Most gamebreaking spells up tu spell level 5?

[Balor01]

By gamebreaking I mean things that fiercely derail plot like Teleport. What other spells should GM pay attention to when preparing an adventure?

And by "pay attention" I mean just that, not banning anything. I guess Evocations spells and things like Glitterdust do not fit here. What does?

[Ianuagonde]

I'm always wary around Polymorph. It can give brutal melee skills, high AC, stealth, high speed, flight/burrow/swim...

[LordBlades]

Below level 5? Fly, divination,speak with dead and scrying IMO.

[Balor01]

I'm always wary around Polymorph. It can give brutal melee skills, high AC, stealth, high speed, flight/burrow/swim...
Meh, this sounds rather harmless. It buffs the PC but does not break stuff.


Fly, divination,speak with dead and scrying
But this, yeah.

[SolioFebalas]

Resurgence (SpC) and Substitute Domain (CC)

[CyberThread]

am going to go for the easy one

Prestidigitation

[Spuddles]

Alter Self- get access to flight, swimming, and burrow, all at level 3!

[Balor01]

Resurgence (SpC) and Substitute Domain (CC)
meh.



Prestidigitation
yep

[Hyena]

Shivering touch, the dragon killer.

[SolioFebalas]

Power Word Pain (Races of Dragon), cast and run until target dies.

[Invader]

Presdigitation? How does that break your games because I've never seen it personally.

[ryu]

Miniature wish that lasts for an hour and can pretty much be repeatedly used for any small utility not covered by another spell is just hilarious if you know how to apply it invader.

[Crake]

How does teleport go about derailing a plot? Unless your players don't want to play your adventure and you're railroading them into staying on track?

[nyjastul69]

Miniature wish that lasts for an hour and can pretty much be repeatedly used for any small utility not covered by another spell is just hilarious if you know how to apply it invader.

Hilarious is one thing, game breaking is something else. How would prestidigitation break a game?

[Karnith]

Lesser Planar Binding is a 5th-level spell and easily abused, if not quite to the same degree as its bigger brothers.

[LordBlades]

How does teleport go about derailing a plot? Unless your players don't want to play your adventure and you're railroading them into staying on track?

It gives players tons more possibilities. Especially in open ended campaigns, it makes anticipating their next move much harder, since they can now decide to go pretty much anywhere within 100 miles per level. Also, with 2 teleports and a big enough city in range you can easily teleport out, buy what you need, teleport back whenever you encounter a problem you can't solve on the spot.It doesn't break the game per se, just alters the way in which it is played in a pretty radical manner.

[Amphetryon]

As a level 5 spell, Opalescent Glare accidentally* gives a permanent Gaze attack, which can have all sorts of unintended consequences on a game.

*Because the writer(s) didn't know what the listed duration actually meant.

[Invader]

Miniature wish that lasts for an hour and can pretty much be repeatedly to sed for any small utility not covered by another spell is just hilarious if you know how to apply it invader.

That hardly sounds game breaking and even at that it doesn't offer a ton of useful utility to begin with. I'd say calling it miniature wish is being extremely generous in terms of its power.

[Mathnut]

Okay, I've lurked in these forums forever, but this thread made me want to share an anecdote from an old game:

As party of lvl 5 adventurers (I think), we were hired to retrieve some stolen merchandise from a nearby camp. The camp was full of essentially 8 fighter type merchs who had a regular guard set up. Rather than approach it like a stealthy retrieval or a beat down the cleric of our group opted for a very different tactic. Sanctuary.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Sanctuary

Now please note that D&D has rules stating the bonus of the same type stack, but there is nothing saying you can't be under the same magical effect multiple times. So he dropped three sanctuaries on himself, walked into camp, picked up most of the loot and walked out (well scouted ahead of time with appropriate bribery in a bar). Now this isn't exactly game breaking, sanctuary only last a round per level, but if you know where you're going a full move action with appropriate movement buffs, its very easy to bypass an encounter with the enemies in effectively ailing at you. In this scenario our cleric did get hit with a single fireball in the process, but it was still hilarious. ;)

Since then its been a very deliberate rule that only one sanctuary can be active at a time. ;)

[Invader]

Okay, I've lurked in these forums forever, but this thread made me want to share an anecdote from an old game:

As party of lvl 5 adventurers (I think), we were hired to retrieve some stolen merchandise from a nearby camp. The camp was full of essentially 8 fighter type merchs who had a regular guard set up. Rather than approach it like a stealthy retrieval or a beat down the cleric of our group opted for a very different tactic. Sanctuary.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Sanctuary

Now please note that D&D has rules stating the bonus of the same type stack, but there is nothing saying you can't be under the same magical effect multiple times. So he dropped three sanctuaries on himself, walked into camp, picked up most of the loot and walked out (well scouted ahead of time with appropriate bribery in a bar). Now this isn't exactly game breaking, sanctuary only last a round per level, but if you know where you're going a full move action with appropriate movement buffs, its very easy to bypass an encounter with the enemies in effectively ailing at you. In this scenario our cleric did get hit with a single fireball in the process, but it was still hilarious. ;)

Since then its been a very deliberate rule that only one sanctuary can be active at a time. ;)

Actually that's exactly the rule that says the same magical effects don't stack. It simply doesn't work that way otherwise I could just cast bulls strength on myself 20 times and destroy everything at 4th level.

