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View Full Version : Enchantment is useless? (3.5)



penbed400
2010-01-23, 07:34 PM
I keep hearing about a level 1 spell that makes the entire enchantment school completely useless. What spell is this? Can it be bypassed? Forgive me for my Search skill is terrible and my google-fu is weak. Thanks for answering ahead of time.

Saph
2010-01-23, 07:35 PM
It's level 8, not level 1, and it's called Mind Blank.

Doesn't make Enchantment useless unless you commonly play at level 15+ and every enemy is a caster.

jokey665
2010-01-23, 07:40 PM
Protection from Evil/Good/Law/Chaos, I believe.

Lycanthromancer
2010-01-23, 07:41 PM
Protection from evil (and the other protection from X spells) makes compulsion spells useless for its duration, as well as possession effects of any kind.

Not all of enchantment, but enough to be getting on with.

Deepblue706
2010-01-23, 07:42 PM
If it's really important that you use Enchantment, and you know and Mind Blank is in play, you could always hand a scroll of Greater Dispel Magic to your Rogue Buddy, and have him fire that off before you cast your Dominate Monster, or whatever. Under normal circumstances you'd generally be better off using alternative methods to fight your enemies, but it still is an option.

Yuki Akuma
2010-01-23, 07:42 PM
All of Enchantment is mind-affecting, and there are tons of critters with blanket immunity to mind-affecting effects.

Mastikator
2010-01-23, 07:45 PM
Protection from energy makes damage spells (evocation) useless. True sight makes illusion useless. Dimensional Lock makes conjuration (mostly) useless. Overland Flight makes melee attackers useless. Improved invisibility makes ranged attackers useless too (unless they can see invisible dudes). Death Block makes necromancy school (mostly) useless.

There is a spell that blocks every one trick pony. It doesn't mean that one trick ponies are useless, just that they are inversatile and will inevitably encounter a situation they simply can't overcome. Which is ok in my opinion.

Saph
2010-01-23, 07:47 PM
Protection from evil (and the other protection from X spells) makes compulsion spells useless for its duration, as well as possession effects of any kind.

Not all of enchantment, but enough to be getting on with.

Eh, it doesn't stop Confusion, which is my favourite of the enchantment effects to hit someone with anyway. Watching enemies killing each other never gets old. :)

onthetown
2010-01-23, 07:54 PM
Eh, it doesn't stop Confusion, which is my favourite of the enchantment effects to hit someone with anyway. Watching enemies killing each other never gets old. :)

Seconded. I did this the other day with two ogre magi. It was glorious.

If there's a 1st level spell that renders enchantment useless, my DM has yet to use it. People underestimate the poor school.

A Quickened Daze, if successful (jack up your INT score at every opportunity and magic shop, and it'll be successful a lot), will give you at least 3 spells in a row. My favourite combination is Quickened Daze, Rainbow Blast, and Bestow Curse 50% miss chance.

Flickerdart
2010-01-23, 08:04 PM
Protection from energy makes damage spells (evocation) useless. True sight makes illusion useless. Dimensional Lock makes conjuration (mostly) useless. Overland Flight makes melee attackers useless. Improved invisibility makes ranged attackers useless too (unless they can see invisible dudes). Death Block makes necromancy school (mostly) useless.

There is a spell that blocks every one trick pony. It doesn't mean that one trick ponies are useless, just that they are inversatile and will inevitably encounter a situation they simply can't overcome. Which is ok in my opinion.
Evocation is Forcecage, Wall of Force and Contingency. Illusion is Shadow Conjuration/Evocation, and True Seeing only has a 1 minute/level effect, a limited range and is expensive to cast. Conjuration can blast and create things from nothing, which Dimensional Lock doesn't stop at all. Non-casters are useless against full casters, that's not the point here. Death Ward (no such thing as Death Block) also only lasts minute/level, and doesn't block ability damage or the undead, things that Necromancy employs often.

On the other hand, Mind Blank explicitly blocks all divination and mind-affecting spells (which happens to be most if not all Enchantment spells) and lasts 24 hours. A much more significant problem. I won't even mention the fact that a first-level spell puts a huge spoke in its wheels.

Teron
2010-01-23, 08:24 PM
Protection from energy makes damage spells (evocation) useless.
The best damage spells aren't evocation (that's why it's nearly useless), and often don't deal energy damage. Energy resistance or immunity can also be bypassed through feats and such, unlike innate immunity to mind-affecting effects.


