Last Man Standing [3.5 Spell] [PEACH]

[GFawkes]

Apocalyptic Solitude
Illusion [Phantasm] [Evil]
Sor/Wiz 9, Clr 9
V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 Standard Action
Range: 30 ft
Target: One enemy
Duration: Permanent, see text
Saving Throw: Will for negate, see text
Spell Resistance: No

The target stumbles around, calling for a response that will not come.

Apocalyptic Solitude is one of the strongest and most servere illusions around. It gives the target the vision that they are in a post-apocalyptic world. Buildings are crumbled and weak, possibly gone. Roads are torn up, the land is scorched, and even the sky seems to be bloodstained. All life appears to be gone, save for bits of ash every here and there. Unless the target manages a Will save, he believes this vision to be true.

In reality, the target is fine, a least physically. He's still able to move and attack and make noise, but recieving feedback from these is difficult. Whenever the target would recieve sensory input from the real world, such as someone slapping him or talking to him or bumping into something, he is entitled to a DC 30 Will Save. If he passes this save, he is allowed to roll for disbelief again. If he fails, though, his mind incorperates that sensation into his vision.

If a strong sensation occurs, such as a shout spell, the target may add his ranks in the appropriate sensory skill (Listen, Spot) to his Will Save.

Every minute the target is under the effects of Apocalyptic Solitude, he must make a DC 15 Will save or go insane, as the spell. The DC increases by 1 every minute after the first.

Apocalyptic Solitude is permanent until either the disbelief roll is passed or the caster wills it away. Limited wish, wish, or miracle also work, but only if the caster is not the target.

Material Component: A fine powder composed of red dragon scales, brimstone, and diamond dust worth at least 7,500 gp. During the casting, the caster blows this from his hand towards the target.

Notes:

Spoiler

Show

This spell is best described as the dire half-dragon version of nightmare terrain on steroids. The goal was to create something that would put the subject in his own world, similar to oh-so-many evil mastermind plans. I realize that it may be a little overpowered, which is why I posted it here.

[Epsilon Rose]

Microcosm does something similar without a save (but with an hp cap) if you want a comparison.

[Cipher Stars]

Microcosm does something similar without a save (but with an hp cap) if you want a comparison.

Beat me to it. (by hours..., but oh well.)

I was gonna say that this spell has an awful lot of saves compared to Microcosm.

[GFawkes]

Took a look at microcosm. Here are a couple main differences:

* Apocalyptic Solitude is magic, not psionics.

* Apocalyptic Solitude allows the target to move around, possibly getting injured from running into something or by hurting themself.

* Microcosm has an HP limit, AS doesn't.

Also, upon thinking, I've made the following edits:

* Now has the [evil] descriptor

* Chance to go insane from the effects

[Thugorp]

I like this very much, the insanity included, however maybe instead of rolling an insanity check every minute, it should be after the first hour(enough time for the target to perhaps start wondering if he really is the last man), then after the next day(enough time for him to start believing that he might be), then again after a week(enough time for him to become sure that he is and become depressed and sullen about the situation), then a month(as the affects of long term isolation begin to set in), then at the six month mark(as he begins to abandon the manners, customs, and habits he/she fostered as a member of a society), and then finally once again after another six months and every year there after on the anniversary of the spell's casting(this yearly check could either be flavored as a purely magical effect of the spell as it tries to drive him mad, or it could be representative of the targets nostalgia and depression which grips him/her, every year at that time as the memorial of her isolation reminds him/her of all he/she lost and misses).

[GFawkes]

Thanks for the feedback. The reason I had the insanity occur within a minute was that the sudden change of the world would come as a shock. I might lengthen the duration for the check to daily, and lower the base DC. I'd just like it to be a nice happy increment that occurs on a set basis.

Also, I'm working up versions for [good], [law], and [chaos] tags. Here's the gist of what I'm thinking for each:

[good]: Subject is mentally sent to a perfect world, body is held in temporal stasis

[law]: Subject thinks that the world conforms to his wants (Food is readily available, enemies are conveniently placed, etc)

[chaos]: Subject's perception is whatever the caster wants it to be, within limit.

[Gideon Falcon]

Thing is, party scouters or anyone who invests ranks in listen and spot are practically immune to it, because they get a ludicrous bonus to their saves when they hear anything significant.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Thing is, party scouters or anyone who invests ranks in listen and spot are practically immune to it, because they get a ludicrous bonus to their saves when they hear anything significant.

The example given is a Shout spell. So you need something really loud, possibly loud enough to cause sonic damage or cause hearing loss. I'm more interested in what visually effect would allow a re-save.

[GFawkes]

On the visual side, you'd need something akin to a daylight spell at close range.

[Cipher Stars]

Thanks for the feedback. The reason I had the insanity occur within a minute was that the sudden change of the world would come as a shock. I might lengthen the duration for the check to daily, and lower the base DC. I'd just like it to be a nice happy increment that occurs on a set basis.

Also, I'm working up versions for [good], [law], and [chaos] tags. Here's the gist of what I'm thinking for each:

[good]: Subject is mentally sent to a perfect world, body is held in temporal stasis

[law]: Subject thinks that the world conforms to his wants (Food is readily available, enemies are conveniently placed, etc)

[chaos]: Subject's perception is whatever the caster wants it to be, within limit.

