problem spells 3.5

[lunar2]

in the campaign setting i'm working on, the available PC casting classes are beguiler, dread necromancer, healer, warmage, and a homebrew class called adept (bard spells per day, chooses to cast as either druid, wizard, or cleric).

summoning spells don't exist, calling spells only work in specific situations, and planar travel is nearly non-existent.

so, using these limited classes, what problem spells do i need to look out for?

i know about polymorph, and will likely replace it and similar core spells with the polymorph subschool. other than that, is there anything i really need to look out for?

[Draz74]

Depends what you mean by problem spells. There are lots that can be nicely balanced if used as intended, but become broken in specific applications. Some, as innocuous-seeming as Wall of Iron (economy breakage) or Shrink Item (abuse of falling object damage rules).

Then, there are a plethora of spells that, when used as-intended, are mildly overpowered, without being as game-breaking as Planar Binding or Polymorph. For examples: Power Word Pain, Glitterdust, Shivering Touch.

[ahenobarbi]

Depends what you mean by problem spells.

I'll wait for answer for that.



Then, there are (...) spells that (...) are mildly overpowered (...) For examples: Power Word Pain

This one is only overpowered if used against PCs :smalltongue:

[A_S]

I think the Celerity line is one of the worst ideas to have seen print in 3.5, and should be killed with fire. Lesser Celerity is fine, I guess.

Moment of Prescience should be interpreted not to apply to initiative checks.

Time Stop should be house-ruled so that you can't affect other creatures for its duration, not just be unable to target them (to avoid Vortex of Teeth stacking cheese).

[lunar2]

wall of iron. do any of the limited list casters get that? the adept won't get it until level 16, so i don't think that's too bad.

shivering touch. i add a fortitude save to this, so it's not so bad.

celerity. does. not. exist.

moment of prescience. by raw, it doesn't. it applies to attack rolls, ac, skill checks, and opposed ability checks. initiative is none of these.

time stop. already done, and didn't even realize it was a house rule.

problem spells. i was referring to the game breakers. economy smashing, army conjuring, stuff like that. spells that are simply overpowered, like shivering touch, and may need to be moved up a spell level deserve a mention too. i'm not too concerned with casters being noticeably more powerful/versatile than non-casters out of the box, as long as they are playing roughly the same game. i'm sure that simply by removing summoning and calling from everyday play, i've taken care of a good portion of the problem.

[Draz74]

This one is only overpowered if used against PCs :smalltongue:

Or with hit-and-run tactics.

[ericgrau]

Summons/calling/polymorph tend to be more of a book-keeping problem than anything as you figure out all the stats. The major brokenage comes from unusual monsters forms. Make players figure out stats before game and double check the noncore forms for things like low HD vs CR yourself.

The infinite loops/semi-infinite stacking are obvious, and you can just ban those on the spot; they can't sneak up on you. I wouldn't bother nerfing the source spells.

The merely OP spells are shivering touch, wraithstrike, assay spell resistance, scintillating scales and some other excessively popular ones that you should recognize from frequent forum browsing. Or maybe someone with better memory than me might bring more of them up.

Unless they get other abilities like ok BAB + HD your cleric adepts are going to cry btw.

If you want to be more picky here' (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#invisibility)s how to deal with invisibility/darkness/blindess (hi glitterdust). Blindfight is also a popular monster feat. For mobility issues all weaponed monsters should have backup ranged weapons (multiple if thrown) without exception. Check the combat rules for readying actions to disrupt casting, crawling, grappling, disarming/sundering non-weapons, soft cover and firing into melee (ray spells).

If you want to be even pickier I'd bump power creeped spells up 1 spell level, especially swift/immediates, high non-fire damage or any other spell that's the "same" as another yet otherwise works around its defense a little. As nice as the book is, spell compendium has a lot of power creep. Anything that substitutes X to Y or overcomes a common counter (like SR) might be banned. However many of these things are fine in high optimization games.

[A_S]

moment of prescience. by raw, it doesn't. it applies to attack rolls, ac, skill checks, and opposed ability checks. initiative is none of these.
There's a non-ridiculous, though hardly airtight, case to be made that an initiative check is an opposed Dexterity check (since it's explicitly a Dexterity check per the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/initiative.htm), and "more than one person makes the check and you compare results to see who wins" is how opposed checks work). I think it's a tough one to adjudicate RAW, but the game is better if you say it doesn't work.

[lunar2]

Unless they get other abilities like ok BAB + HD your cleric adepts are going to cry btw.


D8 HD, 3/4 bab, good fortitude and will saves, 4+ skill points/level, light armor, simple weapons, and shields. choice of 2 domains + 1 domain spell slot for the divine adept. nature adept gets animal companion instead of domains. arcane adept gets a spell book and bonus feats, but no familiar or specialization.

