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Sstoopidtallkid
2009-06-22, 08:01 PM
Everyone knows Incantrix is the worst thing since unsliced bread. Planar Shepherd and IotSFV are similarly terrible. And no one in their right mind should bring Venomfire to the table. So, what else is out there? What other abilities, PrCs, and spells are there that, really, TO doesn't want to use, because they make things too easy? Not the stuff that just combos with something else to be borked, but the stuff that should never have been printed in the first place, the stuff that makes DMs ban entire books due to a single feat. What are the chemical weapons of D&D?

arguskos
2009-06-22, 08:03 PM
Fabricate. It's so bad, I considered banning the book it came from... then realized I can't. :smallamused: /joke lol Osmium

In a more serious light, you hit most of the gross offenders, though Dragonwrought Kobold ANYTHING is basically a chemical weapon. :smallmad:

DamnedIrishman
2009-06-22, 08:04 PM
Everyone knows Incantrix is the worst thing since unsliced bread.

What's wrong with unsliced bread? If anything, it's better than sliced bread because you can decide how thick you want your slice to be. Furthermore, the more delicious a type of bread is - such as tiger loaves, tomato & basil flavoured bread, crunchy farmhouse bloomer loaves - the more likely it is to be generally stocked unsliced.
Finally, unsliced bread is more provident as it takes more time to go stale and to grow mold than sliced breads, as well as being far easier to freeze.

EDIT: Also, Pun-Pun.

evil-frosty
2009-06-22, 08:04 PM
Whats venomfire, i have never heard of that till now? Oh and i guess to be contributing to the thread i guess polymorph but everytime i used it my DM had us use an older version from a different edition so it really was never overpowered for us. And from what i have heard epic magic was what Wizards created when they were on crack.

I dont have a lot of books or have really played a high level campaign so i have not experienced any of the really broken things.

Oblivious
2009-06-22, 08:04 PM
In general, don't bring Forgotten Realms into anything but the most high-powered games.

Gralamin
2009-06-22, 08:04 PM
The Wizard, Druid, and Cleric Classes?

Logalmier
2009-06-22, 08:04 PM
I'm gonna bookmark this thread and keep it in mind for my next D&D session...:smallamused:

Keld Denar
2009-06-22, 08:04 PM
Holy Word and friends
Mordy's Disjunction
Shivering Touch
Ray of Stupid

Thats actually pretty much all on my autoban list. I'll usually allow anything from the [Polymorph] subschool though.

Doc Roc
2009-06-22, 08:05 PM
As much as I love it, I've seen War Weaver banned at some tables. Then there's the dragonsblood pool hack I used for algernon, which I don't even like talking about. Ice assassin+fusion comes to mind. Locate cities OR the fimbulwinter bomb.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-06-22, 08:10 PM
As much as I love it, I've seen War Weaver banned at some tables. Then there's the dragonsblood pool hack I used for algernon, which I don't even like talking about. Ice assassin+fusion comes to mind. Locate cities OR the fimbulwinter bomb.Dragonsblood pool hack?

@EvilFrosty: Venomfire is in Serpent Kingdoms, Druid spell, for hours/level it deals 1d6/CL Acid damage on any natural attack you make that is poisoned. No upper limit on damage, and it applies to all your attacks. Fleshrakers get 3 poisoned attacks on a full attack. Yeah. 2x as much bonus damage as the party rogue, easier to activate, with fewer resistances. And it's level 3. :smalleek:

Flickerdart
2009-06-22, 08:10 PM
Complete Champion is generally this. Tome of Battle is often considered this. Tome of Magic is, the Binder aside, the opposite of this, too awful to bother with.
Celerity (PHBII) is a common offender.

Eldariel
2009-06-22, 08:12 PM
Dweomerkeeper [CDiv Web Enhancement] should be on the same list as Incantatrix and Planar Shepherd. The things you can do with Supernatural Spell...it's not even funny (and doesn't take much work to figure out; just check what "Supernatural Ability" means). I really wonder what crack they were smoking when they printed it; "Hay, let's make a class features that ignores all costs on a spell, makes it uncounterable and bypass SR!" "Sure, sounds like a smashing idea! How about we give that class the ability to effectively learn arcane spells as divine spells too just to make it obvious that we WANT him to use Wish for no cost whenever he wants to without SR or any peskiness like that!"

Other, Divine Metamagic [Complete Divine]? Celerity/Greater Celerity [PHBII]? Any kind of Polymorph-effects [Draconomicon, PHB, etc.]? Spells-to-Powers Erudite? Uh, Sarrukh [Serpent Kingdoms]? Artificer [ECS] and Druid [PHB] in general? Divine Impetus on Ruby Knight Vindicator [ToB]? Fleshraker [MM3]?

Doc Roc
2009-06-22, 08:12 PM
I disagree, and find comp champ generally very palatable. I agree on the other points. Poor poor truenamers :S

Eldariel
2009-06-22, 08:13 PM
I disagree, and find comp champ generally very palatable. I agree on the other points. Poor poor truenamers :S

Likewise; Complete Champion gets bad rap unnecessarily. There's a bunch of quality material in there (I'm still of the opinion that's only poorly edited, which goes for much of their material, and that the ease of getting Pounce, and enabling Swift Hunter are merely positive things).

The only bad part really is the fact that it caters to Clerics most who really didn't need a power boost to begin with (well, that and the fact that things are really typed like **** at some points). The good part is that these boosts are less impressive than the ones Clerics got from Complete Divine (WTF were the writers smoking again...).

Doc Roc
2009-06-22, 08:16 PM
In my opinion, Comp Div is one of the worst balanced gaming books ever laid to paper by a major company with actual proof-readers.

Divine Metamagic? In the same book as a reprint of Ur-Priest?
Yes, that's a flawless plan, unlikely to cause any problems. :|

Eldariel
2009-06-22, 08:18 PM
Don't forget that Dweomerkeeper is indeed from its Web Enhancement. 'cause the book wasn't dumb enough without it.

Keld Denar
2009-06-22, 08:29 PM
Even something like Divine Oracle was pretty strong. Evasion is palatable, but the capstone of DO is undispellable Persisted Foresight. Screw clerics, take this class as a wizard and you'll never be parted from your Celerity + Time Stop again!

Probably not really in the "too broken to use" catagory, but still significantly strong and oft overlooked in CD.

Worira
2009-06-22, 08:38 PM
I actually kind of like Venomfire. With the simple houserule that it discharges on the first successful attack, it becomes a reasonably well balanced pre-combat buff, and a cool assassination spell.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-06-22, 08:43 PM
I actually kind of like Venomfire. With the simple houserule that it discharges on the first successful attack, it becomes a reasonably well balanced pre-combat buff, and a cool assassination spell.Yeah, changing it from 'every attack you make, all day today, deals your level*d6 damage' to 'one attack deals CL*d6 damage' makes it much more balanced. Though no upper limit on the damage dice, especially since it doesn't require an in-combat action, still needs to be looked at very carefully. Especially since it is so easy to metamagic.

Thurbane
2009-06-22, 08:46 PM
The BoED contains some brokenness, Touch of Golden Ice, for example.

Doc Roc
2009-06-22, 08:47 PM
{Scrubbed}

Duke of URL
2009-06-22, 08:50 PM
The BoED contains some brokenness, Touch of Golden Ice, for example.

Golden Ice has such a low DC that it's only game-breaking at low levels.

Flickerdart
2009-06-22, 08:51 PM
Oh, the infamous Thought Bottle, that must also be mentioned.

Chronos
2009-06-22, 08:52 PM
Let's also not forget the duo of Embrace the Dark Chaos and Shun the Dark Chaos. You really shouldn't be able to get an infinite number of bonus feats at a cost of 500 XP each.

Lycanthromancer
2009-06-22, 08:55 PM
Well, there's gate, of course. Shapechange. Clone. Astral projection. Simulacrum. Explosive runes. Shrink item. Wind wall. Find traps. Knock. Summon monster X. Lesser/greater planar binding. Lesser/greater/planar ally. Symbol of X.

Keld Denar
2009-06-22, 08:56 PM
Golden Ice has such a low DC that it's only game-breaking at low levels.

Its broken in the fact that your DM will throw the BoED book AT YOU after having to roll 6-7 Fort saves per round to see if a 1 comes up...

Doc Roc
2009-06-22, 08:59 PM
Let's also not forget the duo of Embrace the Dark Chaos and Shun the Dark Chaos. You really shouldn't be able to get an infinite number of bonus feats at a cost of 500 XP each.

It actually just normally lets you swap existing feats around.

Flickerdart
2009-06-22, 09:00 PM
Let's also not forget the duo of Embrace the Dark Chaos and Shun the Dark Chaos. You really shouldn't be able to get an infinite number of bonus feats at a cost of 500 XP each.
It's not bonus, you have to recycle feats you had before, which you can retrain anyways a la PHBII or Psychic Reformation. The only broken thing it does is change racial proficiency feats into useful things.

JaxGaret
2009-06-22, 09:03 PM
Going to third the opinion on Complete Champion. It has IIRC a very small number of broken things, and many well balanced entries.

Douglas
2009-06-22, 09:09 PM
It's not bonus, you have to recycle feats you had before, which you can retrain anyways a la PHBII or Psychic Reformation. The only broken thing it does is change racial proficiency feats into useful things.
Now combine it with Legacy Weapons. Perform a ritual with a legacy weapon and you get Least Legacy. Which is a feat. Cue the Chaos Shuffle. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This isn't quite free, as performing the ritual does cost some money, but that doesn't mean it's not broken.

Doc Roc
2009-06-22, 09:10 PM
Everything related to legacy weapons is generally unpalatable to me.

Thurbane
2009-06-22, 09:15 PM
Everything related to legacy weapons is generally unpalatable to me.
The flavour of WoL is awesome, but the mechanics are really poor. The penalties you take attuning to a legacy item far outweigh the benefits.

Lamech
2009-06-22, 09:16 PM
Magic traps: "Hey lets put a heal trap on my signet ring; that will stop the evil lich from posing as me. I better make sure to wear it just in case the lich has positive energy protection."
Planar Binding: "Serve me until you die, or I kill you; also feel free to kill yourself at anytime." *Opposed Cha check* "Too bad you had all those penalties, and I think your perfectly capable of completing your service. Enjoy serving me for the rest of eternity."
Wish as a SLA: I wish for a plus 20 billion sword.
Tainted Casters: Save DC 80, and 20 bonus spells at every level.
Geas: Same as planar binding. Minus threats and cha role.
Limited wish: What you lack resistance to mind affecting ablities? Suck a geas. No you don't get a save. That would be silly.
Metamorphic Transfer: Say hello to every ablity in every monster book ever.
Protean Scourge: IIRC it lets you make copies of yourself. Except you have to share spell slots. Big woop there.
Gate: Has this been mentioned yet?

Ninja's damn you all.

JaxGaret
2009-06-22, 09:17 PM
Geas: Same as planar binding. Minus threats and cha role.

Geas/Quest isn't as powerful as it seems.

Doc Roc
2009-06-22, 09:19 PM
Really really isn't.

Lycanthromancer
2009-06-22, 09:24 PM
Geese are pretty powerful, though. Especially if you can fell drain them into exploding undead geese.

...What?

Stormthorn
2009-06-22, 09:25 PM
Dweomerkeeper [CDiv Web Enhancement] should be on the same list as Incantatrix and Planar Shepherd. The things you can do with Supernatural Spell...it's not even funny (and doesn't take much work to figure out; just check what "Supernatural Ability" means). I really wonder what crack they were smoking when they printed it; "Hay, let's make a class features that ignores all costs on a spell, makes it uncounterable and bypass SR!" "Sure, sounds like a smashing idea! How about we give that class the ability to effectively learn arcane spells as divine spells too just to make it obvious that we WANT him to use Wish for no cost whenever he wants to without SR or any peskiness like that!"

Im thinking its more broken for giving you an epic feat at level 16.


Their are a couple of high level spells that i dont know exactly what they do but they sound broken. Unname and Ice Assassin are i think what they are called. The first, according to a dude, kills you dead out of the entire universe. The second is used by Pun-Pun to summon gods.

Eldariel
2009-06-22, 09:38 PM
The flavour of WoL is awesome, but the mechanics are really poor. The penalties you take attuning to a legacy item far outweigh the benefits.

Not necessarily, though you have to build custom Legacies for them to be worth it. Casters in particular can get saucy metamagic augmentations at some trivial costs in skills or attacks or whatever, and melee can get a really nice boost in replacing multiple 100k+ items with one Legacy Weapon granting that Mind Blank, Moment of Prescience, Cunning, etc.

Really, if I were to try and build a pre-epic Mage Slayer-character right now, he'd have a Gauntlet called Wizard Slayer. It just makes life so much easier and allows duplicating many of Wizard's tricks. Sure, the odds would still be incredibly against him, but at least he'd have the WBL to take the "item Wizard"-shtick a bit further.


As for Book of Exalted Deeds, I'd actually like to bring up Starmantle Cloak as the broken thing from that book. Total immunity to damage is preeetty good and once you get to Epic, you can trivially use it to become completely immune to everything (it'll be pretty good pre-epic too, though targeted Greater Dispel is something of an issue).


Im thinking its more broken for giving you an epic feat at level 16.

Eh, epic feats aren't really all that until you can cast 9th level spells and have 24 ranks in Spellcraft and Knowledge (Arcane/Religion/Nature). They're nice, sure, but free Wishes are definitely more gamebreaking.


Their are a couple of high level spells that i dont know exactly what they do but they sound broken. Unname and Ice Assassin are i think what they are called. The first, according to a dude, kills you dead out of the entire universe. The second is used by Pun-Pun to summon gods.

Ice Assassin is like Simulacrum, except it lacks any limitations. So build a copy of anything...yeah, that's a bit much (it's in Frostburn). Unname, on the other hand, is pretty lame as it offers all defenses ever and requires Truespeak and is a 9th level arcane spell (Tome of Magic). It's not really a problem.

Really, it's funny how much stupidity Frostburn contains without really being called out on it (Ice Assassin, Shivering Touch).

Doc Roc
2009-06-22, 09:39 PM
Heh, yeah, starmantle made my exclude list for the ToS, thank you. :)

Thurbane
2009-06-22, 09:52 PM
Not necessarily, though you have to build custom Legacies for them to be worth it. Casters in particular can get saucy metamagic augmentations at some trivial costs in skills or attacks or whatever, and melee can get a really nice boost in replacing multiple 100k+ items with one Legacy Weapon granting that Mind Blank, Moment of Prescience, Cunning, etc.

Really, if I were to try and build a pre-epic Mage Slayer-character right now, he'd have a Gauntlet called Wizard Slayer. It just makes life so much easier and allows duplicating many of Wizard's tricks. Sure, the odds would still be incredibly against him, but at least he'd have the WBL to take the "item Wizard"-shtick a bit further.
...interesting. I really, really wanted to like WoL - I might start a new thread about tips and tricks for making it work. :smallsmile:

Zeful
2009-06-22, 10:00 PM
The Orb of X spells. They're pretty powerful, but their effect is at odds with their school.

Lamech
2009-06-22, 10:04 PM
Geas/Quest isn't as powerful as it seems.


The geased creature must follow the given instructions until the geas is completed, no matter how long it takes.
Umm... I don't see a choice.


If the instructions involve some open-ended task that the recipient cannot complete through his own actions the spell remains in effect for a maximum of one day per caster level. A clever recipient can subvert some instructions: The target most certainly can complete this by slitting its own throat. That means the creature works for you. Foreverish. The ten minute casting time is annoying, and the fact that its mind affecting, but I think its OP when ever you get to use it.

ZeroNumerous
2009-06-22, 10:06 PM
Orb of X: They're actually perfectly in line with their school of Conjuration(Creation).

