Moving Some Spells to Level 10

[blackwindbears]

I'm splitting the 9th level spell list into level 9 and level 10 spells (only achievable via Improved Spell Capacity). Which 9th level spells deserve to be kicked up a slot. I'd like to end up in a spot where the 10th level list is about a quarter of the current 9th level spells

[Doctor Despair]

I mean, "deserves" is somewhat open-ended. Are you asking what the most powerful 9th-level effects are? Wish/Miracle obviously jump up there. Shapechange and Gate probably get a mention. Maybe Foresight and Astral Projection.

I'd also point out that you should consider sub-systems here, such as Psionics, and how you want to deal with them.

I'd also like to ask what you want to accomplish with this? That could affect folks' recommendations. For example, if your goal is just to lower casters' power, there are far more problematic spells and effects that come online far earlier than 9ths, such as Craft Contingent Spell or the Planar Binding family.

[blackwindbears]

I mean, "deserves" is somewhat open-ended. Are you asking what the most powerful 9th-level effects are? Wish/Miracle obviously jump up there. Shapechange and Gate probably get a mention. Maybe Foresight and Astral Projection.

I'd also point out that you should consider sub-systems here, such as Psionics, and how you want to deal with them.

I'd also like to ask what you want to accomplish with this? That could affect folks' recommendations. For example, if your goal is just to lower casters' power, there are far more problematic spells and effects that come online far earlier than 9ths, such as Craft Contingent Spell or the Planar Binding family.

By deserves I mean, "given that this is going to happen, and I want to end up with a list that makes sense, which quarter of the ninth level spells seem like the best fit"

None of my players are casters so this just moves certain spells beyond the reach of non-epic NPCs. Subsystems is a great point, but that I'll just have to cross that bridge when I come to it. If you have suggestions I'd love to hear 'em.

Lots of problematic spells all over the place to be sure. I think I'll keep wish and miracle at their current level because they work so similarly to limited wish for their menu options. Shapechange and gate seem great to bump. I'm not sure about astral projection. Definitely want to bump Mordenkainen's disjunction.

[icefractal]

Wish, definitely.
Astral Projection - yes. In some ways, this changes the game more than Wish.

Gate - the summoning version qualifies, but the travel version is fine at 9th. Make it two spells that you learn as one?

Shapechange - maybe. Really only the more broken uses qualify for 10th level spell status, if used 'normally' it's just a very good polymorphing spell. Maybe doesn't get supernatural abilities at 9th, does at 10th?

Foresight (since it was mentioned). IMO, no - if treated the way it usually is here (just gives immunity to surprise and the listed bonuses) then 9th is arguably already too high. However, if treated as the "the spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself" suggests - ie. that you have a chance to take an action before the event occurs - then it does become fully deserving of 9th level and possibly even 10th.

[Biggus]

Agreed about Gate, Shapechange, Wish and Miracle. Other suggestions:

PHB: Time Stop, Disjunction. Possibly: Astral Projection, Implosion, Mass Heal.

SpC: Maw of Chaos. Possibly: Summon Elemental Monolith, Greater Visage of the Deity, Nature's Avatar.

BoVD: Apocalypse From The Sky. Possibly: Despoil, Utterdark, Mindrape.

Other: Fimbulwinter (FB). Ice Assassin (FB). Possibly: Blinding Glory (BoED), Exalted Fury (BoED).

Note: some of those I've listed as "possibly" are as much because they feel epic as that they're overpowered.

Funnily enough, I was only thinking about doing this myself the other day, I was only going to delay them until level 19, but your idea might be better tbh.

[Vaern]

Wish's line saying that it can produce more powerful effects than what's described, albeit with the potential to backfire, makes it an easy pick to delay until epic levels. I'd imagine miracle has similar wording, but I don't have the description in front of me at the moment.

[Anthrowhale]

Erupt deserves consideration as well.

I might also add Greater Consumptive Field, even though it's not a 9th level spell. (And push Consumptive Field itself to at least 7th level.)

Of those mentioned, Implosion, Mass Heal, Greater Visage of the Deity, Nature's Avatar, Despoil, Utterdark, Fimbulwinter, Blinding Glory, and Exalted Fury all seem like reasonable 9th level spells to me. They're strong, but they don't have the same 'game over' aspect as the other 10th candidates.

