What spells become (more) OP when CL cap is removed?

[Jarmen4u]

In the campaign I play in, the DM has removed caps from spells, i.e. Fireball's cap of 10d6 damage, so a 12th level caster would cast a fireball that deals 12d6 damage.

I'm more curious about damage spells, but even buffs or other spells are relevant, and I'd like to hear about them. What spells get way better (pushing must-have levels) with this caveat?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

It depends on your caster level, i.e. your build and your character level. Something like this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?246510-Theurgic-Specalist-and-Necromancy-why-has-nobody-caught-onto-this/page2#56) may be what you're looking for.

[Venger]

What possessed your dm to do this?

priya (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280365-Priya-the-Prismatic-Priestess-Buffs-Across-the-Spectrum) will give you a pretty good place to start.

what list is your guy pulling from?

[Jarmen4u]

I'm looking for near-epic or epic scaling, it's a long running world with at least a few retired epic PCs floating around.

I can't really explain his reasoning, but he's an old DM and he likes to make magic more powerful, so things like caps are ignored, and there's a custom mana system he uses in place of spells/day. Spells can be from any 3.5 material, even Dragon Mags.

[TotallyNotEvil]

In what will surely be made to look like chump change, Elemental Darts could get some crazy damage out of a second level spell.

As in, easily topping Harm/Disintegrate. With a CL booster or two to get you to, say, 10 darts, you are looking at ~245 damage, save for half, out of a second level slot. Best of all, no Metamagic, no shenanigans.

Enough to one-shot, say, a Pit Fiend. Just repeat if it makes this save, a quicken Rod is dirt cheap at any point you might be expected to face one.

[Jarmen4u]

In what will surely be made to look like chump change, Elemental Darts could get some crazy damage out of a second level spell.

As in, easily topping Harm/Disintegrate. With a CL booster or two to get you to, say, 10 darts, you are looking at ~245 damage, save for half, out of a second level slot. Best of all, no Metamagic, no shenanigans.

Enough to one-shot, say, a Pit Fiend. Just repeat if it makes this save, a quicken Rod is dirt cheap at any point you might be expected to face one.

This is certainly along the right track, though that spell only allows one dart per target.

[Dimers]

Lots of skill boosters get more interesting without caps. Spell Vulnerability to reduce SR. General of Undeath for more minions. Wouldn't hurt to keep a Maximized Junglerazer in your pocket, in case of fey/plants/animals/vermin.

Plenty of spells have no caps anyway, like Kelpstrand. (Which pairs up nicely with Owl's Insight, I might add.)

I guess my best contribution would be Languor. Not great against beatsticks, but those don't tend to be the most dangerous enemies. With high CL, anything corporeal with non-ridiculous Strength would be denied physical actions with no save against that part of the spell.

[AnonymousPepper]

I'm gonna throw out Orb of Force.

Sure, it doesn't crap out an obscene amount of damage - just d6/CL to a single target - but the thing about Orb of Force is that just about nothing resists it, as a ranged touch attack with good range.

Antimagic field? It's an instantaneous conjuration, it doesn't care; the actual force projectile is not magical (which, you could argue, also says no to Globe of Invulnerability and Spell Turning - the orb is not a spell effect; the spell only conjures the ball of force, which is itself mundane).
Energy resistance or immunity? There's no such thing as force resistance.
Spell resistance? It's SR:No.
Armor? It's a touch attack.
Incorporeality? Force attacks don't care (this also shuts down Greater Blink, which would otherwise be a prime counter).

The absolute only things that protect against Orb of Force are touch AC (which is notoriously hard to pump, and can be countered with a quickened True Strike), Forceward - which explicitly cancels all force attacks - and spells like Friendly Fire which prevent ranged attacks from hitting in the first place. Or, I suppose, a Celerity into [spell that breaks line of effect like Wall of X goes here] combo. And miss chance (Mirror and Greater Mirror Image, Blur, etc), though there are plenty of ways around that.

The balancing factor for Orb of Force versus the other Orb spells, and direct damage spells in general, is that it's capped at 10d6 at CL10 (the other orbs cap out at CL15) and somewhat less significantly doesn't do anything besides damage (whereas the other Orbs have small rider effects).

If you remove the caster level cap from Orb of Force, it becomes much, much, much more busted than it already is, because it becomes a viable source of damage without Mailman metamagic and action economy shenanigans at high levels, where otherwise enemy HP starts scaling beyond the point where Orb of Force does much useful damage on its own. 35 average damage is relatively little against a 300HP baddie, unless you chuck an Avasculate at it first to cut its HP in half, at which point it becomes acceptable (granted, Avasculate is a very common pairing with Orb of Force normally for precisely this reason; it helps that the -1/2HP effect is no save and is also a touch attack, though it is SR:Yes, and the fort save against stun is just gravy). A more or less guaranteed, unresistable, undodgeable -70HP at level 20, on the other hand, is good on its own, and against a target whose HP has been halved, that's brutal.