Geas: Depending on how you word it(ie: Don't breathe), it can be exceedingly lethal. Naturally it's ridiculously impractical to use by casting it, so you just make a custom magic item of Geas that casts Geas on the first person to put it on. The Geas being to sit down and wait for 1 year and 1 day.

wykydtron
2009-06-22, 10:14 PM
Geese are pretty powerful, though. Especially if you can fell drain them into exploding undead geese.

...What?

Wow, that was quite possibly the best post of the thread and just made my day, thank you.:smallsmile:

Doc Roc
2009-06-22, 10:19 PM
I was pretty amused. There were a lot of good and thoughtful posts here, though. :)

Malicte
2009-06-22, 10:32 PM
Abrupt Jaunt makes my list, especially in lower-level games. The ability to evade almost anything you see coming int mod times/day is very very useful.

Gnaeus
2009-06-22, 10:35 PM
Interpreting monster caster levels as an Ex or Su ability. (i.e. shapechange to solar, gain 20 levels of cleric.)

Philistine
2009-06-22, 11:03 PM
Other, Divine Metamagic [Complete Divine]?

Is DMM really so bad on its own? I thought it was the ability to get an effectively unlimited number of Turn Undead attempts per day via Nightsticks that really caused the problems.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-06-22, 11:03 PM
Well, there's gate, of course. Shapechange. Clone. Astral projection. Simulacrum. Explosive runes. Shrink item. Wind wall. Find traps. Knock. Summon monster X. Lesser/greater planar binding. Lesser/greater/planar ally. Symbol of X.Not sure about all of those. Planar Ally is specifically uncertain, and is expected to be balanced by the DM controlling the ally and determining the fee. Summon Monster is weak, it requires optimization to get a number of creatures powerful enough to actually matter, and you still have to deal with the casting time. The Symbol line I have never seen as worth the cash(though that may be because I'm cheap). The others...yeah. Polymorph, spells that shut down entire sections of the rules, and the immortality-line.

Mr.Moron
2009-06-22, 11:07 PM
Is DMM really so bad on its own? I thought it was the ability to get an effectively unlimited number of Turn Undead attempts per day via Nightsticks that really caused the problems.


I agree. I've got an upcoming DMM persist character. While it's extremely good, and worth the feat investment It really doesn't feel broken with the 2 spells/day I can persist with it.

Olo Demonsbane
2009-06-22, 11:09 PM
*Evil Laughter*

Thanks for this thread, so much...

Lycanthromancer
2009-06-22, 11:21 PM
Not sure about all of those. Planar Ally is specifically uncertain, and is expected to be balanced by the DM controlling the ally and determining the fee. Summon Monster is weak, it requires optimization to get a number of creatures powerful enough to actually matter, and you still have to deal with the casting time. The Symbol line I have never seen as worth the cash(though that may be because I'm cheap). The others...yeah. Polymorph, spells that shut down entire sections of the rules, and the immortality-line.

It's easy enough to prepare for a casting of planar ally to put the so-called 'ally' at a major disadvantage. Spells that boost your Diplomacy (make it fanatic, and it'll do anything for you!), or charm/domination effects will coerce it into agreeing to serve you cheaply.

And the issue with planar ally and summon monster spells in general is that they grant you access to other classes' spell lists (the abilities of unicorns come to mind...), as well as help you break action economy. They can also wholly replace the party's meatshield.

As far as explosive runes goes, there are lots of ways to abuse them. Remember that creatures within reading-range don't get the chance to make a saving throw. Which means if you fly above a large army with a 50 ft-wide banner with a giant explosive rune on it, the entire army takes damage...no save.

Shrink item...very, very abusive. VERY.

And as far as the symbols go...see permanency.

Chronos
2009-06-22, 11:21 PM
It's not bonus, you have to recycle feats you had before, which you can retrain anyways a la PHBII or Psychic Reformation. The only broken thing it does is change racial proficiency feats into useful things.There are a variety of methods to get truly unlimited numbers of feats out of it, too. The one I was referring to uses the Planar Touchstone feat, from Planar Handbook. One option for Planar Touchstone is to get the granted power of a single cleric domain (the Catalogs of Enlightenment touchstone). So, take the Planar Touchstone feat, and pick the War domain. This gives you two more bonus feats. Chaos those into something useful (cost 500 GP each), and then change your Planar Touchstone feat (this doesn't actually take another chaos shuffle, since Planar Touchstone has its own mechanic for changing it). Change it back to Catalogs of Enlightenment, and get two more bonus feats, lather, rinse, repeat.

Of course, even without infinite tricks like that, retraining racial bonus feats is still way too good to allow. Take what's already the best race for a wizard, and then give them six bonus feats they can spend on anything, for the cost of a (by then) negligible amount of XP.

VirOath
2009-06-22, 11:24 PM
The flavour of WoL is awesome, but the mechanics are really poor. The penalties you take attuning to a legacy item far outweigh the benefits.

Of -printed- weapons. Custom weapons made by either the player (At the cost) or generated by the DM are often much better. The current issue is that Weapons of Legacy are either all over the board on what they provide, or dedicated to a field that isn't that useful. The best Legacies are the ones that aren't even weapons.

Edit: And maybe I'm not creative enough in thought for that aspect, but Shrink Item Abuse?

Thrawn183
2009-06-22, 11:28 PM
I'm going to have to throw out the spells that give complete immunity to things: freedom of movement, death ward, mind blank, wind wall.

The locked gauntlet. It almost is to disarming what a 40k ring is to grappling.

The downside is that the game is designed with these things in mind; for example, I think death ward is assumed when AoE death effects are being tossed around or ennervation is a fourth level ray, not to mention a character without freedom of movement going up against monsters with grapple scores in the 50's. On the other hand, what about monsters that really can't function without grappling you? They become a total non-threat.

But totally borked would have to include Blinding Spittle (2nd level spell with no save, no SR blindness? And touch AC actually drops at higher level?) and Giant Vermin. Giant Vermin is, in my opinion, better than any summoning spell printed. Sure an elemental monolith could take on a colossal monstrous scorpion, but it takes a ninth level spell to summon instead of a fourth level AND you have to concentrate to maintain it.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-06-22, 11:32 PM
It's easy enough to prepare for a casting of planar ally to put the so-called 'ally' at a major disadvantage. Spells that boost your Diplomacy (make it fanatic, and it'll do anything for you!), or charm/domination effects will coerce it into agreeing to serve you cheaply.I hadn't thought about Dominate, though wouldn't you need Dom Monster most of the time? Besides, it's a Cleric spell. Things like that seem like the sort of thing to make a Cleric fall(Yes, Clerics can fall, and DMs need to remember this).
As far as explosive runes goes, there are lots of ways to abuse them. Remember that creatures within reading-range don't get the chance to make a saving throw. Which means if you fly above a large army with a 50 ft-wide banner with a giant explosive rune on it, the entire army takes damage...no save.

Shrink item...very, very abusive. VERY.There's a reason I didn't mention either of those. Explosive Runes goes into my list of 'spells that I will never know', because the instant I realize it exists in-character, there is no reason not to abuse it.
And as far as the symbols go...see permanency.Which adds an XP cost to the material component cost. Between that and the immobility, I see them as a reasonable way to defend a Stronghold for a kingdom, but not that good for PCs outside of a few select situations.

oxinabox
2009-06-22, 11:40 PM
Factotum. (from dungeonscape)
I would say factotum on it's own is completely broken.
Just one line: Class skills: All.

Worse is a factotum with a wand of Damage Intelligence.
I've see a factotum spend 3 insperation points and drive a whole encouter's worth of enemies in to a coma.

Also
Favored enemy archaist (compete archane), and magebane enchantment (i think complete arcane).
for the enchantment Cost is standard for a band weapon.
Both of them do, +2d6 damage to anything that can cast arcane spells, or has any spell like (sp) abilities.

we had dm stnding in for our usual dm.
He sent an encounter against us (we're leval 4-6), can't rememebr wwhat it was.
when we dispatched it, he was like "hmmm."
Opens up the MM, a person who was walking past looked at the book and was like, "No, don't TPK. there not even level 8 yet."
and the dm was like "they took the last encounter easy enough, this should provide a challenge."
He sent a ogre mage against us.
The ranger, killed it in one shot.

favored enemy arcanist, magebane bow.
rapid shot.
he shot 4 times doing 4(1d6+2d6+2d6)=4x5d6=20d6 damage.

Brock Samson
2009-06-22, 11:41 PM
Wait - how does Starmantle make you "immune to all weapons" at epic levels? Any weapon someone swings at you is going to be magic, so you get a 50% reduction in damage, which is great, but you still have to take it. Worse would be the item in BoED that makes you take half damage from any melee attack, the attacker takes the other half, and it costs LESS than the Starmantle cloak. Granted, it's only melee, not ranged, but, come on.

Tukka
2009-06-22, 11:44 PM
As far as explosive runes goes, there are lots of ways to abuse them. Remember that creatures within reading-range don't get the chance to make a saving throw. Which means if you fly above a large army with a 50 ft-wide banner with a giant explosive rune on it, the entire army takes damage...no save.

That one just requires a sensible rules interpretation. The SRD says, you can "trace these mystic runes upon a book, map, scroll, or similar object bearing written information." As a DM I wouldn't rule that a 50 ft banner is "similar" to a book, map or scroll. There is a similarity or two, but enough difference to justify not having the spell work in that manner without blatantly violating the RAW.

Edit: Though on second thought, I guess you could cast it on a big war-room style map that would still be readable from fairly long distances. So that would be one fairly abusive application even with reasonable RAI.

Talic
2009-06-22, 11:47 PM
Feels a bit cold in here. Probably because nobody mentioned Shivering Touch.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-06-22, 11:49 PM
Factotum. (from dungeonscape)
I would say factotum on it's own is completely broken.
Just one line: Class skills: All.There aren't many abuses with that. I've seen it used to get a boost via Truespeach, to get some bonus damage through Iajatsu Focus, but really, if the skill is balanced, the Factotum can't do much to break it.
Worse is a factotum with a wand of Damage Intelligence.
I've see a factotum spend 3 insperation points and drive a whole encouter's worth of enemies in to a coma.Assuming you meant Ray of Stupidity, how? 3 points gets you an aditional standard action, but still you only knock out 2 opponents, and then only dumb ones, and only if you roll well. Even so, not really much worse than a Rogue can do, or a caster who, you know, doesn't need the wand.
Also
Favored enemy archaist (compete archane), and magebane enchantment (i think complete arcane).
for the enchantment Cost is standard for a band weapon.
Both of them do, +2d6 damage to anything that can cast arcane spells, or has any spell like (sp) abilities.

we had dm stnding in for our usual dm.
He sent an encounter against us (we're leval 4-6), can't rememebr wwhat it was.
when we dispatched it, he was like "hmmm."
Opens up the MM, a person who was walking past looked at the book and was like, "No, don't TPK. there not even level 8 yet."
and the dm was like "they took the last encounter easy enough, this should provide a challenge."
He sent a ogre mage against us.
The ranger, killed it in one shot.

favored enemy arcanist, magebane bow.
rapid shot.
he shot 4 times doing 4(1d6+2d6+2d6)=4x5d6=20d6 damage.Yeah, no. First off, the abilities were reprinted to not work against opponents with SLAs, only ones with actual arcane casting. Second, FE:Arcanist only adds 2 to damage, not 2d6. Third, at that level he, at best, should have gotten 3 shots unless someone cast Haste. Plus, he's much less useful if his opponent doesn't have casting.

derfenrirwolv
2009-06-22, 11:50 PM
The target most certainly can complete this by slitting its own throat. That means the creature works for you. Foreverish

At that point, the DM is well within his rights to get downright nasty in his interpretation. For instance, the wizard asking to be served for the rest of his life could be tied to a silver platter have an apple stuffed into his mouth while the demon sliced off pieces of him and kept regenerating the parts he cut off.

Brock Samson
2009-06-23, 12:00 AM
derfenrirwolv... nice.

Has anyone else ever wondered how saying something in another language "ex. elven, sylvan, giant, etc..." SHOULD change the additional meanings of words, like saying something in English like "serve" COULD be interpretted that way, or in how you word a wish that gets twisted, yet that's only due to the language you're currently speaking in. Just something to think about.

Doc Roc
2009-06-23, 12:04 AM
This is why you ::hum:: should always know modron, where there :: beep :: are no ambiguities or imprecisions. Naturally, for the modrons are :: buzz:: perfect! :: blip ::

Would you like to play a game?

Zeful
2009-06-23, 12:05 AM
Orb of X: They're actually perfectly in line with their school of Conjuration(Creation).

Not really. Orb of Force creates a ball of non-magical, magical force, which is an oxymoron. Orb of Sonic creates a ball of sound.

Then the wizard throws the ball in such a way to justify a ranged touch attack, (which can make sense for a grand total of two of them) which requires two or three feats for everyone else if I'm remembering it correctly.

Then there' the fact that the damage is way too high. Non-magical Fire does 1d6 damage per round, orb of fire can get much higher.

All of the orb of X line should be Evocation.

Shadowtraveler
2009-06-23, 12:12 AM
I always got the feeling the Orb spells were a bypass for wizards who barred themselves from Evocation. No save and no SR is icing on the cake.

Doc Roc
2009-06-23, 12:23 AM
On the other hand, I've done the math, and non-magical fire doesn't do enough damage to burn wood.

You heard right. Go look yourself. :)

VirOath
2009-06-23, 12:32 AM
Rather, it felt like how a non-optimized Blaster Wizard becomes totally useless when facing a High SR or Magic Immune (Since that blocks all spells that have SR: Yes) was being given a bypass. So Wizards could play their Wizards against Golems and not cry anymore, but it doesn't empower Evocation Specialists since it's not an evocation school, which was supposed to be a balance.

So No Save, No SR wasn't the icing, it was the point.


And Shrink Item Abuse? I can think of many ways of abuse for most of what has popped up, save this one. Only a few come to mind.

Goatman_Ted
2009-06-23, 12:43 AM
I always got the feeling the Orb spells were a bypass for wizards who barred themselves from Evocation. No save and no SR is icing on the cake.

Wait. What?

Is this something that gives your Conjurers trouble often?

T.G. Oskar
2009-06-23, 12:46 AM
Wait - how does Starmantle make you "immune to all weapons" at epic levels? Any weapon someone swings at you is going to be magic, so you get a 50% reduction in damage, which is great, but you still have to take it. Worse would be the item in BoED that makes you take half damage from any melee attack, the attacker takes the other half, and it costs LESS than the Starmantle cloak. Granted, it's only melee, not ranged, but, come on.

Oh, you mean the Greater Retributive Amulet... Yeah, the one that gives a +2 sacred bonus to AC and reflects half of all melee attacks' damage back to the attacker. Which was errata'ed to oblivion in the Magic Item Compendium by reducing the uses to 3/day and only once per attack and no bonus to AC for around a third of the fraction.

As for BoED, here's what most people would think as broken (but that really isn't):

Ancestral Relic for a custom-made, non-Weapon of Legacy magic weapon, armor or shield.

Vow of Poverty at 1st level. With a Monk. Which has been proven back and forth to be actually hindering to a Monk.

Nymph's Kiss for 1 skill point/character level. No biggie.

Words of Creation for the doubling of Inspire Courage. This is almost a must for Bards. Couple with Dragonfire Inspiration for the lulz.

Apostle of Peace for granting 9th level spellcasting and Turn Undead. Except Vow of Peace is a doozy.

Fist of Raziel for making Paladins actually kick a bit more of ass, by raising their Smite Evil ability while allowing them to raise Cleric spellcasting which is much better than what they have. Carefully constructed Paladin/Cleric/Fist of Raziel guys can throw even Doritos at 20th level, and the Doritos become Holy Doritos. For when evil strikes and you don't have a weapon...anything becomes a holy weapon.

Sanctify the Wicked to nerf demons and devils so that they become good guys.

Sublime Revelry (immune to mind-affecting, half damage from melee and ranged attacks which means high-damage builds begin to suffer)

End to Strife which means you stop the battle entirely. Period. No saving throw. (Though it can be spell-resisted...)

