexes.
And the auto-attack AI actually stops attacking sleeping enemies if there are still awake enemies around. So setting slumber to auto-cast should work reasonable well with low will save enemies around.

So yes, the slumber hex has it's place. If Ember can't kill your enemy with a hellfire ray it doesn't cost you anything to check their will safe and determine if try sending them to sleep might not be the better course of action. It can also be really useful to stop enemies from casting nasty spells or activating abilities you don't want to deal with.

[ShivaX]

Depends on the build really.

Think of it as shooting a crossbow. If you had a class that would've just shot a crossbow, it often light years better than hoping to roll a 20 (since that's what you probably needed to hit).

Target stuff with lower Will Saves and even late game it can be effective.
And you'll end up with other hexes for when it isn't.

Restless slumber, however, isn't worth it. 1d10 damage is basically *zero* damage by the time you get Major Hexes. Literally anything else is a better choice imo. The only reason to ever get it is because you didn't get Slumber early. Which is an odd choice because early on Slumber is really, really strong.

[Cleftin Twain]

Hm. OK. I guess I'll just look at playing something different then. Ugh. All my time in this game has been in the character creater and I have found literally nothing that I find all that fun.

[Sador]

It's quite useful, but definitely struggles more later game. Then again, even in boss fights it can make a huge difference to knock out an enemy or two for some turns. And in the lower difficulty fights it can be an effective crowd control tool without wasting spell slots. In plenty of fights I was never going to blast those few enemies with spells anyway, might as well take the chance of slumbering them.

Overall, it's better than you'd expect but not as good as you'd want it to be.

[Draken]

Restless slumber seems to be currently bugged. The damage wakes up enemies even if it states that it doesn't.
It does give you two tries to get an enemy into Coup-De-Grace position, but I would only suggest taking it if you have run out of more useful hexes to take.

[CHAO$$$]

Originally posted by Draken:

Cons:
- You can't boost the DC with feats that boost spell DC. (at least I don't think you can)

I know that thundercaller bard gets bonus DC for thundercall from evocation school bonuses and fascinate bonus DC from enchantment DC feats.

Its reasonable to assume that slumber might be classified as some sort of spellschool and that would increase DC via feats.

Either way hexes are great. Some of the strongest new tools in the game without a doubt.

[Venator]

It's a good tool to have, but you shouldn't focus a build around it. It could come in handy every once in a while in specific encounters. Evil eye is a better tool to use since even when it fails, it still functions for a turn.

[Elnidfse]

You can land slumber relatively easy in Chapter's 1, 2, and a few fights in 3
Then never again. Don't get Restless Slumber unless you enjoy never seeing that land.

[Venator]

Originally posted by Elnidfse:

You can land slumber relatively easy in Chapter's 1, 2, and a few fights in 3
Then never again. Don't get Restless Slumber unless you enjoy never seeing that land.

That's mostly its purpose anyways, to help out in the early game. It's like a cantrip