[Venger]

Energy resistance or immunity? There's no such thing as force resistance.
There actually is, but your point that it's rare enough not to be a serious issue for you stands.

Incorporeality? Force attacks don't care (this also shuts down Greater Blink, which would otherwise be a prime counter).[/quote]
Greater blink actually makes you ethereal, not incorporeal, but again, ethereal monsters can indeed still get hurt by force effects


The absolute only things that protect against Orb of Force are touch AC (which is notoriously hard to pump, and can be countered with a quickened True Strike), Forceward - which explicitly cancels all force attacks - and spells like Friendly Fire which prevent ranged attacks from hitting in the first place. Or, I suppose, a Celerity into [spell that breaks line of effect like Wall of X goes here] combo. And miss chance (Mirror and Greater Mirror Image, Blur, etc), though there are plenty of ways around that.
scintillating scales (alongside commensurate na buffs) are the preferred method of dealing with touch attacks, but unless you already have a high na mod, it's unlikely to help much.

ray deflection completely shuts you down, but that's true for pretty much anything.

orb of force is a solid choice.

[AnonymousPepper]

Wait, what has force resistance? There's force immunity on Force Dragons and that's about it as far as I know. (And to be fair, if you're tryna attack a Force Dragon with Orb of Force, you deserve to get wrecked. It'd be like chucking Fireballs at the angry elder fire elemental that's about to chunky salsa you.)

Yeah, I should have said ethereal, although they're similar effects in practice.

Scintillating scales is, as far as I know, the only way to economically pump touch AC, and getting that much natural armor if you don't already have it isn't easy (edit: Ghostform also works if you're a high-charisma caster). I think the most NA I've ever seen a spell generate is 9, which is a non-trivial amount, but not enough, especially not if they can just throw a quickened true strike on the Orb to counter it. Or just Disjoin it, obviously, which is almost never a bad use of an action if you don't care about the loot.

And yeah, Ray Deflection is a thing, but that goes in the same general pool of spells as Friendly Fire (which, honestly, is my preferred option for that sort of spell, especially if you can shenanigan your way into Persisting it).

[Celestia]

Dispel magic looks pretty good without a cap.

[AnonymousPepper]

Dispel magic looks pretty good without a cap.

That one I might shy away from. Spell Theft is just plain better all of the time for dispelling a single target, particularly if you can cast it as a Bard so it's only one level higher, and for AOE purposes at the levels where removing the CL limit on Dispel would matter, it's perfectly valid to just chuck a Disjunction at them off of a scroll instead.

I can see it, but I think there's better stuff out there. Poor Greater Dispel, though. RIP. And Reaving Dispel too.

[The_Snark]

Divine Favor is the first spell that comes to mind. It's not a game-changer, exactly, but it's part of the standard cleric self-buff routine for a reason - and it normally caps at level 9, so making it uncapped can potentially double its output.

Barkskin is also a decent choice. AC tends to be less useful at high levels, but hey, it's a level 2 spell with a long duration, you're not wasting a lot of resources here.

[Venger]

Wait, what has force resistance? There's force immunity on Force Dragons and that's about it as far as I know. (And to be fair, if you're tryna attack a Force Dragon with Orb of Force, you deserve to get wrecked. It'd be like chucking Fireballs at the angry elder fire elemental that's about to chunky salsa you.)

Yeah, I should have said ethereal, although they're similar effects in practice.

Scintillating scales is, as far as I know, the only way to economically pump touch AC, and getting that much natural armor if you don't already have it isn't easy (edit: Ghostform also works if you're a high-charisma caster). I think the most NA I've ever seen a spell generate is 9, which is a non-trivial amount, but not enough, especially not if they can just throw a quickened true strike on the Orb to counter it. Or just Disjoin it, obviously, which is almost never a bad use of an action if you don't care about the loot.

And yeah, Ray Deflection is a thing, but that goes in the same general pool of spells as Friendly Fire (which, honestly, is my preferred option for that sort of spell, especially if you can shenanigan your way into Persisting it).

argent savant's ablate force ability effectively functions as force resistance. again, extremely niche, but it does technically exist.

well, in a normal environment, yes, but now that everything's uncapped, you can just cast tortoise shell or whatever first and then have NI deflection through scintillating scales

[theboss]

Really guys? I'm disappointed.....
None of you said Shapechange??
Shapechange without a CL cap would be the *most* broken spell in d&d because you'll be able to change to any creature in the world as long as it is not unique creature. For example, great wyrm force dragon........