[Deophaun]

Now please note that D&D has rules stating the bonus of the same type stack, but there is nothing saying you can't be under the same magical effect multiple times.
Not really:

In cases when two or more identical spells are operating in the same area or on the same target, but at different strengths, only the best one applies.
So if you cast sanctuary on yourself five times, any attempting to attack you would still only need to make a single Will save.

[Crazysaneman]

Create Treasure Map
bard 2, druid 3, ranger 2, sorcerer/wizard 2

Creates a map to any valuables the creature knew about in life... pretty useful, and in my group can be broken.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/spells/createTreasureMap.html

[Radar]

Meh, this sounds rather harmless. It buffs the PC but does not break stuff.
Browse through some monster manuals and see, what kind of abilities, movement modes and other goodies you can obtain thank to this spell. For example turning into a Cryohydra gives you an area breath attack worth 3d6 per HD usable every 1d4 rounds. It's more then enough to end most encounters in one go. It is still not as powerful as the mentioned Lesser Planar Binding, but quite a potent and unpredictible spell.

There are also spells, which might not break the game all by themselves, but make the combat really complicated (even more so at later levels). Take Celerity for example: with this single spell prepared, the Wizard is hidiously difficult to catch off-guard - especially if combined with Nerveskitter. Even without Daze immunity this is one of the best defensive spells ever.

[Balor01]

Browse through some monster manuals and see, what kind of abilities, movement modes and other goodies you can obtain thank to this spell. For example turning into a Cryohydra gives you an area breath attack worth 3d6 per HD usable every 1d4 rounds. It's more then enough to end most encounters in one go. It is still not as powerful as the mentioned Lesser Planar Binding, but quite a potent and unpredictible spell.

There are also spells, which might not break the game all by themselves, but make the combat really complicated (even more so at later levels). Take Celerity for example: with this single spell prepared, the Wizard is hidiously difficult to catch off-guard - especially if combined with Nerveskitter. Even without Daze immunity this is one of the best defensive spells ever.

In this concept, this is all quite useless. it boosts the party for the fight but that's it. Not what we are talking about here.

[Amphetryon]

In this concept, this is all quite useless. it boosts the party for the fight but that's it. Not what we are talking about here.

If access to abilities that bypass encounters isn't potentially gamebreaking, I think I need to understand what you mean by the term.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Haste in Pathfinder Society. There are high chances most of the party is of the beat stick variety, and Haste makes sure something ends in 2-3 rounds.

[Kansaschaser]

In my opinion the most game breaking spell up to level 5 are these spells.

1. Fabricate (5th level) Reason? Go from 4 gold to 133,186 gold in 7 days while in a large city or bigger.
2. Animate Weapon (3rd level) Reason? Creating a Colossal++++ Quarterstaff Animated Object for as long as you concentrate on the spell (all day if you want).
3. Water to Acid (3rd level) Reason? Make hundreds of acid flasks for the price of the glass bottles and hurl them willy nilly at opponents. Heck, throw entire crates of acid at people if you want.

[Amphetryon]

Haste in Pathfinder Society. There are high chances most of the party is of the beat stick variety, and Haste makes sure something ends in 2-3 rounds.

By the comment above my last one, this "boosts the party for a fight and that's it," which is apparently not what "gamebreaking" means here.

[Hamste]

Create Treasure Map
bard 2, druid 3, ranger 2, sorcerer/wizard 2

Creates a map to any valuables the creature knew about in life... pretty useful, and in my group can be broken.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/spells/createTreasureMap.html

One hour casting time with a limit of 24 hours between death and casting. It also only shows what the dead person found valuable and assumes they even knew where something worth 100 gp is (plus it might be in a place where the party would have went anyways). Other can be useful but as long as not every NPC knows where the super epic end loot is I don't see Mich of a problem.

[Shining Wrath]

The combination "Invisibility + Silence" can make some set-piece battles irrelevant as the party just waltzes past the guards.

[ryu]

That hardly sounds game breaking and even at that it doesn't offer a ton of useful utility to begin with. I'd say calling it miniature wish is being extremely generous in terms of its power.

Have you ever completely and utterly tanked the ability of an enemy low level caster to get away untracked by making him reek of gully dwarf one round and given him an electric pink mohawk the next? Have you ever used it in conjunction with invisibility to befoul all of the rations of a large chunk of an enemy army to taste heavily of poison in a single night before porting out and letting logistics cause them massive problems before fighting even starts?

I'll grant the situations where this spell is WAY too powerful to be a 0th don't come up all the time individually, but a 0th which is basically universally applicable is bound to do something horrible the dm didn't expect eventually.

