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Thread: Spells: What to Ban?
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2012-11-14, 11:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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2012-11-14, 12:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
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2012-11-14, 12:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
My Homebrew: found here.
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2012-11-14, 12:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
I appreciate your candor in admitting you don't know much about arcane spells. on the one hand, some evil spells are indeed some of the strongest in the game (mindrape, anyone?) most of them (especially the ones in bovd) are not very strong.
the normal level for SoD effects is 5, so bovd isn't breaking any molds there.
geas/lesser geas again are not powerful. a good rule is, the more descriptors something has, the less powerful it is. it's mind-affecting (can't use it against many foes) a compulsion (many foes have bonuses or immunities) and language dependent (so they have to understand you) the lesser version has an HD cap of 7, and allows a will save, so it's not breaking any games. the regular, saveless version is pretty badass, but due to all the drawbacks of the spell, it's not exactly rare that you'll find enemies you can't use it on
my favorite target (though less optimal obviously) for venomfire is the guardian naga (with either aberration wild shape or momf 6+ on the table)
while it has only 1 attack on the table, its poison deals 1d10 con and it can spit it as a touch attack at a range of 20 feet without you having to take that dumb feat chain.
what's better than venomfire? venomfire without even having to get into melee range!I've got a new fantasy TTRPG about running your own fencing school in a 3 musketeers pastiche setting. Book coming soon.
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Amazing Princess Mononoke avatar by Dispozition
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2012-11-14, 12:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
I agree.
As far as spells to ban, hm... I'd add Masochism/Sadism to the list, due to the fact that hitpoints tend to be nonlinear with level (due to Con buff items), and so the benefit of the spells scales superlinearly.
Similarly, I personally have an issue with the various spells that do things like add +20 to a skill check (Guidance of the Avatar)
or 5+CL up to 15 (Divine Insight) or +30 (Glibness) and so on - I didn't ban them in my current campaign and I'm regretting it as everyone has sort of reached a glum realization that skill investment is irrelevant when one of the the party's casters can just pop Divine Insight and automatically do better than anyone at their best skill.[/quote]
I think these can be fixed rather than banned, don't you think?Check out my Arboreal Halflings and my Megaliths of Zidydrion.
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2012-11-14, 01:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
I think these can be fixed rather than banned, don't you think?[/QUOTE]
with things like delay death and/or forced share pain on the table, sadism and masochism alike can deal functionally infinite damage and allow you to receive functionally infinite damage. this means the bonuses they give are similarly functionally infinite. it's the basic idea behind the omniscifier, the only thing that can kill punpun.
I'd disagree with spells that boost skills. they still eat up your slots, and every time you cast guidance of the avatar or divine insight, that's a barkskin or a blur or alter self or whatever you could have cast going down the drain. in my group, we prefer to let skillful characters do the skill things so the spellcasters can do stuff that can't be repilcated with skills. opportunity cost, in other words.I've got a new fantasy TTRPG about running your own fencing school in a 3 musketeers pastiche setting. Book coming soon.
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Amazing Princess Mononoke avatar by Dispozition
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2012-11-14, 02:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
As a blanket ban, anything that's Save: No and SR: No is generally bad juju. Touch attacks are notoriously easy to land (and get easier as levels go up due to bigger monsters), so they're not going to stop the ability from working. These are very popular spells to stack metamagic on, so you might want to add something like "metamagic that normally adds levels to a spell always increases a spell's level by at least 1 even if a class ability applies it for free or feats would reduce it to less than 1, and 0-cost metamagic cannot have any reducers applied to it". Additionally, you should add some sort of "only affects effects of an equal or lower level than this" clause to the blanket protection spells (Mind Blank, True Seeing) to avoid making the Illusion and Enchantment schools useless. If the caster wants to truly be immune to the schools, they ought to Heighten the spell and use a slot that matters.
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2012-11-14, 03:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
I'm curious what the party would do against a Golem or other creature with Spell Immunity. I mean sure that blanket really does patch a lot of destructive and cheesy spells, but it also puts the Caster players at a serious disadvantage against say a Flesh Golem or any Golem in particular. They have to either have some seriously forethought on the game or have the Uncanny Forethought feat. Just an observation on this though.
This. This. Dear god this. Mind Blank should not make the caster immune to Epic Divination spellsLast edited by Arcanist; 2012-11-14 at 03:09 PM.
Larloch, The Shadow King (w/ Ioun Stones) avatar by Iron Penguin
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2012-11-14, 03:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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2012-11-14, 03:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
Larloch, The Shadow King (w/ Ioun Stones) avatar by Iron Penguin
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2012-11-14, 03:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
My Homebrew: found here.
