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Ilmryn
2010-09-14, 05:30 PM
I have seen a few spells on the forum that are considered overpowered. Even though I have the Spell Compendium, I have no clue what they are and where to find them. Could someone please enlighten me on the following spells?

Ice Assassin
Power Word Pain

arguskos
2010-09-14, 05:32 PM
I have seen a few spells on the forum that are considered overpowered. Even though I have the Spell Compendium, I have no clue what they are and where to find them. Could someone please enlighten me on the following spells?

Ice Assassin
Power Word Pain
Ice Assassin lets you make a copy of a divinity for basically free. This copy then gives you all its divine ranks. Ta-da, you're a god. Go you. Frostburn is the source.

PW: Pain is just really good for it's level, doing lots of damage. Races of the Dragon is the source.

Ryuk01
2010-09-14, 05:37 PM
Quoted from TLN's guide:
"Stinky Cheese: spells that are broken, broken, broken.

Level 2:
-Alter Self: give yourself +6 natural armor, or flight, for 10 min/level with a level 2 spell? Like all the polymorph spells, way too good for its level--not so broken you probably shouldn't use it in a game, though. Combine with the Otherworldly feat for even more cheese.
-Wraithstrike: swift action, make all attacks as touch attacks that round. Ridiculously good for fighter-mages, Power Attack for huge amounts of damage. You can Persist it quite normally in an 8th level slot, or by using various kinds of cheese, and that's when it becomes *completely* broken.

Level 3:
-Shivering Touch (Frostburn): a touch attack, no save, 3d6 dex damage. 3d6! Dex damage! Wanna one-shot a dragon? NOOO problem! Add some kind of reach (Arcane Reach from Archmage, or Reach Spell metamagic) and you can do it from safety. For the love of god, don't resport to this.

Level 4:
-Polymorph: far better than any other spell of its level, and many higher-level spells. The things you can do with this are ridiculous. It's completely broken, so much so WotC has given up on trying to fix it. Just don't use it.
-Celerity (PHB II): this breaks casters worse than they're already broken. As an immediate action casting, gain a standard action, and be dazed on the next round. This means that no matter what, the wizard goes first. Combine with Time Stop to negate the disadvantage of being dazed in combat, or just use it to Teleport out of there or Dimension Door way out of reach.

Level 8:
-Polymorph Any Object: the worst of the lot. Turn yourself into a gold dragon and gain its INT score plus everything else? Come on. Most broken spell in the game.
-Greater Celerity (PHB II): as Celerity, but grants a full-round action.

Level 9:
-Shapechange: CL up to 25 HD monsters. Gain their (Su) special qualities and attacks as well as the (Ex) ones. Completely and utterly ridiculous, as a more powerful Polymorph of course must be. Don't use this.
-Disjunction: both DMs and players avoid it. Use it as a player and you fry the bad guy's loot; use it as a DM and your players lose their magic items and are very upset.
-Gate: so many abuses. So very many. For example, Gate in creatures that can cast Wish as a (Su) ability and make them give you free wishes."

Hague
2010-09-14, 05:37 PM
Assuming you actually make contact with said divinity. This doesn't work in Eberron, for instance, since divinities don't meddle with mortals. Since you can't actually find a clipping of Dol Arrah or the Mockery's hair, you can't copy them.

arguskos
2010-09-14, 05:40 PM
Assuming you actually make contact with said divinity. This doesn't work in Eberron, for instance, since divinities don't meddle with mortals. Since you can't actually find a clipping of Dol Arrah or the Mockery's hair, you can't copy them.
And yet, by RAW, I can use Eschew Materials to avoid that issue. I only need pay for the statue, since the "piece of the person to be copied" has no cost. Note: it is entirely reasonable to say this fails, but RAW speaking, it totally works. :smallyuk:

Hague
2010-09-14, 05:43 PM
You can't do that. The clipping is part of the statue. Without it, you don't have the right statue.

