Overpowered/Underpowered Spells?

[Dthamilaye]

Well, TS really is not that much overpowered. And the players are, after all, CR 21 at the moment (19th level, +3 LA races). So 3 strikes / day are not gamebreaking in any way .

And rods are in effect wondorous magical items and they can be made as any item in any slot (or slotless, with the added cost). There are cloaks and whatever. But thats really DM's problem, as he does not use the (imho dumb) affinity rules.

Many of the mentioned spells are much more problematic.

 

[Thanee]

(I think Thanee thinks otherwise -- I might be wrong here).

You should recast that detect thoughts it's somehow not working correctly...

I have written what I think how they should work in the quickened spontaneous spells thread on page 2.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Drow Jones]

Anti-Magic Shell

Perhaps not overpowered in every game, but slightly so in mine.

It's a trump card effective against everything remotely magical, which can be a bit frustrating. The spell is a basis for some very effective tactics both in and out of combat, which I don't want to deal with in my games.

Anti-Magic Shell is the only PHB that I have banned in my games so far.

- DJ

 

[dcollins]

Drawbacks could be fine and interesting, but not death as drawback.

Do you feel the same way about petrification vis-a-vis stone to flesh, which has retained its death effect even in 3.5?

It's fine in theory to prefer a different balancing technique. However, beware of spells which were in fact formerly balanced with a harsh effect, that has been removed by revision designers without fully thinking through why it was there in the first place.

No one ever had parties all in troll-form or a scry-buff-teleport problem in 1st Edition. Polymorph was still used as an attack spell (perhaps until shapechange was available). Teleport was still used for emergency travel to a safe house (perhaps until teleport without error was available).

 

[Grazzt]

Good points. I'll briefly point out that in the past, 3 out of 5 of these spells had built-in limitations that could possibly kill the user -- but all such side-effects were taken out in 3rd Edition (to make a "softer" game for players), thereby breaking these spells.

In 1st and 2nd Edition:
- Polymorph required a Con check (System Shock) or die.
- Gate brought a free-willed entity who might leave or attack the caster.
- Teleport had a failure option that was instant-death.

In my game using some variant on 1st Ed. rules for these spells makes them not a problem.

That's how I do it IMC as well. No soft games here.

 

[Kalendraf]

Here's a list of my pet peeves, along with some suggested fixes:

Fireball vs. Lightning Bolt - long running debate, I know. My take is that Fireball is slightly overpowered, while Lightning bolts may be slightly underpowered. I base this off of monitoring real in-game situations with some sorcerers that have had access to both. In 99% of the situations, fireball is simply the better option. It has longer range and the ability to pinpoint it without having an open path to the enemy. A broader argument is that ranged burst effects will nearly always trump line effects if all other factors are equal.

To balance this, I'd first drop Fireball down to a medium range spell. Then for lightning bolt, I'd allow it to have 2 versions, the 120 line as it currently does, as well as a bolt from the sky (kind of like call lightning). The lightning bolt would be more precise, able to hit a single target in a crowd. Finally, I'd also make the lightning bolt have a slightly higher DC (maybe +2) for folks in metal armor.

Entangle vs. Web - Entangle has longer range and a bigger area of effect, yet is a lower level spell. Web has an advantage in duration, but during combat, it's not a big deal. Entangle doesn't always work depending on location, but then again web has a similar problem. Webs can be gotten rid of by burning them, but it's near impossible to get rid of entangle. Entangle just seems too powerful for a 1st level spell.

I would move entange to 2nd level, reduce it's range to medium and it's affect to 20' radius. Duration could be extended, making it comparable to Web.

Flaming Sphere - The spell is too wimpy because of the reflex negates issue. The sorceress in my monthly campaign has this spells and has tried to use it, but more often than not, it's worthless as the monsters make their saves and take no damage. I suggest either changing it to reflex for half, or making it work more like Spiritual weapon and requiring an attack (or maybe touch attack) each round to deal damage.

Hideous Laughter - There's a bard in both my campaigns with this, but it hasn't really gotten out of hand. Why? Most of the opponents are non-humanoid so they tend to get the +4 save bonus. It seems balanced with that restriction. But I can see in other campaigns where most foes are humanoids that this could be very abusive. To fix it further, I'd recommend that members of your identical race and sub-race get no bonus, but different sub-races get a +2 bonus. Members of different types still get the normal +4 bonus. I'd also make it mandatory to know the langauge of the target, otherwise, the target gets an additional +2 bonus on their save.

Now for some of the ones that I think are balanced but have been mentioned elsewhere in this thread:

Ice Storm - It lasts for 1 full round, damaging anyone that enters the large area of effect and it affects movement in that area for the entire round. It also has NO save. This is clearly better than fireball in many regards (ie rogues will actually take damage from it), easily making it a worthy 4th level spell.