[Mathnut]

Well, I feel incredibly stupid now. I m just going to go back to silent lurking. :(

[nyjastul69]

Have you ever completely and utterly tanked the ability of an enemy low level caster to get away untracked by making him reek of gully dwarf one round and given him an electric pink mohawk the next? Have you ever used it in conjunction with invisibility to befoul all of the rations of a large chunk of an enemy army to taste heavily of poison in a single night before porting out and letting logistics cause them massive problems before fighting even starts?

I'll grant the situations where this spell is WAY too powerful to be a 0th don't come up all the time individually, but a 0th which is basically universally applicable is bound to do something horrible the dm didn't expect eventually.

I don't think your first example works. Prestidigitation makes no mention of being able to alter odors. While it can color objects, it can't color a creature unless that creature also happens to be an object.

[Balor01]

If access to abilities that bypass encounters isn't potentially gamebreaking, I think I need to understand what you mean by the term.

If party gets REALLY strong and beats encounters A B and C, it is still encountering what you as a DM want for them to encounter. Such shenanigans are easily predictable and you can adapt to them. if however party uses Divination, Speak with the Dead and Scrying to get critical information, this will in many cases completely shatter the plot. Flying is pretty bad too for obvious reasons but Teleport is the worst.

Damage in the battle is pretty meh in comparios to an ability to instantly move from heated battle you are losing to Medical Hospital next to Rods'r'Us in a Large city 50 miles away.

[Spuddles]

Have you ever completely and utterly tanked the ability of an enemy low level caster to get away untracked by making him reek of gully dwarf one round and given him an electric pink mohawk the next? Have you ever used it in conjunction with invisibility to befoul all of the rations of a large chunk of an enemy army to taste heavily of poison in a single night before porting out and letting logistics cause them massive problems before fighting even starts?

I'll grant the situations where this spell is WAY too powerful to be a 0th don't come up all the time individually, but a 0th which is basically universally applicable is bound to do something horrible the dm didn't expect eventually.

That sounds more like problems with a player and DM unfamiliar with the rules. Prestidigitation doesn't really work like that.

[Invader]

Have you ever completely and utterly tanked the abModerately useful of an enemy low level caster to get away untracked by making him reek of gully dwarf one round and given him an electric pink mohawk the next? Have you ever used it in conjunction with invisibility to befoul all of the rations of a large chunk of an enemy army to taste heavily of poison in a single night before porting out and letting logistics cause them massive problems before fighting even starts?

I'll grant the situations where this spell is WAY too powerful to be a 0th don't come up all the time individually, but a 0th which is basically universally applicable is bound to do something horrible the dm didn't expect eventually.

Even if either of those things did work they're hardly game breaking. Moderately useful would be a better description.

[Amphetryon]

If party gets REALLY strong and beats encounters A B and C, it is still encountering what you as a DM want for them to encounter. Such shenanigans are easily predictable and you can adapt to them. if however party uses Divination, Speak with the Dead and Scrying to get critical information, this will in many cases completely shatter the plot. Flying is pretty bad too for obvious reasons but Teleport is the worst.

Damage in the battle is pretty meh in comparios to an ability to instantly move from heated battle you are losing to Medical Hospital next to Rods'r'Us in a Large city 50 miles away.

Flight, Burrow, and other movement methods are all available via Alter Self and Polymorph, allowing the party to choose whether or not they even wish to engage encounters the DM sets before them. The latter also provides potential access to Extraordinary abilities like Breath Weapons or abilities that otherwise mimic spells that appear nowhere on any of the party's Character sheet. You've dismissed these abilities as not being game-breaking.

[Norin]

Power Word Pain (Races of Dragon), cast and run until target dies.

Ive used this spell quite a bit. But i fail to see how it is gamebreaking to cast a mind affecting spell that does 1d6 damage for X (max 4d4) rounds?

Ok, it's a decent\good spell at that level, but how is it gamebreaking according to op's credentials to kill someone like that?

[ryu]

I don't think your first example works. Prestidigitation makes no mention of being able to alter odors. While it can color objects, it can't color a creature unless that creature also happens to be an object.

Soil usage as per online expansion explicitly allows me to render an object filthy. Cloths are objects. Congrats enemy your robe is now completely filthy and smells awful as a result.

The second one is more debatable as to whether hair counts as an object or not being made of the same lifeless material as fingernails, hooves, and horns. Either way the same effect can be gotten by turning the rove outrageously pink.

[Invader]

Soil usage as per online expansion explicittly allows me to render an objectbthy. Cloths are objects. Congrats enemy your robe is now completely filthy and smells awful as a result.

The second one is more debatable as to whether hair counts as an object or not being made of the same lifeless material as fingernails, hooves, and horns. Either way the same effect can be gotten by turning the rove outrageously pink.

But again it doesn't affect them mechanically in any way, it's purely fluff. How is that game breaking in any way?

And considering hair or horns "objects" for the sake of spells borders more on munchkinism than debatable.