The first appearance of Twilight Armor. Then it mixed with Mithral, and all of a sudden Gishes were all happy. Nope, nothing broken in here.

En-frickin'-feebling weapons. 1d6+2 points of temporary Strength damage on a critical hit. Nothing bad for crit-intensive builds...

Banishing weapons. Like Disrupting, but for outsiders. It has a solid DC (24, which is pretty good), for a +3 weapon.

Antimagic Shackles. Mix with Justiciar. Any Batman Wizard that fails to prepare Foresight or gets surprised can't even get his contingent Teleport up.

Killing an Aleax. Not enough bonuses, but grants the rarest of all non-untyped bonuses (perfection bonus), plus a +2 to Wisdom. Recall just how many classes could get an untyped bonus to Wisdom. Oh, and a +1 insight bonus to Initiative checks and spell resistance. No biggie. Thing is, it's a thing that a DM can send you just because. And it's a construct, so it has even more benefits, but it's exactly as the character.

And the pimpin' Saint template. A big load of benefits with the only restriction of acting perfectly good for the rest of your pitiful existence.

Compared to Book of Vile Darkness, this isn't even reaching to be broken. Perhaps one thing or two.

Lycanthromancer
2009-06-23, 12:46 AM
And Shrink Item Abuse? I can think of many ways of abuse for most of what has popped up, save this one. Only a few come to mind.

1.) Use a Large shrunken dome as a hat. Immunity to antimagic fields.

2.) Load up a portable hole with shrunken boulders, use a move action to dump it out when you're flying overhead, and speak the command word as they plummet, for several thousand d6s' worth of damage. Telekinesis and a party-mate (or a raven familiar) will work if you can't get overhead.

3.) Find a huge pool of acid or poison, shrink it into cloth, then drape it over someone and call the command-word for massive toxin-overdose.

4.) Construct a massive fortress (or ship, or any big structure, really) piece-by-piece pretty darned quick. Shrink a bunch of stone (or wood, or whatever), shape it how you want via fabricate at a 1/4000 scale, enhance it using spells that affect smaller objects, then call the command-word to blow it back up. You'll construct it 4000x as quickly that way.

5.) Etc, etc, etc. Use your imagination.

Adumbration
2009-06-23, 01:24 AM
T. G. Oskar, you forgot something from your BoED ban list. Greater Celestial Channeling. Sure, it's a 9th level spell. Sure, you need another 9th level spell (gate) to get it work properly. Sure, you need to take some dexterity damage.

But none of that matters when you can bind a solar to your body for 10 min/level, gaining their every ability, including spellcasting and improved mental ability scores. Seriously.

Keld Denar
2009-06-23, 01:43 AM
Feels a bit cold in here. Probably because nobody mentioned Shivering Touch.

8th post...


Holy Word and friends
Mordy's Disjunction
Shivering Touch
Ray of Stupid

Thats actually pretty much all on my autoban list. I'll usually allow anything from the [Polymorph] subschool though.

T.G. Oskar
2009-06-23, 01:44 AM
T. G. Oskar, you forgot something from your BoED ban list. Greater Celestial Channeling. Sure, it's a 9th level spell. Sure, you need another 9th level spell (gate) to get it work properly. Sure, you need to take some dexterity damage.

But none of that matters when you can bind a solar to your body for 10 min/level, gaining their every ability, including spellcasting and improved mental ability scores. Seriously.

Don't forget that it can be used by Clerics, Wizards, Druids, Archivists, Wu Jen AND Shugenja, plus it can be made as a scroll and be used by Sorcerers, Beguilers, Warmages, Spirit Shamans, Mystics, Favored Souls, and Sublime Chords (or add them to their lists through Exalted Arcanist)

Not sure about Healers or Apostles of Peace, though.

But as a rule of thumb, I don't add Sanctified spells. It's either too broken or too meh. And to revise each and every one of them takes some time. However, a Diamond Spray or Hammer of Righteousness adds some much needed firepower to a Paladin, who can make good use of it.

But...why have a mere Solar when you can go Epic and Channel one of those tasty Celestial Paragons? You already need Epic Spellcasting for it; why not have one that's more broken than a Solar being channeled through you...and nearly every ally around? Of course, it's not like you're granting all allies spellcasting as a 9th level cleric, but still...

Cyclocone
2009-06-23, 02:15 AM
I can't belive noone has mentioned Mind Rape and Programmed Amnesia yet.

Uncanny Forethought and Alacritous Cogitation should make the list as well, if you go RAW-nazi and interpret them as letting you cast all spells as full round actions.

Veil of Undeath. 'Nuff said.

VirOath
2009-06-23, 02:42 AM
1.) Use a Large shrunken dome as a hat. Immunity to antimagic fields.

2.) Load up a portable hole with shrunken boulders, use a move action to dump it out when you're flying overhead, and speak the command word as they plummet, for several thousand d6s' worth of damage. Telekinesis and a party-mate (or a raven familiar) will work if you can't get overhead.

3.) Find a huge pool of acid or poison, shrink it into cloth, then drape it over someone and call the command-word for massive toxin-overdose.

4.) Construct a massive fortress (or ship, or any big structure, really) piece-by-piece pretty darned quick. Shrink a bunch of stone (or wood, or whatever), shape it how you want via fabricate at a 1/4000 scale, enhance it using spells that affect smaller objects, then call the command-word to blow it back up. You'll construct it 4000x as quickly that way.

5.) Etc, etc, etc. Use your imagination.
Ah! Thanks, now I got the right train of thought.

Draz74
2009-06-23, 02:59 AM
Assuming you meant Ray of Stupidity, how? 3 points gets you an aditional standard action, but still you only knock out 2 opponents, and then only dumb ones, and only if you roll well. Even so, not really much worse than a Rogue can do, or a caster who, you know, doesn't need the wand.

I've seen this particular broken build. Takes Font of Inspiration about 10 times, so it can Cunning Surge over and over on its first turn of combat.

That build is broken, yes. The Factotum, however, certainly is NOT. (Ray of Stupidity is broken, and Font of Inspiration is pretty broken if you use it cleverly. With that feat and spell banned, though, you'll only break the game with a Factotum if you pick some other cheese to combine him with.)

ericgrau
2009-06-23, 04:27 AM
It would be nice if someone kept a list of everything mentioned so far then asked for a consensus on each. Or check google. I know the orb of x spells and no-minimum, no save ability score damagers have gotten a lot of flak from DMs who have actually watched them ruin their game. They seem ok at first and sneak into games, until that certain BBEG gets instantly wtfpwned by it without even a bad die roll. As an example on the flip side, most abusive uses of shrink item merely get you slapped and don't actually ever see the light of day. There you just ban the abuse not the whole spell, typically within 5 seconds of hearing the player mention it if he dares mention it at all. So in practice it's no big deal.

Then we could have two lists: one of what just about everyone should ban and one of what some or a lot of people like to ban.

Gralamin
2009-06-23, 04:28 AM
I've seen this particular broken build. Takes Font of Inspiration about 10 times, so it can Cunning Surge over and over on its first turn of combat.

That build is broken, yes. The Factotum, however, certainly is NOT. (Ray of Stupidity is broken, and Font of Inspiration is pretty broken if you use it cleverly. With that feat and spell banned, though, you'll only break the game with a Factotum if you pick some other cheese to combine him with.)

To be fair, a reasonable limit (like, say, 3) on Font Of Inspiration gives something worth spending a feat on to the class.

Doc Roc
2009-06-23, 08:19 AM
I've seen this particular broken build. Takes Font of Inspiration about 10 times, so it can Cunning Surge over and over on its first turn of combat.

That build is broken, yes. The Factotum, however, certainly is NOT. (Ray of Stupidity is broken, and Font of Inspiration is pretty broken if you use it cleverly. With that feat and spell banned, though, you'll only break the game with a Factotum if you pick some other cheese to combine him with.)

A build that can go off once per day isn't really that broken. :|

Doc Roc
2009-06-23, 08:21 AM
Orbs are not that bad. Just give your villains a moderately reasonable touch ac and watch out for surge of fortune. God forbid that players should have a reliable means of offense that isn't subject to easily accessible immunities.. ;)

Curmudgeon
2009-06-23, 08:39 AM
Too broken: the falling damage caps. They make falling a minor inconvenience at high levels, whereas it should be very bad. The FAQ works through the math, and you actually reach terminal velocity when dropping about 500 feet (instead of 200). So use 50d6 as the maximum falling damage.

Set
2009-06-23, 08:46 AM
And the issue with planar ally and summon monster spells in general is that they grant you access to other classes' spell lists (the abilities of unicorns come to mind...),

And that's not just a problem with Gate, Planar Ally, Planar Binding, Summon Monster X, Summon Nature's Ally X, Summon Dustform Creature X, Conjure Ice Beast X, etc. it's also a problem with any sort of Shapechanging, Wild Shaping or Alternate Form ability that allows a PC to use uber monster powers, a problem with Diplomacy, when a PC can schmooze a monster into using it's uber-monster powers for them, a problem with mind-affecting spells like Dominate Monster, Geas, etc. that a PC can use to force a monster to use it's monster power for the PC, a problem with the Leadership feat, that a PC can use to get a monster to use monster powers for it, etc., etc.

The 'problem' isn't the entire transmutation, enchantment and conjurations schools (as well as judicious use of skills and feats), it's that *monsters have some insane powers.*

Gate isn't a problem. Efreeti being able to pump out three Wishes a day is the problem. Shapechange (Solar) isn't a problem. Solars having 20th level Cleric abilities as an Exceptional Ability is the problem.

Barghests being able to Feed and gain HD permanantly, or Shambling Mounds being able to be hit by lightning and gain infinite Constitution scores, or Shadows being able to create fifty bazillion Spawn slaves at no cost to itself are the problems.

If we tried to 'fix' every transmutation, enchantment and / or conjuration effect that brought one of these problem children's powers into the hands of the PCs, and tried to 'fix' Diplomacy and Leadership, we'd just be pretty much destroying everything that makes D&D a fantasy game.

Oh, no more mind control, because the game breaks if you mind control an Efreeti. Oh, no more shapechanging, because the game breaks if you shapechange into an Efreeti. Oh, no more summoning magic, because the game breaks if you summon an Efreeti. Oh, no more Diplomacy, because the game breaks if you convince an Efreeti that it's in his best interests to give you hundreds of Wishes, half of which you'll use to make *him* godlike powerful.

Meh. Stupid Efreeti are the stupid problem. Stop giving monsters insanely unbalancing powers, and the PCs no longer threaten to break the game if they summon, charm or turn into such a monster. Tweak powers like Wish as an SLA, Create Spawn, Feed, spellcasting as an EX ability, etc. and the rest sorts itself out nicely.

readsaboutd&d
2009-06-23, 08:47 AM
Optimised leadership allows you to turn an army of attacking ennemies into your personnal fanatical gard. In one round. Even at -70, some builds literraly cannot fail. There is also candle of invocation (give me another candle of invocation, a ring of three wishes and a load of tomes and then fight the ennemy).
And, for mindrape, it is so broken that the demented one figured that it would be balanced if it was the 30th level ability of his epic destiny and took either a ten minutes talk or a -50 to the save.

Doc Roc
2009-06-23, 08:49 AM
Would you then also take away the strength of a Firrbolg, it's defining characteristic but an often abused form?
The pounce of a fleshraker?

:: shrugs :: the game is too big, and has too many precious things to too many people for blanket fixes, I feel, often. Sorry, just bitter and curmudgeonly.

mistformsquirrl
2009-06-23, 08:56 AM
<. .> As someone who doesn't play casters much...

I'm curious as to why the Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil is listed?

I played one awhile back, and it didn't seem that ridiculous to me >.< Though I will mention that when I play wizards, I tend not to go overboard optimizing. (Heck, I don't go overboard optimizing on any character, but I'm particularly lax with casters)

Err.. but what am I missing? If I remember right you can't force people through the veils, so unless I'm totally forgetting something (book not in front of me), a smart DM can just keep away and hit you with ranged/magic.

What I mean is - what's broken about an Initiate that's not broken about any other spellcaster?

(Pardon me if this is horrifyingly obvious, I've been awake far too long <x,x>)

Set
2009-06-23, 09:00 AM
Would you then also take away the strength of a Firrbolg, it's defining characteristic but an often abused form? The pounce of a fleshraker?

If the strength of a Firbolg was being used to grant people +5 inherent bonuses to all of their stats and an infinite supply of magic items, or the spellcasting ability of a 20th level Cleric? Yeah.

If the pounce of a Fleshraker was being used to grant a PC a +100 Constitution or +100 Hit Dice, or to cover the game-world in a 10 meter deep coating of Undead Shadows (Wights, Wraiths, Spectres, Vampires) under their control? Sure.

But if the Lizardfolk form allows a 3rd level Wizard to give himself a +5 Natural Armor bonus for 10 minutes / level? Yeah, I think the game will survive. Not everything needs to be changed, just the infinite loop stuff that gets CharOp threads devoted to how to use it to break the game. :)

Doc Roc
2009-06-23, 09:02 AM
@MFS: It's actually not obvious. The gist is that there are two schools of thought regarding the veils, one which holds that they are basically virtually impossible to destroy, another which holds that for the sake of game balance they should be vulnerable to normal things unlike prismatic wall. There's some RAW support for both sides.

Both sides agree that no matter which interpretation holds, the fact that you can use the veils as an immediate action is a big deal, allowing you to hold off until the last second and interrupt charges, for example, by placing a veil in the literal nick of time.

--
@Set:
I agree that infinite loops cannot be allowed to go off, but my general rule is that an infinite loop turns your character into an NPC, simple as that. You get my props, you get to use it just once, and then you get to be an NPC. It's worked out pretty well so far!

kamikasei
2009-06-23, 09:02 AM
And that's not just a problem with Gate, Planar Ally, Planar Binding, Summon Monster X, Summon Nature's Ally X, Summon Dustform Creature X, Conjure Ice Beast X, etc. it's also a problem with any sort of Shapechanging, Wild Shaping or Alternate Form ability that allows a PC to use uber monster powers, a problem with Diplomacy, when a PC can schmooze a monster into using it's uber-monster powers for them, a problem with mind-affecting spells like Dominate Monster, Geas, etc. that a PC can use to force a monster to use it's monster power for the PC, a problem with the Leadership feat, that a PC can use to get a monster to use monster powers for it, etc., etc.

I'll grant you shapechanging, though most such abilities don't give you access to spell-like or supernatural abilitise of the target creature. However, diplomacizing or mind-controlling or acquiring a monster as a follower are all things the DM has immediate control over: if he puts the creature with its abilities in your path, he has to consider that you might gain control over it (and he should be policing Leadership strictly as hell anyway - it explicitly says it requires DM oversight).

The summon, bind, gate etc. spells are different - obviously a DM can say "no, you can't get that specific creature", but by default they put the power to summon whatever creature suits the situation into the hands of the player, and it's not just that any particular ability is too powerful for the creature to wield or even for the player to access at that level but that they open up not just the intended versatility ("hmmm, I need a flying creature") but unintended versatility ("hmmm, I need a creatures with spell X not on my list as an SLA").

Quietus
2009-06-23, 09:04 AM
Wait - how does Starmantle make you "immune to all weapons" at epic levels? Any weapon someone swings at you is going to be magic, so you get a 50% reduction in damage, which is great, but you still have to take it. Worse would be the item in BoED that makes you take half damage from any melee attack, the attacker takes the other half, and it costs LESS than the Starmantle cloak. Granted, it's only melee, not ranged, but, come on.

Starmantle Cloak gives you a reflex save versus damage.
A ring of Evasion gives you Evasion - negating any damage from attacks that do half damage on a successful reflex save.

The combination means any time you make a save versus damage, you take zero.

Random832
2009-06-23, 09:04 AM
Too broken: the falling damage caps. They make falling a minor inconvenience at high levels, whereas it should be very bad. The FAQ works through the math, and you actually reach terminal velocity when dropping about 500 feet (instead of 200). So use 50d6 as the maximum falling damage.