Stat buff spells - Even after the 3.5 nerf, these are still good spells. They were WAY broken & overpowered in 3e. Too many folks seem to cling to the idea that these spells need to last longer to be any good. Playtesting in my own groups has shown that anything longer than 1 min/level makes them too good and they wind up being the only spells taken once again, which indicates a problem. Try out the 3.5 version, and you may be surprised how good they still are with 1 min/level duration.

 

[Eldragon]

My biggest pet-peeve 3.5 underpowered spell has yet to be listed: Jump!

At level 1, you get +10 to your jump checks for 1 minute. That might get a weak mage over a pit, but you can't exactly rely on it. When its a life or death situation like jumping across a chasm, its pretty hard to convince someone to rely on the jump spell, thus no one really wants it. A 16 Str Figher who maxes out his Jump skill already has +7. And most fighters have a STR of 16 or more, and with so few skills to choose from, It's not uncommon for my players to max out their ranks in jump.

At level 5, you get +20 to jump checks, this is much better and is somewhat more useful. You can rely on a +20 to a jump check, but you cant expect to magically jump exceptionally high. However, what kind of wizard is going to memorize the jump spell when Fly is available? Sure there is a major level difference here, but Fly is MUCH more useful. Many arcane casters take Fly as early as possible. What sorceror is going to waste a level 1 spell known on Jump?

Finally at level 9, Jump is back to its 3.0 status, a +30 to jump checks. Around this time, a wizard might be willing to memorize jump once, just in case he needs to jump over a wall, and not waste a Dimentional Door or Fly spell. But then again... Obsticles that jump will overcome are usually a non-issue for 9th level characters in most campaigns.

I don't remember anyone on these boards saying last year: "Gee, what really bothers me about 3.0 is my players' ability to magically leap over small thached huts in a single bound!"

When it comes to the 1 Min/Lvl animal buffs, (Which will be debated to the ends of time on these boards) It all depends on how your campaign operates. Most people agree 1 Hr/lvl was probably too long. However, IMC most 1 min/lvl spells are completely ignored. Too short in duration for PCs to cast when entering a dungeon, and not good enough to cast once combat has started. There are two situations where 1 Min/lvl works: A) PCs move from one combat to another very quickly and B) PCs often have time to cast spells within 3-6 rounds of combat starting.

IMC neither A nor B happen that often. Most of the time, players know they will probably start combat within 10-15 minutes, but almost never within 1 minute.

 

[Khristos]

Well in regards to quickened rods... the wording leaves a bit to be desired. In our campaign they are "on the fly" not that it really matters to me one way or the other(sadly I probably have more man hours of being a wizard than watching TV).

Funny thing about jump.... I have actually used the new "jumping" rules to my advantage. Almost acting as a multi rd spellcast on the run.... really in the long run it is using whatever spells you have in many different combinations to keep the GM off balance. Really want to throw a GM off balance leave a spell slot open or 3 and rememorize in the middle of the day sure beats having to guess which full compliment of spells you need for the day.

Jump, quickened prismatic spray and land. How many rooftoop assassins would be expecting that? Also a good tactic for a dumbfounded DM look and a table bursting out in laughter. looks even better with the contingency of Mirror image almost a Lee Majors 6 Million Dollar Man. No my familiar is not evil.... it is a kitten

 

[Saeviomagy]

Jump, quickened prismatic spray and land. How many rooftoop assassins would be expecting that? Also a good tactic for a dumbfounded DM look and a table bursting out in laughter. looks even better with the contingency of Mirror image almost a Lee Majors 6 Million Dollar Man. No my familiar is not evil.... it is a kitten

Hmm - at best you're going to get, what? A 12.5ft high leap out of that? I mean sure, it's better than nothing, but it's not exactly the sort of thing you bother with at that sort of level. You know - epic levels, where you can cast quickened prismatic sprays?

 

[Khristos]

Hmm - at best you're going to get, what? A 12.5ft high leap out of that? I mean sure, it's better than nothing, but it's not exactly the sort of thing you bother with at that sort of level. You know - epic levels, where you can cast quickened prismatic sprays?

Well you dont need to be epic to quicken a prismatic spray ( Deus is currently lvl 19....hello metamagic rod) . also 12.5 feet is a very nice leap (Deus when feeling snazzy starts with a +57 on a jump check and works up from there) In the end is about mixing it up just about any spell can be found to have uses..

Consider this better than nothing jump spell that allowed me a LOS that I otherwise couldnt have gotten via another mechanic. Fly? would have presented me as a better target to the people who otherwise couldnt see me at the end of my rd.