spells that you would never want.

[vasilidor]

like the title says: spells that you see as a complete waste of time and why.
for me it is most blasting/damage spells. yes, even magic missile. why? because direct damage spells take a lot of effort to make worth while, and you are better off doing save or suck in my own opinion.

[Troacctid]

Creeping doom and insect plague are both pretty janky. Very bad rate. Bigby's interposing hand is like, what if shield were four levels higher, but only applied against one enemy at a time? All three of these were nerfed hard in the 3.5 update and just...did not survive.

Meanwhile, we've got Leomund's trap, which does straight-up nothing and is proud of it. No PC has ever cast this spell before. It literally has no purpose except to be a mildly annoying prank.


for me it is most blasting/damage spells. yes, even magic missile. why? because direct damage spells take a lot of effort to make worth while, and you are better off doing save or suck in my own opinion.
What's wrong with blasting spells? I'm pretty sure they are the #1 most effective delivery source for damage, like, in the entire game. It's not hard at all to do 150+ damage out of a 3rd-level slot.

[Vaern]

What's wrong with blasting spells? I'm pretty sure they are the #1 most effective delivery source for damage, like, in the entire game. It's not hard at all to do 150+ damage out of a 3rd-level slot.
I enjoy disintegrating things as much as the next guy, but it's often faster and more efficient to effectively disable a target and then finish it off than to straight up damage it to death. Feeblemind got my party out of a really sticky situation when one of the player's former characters, a summoner who became an NPC after being retired, returned as an enemy later on.

[Mike Miller]

There are too many bad spells to mention here! When I have my books in front of me, maybe I will find some.

[Elkad]

I enjoy disintegrating things as much as the next guy, but it's often faster and more efficient to effectively disable a target and then finish it off than to straight up damage it to death. Feeblemind got my party out of a really sticky situation when one of the player's former characters, a summoner who became an NPC after being retired, returned as an enemy later on.

"A" target.

When you have to clear hundreds of pesky elves out of Lothlórien, you punch fireballs into treetops from 700' away.

[AvatarVecna]

There's a lot of spells that aren't technically useless, but would basically never get prepared even by specialists because they're too niche.

Meteor Swarm is a good example - it's got absurd range and area, but the damage is ****, particularly for your level. Even assuming that every target fails their save, this is something you're using to wipe out a solid portion of a very low-level army...but you're a wizard with 9th lvl spells. That's not exactly a challenge for you, it's something your summon deals with while you're on your way to confront the real danger.

Soul Bind is another spell with a very particular use that I don't really see a lot of call for in my personal adventuring. You know what kinda thing I wanna spend my 9th lvl slots on? Some way of spending a solid chunk of change to maybe theoretically screw over an enemy I've already killed. And yeah, if your DM has a habit of rezzing the bad guys to bring them back later (bigger and badder than ever), this has some value, sure. But that doesn't really line up with my game experience.

Power Word Kill is another weird one I'd probably never prepare. Oh yeah, I'd just love to cast a Mind-Affecting, SR Yes "no save just die" spell that is basically guaranteed to work against an opponent who's basically one round from death anyway, and is basically guaranteed to fail against anybody who isn't doing the low-epic equivalent of knocking on death's door.

[Khedrac]

Power Word Kill is another weird one I'd probably never prepare. Oh yeah, I'd just love to cast a Mind-Affecting, SR Yes "no save just die" spell that is basically guaranteed to work against an opponent who's basically one round from death anyway, and is basically guaranteed to fail against anybody who isn't doing the low-epic equivalent of knocking on death's door.

I used quickened true casting + power word kill to stop an NPC kill-stealing Demogorgon so it's not useless - I agree that it is niche and other spells are far better though.

A lot of the choice between save-or lose and damage spells comes down to how high you can pump save DCs. In a reasonably typical GitP 32pt buy campaign with moderate optimisation a save or Lose is likely to have a DC that gives a fair chance of affecting opponents with the relevant save as their good save.
In a more typical 28pt home campaign (we play 28 because that was the LG standard and is described as "high-powered" in the PHB) save-or-lose and a lot less worth casting at opponents when you know it's their good save (e.g. will save against clerics) - it's a waste of a spell.
In the rare, but they exist "by the book" 25pt campaign with low to mid optimisation you are getting close to the 1st and 2nd Ed rule of "go by when the spell does if they make their save - if they fail it is a bonus". At this point AoE save-for-half spells are often the best use of resources (though not to the point they were in 1st and 2nd Ed).

I completely agree on Bigby's Interposing Hand.

And I would add Circle of Death and Undeath to Death to the list - it's a bad spell even before you discover the 9HD cap...

[Elkad]

Power Word: Kill worked a lot better in 1e/2e.

A 20th level M-U (Wizard) with Con:16 (or anything higher) would have ~58 hitpoints. Even with good rolls, he'd be barely over the 60hp limit. And getting immunity was much harder.
1 segment casting time so it can't be interrupted. He's dead.

Like with many other spells, they failed to consider their own ruleset when adapting to 3.0/3.5

[Kalkra]

While not completely useless, Beget Bogun is another one that didn't survive the conversion to 3.5, because Control Plants got more or less replaced by Command Plants, but the requirements for creating a bogun didn't change, so you now need an 8th-level spell to make one. While boguns are nice, you could be doing much better things once you reach that level.

[Lin]

Fierce Pride of the Beastlands.

It's a conjuration (summoning) [chaotic, good] spell that summons 2d4 celestial lions, followed by 1d4 celestial dire lions 10 minutes later. The duration is decent (10min/lv), so it might be nice as a 5th level spell.

The problem is, this is an 8th level spell. This means that the lions you summon will be fighting CR15 enemies, and probably missing all of their attacks.
And don't forget the 10 minute cast time. Just… ew.

[Miss Disaster]

Crystalline Memories (Pg. 100 Complete Mage)

This one is quite the stinker. It's a super niche spell that can be proxied for a bunch of different ways. Too bad, because it is thematically striking.

The Swift Action casting time and 3 full round "concentration" time to finalize the spell is awkward as hell.

[Gnaeus]

Speak with plants.

Mundane plants are mindless and have no useful senses. So unless you need to know what the climate has been like very unlikely to help.

Plant creatures overwhelmingly fall into 2 categories: things that eat people and don’t care to chat and things that have languages, can probably speak common, and if not Sylvan (which most druids and rangers know) and would definitely be no harder to chat with with Tongues, which is often lower level, longer duration and not personal (so you can cast it on the party face).

[Troacctid]

I enjoy disintegrating things as much as the next guy, but it's often faster and more efficient to effectively disable a target and then finish it off than to straight up damage it to death. Feeblemind got my party out of a really sticky situation when one of the player's former characters, a summoner who became an NPC after being retired, returned as an enemy later on.
Is there a more disabling condition than "dead" that I don't know about?

[Wildstag]

Meanwhile, we've got Leomund's trap, which does straight-up nothing and is proud of it. No PC has ever cast this spell before. It literally has no purpose except to be a mildly annoying prank.

Sounds like it's a trap spell, heheh.

Pathfinder has a lot of these kinds of noob-trap spells. I was talking about Youthful Appearance with a guy last night and it's just terrible, a flavorful spell that accomplishes nothing a disguise or a little wrinkle-hiding makeup can't do.

Alarm is one of those spells that annoys me. Its material components work well for just making a mundane trap that actually lasts the full night. Levels 1-3 your spell won't last the full night, but a string and bell. It's just so pointless, it actually confuses me why anyone would take it.

Basically any of those spells that duplicate a simple mundane trick that costs less than 5 gp to perform and can be used repeatedly, Alarm is just the most obvious to me.

Oh, and in 3.5, those spells that deal with addiction. I don't think I've ever seen a GM implement addiction in a game, so why would I want to ever use the spell Addiction.

[Telok]

Flame arrow. It was already a bit niche in ad&d but sort of died in 3.5

In ad&d it did the fire arrows thing and had an ok direct damage option. You had henchies and hires to use the fire arrows up and doing things like lighting a goblin camp on fire at night were expected. Plus you might not be able to learn something like fireball.

3.5 it just has the fire arrow option, fireball and lightning bolt are safe for indoor use, and casters get easy spell access. There is also the fact that most groups will have zero or one actual bow users, so you'll never actually use all the arrows.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Most cantrips fall in this category for me. If I'm a prepared caster, it's pretty much all detect magic in 0 level slots and if I'm spontaneous only the top few options are finding their way into my known spells. The rest varies between trash and trash-light.

[Twurps]

Alarm is one of those spells that annoys me. Its material components work well for just making a mundane trap that actually lasts the full night. Levels 1-3 your spell won't last the full night, but a string and bell. It's just so pointless, it actually confuses me why anyone would take it.


This is actually a very usefull spell. Having these material components means you can fetch those out of you component pouch to set the mundane alarm without having to go mundane 'bell shoping' beforehand.

[AvatarVecna]

Most cantrips fall in this category for me. If I'm a prepared caster, it's pretty much all detect magic in 0 level slots and if I'm spontaneous only the top few options are finding their way into my known spells. The rest varies between trash and trash-light.

PF made cantrips af-will. That didn't make them OP, which tells you all you need to know really.

[NigelWalmsley]

Is there a more disabling condition than "dead" that I don't know about?

Mind-controlled.

[Vaern]

Is there a more disabling condition than "dead" that I don't know about?
One or two, but that's not the point. I'm merely suggesting that other disabling conditions are much easier to apply than "dead," and can then make applying the "dead" condition to your target much easier. You're going to have a much easier time of winning a fight against something that isn't capable of fighting back. I certainly wouldn't go to such an extent as vasilidor and say that you should never learn or cast any damaging spell ever and, in fact, encounters are probably designed with the expectation that you will be blasting your opponents to death and you can certainly get by on fireballs and lightning bolts, but status effects make things go much more smoothly.


Alarm is one of those spells that annoys me. Its material components work well for just making a mundane trap that actually lasts the full night. Levels 1-3 your spell won't last the full night, but a string and bell. It's just so pointless, it actually confuses me why anyone would take it.
A lot of spell requirements are literally jokes.
The arcane focus for Detect Thoughts is a copper piece, ie "A penny for your thoughts."
The material component for Passwall is sesame seeds. "Open sesame!"
Color Spray requires sand or powder of various colors. "Pocket sand!"

[Edea]

Never want because they suck mechanically (speak with plants, phantom trap, etc.) or never want because I find the actual idea of using them horrific regardless of efficacy (animate dead, mindrape, etc.)?

[Kalkra]

Never want because they suck mechanically (speak with plants, phantom trap, etc.) or never want because I find the actual idea of using them horrific regardless of efficacy (animate dead, mindrape, etc.)?

You find the idea of Animate Dead horrific? I mean, I get that dead people are icky, but a lot of spells are for the express purpose of making dead people. I wouldn't consider it any worse than the aftermath of a Fireball, for instance. Or stabbing somebody with a sword, for that matter. Heck, if you use the Delay Death + Beastland Ferocity combo, it'll be tough to tell you apart from a zombie after a certain point.

[Edea]

You find the idea of Animate Dead horrific? I mean, I get that dead people are icky, but a lot of spells are for the express purpose of making dead people. I wouldn't consider it any worse than the aftermath of a Fireball, for instance. Or stabbing somebody with a sword, for that matter. Heck, if you use the Delay Death + Beastland Ferocity combo, it'll be tough to tell you apart from a zombie after a certain point.

I mean...yeah? I don't think I'd ever want to forcefully reanimate a dead body like that. Pretty sure that spell's got the [Evil] descriptor (most of the BoVD is nasty enough I don't keep that splat on my bookshelf, but I had it to reference for making villains).

This is why when I play a specialist wizard I generally ban enchantment and necromancy, even if that's sub-optimal; those spells are, to me, kind-of gross. It's also a big reason why I've been wanting to homebrew 'cast from list' classes, as Beguiler and Dread Necromancer are both a bit creepy to me and Warmage suffers design issues.

[Zanos]

I'll mention contagion, since it's a 3rd/4th level touch spell that a ton of stuff is immune to that inflicts a piddling amount of ability damage and then forces regular saving throws vs a disease, which won't matter for PCs because anything they fight probably isn't going to care that it has to make another save in 24 hours.


Meanwhile, we've got Leomund's trap, which does straight-up nothing and is proud of it. No PC has ever cast this spell before. It literally has no purpose except to be a mildly annoying prank.
The weird thing is that it has no save and no (disbelief) tag, so it seems that nothing other than setting it off can convince someone the object in question is not trapped. Seems to be mostly for trolling PCs, since even if you do spend a bunch of time attempting to disarm the 'trap', eventually you'll just get something disposable to set it off intentionally.


What's wrong with blasting spells? I'm pretty sure they are the #1 most effective delivery source for damage, like, in the entire game. It's not hard at all to do 150+ damage out of a 3rd-level slot.
Even without optimization damage gets a bad rap. Dead creatures can't take actions, after all. Magic missile does little damage but it's very good at taking out incorporeal foes at lower levels, since they tend to have low hit points.


I mean...yeah? I don't think I'd ever want to forcefully reanimate a dead body like that. Pretty sure that spell's got the [Evil] descriptor (most of the BoVD is nasty enough I don't keep that splat on my bookshelf, but I had it to reference for making villains).
Personally I think animate dead is pretty tame considering the horrific stuff adventurers routinely encounter, or just the horrors of warfare in general. And it's in the core book, not BoVD. In character objections to animate dead should, IMO, be based on culture expectations of the treatment of the dead, or a metaphysical objection to casting [Evil] spells. Complaining about fighting next to a skeleton is kind of trite when you disemboweled a guy and then rifled through his pockets yesterday.

As mentioned above fireball might not be [Evil], but can you ever really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose after killing a bunch of goblins with it? Probably not.

[Rynjin]

Alarm is one of those spells that annoys me. Its material components work well for just making a mundane trap that actually lasts the full night. Levels 1-3 your spell won't last the full night, but a string and bell. It's just so pointless, it actually confuses me why anyone would take it.

Basically any of those spells that duplicate a simple mundane trick that costs less than 5 gp to perform and can be used repeatedly, Alarm is just the most obvious to me.

Alarm is a spell that exists to be made Permanent or set up as part of a resetting trap. That doesn't make it bad for its purpose, just for adventuring at low levels. By level 8 it's still handy for adventuring since you can use it to get silent alarm pings in a situation where you want to know WTF is going on, but don't want other people to know that you know.

Now, for a good example of a spell that a player will likely never want (though is great fodder for a serial killer or mobster or something): Discern Next of Kin (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/discern-next-of-kin/).

[Vizzerdrix]

Sticks and Stones. A single 2 HD skeleton from a 3rd level slot is meh. Shame, I like the visual.

[Troacctid]

One or two, but that's not the point. I'm merely suggesting that other disabling conditions are much easier to apply than "dead," and can then make applying the "dead" condition to your target much easier. You're going to have a much easier time of winning a fight against something that isn't capable of fighting back. I certainly wouldn't go to such an extent as vasilidor and say that you should never learn or cast any damaging spell ever and, in fact, encounters are probably designed with the expectation that you will be blasting your opponents to death and you can certainly get by on fireballs and lightning bolts, but status effects make things go much more smoothly.
So you're a sorcerer in a 6th-level dungeon, and your DM, rolling on the random encounter table (DMG 79), pits you against 3 gnolls and 2 hyenas in one room, followed by 1 wereboar and 3 boars, then 3 troglodytes and 2 monitor lizards, and finally, 3 locust swarms. Lucky you, you came equipped with stinking cloud, which applies a disabling condition to enemies. Most of these enemies are only about 50/50 to save, and on a failure, they're unable to act for 1d4+1 rounds. Great! On a success, of course, they are unaffected.

Meanwhile, your buddy is also a sorcerer, but she has fireball instead, the poor sap. Her spell deals an average of 21 damage on a failed save, which...kills these enemies in one shot. Huh, okay, not bad. Killing them probably is better than nauseating them for 1d4+1 rounds. But aha! What if they pass the save? Well...they still take half damage, which means the second fireball is guaranteed to kill them on round 2. Hmm.

[AvatarVecna]

Sticks and Stones. A single 2 HD skeleton from a 3rd level slot is meh. Shame, I like the visual.

It deals negative levels, which means it can permanently generate wighrs (albeit with a 1-day wait). Wightpocalypse kicked off wofh a 2nd lvl spell has some use.

[KillianHawkeye]

Meanwhile, we've got Leomund's trap, which does straight-up nothing and is proud of it. No PC has ever cast this spell before. It literally has no purpose except to be a mildly annoying prank.

Is it wrong that now I want to create a villain whose entire purpose is to be a mildly annoying prankster? :smallbiggrin:

[Vizzerdrix]

It deals negative levels, which means it can permanently generate wighrs (albeit with a 1-day wait). Wightpocalypse kicked off wofh a 2nd lvl spell has some use.

3rd level. I'd rather fell drain a few chickens than have Sticks and Stones as a known spell.

[NigelWalmsley]

I mean...yeah? I don't think I'd ever want to forcefully reanimate a dead body like that. Pretty sure that spell's got the [Evil] descriptor (most of the BoVD is nasty enough I don't keep that splat on my bookshelf, but I had it to reference for making villains).

That only means you can't cast it as a Cleric of a Good god. Relying on the alignment tags assigned to various things as any kind of morality is a path that leads only to madness. Also, it's not like you have to animate human (or even intelligent) corpses. Hard to see how "zombie bear" represents any great moral violation.


Well...they still take half damage, which means the second fireball is guaranteed to kill them on round 2. Hmm.

I like how you're trying to describe "I can spend twice as many spell slots to solve a problem" as a win for Fireball. Your whole post is basically "how contrived can I get away with my examples being", but that really takes the cake.

[Zanos]

That only means you can't cast it as a Cleric of a Good god. Relying on the alignment tags assigned to various things as any kind of morality is a path that leads only to madness. Also, it's not like you have to animate human (or even intelligent) corpses. Hard to see how "zombie bear" represents any great moral violation.
The books are pretty clear that casting [Evil] spells is an Evil act. D&D has objective material morality, which means doing Evil actively makes the world a worst place to be in, and contains creatures that are physically composed of manifest Evil.


I like how you're trying to describe "I can spend twice as many spell slots to solve a problem" as a win for Fireball. Your whole post is basically "how contrived can I get away with my examples being", but that really takes the cake.
Stinking cloud in the example doesn't actually solve the problem, though. It makes the problem easier to solve.

[Ignimortis]

I like how you're trying to describe "I can spend twice as many spell slots to solve a problem" as a win for Fireball. Your whole post is basically "how contrived can I get away with my examples being", but that really takes the cake.

Frankly, that Fireball did solve the problem better. How are you gonna finish off those inside the Stinking Cloud? Your whole party is probably also living creatures, and while the enemies are disabled, your melee characters also have a problem with that nausea and targets being obscured, even if it's a Fort save. Your ranged characters can't do jack, because it's still a Fog Cloud at heart and thus you can't do anything either.

Fireball has no after-effects, and even on a successful save, leaves an enemy close enough to death to kill in one hit, which means other party members can move in and mop them up without much trouble.

[NigelWalmsley]

The books are pretty clear that casting [Evil] spells is an Evil act. D&D has objective material morality, which means doing Evil actively makes the world a worst place to be in, and contains creatures that are physically composed of manifest Evil.

Some of the books are clear on that. Those books are also clear that things like "using tranquilizers" are Evil acts. Those books are canon, but caring about them makes the game stupid. Other books portray necromancy as simply dangerous, in the same way that nuclear power or industrial machinery is dangerous in the real world.


Stinking cloud in the example doesn't actually solve the problem, though. It makes the problem easier to solve.

It solves the problem of "your enemies get to take combat actions". If your party can't kill enemies who cannot attack them without spending further scarce resources, that's a bigger issue.

[Troacctid]

It solves the problem of "your enemies get to take combat actions". If your party can't kill enemies who cannot attack them without spending further scarce resources, that's a bigger issue.
Ah! But the stinking cloud didn't solve that problem! The enemies passed their saves, walked out of the cloud, and you wasted a spell slot for no benefit whatsoever. Meanwhile, the fireball killed all the enemies in one hit.

[Temotei]

I prefer slow to stinking cloud anyway since it doesn't potentially disable allies as well. It's not quite as debilitating, but it's also not quite as annoying to work around what with the whole fog thing.

Damage is underrated though.

[Kalkra]

Yeah, the devs hate Necromancy. All the good PrCs and whatnot require you to be evil, or at least non-good, spells like Animate Dead have the [Evil] tag, etc.

Now sure, in a system with objective morality you can have things which are victimless but still immoral, but you need to provide some sort of explanation, and that explanation needs to be applied universally. Like, whatever's wrong with Necromancy probably also exists in other things which aren't explicitly called out as evil, and which PCs probably do quite frequently.

Now, if undead just give you overwhelming squick, that's a personal thing. But from a purely utilitarian standpoint, casting Animate Dead in no different than casting Animate Objects, both of which are completely benign. Not that such things would matter to an ordinary murderhobo.

[NigelWalmsley]

Slow is a lot less impressive than it used to be. It doesn't really do anything against ranged enemies or casters, and those are the most dangerous enemies. That said, you're not wrong that Stinking Cloud isn't necessarily the best pick. Deep Slumber does even better, particularly because it targets Will. Though it falls off fast.


Ah! But the stinking cloud didn't solve that problem! The enemies passed their saves, walked out of the cloud, and you wasted a spell slot for no benefit whatsoever. Meanwhile, the fireball killed all the enemies in one hit.