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2012-11-14, 04:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
I don't think wraithstrike is so bad unless it's Persisted, which is more a strike against the one-size-fits-all nature of Persist. (Shameless plug: I homebrewed a fix that improves that.)
Most illusions are not mind-affecting, and mindless creatures have no special protection against them (they may even be more vulnerable, depending on their programming/instincts, since they lack the reasoning to guess an effect is illusionary).Projects: Homebrew, Gentlemen's Agreement, DMPCs, Forbidden Knowledge safety, and Top Ten Worst. Also, Quotes and RACSD are good.
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2012-11-14, 06:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
With respect to Masochism, Sadism:
Well this is a campaign scale thing. Yes, they are implicated in infinite combos, but putting that aside you can still end up with scaling problems. For one thing, they contribute to the 'magic makes skills useless by giving much bigger bonuses than non-magic sources' problem even at low level.
So Sadism: Say you just have someone who casts this and then smacks a tree for 5d6 damage with a reserve feat or something - on average thats not a really big deal - +1 to saves/attacks/whatever. However now lets say you have someone who fireballs a group of 10 kobolds, each for 5d6 damage. Now thats a +10 to saves/attacks/skill checks (the relevant one here). Lets say you instead fireball 100 kobolds. Thats now a +100 to same. Thus, the scaling can get a bit strange if you take the time to round up some victims (thematically appropriate for evil I guess, but I consider the ability to get a +100 to things at 5th level to be a bit beyond the pale for most campaigns). If you have really exploitive players, it won't be kobolds, it will be a bag of rats (or some non-vermin thing that the DM can't simply say is a swarm). If you make it 'max damage to one target' it helps a bit but I'm still leery of the uncapped nature of it.
Masochism has slightly different problems, as you can use tricks to basically put off or ignore damage while still taking it for the purposes of Masochism: Delay Death and Indomitability are good examples. Even we avoid the obviously cheesy uses and just ask how Masochism scales with level, its kind of different than spells like it due to being nonlinear. And thats because HP is nonlinear with level.
HP goes linearly with level if you consider fixed Con, but at higher levels a +2, then a +4, then a +6 Con item become standard. Improved Toughness is also not a terrible feat choice if you're otherwise squishy, and you have access to things like False Life or other temp hp sources (or, if you hadn't already banned it, Polymorph). So basically, unlike other spells that give numerical buffs to attacks, saves, and skills, Masochism scales faster than linear and has no cap (whereas most such spells scale linearly up to a cap then stop). Depending on the nature of your campaign, this may not become a problem by the time you're done (if you're doing Lv7-13, you probably won't see someone break it). But at high level play it can become a bit silly. Sadism is probably worse in all cases except the infinite combos though.
As far as the resource balance of skill-boosting spells, I think its a matter of taste. My group certainly hasn't 'let skillful characters do it to save spells', because the Divine Insight guy can hit a higher check than anyone else in the party on the one or two things he wants to each day. So when its important, they default to him. Thankfully, he basically called the skill monkey role for his character near the beginning of the campaign, so it wasn't a nasty surprise for people and doesn't overlap other roles too much. I did think to ban Guidance of the Avatar, which basically does what Divine Insight does but better, and stacks with it. A command-word at will Guidance of the Avatar item would be 10800gp, compared to 40000gp for an item that gave you a +20 to a single skill.
Furthermore, the skill buff spells get much worse during downtime - e.g., the party wants to research a question so the party's cleric loads up on +35 to a Knowledge check from spells alone, asks the question, and the party does nothing for a day. It doesn't 'break' the game, but it has a big impact on how it is playedLast edited by NichG; 2012-11-14 at 06:44 PM.
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2012-11-14, 07:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
I don't do druids for the most part, so no comment here.
With respect to Shivering Touch, I think this is a useful, flavorful spell that can be "fixed" rather than banned.
I'm not sure whether/how Wraithstrike is broken. Can someone make the case either way? Or can it be fixed rather than banned?
See above.
I find it cumbersome to manage this spell. It's like the problem with wishes, people end up using a lot of time arguing of nuances. (I suppose this is an argument for getting rid of wishes). I admit that I put Contingency on the list with some reticence. I'd be interested in more opinions on this one.
So, are you suggesting to get rid of Polymorph and Baleful Polymorph (and Alter Self?)?
