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The question of water came up in my game today, would splashing water on the runes erase the barrier?
If the circle is drawn with something water soluble and the water is splashed on the circle by a creature type not affected by the circle it would. If the water is splashed on the circle by a creature affected by the circle it wouldn't, even if the circle is drawn with something that's normally water soluble.
Well, a level 8 Ritual can undo the entirety of nasty effects of a Terrasque on any living creature from level 1 - 30 so, really, it's not as wildly incongruous as you might think.
Congruousness does not denote reasonableness. Rituals in general can be extremely overpowered imo. They do things no power/feat/skill/item would ever be able to do, and they solve many encounters that would otherwise be impossible.
Rituals are not interesting, this is not cool story openers, they are just overpowered messes.
Rituals can be potent, but they have the disadvantage of being infeasable. Something that cannot be used most of the time to end encounters isn't exactly a game-breaking thing. Magic Circle is a case in point. Sure, it's -great- for fortifying your defenses, but how often does that actually come up?
Normally the adventurers are kicking down doors and taking names--rituals that are powerful enough to win said encounter for them are generally to unwieldy to simply fire off before going into the encounter. And none of them, not one, can be reasonably used -in- an encounter, with -very- specific exceptions.
Let's face it, it's no different than when casters had them as spells in previous editions in terms of their 'encounter stopping power.' They just don't tend to have one round casting times any more.
I mean, yes, Magic Circle -can- stop a terrasque, and Raise Dead can undo the death the terrasque causes, but are either of these -feasible- in the typical adventuring encounter? Raise Dead -after- the fact, but you'd need a survivor, something that ain't happenin' at paragon level.
Last edited by DracoSuave; 11th June 2009 at 09:11 AM..
Congruousness does not denote reasonableness. Rituals in general can be extremely overpowered imo. They do things no power/feat/skill/item would ever be able to do, and they solve many encounters that would otherwise be impossible.
Rituals are not interesting, this is not cool story openers, they are just overpowered messes.
Man I hate rituals.
"Man I hate rituals."
Which is what it really all comes down to. You have expressed this opinion many times in this thread. I think everyone knows how you feel. You don't like magic circle because it doesn't jive with your feeling about how the tarresque works. It is a feeling not based on game mechanics or anything else solid, it is not even a majority opinion, and thus should not be used as an argument for why a given rule is bad.
Give a level 5 character everything they could reasonably have to assist their arcana skill:
1/2 level =2
Attribute Max = 4
Trained = 5
Racial = 2
Background = 2
Familiar = 2
Feat = 3
Assistants = 4 (assuming 50% chance of success)
(is there a item appropriate to boost arcana/ritual skills?)
2+4+5+2+2+2+3+4 = 24
Heck even take the -5 to make it omit all creatures.
24 - 5 = 19
You can roll a 1 and still, without fail, protect yourself from enemies 5 levels above you.
Roll a 20 and all of your assistants succeed (24+4+20 = 48), You can defend yourself from any creature in the game.
Vecna, any of his minions, the entirety of the Monster manual can come to your location, wanting nothing more than you dead, and as long as you have everlasting provisions, you good. Since magic circle makes no mention of an exception due to deportation, I would assume that to teleport would mean passing the circle and therefore be inhibited.
Which is what it really all comes down to. You have expressed this opinion many times in this thread. I think everyone knows how you feel. You don't like magic circle because it doesn't jive with your feeling about how the tarresque works. It is a feeling not based on game mechanics or anything else solid, it is not even a majority opinion, and thus should not be used as an argument for why a given rule is bad.
So you are ok with the numbers I just posted?
It is mechanics I've explained over and over why it doesn't make sense. No other ability or action anyone else can do has this sort of power. Everyone seems just blind to it.
All a tarrasque does is makes it easier (no -5 to check) look at my math, If you are ok with a level 5 character protecting an area from any army a dm could muster then so be it. I find that a little overpowered.
Well, for one, 100gp is not trivial for a level 5 character to spend on a single ritual, nor is it trivial for a level 5 character to just happen to have in material components on the fly.
