How do i use Circle of Death?

[Deathjester]

It's HUGE, it seems good, but damn! It's near impossible to stop it from affecting my party or me!
Is there a spell or something that would protect me against it?

[Finrod]

Try Deathward, cleric spell level 4, or druid spell level 5. (Or repose domain power at level 8. )

tell me if it works

[Aria Athena]

You use it preferably with Metamagic Reach. It's a lv6 spell, so unfortunately it will be a while before you get a Reach Rod that works with it.

Wait until you get Wail of the Banshee. Even with Reach you will still hit your party.

Edit: Or you use it while facing many enemies. Just make sure that the enemies are closer to the origin than your party. Then it will probably only affect some of them, the ones closer to where you targeted it.

[Morgian]

Go with the math. It affects that many HD on average, so make sure that an appropriate number of enemies is closer to the spell's center than your party. Deathward would protect you, but it seems like wasting a spell to enable another, which can be done with some targeting.

Partial targeting does not work with Wail of the Banshee, which hits everyone in it fully. Deathward does protect against that one, too.

[haplok]

Does it? I thought it didn't make you immune to Death magic in Pathfinder. It only bestows a saving throw bonus vs death (and makes immune to negative energy/ability/level damage).

I sure died a lot to the Lich at Lonely Barrow casting Wail, despite having Death Ward.

[GrandMajora]

When I get huge, party risky AoE spells, I like to use them to initiate combat, rather than wait until we're already in the thick of it. I remember playing Baldur's Gate and launching a fireball down a dark hallway before the combat log listed off the death of several mobs was always a satisfying experience.

[Finrod]

Originally posted by haplok:

Does it? I thought it didn't make you immune to Death magic in Pathfinder. It only bestows a saving throw bonus vs death (and makes immune to negative energy/ability/level damage).

You're right.
I still remember how deathward works in D&D 3 and 3.5

In Pathfinder PnP, the repose domain power protects against all death effect, I don't know in the game if it works like that)
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/cleric/domains/paizo-domains/repose-domain/

Then you can just cast the spell as far as you can from your group, I guess

[Aria Athena]

Originally posted by Finrod:

In Pathfinder PnP, the repose domain power protects against all death effect, I don't know in the game if it works like that)
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/cleric/domains/paizo-domains/repose-domain/

I believe it gives a +4 to defending against death effects in PK too. I'm not even sure if it counts towards Circle of Death if your level is high enough, because then it only deals damage.

Also I remember at some point that it didn't even grant immunity to negative energy and drain effects as was supposed to, but perhaps that's fixed.