I agree that wishes are a problem, but I think there are other issues as well . . . the ability to access spells of a higher level via Planar Binding spells, for instance. There are a variety of ways to get specific/named creatures to come to your aid and that predictability seems better. I suppose one thing to consider is listing possible creatures from which to choose or limiting--the way Summon Monster and Summon Nature's Ally do--the summoned creatures can act.
On wishes; this one's easy. If you don't cast it yourself you have to deal with the possibility of miscommunication with the entity granting the wish even if you're going for the safe-list. If you cast it yourself for anything that's not on the safelist. You're knowingly opening yourself up to the DM going "Lol, no. Instead you get this horribly twisted wish." If you're not burning 5k experience on a safe-list effect, you're taking your life into your own hands and hoping you don't get screwed. (protip: keep the request reasonable and a good DM will be less likely to screw you over.)Last edited by Kelb_Panthera; 2012-11-14 at 07:02 PM.
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2012-11-14, 11:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
Perhaps you're right about lesser geas, but it seems to me that any Bbeg (or anyone with significance in the world) could be seriously messed with via Geas, Familial Geas, Undying Geas, etc. If it lands on the Bbeg themselves, then the whole plot arc could be ruined.
Thank you for the analysis of the spells I chose; I probably should have put some reasons in the initial post. I'd like to support my choice of a few of them, but I'll bow to your greater knowledge of game balance as a whole (like comparable arcane spells at similar levels) rather than my focus on just what's on the cleric spell list. Of course, the OP will make choices based upon his own opinions.
Slash Tongue: Exactly. It makes Inflict Minor obsolete except for spontaneous casting.
Urfestra: Without any form of protection or mitigating spell, this means certain death after only a single spell (so SoD) at 3rd.
Blessings: 8 tentacle attacks screams "precision damage" to me (I believe they have 10 or 15 reach, as well, which is nice for AoO). At 7th level, a rogue might have a max of four or five attacks (moderately COed).
Morality Undone: Alignment change? That has all sorts of repercussions (matching deity, PrCs, etc), but especially hefty RP ones. I remember getting even just a little taint on one of my clerics was pretty bad, but this is the whole deal.
Many of the mind-affecting spells seem powerful to me, I think, because I'm used to fighting humanoids rather than dungeon-crawling, so it's easy to pick which spell to use depending whether the opponent is a magic-user, rogue, or fighter.Last edited by GilesTheCleric; 2012-11-15 at 12:34 AM. Reason: more detail
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2012-11-15, 10:12 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
I understand your caution about these spells, but they haven't crossed the threshold for me. I may not be reading carefully enough.
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2012-11-15, 12:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
One thing to add to this: most of the outsiders likely to be called for wish granting duties are evil. As in, puppy-kicking, baby-eating, will-screw-you-over-for-lulz evil. As a DM, I'd see it as my duty to screw with any PC who attempts to force such an entity to grant wishes for them.
If brute force isn't working, that just means you're not using enough of it.
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2012-11-15, 01:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
The problem with gating or binding wish-granting outsiders is that they can grant wishes. And they've been doing it, for each other and themselves, for a hell of a lot longer than the character has existed.
So.. yeah. Kn: Planes check tells you it's a BAD idea to go hitting up some noble efreet for wishes, and then the player still does it? Say hi to the blinged out circle magicked epic magic wielding, tricked out to high hell and back efreeti hit squad that comes after him.
Solely for the purposes of torturing him horrifically for all eternity.
Because if they wanted to, they could just wish away his existence - not like he's backed up with contingencies and alternate timeline astral seeds like they are to defend against that sort of thing.
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2012-11-15, 01:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
this is a possibility, but you need to be able to get into close range, need to not be silenced, and all the other limiting factors, I think your PCs should have a hard time using it on your final boss.
Thank you for the analysis of the spells I chose; I probably should have put some reasons in the initial post. I'd like to support my choice of a few of them, but I'll bow to your greater knowledge of game balance as a whole (like comparable arcane spells at similar levels) rather than my focus on just what's on the cleric spell list. Of course, the OP will make choices based upon his own opinions.
how long have you been playing, out of curiosity? I just ask because I havent' seen you on the board much, but that obviously doesn't have bearing on your experience in the game
Slash Tongue: Exactly. It makes Inflict Minor obsolete except for spontaneous casting.
well, it's still a fortneg lvl 0 spell, so there's a very low chance of this spell actually doing anything at all, like inflict minor, and making inflict minor obsolete is... not that big a deal. you could say the same thing of acid splash or sonic snap or whatever. they have no saves at all. some spells are better than others.