[ryu]

Prestidigitation never explicitly states as a catch-all that all effects must be fluff based. It gives very specific rules for what the spell can and can't do. Nowhere does it state that it can't be used to give positive or negative circumstance bonuses to certain skill checks that aren't concentration based. I also can't deal damage or replicate the effects of other spells. Now tell me do you know of any spells that specifically state penalties to hide as their effect on a debuffed target?

[Radar]

If party gets REALLY strong and beats encounters A B and C, it is still encountering what you as a DM want for them to encounter. Such shenanigans are easily predictable and you can adapt to them. if however party uses Divination, Speak with the Dead and Scrying to get critical information, this will in many cases completely shatter the plot. Flying is pretty bad too for obvious reasons but Teleport is the worst.

Damage in the battle is pretty meh in comparios to an ability to instantly move from heated battle you are losing to Medical Hospital next to Rods'r'Us in a Large city 50 miles away.
For one, it's very difficult to gauge the possible uses of as open-ended spells like Polymorph unless you have every monster ever memorized. This alone makes any adjustments in the encounters very difficult.

While divinations and teleportation effects are indeed more powerful and game-changing, there are very few abilities, which cannot be countered. Teleportation can be nullified by various spells preventing its use - all of them ready for use. Divinations are more difficult to circumvent and it requires a lot of grueling work on the side of GM, but if the players aren't particularly creative with their questions, Nondetection is the most basic counter. An enemy with Spelltouched feat Live My Nightmare might throw PCs a curveball (the main effect isn't very strong, but it also give awareness of being scryed). There were even ways to send false visions, but I can't remember the details. At higher levels you can be much more throughout with scry prevention.

In essence: almost any gamebreaking ability can be countered or otherwise accounted for. There are usualy three questions to be answered:
1. How much work would it take?
2. How contrived the solution would be?
3. How the solution impacts players (the one with a problematic ability and the others)?

[Deophaun]

Prestidigitation never explicitly states as a catch-all that all effects must be fluff based. It gives very specific rules for what the spell can and can't do. Nowhere does it state that it can't be used to give positive or negative circumstance bonuses to certain skill checks that aren't concentration based. I also can't deal damage or replicate the effects of other spells. Now tell me do you know of any spells that specifically state penalties to hide as their effect on a debuffed target?
I don't have much of a problem with a -2 to Hide, or trackers with scent having a +2 circumstance bonus to find the affected individual. To call such things game breaking is... well...

But the "food supply tastes of poison and now army is screwed" just doesn't work logistically, as it's only going to last for an hour and you will need line of effect to all the food you want to change (don't know about you, but most armies I've run into kept their food in containers). Plus, there's a matter of the quantity you can affect in that time (which is doable if you use prestidigitation on, say, an oil and spread that into the food, but at that point, why bother with prestidigitation and not just get some rancid fish oil?).

In general, if you gain access to an enemy's food supply, and your action is prestidigitation, your enemy got off easy. That's a prank, not sabotage.

[SolioFebalas]

In my opinion the most game breaking spell up to level 5 are these spells.

1. Fabricate (5th level) Reason? Go from 4 gold to 133,186 gold in 7 days while in a large city or bigger.


And how it works ? In couple words.

[nyjastul69]

Soil usage as per online expansion explicitly allows me to render an object filthy. Cloths are objects. Congrats enemy your robe is now completely filthy and smells awful as a result.

The second one is more debatable as to whether hair counts as an object or not being made of the same lifeless material as fingernails, hooves, and horns. Either way the same effect can be gotten by turning the rove outrageously pink.

With a range of 10' it's of limited value. It is in no way a game breaker. Clothes that are worn are attended and should allow for a saving throw if it's allowed at all. Horns, hair, etc are parts of a creature and clearly cannot be affected.

[nedz]

Well, I feel incredibly stupid now. I m just going to go back to silent lurking. :(

But, but, but: you posted and you learned something; what's wrong with that ? :smallconfused:

[Nettlekid]

Prestidigitation never explicitly states as a catch-all that all effects must be fluff based. It gives very specific rules for what the spell can and can't do. Nowhere does it state that it can't be used to give positive or negative circumstance bonuses to certain skill checks that aren't concentration based. I also can't deal damage or replicate the effects of other spells. Now tell me do you know of any spells that specifically state penalties to hide as their effect on a debuffed target?

Glitterdust, just off the very top of my head. After a small amount of looking up, Aura of the Sun, Sparkles, and potentially Ivory Flesh.

I think I have to agree in that Prestidigitation is a very fun spell, but it's not as gamebreaking as people suggest. Like it's been said, all of the effects are fluff-based. If you have a DM who agrees that certain fluff effects will have consequential mechanic results, then it can be made moderately useful. But that's up to the DM. Take your smelly wizard example. A DM could say "The sudden stink of dirty clothes causes a lapse in the wizard's concentration," which would be pretty good. Or they might say "The levels of hygiene in this world, comparable to the middle ages, are pretty low. A smelly shirt doesn't mean much to him, and he has been trained to ignore petty disturbances such as this." Which I think would also be fair. That's something that won't happen with, like, Owl's Wisdom. "You cast Owl's Wisdom, but you're already as wise as an owl, so it has no effect." No, it just does the thing it does. Prestidigitation does the thing it does, which is just bits of fluff and flavor, which you can use to roleplay, sure (great for social interactions), but it's not a gamebreaking spell.