[Venger]

Really guys? I'm disappointed.....
None of you said Shapechange??
Shapechange without a CL cap would be the *most* broken spell in d&d because you'll be able to change to any creature in the world as long as it is not unique creature. For example, great wyrm force dragon........

he said CL cap. shapechange is not affected, since it still has an HD cap independent of the cl

[The_Snark]

Really guys? I'm disappointed.....
None of you said Shapechange??
Shapechange without a CL cap would be the *most* broken spell in d&d because you'll be able to change to any creature in the world as long as it is not unique creature. For example, great wyrm force dragon........

Shapechange already has a pretty high CL cap; removing it only matters to characters who are level 25+. The original poster did ask for near-epic and epic scaling, so I suppose this technically qualifies, but I'm not sure how much it actually helps given how many HD most epic monsters have.

To use your own example, turning into a great wyrm force dragon requires CL 75; I tend to assume the game implodes long before you get to that point.

[Jack_Simth]

A lot of buffs get much better. Divine Insight (5 + CL bonus to an arbitrary skill check), Divine Favor (+1/3 CL Luck to Attack/Damage), Shield of Faith (+2 Deflection, +1 per 6 CL), Magic Vestments (+1 Armor or Shield per 4 CL), Greater Magic Weapon (+1 Enh per 4 CL)... a lot of them get much nicer.

[Goaty14]

How would divine power work out? Like could you bypass epic BaB with it or not?

Skill spells would be pretty neat, +10/3 levels.

[noob]

How would divine power work out? Like could you bypass epic BaB with it or not?

Skill spells would be pretty neat, +10/3 levels.

you already could get bab equal to your character level in epic with divine power.
since the bab is equal not to your cl but to your character level then it does not helps getting more bab than before but you could already get 30 bab at level 30(+5 epic attack throw which does not participate to bab but helps qualifying for prcs)

[Crichton]

If your DM is gonna drop the CL cap on spells, see if you can twist his arm into dropping the max PP spent rule for psionics. If you're not limited to your Manifester Level, you can pump enough points into augmenting the powers to make them somewhat ridiculous.

[Uncle Pine]

he said CL cap. shapechange is not affected, since it still has an HD cap independent of the cl

Actually, he said "caps from spells". This technically means any cap that limits scaling.

Step 1: Prepare consumptive field, as well as blasphemy, dictum, holy word, and/or word of chaos.
Step 2: Acquire bag of rats (or equivalent thereof).
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!!!

Otherwise, the kind of spells you can abuse with this houserule are the same you'd use with Reserves of Strength, so searching for threads about that feat may yield some easy suggestions. I had fun in the past using the aforementioned five as well as mirror image and gembomb.

[Telonius]

I think the real power here isn't going to be from higher-level spells getting rid of CL caps. It's going to be in being able to use 3rd-level spells (Lightning Bolt, Fireball) for the vast majority of direct-damage needs without needing to use higher-level spells to keep the damage relevant. Direct Damage isn't really what the Wizard needs to do, but having a few available is never a bad idea. More high-level spells available means more ways to make the universe's laws cry.

[Jarmen4u]

Actually, he said "caps from spells". This technically means any cap that limits scaling.

Step 1: Prepare consumptive field, as well as blasphemy, dictum, holy word, and/or word of chaos.
Step 2: Acquire bag of rats (or equivalent thereof).
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!!!

Yeah sorry, the title is correct here, it's only the CL cap he ignores. I am curious what that combo would do though, could you explain it briefly?

[Cosi]

Yeah sorry, the title is correct here, it's only the CL cap he ignores. I am curious what that combo would do though, could you explain it briefly?

holy word et al kill anything thing with the wrong alignment descriptor instantly and with no save provided the gap between its HD and your CL is large enough. This makes them enormously effective if you have some way of cheesing your caster level (famously resulting in half of The Wish and The Word (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Wish_and_the_Word_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Bu ild))).

[Uncle Pine]

Yeah sorry, the title is correct here, it's only the CL cap he ignores. I am curious what that combo would do though, could you explain it briefly?

Whoops, my bad then. I must have totally skimmed over the title.

Basically what completely uncapped consumptive field does is setting your hit points, Strength, and CL at NI. This allows you to kill any opponent with less than NI hit die. NI stands for nigh infinity (in other words, arbitrarily high) and it's achieved by sacrificing to the field an arbitrarily high amount of small, insignificant critters (the bag of rats), each of which will give you +1d8 temporary hit points, +2 Strength and increase your CL by 1. For maximum results, use greater consumptive field (which kills anything with less than 10 hit points, so you don't have to set the bag on fire), a "bag" containing something smaller than rats (i.e. worms, or insects), and do the whole process twice: once with consumptive field, the effect of which will only last 1 round/your original caster level, as the duration of a spell is set at the moment of the casting, and a second time with greater consumptive field, which stacks with the former and will have a duration of NI rounds.

