Spells DMs should NEVER throw at the party

[Enterti]

Hello again Playground Dwellers!

Today I come to you asking for assistance in compiling a list of the most foul spells a party can have thrown at them. I speak not of spells such as enervate(without metamagic) or the orb line, but of spells with a more permanent and crippling nature. Spells that will make a character useless for the duration of the campaign, or even outright slay the entire party.

As posts are added I will update the list whenever I get the chance. Upon completion I will organize by caster type and spell level
For starters
Wail of the Banshee
Disjunction
Wish/Miracle
Power Word:Pain/kill
Holy Word(and friends)
Energy Drain
Trap the Soul
Eternity of Torture
Saintify the Wicked
Streamers
Forcecage
Maze
Bestow Curse(against low level parties)
Mindrape

[Koury]

Disjunction?

[GhoulPolitician]

creative uses of wish or miracle?

[TroubleBrewing]

Not really on-topic, but a deck of many things?

[Foryn Gilnith]

Can't think of anything deserving a capital NEVER except Disjunction. And even that's only a capital NEVER, not a capital bold NEVER.

[BridgeCity]

Disjunction?

I agree with disjuntion being a spell that shouldn't be used. Whether you like it or not, D&D (3.5 at least) is very gear orientated, and players spend a hell of a lot of time getting exactly what they want. Just erasing that hard work with a spell is over the top and fun ruining. Tone it down to a suppression and it's fine, but out-right destroying magic items is just stupid.

[Grendus]

Disjunction is fine, so long as you're prepared to overwhelm them with loot back up to their WBL. For example, against the BBEG (it's doubly fun if an artifact in their possession strips the BBEG of his magic). But then, I guess that's why it's only a capital NEVER instead of NEVER. And he better have a damn good treasure hoard, with lots of gear oriented specifically for the players. Or else that should be the final battle before you reroll for the next campaign.

[Draz74]

Power Word: Pain is the other one that comes to mind, besides Disjunction.

Oh yeah, and Streamers. Streamers really ... wow, yeah.

[Ailurus]

Holy Word (and dictum, blasphemy, word of chaos). They won't have long-term effects if the party survives. But, if the party is of the correct alignment, its pretty much a TPK.

Multiple no-save, area effect Save or lose/save or sucks piled on your party when you run into a hostile cleric one level higher than you is never conducive to survival.

[Tvtyrant]

Power Word:Kill does wonders for killing wizards. Seriously, if your party contains squish do not use it against them.

Actually, most SoDs are particularly effective against wizards. Poor squish bags and their cosmic power.

[Lateral]

Trap the Soul and Energy Drain are the big ones I can think of.

Slightly off-topic: Never, EVER throw Allips against your PCs- no-save Wisdom drain is BAD THING. Also, crystal golems are pretty much invincible to most uses of magic in a campaign with psionics-magic transparency. Don't throw them at your PCs unless you really want the wizard, the psion, and the cleric to cry.

[Enterti]

creative uses of wish or miracle?

I am not sure that Wish and Miracle are spells for NPCs so much as ways for DMs to impose fiat without feeling bad, nonetheless it will be added

[Ernir]

As posts are added I will update the list whenever I get the chance. Upon completion I will organize by caster type and spell level
For starters
Feeblemind
Wail of the Banshee

Feeblemind? That's just another save or lose.

Wail of the Banshee is a mass 9th-level Fort SoD with the [Death] descriptor. It might pop a party member or two in an unprepared party, but... that's what 9th level spells do.

Disjunction

We'll be seeing this one a lot in this thread, I think...

And I happen to disagree.

Disjunction is an unusually annoying spell, due to the bookkeeping potentially involved. But it's also about the only thing you can do to counter strong buffstacks and a few high level "just no" defenses (I'm looking at you, Prismatic Sphere).

Yes, it kills magic items. That's too bad. It also offers a will save, and carried magic items use the owner's will save if it's better than the item's own. And when you're going up against someone with 9th level spells, you did have a will save better than that of your shiny shoes, right? It's not an auto-nuke. It should be more like a 20%ish reduction of your wealth, which... is probably a fate worse than death, but I don't think that's saying an awful lot in high level D&D.

DMs who are worried about pissing off their players might want to cast it from a scroll, though - that way, it has a DC the items (a.k.a. the PCs) shouldn't be failing but on a 1.
Or you can make the next pile'o loot that much bigger.