Urfestra: Without any form of protection or mitigating spell, this means certain death after only a single spell (so SoD) at 3rd.
well, that's just the sort of rock/paper/scissors effect of the game. if the person has the general trump card, break enchantement, handy (if you're familiar with the cleric list, you know it's almost never a bad idea to have a scroll or two of it handy) then it's not a huge deal if they can retreat. if they don't get away from combat and you just use it as a quick debuff to con... then you are not using your resources well.
in a "hit and run" type circumstance where you, for example, sneak into a bar, bump the target discreetly with conceal spellcasting, and then gtfo, it would be reasonable to assume the target (if he has money) may try restoration or something, get it checked out since it doesn't fix the problem, mebbe get spellcrafted, and see that BE is the way to get rid of it and shake it off.
and if you just cast it in a combat where you end up killing the targt a few rounds later, then... it's not offering any advantage over a spell that just deals normal con daamage (and only 1d6 at that) plus it's forcing you to take 1d6 con yourself.
Blessings: 8 tentacle attacks screams "precision damage" to me (I believe they have 10 or 15 reach, as well, which is nice for AoO). At 7th level, a rogue might have a max of four or five attacks (moderately COed).
so, you'd need to have enough spellcasting to cast the investiture spells (7 lvls, 9 lvls plus) plus sa/sudden strike? who on earth does that? (black flame zealots aside) if you're spreading yourself thin like that, you won't be that good at either of these things. and if you're just buffing the rogue with it, then who cares? rogues, like fighters, need help in the form of support from spells.
Morality Undone: Alignment change? That has all sorts of repercussions (matching deity, PrCs, etc), but especially hefty RP ones. I remember getting even just a little taint on one of my clerics was pretty bad, but this is the whole deal.
this really depends on how much your DM cares about alignment and how important s/he makes it in your game. if your target is a pally/cleric and your DM is strict about rules and stuff like that, then yeah. RP obviously is a part of the game lots of people enjoy (me too, more than numbers) and it's a very fun tool, but I wouldn't really say it's overpowered.
remember, it's only 10 minutes/lvl, so even if you fail your save, you'll shake it off. plus, mind affecting.
Many of the mind-affecting spells seem powerful to me, I think, because I'm used to fighting humanoids rather than dungeon-crawling, so it's easy to pick which spell to use depending whether the opponent is a magic-user, rogue, or fighter.
if your DM does all-humanoid npcs with class levels instead of monsters, then you'll obviously get more milage out of it than someone in a theoretical "default" game will.
when giving advice on mechanics, I just play the odds, because I can't know what a dm will be like. what I mean is, that as you move up in levels, nonhumanoid types, including undead, constructs, and some aberrations are immune to mind-affecting affects.
if that's the case and you fight mostly humanoidss with class levels, mind-affecting stuff gets a fair amount of punch back, but it still has a number of limiting factors.I've got a new fantasy TTRPG about running your own fencing school in a 3 musketeers pastiche setting. Book coming soon.
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Amazing Princess Mononoke avatar by Dispozition
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2012-11-15, 02:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
I started with the introduction of 3.5. I've played a little straight AD&D and some homebrewed AD&D, but all of my experience is really 3.5/3.0.
Morality Undone: I missed that it was 10min/lvl. That does indeed make it less potent - thank you for pointing that out.
Yochlol Blessing: This has a range of close, so it's a nice spell to use on the rogue to potentially double his damage output assuming he only has 4 attacks at 7th level (w/ 4d6 SA). It seems like a pretty worthwhile buff to me - going from ≈60 average damage on a full attack to ≈120. With Blood Wind (SC), the rogue doesn't even need to be adjacent so long as the SA conditions are met (Grease/Ice Slick is an easy way of course).
Ah, I now understand your reasoning on mechanics - this is probably the reason why we disagree on the strength of some spells. My outlook is one of expectation and advance knowledge: what the party knows about the opponent before the encounter, and vice-versa. In this model of power balance, I assume that any spells are only going to be prepared/used when they have a reasonable chance of working, and so compare all spells with the assumption that they are all equally likely to be successfully cast. Incidentally, my favourite spells are divination spells.
I do agree that it's definitely better to prepare for anything when playing with a new DM. In the context of this thread, it sounds like the players and the DM (OP) already have a good idea of what to expect, so that does change the spells that we might suggest.
@ OP: On this topic, how are your games generally run? I'm very much used to playing in towns/cities, doing politicking, subterfuge, and RP/diplomacy and thus encountering many more humanoids, so all of my suggestions are given in that context.
