Should Soul Bind really trump Miracle?

[VoidSwimmer]

Soul Bind is a 9th level effect. Miracle is as well, but the power involved is the epic 40 to 80 levels worth that the god performing the miracle has. Should Miracle be able to free and revive a person who has their soul trapped in a Soul Bind?


On a related note: Could you use Miracle to request that your god destroy the gem for you (assuming you have a good-aligned god) and then use it again to revive the person?

[Fates]

Eh, part of the appeal of the Soul Bind spell is that you really can't thwart it without breaking the gem itself- I don't believe it should be negateable with a wish or miracle. You might be able to get your deity to do it for you via miracle, but that's completely at your DM's discretion, and the nature of deities in your campaign. It certainly only works if destroying the gem is in the direct interests of your god.

[Urpriest]

Miracle doesn't depend on the power of the god granting it any more than any other 9th level spell. The god grants the miracle, so they get a final veto...but you're still the one casting the spell.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Mechanics-wise:
Soul Bind is a 9th level specific spell while Miracle is a 9th level general spell. Specific trumps general in its own domain.


Flavor-wise:
Your god is fulfilling the Miracle but you are acting as a bridge for the god's power in the world and the miracle has your own mortal limitations (i.e. uses your own save DCs and caster level).
Also, gods are not omniscient in DnD. Sauron didn't know where the one ring was and that was an artifact of great importance to him. Why would a DnD god know where the Soul Bind focus of one spell cast out of tens of thousands actually is?

[Fouredged Sword]

Miracle the 9th level spell? Yes. Does not break the gem.

Reality revision divine ability? No. Gem goes crunch, then things go from there.

If a powerful god wants to get it done, Miracle is not the nuke they start throwing around. Miracle is the little bomb they trust their mortal followers to throw around with minimal supervision.

[Renen]

I think its because Wish is so versatile is suffers from "not excelling at any one thing" As such, it has problems with other 9th level spells. But it CAN already break the game, I think we should NOT let it trump all other lvl 9 spells.

[TuggyNE]

If a powerful god wants to get it done, Miracle is not the nuke they start throwing around. Miracle is the little bomb they trust their mortal followers to throw around with minimal supervision.

Well, sorta. Miracle is still a nuke, it's just a tactical nuke — "only" a few dozen kilotons.

Remember kids, ninth-level spells should be handled with care. Don't try this at home! These are trained spellcasters!

[VoidSwimmer]

Mechanics-wise:
Soul Bind is a 9th level specific spell while Miracle is a 9th level general spell. Specific trumps general in its own domain.


Flavor-wise:
Your god is fulfilling the Miracle but you are acting as a bridge for the god's power in the world and the miracle has your own mortal limitations (i.e. uses your own save DCs and caster level).
Also, gods are not omniscient in DnD. Sauron didn't know where the one ring was and that was an artifact of great importance to him. Why would a DnD god know where the Soul Bind focus of one spell cast out of tens of thousands actually is?

The caster having to act as the bridge to the gods power makes a lot of sense.
But, dont gods above Lesser know everything in their portfolio, everywhere, all the time? If so a death god would know if someone has had their soul locked in a gem. Also kinda a nitpick but Sauron wasnt a D&D god, he was killed by having his phylactery thrown in lava, (for 20d6 fire damage i suppose), and D&D gods dont go down that easily. He was more like a very wierd lich.

[NichG]

Yes, Soul Bind should trump Miracle, but for different reason than the god's power. At any given level of power, it should be harder to revert an effect than create it. This keeps things moving forward rather than letting things turn into cascades of counter, counter-counter, triple-counter, etc. E.g. a Lv1 character can kill someone/something, but it takes a Lv7 character to bring someone back from the dead. So its reasonable that a Lv17 character can create a binding that cannot be undone with a single standard action from another Lv17 character somewhere else in the world.

[TuggyNE]

The caster having to act as the bridge to the gods power makes a lot of sense.
But, dont gods above Lesser know everything in their portfolio, everywhere, all the time? If so a death god would know if someone has had their soul locked in a gem. Also kinda a nitpick but Sauron wasnt a D&D god, he was killed by having his phylactery thrown in lava, (for 20d6 fire damage i suppose), and D&D gods dont go down that easily. He was more like a very wierd lich.

Only greater deities (not intermediate) are aware of all portfolio events, and their senses only extend a limited time backwards and forwards.

Edit: how did I misread that? :smallannoyed:

[Kelb_Panthera]

Only greater deities (not intermediate) are aware of all portfolio events, and their senses only extend a limited time backwards and forwards.

That's pretty close anyway. Intermediate deities also have the ability to sense any event relating to their portfolio but, unlike greater deities, they can only see into the past, not the future, as it relates to their portfolio. In both the intermediate and greater deities the limit for looking backwards or fowards in time is 1 week per divine rank.

In any case, portfolio sense can always be blocked by a deity with higher divine rank, provided that he knows of the event to block it.

[TuggyNE]

Intermediate deities also have the ability to sense any event relating to their portfolio

Wow, I managed to misread that despite explicitly going to look it up. Fail.