Chaos would be a better descriptor for this spell. Evil would be something like a Vast plane of perpetual night, only illumination coming from a giant castle of bone seen taking up a horizon, Bones and tombs litter the ground. occasionally in the ever wandering they could come across old cities that seem to be devoid of life, Bone like growths taking over constructions as if they were plantlife. It is however cloudy. and clouds tend to magnify moonlight making actually seem like dim daylight everywhere. so "Only illumination" isn't quite right.

[Veklim]

I'd say the [evil] descriptor is bang on. You're willingly and knowingly sending someone into a possibly permanent state of isolation, intentionally trying to drive them mad, and expecting them to die of exhaustion and/or exposure within days. What about that is not an evil act?

Of course, the best way of countering all this is true seeing, completely nulifies illusions after all, forget the daylight or shout spells! If that's your thing though, I'd say anything which deals radiant or sonic damage should give a save.

[Jane_Smith]

Its no more evil then catching them on fire or sending them into a maze spell. -shrug-.

[Veklim]

Of course it is! Maze works for 10 minutes at most before unceremoniously dumping the victim back in the real world, fire spells are there to burn and kill enemies quickly and effectively. This spell goes out of it's way to cause as much anguish and suffering as possible within it's remit, there's no time limit to it, there's no direct damage to mercifully end you, nothing. Just insanity waiting to happen and the small hope that something will snap you out of it!

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

Having to make two Will saves to disbelieve it is a bit odd. Also, the expensive material component is unnecessary. Compare it to other save-or-screwed spells, like Wail of the Banshee or Imprisonment, which have no costly material component, and only allow one saving throw. It's really underpowered, in my opinion.

I think you could retool it to work better and more elegantly, maybe more like baleful polymorph or forcecage. Make it level 7, and give the target one Will save per round at a -4 penalty (no -4 penalty on the initial save.) Make the target move half its base land speed randomly (using the d8 scatter diagram) each round under the effect. Note that any strong sensory input (such as shouting, or being struck) negates the -4 Will save penalty (look at how simply Sleep explains how to wake up the target.) If the target is under the effects of the spell for 5 rounds, then in goes insane with no save.

I would also note that creatures with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2 are immune to the insanity effect. And give it the [Mind-affecting] descriptor.

[BlackestOfMages]

@ Thomar

I'd say your version of the spell is a bit to, well, both tame and ott at once.

Firstly, the OP said they wanted it to be an end-game level ilusion, not 7th level. The description is also that it's an illusion. the target would most likely not stumble around (not blinded/disorientated or anything like that) unless they'd do so normaly/were under some other effect. think about it more like the victim would be experiancing some sort of plane-shift (ie: sent to a different plane forceably) than just made blind.

the OP also seems to want the illusion to be hard to break, not patheticaly easy (at the level you get 7th level spells, will saves should not be all to hard, especialy not being slapped by someone guaranteeing breaking a 7th level spell) you coumpared your version to forcecage, but it's much more like darkness, which i believe is 3rd level, with a little insanity thrown in. getting poked would not be the physical equivelant of a shout spell, unles it's with a greatclub...

secondly, going insane after 30 seconds of being alone is a little bit.. well, at that level yopu'd think they know about illusions, so i'd say most people would think it's an illusion, and thus wait around an hour before they start to doubt

[ericgrau]

It seems more or less fine. Ya making the insanity take hours instead of minutes makes sense for fluff, and allows interesting rescue scenarios.

One minor tiff is that I'd make the DC 30 will save simply "a will save", i.e. based on spell level and caster ability score. It'll be about the same DC anyway but this way it'll do things normally.

[Noremak]

Well if the goal is to take someone out quickly, then having it make them go insane in a few minutes is just a matter of what the illusion shows them. If they the illusion is that days pass in in those few horrible moments, then insanity after only a few minutes would work fine. A bonus here is their body is still in the real world, so it takes them days, if not weeks to die or starvation / thirst, while in the illusion they thing they have gone months or years without food, holding on by eating ash and dead burnt flesh. Adding more credit to the evil descriptor as well.

[Drynwyn]

This might actually be underpowered. It's a cool effect, yes, but insanity works just as well, doesn't have an expensive material component, and occurs instantaneously, and the same applies to a simple Finger Of Death.

[Dryad]

Finger Of Death

It's a save or die; you can't get a re-try, it can't be broken. Fail the save and you're dead.
Compared to that, I agree that Last Man Standing is indeed underpowered.
Still an awesome spell. ^_^

[ericgrau]

This might actually be underpowered. It's a cool effect, yes, but insanity works just as well, doesn't have an expensive material component, and occurs instantaneously, and the same applies to a simple Finger Of Death.

True 7th level and no material component might be a better fit. Like insanity it's mind affecting and takes the foe out of the fight forever until fixed. Insanity is less out of the fight but there's a chance of hurting your team so it evens out to about the same. The drawback on both is that some things are immune to mind affecting things. The drawback to finger of death is that some things aren't alive or have death ward or similar protection.

If we look at 9th level save or die they're either no save, just die (but with conditions), lose your soul or multi-target save or die (but you might hit allies). There's at least 1 single target save or gone (short of 9th level spell rescue) regardless of your immunities. Since the OP's spell is mind affecting and 1 target, it belongs at 7th level.