3.5 Homebrew Spell - Bone Shatter

[Turok117]

Hey everyone. Just had an idea for a spell.

Bone Shatter
Evocation [Sonic]
Level: Clr 4
Components: V, S, DF
Casting time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target, or Area: One creature; see text
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates; see text
Spell Resistance: Yes

Bone Shatter uses oure force in order to weaken and pulverize the bones of your enemies and to inflict debilitating effects.

First, make a heal check to determine your ability to manipulate magical force and influence the enemy's anatomy. This check result is the saving DC of the spell.

Choose a target, and select one of the following options:
Humerus: The target's humerus shatters, he is wracked with terrible pain, and cannot utilize his arm correctly. Target takes a -10 penalty to attacks and damage rolls with that arm and takes a -6 penalty to concentration checks to cast spells with somatic components or checks that involve the use of arms; climb, tumble, etc
Femur: The target's femur snaps, and the target suffers pain and is unable to to perform taxis. -10ft to movement speed and -6 penalty to physical skills such as climb, tumble etc
Wrist/hand: The carpal bones smash, and the subject struggles to perform fine movements with his digits and to use weapons. -3 penalty to attack rolls and -6 penalty to skills that involve fine movement of hands, such as disable device etc

There could be a greater version that affects the spine, ribs or cranium, and has a chance to puncture arteries or whatever.

Thoughts? I think the penalties may be a little too high.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Don't mess with DC's. A 7th level Cleric, the minimum to cast this, could easily get a DC of 23 with a Wisdom of 16, max ranks in Heal, and result of 10 on the roll instead of the 17 DC for a 4th level spell with a +3 ability modifier.

You keep mentioning pain. What does this mean? Damage? Forced Concentration checks? More Saves? I personally say that each time they do something that has taken a penalty for deal 1d6 non-lethal damage.

Personally, this seems kind of sadistic kind of spell and might warrant an [Evil] descriptor, but thats just me.

Wrist/hand should make a penalty or inability for Somatic spells because it requires hand movements and have a lame hand prevents this. You can cast spells with only one hand, but you need to be clear and state that they still need a free, working hand to cast somatic spells.

Femur should give a much steeper penalty to movement based on legs. I would think either 30 feet (to a minimum of 5) or half. Movement speeds not based on legs, like flying, shouldnt be affected.

How is this cured? Heal would definatly fix it but then theres balance issues as Heal is much higher level. I'd say a minimal level Conjuration (Healing) spell is neccesary.

[Thugorp]

consider stacking penalties

for instance if I take out both of my opponent's legs how is he supposed to move? Officially saying that casting this 2s.(once on each leg) immortalizes my opponent allows me to use this as a non-lethal option for lawful good clerics.


consider things like this.

[MesiDoomstalker]

consider stacking penalties

for instance if I take out both of my opponent's legs how is he supposed to move? Officially saying that casting this 2s.(once on each leg) immortalizes my opponent allows me to use this as a non-lethal option for lawful good clerics.


consider things like this.

Do you mean immobolize?

[Thugorp]

Yes, Yes I do. I think this is an example of misspell-checking.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Spells that inflict pain such as this tend to have the evil descriptor, look at symbol of pain for example. This truely sounds like a spell of torture.

[unosarta]

Logically, this shouldn't affect creatures that are immune to critical hits; Constructs, Plants and Undead to a lesser extent, all don't have bones or are relatively unaffected by the breaking of said bones.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Logically, this shouldn't affect creatures that are immune to critical hits; Constructs, Plants and Undead to a lesser extent, all don't have bones or are relatively unaffected by the breaking of said bones.

Undead and Constructs are immune to any effect that requires a fortitude save unless it also effects objects. So by default they'd be immune to this spell. Adding a line that creatures without bones are immune is still a good idea though.

[Thugorp]

Should corporeal humanoid undead really be immune to this? Why wouldn't a broken arm or leg affect a Vampire just as much as it would affect a werewolf? Would a Zombie with no knee caps be able to walk any better than the commoner you raised it from?

What about other living undead(like the vamp) a ghoul feels pain and is very dependent on its body for its fast and limber movements, crits don't work on them because in all of these cases the organs and squishy bits don't matter, so you can't make an attack more lethal by stabbing in the heart or scrambling it's brain with your sword of eyeball squaring, however, taking out the bones should still matter... it doesn't count as a crit because hurting a creatures bones doesn't directly cause any sort of lethal effect(like in real life, no one has ever died of massive bone trauma... like not directly form it) however, a zombie with no legs(or no leg bones) is now a zombie that can only move by dragging it's self with its hands... even if it could do that just as quickly as it could walk, it couldn't both do that and us a slam attack at the same time... so... I would think that this spell would still affect(at the least) corporal humanoid undead.

[Lord Vukodlak]

You may want to look at the 4th level spell wither limbs from the spell compendium for a comparison.


Should corporeal humanoid undead really be immune to this?

Because being immune to fortitude save effects is one of the undeads strengths. Which is good for them as there lack of a con score means they have near non-existant fortitude saves. If you want to harm an undead using a fortitude save your more or less limited to disinigrate.

It basically be a death spell for a skeletal undead as there only bones. A zombies arm at least remains attatched if you break it but a Lich is more or less a skeleton.


Would a Zombie with no knee caps be able to walk any better than the commoner you raised it from?