Any DM that'd allow that has already hit full-RAWtard.

Boci
2010-09-14, 05:49 PM
Level 3:
-Shivering Touch (Frostburn): a touch attack, no save, 3d6 dex damage. 3d6! Dex damage! Wanna one-shot a dragon? NOOO problem! Add some kind of reach (Arcane Reach from Archmage, or Reach Spell metamagic) and you can do it from safety. For the love of god, don't resport to this.

Just make it a dex penalty. Problem solved.


-Celerity (PHB II): this breaks casters worse than they're already broken. As an immediate action casting, gain a standard action, and be dazed on the next round. This means that no matter what, the wizard goes first.

Thats not true. You cannot take immediate actions when you are flat footed.


Combine with Time Stop to negate the disadvantage of being dazed in combat, or just use it to Teleport out of there or Dimension Door way out of reach.

And what about the 10 levels between getting celerity and not having time stop?


-Greater Celerity (PHB II): as Celerity, but grants a full-round action.

Meaning its a much higher spell slot for not that much extra.

@Hague: you do realize that is exactly what arguskos said? It should not work, but by RAW it does.

Ilmryn
2010-09-14, 06:11 PM
Thats not true. You cannot take immediate actions when you are flat footed.


I'm pretty sure you can, especially since there is an immediate action spell that gives you a bonus to initiative. That would be pretty useless if you can't cast it before you would go anyways...

Starbuck_II
2010-09-14, 06:12 PM
Thats not true. You cannot take immediate actions when you are flat footed.

2 levels of scout fixes that. Scouts are never flatfoot.

Boci
2010-09-14, 06:15 PM
I'm pretty sure you can, especially since there is an immediate action spell that gives you a bonus to initiative. That would be pretty useless if you can't cast it before you would go anyways...

Which was errated/updated to specifically say it could be used before you had taken any actions.
And yes, the origional version of skitternerve was useless for that exact reason.


2 levels of scout fixes that. Scouts are never flatfoot.

Same ability as the barbarian and doesn't specify that it overrules the PHB (indeed it refers to that ability), so we can assume thats a typo. Even if we don't, it still cost 2 CL.

Endarire
2010-09-14, 06:51 PM
Nitpick: CantripN and Treantmonk said these in their respective guides. Maybe LogicNinja did as well. Did he?

shadow_archmagi
2010-09-14, 06:55 PM
Don't forget Glitterdust, which says "Make a will save or don't make any attacks that hit for the rest of the fight"

Brendan
2010-09-14, 06:57 PM
Ice assassin certainly would make the Hand of Vecna a lot more sought after if the spell component cheese is houseruled out...

Boci
2010-09-14, 06:57 PM
Don't forget Glitterdust, which says "Make a will save or don't make any attacks that hit for the rest of the fight"

Thats more powerful than abusable.

arguskos
2010-09-14, 07:03 PM
Don't forget Glitterdust, which says "Make a will save or don't make any attacks that hit for the rest of the fight"
Yeah, GDust is good. It's not abused. Now, abusing GDust might be using it with Sculpt Spell. :smallamused: That's abuse, but more of wording than anything else (and mostly cause Sculpt Spell is kinda towards the OP end of things, in my opinion).

PId6
2010-09-14, 10:45 PM
Celerity needs Foresight to let you always go first. Besides that, it's ridiculous if you negate the daze in any way (Time Stop, Favor of the Martyr, Fire-Souled, etc), and only overpowered if you don't (due to the nova-abuse and "OH SHI-" button it provides). Greater Celerity is not nearly as much a problem since it's much higher level and doesn't provide too much more benefit, though it's still too good if you prevent the daze somehow.

Cespenar
2010-09-15, 12:29 AM
Going from memory, I remember Wings of Flurry and Wings of Cover (were those the names?) being used in an awful lot of places, so they have to be at least overpowered for their level if not broken per se.