No, it didn't, because the enemies passed their saves (remember, the DC on Fireball and Stinking Cloud is exactly the same). At which point the rest of your party got to mop them up. And, no, Fireball didn't help, because the enemies you hand-picked to prove your point were dying in one hit anyway. A Gnoll has 11 HP. A 1st level Fighter one-shots it on a below average damage roll.

But let's imagine you were fighting an enemy which does not fold to a stiff breeze. Perhaps the CR 6 Annis. At 45 HP, it's still standing after two failed saves against Fireball. If it passes its saves you could very easily spend your entire allotment of 3rd level spells without killing it. Though, actually, it has Spell Resistance, which Fireball checks and Stinking Cloud doesn't. Let's try again. Maybe the enemy is a Bralani. Wait, no, that has SR and resists fire. It could be Girallon. That Fireball might actually do something against, though it can still fail two saves and live to talk about it (and it's Ref is actually higher than its Fort).


Now sure, in a system with objective morality you can have things which are victimless but still immoral, but you need to provide some sort of explanation, and that explanation needs to be applied universally. Like, whatever's wrong with Necromancy probably also exists in other things which aren't explicitly called out as evil, and which PCs probably do quite frequently.

The problem is that "objective morality" is nonsense. Morality is fundamentally subjective. If someone showed up, said that they created the universe, and demanded that you change your opinion on party hats for dogs on that basis, it wouldn't be right for you to do so. Saying that "this spell says that ability is in the same category of things as murder" is just a weird appeal to authority.

That said, I expect this conversation will rapidly run out to the edge of what's allowed here and past it, so having said my bit I'm going to let things lie.

[The Viscount]

Circle of death and its partner in crime undeath to death. You have a set radius of 40 feet burst affecting a variable number of HD in creatures, but not any with 10 or more HD. You're not likely to get the full effect even when you first start casting it, and to add insult to injury it costs money. Cloudkill is free. If you have that many creatures with that few HD to kill, you might as well use an area blast.

Weird is another one. It's mind affecting and fear as a 9th, when immunity abounds. Just like phantasmal killer it's will negates, then fortitude partial. I'd rather use wail of the banshee, and that's saying something.

False peacebond doesn't make sense. It's presumably supposed to be used to make someone think you cast peacebond, but leaving you available to attack. This requires someone trust you enough to keep your own weapon without hitting you with their own peacebond/other effect, and would still be identifiable as false peacebond so doesn't seem to be better than simply lying.

[Temotei]

Oh, legend lore. I really don't like legend lore. Material component, focus (albeit cheap), long casting time, and vague effects, in addition to being 6th level for Sor/Wiz. A bard only potentially gets it a level earlier, too, so it being 4th level for them doesn't really help.

Okay treasure for the DM to hand out as a scroll or wand (crafted by a bard), though. Might still want to sell it in that case...

[Particle_Man]

For me it is Prismatic Ray. It is a 5th level spell that only affects a single opponent of 6 HD or lower. I mean, if the opponent only has 6 HD there are probably more efficient ways to deal with that opponent than a 5th level spell slot.

Pity really since it is a colourful spell.

[Zanos]

Yeah, the devs hate Necromancy. All the good PrCs and whatnot require you to be evil, or at least non-good, spells like Animate Dead have the [Evil] tag, etc.

Now sure, in a system with objective morality you can have things which are victimless but still immoral, but you need to provide some sort of explanation, and that explanation needs to be applied universally. Like, whatever's wrong with Necromancy probably also exists in other things which aren't explicitly called out as evil, and which PCs probably do quite frequently.

Now, if undead just give you overwhelming squick, that's a personal thing. But from a purely utilitarian standpoint, casting Animate Dead in no different than casting Animate Objects, both of which are completely benign. Not that such things would matter to an ordinary murderhobo.
They made it Evil but I don't think they hate it. If they really hated it animate dead would be as bad as create undead. On the contrary, animate dead is among the most powerful effects in the game, potentially giving you 4x your HD in facesmash that doesn't require any magical upkeep. With desecrate you can trot around two skeletons that each have the HP of a 14 con barbarian of twice your level, and the same BAB as a barbarian of your level. They work in antimagic fields and can even use weapons, plus they probably have hilarious strength scores if you used something big and tough like a troll or giant or outsider. Even if you can't find suitable corpses you can still animate some bloodhulks or whatever. In either case they can't be dispelled and continue to work in an antimagic field, and even if someone usurps control they have to succeed an opposed charisma check. Sure most regular people don't like corpses that walk around and kill people for you, but that's nothing a take 20 disguise or extra dimensional storage can't solve.

And then if you really want to cheese it up, non-intelligent undead get no save against command undead, which lasts days/level.


Oh, legend lore. I really don't like legend lore. Material component, focus (albeit cheap), long casting time, and vague effects, in addition to being 6th level for Sor/Wiz. A bard only potentially gets it a level earlier, too, so it being 4th level for them doesn't really help.
It's vague but does provide some guidelines, with each lore result directing you to detailed information, then to information on its location, then information on the actual thing. I'm not sure it's a good spell from a game design perspective because it allows any 11th level wizard with their hands on a 'mysterious item' to determine what it is in at most 40 minutes, but from a pure power perspective it's quite a potent effect, since it can get you information that has been forever lost or never even known by anyone else.

[vasilidor]

legend lore is one, that on those few occasions that i actually used it, worked out nicely for me. my problem with blasting magic is that the amount of effort that it takes to keep it meaningful either before 4th level or after 8th (and even then it is often the worse option) in a party with a barbarian or even in a single player game, means that i am giving up a lot of other potential usefuls. fireballing the enemy to death when you are tenth level is probably going to take an average of, what, 5 castings? you might get that down to 3-4 if you empower it. you are better off trying hold monster and then letting the fighter go to town.
yes, I am aware of the mailman build. i simply do not care for direct damage on spell casters.
other spells that i think are lousy would be hold portal, animate rope, magic mouth, statue.

[Temotei]

It is mostly that vague part that bothers me. The rest, especially the casting time if you don't happen to have the thing at hand, is just annoying. Also, it "often" directs you to more detailed information--not always. This is probably a plus from a DM perspective (keep some important part of history obscured so the entire plot they've devised isn't spoiled or whatever), but overall I just don't like the spell. Power-wise it's okay sometimes.

[Zanos]

Most damage spells are highly situational. If we take fireball as the baseline, the average CR 10 threat has 130 HP and a reflex save of 8. So our hypothetical level 10 wizard with lets say 24 intelligence has a DC 20 fireball, meaning that the enemy fails on an 11 or lower. So the fireball does on average 35 damage, and 45% of the time the damage is halved. Net average of 27 damage. That's five or so casts to drop him, without factoring in elemental resists or spell resistance. Doesn't look great. But fireball is an area of effect spell, meaning that it is incredibly inefficient on single targets. If we instead have an encounter of 2 CR 8 threats, which is the same total CR, the saving throws and hit points both go down, so the average number of casts to finish the encounter goes down to 3.3. If you take an encounter of four CR 6 threats, the number of casts required drops to 2.4. Keep in mind that these aren't your highest level slots, since at level 10 you have 5th level spells and could empower a fireball and that makes the average damage shoot up significantly. Back to the single target guy, you can maximize a scorching ray, and with a +1 bonus to caster level could easily be hitting his touch AC with maximized scorching ray for 72 damage, give or take 5% from critical hits and misses, and you're back to finishing the entire encounter in two casts.

This is a simplistic analysis against a foe with no SR or elemental resistance, but keep in mind these encounters should be fought with 3 other party members. I think a white room analysis that has a wizard able to solo kill many threats in 2-3 casts with direct damage with relatively minimal investment is pretty good. It's not like maximize or empower are really niche feats. Are there better options? Sure. Is damage particularly bad if your DM constantly hits you with single threats, or encounters that are substantially above your ECL? Yeah. If you don't have a way to bypass or overcome elemental resistance or SR, is it going to dig into these numbers? Absolutely. But I don't think you can say doing direct damage with spells is bad unless you're applying your damage spells unintelligently.

[vasilidor]

now that you mention it, we often find ourselves in fights against a number of foes who are equal in number and level or challenge rating... this may have colored my view of blasting magic.

[Ignimortis]

now that you mention it, we often find ourselves in fights against a number of foes who are equal in number and level or challenge rating... this may have colored my view of blasting magic.

Yeah, because a single CR = party level enemy is not a tough or interesting fight most of the time. Most DMs run harder fights, which does decrease blasting value, but keeps save-or-die value about the same, because it bypasses everything but saves, and saves don't scale as hard as HP.

[Zanos]

Yeah, because a single CR = party level enemy is not a tough or interesting fight most of the time. Most DMs run harder fights, which does decrease blasting value, but keeps save-or-die value about the same, because it bypasses everything but saves, and saves don't scale as hard as HP.
Their value isn't the same because saves do scale rapidly with CR, but their value is less impacted because they don't have to overcome a second defense in the form of HP. A creature that fails it's save vs. finger of death or slow or sleep is just as affected regardless of it's challenge rating, while the same isn't true for damage.

That said you often have to deal with immunities for save or X spells. While many monsters will have immunity or resistance to various energy types it's pretty easy to compensate for that, and you'll probably never run into an enemy that's just immune to hit point damage. Can't say the same for slay living, or even stinking cloud.

[Edea]

I know animate dead is core o_O

Not a single person arguing for mindrape, though. Maybe if animate dead was called corpserape?

[Pinkie Pyro]

For me it is Prismatic Ray. It is a 5th level spell that only affects a single opponent of 6 HD or lower. I mean, if the opponent only has 6 HD there are probably more efficient ways to deal with that opponent than a 5th level spell slot.

Pity really since it is a colourful spell.

Ha! That appears to be miswritten, as taking prismatic spray as an example, the "6 HD" part is an additional effect on top of the beam, but it's not written out very well.

[Zanos]

I know animate dead is core o_O
You brought up BoVD while talking about it, sorry if I misread.


Not a single person arguing for mindrape, though. Maybe if animate dead was called corpserape?
Animate dead creates an unthinking, unfeeling automaton and as far as I know does not prevent the soul and mind from traveling to the appropriate afterlife. I don't really care what happens to my corpse. And most of the corpses an adventuring necromancer would be animating would be of monsters. Who cares if a necromancer 'defiles' the corpse of some hill giants there were murdering innocent civilians in previous weeks? :smallconfused: If you have a metaphysical objection to [Evil] spells that's one thing, but I don't see how killing bandits with animated hill giant corpses is any worse than painfully incinerating them with fireballs until the air smells like burning human flesh.

I think mindrape, and honestly most dominate effects are a bit harder to argue for. Even dominate and charm person involve overriding a living persons free will. Standing next to sentient being who is being effectively enslaved via enchantment magic, which again the setting does not consider inherently Evil, is way more disturbing than fighting side by side with what is effectively an automaton made out of corpse. And even with that said, if you dominate or mindrape someone that was awful to fight for you, is anyone in medieval fantasy land really going to care all that much? Maybe if they're a serious devotee of some particular religion, but otherwise I doubt it. That said, I would personally have more issues using magic to obliterate and override a persons mind to effectively enslave them to my will than I would reanimating their corpse. Especially in D&D land where the body and soul are provably separate, corpses aren't people. And adventurers spend most of their time either making corpses or looting them anyway.

[Troacctid]

No, it didn't, because the enemies passed their saves (remember, the DC on Fireball and Stinking Cloud is exactly the same). At which point the rest of your party got to mop them up. And, no, Fireball didn't help, because the enemies you hand-picked to prove your point were dying in one hit anyway. A Gnoll has 11 HP. A 1st level Fighter one-shots it on a below average damage roll.
Hey, don't look at me, they're from the 6th-level random encounter table.


But let's imagine you were fighting an enemy which does not fold to a stiff breeze. Perhaps the CR 6 Annis. At 45 HP, it's still standing after two failed saves against Fireball. If it passes its saves you could very easily spend your entire allotment of 3rd level spells without killing it. Though, actually, it has Spell Resistance, which Fireball checks and Stinking Cloud doesn't. Let's try again. Maybe the enemy is a Bralani. Wait, no, that has SR and resists fire. It could be Girallon. That Fireball might actually do something against, though it can still fail two saves and live to talk about it (and it's Ref is actually higher than its Fort).
Fireball works on a greater percentage of enemies, statistically, than stinking cloud does, because poison immunity is more common than fire resistance. Attached to that debuff? Switch out fireball for Boccob's rolling cloud. Now you're doing the same damage, but you also get to daze them ~25% of the time, and for the kicker, half the damage is untyped. Not that you should be using either of them against only a single target...that's just inefficient. You should really be using a lower-level spell instead, like combust or force hammer or chill touch. (Or a different spell of the same or higher level, but in this scenario we're a 6th-level sorcerer, so we only have one 3rd-level spell known. One of the perks of warmage.)


Most damage spells are highly situational. If we take fireball as the baseline, the average CR 10 threat has 130 HP and a reflex save of 8. So our hypothetical level 10 wizard with lets say 24 intelligence has a DC 20 fireball, meaning that the enemy fails on an 11 or lower. So the fireball does on average 35 damage, and 45% of the time the damage is halved. Net average of 27 damage. That's five or so casts to drop him, without factoring in elemental resists or spell resistance. Doesn't look great. But fireball is an area of effect spell, meaning that it is incredibly inefficient on single targets. If we instead have an encounter of 2 CR 8 threats, which is the same total CR, the saving throws and hit points both go down, so the average number of casts to finish the encounter goes down to 3.3. If you take an encounter of four CR 6 threats, the number of casts required drops to 2.4. Keep in mind that these aren't your highest level slots, since at level 10 you have 5th level spells and could empower a fireball and that makes the average damage shoot up significantly. Back to the single target guy, you can maximize a scorching ray, and with a +1 bonus to caster level could easily be hitting his touch AC with maximized scorching ray for 72 damage, give or take 5% from critical hits and misses, and you're back to finishing the entire encounter in two casts.

This is a simplistic analysis against a foe with no SR or elemental resistance, but keep in mind these encounters should be fought with 3 other party members. I think a white room analysis that has a wizard able to solo kill many threats in 2-3 casts with direct damage with relatively minimal investment is pretty good. It's not like maximize or empower are really niche feats. Are there better options? Sure. Is damage particularly bad if your DM constantly hits you with single threats, or encounters that are substantially above your ECL? Yeah. If you don't have a way to bypass or overcome elemental resistance or SR, is it going to dig into these numbers? Absolutely. But I don't think you can say doing direct damage with spells is bad unless you're applying your damage spells unintelligently.
Empowered spellshards are pretty cheap too. And a ring of mystic fire is well within the price range of mid-level characters. If you switch from fireball to scintillating sphere, you could toss in a veil of storms for that extra kick while you're at it—electricity resistance is rarer than fire resistance, and you won't need to worry about burning the building down.

[Vaern]

So you're a sorcerer in a 6th-level dungeon, and your DM, rolling on the random encounter table (DMG 79), pits you against 3 gnolls and 2 hyenas in one room, followed by 1 wereboar and 3 boars, then 3 troglodytes and 2 monitor lizards, and finally, 3 locust swarms. Lucky you, you came equipped with stinking cloud, which applies a disabling condition to enemies. Most of these enemies are only about 50/50 to save, and on a failure, they're unable to act for 1d4+1 rounds. Great! On a success, of course, they are unaffected.

Meanwhile, your buddy is also a sorcerer, but she has fireball instead, the poor sap. Her spell deals an average of 21 damage on a failed save, which...kills these enemies in one shot. Huh, okay, not bad. Killing them probably is better than nauseating them for 1d4+1 rounds. But aha! What if they pass the save? Well...they still take half damage, which means the second fireball is guaranteed to kill them on round 2. Hmm.

Actually, stinking cloud nauseates them for as long as they're in the cloud plus an additional 1d4+1 rounds after they leave. The cloud lingers for 1 round per caster level and they must make a new save against it each round they remain within the cloud. Positioning it properly creates a barrier in which anything attempting to attack you has a 50/50 chance of being stopped in their tracks. Stinking cloud also carries the functionality of fog cloud, meaning that anything attempting to attack you at a range through the cloud is effectively blind and has a 50% miss chance due to concealment. This is particularly beneficial against the wereboar and its boar pets, who will survive your average fireball on a failed save with just enough HP to realize that you're probably both the most dangerous person in the room and also the squishiest.

[GeoffWatson]

For me it is Prismatic Ray. It is a 5th level spell that only affects a single opponent of 6 HD or lower. I mean, if the opponent only has 6 HD there are probably more efficient ways to deal with that opponent than a 5th level spell slot.

Pity really since it is a colourful spell.

The Blindness part of the spell works on 6HD or lower. The rest of the spell works on any creature.

[Rynjin]

Circle of death and its partner in crime undeath to death. You have a set radius of 40 feet burst affecting a variable number of HD in creatures, but not any with 10 or more HD. You're not likely to get the full effect even when you first start casting it, and to add insult to injury it costs money. Cloudkill is free. If you have that many creatures with that few HD to kill, you might as well use an area blast.

Cloudkill only kills targets with up to 6 HD though.

Circle of Death would allow a caster to theoretically kill a group of, say, 9th level characters numbering somewhere between 4 and 5 people in a single shot. Quite good for clearing the floor of reasonably high level foes.

[Troacctid]

The Blindness part of the spell works on 6HD or lower. The rest of the spell works on any creature.
No, he's right, the way it's written, anything with higher than 6 HD is immune to the whole effect.


Actually, stinking cloud nauseates them for as long as they're in the cloud plus an additional 1d4+1 rounds after they leave. The cloud lingers for 1 round per caster level and they must make a new save against it each round they remain within the cloud. Positioning it properly creates a barrier in which anything attempting to attack you has a 50/50 chance of being stopped in their tracks. Stinking cloud also carries the functionality of fog cloud, meaning that anything attempting to attack you at a range through the cloud is effectively blind and has a 50% miss chance due to concealment. This is particularly beneficial against the wereboar and its boar pets, who will survive your average fireball on a failed save with just enough HP to realize that you're probably both the most dangerous person in the room and also the squishiest.
Let's be real though. They're going to just walk out of the cloud and attack you in melee.

That's the big problem with stinking cloud, really—it kinda sucks against melee dorks. They pass their save because they have good Fort, and then they walk out of the cloud and attack in melee. It's much more effective against archers or casters, because if they walk out of the cloud towards you, they don't want to be in melee, but if they walk out the far side, their vision is blocked. I almost always go for sleet storm instead of stinking cloud if I'm against melee dorks; hosing their movement tends to nerf them more reliably, and you don't need to worry about undead immunities or whatever. Then you toss a few explosions into the cloud and see what's left afterwards.

[Zanos]

Circle of Death would allow a caster to theoretically kill a group of, say, 9th level characters numbering somewhere between 4 and 5 people in a single shot. Quite good for clearing the floor of reasonably high level foes.
You are paying 500gp per shot though, which is a bit steep.

[Elkad]

Yeah, because a single CR = party level enemy is not a tough or interesting fight most of the time. Most DMs run harder fights, which does decrease blasting value, but keeps save-or-die value about the same, because it bypasses everything but saves, and saves don't scale as hard as HP.

Decreases blasting value?

I pad encounters by adding low(er) level enemies quite often. AoE blasting clears those out nicely, leaving just the boss.

Choosing off the CR10 table. Rakshasa. Eh, it'll get mobbed, and DR 15 means nothing vs a mid-level ubercharger. I want to bring the encounter up to CR13ish, and I don't want to use 2, so I go shopping at half it's CR and give it.. 12 gargoyles. Not the best synergy, but it definitely ups the difficulty. They clutter up the battlefield, break up Charge lines, etc. Or fly to stay away from melee (and out of the Stinking Cloud). Their DR works well vs most summons, without nerfing the actual melee toons. The Rakshasa's Haste benefits them. His Silent Image either hides them, or makes more of them. Maybe swap out his Acid Arrow for Levitate, so the whole encounter has an aerial component.

Now you have an invisible levitating Rakshasa buffing his gargoyles and reading the party's minds to adjust his tactics, while choosing his opportunity to intervene directly.
I might even let his Change Shape include Gargoyle as a form, so he can blend in with them. (I have been know to use an ad-hoc unpublished rules exception from time to time...)

A cloudkill or a couple fireballs won't worry the Rakshasa at all. But they will clear most of the gargoyles, or at least keep them from mobbing the wizard, while using up some party resources.

[NigelWalmsley]

Hey, don't look at me, they're from the 6th-level random encounter table.

Yeah, sure, and I'm sure you just happened to randomly roll four encounters with groups of enemies that have no particular resistance to Fireball. Definitely not a remotely biased sample.


Fireball works on a greater percentage of enemies, statistically, than stinking cloud does, because poison immunity is more common than fire resistance.

Yeah but having enough HP to tank Fireballs is more common than either.


and for the kicker, half the damage is untyped.

This doesn't actually do anything against energy resistance.

[Asmotherion]

like the title says: spells that you see as a complete waste of time and why.
for me it is most blasting/damage spells. yes, even magic missile. why? because direct damage spells take a lot of effort to make worth while, and you are better off doing save or suck in my own opinion.


There are exceptions to this rule, but yeah, generally speaking, blasting is not very well designed.