[Biggus]

Foresight (since it was mentioned). IMO, no - if treated the way it usually is here (just gives immunity to surprise and the listed bonuses) then 9th is arguably already too high. However, if treated as the "the spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself" suggests - ie. that you have a chance to take an action before the event occurs - then it does become fully deserving of 9th level and possibly even 10th.

I'm intrigued what you mean here, do people just ignore the line "the spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself"? If not, how is it normally interpreted?


Erupt deserves consideration as well.

Good catch, never heard of that one before.



Of those mentioned, Implosion, Mass Heal, Greater Visage of the Deity, Nature's Avatar, Despoil, Utterdark, Fimbulwinter, Blinding Glory, and Exalted Fury all seem like reasonable 9th level spells to me. Their strong, but they don't have the same 'game over' aspect as the other 10th candidates.

There are several reasons I included these:

1) As I said, some of them I listed more because they have an epic feel (Despoil, Utterdark, Blinding Glory)

2) The OP said they were looking to move about a quarter of 9th-level spells to 10th level. If you only look at the 'game over' spells, they're nowhere near a quarter of the total

3) The great majority of 'game over' spells are Sorcerer/Wizard, I was trying to include some Cleric and Druid spells

[ExLibrisMortis]

I'm intrigued what you mean here, do people just ignore the line "the spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself"? If not, how is it normally interpreted?
No, the line is not ignored.
"You receive instantaneous warnings of impending danger or harm to the subject of the spell" therefore "You are never surprised or flat-footed".
"In addition, the spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself and" therefore "gives you a +2 insight bonus to AC and Reflex saves".

It's a little (okay, very) underwhelming, but that's life.

[liquidformat]

An alternative you could look at that I have found pretty successful is simply moving all spells above level 6 to epic spells. The way I have used it in play is characters still have access to 7th, 8th, and 9th level slots and can use them for meta magic but don't get the actually 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells until they take the epic spellcasting feat. We also set it up so there are still monsters out there with those spells as spell like abilities (though those monsters are much more rare or sometimes unique) and you can also sometimes get access to those spells through researching and utilizing Incantations so some important spells can still be utilized for plot but often have decent downsides to use.

[tyckspoon]

No, the line is not ignored.
"You receive instantaneous warnings of impending danger or harm to the subject of the spell" therefore "You are never surprised or flat-footed".
"In addition, the spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself and" therefore "gives you a +2 insight bonus to AC and Reflex saves".

It's a little (okay, very) underwhelming, but that's life.

The higher your optimization level/the more your games run towards rocket tag, the more important 'you are never flat footed' becomes - because being Flat Footed prevents you from using Immediate actions, and Immediate actions are how you can defend yourself when it's not your turn. I would agree that it's kind of blah in a limited environment where Immediate actions aren't really a thing, but the more of those abilities you gain access to the more relevant it becomes.

[ExLibrisMortis]

The higher your optimization level/the more your games run towards rocket tag, the more important 'you are never flat footed' becomes - because being Flat Footed prevents you from using Immediate actions, and Immediate actions are how you can defend yourself when it's not your turn. I would agree that it's kind of blah in a limited environment where Immediate actions aren't really a thing, but the more of those abilities you gain access to the more relevant it becomes.
Of course, if you're playing a high-OP game, you're shapechanged into a dire tortoise anyway :smalltongue:.

[liquidformat]

Of course, if you're playing a high-OP game, you're shapechanged into a dire tortoise anyway :smalltongue:.

or wild shaped into dire tortoise + enhanced wild shape spell...

[Biggus]

Thought of another one: Genesis (ELH).


No, the line is not ignored.
"You receive instantaneous warnings of impending danger or harm to the subject of the spell" therefore "You are never surprised or flat-footed".
"In addition, the spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself and" therefore "gives you a +2 insight bonus to AC and Reflex saves".

It's a little (okay, very) underwhelming, but that's life.

Ah OK, thank you. On the face of it, it seems pretty unlikely that's the intended meaning. Is there a reason to think that it is, or is it just a pragmatic decision that if you read it the way it appears to be meant it would be too powerful/ vague/ likely to cause arguments?

