spells that you would never want.

[Unavenger]

Furthermore, Level 1 wizard casts a level one save or suck. Lets say we were lucky enough to roll an 18 for int, we picked a race that buffs it by two, cool. Save dc 16.

The ghoul makes that on an 11. The horse on a 10. Personally, I don't feel very much like an all powerful spellcaster when a HORSE can overcome my ability to bend the fabric of reality at LEAST half of the time.

Yeah, well, "Powerful", "Level 1", pick one.

Going up in levels, at high levels. I play at NORMAL tables. Not gitp tier 1 full optimization tables. Nobody ever finds a manual of intelect, and no reasonable dm just leaves them for sale at the magic item mart. I've usually seen those restricted to special reward items, and with good reason. So, we'll say we picked up a headband of intellect +6, and dumped all our ability increases in intelligence like a good little wizard. That means we get a base save of 20+spell level.

Yes, that is exactly what I was assuming.

That ain't ****. At levels 12-20, that is NOTHING. Seriously, that dragon's "low save" of 15... he only has to roll above a 5-14, depending on spell level, to completely ignore that useless save or suck spell. That's not even bringing up spell resistance, which might just render your spell pointless, and your spell slot wasted. So there you are, mr save or suck wizard, sitting in the corner twiddling your thumbs, while the basic bitch fighter is having a blast smacking the dragon around with his greatsword.

Yes, dragons - monsters mostly renowned for being overpowered for their CR and having some of the best saves for their power level - are sometimes passing saves against your spells. Bring me my fainting couch!

And after you have gone through all this, the hardship of reaching high level play without being turned into wizard paste, you choose to use your mighty, nigh godlike ability to warp the fabric of space and time... to mildly inconvenience your foe.

If you're going to use spells that allow saves, you should be using save-or-lose spells. They make first-level ones of those, so you have no excuse.

In conclusion, save or suck spells didn't make their save. They just suck.

Yes, but that's because of the "Or suck" part not because they allow a save. If you're using a spell that allows a save and doesn't at least defeat the creature it's used on, then yes, you're doing it wrong.

[Jack_McSnatch]

Yeah, well, "Powerful", "Level 1", pick one.



Yes, that is exactly what I was assuming.



Yes, dragons - monsters mostly renowned for being overpowered for their CR and having some of the best saves for their power level - are sometimes passing saves against your spells. Bring me my fainting couch!



If you're going to use spells that allow saves, you should be using save-or-lose spells. They make first-level ones of those, so you have no excuse.



Yes, but that's because of the "Or suck" part not because they allow a save. If you're using a spell that allows a save and doesn't at least defeat the creature it's used on, then yes, you're doing it wrong.

Well excuse me for not ending encounters with one spell. I like to let the fighter and the rouge have fun too, seeing as I am not the only one at the table.

{scrubbed}

[HalfQuart]

I don't understand how this thread has devolved into convincing Jack_McSnatch that he's wrong about not liking spells with a save. Can we just move on and talk about other spells that YOU would never want?

[Asmotherion]

Well excuse me for not ending encounters with one spell. I like to let the fighter and the rouge have fun too, seeing as I am not the only one at the table.

{scrub the post, scrub the quote}

For the last time, it's spelled ROGUE! R-O-G-U-E!

this is rouge:
You're free to have whatever opinion you want, as long as you don't confuse the Shady Character Class with a make-up cosmetic!

[Thunder999]

There's that one sanctified spell that's basically flamestrike with a better AoE except you die and get resurrected, I can only assume it was invented by someone who really didn't want to reach the next level, probably got scared of the epic rules and wanted to ensure he stayed level 19 forever.

[Wildstag]

I don't understand how this thread has devolved into convincing Jack_McSnatch that he's wrong about not liking spells with a save. Can we just move on and talk about other spells that YOU would never want?

I tried that during the Alarm debacle. People prefer a vain attempt at convincing someone else they're wrong to just moving on.

I would also list most illusion spells, just because they usually result in having a talk with the GM about whether or not they're going to be a jerk towards my illusory specialization. I'd rather just not deal with the hassle and ignore that entire school. I enjoy creativity and game features that encourage it, but damn there are so many GMs that will try to arbitrarily hinder PC-illusions but then turn around and trap the PCs in an illusion and argue to the ends of the earth about "why would you have reason to disbelieve it?"

[NigelWalmsley]

Well excuse me for not ending encounters with one spell. I like to let the fighter and the rouge have fun too, seeing as I am not the only one at the table.

Yes, there's actually a guy called "the DM" who's job is to ensure that he provides challenges that are fun for everyone without requiring intentional sandbagging. You're welcome to play the way you like, but implying that people who use save or dies are "{scrubbed}" and want the rest of the party to not have fun is being needlessly antagonistic.

[Jack_McSnatch]

Yes, there's actually a guy called "the DM" who's job is to ensure that he provides challenges that are fun for everyone without requiring intentional sandbagging. You're welcome to play the way you like, but implying that people who use save or dies are "{scrub the post, scrub the quote}" and want the rest of the party to not have fun is being needlessly antagonistic.

