Theory & Practice: Solar-Gating

[Malachei]

I've seen a lot of examples of gaining cheap wishes through the use of Solar-Gating, or even Solar-Chain-Gating.

The idea is that RAW, gate let's you ask one immediate favor, the solar has wish as a SLA, and SLAs do not cost XP or require material components. In one example, the Solar is even asked to cut off one of his arms to serve as a component.

In several discussions this has been talked about and sometimes brought up as the most sensible/standard thing to do.

Now I'd like to highlight three reasons why I don't see this as the most sensible/standard thing to do.


A solar is a lawful good angel and if you force him to use his wish for you, especially if it is not for a lawful good cause, he'll have a serious disagreement with you.
The solar will likely try to word the wish in a way that would keep the person forcing him from achieving his goal.
The Monster Manual states that solars are the greatest of the angels, and close attendants to a god. Now, picture this: Solar comes home after work, and the god says: "Honey, how was your day?" and the solar answers, "Terrible, love. A wizard gated me, forced me to wish for something bad, and my conscience is so hurt now I have a bad headache."


In my game, the god would make sure the wizard will never gate a solar again.

What would be the result in your game?

[Golden Ladybug]

Depends on the flavour of the game.

If shenanigans are the name of the game, then there isn't any consequences. Maybe they need to go comfort a crying Solar later on for forcing him to help commit a non-good, non-lawful act (Shenanigans Games get silly really fast).

In serious games, where the Solar Gating is done with the intention of breaking things, suddenly a contingent of Angels appears with some pointed questions, such as why you thought we Lawful Good Angels would help you wreck that City over there because the Archmage kicked you out for trying to create an army of Dread Warriors by slaughtering the Guards.

Sometimes, with my group, its their intention to bring down the wrath of the Angels so they can have a good scrap :smallbiggrin:

[Steward]

It's only sensible/standard in theory. If you're playing in an actual campaign setting where the NPCs behave like people, of course you can't get away with something like that without provoking any response.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a line of inevitables charged with preventing that kind of magical abuse.

[Emperor Tippy]

It's really not abuse, and it's somewhat expected. You should be hitting your players with Disjunctions and chained dispels+shatters in practically every high level fight, and afterward they replace their lost items with Wish use.

Much like the limits on feats and skill points, you as the DM simply limit them to WBL and get on with the game.

[Douglas]

One of the ideas I've got for my (nowhere near ready to play) homebrew campaign setting is that there is no such thing as a generic Solar - if a player in that setting tries to call up a Solar, I'd pull out a list of maybe a dozen or two names, maybe less, and ask "which one?" That list would contain every Solar that exists in the entire setting, and each of them would be customized to some degree and count as unique.

[Ravens_cry]

I've never seen it used. In actual play, trying to abuse it would get a rather disgruntled god who wants to have words.

[Heatwizard]

I don't see the issue. Ninth level spells are about the point in time in which you start fighting these sorts of enemies, right? So if you reel in a Solar and he doesn't appreciate it and comes back to give you a piece of his mind, you fight him. If he goes sobbing to his boss, and his boss takes offense and comes down there to have a word with you, you fight him.

[tyckspoon]

Eh. If you're abusing RAW mechanics, you've been slapping around Efreeti for your Wishes for the last 8-10 levels anyway. Inefficient use of a Gate spell to use Solars just for that; you go for a Solar for their Cleric casting, or the 3 Heals+ Resurrections + Greater Restoration they also have in their spell-likes, or maybe you want something Permanenced on the cheap.

[Ravens_cry]

I don't see the issue. Ninth level spells are about the point in time in which you start fighting these sorts of enemies, right? So if you reel in a Solar and he doesn't appreciate it and comes back to give you a piece of his mind, you fight him. If he goes sobbing to his boss, and his boss takes offense and comes down there to have a word with you, you fight him.
Which any good and most neutral (which in my experience make up the vast majority of campaigns) parties would be hard pressed to find a reason to do so.

[Steward]

It's really not abuse, and it's somewhat expected. You should be hitting your players with Disjunctions and chained dispels+shatters in practically every high level fight, and afterward they replace their lost items with Wish use.


There are a lot of different ways to play the game though, so it's not really right to say that the DM "should" be pitting the players against a very specific type of challenge that they "should" be relying 9th-level spells to counter. That's a perfectly valid play style and I take back calling it "abuse" but it's not exactly the only reasonable or valid way to handle things.

[Emperor Tippy]

There are a lot of different ways to play the game though, so it's not really right to say that the DM "should" be pitting the players against a very specific type of challenge that they "should" be relying 9th-level spells to counter. That's a perfectly valid play style and I take back calling it "abuse" but it's not exactly the only reasonable or valid way to handle things.
*shrug* the spells exist. Use them.

Disjunction counters Wish abuse, and Persistent Metamagic abuse (spells don't get saves to resist disjunction). Lot's of games semi ban it, which causes more balance issues and problems than it solves.

[Steward]

*shrug* the spells exist. Use them.

Disjunction counters Wish abuse, and Persistent Metamagic abuse (spells don't get saves to resist disjunction). Lot's of games semi ban it, which causes more balance issues and problems than it solves.

