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KatfishKaos
2009-01-17, 07:26 AM
Ok, let's get to the basics

It is a two person campaign. I'm playing a wizard and the other player a paladin. Due to a mix of average DM'ing, my reasonable spell choice and the paladin player playing a sub optimal build, the paladin is trully useless.

Example: We are (currently) on a flying tower and were attacked by some Lantern and Solar Arcons, I (using overland flight) fly straight at the platoon casting quicken slow, slow etc pretty much blasting through them in a couple of rounds. During this time the Paladin was offered a kite (it can carry the weight of Full Plate, honest:smallfrown:). After declining she was then given a ballista. . . In the 3 rounds of combat she contributed a total of 16 damage (missing twice). I have gone over the encounter a couple of times and realized I should have cast overland flight on the paladin so she could get into the thick of everything. But, I remembered previous encounters where I had stalled for a couple of rounds and we both barely survived.

To be perfectly honest i'm lost and have no idea what to do, this is the nicest encounter I have others it's me buffing the paladin into oblivion (that much magical energy, she must of gotten high) and then the DM wonders why his encounter has put me into negative hit points. I don't want to make a new character but it seems like my only option.

Please, any and all advice would be great.

Samakain
2009-01-17, 07:39 AM
for an immediate fix, talk to your GM about some balancing magic items for the paladin >.> it may be cheesy, but it could work. Aside from that by the sounds of it your've already tried most of what i could suggest. I think your DM would be helpful considering your only persuing a balanced game where you can both have fun.


for a long term fix, what levels is our glorious do-gooder? maybe you could throw some crusader at her? or raw fighter for some feat infusion? or hell, feed her a fist full of cleric levels and see what happens?

Tempest Fennac
2009-01-17, 07:41 AM
Didn't you lose your spellbook earlier on due to it being eaten and burnt? How is the Paladin build they are using suboptimal?

KatfishKaos
2009-01-17, 07:49 AM
Didn't you lose your spellbook earlier on due to it being eaten and burnt? How is the Paladin build they are using suboptimal?

and magically the deity we had been working for decided it was time to tell me where a spellcaster was. The paladin doesnt't use any of her feats (power attacking sometimes).

Samakain; we are all level 11 and she is wearing +4 Full Plate and +3 Tower Shield, not including that Blood Mace (Cursed items).u

Samakain
2009-01-17, 07:53 AM
well damn jim, i'd say your've got a problem :P

whats her build?

Tempest Fennac
2009-01-17, 08:00 AM
Are they quite a new player? If they are, you could suggest that they try having duels against other people in order to find out what works well.

KatfishKaos
2009-01-17, 08:04 AM
From what I can remember.

Str; 16
Con; 16
Dex; 10
Int; 12
Wis; 14
Cha; 20

Feats;
Power Attack
Cleave
Great Cleave
Improved Sunder
(Don't remember the others)

Ok, I just realized I'm doing a hatchet job on my companion!? I apologize for this. I want to find ways to make the game more enjoyable, both of us, and twenty heads are better then one.

Samakain
2009-01-17, 08:12 AM
hey its cool, you make it clear you where trying to address a issue of balance for both your sakes from the start. :)

I don't know what books you have access to, but the charisma sceams sorcerer? i suppose you could have her take 1 or 2 levels and then jump into spellsword? but she'll be suffering from arcane spell failure for a long time.

So whats the major problem? can't hit, no damage?

at the moment i'd tell her to drop paladin right damned now, and pick up crusader. She has all the good stuff from pally at level 11 easy, and ToB + Smite is a type of fluffy love thats outlawed in Texas its so awsome.

Tempest Fennac
2009-01-17, 08:16 AM
Could you get them to join this forum so that we can all discuss the problem? Apart from Improved Sunder, and the Tower Shield hindering their attack rolls, The only other feat choice I wouldn't have gone with is Creat Cleave, unless the DM was using hoards of really weak enemies (I can't think of any recomendations in regards to replacements apart from Combat Focus feats from PHB2; those are quite useful for boosting defencive capabilities).

KatfishKaos
2009-01-17, 08:28 AM
Crusader you say? What else can you reccommend with that class? Any and all information would be awesome. Also what other feats do you recommend being picked up?

