Underwhelmed by the high level cleric spell list

[King of Nowhere]

I'm coming at the level where cleric spell levels 8 and 9 come into play, and I frankly have serious troubles figuring a good use for most of those spells. Oh, there's some good utility and support, but almost nothing battle-worthy.

Let's start at level 9:
- astral projection is a spell strongly dependent on your DM; it can mean immortality, or "woops someone cut your silvery cord" the moment you cast it. Anyway, good out-of-combat support, but not usable in combat
- energy drain: the spell looks strong when we see xykon kill dorukan with it. Except, death ward shuts it down hard, and it's 5 levels lower. Even if you dispel death ward, or in the rare cases where the target didn't ward, it takes several castings to kill a target, and a single restoration will heal all the negative levels. Yes, you can cast 3 9th level spells at your enemy, and a single 4th level spell will undo the damage. One may keep a scroll of quickened restoration just in case, though it would be rarely used since I can't see energy drain being seriously used
- etherealness: again, utility. And while it is very difficult to hurt ethereal creatures if you can't get ethereal yourself, hurting someone while ethereal is even harded, unless I'm completely misreading the text saying that practically no effect extends from the ethereal plane to the material.
- gate: potentiallly broken, potentially useless, depending on the DM. Anyway, 1000 XP are no small deal.
- mass heal: this is a very useful combat spell, all right.
- implosion: on the surface, a nice save-or-die. that stops you from casting quickened spells. and most people at that level will have some form of death ward anyway. For those that don't, you may as well use destruction.
- miracle: very strong because it lets you access the wizard spell list, which contains some actual offensive spell.
- soul bind: out of combat
- storm of vengeance: really? 1 round deafens, 2 round 1d6 damage? how is that supposed to help me? (the 60d6 at 3rd round are good, but takes 3 rounds to get there)
- summon monster IX: last time I tried this spell against my players, they dispatched the monsters very easily, and were almost impervious to their attacks anyway. And they were level 11. Unless they buffed the list with some overpowered monster from some splatbook, those critters are at best serving as walls.
- true resurrection: very useful, but not for combat.

So, a cleric gaining 9th level spells has basically zero new offensive combat options. Some weak offensive ability that most people of appropriate level will be immune to. Or use miracle to cast 7th level wizard spells. mass heal is the only good combat option that I see.

8th level is no better. planar ally can be broken or useless depending on DM, earthquake is mostly situational (and generally useless against flying enemies). I just found out holy aura and its equivalents have an additional effect when attacked by a creature of the opposite alignment, which justifies their use; otherwise, +4 deflection and +4 resistance is something you should already have from items, and SR 25 is less than you can get by casting the 5th level spell. Spell immunity, good luck picking the right spell to become immune to. Firestorm, an empowered flame strike is lower level and deals more damage.

For all the supposed "world-shattering" high level spells, I'm having troubles figuring out how to use the highest level clerical spells for anything different than pre-combat buffs and healbot while in combat. Quite annoying, as some of my main villains are clerics, and having them sit behind and be healbots to mooks, or summon hordes of creatures to do all the fighting because they wouldn't be able to find their own backside with both hands without a deva/balor to help them, that's not going to happen.

So, what is it that I'm not seeing?

[NineInchNall]

Each member of a 4-person, 17th-level party receives 1275 XP for defeating a single CR 17 enemy. You could theoretically gate something in for literally every fight once you get 9th-level spells and still earn positive XP. Admittedly, you'd basically be taking an 80% XP hit individually, but your party wouldn't. Once your party gets ahead of you, you benefit from the good, old "XP is a river" effect, and quite significantly. Your 18th-level party members each earn 1350 against a CR 18 foe, while you earn net 913. If you defer leveling, you actually net more XP than they do against CR 19 foes.

And this is all while you have a frickin' paragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/paragonCreature.htm) solar handle every fight.

[Venger]

you seem to only be looking in core. look elsewhere. cleric gets just as many cool toys as wizard. besides, you're not a blaster, most of your good spells aren't just about dealing hit point damage in combat

[ryu]

Are we just ignoring domains? Those things every cleric gets at least two of and often three?

[Venger]

Are we just ignoring domains? Those things every cleric gets at least two of and often three?

apparently, along with all non-core sources.

[King of Nowhere]

besides, you're not a blaster, most of your good spells aren't just about dealing hit point damage in combat

dealing hit point damage is not what clerics are best at - although I found it reliable, while most save-or-lose, save-or-suck, and even no-save tend to be countered and become a wasted action more often than not, against a prepared opponent - but lower level clerics have plenty of buffs and disables; there isn't much of that at the higher levels.

Re: non-core, on one hand I am reluctant to go for it because rifling through dozens of splatbooks is very time-consuming; on the other, everyone say most of the best stuff is core anyway. And last, if all the best spells are non-core, that means I'm basically right and the high level cleric spell list sort of suck. except for gate, which depends on how much the DM will allow.

[Venger]

dealing hit point damage is not what clerics are best at - although I found it reliable, while most save-or-lose, save-or-suck, and even no-save tend to be countered and become a wasted action more often than not, against a prepared opponent - but lower level clerics have plenty of buffs and disables; there isn't much of that at the higher levels.

Re: non-core, on one hand I am reluctant to go for it because rifling through dozens of splatbooks is very time-consuming; on the other, everyone say most of the best stuff is core anyway. And last, if all the best spells are non-core, that means I'm basically right and the high level cleric spell list sort of suck. except for gate, which depends on how much the DM will allow.

ok?

so you ask what you're missing, I tell you, and you dismiss it. could you explain to me what your goal in making this thread was? if what you're looking for isn't a list of level 8 and 9 cleric spells from outside of core, then I don't want to waste my time making one for you. if that is the case, what kind of help are you looking for re: your cleric character?

[Troacctid]

Miracle and gate are both preeetty OP.

[RoboEmperor]

lol best stuff is core

ok

so like... people don't play high level d&d because of clerics and like its because they suck rather than they are so game breakingly powerful to the point they are unplayable?

You're right. You are totally right. You are the master of this game and you have correctly determined that clerics are weak as **** at 9th level spells since they are at their peak with core only material

[Random Sanity]

Miracle and gate are both preeetty OP.

IF the DM feels like playing along. The text of both spells includes lines which basically say "this spell gives your DM license to completely screw you over if they feel like it".

[Troacctid]

IF the DM feels like playing along. The text of both spells includes lines which basically say "this spell gives your DM license to completely screw you over if they feel like it".
How do you figure?

[RoboEmperor]

IF the DM feels like playing along. The text of both spells includes lines which basically say "this spell gives your DM license to completely screw you over if they feel like it".

No they don't. Miracle can duplicate any spell of 8th level and lower and doesn't cost xp for this which is why many consider it far superior to wish.

Gate is a no-save 34hd+ epic outsider summon with 0 room for the DM to "completely screw you over". Many DMs ban this spell because there is no wiggle room for them to screw the spellcaster over with.

[ryu]

Even limited to core you still get domains. That's a non-negotiable part of the base class.

[RoboEmperor]

- astral projection is a spell strongly dependent on your DM; it can mean immortality, or "woops someone cut your silvery cord" the moment you cast it. Anyway, good out-of-combat support, but not usable in combat

Astral Projection: Copies all your equipment. So buy a bunch of expensive stuff like scrolls of PERMANENCY, GATE, simulacrum, etc, cast Astral projection, expend all of those scrolls to do ridiculous stuff, then recast astral projection until you are satisfied with your army of whatever simulacra.


