stopping Hallow+Antimagic field

[Lightlawbliss]

So... I made an oops and could use some help. My players now have a knife that is the center of a hallow effect containing an antimagic field that only works on evil creatures. Does anybody know how to keep this in check and/or dispose of it without resulting in party rage and/or them just making a new one? Please don't respond with "talk to the party".

[Brookshw]

Hmmm......

Make it intelligent, with a purpose to slay a mighty demon or some such. It's the unknown mcguffin. The demon knows of it, they've had run ins multiple times. The demons actively looking for it to destroy it. After a few adventures where the party gets to at least play with its powers leading up to the showdown, have that fight. Once demon is slain knife loses all powers. A bit hamfisted and requires more backstory than I can write while smoking this butt. Upon killing demon give them some nice loot to balance the loss out.

[Forrestfire]

You could make them fight some neutral people. Or a warblade with Iron Heart Surge :smalltongue:

[Urpriest]

In this case, unless they've become unreasonably attached to it, you probably won't have to negotiate. It's a unique item, so your players will probably expect it to have some sort of plot significance. Perhaps they have to give it to an NPC, who needs it to assassinate some particular evil magical being? Maybe it has to be expended to break through some barrier, or slay some powerful entity?

Basically, it's a plot item, so come up with a plot reason why they need to get rid of it.

[Lightlawbliss]

I didn't give it to them... the party artificer did.

[Karoht]

Break the knife, kill the artificer, nuke the whole site from orbit. Only way to be sure.

... oh wait, you want something constructive?

"a knife that is the center of a hallow effect containing an antimagic field that only works on evil creatures"
It would help if you could post stats on this, including cost to make and how long it took your artificer to make it.
Well, neutral/good creatures aren't going to be affected by this knife.
Pretty sure that AMF should suppress the Hallow once it triggers, but AMF would still last a while. Don't let evil creatures get close enough for the Hallow to trigger the AMF? Also, I certainly hope the weilder of the weapon stays good and doesn't do anything that would show up as evil for a while.
AMF has a really small radius, and there are lots of ways of overcoming AMF. Arrows are typically not magical for example.
Sunder. It's still a thing. They can fix it after the fight.
Unhallow should counteract the Hallow which should in turn prevent the AMF from triggering. The party walks into a room with an Unhallow effect in place.
A targeted Greater/Dispel Magic should work on the item so long as the AMF isn't active. And if these guys walk around with an item that triggers an AMF, they're going to get a reputation for it eventually. Enemies will know to neutralize that item first, ambush tactics, etc.
Does AMF stop Psionics in your world?
Disjunction. But that's a bit overkill. In fact it's almost always overkill.
If AMF isn't affecting the person weilding the knife, I wonder if Teleport would work on that person. Teleport them away maybe?

As for preventing the Artificer from making more of these...
1-Confirm it was made right in the first place. It doesn't sound like it obeys item creation rules (unless you're intentionally bending a few of them, also I'm not up to speed on Artificers and how crafting works for them), so maybe double check.
2-Artificers need downtime to build things. Be careful how much downtime you give an Artificer. Don't be a jerk and give zero downtime, but you can justify giving less downtime if the pace of action and adventure prevents downtime. Does the rest of the party want to wait around that long?

Things to consider. Good luck.

[Sliver]

Why did you allow it in the first place? Whenever a player can craft or not, any custom items have to be DM approved.

[One Step Two]

So... I made an oops and could use some help. My players now have a knife that is the center of a hallow effect containing an antimagic field that only works on evil creatures. Does anybody know how to keep this in check and/or dispose of it without resulting in party rage and/or them just making a new one? Please don't respond with "talk to the party".

Admit you made a mistake, apologise, and tell them it doesn't work?

There's two good reasons, both in the spell description. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/hallow.htm) First, of the spells you can tie to Hallow, Antimagic Field isn't one of them, all the listed spells are of a lower level than Hallow itself. Secondly, the spell itself says that the Hallow spell targets a Touched Point, but it elaborates in the description that it is to be applied to a Site, building or structure to make it holy, not an item to be carried.

It's not to be a dickish rules-lawyer, but a explained simple misunderstanding, that should be able to be remedied with the chance to use their invested gold and time on a different magic item.

I hope this helps.

[Urpriest]

I didn't give it to them... the party artificer did.

So the Artificer proposed a custom item with those abilities, and you approved it?

..yikes.

Yeah, in that case, the problem isn't "players have an OP plot item and won't let go of it", it's "now there's an unbalanced and poorly designed item in the game, and it's accessible to everybody".

If you've got a new houserule that's unbalanced (which is what this is) then the most consistent way to deal with it is to roll back the houserule. Tell your players the original item was unbalanced, adjust it to be balanced, and let them know that if they don't like it as-is you can refund the creation cost.