So practically the few exceptions would be:
-Wings of Flurry for scaling with your Caster Level with no Cap.
-Orb of X Spells and generally any spell that does not allow SR. The best are Orb of Force (for dealing non magical force damage) and then Orb of Fire and Orb of Ice for having feats in their respective elements that allow to overcome Imunity to said Element.
-Magic Missile for it's an excelent spell to put into an Arcane Fusion (Greater) and apply the Fell Drain Metamagic on. Put in an Arcane Spellsurge can drain a LOT of levels in one turn.
-Flame Arrow can be an excelant cheap way to substitute Alchemist Fire (for when you run out of spell slots at low levels) and is spell resistance: no so it can penetrate AMFs and hurt Golems consistantly.
-Vitriolic Sphere. I love this spell; It's practically a lower level Dissintegrade on steroids, and SR: no makes it the only AoE blasting spell I ever use.

But yeah, past the moment I discovered AMFs and Spell Resistance, I've never cast a Fireball or Lightning Bolt again.

I'd also never focus too much on Enchantment and Illusion as schools. Past some level, most things will be Imune to those schools one way or an other. On enchantment, your best bet (if you don't use it as a banned school) is to use it for minionmancy (through Dominate X line) rather than directly in a Boss Fight.

[Ignimortis]

Decreases blasting value?

I pad encounters by adding low(er) level enemies quite often. AoE blasting clears those out nicely, leaving just the boss.

Choosing off the CR10 table. Rakshasa. Eh, it'll get mobbed, and DR 15 means nothing vs a mid-level ubercharger. I want to bring the encounter up to CR13ish, and I don't want to use 2, so I go shopping at half it's CR and give it.. 12 gargoyles. Not the best synergy, but it definitely ups the difficulty. They clutter up the battlefield, break up Charge lines, etc. Or fly to stay away from melee (and out of the Stinking Cloud). Their DR works well vs most summons, without nerfing the actual melee toons. The Rakshasa's Haste benefits them. His Silent Image either hides them, or makes more of them. Maybe swap out his Acid Arrow for Levitate, so the whole encounter has an aerial component.

Now you have an invisible levitating Rakshasa buffing his gargoyles and reading the party's minds to adjust his tactics, while choosing his opportunity to intervene directly.
I might even let his Change Shape include Gargoyle as a form, so he can blend in with them. (I have been know to use an ad-hoc unpublished rules exception from time to time...)

A cloudkill or a couple fireballs won't worry the Rakshasa at all. But they will clear most of the gargoyles, or at least keep them from mobbing the wizard, while using up some party resources.

The quoted post referenced having fights with several level = CR enemies, not one level = CR creature with lots of small fry. Blasting is good for small fry, but make that same CR13 encounter into three CR10 enemies. Not necessarily three rakshasa, but just three CR10 enemies. That's not gonna make Fireball stand out at any rate, I would say.

[NigelWalmsley]

Wings of Flurry for scaling with your Caster Level with no Cap.

Honestly the reason Wings of Flurry is good is as much because it's an AoE daze as because it does any actual damage. Scaling longer is better, obviously, but unless you're cheesing up your CL something fierce, d6/level just doesn't hold up when enemies are getting d8s or better, Constitution bonuses, and HD > CR.


Magic Missile for it's an excelent spell to put into an Arcane Fusion (Greater) and apply the Fell Drain Metamagic on. Put in an Arcane Spellsurge can drain a LOT of levels in one turn.

I feel like that's not really "damaging spells are good" though. If you're using the spell to deliver a debuff, that's not really an argument that blasting is something you care about.


Flame Arrow can be an excelant cheap way to substitute Alchemist Fire (for when you run out of spell slots at low levels) and is spell resistance: no so it can penetrate AMFs and hurt Golems consistantly.

You should be boxing Golems with Silent Image, not trying to find spells to hurt them.


I'd also never focus too much on Enchantment and Illusion as schools. Past some level, most things will be Imune to those schools one way or an other.

This is not really true. Certainly some things are immune, but the only way most things are immune is if the DM is heavily skewing encounters that way. And if he does that, it's testament to the power of the schools.

[Asmotherion]

Honestly the reason Wings of Flurry is good is as much because it's an AoE daze as because it does any actual damage. Scaling longer is better, obviously, but unless you're cheesing up your CL something fierce, d6/level just doesn't hold up when enemies are getting d8s or better, Constitution bonuses, and HD > CR.



I feel like that's not really "damaging spells are good" though. If you're using the spell to deliver a debuff, that's not really an argument that blasting is something you care about.



You should be boxing Golems with Silent Image, not trying to find spells to hurt them.



This is not really true. Certainly some things are immune, but the only way most things are immune is if the DM is heavily skewing encounters that way. And if he does that, it's testament to the power of the schools.

On Buffing Caster Levels: I've yet to play in a group of veterans whose caster didn't have at least 10 caster levels above his character level after some point. I mean, it takes minimum effort to do so, and save for the cheese options, some are relativelly balanced, so why would you NOT get as many caster levels stack on you?

On Golems: Eh, I'm more into putting them in a "transmute rock to mud" and then build a Wall of stome myself.

On magic Missile: Sure, it's not used as a damage dealer, but it does end up being usefull, is all I'm saying.

On Enchantment: Depends on the DM really; That said, if you have a Boss Fight and the Boss figure is not protected against Domination one way or an other, you're doing something wrong as a DM. Sure, you can dispell his protection and weaken his Will save, but it still requires a few extra steps and spell slots.

[Zanos]

On Buffing Caster Levels: I've yet to play in a group of veterans whose caster didn't have at least 10 caster levels above his character level after some point. I mean, it takes minimum effort to do so, and save for the cheese options, some are relativelly balanced, so why would you NOT get as many caster levels stack on you?
I'd like to see the game where having a CL of 10+Level isn't somewhat cheesy. Even if you're using reserves of strength on every spell and you have the ring of arcane might, an orange ioun stone, and a magic tattoo, that's 'only' +6, and using reserves on every spell usually indicates some form of cheese is already going on.

[Rynjin]

You are paying 500gp per shot though, which is a bit steep.

A small price to pay for peace of mind.

[Squire Doodad]

It's a bit off topic, but I saw this and immediately thought

The power to place a comically oversized bathtub drain on any surface (http://cucumber.gigidigi.com/cq/page-235/)

[Particle_Man]

The Blindness part of the spell works on 6HD or lower. The rest of the spell works on any creature.

I want to believe you but do you have a source for that? Because the sentence seems to apply both effects to the same critter and says "a creature of 6 HD or less suffers X (blindness) and also Y (random badness)" rather than "a creature suffers Y, and if 6 HD or less, also is blinded". It doesn't say that a creature of more than 6HD suffers anything at all.

[RexDart]

Speak with plants.

Mundane plants are mindless and have no useful senses. So unless you need to know what the climate has been like very unlikely to help.

Plant creatures overwhelmingly fall into 2 categories: things that eat people and don’t care to chat and things that have languages, can probably speak common, and if not Sylvan (which most druids and rangers know) and would definitely be no harder to chat with with Tongues, which is often lower level, longer duration and not personal (so you can cast it on the party face).

While I agree with you generally, our party actually used Speak With Plants just this Saturday, and it was actually useful.

Granted, it was an unusual scenario. The plant in question is an extremely ancient and huge tree in the middle of a vast forest, and the bad guys are working from inside said tree to do nefarious things involving some kind of super-fertilizer and I think using the tree as an energy source in some way. (My character has an intelligence of 6, which gives me an excuse to not pay excessive attention to the details....)

Anyway, we learned a few things about what the bad guys are doing (though not a huge amount, because, hey, it's a tree), and ruled out some other things (e.g., the tree itself isn't evil or sentient, it's just a tree, albeit an incredibly old and huge one.)


As written, it sounds like Leomund's Trap will have no effect when the rogue tries to use Disable Device. Like she'd make a Disable Device roll and then discover, oh, there is no trap after all, and open it without incident. It might be kinda fun if Leomund's Trap also fools Disable Device. So:

Rogue: I roll to disable the trap. Ooh, natural 20, plus 15... 35!
DM: You do not disable the trap.

Still just a prank when all is said and done, but at least one with comedy potential. What stuck out for me, though, is in addition to being pretty useless, the material component costs 50 gp! Which, OK, checking the DMG, that's not enough to buy your own trap, but at least those fake security cameras you can attach to the ceiling only cost a couple bucks, right?

[Troacctid]

Yeah, sure, and I'm sure you just happened to randomly roll four encounters with groups of enemies that have no particular resistance to Fireball. Definitely not a remotely biased sample.
The topic is "spells you would never want." Not "spells that you would want fairly regularly but not 100% of the time."


Yeah but having enough HP to tank Fireballs is more common than either.
So would you say divine power is useless as well? There's no way a cleric with a weapon is outdamaging a fireball even with full BAB. What about bless? It just helps your team hit; it doesn't increase DPR nearly enough to make you one-shot anything. What about haste? Same problem, right? What about literally any strategy that uses HP damage, but doesn't have enough burst damage to kill the target in a single round?

[Wildstag]

This is actually a very usefull spell. Having these material components means you can fetch those out of you component pouch to set the mundane alarm without having to go mundane 'bell shoping' beforehand.

I know it's a late reply, but Spell Component Pouches specifically do not contain components that have a specific cost. Since mundane bells have a specific cost, you can't just materialize one out of your pouch.

And since you HAVE to go mundane bell shopping before you are even able to cast the spell, at low levels it's better to just have your rogue or ranger just manually produce a bell-tripwire that'll last all night instead of just one or two shifts.

I will concede as Rynjin says that it's a great spell for Permanency later on. Speaking solely to its usefulness in early level exploration, I'd never want it. And by the time I have the Permanency option, there's better alternatives for trapping my crap. The mental alarm only extends 1 mile. If you're doing all your gameplay in a city, it's probably that the Permanent Alarm is useful later on, but I've never played in such a game.

On a side note, is this a subjective or objective question about "you would never want"? Because I have a hard time playing evil characters, or at least intentionally committing evil acts, so a spell like Black Bag is something I would never want, use, or take. There might be uses for other people, but I would never have a use for it. Same with Extract Drug... or really just the majority of the spells in the Book of Vile Darkness. I just dislike that book in general.

Circle Dance is pretty boring too, I just would never use it.

Distilled Joy just seems weird and janky to me, I've never really been fond of it. But then, I also never really care for arcane casters, and less so for item creators.

[RexDart]

Several spells discussed seem bad for players, but pretty good for NPCs. For instance, Flame Arrow seems like a pretty nice way for an enemy spellcaster to beef up the 10 goblin archers he's using to keep the party busy.

[Kalkra]

Circle Dance is pretty boring too, I just would never use it.

Distilled Joy just seems weird and janky to me, I've never really been fond of it. But then, I also never really care for arcane casters, and less so for item creators.

Circle Dance has unlimited range and offers no save or SR. You can use two of them to triangulate the location of any creature on the same plane as you, without alerting said creature.

Distilled Joy is used for cheese. Or as an antidepressant, I suppose. But mostly cheese. Because paying xp costs is for chumps.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Distilled Joy is used for cheese. Or as an antidepressant, I suppose. But mostly cheese. Because paying xp costs is for chumps.Distilled joy also gives you (potentially) an infinite amount of ambrosia for a single casting. The duration is Permanent, so every time the target experiences joy, you get ambrosia. Some would argue that it's just one dollop of ambrosia that can be dispelled, but the spell has "Target: One living creature," rather than being "Effect: 8 oz of ambrosia (130 calories per serving)," or whatever. So it's a Permanent effect on a creature, not a Permanent dollop of gooey goodness.

I imagine it tastes like cinnamon-apple-caramel cheesecake, though. It'd better, since it's the literal essence of joy.

So, yeah. Unlimited crafting XP! And there are enough ways to get around the casting time (such as self-resetting casting traps, and all the myriad ways psionics can do so) that it's easy to get lots of ambrosia, so long as you can get your hands on creatures who enjoy enjoying enjoyable things and are willing to let you subject them to happiness. I can't imagine too many sane creatures don't enjoy enjoying joy.

[Telok]

Several spells discussed seem bad for players, but pretty good for NPCs. For instance, Flame Arrow seems like a pretty nice way for an enemy spellcaster to beef up the 10 goblin archers he's using to keep the party busy.

Well, except that it's a 3rd level spell, affects a quiver the arrows are in, and doesn't help with getting hits in.

So you're facing 10 1hd gobbo archers and a level 5+ caster. The caster can magic one quiver for all the archers to clump up at and double the damage of each hit (not including crits and doesn't increase the to-hit) as long as there is no fire resistance, wind wall, etc., in play. OR. Haste doubles the rof of some of the archers, improves defenses, improves attack, doesn't force them into fireball formation, and still benefits them if they get into melee. Plus, alchemical fire arrows are a thing, as is just sticking a gob of burning pitch on the arrow, if you really want massed ranged fire attacks to set stuff alight.

That's nearly the best case scenario type thing for flame arrows. The caster could also do fireball, deep slumber, stinking cloud, any of the hundred+ actually useful 3rd level spells.

[Asmotherion]

I'd like to see the game where having a CL of 10+Level isn't somewhat cheesy. Even if you're using reserves of strength on every spell and you have the ring of arcane might, an orange ioun stone, and a magic tattoo, that's 'only' +6, and using reserves on every spell usually indicates some form of cheese is already going on.

Reserves of Strength drawback is not that big if you're under the effect of Freedom of Movement, which is a pretty standard buff to persist on your party (and by the way, never seen anyone actually using Persistant Spell without reducing it's metamagic Cost somehow).

Also, Consumtive Field alone can pack a serious buff in caster level. Arcane Casters can easyly replicate via Limited Wish. By the level it becomes available (at least to Clerics) it already gives +4 Caster Levels. Add your +6 and you already hit a +10. Which is more than enough to use for Buffing yourself for example. Or, again, persisting on yourself.

Now it depends on what you mean as cheese. 'Cause that's just standard reading of the rules, and I can't think of a different way to read/interpreat RAW in this case, which is usually what I consider the "cheese" line.

[Zanos]

I'd definitely qualify somehow burning 300xp a day on limited wish for consumptive field combined with chicken slaughtering and extensive persistomancy to be relatively cheesy, yeah.

[Toliudar]

Thinking further about useless spells, there are all of those nightmare/dream communication/etc spells, and whenever I see one, my eyes kind of glaze over. I have never found a gaming situation in which I really, really want to make an enemy 200 miles away have nightmares. Or cause have my sister have dreams about me flying around naked.

Has ANYONE ever used these spells in an actual game setting?

[Elkad]

The quoted post referenced having fights with several level = CR enemies, not one level = CR creature with lots of small fry. Blasting is good for small fry, but make that same CR13 encounter into three CR10 enemies. Not necessarily three rakshasa, but just three CR10 enemies. That's not gonna make Fireball stand out at any rate, I would say.

It also referenced padding encounters to raise the CR. I pad in various ways, but one of them is adding lots of low-level guys.
It's also the method I recommend for new DMs because it's so easy to control. You can add a few more gargoyles a couple at a time if it's too easy, or have them break and run, leaving just the boss, if the party is losing.

Also happens to give Mr Fireball a chance to shine. Or Mr Great Cleave.

[Particle_Man]

Thinking further about useless spells, there are all of those nightmare/dream communication/etc spells, and whenever I see one, my eyes kind of glaze over. I have never found a gaming situation in which I really, really want to make an enemy 200 miles away have nightmares. Or cause have my sister have dreams about me flying around naked.

Has ANYONE ever used these spells in an actual game setting?

Not yet but now I have an idea where the entire campaign is the players slowly realizing that they are inside someone's very very extended dream. :smallbiggrin:

[Quertus]

Or cause have my sister have dreams about me flying around naked.

Which spell are you inflicting upon your sister, and why?

[Telok]

Which spell are you inflicting upon your sister, and why?

Nightmare. My wife's brother is a wonderful guy but if he's flying around the bedroom naked then terrified screaming is definitely in the top three reaction choices.

[Wildstag]

Distilled joy also gives you (potentially) an infinite amount of ambrosia for a single casting. The duration is Permanent, so every time the target experiences joy, you get ambrosia. Some would argue that it's just one dollop of ambrosia that can be dispelled, but the spell has "Target: One living creature," rather than being "Effect: 8 oz of ambrosia (130 calories per serving)," or whatever. So it's a Permanent effect on a creature, not a Permanent dollop of gooey goodness.

I imagine it tastes like cinnamon-apple-caramel cheesecake, though. It'd better, since it's the literal essence of joy.

So, yeah. Unlimited crafting XP! And there are enough ways to get around the casting time (such as self-resetting casting traps, and all the myriad ways psionics can do so) that it's easy to get lots of ambrosia, so long as you can get your hands on creatures who enjoy enjoying enjoyable things and are willing to let you subject them to happiness. I can't imagine too many sane creatures don't enjoy enjoying joy.

Your response just goes back to my main point though. I would never want it because I've never cared for magic item crafting, and any "create a feedback loop for maximum spell efficiency" system is just putting more effort into a system than just buying a custom item from some shop with the GM, especially since a lot of games I've played in tend to just make shopping less of a hassle. It just seems like extra work, and any feedback loops would require extended amounts of downtime to even set them up.

If you have no interest in playing an item craftsman, you'd never want this spell. It's just too much hassle to actually make it efficient. Sure, it could be useful. Forcing nightmares on a foe could be useful. But it requires a level of effort I don't think the vast majority of players or GMs would care for.

[Telonius]

Would never want: Tenser's Transformation. At the level you can cast it, you can be Polymorphing into a Chuul to get (most likely) better stats and natural armor, with the added bonus of still being able to cast spells and not needing to waste a potion to activate it, and for minutes/level (Polymorph) instead of rounds/level (Transformation). Insult to injury; Polymorph is a 4th-level spell, and Transformation is a 6th.

This one doesn't even get the excuse of splatbook power creep; both of them are in the PHB, and Chuuls are in Monster Manual 1.

[vasilidor]

It also referenced padding encounters to raise the CR. I pad in various ways, but one of them is adding lots of low-level guys.
It's also the method I recommend for new DMs because it's so easy to control. You can add a few more gargoyles a couple at a time if it's too easy, or have them break and run, leaving just the boss, if the party is losing.

Also happens to give Mr Fireball a chance to shine. Or Mr Great Cleave.

great cleave and cleave are feats that never were useful in the 3.5 games i have played, for the same reason that fire ball and other blasting spells were considered bad.

[Unavenger]

I don't think I'd ever want to forcefully reanimate a dead body like that. Pretty sure that spell's got the [Evil] descriptor

Quick, no-one tell Edea about animate with the spirit.



Re blasting spells: I rarely encounter a situation where a blasting spell is a complete waste of time, and comparatively often encounter situations where they're the best use of my action. YMMV.



As for the thread title, I don't think I have ever cast aid, align weapon, animal trance, antilife shell, antipathy, antiplant shell, greater arcane sight, baleful polymorph, bane, banishment, bear's endurance, mass bear's endurance, bless water, blight, bull's strength*, mass bull's strength, call lightning*, call lightning storm*, calm animals, calm emotions, cat's grace, mass cat's grace, cause fear, changestaff, chill metal, circle of death, cloak of chaos, clone**, command plants, lesser confusion, consecrate, contagion, control plants, creeping doom, crushing despair, curse water, and seriously are we just at the end of the letter C in the PHB? Yeah there are a lot of subpar spells out there.

*Except in the Neverwinter Nights games, where these spells work very differently.
**I'm aware that it's good, it just hasn't become necessary in any of the games I've played.

[Troacctid]

great cleave and cleave are feats that never were useful in the 3.5 games i have played, for the same reason that fire ball and other blasting spells were considered bad.
Cleave is a great feat if you're the party's primary striker. You'll be dealing the finishing blow pretty consistently, so it will get you extra attacks regularly. The more damage-dealers you have in the party, however, the more you have to share those finishing blows, which makes Cleave less reliable (unless your party coordinates its tactics around it).

Great Cleave, on the other hand, is trash.

[Pex]

Sounds like it's a trap spell, heheh.

Pathfinder has a lot of these kinds of noob-trap spells. I was talking about Youthful Appearance with a guy last night and it's just terrible, a flavorful spell that accomplishes nothing a disguise or a little wrinkle-hiding makeup can't do.

Alarm is one of those spells that annoys me. Its material components work well for just making a mundane trap that actually lasts the full night. Levels 1-3 your spell won't last the full night, but a string and bell. It's just so pointless, it actually confuses me why anyone would take it.

Basically any of those spells that duplicate a simple mundane trick that costs less than 5 gp to perform and can be used repeatedly, Alarm is just the most obvious to me.

Oh, and in 3.5, those spells that deal with addiction. I don't think I've ever seen a GM implement addiction in a game, so why would I want to ever use the spell Addiction.

Chain of Perdition is another trap spell. It sounds cool. You get to do dirty trick maneuvers using your caster level and spellcasting modifier instead of BAB and Strength. The problem is the same for warrior characters who want to use maneuvers. The CMD of monsters are so high it will never work. I tried the spell in different campaigns, but the only use I ever got out of it was to use it on myself using the chain to help me get over walls and out of pits. I could never beat the CMD of monsters to use the spell as intended. Should I play a Pathfinder game again I'm not taking this spell anymore. It looks great on paper. It fails in practice.

[Thunder999]

Meteor swarm disappoints me, it's not even good at doing AoE damage, let alone comparable to other 9th level spells.
Soul bind is pointless, why kill someone then trap their soul when you could just cast trap the soul and skip the bit where you have to fight them.

Oh and Alarm is definitely better than a mundane alarm, it trips if anything enters the AoE it tells you, there's no flying over the tripwire, silencing the bell etc.

[Quertus]

Great Cleave, on the other hand, is trash.

That… depends.