- implosion: on the surface, a nice save-or-die. that stops you from casting quickened spells. and most people at that level will have some form of death ward anyway. For those that don't, you may as well use destruction.

Implosion: Unstoppable SoD. Bypasses everything. Literally nothing stops this, especially death ward. Death Ward does not stop it

[Sto]

dealing hit point damage is not what clerics are best at - although I found it reliable, while most save-or-lose, save-or-suck, and even no-save tend to be countered and become a wasted action more often than not, against a prepared opponent - but lower level clerics have plenty of buffs and disables; there isn't much of that at the higher levels.

Re: non-core, on one hand I am reluctant to go for it because rifling through dozens of splatbooks is very time-consuming; on the other, everyone say most of the best stuff is core anyway. And last, if all the best spells are non-core, that means I'm basically right and the high level cleric spell list sort of suck. except for gate, which depends on how much the DM will allow.

Most of the non core spells have been lumped together in the Spell Compendium. I believe the spells from PHBII aren't in there.

[Random Sanity]

How do you figure?

Miracle: States in the very first line that you're burning a spell slot to ask your deity for a big, honkin' favor. If your deity doesn't care for the request, you've just used your biggest spell slot (and possibly a lot of XP) to completely waste a turn. Even if it does go off, the effects may or may not be what you were hoping for depending on the deity's personality (or more bluntly, DM whim).

Gate: Assuming the spell even goes off (again, completely reliant on DM whim because any planar authority can shut it down if they feel like it), you have two options - you can either use it as an expensive Planeshift/Teleport combo, or you can use it to forcibly yank some sort of extraplanar being through to your end (no such being is going to be happy about this). The latter use is essentially either "give me a powerful summon for one battle at the cost of instantly making an equally-powerful enemy", or a more-expensive and more-dangerous Planar Ally.

How can you look at the text of those two spells and NOT see a disaster waiting to happen?

[Silva Stormrage]

Miracle: States in the very first line that you're burning a spell slot to ask your deity for a big, honkin' favor. If your deity doesn't care for the request, you've just used your biggest spell slot (and possibly a lot of XP) to completely waste a turn. Even if it does go off, the effects may or may not be what you were hoping for depending on the deity's personality (or more bluntly, DM whim).

Gate: Assuming the spell even goes off (again, completely reliant on DM whim because any planar authority can shut it down if they feel like it), you have two options - you can either use it as an expensive Planeshift/Teleport combo, or you can use it to forcibly yank some sort of extraplanar being through to your end (no such being is going to be happy about this). The latter use is essentially either "give me a powerful summon for one battle at the cost of instantly making an equally-powerful enemy", or a more-expensive and more-dangerous Planar Ally.

How can you look at the text of those two spells and NOT see a disaster waiting to happen?

... If you are a 17th level cleric for your god what kind of requests are you making where your god wouldn't help you out? If you are following a good aligned god I imagine at 17th level your adventures consist of saving the world in which case YA YOUR GOD IS PROBABLY GOING TO OKAY ANY REQUEST YOU HAVE.

Or you could just worship a concept or ideal and not have to deal with that at all.

Likewise with Gate, I would imagine most Solars wouldn't instantly try to hunt you down and kill you for summoning them into a fight with a great evil. Especially if you summon things loyal to your god... you know the being you are championing for and spreading his faith? And Gate can't be shut down automatically by any planar authority, thats only if you try to call a god or call someone inside their own personal demiplane. Any Solar in Celestia is fair game with no saving throw to resist.

Yes if your DM wants to be an utter jerk and play the god as an ******* they can mess you up. That happens for all of cleric casting because the god can refuse to grant you spells at any point.

[Anthrowhale]

The top level 9 combat spells on the Cleric spell list (in my opinion at least) are Miracle, Gate, and Erupt which are 2/3 core. You can debate whether Erupt is a combat spell with it's 1 minute casting time, but it's the best nuke spell in the game. If you get yourself up to caster level 52 (Hathran circle magic, Consumptive Field, etc....) and use an energy substitution rod, you can do "everything dies in a 1 mile radius". Be sure to use the appropriate energy immunity in advance.

The top level 8 combat spells are Spread of Contentment (no save! everything in a huge radius cannot attack...even if you are attacking them) and Antimagic field (if you are an Initiate of Mystra). Veil of Undeath and Visions of the Future are also quite good defensive buffs. Earthquake is okish, good for destroying structures.

Other than that, Shapechange and Mind Blank are on many domain lists.

[Dimers]

etherealness: again, utility. And while it is very difficult to hurt ethereal creatures if you can't get ethereal yourself, hurting someone while ethereal is even harder, unless I'm completely misreading the text saying that practically no effect extends from the ethereal plane to the material.

I like pairing etherealness with Transdimensional Spell metamagic.


Implosion: Unstoppable SoD. Bypasses everything. Literally nothing stops this, especially death ward. Death Ward does not stop it

Also, that.

[Saintheart]

... If you are a 17th level cleric for your god what kind of requests are you making where your god wouldn't help you out? If you are following a good aligned god I imagine at 17th level your adventures consist of saving the world in which case YA YOUR GOD IS PROBABLY GOING TO OKAY ANY REQUEST YOU HAVE.

Well, unless you're the Kingpriest of Istar. Paladine's answer to his Miracle request was to throw a mountain-sized meteor at him.

[Eldariel]

I like pairing etherealness with Transdimensional Spell metamagic.

Transdimensional spell only really works one way. Can't cast from Ethereal onto Material with it, just the opposite. It's actually tremendously difficult to affect Material from Ethereal without manifesting: gaze attacks if your enemy sees you, items on the material that you can pick up (Riverine, Ghost Touch) and that one Aberration whose name escapes me are about the only means.

At OP: Well, randomly getting your cord cut is so unlikely that it's basically DM wanting to kill you, which they can do with Rock Falls just as easily. Not a real downside to the spell. Though be wary when treading ON the Astral Plane. If you just project to the material or wherever though, where's the random max. level 12 Githyanki, which just happens to have a silver sword come from?

Otherwise, AP is basically immortality/infinite lives and planar travel and equipment duplication in one spell. Not bad.

[Venger]

Transdimensional spell only really works one way. Can't cast from Ethereal onto Material with it, just the opposite. It's actually tremendously difficult to affect Material from Ethereal without manifesting: gaze attacks if your enemy sees you, items on the material that you can pick up (Riverine, Ghost Touch) and that one Aberration whose name escapes me are about the only means.

At OP: Well, randomly getting your cord cut is so unlikely that it's basically DM wanting to kill you, which they can do with Rock Falls just as easily. Not a real downside to the spell. Though be wary when treading ON the Astral Plane. If you just project to the material or wherever though, where's the random max. level 12 Githyanki, which just happens to have a silver sword come from?

Otherwise, AP is basically immortality/infinite lives and planar travel and equipment duplication in one spell. Not bad.

Ethereal/temporal filcher?

[Arcanist]

Yes if your DM wants to be an utter jerk and play the god as an ******* they can mess you up.

Hypothetically speaking, if your DM wants to be an absolute jerk, they can literally just say "there is an invisible dead magic zone following you and only you that only affects you."

It's perfectly legal to say and enforce this per rule 0, but at that point you have to seriously question the maturity of the DM you're dealing with.

[eggynack]

Ethereal/temporal filcher?
Likely the dharculus, though they do have to kinda sorta be in the material to impact the material. Like, the part that's interacting with the target is necessarily on the material plane, and the dharculus can be interacted with on that basis, but the rest of the creature is still ethereal.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Seriously, domains; just the core ones give you access to some decent stuff. Then there's the options in the spell compendium which give you still more goodies. Only then do you go splat-diving to go completely nuts.