True sight makes illusion useless.
But it's a hell of a lot rarer than immunity to mind-affecting effects, and more likely to be dispellable.


Dimensional Lock makes conjuration (mostly) useless.
Not even close. Besides being even rarer than true seeing and affecting a limited area, it doesn't hinder the creation subschool -- that would be all the battlefield control and direct damage.


Overland Flight makes melee attackers useless.
Unless they can fly themselves, through items or caster support. Too bad having your own protection from X or mind blank doesn't do the same for your enchantment spells...


Improved invisibility makes ranged attackers useless too (unless they can see invisible dudes).
Also much rarer than mental immunity and usually dispellable, but yeah, we're getting into "casters can screw non-casters." That's not news to anyone, is it?


Death Block makes necromancy school (mostly) useless.
Death Ward? Dispellable, doesn't cover every single necromancy spell, and you can always sic your undead minions on them. The greater problem with necromancy is that a couple creature types are largely immune; not coincidentally, it's the third most recommended school to bar. It still has a greater variety of effects than enchantment and comes up against immunity less often.


There is a spell that blocks every one trick pony. It doesn't mean that one trick ponies are useless, just that they are inversatile and will inevitably encounter a situation they simply can't overcome. Which is ok in my opinion.
A spell that makes the "trick" harder to use is one thing. A level one spell that does so, a higher level spell that completely blocks it, and several immune creature types will make you wish you'd picked a different trick.

All that's not to say that enchantment is completely worthless; it has a place in a well-rounded wizard's arsenal. But it's a poor choice to specialise in, and a fairly painless one to lose for the benefits of specialisation.

faceroll
2010-01-23, 08:32 PM
Ray of Stupidity is an awesome spell to take out things that aren't protected against mind affects. There are some epic monsters that you can incapacitate with a couple castings of this second level spell.


Evocation is Forcecage, Wall of Force and Contingency.

There's one that forces a fort, ref, and will save or be stunned, tripped, and deaf. It's in SpC.

Sinfire Titan
2010-01-23, 08:38 PM
Protection from energy makes damage spells (evocation) useless. True sight makes illusion useless. Dimensional Lock makes conjuration (mostly) useless. Overland Flight makes melee attackers useless. Improved invisibility makes ranged attackers useless too (unless they can see invisible dudes). Death Block makes necromancy school (mostly) useless.

There is a spell that blocks every one trick pony. It doesn't mean that one trick ponies are useless, just that they are inversatile and will inevitably encounter a situation they simply can't overcome. Which is ok in my opinion.

I just spent 5 minutes on the floor laughing at how stupid the bolded part is. You think Conjuration is all about Teleporting? Got some news for you: it isn't. It and Transmutation are impossible to render completely useless (even the WLD doesn't get the whole job done, it just stops summoning and teleporting, leaving Creation and Calling along with the Fog lines).

Sure, you stop the common method of a Wizard getting out of a grapple check, but Heart of Water made that useless anyway. You still have to deal with Solid Fog and the Orbs, along with a slew of other spells. Not to mention the rest of the Wizard's spell list.

Runestar
2010-01-23, 08:57 PM
Protection from alignment only prevents you from continuously exerting mental influence over a target. It does not prevent him from being affected.

For example, charm monster lasts 1 hour/lv, while prot from evil lasts only minutes. So a mind flayer could charm the fighter, but not command him to do anything. If he runs away, and returns 10 minutes later after the prot from evil spell ends, he can re-establish control.

Plus, spells which don't involve ongoing control such as suggestion or insanity flat-out bypass prot from alignment.

Starbuck_II
2010-01-23, 09:04 PM
Nightmare Spinner Adaptation goes through Mind Blank. So it isn't that bad.

Jack_Simth
2010-01-23, 09:05 PM
Protection from evil (and the other protection from X spells) makes compulsion spells useless for its duration, as well as possession effects of any kind.

Not all of enchantment, but enough to be getting on with.

Not even all Compulsions - just those that give you "continuing control" over the subject. So Charm's stopped, Dominate Person is stopped, and Greater Command is stopped. Suggestion and Command might be, but Hold Person, Daze, and others aren't.

Sinfire Titan
2010-01-23, 09:12 PM
Consider this:


1: If Magic of Incarnum is allowed, anyone with a half-decent Con score can take Shape Soulmeld (Planar Chausible) for a constant Protection from X spell.

