Stormwalk Benefits

[Drakevarg]

Been reading through a bunch of spells today for a small project, and I found one that's kind of interesting: Stormwalk, from Stormwrack p. 122.


As teleport, save that you draw upon the power of a storm to teleport yourself and a number of others from one place to another.
Upon casting the spell, the storm suddenly intensifies in the area where the spell was cast, obscuring sight of those affected—whether because of a thickening of fog, a sudden increase in the downfall of hail and sleet, or a strike of lightning.
On the next round, the disturbance disappears and the characters affected by the spell are gone.
Though the targets of the spell disappear instantaneously once the spell is cast, they do not immediately reappear at the spell's destination.
Instead, 10 minutes elapse during which a storm quickly develops in the target location.
This is plainly not a natural occurrence to anyone who witnesses it, unless there is already a storm in progress.
Then an intensification of this storm obscures sight at the target location, and the targets of the spell reappear.
The targets always appear in some place that is open to the storm—thus, they can appear on the upper parapets of a castle, but not inside the castle.
Though 10 minutes have passed since they disappeared, it appears to the travelers as though the transport were instantaneous.
Additionally, for the 10 minutes while the targets are gone, they are treated as though they were in another plane.

Now, being an incredibly stylish way to travel aside, is there any actual advantage to using this spell over simply casting teleport? Or is just meant as a druid version and sorcerers/wizards only get it because they get everything?

[Thurbane]

Well, you can bring along more creatures.

And there's the weird "disappear for 10 minutes" deal - there may be some way to exploit that.

But yeah, I can't really see the point of this if you have access to Teleport.

[RaiKirah]

Well, you can bring along more creatures.

And there's the weird "disappear for 10 minutes" deal - there may be some way to exploit that.

But yeah, I can't really see the point of this if you have access to Teleport.

It does have the benefit of starting a storm in the location you're going to, which can be exploited for Control Winds and similar. I imaging a Stormsinger/Sublime Chord build could make good use of it.

[tiercel]

Well, you can bring along more creatures.

And there's the weird "disappear for 10 minutes" deal - there may be some way to exploit that.

But yeah, I can't really see the point of this if you have access to Teleport.

More creatures for sure; I suppose you might argue that Stormwalk’s Target line overrides the description of Teleport’s Target line, so you just get straight-up you + one creature / two levels regardless of size. (That’s not entirely clear, but potentially is arguable.)

I was thinking maybe you could exploit the disappearance thing to be all “my enemy’s short-duration buff spells are down after 10 minutes, mine are still running because no time passes for me” but there’s that pesky 1-full-round casting time on Stormwalk making it more difficult to pull off. Unless Something Terrible is happening to the whole world in the next 10 minutes and you just want to time-skip it and reappear, then I’m not sure it’s an advantage.

So mostly, yeah, druids. Unless you can make the “bigger creatures are OK” thing fly.

[Fizban]

Higher capacity mostly- note that Shadow Walk is also 6th for what would appear to be no good reason, except it can bring a full creature per level. The sight obscuring effect can be read as beginning when you start casting, such that it covers you while you complete the spell and the disappears on your next turn when it finishes and you disappear. Your touchdown is obscured on arrival, which could be a useful defensive feature, and you arrive with a storm already in place which might benefit other storm magics. The fact that it effectively signals the destination that someone is incoming could be considered useful, so that allies know to lower defenses or make other preparations.

But yeah, it's pretty much just a Druid spell that Sor/Wiz also has because so many spell writers can't write a non-Cleric spell without automatically making it a Sor/Wiz spell.

[Saintheart]

It might be worth remembering that the spell also generates a storm at the location you want to teleport to. Storms bring their own weather effects with them; one in ten thunderstorms, per the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/weather.htm#thunderstorm) bring a tornado with them, but on their own, they wipe visibility to zero - Spot, Listen, and Search checks become impossible - and all ranged attacks are impossible. Everyone in its range is subject to DC 20 Fort checks or be knocked down. If you want to make a hell of an entrance and nerf enemy ranged opposition, that's not a bad suite of abilities to go with, particularly if you're prepped for it. If Spot, Listen, and Search checks are impossible, the opposition is flatfooted because they literally cannot see you coming.

[Zaq]

one in ten thunderstorms, per the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/weather.htm#thunderstorm) bring a tornado with them,

lol wut?

