Editing lists

[Fortinbras]

Okay I'm looking into edditing the 3.5 core spell list so that it is a little less broken. I'm not much of an expert on spellcasting in D&D so i'm looking for lists of spells that people think are pretty broken and also general rules of thumb for the sorts of spells that are generaly game breaking. Thanks.

[shadzar]

Edition?

[Fortinbras]

3.5 edition

[bosssmiley]

from Being Batman: Logic Ninja's Guide to Wizards

Stinky Cheese: spells that are broken, broken, broken.

Level 2:
- Alter Self: give yourself +6 natural armor, or flight, for 10 min/level with a level 2 spell? Like all the polymorph spells, way too good for its level--not so broken you probably shouldn't use it in a game, though. Combine with the Otherworldly feat for even more cheese.
- Wraithstrike: swift action, make all attacks as touch attacks that round. Ridiculously good for fighter-mages, Power Attack for huge amounts of damage. You can Persist it quite normally in an 8th level slot, or by using various kinds of cheese, and that's when it becomes *completely* broken.

Level 3:
- Shivering Touch (Frostburn): a touch attack, no save, 3d6 dex damage. 3d6! Dex damage! Wanna one-shot a dragon? NOOO problem! Add some kind of reach (Arcane Reach from Archmage, or Reach Spell metamagic) and you can do it from safety. For the love of god, don't resport to this.

Level 4:
- Polymorph: far better than any other spell of its level, and many higher-level spells. The things you can do with this are ridiculous. It's completely broken, so much so WotC has given up on trying to fix it. Just don't use it.
- Celerity (PHB II): this breaks casters worse than they're already broken. As an immediate action casting, gain a standard action, and be dazed on the next round. This means that no matter what, the wizard goes first. Combine with Time Stop to negate the disadvantage of being dazed in combat, or just use it to Teleport out of there or Dimension Door way out of reach.

Level 8:
- Polymorph Any Object: the worst of the lot. Turn yourself into a gold dragon and gain its INT score plus everything else? Come on. Most broken spell in the game.
- Greater Celerity (PHB II): as Celerity, but grants a full-round action.

Level 9:
- Shapechange: CL up to 25 HD monsters. Gain their (Su) special qualities and attacks as well as the (Ex) ones. Completely and utterly ridiculous, as a more powerful Polymorph of course must be. Don't use this.
- Disjunction: both DMs and players avoid it. Use it as a player and you fry the bad guy's loot; use it as a DM and your players lose their magic items and are very upset.
- Gate: so many abuses. So very many. For example, Gate in creatures that can cast Wish as a (Su) ability and make them give you free wishes

I note he overlooked the filthy brokeness of Greater Planar Binding... (wishes on demand)

[Devils_Advocate]

I suggest making self-only buffs available to Clerics only in the form of domain spells. Makes 'em less 'zilla.

[woodenbandman]

Clerics get far less 'zilla when you ignore divine metamagic.

Really, divine metamagic should be ignored unless everyone benefits from it in the party. Everyone loves buffs. But at that point you don't need it really, because you're the buffer, and that's how you spend your turn.

Anyway, I would strongly consider banning disjunction, because it's annoying. Gate is highly suspect. Shapechange, of course. Prismatic Wall is annoying as hell. Antimagic Field is suspect because it stops all spells (Unless you prepare a spell to be able to cast a spell if subjected to an antimagic field).