You don't accelerate evenly over the entire distance* though - ignoring air resistance, you will be going 115 ft/s at 200ft, and 177 ft/s at 500ft - a 55% increase in speed, not 150%.

Velocity is sqrt(2·g·h) where g is the acceleration of gravity and h is the height.

So really the tables should be based on the length of time that it has been dropping, with an additional table to find this from the distance.

*ignoring air resistance, you accelerate evenly over time, but a second is more distance when you're going faster

mistformsquirrl
2009-06-23, 09:05 AM
It's actually not obvious. The gist is that there are two schools of thought regarding the veils, one which holds that they are basically virtually impossible to destroy, another which holds that for the sake of game balance they should be vulnerable to normal things unlike prismatic wall. There's some RAW support for both sides.

Both sides agree that no matter which interpretation holds, the fact that you can use the veils as an immediate action is a big deal, allowing you to hold off until the last second and interrupt charges, for example, by placing a veil in the literal nick of time.

Yeah, I remember using that myself actually - but if I remember the rules right, doesn't the enemy get to halt their charge if they like - so the veil springs up, but they don't have to cross it? (Or am I remembering something else? Thank you for taking the time to explain this btw; it's a PrC I rather liked and would like to use again someday, even if it turns out I have to nerf it)

Saph
2009-06-23, 09:14 AM
Yeah, I remember using that myself actually - but if I remember the rules right, doesn't the enemy get to halt their charge if they like - so the veil springs up, but they don't have to cross it? (Or am I remembering something else?)

No, that's quite right. But think about what's just happened - you've negated their full-round action (a charge) with an immediate action (your veil). Now the enemy's standing in front of you and it's your turn, so you zap it with something. Even if the enemy survives that, it still has to deal with the veil on its next turn.

That's why it's overpowered. And IotSV is a full casting class, so as well as all of that, you still have all the power of a full caster. You aren't losing anything, except for the class prerequisites.

- Saph

Justin B.
2009-06-23, 09:30 AM
On the idea of the Orb of X spells:

It makes no sense that Orb of Fire is Conjuration, and Fireball is Evocation. This is partly a problem with the school system having blurry lines, and partly a problem with WotC not understanding a damned thing about class balance.

Some of the Orbs make sense as conjuration. Acid, for instance, is definately conjuration. Sonic, Force, Lightning, and Fire should definately fall into Evocation, either that or remove the damned evocation school altogether.

The only one that shouldn't allow SR, that I think, is Acid, but Acid should allow reflex for half, in that case. (On top of the touch attack)

Then again, all Force and Sonic effects need to be evocation I would think. Evocation or occasionally abjuration for some of the defensive force effects.

Forgive me, but I'm one that believes if you're going to have standards you better use them, lest you end up looking like a moron.

Cyclocone
2009-06-23, 09:52 AM
On the idea of the Orb of X spells:

It makes no sense that Orb of Fire is Conjuration, and Fireball is Evocation. This is partly a problem with the school system having blurry lines, and partly a problem with WotC not understanding a damned thing about class balance.

Some of the Orbs make sense as conjuration. Acid, for instance, is definately conjuration. Sonic, Force, Lightning, and Fire should definately fall into Evocation, either that or remove the damned evocation school altogether.

The only one that shouldn't allow SR, that I think, is Acid, but Acid should allow reflex for half, in that case. (On top of the touch attack)

Then again, all Force and Sonic effects need to be evocation I would think. Evocation or occasionally abjuration for some of the defensive force effects.

Forgive me, but I'm one that believes if you're going to have standards you better use them, lest you end up looking like a moron.

The lines didn't really need to be blurry, it's more a case of WotC deliberately messing the whole thing up for some unimaginable reason.

For instance, reading the schools' descriptions Conjuration is about moving stuff from A to B and Evocation is supposed to be the school that creates stuff from nothing.
You really have to wonder exactly what, the designers were shooting themselves full of, when they thought up Conjuration (Creation). :smallsigh:

Eldariel
2009-06-23, 10:04 AM
Evocation means creating energy. Conjuration, due to the broad definition of the term in English language, manages to encompass both, creation of matter and calling creatures. Teleportation hardly belongs though, but as it doesn't really belong anywhere else either, it's forgivable (it could be its own school though).

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-06-23, 10:07 AM
It makes no sense that Orb of Fire is Conjuration, and Fireball is Evocation. This is partly a problem with the school system having blurry lines, and partly a problem with WotC not understanding a damned thing about class balance.

My personal theory on why they're Conjuration and not Evocation? Instantaneous Conjuration spells can be cast into an antimagic field (even though it doesn't make sense for a bunch of Conjuration spells, that's what antimagic field says). Because of course wizards just aren't powerful enough without a way to ignore antimagic.

Signmaker
2009-06-23, 10:09 AM
You really have to wonder exactly what, the designers were shooting themselves full of, when they thought up Conjuration (Creation). :smallsigh:

Honestly, I think it's best not to know.

I always wondered about the side effects of Conjuration (Creation). Sure, evocation pops magical effects out of, well, magic. Great. That sorta makes sense. The Conjuration (Creation) line, however, creates mundane matter out of NOTHING. So what does the universe do to balance this creation?

I'm of a personal belief that every time a Creation spell is cast, an equal and opposite size of Sphere of Annihilation is made somewhere else. =P

shadow_archmagi
2009-06-23, 10:21 AM
The thing is that "Cold" and "Fire" and "sonic" so on arn't even matter. You have a spell that's creating energy and using it to deal damage. That's practically the definition of Evocation!

Only acid and force belong in conjuration.

#Raptor
2009-06-23, 10:26 AM
Is DMM really so bad on its own? I thought it was the ability to get an effectively unlimited number of Turn Undead attempts per day via Nightsticks that really caused the problems.


I agree. I've got an upcoming DMM persist character. While it's extremely good, and worth the feat investment It really doesn't feel broken with the 2 spells/day I can persist with it.

Same here. I'm fairly positive that a DMM:Persist Cleric without nightsticks is on a similar power level as a druid.

Eldariel
2009-06-23, 10:27 AM
Same here. I'm fairly positive that a DMM:Persist Cleric without nightsticks is on a similar power level as a druid.

...and that's supposed to be fair?

Stormthorn
2009-06-23, 10:37 AM
The target most certainly can complete this by slitting its own throat. That means the creature works for you. Foreverish. The ten minute casting time is annoying, and the fact that its mind affecting, but I think its OP when ever you get to use it.

The thing about Geas is that it cant be an open ended command and it cant compel the creature to kill themselves or do anything they dont have a reasonable chance of surviving.

Planar Ally can only go as long as 1 day/caster level for long term tasks.

So yea, not too abusable. You could cast Planar Ally again each month but it would get expensive.


You don't accelerate evenly over the entire distance* though - ignoring air resistance, you will be going 115 ft/s at 200ft, and 177 ft/s at 500ft - a 55% increase in speed, not 150%.

Velocity is sqrt(2·g·h) where g is the acceleration of gravity and h is the height.

So really the tables should be based on the length of time that it has been dropping, with an additional table to find this from the distance.

*ignoring air resistance, you accelerate evenly over time, but a second is more distance when you're going faster

But fi we do it like that then we need differant rates of falling damage for every creature in the game. A Cloaker for instance, assuming you disaibled its flying, would only drift down.

Cyclocone
2009-06-23, 10:38 AM
Evocation means creating energy. Conjuration, due to the broad definition of the term in English language, manages to encompass both, creation of matter and calling creatures. Teleportation hardly belongs though, but as it doesn't really belong anywhere else either, it's forgivable (it could be its own school though).

Well, to be fair, evoking something can also be defined as summoning it from somewhere else. like "evoking feelings long forgotten" or somesuch.

The blurring thing happens a lot though, just look at the spell at the bottom of this page. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/wn/20021218a) It's an Evocation, yet it creates both an AMF and a dim. anchor, both of which are Abjuration.
It's just like Armor being Conj and Shield being Abj, eventhough they create similar [Force] effects and could both have been Evoc for that matter (like wall of force or magic missile is).

The schools are simply too vaguely worded, and this is a real problem in the case of specialist wizards, where conjurers are remarkably ahead of everyone else.


The Conjuration (Creation) line, however, creates mundane matter out of NOTHING. So what does the universe do to balance this creation?

Maybe the (creation) tag is all just an elaborate ruse? I remember once seeing a psionic power that summoned a random set of armor from a random point in time, basically "borrowing" it from a random fighter.:smallamused:
I bet the wizards just don't want normal people to know where they really get those walls of stone from.:smallbiggrin:

Wulfram
2009-06-23, 11:02 AM
Diplomacy, Bluff

Justin B.
2009-06-23, 11:03 AM
To me, Force effects are always going to fall under Evocation. Force isn't something that can be conjured, as in, created or moved. It's pure energy that is being materialized and moved around. All force effects (aside from maybe shield and mage armor) should be Evocation. For sure.

Kaiyanwang
2009-06-23, 11:06 AM
About the Orbs, I houseruled that they are Evocation / Conjuration double school and negate SR, but don't work in AMF.

Because I like things made simpler.

Set
2009-06-23, 11:29 AM
The thing is that "Cold" and "Fire" and "sonic" so on arn't even matter. You have a spell that's creating energy and using it to deal damage. That's practically the definition of Evocation!

Only acid and force belong in conjuration.

Until we get to the crazy stuff, like 'I'm conjuring up a ball of fire from the elemental plane of fire' or 'I'm conjuring up beasties from the plane of shadow' or 'I'm conjuring up a life-draining ray from the negative energy plane.'

The school categories start to fall apart.

If I conjure a Dretch from the Abyss, it's conjuration. If I conjure up Celestial Badgers from Elysium, it's conjuration. If I conjure up a wolf from a couple dozen miles to the southeast using Summon Nature's Ally, it's still conjuration. If I conjure up healing sparkly energy from the positive energy plane, it's conjuration.

But it's dark harmful energy from the *negative* energy plane, that's necromancy, and if it's energy from the plane of shadow, that's illusion.

Quite a few spells get arbitrarily shoved into different colleges, and necromancy and illusion are the worst offenders for random-grab-bags of spells stolen from other schools.

Want to make someone angry? Enchantment. Want to make them sad? Enchantment. Want to make them your boo? Enchantment. Want to make them hate, hate, hate you? Enchantment.

Want to make them scared? Oh, that's necromancy, because, uh, ghosts are scary, yeah, that's the ticket!

Want to create light? Evocation. Darkness? Evocation. Damaging bursts of sound? Evocation.

Want to make *colored* light or non-damaging sound? Oh, that's illusion, because if we put minor image and ghost sound into the same school as light and shout, we wouldn't have an illusion school at all!

Worrying about whether or not Orb spells 'make sense' to be in conjuration or evocation is like worrying about whether that earring makes you look girly when you've got no clothes on.

The schools are rough kludges, that barely make sense, and are nowhere near balanced against each other anyway. Orbs, schmorbs.

#Raptor
2009-06-23, 11:33 AM
...and that's supposed to be fair?

Bwuh? Perhaps you could clarify this a bit.
Like... in your option its not fair towards who?
The Druid? The Cleric? Tier 2 and below classes?

Eldariel
2009-06-23, 11:35 AM
Bwuh? Perhaps you could clarify this a bit.
Like... in your option its not fair towards who?
The Druid? The Cleric? Tier 2 and below classes?

My question was whether in your opinion Druid's power level is fair (since you compared DMM: Persist Cleric to it), since that seemed implied in the post.

#Raptor
2009-06-23, 11:53 AM
Ah, right. Well, no, I don't think its fair - not compared to the majority of classes.
My meaning basically was... with dmm the cleric is balanced against the druid. Without it, im personally convinced the druid is the stronger class.

And both are still tier 1, so theyr balance against pretty much anything else except wizards, artificers and archivists is fail.

The thing that bothers me personally is the clerics DMM usually recieving the banhammer, while the druid doesn't get nerfed. I guess thats because the cleric is easier to nerf... but if we're gonna go around nerfing things, one might as well nerf 'em all equally.

mistformsquirrl
2009-06-23, 11:54 AM
No, that's quite right. But think about what's just happened - you've negated their full-round action (a charge) with an immediate action (your veil). Now the enemy's standing in front of you and it's your turn, so you zap it with something. Even if the enemy survives that, it still has to deal with the veil on its next turn.

That's why it's overpowered. And IotSV is a full casting class, so as well as all of that, you still have all the power of a full caster. You aren't losing anything, except for the class prerequisites.

- Saph

Ahh I see >.<

Hrmm... probably have to think up some houserules to fix that... like I said, I really like the class and would like to use it again ><m

Myrmex
2009-06-23, 12:11 PM
Glibness.


It's not bonus, you have to recycle feats you had before, which you can retrain anyways a la PHBII or Psychic Reformation. The only broken thing it does is change racial proficiency feats into useful things.

Unlike Psychic Reformation and PHB2 retraining, chaos shuffling lets you swap ANY feat for ANY other feat. If you took toughness at level 1, Psychic Reformation or retraining will not let you change that out for, say, greater two weapon fighting, since there's no way to qualify for it at level 1. The chaos shuffle will even let you swap out bonus feats from classes or items, such as alertness from your familiar or an ioun stone.


That one just requires a sensible rules interpretation. The SRD says, you can "trace these mystic runes upon a book, map, scroll, or similar object bearing written information." As a DM I wouldn't rule that a 50 ft banner is "similar" to a book, map or scroll. There is a similarity or two, but enough difference to justify not having the spell work in that manner without blatantly violating the RAW.

Edit: Though on second thought, I guess you could cast it on a big war-room style map that would still be readable from fairly long distances. So that would be one fairly abusive application even with reasonable RAI.

What about a Storm Giant or a Titan writing it on a scroll? Would he have to scribble it on a tiny (to him) scrap of parchment for it to work?


A build that can go off once per day isn't really that broken. :|

Inspiration points are per encounter, not per day.

Eldariel
2009-06-23, 12:30 PM
Ahh I see >.<

Hrmm... probably have to think up some houserules to fix that... like I said, I really like the class and would like to use it again ><m

Not hard, make it lose a caster level or two and it'll suddenly be perfectly ok.

Doc Roc
2009-06-23, 12:36 PM
Same here. I'm fairly positive that a DMM:Persist Cleric without nightsticks is on a similar power level as a druid.

Definitely not the case. I can break 28 turn undead attempts without trying.

Eldariel
2009-06-23, 12:41 PM
Definitely not the case. I can break 28 turn undead attempts without trying.

Isn't that mostly a consequence of multiple stacking sources though? If you just rule you can only have one "set" of turn undeads and you have can only use your inherent turn undead-uses (that is, ones derived off classes & feats) to fuel DMM, it's suddenly rather fair (although you can still get the 14 - 21 without really trying). I mean, you're really only left with Cha/Extra Turnings-spam.

Tukka
2009-06-23, 02:15 PM
What about a Storm Giant or a Titan writing it on a scroll? Would he have to scribble it on a tiny (to him) scrap of parchment for it to work?
I suppose giant-sized scrolls and books could work, as I acknowledged a large map could work. There is still some room for abuse, but if you're working with a somewhat strict reading of the rules, then it may require some pretty absurd imagery and prep-work to get the spell to work in the intended (abusive) manner ... in the aforementioned battleground scenario, I now imagine a preparing a huge 50' parchment scroll with explosive runes and then marched onto the battlefield for the enemy to behold. Sure, it works, but is it going to actually appear in your game?

Also, I was keeping in mind the original poster's request that the spells be broken in their own right, not when combined with especially exploitative tricks and applications. In that sense I don't think the spell is that bad, certainly not "too broken to use."

BillyJimBoBob
2009-06-23, 02:46 PM
What's wrong with unsliced bread? If anything, it's better than sliced bread because you can decide how thick you want your slice to be. Furthermore, the more delicious a type of bread is - such as tiger loaves, tomato & basil flavoured bread, crunchy farmhouse bloomer loaves - the more likely it is to be generally stocked unsliced.
Finally, unsliced bread is more provident as it takes more time to go stale and to grow mold than sliced breads, as well as being far easier to freeze.