[TotallyNotEvil]

This is certainly along the right track, though that spell only allows one dart per target.
... No? Youu can target the darts however you like, explicitly so.

[Pex]

Magic Missile possibly. 10d4 + 10 autohit damage from a 1st level spell slot is asking a lot even for 20th level.

[Celestia]

Magic Missile possibly. 10d4 + 10 autohit damage from a 1st level spell slot is asking a lot even for 20th level.
Especially if you quicken it and get that in addition to your regular action.

[Falontani]

Especially if you quicken it and get that in addition to your regular action.

Magic Missile Mage!

1d4+1 per missile normally
5 missiles max normally
Magic Missile Mage negates shield immunity, adds 2 missiles and sets it to 1d4+2
Ardent Savant ups this to 1d4+3 per missile
Twin Spell + Chain Spell
Innate Spell (shenanigans using heighten spell, earth spell, and psychic reformation)
at Caster Level 20: 36d4+108 unerring force damage

[Jarmen4u]

... No? Youu can target the darts however you like, explicitly so.

Sorry this part confused me:


A single dart can strike only one target.

[Jarmen4u]

Magic Missile Mage!

1d4+1 per missile normally
5 missiles max normally
Magic Missile Mage negates shield immunity, adds 2 missiles and sets it to 1d4+2
Ardent Savant ups this to 1d4+3 per missile
Twin Spell + Chain Spell
Innate Spell (shenanigans using heighten spell, earth spell, and psychic reformation)
at Caster Level 20: 36d4+108 unerring force damage

Ooh, please explain those shenanigans.

[RoboEmperor]

Polymorph and Polymorph any object. Instead of capping at 15hd it's never capped.

As for those who say hd cap =/= CL cap, Fireball also doesn't have a CL cap, they have a damage die cap. Think about that.

[Mato]

Ooh, please explain those shenanigans.Well it is shenanigans, only because the force missile mage doesn't add an extra point of damage. But even if you include his error it only deals 7d4+21 damage to the primary target. And since chain spell can only affect a secondary creature once, up to twenty creatures within 30ft also take 1d4+3. He used an 8th level slot to deal 77 damage to one creature and 10 points to secondary targets.

You are better off just casting chain missile as a plain wizard using a relatively low 3rd level slot. It deals up to 10d4+10 to two targets, and average of 70 to the primary target, and up to 70 damage split up on a number of secondary targets you choose.

[Falontani]

Well it is shenanigans, only because the force missile mage doesn't add an extra point of damage. But even if you include his error it only deals 7d4+21 damage to the primary target. And since chain spell can only affect a secondary creature once, up to twenty creatures within 30ft also take 1d4+3. He used an 8th level slot to deal 77 damage to one creature and 10 points to secondary targets.

You are better off just casting chain missile as a plain wizard using a relatively low 3rd level slot. It deals up to 10d4+10 to two targets, and average of 70 to the primary target, and up to 70 damage split up on a number of secondary targets you choose.

1d4+1 every odd level with no maximum caster level means 10d4+10 at level 19
Force Missile Mage adds 2 missiles to this
12d4+12; I did indeed mistake that it gives a +1 damage per missile as well.

Ardent Savant grants Force Specialization, which gives us +1 damage per dice on all Force Spells
12d4+24

Again I mistakenly said Chain Spell. I meant Repeat Spell. I apologize.
Repeat Spell casts the same magic missile in the round after
24d4+48
Twin Spell casts the spell twice with all variables unchanged
48d4+96

This takes an 8th level spell slot.

Using a combination of Heighten Spell, Earth Spell, and 2 Extra Spell feats (all but the extra spell will be traded away eventually) and Psychic Reformation you can alternately get an arbitrarily high level spell slot. Finally you sacrifice your level 16 spell slot for the ability to cast an 8th level spell at will with Innate Spell. You may now cast a Stilled Twinned Repeat Magic Missile once per round without using any spell slots. Each time you cast the spell it deals 24d4+48 damage, and the round after deals an additional 24d4+48 damage. As per usual you can split your missiles as you see fit with the exception that each target must take 2 out of your 24 missiles.

One could theoretically add empower spell and maximize spell, using an additional 6? spell slots, add quicken using an additional 4, etc. However this gets feat intensive quickly.

Finally the usual Immunity to Magic Missiles that Shield (and various other spells) grants is negated, and you can change your magic missiles to be any element in the off chance that you are fighting a Force Dragon.

Chain Spell is still an amazing spell, but with no maximum caster level it only just holds a candle to magic missile.

[Elkad]

What possessed your dm to do this?

He's an old-school DM. CL caps came from that newfangled 2e version. And then 3.5 added all the crazy CL boosters.