As far as properly gamebreaking spells go (that is to say, spells which easily ruin a DM's plans and basically break the chain of events) I second Teleport and Scrying. Having an BBEG in a fortified temple that the players have to fight through might be a full session or two of solid exploring. Scry and Die tactics mean you can peek in, buff, zap in, kill the surprised BBEG, and be done with the session in about ten minutes. Most DMs I know will just say "Ooh, the Scrying doesn't work, it's warded somehow" even though the BBEG probably doesn't have access to spells like Mind Blank or items strong enough to block it.

Since most of the good broken spells have already been suggested (Polymorph and Draconic Polymorph come to mind, and I promise, if you don't realize how broken these are, your players have been very nice about using them), I might suggest some that kind of invalidate certain parts of the adventure, even if it's not the WHOLE game. For example, much like this strip (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0767.html) from Order of the Stick demonstrates, Glibness allows you to get through nearly all difficult social situations without a hitch. Modify Memory does similar. In a 1st level campaign that my first DM made, where we had to communicate with people of distant lands in foreign languages, Comprehend Languages was a serious dampener.

[ryu]

Dm in our group likes the hide skill more than most. He also makes monsters attempt to run away when death seems likely. I'll take what I can get to stop the little bags of xp from getting away at level one. It's not much, but it is actively saying no the goblin doesn't get away from us when the dm was planning exactly that.

Eh use the explicitly permanent soil function then. I really hate having to default to it for everything, but apparently everything must be dirty at all times.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Druids have a few nasty ones.

Blizzard (FB) drops a foot of snow every round for 1 round/level in a 100ft/level radius. Damage may be minor but dropping enough snow to bury a village in a minute is pretty hardcore especially if it's combined with Blood Snow (FB)

Control Winds (PHB) has a slightly smaller radius at 40ft/level. It's duration of 10min/level however is more than enough to level whole cities if you get your CL high enough for tornado force winds (which is not all that hard).

Both can smash your campaign to pieces if you don't expect them.

[Spuddles]

Scryiny doesnt work vs anyone in rooms lined with lead. Which should be any room outside of a peasant hovel.

[JaronK]

Animate Dead: because now every melee monster that gets sent at the party is just a resource. And let's face it, a 5th level Cleric with a 10 headed zombie hydra as a pet is absolutely nuts.

Alter Self. +8 AC at level 3 for 30+ minutes is a bit much. Throw in burrow speed, fly speed, and swim speed, and now the caster can bypass almost all physical obstacles.

Teleport. Broke a game with this one only a few weeks ago... the DM planned to trap us in a big dungeon and have us suddenly realize that the exit had disappeared. Instead we just ported out without even knowing we were supposed to be trapped. So much for that campaign.

JaronK

[Calimehter]

Scryiny doesnt work vs anyone in rooms lined with lead. Which should be any room outside of a peasant hovel.

It is a bit Tippy-ish to say that *every* building in a D&D world has lead lining, but you do have to start thinking about it once the PCs have reached a certain level, and you do end up with a lot of them. At least one room per castle/merchant house/BBEG dungeon.

My next non-E6 D&D businessman will be selling prefab lead-lined structures, just like those sheds and shower stalls you can get at Home Depot. I'll have to make sure to include "We also Install!!" posters in the showroom. I would want to make sure to include non-DIY BBEGs in my customer base. :smallbiggrin:

[Nettlekid]

Teleport. Broke a game with this one only a few weeks ago... the DM planned to trap us in a big dungeon and have us suddenly realize that the exit had disappeared. Instead we just ported out without even knowing we were supposed to be trapped. So much for that campaign.


I've had similar experiences, but the DM just said "Nope, it doesn't work" and left it at that, for no reason. Other magic did, such as Polymorph, just no Conjurations. I was very sore about this (still am) because I was a Focused Conjurer/Malconvoker who banned three spell schools to be an awesome Summoner and Taxi. But the DM decided the BBEG was also a Conjurer, and he didn't want my Conjurer to be better than his, so none of my spells worked while the BBEG's did.

So of course, that's the hard counter to gamebreaking spells. "Nope, it didn't work." In my experience, DMs aren't shy about doing that.

[JaronK]

At the end of the day, that's pretty much the counter to all game breaking things, of course. "Nope!"

A graceful DM can come up with a reason, or create a house rule well in advance so it makes sense within the world and isn't just "hey, you broke my stuff!" But it does have to happen.

JaronK

[Jon_Dahl]

Detect evil is frustrating.
It just makes low-level cloak 'n dagger stuff difficult. I have to have evil cleric covering all their minions and themselves with undetectable alignment all the time.