I . . . Huh. Okay, I get that this is a dramatic fantasy game and all, realism be damned, but that’s gotta be some kind of mistake. Is it, like, saying that one in ten thunderstorms that count as “powerful storms” (above and beyond a regular storm) have tornadoes? Or just that 10% of all thunderstorms just happen to have a tornado too? Because that strikes me as, frankly, insane. That actually sounds like a moderate-level elder evil sign. How does any building stay standing for ten consecutive years?

If you roll for weather once a day per given temperate location using that table in the SRD, on average you’ll see about 32-33 storms and 3 or 4 “powerful storms” per year. If 1 in 10 thunderstorms has a tornado with it, that’s what, at least two tornadoes plus three other unspecified “powerful storms” per location per year, on average? (I say two instead of three because I’ll assume that 1/4 of the storms in the year are in winter and are therefore snowstorms instead of thunderstorms.) Sure, tornadoes cause relatively unpredictable damage in their locality (compared to a more widespread windstorm like a hurricane), but still. That’s an awful lot of potential destruction.

I know that actually assuming that the tables in the DMG create a consistent and viable world is folly (even before we get into, like, economic issues), but that still seems kind of jauntily insane.

[The Viscount]

If you're a class like stormcaster you are immune to the negative effects of the storm and can protect your friends, while enemies in the location are debuffed by the storm.
Stormlords can fly in areas of stormy weather.

Due to the poor wording of the spell, because it's instantaneous the storm created at your destination lasts forever so you can use it as a natural defense for a location, or a place where storm dependent effects are stronger.

[Drakevarg]

If you roll for weather once a day per given temperate location using that table in the SRD, on average you’ll see about 32-33 storms and 3 or 4 “powerful storms” per year. If 1 in 10 thunderstorms has a tornado with it, that’s what, at least two tornadoes plus three other unspecified “powerful storms” per location per year, on average? (I say two instead of three because I’ll assume that 1/4 of the storms in the year are in winter and are therefore snowstorms instead of thunderstorms.) Sure, tornadoes cause relatively unpredictable damage in their locality (compared to a more widespread windstorm like a hurricane), but still. That’s an awful lot of potential destruction.

I know that actually assuming that the tables in the DMG create a consistent and viable world is folly (even before we get into, like, economic issues), but that still seems kind of jauntily insane.

My standards might be skewed living in the Midwest, but "roughly one tornado per decade year in any given area" sounds pretty reasonable to me. Weather effects are fairly vague about the area they effect, so a tornado could easily touch down and destroy nothing but trees, or just graze the edge of a town and knock over some huts. Tornadoes aren't exactly the malevolent fingers of an angry storm god, they don't aim for settlements.

EDIT: Misread your wording. That said, even a tornado or two per year sounds fine. "Tornado" does not mean "mile-wide F5 deathstorm." Just means anything with a funnel cloud. Hurricanes need to be of a certain level of power to not just count as a tropical storm. Tornadoes just need to land.

[ExLibrisMortis]

As native of a non-tornado place, I say tornados are unrealistic. You just can't get enough wind speed to generate that kind of funnel!

But seriously, control winds after stormwalk gets you a free tornado. That's not bad.

[Pleh]

I live in north american midwest, sometimes called, "tornado alley." During the thuderstorm seasons, 1 in 10 storms doesn't seem too unusual. MOST of them will just be "watches" which mean they'll be in your county somewhere. "Warnings" mean it might hit your neighborhood, but even then it's pretty unlikely. Most tornados pretty rarely hit buildings.

Then again, most aren't magically spawned in downtown.

[Sto]

I lived in Tornado alley for 9 years. We got about 1 alert/warning a week one month.

The benefits of Stormwalk is that it looks really cool and lets you summon tornados. Stack it with that Raptorans prc that let's you control winds as a spell like and go to town.

[torrasque666]

A massive thunderstorm might also count as an area of "strong physical or magical energy" and thus mess over attempts to follow you.

[tiercel]

A massive thunderstorm might also count as an area of "strong physical or magical energy" and thus mess over attempts to follow you.

That and if someone tries to follow you within the next 10 minutes, that person will get “404: Teleporter not found.”

The storm creation itself could indeed be a nice perk for casters set up for it — it would be reasonable for a DM to rule that once created, the thunderstorm evolves/dies out normally, but that is presumably plenty of time to evoke lightning/wind/storm type magic upon arrival.