2: As above, but Shape Soulmeld (Crystal Helm) and Open X Chakra for blanket immunity to Compulsions and Charms.

3: If Elder Evils is allowed, any Evil character can devote themselves to an Elder Evil at 5th level to get two bonus feats. These feats can be Willing Deformity and it's next step, Willing Deformity (Madness). This grants blanket immunity to ALL Mind-Affecting spells and abilities at the cost of a few points of Wis.



Someone at WotC really hated the Enchantment school...

Kelb_Panthera
2010-01-23, 09:15 PM
If your major is Enchantment, it's probably good to have a minor in Abjuration. "protection from evil? No. *dispel magic*" Illusion also makes a good minor since between Enchantment and Illusion you can get really good at obfuscation. Of course, if that's the way you wanna play it, beguilers can be fun.

faceroll
2010-01-23, 09:38 PM
The problem with illusion & enchantment, though, is the overlap. Illusion and enchantment tend to be weak vs. the same sort of thins.

Thurbane
2010-01-23, 11:46 PM
For evil characters, two feats make you immune to all mind effects: Willing Deformity and Deformity [Madness]. So an evil human Commoner 1 can be immune to the mind affecting spells of a 20th level Wizard.

Kelb_Panthera
2010-01-24, 12:35 AM
The problem with illusion & enchantment, though, is the overlap. Illusion and enchantment tend to be weak vs. the same sort of thins.

Only if you apply it directly to those things. The point behind using both enchantment and illusion is to distort reality. Target an enemy that's immune to enchantment with an illusion, or enchant one of his minions. The only time both schools should be completely useless against the same enemy is if that enemy is alone and somehow completely immune to both. Immunity to enchantment = not uncommon. Immunity to illusion = not uncommon. Immunity to both illusion and enchantment = not at all common.

Naturally, both can be further enhanced through clever use of mundane forms of obfuscation such as skill uses.

Arbitrarious
2010-01-24, 01:56 AM
I do dislike the protection spells, I think they are bit much. That being said enchantment is a big SOS school. There's not a lot of middle ground spells. So what's better? Potentially crippling a school from level 1 onward or accepting that everyone, including the homicidal feral bugbear, are the enchanters BFFs?

kvanever
2010-02-03, 09:42 PM
Not even all Compulsions - just those that give you "continuing control" over the subject. So Charm's stopped, Dominate Person is stopped, and Greater Command is stopped. Suggestion and Command might be, but Hold Person, Daze, and others aren't.

I tend to agree that Suggestion would be countered by Protection From Evil. But I'm not sure it wouldn't counter Hold Person too. I mean, is the enchanter exerting "continuous control" by keeping the target from moving? Or Daze? Does clouding the mind for six seconds count as six seconds of "continuous control"?

I guess, the question is, does anyone know of an errata or other RAW source that addresses this component of Protection From Evil?

elonin
2010-02-03, 10:01 PM
Perhaps I'm getting this wrong but isn't the bigger problem with enchantment that they all follow this basic idea: "will save or be my friend (or more forcefully) do what I say even when I'm treating you like a slave".

Mindblank is a good spell, but are wizard players really chaining them to affect their whole party? The best advise here would be cast these at the melee folks swinging swords at you or charging you then tell them to beat up on the guy with a pointy hat.

DragoonWraith
2010-02-03, 10:35 PM
Enchantment is almost entirely will-save-or-suck spells, which the Wizard has no lack of. He therefore can lose it without losing any unique abilities. It further has an incredibly large and diverse array of things that immune to it (the undead and mindless creatures are rather common at all levels), plus a 1st level spell blocks a lot of it and an 8th level spell blocks all of it. So in addition to being eminently replaceable, it's also weaker than a lot of the things you're replacing it with.

On the other hand, that's from a combat, dungeon diving perspective. If you're going to spend all your time in cities, with fellow humanoids... it becomes a lot more appealing. Controlling someone isn't just making them lose in combat, it gives you information, it opens doors, it gives you power. That can be hard to replace. Plus the targets you care about are very much not immune unless they're 15th level Wizards or can afford to hire them - rather rare in a large number of settings. So in a City game, I'd say that Enchantment can be very powerful.

Which leads to the opposite problem - controlling everything through magic gets too easy.

Superglucose
2010-02-03, 10:41 PM
Dimensional Lock makes conjuration (mostly) useless. Overland Flight makes melee attackers useless. Improved invisibility makes ranged attackers useless too (unless they can see invisible dudes).
All of these are flat wrong.