I mean, sure, I'm pretty sure I ran a Fighter who never once got to Great Cleave. I've also seen (and, in a one-shot, ran!) large and/or reach Great Cleavers who could and would wipe the board in one action. It was like a muggle Fireball.

Also, Great Cleave was better in 3.0, with crit stacking and on-crit Vorpal action.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Well, Great Cleave is a lot better if you consider trips and other things that result in a prone enemy to be "dropping" them.

Maybe then it'd see some actual use.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Would never want: Tenser's Transformation. At the level you can cast it, you can be Polymorphing into a Chuul to get (most likely) better stats and natural armor, with the added bonus of still being able to cast spells and not needing to waste a potion to activate it, and for minutes/level (Polymorph) instead of rounds/level (Transformation). Insult to injury; Polymorph is a 4th-level spell, and Transformation is a 6th.

This one doesn't even get the excuse of splatbook power creep; both of them are in the PHB, and Chuuls are in Monster Manual 1.

Why choose? Tenser's on a contingency for when you polymorph into a battle form that can't cast anyway.

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

Phoenix Fire is one of the worst spells in 3.5.
Higher cap Flame Strike but you die, lose a level and get resurrected. Awful for a level 7 spell.

[kinem]

DWC: I thought I found a winner in Energize Potion (BoED) but that beats it.

[AvatarVecna]

I'd like to see the game where having a CL of 10+Level isn't somewhat cheesy. Even if you're using reserves of strength on every spell and you have the ring of arcane might, an orange ioun stone, and a magic tattoo, that's 'only' +6, and using reserves on every spell usually indicates some form of cheese is already going on.

Consumptive Field caps out at half-base-CL, so even that only gets +10 at like...lvl 20, without additional assistance. It's some absurd shenanigans.

I guess if your DM allows the reading where Reserves Of Strength completely uncaps Consumptive Field, and your Cleric 7 can get enough kills in 10 rounds, then Consumptive Field could theoretically give NI CL, but that's...not something I would expect to fly at...most tables.

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

DWC: I thought I found a winner in Energize Potion (BoED) but that beats it.

Yeah. There's only a couple sanctified spells that are really good, Phoenix Fire is just awful.

[unseenmage]

Once had a high power high level game where I refused to use Gate, Wish, Binding, Simulacrum, Miracle, or Genesis.

And that's just the short list of spells they're so good you dont actually want to use them.

[Kalkra]

Why choose? Tenser's on a contingency for when you polymorph into a battle form that can't cast anyway.

Why would you ever want to do that, though? What spell that costs you your casting is better than Draconic Polymorph? Unless you plan on UMDing a bunch of wands while transformed, and even then it's not great.

[Wildstag]

Meteor swarm disappoints me, it's not even good at doing AoE damage, let alone comparable to other 9th level spells.
Soul bind is pointless, why kill someone then trap their soul when you could just cast trap the soul and skip the bit where you have to fight them.

Oh and Alarm is definitely better than a mundane alarm, it trips if anything enters the AoE it tells you, there's no flying over the tripwire, silencing the bell etc.

If you're encountering a flying enemy at night that prefers flight and knows to avoid a tripwire, you're not really at the level that a mundane tripwire would be useful, and you're probably at the level that, like I have said in previous comments, the alarm is marginally useful. By then, you're at the level where you should just be hopping in a Tiny Hut instead and staying the night in that.

It's really not useful low level since you already need to spend the money on the mundane items, and when you're high enough level for it to last through all the nightwatches, you have better options for trivializing camping. And again, it doesn't help for protecting your things unless you do all your operations within 1 mile of your base. If you're travelling cross-country, it doesn't do anything helpful.

If a spell requires you to save the slot until the end of the day at a level when a wizard only has six spells to use all day, then it's an inefficient spell slot. You are reducing your effectiveness by 1/6th. At least with Sorcerer, by the time you can take Tiny Hut you've got 14 spells per day and 6 first level slots. As a level 6 wizard, you have a 3/3/2 breakdown. Holding on to 1/8 of your effectiveness is less bad but still not great. If you can use a mundane method to save you the efficiency, use it. A wand of alarm could be useful, I guess.

Basically, this whole argument about "Spells that you would never want" should hinge more on "what percentage of your total slots are you spending, and how little does that spell do?"

P.S. I guess technically my math is slightly off, because I didn't account for bonus spells, but assuming an 18 in Intelligence, you still only have 1 bonus first level spell per day. So you save half your spells per day at level 1, or a third at level 2 or one-fourth by level 6. All to do something that a couple skill checks can replicate (Listen, Spot, and a couple craft (Trapmaking) checks).

P.P.S. Also another spell I would never use, but I'd get as a cleric by default is Mass Cure Wounds. The equivalent level Mass Vigors are better.

[Quertus]

P.P.S. Also another spell I would never use, but I'd get as a cleric by default is Mass Cure Wounds. The equivalent level Mass Vigors are better.

Does more (out of combat) healing (unless you're a RSoP), yes. But can it cure Wounding effects? Pity there's not a Mass Faith Heal.

[Unavenger]

MCLW is mostly helpful for making sure an ally doesn't bleed out, because the MC*W spells are the only core ranged healing. They also have the dubious benefit of being an area-of-effect attack that also heals you, although if you're a cleric you have better ways of dealing with the undead. I've cast MCLW, but I wouldn't ever prep it if spontaneous conversion didn't exist.

[unseenmage]

OH! I remembered a useless one. Interplanetary Teleport.
Because Greater Teleport exists and has exactly zero trouble taking you to another planet.

[Unavenger]

OH! I remembered a useless one. Interplanetary Teleport.
Because Greater Teleport exists and has exactly zero trouble taking you to another planet.

IPTP only requires you to identify the target planet uniquely, while GTP requires that you describe the specific location on that planet reliably, which is a hard sell in a universe with no NASA photos.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

IPTP only requires you to identify the target planet uniquely, while GTP requires that you describe the specific location on that planet reliably, which is a hard sell in a universe with no NASA photos.It does cost additional resources, but scrying is a thing.

Still less than a level 9 spell, though.

[Wildstag]

Does more (out of combat) healing (unless you're a RSoP), yes. But can it cure Wounding effects? Pity there's not a Mass Faith Heal.

I'll be honest, I love Faith Healing just so I can lord the healing over people. "Well if you wanted my healing, you'd better convert to the faith of Corellon Larethian" is just so funny, and is one of the best ways to be a "jerk zealous priest".

It really is a shame there's no modified forms of it, but I've met GMs that are willing to just make Faith Healing scale 1:1 with Cure Wounds, but not replace "Spontaneous Casting" with Faith Healing.

[Unavenger]

It does cost additional resources, but scrying is a thing.

Still less than a level 9 spell, though.

A thing that only targets specific creatures, not empty locations. Clairvoyance won't do it at that range either. Arcane Eye miiiiight be able to do it, since you can create one at a location you can see? It's not a gimme, though.

The real problem with IPTP isn't that what it does is easy. It's that what it does is mostly pointless.

[King of Nowhere]

Guards and wards.
You are supposed to use it to defend your lair, but sll the stuff it does is
1) hampering you more than your enemies, and
2) quite pointless anyway.

And you can also make it permanent! Imagine waking up in the night needing to use the toilet, only to find out that your corridors are full of fog, your stairs are blocked by webs, and the toilet door is locked magically.
And it's not like an attacker would have much trouble cutting down the webs or battering the door.

[El Dorado]

Distance Distortion. AD&D. A 5th level spell. It would let you use an earth elemental to double or halve the dimensions of an enclosed space (like a cave or hallway). It required you to first cast another 5th level spell: Conjure Elemental. Elementals were by default hostile to whoever summoned them but, when you declared you were going to cast Distance Distortion, the elemental wouldn't attack (presumably because of the fit of laughter it was experiencing) as it laid on the ground to compress or expand your room.

Why would you cast this? I mean, it was two 5th level slots. Back when wizards didn’t get bonus spells for high Intelligence. I think you could do more with a second elemental. . .

edit: clarity

[Telok]

Guards & wards and distance distortion are somebody's ad&d spells for base building. They got stuck in the books, probably because they were just collecting everything they had for the first hardbacks.

They're both downtime spells, both base defense spells, and both were written for somebody's base. It would probably be more obvious if they had a proper name stuck on the beginning like Melf or Rary.

To use them you build a base that has two paths, one obvious and the other secret or able to be completely closed off. Your base also needs depth to it's defenses, several layers of defenders. For distance distortion you want to use it twice, lengthen the obvious hallway and shorten your secret/sealed hallway. The survivors of the first layer of defense run down the short hallway while the attackers take the long route, buying you time to raise the alarm and prepare defenses. Guards & wards works pretty much the same way but you want some cross passages and stairs thrown in.

[Pex]

P.P.S. Also another spell I would never use, but I'd get as a cleric by default is Mass Cure Wounds. The equivalent level Mass Vigors are better.

Life Oracle makes the spell useful.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Why would you ever want to do that, though? What spell that costs you your casting is better than Draconic Polymorph? Unless you plan on UMDing a bunch of wands while transformed, and even then it's not great.

Again, you're not choosing. You cast draconic polymorph and then the contingency kicks off and you get Tenser's on top of it IF the form chosen can't cast spells. So in addition to the form's new physicals plus the extra boost from Draconic, you also get enhancement bonuses, extra hp attendant to the con change, and switched to full BAB.

[Arcane_Secrets]

Fierce Pride of the Beastlands.

It's a conjuration (summoning) [chaotic, good] spell that summons 2d4 celestial lions, followed by 1d4 celestial dire lions 10 minutes later. The duration is decent (10min/lv), so it might be nice as a 5th level spell.

The problem is, this is an 8th level spell. This means that the lions you summon will be fighting CR15 enemies, and probably missing all of their attacks.
And don't forget the 10 minute cast time. Just… ew.

I always wished someone had tried to address issues like this systematically. Do you know if anyone's tried this? (I haven't exactly read the entire board, so if I'm ignorant of something right in front of me in terms of a homebrew for this I'm being ignorant, hopefully not irritating)

[Zanos]

I don't think alarm is bad. What's the spot or search DC to notice a mundane tripwire? It isn't a 'real' trap so I'm guessing it's not all that high. The spell effects the entire area, not just one tripwire, and there is no check to notice it if you can't perceive magic. Even if you detect it, you can't go around it. You also can't configure a tripwire to mentally alert you with no sound.

[Wildstag]

I don't think alarm is bad. What's the spot or search DC to notice a mundane tripwire? It isn't a 'real' trap so I'm guessing it's not all that high. The spell effects the entire area, not just one tripwire, and there is no check to notice it if you can't perceive magic. Even if you detect it, you can't go around it. You also can't configure a tripwire to mentally alert you with no sound.

The spot or search dc could be dependent upon the stealth and craft checks rolled by the player, changing based on additional measures to hide it. Or, according to D20srd, it’d be a DC 20 to detect a simple mechanical trap before it is triggered. The section on traps goes on to say a simple trap is a snare, a trap triggered by a tripwire, or a large trap such as a pit. Seems to me that according to the game it is a “real” trap.

But I can’t say much else without repeating myself. At level 5 it can be dispelled. It is also made obsolete by level 5 but doesn’t last the full night until level 4.

[Zanos]

At level 5 it can be dispelled. It is also made obsolete by level 5 but doesn’t last the full night until level 4.
This implies that your enemies are spellcasters of at least 5th level, and prepare either detect magic or arcane sight specifically to detect and neutralize your warning system, and make a check with no retries to overcome your caster level, and ruin any attempts at stealth because all those spells have verbal components. I'd say mission accomplished then, for alarm.

I feel like the list of CR 5 threats this isn't an issue for is quite short.

EDIT: Dungeonscape Pg. 54 actually has rules for the trap that you described, and it gives you DC -5 listen check to be awoken by the trap, which is affected by distance, and it has a reflex save to avoid setting off in addition to the search check DC of 20 to notice it. The reflex save is 1/2 your craft(trapmaking) check, which probably isn't going to be more than DC 10 or so at low levels. If, like most characters, you don't have any ranks in craft(trapmaking), that would be half your take ten plus your intelligence modifier. If you're a learned wizard with 18 int, that's a DC 7 reflex save if they don't notice your trap to avoid having your throat slit in the night.

[Wildstag]

This implies that your enemies are spellcasters of at least 5th level, and prepare either detect magic or arcane sight specifically to detect and neutralize your warning system, and make a check with no retries to overcome your caster level, and ruin any attempts at stealth because dispel magic has verbal components. I'd say mission accomplished then, for alarm.

I feel like the list of CR 5 threats this isn't an issue for is quite short.

The strong suit of a spellcaster is threat nullification and risk reduction. If a caster is capable of casting a third level spell, they also get a bonus spell of that level. This means that they can use an area dispel before combat to reduce the efficiency of the defense. Not doing so would be beyond stupid. Your gm would have to be merciful or doing you a favor to do any less. And a mage that doesn’t detect magic before an encounter with a stationary enemy? {Scrubbed} If a pc wouldn’t do it, why would an npc not do it?

Also, dispel magic has a medium range. You can cast from 100 feet away, thus reducing the risk the verbal component creates.

And again, a mundane tripwire doesn’t disappear after 2-6 hours. The only level where Alarm isn’t overshadowed by a better option is level 4. Taking a spell so it can be useful for a single level is not worth it.

Edit: are people really playing with parties where the skill monkey doesn’t put ranks in Craft (Trapmaking)? Really? Why would you be arguing for an untrained check? {Scrubbed}

[Zanos]

The strong suit of a spellcaster is threat nullification and risk reduction. If a caster is capable of casting a third level spell, they also get a bonus spell of that level. This means that they can use an area dispel before combat to reduce the efficiency of the defense. Not doing so would be beyond stupid. Your gm would have to be merciful or doing you a favor to do any less. And a mage that doesn’t detect magic before an encounter with a stationary enemy? {Scrub the post, scrub the quote} If a pc wouldn’t do it, why would an npc not do it?
If your argument is for risk reduction, you've just forced a 5th level character to blow one of their most powerful options for the day on having an at best 50/50 shot of removing your alarm. Assuming of course your caster level for a buff you can cast in relatively safety wasn't buffed in any way. If they didn't cast another spell to confirm success, they have no way of knowing if it even succeeded.

Detect Magic takes three rounds of concentration and only has 60ft of range, so...


Also, dispel magic has a medium range. You can cast from 100 feet away, thus reducing the risk the verbal component creates.
You need line of sight, though. So you're limited by the range of your light. You could use a bullseye lantern, but then you're risking them noticing the light. More likely you'd either use a spell that grants 60 feet of darkvision, or be a race with 60 foot of darkvision, limiting you to 60ft. Convenient, since the range of detect magic is also only 60 feet. Noticing someone speaking in a strong enough voice to cast a spell with verbal components at 60 feet is a DC 6 listen check, with distance factored in.


And again, a mundane tripwire doesn’t disappear after 2-6 hours. The only level where Alarm isn’t overshadowed by a better option is level 4. Taking a spell so it can be useful for a single level is not worth it.
If you're class with a strictly limited list with no retraining options, sure. If you're a wizard, a 2nd level spell costs a piddling amount of gold. And it's not useless if it forces someone to blow a spell slot for not super great chance of removing it. I agree that alarm is mostly useless before level 4 or so, though. You could make it last 12 hours at level 3, if you took extend spell and had an open level 2 slot at the end of the day to prepare it in.


Edit: are people really playing with parties where the skill monkey doesn’t put ranks in Craft (Trapmaking)? Really? Why would you be arguing for an untrained check? {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}
I've literally never seen a character with ranks in it. Even if you were a skill monkey with 18 intelligence, which is uncommon for a role that usually has intelligence as a secondary stat, the DC would be 9. And every single monster in the monster manual can make a reflex save. Very few can cast dispel magic.

I like that you're suggesting I'm arguing in bad faith while also insisting that all CR 5 threats have access to dispel magic, and acting like dispel magic always succeeds against PCs.

Actually, now is probably a good time to mention that the trap in question is actually in a sidebar described by the Booby Trap feature of the Trapsmith, which probably means you can't make it at all if you aren't a Trapsmith.

[Wildstag]

Admitting the risk of further derailing this conversation, I will try to answer your questions as succinctly as I care to.

Firstly: a fifth level npc mage that has dispel magic would want any buffs or defenses gone immediately. Even if there are few that a 5th level party could use that would effect them overnight, any defenses you can eliminate in advance is one you don't have to deal with in the combat itself. Any tactic that would be advantageous for a pc to use should also be usable by, and expected of, an npc. That goes for literally everything. So just as you seem to argue that the tripwire could be disabled, so too should a mage be able to counter defenses in advance. It's as simple as that.

On top of that, Alarm is a first level spell, which means the DC to dispel it is a DC 12. A fifth level wizard attempting to dispel the Alarm would have a 70% chance of success, not a 50/50 shot like you suggest (1d20 + CL 5 means you succeed on a roll of a 7).

Secondly: the likelihood of having a level 2 slot at the end of the day as a 3rd level wizard is ridiculous. If you have any more than one encounter per day, you're going to use that spell so you don't turn into a crossbow miss chance simulator.

Thirdly: I have seen four pcs in the last five games I've played with it. Granted, one of those pcs was me, but even removing my own experiences with it, it is still a 60% rate that I've seen low-level characters with ranks in that skill. If you look at the Falgar link in my signature, that one had ranks in Trapmaking. It was useful to take ranks in when operating in the city of Sigil and with a beholder in the party (it was very greedy and envious, it made multiple attempts to steal my loot). And I'm actually in a game with a Trapsmith, next session is tonight.

Fourthly: Not once did I say that ALL CR 5 threats have access to dispel magic. The fifth level sample npc wizard has Dispel Magic in the spellbook, though not prepared. A lazy dm might just copy the block without modification. The GMs I have played with tend to tailor the statblocks to challenge the party. Since the npc wizard already has 2 scrolls of fireball at level 5, it's easy to switch out that prepared spell for another option.

Finally: Your point reminds me of how I dislike the redundancy of 3.5, that even something as simple as a tripwire is listed as a PrC option. {Scrubbed} However, your argument also overlooks the DMG's Chapter 3.


A trap can be either mechanical or magic in nature... A mechanical trap can be constructed by a PC through successful use of the Craft (trapmaking) skill (see Designing a Trap, page 74, and the skill description on page 70 of the Player's Handbook)... Characters who succeed on a DC 20 Search check detect a simple mechanical trap before it is triggered. (A simple trap is a snare, a trap triggered by a tripwire, or a large trap such as a pit.) DMG p67

I will concede one thing though, and that is that Craft checks take a minimum day to make, which is a tad absurd, since right now I can rig up a bell on twine in less than 20 minutes, since I already have a bell, some p-cord, a couple nails, and a hammer. It wouldn't be hard to spot in daylight, though without a light, it probably would be. But alas, D&D tries to abstract aspects of the real world and condense them into playable framework. So by RAW a party doesn't get full night defenses save for Spot and Listen until level 4, and mundane methods until level 6. That's actually kinda disappointing to realize, just another way mundane methods are shafted by the efficiency of magic. What hurts more is that the components of Alarm require the same things you'd use in a bell-tripwire, but you can't actually do it by RAW in less than a day until level 6 with a specific PrC that provides an ability no other PrC does.

I guess I argued my way into a corner, if only because Craft checks are so limiting. I'd still argue that the spell isn't really helpful until level 4 and only level 4, or in a campaign where you operate all within 1 mile radius of your home base. It would be better as a cantrip, to be honest. It'd give a lot for a cantrip, but as a first level spell, the opportunity cost of preparing it is too great.

P.S.

To add to spells I'd never want, I don't really see a use for Glaze Lock, since it doesn't last long enough for resting. Discern Bloodline seems kinda boring, it's Will Save is low enough that it wouldn't really help by the time that template stacking really starts. An honorable mention is Nybor's Joyful Voyage, which teleports another person away from you (willing or unwilling), but is a touch spell for sorcerers and wizards. It was created to teleport obnoxious people away, and the "joy" in the name is the caster's joy at the annoyance's departure.

[Kalkra]

At fifth level you get Skull Watch, is probably just better than Alarm, particularly if your DM lets you carry the skull around with you. Also, hitting a party with an area dispel runs the risk of alerting them if they have something like Continual Flame going.

Also, for spells that you never want, Life Bolt. Out-damaged by Scorching Ray, only hits undead, and does nonlethal damage to you. Also, Blight, which is just totally useless.

[Zanos]

Firstly: a fifth level npc mage that has dispel magic would want any buffs or defenses gone immediately. Even if there are few that a 5th level party could use that would effect them overnight, any defenses you can eliminate in advance is one you don't have to deal with in the combat itself. Any tactic that would be advantageous for a pc to use should also be usable by, and expected of, an npc. That goes for literally everything. So just as you seem to argue that the tripwire could be disabled, so too should a mage be able to counter defenses in advance. It's as simple as that.
I'm not arguing it's an illogical desire, I'm arguing it is not the foolproof strategy you describe.


On top of that, Alarm is a first level spell, which means the DC to dispel it is a DC 12. A fifth level wizard attempting to dispel the Alarm would have a 70% chance of success, not a 50/50 shot like you suggest (1d20 + CL 5 means you succeed on a roll of a 7).
You are extraordinarily incorrect. The DC to dispel is based on caster level. Assuming the party is fifth level, since that's the level you said alarm becomes irrelevant, the DC is 16. This is assuming the caster isn't using any feats, items, or spells to augment their caster level, all of which are easier to do when you are making camp. You could, for example, use a 500gp pair of gloves of the arcanist to increase any 1st level spells caster level by 2, increasing the DC to 18. But we'll assume they haven't taken any of those very easy measures to be generous, and against an equal level party, the dispel check is 50/50.


