Snapping a wand in half/ Book of Explosive runes/ect

[Habeed]

One that that bothers me is that if it were possible to snap a magic wand in half and fire off every spell stored simultaneously, or set of an entire book of explosive runes, then there wouldn't be much point in normal D&D weapons. You'd have a world where low level wizards slave away in factories making the armaments, and all the "soldiers" are common folk, made deadly with the weapons they carry. Knights and priests and nobles would be outmoded.

This is roughly what happened to the idea of the well trained Knight as a warrior after the development of the longbow (and later the firearm)

Fix (I guess a houserule) : rule that a large stack of explosively runed documents all together will not release more than a stored fraction of the total energy. Also rule that snapping a wand in half does what it does in Harry Potter : you end up with two pieces of wand and some feathery junk that was inside the wands. Perhaps a small amount of magic gets released, but it is relatively low damage.

[Kurald Galain]

Wands don't do retributive strikes; only a handful of very powerful staffs can do that.

Explosive Runes normally only blow up when read (and you can't read a whole book simultaneously). Using runes comboed with Dispel Magic as a grenade is very cheesy.

[sikyon]

Explosive Runes normally only blow up when read (and you can't read a whole book simultaneously). Using runes comboed with Dispel Magic as a grenade is very cheesy.

How is it cheesy? Personally, it's very smart, like putting a bag of holding in a portable hole as a vortex gernade.

[tyckspoon]

How is it cheesy? Personally, it's very smart, like putting a bag of holding in a portable hole as a vortex gernade.

Runes? Because it's a permanent spell that you can cast whenever you have a free day. It's almost completely cost free damage; the bag/hole thing costs you the bag of holding and the portable hole, along with everything that was in them if you didn't have time to empty them out somewhere safe first. A rock wrapped with paper that bears ten Exploding Runes spells costs you a rock, a sheet of paper, and ten third-level spell slots that you can spend at any time you have a spare spell slot. Then you give it to a Fighter or somebody to throw toward the enemy and cast a Dispel Magic at it with the lowest caster level you can, and everything within ten feet of the rock takes 60d6 force damage.

[Prometheus]

My fix is that destroyed magic items unleash an effect something like the Mishap penalty for a bad scroll or Wild Magic elemental effect. A random effect, most likely negative occurs. This would reduce both its effectiveness and reliability as a weapon...except maybe if you had a staff of illusion or abjuration magic and badly needed a makeshift weapon.

[Jack_Simth]

Explosive Runes Book: Easy Fix: Handle them sequentially. First one in the pile to go off destroys the rest harmlessly (they were neither read nor dispelled). If you're feeling vindictive, don't tell the player about this until after they've rolled each and every Dispel check and damage roll separately.

Breaking Wands: Nothing in 3.5 Core specifies that breaking a wand causes any release whatsoever. There's a couple of staves that do - but that's specific to those items.

Bag of Holding/Portable Hole: This is a very expensive (22,000 gp in items, minimum with a Handy Haversack and a Portable Hole; craftable for 11,000 gp and 880 xp) win button - you need to put the portable hole in the bag of holding to get the 10-foot radius no (listed) save gate (putting a bag of holding into a portable hole "merely" creates a rift which eliminates bag, hole, and contents) ... which means someone has to be holding the bag. Assuming you already have the Bag and the Portable Hole drawn, it's a standard (move?) action suicide strike (although if you have Plane Shift ready in such a way that you can deal with the effects of the Astral, you can get back - alternately, you can Dimensional Anchor yourself first so that the Gate doesn't take you anywhere).

[ZeroNumerous]

Explosive Runes Book: Easy Fix: Handle them sequentially. First one in the pile to go off destroys the rest harmlessly (they were neither read nor dispelled). If you're feeling vindictive, don't tell the player about this until after they've rolled each and every Dispel check and damage roll separately.

While it can be a nasty tactic, I can't agree with the way this is handled. First of all, using an area dispel would dispel all effects simultaneously, so how can you say that one of them gets dispelled but all the others are functional when destroyed?