[ExLibrisMortis]

Ah OK, thank you. On the face of it, it seems pretty unlikely that's the intended meaning. Is there a reason to think that it is, or is it just a pragmatic decision that if you read it the way it appears to be meant it would be too powerful/ vague/ likely to cause arguments?
1) The "intended" meaning is hard to divine, because WotC never laid out any design parameters (that make sense). I do agree that it really should do more than what it does, but that might actually be a trap--it's hard to believe that a 9th-level spell could be so limited, so that's why people think there must be more. However, it is entirely possible that someone at WotC thought that immunity to surprise for several hours is really powerful, because it breaks a lot of the "gotcha" traps and ambushes that some modules/DMs like to throw at people.
2) The text is laid out in a pretty standard fluff sentence/rules sentence pattern. It's likely that that's intentional.
3) As you say, the spell would be really vague if the "fluffy" sentences are given an interpretation beyond the benefits laid out in game terms. Even WotC would provide a little more background if the spell was actually intended to provide warnings.

[Biggus]

1) The "intended" meaning is hard to divine, because WotC never laid out any design parameters (that make sense). I do agree that it really should do more than what it does, but that might actually be a trap--it's hard to believe that a 9th-level spell could be so limited, so that's why people think there must be more. However, it is entirely possible that someone at WotC thought that immunity to surprise for several hours is really powerful, because it breaks a lot of the "gotcha" traps and ambushes that some modules/DMs like to throw at people.
2) The text is laid out in a pretty standard fluff sentence/rules sentence pattern. It's likely that that's intentional.
3) As you say, the spell would be really vague if the "fluffy" sentences are given an interpretation beyond the benefits laid out in game terms. Even WotC would provide a little more background if the spell was actually intended to provide warnings.

Those are all fair points. The reasons I thought it should do more are:

1) If the designers meant that "the spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself" only gives you the +2 bonuses, it would have been very easy to word it in a way that made that clear, but they didn't.

2) As you said, if that is all it does, it's distinctly weak for a 9th-level spell.

3) The final paragraph about casting it on other creatures seems to suggest that you do get actual warnings of danger and what to do about them.

Ultimately, I guess this one's a DM call. But I can at least see there's a reasonable argument for interpreting in the weaker way, so thank you.

[Darg]

No, the line is not ignored.
"You receive instantaneous warnings of impending danger or harm to the subject of the spell" therefore "You are never surprised or flat-footed".
"In addition, the spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself and" therefore "gives you a +2 insight bonus to AC and Reflex saves".

It's a little (okay, very) underwhelming, but that's life.

Kind of inputting your own words there. The "therefores" don't exist in the text. The spell tells you what happens. You receive instantaneous warnings. You are never flatfooted or surprised. "In addition," the spell gives a general (key word so that it isn't specific) idea how to best protect yourself "and" a bonus to AC and reflex saves.

If your "therefores" made any actual sense the second paragraph that explains what happens when applied to another target doesn't function at all as they don't receive any of the benefits from the first paragraph, you do. They don't receive the immunity to surprise and flat footedness. They don't receive the bonus to AC and reflex saves.

It's not like it's difficult for the DM to mention that you you shouldn't take another step forward to avoid a trap or that you should step back to avoid being sniped. Or that you should move from your spot to avoid danger (as the DM plans to send a fire ball into your grouped up party members) or cast a spell to protect against magic. It never tells you what specifically is coming your way, just the way to protect yourself best (which might be detrimental if acted on in some way).

[PairO'Dice Lost]

You may want to move true resurrection and teleportation circle up to 10th if the goal is to get certain spells out of NPC hands. They're not especially breakable or intrinsically stronger than other 9ths, but they do have a big impact on the world in general and high-level adventuring in particular if, as per the DMG demographics tables, every single major metropolis has at least a few clerics who can resurrect people with no level loss and wizards who can create permanent teleportals between cities.

---

Regarding the foresight debate, compare the spell description on the SRD with the one in the PHB:


Once foresight is cast, you receive instantaneous warnings of impending danger or harm to the subject of the spell. You are never surprised or flat-footed. In addition, the spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself and gives you a +2 insight bonus to AC and Reflex saves.