Oh, come on!!!!1!!!!
You unsliced bread fanboys will take any stretch of logic to try to make your point. How about having to rip or cut that bread yourself? HUH? Did you even consider that? And more delicious? Yeah, like that isn't a totally subjective assessment. Sheesh. Relying on the flavor text over the rules doesn't make you right. Many people happen to like flavorless, tasteless, bleached out, mostly water Wonder style breads. And yet you'll ignore an entire portion of the bread-player base in your lust for unsliced bread brokeness. Broken, that's what bread is when you have to rip a portion off before you can even eat it. Look it up in the dictionary, it's right there.

And furthermore, it's much easier to freeze a single slice of bread than an entire loaf.

I rest my case! :smalltongue::smalltongue::smalltongue:

DragoonWraith
2009-06-23, 03:01 PM
You freeze bread?

Zeful
2009-06-23, 03:17 PM
You freeze bread?

I vacuum pack spaghetti noodles when I feel like killing a bear with food.

lsfreak
2009-06-23, 03:18 PM
You freeze bread?
It lasts longer without going stale when it's frozen. Buy several loaves, use one while you freeze the other few loaves.
EDIT: Though it's only really necessary if you only get specialty breads or something every few weeks. Or, in my case, have a bread store where the bread is about a third of the cost as the grocery store and I don't want to drive out every few days to get more.

Nohwl
2009-06-23, 03:31 PM
why is buying more bread not an option?

edit- apparently i don't have a question mark copied. i'll go find one.

Doc Roc
2009-06-23, 03:41 PM
Broken, that's what bread is when you have to rip a portion off before you can even eat it. Look it up in the dictionary, it's right there.


Technically, so you know, bread still in loaf form is referred to as unbroken, and "ripping it apart" is referred to as breaking bread, a phrase with pre-biblical origins.

In other words, you sliced bread people like your bread pre-broken. ;)

Doc Roc
2009-06-23, 03:43 PM
Isn't that mostly a consequence of multiple stacking sources though? If you just rule you can only have one "set" of turn undeads and you have can only use your inherent turn undead-uses (that is, ones derived off classes & feats) to fuel DMM, it's suddenly rather fair (although you can still get the 14 - 21 without really trying). I mean, you're really only left with Cha/Extra Turnings-spam.

No, I can literally get up to around 28 without stacking repeats of items. :)
PlzBreakMyCampaign over on WotCO\BG can do better and has a build with eight separate pools of turn attempts from various non-stacking classes. It's pretty lulzy.

BillyJimBoBob
2009-06-23, 03:50 PM
Technically, so you know, bread still in loaf form is referred to as unbroken, and "ripping it apart" is referred to as breaking bread, a phrase with pre-biblical origins.

In other words, you sliced bread people like your bread pre-broken. ;)Hah, only if you unbroken bread types insist on referring to a civilized slice as having anything to do with being "broken". :)

Doc Roc
2009-06-23, 03:53 PM
Historical precedence is on our side! ;)
You Slicists are the ones projecting negative imagery onto the word broken, now!

Emy
2009-06-23, 04:31 PM
No, I can literally get up to around 28 without stacking repeats of items. :)
PlzBreakMyCampaign over on WotCO\BG can do better and has a build with eight separate pools of turn attempts from various non-stacking classes. It's pretty lulzy.

Ah, yes, the build that requires both an artifact and a CL1 item of miracle 1/day.

Frogwarrior
2009-06-23, 04:32 PM
So, could someone explain what Divine Metamagic is, exactly? I've never seen the book or whatever... and I take it it's something entirely different from a divine caster using metamagic feats. :smalltongue:

woodenbandman
2009-06-23, 04:37 PM
Ah, yes, the build that requires both an artifact and a CL1 item of miracle 1/day.

Hence why it's lulzy.

Anyway, Divine metamagic basically reads that if you take the feat that for every use of turn undead you spend, a spell's metamagic cost is reduced by one.

Which means that you can do all kinds of fun stuff like free persistent spells.

The Mentalist
2009-06-23, 04:38 PM
It's a handy little toy that allows you to convert turn attempts into adjustment free metamagic at the cost of one turn attempt per level.

Edit: Powerful Ninja

evil-frosty
2009-06-23, 04:53 PM
A small fix for a druid and its wildshape for it not to outshine everyone, is for wildshape they get to pick one bird form, one mammal, and one reptile. They have to be familiar with the animal in question too. And just dont let them choose dinosaurs since that (to me) is rather stupid. Now it isnt as tough still a very nice ability but more manageable.

Another thing what druid in their right mind would send an animal into battle without a very good reason. Druids are meant to protect wild life not send it into battle. So the DM can say they are breaking their code when they send their animal companion in battle needlessly but then there will be the same issue a paladin has about its code of conduct.

This is what my group does and it works quite well for us.

Lamech
2009-06-23, 05:33 PM
Another thing what druid in their right mind would send an animal into battle without a very good reason. Druids are meant to protect wild life not send it into battle. So the DM can say they are breaking their code when they send their animal companion in battle needlessly but then there will be the same issue a paladin has about its code of conduct. Its better than the fighter. Humans are natural too, and by sending the better combatant in the risk of a loss is reduced.:smalltongue:

And explosive runes? I would assume that nothing outside the radius takes damage, even if they can read it. Of course, the runes would have to be pretty small not to be readable at ten feet, not your standard hand writing. So no save. Finally know how they go off on a failed dispel check. And... yeah thats really the main problem.

Wiz: Loyal cohort cast dispel on that book I threw at the vile dragon.
Cohort: Dispel. Hmm... couldn't beat your caster level. Why dii...
BOOOOM
Wiz: No more dragon.
Party: Aww....

One more broken thing. Psicrystals: Hello feats, leadership for example. And I heard metapsionic feats can be stolen too. And you can be an ass with with a number of other tricks too I think.

On the orbs: The orb of fire can be napalmy. The orb of force can be just that force. Have it stick around. Use it as a sling bullet when you find someone with a VoP. Acid is duh. Cold is some sort of alchemic chemical that freezes. Sonic is... difficult.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-06-23, 06:03 PM
Sonic is... difficult.

Perhaps some sort of innately-vibrating material? Similar to sci-fi vibroblades that have an exceptionally (and sometimes unrealistically) sharp edge, this vibrating orb would impact particularly hard and almost bore its way into something before shaking itself to pieces.

Tukka
2009-06-23, 06:12 PM
Finally know how they go off on a failed dispel check. And... yeah thats really the main problem.

Wiz: Loyal cohort cast dispel on that book I threw at the vile dragon.
Cohort: Dispel. Hmm... couldn't beat your caster level. Why dii...
BOOOOM
Wiz: No more dragon.
That's pretty amusing and clever, but isn't particularly broken considering the resources expended. I can't tell whether or not you're joking about there being a problem there.

Edit: On second thought though, the spell could be maximized and empowered at essentially no cost. So yeah, I guess there is a bit of a problem.

warmachine
2009-06-23, 06:24 PM
Radiant Servant of Pelor PrC from Complete Divine. It improves undead turning and healing. All Cleric class abilities, which are spells and undead turning, progress without interuption, BAB progress is still 2/3 and Fort and Will saves are still good. The only loss is d6 hit dice and fewer class skills. It's obvious it provides lots of new abilities for little loss. The entrance requirements are hardly onerous. Even the Extra Turning requirement is no burden as it can power those Divine Feats found in the same book. What should be a good idea is too broken to use.

Worse yet, the accompanying picture is deceiving. It shows a barefoot, unarmoured cleric armed only with a light mace, suggesting a healer rather than a warrior priest. The PrC can wear any armour and gains all martial weapons. Super undead blasting, super healing Clericzilla, anyone?

Quietus
2009-06-23, 06:40 PM
Radiant Servant of Pelor PrC from Complete Divine. It improves undead turning and healing. All Cleric class abilities, which are spells and undead turning, progress without interuption, BAB progress is still 2/3 and Fort and Will saves are still good. The only loss is d6 hit dice and fewer class skills. It's obvious it provides lots of new abilities for little loss. The entrance requirements are hardly onerous. Even the Extra Turning requirement is no burden as it can power those Divine Feats found in the same book. What should be a good idea is too broken to use.

Worse yet, the accompanying picture is deceiving. It shows a barefoot, unarmoured cleric armed only with a light mace, suggesting a healer rather than a warrior priest. The PrC can wear any armour and gains all martial weapons. Super undead blasting, super healing Clericzilla, anyone?

Considering Healing is seen as underpowered? More dusting via stronger Turn Undead... meh. If they can dust it, you aren't doing undead right. The class isn't so bad, really. It just *seems* really powerful. Remember that almost all of those healing-boosting abilities *only* work on domain spells, not regular healing spells.

Zeful
2009-06-23, 06:42 PM
On the orbs: The orb of fire can be napalmy. The orb of force can be just that force. Have it stick around. Use it as a sling bullet when you find someone with a VoP. Acid is duh. Cold is some sort of alchemic chemical that freezes. Sonic is... difficult.

Having Orb of force Conjuration (Creation) leads to the following problem. For one day the wizard has nothing but orb of force prepared and casts them. He then gathers all the undamaged orbs and gives them to his party/an army. You now have weapons that deal a very stupid amount of damage and are otherwise indestructible.

Rogue 10d6 force damage+10d6 sneak attack damage (also force) anything that isn't a high level construct/undead is dead.

shadow_archmagi
2009-06-23, 06:51 PM
Force is basically indestructible. Therefore, the force orbs are re-usable. Logically, it should hurt them the same amount *every* time you hit them with an orb. The real question is whether the barbarian can wield one in both hands and power attack with it. Well done; you've broken a broken spell.

Doc Roc
2009-06-23, 07:01 PM
Gonna say that's not how the world works. My apologies.
I just can't get behind a reading that's not RAW OR RAI. It seems very counter-intuitive and unneeded to me.

Claudius Maximus
2009-06-23, 07:11 PM
I don't think they're persistent just because it's a [Creation] spell. Consider Major Creation: it has a duration after which the created objects cease to exist. Orb spells have an instantaneous duration, so the matter exists just long enough to deal damage, then winks out. At least that's how I would deal with it.

Leon
2009-06-23, 07:19 PM
Your rogue armed with a ball o force would also be dead - if its holding the sphere that does damage he will take that damage too

Curmudgeon
2009-06-23, 07:39 PM
You don't accelerate evenly over the entire distance* though - ignoring air resistance, you will be going 115 ft/s at 200ft, and 177 ft/s at 500ft - a 55% increase in speed, not 150%.

Velocity is sqrt(2·g·h) where g is the acceleration of gravity and h is the height.

So really the tables should be based on the length of time that it has been dropping, with an additional table to find this from the distance. You're not thinking this all the way through. Damage is based on kinetic energy at impact, which is proportional to the square of the velocity. Thus falling damage ends up being linearly proportional with distance.

tieto
2009-06-23, 07:46 PM
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned but polymorph any object. Seriously my dm sent out some constructs intending for it to be a tough battle, the wizard polymorph's them into a boat and 2 oars and we ride them across a river. :smalltongue:

Doc Roc
2009-06-23, 07:51 PM
Were these.... golems? Per chance?

lsfreak
2009-06-23, 08:01 PM
I don't think they're persistent just because it's a [Creation] spell. Consider Major Creation: it has a duration after which the created objects cease to exist. Orb spells have an instantaneous duration, so the matter exists just long enough to deal damage, then winks out. At least that's how I would deal with it.

Major creation has a duration. Conj (creation) spells that are instantaneous exist until they are destroyed by some outside force, like Wall of Stone. Orb spells are instantaneous.

JaxGaret
2009-06-23, 08:32 PM
Two things I wanted to comment on, Iot7V and Geas/Quest:

Iot7V: It's considered brokenly powerful because it improves the defenses of the very best classes in the game, making them just that much more broken. Almost every other PrC gives offensive bonuses or bonuses that don't matter if the caster goes down; Iot7V gives bonuses that may just save the caster's ass in the first place, which is the most important thing - don't let someone else get the drop on you.

Geas/Quest: "A clever recipient can subvert some instructions."

DamnedIrishman
2009-06-23, 08:38 PM
It lasts longer without going stale when it's frozen. Buy several loaves, use one while you freeze the other few loaves.
EDIT: Though it's only really necessary if you only get specialty breads or something every few weeks. Or, in my case, have a bread store where the bread is about a third of the cost as the grocery store and I don't want to drive out every few days to get more.

Or if you're shopping and there's a particularly attractive multibuy offer on bread, or when several delicious speciality breads are on special offer at the same time and you can't eat them quick enough before they'd go stale.

Philistine
2009-06-23, 09:08 PM
Radiant Servant of Pelor PrC from Complete Divine. It improves undead turning and healing. All Cleric class abilities, which are spells and undead turning, progress without interuption, BAB progress is still 2/3 and Fort and Will saves are still good. The only loss is d6 hit dice and fewer class skills. It's obvious it provides lots of new abilities for little loss. The entrance requirements are hardly onerous. Even the Extra Turning requirement is no burden as it can power those Divine Feats found in the same book. What should be a good idea is too broken to use.

Worse yet, the accompanying picture is deceiving. It shows a barefoot, unarmoured cleric armed only with a light mace, suggesting a healer rather than a warrior priest. The PrC can wear any armour and gains all martial weapons. Super undead blasting, super healing Clericzilla, anyone?

Please, please, please tell me you're joking. A RSoP is slightly more powerful than a pure Cleric in an Undead-heavy campaign (mostly through offensive use of the buffed Cure spells rather than via Turning), but in general it adds less power than most full-casting PrCs.

And how exactly does "I don't like the illustration" constitute "worse yet" in a discussion of whether or not the PrC is OP? How is that even remotely relevant?

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-06-23, 09:24 PM
So, has Fireball been mentioned yet?

Doc Roc
2009-06-23, 09:31 PM
Er. Radiant Servant of Pelor is really quite good, actually, allowing you to make healing fairly practical by forcing maximize. Further, it adds domains.

Domains are a big deal.

Certainly, there are better, and it's not as broken as say, contemplative, but it's also got a LOT of good features and shouldn't be discounted so swiftly.

Eldariel
2009-06-23, 09:39 PM
No, I can literally get up to around 28 without stacking repeats of items. :)
PlzBreakMyCampaign over on WotCO\BG can do better and has a build with eight separate pools of turn attempts from various non-stacking classes. It's pretty lulzy.

Yeah, I know that build. Too bad maxing your turn attempts without casting is pretty moot :P (although he tossed some pretty clever feats in there). I love Domain Spontaneity though!

Doc Roc
2009-06-23, 09:48 PM
He's really clever and a generally good dude who caught a lot of flak for no good reason, in my opinion. :)

On the other hand, I tend to be tolerant.

Keld Denar
2009-06-23, 10:04 PM
On the other hand, I tend to be tolerated.

Fix't!

:P <3

RE: Radiant Servant, it is a pretty good PrC, but its no Incantatrix and its no Iot7V and its no Dweomerkeeper, and it really even isn't up to Divine Oracle's strenght. And really, its a 5 level PrC. 6th level is actually a NERF for the class, as most cures benefit more from Empower than Maximize. 5th level gets you the heightened light spells (go go Radiant Assault!), the Empowered healing, and the bonus domain. More than that is bad. 6th level loses power, 7th level is dead, 8th level's power is so bad, 9th level is dead, and 10th level recovers what you lost at 6th with minimal gain.

You are better off multiclassing into Sacred Exorcist or Contemplative after RSoP5. Way better.

Lycanthromancer
2009-06-23, 10:06 PM
That's pretty amusing and clever, but isn't particularly broken considering the resources expended. I can't tell whether or not you're joking about there being a problem there.

Edit: On second thought though, the spell could be maximized and empowered at essentially no cost. So yeah, I guess there is a bit of a problem.