Edit: To clarify, if you take the current one away, they'll just make a new one, either in this campaign or the next one. You need to explain why it was the wrong choice and correct it, not do a stopgap solution.

[Lightlawbliss]

Why did you allow it in the first place? Whenever a player can craft or not, any custom items have to be DM approved.

first off, I said in the first post I made an oops.

second: how it was made.
he made a scroll of hallow with 7k material componant. due to a house rule, hallow required a copy of the spell to be included so he also got a scroll of antimagic field.
he then defined a point on the dagger and, without explaining what he was doing, got me to agree a point on a dagger is stationary relative to the dagger.
hallow is centered on a point so he used the scroll to cast hallow with antimagic field attached (set to only work on evil as per hallow) centered on a point defined based on the dagger.

[georgie_leech]

first off, I said in the first post I made an oops.

second: how it was made.
he made a scroll of hallow with 7k material componant. due to a house rule, hallow required a copy of the spell to be included so he also got a scroll of antimagic field.
he then defined a point on the dagger and, without explaining what he was doing, got me to agree a point on a dagger is stationary relative to the dagger.
hallow is centered on a point so he used the scroll to cast hallow with antimagic field attached (set to only work on evil as per hallow) centered on a point defined based on the dagger.

You say you don't want to have to talk to them OOC, but honestly that's the only way to fix this without being jerkish to some degree. You made a ruling that turns out to have been imbalanced; own up to it and disallow the item. Offer to let them retroactively have crafted something else.

[Lightlawbliss]

...Secondly, the spell itself says that the Hallow spell targets a Touched Point, but it elaborates in the description that it is to be applied to a Site, building or structure to make it holy, not an item to be carried. ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure

one could defend very easily that a molecule is a structure, and this group has members that are payed to defend stuff like that.


and to everyone saying "talk to them": I understand where you are coming from so you can stop. I want to know ways somebody (an in-game somebody) would counter this assuming it is going to exist.

[Karoht]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure
one could defend very easily that a molecule is a structure, and this group has members that are payed to defend stuff like that.What does this mean? One of them is a Lawyer in real life? So what?



and to everyone saying "talk to them": I understand where you are coming from so you can stop. I want to know ways somebody (an in-game somebody) would counter this assuming it is going to exist.I gave you a page of counters to this problem, most of them in-game. Further to that list, Anti-Magic Field on it's own has loads of counters, as does Hallow. And as mentioned, AMF isn't compatible with Hallow in the first place, says so in the spell description.

If you want further ways of stopping this, don't give the Artificer access to spells you don't want to see used in items. He got AMF from a scroll? It's a high level spell, those aren't just lying around.

[Urpriest]

and to everyone saying "talk to them": I understand where you are coming from so you can stop. I want to know ways somebody (an in-game somebody) would counter this assuming it is going to exist.

Counter as in fight them despite it, or counter as in get rid of it?

If the latter, you're out of luck. It's a cheap tactic, monetarily speaking. If you destroy the one they have, they'll make a new one easily. You can't prevent them from making a new one without crippling them or changing the rules.

If the former, did you rule that the AMF fills the entire area of the Hallow, or just affects every Good target inside? If the latter, remember that AMF is a pretty small spell. Stay outside its range, attack with mundane attacks or things that pierce AMF, and you're fine. If the former, you've got a much tougher job, unless the players are at a low enough level that they're still challenged with mundane bruisers, though of course as others have said Neutral and even Good foes are perfectly reasonable.

This does raise a question: if you're ok with your players making silly implausible arguments about the rules, can you do the same? If the artificer specifically said that it's an AMF that only affects evil creatures, then by the rules that means that there's an AMF surrounding each evil creature, and the players don't get the benefit. AMF's affect isn't removing magic, it's creating an area around a creature that removes magic, after all.

Be aware that this should still be dispellable, so in any given fight you can have an enemy dispel it down and they won't be able to set it up anew until after the fight.

[One Step Two]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure

one could defend very easily that a molecule is a structure, and this group has members that are payed to defend stuff like that.


and to everyone saying "talk to them": I understand where you are coming from so you can stop. I want to know ways somebody (an in-game somebody) would counter this assuming it is going to exist.

They can argue structure if they like, but Hallow doesn't allow Antimagic field in it's description, if they want to go full debate mode over one minutae and ignore the other, then hooray for hypocrisy.

To Elaborate a little more then: The spell says: "Finally, you may choose to fix a single spell effect to the Hallowed site." So, yes, they can hallow the "Structure" of the dagger, but can they argue it is a site? If so, see above statement.

But talking to them is not an option so here's exactly what you can do: A Targeted Dispel magic outside the range of the Hallow will remove it cold if it beats the CL of the Hallow effect, which should be at the very least 9th, making it a Dispel DC 20. Simple, effective, and all you need is one enemy to report it to their caster minion/boss to neutralize it once it has been witnessed.