Samakain
2009-01-17, 08:36 AM
Crusader you say? What else can you reccommend with that class? Any and all information would be awesome. Also what other feats do you recommend being picked up?

have a look at any divine feat, might as well use those turn undead feats for something, complete divine has more than a few, you have to excuse the lack of reference as i'm at work at the moment.

As for classes, either Crusader or fighter, depending if you want maneuvers or feats, since she's sword and boarding, i would reccomend ToB as it adds alot of damage to that loadout.

What god does she worship?

Ethrael
2009-01-17, 08:36 AM
Other than just giving them access to more feats, I recently came across the PrC of Divine Crusader while I was playing a paladin. It's basically a light continuation of Paladin for a few levels with I thing Cleric spell advancement and access to the Cleric spell list. It could add that special roundness and self-dependancy that they might have needed.

Divine Crusader is in Complete Divine, just so you know. Then again, I don't know everything about the player and how they play, they could simply not want to use their good aspects, I don't know.

Prometheus
2009-01-17, 08:38 AM
In that most recent episode, the paladin just needed to get some arrows, but the real question is why the paladin didn't have any ranged weapons. Divine Sacrifice is a good paladin-only spell, he/she should use it just about every time he/she can. Also have the DM make sure some smiting gets it - fighting lantern archon won't help and I'm surprised there weren't other issues there.

Rad
2009-01-17, 08:41 AM
I would recommend Battle Blessing (Comp. Champion) instead of great cleave. Also look in the spell compendium for more buff spells.
With BB all paladin spells become quickened for free so she can buff and fight. Any pure paladin should take it.

EDIT: by the way, how did a paladin end up fighting archons?

KatfishKaos
2009-01-17, 08:52 AM
We aren't the most morally clean duo of people (evil campaign) . . .

I'll email her asking her to join the boards. I'm currently looking at the feats and PrC's that have been mentioned. Thanks so far.

Tempest Fennac
2009-01-17, 09:03 AM
http://crystalkeep.com/d20/rules/DnD3.5Index-Feats.pdf contains a huge amount of feats including (I think) some which were only in Dragon Magazine, so it could help to speed up your search.

KatfishKaos
2009-01-17, 09:16 AM
Thanks for that site, I decided to use it for prestige classes also, but it was very weird and showed only the first two levels (if that). What am I missing?

only1doug
2009-01-17, 09:22 AM
Ok, let's get to the basics

It is a two person campaign. I'm playing a wizard and the other player a paladin. Due to a mix of average DM'ing, my reasonable spell choice and the paladin player playing a sub optimal build, the paladin is trully useless.

Example: We are (currently) on a flying tower and were attacked by some Lantern and Solar Arcons, I (using overland flight) fly straight at the platoon casting quicken slow, slow etc pretty much blasting through them in a couple of rounds. During this time the Paladin was offered a kite (it can carry the weight of Full Plate, honest:smallfrown:). After declining she was then given a ballista. . . In the 3 rounds of combat she contributed a total of 16 damage (missing twice). I have gone over the encounter a couple of times and realized I should have cast overland flight on the paladin so she could get into the thick of everything. But, I remembered previous encounters where I had stalled for a couple of rounds and we both barely survived.

To be perfectly honest i'm lost and have no idea what to do, this is the nicest encounter I have others it's me buffing the paladin into oblivion (that much magical energy, she must of gotten high) and then the DM wonders why his encounter has put me into negative hit points. I don't want to make a new character but it seems like my only option.

Please, any and all advice would be great.

You should have cast overland flight onto your meat shield, prime wizard role is as party buffer.


and magically the deity we had been working for decided it was time to tell me where a spellcaster was. The paladin doesnt't use any of her feats (power attacking sometimes).

Samakain; we are all level 11 and she is wearing +4 Full Plate and +3 Tower Shield, not including that Blood Mace (Cursed items).u

she needs to lose the tower shield, a normal shield is much better. Losing the cursed item would probably also help, remove curse is your friend.


From what I can remember.

Str; 16
Con; 16
Dex; 10
Int; 12
Wis; 14
Cha; 20

Feats;
Power Attack
Cleave
Great Cleave
Improved Sunder
(Don't remember the others)

Ok, I just realized I'm doing a hatchet job on my companion!? I apologize for this. I want to find ways to make the game more enjoyable, both of us, and twenty heads are better then one.