Also, Grease. :smallbiggrin:

PId6
2010-09-15, 12:40 AM
Going from memory, I remember Wings of Flurry and Wings of Cover (were those the names?) being used in an awful lot of places, so they have to be at least overpowered for their level if not broken per se.
Wings of Flurry is a great blasting spell, but I wouldn't say it's too good. It's about even with the Orb of X line, maybe slightly better, but sorcerer-only. Much better than Fireball and friends, but that's like saying warblade's much better than fighter.

Wings of Cover is quite possibly overpowered, especially since it's only 2nd level. Still, it has limitations (only works on one attack per round, immediate action eats your swift next round, RAI doesn't work on AoEs, etc), and it is sorcerer-only. It's one of the few advantages that sorcerer has over wizard. In high-op games, I'd say it's fine to allow.

hamishspence
2010-09-15, 05:09 AM
Locate City (Races of Destiny)- especially with the Fell Drain metamagic feat. Kills commoners for miles around.

Tytalus
2010-09-15, 05:32 AM
Locate City (Races of Destiny)- especially with the Fell Drain metamagic feat. Kills commoners for miles around.

Locate City + Fell Drain does nothing. You need a means to deal damage with the spell first.

The spell is fine by itself. It's the ridiculous MM stacking that makes it a bomb spell, due to the huge spell area.

Snake-Aes
2010-09-15, 05:34 AM
Locate City (Races of Destiny)- especially with the Fell Drain metamagic feat. Kills commoners for miles around.

Locate City doesn't qualify for fell drain.

hamishspence
2010-09-15, 06:23 AM
It does once metamagic feats are added though (those that add the cold descriptor to any spell, and cause all [cold] spells to do damage.)

Snake-Aes
2010-09-15, 06:48 AM
Where does it say that the descriptor automatically gives it damage?

Tyndmyr
2010-09-15, 06:48 AM
I'm pretty sure you can, especially since there is an immediate action spell that gives you a bonus to initiative. That would be pretty useless if you can't cast it before you would go anyways...

That would be nerveskitter.

And, it contains an explicit clause saying you can use it even when you are flatfooted. I would not assume that the same applies to all immediate action abilities unless they contain a similar clause.

The only time celerity is really broken is if you somehow make yourself immune to daze.

Locate City bomb is, while cool, not actually that practical. It requires a bunch of metamagic stacking, most of which are not practical for other purposes. Then, yeah, you've killed all level 1 folks that are out of doors. Great. Killing masses of commoners isn't generally a great goal for uber-power. It can be a great RP event and such, but it isn't actually broken.

hamishspence
2010-09-15, 06:55 AM
It's probably the Fell Drain feat that's more abusable than the spell.

I think it's commonly cited as part of "most powerful 1st level wizard" builds.

Snake-Aes
2010-09-15, 06:58 AM
It's probably the Fell Drain feat that's more abusable than the spell.

I think it's commonly cited as part of "most powerful 1st level wizard" builds.

More than that, a Locate City fell drain bomb really seems to be among the hardcore types of deliberate misinterpretations of rules.

IdleMuse
2010-09-15, 07:58 AM
... deliberate misinterpretations of rules.


I don't think it really counts as a misinterpretation when it works by RAW. It probably shouldn't work by RAW, but it does, and that puts it into the realms of houserules, not 'correct interpretations'.

I could accept that the Locate City bomb is clearly a misinterpretation of intent, but then again, so is 'playing a non-blasty wizard', it seems.

Snake-Aes
2010-09-15, 08:00 AM
Claiming adding a descriptor to the spell enables it to be a damaging spell because "all spells with that descriptor do damage"? I'm not buying that.

hamishspence
2010-09-15, 08:02 AM
I think its more that the damage boosting metamagic feat does not require the spell to be a damaging spell- something like:

"+1 to damage for all spells with the Cold descriptor" - and all spells that do no damage do 0 damage, so can be upgraded to do 1 point of damage.