{scrubbed} He suggested using save or x spells to take down entire groups. I dislike doing that kind of thing because people at my normal table like to play their martials.

{scrubbed}

[Thunder999]

If your GM isn't unreasonable then illusions (I'm assuming we're talking about the silent image style spells) can be really fun, easily some of the most creative spells.
Honestly even without much creativity a simple big of illusory fog is pretty much fog cloud/obscuring mist except you get to see through it, an illusion of a wall can provide a nice way to maintain line of effect to a projected image that won't be foiled by see invisibility.

Obviously true sight will ruin them when it shows up, still they're a nice tool for the fights without it.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If your GM isn't unreasonable then illusions (I'm assuming we're talking about the silent image style spells) can be really fun, easily some of the most creative spells.
Honestly even without much creativity a simple big of illusory fog is pretty much fog cloud/obscuring mist except you get to see through it, an illusion of a wall can provide a nice way to maintain line of effect to a projected image that won't be foiled by see invisibility.

Obviously true sight will ruin them when it shows up, still they're a nice tool for the fights without it.

Actually, it's fun to use true seeing against those using it if you think about things a bit. For instance, using [shadow] spells to create objects that have to be used to bypass obstacles, which can't be used by anyone who knows their true nature, like as a key for a door (that is immune to knock, of course). Or solid illusions holding back hazards, such as cognitohazards, which affect anyone who sees them -- perhaps an undead basilisk head mounted on a plinth, which affects those who see through the illusion. Or mirrors of opposition lining a hallway, with silent image spells covering them. Or using Invisible Spell on fog cloud. Anyone with true seeing or see invisibility sees the cloud, not whatever it's protecting. But anyone without true seeing etc can see through it just fine. However! If whatever is inside the cloud is invisible...

Lots of fun ways to screw true seeing users over.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Oh my. I guess my formula was wrong. It just happens to line up for +1 and +3 metamagic feats, which is the entire sample that I had to work with looking at Complete Arcane. Yours is definitely more consistent with everything in Tome of Blood. My formula would have put lesser persist at 99,900.

Don't feel too bad about it, my dude. I came at it time and again for a -long- time to finally dig that out. That crap was not at all intuitive. I'm just stubborn and have too much free time.

[Edea]

I know Vaarsuvius's "what was I thinking" spell is hold portal, at least.

[Yahzi Coyote]

Well excuse me for not ending encounters with one spell. I like to let the fighter and the rouge have fun too, seeing as I am not the only one at the table.

If you're not doing everything in your power to end every fight as quickly as possible out of fear of a gruesome death, then your GM is doing it wrong.

[NigelWalmsley]

Obviously true sight will ruin them when it shows up, still they're a nice tool for the fights without it.

The impact of True Seeing is honestly pretty overblown. It's a 5+ level spell, and it only lasts minutes/level, which means that even the enemies that have it won't have it up most of the time. That means they're casting it in combat, which in turn means that your Silent Image cost them a 5th level spell slot and a caster action. Not something a lot of 1st level spells can say at that point in the game.

[Kalkra]

Personally, I find Silent Image most useful for letting me turn my character into Genie from Aladdin. Trying to describe something? Whip up a picture. Trying to explain something? Whip up a diagram.

Other than that, it's as useful as your DM will allow. It's one of those spells who's power is directly proportional to your creativity.

[Pinkie Pyro]

The primary issue with the illsion thing is: it's just easier to use as a DM.

A player that specialists in illusions can either easily derail an entire campaign, or do almost nothing, due to the DM having to shut them down.

Personally, I just have the added restriction for players that extremely modular illusions, such as silent/minor/major image, have to have some sort of classification on them when you prepare/learn it.

ie: the wizard can prepare a silent image of a wall, and when cast it could be made of stone, wood, metal, glass, maybe a door, but it can't be used to make an image of say, a dragon.

in exchange, I hold back a lot on the anti-illusion stuff.

[Unavenger]

Well excuse me for not ending encounters with one spell. I like to let the fighter and the rouge have fun too, seeing as I am not the only one at the table.

{scrub the post, scrub the quote}

So your problem with Save or Lose spells is in fact that they are both useless because nothing ever fails its save and overpowered because everything in the encounter is likely to fail its save?

{scrubbed} I didn't realise that we weren't permitted to disagree with your opinion once you'd stated it - it's not like people haven't been disagreeing with each other's opinions since *checks* oh just literally the second post in the thread but nooooo anyone who disagrees with you specifically is bad. This is a discussion forum, after all.

[Wildstag]

Other than that, it's as useful as your DM will allow. It's one of those spells who's power is directly proportional to your creativity.

Well, directly proportional to your creativity but also directly proportional to your DM's flexibility towards illusions. Other spells have concrete effects on the world. Solid Fog, Fireball, Entangle, Polymorph effects, these all have definite effects on the world. Illusions don't, and as such are too nebulous to use with most GMs.

And even if I find a GM that does work with illusions well, I'd have to learn an entirely new subsystem to play an illusionist.