If your DM is gonna drop the CL cap on spells, see if you can twist his arm into dropping the max PP spent rule for psionics. If you're not limited to your Manifester Level, you can pump enough points into augmenting the powers to make them somewhat ridiculous.

Not the same thing. What you are asking would be the same as a CL:25 Wizard using all 8 of his 3rd level slots on one giant fireball doing 200d6 (and scaling the save DC to about 120). Except a Psion could double those numbers again and still have at least 100PP left.

Psi power are already uncapped. And they get ramping DC.

CL25 Fireball (uncapped). 25d6, save DC:13+statmod
CL25 Energy Burst(fire) (as written). 25d6+25, DC:23+statmod

[Zanos]

Polymorph and Polymorph any object. Instead of capping at 15hd it's never capped.

As for those who say hd cap =/= CL cap, Fireball also doesn't have a CL cap, they have a damage die cap. Think about that.
PAO examples support the spell not being capped by HD, because they involve turning things with less HD or none at all into things with more HD.

So PAO is a good one. Turn yourself into a Great Wyrm Prismatic dragon for 70 something int. I think there's an epic Time dragon in a dragon magazine or something with even more intelligence.

Suffer the Flesh is useful for setting up other combos. Lets you deal con damage to yourself to give yourself half that as a CL bonus for one round, but as a personal spell can be persisted. Normal capped at +5.

Dalamar's Lightning Lance is good too. Both the number of lances and damage dice scale with CL.

Ice Darts are okay. 1 dart per 2 CL, 2d4 damage per dart. 20d4 damage from a 2nd level slot isn't bad. Scorching ray is similar.

Extract Gift for extremely high enhancement bonuses to stats.

Dispel Magic.

Scaling bonuses to AC, like from Barkskin, Spiderskin, etc.

Any spell that gets a lot more hits benefits a lot from Knowledge Devotion, since it adds +5 to all the damage rolls.

[SirNibbles]

Dalamar's Lightning Lance is good too. Both the number of lances and damage dice scale with CL.

Ice Darts are okay. 1 dart per 2 CL, 2d4 damage per dart. 20d4 damage from a 2nd level slot isn't bad. Scorching ray is similar.


Maybe I'm misunderstanding the way the use of the snowballs actually works, but Snilloc's Snowball (Unapproachable East, page 52) seems like it would be insane with the limits removed.

Each snowball does 1d6+CL, max +5. Remove that and you've got 1d6+20 at CL 20.

You can get up to 1 snowball per CL (max 5) per casting. Remove the limit and you've got 20 snowballs.

20d6+400 cold damage per casting, with a 1st level spell slot.

[Mato]

20d6+400 cold damage per casting, with a 1st level spell slot.If you use energy substitution to change it to either fire or lightning you can use a mystic ring to increase the damage but another 4d6 giving you 5d6+20 per touch, which deals the same amount of damage again if you also apply energy admixture to it. Then let's throw on a PrC like Falontani keeps trying but we'll use the warmage PrC out of Dragonlance to add an extra three points per die rolled. We'll also add empower spell so it uses a 7th level slot.

Now it deals (10d6+70)+50% per attack action for an average of 3,150 damage per casting. All without using twin, repeat, persist, or arcane fusion. And without theorizing what maximize or quicken can do to it.

But, back to the OP.

Not the same thing. What you are asking would be the same as a CL:25 Wizard using all 8 of his 3rd level slots on one giant fireball doing 200d6 (and scaling the save DC to about 120). Except a Psion could double those numbers again and still have at least 100PP left.

Psi power are already uncapped. And they get ramping DC.
CL25 Fireball (uncapped). 25d6, save DC:13+statmod
CL25 Energy Burst(fire) (as written). 25d6+25, DC:23+statmodPsionic powers are inherently limited to the manifest level of the power, they cannot expend more pp then their ml and in the realm of psionics there are very few ways to increase your ML which is why most people try to ad-hoc the claim that under transparency ml=cl and vice versa (this isn't what transparency actually says you can do).

So your 20th level psion can only spend 20pp dealing around 20d6+20 (90) using the energy spells. But at level 15, four levels lower than the psion, a wizard can cast dalamar's lightning lance to deal 36d6 (126) using a 4th level slot, or 7 "sp". Look at how easy it was to change the outcome of your example by paying attention to the psion's limits and how the wizard can prepare a better spell tomorrow morning. You can also see some of these posts, like how silly throwing snowballs just became and I'm no where near some of the stuff I've seen on the minmaxboards.

[Elkad]

So your 20th level psion can only spend 20pp dealing around 20d6+20 (90) using the energy spells. But at level 15, four levels lower than the psion, a wizard can cast dalamar's lightning lance to deal 36d6 (126) using a 4th level slot, or 7 "sp". Look at how easy it was to change the outcome of your example by paying attention to the psion's limits and how the wizard can prepare a better spell tomorrow morning. You can also see some of these posts, like how silly throwing snowballs just became and I'm no where near some of the stuff I've seen on the minmaxboards.


