(Greater) Dispel Magic help

[Crewgar]

Hey all, was playing last night and a player made a point that while it kind of makes sense, flies in the face of at least the way that I'd always thought that Dispel Magic worked. He's a Buff Cleric, and when hit with the targeted greater dispel said that as it targets him, the spells he has going on his armour and weapons (Greater Magic Weapon, Magic Vestments) wouldn't be affected, as they are on the armour/weapon, which are objects, and not on him. I'd always thought that all of the active spell effects on 'him' would be affected, which would include those on weapons or shields that he's holding.

Does anyone have any thought? The game was going late so we've stopped in the middle of the fight (not ideal, but it happens, yay working in the mornings after games), so it would be easy to just roll the extra dispel checks if people agreed. Haven't brought it up as his point did seem to make some sense in the game and I didn't want to bog it down at the end with looking up the exact wording, but it's unclear. I could target his weapon to suppress it, but that doesn't say anything about dispelling the spells the weapon has on it, and if I target him, I definitely don't get a chance to suppress his weapons, but don't know about the spells on them....

Any thoughts would be appreciated, and then we can talk it over before the next session.

Thanks!

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

He's right, spells he casts on his items aren't affected by a Dispel Magic that targets his character. If he's hit by an area dispel, each item he carries with a spell cast on it may have one spell removed, plus one of his personal buffs may be removed. Using the targeted version on his character is only better if he has more buffs on his character than the area version would be able to remove.

[Crewgar]

Ok, cool thanks! :) Glad I didn't bring it up then!

[Anxe]

My house rule is that it dispels EVERYTHING on a character. Spells cast on items and the items themselves are included.

[Khedrac]

Probably technically by RAW your player is correct, but there is a downside or 2..

Basically there are two options and as long as you are consistent it does not matter which you use:

Option 1 (player is correct):
Downside: Against an area dispel each item with spell(s) on it is checked separately

Option 2 (player is wrong):
Upside: Against an area dispel items count as you and thus maximum of one spell lost total.

This method (and I think I like it, even though we don't play that way) makes Area Dispels a lot more potent against groups that like Chain Greater Magic Weapon and similar.

Also remember there's another dispel question floating around - "Mass X" spells (includes multi-target spells like Haste).
If hit by an dispel are they one spell total or one spell per person?
The former means my haste goes down if my mate gets hit by a dispel magic that removes his (can get nasty with mass fly).
It also gets complicated when coupled with Area Dispel's "one spell per target" rule - do they count only on the first target even if the second only has the 1 spell when the first had 15, or as a separate list to be checked or what?
This question I think helps explain why we use the "one spell per person" answer even if RAW is probably the other way round.