A zombie feels no pain, and still has flesh and muscle it be able to walk on a broken limb. That's why they have DR 5/slashing. Broken bones don't really bother them. People can walk on a broken leg, its incredibly painful, it causes serious damage, and the most they can manage is a shamble.

[John Cribati]

I'd say the Zomie with broken legs should constantly make balance checks to stay upright.

[Thugorp]

Bones are necessary. If a bone is shattered there is nothing for the tendons/ligaments(the things that connect muscle to bone) to hold, if there is no functioning bone/muscle connection then the contraction/flexion of the muscles is a purely isolated motion and wont move the limb. To put it in another way, even if the undead can continue to move its muscles unless those muscles are connected to bones that run the length of the limb they are in, there will not be sufficient leverage to manipulate the limb properly. beond this since muscles are by design not ridged and can not move on their own(they only expand[become larger] and contract[make themselves smaller]) they would have no-way to really support an undead crature should lets say someone tap it on the back(because it the creature wouldn't be able to demonstratively adjust its center of gravety to compensate for the aplied force) even if it magically was standing in just the perfect position so that it was perfectly ballanced and upright, due to the limited abilities of muscles when not properly connected to correctly aligned bones, the creature would never be able to do so much as take one step.


Here is a real world example: I recently had my knee cap off. I was playing lazer tag and I had a bad landing after a dive and i popped it off. It felt weird but didn't hurt so I kept trying to play, the only problem was that unless I stepped just wright(and didn't try to move my leg quickly) my knee would buckle. It buckled because there was nothing to stop the joint form bending the wrong way(any way actually! did you know that the knee is essentially a ball joint!)... It wasn't a matter of pain, I actually played for another 40 minutes and then went to a friend's house to play portal2 for a couple of hours THEN finally I though... you know, my leg wont stop buckling... I wonder if I should go to he hospital. If on the other hand, both of my tibias had been completely broken... there would be NOTHING to support my weight and the fact that I apparently have a very high pain threshold would not have mattered one yot(as a contrast I broke my pinky tow once and could barely walk because it through off my balance).


As for fortitude saves, Disintegrate is a perfect example of this, it works against undead because it doesn't matter if they don't need their organs... if their bodies are burnt up they can't live. This is similar, even if they aren't hurt by their stomachs leaking acid all over there colon, without bones to support them they can't stand/walk.

Finally, feeling no pain is all well and good for mindless undead, but things like Vampires and Vargules CAN feel both pain and pleasure.

As an aside I would like refer you to The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks, if you would like to do further reading into the various affects of different sorts of injuries and weapons upon the bodies of the undead.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Bones are necessary. If a bone is shattered there is nothing for the tendons/ligaments(the things that connect muscle to bone) to hold.

Skeletal undead have no muscle to move and yet they still do, so your entire argument there is dead. Undead can see without eyes, hear without ears and move without muscle depending on the variety. (also the tibias wasn't an available option with the spell)

There is also nothing to support your assertion that undead feel pain. Physical pain is the result of a physical functioning anatomy which undead lack. Any "pain" and undead would feel would be purly psychological. Like a ghosts pain of loss and regret.

There is the subject of balance to consider and offering what is essentially a low-level save or die spell against an undeads lowest save is somethign to consider. Undead tend to be immune to effects that disable or otherwise outright kill the subject. A few spells specifically disable or outright destroy undead but those spells tend not to work on non-undead.

This bone shatter only works on bones? why not rocks or trees or a sword? If it works on undead you can make the argument it works on other objects.

One major problem with the spell is how do broken bones heal? D&D doesn't cover those kind of injuries because it uses an abstract hit point system. And going by the spells description a human could still walk if you broke the femur, so maybe you should direct some criticism towards how it works on living targets first.

[Thugorp]

some of that is fair... though I would actually say that yoru argument about the skeleton haveing not but bone would suport my point... aspecially since you are the one who suggested that if you disregard pain the undead could continue to move their bodies using thier muscls... if a skeleton breaks a bone I would think that that skeleton has permanently lost a part of its body... um yes it only works on bones that is why you need the heal check.

as for directing some attention to how it affects humans, I actually started that way... someone or other then started talking about undead...I would have to go back and reread this thread(which maybe I should do :-) ) to see how I started talking about this spells affect on the living impared.

I don't think it is a save or die though, it is more of a save or imobalize, since the undead(exept perhaps vampires and others like them) don't feel pain and are mindless there is no reason why if a player did come within their reach the moster wouldn't continue trying to attack them. This could forinstance heop a player escape or make a kill easier but it couldn't kill an undead of any sort.

I realize my last post came out sounding harsh... and I have to admit when I wrote it I wanted it to... but I don't know why I wanted to be such a ****, so I am sorry for the rudeness with which I posted my last response.

[Gamer Girl]

The first big problem with this spell is the effect. It breaks bones. Sure that is great flavor, but how does it work in the rules? How long does it take a broken bone to heal? Does healing magic work against this spell? Can any magic 'fix' a broken bone? And on top of that the bones only assume a human skeletal structure. So this spell can't effect anything non-humanoid?

The Weird DC thing is just too way out there. To have the DC set by a heal check is crazy. This throws the whole Dc/saves rules out the window. First it's way to easy for a cleric to buff the heal check up to high numbers. And any of the normal DC buff won't work. This spell should use the normal Dc rules.

Some of the penalties are a bit high, some are a bit pointless.


This spell might work better as a simple Bestow Curse variant:Bone Curse or such that negatively effects a targets bones.