Greenish
2010-09-15, 08:06 AM
Where does it say that the descriptor automatically gives it damage?Snowcasting (Frostburn) gives it the Cold descriptor, after which Flash Frost (PHBII) causes it to deal damage, allowing one to apply Fell Drain (Libris Mortis) to it, or so I heard.

Douglas
2010-09-15, 08:06 AM
It's not that all spells with that descriptor do damage, it's that one of the feats stacked on to it causes spells with that descriptor to do damage. Specifically, Flash Frost from PHB2.

IdleMuse
2010-09-15, 08:36 AM
As above; Flash Frost specifically states it causes damage to all targets within the area of the spell. It says nothing about the spell having to do damage to begin with.

Esser-Z
2010-09-15, 08:38 AM
So... could use use this to, say, apply negative levels with a Prestidigitation? The color changing feature or something. :smallamused:

jiriku
2010-09-15, 10:38 AM
A snowcast flash frost fell drain prestidigitation. There are generally better uses for your three feats and your standard action, although the lulz are not to be denied.

Esser-Z
2010-09-15, 10:40 AM
Well, Presto is an automatic hit, and one spell slot (level depending on what Metamagic related stuff you have!) lasts you an hour...

Malbordeus
2010-09-15, 10:47 AM
persist it too, and you can deal an arbitary quantity of negative levels from a level 0 spell.

Decomposition is higher level, but you can use Black lore of moil to make it deal damage and then Fell Drain it.

of course, creatures dead with negative levels get up as wights 24 hrs later...

Esser-Z
2010-09-15, 10:48 AM
Aren't those just creatures dead with negative levels inflicted by wights, not all neglevels?

hamishspence
2010-09-15, 10:50 AM
"energy drain" in the DMG is anything that inflicts negative levels- spells are not exempted. And states anything killed by energy drain rises as a wight unless there are rules specifically stating otherwise (such as a creature's spawn ability).

Zhalath
2010-09-15, 08:26 PM
Give people the "Black Spot" with the Fell Presto. And then get command undead ready for tomorrow.

Knaight
2010-09-15, 08:31 PM
Locate City + Fell Drain does nothing. You need a means to deal damage with the spell first.

The spell is fine by itself. It's the ridiculous MM stacking that makes it a bomb spell, due to the huge spell area.

And even then, you can't do much without metamagic reducers, which are the real culprit here.

Jack_Simth
2010-09-15, 08:46 PM
of course, creatures dead with negative levels get up as wights 24 hrs later...Which, you know, means that if you use it on a Locate City bomb while in range of a city means there's suddenly this huge quantity of CR 3 undead running around. Oh yes, and any humanoids they kill join their ranks. It's a fun way to start a wightocolypse.

Of course, there's also Fell Animate, which turns things into zombies; makes a great addition.

Esser-Z
2010-09-15, 08:49 PM
One man walking zombie apocalypse. Nice.

Set
2010-09-15, 08:56 PM
Simulacrum and Polymorph Any Object were always my favorites.

For Simulacrum, purchasing a suit of dragonhide leather armor is relatively inexpensive, when you can get an arbitrary number of half-strength dragon slaves out of it. (Even better in 3.0, when it could be empowered and maximized...)

Kirgoth
2010-09-15, 08:59 PM
snowcast, flash frost, purified locate city cast by 500 mages using co-operative spell to give 5000 mile range would with enough casts kill all non-good people & creatures in the world.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-15, 09:03 PM
What's the largest aura type spell? IE, biggest area on a spell with a duration.

Something I can persist via incantatrix, and then start applying the standard wightpocylpse spells to...

The whole idea of a walking aura of death is just awesome.

Urpriest
2010-09-15, 09:03 PM
snowcast, flash frost, purified locate city cast by 500 mages using co-operative spell to give 5000 mile range would with enough casts kill all non-good people & creatures in the world.

Tippyverse Ahoy!

Tyndmyr
2010-09-15, 09:06 PM
I'd say that intentional mass murder on a global scale would be a good reason for someone to stop being good.

