Cleric Spell, Celestial Brilliance v undead dungeons. A cheap crutch?

[Tindragon]

Our cleric in our group, is a human DMM Persist build, with RSOP PrC, who recently discovered the Celestial Brilliance spell. With the light descriptor, it's bigger, and he's currently level 13 caster (15 over all, for some reason he took the reptilian template up front on this character). He is currently questing to gain enough favor for a divine miracle to become full human. (he realized his mistake with the template around level 10).

Specifically, he is using this spell in the dungeons, to great affect. The Warlock/Sorc/Arcane theurge in the party has a Rod of Metamagic Maximize (good for 6th level), and with spells duration, area of effect, and max damage (not real high, but 2d6, maxed to 12 per round, no save vs undead like wraiths, shadows etc...) this spell pretty much had them walking easily through the last dungeon. Has anyone else had experience using this, and DM'd against it, how did you have wraiths and shadows react? I basically had them fleeing from it, till cornered, but due to the damage it does, and the party damage and the way to work together, they made short work of everything.

The next few are going to be similar. Obviously, dispel can counter, but typical undead don't have that. They will be going after a cabal of Liches, in their home lairs. This will be deadly on it's own. I've explained the danger and deadliness of the quest. They know of 1 lich so far, and had a brief, very lucky encounter with it already, forcing it to retreat, thanks to some awesome initiative rolls, and the warlock/sorc/theurge being able to quickly blast it, and the heavy hitter in the party, managing a leap attack that, although not a possibility of critical, was devastating.

This group has been very very lucky for a long time now. And I think it's got them fairly big headed. I don't want to TPK them, but I know they are going to crutch on this spell, and the moment it's dispelled, they'll likely be in a situation/area where wraiths, shadows, and some dread wraiths can mob them. Supported by a necromancer spec'd lich, in it's home turf.

I foresee a TPK in spite of my warnings, and giving them ample time to prep.

[Gildedragon]

So note that Celestial Brilliance is suppressed if the object it is cast on goes into an area of magical darkness (the darkness is likewise suppressed). It only dispels if cast at the source of he magical darkness.
Any undead heavy dungeon ought have patches of Darksand or other sources of magical darkness, if only to negate mundane torches.

Have the undead flee into crevices that block the light, and when the PCs pass they follow from within the shadows

[stack]

Can't the incorporeal undead just duck into a wall and wait for the much to dispel? It have a dispel trap if they aren't good about checking for such things.

[ATHATH]

Ensure that the Cleric never finds out about the spell Holy Star.

[Fizban]

Celestial Brilliance is clearly more powerful than any other similar spell printed. It's the mirror of Damning Darkness from the Book of Vile Darkness, except with even more duration (day/level equal to Deeper Darkness's duration rather than Damning's 10 min/level), and the latter is a "screw you evil is better" spell (or at least it was until BoED made a bunch of "screw you good is better" spells). As long as you're not using Damning Darkness you're well within your rights to disallow Celestial Brilliance, or you could at least nerf the duration to match. Of course there are other cleric spells he can persist to similar effect, usually with a smaller radius and potentially friendly fire, but then it's not the perfect spell anymore.

You don't have to get the object into the area of darkness, CB specifically says that the overlapping areas negate each other.

Stack is quite correct, incorporeal undead can just drop into the walls/floor making them ridiculously hard to kill if they're trying to hide, and since they have int scores they're not going to hang around in unstoppable damage. If you weren't aware of this then uh, you've been doin' it wrong mate. Unless you can destroy the terrain they're hiding in (most likely a solid 5' cube of stone), and then have someone hit them before they move with their readied action, you aren't killing them. The only reason they usually die is live bait+mad hunger. If ordered to wait for the signal the party has no way of even detecting them hiding in the floor (it only takes 1' of stone to block Detect Undead) until they pop out and murder everyone. Sound conducts through solid objects just fine and they have no ears to mess things up so there should be no trouble alerting the gank squad when it's go time. The Test of Spite was a char-op challenge dungeon, and the deadliest creatures were bog-standard Shadows directed by an intelligent foe. Partially due to some critical build errors, but mostly because of the above.

Since you've spoilered the rest:
Clerics can be Liches, simply have layers of Deeper Darkness spells covering their turf forcing the players to dispel many high caster level effects in order to use it. If by Lich you mean wizard Lich, there are still plenty of ways to get access to Deeper Darkness and Celestial Brilliance is a good reason to want it. A single Nightshade of any type can cast it at-will, in addition to being a high tier undead actually worth fighting. At 15th/17th they could use Utterdark instead, which doesn't mess with the bad guy's attacks, can't be dispelled by light at all, and has a spread range so long they won't be dispelling the center.

As for a TPK, well sometimes that's what you've gotta do. If you've got someone swaggering around with a DMM persist cleric crutching on a specialized spell who thinks they can walk into a Lich hive then what better way to teach them the lesson than giving them what they want? Unless you actually cut off their escape by blocking teleportation then it's very unlikely you'll actually kill everyone. Incidentally, the spell that does that the best is Forbiddance, and the massive pile of damage the party takes upon entering is quite the deterrent even if you don't shape the area to hit them multiple times. If they're maximizing long duration spells go ahead and metamagic it too, it's only 6th level and permanent to boot so they don't even need a Cleric to still be around. Filling the place with constant damage effects will continue evening the odds/making them think twice: temperature control spells to produce severe or worse cold/heat, water filled passages, clouds of poisonous gas, no air in general, basically everything that doesn't bug undead should be present in force.