[Crazysaneman]

@Hamste
One hour casting time with a limit of 24 hours between death and casting.
I don't see your point here... it needs to be a fresh corpse, and it takes time to cast; for example as the party rests and you are on watch with the fighter...
It also only shows what the dead person found valuable and assumes they even knew where something worth 100 gp is (plus it might be in a place where the party would have went anyways).
The spell says VALUABLES. Not things worth monies.
"Depending on the creature, the map might reveal a source of tasty food, suitable mates, or even your own treasure vault."
Think of all the ways you could use this as a player. For example, kill a minion totally devoted to the baddie of the game, find his hidey hole. Or find a dead mothers child (storymode: this has happened in one of our groups)
Other can be useful but as long as not every NPC knows where the super epic end loot is I don't see Mich of a problem.
Again, not seeing the issue here... Sure it may not lead to what you are hoping for, but it will be fun in either case.

Every NPC in the game may not have knowledge of the epic loot but this is what I thought the first time I read this spell.
"Self, we neeeeeed to kill us a dragon. Who cares if we're level 4, we can do this. A dragon's horde is its most prized posession, after all."

[Kansaschaser]

And how it works ? In couple words.

Hehe, it takes a little more than a couple words to explain. I'll try to make it as simple as possible.

If you have 4 gold, you have just enough money to purchase the materials necessary to create a suit of leather armor.

Step 1) Purchase Leather Armor Materials
Step 2) Cast Fabricate to turn materials into finished suit
Step 3) Sell suit of leather armor for 5 gold.
Step 4) Repeat until you have enough gold to purchase materials to make Scale Mail.
Step 5) Continue making more and more expensive sets of armor.

Basically, if you have the ability to cast Fabricate 4 times per day, you will Triple your money every day without crashing the local economy. At the end of the 7th day, you would have around 130,000-150,000 gold depending on what kind of sets of armor you created. If you had enough in Craft (Armorsmithing) you could even make masterwork versions of the armor for even faster money making. You could also make Mithril, Darkwood, and Adamantine versions for the fastest moneymaking.

You could probably make at least 100-500 suits of every type of armor in a Metropolis before the city starts to see an impact on the economy. Once you have made a couple million gold, move on to the next Metropolis and start over.

[Nettlekid]

At the end of the day, that's pretty much the counter to all game breaking things, of course. "Nope!"

A graceful DM can come up with a reason, or create a house rule well in advance so it makes sense within the world and isn't just "hey, you broke my stuff!" But it does have to happen.

JaronK

*nod nod* In a mutliplanar campaign I did, part of the background of everything was that the Astral Plane had receded, meaning that apart from direct plane-to-plane portals, interplanar (and regular) teleportation was impossible. And I let everyone know that well in advance, so I didn't have to worry about bypassing dungeons or players getting to places that I wasn't expecting and hadn't prepared for.

Another 5th level spell capable of ruining a dungeon crawl maybe less effectively than Teleport but is harder to block is Xorn Movement. Turn the twisting, turning caverns into the equivalent of a hedge maze, where if you get fed up you can just walk through the walls. I guess Greater Blink should apply for similar. They also have the advantage of not requiring knowledge of where you're going.

[Deophaun]

If you have 4 gold, you have just enough money to purchase the materials necessary to create a suit of leather armor.
That's extremely inefficient.

You have four gold coins. You cast fabricate on those coins to turn them into jewelry. Jewelry is a trade good, so it sells for full price. You have twelve gold coins...

Basically, as long as you're making trade goods (dealing with tons of gold? make a solid-gold statue!), you get x * 3^y gold, where x is your initial investment, and y is the number of times you cast fabricate.

[Kansaschaser]

That's extremely inefficient.

You have four gold coins. You cast fabricate on those coins to turn them into jewelry. Jewelry is a trade good, so it sells for full price. You have twelve gold coins...

Basically, as long as you're making trade goods (dealing with tons of gold? make a solid-gold statue!), you get x * 3^y gold, where x is your initial investment, and y is the number of times you cast fabricate.

That makes the spell even more broken! LOL

The only craft skills I normally pick up are Craft (Weaponsmithing), Craft (Armorsmithing), and Craft (Alchemy). I typically use these craft skills with the Fabricate spell.

I guess you could take Craft (Art) or Perform (Art) and make tons more money by selling artwork to the wealthy, but I tend to go for more practical items. One time I took a couple ranks in Craft (Metalworking) so I could make things like buckets, nails, and other metal items by the boat-load.

[McClintock]

Is there a way to imbue a local weaponsmith/armorsmith with Fabricate for a 1 time use? That way he could make you a masterwork X in 1 day as opposed to days/weeks.

[Deophaun]

Scryiny doesnt work vs anyone in rooms lined with lead. Which should be any room outside of a peasant hovel.
Fixed. Scrying has no way to get around Line of Effect requirements.