So, with the later casts, the casters would actually be hitting themselves. Unless they had cold resistance, of course.

Jack_Simth
2010-09-15, 09:09 PM
snowcast, flash frost, purified locate city cast by 500 mages using co-operative spell to give 5000 mile range would with enough casts kill all non-good people & creatures in the world.
Still misses critters that have a measure of resistance (it's only a few points of damage per casting), and misses critters with regeneration. But you'll get most of them. Well, until your casters start popping too, because their alignment changed due to the mass-murder of neutral intelligent people....

Esser-Z
2010-09-15, 09:15 PM
Okay, so. Our arbitrary negative levels shtick? Can we put it on scrying spells, and therefore wightify anyone in the world? well, anyone without wards...

Tyndmyr
2010-09-15, 09:30 PM
Er. Technically, yes. Snowcasting can be applied to absolutely anything, I do believe.

SR applies, though. Plus the failure chance for scry.

You can skip snowcasting,etc by using Nightmare instead. Just slap on fell drain. Range: Unlimited. Sources Required: 2. One of which is core.

Esser-Z
2010-09-15, 09:34 PM
Well, there we go. Arbitrary negative levels, wherever the Nine Hells we want. Woo.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-15, 09:39 PM
We just negated the scry in scry and die. Oops.

Flickerdart
2010-09-15, 09:40 PM
Well, there we go. Arbitrary negative levels, wherever the Nine Hells we want. Woo.
You can only cast nightmare on sleeping creatures. Any method that doesn't kill elves isn't good enough.

Esser-Z
2010-09-15, 09:41 PM
You can only cast nightmare on sleeping creatures. Any method that doesn't kill elves isn't good enough.

So we just Scry elves!




Hm. We should make an actual build out of the Wightinator.

Malbordeus
2010-09-16, 07:03 AM
or take Bane Magic - Elves, and then do a locate City Bomb.

theres a good few wide range drood spells, Commune with Nature and the like. it doesnt specificly target anyhting, so not sure it works as a city bomb.
doesnt control weather hit vast areas?
could add a widen(lengthen? enlarge? the names on these things are retarded) to it whilst we are there though :P

anyhow

reducing the feat requirements is pretty easy, we can get a rod. unless we heighten the spell it will still count as a lower level one for all purposes. then we just need meta magic Substitution (fire) and Searing spell and no-one can resist it! *bwahahaha*

*ahem*

other feats/ideas that might work along similar lines
Corupt spell + a evil version of the Chausabel of Fell power +fell drain.
= do-able at +1 spell level with MM school focus.

ok, heres the thing. How low a level can we get this to work, and whith which classes? (sorry for topic hijack)

Tyndmyr
2010-09-16, 07:06 AM
You can only cast nightmare on sleeping creatures. Any method that doesn't kill elves isn't good enough.

Yeah, but you know what does sleep?

Kender.

Esser-Z
2010-09-16, 07:08 AM
Anything that allows us to rid the world of Kender is pure Good.

Coidzor
2010-09-16, 07:11 AM
Yeah, but you know what does sleep?

Kender.

Who created them? And have they had rabbits stuffed down their trousers?

Greenish
2010-09-16, 07:31 AM
Yeah, but you know what does sleep?

Kender.Hey, now, kender have their good sides too!

For example, in a setting where kenders exist, there will also be kender-bane weapons. :smalltongue:

Chambers
2010-09-16, 08:23 AM
Regarding the Ice Assassin...I think the Dweomerkeep PrC in the Complete Divine Web Enhancement (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20040522a) is useful for that cheese. They have some ability that lets them cast a spell as a supernatural ability. Bam, no need for material components.

Urpriest
2010-09-16, 11:00 AM
Okay, so. Our arbitrary negative levels shtick? Can we put it on scrying spells, and therefore wightify anyone in the world? well, anyone without wards...