Time Stop, foresight, shapechange, and disjunction are all right there in core on various domains.

SpC has obedient avalanche (a BFC/ damage combo), greater visage of the deity (powerful buff), wish, horrid wilting, and mind blank on domains. The generic list has summon elemental monolith.

Other splats bring domain drafts and the contemplative class so that you're not stuck with just two of the above and all the metamagic shenanigans and unique class features you can't get from spells alone. Oh, and genesis. That's not really a combat spell but even the normal, non-cheesy use of the spell is worthwhile enough to warrant mention whenever high-level stuff is brought up.

[Doctor Awkward]

From just the Spell Compendium, Summon Elemental Monolith and Greater Visage of the Deity are outstanding spells.

[King of Nowhere]

ok?

so you ask what you're missing, I tell you, and you dismiss it. could you explain to me what your goal in making this thread was? if what you're looking for isn't a list of level 8 and 9 cleric spells from outside of core, then I don't want to waste my time making one for you. if that is the case, what kind of help are you looking for re: your cleric character?

What I am asking is how to use those tools available, in a way that is stronger than "I deal 20d6 area fire damage" but not broken like "I conjure an epic solar with 50 hd that has access to my whole spell list and a bunch of other abilities" or "I keep adventuring as usual but I am completely immortal and all my equipment cannot be stolen or damaged".

Because there must be a comfortable middle way. Spells like gate or ethereal projection are insta-ban, or at least insta-nerf at my table. But once you remove those overpowered uses, I can't find anything less that's worthy.




Implosion: Unstoppable SoD. Bypasses everything. Literally nothing stops this, especially death ward. Death Ward does not stop it

Now that's something useful to know. And a save-or-die that actually works at high levels is the kind of strong-but-not-broken stuff I'm looking for. But why do you say it bypasses death ward? According to the srd

In most cases, a death attack allows the victim a Fortitude save to avoid the affect, but if the save fails, the character dies instantly.
And implosion states

For each round you concentrate, you cause one creature to collapse in on itself, killing it.

It really looks like a death effect to me. Why do you say it isn't? Just because it lacks the [death] descriptor?

[eggynack]

Now that's something useful to know. And a save-or-die that actually works at high levels is the kind of strong-but-not-broken stuff I'm looking for. But why do you say it bypasses death ward? According to the srd

And implosion states


It really looks like a death effect to me. Why do you say it isn't? Just because it lacks the [death] descriptor?
A death effect or death spell is one that calls itself such. No more, and no less. That text you were citing was telling you what a death attack does, not how to identify one. Implosion does not say that it's one of the things that is impacted by death ward, so it's not.

[King of Nowhere]

So, i assume implosion also works on the undead?

[legomaster00156]

Restoration takes 3 rounds to cast. That is infeasible in the middle of battle, and it also cannot be Quickened.

[Venger]

So, i assume implosion also works on the undead?

it's a fort save that doesn't also affect objects (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/implosion.htm) so no, of course not.

[Doctor Awkward]

The spell doesn't specify that the target has to be living, only that it be corporeal, so any non-incorporeal undead would be fair game.

Except that undead traits (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#undeadType) make them immune to any effect that allows for a Fortitude save unless that effect also works on objects.

Since the target for Implosion is "one corporeal creature" and doesn't include "object" undead are immune to it.

I feel like the authors intended the spell to work on corporeal undead but forgot to word it such that it can.

[RoboEmperor]

Why do you say it isn't? Just because it lacks the [death] descriptor?

This is exactly the reason. Only spells with the death descriptor is a death effect just like only spells with the summoning descriptor is a summoning effect and only spells with the mind-affecting spells are mind-affecting effects and only spells with the fire descriptor are fire effects and only spells with the language-dependent descriptor are language-dependent effects.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Restoration takes 3 rounds to cast. That is infeasible in the middle of battle, and it also cannot be Quickened.

Rapid spell then quicken.

[King of Nowhere]

Restoration takes 3 rounds to cast. That is infeasible in the middle of battle, and it also cannot be Quickened.

Huh. I never noticed that

[eggynack]

Rapid spell then quicken.
As rapid spell notes, it cannot be used with quicken unless the original casting time was a full round. You can still toss one out within a single round, however, using rapid spell.

[Tindragon]

So, KoN, are you not able to access NON Core PHb, and/or domains?

The domain spells alone, depending on domain, are pretty bad ass.

Death, Magic, Sun, Trickery and War (just from Core) have some nice 8-9th spells...

[Tindragon]

...and any decent DM, would allow Miracle to access the full 1-7th wiz spell list.

And Gate, yeah, it could be "broken" but at this level, you should've have a handle on your DM, and what you can summon. Seriously, if they're not allowing a Solar... You're cleric shouldn't be in combat at this point, he should be in a race with the party wizard on who is gonna wreck the battlefield 1st...

[King of Nowhere]

@ tindragon: I am the DM. Several main villains are clerics, as heads of evil religions, so I'm looking for useful stuff to do with them - while not being too broken, I want to stay consistent with the optimization level of the table.
I have nothing against most non-core stuff, but my players don't have the time and patience and system mastery to look for it, so hitting them with things they never heard about will have them crying foul, and rightly. I can introduce some of them occasionally, especially since those guys are pretty powerful and it's not unreasonable that they'd have some secret trick, but I can't overdo it.

Miracle is good to access wizard spells, but it's lame to use it every round - plus, not many have all those 9th level slots. Domains have some useful spells, but you can use a domain spell only once - I know, there is some source somewhere that lets you use them more, but I don't want to overuse non-core.

Mostly I am just fishing for options and ideas. So far I discovered that implosion is not stopped by ddeath ward, and that level drain is not so easy to remove in combat as I thought (although that particular effect is stopped by death ward. The cleric of vecna has the magic domain and will definitely use disjunction, others most find different ways). Maybe I'll find something else

[Troacctid]

If you're working with a themed villain and you don't know what spells you want them to use, you should just give them spontaneous domain casting and use domain spells.

[TalonOfAnathrax]

Spread of Savagery is pretty great. Sublime Revelry is a quite good buff. Summon Golem is great against casters, and Summon Elemental Monolith is also quite nice (decent combat and mobility options).

But yeah, those slots are there for domain spells (Shapechange, Time Stop), metamagic, and all the great out-of-combat spells clerics get.

[BWR]

... If you are a 17th level cleric for your god what kind of requests are you making where your god wouldn't help you out? If you are following a good aligned god I imagine at 17th level your adventures consist of saving the world in which case YA YOUR GOD IS PROBABLY GOING TO OKAY ANY REQUEST YOU HAVE.

Or you could just worship a concept or ideal and not have to deal with that at all.


If you think that you're Doing It Wrong. Being a cleric means serving some higher power and working in its interests. If you worship some nebulous concept of, for instance, Good, you are required to act in a Good manner or else you will not be getting any power from your beliefs. After all, if your dedication to your beliefs gives you power, and you work against those beliefs when convenient or because you don't feel like it, you aren't particularly dedicated.

[Eldariel]

SMIX is also decidedly not bad. 1d4+1 Bone Devils readying actions to block actions with Wall of Ice for example, or Pleasure Devil to spam CL17 GDM on player items disabling them, or Leonal spamming Wall of Force or such. In general, summon trading actions 1-for-1 with enemies is insanely strong, and Walls and company do that effortlessly. The more you can get, the better (hence the Bone Devil for instance). For more options, check this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?255219-The-Summoner-s-Desk-Reference-D-amp-D-3-5), particularly the SLAs.

