Ruling Question

[Shrew]

So we recently did a two on two tournament, and one of the players had a planar shepard. On his first round he use an ability that open up a rift/ connection to the plane of dreams. This gave his team 10 rounds to every 1 round our team got. Now I tried to use dispel magic to make this go away. The DM ruled that since this is an ability that it can not be dispelled. I disagreed. What would you have ruled?

[Penguinsushi]

It doesn't seem to be an SLA (edit: at least, i can't find reference to the spell it would be emulating), so I would agree that it cannot be dispelled. It is certainly supernatural, and thus would be suppressed in a null-magic field however.

It is a pretty powerful ability (probably too powerful with respect to the time traits - the other traits aren't too bad. I think i'd nix that - not only is it unfair, it's boring for the other players), but from what I can see, there are at least a couple of mitigating factors:

1) according to what I've read, the shepherd does have to concentrate on it. disrupt his concentration, and it falters

2) it affects things within 40ft. close to melee, and you'll be in the same time field and the round disparity will vanish.

~PS

[Rawhide]

Is it spell-like (Sp), supernatural (Su) or extraordinary (Ex)?

A spell like can be dispelled, however a supernatural cannot. Supernatural will cease to work in an antimagic field however and does not require concentration checks.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm

[Person_Man]

The Planar Shepard is well known as the most utterly broken PrC. I have no idea why your DM would allow it, unless the other players are an Archivist, a Artificer, and an Incantatrix. And even then, nothing they do can compare to the Planar Bubble.

Unless I'm miss-remembering, Planar Bubble is a Supernatural Ability (Su). Supernatural abilities are magical and go away in an antimagic field but are not subject to spell resistance, counterspells, or to being dispelled by dispel magic.

Thus, once the Shepard creates a bubble, you lose unless you can cast Anitmagic Field.

[PinkysBrain]

And even then, nothing they do can compare to the Planar Bubble.

Yes, something compares ... the ability to go first compares and it compares favorably. With buffing the artificer has every spell and item necessary to ensure he goes first. Without buffing you need a way to never be flatfooted without buffing (Minotaur gets this for instance) and to be able to cast celerity.

[Person_Man]

Yes, something compares ... the ability to go first compares and it compares favorably. With buffing the artificer has every spell and item necessary to ensure he goes first. Without buffing you need a way to never be flatfooted without buffing (Minotaur gets this for instance) and to be able to cast celerity.

Ah, I had forgotten about Celerity because I ban it from my games.

Point conceded. An Artificer can compare to a Planar Shepard. But I think the general point I made is still true - it's a tremendously overpowered PrC.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

It doesn't seem to be an SLA (edit: at least, i can't find reference to the spell it would be emulating), so I would agree that it cannot be dispelled.

Not every spell-like ability directly mimics a spell. Most do, but many don't. For example, see the bard's fascinate music effect (no spell reference there), the paladin's special mount (and pre-3.5: lay on hands), warlock and dragonfire adept invocations, and shadowcaster mysteries.

If I had the time and inclination, I could probably dig out a few examples of racial spell-likes that don't directly mimic spells, too.