That's not an apples-apples. Lance is single-target, and has a ranged touch component in addition to the fort:half save. Closest comparison I'm aware of is Energy Missile.

CL:20 Lance (uncapped, both in damage and number of bolts). 4 bolts, ranged touch. 3d6 physical, plus 20d6 electric, save half. DC14 base.
ML:20 Energy Missile. 5 targets. 20d6 each, auto hits, save for half. DC29 base - using electricity, same as Lance, or DC27 if I change energy types to target Fort (target has Evasion maybe?)

If Lance had the one-per-target restriction, (or Energy Missile didn't) I'd take Energy Missile every time. Slightly less one-bolt damage vs the save being 13pts harder and never missing? Yeah, that's worth it.

Leave the target restrictions on, don't give the target any friends to shoot at, but give the target a reasonable touch AC and some miss chance and the much easier save, and even 12d6 physical plus 80d6 electric isn't completely out of line.


Oh, and not sure where you got that 7SP bit. Using Spell Points it would cost 20, same as power points. Given a 30 int, the Wizard has 370 points. The Psion has 20% more at 443.


Stacking metamagic (or CL buffs) is a whole different subject.

[Zanos]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the way the use of the snowballs actually works, but Snilloc's Snowball (Unapproachable East, page 52) seems like it would be insane with the limits removed.

Each snowball does 1d6+CL, max +5. Remove that and you've got 1d6+20 at CL 20.

You can get up to 1 snowball per CL (max 5) per casting. Remove the limit and you've got 20 snowballs.

20d6+400 cold damage per casting, with a 1st level spell slot.
Can you throw all the snowballs in one action? The way the spell is written it sounds like throwing them is a separate thing.

[theboss]

he said CL cap. shapechange is not affected, since it still has an HD cap independent of the cl

Shapechange allowes you change to a creature with HD equals to your CL, which means, you can change to anything if the CL cap is removed.


Shapechange already has a pretty high CL cap; removing it only matters to characters who are level 25+. The original poster did ask for near-epic and epic scaling, so I suppose this technically qualifies, but I'm not sure how much it actually helps given how many HD most epic monsters have.


Didn't notice that, you're right.
But when we are talking about the most OP spell in the game when CL is removed that Shapechange is defentily the answer.



To use your own example, turning into a great wyrm force dragon requires CL 75; I tend to assume the game implodes long before you get to that point.


I didn't chose a spell on how you can break the game with the lowest spell level when CL cap is removed, I chose it simply because it appears to me the strongest of them all. Of course you can break the game long before you get to level 75 or get to 75 caster level by any means.

[Rijan_Sai]

Can you throw all the snowballs in one action? The way the spell is written it sounds like throwing them is a separate thing.

After reading the spell, I believe you are right: 1 snowball/round for CL rounds. Any unused snowballs would be lost. (With the original limit of Max 5 snowballs, it would still last up to CL rounds, but expire after the last ball was thrown.)

[kardar233]

If you’ve already boosted your CL, Holy Star gives a free action 1/2CL scaling attack on top of several other bonuses. I think that’s likely the action-cheapest multi-use spell you could use for things that don’t deserve a spell slot.

I’ll check my Persistomancy lists in a bit for other gems but Priya (cited above) covers most bases.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Actually, he said "caps from spells". This technically means any cap that limits scaling.

Step 1: Prepare Persisted, Sculpted greater consumptive field, as well as blasphemy, dictum, holy word, and/or word of chaos.
Step 2: Acquire bag of rats (or equivalent thereof). Cast summon swarm.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!!!Summon a spider swarm. +20,000 Str and (likely) capping out your CL with a single round of summoning is definitely better than tossing a few rats at a time. And since it's Sculpted, you can form it as a cone and aim it at the ground beneath you when not in use.

[Jarmen4u]

Summon a spider swarm. +20,000 Str and (likely) capping out your CL with a single round of summoning is definitely better than tossing a few rats at a time. And since it's Sculpted, you can form it as a cone and aim it at the ground beneath you when not in use.

I really like the consumptive field ideas, I'll have to pocket them for another game though as the world/party are both extremely reactive to evil characters/things.

[Feantar]

In the campaign I play in, the DM has removed caps from spells, i.e. Fireball's cap of 10d6 damage, so a 12th level caster would cast a fireball that deals 12d6 damage.


Are you, perchance, playing in pre Time of Troubles Forgotten Realms? Because between the fall of Netheril and the conclusion of the Time of Troubles, spells were uncapped (I think it was mentioned in some Netheril Supplement of 2e).