Alternatively, use the 6th level spell Disjoin from the Dragonlance Campaign setting. It targets One Creature, Magical effect or Object, and turns the magic off. For targeted Magic effects (such as a hallow spell) no save or SR are given, you simply turn it off.

[Fable Wright]

So, let me get this straight. The Artificer managed to somehow warp a spell with known effects into hosting more powerful magic than it normally could, and tied it to a mobile point, a process which usually costs 30,000gp, a lot of XP, and weakens the spell so that it can't hold additional magic. (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Darkskull)

I see three options. The first, talking to your players about it, you shot down. The second is retconning the device into not working. When creating the dagger, the Artificer accidentally targeted a point in space as the center of the Hallow spell instead of the point relative to the dagger, and then burned a scroll of Antimagic Field to cast the spell normally. This tells the player that the rules work this way, and trying to break the rules to get overpowered effects for cheap is just going to waste you money.

The third is to run with this breaking of the cosmological rules as a plot point. The artificer unknowingly harnessed powers beyond his understanding when he did this, and which has terrible consequences. Inevitables seek to destroy the knife, as it's breaking the laws of the universe. As long as the knife exists, Unhallowed Knives of such caliber can be made, but no more Hallowed Knives. Every time first blood is drawn within the antimagic field of the knife, one of the party's items permanently loses all of its magic to power the effect. Really, cursed effects and powerful factions intent on abusing/destroying the item and its existence are just begging to be used here.

[Lightlawbliss]

What does this mean? One of them is a Lawyer in real life? So what?


I gave you a page of counters to this problem, most of them in-game. Further to that list, Anti-Magic Field on it's own has loads of counters, as does Hallow. And as mentioned, AMF isn't compatible with Hallow in the first place, says so in the spell description.

If you want further ways of stopping this, don't give the Artificer access to spells you don't want to see used in items. He got AMF from a scroll? It's a high level spell, those aren't just lying around.

honestly, I ignored your post the moment I noticed you didn't understand the hallow spell. (looking through your post: there is no triggering it involved, the spell is just active in the area and effects, in this instance, only evil creatures. "The spell effect lasts for one year and functions throughout the entire site, regardless of the normal duration and area or effect." Also, the hallow spell is in no way an evil creature so the anti magic field would do nothing to it.)

edit: how are you guys getting that it makes antimagic fields around the effected?

[One Step Two]

Ooh, another option I forgot to mention: Just throw an Adamantine horror at them, that should take care of it too!

[NuSair]

I don't see that this is that bad really... it's strong, but, I don't think it's game breaking. If anything, I think it could be used to great amusement.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

They broke the gentlemen's agreement. The solution is simple: The first few evil enemies get hosed; then they start catching on. All of a sudden the enemies they face also have mobile antimagic fields using the same logic, but based on Unhallow so it affects the party (or at least the other item).

If they keep going for crazier tricks, you just keep upping the ante until they relent. You're the DM; you're the one with infinite resources. If you're so browbeaten you can't even talk to them about a silly not-even-close-to-RAW trick like this... then you can at least outdo them in silliness.

[Karoht]

honestly, I ignored your post the moment I noticed you didn't understand the hallow spell....says the guy who didn't understand the Hallow spell himself and allowed a spell that isn't supposed to work with Hallow, to work with Hallow. We could have just ignored your thread when we read that, but that would be rude now wouldn't it.

Sunder. Works in an AMF just fine. Smash the thing.
Disarm the wielder, stick knife in box to break line of effect. Heck, throw the knife out of range and proceed to beat up the person who was holding it moments ago.
Disjunction. Specifically deals with AMF (along with the Hallow), but it is an overkill solution.
Orb spells still pierce AMF just fine. They can target the item or the person carrying it, your choice. Orb of Force VS Knife, my money is on the Orb of Force. Other Conjuration effects still work, depending on the effect.
Arrows and other ranged projectiles will work. Have some giants lob boulders at them. Catapults work nicely as well. Not quite "rocks fall, everyone dies" but you get the idea.

Truthfully, I like the idea of you shooting the item with an Orb Spell and damaging/destroying it. It's got a reasonable chance of success, but it has a chance of failure so your players can't say it's auto-win cheese. They can make another knife if they want, you can Orb that one later if you really need to. Disarming the wielder is my second choice. Mundane projectiles fired at them would be my third choice.

I forgot to mention, Undead can still operate just fine in an AMF, some of them have EX abilities which are not affected by AMF, such as triggering a poisonous/disease cloud.
I'm pretty sure some Golems can function in an AMF, but my memory concerning Golems is sketchy.

[Vaz]

Have them fight good creatures who see the weapon as a tool to defeat the forces of evil.