[Flickerdart]

Miracle doesn't let you have unbridled access to your god's power. It channels it through the scope available to a 9th level effect. Otherwise you could just go "ok, I've got 9th level spells, hand me the god's character sheet" which is clearly not what Miracle is supposed to do.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Not only is it a general spell vs. a specific one (VERY specific), the latter is also a LOT more expensive!

Of course it should trump Miracle. High level clerics don't get to do *anything*, just nearly anything. Poor them.

[VoidSwimmer]

Miracle doesn't let you have unbridled access to your god's power. It channels it through the scope available to a 9th level effect. Otherwise you could just go "ok, I've got 9th level spells, hand me the god's character sheet" which is clearly not what Miracle is supposed to do.

I already acknowledged that point about the power having a manifestation point much weaker than the god. THAT SAID, Miracle can explicitly perform things beyond the normal list, and one of the examples of the advanced options (not an exhaustive list) involved protecting an entire city from a natural disaster at once, which is getting into the Epic Spell territory.

You also seem (although you may have just chosen not to mention it) to be forgetting that the DM controlls the Gods and that Miracle wont work at all if the god doesnt want it to. So unless your DM is the type who lets you play Pun-Pun, Miracle probably wont perform epic effects.

And yes, that is me arguing both sides essentially. I dont actually have a character riding on this or anything. I was interested in the limits of the RAW, what the intent was behind them, and how it might be justified/defied by the way the universe actually runs (like powerful gods knowing ahead of time that someone will end up in the gem and maybe wanting to stop it).



Unrelated:
Up above someone mentioned how offense should trump defense to keep things interesting. I consider that a great argument and also something that follows the rough order of the real world, as evidenced by how we are not all incincible titans.

[Flickerdart]

You also seem (although you may have just chosen not to mention it) to be forgetting that the DM controlls the Gods and that Miracle wont work at all if the god doesnt want it to. So unless your DM is the type who lets you play Pun-Pun, Miracle probably wont perform epic effects.
Whether or not Miracle can perform "epic effects" isn't terribly relevant, because there's no useful metric on what those actually are. Other 9th level spells create entire planes of existence; protecting a city is small potatoes in comparison.

[Psyren]

At any given level of power, it should be harder to revert an effect than create it.

This is odd reasoning; in most cases, destruction is usually easier than creation. It takes a long time to build a complex machine or even a simpler structure like a wall - but smashing them takes a comparatively much shorter time. And we see this in fantasy as well - Morgoth was incapable of making elves of his own, but corrupting existing ones into orcs or killing them were both within his abilities.

As far as Miracle, one of the attributes of the spell is that it truly has no inherent limits - it really can do anything the god decides to (and is capable of) doing. It simply adds an XP cost for any more powerful attempted use than the listed ones. However, the god itself may be prevented from certain actions by whatever overdeity or noninterference pact limits gods and forces them to work through clerics in the first place. In addition. Miracle has to deal with the god's portfolio and ethos - and more importantly, the portfolios/spheres of its rivals - while Wish gets around these by addressing the cosmos directly.

For Miracle vs. Soul Bind, an easy way to adjudicate this is to have the Miracle attempt to retrieve the soul receptacle from its owner, rather than simply smash it. This would function as a markless Instant Summons, or perhaps an unlimited-range Retrieve. The owner would get a will save to resist your attempt (using the DC of a 9th-level spell) and perhaps even suffer a penalty to the save to represent the deity's direct influence. But even then, it would not be an auto-win vs. SB, and you would still have to smash the gem or otherwise employ it once you acquired it.

[NichG]

This is odd reasoning; in most cases, destruction is usually easier than creation. It takes a long time to build a complex machine or even a simpler structure like a wall - but smashing them takes a comparatively much shorter time. And we see this in fantasy as well - Morgoth was incapable of making elves of his own, but corrupting existing ones into orcs or killing them were both within his abilities.


The phrasing used by another poster 'offense should trump defense at the same level' more succinctly makes the point I think. This is also a game design argument rather than a 'realism' argument, and focuses mostly on how easily something is reverted. Even if someone, e.g., creates a wall of iron with a single standard action, I think that at the same level it should take more time to 'uncreate' it than it took to create it, or the action of creating it becomes meaningless. The creation of the wall in effect should gain the caster's group more than one action worth of delay since it cost an action and a spell slot to make. If however the enemy has a clever way to bypass or utilize the wall that doesn't involve directly saying 'no, that wall isn't there now', then that can neutralize the gain while still keeping the game interesting.

In the same vein, when we're considering things that are bigger than a single round, something with risk and a chance of failure (e.g. engaging someone in combat) should have consequences that stick around, or at least require actions with an even greater risk and chance of failure to simply directly revert. Killing someone and keeping them dead should be easier than undoing the effect that keeps them dead. That's why, e.g., Barghest's Feast makes sense as a 6th level spell whereas you need Wish, a 9th level spell with XP cost, to get close to reverting it. Otherwise, every time the party defeats a villain, they're just going to be brought back by (their deity, their allies, their minions, the local cleric of Bane, etc); similarly, there can be no real consequences against the PCs at those levels even when they're dealing with enemies of equal level (someone kills your friend, family, or you, and again a Miracle undoes the event with a standard action).