Anyway, check this (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=3519.0) handbook, it's exactly what you need.

[Uncle Pine]

Summon a spider swarm. +20,000 Str and (likely) capping out your CL with a single round of summoning is definitely better than tossing a few rats at a time. And since it's Sculpted, you can form it as a cone and aim it at the ground beneath you when not in use.

Note that "for gaming purpose a swarm is defined as a single creature", so you'd only get +2 Strength from that. On the other hand, a bag of rat is an entity comprised of an arbitrarily high number of separate rats which you can simply place inside the consumptive field* to have them all die in a single action. You don't need to toss them in separately.

*If your DM rules that the bag blocks LoE to the rats, place the bag inside the field and poke a hole with a knife.

[Mordaedil]

A frost mage sorcerer certainly becomes very appealing, by merely fact of owning snowcasting and frozen magic, casting control temperature causing and summon component to gain 3 caster level for basically nothing.

There's probably even better ways.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Note that "for gaming purpose a swarm is defined as a single creature", so you'd only get +2 Strength from that. On the other hand, a bag of rat is an entity comprised of an arbitrarily high number of separate rats which you can simply place inside the consumptive field* to have them all die in a single action. You don't need to toss them in separately.

*If your DM rules that the bag blocks LoE to the rats, place the bag inside the field and poke a hole with a knife.Don't swarms disperse into their component creatures when reduced to 0 hp? Fireball.

[Uncle Pine]

Don't swarms disperse into their component creatures when reduced to 0 hp? Fireball.

Reducing a swarm to 0 hit points simply causes it to "break up". Whether that counts as separating it into its component creatures/critters is possible, although not specified. It's a good guess though, so you could ask and see if your DM lets it fly... You know, unless it was a spider or rat swarm. :smallbiggrin:

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Are there any effects that explicitly disperse a swarm without either killing or dispelling it? Nonlethal damage, maybe?

[Mordaedil]

I think Gust of Wind can, but I'm not sure if the spell itself states it, but I believe wind rules in the DMG does.

[Venger]

Are there any effects that explicitly disperse a swarm without either killing or dispelling it? Nonlethal damage, maybe?
Reducing a swarm to 0 or fewer hp breaks it up, but does not kill it.


I think Gust of Wind can, but I'm not sure if the spell itself states it, but I believe wind rules in the DMG does.

No. Wind, either through gust of wind or normal weather blows little creatures around, but has no special power to discorporate swarms. Presumably by raw, it blows fly #3394 and #3395 away at exactly the same spatial relation they are to each other in the swarm as if there's no wind, so while the swarm takes damage as normal, it's not automatically discorporated.

[Mordaedil]

No. Wind, either through gust of wind or normal weather blows little creatures around, but has no special power to discorporate swarms. Presumably by raw, it blows fly #3394 and #3395 away at exactly the same spatial relation they are to each other in the swarm as if there's no wind, so while the swarm takes damage as normal, it's not automatically discorporated.
Seems like an odd omission, but fascinating.

[Blue Wizard]

So far this has been focused on blasting. Healing would also receive a boost. A Cure Light doing D8+CL uncapped would not make all that much difference at the higher levels, but it would throw all of the established healing efficiency calculations out.

And while interesting that's far from the scariest approach.

Augury without a CL cap? Flawless yes/no divination? There is no circumstance that can't mess up. Even if you've got Mind Blank up 24/7, does your horse? The bar maid who served you your breakfast?

If playing in a no-Cl-cap environment I'll tell you the spell that everyone would want, bar none, every king or NPC able to afford it: Omen of Peril.

24 hour notice that someone is going to attack you.

Everybody, every noble, every merchant or courtier or retired adventurer worried about possibly finding a dagger in their backs, or war, or the dead rising from the graveyard, or what have you, would pay generously for that don't you think?

[AvatarVecna]

So, it's not exactly as problematic in this set-up, since a lot of spells getting uncapped brings the power floor up (thus making this semi-ceiling less impressive), but technically speaking, Consumptive Field is already a largely-uncapped spell. The CL boost is capped at a maximum of "half your original caster level" (which apparently doesn't count as a CL-based cap for the OP's purposes? eh, whatever), but the Str bonus and the Temp HP aren't capped at all. What's more, as a Cleric spell that creates an emanation with a static range, even someonenoone11 can't argue it's not DMM: Persist friendly.

[Calthropstu]

Animate dead. With no level cap on how many you can control it could get... a tad on the ridiculous side.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Lesser planar binding, anyone?

[Jack_Simth]

Shocking Grasp and Hail of Stone become much better metamagic bases. Twin, Maximize, Repeat, and so on do wonders for them if they keep growing.

[Zanos]

Animate dead. With no level cap on how many you can control it could get... a tad on the ridiculous side.
Animate dead doesn't have a cl cap.