Both are potentially verisimilitude-breakers, but I'd say the issue is an OOC issue anyway.

[BridgeCity]

Feeblemind? That's just another save or lose.

Wail of the Banshee is a mass 9th-level Fort SoD with the [Death] descriptor. It might pop a party member or two in an unprepared party, but... that's what 9th level spells do.

We'll be seeing this one a lot in this thread, I think...

And I happen to disagree.

Disjunction is an unusually annoying spell, due to the bookkeeping potentially involved. But it's also about the only thing you can do to counter strong buffstacks and a few high level "just no" defenses (I'm looking at you, Prismatic Sphere).

Yes, it kills magic items. That's too bad. It also offers a will save, and carried magic items use the owner's will save if it's better than the item's own. And when you're going up against someone with 9th level spells, you did have a will save better than that of your shiny shoes, right? It's not an auto-nuke. It should be more like a 20%ish reduction of your wealth, which... is probably a fate worse than death, but I don't think that's saying an awful lot in high level D&D.

DMs who are worried about pissing off their players might want to cast it from a scroll, though - that way, it has a DC the items (a.k.a. the PCs) shouldn't be failing but on a 1.
Or you can make the next pile'o loot that much bigger.

Both are potentially verisimilitude-breakers, but I'd say the issue is an OOC issue anyway.

I'd counter this by saying the people most likely to suffer from disjunction removing their magical items would be melee based characters, because they have no spells or whatever to fall back on, and most melee centric characters do not have a great will save. So the people who would be affected most are the people most likely to be affected. It really is a harsh spell that can destroy the Fighters +8 Sword of awesomeness just because the fighter has a wis score of 10 and will as a bad save.

[JaronK]

I'm confused by the fortitude partial part of that. What happens to you if you pass the save? It sounds like nothing, but that wouldn't be "partial."

Anyway, I think Power Word Pain is one of the nastiest spells you can hit them with. At low levels, it's a death sentence, but a slow one...

JaronK

[Enterti]

Power Word: Pain is the other one that comes to mind, besides Disjunction.

Oh yeah, and Streamers. Streamers really ... wow, yeah.

What exactly is Streamers? I have not heard of the spell

[Coidzor]

^: It's the spell from Shining South that doesn't let you take an action without being hit by a large number of d6s per action and having to save versus not being able to complete the action anyway.

If I'm remembering correctly, ayway.

Both are potentially verisimilitude-breakers, but I'd say the issue is an OOC issue anyway.

So? Most spells that are worth complaining about are for OOC issues. Being annoyed at a spell's ability to cause repeated TPKs is an OOC issue because the relevant characters are all dead.

[Hzurr]

I've actually used disjuntion once as a DM, and it turned out pretty well. To be fair, the party was attacking a lvl 18 wizard in his layer, and he knew they were coming and knew they had some ridiculously powerful items.

Full Story below:

Spoiler

Show

The Party was tracking down the wizard, after eliminating his allies. One of the PCs had died, but was raised back as an intelligent undead by the party Cleric (this was an evil party). Because he was undead, he picked up the lifedrinker (or souldrinker) weapon, and was completely destroying things via level draining them.

The wizard they were fighting knew about the weapon, and also knew that the party had an ogre artificer that had built awesome effigies (or whatever they're called), so between the magical constructs the wizard knew were coming for him, and a weapon that would drain levels, disjuntion was the best option.

The party went in full speed to attack the wizard and his allies, and the first thing the wizard did was disjuntion. The lifedrinker weapon managed to survive, but nearly everything the artificer had was completely destroyed.

The fight went on for a bit longer, but it became clear that the party was in trouble because the mage was flying out of range, had all his various buffs up, and was simply raining destruction down on the PCs.

At this point, the ogre artificer remembered that while he may no longer be an artificer, he was still a freaking ogre. The ogre picked up the party cleric (who had just cast an anti-magic field on himself), and threw him at the flying wizard.. The anti-magic field made all of the wizard's buff's drop, and the party destroyed him moments later.

TL; DR - Disjuntions can be devistating, but sometimes they lead to fastball specials.

In general, I really hate Save-or-Die spells. They always feel cheap, and the removal of those types of spells is one of the reasons I switched over to 4E

[Hanuman]

Fell Drain + Anything

[Enterti]

^: It's the spell from Shining South that doesn't let you take an action without being hit by a large number of d6s per action and having to save versus not being able to complete the action anyway.

If I'm remembering correctly, ayway.