Gate is of course much stronger and that's what level 9 spells do: win vs. everything without them. Astral Projection means it becomes a game of finding the real body of the projecter (not impossible with divinations and planar travel spells/teleportation), but that too can be a fun minigame. YMMV.

[ryu]

Sure you can. You can worship literally any concept, just find the most agreeable one you can think of. Like the concept of self worship, or personal desires, or even something as simple as a common eggbeater.

[Ashtagon]

If your best use for a miracle spell is to replicate a wizard level 1-7 spell, you aren't using enough imagination.

[Mordaedil]

What exactly prevents implosion from working on undead? It just says it is an evocation spell that causes a creatures corporeal form to collapse in on itself, killing it. Is it the fortitude save that indicates undead oughtn't be affected?

[Eldariel]

What exactly prevents implosion from working on undead? It just says it is an evocation spell that causes a creatures corporeal form to collapse in on itself, killing it. Is it the fortitude save that indicates undead oughtn't be affected?

Yes. See e.g. Disintegrate for how it's marked when it works on objects toi.

[ryu]

What exactly prevents implosion from working on undead? It just says it is an evocation spell that causes a creatures corporeal form to collapse in on itself, killing it. Is it the fortitude save that indicates undead oughtn't be affected?

Any spell with a fort save has to be able to target and work on objects to get undead. If it can't target objects they're immune. If it can there save bonus is absolute garbage. Implosion can only get creatures.

[Mordaedil]

That is a shame, I'd consider letting it fly if I ever had a group that got to 9th level spells.

[ryu]

Clerics are ALREADY one of the classes with the best low effort anti-undead tech. It wouldn't make much difference in most circumstances.

[Doctor Awkward]

Any spell with a fort save has to be able to target and work on objects to get undead. If it can't target objects they're immune. If it can there save bonus is absolute garbage. Implosion can only get creatures.

Not just spells, but all other effects too.

One player in a game I ran was a Dragonfire Adept with the Slow Breath effect. Mixing random undead among the enemies was one way I prevented him from trivializing encounters, since, unlike the Slow spell, the breath allows for a Fortitude save.

[Calthropstu]

How do you figure?

He's not wrong. I screw those spells hardcore if my players try to abuse them. Though, to be fair, if they use Gate as some kind of super summon I have no issue with that since it costs so much.

But, because I refuse to allow them to mitigate such costs, they very rarely do so.

[Troacctid]

SMIX is also decidedly not bad. 1d4+1 Bone Devils readying actions to block actions with Wall of Ice for example, or Pleasure Devil to spam CL17 GDM on player items disabling them, or Leonal spamming Wall of Force or such. In general, summon trading actions 1-for-1 with enemies is insanely strong, and Walls and company do that effortlessly. The more you can get, the better (hence the Bone Devil for instance). For more options, check this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?255219-The-Summoner-s-Desk-Reference-D-amp-D-3-5), particularly the SLAs.
Plus, you can make use of that NPC wealth to give them golden desert honey so they can cast it as a standard action.

[eggynack]

He's not wrong. I screw those spells hardcore if my players try to abuse them. Though, to be fair, if they use Gate as some kind of super summon I have no issue with that since it costs so much.

But, because I refuse to allow them to mitigate such costs, they very rarely do so.
The argument Troacctid was responding to was premised on the text, not on a general desire to stop abuse.

[Calthropstu]

The argument Troacctid was responding to was premised on the text, not on a general desire to stop abuse.

And there's plenty of text to take control of for the gm. In the case of a single battle, or other short task, using the gate as a super summons, that's fine.

But when you get into the longer services the gm gains near complete control. They have control over what constitutes "sufficient payment," what constitutes "a reasonable service," what constitutes "an unreasonable service" etc. The gm can say "reasonable payment for this service is your soul."

[eggynack]

But when you get into the longer services the gm gains near complete control. They have control over what constitutes "sufficient payment," what constitutes "a reasonable service," what constitutes "an unreasonable service" etc. The gm can say "reasonable payment for this service is your soul."
The text seems pretty explicit that payment means literal payment. It specifically points to lesser planar ally, which operates entirely on gold or gold equivalents, and makes time spent nearly the only metric for how much payment is required. Only hazardous tasks face issue along these lines, and a lot of the best things you can do with gate are non-hazardous. Actually, a lot of the best things you can do with gate do not take much time at all, but that's a different issue. It does not look like there is a reasonable/unreasonable service standard anywhere within the text of the spell. Lesser planar ally does feature a suicidal actions provision, but it does not look like this is inherited by gate.

[RoboEmperor]

The text seems pretty explicit that payment means literal payment. It specifically points to lesser planar ally, which operates entirely on gold or gold equivalents, and makes time spent nearly the only metric for how much payment is required. Only hazardous tasks face issue along these lines, and a lot of the best things you can do with gate are non-hazardous. Actually, a lot of the best things you can do with gate do not take much time at all, but that's a different issue. It does not look like there is a reasonable/unreasonable service standard anywhere within the text of the spell. Lesser planar ally does feature a suicidal actions provision, but it does not look like this is inherited by gate.

As much as I hate agreeing with Calthropstu I'm gonna have to in this case.


If you choose to exact a longer or more involved form of service from a called creature, you must offer some fair trade in return for that service. The service exacted must be reasonable with respect to the promised favor or reward; see the lesser planar ally spell for appropriate rewards. (Some creatures may want their payment in “livestock” rather than in coin, which could involve complications.) Immediately upon completion of the service, the being is transported to your vicinity, and you must then and there turn over the promised reward. After this is done, the creature is instantly freed to return to its own plane.

I highly doubt any amount of payment is reasonable for suicidal actions. In any case the RAW directly and clearly says you don't need to pay in gp.

[eggynack]

As much as I hate agreeing with Calthropstu I'm gonna have to in this case.

I highly doubt any amount of payment is reasonable for suicidal actions. In any case the RAW directly and clearly says you don't need to pay in gp.
First, the RAW does say that you might be able to pay in non-GP. But it looks like, if you don't have to pay in GP, then you have to pay in livestock. There is no apparent provision for any sort of price that is totally non-monetary. You definitely don't have to sell your soul, or even take on a task yourself. As for suicidal actions, it's complicated. I'm not sure it's possible, on the basis of gate having a compulsive element, for a creature to totally turn down any request. However, it's definitely not clear what the cost for such an act would be, given that gate inherits its pricing from a source that explicitly does not price such acts. It's a weird thing, that gate does not inherit the, "Few creatures will accept certain orders," text, and yet is left sourceless for the price of such orders. In any case, suicidal requests are decidedly not the borked part of gate. Removing that capacity does not meaningfully reduce the power of the spell.

[RoboEmperor]

First, the RAW does say that you might be able to pay in non-GP. But it looks like, if you don't have to pay in GP, then you have to pay in livestock. There is no apparent provision for any sort of price that is totally non-monetary. You definitely don't have to sell your soul, or even take on a task yourself.

I'm saying:
Gate says you must give "appropriate rewards"
"Appropriate rewards" can be livestock instead of gold
Livestock is just an example, not an exclusive special case.
Therefore "appropriate rewards" can be souls

You're saying:
Planar Ally only accepts money
Gate points to Planar Ally as guidelines for cost of service.
Therefore "appropriate rewards" must be gold only, except livestock is mentioned as well so it must be gold or livestock only.

I think my argument is better.