Send down ever increasingly powerful forces of angels if they try to resist. Prevent them from spending time from crafting a weapon that can do the same against good creatures (or have the equivalent ruling of the two extradimensional spaces come into effect, and say that the powers of two such nigh-artifact level items not only cancel each other out but destroy each other and drag the party into the astral plane/rocks fall).

[Pilo]

The item is alignment activated, have your evil monster use that spell (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/undetectableAlignment.htm).

You can also have some powerful evil diviner that feel this item should disapear so (s)he sends monsters to deal with it (adding plot)

[Psyren]

Hmmm......

Make it intelligent, with a purpose to slay a mighty demon or some such. It's the unknown mcguffin. The demon knows of it, they've had run ins multiple times. The demons actively looking for it to destroy it. After a few adventures where the party gets to at least play with its powers leading up to the showdown, have that fight. Once demon is slain knife loses all powers. A bit hamfisted and requires more backstory than I can write while smoking this butt. Upon killing demon give them some nice loot to balance the loss out.

I think this is a brilliant idea, because <1% of anything the guy makes will turn out to be intelligent anyway. Just say he won the lottery on this one.

Failing that, I don't get why "talk to them" is somehow not an option. Are you not friends with these people? Will they really react that negatively if you say you messed up?

[Fouredged Sword]

For cases like this I apply the following.

"a scaled arm reaches out from the infinite reaches of the planes and snatches the dagger from your grasp, leaving you holding a bag of gold equal to the market value of the dagger. Attached to the bag is a note

'An item that breaks universal code 15326 'Overpowered combination of custom spell on an item' has been detected. First infraction response, item is confiscated by punpun and market value is granted to owner. Second infraction, item is confiscated with no compensation. You have been warned

- your scaled overlord, Punpun.'"

[ben-zayb]

Make usage of antimagic fields a crime, due to the very fabric of magic being weakened with each successive use of antimagic fields (or some other more convincing fluff). The fun part starts when you realize that the criminal bad guys will use unhallowed AMFs anyway.:smallamused:

[Segev]

Your player played lawyer-games to get you to okay the item under a screwy interpretation of the rules. His interpretation only effected the targeting restriction on Hallow, not the kind of spell that can be embedded within it. Let him know that AMF is not on the list of spells that can be tied to Hallow, and therefore the dagger doesn't work the way he hoped it would. If the thing has been used in-game already in ways that having it fail to work at all would make nonsensical, you can say that it worked in testing due to any number of reasons, up to and including "it was a charged item and you've expended the charges... pity you're not sure, upon further reflection, how you made it even do that."


I will note that this kind of bug appears in computer code all the time: the coder has something that works most of the time, but has some weird quirks. He goes to fix it. In studying his code, he cannot figure out how what he wrote EVER worked, because his logical analysis is telling him it shouldn't have. Worse, when he tries to revert his changes meant to fix it, it doesn't work at all anymore. It usually takes entirely recoding that element of the program to fix this sort of thing.

In this case, just don't let it be fixable. If the party becomes particularly dedicated to figuring out how to make it work again, go ahead and construct a plot around it. Figure out what X-factor let it work at all. Make it a high-level macguffin they have to hunt down. Eventually, give it as a reward at a level where the effect is more appropriate. (Also after you've figured out how to help it enhance, rather than destroy, your game.)

[Nettlekid]

You haven't played the NPC trump card-The Chaotic Neutral master thief, the rogue Rogue who plays by his own rules and answers to no one! He's so dreamy. He's caught wind of a powerful dagger and can, magically or nonmagically, Sleight of Hand it out from under the party's noses when they find themselves in a tavern together.

Something that I haven't seen suggested yet is finding a way to make an AMF affecting the bad guys bad for the party. For example, what if a mid-boss is some kind of powerful Necromancer or Summoner? Or better yet, just make the boss an incorporeal Undead or a summoned Demon/Devil. For some reason they need to actually capture this guy, not just kill and/or bypass him. Maybe he has crucial information, secret passwords, another MacGuffin, etc. The problem arises because incorporeal Undead and Summoned monsters wink out of existence when put in an AMF. The moment they try to use their special knife, they realize that their goal is out of reach as long as it's active. So they have to put the knife aside to fight this bad guy. And who knows what he might do, or what might happen to it?

Though honestly, I agree with all the above posters that this has gotten out of hand and you're being kind of weird about not describing why you can't talk to your players about it. Like, they should understand that if you decide to say "Hey, remember that thing you guys did that was totally against the rules but I kind of allowed it? I now see why it was against the rules, because it screws stuff up. So I'm going to go back and say that I'm disallowing it now." Or be cheap and cheesy and use Unhallowed AMF knives. Like seriously, you have a plethora of options and you're not really going for them.

[Lightlawbliss]

...Like seriously, you have a plethora of options and you're not really going for them.

I made this thread to find the "plethora of options".

as for why I "can't" talk to the players, that isn't exactly what is going on. It actually falls closer to "I want to try to counter it inside the rules before just saying 'sry, item gone.'"