But yeah, if your GM is cool with illusions, then it's not really an issue. I just know I'd never want them, since it's either too much hassle to use, or too much hassle to learn for just one game.

[Toliudar]

Personally, I find Silent Image most useful for letting me turn my character into Genie from Aladdin. Trying to describe something? Whip up a picture. Trying to explain something? Whip up a diagram.

Exactly! I've enjoyed using Silent Image to help fast-forward through the fast-forward through exposition and set-up scenes in half a dozen games. If it was good enough for Admiral Akbar, it's good enough for me.

[Thunder999]

Silent image to be your very own holographic projector is fun,

True sight tends to be a problem more for creatures that have it constantly (and on that topic most special senses like blindsight and tremorsense can also pose an issue to illusions), it's also notably more useful for NPCs, because NPCs don't need to conserve consumables (they usually participate in all of one fight, maybe two if they manage to run away the first time) and it's not uncommon for them to have some idea of the PC's abilities and that they're coming (the classic dungeon where the boss starts his buff routine while the PCs are fighting some guards).

As for new terrible spells, how about transmute rock to lava, which is something I'm pretty sure polymorph any object can already do in a much bigger area with much less limited starting materials.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

With most of the DMs I've suffered under, locate city. "It's a 2-D circle, not a sphere! Roll to see if the plane intersects with a city! And if there's anything blocking the line of effect, you're SoL anyway!" So, basically, you can't use locate city if you don't have line of effect to the city you're looking for, and if you have line of effect, you almost certainly have line of sight, meaning it's pointless. And even if you have LoE but not LoS, such as in a massive fog bank, you have to hope the plane of the circle just happens to intersect the city you're looking for, and that it's actually within the spell's range.

Yes, these were real arguments regarding the spell.

[Thunder999]

That's definitely a GM problem not a spell problem.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

That's definitely a GM problem not a spell problem.

Thing is, with the way the spell rules work, they're kind of right. Nothing about the spell circumvents the general rules for targeting, which require line of effect and a shape that allows you to affect the stuff you need to affect. Locate city is not a spread, so it's blocked by cover in the way, and it affects a circle, not a sphere, which is really awkward in 3-D space.

The spell is very poorly written, to the point where, by RAW, it's nigh unusable.

[Zanos]

The given spell example allows a creature on the surface to locate an underground city, though.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The given spell example allows a creature on the surface to locate an underground city, though.

The only way locate city can locate an underground city from the surface is if it's under an overhang of earth, such as being just inside a wide-mouthed cave, and you have a clear line of effect to it. The targeting rules don't allow it, otherwise. As I said, very, very poorly written.

[Unavenger]

Technically the spell doesn't actually specify that it requires the city to be in the circle anyway, so you could equally argue that the spell only affects you (by telling you where the nearest city is, even if it's not in range) and doesn't need Line of Effect because it never targets a city.

[Wildstag]

The only way locate city can locate an underground city from the surface is if it's under an overhang of earth, such as being just inside a wide-mouthed cave, and you have a clear line of effect to it. The targeting rules don't allow it, otherwise. As I said, very, very poorly written.

Is there really ever a need to use the spell in general though? Like, the only use for it I can think of is if you're playing in a game where none of the towns or cities have maps to the others towns and cities. If there are maps, and starcharts exist, you should be able to calculate distance traveled with a Survival check. I don't think I've ever played a game where maps weren't really available to navigate a party to another town with.

Locate City Bomb is really the only good use for the spell, and that's a pretty dumb and cheesy use anyway.

The given spell example allows a creature on the surface to locate an underground city, though.

Only if the nearest surface town is a further distance away than the path to the underground city. The spell specifically calls out underground cities as not being detected by distance as the mole digs but as the person walks.

[ixrisor]

To be fair, I can quite see both sides. In all the actual games played since 3e came out I don't think I've seen a caster with better than 24 to 26 at 16th level. The TO "34 casting stat at level 17" simply never happened over those decades.

34 casting stat at level 17 isn’t TO at all, TO is things like pun-pun. 34 is 18 base + 5 from level up + 5 from wishes or tomes + 6 from enhancement item. That doesn’t even assume you have a racial stat boost, let alone any major optimisation. It’s literally putting it as high as you can at level 1 then using items in core that are obviously designed for increasing your stats.

[Kalkra]

Locate City Bomb is really the only good use for the spell, and that's a pretty dumb and cheesy use anyway.

And even then, only the dirty bomb version works, and that can get messy.

[ZamielVanWeber]

34 casting stat at level 17 isn’t TO at all, TO is things like pun-pun. 34 is 18 base + 5 from level up + 5 from wishes or tomes + 6 from enhancement item. That doesn’t even assume you have a racial stat boost, let alone any major optimisation. It’s literally putting it as high as you can at level 1 then using items in core that are obviously designed for increasing your stats.

1) That would be +4 (33), not +5, at 17 (34). Small nitpick.
2) A +5 from tomes, assuming your DM lets you have it, is ~1/2 your 17th WBL *assuming* you never bought an earlier one.

While it is doable by 20 even then it is a bitch of a stretch.