[Elkad]

I still don't think uncapping damage, area, etc is the problem. Nothing gets completely out of line.

The only problem is when you uncap CL itself, or forget to put a CL cap on spells.
For example, the problematic Consumptive Field should only buff you for a number of creatures = ½CL (same as the caster level portion). The rest still die, you just don't get anything.

[Jack_Simth]

I still don't think uncapping damage, area, etc is the problem. Nothing gets completely out of line.

The only problem is when you uncap CL itself, or forget to put a CL cap on spells.
For example, the problematic Consumptive Field should only buff you for a number of creatures = ½CL (same as the caster level portion). The rest still die, you just don't get anything.
That is a problem, yes, but that was missed in the original example spell too.

[Mato]

That's not an apples-apples. Lance is single-target, and has a ranged touch component in addition to the fort:half save.Which is why part of the reason it deals more, for example.

CL:20 Lance (uncapped, both in damage and number of bolts). 4 bolts, ranged touch. 3d6 physical, plus 20d6 electric, save half. DC14 base.
ML:20 Energy Missile. 5 targets. 20d6 each, auto hits, save for half. DC29 base - using electricity, same as Lance, or DC27 if I change energy types to target Fort (target has Evasion maybe?)Where to start?

So let's go back to how you don't understand the level difference. Psions, and use the UA spell point wizards have to pay for damage based on caster level but that is not at all what I am talking about so don't delve into strawmanning. Under the default, correct, core system a wizard's 10d6 fireball has no increased cost over it's 5d6 version. The damage increased from caster level is free. So when I try to point out the lance is 4th level, the equivalent of 7sp, I am most assuredly including the very plain and simple fact that spellcaster's fundamentally augment their spells for free and that they only pay for a '4th level effect', not '20th'. This appears to be a concept you have refused to acknowledge and it can cause some serious misconceptions about the game.

And the same can be said for targeting. Against a single target that lance still deals 92d6 damage because you can fire every lance at the same target while the energy missile only deals 20d6 because it cannot hit the same target more than once. Against two targets the lance deals 46d6 damage to both of them (same total of 92d6) while the energy missile still only deals 20d6 to each of them (new total of 40d6). The total damage the missile is capable of dealing doesn't surpass the lance unless there are five targets to hit. What you are trying to argue that a 20th psion blasting people with his strongest abilities achieves an extra six more d6s worth of damage in very circumstantial scenarios is some how supposed superior to the class feature a wizard obtained thirteen levels ago and in most cases still deals more damage anyway.

And my attempt to easily explain this was to reference the cost. For a wizard is a single 4th level slot with no extra CL tax, this is easily converted cost of 7 pp (recall, the wizard does not have to pay for the cl increase to augment his damage. It's free). This gives the lance a ratio of forty eight damage per point spent. Energy missile, since the psion has to pay for augmentation only achieves a ratio of 17.5 damage per point spent in it's absolutely best case scenario. Reversing the conversion, the psion is consuming the equivalent of 9th level slots to, more often than not, deal less damage then a wizard's 4th level spell slot. This undeniably favors the wizard.

Yes, the lance has an attack roll against a very trivial defense value - A mechanic that actually allows the wizard to achieve critical hits and take improved critical for his lance by the way (see RC, not CAr) - is what WotC tried to call it balance. Now if you follow the original rules, so the lance only deals 36d6 per casting, things become a little more fair but there is still an obvious gap between them that comes down the the fact the wizard can cast the lance more than the psion can cast the missile. And if the psion wants to apply metapsionic feats he has to decrease the base damage (ie a pl20 empowered energy missile can only roll 18 dice) but the wizard suffers no reduction in damage for applying his metamagic feats (ie an empowered lance still rolls 36 dice) and he is able to freely combine them since he doesn't have to expend his psionic focus as part of casting a metamagic spell. Like for a 9th level slot he could use repeat and empower, dealing a 184d6+50% if there isn't a cl cap on the spell.

[Endarire]

Low-level spells that deal or heal HP damage would generally improve with a CL cap removed.

[Calthropstu]

Lesser planar binding, anyone?

There is no caster level cap on binding. The cap is the hd of the monster, nothing to do with cl.

[Calthropstu]

Animate dead doesn't have a cl cap.

Actually, it has 2 CL caps. 2x caster level worth of animations per casting and 4x caster level worth of control.

Remove those and "wheee, I animate the entirety of the dead from that battle 500 years ago where thousands perished."

[Zanos]

I assumed CL caps meant spells that stop scaling as your CL went up, not spells that scale with CL at all.

[Calthropstu]

I assumed CL caps meant spells that stop scaling as your CL went up, not spells that scale with CL at all.

Hmmm, you could be right on that. Makes more sense to be honest.