Secondly: the likelihood of having a level 2 slot at the end of the day as a 3rd level wizard is ridiculous. If you have any more than one encounter per day, you're going to use that spell so you don't turn into a crossbow miss chance simulator.
That depends on your intelligence modifier, your choice of school specialization, and other associated level choices. It also depends on what happened during the day, because during overland travel where camping is relevant in campaigns I've played, we very rarely had an encounter every day. I believe there's even an old joke that overland travel takes exactly as long as needed to have precisely one random encounter. In any case, you can use the gloves above, which are dirt cheap and good on pretty much any low level wizard, to add 4 hours to the duration of alarm, making it relevant from level 2 without build investment from a 1st level slot.


Thirdly: I have seen four pcs in the last five games I've played with it. Granted, one of those pcs was me, but even removing my own experiences with it, it is still a 60% rate that I've seen low-level characters with ranks in that skill. If you look at the Falgar link in my signature, that one had ranks in Trapmaking. It was useful to take ranks in when operating in the city of Sigil and with a beholder in the party (it was very greedy and envious, it made multiple attempts to steal my loot). And I'm actually in a game with a Trapsmith, next session is tonight.
I don't have a script to rip every single build ever made in 3.5, so I'll just have to assume that we run in different circles. Regardless, even assuming maximum ranks and that you are a trapsmith, when you hit level 6 your craft check modifier is probably around +20 or so. I don't fancy your odds of using a DC 15 reflex save trap as your primary defense of your campsite, considering that the average CR 6 threat has a reflex save of 6.85. Now when you hit level 8 and the DC becomes equal to your craft result these are pretty damn good DC wise, but now we're hitting the level were defending a campsite is becoming less relevant.


Fourthly: Not once did I say that ALL CR 5 threats have access to dispel magic. The fifth level sample npc wizard has Dispel Magic in the spellbook, though not prepared. A lazy dm might just copy the block without modification. The GMs I have played with tend to tailor the statblocks to challenge the party. Since the npc wizard already has 2 scrolls of fireball at level 5, it's easy to switch out that prepared spell for another option.
Sure, the sample fifth level wizard has dispel. What portion of your CR5 encounters are 5th level wizards? I'm just arguing that alarm is effective against far more threats than a tripwire trap is, because few CR5 threats can reliably dispel an alarm, while nearly all of them have a good chance of making a DC 7-15 reflex save without expending any resources.


Finally: Your point reminds me of how I dislike the redundancy of 3.5, that even something as simple as a tripwire is listed as a PrC option. {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}
The booby traps are presented explicitly as a cheap option for trapsmiths. Typically, traps are much more expensive. The lack of cost effectiveness of traps for PCs is a deliberate choice of the designers that trapsmith was designed to partially circumvent. It doesn't make sense if you apply real world logic, but makes sense from a game design standpoint. If you're arguing that you should be able to make an item that's explicitly a PrCs class feature without being a member of that PrC, that seems a bit braindead to me. Logically, should you be able to set up a basic tripwire with a bell and attach it to some trees or sticks? Sure. But I would make it measurably worse than a real trapsmiths alarm trap.


However, your argument also overlooks the DMG's Chapter 3.
If you're referring to the DMG saying a tripwire is a simple trap, it provides no other information on the saving throw, cost, or effects of such a trap.


I will concede one thing though, and that is that Craft checks take a minimum day to make, which is a tad absurd, since right now I can rig up a bell on twine in less than 20 minutes, since I already have a bell, some p-cord, a couple nails, and a hammer. It wouldn't be hard to spot in daylight, though without a light, it probably would be. But alas, D&D tries to abstract aspects of the real world and condense them into playable framework. So by RAW a party doesn't get full night defenses save for Spot and Listen until level 4, and mundane methods until level 6. That's actually kinda disappointing to realize, just another way mundane methods are shafted by the efficiency of magic. What hurts more is that the components of Alarm require the same things you'd use in a bell-tripwire, but you can't actually do it by RAW in less than a day until level 6 with a specific PrC that provides an ability no other PrC does.

I guess I argued my way into a corner, if only because Craft checks are so limiting. I'd still argue that the spell isn't really helpful until level 4 and only level 4, or in a campaign where you operate all within 1 mile radius of your home base. It would be better as a cantrip, to be honest. It'd give a lot for a cantrip, but as a first level spell, the opportunity cost of preparing it is too great.
You're actually fine here. You can craft the alarms in advance and they only cost 1gp per 10 feet and are reusable. They only take 1 round per 10 feet to set up. So you should be able to make a pile of them with a single week of crafting.

[Wildstag]

The DC to dispel is based on caster level. Assuming the party is fifth level, since that's the level you said alarm becomes irrelevant, the DC is 16. This is assuming the caster isn't using any feats, items, or spells to augment their caster level, all of which are easier to do when you are making camp.

So oof on the misread of the line, that is indeed my bad. However, again, you continue to make the bold assumption that options available to the pcs are not available to the npcs. I see no reason why a wizard that is attacking the party can't have their own CL increasing items or feats or whatever. All of your arguments rely on ONLY the players having those options.


It also depends on what happened during the day, because during overland travel where camping is relevant in campaigns I've played, we very rarely had an encounter every day. I believe there's even an old joke that overland travel takes exactly as long as needed to have precisely one random encounter.

Yeah, this boils down to what different kinds of GMs we play with. I have played almost exclusively with GMs that roll to determine if there will be a random encounter and then to determine what it is, and the frequency of the rolls for "yes or no encounter" is dependent on the terrain we are in and the setting details. If your GMs choose to make overland travel trivial, that is an failing of your GM, not of the game as a whole. DMG 95 has a table for chance of wilderness encounter per hour. If you're actually rolling every hour of travel, and you're traveling for a twelve hour day in heavily traveled terrain, then you should realistically face at least one encounter with a fair chance for a second on a given day. Depending on the condition after the first encounter, I might actually increase the chance of one. If a group of people look injured, they'll look like easier targets than a strong and healthy group.


I don't have a script to rip every single build ever made in 3.5, so I'll just have to assume that we run in different circles. Regardless, even assuming maximum ranks and that you are a trapsmith, when you hit level 6 your craft check modifier is probably around +20 or so. I don't fancy your odds of using a DC 15 reflex save trap as your primary defense of your campsite, considering that the average CR 6 threat has a reflex save of 6.85.

Not every encounter you face, especially random encounters, is going to be equal or greater than your character level. Sometimes you'll have weaker encounters that just drain resources. In fact, it's better when they're weaker because you're not giving out large chunks of exp constantly.

If you read through the entire discussion, I have not once made the claim that the primary defense should be a bell at the end of a cord tied to a campsite perimeter object. Literally not even once. It is a supplement, an additional method to defend yourself. Presumably you would have other means of defense, but I prefer options that actually last the entire night instead of ones that last only half the night. Magic should not be used to replace mundane options, only to supplement them, especially if the duration of the magic is not sufficiently close to the duration the effect is needed. As an example, you'd never use the Find Traps spell as a substitute for rogue, since you can't disable traps with the spell.

That's also another spell I'd never want, and would never use. The cleric will never have a better Search check than a trapfinder. I probably already mentioned it though, or someone else might have. At the very least, I don't see any uses for it.

[vasilidor]

when it comes to random encounters, they are not always hostile. once had a group of paladins have a random encounter with a gold dragon. legit rolled a gold dragon (the chart had a 1% chance of some type of dragon that then went into a subchart of various dragon types, including dragonkin). some encounters wound up adding to party resources in some games (ran into a bunch of zombies with a group that had a necromancer with command undead prepped twice in a 5th level party). random encounter does not always equal fight. back on topic, there are some summoning spells in the spell compendium that make me go "why is this even a thing?" you summon a bunch of demons or angels, pending alignment, that are all under leveled for anything that you might fight at the level that you would be able to cast the spell (it's 9th, all the summons are cr 13 or lower).

[Quertus]

You also can't configure a tripwire to mentally alert you with no sound.

That would involve things like tying the string to a part of your body (like snoozing fishermen are wont to do.


EDIT: Dungeonscape Pg. 54 actually has rules for the trap that you described, and it gives you DC -5 listen check to be awoken by the trap, which is affected by distance, and it has a reflex save to avoid setting off in addition to the search check DC of 20 to notice it. The reflex save is 1/2 your craft(trapmaking) check, which probably isn't going to be more than DC 10 or so at low levels. If, like most characters, you don't have any ranks in craft(trapmaking), that would be half your take ten plus your intelligence modifier. If you're a learned wizard with 18 int, that's a DC 7 reflex save if they don't notice your trap to avoid having your throat slit in the night.

So, when you set up 100 of these tripwires, or boost your skill check into the stratosphere, the low DC isn't an issue. :smallwink:

[Gnaeus]

So oof on the misread of the line, that is indeed my bad. However, again, you continue to make the bold assumption that options available to the pcs are not available to the npcs. I see no reason why a wizard that is attacking the party can't have their own CL increasing items or feats or whatever. All of your arguments rely on ONLY the players having those options.

NPCs get less than half PC WBL to keep PC wealth on track. There are also cheap items like ring of enduring arcana available by level 5 WBL (4kgp raises CL by 4 only for purpose of resisting dispel.

[Wildstag]

NPCs get less than half PC WBL to keep PC wealth on track. There are also cheap items like ring of enduring arcana available by level 5 WBL (4kgp raises CL by 4 only for purpose of resisting dispel.

Maybe in general, but the 5th level NPC Wizard Sample has a total of 6,124 gp in gear when supposedly they should have a lot less (4300 according to the tables). I guess if we were to assume the wizard wrote their own scrolls we could bump that down, but it's still significantly higher than the standard np wbl.

Actually, it's a drow wizard, so it is effectively a 6th level character, but the 6,124 gp is still above the 5600 gp expected of a 6th level npc (9% higher). It might be on-level if they wrote the scrolls, I dunno.

[Thunder999]

Personally I'd consider trading a 1st level (2nd if extended) slot to cast alarm for a 3rd level slot to cast dispel a pretty great deal.
And remember that the PCs are probably resting tents (and if not here's why they should bother to) and therefore someone casting an area dispel doesn't even have line of effect to them, so it won't get chance to dispel any lingering buffs.

[Wildstag]

Yeah, at this point keeping up with the alarm argument is ridiculous. You guys want to defend it like it saved your life in the war, go ahead.

I'll use my precious few low-level spell slots in ways that meaningfully contribute to the party's welfare. I would never want it, and since the prompt says "you" and not "anyone", I say my contribution of alarm is valid and reasonable.

[XionUnborn01]

Edit: are people really playing with parties where the skill monkey doesn’t put ranks in Craft (Trapmaking)? Really? Why would you be arguing for an untrained check? {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

I've been playing for probably 20 years or so, and I don't remember more than 2 or 3 people ever using trapmaking.

[Unavenger]

I've been playing for probably 20 years or so, and I don't remember more than 2 or 3 people ever using trapmaking.

I for one don't recall anyone in any party I've ever been in having ever used trapmaking under any circumstances for as long as I've lived. Apparently we're all "brain-dead participants". :smallannoyed:

[Wildstag]

I for one don't recall anyone in any party I've ever been in having ever used trapmaking under any circumstances for as long as I've lived. Apparently we're all "brain-dead participants". :smallannoyed:

In a particular example of "someone is making a Craft (Trapmaking) check, and they choose to do so untrained", then yes, the argument is stupid. In no other hypothetical on this forum have I seen someone argue "well assuming the check is being made untrained", because why would you except to make the other person's argument seem flimsier than it actually is.

In a discussion about people making or using a simple trap regularly, why would that person not invest any skill ranks in the skill that they use for a nightly defense? So yes, if you are making a bunch of traps without any skill ranks when the basic craft dc is 20, then yes, you should be seen as braindead.

No, I was not making a statement about people not taking ranks in the skill in general. {Scrubbed}

P.S. Why wouldn't you have someone with Craft (Trapmaking)? Do you not set up a base of operations you want to defend? Do you really just carry ALL of your material wealth on your person in EVERY game you have ever played? No strongholds? No mansions? No permanent dwellings where you keep your dragon-skull trophy or collection of souvenirs of battle? Would you really outsource all of your trapmaking to some unknown that might be connected to a thieve's guild?

[Zanos]

Because the market prices for printed traps are ludricrous. Even CR1 traps that are nearly useless cost at least 500gp. Due to the way craft skills work that also means any respectable trap takes months to make.

I usually play spellcasters, so I defend my bases with spells, which are generally either very cheap to learn and either have no material component or very cheap ones. Arcane locks, animated undead, fang traps, ghoul glyphs, illusory walls, walls of eyes, etc. Divine casters can use glyphs of warding.

[Gnaeus]

Maybe in general, but the 5th level NPC Wizard Sample has a total of 6,124 gp in gear when supposedly they should have a lot less (4300 according to the tables). I guess if we were to assume the wizard wrote their own scrolls we could bump that down, but it's still significantly higher than the standard np wbl.

Actually, it's a drow wizard, so it is effectively a 6th level character, but the 6,124 gp is still above the 5600 gp expected of a 6th level npc (9% higher). It might be on-level if they wrote the scrolls, I dunno.

So you are complaining that the NPC statblock (which are notoriously bad anyway) should have better optimized gear when in fact he is over WBL?

Not an issue. Either you use the wizard, who doesn’t have CL boosters. Or the table, where you probably can’t afford CL boosters, and if you could it probably isn’t the best use of your WBL.

Unrelated. Put me down as someone else who has never seen craft trapsmith used at a table by any player.

[Thunder999]

I'm pretty sure the argument is that you can't say craft (trapmaking) replaces a spell unless either people would want that skill already (which since noone ever takes it we can rule out) or the spell has a similarly high opportunity cost, which it doesn't because it's a 1st level spell and therefore very cheap to learn.

[Wildstag]

I'm pretty sure the argument is that you can't say craft (trapmaking) replaces a spell unless either people would want that skill already (which since noone ever takes it we can rule out) or the spell has a similarly high opportunity cost, which it doesn't because it's a 1st level spell and therefore very cheap to learn.

It has a high opportunity cost at low levels (saving a quarter to a half of your daily efficiency for it when it doesn't last the whole night), and by the time you get to mid and high levels, funnily enough, it's best use is in Craft (Trapmaking) (but for magical traps). And as was pointed out by someone else in the thread, traps are stupidly expensive, so why make your own (I disagree somewhat, but to each their own). At higher levels it's cheap to learn but also just like, you use it because you aren't really using all your first level spells.

Also, I really don't get why you guys don't just let it rest after the whole "I would never want it, and since the thread says 'you' and not 'anyone', my opinion is valid." Just seems petty to prolong it.

[Remuko]

I've been playing for probably 20 years or so, and I don't remember more than 2 or 3 people ever using trapmaking.

ive been playing since 3.0 came out and ive never seen anyone make ANY crafting check in my games. yes even magical items. not once.


P.S. Why wouldn't you have someone with Craft (Trapmaking)? Do you not set up a base of operations you want to defend? Do you really just carry ALL of your material wealth on your person in EVERY game you have ever played? No strongholds? No mansions? No permanent dwellings where you keep your dragon-skull trophy or collection of souvenirs of battle? Would you really outsource all of your trapmaking to some unknown that might be connected to a thieve's guild?

Almost every game I've been in? Yeah. No base. Everything is kept in extra dimensional storage, on hand, the whole time. All wealth in extradimensional storage. No strongholds, no mansions, no permanent dwellings, no souvenirs of battle or trophies. No outsourced trapmaking either, no traps at all, often on both sides of the DM screen. No traps.

[Quertus]

Personally I'd consider trading a 1st level (2nd if extended) slot to cast alarm for a 3rd level slot to cast dispel a pretty great deal.
And remember that the PCs are probably resting tents (and if not here's why they should bother to) and therefore someone casting an area dispel doesn't even have line of effect to them, so it won't get chance to dispel any lingering buffs.

Win and win. Or would be, if GMs actually played NPCs as actually existing off camera, and they expended spells throughout the day.


I've been playing for probably 20 years or so, and I don't remember more than 2 or 3 people ever using trapmaking.

Yeah, in the 20 years of my 3e experience, I've noticed exactly 1 character with trapmaking skills.


I'll use my precious few low-level spell slots in ways that meaningfully contribute to the party's welfare. I would never want it, and since the prompt says "you" and not "anyone", I say my contribution of alarm is valid and reasonable.


Also, I really don't get why you guys don't just let it rest after the whole "I would never want it, and since the thread says 'you' and not 'anyone', my opinion is valid." Just seems petty to prolong it.

Perhaps because "never" tends to invoke a "what if…" response; in this case, a "what if someone pointed out how useful it is?".

Granted, I don't think I've ever seen Alarm used in 3e.

[Unavenger]

Also, I really don't get why you guys don't just let it rest after the whole "I would never want it, and since the thread says 'you' and not 'anyone', my opinion is valid." Just seems petty to prolong it.

I think it stops being a nice sharing of opinions and starts being the kind of debate in which you have to defend your views the first time you call someone "brain-dead".

[El Dorado]

I think some of Alarm's stigma comes from pre 3.5, when any interruption to a wizard's rest messed with their spell preparation. Now, if something pings the mental alarm (even the wizard's owl coming in from foraging), the wizard can sense if the familiar is agitated without consequence. Even if the wizard has to check themselves, they are good with an extra hour of rest. The spell's even better for a ranger (divine caster) who make their own listen and spot checks to find out what's up.

[Wildstag]

I think it stops being a nice sharing of opinions and starts being the kind of debate in which you have to defend your views the first time you call someone "brain-dead".

If you actually read what I said, I did not call anyone "brain dead". What follows is what I actually said, unedited. Everyone else just acted like I was personally calling them brain dead. {Scrubbed} At worst I said that the argument was that stupid, but a person and their flimsy argument are two separate things.


are people really playing with parties where the skill monkey doesn’t put ranks in Craft (Trapmaking)? Really? {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}


{Scrub the post, scrub the quote} However, your argument also overlooks the DMG's Chapter 3.


In a discussion about people making or using a simple trap regularly, why would that person not invest any skill ranks in the skill that they use for a nightly defense? So yes, if you are making a bunch of traps without any skill ranks when the basic craft dc is 20, then yes, you should be seen as braindead.



I for one don't recall anyone in any party I've ever been in having ever used trapmaking under any circumstances for as long as I've lived. Apparently we're all "brain-dead participants".

YOU are the one that elevated it to talking about the players and not the hypothetical's player-characters. So yes, I think y'all should stop taking my defense so personally and just accept that I will retain a different opinion than you.

Edit: and on a Ranger, it comes so late that Alarm doesn't even last the full night until level 8. And even then you're using one of your very few spells on it. Not that Ranger really uses their spells for anything, since they're a piss-poor caster, but I guess it might be more worth it on a Mystic Ranger. But the Mystic Ranger isn't really playable at most tables due to being Dragon Mag content.

[nedz]

Cleave is a great feat if you're the party's primary striker. You'll be dealing the finishing blow pretty consistently, so it will get you extra attacks regularly. The more damage-dealers you have in the party, however, the more you have to share those finishing blows, which makes Cleave less reliable (unless your party coordinates its tactics around it).

Great Cleave, on the other hand, is trash.

I agree. I still have some players who swear by Great Cleave for some reason.

[Unavenger]

If you actually read what I said, I did not call anyone "brain dead". What follows is what I actually said, unedited. Everyone else just acted like I was personally calling them brain dead. And that's what I mean by arguing in bad faith. At worst I said that the argument was that stupid, but a person and their flimsy argument are two separate things.









YOU are the one that elevated it to talking about the players and not the hypothetical's player-characters. So yes, I think y'all should stop taking my defense so personally and just accept that I will retain a different opinion than you.

Edit: and on a Ranger, it comes so late that Alarm doesn't even last the full night until level 8. And even then you're using one of your very few spells on it. Not that Ranger really uses their spells for anything, since they're a piss-poor caster, but I guess it might be more worth it on a Mystic Ranger. But the Mystic Ranger isn't really playable at most tables due to being Dragon Mag content.

I'm sorry, you didn't accuse us of being brain-dead.

You accused us and everyone who we've ever played with of being brain-dead.

My mistake. :smallannoyed:

[Wildstag]

{Scrubbed}

[JNAProductions]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

This helps your point... How?

Because, for what it's worth, you might not have outright STATED you consider Unavenger brain-dead, but you certainly implied they and their gaming friends are.

And then you insulted them again. In this very post.

[Particle_Man]

I agree. I still have some players who swear by Great Cleave for some reason.

I see it as a signal. The player is signalling that they want a bad ass scene where they heroically chop a bunch of mooks into sushi. Something like the high level first edition fighter against multiple opponents of less than one HD each. So it is more of a “signalling for an awesome moment” feat than a useful one but it costs the dm nothing to send in some popcorn to die dramatically before the actual fight against opponents that actually present a challenge. And it is cheaper to get that signal feat than whirlwind attack.

[Wildstag]

JNAP, read my comment above with all the quote. I have NOT ONCE made the claim that any PEOPLE are vegetative. I said
are people really playing with parties where the skill monkey doesn’t put ranks in Craft (Trapmaking)? Really? Why would you be arguing for an untrained check?
{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

The question about brain-dead participants was talking about how the one forum-dweller was arguing the uselessness of a bell-tripwire defense by proposing a PC that had no ranks in the skill making the trap. That'd be like talking about how rangers are bad by using an example of a ranger with an irrelevant Favored Enemy. The argument had no merit because it relies on inefficiency. The brain-dead comment was not referring to people whose skill-monkeys don't put ranks in Trapmaking. Why should I care what you put ranks in? I will admit I could have separated those separate thoughts better.