Once foresight is cast, you receive instantaneous warnings of impending danger or harm to the subject of the spell. Thus, if you are the subject of the spell, you would be warned in advance if a rogue were about to attempt a sneak attack on you, or if a creature were about to leap out from a hiding place, or if an attacker were specifically targeting you with a spell or ranged weapon. You are never surprised or flat-footed. In addition, the spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself—duck, jump right, close your eyes, and so on—and gives you a +2 insight bonus to AC and Reflex saves.

This is one of those cases where the SRD creator removed what appeared to them to be merely flavor text but actually considerably changes the effect of the spell based on its presence or absence, much like the polymorph example in the "same spell with different effects" stacking rule, and so someone relying solely on the SRD version would take away a different interpretation of the spell.

The information given to the subject in the PHB version is definitely more than just flavor. Sure, "you know a creature's about to leap out of hiding" could just be flavor text for never being flat-footed and "you know you should jump right when the fireball comes at you" could just be flavor text for the Reflex save bonus, but the other examples do much more than that: the spell can explicitly tell you that you're about to be sneak attacked or targeted with a spell, which can prompt you to cast an immediate-action defensive spell tailored to what's about to attack you, and it can explicitly prompt you to close your eyes if that would help against a given threat, which can let you completely ignore a gaze attack or an Illusion (Pattern) spell without needing a save.

Also, contrast foresight with the sense danger power:


When you manifest this power, you are able to quickly react to unexpected situations. For the duration of this power, you do not lose your Dexterity bonus to Armor Class when you are flat-footed.

In addition, you can manifest one power as an immediate action during either a surprise round or during the first round if there is no surprise round. The power manifested must have a manifesting time of 1 standard action, and can have a cost no higher than 1 power point. You can continue to manifest powers as an immediate action at the beginning of later encounters for as long as sense danger is in effect.

Augment: For every additional power point you spend, you can spend 1 more power point on the power you manifest at the outset of combat.

Sense danger does have a shorter duration (1 minute/level vs. foresight's 10 minutes/level), but it trades immunity to surprise and the insight bonuses for the ability to better-than-Quicken one power per combat for free...as a 3rd level power! If the MoE developers thought that foresight was just "can't be surprised + can't be flat-footed + AC and Ref save bonus" then they wouldn't have made sense danger 6 levels lower than that, and if most players read foresight that way then they'd be suggesting every high-level character buy dorjes of sense danger instead of continuing to recommend foresight.

[ExLibrisMortis]

This is one of those cases where the SRD creator removed what appeared to them to be merely flavor text but actually considerably changes the effect of the spell based on its presence or absence, much like the polymorph example in the "same spell with different effects" stacking rule, and so someone relying solely on the SRD version would take away a different interpretation of the spell.
Alright, consider me convinced. That'll teach me to use web resources :smallfrown:.


If the MoE developers thought that foresight was just "can't be surprised + can't be flat-footed + AC and Ref save bonus" then they wouldn't have made sense danger 6 levels lower than that, and if most players read foresight that way then they'd be suggesting every high-level character buy dorjes of sense danger instead of continuing to recommend foresight.
Considering that anticipatory strike got dropped from a good 5th to a crazy 2nd in Races of Destiny, I'm not so sure, but in an ideal world, this would hold, yes :smalltongue:.

[Anthrowhale]

Regarding the foresight debate, compare the spell description on the SRD with the one in the PHB:

This seems fairly convincing to me.

A few other effects with foresight-related abilities:

1) Use Contingency[Celerity][When nerveskitter is cast]. Because of nerveskitter's special wording, the celerity goes off and gives you a standard action when you would normally be flat-footed. This is a tricky combo as it involves 3 unusual spells acting together and has a daze side effect to worry about.

2) (Persistent) Eyes of the Oracle is a 6th level spells that allows you to ready an action while acting normally. A good trigger for the ready action (like nerveskitter) gives you a just-act-first ability similar to the Dire Tortoise. The bare version requires the interaction of two unusual spells while the persistent version requires some way to avoid the cost of persistent spell.