Now as to whether this allows the DM to force players to perform a task instead of payment...
On one hand the task could be "Get me 10 golden chalices" so in this case golden chalices are currency.
On the other hand "Kill this mortal for me" doesn't sound like currency.

I will agree with you that the DM cannot demand "Kill this mortal for me" as payment, but I will disagree about whether "Get me 10 golden chalices" can be payment or not.

[King of Nowhere]

What I don't get about all those calling spells is how those extraplanar creatures are so powerful and yet they can totally be controlled and compelled at will, while lesser humanoids always get saving throws against that kind of things.

Not really relevant, though, since somebody pointed out that if you are a cleric in good standing, the angels of your deity will want to help you anyway.

[Eldariel]

What I don't get about all those calling spells is how those extraplanar creatures are so powerful and yet they can totally be controlled and compelled at will, while lesser humanoids always get saving throws against that kind of things.

Not really relevant, though, since somebody pointed out that if you are a cleric in good standing, the angels of your deity will want to help you anyway.

Like Banishment, it's just an inherent weakness that comes with being a being that embodies planar energies rather than a primate. In many ways, Outsiders are inherently weaker than Humanoids: they have no freedom of choice, their means of advancement are restricted, their essence is bound to their planes, etc.

Well, that's one explanation anyways: I remove the "does your bidding automatically/with a Cha-check"-clause from Calling. Still really strong but at least you have to put some effort into compelling powerful outsiders to do your bidding (though you can still use the "Plan B" of "Gate in some destructive, powerful thing and Teleport/Plane Shift/whatever away or ward yourself, while it acts according to its nature annihilating everything").

[Doctor Awkward]

Like Banishment, it's just an inherent weakness that comes with being a being that embodies planar energies rather than a primate.

That's not just an outsider thing. It's a function of the spell.

The Monster Manual (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#extraplanarSubtype) states that any creature that is not on it's native plane gains the extraplanar subtype. Gate states that you can bring to you any extraplanar creature by name if you so choose. So if anyone that you personally know has left the Material Plane to go somewhere else, such as your arch-nemesis you have been fighting for years, you can cast gate to call them by name and not only will they return against their will, they will arguably be compelled to perform a service for you.

The spell is just that stupidly powerful.

In fact, based on the part of the definition that states creatures lose it when on their native plane, by RAW the spell is incapable of calling any creature to you unless the it is already on a plane other than it's native plane.

[ericgrau]

I'm coming at the level where cleric spell levels 8 and 9 come into play, and I frankly have serious troubles figuring a good use for most of those spells. Oh, there's some good utility and support, but almost nothing battle-worthy.

Let's start at level 9:
- astral projection is a spell strongly dependent on your DM; it can mean immortality, or "woops someone cut your silvery cord" the moment you cast it. Anyway, good out-of-combat support, but not usable in combat
- energy drain: the spell looks strong when we see xykon kill dorukan with it. Except, death ward shuts it down hard, and it's 5 levels lower. Even if you dispel death ward, or in the rare cases where the target didn't ward, it takes several castings to kill a target, and a single restoration will heal all the negative levels. Yes, you can cast 3 9th level spells at your enemy, and a single 4th level spell will undo the damage. One may keep a scroll of quickened restoration just in case, though it would be rarely used since I can't see energy drain being seriously used
- etherealness: again, utility. And while it is very difficult to hurt ethereal creatures if you can't get ethereal yourself, hurting someone while ethereal is even harded, unless I'm completely misreading the text saying that practically no effect extends from the ethereal plane to the material.
- gate: potentiallly broken, potentially useless, depending on the DM. Anyway, 1000 XP are no small deal.
- mass heal: this is a very useful combat spell, all right.
- implosion: on the surface, a nice save-or-die. that stops you from casting quickened spells. and most people at that level will have some form of death ward anyway. For those that don't, you may as well use destruction.
- miracle: very strong because it lets you access the wizard spell list, which contains some actual offensive spell.
- soul bind: out of combat
- storm of vengeance: really? 1 round deafens, 2 round 1d6 damage? how is that supposed to help me? (the 60d6 at 3rd round are good, but takes 3 rounds to get there)
- summon monster IX: last time I tried this spell against my players, they dispatched the monsters very easily, and were almost impervious to their attacks anyway. And they were level 11. Unless they buffed the list with some overpowered monster from some splatbook, those critters are at best serving as walls.
- true resurrection: very useful, but not for combat.

So, a cleric gaining 9th level spells has basically zero new offensive combat options. Some weak offensive ability that most people of appropriate level will be immune to. Or use miracle to cast 7th level wizard spells. mass heal is the only good combat option that I see.

8th level is no better. planar ally can be broken or useless depending on DM, earthquake is mostly situational (and generally useless against flying enemies). I just found out holy aura and its equivalents have an additional effect when attacked by a creature of the opposite alignment, which justifies their use; otherwise, +4 deflection and +4 resistance is something you should already have from items, and SR 25 is less than you can get by casting the 5th level spell. Spell immunity, good luck picking the right spell to become immune to. Firestorm, an empowered flame strike is lower level and deals more damage.

For all the supposed "world-shattering" high level spells, I'm having troubles figuring out how to use the highest level clerical spells for anything different than pre-combat buffs and healbot while in combat. Quite annoying, as some of my main villains are clerics, and having them sit behind and be healbots to mooks, or summon hordes of creatures to do all the fighting because they wouldn't be able to find their own backside with both hands without a deva/balor to help them, that's not going to happen.

So, what is it that I'm not seeing?

Level 9:

Miracle: It doesn't just let you access the wizard list. It lets you access any spell up to the level limit without deciding which one ahead of time. Because it has no xp cost it is thus better than wish in many ways for the sheer versatility without major drawbacks. The only significant drawback is the small possibility of annoying your deity. Even with 7th level spells or lower when it's tailored specifically to the enemies it's quite good. BFC spells in general are great even when they're behind a couple spell levels, even without tailoring them to the enemy. In many ways this is better than what a wizard can do with his 9s. Be ready for whatever the combat might require without casting 27 divinations ahead of time like only a TO wizard can pull off.
Storm of Vengeance: It's 360 ft radius. It's reasonable for it to affect about 1,000-2,000 creatures. It's reasonable that most of them won't get out for the first 2-3 rounds, and many won't get away in time for the 4th round's army wiping effect.
Etherealness: Let's you bypass a large portion of combats and/or scout or position the party much better for combat. Exceedingly good for combat.


I agree with the rest mostly.

You only need 1 or 2 good 9th level spells for combat. That's easy, miracle first choice hands down. 2nd would be etherealness or another miracle. Didn't even need to open up a splatbook for options. 3rd is mass heal or maybe energy drain. Unless everything is bumped down 1 rank by a 2nd miracle. With a duration of min/level and limited classes that can cast it, let alone have it prepared, death ward is an extremely unlikely fear. "A defense exists for it" is a meaningless fallacy because you can't defend against everything at once. The much bigger drawbacks to this spell which puts it in 3rd are that it's not as major of a damage and debuff to non-caster enemies, many monsters have SR and many are naturally immune via creature type. It's a wonderful backup spell for a small but scary portion of high level enemies (such as caster NPCs). Storm of vengeance you don't normally prepare but if an army is coming up it's the automatic first choice. Filling your 9s with nothing but miracle isn't a bad idea. Often it's a great idea.

Level 8:

Holy Aura: A high mass selective SR plus mass blindness is uber. Spell resistance is not mass nor selective. Selective SR is extremely different from non-selective SR. One has major drawbacks, one has no drawbacks. Mass is extremely different from single target. One gives the enemy caster or SLA monster no one to target, the other one says "(spellcraft) Ok lol, no biggy I'll hit him instead".