{Scrubbed}

Alarm is a dumb spell for most characters, Dispel Magic wasn't even the best counter-argument, Silence (a 2nd level spell) works better, especially if each person is in their own tent (as Thunder999 suggested). The mental alarm might wake up the wizard, but to wake up others they'd have to walk around in a zone of silence. Generally, at that level, silence and low light conditions spell disaster. Silence would also stop a bell-and-tripwire, but not affect a string that simply tugs on a body part (thanks Quertus). Alarm doesn't last long enough at low levels to be useful, and at mid and high levels, alarm is cast solely because you have a leftover slot and you have nothing better to use the spell slot on. Furthermore, it can be useful in Craft (Trapmaking) skill checks, but those magic traps take weeks to make and cost a lot of money, and apparently people don't build home bases or don't get downtime. So functionally, the spell fails at doing what it's designed to do.

At best, it's useful for a low level mage to cast while they're taking a turn at watch, since they likely don't have ranks in Spot and Listen and must rely on the spell to help them. But then you would have a first level mage on watch. One arrow from a goblin or kobold with darkvision and the mage goes down.

[XionUnborn01]

ive been playing since 3.0 came out and ive never seen anyone make ANY crafting check in my games. yes even magical items.

I agree. I've taken craft skills as a character and dont think I've ever used them. I've played in a couple games with artificers so they did crafting but it wasnt checks, they had a high enough modifier to just do it in the down time. This forum really goes hard on craft checks being amazing but I'm willing to bet that in most games they don't come up like ever...

[nedz]

I see it as a signal. The player is signalling that they want a bad ass scene where they heroically chop a bunch of mooks into sushi. Something like the high level first edition fighter against multiple opponents of less than one HD each. So it is more of a “signalling for an awesome moment” feat than a useful one but it costs the dm nothing to send in some popcorn to die dramatically before the actual fight against opponents that actually present a challenge. And it is cheaper to get that signal feat than whirlwind attack.

Maybe, but I do throw lots of mooks at them, on occasion, and it's still rarely triggered. I do know that it's a recreation of the AD&D FM against 0HD rule, but that always felt cheep. Interestingly the same players favour Whirlwind also.

[Wildstag]

I agree. I've taken craft skills as a character and dont think I've ever used them. I've played in a couple games with artificers so they did crafting but it wasnt checks, they had a high enough modifier to just do it in the down time. This forum really goes hard on craft checks being amazing but I'm willing to bet that in most games they don't come up like ever...

I guess it really does speak to a different ethos in game running then. Out of the last four GMs I've had, only one didn't give us sufficient downtime to do some crafting, and that's because my most recent GM is new to it and basically just runs a dungeon-a-week game. Others I've had actually allow for time like that. As an example, in 2018 I played a VoP Hengeyokai Barb/Ftr/Warshaper/FotF/Primeval to level 20, and during downtime he oversaw the construction of an orphanage and homeless shelter. He didn't have the skill ranks himself, but we allowed time for master craftsmen to make the buildings, which also gave a pretense for sidequests for certain PCs. I think that PC's in my signature.

From what I've seen in this thread, the forum doesn't really favor craft checks. I just think Craft and Profession checks offer a big advantage for downtime roleplay and just roleplaying in general. It's why I've made a swordsmith in a PF game using the Master Craftsman feat. And like I said further up in the thread, my swiftblade PC had ranks in it because we lived in Sigil and he didn't trust the citizens of that city to leave well enough alone.

I'd say it's thematic that a Rogue might have some skill in making simple traps with a mindset of "it takes a trapmaker to know a trap". It'd also make sense for a Ranger or Scout to be an experienced trapmaker because of experience setting ambushes and traps for interlopers. But I understand the character archetype can be approached differently.

[Elkad]

Maybe, but I do throw lots of mooks at them, on occasion, and it's still rarely triggered. I do know that it's a recreation of the AD&D FM against 0HD rule, but that always felt cheep. Interestingly the same players favour Whirlwind also.

Well if Mr Fireballs would soften them up for Mr Great Cleave, he could have his moment. And then high-five Mr Fireballs for setting it up.
Both players feel great!

I do try to feed my players encounters that actually fit their abilities at times. Everyone gets a turn to be the star.
Including me, when I take something that is nominally a cakewalk EL, but I've tailored it to make them all struggle.

One of the ways I try to engage a new player is make the "random" night encounter something that he can handle well, and then make it show up on his guard shift. He gets a little "solo" adventure while everyone else is looking for their boots and cheering him on.

Continuing that trend is no big deal. Every now and then the Cleric of Burning Hate Pelor should get to destructify a giant mob of low-HD undead by turning them.

[vasilidor]

Well if Mr Fireballs would soften them up for Mr Great Cleave, he could have his moment. And then high-five Mr Fireballs for setting it up.
Both players feel great!

I do try to feed my players encounters that actually fit their abilities at times. Everyone gets a turn to be the star.
Including me, when I take something that is nominally a cakewalk EL, but I've tailored it to make them all struggle.

One of the ways I try to engage a new player is make the "random" night encounter something that he can handle well, and then make it show up on his guard shift. He gets a little "solo" adventure while everyone else is looking for their boots and cheering him on.

Continuing that trend is no big deal. Every now and then the Cleric of Burning Hate Pelor should get to destructify a giant mob of low-HD undead by turning them.

while creative plays have generally been rewarded in games that i have played, this has been less about casting fireball, and more about using carpentry to make bypasses in areas with traps in them (a wooden plank is highly effective against dart traps.)

[nedz]

Well if Mr Fireballs would soften them up for Mr Great Cleave, he could have his moment. And then high-five Mr Fireballs for setting it up.
Both players feel great!

I do try to feed my players encounters that actually fit their abilities at times. Everyone gets a turn to be the star.
Including me, when I take something that is nominally a cakewalk EL, but I've tailored it to make them all struggle.

One of the ways I try to engage a new player is make the "random" night encounter something that he can handle well, and then make it show up on his guard shift. He gets a little "solo" adventure while everyone else is looking for their boots and cheering him on.

Continuing that trend is no big deal. Every now and then the Cleric of Burning Hate Pelor should get to destructify a giant mob of low-HD undead by turning them.

Yes I do those things too, and I even have a Mr Fireball, but Great Cleave still never delivers. YMMV

[Kelb_Panthera]

Yes I do those things too, and I even have a Mr Fireball, but Great Cleave still never delivers. YMMV

Nobody in your group ever plays the wrecking ball melee; berserker, war hulk, etc?

[Zanos]

The issue with mundane crafting is that it's extremely slow. If your DM lets you start with crafted gear it can stretch your wealth pretty far, and Craft(Alchemy) is specifically pretty good because items aren't that expensive and consumable. 8.3 gp for a 10ft radius sleep bomb? Pretty good, and you can whip up a couple in a week. Even with level 1 wealth you can pack a pretty good number of offensive alchemy items in. Armor and weaponsmithing are pretty solid too, since you can pretty comfortably fit some of the better armors into a characters starting wealth if you take a minimal skill investment. But if you want to make a mithral breastplate for example, you're gonna be crafting for 47 weeks, nearly a year, if you have a +20 craft modifier. I've played in games with a lot of downtime and games where the PCs pretty much set the pace, but taking a year to make one item is pushing it. A magic item of the same price is done in five days. If you're working on say, the cheapest CR 5 mundane trap, you're working on 5,000 gold worth of mundane trap, which takes over a year to finish. And that's for one trap that arguably isn't even that good. Taking a year and 1660 gold to put one spiked pit in your base doesn't seem like a good investment of time or money to me. You could probably hire a caster to fill it with fang traps or glyphs of warding for much cheaper. If you don't want to outsource scrolls are still probably cheaper, even if you aren't a caster yourself.

As for great cleave to get any use of it at all requires that you have at least three foes within reach, and that you drop two of them on the same turn. If that's likely it's also likely your enemies aren't really much of a threat, so you don't really need the feat all that much in that situation. There's a niche use there if you're a mundane that needs to carve through an army of relatively weak foes(say, hobgoblins), but there's better things to do with a feat, even a fighter bonus feat.

[nedz]

Nobody in your group ever plays the wrecking ball melee; berserker, war hulk, etc?

There's usually someone who tries - maybe they're just poor at char op ?

[Kalkra]

The issue with mundane crafting is that it's extremely slow. If your DM lets you start with crafted gear it can stretch your wealth pretty far, and Craft(Alchemy) is specifically pretty good because items aren't that expensive and consumable. 8.3 gp for a 10ft radius sleep bomb? Pretty good, and you can whip up a couple in a week. Even with level 1 wealth you can pack a pretty good number of offensive alchemy items in. Armor and weaponsmithing are pretty solid too, since you can pretty comfortably fit some of the better armors into a characters starting wealth if you take a minimal skill investment. But if you want to make a mithral breastplate for example, you're gonna be crafting for 47 weeks, nearly a year, if you have a +20 craft modifier. I've played in games with a lot of downtime and games where the PCs pretty much set the pace, but taking a year to make one item is pushing it. A magic item of the same price is done in five days. If you're working on say, the cheapest CR 5 mundane trap, you're working on 5,000 gold worth of mundane trap, which takes over a year to finish. And that's for one trap that arguably isn't even that good. Taking a year and 1660 gold to put one spiked pit in your base doesn't seem like a good investment of time or money to me. You could probably hire a caster to fill it with fang traps or glyphs of warding for much cheaper. If you don't want to outsource scrolls are still probably cheaper, even if you aren't a caster yourself.

It could still be worth pumping your crafting modifier in a build focused around Fabricate or the Creation spells.

[Kelb_Panthera]

There's usually someone who tries - maybe they're just poor at char op ?

Melee op has been dying a slow death since ToB was released. Don't get me wrong, I -like- ToB but when it came out people said stuff like fighter/monk/paladin is obsolete and still do to this day. The charger stuff lives on but that's pretty much it. Ask about twf, you get warblade/ bloodclaw master. Ask about anything in a skirmisher, "ninja," or even monk and you get "go swordsage." In the monk's case they'll even say it if you ask very specifically about the monk class. Heavy hitter, if you don't get charger then you get crusader/ warblade. Even barbarian is little more than a pounce enabling after thought at this point.

I wouldn't have any complaint at all if the advice were to splash in maneuvers or even dips into martial adept classes but it's always "forget everything else, roll up a crusader/ swordsage/ warblade" unless they're asking how to gish.

Sorry for the rant. It's just one of those things that sticks in my craw.

Anyway, a fairly bog-standard frenzied berserker or war hulk can be swinging into the mid 30s with almost no optimization by early mid levels. Just a bit of effort can get you to reliably hitting the massive damage threshold.

[Zanos]

It could still be worth pumping your crafting modifier in a build focused around Fabricate or the Creation spells.
For sure, but if you're using fabricate your check doesn't matter other than hitting the minimum DC for the item you want. Those are generally pretty easy to meet by supplementing with other spells and equipment, even with no ranks.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Melee op has been dying a slow death since ToB was released. Don't get me wrong, I -like- ToB but when it came out people said stuff like fighter/monk/paladin is obsolete and still do to this day. The charger stuff lives on but that's pretty much it. Ask about twf, you get warblade/ bloodclaw master. Ask about anything in a skirmisher, "ninja," or even monk and you get "go swordsage." In the monk's case they'll even say it if you ask very specifically about the monk class. Heavy hitter, if you don't get charger then you get crusader/ warblade. Even barbarian is little more than a pounce enabling after thought at this point.

I wouldn't have any complaint at all if the advice were to splash in maneuvers or even dips into martial adept classes but it's always "forget everything else, roll up a crusader/ swordsage/ warblade" unless they're asking how to gish.

Sorry for the rant. It's just one of those things that sticks in my craw.

Anyway, a fairly bog-standard frenzied berserker or war hulk can be swinging into the mid 30s with almost no optimization by early mid levels. Just a bit of effort can get you to reliably hitting the massive damage threshold.That says at least as much about the overall uselessness of the low-tier classes as it does about the usefulness of ToB. If they were well-designed (protip: they aren't), that would hardly be a sticking point for anyone.

Those classes have their place in character optimization; it's just that they're (mostly) prereq-less PrCs with only a handful of relevant levels (typically 1-2, perhaps as much as 6) more than anything. They're entirely front-loaded, and few-to-none of them have anything worth bothering with in the latter 3/4 (or more frequently, 9/10) of their progressions. They tend toward one-trick ponies, and their 1-2 schticks tend to be easily obviated and emulated by competent classes. That sucks. It's not ToB's fault that the mundane classes are mainly horrible.

Honestly, most of them should be categorized as NPC classes. That's how bad they are.

[Kelb_Panthera]

That says at least as much about the overall uselessness of the low-tier classes as it does about the usefulness of ToB. If they were well-designed (protip: they aren't), that would hardly be a sticking point for anyone.

Those classes have their place in character optimization; it's just that they're (mostly) prereq-less PrCs with only a handful of relevant levels (typically 1-2, perhaps as much as 6) more than anything. They're entirely front-loaded, and few-to-none of them have anything worth bothering with in the latter 3/4 (or more frequently, 9/10) of their progressions. They tend toward one-trick ponies, and their 1-2 schticks tend to be easily obviated and emulated by competent classes. That sucks. It's not ToB's fault that the mundane classes are mainly horrible.

Honestly, most of them should be categorized as NPC classes. That's how bad they are.

I never have agreed to this position and still don't. This isn't the thread to go in depth on why so I'll leave it at that.

[Wildstag]

For sure, but if you're using fabricate your check doesn't matter other than hitting the minimum DC for the item you want. Those are generally pretty easy to meet by supplementing with other spells and equipment, even with no ranks.

For what little it's worth, arguing that craft checks suck doesn't really make Alarm any better, it just says all alternatives to simple Spot/Listen are bad. And even then, low level magic can make Spot and Listen suck. Alarm, Spot/Listen, Tripwires with Bells or Body Tugs, all suck early level. Together, all those low-level options work as redundancies. However, only one of those redundancies doesn't last a full rest (at the level it's available).

Sure, not every encounter will have an on-level mage. But if you're in a low level kobold or goblin infested dungeon, and they don't have a shaman, and that shaman isn't reacting to the fact that the invaders have halted their warpath for a few hours, I'd ask the GM why they're going easy on me.


But if you want to make a mithral breastplate for example, you're gonna be crafting for 47 weeks, nearly a year, if you have a +20 craft modifier. I've played in games with a lot of downtime and games where the PCs pretty much set the pace, but taking a year to make one item is pushing it.

Assuming a level 10 pc with a +2 Int mod, maxed ranks (13), masterwork tools (+2), and a +5 Ring, you'd have a +22. Dwarves get +2 for metalwork, making it 24. You can add 10 to the DC to craft it quicker. The craft time would be 10 weeks shorter, but your point has merit: it takes a lot of time to craft even mithral breastplate.

Assuming most npc armorsmiths are Experts with no more than 5 levels in the skill, a dwarf would only have a +12 or +13 (depending on int mod). It'd take them a month just to make one set of breastplate.

Somehow, smearing a door knob with Carrion Crawler Brain Juice (a contact poison) costs 4 times as much as a dose of the poison. It'd take 8 weeks to smear poison on a single door knob. The absurdities of D&D abstractions never fail to amaze me.

[Zanos]

For what little it's worth, arguing that craft checks suck doesn't really make Alarm any better, it just says all alternatives to simple Spot/Listen are bad. And even then, low level magic can make Spot and Listen suck. Alarm, Spot/Listen, Tripwires with Bells or Body Tugs, all suck early level. Together, all those low-level options work as redundancies. However, only one of those redundancies doesn't last a full rest (at the level it's available).

Sure, not every encounter will have an on-level mage. But if you're in a low level kobold or goblin infested dungeon, and they don't have a shaman, and that shaman isn't reacting to the fact that the invaders have halted their warpath for a few hours, I'd ask the GM why they're going easy on me.
There's a reason I haven't been mentioning alarm, I think we're both past the point of productivity on discussing that particular spell. :smallsmile:

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Would alarm be functional if it lasted, say, 12 hours flat?

In fact, there are a lot of spells that probably ought to use flat durations, like summon monster and astral construct.

After all, who ever uses summon monster I or summon nature's ally I for anything? Or astral construct before level 4 or so? At levels 1-2, the combination of a 1 round casting time and a duration of 1-2 rounds makes the effects completely useless, and at higher levels, the spells (but not the astral construct power, for obvious reasons) are horribly obsoleted for anything but very rare utility (basically, just the celestial badger, for the burrowing ability; the rest are pretty useless, on both lists). Honestly, making the duration of SM/SNA spells to be "1 minute [D]" or even "1 round/level (minimum 1 minute) [D]" seems a lot better, to me.

So, I'm going to add summon monster I and summon nature's ally I to this list for the reason above. Other than celestial badger, there's no point (and not even that on SNA I). Even summon monster II and SNA II are borderline useless for basically the same reason, although not nearly so much as SM I and SNA I.

[NigelWalmsley]

Summon Nature's Ally I launders into Wall of Thorns if you're a Druid with Greenbound Summoning, which seems like a fairly reasonable use of your time at many levels (though you could make a not-unreasonable argument that as Druids cast SNA spontaneously, you'd still never prepare it). Sometimes the encounter only calls for one Wall of Thorns, so you don't need to waste the slot on Summon Nature's Ally II. But yes, those spells are generally not very worthwhile.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Summon Nature's Ally I launders into Wall of Thorns if you're a Druid with Greenbound Summoning, which seems like a fairly reasonable use of your time at many levels (though you could make a not-unreasonable argument that as Druids cast SNA spontaneously, you'd still never prepare it). Sometimes the encounter only calls for one Wall of Thorns, so you don't need to waste the slot on Summon Nature's Ally II. But yes, those spells are generally not very worthwhile.That says way more about Greenbound Summoning than SNA I.

[Elkad]

Summon Nature's Ally I launders into Wall of Thorns if you're a Druid with Greenbound Summoning...

And once again we loop back to the writer of Greenbound saying it was supposed to be a +2 metamagic.

[NigelWalmsley]

And once again we loop back to the writer of Greenbound saying it was supposed to be a +2 metamagic.

Then errata it. It's not like there isn't a mechanism for fixing things you screwed up. Until and unless that happens, it's free.

[noob]

Apocalypse from the sky have tremendous potential collateral damage, costs an artefact and also can make you unconscious from merely preparing it.
The only time I would ever cast it would probably be to destroy an artefact and even then it is probably risky relatively to just throwing the artefact in a pocket dead magic plane due to the disjunction clause saying that destroying an artefact can attract divine opponents (Just pay 5000 xp, a ninth level spell and a week(or a complex action with wizard shenanigans) to have a dumping place for evil stuff: just do not make an exit inbuilt in the plane and everything thrown into it is essentially lost).

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Apocalypse from the sky have tremendous potential collateral damage, costs an artefact and also can make you unconscious from merely preparing it.
The only time I would ever cast it would probably be to destroy an artefact and even then it is probably risky relatively to just throwing the artefact in a pocket dead magic plane due to the disjunction clause saying that destroying an artefact can attract divine opponents (Just pay 5000 xp, a ninth level spell and a week(or a complex action with wizard shenanigans) to have a dumping place for evil stuff: just do not make an exit inbuilt in the plane and everything thrown into it is essentially lost).There's also the bag of holding + portable hole method. Much cheaper, especially if you use a handy haversack + enveloping pit.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Apocalypse from the Sky is an artifact destruction spell that deals damage in a massive area as a side effect. Makes sense that it scrambles your brains.

[NigelWalmsley]

Apocalypse from the Sky effects, at 20th level, a 200 mile radius. That's a big enough blast to reach from Boston to New York. It's not the spell you use when you want to kill equal-level enemies, it's the spell you use when you want to kill an army, city, or country. That's not a huge niche, but it definitely is a niche that exists.

[Thunder999]

200 miles is problematic overkill honestly, that's the kind of range that has you hitting the enemy city and a neutral or allied one.

[Wildstag]

Then it's the perfect spell for an "Ends justify the means" villain (or evil PC)!

[Calthropstu]

glorytongue

[Efrate]

I never prep find traps, but that and knock are the first 2 wands I buy on a LOT of characters just so I can eliminate the annoyances that are traps and locks. Or SM1 to have a bunch of summon trap finding/lever pulling/button pushing celestial monkies.

[NigelWalmsley]

200 miles is problematic overkill honestly, that's the kind of range that has you hitting the enemy city and a neutral or allied one.

It depends. Certainly, in an environment of dueling city-states, it's not a smart move. But historically, there have been plenty of empires that were at least 400 miles across. It's certainly not a great spell to drop on a battle (though you do get to pick the energy type, so your army could in theory be immune), but it's not implausible that you could use it in anger without hitting any of your stuff. Particularly because the distance at which a 20th level caster can project force is closer to a modern nation-state than the medieval era that characterizes D&D.

[Kalkra]

glorytongue

Not a spell, and also can have some utility with delivering touch spells and whatnot. Comparable to Spectral Hand.

[Particle_Man]

200 miles is problematic overkill honestly, that's the kind of range that has you hitting the enemy city and a neutral or allied one.
It might make an interesting reason for revenge for a party of adventurers whose home town was collateral damage in some magic war.

