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View Full Version : Spectral Hand and Poison: MAD Spells?



Maginomicon
2013-06-13, 11:58 PM
Spectral Hand (www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/spectralHand.htm) and Poison (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/poison.htm) have something in common: they both have a specific ability score dictate some portion of the effect (instead of the normal save DC ability score of the spell).

That is, they're MAD.

What other spells out there do something this stupid?

(NOTE: Admittedly, Poison mentioning Wisdom is semi-justified since in core it was written for Clerics and Druids and their casting is based off of Wisdom anyway, but Poison also appears on the spell lists of the Generic Spellcaster, Warmage, Death Master, Urban Druid, and Dread Necromancer, none of which have Wisdom as their casting stat. Spectral Hand however has no excuse, as sorcerers are also in core as able to use it.)

TuggyNE
2013-06-14, 01:27 AM
Contact other plane sorta counts, since it requires an Int check to avoid a serious ability score penalty, but can be cast by Sorcerers.

The planar binding line requires checks against a Cha-based DC.

Fabricate requires you to make Craft checks (an Int-based skill) for sufficiently complicated tasks, which sorta counts.

Spiritual weapon depends on your Wis mod, like poison, and for the same reason.

I think that's it in Core. (Why no, I didn't just run through all the spells in Core, why would you say such a thing?)

The Ravensong
2013-06-14, 02:51 AM
Well, with poison's DC being wisdom based, what casters are truly hindered by poison's DC being based on wisdom? Archivist and Dread Necromancer are the only ones that really come to mind at the moment.

Either way, given that when the spell was published the only casters with access to it anyways have their casting keyed to wisdom, wouldn't you be able to make a pretty convincing argument for RAI? Or have I missed you're point entirely?
Edit: Disregard that first bit. Reading comprehension fail.

Psyren
2013-06-14, 06:34 AM
They're really only "MAD" if an unintended class is using them. Poison isn't MAD if a cleric or druid is casting it after all.

Anyway, Psionics has some of these, such as Control Body (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/controlBody.htm) stating Int and Feat Leech (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/featLeech.htm) stating Wis. Even in cases where they thought about it, like Control Flames (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/controlFlames.htm) stating "Int if you are a psion, Cha if you are a wilder" they still neglect the third stat or new classes that could learn the power as well. Since just about every class in psionics can potentially learn every power, this of course leads to problems down the road.

In Pathfinder, some of these were fixed (e.g. PF Poison no longer specifies the save DC, thus letting the general rule apply) and some weren't (Spiritual Weapon still says Wis, despite being available for Oracles.) PF Psionics altered most of these to say "key ability modifier" and then simply defined that term as a general rule in the book, which I think is the most elegant way to handle this.