[Kansaschaser]

Is there a way to imbue a local weaponsmith/armorsmith with Fabricate for a 1 time use? That way he could make you a masterwork X in 1 day as opposed to days/weeks.

If you had the Craft Wonderous Item feat and 90,000 gold, you could make an item that has a use-activated Fabricate spell. Anyone that knew the magic word could pick up the magic item and use the Fabricate spell at will. I don't know of another way to give someone the ability to cast a 5th level Fabricate spell.

[McClintock]

Fixed. Scrying has no way to get around Line of Effect requirements.
Quoted from SRD:
You can see and hear some creature, which may be at any distance. If the subject succeeds on a Will save, the scrying attempt simply fails. The difficulty of the save depends on how well you know the subject and what sort of physical connection (if any) you have to that creature. Furthermore, if the subject is on another plane, it gets a +5 bonus on its Will save.


I see nothing about line of effect.

[McClintock]

If you had the Craft Wonderous Item feat and 90,000 gold, you could make an item that has a use-activated Fabricate spell. Anyone that knew the magic word could pick up the magic item and use the Fabricate spell at will. I don't know of another way to give someone the ability to cast a 5th level Fabricate spell.


Would be a nice gift to give a local smith to help boost the economy in a small town that adventurers frequent.

[Kansaschaser]

Would be a nice gift to give a local smith to help boost the economy in a small town that adventurers frequent.

After a week or so of crafting stuff with Fabricate, you would certinly have the money to do something like that.

Pretty much anything in the D&D universe can be created with the Fabricate spell if you know how to make it without magic. Clothing, Buildings, Ships, Weapons, Armor, Alchemical Items, Roads, Bridges, and Art just to name a few. I had a player in one of my games take Craft (Cooking). He used the fabricate spell to turn fields of wheat and other ingredients into bread. Imagine cooking a Thanksgiving Turkey and all the trimmings in 6 seconds flat. Talk about fast food! :smallcool: It was really impressive.

[Deophaun]

I see nothing about line of effect.
And that's the problem. By default, all spells are subject to line of effect.

You must have a clear line of effect to any target that you cast a spell on or to any space in which you wish to create an effect. You must have a clear line of effect to the point of origin of any spell you cast.
Scrying contains the line "Effect: Magical Sensor," so by default you need line of effect to the square that magical sensor will appear in. But, it has nothing that says you do not need to concern yourself with line of effect. For a counter-example, see Clairvoyance:

You don’t need line of sight or line of effect
By RAW, scrying does not work.

[killem2]

In my opinion the most game breaking spell up to level 5 are these spells.

1. Fabricate (5th level) Reason? Go from 4 gold to 133,186 gold in 7 days while in a large city or bigger.


not seeing how this is possible. :smallfrown: and I want to know why I am wrong LOL

[Doug Lampert]

Detect evil is frustrating.
It just makes low-level cloak 'n dagger stuff difficult. I have to have evil cleric covering all their minions and themselves with undetectable alignment all the time.

Huh? Humans have no tendancy toward any alignment, not even nuetral.

This means that roughly ONE THIRD of all humans ping on detect evil.

This helps how? Especially given that neutral and even good characters can work for the bad-guys, and that casting an aligned spell (like protection from good) on a target makes him look evil to detect evil.

I mean, I've run campaigns where the local, extremely honest about her job, magistrate was LE. Go into her court with the claim that someone was guilty because they ping on detect evil. It'll be fun. :) (I note that contempt of court was one of the few capital crimes in that culture.)

[Xervous]

An amazing thing I saw pointed out in the past few days. Polymorph inherits the text from Alter Self where it does not override it. Polymorph only states a minimum size, not a maximum, therefore it is restricted by Alter Self's "Not more than one size larger than your normal form".

Pretty much every hydra is at least huge.

[JaronK]

not seeing how this is possible. :smallfrown: and I want to know why I am wrong LOL

As stated earlier, take 4 gold coins. Cast the spell to turn them into gold jewelry worth 12gp (because materials cost 1/3 the total price of the finished product). Since jewelery is considered a trade good worth full value when sold, you sell this for 12gp and get 12 more gold pieces. Now cast the spell a second time, making a new, larger bit of jewelery. This is worth 36gp. Repeat. The next one is worth 108gp. As you can see, this is exponential.

Easy solution of course: trade goods are that way because they're worth about what the raw materials are worth. So just as poison has a special rule that the materials cost 1/6 as much, for trade goods the materials cost 3/4 as much. Much more sane.

JaronK

[killem2]

As stated earlier, take 4 gold coins. Cast the spell to turn them into gold jewelry worth 12gp (because materials cost 1/3 the total price of the finished product). Since jewelery is considered a trade good worth full value when sold, you sell this for 12gp and get 12 more gold pieces. Now cast the spell a second time, making a new, larger bit of jewelery. This is worth 36gp. Repeat. The next one is worth 108gp. As you can see, this is exponential.

Easy solution of course: trade goods are that way because they're worth about what the raw materials are worth. So just as poison has a special rule that the materials cost 1/6 as much, for trade goods the materials cost 3/4 as much. Much more sane.