Great cleave and Improved Sunder are both bad choices, GM might allow them to be swapped.

As Rad states Battle Blessing is a good choice. there are also turn undead powered feats that might be worth investigating.

Tempest Fennac
2009-01-17, 09:27 AM
I don't think they are allowed to show full PrC progression sadly:smallfrown:.

woodenbandman
2009-01-17, 09:28 AM
You can't fix anything without 2 full rebuilds. You need to talk this over with the paladin character to make sure he's down with you helping him rebuild his character. If you can't get him to do this, the whole thing falls apart.

After you rebuild him, rebuild yourself. Try to balance yourself against him or at least make yourself more useful in terms of helping the party. Take levels of War Weaver or something.

This is pretty much the only solution. Mixing a full caster from core with a paladin often ends in tears. I speak from experience in here.

PinkysBrain
2009-01-17, 09:30 AM
I wouldn't very often recommend liberal polymorph use, but I'll make an exception here ...

Polymorphing her into say a Lammasu or something gives her a huge boost, flight, pounce, etc.

Tempest Fennac
2009-01-17, 09:33 AM
What does War Weever do? I'd say you're probably better off staying as you are while focussing on boosting the other player to be honest (trying to balance yourself against their character may cause you unnecessary problems; I'm not sure if using a Booster-type Wizard would work if there's only 2 of you).

Narmoth
2009-01-17, 09:33 AM
So, you have a flying encounter and the melee specialized paladin was useless?
And you're surprised?
I'm not sure if the kite would enable the pally to fight effectively. Casting fly on her, and then doing whatever you wanted yourself would be sound tactic.
But this encounter was basically designed in a way that made it hard for melee characters to contribute.
To optimize on the build she has (which is very like my blackguard) I would recommend this spell:

Divine Sacrifice
Evocation
Level: Blackguard 1, paladin 1
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 round/level
You can sacrifice life force to increase the damage you deal. Once each round, as a free action, you can sacrifice up to 10 of your hit points (doing this does not trigger an attack of opportunity). For every 2 hit points you sacrifice, on your next successful attack you deal +1d6 damage, to a maximum of +5d6 on that attack. Your ability to deal this additional
damage ends when you successfully attack or when the spell duration ends. You can make as many sacrifies as the spell duration allows. Sacrified hit points count as normal damage. For example, an 8th-level paladin can cast this spell with a duration of 4 rounds. If she sacrifices 10 hit points a round and hits in every round, she can spend up to 40 hit
points and deal up to +5d6 points of additional damage all 4 rounds.

Combined with Great Cleave she should be able to deal massive amount of damage to several opponents

ericgrau
2009-01-17, 09:40 AM
EDIT: ^ That spell says you can only use it once per round, which doesn't seem to combine well with great cleave.

Normally this'd sound like a great 2 man party. The problem is
1. You're playing a mid level game with someone who can't optimize.
2. The campaign is in the friggin' sky. You just tossed said person into the deep end of the pool.
3. You didn't help him either and left him to drown. Haven't you seen the threads showing that the wizard will be much more effective if he mitigates the monsters, hastes the martial guys, etc. and let the hepped up martial guy clean up the scattered baddies? Battlefield control spells will also help protect you from damage. While buffs like haste, flight,etc. are good, avoid stat (+X) buffs unless done out of combat and with extra spell slots; otherwise it's a trap. And long duration stuff like overland flight should be cast in the morning not during combat.

You could work a great deal on #3, or you could do that plus have him remake his char.

Stats: First mistake is he pumped a mental stat on a non/semi-caster. Ya it helps, but it is not his focus! Swap that with strength. His con is good. Ideally he should have a higher dex if he expects ranged combat, but he's out of stats already.

Feats: His first 3 feats (PA included) are good for wiping out lots of weak clustered mooks. Dump them all, especially at this high of a level. Unless you expect lots of weak mooks. In that case keep some/all of them (w/ priority in the order listed), depending on how many weak mooks you expect. For replacement feats that depends what he's up against, or in other words what he'll be able to use. Or, if not sure, weapon focus and improved critical are good general purpose feats. 3rd and 4th choices are dodge and improved initiative, if you can't find good non-general feats.