While uber much of the time, this can't be your bread and butter to cast every fight though. You might have to check a splatbook for more general purpose spells. For PHB only, you'd have to dedicate level 8 to this one, domain and/or utility. Then use 7th level or lower spells for some of your combats. Until you get 9s of course.

I was going to explain the epicness of create greater undead as an 8th level spell for combat and more. But I forgot good clerics can't do [Evil]. Even at low CR there are several powerful tricks their abilities have against foes that have no answer to them, and even some for foes that do have an answer. A way around the alignment issue is to be neutral.

There was a lot of discussion on implosion so I'll say this: Implosion is garbage. Single target SR yes SoD, and a large portion of foes are immune. Those factors are much more important than a defensive spell that is almost never active (again, can't defend against everything at once).

[King of Nowhere]

. With a duration of min/level and limited classes that can cast it, let alone have it prepared, death ward is an extremely unlikely fear. "A defense exists for it" is a meaningless fallacy because you can't defend against everything at once.

Once, the party cleric was killed by a destruction, due to rolling 3 on the saving throw.
Normally this wouldn't be a great deal, as I run a high magic world where resurrection is easy to get. but the party was stuck in the infernal plane, which I characterized as a place defying the conventional laws of geometry so that if you try to walk straight you end up running in circles. Because of its strange nature, it defies all long range trasportation spells, and all magical methods to divine a direction. the party had hired an npc with the capacity to orienteering in the plane, but he was slain by a finger of death immediately thereafter, leaving the party stranded in a deadly place. It was quite hard for them to recover from that.

Since then, the party has been very keen on using death ward.

Then they learned that the high cleric of vecna, whom has not appeared so far but they know will be a major enemy eventually, can cast banshee's wail with a saving throw DC above 35 (from a staff of spell storing).

Since then, the players are planning to get some item of permanent death ward. Which, being the world high-magic and high-wealth, isn't that difficult to get

Then they learned that the aforementioned cleric of vecna also can cast disjunction, and his favored opening is disjunction + quickened banshee's wail (from rod of metamagic; being 800 years old and head of a major church, the guy is very well equipped).

Since then, the players are planning to use miracle/wish to make their death ward item resistant to disjoining.

So, regardless of the general likelyhood that someone will have death ward, when it comes to my players it is VERY likely.

[eggynack]

I'm saying:
Gate says you must give "appropriate rewards"
"Appropriate rewards" can be livestock instead of gold
Livestock is just an example, not an exclusive special case.
Therefore "appropriate rewards" can be souls

You're saying:
Planar Ally only accepts money
Gate points to Planar Ally as guidelines for cost of service.
Therefore "appropriate rewards" must be gold only, except livestock is mentioned as well so it must be gold or livestock only.

I think my argument is better.

Now as to whether this allows the DM to force players to perform a task instead of payment...
On one hand the task could be "Get me 10 golden chalices" so in this case golden chalices are currency.
On the other hand "Kill this mortal for me" doesn't sound like currency.

I will agree with you that the DM cannot demand "Kill this mortal for me" as payment, but I will disagree about whether "Get me 10 golden chalices" can be payment or not.
As long as the thing in question can, in fact, be called currency, I think it's fair game. Currency is, essentially by definition, highly liquid and price stable. If golden chalices are those things, then sure, it might make sense for that to be the cost, but in that case it would be necessarily trivial to obtain them. By contrast, souls, at least in the mortal realm, are neither liquid nor price stable. Same goes for contracted killing. All in all, I don't see this issue representing a significant hurdle for a gate user.

[SecondCid]

Seconding what Tindragon said above, some good examples of domain spells (all SRD):

War: Power Word Stun (8), Power Word Kill (9)
Darkness: Power Word Blind (8) - War gives this at 7 though, Power Word Kill (9)
Death: wail of the banshee (9)
Charm: dominate monster (9)
Madness: Maddening Scream (8), Weird (9)
Mind: Weird (9)
Trickery: Time Stop (9)
Rune: Symbol of Death (8)

Some decent options without domains in Implosion and the spells already listed by others, but granted that it's definitely not the myriad of options available to a wizard. But the cleric can also cast divine power on himself to be functionally one of the best archers of any SRD class (if memory serves), so it's not all bad.

[Troacctid]

Level 9:

Miracle: It doesn't just let you access the wizard list. It lets you access any spell up to the level limit without deciding which one ahead of time. Because it has no xp cost it is thus better than wish in many ways for the sheer versatility without major drawbacks. The only significant drawback is the small possibility of annoying your deity. Even with 7th level spells or lower when it's tailored specifically to the enemies it's quite good. BFC spells in general are great even when they're behind a couple spell levels, even without tailoring them to the enemy. In many ways this is better than what a wizard can do with his 9s. Be ready for whatever the combat might require without casting 27 divinations ahead of time like only a TO wizard can pull off.
And don't forget that whatever you cast with it is a standard action. You can use it to duplicate geas/quest or hallow or symbol of death or whatever, right in the middle of combat.

[RoboEmperor]

As long as the thing in question can, in fact, be called currency, I think it's fair game. Currency is, essentially by definition, highly liquid and price stable. If golden chalices are those things, then sure, it might make sense for that to be the cost, but in that case it would be necessarily trivial to obtain them. By contrast, souls, at least in the mortal realm, are neither liquid nor price stable. Same goes for contracted killing. All in all, I don't see this issue representing a significant hurdle for a gate user.

Souls are a currency in the hells so I disagree on this. Mortals pay devils with souls. Souls turn into magic and lemures. Slaves are no different than livestock. It gets weird and disturbing but because of devils souls are definitely valid form of payment.

[eggynack]

Souls are a currency in the hells so I disagree on this. Mortals pay devils with souls. Souls turn into magic and lemures. Slaves are no different than livestock. It gets weird and disturbing but because of devils souls are definitely valid form of payment.
Sure, souls are currency in some contexts, but it seems like one of those contexts is decidedly not on the prime material, where they lack either the liquidity or the relatively stable/known price you'd expect of a currency. A mortal can sell their soul, but it seems non-trivial to buy one.

Also, gotta point out, there's a weirdness even with the, "You might need livestock," thing. There's a compulsion intrinsic to the spell, and you're the one making the offer, which means that I dunno that the targeted creature is in any position to bargain. By RAW, you say, "I will give you 1,000 GP, because that is the fair market value for the service," and then there's really no apparent room to maneuver. So, the creature might want livestock, or chalices, or souls, but I don't see a mechanism by which they can demand it, and neither can I see one by which they can refuse a request with fair payment. This isn't like planar ally where the creature has a bunch of leverage. If the price paid is fair, and lesser planar ally defines what a fair price is, then that's all there is to it.

[RoboEmperor]

Sure, souls are currency in some contexts, but it seems like one of those contexts is decidedly not on the prime material, where they lack either the liquidity or the relatively stable/known price you'd expect of a currency. A mortal can sell their soul, but it seems non-trivial to buy one.

Also, gotta point out, there's a weirdness even with the, "You might need livestock," thing. There's a compulsion intrinsic to the spell, and you're the one making the offer, which means that I dunno that the targeted creature is in any position to bargain. By RAW, you say, "I will give you 1,000 GP, because that is the fair market value for the service," and then there's really no apparent room to maneuver. So, the creature might want livestock, or chalices, or souls, but I don't see a mechanism by which they can demand it, and neither can I see one by which they can refuse a request with fair payment. This isn't like planar ally where the creature has a bunch of leverage. If the price paid is fair, and lesser planar ally defines what a fair price is, then that's all there is to it.