For Miracle vs. Soul Bind, an easy way to adjudicate this is to have the Miracle attempt to retrieve the soul receptacle from its owner, rather than simply smash it. This would function as a markless Instant Summons, or perhaps an unlimited-range Retrieve. The owner would get a will save to resist your attempt (using the DC of a 9th-level spell) and perhaps even suffer a penalty to the save to represent the deity's direct influence. But even then, it would not be an auto-win vs. SB, and you would still have to smash the gem or otherwise employ it once you acquired it.

Even this I'd say would be too powerful for a 9th level spell as it ignores line of effect or even the various penalties given by Scry when trying to target something based on a description or indirect reference. There is also generally a period of safety after someone has successfully made the save against a non-LoE spell to prevent e.g. a circle of casters from spamming the spell until a natural 1 is rolled. Otherwise, 'We need to retrieve X artifact of power? Miracle!' and the like become the new Scry and Die. Plus, that precedent leads in other very bad directions for the PCs, such as powerful enemy clerics using all their 9th level spell slots to Miracle away PCs' equipment every day and the like.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

If I wanted to have my Soul Bind be fairly safe I'd do the following;

1) Cast Soul Bind.
2) Put the gem in form-fitting metal container.
3) Give the container to a Goblin/Halfling.
4) Cast Reduce Person on Goblin/Halfling so they are now tiny.
5) Cast Flesh-to-Stone on tiny creature to turn it and equipment to stone.
6) Stone Shape the statue into a square block.
7) Use stone block in house foundation repairs.

This has the following effects;

a) Any effect (including Miracle/Wish) pertaining to the Soul Bind focus fails as the focus does not exist - it is an indistinguishable part of a nonmagical stone block.
b) Any effect pertaining to the creature possessing the Soul Bind focus fails as the creature is not a creature but an inert block of stone.
c) Any effect that somehow scries the receptacle despite the above only reveals a very mundane, very dark basement intentionally modeled after a stint of identically constructed basements in many identical houses over a city reconstruction effort I funded as a charity.
d) Assuming someone does find the location of the brick, they have to guess the Focus is hidden as part of a brick instead of looking for a real focus.
e) Assuming someone does realize what's going on, they need to check each and every brick in the house - and to do so they have to know what was the original form in order to revert it to with another Stone Shape per brick checked before casting Stone to Flesh. If they don't know it used to be a goblin, they need to waste Wishes.
f) Assuming they do all that and finally recover the goblin, the contingent teleport cast onto the goblin before it was trapped transports the goblin (and its equipment) to my sanctum where I find a new hiding place for it.

[Flickerdart]

If I wanted to have my Soul Bind be fairly safe I'd do the following;

1) Cast Soul Bind.
2) Put the gem in form-fitting metal container.
3) Give the container to a Goblin/Halfling.
4) Cast Reduce Person on Goblin/Halfling so they are now tiny.
5) Cast Flesh-to-Stone on tiny creature to turn it and equipment to stone.
6) Stone Shape the statue into a square block.
7) Use stone block in house foundation repairs.

This has the following effects;

a) Any effect (including Miracle/Wish) pertaining to the Soul Bind focus fails as the focus does not exist - it is an indistinguishable part of a nonmagical stone block.
b) Any effect pertaining to the creature possessing the Soul Bind focus fails as the creature is not a creature but an inert block of stone.
c) Any effect that somehow scries the receptacle despite the above only reveals a very mundane, very dark basement intentionally modeled after a stint of identically constructed basements in many identical houses over a city reconstruction effort I funded as a charity.
d) Assuming someone does find the location of the brick, they have to guess the Focus is hidden as part of a brick instead of looking for a real focus.
e) Assuming someone does realize what's going on, they need to check each and every brick in the house - and to do so they have to know what was the original form in order to revert it to with another Stone Shape per brick checked before casting Stone to Flesh. If they don't know it used to be a goblin, they need to waste Wishes.
f) Assuming they do all that and finally recover the goblin, the contingent teleport cast onto the goblin before it was trapped transports the goblin (and its equipment) to my sanctum where I find a new hiding place for it.
Couple things I'm not sure about:
a) Does "equipment" count a random gem?
b) Couldn't the people looking for the focus just vaporize the brick it's in, along with the house? Pretty sure that would count as destroying the gem, and if it doesn't, then you could simply dust the brick yourself and save yourself a hassle with all the houses.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Destroying a stone statue doesn't even kill the creature - you need to make it back into a creature for it to die, either before or after you break it - so why would it destroy its equipment? So, if you destroy the brick while it is a brick, you a) don't actually break the focus and b) have no idea you broke the right brick.


B is important here - how do you know you actually broke the right brick and wasn't fooled by some misdirection while searching for the right house or something?

[awa]

by that logic would you not be better off disintegrating your stone brick and then scattering it across the planes