For the second, that same character might be able to ward off his house or hut. Armies don't care. They just move along and deal with the -real- objective.
'We can't get into that farmhouse or on the farm!'
'Probably warded by a stupid wizard. Set up a perimeter of shooters for when he comes out to dust him with death. The rest of us, let's move on to the castle.'
Cause, see, the army can just walk around said obstacle. If the problem = <army> then solution != <a magic circle>
Now, if it were the Wall of Ash from the Dark Sun setting, -that- is a solution to an army.
But really tho, it's a problem that doesn't occur. Level 5 characters don't come up against terrasques unless their DM is a jerk, or they're supposed to find a non-combat solution, for example, setting up a ward or using a ritual to save the country or run away to find the Macguffin of Win Adventure.
The fact is, you've caught up on the level of the ritual as tho that were the important matter in determining what it'll realisticly be used against. The reality is, the character level is what is important. Any character can use any ritual, regardless of level, provided they have the scroll of it. But not any character will come up against terrasques or Orcus, or any other number of things this ritual'd be used against in a 'broken' manner. It's the same as epic level minions, so what if it has 1 hp, you won't fight it at paragon level so who cares if you can autokill it on a 20 for free XP.
If a level 30 character is using Magic Circle to save a village from Orcus, that's about right, and as it should be. It's better than wasting book space with 'Magic Circle' and 'Better Magic Circle' and 'Moar Magic Circle' and 'Magic Circle++ with Provitamin B-5' which are all the same effect.
Besides, if your adventure consists of you sitting in a Magic Circle with everlasting provisions forever, then I'd say good on you for doing that. Are you coming out ever? No? Great. So what's your next character, cause that one's not actually going on an adventure today.
Last edited by DracoSuave; 11th June 2009 at 09:33 AM..
For the second, that same character might be able to ward off his house or hut. Armies don't care. They just move along and deal with the -real- objective.
Unless that real objective happens to be you or something you are holding.
So you'd be fine with this power:
Waaaaambulance
You whine at the dm about how high this encounter level is.
At-Will ✦ any
Free Action Close Blast 50
Prerequisite: Must be under level 10
Effect: Instantly kills all enemies above level 22 within burst.
and as long as you have everlasting provisions, you good.
I would also recommend some bags of holding to store your feces, otherwise it would soon become very unpleasend within the circle
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flipguarder
All a tarrasque does is makes it easier (no -5 to check)
If you don't take the -5 you risk some crazed cultist to just smudge your runes and break your circle.
And what you forget the mention is that the circle has no build-in-exception for it's caster. If you create such a magic circle around you, you are forever trapped within the circle too
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flipguarder
Unless that real objective happens to be you or something you are holding.
So you'd be fine with this power:
Waaaaambulance
You whine at the dm about how high this encounter level is.
At-Will ✦ any
Free Action Close Blast 50
Prerequisite: Must be under level 10
Effect: Instantly kills all enemies above level 22 within burst.
Because after all, you would never use it.
Actually the correct effect would be
Effect: Instantly kills all enemies above level 22 within burst while you are immobilzed forever. Roll a new character.
Last edited by Mirtek; 11th June 2009 at 01:21 PM..
You guys are laughing about it but if it affects the caster an all-purpose magic circle that would stop someone your level would mean you are forever trapped within it right? Isn't that just idiotic?
Unless that real objective happens to be you or something you are holding.
So you'd be fine with this power:
Waaaaambulance
You whine at the dm about how high this encounter level is.
At-Will ✦ any
Free Action Close Blast 50
Prerequisite: Must be under level 10
Effect: Instantly kills all enemies above level 22 within burst.
Because after all, you would never use it.
I don't understand why you bothered to start this thread. You don't seem to want to even acknowledge that anyone else's opinion on the matter is worth hearing. lol. And I just expel whiners from my game. Actually what I do is give the monster the following power.
Pillar of Salt (at-will; free action) Range infinite; Effect: target is turned into a pillar of salt. No known effect can reverse this power.
Rituals are perfectly fine. There may be some rather artificial situation you can concoct where a ritual can provide a benefit substantially greater than what you would expect, but they are rare cases.