The problem comes when you consider that the book he threw (probably several hundreds of pages) has at least one explosive rune on each page. Likely both front and back.

How many d6s of force damage for a 300-page book, with a rune on each side of each page, again?

Blackjackg
2009-06-23, 10:18 PM
The thing about Radiant Servant of Pelor isn't that it breaks the game, it's that there's no reason not to take it. Any prestige class, you gain some stuff, you give up some stuff. Even full-arcane caster PrCs usually give up their Familiar abilities and/or bonus feats. If nothing else, you have to at least take some feats or skill ranks you might not otherwise take.

But for RSoP, you get a fair bit without really giving up anything. And as long as you're a neutral good cleric of Pelor, you pretty much qualify for RSoP.

So it isn't game-breaking in any real sense, but it does violate one of the basic rules for PrCs.

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-06-23, 10:23 PM
The thing about Radiant Servant of Pelor isn't that it breaks the game, it's that there's no reason not to take it. Any prestige class, you gain some stuff, you give up some stuff. Even full-arcane caster PrCs usually give up their Familiar abilities and/or bonus feats. If nothing else, you have to at least take some feats or skill ranks you might not otherwise take.

But for RSoP, you get a fair bit without really giving up anything. And as long as you're a neutral good cleric of Pelor, you pretty much qualify for RSoP.

So it isn't game-breaking in any real sense, but it does violate one of the basic rules for PrCs.

You've given up better domains.

Curmudgeon
2009-06-23, 10:24 PM
How many d6s of force damage for a 300-page book, with a rune on each side of each page, again?
That's easy: 6d6. The first rune destroys all the others.

Lycanthromancer
2009-06-23, 10:25 PM
That's easy: 6d6. The first rune destroys all the others.

Not so, since all the runes are dispelled simultaneously with an AoE dispel. (They're all at the same caster level, after all...)

Philistine
2009-06-23, 10:33 PM
RE: Radiant Servant, it is a pretty good PrC, but its no Incantatrix and its no Iot7V and its no Dweomerkeeper, and it really even isn't up to Divine Oracle's strenght. And really, its a 5 level PrC. 6th level is actually a NERF for the class, as most cures benefit more from Empower than Maximize. 5th level gets you the heightened light spells (go go Radiant Assault!), the Empowered healing, and the bonus domain. More than that is bad. 6th level loses power, 7th level is dead, 8th level's power is so bad, 9th level is dead, and 10th level recovers what you lost at 6th with minimal gain.

You are better off multiclassing into Sacred Exorcist or Contemplative after RSoP5. Way better.

Would you mind checking my math then on Empower vs. Maximize? For a Cure Critical (4d8+level), I have the average variable amount healed as 18; that becomes 27 with Empower (6d8), or 32 with Maximize (4*8). Normally Empower would have an advantage in that you prepare it in a lower-level slot, but that's not an issue for the RSoP's healing spells.
_______________________________________________

The thing about Radiant Servant of Pelor isn't that it breaks the game, it's that there's no reason not to take it. Any prestige class, you gain some stuff, you give up some stuff. Even full-arcane caster PrCs usually give up their Familiar abilities and/or bonus feats. If nothing else, you have to at least take some feats or skill ranks you might not otherwise take.

But for RSoP, you get a fair bit without really giving up anything. And as long as you're a neutral good cleric of Pelor, you pretty much qualify for RSoP.

So it isn't game-breaking in any real sense, but it does violate one of the basic rules for PrCs.

But then, the arcane caster can just take the Obtain Familiar feat and get full progression for their familiar right back (and a Wizard, at least, may well have taken the feat anyway, after trading away his familiar for an ACF). Meaning they give up... what? Two bonus feats, or three at most? Even less if you're starting from a Sorceror! Considering the kinds of crazy abilities that usually come with arcane full-caster PrCs, that's still a no-brainer, "why wouldn't you PrC out at your first opportunity?" kind of win.

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-06-23, 10:36 PM
That's easy: 6d6. The first rune destroys all the others.

Congadulations. Now all players have to do to destroy Explosive Runes traps is to Fireball them.

Leon
2009-06-23, 10:37 PM
The most powerful class has not been mentioned at all.
Its so powerful that its use is disdained by all and sundry, nothing can withstand its potency.

Dare if you do to gaze upon its name

Monk

Chronos
2009-06-23, 10:41 PM
Would you mind checking my math then on Empower vs. Maximize? For a Cure Critical (4d8+level), I have the average variable amount healed as 18; that becomes 27 with Empower (6d8), or 32 with Maximize (4*8). Normally Empower would have an advantage in that you prepare it in a lower-level slot, but that's not an issue for the RSoP's healing spells.The variable is the amount healed, not just the dice roll. So for instance, a Cure Critical Wounds at minimum caster level heals 4d8+7 (average 25), an empowered Cure Critical Wounds heals (4d8+7)*1.5 (average 37.25), and a maximized Cure Critical Wounds heals 39. OK, at minimum caster level, maximize is still slightly better than empower. But suppose instead you're at caster level 11 (the minimum possible to get the RSoP 6th-level ability, if I'm not mistaken). Now, the base spell does 4d8+11 (average 29), the empowered version does (4d8+11)*1.5 (average 43.25), and the maximized version does 43. The empowered one does a quarter point more on average. The discrepancy is larger than that, and always in Empower's favor, if you use any other healing spell, or if you have a higher caster level.

Tukka
2009-06-23, 10:49 PM
How many d6s of force damage for a 300-page book, with a rune on each side of each page, again?
Ah, now I see. You done broke it good.

Nohwl
2009-06-23, 10:53 PM
That's easy: 6d6. The first rune destroys all the others.

all of the checks to dispel would happen at the same time, and would trigger them all at once.

Curmudgeon
2009-06-23, 11:11 PM
Not so, since all the runes are dispelled simultaneously with an AoE dispel. (They're all at the same caster level, after all...) That assumes that the plan actually goes off as intended. But what really happens is that the book is thrown, it gets into range and the target reads one rune, and that's all she wrote.
The runes detonate when read, dealing 6d6 points of force damage. Anyone next to the runes (close enough to read them) takes the full damage with no saving throw Seems to me that there's no wiggle room in the spell. If you're close enough to read them: *boom*. No delay; no saving throw; no action required.

Tukka
2009-06-23, 11:16 PM
That assumes that the plan actually goes off as intended. But what really happens is that the book is thrown, it gets into range and the target reads one rune, and that's all she wrote. Seems to me that there's no wiggle room in the spell. If you're close enough to read them: *boom*. No delay; no saving throw; no action required.
The rune actually has to be read first to trigger the explosion (unless you use the dispel method), then anyone in range to read the rune gets hit by it (regardless of whether or not they read it). If a book full of runes is thrown at you, it's doubtful that you'd actually try or manage to read any of them (especially if the front and back covers aren't scribed with runes, and the runes are sufficiently small).

With small/unreadable rune text you give the target a saving throw, but that doesn't matter too much unless you're dealing with someone with evasion when the amount of damage you're talking about is this high.

Doc Roc
2009-06-23, 11:18 PM
I hate this debate so much. Let me go check some RAW, here. I've never been fond of the "They explode!" schtick.

Since we are in RAW town, I can see nothing that says destroying the surface runes are on bothers them in any way. Actually, in all seriousness, nothing suggests they trigger except on failed attempts to erase or disarm them as per the spell. The reading that damage sets them off, while logical, isn't supported by the rules as written.

Area dispel may or may not trigger them all.

Tukka
2009-06-23, 11:22 PM
I spoke up in defense of the spell initially because there's nothing intrinsically broken about it given a good RAI reading and fairly normal usage (e.g. how V uses it). But there is some ambiguity and weirdness in the RAW, I think.

Doc Roc
2009-06-23, 11:34 PM
There always is. RAW is a path to dark but beautiful power, laid out on a crystal plane in your imagination.

I should know.... :|

Lycanthromancer
2009-06-24, 12:05 AM
Area dispel may or may not trigger them all.


You and any characters you specifically instruct can read the protected writing without triggering the runes. Likewise, you can remove the runes whenever desired. Another creature can remove them with a successful dispel magic or erase spell, but attempting to dispel or erase the runes and failing to do so triggers the explosion.

QED .

Myrmex
2009-06-24, 12:11 AM
You freeze bread?

Yeah.
Buy 5 loaves when they're on sale, freeze 4 for later.

Doc Roc
2009-06-24, 12:22 AM
Unless you successfully dispel one, in which case it only sets off that one. "S'all I meant.
You cannot, by the way, voluntarily fail a dispel check, which is the normal trick.

So now we need a cohort, or someone convenient with a lower CL, or a way to lower our own CL. :S

Myrmex
2009-06-24, 12:24 AM
So now we need a cohort, or someone convenient with a lower CL, or a way to lower our own CL. :S

Cast dispel magic from a wand.

Armads
2009-06-24, 12:27 AM
You cannot, by the way, voluntarily fail a dispel check, which is the normal trick.

Can't you take 1?

Doc Roc
2009-06-24, 12:30 AM
Nope, can't take a one. Using a wand might work. :: hums idly ::

Myrmex
2009-06-24, 12:30 AM
Can't you take 1?

Aha!
You could take 10 with that one feat Arcane Something. Then you should autofail vs. your own runes.

10+CL vs. 11+CL

Keld Denar
2009-06-24, 12:37 AM
The variable is the amount healed, not just the dice roll. So for instance, a Cure Critical Wounds at minimum caster level heals 4d8+7 (average 25), an empowered Cure Critical Wounds heals (4d8+7)*1.5 (average 37.25), and a maximized Cure Critical Wounds heals 39. OK, at minimum caster level, maximize is still slightly better than empower. But suppose instead you're at caster level 11 (the minimum possible to get the RSoP 6th-level ability, if I'm not mistaken). Now, the base spell does 4d8+11 (average 29), the empowered version does (4d8+11)*1.5 (average 43.25), and the maximized version does 43. The empowered one does a quarter point more on average. The discrepancy is larger than that, and always in Empower's favor, if you use any other healing spell, or if you have a higher caster level.

Not to mention that when you jump up 1 spell level from Cure Critical to Cure Light Mass...the 1d8 maximized is a gain in what, 3-4 HP, while the CL component multiplied by 1.5 is more like +5-8.

Not to mention that if you have Augemented Healing, you gain an extra 3 HP per spell level instead of 2 by Empowering instead of Maximizing.

Empower is better at nearly every level.

Myrmex
2009-06-24, 12:38 AM
But maximize is classier.

Xenogears
2009-06-24, 12:47 AM
Not to mention that when you jump up 1 spell level from Cure Critical to Cure Light Mass...the 1d8 maximized is a gain in what, 3-4 HP, while the CL component multiplied by 1.5 is more like +5-8.

Not to mention that if you have Augemented Healing, you gain an extra 3 HP per spell level instead of 2 by Empowering instead of Maximizing.

Empower is better at nearly every level.

Empower may be better but maximize means no more rolling every time you want to heal....

pingcode20
2009-06-24, 12:51 AM
Can't you take 1?

No, but you can 'pull' the Dispel to CL 7, while casting the Explosive Runes at your full CL, which can improve the number of detonations you achieve. (You're not allowed to pull the CL lower than you would need to cast the spell in the first place)

At 7th level, you get a detonation rate of roughly 50%, and at CL 17 you can get a 100% Detonation Rate, since the Caster Level Check DC improves to 28, which cannot be beaten by the pulled Dispel.

Lycanthromancer
2009-06-24, 12:54 AM
No, but you can 'pull' the Dispel to CL 7, while casting the Explosive Runes at your full CL, which can improve the number of detonations you achieve. (You're not allowed to pull the CL lower than you would need to cast the spell in the first place)

At 7th level, you get a detonation rate of roughly 50%, and at CL 17 you can get a 100% Detonation Rate, since the Caster Level Check DC improves to 28, which cannot be beaten by the pulled Dispel.

In other words, you can choose to cast a spell at minimum caster level. Great with Quicken!

pingcode20
2009-06-24, 12:58 AM
Wait, where does quicken come into this? :smallconfused:

Frogwarrior
2009-06-24, 01:12 AM
Wait, you can cast a spell at lower caster level? I don't remember this, though it seems plausible. Reference?

Also, even otherwise, recall that Dispel Magic has a maximum caster level of 10, so whatever.

Myrmex
2009-06-24, 01:13 AM
Wait, you can cast a spell at lower caster level? I don't remember this, though it seems plausible. Reference?

Also, even otherwise, recall that Dispel Magic has a maximum caster level of 10, so whatever.

There's a feat that lets you take ten with caster level checks (such as dispel magic). If you take ten while trying to dispel your own runes, you will always fail.

pingcode20
2009-06-24, 01:14 AM
Your wish is my command.


Caster Level

A spell’s power often depends on its caster level, which for most spellcasting characters is equal to your class level in the class you’re using to cast the spell.

You can cast a spell at a lower caster level than normal, but the caster level you choose must be high enough for you to cast the spell in question, and all level-dependent features must be based on the same caster level.

In the event that a class feature, domain granted power, or other special ability provides an adjustment to your caster level, that adjustment applies not only to effects based on caster level (such as range, duration, and damage dealt) but also to your caster level check to overcome your target’s spell resistance and to the caster level used in dispel checks (both the dispel check and the DC of the check).

Doc Roc
2009-06-24, 01:16 AM
The feat is Arcane Mastery.

Lycanthromancer
2009-06-24, 01:16 AM
Wait, where does quicken come into this? :smallconfused:

1.) Standard action to throw a book full of explosive runes.

2.) Quickened dispel magic.

3.) Loot.

4.) :smallconfused:

5.) Profit!

It helps keep everything within one turn, without having to worry about other party members.

Curmudgeon
2009-06-24, 01:17 AM
The rune actually has to be read first to trigger the explosion (unless you use the dispel method), then anyone in range to read the rune gets hit by it (regardless of whether or not they read it). If a book full of runes is thrown at you, it's doubtful that you'd actually try or manage to read any of them (especially if the front and back covers aren't scribed with runes, and the runes are sufficiently small). The problem here is that there's no specified action for reading something easily comprehensible; it just happens. It doesn't even require it be your turn. The only alternative is for something that's not easily comprehensible, and that requires use of Decipher Script (ten consecutive full-round actions). By RAW, there's no turn needed to read something simple, just as there's no action needed to say a few words. If you can do it, it happens immediately. So if a book is thrown your way, just a glance at a single Rune is enough. And there goes the whole book, unless it somehow survives 6d6 damage.

Saph
2009-06-24, 01:27 AM
1.) Standard action to throw a book full of explosive runes.

2.) Quickened dispel magic.

3.) Loot.

Loot what? The pile of fine dust? I don't think anything within the blast radius is likely to be worth much afterwards.

- Saph

Emy
2009-06-24, 01:38 AM
Loot what? The pile of fine dust? I don't think anything within the blast radius is likely to be worth much afterwards.

- Saph

Depending on what the dust's composition, you could fabricate things out of it, right?


The problem here is that there's no specified action for reading something easily comprehensible; it just happens. It doesn't even require it be your turn. The only alternative is for something that's not easily comprehensible, and that requires use of Decipher Script (ten consecutive full-round actions). By RAW, there's no turn needed to read something simple, just as there's no action needed to say a few words. If you can do it, it happens immediately. So if a book is thrown your way, just a glance at a single Rune is enough. And there goes the whole book, unless it somehow survives 6d6 damage.

Tape the book shut? They don't actually have to be able to read the runes. They just have to be close enough.

Lycanthromancer
2009-06-24, 01:55 AM
I wish I'd known about this once upon a time.

I was new to a D&D group, and didn't know that the DM was a royal 'tard. I made a 16th level character (happened to be a cleric) for a 16th level group.

My first adventure with them was as we were supposed to go out hunting FRIGGIN' MALAR, FR GOD OF LYCANTHROPY.

...Yeah.

We only won because the paladin was spec'd specifically against outsiders, and he got a critical smite (did over 2k damage in a single shot).