How many Liches are there? No single caster has any business attacking another on their home turf, and the word "cabal" implies a heck of a lot more than the usual 1-2 casters in the PC party. With numbers, home, and probably level advantage for the Liches, the party shouldn't be able to win that by any means. I would hope the mission is "get thing and get out" and the players are taking it the wrong way.

[Gildedragon]

For architecture: there is a stone in Underdark, shadestone?, that reduces the range of [light] spells brought into the area. Use that. If the BBEG uses shades regularly and has any brains they will use that; and dark-clearstone a sort of one way mirror for dark-vision (opaque to normal sight, transparent to dark vision)

[mabriss lethe]

If you want to "soft ban" it, I suggest the character gets a divine visitation. His God offers to transform the cleric into a full human on the spot in exchange for forswearing the use of certain spells for a year and a day. Should he ever use any of the spells banned, he immediately and irrevocably reverts to reptilian form.

[LTwerewolf]

Pelor would not likely have a follower stop using a potent light spell as used against darkness and undead. In fact he would more likely demand its use more. Solve it OOC. "Hey <player>, this spell is really imbalanced compared to other similar spells, so we either need to reduce its duration to bring it in line, or we need to scrap the spell."

[Gildedragon]

Pelor would not likely have a follower stop using a potent light spell as used against darkness and undead. In fact he would more likely demand its use more.

Nah. Teach human self reliance and adaptability. Using the same spell over and over predictably is going to get them killed (I can think of a couple easy ways to deal with that and I ain't a Lich) so Pelor asks them to learn to use more tools

[LTwerewolf]

Nah. Teach human self reliance and adaptability. Using the same spell over and over predictably is going to get them killed (I can think of a couple easy ways to deal with that and I ain't a Lich) so Pelor asks them to learn to use more tools

That's entirely reasonable, but forbidding the use of it at all also doesn't teach productive use. It's also a days/lvl spell, so it's not like most of the time resources are even being spent on it. It's trying to fit an explanation as to why they can't use it where it doesn't fit.

[ExLibrisMortis]

There are ways to become immune to specific spells. Unless the party has some very special stealth abilities, the cabal of liches most likely knows how they fight. It'd be fairly easy to cast spell immunity on a bunch of shadows/wraiths, before sending them in to eat the party. You can also cast deeper darkness on an incorporeal bracelet, and give one to each wraith.

[Gildedragon]

There are ways to become immune to specific spells. Unless the party has some very special stealth abilities, the cabal of liches most likely knows how they fight. It'd be fairly easy to cast spell immunity on a bunch of shadows/wraiths, before sending them in to eat the party. You can also cast deeper darkness on an incorporeal bracelet, and give one to each wraith.

Or simply casting darkness or no-light on some of the undead. No-light is a cantrip and it wholly prevents celestial brilliance from working.

[Tindragon]

Can't the incorporeal undead just duck into a wall and wait for the much to dispel? It have a dispel trap if they aren't good about checking for such things.



Damn, I knew I was messing that up... I reread it,


An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid objects, but must remain adjacent to the object’s exterior, and so cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own. It can sense the presence of creatures or objects within a square adjacent to its current location, but enemies have total concealment (50% miss chance) from an incorporeal creature that is inside an object. In order to see farther from the object it is in and attack normally, the incorporeal creature must emerge. An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object it only has cover, so a creature outside with a readied action could strike at it as it attacks. An incorporeal creature cannot pass through a force effect.


When I read it over I read it as they couldn't even enter solid stuff larger than they...

Makes it simple enough, and yes, thanks for all darkness tips, and overlapping darkness.

We play again Saturday night, they decided to take some time 'off' to get prepp'd and craft, of course, the lich is now going to have time to scry them and prep as well. And yeah, he's going to have darkness and such ready, and of course I can over the wraiths and shadows attacking from within the walls in the tight hallways.

[Willie the Duck]

Yep. Although note that (btb), they would still take damage if within 60', even though the wall etc. would stop the physical light. Most DMs I know would make a different ruling, of course, but you're the DM, so rule as you please.

[Gildedragon]

Yep. Although note that (btb), they would still take damage if within 60', even though the wall etc. would stop the physical light. Most DMs I know would make a different ruling, of course, but you're the DM, so rule as you please.

They don't take the penalty. They have to be within the bright light. The wall stops the light.
They do take double the standard light sensitivity penalty though

[Necroticplague]

Yep. Although note that (btb), they would still take damage if within 60', even though the wall etc. would stop the physical light. Most DMs I know would make a different ruling, of course, but you're the DM, so rule as you please.

The 'different ruling' is correct, because walls stop line of effect.

[JNAProductions]

Seconding solving it OOC. Talk to the player, say "Hey, this spell is kinda making everything a cake-walk. I want to challenge you, but I don't want to be cheap. Could we come to an agreement about not using the spell?"

[Fizban]

You know, I normally assume the Shadows should rise up to avoid the 50% miss chance, but with enough of them there's really no need to bother. Up to 8 could target a particular square, and while all the rolling involved can easily result in survival there's a far more important advantage: since each attacks on it's own turn and is only target-able for that attack, you can only hit one Shadow per readied action. With a mass of permanent Shadows it's far more advantageous to have them all hide in the floor and stay there to reduce attrition, especially you have have them wait until you've sealed/BFC'd the party in place.

Plus you get to describe "hands of darkness grasping out of the floor," which might bait them into thinking it's not a creature they can fight, rather than stuff obviously emerging to do battle.