3) "That Art Thou" is a 3rd level spell which makes you never flat-footed (... and nigh-unflankable and +20 to search/spot/listen). Combined with Celerity, you can now act when you would otherwise be flat-footed.

None of these provide a special ability to know what to do like foresight.

[Doctor Despair]

Wrt to foresight, on a tangential point (bypassing that warning), I think the only relevant abilities are God Blooded of Vecna (prevents divination from yielding any information about the creature -- LA +1) and two specific dragons in the Xorvintaal game (no effects whatsoever can reveal their future moves in the game, arguably including their "pawns" in the game). Neither would allow the Foresight'd creature to become flatfooted, but they should prevent the warning, which would presumably be terrifying for someone used to Foresight giving that warning.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Considering that anticipatory strike got dropped from a good 5th to a crazy 2nd in Races of Destiny, I'm not so sure, but in an ideal world, this would hold, yes :smalltongue:.

Other way around, actually. RoD came out in December 2004, CPsi came out in April 2006, so the level was in fact increased to 5th--which makes sense, since celerity (4th) and greater celerity (8th) debuted in PHB2, which came out in May 2006, so the devs may have noticed the similarity in effect during PHB2's development and slipped the updated into CPsi.

So congratulations, you may have found the one and only good change that Complete Psionic made. :smallamused:

[Biggus]

Regarding the foresight debate, compare the spell description on the SRD with the one in the PHB: <snip>


Ah, thank you, you'd think I'd have learned to always check the wording in the actual book by now. In that case, Foresight definitely needs to be added to the list of 10th-level candidates.

[sreservoir]

Of course, if you're playing a high-OP game, you're shapechanged into a dire tortoise anyway :smalltongue:.

The dire tortoise ability is weird and isn't a defense against flat-footedness anyway.

First of all, although flat-footed is frequently summarized as before you "take an action", PH 137 actually provides this clarification:

Flat-Footed: At the start of a battle, before you have had a chance to act (specifically, before your first regular turn in the initiative order), you are flat-footed.
which specifically indicates that simply taking an action of any sort isn't the kind of acting that makes you not flat-footed, but actually taking a regular turn in initiative order. The action you take during a surprise round is not a turn (and certainly not a regular turn), cf. PH 133. Yes, even if you got a surprise round, you are still flat-footed and can, say, get sneak attacked by the person you just snuck up on if they manage to roll higher initiative than you. (This probably isn't as weird as it sounds.)

Second, the weirdness in the ability itself. If you're in the kind of high-op game where you're shapechanged into a dire tortoise, you should of course expect that your opponents are also shapechanged into dire tortoises, and also have the Lightning Strike special attack. To start with, that special "attack" means you get a surprise round on the first round of combat (note that normally a surprise round happens before regular rounds begin). This happens "regardless of whether it has been noticed." It's easy to assume that this means "even if it has already been noticed", but it also means that it gets a surprise round even if hadn't been noticed in the first place and already got a surprise round. So if a surprise round already happened—well, guess you get another surprise round.

It also specifies that "A creature that notices the dire tortoise is still treated as flat-footed during this round." So even if both you and someone else, both in dire tortoise form, already acted in a surprise round (maybe someone else got surprised), then during each other's Lightning Strike surprise rounds on round 1, both of you would still be explicitly flat-footed by the effect of Lightning Strike (and would probably also normally be flat-footed because you haven't taken a regular turn anyway).

It also has a really funky interaction with the divine oracle capstone (CD 36), which makes the divine oracle "can always take a standard action during a surprise round". Lightning Strike doesn't just let you take an action, it gives you a whole "surprise round", during which every divine oracle involved also gets to take a standard action. (Shockingly, Immune to Surprise doesn't make the divine oracle not flat-footed, though, just not surprised.)

So you still want immunity being flat-footed even if you're shapechanged into a dire tortoise, because just being able to take a surprise round doesn't really help you defend against the surprise round (or two) they already got on you. In addition to foresight, by the way, immunity to being flat-footed is also provided by that art thou (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20011019a) (which is pretty cool spell to persist if you can finagle it, but it's on a pretty obscure list), and detect hostile intent (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/detectHostileIntent.htm) (though that one is weird since being flat-footed is a condition on you, not in relationship to another creature).