...And the bastard had an epic contingencied true resurrection on-hand.

What I wish I'd done (as a wizard, of course), is make two 300 page books full of these explosive little bastards, and prepared the proper spells.

Surprise round: We're Ambushed (duh).

Round 1: "Everyone, get away from it!" I hold my action.
Everyone moves. I use a move action to pull a book out of my haversack, a standard action to toss it in Malar's space, and ignite it with a minimum-CL dispel magic.

Yell: "I prepared explosive runes this morning, BITCH!"

The epic contingency fires off. I cast a Twinned celerity, then dimension lock and barred forcecage.

Round 2: Repeat round 1.

Yell: "Sneak attack explosive runes!...BITCH!"

"Don't mess with a high-level wizard, you jerk."

Tukka
2009-06-24, 01:56 AM
There's a feat that lets you take ten with caster level checks (such as dispel magic). If you take ten while trying to dispel your own runes, you will always fail.
As long as you don't level up after preparing the book.

The problem here is that there's no specified action for reading something easily comprehensible; it just happens.
Reading something obvious may not require any action, but I don't think that means that glancing at a rune equates to reading to it. If you threw a book at me that's full of text, I may "see" a lot of words, but I would not "read" more than one or two of them, if that. In any event, a workaround for this if you're committed to abusing the spell is to bind the tome shut.

Signmaker
2009-06-24, 09:15 AM
Does anyone else see the implications of lobbing a 300 sheet (or page, like I care) book of explosive runes?

That is, why in the world would you spend that many months out of your life just to prep a nuke that lasts one time, when you could instead spend those spell slots on more constructive things?

Malacode
2009-06-24, 09:33 AM
Because this is theoretical optimisation at its best. It's a thought experiment and -not used in actual games!-

This is why I disagree with blanket bans of material based on theoretical optimisation or on the opinion of a single person with little-to-no experience with said material. But that's off topic

Lycanthromancer
2009-06-24, 09:34 AM
Does anyone else see the implications of lobbing a 300 sheet (or page, like I care) book of explosive runes?

That is, why in the world would you spend that many months out of your life just to prep a nuke that lasts one time, when you could instead spend those spell slots on more constructive things?

Because wizards are like Boy-Scouts on crack. Effective wizards have two, and only two, rules they follow: 1.) Always be Prepared, and 2.) If something is worth doing, it's worth overdoing to the point of Apocalyptic proportions.

Explosive runes are effectively free magic items, so why wouldn't you spend every single spell slot you have on them? Along with items that grant additional castings, such as pearls of power, and so on?

[edit] Not to mention the fact that you can tear pages out whenever you need to lay a trap, or blow a hole in a wall, or any number of other uses. It's not just a 600-explosive runes one-shot trap; it's also a good idea for offense, defense, and utility.

Signmaker
2009-06-24, 09:38 AM
Explosive runes are effectively free magic items, so why wouldn't you spend every single spell slot you have on them? Along with items that grant additional castings, such as pearls of power, and so on?

For actual day to day issues. Like assassins and magical beasts and whatnot. Granted, what you stated is THE extreme, but still.

Malacode
2009-06-24, 09:41 AM
For actual day to day issues. Like assassins and magical beasts and whatnot. Granted, what you stated is THE extreme, but still.

Woah, don't forget Genesis. THanks to it, you can churn out a coupla hundred of these books a day, and still have time to rest and regain spells for anoter day of adventuring with Chump the Fighter and Dimwad the Barbarian

Set
2009-06-24, 09:47 AM
Major creation has a duration. Conj (creation) spells that are instantaneous exist until they are destroyed by some outside force, like Wall of Stone. Orb spells are instantaneous.

Ooh, that's a cute catch. Permanant orbs of lightning or fire, used as cheap replacements for Continual Flame! Don't touch, they hurt!

Acid Splash is another Instantaneous (and thus, permanant) Conjuration (creation) spell. Using a mere Cantrip, a Wizard can create acid *that lasts forever* once created, suitable for tanning, etching steel, putting into flasks and selling for 10 gp, etc. It's not a lot of acid, but if he's got time to sit around, he can create as much as he wants.

My house rule is that Acid Splash and Create Water have a duration of '1 minute, or until used.' If the stuff is used, expended or consumed (to water plants, etch a sword, satisfy thirst, etc.) the effects (etching, thirst quenched) are permanant. If it is still sitting around 1 minute later, it goes poof.

Fishy
2009-06-24, 10:06 AM
Because wizards are like Boy-Scouts on crack. Effective wizards have two, and only two, rules they follow: 1.) Always be Prepared, and 2.) If something is worth doing, it's worth overdoing to the point of Apocalyptic proportions.

Explosive runes are effectively free magic items, so why wouldn't you spend every single spell slot you have on them? Along with items that grant additional castings, such as pearls of power, and so on?

[edit] Not to mention the fact that you can tear pages out whenever you need to lay a trap, or blow a hole in a wall, or any number of other uses. It's not just a 600-explosive runes one-shot trap; it's also a good idea for offense, defense, and utility.

I kind of want to make an Explosive Runes Sorcerer now, and just have that be his solution to as many problems as possible.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-06-24, 10:54 AM
I kind of want to make an Explosive Runes Sorcerer now, and just have that be his solution to as many problems as possible.

Make him the old mentor type, too.

:haley: "Sorry guys, I can't get the lock open. We'll have to go around"

:vaarsuvius: "Well, my dear, if you can't pick the lock, take a page out of my book."

:haley: "..."

:vaarsuvius: "..."

:haley: "...aaaand when were you going to share this wisdom with us?"

:vaarsuvius: "No, I mean it. Rip a page out. The Preface through xx are empowered, 1 through 327 are normal, and the epilogue is maximized. Just don't look too close."

unosarta
2009-06-24, 11:03 AM
By the way, I felt curious about his discussion, and have actually calculated the amount of damage this does. 3600d6 non-empowered, non-maximized. 5400d6 empowered. 21600 damage maximized. 1800d6+21600 for both, with an average of 27,900. congratulations. you have blown my ***CKING mind.

DragoonWraith
2009-06-24, 11:11 AM
I intend to take it on my Sorcerer just for the opportunity to say "I don't need to prepare Explosive Runes, BITCH!"

Ehra
2009-06-24, 11:35 AM
Unless you successfully dispel one, in which case it only sets off that one. "S'all I meant.

Maybe this is just me being up too early but if you successfully dispel one, doesn't it just mean that the one you dispelled doesn't go off while all of the other ones do? The runes detonate on a failed dispel, not a successful dispel, right?

Nohwl
2009-06-24, 11:53 AM
Does anyone else see the implications of lobbing a 300 sheet (or page, like I care) book of explosive runes?

That is, why in the world would you spend that many months out of your life just to prep a nuke that lasts one time, when you could instead spend those spell slots on more constructive things?

at level oh i don't know, 11, how many spells per day do you use? would sparing one or two 3rd level slots for explosive runes every day really hinder you? i would spare a few every day just in case something really strong or really hard to kill attacked me. sure, you have spell resistance to deal with, and even if they are within 10 feet and make the reflex save for half damage, it is going to hurt. lets assume that there is one thing that you just cannot seem to kill every two months. whatever that thing is gets a book thrown at it, and takes 360d6 force damage. if you detonate it too far from the monster, it gets a save for half.

Random832
2009-06-24, 12:23 PM
whatever that thing is gets a book thrown at it, and takes 360d6 force damage. if you detonate it too far from the monster, it gets a save for half.

If the monster is a barbarian or otherwise illiterate, they're immune - the description is very clear that they detonate when read. I don't think there's chain detonation, either - if they're rendered unreadable (by the damage done to the book by the one spell that does go off) the spell is simply ruined.

Doug Lampert
2009-06-24, 12:25 PM
On the orbs: The orb of fire can be napalmy. The orb of force can be just that force. Have it stick around. Use it as a sling bullet when you find someone with a VoP. Acid is duh. Cold is some sort of alchemic chemical that freezes. Sonic is... difficult.

So I can put the acid in an immune to acid container and store it forever?

It's nonmagical acid after all. You ACTUALLY created it. It's real and permanently here now until it reacts with something.

I can store 200 castings of it and throw them all at once right? How big are they? Not that it matters since I can shrink them, but I need to know how many ounces there are in my 15d6 of purely non-magical acid.

Doug Lampert
2009-06-24, 12:32 PM
The variable is the amount healed, not just the dice roll. So for instance, a Cure Critical Wounds at minimum caster level heals 4d8+7 (average 25), an empowered Cure Critical Wounds heals (4d8+7)*1.5 (average 37.25), and a maximized Cure Critical Wounds heals 39. OK, at minimum caster level, maximize is still slightly better than empower. But suppose instead you're at caster level 11 (the minimum possible to get the RSoP 6th-level ability, if I'm not mistaken). Now, the base spell does 4d8+11 (average 29), the empowered version does (4d8+11)*1.5 (average 43.25), and the maximized version does 43. The empowered one does a quarter point more on average. The discrepancy is larger than that, and always in Empower's favor, if you use any other healing spell, or if you have a higher caster level.

Trivial point. You round down damage healed, this costs 0.25 from the average of effectively all empowers, so they're even at level 11.

Doc Roc
2009-06-24, 12:36 PM
By the way, I felt curious about his discussion, and have actually calculated the amount of damage this does. 3600d6 non-empowered, non-maximized. 5400d6 empowered. 21600 damage maximized. 1800d6+21600 for both, with an average of 27,900. congratulations. you have blown my ***CKING mind.

It depresses me that while these numbers are large, they make virtually no impression on me. Thanks a lot, Lord of Procrastination and T_G.

Doug Lampert
2009-06-24, 12:42 PM
If the monster is a barbarian or otherwise illiterate, they're immune - the description is very clear that they detonate when read. I don't think there's chain detonation, either - if they're rendered unreadable (by the damage done to the book by the one spell that does go off) the spell is simply ruined.

Or when someone fails a dispel check. Hence the whole thing with area dispelling, mentioned in, you know, almost every post on this subject on this thread.

Lamech
2009-06-24, 12:47 PM
So I can put the acid in an immune to acid container and store it forever?

It's nonmagical acid after all. You ACTUALLY created it. It's real and permanently here now until it reacts with something.

I can store 200 castings of it and throw them all at once right? How big are they? Not that it matters since I can shrink them, but I need to know how many ounces there are in my 15d6 of purely non-magical acid.Of course not, the acid isn't stable. It will lose its extreme corrisiveness fairly quickly. (Several seconds.) Alternitivly its simply a large amount of acid, no more valuable than say 15 vials of acid. (Which means fabricate is similar in power.) And the balls of force do damage because of high velocity, so throwing them wouldn't do more damage than throwing a rock.

DragoonWraith
2009-06-24, 12:48 PM
I think the obvious fix to the area Dispel on Explosive Runes is to change it to say that it does the explosion damage to the caster of the Dispel only.

Nohwl
2009-06-24, 01:06 PM
If the monster is a barbarian or otherwise illiterate, they're immune - the description is very clear that they detonate when read. I don't think there's chain detonation, either - if they're rendered unreadable (by the damage done to the book by the one spell that does go off) the spell is simply ruined.

you hit the book with a quickened dispel magic, or a contingent dispel magic. you use the area dispel form of it. you don't let them read it.

if they go off before hand, it does not matter. you don't use all of the spells you have anyway. all this is doing is saving them up for something.

Random832
2009-06-24, 01:11 PM
ok, how about this for a ruling against it - that "take ten" feat can not necessarily be read as allowing you to guarantee not getting a result above ten, because that's not how taking ten works and it doesn't specify otherwise.

Still broken if you do manage to fail the roll though.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-06-24, 01:17 PM
ok, how about this for a ruling against it - that "take ten" feat can not necessarily be read as allowing you to guarantee not getting a result above ten, because that's not how taking ten works and it doesn't specify otherwise.

Huh? You're not trying to "guarantee not getting a result above ten," your result is treated as if you rolled a 10, period. That's what taking 10 is--instead of rolling, you "take 10" as your result. And because of the way dispel check works, d20+your CL vs. 11+caster's CL, taking 10 means you will never dispel spells cast at your caster level.

L'intrigant
2009-06-24, 01:25 PM
Has anyone brought up the Book of Exalted Deeds? Not the in-game item, but the sourcebook. Vow Of Poverty with a Monk makes you into a monster at anything over than 10th level. The kind of monster that clerics run from in fear and druids hide their faces from.

At third level, a monk with VoP has a base 15 AC, can endure virtually any extreme temperatures up to 40 degrees outside the human, and gets a bonus Exalted (i.e. ultimate goodness) feat for free.

By sixth level, that same monk has a base 18 AC, without modifiers for wisdom and dex. It also has no need to eat or drink, its hands are +1 magic weapons, and it gets three Exalted feats.

Jump a bit to 12th level. That same monk, without any equipment or ability modifiers, has a base 23 AC, five bonus Exalted feats, damage resistance 5/magic, +1 to all saves, and gets +4/+2 to two stats. It also doesn't need to breathe and is immune to any attempt to read its mind or discern its alignment. It's hands are now +2 weapons of good.

This is all done with one feat. Imagine all the other OP stuff you could stick on top of that.

Lycanthromancer
2009-06-24, 01:26 PM
I think the obvious fix to the area Dispel on Explosive Runes is to change it to say that it does the explosion damage to the caster of the Dispel only.

Say hello to the "I'm carrying around 2 books full of explosive runes in case I get dispelled" tactic.

DragoonWraith
2009-06-24, 01:28 PM
...ah. Good point.

Lycanthromancer
2009-06-24, 01:30 PM
Also, the tome of leadership and influence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_win_friends_and_influence_people) is totally broken. It can raise your Charisma by 6 points. What people don't realize is that it gives a +50 to your real-life Diplomacy score, just from practicing the (not so secret) secrets contained therein.

Hell, I personally guarantee that if you practice what the ToLaI (otherwise known as HtWFaIP) preaches, you will attain amazing mind-control powers in real-life.

...Not to be confused with the effects of D&D in a Chick Tract, of course...

[edit] I guess I should have said that the book is too broken NOT to use. :smallamused:

Random832
2009-06-24, 01:33 PM
Huh? You're not trying to "guarantee not getting a result above ten," your result is treated as if you rolled a 10, period. That's what taking 10 is--instead of rolling, you "take 10" as your result.

That is how it works mechanically, but the description implies you can't use it to deliberately fail. Deliberately failing a roll would be another mechanic, one that is not actually described on the SRD.

Another possible ruling would be that area dispel failure triggers each one in turn rather than all simultaneously, so any damage done by the first page to go off on the subsequent pages will ruin most of the spells.

Tukka
2009-06-24, 01:49 PM
Has anyone brought up the Book of Exalted Deeds? Not the in-game item, but the sourcebook. Vow Of Poverty with a Monk makes you into a monster at anything over than 10th level. The kind of monster that clerics run from in fear and druids hide their faces from.

...

This is all done with one feat.

I'm pretty sure it's widely agreed that VoP monks are fairly underwhelming. That's because the cost isn't "one feat," it's "one feat + wealth by level." You give up access magic items, which can duplicate much of which VoP gives you, and offer more versatility and power overall.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-06-24, 01:58 PM
That is how it works mechanically, but the description implies you can't use it to deliberately fail. Deliberately failing a roll would be another mechanic, one that is not actually described on the SRD.

...except you're not deliberately failing, you're taking 10 (and, by the way, deliberately failing is indeed in the rules, even if it didn't make it into the SRD). Deliberately failing is saying "I waive my right to make an [attack roll/save/skill check/etc.] and automatically [miss/am affected/fail/etc.]" Taking 10 is saying "I choose to treat it as if I rolled a 10 instead of actually rolling, whether that succeeds or fails." If you have a Jump modifier of +1 and there's a chasm requiring DC 15 to jump, there's nothing at all preventing you from taking 10 and plummeting to the bottom--stupid, yes, but you can if you want to.