[lunar2]

also, i should mention that i decided the healer would have all conjuration spells on its spell list, as well as getting some melee combat buffs (better HD/BAB, adds Wis to damage). that puts in fabricate and wall of iron, but i'll just rule that fabricate doesn't work on materials created by magic.

[Doxkid]

Well, working away from my specialty:
Enervation
Charm-like spells
Animate Dead
Control Undead
Create Undead
Magic Jar
Enthrall

Necromancers can easily form an annoying legion of followers and, unless you actually say something to the player, they can muck up your game in dozens of ways. Any base creature you throw at them is fair game for being tossed right back at you 2 minutes later. Try not to hate the player for building up his own survival ability since that just means you can target them now and then without them exploding into gore.

Mind control/Mind influencing can get nasty depending on how good the player is with the requests and how the spells are ruled to function. A bad DM will just say either "No." or "They are now your slave and give you a million gold." Beguilers may use this a lot, so be prepared.

Magic Jar is actually a very hard to use spell. RAW, all you get is "Stronger than others nearby" "weaker than others nearby" or "Powered by negative energy". Even when you know who is stronger or weaker within a range, you can only ballpark the target: Pick "Stronger" and you'll randomly select one of the stronger targets, and so on for the other selections.

Enervation can be a battle-ending spell if your BBEG isn't protected.

[lunar2]

but they'd better be careful with enervation. 1 negative level too many and they now have an extremely pissed wight coming after them in 1d4 rounds. btw, isn't there a wight template somewhere?

[ShurikVch]

but they'd better be careful with enervation. 1 negative level too many and they now have an extremely pissed wight coming after them in 1d4 rounds. btw, isn't there a wight template somewhere?
No.
1. Wights rose after 1d4 rounds only if specifically drained by another wight. Draining from any other source (except specifics) make wights on the next night.
2. Enervation not run that long. If corpse not affected by necromancy anymore, maybe it must not turn into undead monstrosity?

Wight template is in the Dragon #300.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I think there's a wight template in SS too, but my copy was destroyed so I may be remembering wrong.

[lunar2]

No.
1. Wights rose after 1d4 rounds only if specifically drained by another wight. Draining from any other source (except specifics) make wights on the next night.
2. Enervation not run that long. If corpse not affected by necromancy anymore, maybe it must not turn into undead monstrosity?

Wight template is in the Dragon #300.

yeah, i forgot about the next night thing. oh well, rule of cool > rule of book (seriously, the guy falls down dead, and the very next round he pops up casting spells again, at full power and then some).

@enervation. it doesn't matter if they still have the negative levels. anything killed by negative levels comes back.

[ShurikVch]

yeah, i forgot about the next night thing. oh well, rule of cool > rule of book (seriously, the guy falls down dead, and the very next round he pops up casting spells again, at full power and then some).

@enervation. it doesn't matter if they still have the negative levels. anything killed by negative levels comes back.

Your Rule of Cool led to the infinite army of spellcasting wights. :smallbiggrin:

If Enervation end, corpse not has any negative levels. It don't have levels at all due being object.

[ahenobarbi]

yeah, i forgot about the next night thing. oh well, rule of cool > rule of book (seriously, the guy falls down dead, and the very next round he pops up casting spells again, at full power and then some).

That works only if your players find this cool. And this "killed by negative level comes back as undead keeping spellcasting" begs to be abused.

[lunar2]

they want to gain 8 levels of no wealth, no exp, 4 (ad hoc) LA, and 4 RHD, that's fine with me. they get a huge power jump for that 1 encounter/adventure, but after that, they are so far behind the curve they're basically screwed.

[Yukitsu]

Problem spells really only crop up depending on the skill and knowledge of the players and/or DM, as well as an awareness of your willingness to use certain dirty tricks.

For example, one DM I have doesn't know how to shut down scry and die, so he bans teleportation and some divinations. Other DMs don't mind this tactic. I know how to counter it to lead anyone trying it into an instant death situation.

Really, it all boils down to what you can deal with and what you can't. I don't really ban any spells and don't have many problems, but other DMs do have problems.

[ahenobarbi]

they want to gain 8 levels of no wealth, no exp, 4 (ad hoc) LA, and 4 RHD, that's fine with me. they get a huge power jump for that 1 encounter/adventure, but after that, they are so far behind the curve they're basically screwed.

I didn't mean using it on PCs, rather using it on NPCs and using them as minions.

[lunar2]

wights aren't under the control of their creators, and iirc, they generally hate those who created them. so using enervation to pick up minions is a bad idea, unless you have other means of controlling the (presumably powerful) casters you are creating.

[ahenobarbi]

wights aren't under the control of their creators, and iirc, they generally hate those who created them. so using enervation to pick up minions is a bad idea, unless you have other means of controlling the (presumably powerful) casters you are creating.

That's the idea. Sure it requires a bit of work but usual necro- minion- mancers now get to use intelligent underlings with casting.