[Bronk]

honestly, I ignored your post the moment I noticed you didn't understand the hallow spell. (looking through your post: there is no triggering it involved, the spell is just active in the area and effects, in this instance, only evil creatures. "The spell effect lasts for one year and functions throughout the entire site, regardless of the normal duration and area or effect." Also, the hallow spell is in no way an evil creature so the anti magic field would do nothing to it.)

edit: how are you guys getting that it makes antimagic fields around the effected?

I don't think you have as much of a problem here as you thought... I think that both you and the players might be misinterpreting the hallow spell, beyond attaching spells to it that aren't on the allowed list.

From your edit: The Hallow spell says that:

You may designate whether the effect applies to all creatures, creatures who share your faith or alignment, or creatures who adhere to another faith or alignment.
You stated in the first post that they made it so that it only affects evil, so the anti-magic field will only be around evil beings within the field.

So, that's the first thing you can do... enforce that clause. That would benefit evil melee types while not helping the party (unless they are also evil), while evil spellcasters could just cast from outside the 40' radius. Once they realize it doesn't work the way they thought, they might just try to sell it off or something, or at least use it in a more limited or more interesting way.

Aside from that, there other ideas I've seen are all great. Steal it, sunder it, disjoin it, remember to use neutral or good opponents sometimes, send in a neutral 'ethereal filcher' to take it... all valid options.

[Nettlekid]

I made this thread to find the "plethora of options".

as for why I "can't" talk to the players, that isn't exactly what is going on. It actually falls closer to "I want to try to counter it inside the rules before just saying 'sry, item gone.'"

I said plethora of options because people on this thread have given you several options, and you're acting like you have none. I'll highlight some good ones for you, either from this thread or extrapolating from it.

-Fight Neutral people, like mercenaries or a new faction, that won't be hindered by an Evil-only AMF.

-Have an enemy outside the AMF Dispel (suppress) the knife. The AMF would only work on Evil creatures within its radius, so either a non-Evil creature or an Evil creature outside its radius can interact with it fine.

-Unhallow. Unhallow counters and dispels Hallow. Should an Unhallowed area overlap with the Hallowed blade, both are rendered moot. Bad guys could Unhallow an area and then run away, leading the party into a trap where their blade is useless.

-Give the bad guys similar items.

-Have "greater good" agents assault the party trying to take the blade for their own purposes. "We're angels, we need every advantage in the war against Demons and Devils that we can get! You are not worthy of this tool!"

-Fight them with standard anti-AMF tactics. The Tinfoil Hat of a giant lead cone with Shrink Item on it. Pelt them with Orb of X spells. Send in a Frenzied Berserker to Ubercharge them, potentially Sundering the blade at the same time.

-Send in neutral Rust Monsters, Disenchanters (Fiend Folio, take a look), Nishruus, or Adamantine Horrors (among many other Clockwork Horrors so it's not obvious) which are designed to destroy items.

-Send in Golems or other monsters who are not disturbed by AMFs (and are also not evil so it doesn't even matter.)

-Have a thief steal a lot of their stuff, they have to chase him down to get it back, and while you might give them lovely special treasure in the thief's cache they don't manage to get back everything that was taken (take one item from each party member, give them a selected treasure of twice that object's worth, but they don't get the original thing back.)

-Make it so that AMFs are detrimental to them somehow, like if an AMF causes a villain they need to hunt down to vanish (as is the case with Incorporeal Undead and Summoned monsters) so they need to ditch the knife for at least a short while, and it gets stolen or whatever at that time.



Really, what are you trying to accomplish? What's your ideal end result? Do you want them to keep the knife but want to just challenge them despite it? Do you want them to voluntarily discard the knife? Do you want the knife to be forcibly removed from their possession without it seeming like you DMed it away? Suggestions have been given for all of those. The thing is, you keep saying "I want to do it within the rules, the rules, the rules," but you're already out of the rules. You and they broke the rules in letting them make the item. It's like them saying "I want to make a spell that gives my character Regeneration overcome by Uranium damage" and you said "Ok" and are now asking us "How do I, within the rules, do tons of Uranium damage?" Like, that doesn't make sense because there is no such thing, same as there is no such thing of a Knife with a Hallow tied to AMF because none of the spells involved work that way. But nonetheless, we've given you suggestions. What do you want to happen?

[georgie_leech]

I made this thread to find the "plethora of options".

as for why I "can't" talk to the players, that isn't exactly what is going on. It actually falls closer to "I want to try to counter it inside the rules before just saying 'sry, item gone.'"

Unfortunately, there are few rules addressing how to deal with Rule 0 creations, for obvious reasons. If you really want to try though, I second having enemies doing the same thing with Unhallow daggers instead.