That's a good point, but not every game uses every single thing in every book, right? I've been in games where no one played a Barbarian even though it's in Core. Again, I was very wrong and unfair to suggest that merely using Gate and Wish was a form of abuse but I do think that it's perfectly possible to enjoy the game without using them (or Disjunction, or Persistent spells, or divine metamagic) even if they aren't actually banned, just as you can enjoy playing D & D even if you never touch the Barbarian class or take the Maximize Spell feat, right?

[Ravens_cry]

*shrug* the spells exist. Use them.

Disjunction counters Wish abuse, and Persistent Metamagic abuse (spells don't get saves to resist disjunction). Lot's of games semi ban it, which causes more balance issues and problems than it solves.
Disjunction is pretty much a nuke in the game. It's a powerful tool, but it's use can create problems for storytelling. Once you start throwing it around, players are going to start wondering why, say the high level Lich Wizard didn't use it against the party, as it likely would have saved his scabrous hide.
What's more, if you do use it, players are going to be pissed you destroyed their favourite magic items.
Disjunction is a powerful tool, but like any powerful tool the key is knowing when not to use it.

[Particle_Man]

I am imagining a setting based on an all-out Disjunction war that destroyed all magic items everywhere. :smallsmile:

[Malachei]

*shrug* the spells exist. Use them.

Disjunction counters Wish abuse, and Persistent Metamagic abuse (spells don't get saves to resist disjunction). Lot's of games semi ban it, which causes more balance issues and problems than it solves.

So in your campaign world, gods don't care if their solars get gate-forced to wish for bad things?

[Lostbutseeking]

You abuse Solars, they complain to their god. The god has Alter Reality and bounces your reality cheque.

[Emperor Tippy]

Disjunction is pretty much a nuke in the game. It's a powerful tool, but it's use can create problems for storytelling. Once you start throwing it around, players are going to start wondering why, say the high level Lich Wizard didn't use it against the party, as it likely would have saved his scabrous hide.
What's more, if you do use it, players are going to be pissed you destroyed their favourite magic items.
Disjunction is a powerful tool, but like any powerful tool the key is knowing when not to use it.
The players can get their magic items back once the fight is over by whipping out their Ice Assassin Solar and Wishing them up. Or gating in something with Wish and getting them that way. Or Shapechanging into a Zodar and getting them that way.

In high level play both sides should be throwing out disjunctions like candy. It rips off every single non epic magical effect in the game with no save and no check. It's about the only way to strip a casters contingencies and defenses. It also probably kills about half their magic items (although those are better handled with a chain dispel + chain shatter).


So in your campaign world, gods don't care if their solars get gate-forced to wish for bad things?
No, why would they? There are trillions of the damn things lying around and neither the solar or the god loose anything. Unless you are gating in a Solar and ordering it to do truly evil acts, no one cares. And Wishing up a magic item (with a very few exceptions) is never going to qualify as evil.

Besides, you only needed to gate in a solar once and get a blood sample so you can create a few dozen Simulacrum to store in your Bag of Holding to cover your Wishing needs (and Permanency needs); use Ice Assassins if you want 20th level Cleric casting as well.

[Malachei]

No, why would they? There are trillions of the damn things lying around and neither the solar or the god loose anything. Unless you are gating in a Solar and ordering it to do truly evil acts, no one cares. And Wishing up a magic item (with a very few exceptions) is never going to qualify as evil.

Of course they care. Solars and gods are really close, solars are the highest angels, directly representing a deity and carrying out a deity's will. As a god, you care about your solars. As a lawful good deity, your forces are also taking sides in an age-old conflict, and you care if someone uses one of your most powerful resources for something not in line with your portfolio/objectives.


I am imagining a setting based on an all-out Disjunction war that destroyed all magic items everywhere. :smallsmile:

I think that this style of game could be called Arms Race. Could be fun for a while, but will eventually lead to massive destruction of the campaign setting.


You abuse Solars, they complain to their god. The god has Alter Reality and bounces your reality cheque.

I think that is a plausible scenario.

[Ravens_cry]

The players can get their magic items back once the fight is over by whipping out their Ice Assassin Solar and Wishing them up. Or gating in something with Wish and getting them that way. Or Shapechanging into a Zodar and getting them that way.

In high level play both sides should be throwing out disjunctions like candy. It rips off every single non epic magical effect in the game with no save and no check. It's about the only way to strip a casters contingencies and defenses. It also probably kills about half their magic items (although those are better handled with a chain dispel + chain shatter).

So in other words, fighting fire with fire. I know it goes against every meme, not to mention the Searing Spell metamagic, but fire doesn't work all that well for that.
If that's how you play, that's how you play, but it's sounds a bit too out of control in my books.

[navar100]

Exactly!

Only on paper is a spellcaster too powerful, breaks the game, how dare it exist players don't deserve such power, and other such derogatory pablum to bash 3E in apoplectic fervor.

In actual practice it does not happen. The so called Oberoni Fallacy is to state something is not broken because the DM can fix it. However, it is not Oberoni Fallacy to recognize something is broken even though the DM fixes it. Solar Gate chaining for wishes is one such example.

That such a RAW loophole exists could be oversight, a mistake, unrealized, or whatever. There are two ways to look at it. 1) Laugh at the absurdity of it and just don't let it happen or 2) Resent its existence as you don't let it happen, usually by banning Gate or more likely ban Tier 1 as you rage against 3E.

Some people choose to resent it to rage against 3E. As for myself, I ignore the loophole and get to enjoy the game.