Equipment: I also noticed that he can't optimize his gear or else the DM isn't giving him anyway. Otherwise he would have been able to pump his silly-high cha to 22 or 24 by now (this should be in str insted). He should get guantlets of ogre power +2, amulet of health +2, a cloak of charisma +2. Ideally you should be hasting him, otherwise he should get boots of speed. If not, winged boots for flight are an option. Since he's heavily armored he should have at least a +2 to his armor (and shield if he has one), and a +1 ring of protection. Next comes +3 armor, then the dusty rose prism ioun stone. Depending on his level and monster DR he could still get by with a MW weapon, or if he's to level 10 or so it's time for a +2 or +3 equivalent. I'd get spell storing with a nasty damage spell from you, and/or damage enchantment(s). The enhancement bonus should stay +1, since damage enchantments are usually better and b/c he can get enhancement bonuses from greater magic weapon, etc., which he can cast as a paladin. Like all +X buffs he should cast it in the morning not during combat. Or the beginning of a long combat or a buffing round before combat is ok for a +X buff.

Misc: Check the flight rules. Overland flight has limited manuevaribility and might not be as good as you think. He should get a CLW wand or wands for healing. It's better for between combat and his heals are too weak to use during combat. Rarely used utility/restoration spells like remove paralysis should go on scrolls, not his spell list. That'll free up his spell slots for other things.

Narmoth
2009-01-17, 10:27 AM
The way I read the spell is that you can use 10 hp on an attack and it's a free action. So you could take several free actions, one pr attack, and use 10 hp on each. But I might be wrong

ericgrau
2009-01-17, 10:39 AM
The way I read the spell is that you can use 10 hp on an attack and it's a free action. So you could take several free actions, one pr attack, and use 10 hp on each. But I might be wrong

Just going by what you posted, I see "once each round". The example also seems to imply this. Plus it seems like you make the sacrifice before making your attacks. Thus you could potentially burn a sacrifice and if the spell duration ran out before you got a hit, the lost HP would be wasted.



Divine Sacrifice
Evocation
Level: Blackguard 1, paladin 1
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 round/level
You can sacrifice life force to increase the damage you deal. Once each round, as a free action, you can sacrifice up to 10 of your hit points (doing this does not trigger an attack of opportunity). For every 2 hit points you sacrifice, on your next successful attack you deal +1d6 damage, to a maximum of +5d6 on that attack. Your ability to deal this additional
damage ends when you successfully attack or when the spell duration ends. You can make as many sacrifies as the spell duration allows. Sacrified hit points count as normal damage. For example, an 8th-level paladin can cast this spell with a duration of 4 rounds. If she sacrifices 10 hit points a round and hits in every round, she can spend up to 40 hit
points and deal up to +5d6 points of additional damage all 4 rounds.

JupiterPaladin
2009-01-17, 01:21 PM
Well that spell will only work once in the round, true, but you're missing the whole point on the cleave comment. When you make a cleave or great cleave attack, it is made with all of the bonuses that were used in the attack that dropped the enemy and caused the cleave attack. This is one of the more useful aspects of cleave!


from the SRD
Cleave [General]

Prerequisites
Str 13, Power Attack.

Benefit
If you deal a creature enough damage to make it drop (typically by dropping it to below 0 hit points or killing it), you get an immediate, extra melee attack against another creature within reach. You cannot take a 5-foot step before making this extra attack. The extra attack is with the same weapon and at the same bonus as the attack that dropped the previous creature. You can use this ability once per round.
Special

A fighter may select Cleave as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Don't underestimate cleave. It's not just for mooks if you can pump up some damage output. One of my players had a pretty decent Paladin build that ended up great cleaving Githyanki! Proper use of feats FTW! I believe that Paladins can be very useful if you take some care in building them.

The real problem is that the OP was too concerned with not losing that one whopping round when one single Overland Flight cast on the Paladin would have fixed the whole problem. She had no choice but to be useless because of the Wizard. One round isn't going to cost the fight if you were able to handle it all by yourself effectively.

Lappy9000
2009-01-17, 01:36 PM
Other than just giving them access to more feats, I recently came across the PrC of Divine Crusader while I was playing a paladin. It's basically a light continuation of Paladin for a few levels with I thing Cleric spell advancement and access to the Cleric spell list. It could add that special roundness and self-dependancy that they might have needed.