I guess you have a point. It constantly references Planar Ally instead of Planar Binding. So if the caster does pay in souls the souls must be worth 1,000gp/hd for 1day/CL service, no more no less. Since souls don't have a value (at least I think they don't) I guess you're right, you can't pay in souls, unlike livestock which does have a price tag.

[ericgrau]

Once, the party cleric was killed by a destruction, due to rolling 3 on the saving throw.
Normally this wouldn't be a great deal, as I run a high magic world where resurrection is easy to get. but the party was stuck in the infernal plane, which I characterized as a place defying the conventional laws of geometry so that if you try to walk straight you end up running in circles. Because of its strange nature, it defies all long range trasportation spells, and all magical methods to divine a direction. the party had hired an npc with the capacity to orienteering in the plane, but he was slain by a finger of death immediately thereafter, leaving the party stranded in a deadly place. It was quite hard for them to recover from that.

Since then, the party has been very keen on using death ward.

Then they learned that the high cleric of vecna, whom has not appeared so far but they know will be a major enemy eventually, can cast banshee's wail with a saving throw DC above 35 (from a staff of spell storing).

Since then, the players are planning to get some item of permanent death ward. Which, being the world high-magic and high-wealth, isn't that difficult to get

Then they learned that the aforementioned cleric of vecna also can cast disjunction, and his favored opening is disjunction + quickened banshee's wail (from rod of metamagic; being 800 years old and head of a major church, the guy is very well equipped).

Since then, the players are planning to use miracle/wish to make their death ward item resistant to disjoining.

So, regardless of the general likelyhood that someone will have death ward, when it comes to my players it is VERY likely.
Which is why SoDs, even single target SoDs, are scary in the hand of the DM and spells like death ward are sometimes ok for the PCs. But single target SoDs are lousy in the hand of PCs and death ward is unlikely to be in the hands of enemies. Even if an enemy does have it, you switch to one of many actual good spells besides destruction and congrats your enemy just wasted a round on a useless spell AND you didn't waste your time casting a spell as bad as destruction. Also if you don't have access to resurrection at high level, you're going to die to one of 97 possible effects; I'm sorry for the disappointment you'll find after you finally address just one of them.

A permanent death ward item would be way way better than the 1 min/level problem spell. The guidelines (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm) suggest 7*4*2,000*2=112,000 gp. Also the DM is fond of death effects, so it makes more sense for your party to get death ward. If he was fond of something else, you'd have to deal with the something else and all these resources and planning would be for naught.

Once disjunction and a 170,000 gp item as just one of the enemy's items is involved the whole thing's gone nuclear and all bets are off anyway. Your only response is not a vain attempt to defend against it all but to go nuclear yourself.

[Goaty14]

Sure you can. You can worship literally any concept, just find the most agreeable one you can think of. Like the concept of self worship, or personal desires, or even something as simple as a common eggbeater.

My next cleric will be worshiping his eggbeater thankyouverymuch. :smalltongue:

[Kelb_Panthera]

I guess you have a point. It constantly references Planar Ally instead of Planar Binding. So if the caster does pay in souls the souls must be worth 1,000gp/hd for 1day/CL service, no more no less. Since souls don't have a value (at least I think they don't) I guess you're right, you can't pay in souls, unlike livestock which does have a price tag.

Souls are worth 50gp a piece, minimum. Using a soul for an XP substitute, per BoVD is worth 10XP and XP are worth 5gp each, minimum, per magic item creation guidelines and a few other things.

You could also argue for 250gp using a different part of the magic item guidelines.

FCII has guidelines for faustian pacts that could be used to price individual souls.

The "no more, no less" argument is specious at best. The guidelines given in planar ally are just that; guidelines. They clearly state that discounts are given for easy tasks and premiums are demanded for especially hazardous ones while payment is accepted in a variety of non-monetary forms. The details of the payment are plainly, necessarily negotiable if you give even a moment's thought to what the text means rather than trying to parse it like it was code.

[Anthrowhale]

A permanent death ward item would be way way better than the 1 min/level problem spell. The guidelines (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm) suggest 7*4*2,000*2=112,000 gp. Also the DM is fond of death effects, so it makes more sense for your party to get death ward. If he was fond of something else, you'd have to deal with the something else and all these resources and planning would be for naught.

Soulfire(+4 armor enchantment) offers permanent death ward. Done right, this costs 25K.

[RoboEmperor]

I think the DM should never use save or dies, and players should never use save or dies on important NPCs. It ruins the game imo. Your fully equipped, max hp and fully buffed character dying on the first round because of a bad roll is the furthest thing from fun or a satisfying experience and likewise, a BBEG dying to a SoD first round is the most anti-climactic thing ever.

Save or Suck only. Or save or dies against random mooks only.

[ryu]

If I went through the effort of becoming immune to as many as possible and having contingencies for those that aren't the BBEG will too or suffer for their negligence.

[RoboEmperor]

If I went through the effort of becoming immune to as many as possible and having contingencies for those that aren't the BBEG will too or suffer for their negligence.

High-OP sure. SoD immunities is a wealth tax on the player in high-op. The OP's level of optimization? I'd just recommend no SoDs.

[unseenmage]

Souls are worth 50gp a piece, minimum. Using a soul for an XP substitute, per BoVD is worth 10XP and XP are worth 5gp each, minimum, per magic item creation guidelines and a few other things.

You could also argue for 250gp using a different part of the magic item guidelines.

FCII has guidelines for faustian pacts that could be used to price individual souls.

The "no more, no less" argument is specious at best. The guidelines given in planar ally are just that; guidelines. They clearly state that discounts are given for easy tasks and premiums are demanded for especially hazardous ones while payment is accepted in a variety of non-monetary forms. The details of the payment are plainly, necessarily negotiable if you give even a moment's thought to what the text means rather than trying to parse it like it was code.

Doesnt Lords of Madness (I think?) have the prices for enslaved creatures? Thereby opening up a gp pricing option for basically any creature?

[ericgrau]

Soulfire(+4 armor enchantment) offers permanent death ward. Done right, this costs 25K.
That is way better. You still can't afford to guard against everything and need a good attack instead. Even in the example the person still needs an anti-disjunction item to continue in the failing strats. For just 1 foe.


High-OP sure. SoD immunities is a wealth tax on the player in high-op. The OP's level of optimization? I'd just recommend no SoDs.
Pretty much.

Regardless you still don't want implosion because it's a poor level of offense. Even if the enemy wasted all that effort on death ward only to have you immediately switch spells and make it all for naught, there are better spells to switch to. And the real reason you don't often take death effects are more common things like undead, constructs and SR; not narrow uncommon defenses. All 3 of these stop implosion too. AND it's a single target fort SoD.

[eggynack]

The details of the payment are plainly, necessarily negotiable if you give even a moment's thought to what the text means rather than trying to parse it like it was code.
I dunno that you have to parse it like code to get to what I'm saying. Not only is there not an apparent mechanism by which the creature can negotiate. It doesn't make all that much sense that they would be able to negotiate. Gate has a kinda forceful nature to it.

[Venger]

Doesnt Lords of Madness (I think?) have the prices for enslaved creatures? Thereby opening up a gp pricing option for basically any creature?

Yep! cr ^2 x100, strength, beauty, exotic origin, or special skills can add a modifier of x2-4

[Kelb_Panthera]

I dunno that you have to parse it like code to get to what I'm saying. Not only is there not an apparent mechanism by which the creature can negotiate. It doesn't make all that much sense that they would be able to negotiate. Gate has a kinda forceful nature to it.