Certainly you could trap yourself inside a circle and avoid being eaten by a tarrasque but so what? In any case Magic Circle is subject to being destroyed by any garden variety environmental effect. Nothing in the description of the ritual states that it will endure wind, rain, etc. The DM is free to work this out in any way that makes a good story.
So, Flip, instead of insisting that everyone else is just wrongheaded about it, how about you tell us what you DO want rituals to do? How should it work? Just saying its broken isn't doing us any good.
I don't understand why you bothered to start this thread. You don't seem to want to even acknowledge that anyone else's opinion on the matter is worth hearing.
I didn't start this thread. But yes I am being a little stubborn about this simply because everyone seems to think Im obviously wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AbdulAlhazred
Rituals are perfectly fine. There may be some rather artificial situation you can concoct where a ritual can provide a benefit substantially greater than what you would expect, but they are rare cases.
Such as in any situation where a person maxes out their key skill? Such as a level 5 wizard being able to protect himself from anything in existence?
Quote:
Originally Posted by AbdulAlhazred
Certainly you could trap yourself inside a circle and avoid being eaten by a tarrasque but so what? In any case Magic Circle is subject to being destroyed by any garden variety environmental effect. Nothing in the description of the ritual states that it will endure wind, rain, etc. The DM is free to work this out in any way that makes a good story.
We all understand that a DM is able to do anything in the game, thats a given. We discuss rules here.
If Im concocting strange scenarios that don't normally happen, then I'd just like to point out that others are giving the power qualities that it doesn't have by raw to make it seem less powerful, such as:
1. Weather can affect it.
2. You can teleport inside it.
3. The caster is trapped inside as well.
None of these qualities exist within the text.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AbdulAlhazred
So, Flip, instead of insisting that everyone else is just wrongheaded about it, how about you tell us what you DO want rituals to do? How should it work? Just saying its broken isn't doing us any good.
Fantastic, I've just been hoping to get a convo going on this topic. The problem I believe is in the way skill bonuses function.
You can get a 20+ bonus fairly easily by level 2 but then no other bonuses except 1/2 level raise your skill.
One possible solution would be to lower the bonus to trained skills in heroic to 2 or so, then give all trained skills an additional 2 bonus in paragon level, and then additional 2 in epic. So trained would mean less at lower levels
2 at heroic
4 at paragon
6 at epic.
Another idea is to lower the amount of specialization one can have in one skill, right now there are:
Attribute
racial
background
1/2 level
feat
familiar
power
item
perhaps only 3 of these bonuses work for any one skill check, the largest ones obviously overriding weaker ones.
Another possibility is having some current bonuses that don't stack stack. Maybe your familiar provides a feat bonus, Or racial doesn't stack with background.
What I really have a problem with is that skill bonuses can be so high at lower levels but they don't get much higher. This makes the overall situation such that a specializer in a skill at level 5 is only 13 away from a specializer at level 30.
Last edited by Flipguarder; 11th June 2009 at 08:57 PM..
In point of fact it says, "...these symbols make it difficult for creatures of a particular origin to enter or pass." No mention of 'exit' at all. I would say that the creator could easily exit his own circle. Getting back in could pose a problem.
If we are arguing semantics (im down if you are) then I believe the idea that a magic circle creator would be trapped there is unfairly (i believe) attributed to the idea of passing the boundary. As in it doesnt matter which direction you are coming from, passing is passing.
Let me reiterate, I believe that's a terribly broken and stupid way to read the ritual.
You guys are laughing about it but if it affects the caster an all-purpose magic circle that would stop someone your level would mean you are forever trapped within it right?
Right
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flipguarder
Isn't that just idiotic?
Yes. If you draw a circle around you that works against your own origin type you are an idiot.
Yet this doesn't make the whole ritual idiotic, because you can create such a circle from the outside, you don't need to create the circle around yourself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flipguarder
that it doesn't have by raw to make it seem less powerful, such as:
[...]
3. The caster is trapped inside as well.
None of these qualities exist within the text.
Trapping the caster too is RAW from straight from the rules text. Saying that a caster can ignore his own circle is completly made up with no reference to the rules
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