"Your magic will not aid you here!"

[Afgncaap5]

I've heard the line (or lines like it) in the title many times over my career as a reader, watcher, and player of fantasy books, stories, movies, TV shows, video games, and the like. I don't think I've ever heard it in a D&D game, though.

The reasons feel obvious to me: generally magic can either "work" or "not work" depending on the nature of the plane that you're in or depending on the presence or absence of things like antimagic fields. Lines structured like this one tend to have some bragging behind them, usually with the unstated follow-up of "...but MY magic WILL!" You can sort of see things like this in some planar traits, at least, that go beyond antimagic or wild magic or things like that. On the plane of fire, my Fire spells will be more powerful and my Cold spells will be less powerful, etc. They usually won't be nonfunctional, though.

So... is there anything in D&D that allows for this kind of selective magic halting? Can a Psion journey to the Hive-Mountain of the Wasp Queen and suddenly realize that her psychic powers are being completely blocked off by the more powerful will of the queen? Maybe a wizard going to a sacred grove and suddenly being denied his spells thanks to the presence of the sacred Starfall Pine, but noting that the Sorcerer with the green-dragon blood is able to cast just fine? Or maybe even the Cleric of one kingdom kicking in the door of the throne room of the land he's just conquered, only to have the bardic Fool denounce his claim to the throne and suddenly have the Cleric's ties to the divine severed while his false claim remains?

These are all obviously mostly story-related things, and I've got nothing against them appearing in games with a handy application of DM Fiat, but I'm curious to know if I've overlooked any ways of simulating that kind of highly situational magic denial.

[Heliomance]

The trouble is, that sort of thing essentially boils down to "Sorry Dave, your character's useless for this session."

Which is no fun at all for Dave.

[danielxcutter]

I've heard the line (or lines like it) in the title many times over my career as a reader, watcher, and player of fantasy books, stories, movies, TV shows, video games, and the like. I don't think I've ever heard it in a D&D game, though.

The reasons feels obvious to me: generally magic can either "work" or "not work" depending on the nature of the plane that you're in or depending on the presence or absence of things like antimagic fields. Lines structured like this one tend to have some bragging behind them, usually with the unstated follow-up of "...but MY magic WILL!" You can sort of see things like this in some planar traits, at least, that go beyond antimagic or wild magic or things like that. On the plane of fire, my Fire spells will be more powerful and my Cold spells will be less powerful, etc. They usually won't be nonfunctional, though.

So... is there anything in D&D that allows for this kind of selective magic halting? Can a Psion journey to the Hive-Mountain of the Wasp Queen and suddenly realize that he psychic powers are being completely blocked off by the more powerful will of the queen? Maybe a wizard going to a sacred grove and suddenly being denied his spells thanks to the presence of the sacred Starfall Pine, but noting that the Sorcerer with the green-dragon blood is able to cast just fine? Or maybe even the Cleric of one kingdom kicking in the door of the throne room of the land he's just conquered, only to have the bardic Fool denounce his claim to the throne and suddenly have the Cleric's ties to the divine severed while his false claim remains?

These are all obviously mostly story-related things, and I've got nothing against them appearing in games with a handy application of DM Fiat, but I'm curious to know if I've overlooked any ways of simulating that kind of highly situational magic denial.

I've heard of a spell called Antimagic Ray, but I don't know if it works that way.

[Zombimode]

So... is there anything in D&D that allows for this kind of selective magic halting? Can a Psion journey to the Hive-Mountain of the Wasp Queen and suddenly realize that he psychic powers are being completely blocked off by the more powerful will of the queen? Maybe a wizard going to a sacred grove and suddenly being denied his spells thanks to the presence of the sacred Starfall Pine, but noting that the Sorcerer with the green-dragon blood is able to cast just fine? Or maybe even the Cleric of one kingdom kicking in the door of the throne room of the land he's just conquered, only to have the bardic Fool denounce his claim to the throne and suddenly have the Cleric's ties to the divine severed while his false claim remains?

In the Forgotten Realms a Dead Magic Zone generally surpresses the Weave... but if you are a Shadow Weave user, you can cast just fine.

[Coretron03]

I am pretty sure you could use a selective antimagic field (via selective spell metamagic) that excludeds the caster, maybe using some other metamagic to extend the range? Not sure on specifics if anything else is included beyond that, just somthing I hear about alot and sounds relevant to this.

Also, I am pretty sure a spell somewhere lets you cast a spell in a antimagic field which would allow the caster of the field to use magic while the target likely can't.

[Afgncaap5]

The trouble is, that sort of thing essentially boils down to "Sorry Dave, your character's useless for this session."

Which is no fun at all for Dave.

DAVE'S GOT IT COMING!

I mean... yeah, you're right. Dave can't just be shut out. I feel like this is a "DM's responsibility" thing, where a DM should be able to make a story fun and engaging even if a player suddenly discovers that a key class feature is suddenly nonfunctional (the party Rogue shaking the hand of the last Rogue who made it through the Hall of Ten-Thousand Locks only to be incapable of unlocking or disarming anything because of the poison-tipped pin in the older rogue's palm that paralyzed the hand muscles, etc.) But, as has been wisely pointed out before, you shouldn't really rely on good DMs to patch up flaws in a system even in the name of potential awesomeness. At least, not in RAW.