No no no. The damage is dealt to creatures in the spell's area, so the negative levels are as well. The reason you use Locate City is because the spell doesn't just find your a city in 100 miles, it has an area entry of 100 miles. So you need to find spells with a large Area: entry. Prestidigitation, IIRC, has no area, so no wightifying people by coloring them.

Tytalus
2010-09-16, 01:18 PM
And even then, you can't do much without metamagic reducers, which are the real culprit here.

No, that's not true. Metamagic reducers are problematic by themselves and make this worse, but they are not needed at all for this to work.

You really only need Flash Frost Spell (+1) and Fell Drain (+2). Snowcasting is required, but isn't a metamagic feat. Without any MM reducers at all, your Locate City Bomb is only a level 4 spell that breaks the game.

Even the original version of the "bomb" is only level 4 (Flash Frost spell +1, Energy Substitution +0, Born of the three Thunders +0, Explosive Spell +2).

Crasical
2010-09-16, 02:14 PM
Tippyverse Ahoy!

Tippy-what? *goes and looks it up*

[Crasical is googling. Please wait warmly...]

So, some poster going by Emperor Tippy theorized a mage-ocracy with magically-created food, water, healing, and transportation? And this was seen as a Bad Idea by many posters for being a huge departure from general medieval fantasy DnD, and because his business practices involved casting mindrape to forcibly alter people's perceptions?

oooookay, what's the 'destroy evil' bomb got to do with it?

Susano-wo
2010-09-16, 03:18 PM
how exactly is that +1 damage feat worded? Cause whether spells that don't specify damage do 0 damage or *no* damage seems to be undefined within RAW, so you would need to define that. ANd by You I mean any individual GM would have to.

So if it says add +1 damage to any cold spell, it could be interpreted (and I would argue that this is the most reasonable interpretation) as requiring damage for the damage to be added to. I mean, if a spell said it adds +10ft to cold spells range, a personal cold spell is still personal.

If it says it causes any cold spell to deal 1 cold damage, then yeah, it would work with any cold spell

Though, with that said, no, you cannot deny the luls :D

and I think Urpreist is likening the rather final solution-like social engineering of killing all evil people through magic to something you would see within said Tippyverse, assuming it was run in an, ah, totalitation fashion.

hamishspence
2010-09-16, 03:22 PM
The precise wording is "deals an extra 2 points of cold damage per level of the spell to all creatures in the area"

It can only be applied to spells with an area- however, it can be applied to spells that normally do no damage.

The interpretation is that "extra points of damage" get done, even if the normal spell doesn't damage.

lsfreak
2010-09-16, 03:29 PM
oooookay, what's the 'destroy evil' bomb got to do with it?

Tippyverse is, in essence, taking the rules as presented and following them through to the logical extremes. He applied it to governance, warfare, transport, logistics, and the like. Another extreme would be someone who goes throwing around 50-mile-wightocolypses.

Susano-wo
2010-09-16, 03:46 PM
@HamishSpence. yeah. I would definitely say it doesn't work, then, based on my reasoning above. It's like the difference between "-" spells per level and "0" spells per level. There is no damage involved to add damage to.

Though it probably a lost cause to argue further, since it all seems like its been hashed out before and people's minds have been kinda made up on the matter, eh? ;P

Though the idea of chilling the very air around you and using the bting cold as magical feelers sounds pretty cool :D

Urpriest
2010-09-16, 03:48 PM
Tippyverse is, in essence, taking the rules as presented and following them through to the logical extremes. He applied it to governance, warfare, transport, logistics, and the like. Another extreme would be someone who goes throwing around 50-mile-wightocolypses.

Additionally (and the point I intended), the Tippyverse involves using RAW to create a fascist good-aligned utopia. Killing every evil being in the world is along the same lines as his suggested widespread use of mindrape.

Esser-Z
2010-09-16, 03:57 PM
Tippyverse Ahoy!

Tippyverse, no. Wightverse, yeeeeeessss.