[Wildstag]

It depends. Certainly, in an environment of dueling city-states, it's not a smart move. But historically, there have been plenty of empires that were at least 400 miles across. It's certainly not a great spell to drop on a battle (though you do get to pick the energy type, so your army could in theory be immune), but it's not implausible that you could use it in anger without hitting any of your stuff. Particularly because the distance at which a 20th level caster can project force is closer to a modern nation-state than the medieval era that characterizes D&D.

Yeah 200 miles isn't even that big in the grand scheme of things. Maybe to a small-state denizen, the spell is huge, and when you compare the distance between Boston and New York it seems big...

But you can pop one of these spells off in Carter County, Montana and end up killing less than a million people. So there's definitely ways to use this spell without killing a maximum amount of people. Probably even less if you pick some random spot in northern Canada or most of Russia.

Like, casting this spell midway between Waterdeep and Baldur's gate won't even hit them since according to Candlekeep the two cities are 500 miles apart. You'd need to have at least a +5 CL on the cast to hit them.

[Vaern]

Apocalypse from the Sky effects, at 20th level, a 200 mile radius. That's a big enough blast to reach from Boston to New York. It's not the spell you use when you want to kill equal-level enemies, it's the spell you use when you want to kill an army, city, or country. That's not a huge niche, but it definitely is a niche that exists.
200 miles reaches from Boston to New York. A 200 mile *radius*. Casting that in New York City would wipe out everything from Boston to Washington DC.
If your DM lets you get away with the Locat City bomb shenanigans, you can hit the same area using just a 4th level spell slot. And you can use Widen Spell on top of that to bump it up to a 400 mile radius at cl 20, which you could cast in Nashville and wipe out everything from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico.

[Calthropstu]

Not a spell, and also can have some utility with delivering touch spells and whatnot. Comparable to Spectral Hand.

Uhhh. Yeah, I'll pass. Could you ever imagine showing that spell to ANYONE? "Hey guys watch this!" *promptly lose every friend ever.*

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Uhhh. Yeah, I'll pass. Could you ever imagine showing that spell to ANYONE? "Hey guys watch this!" *promptly lose every friend ever.*Well, so long as you can breathe through your ears...

[Wildstag]

200 miles reaches from Boston to New York. A 200 mile *radius*. Casting that in New York City would wipe out everything from Boston to Washington DC.
If your DM lets you get away with the Locat City bomb shenanigans, you can hit the same area using just a 4th level spell slot. And you can use Widen Spell on top of that to bump it up to a 400 mile radius at cl 20, which you could cast in Nashville and wipe out everything from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico.

So pardon my ignorance regarding high level arcane casting, but how are you putting Widen Spell on a 9th level spell? I thought Epic Spells regarded anything after 9th as just "10th level spells".

On a 400 mile radius, you could still use the spell in certain places to cause minimum casualties. Like just blow it up over the Southern Pacific or Antarctica. The North Atlantic is probably wide and barren enough to cast it without also committing genocide.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

So pardon my ignorance regarding high level arcane casting, but how are you putting Widen Spell on a 9th level spell? I thought Epic Spells regarded anything after 9th as just "10th level spells".

On a 400 mile radius, you could still use the spell in certain places to cause minimum casualties. Like just blow it up over the Southern Pacific or Antarctica. The North Atlantic is probably wide and barren enough to cast it without also committing genocide.Vaern was saying you could Widen a locate city bomb for a 400 mile radius.

[Vaern]

So pardon my ignorance regarding high level arcane casting, but how are you putting Widen Spell on a 9th level spell? I thought Epic Spells regarded anything after 9th as just "10th level spells".
I was referring to Locate City, but... you actually can get spell slots high enough to widen Aapocalypse from the Sky if you wanted to. It would be well into epic levels, though.
A true Epic Spell has no actual level but is considered to be 10th level for effects that care about spell level regardless of how powerful it actually is. However, with the Improved Spell Capacity epic feat you can get spell slots of 10th level and higher for the purpose of casting your regular class spells from higher level slots (presumably modified with unreasonable amounts of metamagic feats). The table that goes along with the feat goes up to 25th level spell slots.
A spell of 10th level or higher isn't considered an "epic spell," depsite basically requiring an epic character with epic feats to cast them. A magic item replicating a spell with an effective level above 9th, however, is considered an "epic item" for the purpose of pricing.

[Kalkra]

I was referring to Locate City, but... you actually can get spell slots high enough to widen Aapocalypse from the Sky if you wanted to. It would be well into epic levels, though.
A true Epic Spell has no actual level but is considered to be 10th level for effects that care about spell level regardless of how powerful it actually is. However, with the Improved Spell Capacity epic feat you can get spell slots of 10th level and higher for the purpose of casting your regular class spells from higher level slots (presumably modified with unreasonable amounts of metamagic feats). The table that goes along with the feat goes up to 25th level spell slots.
A spell of 10th level or higher isn't considered an "epic spell," depsite basically requiring an epic character with epic feats to cast them. A magic item replicating a spell with an effective level above 9th, however, is considered an "epic item" for the purpose of pricing.

If you're at the point where you can cast 9th-level spells and you're still paying for your metamagic, you're doing something wrong.

[NigelWalmsley]

So pardon my ignorance regarding high level arcane casting, but how are you putting Widen Spell on a 9th level spell? I thought Epic Spells regarded anything after 9th as just "10th level spells".

Metamagic reducers like Arcane Thesis, the Incantatrix capstone ability, or Easy Metamagic.

[Wildstag]

I know there's probably more ways to lower spell level from metamagic, but that would be a terrifying spell for Arcane Thesis, since you would probably not take the feat to just use a spell once. If you're trying to Widen the effect of Apocalypse From The Sky, you are probably also dangerous enough to warrant multiple gods trying to take you out.

[Telok]

I know there's probably more ways to lower spell level from metamagic, but that would be a terrifying spell for Arcane Thesis, since you would probably not take the feat to just use a spell once. If you're trying to Widen the effect of Apocalypse From The Sky, you are probably also dangerous enough to warrant multiple gods trying to take you out.

Pfft. Cast Wish "next spell I cast involving artifact X is widened". Thought bottle the xp back or something.

Also, can't limited wish copy psychic reformation? Swap out your feats (almost) at will.

Flare. Virtue. Do not want. Greater shout. 8th level? For 10d6, or level d6s against almost zero monsters, and a fort save 1/2? Trash.

[nedz]

So pardon my ignorance regarding high level arcane casting, but how are you putting Widen Spell on a 9th level spell? I thought Epic Spells regarded anything after 9th as just "10th level spells".

Sudden Widen

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Sudden WidenSudden Widen: When a feat photobombs the fight.

[Troacctid]

Greater shout. 8th level? For 10d6, or level d6s against almost zero monsters, and a fort save 1/2? Trash.
It's not just shout with 6d6 extra damage. It stuns them on a failed save and deafens them even if they pass. Not a lot of core blasting spells apply debuffs like that. Against casters, you effectively just did a bunch of hard-to-resist damage and gave them a 20% failure chance for all their spells, no save—and if they happen to lose their next turn too, that's just gravy. Meanwhile, any other mooks in the area are getting slammed with the same attack. If you hit five dorks and they all pass their saves, you're still doing an average of like 80 damage in a standard action.

[NigelWalmsley]

Yes, that seems like a much better thing to do with my 8th level spell slots than Greater Planar Binding, Polymorph Any Object, or Mass Charm Monster.

[Troacctid]

Yes, that seems like a much better thing to do with my 8th level spell slots than Greater Planar Binding, Polymorph Any Object, or Mass Charm Monster.
It's a 6th-level spell for a bard (or sublime chord). And warmages know it automatically.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Look at y'all wasting feats and class levels on a basic metamagic. You want a widened apocalypse from the sky? Just use a greater metamagic rod of widen.

You actually take feats and classes if you want to stack up metamagics and do so frequently.

[Wildstag]

Well, first you'd have to determine the price of a Greater Metamagic Rod of Widen, and there aren't provided rules in the SRD for doing so. You'd have to work with the GM to completely create a new subsystem.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Well, first you'd have to determine the price of a Greater Metamagic Rod of Widen, and there aren't provided rules in the SRD for doing so. You'd have to work with the GM to completely create a new subsystem.

Could've sworn that was one of the printed ones.

I've actually cracked the price formula for metamagic rods before but this is an easy one; it's a +3 metamagic, same as maximize, so it's 121,500 for a greater rod.

[Vaern]

Could've sworn that was one of the printed ones.

I've actually cracked the price formula for metamagic rods before but this is an easy one; it's a +3 metamagic, same as maximize, so it's 121,500 for a greater rod.
I'd like to see the formula myself. The DMG pricing on metamagic rods doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Complete Arcane prices rods differently from the DMG, which makes them much more expensive but also makes it considerably easier to reverse engineer the formula.

[Wildstag]

Looking through the metamagic rods and seeing the lack of metamagic in the "build your own magic item" table, I kinda feel like the intent was to not have custom metamagic rods as an option.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'd like to see the formula myself. The DMG pricing on metamagic rods doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Complete Arcane prices rods differently from the DMG, which makes them much more expensive but also makes it considerably easier to reverse engineer the formula.

Dug up where I posted it in the past.


I think, by looking at the old Tome and Blood prices, that I've sucessflly reverse engineered the metamagic rod formula.

The old formula seemed to be (1000 gp X the square of the highest spell effected X the difference in caster level to have a slot that many levels higher) X 0.6 for the 3/day limit. Then, when the 3.5 changeover happened, those prices were cut in half and rounded to the nearest 500gp.

That being the case, a rod of lesser persistence should cost (1000 X 11 X 32) X 0.6 = 59,400 by the old formula. Adjusted for the 3.5 change that's 29,500.

Same process gives me 119,000 for a regular rod and 267,500 for a greater rod of persistence.

FWIW, tome and blood didn't have persistent spell rods and the cost of the greater rod puts it in epic item territory.


Looking through the metamagic rods and seeing the lack of metamagic in the "build your own magic item" table, I kinda feel like the intent was to not have custom metamagic rods as an option.

It was a royal PITA to cypher so you may be right but with the ones that are printed, they won't do any damage that's not already done.

[Jack_McSnatch]

Funny enough I actually hate any spell with a save. Saves are really annoying to me. At low levels, your save dc is so low that just about anything can make it, unless they get a bad roll. At high levels they're entirely pointless, cause everything has a higher save than you have a save dc. They really only seem useful between levels 9-12. Yes, I know with effort your can push your save dc into that stratosphere, but to be honest, I just feel like the effort isn't worth the reward, especially when things still have a chance of saving. I'd much rather blast them to hell with straight damage spells, or hit them with "no save, just suck" spells, like enfeebling ray.

[Unavenger]

Funny enough I actually hate any spell with a save. Saves are really annoying to me. At low levels, your save dc is so low that just about anything can make it, unless they get a bad roll. At high levels they're entirely pointless, cause everything has a higher save than you have a save dc. They really only seem useful between levels 9-12. Yes, I know with effort your can push your save dc into that stratosphere, but to be honest, I just feel like the effort isn't worth the reward, especially when things still have a chance of saving. I'd much rather blast them to hell with straight damage spells, or hit them with "no save, just suck" spells, like enfeebling ray.

At "low levels" - level 1 - your save DC is "So low" - 15 or 16 - that anything "Can make it" - is literally capable of rolling high enough on a d20 to make it - but a quick look at CR 1 monsters reveals only one with a better than 50/50 chance of making a DC 16 save of any kind (ghoul's +5 will is getting there, but the light warhorse's +6 fortitude is the real winner). Unless you aren't a real spellcaster, and you're targeting the monster's strongest save, and you're targeting monsters which have high saves anyway, you shouldn't have a problem.

By 17th level, you should have at least increased your casting ability by another 10 - 4 just for making it to 16th and 6 for a funny hat - putting your first-level spells at DC 21, which can still be useful for burning aboleth mages (reflex 10) or frost giant jarls (reflex 13) or even CR 21 titans (also reflex 13), but are probably best reserved to clean up low-level mobs because they're first-level spells and you have DC 29 9th-level spells, which can give even the true dragons with low saves around 15 and high saves around 21, or outsiders with more balanced save sets around 17, a decent chance of failure.

This is all if you haven't put any real effort into making your save DC good at all ("I put an 18 in my casting stat and picked a race that buffed it, go me!"), mind you.

There are other reasons for not liking spells that allow saves (namely "Why would you give the enemy a chance to save when there are good spells that don't"?) but I don't buy that it's impossible to make enemies fail them reasonably often.

(9-12 does come up a bit better, because your ability score items are just front-loaded enough for you to have them, you just got your first stat boost to matter, and the enemies you're facing aren't quite there on the "Let's all but outsiders or dragons" plan so their saves aren't great, but I think that's less a case of "Oh they might fail now" and more "Oh, they'll probably fail now.")

[Vaern]

Dug up where I posted it in the past.


It was a royal PITA to cypher so you may be right but with the ones that are printed, they won't do any damage that's not already done.
Oh my. I guess my formula was wrong. It just happens to line up for +1 and +3 metamagic feats, which is the entire sample that I had to work with looking at Complete Arcane. Yours is definitely more consistent with everything in Tome of Blood. My formula would have put lesser persist at 99,900.

[Wildstag]

At "low levels" - level 1 - your save DC is "So low" - 15 or 16 - that anything "Can make it" - is literally capable of rolling high enough on a d20 to make it - but a quick look at CR 1 monsters reveals only one with a better than 50/50 chance of making a DC 16 save of any kind (ghoul's +5 will is getting there, but the light warhorse's +6 fortitude is the real winner). Unless you aren't a real spellcaster, and you're targeting the monster's strongest save, and you're targeting monsters which have high saves anyway, you shouldn't have a problem.

To correct a bit of math here, since tying the DC results in a successful saving throw, the ghoul's +5 will actually does hit 50/50 chance of success on a DC 16, since 11-20 is 10 results on a d20 (or, a 50% chance). The Light Warhorse would have a 55% chance of success, because it would only fail on a 1-9.

[Unavenger]

To correct a bit of math here, since tying the DC results in a successful saving throw, the ghoul's +5 will actually does hit 50/50 chance of success on a DC 16, since 11-20 is 10 results on a d20 (or, a 50% chance). The Light Warhorse would have a 55% chance of success, because it would only fail on a 1-9.

There is a tenth circle of Baator reserved only for those who "Correct" people who were already correct.


At "low levels" - level 1 - your save DC is "So low" - 15 or 16 - that anything "Can make it" - is literally capable of rolling high enough on a d20 to make it - but a quick look at CR 1 monsters reveals only one with a better than 50/50 chance of making a DC 16 save of any kind (ghoul's +5 will is getting there, but the light warhorse's +6 fortitude is the real winner). Unless you aren't a real spellcaster, and you're targeting the monster's strongest save, and you're targeting monsters which have high saves anyway, you shouldn't have a problem.

To clarify, I'm looking to try to find this scourge of monsters who are making their saves all the time, and choosing to be charitable and assume that this means more than half the time if you're targeting their strong save.

(Another clarification, before someone says it, this was just a quick look, as I mentioned. There may be some non-horse-based monsters with a +6 or better at CR 1, but there's a limited amount of time I'm willing to devote to "sometimes monsters fail saves")

[Asmotherion]

So pardon my ignorance regarding high level arcane casting, but how are you putting Widen Spell on a 9th level spell? I thought Epic Spells regarded anything after 9th as just "10th level spells".

On a 400 mile radius, you could still use the spell in certain places to cause minimum casualties. Like just blow it up over the Southern Pacific or Antarctica. The North Atlantic is probably wide and barren enough to cast it without also committing genocide.

Incantatrix or Cleric with Divine Metamagic and a bunsh of metamagic reducers.

Circle magic can also do it.

Metanode Spell feat reduces the adjusted spell level of the spell by the level of the node.

There's a bunsh of other ways to use metamagic on level 9 spells actually. You just need to do some research.

[Jack_McSnatch]

At "low levels" - level 1 - your save DC is "So low" - 15 or 16 - that anything "Can make it" - is literally capable of rolling high enough on a d20 to make it - but a quick look at CR 1 monsters reveals only one with a better than 50/50 chance of making a DC 16 save of any kind (ghoul's +5 will is getting there, but the light warhorse's +6 fortitude is the real winner). Unless you aren't a real spellcaster, and you're targeting the monster's strongest save, and you're targeting monsters which have high saves anyway, you shouldn't have a problem.

By 17th level, you should have at least increased your casting ability by another 10 - 4 just for making it to 16th and 6 for a funny hat - putting your first-level spells at DC 21, which can still be useful for burning aboleth mages (reflex 10) or frost giant jarls (reflex 13) or even CR 21 titans (also reflex 13), but are probably best reserved to clean up low-level mobs because they're first-level spells and you have DC 29 9th-level spells, which can give even the true dragons with low saves around 15 and high saves around 21, or outsiders with more balanced save sets around 17, a decent chance of failure.

This is all if you haven't put any real effort into making your save DC good at all ("I put an 18 in my casting stat and picked a race that buffed it, go me!"), mind you.

There are other reasons for not liking spells that allow saves (namely "Why would you give the enemy a chance to save when there are good spells that don't"?) but I don't buy that it's impossible to make enemies fail them reasonably often.

(9-12 does come up a bit better, because your ability score items are just front-loaded enough for you to have them, you just got your first stat boost to matter, and the enemies you're facing aren't quite there on the "Let's all but outsiders or dragons" plan so their saves aren't great, but I think that's less a case of "Oh they might fail now" and more "Oh, they'll probably fail now.")

Hey man, I was just giving my opinion. If I wanted a snarky wall of text, I would have asked.

Furthermore, Level 1 wizard casts a level one save or suck. Lets say we were lucky enough to roll an 18 for int, we picked a race that buffs it by two, cool. Save dc 16.

The ghoul makes that on an 11. The horse on a 10. Personally, I don't feel very much like an all powerful spellcaster when a HORSE can overcome my ability to bend the fabric of reality at LEAST half of the time.

Going up in levels, at high levels. I play at NORMAL tables. Not gitp tier 1 full optimization tables. Nobody ever finds a manual of intelect, and no reasonable dm just leaves them for sale at the magic item mart. I've usually seen those restricted to special reward items, and with good reason. So, we'll say we picked up a headband of intellect +6, and dumped all our ability increases in intelligence like a good little wizard. That means we get a base save of 20+spell level.

That ain't ****. At levels 12-20, that is NOTHING. Seriously, that dragon's "low save" of 15... he only has to roll above a 5-14, depending on spell level, to completely ignore that useless save or suck spell. That's not even bringing up spell resistance, which might just render your spell pointless, and your spell slot wasted. So there you are, mr save or suck wizard, sitting in the corner twiddling your thumbs, while the basic bitch fighter is having a blast smacking the dragon around with his greatsword.

And after you have gone through all this, the hardship of reaching high level play without being turned into wizard paste, you choose to use your mighty, nigh godlike ability to warp the fabric of space and time... to mildly inconvenience your foe. Woooooooo, is it my ****in birthday?

In conclusion, save or suck spells didn't make their save. They just suck.

[Quertus]

Hey man, I was just giving my opinion.



At low levels, your save dc is so low that just about anything can make it, unless they get a bad roll. At high levels they're entirely pointless, cause everything has a higher save than you have a save dc


That part isn't opinion. And is the part being addressed. Granted, it appears to have been misread.

[Zanos]

Even at most normal tables I've played out 'magic mart' stuff was on the table to some degree. Most published settings(Eberron, Faerun, Greyhawk) and the DMG explicitly allow purchasing basically any magic items based on the size of the settlement, so you can reasonably expect to be able to find or buy a headband of int and even stat manuals at very high levels.

A horse is weirdly tough, easily capable of killing a trained fighter in melee combat. While there are some caveats most save or suck spells at level 1 can target multiple creatures and they probably won't have more than +1 or +2 to their weak save. A level 1 wizard has a very good shot of taking out multiple bandits(+0 will) with a single casting of sleep, which can easily have a DC of 15 at level 1.

That said, I agree that spells that make people just suck without any save at all are better. But at level 1 I'd rather have a 10ft radius aoe that forces the bandits in it to have a 70% chance to die then I would have a 40% chance to moderatley debuff their strength.

But yes, you can't reliably one shot a dragon with finger of death without substantial investment.

[Telok]

To be fair, I can quite see both sides. In all the actual games played since 3e came out I don't think I've seen a caster with better than 24 to 26 at 16th level. The TO "34 casting stat at level 17" simply never happened over those decades.

Now 18+spell level isn't anything to snub, but it's not exactly reliable enough to dedicate your top slots to single target SoS/SoD spells. If you're facing an npc caster and you can spend a round or two setting up a true strike, +15 spell pen, +4 dc rod/sudden empowered disintegrate... that's great and it works a treat. But throwing that at a high end cleric, outsider, or dragon (or in one case a level 14 dwarven psion) with a 20+ fort bonus is terrible, less than 50/50 (often possibly around 1 in 4) to have any appreciable effect.

Really you just have to always know and target the weak saves at high levels in actual play. But that requires either optimized scrying & info gathering to know what to prep, or dedicating most/all your high level slots to a variety of SoD/SoS spells and still won't stopbthe occasional high roll on a save. Often it is easier and much more reliable to use the no-saves even when they have less of an effect.

Tldr: In TO high end save spells are great. In real play you have to prep, build for it, have the right spell, and target low saves. It can be done but lots of people don't put in the work at real tables, so save spells work much much much less than TO says they ought to.