In the Forgotten Realms a Dead Magic Zone generally surpresses the Weave... but if you are a Shadow Weave user, you can cast just fine.

Actually, yeah. Thanks for the reminder, that's close to the same effect. You basically have two forms of magic ("Weave" and the "Shadow Weave" filling in all the gaps) so it's plausible in-story to have areas where one would function but not the other. This nicely shifts the onus from DM Fiat and Story to Campaign World and Setting, which is a shade closer to RAW.

Thinking about other established settings now, I'm remembering this kind of thing and its opposite in Eberron: the Mournland won't allow natural healing or your typical healing spells to work... but that doesn't mean that that you can't heal yourself with a Goodberry spell or a flavorful goblet of Goodberry Wine.

[Crake]

I am pretty sure you could use a selective antimagic field (via selective spell metamagic) that excludeds the caster, maybe using some other metamagic to extend the range? Not sure on specifics if anything else is included beyond that, just somthing I hear about alot and sounds relevant to this.

Pretty much this, with a couple of addendums: The selective affects you, allowing you to gain the benefit of your items and retain your ability to cast spells, but it doesn't affect your magic itself, so anything that would normally be suppressed in an AMF is still suppressed. That basically means you're limited to instantaneous conjurations like the energy orb spells, or buff spells on yourself.

If the players know that the enemy utilizes things like this, it would be reasonable for the party to perhaps go questing for a couple of scrolls of invoke magic to allow the mage to cast a few key spells at just the right moments, making him not completely useless.

[Inevitability]

There's a number of monsters that have SR against specific classes or magic sources. For example, Skybleeders have SR that only applies to druid spells.

It's still a way to weaken a specific player, but at least they're not completely useless now.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Mythals can suppress individual spells, schools, subschools, energy type, and descriptors. It can suppress or allow them for certain individuals only. There is no limit to the number of effects you can place in a single mythal. Mythals are not automatically affected by antimagic.

Well, that's epic magic for you.

[Deophaun]

Suppressing field will do it, provided "your magic" is conjuration and "my magic" is evocation, or something like that.

[Eldan]

Old second edition Planescape books had long lists for every plane, listing which spells didn't work and which worked differently. A spellcaster needed to be quite careful, then.

[Quertus]

The trouble is, that sort of thing essentially boils down to "Sorry Dave, your character's useless for this session."

Which is no fun at all for Dave.

Yeah, this kind of thing is generally a pretty bad plan. Unfun game is unfun.


Old second edition Planescape books had long lists for every plane, listing which spells didn't work and which worked differently. A spellcaster needed to be quite careful, then.

Or intelligent enough to have the appropriate spell keys, to let their magic function normally on that plane.

EDIT: Q&A's Adventurers' Guild, founded by Quertus and Anonymous, sells, among other things, Q&A's Guide to the Planes: Spell Keys, volumes I - ... I forget how many. Volume I details the general concept, and tells you what physical components the wizard can add to their spells to make them ignore the effects of each plane. Later volumes detail the changes to casting the individual spells necessary to ignore planar influence without using physical spell keys.

[Anthrowhale]

Pretty much this, with a couple of addendums: The selective affects you, allowing you to gain the benefit of your items and retain your ability to cast spells, but it doesn't affect your magic itself, so anything that would normally be suppressed in an AMF is still suppressed. That basically means you're limited to instantaneous conjurations like the energy orb spells, or buff spells on yourself.

Selective[you] AMF only avoids the effect of AMF on _you_ (i.e. no winking out if you are incorporeal undead). There is nothing in Selective Spell implying that avoids the effect of AMF on personal spells or items so those are suppressed as normal.

A high level caster using Suppressing Field and Arcane Mastery seems closer to a desirable effect.

[Vogie]

The trouble is, that sort of thing essentially boils down to "Sorry Dave, your character's useless for this session."

Which is no fun at all for Dave.

Only if you pull it out of your ass with no warning. If you let the players no ahead of time - "Listen, we're going to be encountering areas with limited access to magic on occasion. You need to build your characters less like Cyclops, more like Batman"

As long as they know ahead of time so the casters don't min-max into a one-trick pony, it can still be fun to make them try to figure out fights without their main schtick

[Flickerdart]

As long as they know ahead of time so the casters don't min-max into a one-trick pony
The casters are not the ones in danger of being one-trick ponies.

[Jack_Simth]

The casters are not the ones in danger of being one-trick ponies.
I don't know... is "able to do just about everything" considered one trick?

[Afgncaap5]

Even if we count the vast array of cosmic powers afforded by vancian spellcasting to be a single trick, I'd say that the spellcasters still have plenty to offer to a situation.

Spellcraft checks can still allow a spellcaster's magical expertise to be useful (especially in a situation where an enemy spellcaster has nullified their typical magic capabilities). Being able to examine the mystical walls of a cave and determine that it would remove a werewolf's vulnerability to silver could easily tip off the caster to the ideal place for an ambush to happen and might help to guide the party down a different route. Craft (Alchemy) sadly takes a week under most uses, but it remains a non-magical capability that requires magical capabilities that might be in play depending on the scenario.

Moving into a few class specific features: a sorcerer or wizard may well still have a familiar capable of spying, communicating, or even doing a bit of fighting. And if you're a bard, well... your music might no longer be effective along with your spells, but I'm guessing your bardic knowledge will be useful (this helps with DMs who let Bardic Knowledge be different from a sort of Knowledge (All) skill in my experience, though YMMV.)

[Coretron03]

I don't know... is "able to do just about everything" considered one trick?

Of course it is. Fighters aren't one trick ponies because they have 2 tricks: Damage and sucking :smallyuk:.

[Troacctid]

I'm running an Adventurer's League module next week that has dead magic and wild magic zones in it. The module contains the following guidance:

The areas aren’t defined in the map or the encounter, simply designate one to three areas on the map as being affected by unstable Weave. They should be large enough to present a challenge, but not so large or numerous as to render spellcasting characters ineffective.
I think this sounds like a pretty good philosophy.

[ben-zayb]

A Monk in campaigns too many to mention.

What? Did it have to be spellcasting?

[Jack_Simth]

I've heard the line (or lines like it) in the title many times over my career as a reader, watcher, and player of fantasy books, stories, movies, TV shows, video games, and the like. I don't think I've ever heard it in a D&D game, though. There's a couple of spells for it. Antimagic Ray has already been mentioned; Divine Interdiction blocks channeling and domain powers; a simple Silence spell does wonders vs. any caster who isn't specifically prepared for it.... there's also Anathema from Champions of Ruin.

[Mato]

So... is there anything in D&D that allows for this kind of selective magic halting?Shadow weaver users can continue to cast even if the main magic weave is missing by using the shadow weave (note, dead magic zones prevent both), selective antimagic lets you determine who is affected by your AMF, using invoke magic on a few buffs before walking into an AMF allows the wizard to fly around while using alter self, clerics of Mystra can freely cast whatever they want in AMFs anyway, and stuff like antimagic ray or ocular spell let you hit a specific someone with an AMF.

That help?

[Inevitability]

clerics of Mystra can freely cast whatever they want in AMFs anyway

To clarify, as I'm sure someone is going to read this the wrong way, this doesn't mean your wizard 17 can dip cleric and be forever immune to AMF's. This ability is gained through the Initiate of Mystra feat, which in addition to requiring cleric 3 also forces a (reasonably easy) CL check to cast in dead magic zones, with a slightly harder check to cast in AMFs.

[Troacctid]

Don't forget Spellguard of Silverymoon, which allows you to exclude a single type and/or subtype of creature from the effects of your spells.

[Inevitability]

Don't forget Spellguard of Silverymoon, which allows you to exclude a single type and/or subtype of creature from the effects of your spells.

Ah, the good old 'racist magic'.

[Quertus]

Only if you pull it out of your ass with no warning. If you let the players no ahead of time - "Listen, we're going to be encountering areas with limited access to magic on occasion. You need to build your characters less like Cyclops, more like Batman"

As long as they know ahead of time so the casters don't min-max into a one-trick pony, it can still be fun to make them try to figure out fights without their main schtick

As much as people may expect it to pain me to say, "realistic" and "fun" do, technically, have different definitions. :smallwink:

Personally, I enjoy playing mages. That's part of what I find fun. Telling me that we're going to be encountering anti-magic in some form or another will simply encourage me to invest more resources into keeping my shtick relevant, simple encourage me to min-max more or optimize harder.

But, yes, when encountered infrequently, it can be an interesting tactical challenge to figure out how to contribute when your main shtick is somehow inapplicable - even if that shtick is, say, "talking to people" or "hitting things". But if it's more than, "your skills tell you that the sensor detects magic. You need to cross this bridge without using magic", it runs the risk of unfun times. Few players in earlier editions of D&D seemed to enjoy being forced to sit on the sidelines because "you need a magical weapon to hurt this creature. You don't have a magical weapon". Campaigns that heavily featured such, that divided parties into "contributers" and "benchwarmers" were, well, unfun. We should, IMO, avoid tactics with such a proven failure rate.

[Anthrowhale]

In the OP, Catapsi (www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/catapsi.htm) by the Hive Queen has a diminished version of the desired effect: losing access to the top two levels of powers in a 30' radius emanation.

I don't know any way to do wizards can't cast but sorcerers can. The closest I can think of is the situation where Otiluke's Suppressing Field is used at a high level for each school suppressing all spells except Universal spells. Since the Sorcerer has Arcane Fusion this does not really block them.

If the bard UMD's a high level Anathema that would be a somewhat overpowered version of the effect. Alternatively, an Evil Weather[Violet Rain] has a lesser effect in time with a greater effect in quantity. Divine Denial is also an interesting feat in that it allows you to make a Will save against Holy Word. That has a weaker effect in combination with a high-saves Evasion + Mettle build.