Retribution Magic

[AvatarVecna]

Looking to compile a list of all spells that punish enemies for attacking the caster in some way without requiring any action on the caster's part (so not including spells you can cast as an immediate on attackers). Here's what I've got so far:

Acid Sheath (Spell Compendium)
Babau Slime (Spell Compendium)
Balor Nimbus (Spell Compendium)
Body Blades (Spell Compendium)
Cloak Of Chaos (Player's Handbook)
Coat Of Arms (Complete Mage)
Crawling Darkness (Spell Compendium)
Disk Of Solar Vengeance (Champion Of Valor)
Divine Retribution (Complete Champion)
Ectoplasmic Feedback (Spell Compendium)
End To Strife (Book Of Exalted Deeds)
Energized Shield (Spell Compendium)
Energized Shield, Lesser (Spell Compendium)
Energy Retort (Expanded Psionics Handbook)
Fire In The Blood (Heroes Of Horror)
Fire Shield (Player's Handbook)
Friendly Fire (Exemplars Of Evil)
Hamatula Barbs (Spell Compendium)
Holy Aura (Player's Handbook)
Holy Fire Shield (Champions Of Valor)
Karmic Aura (Complete Mage)
Karmic Backlash (Complete Mage)
Karmic Retribution (Complete Mage)
Mysterious Redirection (Complete Mage)
Poison Thorns (Spell Compendium)
Prismatic Aura (Complete Mage)
Radiant Shield (Book Of Exalted Deeds)
Retributive Enervation (Complete Mage)
Shield Of Law (Player's Handbook)
Skin Of The Cactus (Sandstorm)
Sonic Shield (Player's Handbook 2)
Sunmantle (Book Of Exalted Deeds)
Thornskin (Spell Compendium)
Unholy Aura (Player's Handbook)
Urchin's Spines (Stormwrack)
Vengeance Halo (Book Of Exalted Deeds)

My current issue is that, while I found a lot of spells like this, most of them punish specifically grapplers - which is nice, but more effects punishing other stuff would be better.

EDIT: List updated with some of the stuff listed below, as well as stuff those suggestions reminded me to search for - all bolded. Many thanks to those that have helped. :smallsmile:

[Nifft]

Body of the Sun (CDiv) might be read as inflicting damage on melee attackers who traversed an adjacent space while attacking. It's not a strong argument, but it's possible.

Ectoplasmic Feedback (SpC / LMort) is a bit overly specific, but it's valid.

Fire In the Blood (HoH) belongs on your list.

Fireshield (Core / SRD) seems like an obvious candidate.

Holy Aura (and friends, all Core / SRD) seems like another obvious candidate.

Hamatula Barbs (PlH / SpC) looks legit.

Mysterious Redirection (CMage) might count? It's not necessarily going to punish the attacker directly, but it's quite likely you can arrange for the attacker's friends to be harmed instead of yourself or your friends.

Prismatic Aura (CMage) looks like a good fit.

Sonic Shield (PHB2) sounds great.

Sunmantle (BoED) belongs on your list, it's unambiguous retaliation.

[Blackhawk748]

Isn't there one called Booking Blood or Acidic Blood that hits the attack with acid damage if they hit them? Or is that under some other name I can't recall?

[TheCount]

Isn't there one called Booking Blood or Acidic Blood that hits the attack with acid damage if they hit them? Or is that under some other name I can't recall?

Fire in the blood, but yes alas, it works agains only piercing or slashing weapons. it was also mentioned above

There is also the Spite domain power from heroes of horrors

as well as the domain exclusive Mantle of Pure Spite

And i feel like Bestow Wound should get a honorable mention as well as Vampiric Touch

Edit i also like these kind of spells so bookmarking this!

[Blackhawk748]

Fire in the blood, but yes alas, it works agains only piercing or slashing weapons. it was also mentioned above

Ah, that was it. And yes, but I would say that like 75% of all Monster attacks fall into those two so it's still fairly useful. The issue comes from having to actually take the damage

[AvatarVecna]

Body of the Sun (CDiv) might be read as inflicting damage on melee attackers who traversed an adjacent space while attacking. It's not a strong argument, but it's possible.