[Quertus]

I'm confused. Is "I'm a SoD caster" and "I bother preparing spells that target all the saves" really *that* high of a bar to reach?

Is "I'm a Wizard, and I actually have ranks in Knowledge skills to know creature types (and therefore general good/weak saves)" anything but common?

Not being able to hit such metrics is like having an Evoker who *knows* all the evocations, but then has a brain fart and only memorized fire spells. It sounds like a facepalm moment rather than an expected situation.

[HalfQuart]

My experience with save-or-die and save-or-suck spells that are essentially encounter-ending is that they fail more often than their save DC would indicate likely. I.e. they almost never work, even when the DC is rather high.

In short, I think my DM dislikes encounters ending "too easily" and fudges save rolls. I have no way to prove this; maybe I'm just inordinately unlucky with the dice, but I've changed my caster characters to either do direct damage, utility casting, or buffing. I too hate allowing a save.

[Unavenger]

Furthermore, Level 1 wizard casts a level one save or suck. Lets say we were lucky enough to roll an 18 for int, we picked a race that buffs it by two, cool. Save dc 16.

The ghoul makes that on an 11. The horse on a 10. Personally, I don't feel very much like an all powerful spellcaster when a HORSE can overcome my ability to bend the fabric of reality at LEAST half of the time.

Yeah, well, "Powerful", "Level 1", pick one.


Going up in levels, at high levels. I play at NORMAL tables. Not gitp tier 1 full optimization tables. Nobody ever finds a manual of intelect, and no reasonable dm just leaves them for sale at the magic item mart. I've usually seen those restricted to special reward items, and with good reason. So, we'll say we picked up a headband of intellect +6, and dumped all our ability increases in intelligence like a good little wizard. That means we get a base save of 20+spell level.

Yes, that is exactly what I was assuming.


That ain't ****. At levels 12-20, that is NOTHING. Seriously, that dragon's "low save" of 15... he only has to roll above a 5-14, depending on spell level, to completely ignore that useless save or suck spell. That's not even bringing up spell resistance, which might just render your spell pointless, and your spell slot wasted. So there you are, mr save or suck wizard, sitting in the corner twiddling your thumbs, while the basic bitch fighter is having a blast smacking the dragon around with his greatsword.

Yes, dragons - monsters mostly renowned for being overpowered for their CR and having some of the best saves for their power level - are sometimes passing saves against your spells. Bring me my fainting couch!


And after you have gone through all this, the hardship of reaching high level play without being turned into wizard paste, you choose to use your mighty, nigh godlike ability to warp the fabric of space and time... to mildly inconvenience your foe.

If you're going to use spells that allow saves, you should be using save-or-lose spells. They make first-level ones of those, so you have no excuse.


In conclusion, save or suck spells didn't make their save. They just suck.

Yes, but that's because of the "Or suck" part not because they allow a save. If you're using a spell that allows a save and doesn't at least defeat the creature it's used on, then yes, you're doing it wrong.

[Jack_McSnatch]

Yeah, well, "Powerful", "Level 1", pick one.



Yes, that is exactly what I was assuming.



Yes, dragons - monsters mostly renowned for being overpowered for their CR and having some of the best saves for their power level - are sometimes passing saves against your spells. Bring me my fainting couch!



If you're going to use spells that allow saves, you should be using save-or-lose spells. They make first-level ones of those, so you have no excuse.



Yes, but that's because of the "Or suck" part not because they allow a save. If you're using a spell that allows a save and doesn't at least defeat the creature it's used on, then yes, you're doing it wrong.

Well excuse me for not ending encounters with one spell. I like to let the fighter and the rouge have fun too, seeing as I am not the only one at the table.

{scrubbed}

[HalfQuart]

I don't understand how this thread has devolved into convincing Jack_McSnatch that he's wrong about not liking spells with a save. Can we just move on and talk about other spells that YOU would never want?

[Asmotherion]

Well excuse me for not ending encounters with one spell. I like to let the fighter and the rouge have fun too, seeing as I am not the only one at the table.

{scrub the post, scrub the quote}

For the last time, it's spelled ROGUE! R-O-G-U-E!

this is rouge: https://www.inbeautyland.gr/image/cache/catalog/HEAN/-cheek-rouge-102-550x550.jpg
You're free to have whatever opinion you want, as long as you don't confuse the Shady Character Class with a make-up cosmetic! :smallamused::smalltongue:

[Thunder999]

There's that one sanctified spell that's basically flamestrike with a better AoE except you die and get resurrected, I can only assume it was invented by someone who really didn't want to reach the next level, probably got scared of the epic rules and wanted to ensure he stayed level 19 forever.

[Wildstag]

I don't understand how this thread has devolved into convincing Jack_McSnatch that he's wrong about not liking spells with a save. Can we just move on and talk about other spells that YOU would never want?

I tried that during the Alarm debacle. People prefer a vain attempt at convincing someone else they're wrong to just moving on.

I would also list most illusion spells, just because they usually result in having a talk with the GM about whether or not they're going to be a jerk towards my illusory specialization. I'd rather just not deal with the hassle and ignore that entire school. I enjoy creativity and game features that encourage it, but damn there are so many GMs that will try to arbitrarily hinder PC-illusions but then turn around and trap the PCs in an illusion and argue to the ends of the earth about "why would you have reason to disbelieve it?"

[NigelWalmsley]

Well excuse me for not ending encounters with one spell. I like to let the fighter and the rouge have fun too, seeing as I am not the only one at the table.

Yes, there's actually a guy called "the DM" who's job is to ensure that he provides challenges that are fun for everyone without requiring intentional sandbagging. You're welcome to play the way you like, but implying that people who use save or dies are "{scrubbed}" and want the rest of the party to not have fun is being needlessly antagonistic.

[Jack_McSnatch]

Yes, there's actually a guy called "the DM" who's job is to ensure that he provides challenges that are fun for everyone without requiring intentional sandbagging. You're welcome to play the way you like, but implying that people who use save or dies are "{scrub the post, scrub the quote}" and want the rest of the party to not have fun is being needlessly antagonistic.

{scrubbed} He suggested using save or x spells to take down entire groups. I dislike doing that kind of thing because people at my normal table like to play their martials.

{scrubbed}

[Thunder999]

If your GM isn't unreasonable then illusions (I'm assuming we're talking about the silent image style spells) can be really fun, easily some of the most creative spells.
Honestly even without much creativity a simple big of illusory fog is pretty much fog cloud/obscuring mist except you get to see through it, an illusion of a wall can provide a nice way to maintain line of effect to a projected image that won't be foiled by see invisibility.

Obviously true sight will ruin them when it shows up, still they're a nice tool for the fights without it.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If your GM isn't unreasonable then illusions (I'm assuming we're talking about the silent image style spells) can be really fun, easily some of the most creative spells.
Honestly even without much creativity a simple big of illusory fog is pretty much fog cloud/obscuring mist except you get to see through it, an illusion of a wall can provide a nice way to maintain line of effect to a projected image that won't be foiled by see invisibility.

Obviously true sight will ruin them when it shows up, still they're a nice tool for the fights without it.Actually, it's fun to use true seeing against those using it if you think about things a bit. For instance, using [shadow] spells to create objects that have to be used to bypass obstacles, which can't be used by anyone who knows their true nature, like as a key for a door (that is immune to knock, of course). Or solid illusions holding back hazards, such as cognitohazards, which affect anyone who sees them -- perhaps an undead basilisk head mounted on a plinth, which affects those who see through the illusion. Or mirrors of opposition lining a hallway, with silent image spells covering them. Or using Invisible Spell on fog cloud. Anyone with true seeing or see invisibility sees the cloud, not whatever it's protecting. But anyone without true seeing etc can see through it just fine. However! If whatever is inside the cloud is invisible...

Lots of fun ways to screw true seeing users over.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Oh my. I guess my formula was wrong. It just happens to line up for +1 and +3 metamagic feats, which is the entire sample that I had to work with looking at Complete Arcane. Yours is definitely more consistent with everything in Tome of Blood. My formula would have put lesser persist at 99,900.

Don't feel too bad about it, my dude. I came at it time and again for a -long- time to finally dig that out. That crap was not at all intuitive. I'm just stubborn and have too much free time. :smallbiggrin:

[Edea]

I know Vaarsuvius's "what was I thinking" spell is hold portal, at least.

[Yahzi Coyote]

Well excuse me for not ending encounters with one spell. I like to let the fighter and the rouge have fun too, seeing as I am not the only one at the table.
If you're not doing everything in your power to end every fight as quickly as possible out of fear of a gruesome death, then your GM is doing it wrong.

[NigelWalmsley]

Obviously true sight will ruin them when it shows up, still they're a nice tool for the fights without it.

The impact of True Seeing is honestly pretty overblown. It's a 5+ level spell, and it only lasts minutes/level, which means that even the enemies that have it won't have it up most of the time. That means they're casting it in combat, which in turn means that your Silent Image cost them a 5th level spell slot and a caster action. Not something a lot of 1st level spells can say at that point in the game.

[Kalkra]

Personally, I find Silent Image most useful for letting me turn my character into Genie from Aladdin. Trying to describe something? Whip up a picture. Trying to explain something? Whip up a diagram.

Other than that, it's as useful as your DM will allow. It's one of those spells who's power is directly proportional to your creativity.

[Pinkie Pyro]

The primary issue with the illsion thing is: it's just easier to use as a DM.

A player that specialists in illusions can either easily derail an entire campaign, or do almost nothing, due to the DM having to shut them down.

Personally, I just have the added restriction for players that extremely modular illusions, such as silent/minor/major image, have to have some sort of classification on them when you prepare/learn it.

ie: the wizard can prepare a silent image of a wall, and when cast it could be made of stone, wood, metal, glass, maybe a door, but it can't be used to make an image of say, a dragon.

in exchange, I hold back a lot on the anti-illusion stuff.

[Unavenger]

Well excuse me for not ending encounters with one spell. I like to let the fighter and the rouge have fun too, seeing as I am not the only one at the table.

{scrub the post, scrub the quote}

So your problem with Save or Lose spells is in fact that they are both useless because nothing ever fails its save and overpowered because everything in the encounter is likely to fail its save?

{scrubbed} I didn't realise that we weren't permitted to disagree with your opinion once you'd stated it - it's not like people haven't been disagreeing with each other's opinions since *checks* oh just literally the second post in the thread but nooooo anyone who disagrees with you specifically is bad. This is a discussion forum, after all.

[Wildstag]

Other than that, it's as useful as your DM will allow. It's one of those spells who's power is directly proportional to your creativity.

Well, directly proportional to your creativity but also directly proportional to your DM's flexibility towards illusions. Other spells have concrete effects on the world. Solid Fog, Fireball, Entangle, Polymorph effects, these all have definite effects on the world. Illusions don't, and as such are too nebulous to use with most GMs.

And even if I find a GM that does work with illusions well, I'd have to learn an entirely new subsystem to play an illusionist.

But yeah, if your GM is cool with illusions, then it's not really an issue. I just know I'd never want them, since it's either too much hassle to use, or too much hassle to learn for just one game.

[Toliudar]

Personally, I find Silent Image most useful for letting me turn my character into Genie from Aladdin. Trying to describe something? Whip up a picture. Trying to explain something? Whip up a diagram.

Exactly! I've enjoyed using Silent Image to help fast-forward through the fast-forward through exposition and set-up scenes in half a dozen games. If it was good enough for Admiral Akbar, it's good enough for me.

[Thunder999]

Silent image to be your very own holographic projector is fun,

True sight tends to be a problem more for creatures that have it constantly (and on that topic most special senses like blindsight and tremorsense can also pose an issue to illusions), it's also notably more useful for NPCs, because NPCs don't need to conserve consumables (they usually participate in all of one fight, maybe two if they manage to run away the first time) and it's not uncommon for them to have some idea of the PC's abilities and that they're coming (the classic dungeon where the boss starts his buff routine while the PCs are fighting some guards).

As for new terrible spells, how about transmute rock to lava, which is something I'm pretty sure polymorph any object can already do in a much bigger area with much less limited starting materials.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

With most of the DMs I've suffered under, locate city. "It's a 2-D circle, not a sphere! Roll to see if the plane intersects with a city! And if there's anything blocking the line of effect, you're SoL anyway!" So, basically, you can't use locate city if you don't have line of effect to the city you're looking for, and if you have line of effect, you almost certainly have line of sight, meaning it's pointless. And even if you have LoE but not LoS, such as in a massive fog bank, you have to hope the plane of the circle just happens to intersect the city you're looking for, and that it's actually within the spell's range.

Yes, these were real arguments regarding the spell.

[Thunder999]

That's definitely a GM problem not a spell problem.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

That's definitely a GM problem not a spell problem.Thing is, with the way the spell rules work, they're kind of right. Nothing about the spell circumvents the general rules for targeting, which require line of effect and a shape that allows you to affect the stuff you need to affect. Locate city is not a spread, so it's blocked by cover in the way, and it affects a circle, not a sphere, which is really awkward in 3-D space.

The spell is very poorly written, to the point where, by RAW, it's nigh unusable.

[Zanos]

The given spell example allows a creature on the surface to locate an underground city, though.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The given spell example allows a creature on the surface to locate an underground city, though.The only way locate city can locate an underground city from the surface is if it's under an overhang of earth, such as being just inside a wide-mouthed cave, and you have a clear line of effect to it. The targeting rules don't allow it, otherwise. As I said, very, very poorly written.

[Unavenger]

Technically the spell doesn't actually specify that it requires the city to be in the circle anyway, so you could equally argue that the spell only affects you (by telling you where the nearest city is, even if it's not in range) and doesn't need Line of Effect because it never targets a city.

[Wildstag]

The only way locate city can locate an underground city from the surface is if it's under an overhang of earth, such as being just inside a wide-mouthed cave, and you have a clear line of effect to it. The targeting rules don't allow it, otherwise. As I said, very, very poorly written.

Is there really ever a need to use the spell in general though? Like, the only use for it I can think of is if you're playing in a game where none of the towns or cities have maps to the others towns and cities. If there are maps, and starcharts exist, you should be able to calculate distance traveled with a Survival check. I don't think I've ever played a game where maps weren't really available to navigate a party to another town with.

Locate City Bomb is really the only good use for the spell, and that's a pretty dumb and cheesy use anyway.


The given spell example allows a creature on the surface to locate an underground city, though.


Only if the nearest surface town is a further distance away than the path to the underground city. The spell specifically calls out underground cities as not being detected by distance as the mole digs but as the person walks.

[ixrisor]

To be fair, I can quite see both sides. In all the actual games played since 3e came out I don't think I've seen a caster with better than 24 to 26 at 16th level. The TO "34 casting stat at level 17" simply never happened over those decades.


34 casting stat at level 17 isn’t TO at all, TO is things like pun-pun. 34 is 18 base + 5 from level up + 5 from wishes or tomes + 6 from enhancement item. That doesn’t even assume you have a racial stat boost, let alone any major optimisation. It’s literally putting it as high as you can at level 1 then using items in core that are obviously designed for increasing your stats.

[Kalkra]

Locate City Bomb is really the only good use for the spell, and that's a pretty dumb and cheesy use anyway.

And even then, only the dirty bomb version works, and that can get messy.

[ZamielVanWeber]

34 casting stat at level 17 isn’t TO at all, TO is things like pun-pun. 34 is 18 base + 5 from level up + 5 from wishes or tomes + 6 from enhancement item. That doesn’t even assume you have a racial stat boost, let alone any major optimisation. It’s literally putting it as high as you can at level 1 then using items in core that are obviously designed for increasing your stats.

1) That would be +4 (33), not +5, at 17 (34). Small nitpick.
2) A +5 from tomes, assuming your DM lets you have it, is ~1/2 your 17th WBL *assuming* you never bought an earlier one.

While it is doable by 20 even then it is a bitch of a stretch.

[Telok]

1) That would be +4 (33), not +5, at 17 (34). Small nitpick.
2) A +5 from tomes, assuming your DM lets you have it, is ~1/2 your 17th WBL *assuming* you never bought an earlier one.

While it is doable by 20 even then it is a bitch of a stretch.

If I recall correctly the tome+headband are more than 75% of wbl in the 17-20 range. I may be misremembering the wbl though.

As I said most of what saw actual play in my groups was mid-high 20s casting stats and moving towards more no-save spells and stuff with decent effects even with saves. A decent chunk of wealth would go towards defenses and accessories like a belt of battle. Not that there wasn't the occasional hilarious "grease the giant's huge magic sword" moment or two even at level 16, but those were rare.

Perhaps surprisingly to some people most of the casters I saw other people play weren't int casters. So they generally didn't have the knowledge skills in class or the skill points to fully support identifying everything for a weakness. To them losing a turn trying to ID something wasn't better than skipping casting a buff or blasting. I generally played most of the int casters in my groups and didn't have too much of an issue targeting low saves, but even then I wouldn't say there was ever better than maybe a 60% success rate on landing the "save or -" sorts of spells. Certainly not reliable enough to be the character's first choice in most fights.

More on topic, polar ray. Has anyone ever bothered with that thing? I don't think I've ever even considered it as viable. Especially not since those stupid orb spells appeared.

[Xervous]

1) That would be +4 (33), not +5, at 17 (34). Small nitpick.
2) A +5 from tomes, assuming your DM lets you have it, is ~1/2 your 17th WBL *assuming* you never bought an earlier one.

While it is doable by 20 even then it is a bitch of a stretch.

17th level WBL is 340k. Perhaps you were looking at 16ths 260k?

[Zanos]

You don't really need to push your casting stat all that high anyway. You could easily have Greater Spell Focus in your save or die of choice, and a +6 stat item at level 16. 18 base(either bought, or 16+2 from race adjustment), 4 levels, +6 item gets you to 28 for a +9 modifier. +2 from GSF. Your 8th level save or die will have a DC of 29 at 16th level. CR 16 threats have a maximum save statline of 23/16/23, which isn't great, but you're still throwing out a 65% chance to die if you target reflex. If we use the average saveline instead it drops to 17/13/17, and even if you're targeting the strong saves you have a 60% chance of an instant kill. Targeting reflex(and yes, there are reflex save or lose spells at this level) gets you to a 75% shot of an instant kill.

Now if you often are 'punching up' Save or X tends to not work out in your favor. But you can also get some nasty area of effect stuff, so if you're fighting multiple threats there's a chance to kill/cripple at least one of them. I will agree that I have noticed a suspiciously high success rate against, say, finger of death, when it would end an encounter. I've always felt that hiding dice rolls is bad form even on the DMs part, but maybe that's just me.

Not really high optimization.


To them losing a turn trying to ID something wasn't better than skipping casting a buff or blasting.
I'm confused here, identifying monsters shouldn't take an action.

[Unavenger]

I think the main thing is that without even using anything but a +6 item I was still looking at around 50% success rates using first-level spells, and if you're running out of second- and higher-level spells at level 17 you're probably doing something wrong, so even with literally no optimisation - no tomes, no relevant feats, nothing like that - you're probably going to be fine. If you haven't spent 36k of your 340k on the headband of winning at being a wizard then I don't know how to help you, but it's not the spells fault.

[Vaern]

I wouldn't bother with Locate City. I'd just use Lay of the Land instead. The spell basically forces the DM to doodle a map for you with all notable terrain, major landmarks, and settlements of hamlet size or larger within 50 miles of you, rather than only pointing you in the direction of the nearest one. Locate City has a much wider area, but Lay of the Land supplies much more information with a single casting.
Lay of the Land also lacks certain attributes that RAW snobs might pick out to claim that the spell doesn't function the way its description indicates it should: It has a range of personal, affects you, and spells out in the description that casting the spell grants you an overview of the surrounding area. It's also available as a ranger 1 spell, which makes it a valid spell for brewing potions so you don't even need to have access to the spell yourself to benefit from it. Being available as a ranger 1 spell also makes crafting a custom magic item (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=23471028&postcount=121) from it relatively inexpensive.

[Troacctid]

You can't brew potions of personal spells, though, so that's a no-go for lay of the land. A skull talisman works, though. 200 gp market price.

[ZamielVanWeber]

17th level WBL is 340k. Perhaps you were looking at 16ths 260k?

I misread the 3 in it's price as a 7. So it's a bit over 1/3 17th's WBL. Not as bad as ~1/2 but still an incredible investment, especially since, unless this character was built at 17, most of that WBL will already be allocated. By 19th the cost will be easy, but that is a far cry from 17 for most games.

[Xervous]

I misread the 3 in it's price as a 7. So it's a bit over 1/3 17th's WBL. Not as bad as ~1/2 but still an incredible investment, especially since, unless this character was built at 17, most of that WBL will already be allocated. By 19th the cost will be easy, but that is a far cry from 17 for most games.

An argument could be made for only purchasing the +4 version as the final +1 is only relevant upon reaching 20. It is a rather excessive cost when you consider how rarely it is for high level wizards to be running out of spells. That 10% DC shift might be helpful, but as detailed there are numerous other methods the player should aim for first

[Vaern]

You can't brew potions of personal spells, though, so that's a no-go for lay of the land. A skull talisman works, though. 200 gp market price.
Ah, my bad. I was just looking at the feat description, which only says that the spell must target one or more creatures, and didn't follow up with the DMG section on item creation that notes the exclusion of personal range spells.

[Kalkra]

Technically, at 17th level you could be using Wish to increase your INT, but that's more XP than most people would be willing to spend, even if it saves you from buying a tome.

Also, you could boost your INT with a Candle of Invocation, but the head trauma you'll suffer from thrown books will cancel it out.