Disjoining Touch

[Crake]

Ok, so what if there was a template out there that allowed you to disjoin any magical (or psionic, if you aren't use transparency) effect (including Su abilities) with a touch, but in return, could never use magic items, cast magic or use any sort of Su ability. What LA would you place something like that at?

[Chronos]

LA --. The prohibition on using magic items makes it unplayable, unless you've also got something like Vow of Poverty.

EDIT: And it wouldn't work with VoP, either, since that's supernatural.

[Ryuuk]

You just described a more extreme version of the Karsites from Tome of Magic They are a Human +2 LA Subrace with Racial Spell Resistance, attacks that can turn off Magic Armor, Weapons or Shields on a failed will save, and the inability to ever cast Arcane or Divine spells, (Spell-Likes, SU and Psionics are fine though).

Something like that would probably be more appropriate for an NPC though, as mentioned. No magic items or Vow of Poverty make for sad PCs as you go up in levels.

[Crake]

You just described a more extreme version of the Karsites from Tome of Magic They are a Human +2 LA Subrace with Racial Spell Resistance, attacks that can turn off Magic Armor, Weapons or Shields on a failed will save, and the inability to ever cast Arcane or Divine spells, (Spell-Likes, SU and Psionics are fine though).

Something like that would probably be more appropriate for an NPC though, as mentioned. No magic items or Vow of Poverty make for sad PCs as you go up in levels.

In that case, what sort of CR adjustment would it have as an NPC?

[TuggyNE]

LA --. The prohibition on using magic items makes it unplayable, unless you've also got something like Vow of Poverty.

Maybe not quite unplayable if you can still have magic used on you by party members/cohorts, but it would tend to severely limit the useful builds. If you can't, build and equipment are even more limited: you basically need a bow or crossbow that can shoot serrenwood arrows to deal with flying and incorporeal enemies. Damage, defenses, to-hit, saves, and HP will all suffer a great deal in any case though.

For an NPC, the negatives probably still outweigh the benefits, but it's a sneaky way of getting a nasty effect in with an essentially disposable minion. That's hard to CR accurately.

[Mithril Leaf]

In that case, what sort of CR adjustment would it have as an NPC?

Well, consider that Adamantine Horrors are CR 9 or something for disjunction at will.
They are also widely considered horribly horribly horribly under CR'd.

[Manly Man]

This honestly sounds like a Mordenkainen's disjunction as a living spell, which would be the best way to piss off all the players at your table. If they've been acting in ways that deserve to have them taken down a notch (or ten), then by all means do it, but something so powerful as disjunction on a touch is pretty crazy. Be very careful how you handle that sort of thing.

[Crake]

This honestly sounds like a Mordenkainen's disjunction as a living spell, which would be the best way to piss off all the players at your table. If they've been acting in ways that deserve to have them taken down a notch (or ten), then by all means do it, but something so powerful as disjunction on a touch is pretty crazy. Be very careful how you handle that sort of thing.

This is for a very low magic setting, so there wont be many/any magic items to disjoin, it's mostly for disjoining magical effects. I'm not planning on using it anytime soon, and i may never actually use it, but i figure it'll be useful to have something like this stashed away. Living spell actually seems like an interesting idea, although I'd prefer it to be able to integrate into human society, probably not even realising it's own power, since there's almost no magic around for it to disjoin.

[Crake]

I've ended up going a living spell, but also adding alter self as one of it's spells, only functioning on itself, as a spell like ability, and using awaken ooze from Dragon 304 to give it an intelligence score, and the aberration type, which will let it use alter self to transform into an elan, allowing it to integrate into society. Not entirely rules legal, since alter self cant normally be applied to living spells, and i added the fact that alter self has no duration limit, and the fact that it can go from huge to medium, which alter self cant do. But eh, it's close enough.

[Manly Man]

I've ended up going a living spell, but also adding alter self as one of it's spells, only functioning on itself, as a spell like ability, and using awaken ooze from Dragon 304 to give it an intelligence score, and the aberration type, which will let it use alter self to transform into an elan, allowing it to integrate into society. Not entirely rules legal, since alter self cant normally be applied to living spells, and i added the fact that alter self has no duration limit, and the fact that it can go from huge to medium, which alter self cant do. But eh, it's close enough.

Just a bit of DM fiat, and it all works out.