JaronK

It shows that it has a craft check for jewelry but what is the craft check? :smallconfused:

[Chromascope3D]

Before it was errata'd, Pathfinder's Terrible Remorse (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/terrible-remorse) was terrible in a maniacally broken way. The suffix, "After which, the spell ends" was not present; basically, if the target succeeded on their save, they would still be unable to act in any way. :smalltongue:

It's still broken, but maybe not in a game-breaking way. Unless you consider turning the epic boss fight into a one-man show, in which the BBEG commits sepukku for the party's enjoyment, broken. Because even if they make their save, there's nothing keeping you from casting it again. :smallamused:

[Kansaschaser]

It shows that it has a craft check for jewelry but what is the craft check? :smallconfused:

Masterwork items are typically a DC of 20. Some Alchemical items and poisons have a higher DC than 20, but most other items are normally 20 or less.

[rockdeworld]

Are you including spells that can be used deliberately? Because Acorn of Far Travel would fit, as would anything banned in the Test of Spite (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7503776).

True Seeing can as well, if the campaign revolves heavily around illusions.

[Tvtyrant]

Hallow. Cast Hallow in the caldera of a volcano and attach Protection from Energy: Fire. You can now make your own volcano base as a level 9 Cleric, and make the hallow exclude things you don't like.

[Melcar]

It gives players tons more possibilities. Especially in open ended campaigns, it makes anticipating their next move much harder, since they can now decide to go pretty much anywhere within 100 miles per level. Also, with 2 teleports and a big enough city in range you can easily teleport out, buy what you need, teleport back whenever you encounter a problem you can't solve on the spot.It doesn't break the game per se, just alters the way in which it is played in a pretty radical manner.


Is far as I remember, a DM controls the shops and the output of these... If you have scumbag players that uses Teleport like this, have them NOT find the items they need in the shops! Maybe they will even make a bad roll and end up somewhere else!

[Devronq]

As a level 5 spell, Opalescent Glare accidentally* gives a permanent Gaze attack, which can have all sorts of unintended consequences on a game.

*Because the writer(s) didn't know what the listed duration actually meant.

Could someone explain this in more detail please

[Spuddles]

Is far as I remember, a DM controls the shops and the output of these... If you have scumbag players that uses Teleport like this, have them NOT find the items they need in the shops! Maybe they will even make a bad roll and end up somewhere else!

This is the gamebreaking spells thread, not the oberoni fallacy thread.

[Sith_Happens]

Could someone explain this in more detail please


you gain a gaze attack

Duration is Instantaneous.

[kkplx]

So, RAW: Permanent Buff on yourself that gives you the described Gaze attack. RAI: You gain a Gaze attack until the end of your Turn.

[Der_DWSage]

I'm surprised that it took two pages for Glibness to come up. I'm slightly more surprised that, for as much as the hatred goes for it, Rope Trick hasn't come up yet. It's a free license for wizards to use their spells as often as they like, essentially.

That, and Dominate Person. Because seriously, nothing quite like getting yourself a brand new buddy in the form of the BBEG that rolled a 1 on his will save.

[LordBlades]

Is far as I remember, a DM controls the shops and the output of these... If you have scumbag players that uses Teleport like this, have them NOT find the items they need in the shops! Maybe they will even make a bad roll and end up somewhere else!

Why scumbag? They're merely using the tools at their disposal to solve a problem.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Is far as I remember, a DM controls the shops and the output of these... If you have scumbag players that uses Teleport like this, have them NOT find the items they need in the shops! Maybe they will even make a bad roll and end up somewhere else!

What else would you use Teleport for? It's a travel spell, you use it to travel. There's nothing about it that says "you're a scumbag for using this".
It's just something that a DM has to account for or nerf/ban when he plans his campaign or it will derail your carefully planned plot.


I'm slightly more surprised that, for as much as the hatred goes for it, Rope Trick hasn't come up yet. It's a free license for wizards to use their spells as often as they like, essentially.

That, and Dominate Person. Because seriously, nothing quite like getting yourself a brand new buddy in the form of the BBEG that rolled a 1 on his will save.

Experiences might differ but Rope Trick and the 15 minute adventure day have never been an issue in the games i played.
If it comes up it could be pretty annoying i guess since any counter would come off as horribly contrived.

Dominate isn't quite that bad imo. A lot of opponents at that level are immune by default and any plot critical NPCs you have can be protected via spells or items without too much trouble.
If you're worried about the party wizard building himself an army of minions you can easily have an encounter where someone summons an angel or unicorn or something else with a Magic Circle against X ability or just use something that gets Dispel Magic as a SLA.

[Humble Master]

Only spells I can think of below 5th level that can screw an entire campaign over are Planar Binding and Fabricate. Plenty of other spells that can make encounters irrelevant however.

[kkplx]

Any SoD really, especially this early where you can actually meet BBEG's that don't have high enough saves to be reasonably immune to them.