Divine Crusader is in Complete Divine, just so you know. Then again, I don't know everything about the player and how they play, they could simply not want to use their good aspects, I don't know.
May be a touch off-topic, but thanks for suggesting that. I'm playing an 8th-level paladin, and that Prestige Class certainly looks like a good way to boost his power while still keeping true to his paladin-ness. Definitely a good choice for the OP to consider :smallsmile:

Keld Denar
2009-01-17, 01:48 PM
Eric, GMW is worthless for a Paladin to take. Paladins only get 1/2 casting, so even at level 16, she'll only have a CL of 8, which gets a 2 weapon from GMW. Better the wizard casts it.

And PA is not worthless. Its a great feat for melee. Its also the prereq for the feat Divine Might, which would allow her to actually swing that +cha at someone, and make it hurt.

I built a build for another guy who was looking for a paladin build, and it ended up being pretty good. It was Paladin5/Fighter2/Divine Crusader1/Ordained Champion4/Divine Crusader+8. Relevant feats are Knowledge Devotion, Law Devotion, Holy Warrior, Divine Might, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (prereq) and Awesome Smite. I think there may have been an Extra Turning in there as well.

Law Devotion, Holy Warrior, Weapon Focus, and Knowledge Devotion can crank your attack WAY up, allowing you to PA with ease. Holy Warrior, Knowledge Devotion, and Divine Might give decent bonus damage on top of what PA will return. Awesome Smite combined with OC smiting allows you to deal with most DR, and knock foes on their butts occasionally. Full 9th level casting from War + 1 domain gives you lots of versitility. I'd suggest Travel for your 2nd domain for mobility spells.

Stat focus should be Cha > Str > Con > Wis > Int > Dex

11th level would put her at Pal5/Ftr2/DC1/OC4. This gives her 3rd level spells at least. Fly is the 3rd level Travel domain spell, giving her mobility. She has full OC smitage, which is awesome. She won't have Holy Warrior yet, but she should have Divine Might, Knowledge Devotion, Law Devotion, and PA. Looks solid to me. Build only uses Complete Divine (Divine Crusader), Complete Warrior (Divine Might), Complete Champion (Devotions, Holy Warrior, Awesome Smite, Ordained Champ), and PHBII (Charging Smite variant), which is pretty nice since you don't have to dive through a dozen books.

Ethrael
2009-01-17, 07:44 PM
May be a touch off-topic, but thanks for suggesting that. I'm playing an 8th-level paladin, and that Prestige Class certainly looks like a good way to boost his power while still keeping true to his paladin-ness. Definitely a good choice for the OP to consider :smallsmile:

Glad to be of help! Even if it isn't to whom I originally intended it to be but I definitely agree that it is a surprisingly useful class.

Aether
2009-01-17, 11:55 PM
I think that Cleave means "at the same to-hit bonus as the hit that dropped the enemy."

So if you managed to finish an enemy off with your last iterative attack, it's not such a good thing... Because that third attack would only get, like, +1 from BAB. Then strength, enchantments, and buffs. Minus your Power Attack Damage.

Good news is, charge and smite's to-hit bonuses should work with cleaves, right?


...If you can spare 3 feats, you can take Extend Spell, Persistent Spell, Divine Metamagic: Persistent Spell. And use 7 of those Turn-Undead charges to work on making that Divine Sacrifice spell last 24 hours.

ChaosDefender24
2009-01-18, 01:24 AM
Polymorphing the paladin fixes this problem quite nicely.

As everyone here will tell you, it's quite the spell, so have a good look at the forms you'd like to cast on your Paladin and work with the DM on this beforehand. If the DM's fairly open-minded and/or you don't try to turn the paladin into a hydra, it should go smoothly

Casting fly on the Paladin would definitely have been appropriate here, because spells have range. Don't try that with Overland Flight, though...

Waspinator
2009-01-18, 05:50 AM
If possible, convincing the DM and player to remake the Paladin as a Tome of Battle Crusader could help a lot. Not everyone is willing to do that, though.

Renegade Paladin
2009-01-18, 06:31 AM
From what I can remember.