[Psyren]

Brook's suggestion (make it be an intelligent item) is perfectly doable within the confines of RAW. (Well, insomuch as anything about this scenario is RAW - technically, you can't Hallow an item.)

[Lord of Shadows]

I find myself part of the "now it exists make use of it" crowd...


Make it intelligent, with a purpose to slay a mighty demon or some such. It's the unknown mcguffin. The demon knows of it, they've had run ins multiple times. The demons actively looking for it to destroy it. After a few adventures where the party gets to at least play with its powers leading up to the showdown, have that fight. Once demon is slain knife loses all powers. A bit hamfisted and requires more backstory than I can write while smoking this butt. Upon killing demon give them some nice loot to balance the loss out.

I like this... Perhaps there is an ancient/obscure prophecy [that the party does not yet know about] that foretells the creation of just such an item, to do just some unique task. Like every 1000 years or something. The Artificer, without knowing it, is fulfilling prophecy. This could draw all sorts of encounters toward the party, such as those who have an interest in whether the prophecy is fulfilled or not. Initially, the party just thinks these are random encounters, but eventually it becomes apparent that something more is going on.


<Snip>The third is to run with this breaking of the cosmological rules as a plot point. The artificer unknowingly harnessed powers beyond his understanding when he did this, and which has terrible consequences. Inevitables seek to destroy the knife, as it's breaking the laws of the universe.<Snip>

Another good idea, although it could come across as a bit ham-handed if not done right. The item certainly bends the laws of magic, and would be noticed by those who are sensitive to such things (i.e., outer planes creatures)


For cases like this I apply the following.

"a scaled arm reaches out from the infinite reaches of the planes and snatches the dagger from your grasp, leaving you holding a bag of gold equal to the market value of the dagger. Attached to the bag is a note

'An item that breaks universal code 15326 'Overpowered combination of custom spell on an item' has been detected. First infraction response, item is confiscated by punpun and market value is granted to owner. Second infraction, item is confiscated with no compensation. You have been warned

- your scaled overlord, Punpun.' "

LOL, that's funny. Well, if it was supposed to be funny, it certainly is. :smallcool:

The solution to this can be worked in slowly, over time. Perhaps the Artificer was affected by some outside force during the item's construction, and does not recall part of the time. The character might have initially dismissed it as due to being tired or overworked (point out that it did take a lot out of him/her to craft this item, after all). Fairly soon, perhaps after the dagger has been used a time or two, the Artificer realizes that his/her lack of memory is more real than was initially thought. There is a "hole in your mind," to use an old line from the show Babylon 5. Some outside force, probably one of Chaos, interfered with the construction, and it will only become apparent over time. How much time is up to the OP/DM and how long he wants to drag this out. The usage of the dagger could be tied to this, the more it is used, the more this begins to bug the Artificer. Where you take it from here, Mr. DM, is up to you.
.

[Lightlawbliss]

I don't think you have as much of a problem here as you thought... I think that both you and the players might be misinterpreting the hallow spell, beyond attaching spells to it that aren't on the allowed list.

From your edit: The Hallow spell says that:

You stated in the first post that they made it so that it only affects evil, so the anti-magic field will only be around evil beings within the field.

So, that's the first thing you can do... enforce that clause. That would benefit evil melee types while not helping the party (unless they are also evil), while evil spellcasters could just cast from outside the 40' radius. Once they realize it doesn't work the way they thought, they might just try to sell it off or something, or at least use it in a more limited or more interesting way.

Aside from that, there other ideas I've seen are all great. Steal it, sunder it, disjoin it, remember to use neutral or good opponents sometimes, send in a neutral 'ethereal filcher' to take it... all valid options.

"Finally, you may choose to fix a single spell effect to the hallowed site. The spell effect lasts for one year and functions throughout the entire site, regardless of the normal duration and area or effect. You may designate whether the effect applies to all creatures, creatures who share your faith or alignment, or creatures who adhere to another faith or alignment. At the end of the year, the chosen effect lapses, but it can be renewed or replaced simply by casting hallow again." (bold mine)

how does that mean it is making the anti-magic fields around the evil beings? It seems to be rather clear that the normal durration, area, and effects are altered and that the alteration being made is that if fills the area of the hallow and duration becomes 1 year. Or is something else causing it to make a bunch of smaller fields?

edit: I like the small fields idea more then the one big one but I'm just trying to figure out how it fits inside the spell.

[Nettlekid]

"Finally, you may choose to fix a single spell effect to the hallowed site. The spell effect lasts for one year and functions throughout the entire site, regardless of the normal duration and area or effect. You may designate whether the effect applies to all creatures, creatures who share your faith or alignment, or creatures who adhere to another faith or alignment. At the end of the year, the chosen effect lapses, but it can be renewed or replaced simply by casting hallow again." (bold mine)

how does that mean it is making the anti-magic fields around the evil beings? It seems to be rather clear that the normal durration, area, and effects are altered and that the alteration being made is that if fills the area of the hallow and duration becomes 1 year. Or is something else causing it to make a bunch of smaller fields?

