Spell Compendium

[Mouseferatu]

I've seen three things that have raised eyebrows in my group.

1) Owl's Insight, the 5th lvl druid spell that gives you a major enhancement bonus to Wisdom. A single-class 19th lvl cleric PC gained access to the spell via Miracle, used divine metamagic to make it persistent... and then took a single level of monk. Suddenly, his spell DCs are berserk and his AC (with no armor) is beating out the party fighters. Now, admittedly, the divine metamagic feats fill me with sick dread... but even without persisting it, the huge enhancement buff is ripe for broken-ness. Potentially gaining +5 or more to your spell DCs is huge. I'd prefer they just stuck with Owl's Wisdom.

Well, I was going to say that Persistent Spell only worked on "self only" spells, but having just looked it up, it seems I'm wrong. It's spells of "self" or with a "fixed range." So bleah.

Are you, at least, using the errata to Divine Metamagic? Meaning that he has to actually have the feat in question? That, plus the requirement of spending seven turns a day, every day, to make this work is at least a little bit of a cost.

But yes, combining Persistent Spell and Divine Metamagic is pretty sick, and many DMs don't allow it. The problem is with the feat combination, not with the Owl's Insight spell itself.

 

[Nifft]

I'm a huge fan of ruin delver's fortune. IMHO it's popular because it fills a hole in the typical Arcane caster's repertoire: flexible defense.

A Cleric can prepare neutralize poison and spontaneously convert it into hit points -- he's covered for two situations with one spell. The Cleric also has enough HP that he may survive to use his cure spell after the fact.

I'd like to see more spells like it. Maybe I'll just write them.

Cheers, -- N

PS: In my game, I've allowed a few spells in from SC. The most popular one is dragonskin, I think.

 

[Lancelot]

Are you, at least, using the errata to Divine Metamagic? Meaning that he has to actually have the feat in question? That, plus the requirement of spending seven turns a day, every day, to make this work is at least a little bit of a cost.

But yes, combining Persistent Spell and Divine Metamagic is pretty sick, and many DMs don't allow it. The problem is with the feat combination, not with the Owl's Insight spell itself.

Yeah, we're applying the errata. It's still, uh, a little bit out there, though.

As for Owl's Insight itself... I dunno. Something just doesn't *feel* right about the spell. It doesn't have good flavor, particularly for a druid spell. And mechanically, I'm not sure why druid's get the uber-DC buffer spell. There's nothing equivalent for Int or Cha, yet druids have just as many ways of getting good mileage out of having berserk spell DCs as any other spellcasting class (firestorms, arcs of lightning, etc, etc). I just don't like it on principle. Back in my day, we cast our Owl's Wisdom and we liked it, by golly!

 

[coyote6]

The orb spells (along with pretty much every direct damage dealing spell) were house ruled to be SR: Yes. We sort of kept the original Tome & Blood versions, really.

I think there are others that we tweaked or that I thought we should, but I don't remember which off the top of my head.

I don't think I've banned any, though.

It must be said that clerics & druids aren't getting unlimited access, though; I let them pick two non-PH spells every level that they can add to their spells known list, and they can research other spells, too. Spells that are particularly appropriate to a cleric's god get added in for free, and revivify* is okay for any cleric. Thus, the spells trickle in, rather than pour in. All the spellcasters have some SC spells by now.


* I really like revivify, far more than raise dead & the like; it serves the same purpose without putting quite as much strain on my suspension of disbelief (with raise dead & resurrection, how does anybody famous or powerful die permanently, other than of old age? With revivify, it's easy -- the clerics don't get there in time). It's basically a magical version of a trauma team. I even extended the time limit to caster level/2, to encourage its use over other back-from-the-dead spells.

 

[Nifft]

Yeah, we're applying the errata. It's still, uh, a little bit out there, though.

As for Owl's Insight itself... I dunno. Something just doesn't *feel* right about the spell. It doesn't have good flavor, particularly for a druid spell. And mechanically, I'm not sure why druid's get the uber-DC buffer spell. There's nothing equivalent for Int or Cha, yet druids have just as many ways of getting good mileage out of having berserk spell DCs as any other spellcasting class (firestorms, arcs of lightning, etc, etc). I just don't like it on principle. Back in my day, we cast our Owl's Wisdom and we liked it, by golly!

You know, I can sorta see the reason for it, if Druids can't use items (like stat boosters) when Wild Shaped.

I can think of an easier solution, though...

Cheers, -- N

 

[Lancelot]

I'm a huge fan of ruin delver's fortune. IMHO it's popular because it fills a hole in the typical Arcane caster's repertoire: flexible defense.

A Cleric can prepare neutralize poison and spontaneously convert it into hit points -- he's covered for two situations with one spell. The Cleric also has enough HP that he may survive to use his cure spell after the fact.

I like the concept of Ruin Delvers, but the practice leaves something to be desired. There are two main problems for me (other than aforementioned spell diversity)...

1) It has promoted selfishness in my group. Instead of contributing "productive" 4th level spells to an encounter, all the sorcerers are now "sandbagging" their slots for Ruin Delvers. I've seen some encounters where a sorcerer burns *all* of their 4th level slots just to make sure they never fail a save (even when they're reasonably assured of making it).

2) It makes the sorcerer, and almost *only* the sorcerer, utterly ambivalent about needing a cleric or rogue. Poison? No problem - Ruin Delvers makes me completely immune. Fear? No problem. HP damage? No problem. A trap, you say? Hmmm... what type of save? No problem - I can make all of 'em.

Add a Greater Mirror Image spell to the mix and I've seen sorcerers who happily wade into a huge melee... alone... with no prep... simply because they're got immediate actions where they can just shrug off nearly anything. Sigh.

 

[Shadeydm]

Well my reason for asking is that I just got the book from Amazon and looking through it I was hit by the realization that Wizards for example are about to have thier spell lists effectivly doubled. Something about this is unsettling to me. Am I afraid of power creep... perhaps, I don't honestly know. I know if I just throw it out there as is doubling the size of everyone spell lists seems like it can't help but have consequences. Add in the fact that its going to take me a while to get the feel for all these spells and how they are balanced and my concern only grows. I figure the book has been around for a while now so people must have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

Banned specifically - none
But I'm not allowing PC's to pick spells from it, they either research it or the spell is found as treasure.

 

[Nifft]

Add a Greater Mirror Image spell to the mix and I've seen sorcerers who happily wade into a huge melee... alone... with no prep... simply because they're got immediate actions where they can just shrug off nearly anything. Sigh.

Sounds like some of the guys I've played with when they first discovered how buff a Cleric could get if he just focused on self-buffing. Sure, it's a viable strategy, but it's not the most effective use of resources (unless the Cleric really is the only fighter-type in a small party).

I hope your group is only going through a phase, as mine was.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Nazerel]

Moon Blade; man, if you thought Wraith Strike was bad, this spell makes WS look downright tame by comparison. The only saving grace was that SR still applied. As it stands, MB blows Brilliant Energy weapons out of the water by being melee touch attacks (negating natural armor bonuses to AC), and it works against non-living creatures/matter and certain weapon-specific feats apply to it and it deals additional damage against undead and it disrupts spellcasting to boot. I made it more manageable by making its normal damage dealt be nonlethal, while everything else remains unchanged (including dealing double lethal damage against undead), and even then it's still very powerful.