Str; 16
Con; 16
Dex; 10
Int; 12
Wis; 14
Cha; 20

Feats;
Power Attack
Cleave
Great Cleave
Improved Sunder
(Don't remember the others)
Is she, perchance, going for blackguard? :smallamused:

Anyway, as always, I recommend a rebuild to the rebalanced paladin. (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=761045) It's not that hard to convert; most of the abilities stay the same, and you add some new ones. Much easier than just changing everything.

Ninetail
2009-01-18, 06:13 PM
Ok, let's get to the basics

It is a two person campaign. I'm playing a wizard and the other player a paladin. Due to a mix of average DM'ing, my reasonable spell choice and the paladin player playing a sub optimal build, the paladin is trully useless.


Welcome to third edition. At your level, it doesn't matter whether the paladin is built optimally or not -- the wizard will be far stronger if played with even a little bit of intelligence.

There is nothing that can be done about that, short of either one of you switching characters or all of you switching systems. You can make adjustments to help out, but you, as a full caster, will always overshadow her, as a non-caster, unless you intentionally underpower yourself. Casters are just orders of magnitude more powerful than noncasters at higher levels, and it's built into the system.

That said...



Example: We are (currently) on a flying tower and were attacked by some Lantern and Solar Arcons,

Um... paladin attacking archons? I know you've said you're playing an evil campaign, but a paladin has to be good. She should now be a fallen paladin, which is even weaker than a baseline paladin.

In any case, a melee class with no means of flight against flying opponents is going to put forth a pathetic performance. Other terrains might perform similarly. To mitigate, get your DM to make sure the paladin has means of reaching the enemy freely. Items that provide flight, water breathing, free action, whatever is necessary. If the paladin can't even reach the opponents, of course she won't be effective.



I (using overland flight) fly straight at the platoon casting quicken slow, slow etc pretty much blasting through them in a couple of rounds.


Welcome to being a caster in 3e. Quicken is exceptionally powerful, but even without it, you will be ending most fights in this sort of situation. That's because a single spell can easily take out one or more enemies completely. Meanwhile, the paladin can mostly only do some hit point damage. Each of her actions has less effect than each of yours.

To mitigate this, get your DM to use more monsters with low weapon resistances but high magic resistances. Flawed golems maybe, or rakshasa, or lots of drow, or anything with obscenely high SR. This means you'll be spending a lot of time buffing the paladin and using indirect spells to hinder the enemies, instead of personally taking them all out. You'll probably still be far more effective than the paladin, but she might not notice.



I have gone over the encounter a couple of times and realized I should have cast overland flight on the paladin so she could get into the thick of everything. But, I remembered previous encounters where I had stalled for a couple of rounds and we both barely survived.


I'm not sure that would have helped, really. You could have let her reach the fight, but would that have changed matters? You'd still have blasted them while she was swinging away with her cursed weapon. Even if she'd had a normal weapon, you'd be more effective, but the curse is insult to injury. Get rid of that by all means, and get her a better weapon, but that won't solve the problem, just up her numbers a bit.


I don't want to make a new character but it seems like my only option.


One option is for her to make a new character. A druid or cleric can keep up with a wizard. Depending on what kind of spell selection you've got, they won't be quite as good, but if she wants to wade into melee, a high-level buffed-up cleric or druid is much better at it than a paladin or fighter. Clerics are even very similar to paladins in feel, if they want to be.

Starbuck_II
2009-01-18, 06:42 PM
Um... paladin attacking archons? I know you've said you're playing an evil campaign, but a paladin has to be good. She should now be a fallen paladin, which is even weaker than a baseline paladin.

Unless those Archons are summoned. Summons monsters can't disobey: they follow the summoner no matter the action.

An Evil wizard can summon [Good] creatures: only Clerics can't (can't be a good Cleric and summon evil creatures).



To mitigate this, get your DM to use more monsters with low weapon resistances but high magic resistances. Flawed golems maybe, or rakshasa, or lots of drow, or anything with obscenely high SR. This means you'll be spending a lot of time buffing the paladin and using indirect spells to hinder the enemies, instead of personally taking them all out. You'll probably still be far more effective than the paladin, but she might not notice.


Helps, but there are no SR spells like Glitterdust, Orbs spells, Acid Arrow, etc.

But it does lower the number of great spells working (though Drows SR aren't all that high).