The size, positioning, and duration aren't what Bronk was pointing out. Bronk was, quite rightly, pointing out that Hallow makes it so that the spell tied to Hallow can affect everyone, or can affect only certain creatures based on faith or alignment. The AMF effect of your Hallow Knife is keyed to Evil creatures, which means that any non-Evil creature is totally unaffected by it, and so we're all saying "Send non-Evil creatures to fight your party, like Golems and mercenaries and angels" and things like that. Even some Evil creatures won't care. An Evil Barbarian Ubercharger will rush in and smash stuff up, AMF or no. An Evil caster can stand more than 40 feet away and chuck Orb of Force spells into the field as they please.

No one is saying that any creature that walks into the effect is suddenly targeted by their own personal AMFs; we all understand that it's a 40-foot-radius zone of AMF that affects only Evil creatures. What we're saying is there are a lot of loopholes in that that you seem to refuse to exploit.


edit: I like the small fields idea more then the one big one but I'm just trying to figure out how it fits inside the spell.
EDIT: Why are you bothering with this? "How it fits inside the spell" doesn't mean anything. You're trying to understand how this works RAW. There IS NO RAW for this, because you outright ignored it in the creation of this item. "How it fits" is however you fiat it to fit, except that you refuse to fiat it, which means nothing can possibly happen because the only thing that CAN happen is you saying "There are no rules for this so I get to make up how it goes" which you refuse to do.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Potentially Fun or Disastrous Scenario or "PFoDS" (TM) (not really but TM sounds cool)

*Deity Shows up on the Material Plane*

Deity: Hey that is a pretty cool dagger, I'm sort of a collector... What do you want for it?
Party: .... It isn't for sale...
Deity: Well I'm not the only interested buyer, and I'm being nice. I want that for my collection, I'll make it worth it :).
Party: Not for sale.
Deity: Ok then, we have to do this the hard way... *rolls initiative* *Wins Initiative* *God Magic Style "Intelligent Item Creation: Excel Saga".
Deity: Have fun with that, let me know when you want to give it to me.

(fluff it as deities can't actually attack mortals straight on without breaking a pact)

The dagger now has the personality of the main character from Excel Saga. Use youtube clips of her voice when the party uses the dagger.

About one session will be all it takes... If that doesn't work use a very loud Fran Drescher laugh...

And hey even if they keep it, you get to have some fun with them.

Note: I tend to warn players that if they do crazy stuff then so will I. Sometimes they do stuff just to provoke me :smallbiggrin:.

Edit:

BTW, I'm also known as the "fun asshat DM" sometimes :smalltongue:

[Psyren]

"Finally, you may choose to fix a single spell effect to the hallowed site. The spell effect lasts for one year and functions throughout the entire site, regardless of the normal duration and area or effect. You may designate whether the effect applies to all creatures, creatures who share your faith or alignment, or creatures who adhere to another faith or alignment. At the end of the year, the chosen effect lapses, but it can be renewed or replaced simply by casting hallow again." (bold mine)

You're forgetting the important part of Hallow - the first sentence.

"Hallow makes a particular site, building, or structure a holy site."

A dagger is none of these things. It is an item, not an area or location.

[Urpriest]

"Finally, you may choose to fix a single spell effect to the hallowed site. The spell effect lasts for one year and functions throughout the entire site, regardless of the normal duration and area or effect. You may designate whether the effect applies to all creatures, creatures who share your faith or alignment, or creatures who adhere to another faith or alignment. At the end of the year, the chosen effect lapses, but it can be renewed or replaced simply by casting hallow again." (bold mine)

how does that mean it is making the anti-magic fields around the evil beings? It seems to be rather clear that the normal durration, area, and effects are altered and that the alteration being made is that if fills the area of the hallow and duration becomes 1 year. Or is something else causing it to make a bunch of smaller fields?

edit: I like the small fields idea more then the one big one but I'm just trying to figure out how it fits inside the spell.

Given the text you bolded, the most logical interpretation would be that AMF fills the entire space. But your players aren't sticking to the most logical interpretation, so neither should you.

Take a look at this part:

Finally, you may choose to fix a single spell effect to the hallowed site. The spell effect lasts for one year and functions throughout the entire site, regardless of the normal duration and area or effect. You may designate whether the effect applies to all creatures, creatures who share your faith or alignment, or creatures who adhere to another faith or alignment. At the end of the year, the chosen effect lapses, but it can be renewed or replaced simply by casting hallow again.