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2012-11-15, 03:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
My plan for this particular adventure is a 1-20 scavenger hunt type of adventure, which will have the players traveling to remote places in different climates and settings. They'll change venue about every 1.5 levels. As they progress, they will have the opportunity to unlock an ancient mystery or completely overlook the mystery (or lose its trail mid-stream) while they pursue adventure. There will be roughly fourteen chapters in this adventure, each of which will have its own contribution to the overall puzzle as well as its own story with a "climax" or crowning experience. During the course of this adventure, the players will, undoubtedly lose levels--it's just that type of adventure. That said, there will be opportunities for serious roleplaying, small group tactics, large group tactics, logical puzzles, and using what the party has learned previously to assist them later in the game. There will be circumstances where my players may be tricked into doing the "wrong" things or where they have the opportunity to be lucky.
I have not finished my outline of the adventure, yet and I'm still working on the maps and details about the scope of creatures in this world. But I'll be ready by the end of March, when we're supposed to begin. (We're in the midst of another adventure right now where I'm a player, but I am planning early.)Check out my Arboreal Halflings and my Megaliths of Zidydrion.
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2012-11-15, 03:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
I've got a new fantasy TTRPG about running your own fencing school in a 3 musketeers pastiche setting. Book coming soon.
Check out my NEW sci-fi TTRPG about first contact. Cool alien races, murderous AIs, and more. New expansion featuring rules for ships! New book here NOW!
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2012-11-15, 04:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
Is it just me, or has Streamers somehow not been mentioned yet in this thread?
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2012-11-15, 04:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
indeed. the ____ image line is actually great against mindless foes because they tend to have abysmal wisdom scores and poor will saves. in the unlikely event you actually fight an ooze, for example, it's very easy to trick with a major image.
it's just youLast edited by Venger; 2012-11-15 at 04:56 PM.
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2012-11-15, 05:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
Check out my Arboreal Halflings and my Megaliths of Zidydrion.
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2012-11-18, 08:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
What about Polymorph and Alter Self? Is it better to fix or nix these? I have assumed that they can be fixed. But I may be mistaken.
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2012-11-18, 09:32 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
π = 4
Consider a 5' radius blast: this affects 4 squares which have a circumference of 40' — Actually it's worse than that.
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2012-11-18, 09:53 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
Polymorphing is a staple of fantasy literature. Removing the ability for wizards to become animals or fantastical creatures removes a lot of the tropes or abilities of fantasy wizards from the class entirely.
There are a number of polymorph 'fixes' floating around, but honestly, most of them are terrible. I include under this wotc's various rewrites of the polymorph rules and wotc/paizo's 'one form per spell' 'fix'.
A relatively simple fix that helps immensely is making it based on CR, and not on HD. Some creatures are ungodly vicious for their HD, and while CR isn't perfect it's certainly better.
Another avenue that you can take is to simply specify maximum bonuses the polymorph spell can provide in terms of strength and natural armour and size increases and all the rest of it, and assign them a type. This doesn't necessarily mean that a wizard can't turn into a war troll and hulk out, he just can't turn into a war troll and then cast bite of the X and have the strength score of an elder titan.
My favourite fix is the Tome fix, i.e. Frank's idea, where if you polymorph, you get all the facets of the new creature - you just don't get the effects of spells or your spellcasting while you are in that form. You essentially count as that creature in all ways, and it functions from CR, so you turn into something that is as powerful as you, but different, and don't get to do the thing that breaks polymorph - which is combine the powerful spellcasting of the wizard with the powerful melee abilities of a brute monster (or some crazy supernatural effect).
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2012-11-18, 12:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Spells: What to Ban?
Oh, good. My faith in the Playground is restored.
Fixing them completely is surprisingly hard. But there's a super-easy fix that makes them nicely balanced instead of OVERPOWERED, except in a few corner cases (such as an Outsider using Alter Self to become a Dwarven Ancestor, or a Polymorph user using the ban-worthy Savage Species feat that picks up [Su] abilities from the polymorphed form).
Ready to hear this fix? OK:
Alter Self is now a Level 4 spell.
Polymorph is now a Level 7 (or 8?) spell.
Voila.
Basically the route that 5e is taking so far, incidentally.You can call me Draz.
Trophies:
Spoiler
Also of note:
- Winning Entry of Gestalt Build Challenge IV
- 3rd Place in Iron Chef XI (Blade Bravo)
- Judge of Iron Chef XXIII (Divine Champion)
I have a number of ongoing projects that I manically jump between to spend my free time ... so don't be surprised when I post a lot about something for a few days, then burn out and abandon it.
... yes, I need to be tested for ADHD.