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2020-08-12, 04:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2009
Re: spells that you would never want.
I am not seaweed. That's a B.
Praise I've received A quick outline on building a homebrew campaign
Avatar by Tiffanie Lirle
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2020-08-12, 05:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2013
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Re: spells that you would never want.
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.Last edited by Zanos; 2020-08-12 at 05:36 AM.
If any idiot ever tells you that life would be meaningless without death, Hyperion recommends killing them!
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2020-08-12, 06:16 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2010
- Location
- London, EU
- Gender
Re: spells that you would never want.
π = 4
Consider a 5' radius blast: this affects 4 squares which have a circumference of 40' — Actually it's worse than that.
Completely Dysfunctional Handbook
Warped Druid Handbook
Avatar by Caravaggio
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2020-08-12, 10:05 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2018
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2020-08-12, 10:12 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2009
Re: spells that you would never want.
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.I am not seaweed. That's a B.
Praise I've received A quick outline on building a homebrew campaign
Avatar by Tiffanie Lirle
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2020-08-12, 10:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2013
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Re: spells that you would never want.
If any idiot ever tells you that life would be meaningless without death, Hyperion recommends killing them!
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2020-08-12, 11:35 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
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Re: spells that you would never want.
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.Last edited by MaxiDuRaritry; 2020-08-12 at 11:43 AM.
⚣ Tanuki in the Playground. ⚣
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2020-08-12, 12:14 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2009
Re: spells that you would never want.
I am not seaweed. That's a B.
Praise I've received A quick outline on building a homebrew campaign
Avatar by Tiffanie Lirle
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2020-08-12, 12:18 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2015
- Location
- Alamogordo
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Re: spells that you would never want.
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 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.Characters I've enjoyed playing for more than four sessions:
Falgar the Swiftblade
Revain Sumeth, Whip Fighter Extraordinaire
Malvin Firel, Cleric of Corellon, Destroyer of Undeath
Vongur Dorent, Primeval Champion of Poverty
In defense of the Vow of Poverty
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2020-08-12, 06:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2013
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Re: spells that you would never want.
Last edited by Zanos; 2020-08-12 at 06:24 PM.
If any idiot ever tells you that life would be meaningless without death, Hyperion recommends killing them!
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2020-08-12, 06:35 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
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Re: spells that you would never want.
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.Last edited by MaxiDuRaritry; 2020-08-12 at 06:38 PM.
⚣ Tanuki in the Playground. ⚣
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2020-08-12, 06:43 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2019
Re: spells that you would never want.
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.
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2020-08-12, 06:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
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Re: spells that you would never want.
Last edited by MaxiDuRaritry; 2020-08-12 at 06:48 PM.
⚣ Tanuki in the Playground. ⚣
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2020-08-12, 08:06 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2013
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2020-08-12, 08:20 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2019
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2020-08-13, 02:44 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2015
Re: spells that you would never want.
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).Last edited by noob; 2020-08-13 at 02:46 AM.
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2020-08-13, 10:00 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
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Re: spells that you would never want.
Last edited by MaxiDuRaritry; 2020-08-13 at 10:01 AM.
⚣ Tanuki in the Playground. ⚣
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2020-08-13, 10:53 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2013
Re: spells that you would never want.
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.
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2020-08-13, 04:19 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2019
Re: spells that you would never want.
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.
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2020-08-13, 04:35 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2017
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- UK
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Re: spells that you would never want.
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.
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2020-08-13, 07:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2015
- Location
- Alamogordo
- Gender
Re: spells that you would never want.
Then it's the perfect spell for an "Ends justify the means" villain (or evil PC)!
Characters I've enjoyed playing for more than four sessions:
Falgar the Swiftblade
Revain Sumeth, Whip Fighter Extraordinaire
Malvin Firel, Cleric of Corellon, Destroyer of Undeath
Vongur Dorent, Primeval Champion of Poverty
In defense of the Vow of Poverty
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2020-08-13, 08:01 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2016
Re: spells that you would never want.
glorytongue
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2020-08-13, 09:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2014
Re: spells that you would never want.
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.
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2020-08-13, 09:07 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2019
Re: spells that you would never want.
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.
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2020-08-13, 11:53 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2018
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2020-08-14, 12:52 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2005
- Location
- Vancouver, BC, Canada
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2020-08-14, 10:29 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2015
- Location
- Alamogordo
- Gender
Re: spells that you would never want.
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.Characters I've enjoyed playing for more than four sessions:
Falgar the Swiftblade
Revain Sumeth, Whip Fighter Extraordinaire
Malvin Firel, Cleric of Corellon, Destroyer of Undeath
Vongur Dorent, Primeval Champion of Poverty
In defense of the Vow of Poverty
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2020-08-14, 01:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2012
Re: spells that you would never want.
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.
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2020-08-14, 01:46 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2016
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2020-08-14, 01:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
- Gender
Re: spells that you would never want.
⚣ Tanuki in the Playground. ⚣