Another possible ruling would be that area dispel failure triggers each one in turn rather than all simultaneously, so any damage done by the first page to go off on the subsequent pages will ruin most of the spells.

That's most likely a problematic ruling; if spells can be dispelled in a particular order, rather than just "roll dispel against all of them and dispel ones that fail all at once," you open up a Pandora's box of spell combos.

For instance, dimensional anchoring a teleport-capable monster while they have a buff up; as it is, you have to just take your chances that they won't be able to ready an action/use an immediate action to teleport before you can take advantage of their lack of buffs, but if you can choose to take out the buff first your allies can ready actions to smack him while he's vulnerable without giving him an escape chance. And that's only one scenario that popped to mind immediately.

Really, you can make whatever rulings you want, as long as you keep in mind that (A) the dispel bomb works by RAW, so it is a ruling, and (B) you need to carefully consider the implications, as Lycanthromancer pointed out to DragoonWraith.

Zeful
2009-06-24, 02:23 PM
Of course not, the acid isn't stable. It will lose its extreme corrisiveness fairly quickly. (Several seconds.) Alternitivly its simply a large amount of acid, no more valuable than say 15 vials of acid. (Which means fabricate is similar in power.) And the balls of force do damage because of high velocity, so throwing them wouldn't do more damage than throwing a rock.

Except the velocity is no greater than a thrown dagger, since it's a Conjuration (creation) spell, it's only creating matter, not moving it, that would be Transmutation/Evocation. The ranged touch attack must be the caster throwing the ball of non-magical fire/cold/lightning/sound/acid/magical force, so that 10d6 or whatever is an intrinsic property of matter, rather than a property of movement.

Set
2009-06-24, 02:34 PM
Except the velocity is no greater than a thrown dagger, since it's a Conjuration (creation) spell, it's only creating matter, not moving it, that would be Transmutation/Evocation.

Nah, that's an overly specific notion.

If a School cannot do anything outside of it's purview, how can a Wall of Fire shape fire, or a Flaming Sphere move around (clearly Transmutation effects!)?

The Schools are catch-alls, and there is a ton of bleed-through.

A Conjuration (summoning) spell not only summons a creature, but also *controls* it (an enchantment effect). A Daylight spell not only Evokes light, but it also Abjures lower level Darkness effects.

Other force effects, such as a Wall of Force, do not appear to be inherently damanging. Force effects slamming into someone at speed *do* inflict damage (magic missile, blade barrier, orb of force), so the easiest explanation is that the Orb of Force spell not only creates the orb, but also propels it at great speed (just as a flaming sphere spell not only creates fire, but also moves it around like a little radio-controlled fiery ball of doom).

mostlyharmful
2009-06-24, 02:48 PM
I'm pretty sure it's widely agreed that VoP monks are fairly underwhelming. That's because the cost isn't "one feat," it's "one feat + wealth by level." You give up access magic items, which can duplicate much of which VoP gives you, and offer more versatility and power overall.

Actually it's two feats and WBL and you can lose the whole caboodle at a moments notie over any disagreement of morality with your DM and woe unto you if your DM likes ethical dilemmas. The feat is a long long long way from overpowered.

My submission is Control Winds and Contol Weather, total plot deraillers those.

Also Dire Tortoise, Blinding Spittle and Venomfire are all good druid contributions to the list.

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-06-24, 03:04 PM
Has anyone brought up the Book of Exalted Deeds? Not the in-game item, but the sourcebook. Vow Of Poverty with a Monk makes you into a monster at anything over than 10th level. The kind of monster that clerics run from in fear and druids hide their faces from.
Let's see...


At third level, a monk with VoP has a base 15 AC, can endure virtually any extreme temperatures up to 40 degrees outside the human, and gets a bonus Exalted (i.e. ultimate goodness) feat for free.
A third level monk with a base AC of 15 is going to be on part with a fighter in full plate, and the extreme temperature part can be replicated by a first level spell, Endure Elements.


By sixth level, that same monk has a base 18 AC, without modifiers for wisdom and dex. It also has no need to eat or drink, its hands are +1 magic weapons, and it gets three Exalted feats.
A ring of endurance removes the need for eating or drinking, the AC is still going to be lower than a fighter with magic armor, the fighter gets magic weapons because he has money, and his feat selection is better. (Note: He can afford Leap Attack, and Shock Trooper by 6th level)


Jump a bit to 12th level. That same monk, without any equipment or ability modifiers, has a base 23 AC, five bonus Exalted feats, damage resistance 5/magic, +1 to all saves, and gets +4/+2 to two stats. It also doesn't need to breathe and is immune to any attempt to read its mind or discern its alignment. It's hands are now +2 weapons of good.
An ioun stone takes care of the not need to breath part, magic items such as Rings of Protection raise the fighter's AC, the fighter can afford items that give +4/+2 to two stats, can buy items such as a Ring of Mind Shielding that render him immune to mindreading and alignment discerning, and can enhance his weapons much farther than +2 weapons of good.


This is all done with one feat. Imagine all the other OP stuff you could stick on top of that.
Like not have a means of flying as the wizard floats above you on his Phantom Steed and pelts you with Magic Missiles until you die?

afroakuma
2009-06-24, 03:24 PM
There is one use of VoP, and it is a jerk move exclusively for DMs.

Slap it on a good enemy. Now you have a powered-up critter with no loss, bonus feats - and despite the extra abilities, no treasure. :smallamused:

mostlyharmful
2009-06-24, 03:30 PM
There is one use of VoP, and it is a jerk move exclusively for DMs.

Slap it on a good enemy. Now you have a powered-up critter with no loss, bonus feats - and despite the extra abilities, no treasure. :smallamused:

Mean. But funny!

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-06-24, 03:32 PM
There is one use of VoP, and it is a jerk move exclusively for DMs.

Slap it on a good enemy. Now you have a powered-up critter with no loss, bonus feats - and despite the extra abilities, no treasure. :smallamused:Or for a 'giant pet' build. Have a Good Druid. take Celestial Companion. Now you have a Celetial Fleshraker that gets bonus HD. Bonus HD grant feats. Feats can be used on, say, Sacred Vow/VoP. Snag Natural Bond and now your pet is better than the average Barb, while all you've sacrificed is 2 Feats.

Doc Roc
2009-06-24, 04:23 PM
Notes from the front:
Dispels against your own stuff automatically succeed. You cannot obviate this.

krko
2009-06-24, 04:43 PM
Notes from the front:
Dispels against your own stuff automatically succeed. You cannot obviate this.

Ah, but that is why you let your cohort do it.

FMArthur
2009-06-24, 04:56 PM
But Leadership is at the top of the list of 'don't speak its name at my table' feats. All DMs that know what it does ban it.

Lycanthromancer
2009-06-24, 05:00 PM
Notes from the front:
Dispels against your own stuff automatically succeed. You cannot obviate this.

Only on targeted dispels. With area dispels, you can choose to auto-succeed (though the wording rather heavy-handedly suggests that you don't have to if you don't want to).

DragoonWraith
2009-06-24, 05:04 PM
SRD:

Targeted Dispel: [...] You automatically succeed on your dispel check against any spell that you cast yourself.

Area Dispel: [...] You may choose to automatically succeed on dispel checks against any spell that you have cast.
Yep, can definitely fail against your own spells, unless you don't want to.

Does not indicate that you can force yourself to fail, but Arcane Mastery would certainly allow you to fail automatically.

olentu
2009-06-24, 05:09 PM
Or for a 'giant pet' build. Have a Good Druid. take Celestial Companion. Now you have a Celetial Fleshraker that gets bonus HD. Bonus HD grant feats. Feats can be used on, say, Sacred Vow/VoP. Snag Natural Bond and now your pet is better than the average Barb, while all you've sacrificed is 2 Feats.

A fleshraker might be a suboptimal choice what with stat damaging poison use being evil.

hamishspence
2009-06-24, 05:13 PM
Oddly, celestials like couatls, have it. Best not to think too hard about it.

Apparently the "paladins may not use poison" bit in PHB applies to mounts, which is why a paladin with an ashworm mount (Sandstorm) has to clip its stinger.

lsfreak
2009-06-24, 05:18 PM
A fleshraker might be a suboptimal choice what with stat damaging poison use being evil.

Just because this mistake bugs me a lot, poison use is NOT evil. It is against the paladin's code. There are many things that a paladin cannot do that any other LG person can.

olentu
2009-06-24, 05:39 PM
Just because this mistake bugs me a lot, poison use is NOT evil. It is against the paladin's code. There are many things that a paladin cannot do that any other LG person can.

I would have to disagree given page 34 of the book of exalted deeds which under the ravages and afflictions section says that "using poison that deals ability damage is an evil act". I would however note that this does not make all poison use evil just as I said above stat damaging poison use.

Lycanthromancer
2009-06-24, 06:42 PM
I would have to disagree given page 34 of the book of exalted deeds which under the ravages and afflictions section says that "using poison that deals ability damage is an evil act". I would however note that this does not make all poison use evil just as I said above stat damaging poison use.

Ravages are poisons, with restrictions, granted.

But frankly, the 'morality' of BoED and BoVD is a joke.

Which is more humane, knocking someone unconscious with a quick contact poison that leaves no lasting effects, or bludgeoning them to death?

olentu
2009-06-24, 07:03 PM
Ravages are poisons, with restrictions, granted.

But frankly, the 'morality' of BoED and BoVD is a joke.

Which is more humane, knocking someone unconscious with a quick contact poison that leaves no lasting effects, or bludgeoning them to death?

I can not tell from what you have written if my post is being understood. The section that I quoted in my post "using poison that deals ability damage is an evil act" is a direct quite from the book assuming that I made no mistakes in copying. This really had little to do with ravages in my mind when I wrote it. So regardless of my feelings on the quality of the moral system presented I am making the argument that if one is going to use a feat that is dependent being good then there might be a problem with repeatedly doing something that the same book says is evil and if one is not going to have the fleshraker use the attacks which have poison then such a choice of animal companion seems somewhat sub par.

Lycanthromancer
2009-06-24, 07:40 PM
I don't see it.

Note the complete lack of the [evil] descriptor. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/poison.htm)

olentu
2009-06-24, 07:52 PM
I don't see it.

Note the complete lack of the [evil] descriptor. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/poison.htm)

I am quoting from the book and not making the judgment of if it makes sense or not.

Superglucose
2009-06-24, 08:01 PM
Just because this mistake bugs me a lot, poison use is NOT evil. It is against the paladin's code. There are many things that a paladin cannot do that any other LG person can.
Against paladin's codes in YOUR games, perhaps. Not in mine. Most (if not all) of my gods would rather their Paladins coat a blade with a knockout poison to bring back the criminals alive so they can stand trial.

But why would poison use on a sword be evil? Because it's underhanded? What idiot gets hacked with a sword and doesn't expect it to hurt? Because it's... dishonorable? You're not really lying or failing to keep your word by making a weapon more effective. Some poisons may be against a certain code, but "poisons" aren't inherently evil OR chaotic, any more than a sharpened stick is evil or chaotic. It all depends on how you use them.

Poisoning someone's drinks, or poisoning a water supply? Yeah, that's against the Paladin's code (and the second one is always evil). But making your weapon more effective is hardly 'evil.'

JaxGaret
2009-06-24, 08:32 PM
Which is more humane, knocking someone unconscious with a quick contact poison that leaves no lasting effects, or bludgeoning them to death?

I found this sentence enormously amusing.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-06-24, 08:36 PM
But why would poison use on a sword be evil? Because it's underhanded?

Most likely. If you see a guy in plate armor running at you with a sword, you expect to be sliced up a bit and can prepare yourself accordingly. You can't, however, always tell that the blade is poisoned.

This is the same line of thought that gave us a knight who isn't allowed to be tactically savvy or to remove an evil creature from the world just because it's unconscious. Really, in a multiverse where evil is tangible, real, and widespread, this notion of "giving them a fighting chance" is ludicrous anyway.

lsfreak
2009-06-24, 08:40 PM
Against paladin's codes in YOUR games, perhaps. Not in mine. Most (if not all) of my gods would rather their Paladins coat a blade with a knockout poison to bring back the criminals alive so they can stand trial.

by RAW, however, it's written into the paladin code that they cannot use poison. That makes absolutely NO judgements about that being an evil or chaotic act, merely that it's not something a paladin should do. Really, I agree that it's a stupid rule and I don't enforce it (seriously, it's better to kill a guy than knock him out via Dex/Wis damage? what the hell?) , but it's RAW.

DragoonWraith
2009-06-24, 08:46 PM
I think it harkens to medieval rules of chivalry. Poisoned weapons were considered underhanded and extremely unchivalrous.

Still, it makes a lot more sense in the Knight's code (since he believes in a fair fight and all that), than the Paladin's (where he's more interested in good and justice than "fairness").

olentu
2009-06-24, 08:53 PM
by RAW, however, it's written into the paladin code that they cannot use poison. That makes absolutely NO judgements about that being an evil or chaotic act, merely that it's not something a paladin should do. Really, I agree that it's a stupid rule and I don't enforce it (seriously, it's better to kill a guy than knock him out via Dex/Wis damage? what the hell?) , but it's RAW.

Yeah the paladin code is more restrictive about the use of poison then if it were to just prohibit poison use that is also an evil act. The book of exalted deeds does give examples of some poisons that are alright for someone good to use since they do not do ability damage and it is then not an evil act to use them. I think that oil of taggit and the drow knockout poison were the examples of poisons that are not inherently evil to use.

Set
2009-06-24, 09:10 PM
I would have to disagree given page 34 of the book of exalted deeds which under the ravages and afflictions section says that "using poison that deals ability damage is an evil act". I would however note that this does not make all poison use evil just as I said above stat damaging poison use.

That's just silly. It's okay to fry an evil monster with lightning, fire or acid (or holy water, which burns like acid), to attack with a limb-severing sword that causes permanant disability, to attack it with a wounding weapon that causes Con damage, to permanantly blind or deafen them with magic, to inflict curses upon them, to shred them like a stalk of celery in a cuisinart using blade barrier, to chop their heads off with a vorpal blade, to suck levels worth of life energy out of them with negative energy using Enervation or Energy Drain or to use negative energy to cause them all sorts of bodily harm with Inflict Wounds or Harm spells, to explode them gorily all over the place with Implosion, to enslave them with Dominate or coerce them with Geas/Quest, to 'dishonorably' or 'unchivalrously' target their specific weaknesses, such as using silver weapons against werewolves, or holy water against ghouls, to butcher them by the boatload using all sorts of underhanded tactics, such as Hold Person + Coup de Grace, or trapping them in a Web and setting it on fire, and it's 'evil' to poison them?

The BoED just made alignment even more of a pathetic joke than it already was with blanket rulings like that.

If evil monsters are running rampant through the lands, and a good ranger who can't otherwise confront them one-on-one finds a poison that he can use on his arrows to help even the odds and save countless lives, he's doing good work. If he said, 'Oh, I can't do that, because I'm too self-righteous to sully my hands with poisons, so all you stupid peasants get to be monster chow,' *then* he'd be committing an evil, selfish act. IMO, anyway.

There's a word for someone who finally sees the goal in front of him, and steps off of the path to remain in the world to save the rest of mankind, rather than step through the door alone and save only himself.

Faleldir
2009-06-24, 09:44 PM
Fun fact: Neither the BoVD nor the BoED ever suggest that waterboarding is torture.
Good is basically evil with the armor spikes inside-out.

Brock Samson
2009-06-25, 05:17 AM
Set: Is that word "Hero?" or "Grayguard"?

Kaiyanwang
2009-06-25, 05:51 AM
I think it harkens to medieval rules of chivalry. Poisoned weapons were considered underhanded and extremely unchivalrous.

Still, it makes a lot more sense in the Knight's code (since he believes in a fair fight and all that), than the Paladin's (where he's more interested in good and justice than "fairness").

This is a good point, but consider that when PH was printed, the "knight" of D&D, IMHO, was likely to be the paladin (even if even the fighter had a chance).