The effect of the spell applies to a set of creatures, in this case evil ones (note that, probably, the players would have to choose a specific alignment, not just evil in general). So what is the effect of AMF on creatures? Well, let's look at the spell description, and see what effects the spell has on creatures specifically:


An invisible barrier surrounds you and moves with you. The space within this barrier is impervious to most magical effects, including spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities. Likewise, it prevents the functioning of any magic items or spells within its confines.

An antimagic field suppresses any spell or magical effect used within, brought into, or cast into the area, but does not dispel it. Time spent within an antimagic field counts against the suppressed spell’s duration.

Summoned creatures of any type and incorporeal undead wink out if they enter an antimagic field. They reappear in the same spot once the field goes away. Time spent winked out counts normally against the duration of the conjuration that is maintaining the creature. If you cast antimagic field in an area occupied by a summoned creature that has spell resistance, you must make a caster level check (1d20 + caster level) against the creature’s spell resistance to make it wink out. (The effects of instantaneous conjurations are not affected by an antimagic field because the conjuration itself is no longer in effect, only its result.)

A normal creature can enter the area, as can normal missiles. Furthermore, while a magic sword does not function magically within the area, it is still a sword (and a masterwork sword at that). The spell has no effect on golems and other constructs that are imbued with magic during their creation process and are thereafter self-supporting (unless they have been summoned, in which case they are treated like any other summoned creatures). Elementals, corporeal undead, and outsiders are likewise unaffected unless summoned. These creatures’ spell-like or supernatural abilities, however, may be temporarily nullified by the field. Dispel magic does not remove the field, though Mage's Disjunction might.

Two or more antimagic fields sharing any of the same space have no effect on each other. Certain spells, such as wall of force, prismatic sphere, and prismatic wall, remain unaffected by antimagic field (see the individual spell descriptions). Artifacts and deities are unaffected by mortal magic such as this.

Should a creature be larger than the area enclosed by the barrier, any part of it that lies outside the barrier is unaffected by the field.

The spell affects creatures in two distinct ways: if the creature is "you" it surrounds it with a barrier, while if the creature is summoned or an incorporeal undead it winks out. Crucially, the magic suppression part is an effect on spells and magical effects, not creatures. Since Hallow, per the quote above, only affects creatures, it can only either surround said (evil) creatures with a barrier, or make them wink out if they are summoned or incorporeal.

Either effect I think gives you plenty of wiggle room for your goals. :smallwink:

[Malroth]

I suspect this Isn't the DM trying to get actual advice, but the player who made it and thus feels it is a legitimate item who is going to use this information to try to keep the DM from fixing the game.

[Emperor Tippy]

I would make the dragon that they used it against have a contingency plan in place and now his soul is in the thing and its an intelligent item that is hostile to the party.

Have the dragons cultists be trying to recover said item so that they can resurrect him and have the party ignorant of the knifes status.

When the party tries to remake the knife tell them that it doesn't work as the only reason it worked in the first place was the interference of the dragon who's divination's/foresight had told him what was going to happen and thus took steps to ensure his survival.

[Lightlawbliss]

I would make the dragon that they used it against have a contingency plan in place and now his soul is in the thing and its an intelligent item that is hostile to the party.

Have the dragons cultists be trying to recover said item so that they can resurrect him and have the party ignorant of the knifes status.

When the party tries to remake the knife tell them that it doesn't work as the only reason it worked in the first place was the interference of the dragon who's divination's/foresight had told him what was going to happen and thus took steps to ensure his survival.

I see the artificer told you the story.

[Emperor Tippy]

I see the artificer told you the story.

Yep. I didn't suggest rule breaking daggers to deal with their problem however. :smallwink:

[Nettlekid]

I see the artificer told you the story.

Thanks for telling us though, so we could actually offer suggestions and aid based on the story to this point and work it into a narrative instead of taking blind stabs at whatever might serve to justify poorly-planned shattered rules and get shut down at every turn. Very constructive of you, cheers.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Thanks for telling us though, so we could actually offer suggestions and aid based on the story to this point and work it into a narrative instead of taking blind stabs at whatever might serve to justify poorly-planned shattered rules and get shut down at every turn. Very constructive of you, cheers.

+1

I didn't give the best advice (but it was something like what I would have done as a DM) but I can't help feel this way too.

[Karoht]

Thanks for telling us though, so we could actually offer suggestions and aid based on the story to this point and work it into a narrative instead of taking blind stabs at whatever might serve to justify poorly-planned shattered rules and get shut down at every turn. Very constructive of you, cheers.
Your sarcasm is showing. :smallwink:

[Lord of Shadows]

Things that make you go Hmmmmmmm...

[Giddonihah]

MAD, have the enemy come up with a Unhallow Daggar of Antimagic vs Good, mass produce them, be sure to thank the players for the idea. Rule that when the two fields collide they cancel each other out, and instead effect true neutral, just to mess with the dumb undecided.

Even if your players arent good alignment, this could be a fun plot point to explore a new super weapons impact.