And second is an even easier fix: Take the Explosive Runes spell out of the game.

[Mewtarthio]

And second is an even easier fix: Take the Explosive Runes spell out of the game.

Isn't that a bit like throwing out the bathwater with the baby? Explosive Runes can be pretty fun if used in a non-broken manner.

Easier fix: No two explosive runes can be within five feet of each other. An explosive rune cannot be written within five feet of another explosive rune, and if two explosive runes within five feet of each other detonate simultaneously, the explosion is, for all intents and purposes, the same as an explosion from a singe explosive rune.

[Kurald Galain]

Isn't that a bit like throwing out the bathwater with the baby?

That saying works the other way around

But yeah, your solution is decent.

[Mewtarthio]

That saying works the other way around

That hardly makes sense. Bathwater can be used for a wide variety of purposes, and the baby will just end up dirtying it again.

[AmberVael]

XD
Only Mewtarthio...

You know, the easiest thing to do would be saying that dispel magic doesn't have any abnormal affects on explosive runes.
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I see nothing wrong with that. I mean really, for normal dispelling of it, it isn't like you can't just vacate the area and cast Dispel Magic at it from its 100+ft range. Even Erase has a long enough range to avoid Explosive Runes. If you didn't know it was Explosive Runes, you'd probably end up reading it and blowing up as it is.

[Jack_Simth]

While it can be a nasty tactic, I can't agree with the way this is handled. First of all, using an area dispel would dispel all effects simultaneously, so how can you say that one of them gets dispelled but all the others are functional when destroyed?

And second is an even easier fix: Take the Explosive Runes spell out of the game.

An area dispel is a 20 foot radius burst; the effect comes out from a point. Nowhere does the spell say it takes effect simultaneously on everything in the area. Handle them sequentially, and let destroying the object the Rune is on destroy the Rune as well and you get rid of the abuse (piles and piles of Explosive Runes all going off at once for a vaporization bomb of 300d6 Force damage from a 5th level Wizard) while still not being measurably outside the rules as written, and retaining a flavorful spell.

[Randel]

One though I once had:

Suppose you fill a bag of holding with 250 lbs of marbles (or water, or bottles of alchemists fire) and then quickly turn it inside out by 'punching' the back of it forward. About how much force would be suddenly generated by forcing 30 to 1,500 lbs of matter from the bags opening?

I first thought of it when wondering how to cover an entire dungeon floor with caltrops in one round.


Also, what if when a wand is snapped in half then you get 2 wands with the charges split between them, but each time you use it there is a chance of an arcane mishap.

[Talic]

That hardly makes sense. Bathwater can be used for a wide variety of purposes, and the baby will just end up dirtying it again.

It works the other way around because everyone throws bathwater out, once used. You don't throw the baby out.

In his mind, the "baby" is Explosive runes, it's something that fills a needed purpose.

The bathwater would be the problem. Once used, dirty water is something you need to get rid of.

Throwing out the baby with the bathwater would be throwing out something you want to keep just to make getting rid of the stuff you don't like easier. It doesn't really add up in the end.

[Aquillion]

It works the other way around because everyone throws bathwater out, once used. You don't throw the baby out.

In his mind, the "baby" is Explosive runes, it's something that fills a needed purpose.

The bathwater would be the problem. Once used, dirty water is something you need to get rid of.

Throwing out the baby with the bathwater would be throwing out something you want to keep just to make getting rid of the stuff you don't like easier. It doesn't really add up in the end.

The detail of this post gave me a vision of you and your spouse standing over your baby (in a bath), in heated debate over whether you should throw out the bathwater or the baby inside.

[sapphail]

Not quite sure how there's an objection to retributive strikes, since they tend to take out the breaking mage with them.

[Kurald Galain]

Not quite sure how there's an objection to retributive strikes, since they tend to take out the breaking mage with them.

Not an objection per se, just noting that the concept of retributively striking wands has no basis in the RAW, as this is never mentioned anywhere.