Could you find and post the description? I would rather not add it without being able to see exactly what it is capable of

[Ernir]

I'd counter this by saying the people most likely to suffer from disjunction removing their magical items would be melee based characters, because they have no spells or whatever to fall back on, and most melee centric characters do not have a great will save. So the people who would be affected most are the people most likely to be affected. It really is a harsh spell that can destroy the Fighters +8 Sword of awesomeness just because the fighter has a wis score of 10 and will as a bad save.

The fact that melee characters tend to have poor will saves and excessive equipment dependency isn't a problem with Disjunction, though. It's a problem with 3.5. =/

Although I admit Disjunction isn't exactly helping matters.

So? Most spells that are worth complaining about are for OOC issues. Being annoyed at a spell's ability to cause repeated TPKs is an OOC issue because the relevant characters are all dead.

I... think we are trying to say the same thing.

[BridgeCity]

The fact that melee characters tend to have poor will saves and excessive equipment dependency isn't a problem with Disjunction, though. It's a problem with 3.5. =/

Although I admit Disjunction isn't exactly helping matters.

Haha well yeah, I'd say that the fact we are making a list of spells you should never use shows a problem with 3.5

I'll admit I have a personal hate for disjunction because I really don't enjoy playing casters so I'm always a melee guy, but as you say it really isn't helping the game.

[Skorj]

I won't allow Disjunction for two reasons.

• It's the worst bookeeping nightmare in the game - each affected magic item has its own save, which can be used in place of the character's will save if better, and which you've never bothered to calculate before and propably don't even have that rule handy.
• It can break a player's emotional attachment to his character, if his gear is personalized. Never do that. I like a game where all the best gear has a cool story attached, where characters are clad in their history.

Creative uses of Wish/Miracle I could see - if it fit the RP quite well (never done that myself, but I could see it).

Streamers is just mechanically broken. Come to think of it, it's surprising how few 3.5 spells are just broken like that.

[Morithias]

Saintify the Wicked - Nothing a "Chaotic Neutral" wizard/rogue/whatever hates more than breaking so many laws a LG NPC is willing to blow a level just to get rid of their ways.

Personally I use it as soon as they bust out Gate for the first time. As soon as you that spell in a campaign anything goes.

[Uncertainty]

Nobody mentioned Mindrape?

[AslanCross]

Something a bit lower-level: Solid Fog. Not inherently boring, but it slows down the game to a crawl. Nothing fun about that.

[Koury]

Something a bit lower-level: Solid Fog. Not inherently boring, but it slows down the game to a crawl. Nothing fun about that.

My group was fighting a million zombie-ish monsters and were going to be overrun pretty quickly when they fell back to a chokepoint, threw up a Solid Fog and were able to get a hold on the battle because of it. They were also able to save a bunch of civilians too because of that.

[Coidzor]

Nobody mentioned Mindrape?

Well, the poster above you mentioned Holy Mindrape. As something regularly used to eliminate characters from the game.

Streamers: Page 50 of Shining South.

5th level wizard spell,1 or more streamers with readied touch attacks whenever the target(s) takes an action during the duration of the spell.

Depending upon DM adjuication that might just be once a round per streamer, but it's still a ridiculously good thing for locking down something not immune to damage.

[AslanCross]

My group was fighting a million zombie-ish monsters and were going to be overrun pretty quickly when they fell back to a chokepoint, threw up a Solid Fog and were able to get a hold on the battle because of it. They were also able to save a bunch of civilians too because of that.

When the PCs use it, sure.

When the DM uses it on the PCs, not so much. I did, once. The monsters can't shoot into the cloud, and all the PCs take oh, 5 turns or more of "I make a five-foot step."

Tactically sound, yes. Not broken, yes. Incredibly boring, very much so.

[ffone]

My group was fighting a million zombie-ish monsters and were going to be overrun pretty quickly when they fell back to a chokepoint, threw up a Solid Fog and were able to get a hold on the battle because of it. They were also able to save a bunch of civilians too because of that.

He's not saying it's not a clever tactic to use.

Rather, characters in it will likely need to ask to DM for feedback after every 5' of their move action, rather than just taking it in one go. It's a horrible thing for PBP games, particularly, where every post cycle can be a day or two.

Less of an issue in the tactic you described - b/c there it's NPCs (zombies) inside it, so the omniscient DM can still move them w/o an involved feedback cycle. But imagine of the party and zombies were reversed .