Ectoplasmic Feedback (SpC / LMort) is a bit overly specific, but it's valid.

Fire In the Blood (HoH) belongs on your list.

Fireshield (Core / SRD) seems like an obvious candidate.

Holy Aura (and friends, all Core / SRD) seems like another obvious candidate.

Hamatula Barbs (PlH / SpC) looks legit.

Mysterious Redirection (CMage) might count? It's not necessarily going to punish the attacker directly, but it's quite likely you can arrange for the attacker's friends to be harmed instead of yourself or your friends.

Prismatic Aura (CMage) looks like a good fit.

Sonic Shield (PHB2) sounds great.

Sunmantle (BoED) belongs on your list, it's unambiguous retaliation.

Yeah, damage-auras aren't what I'm looking for; while they can be fitting, they're also indiscriminate, and while there's ways to fix it, it's more punishing positioning than actual violence. Which, actually, reminds me that there's some really powerful Apostle Of Peace spell that does something like this... EDIT: End To Strife doesn't punish attacks on the caster as much as attacks within the area, but that still serves my purposes so added.

Ectoplasmic Feedback is really circumstantial, yeah, but I'm not judging these spells on their merits right now, so on the list it goes! :smalltongue:

Mysterious Redirection should probably count, and if it counts, then Friendly Fire almost certainly does as well. Both have been added.

As far as the core spells go, while I didn't recall that Holy Aura and friends had a retributive effect, I have no excuse for forgetting Fire Shield because it's actually the spell that inspired me to make this (in a "how many spells like this could I theoretically stack together?" kinda way). Added, to my shame.


Fire in the blood, but yes alas, it works agains only piercing or slashing weapons. it was also mentioned above

There is also the Spite domain power from heroes of horrors

as well as the domain exclusive Mantle of Pure Spite

And i feel like Bestow Wound should get a honorable mention as well as Vampiric Touch

Edit i also like these kind of spells so bookmarking this!

Hmm...I should probably add domain powers separately, but they fit the kinda thing I'm looking for.

See, spells like Bestow Wound are things I'm wanting to leave off this list. While it is, in a sense, retributive, it's also explicitly reactionary - it punishes, but only if the caster takes immediate action. Punishing people without eating into my own action economy is vital because I'm looking to stack up a bunch of stuff like this, and having ten things I could spend my immediate action casting to punish an attacker is useful to the endgoal of punishing attackers, it doesn't really stack the same way spells like these do.

Mantle Of Pure Spite is a neat find, but it's actually a different kind of punish spell - useful, but not in a "hurts the enemy without me taking action" way. Mantle Of Pure Spite is in a category with Masochism (BoVD), which gives you an uncapped damage bonus this round that is proportional to the amount of total damage taken the round before. Both are worth mentioning in a Punish thread, but they don't really fit what I'm going for so they're not being added to the list.


Ah, that was it. And yes, but I would say that like 75% of all Monster attacks fall into those two so it's still fairly useful. The issue comes from having to actually take the damage

Yeah, that's kinda what sparked this idea. Basically, any one of these spells isn't really worth casting, because you could've cast something to prevent the damage rather than something that punishes the damage, and having to take the damage is still a problem for you. Plus, if you deal a dragon 2d6 or whatever for every attack they land on you, you're never going to deal more damage to them than they did to you. The only way to do that is if you stacked up a whole bunch of spells like that so that you deal 10d6, or 20d6, or 30d6 and a half-dozen conditions, or...

...well, anyway, that's the goal here: seeing what kind of combinations could be pulled off by a high-level caster abusing Persistent Spell or custom items or whatever, for the purposes of "I'm just gonna stand here while you kill yourself by trying to kill me".

[Nifft]

Psionics had a few, like this obvious gem: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/energyRetort.htm

Not applicable to all games, of course, and also not a spell, but it is technically magic under the default transparency rules, so yeah. :wink: