Euthanasia, Greater Deathward (spells)

[rferries]

Euthanasia, Greater
Necromancy [Death, Good]
Level: Clr 9, Drd 9, Sor/Wiz 9
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect: Ray
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes

A ray of gentle radiance springs from your hand. You must succeed on a ranged touch attack with the ray to deal damage to a target. The ray deals 2d6 points of nonlethal damage per caster level (maximum 50d6), and any creature rendered unconscious due to this damage dies instantly and painlessly (no save).

Good-aligned creatures struck by this ray are immune to its effects, unless they choose otherwise of their own free will (e.g. they cannot be coerced or under the effects of mind-influencing magic, etc.).

Euthanasia, Lesser
Necromancy [Death, Good]
Level: Clr 4, Drd 4, Sor/Wiz 4
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Living creature touched
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes

You can bring painless death to a creature. You must succeed on a melee touch attack to touch the subject, upon which it takes 1d6 points of nonlethal damage per caster level (maximum 15d6), and any creature rendered unconscious due to this damage dies instantly and painlessly (no save).

Good-aligned creatures struck by this spell are immune to its effects, unless they choose otherwise of their own free will (e.g. they cannot be coerced or under the effects of mind-influencing magic, etc.).

Greater Death Ward
Necromancy [Good, Light]
Level: Clr 7, Repose 7, Sor/Wiz 8
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Living creature touched
Duration: 1 hour/level
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes

This spell imbues a creature with the power of the Positive Energy Plane. It gains the benefits of death ward, fast healing 2, and radiates consecrate and daylight effects for the duration of the spell.

All darkness spells of equal or lower level (using the greater death ward's level) in the area of the daylight effect are countered and dispelled.

[noob]

I think Euthanasia is not a very balanced spell:with that spell and a quickened searing ray a wizard can drop a great portion of the caster monsters of the monster manual in one single round(217 average damage).(yes I know you need caster level 25 but most people got the buffs to have that caster level by the time they get to level 20)
Or it gets negated by an immunity.(which will be the case most of the time)
So it makes that spell a nothing or everything kind of spell with no save(basically if you know what are the weaknesses of your opponent then it is just silly to have that spell added to your arsenal: it makes polar ray pale in comparison when you meet vulnerable opponents).
Oh and do not forget: an attack dealing over 50 non lethal damage still provokes a saving throw against death by massive damage so you can actually kill by excessive damage(which sounds like a painful way to die) from a casting of euthanasia(in fact it will happen at least in 5% of the cases)
So Basically it is comparable to spamming negative levels through metamagic which is usually considered very cheesy.
Greater deathward is like getting persisted deathward without needing any of the hoops you usually need for that and for some reason wizards can cast it even through they can not cast death ward.(and somehow you also get consecrate which follows you for no extra cost)
I think greater deathward needs to be one level higher(6 is a little bit too low for getting a persisted version of deathward) and to not be a wizard spell(because else it makes the wizard overlap with cleric with too much ease)

[JeenLeen]

No real comment on the balance of it, but I think adding Light to the effects that Greater Death Ward causes makes sense, given its dispelling darkness power. As is, you could be in magical darkness in real darkness, dispel the magical darkness, but still not be able to see (assuming no darkvision).

However, I agree it is stronger than ideal. That seems like a crazy good buff, especially with Extend, that a high-level caster could effectively cast every other day.

To add some balance to Euthanasia, maybe give a saving throw to resist death, even if keeping the damage the same.
Also, I recommend adding that a Good creature struck with the ray intuits the effect the ray has, and thus has the information to freely accept or ignore the dying.

If you add a save (Will? Con maybe?), you could have a nifty nuance of it being (harmless). If your magical metaphysics are ruled such that (harmless) spells are somehow sensed as such, then non-good ones might still accept it out of ignorance and confusion, although some may still be cautious enough to resist the ray of energy you just blasted them with. Gives Arcana checks a good purpose.

[Avigor]

Personally, I was expecting a 1st or 2nd level, touch, willing creature target, death effect with nothing else that wasn't necessarily aligned (after all, it's conceivable some evil types might be willing to "mercifully put someone out of their misery" and I do believe that some death gods are neutral and their clergy may very well use this a lot), with fluff about how some churches and governments would throw a fit if they catch someone using it while others leave it up to those involved to decide.

[AvatarVecna]

Euthanasia
Necromancy [Death, Good]
Level: Clr 9, Drd 9, Sor/Wiz 9
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect: Ray
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes

A ray of gentle radiance springs from your hand. You must succeed on a ranged touch attack with the ray to deal damage to a target. The ray deals 2d6 points of nonlethal damage per caster level (maximum 50d6), and any creature rendered unconscious due to this damage dies instantly and painlessly (no save).

Good-aligned creatures struck by this ray are immune to its effects, unless they choose otherwise of their own free will (e.g. they cannot be coerced or under the effects of mind-influencing magic, etc.).

Without touching on whether its appropriate to have this filed under [Good] (D&D's alignments, religions, and moralities tend to interact in weird ways, so I'm not sure if this is in line with the teachings/philosophies of the forces of [Good], so I'll leave that to lore experts), I'll get right to the mechanics. AFAICT, this is essentially Disintegrate with Irresistible Spell and Nonlethal Substitution applies, and with Enlarge Spell applied twice in reverse; the differences between this spell and the one I just described are that the Disintegrate would kill at -10 instead of 0, but it would be a painful death that doesn't leave behind a corpse...oh, and the one I described would be 8th lvl.

Honestly, most of the reason I think this is kinda underpowered is that the damage of these spells is identical against somebody with a bad Fort. I'd probably bring back the Fort save just so people don't pitch a fit, then upgrade the damage a bit (maybe more dice, maybe bigger dice, I dunno >.<). This just feels really, really underwhelming for a 9th lvl single-target only-damage spell.

[Westhart]

Without touching on whether its appropriate to have this filed under [Good] (D&D's alignments, religions, and moralities tend to interact in weird ways, so I'm not sure if this is in line with the teachings/philosophies of the forces of [Good], so I'll leave that to lore experts), I'll get right to the mechanics. AFAICT, this is essentially Disintegrate with Irresistible Spell and Nonlethal Substitution applies, and with Enlarge Spell applied twice in reverse; the differences between this spell and the one I just described are that the Disintegrate would kill at -10 instead of 0, but it would be a painful death that doesn't leave behind a corpse...oh, and the one I described would be 8th lvl.

Honestly, most of the reason I think this is kinda underpowered is that the damage of these spells is identical against somebody with a bad Fort. I'd probably bring back the Fort save just so people don't pitch a fit, then upgrade the damage a bit (maybe more dice, maybe bigger dice, I dunno >.<). This just feels really, really underwhelming for a 9th lvl single-target only-damage spell.

Just Noting: Irresistible spell was errata'd (I believe). It is now only a +10 to the save (?) instead of no save.

[AvatarVecna]

Just Noting: Irresistible spell was errata'd (I believe). It is now only a +10 to the save (?) instead of no save.

Errata in general has some consistency issues that make it difficult for the char-op community to take seriously - and IIRC, the errata for that particular feat is 3rd party (unlike the feat, which is 2nd party and thus more acceptable).

In any case, I imagine that something like the metamagic theory spell I mentioned was the balance point for this. It's possible the OP thought that Enlarge Person ups your spell's range a step, so reverse Enlarge would reduce it from Medium to Short, making the metamagic'd Disintegrate an equivalent 9th lvl...but one Reverse Enlarge wouldn't quite cut it.

[Westhart]

Errata in general has some consistency issues that make it difficult for the char-op community to take seriously - and IIRC, the errata for that particular feat is 3rd party (unlike the feat, which is 2nd party and thus more acceptable).

Ah, my bad, as I read it on a metamagic guide (so a game of telephone so to speak).

[AvatarVecna]

Ah, my bad, as I read it on a metamagic guide (so a game of telephone so to speak).

Oh yeah, I'm aware. How seriously errata and FAQ should be taken can be almost as volatile an argument as RAW vs RAI at times. I tend to leave discussions like that around the time people start arguing about whether any later book is allowed to make changes to general rules presented in Core.

[Westhart]

Oh yeah, I'm aware. How seriously errata and FAQ should be taken can be almost as volatile an argument as RAW vs RAI at times. I tend to leave discussions like that around the time people start arguing about whether any later book is allowed to make changes to general rules presented in Core.

Had a DM who said no swift/immediate actions (since not core) but wanted us to use ToB ...

[GreatWyrmGold]

Without touching on whether its appropriate to have this filed under [Good] (D&D's alignments, religions, and moralities tend to interact in weird ways, so I'm not sure if this is in line with the teachings/philosophies of the forces of [Good], so I'll leave that to lore experts)

Judging by how adventurers tend to act, I'm surprised it has an escape clause for Good creatures.
On a serious note...solars have power word kill. That's not getting into all the other destructive SLAs which celestials usually have access to. Evidently, what matters to them isn't destructive power, but making sure such power is in the hands of Good.

[rferries]

Left greater euthanasia as it is for now - was using disintegrate, polar ray and power word: kill as baselines but if people still feel it's too strong I could nerf it after all.

Added lesser euthanasia as a more "local community doctor" version -compare phantasmal killer, slay living.

Bumped up the divine levels for greater deathward to 7, and the arcane level to 8 (still wanted sorcerers and wizards to have it on the basis of "channeling planar energies" rather than "divine magic").