However, if it were allowed, players could make all sorts of innovative traps with easily-snappable wands, even gluing a rock to either end and tossing it at a bad guy to break it.

[Yeril]

2 fixes for the Explosive runes.

first of all Add a 50gp material component.

second of all, scale the damage.

1 rune deals normal damage
2 runes deals normal damage +2d6 damage and 5ft extra range
4 runes deals normal damage +4d6 damage and 10ft extra range
8 runes deals normal damage +6d6 damage and 15ft extra range
16 runes deals normal damage +8d6 damage and 20ft extra range
32 runes deals normal damage +10d6 damage and 25ft extra range
64 runes deals normal damage +12d6 damage and 30ft extra range
128 runes deals normal damage +14d6 damage and 35ft extra range
256 runes deals normal damage +16d6 damage and 40ft extra range
512 runes deals normal damage +18d6 damage and 45ft extra range
1024 runes deals normal damage +20d6 damage and 50ft extra range

and so on and so forth.

So Sure you CAN get a 30d6 force damage 60ft Burst bomb, But its gonner cost you 51,000gp.

[Craig1f]

How is it cheesy? Personally, it's very smart, like putting a bag of holding in a portable hole as a vortex gernade.

It's cheesy because it's not real life. In real life, inventing a super-weapon would be very clever. In DnD, finding creative solutions to problems with the power your characters possess is also very clever. But finding a solution that has the power equivalent of a much higher level spell, by using low-level spells, is cheese.

It kind of depends though. A trick I came up with as a cleric, is to us a 5th and 6th level spell to simulate a 9th level spell without the cost.

Ok, so instead of having to true-resurrect someone who falls in combat, you can use Revivify. But Revivify requires you to get to the corpse within one turn, which isn't always possible.

Instead, you can use Revenance (I think that's the spell name ... whatever it is, it starts with an R and it's in Spell Compendium).

This spell brings a character back to life, up to 1 rd/caster level after they've died, for I believe a number of hours equivalent to the caster level. They're brought back, as if with Raise Dead, but without the level loss. I believe they still lose half their spells, and they come back with half their HP.

The trick is, that when the spell expires, they immediately "die". They're alive for ALL PURPOSES until the spell expires. They're not animated. But when the spell expires, they instantly "die". No save.

The trick is though, that now, you have 1 round to cast Revivify again, since they've just "died". This brings them back, for 1000gp of diamonds, with no level loss.

So, your ally drops. You cast Revenance, and they continue fighting. After the fight is over, you dismiss the spell, and then immediately cast Revivify. For the slim cost of 1000gp, you have prevented your party member's death and all the complications that come with it.


Back to the point ... I haven't decided if this trick is "cheese" or "clever". I mean, it's definitely clever since I came up with it. The test is, if anyone ELSE uses it, are they cheesy or clever? The original person to find an exploit is always clever. If you just read it off a bored though, then you're not clever ... you're either cheesy, or not cheesy.

[tyckspoon]

I think that's exactly how those spells are meant to be used. Even with the combination, you're not properly emulating Resurrection or True Res; Revenance and Revivify work as raise dead, which means you need a reasonably intact body. If your friend managed to get killed by way of hideous mutilation (I don't think it is ever very clearly stated what constitutes sufficient mutilation, tho), you still need to pay the extra cost for a Resurrection. I believe those spells are just an admission from the designers that higher level combat is more lethal than they'd meant it to be, and the death penalties of lost levels and lost cash are too harsh if all of your visits through the Revolving Door Lobby of the Dead are by way of Raise Dead or Resurrections.

[Illiterate Scribe]

Good heavens, people, in my group's campaign world, most systems of warfare are built on explosive runes!

[Doomsy]

I've always wondered if you could perhaps set up the old snap-the-wand trick as some kind of obscenely awesome booby trap. Like just saw partly through it and set it up in the way of a door or wedged against a wall, etc, or some more elaborate style time-bomb involving crude mechanical traps.