4th paragraph under calling creatures. They were discussing what constitutes a fair trade, which references planar ally for guidelines. There's no good reason to assume that wouldn't involve some negotiation.

[eggynack]

4th paragraph under calling creatures. They were discussing what constitutes a fair trade, which references planar ally for guidelines. There's no good reason to assume that wouldn't involve some negotiation.
I mean, yeah, it seems pretty obvious that they wanted some level of negotiation. It's just that such negotiation doesn't really make sense within the spell. I think there's some space between playing the game precisely as we can assume the developers intended and taking a totally programmatic syntactic approach to the game. This is within that space.

[Oko and Qailee]

IF the DM feels like playing along. The text of both spells includes lines which basically say "this spell gives your DM license to completely screw you over if they feel like it".

You're confusing Miracle with Wish.

While Miracle "relies" on your deity, no DM can reasonably justify a deity denying a miracle for his cleric. What possible reason would Pelor have to screw you over against the BBEG Dracosuperlichgodofchaos? Wish at least you can barely justify it with "you didnt phrase it like a lawyer, get screwed", but Miracle is a request to your deity who has Wis 50 and obviously will understand the intent/semantics of your request better than any human alive today is capable of.

A DM screwing with your Miracle should just be banning Miracle, because screwing with Miracle is a misunderstanding of how it works.

[Mordaedil]

Yeah, while wish is requesting a favor from something uncaring, Miracle at least petitions the deity, in all their infallibility. That said, deities also have more information than the player character and ultimately can only do so much to interdict in scenarios your character can't deal with. They might be aware of consequences you are not and hold off on your wish or perform your wish a tad differently than you intended.

But it shouldn't be a monkey's paw (but I don't think Wish should be that either, uncaring maybe, but not malicious), any miracle that turns out differently from how your character intended should have a good reason.

[Eldariel]

Soulfire(+4 armor enchantment) offers permanent death ward. Done right, this costs 25K.

Also simply acquiring Undead or Construct type through any means (Polymorph Any Object, Shapechange, Magic Jar, etc.) grants you comprehensive immunity to a laundry list of such effects. There are of course plenty of other spells that do it too. And 20-40 mins is quite long on high levels already. There's just a laundry list of things you don't want to deal with. MiC has very cheap charge-based options to that end as well.

[Calthropstu]

You're confusing Miracle with Wish.

While Miracle "relies" on your deity, no DM can reasonably justify a deity denying a miracle for his cleric. What possible reason would Pelor have to screw you over against the BBEG Dracosuperlichgodofchaos? Wish at least you can barely justify it with "you didnt phrase it like a lawyer, get screwed", but Miracle is a request to your deity who has Wis 50 and obviously will understand the intent/semantics of your request better than any human alive today is capable of.

A DM screwing with your Miracle should just be banning Miracle, because screwing with Miracle is a misunderstanding of how it works.

Agreed. Miracle is a high level request to your god. Either the god grants it or it doesn't.... it won't screw it over with false intent. Unless it's a particularly vicious evil malign god.

I could see Rovagug, for example' killing the delusional human worshipping him with the miracle spell while also fulfilling the spell itself.

[Eldariel]

Agreed. Miracle is a high level request to your god. Either the god grants it or it doesn't.... it won't screw it over with false intent. Unless it's a particularly vicious evil malign god.

I could see Rovagug, for example' killing the delusional human worshipping him with the miracle spell while also fulfilling the spell itself.

Also, if you're dumb enough to worship Vecna, perhaps. But eh, that's pretty much shooting yourself in the foot with a rocket launcher anyways; you won't survive Vecna.

[King of Nowhere]

I think the DM should never use save or dies, and players should never use save or dies on important NPCs. It ruins the game imo. Your fully equipped, max hp and fully buffed character dying on the first round because of a bad roll is the furthest thing from fun or a satisfying experience and likewise, a BBEG dying to a SoD first round is the most anti-climactic thing ever.

Save or Suck only. Or save or dies against random mooks only.


High-OP sure. SoD immunities is a wealth tax on the player in high-op. The OP's level of optimization? I'd just recommend no SoDs.

It works pretty well in my world. I ban most of the high-op strategies to keep the table level consistent and to everyone's liking, and high wealth means everyone is full of defensive items. Monsters are rarely good challenges at the mid-high levels we are, the plot is mostly political with fighting between various nations/organizations and adventurers loial to each one, with occasional hired freelancers. So, the common fight is a group of pcs against a similar group of similar level npcs. in those conditions, there is no big boss to one-shot, and if one of the pcs is killed, it's no big deal. killed people come back. The only thing that really matters is equipment, as important people are carrying around over a million by now, and possibly a unique item. And it's hard to steal eequipment because when a side is losing they generally try to grab their dead and flee.
As for trapping souls, it is regarded as akin to nukes, and so far nobody is willing to do it (yet).
And it works fine. Combat is prolonged and engaging, and martials get to contribute meaningfully at high levels. It was accidental mostly, but we are satisfied enough with this result that I now houserule specifically to keep things that way - rarely by flat-out banning, mostly by selecctive nerfing.
Incidentally, it makes quite difficult to find good advice on forums, as the best advice is generally banning material; but I can learn a few things in the process anyway.

SoD are still not the preferred method of attack, anyway, since everyone's saving throws are so buffed up that they are unlikely to work. Area damage are actually a preferred method, since they sinergize with the damage dealt by the party martial, it affects all the enemy party, and it cuts through spell turning, mists, and a lot of stuff. It's not particularly effective, but it's reliable to be at least mildly effective. That, or buffing/supporting the martials, as it often takes the enemy more actions to disable them than it takes you to put them back on their feet. Maybe this paradigm will change once mass heal will become more common and so widespread damage will be easily negated, who knows.
The vecna guy spamming SoD is an exception to that; he has a higher DC than anyone else by a fair margin, and so he can expect a good rate of success. He also has more money than he would ever need, so he cares little about ruining other people equipment. It actually enhances the feeling of just how dangerous the guy is, that in a world where people are reluctant to use disjunction to avoid damaging potential loot and are reluctant to use SoD because it doesn't often work, he prefers to start a fight by using both at once. And it worked so well that it stuck in the players' minds, even though they never met the guy and they are not expecting to picking up a fight with the church of vecna anytime soon.

[gogogome]

Incidentally, it makes quite difficult to find good advice on forums, as the best advice is generally banning material; but I can learn a few things in the process anyway.

The best advice is to allow everything and disallow characters instead of banning material. Stuff that is broken and abusable when in the hands of an optimizer is normal and sometimes underwhelming for people who use that same stuff to enable a fun shtick and nerfing that stuff will destroy the person using it for fun rather than power.

I'm a DM too and whenever a player of mine brings in something unexpectedly powerful my initial reaction is to learn how to deal with it rather than going straight to bans and house rules because the former makes me a better DM while the latter will stunt my system mastery of the game. Several of my players regularly tell me that they are thankful to have met me because I'm the only DM they've met that can handle the stuff they wanted to do which let them fully enjoy d&d 3.5 instead of being forced to stick to mostly core. Not that sticking mostly to core is a bad thing.

This forum is a great resource. Not too long ago I posted a thread asking for advice on dealing with a player who constructed an Gargantuan Animated Object at level 6 and the forum was extremely helpful in helping me design encounters that can challenge the Gargantuan Animated Object and the rest of the party too.