Where can I find Errata for the Spell Compendium

[Vraille Darkfang]

It auto-stuns for one round, minimum? This is huge. SR mitigates the effect somewhat, but I believe that it should be 6th or 7th level.

Since the Thread Necromancers seem to be hanging around these days....

I'll give an Update on this new, Ghoulish, Thread.

I admit, SC is one of the Most Used books at my game. I'm still peeved that so much slipped through the Second Time around. But, 95% of the Time, this hasn't affected my games at all.

Now that I've had the SC for some time & the Spells in effect for some time, I've had time to think about Ray of Light & Stun Ray (the most irksome things I had about the SC; rightly or wrongly).

I think both Spells suffer from the Same Defect. Overall poor design. They just don't fit in well. Ray of Light (6th level) is a Short Term Blindness (2nd level). Its just that its more likely to affect the Target (Ranged Touch vs Fort Save) in the Majority of Cases (BBEG Spellcasters being one of the most Obvious Exceptions; Generally Higher Touch AC vs Poor Fort Save). The issue is that during Combat a 25% More Effective 1d4 Rds of Blindness vs a 25% less effective Permanent Blindness usually means you go with the 25% More effective Blindness in 75% of cases as you can usually Kill the Blinded foe in 1d4 Combat rds.

However, for Long-Term Game Issues the Permanent Blindness Sucks 1,000% More (Ask the Gun Mage in my game that got Blinded for 3 Game Sessions).

However, as most Combat Encounters, by Definition are Temporary Encounters; a More Effective Temp Spell is better than a Permanent one.

I still can't see Ray of Light as 4 Levels cooler than Blindness. Maybe 1. (There may be some Metamagic Combos that force Ray of Light to be 6th level; & thus to high to MM if it requires upping Spell Level more than 3.

Stun Ray:

Still don't think 7th is called for. (Of course with the new 150 HP Limit the Power Words get less mileage in my games too). Still, it is very Similar to the 8th Level Power Word Stun. But its too much of a Niche Spell for my players to want to use it. Maybe 5th or 6th I'd start to see Players actually choose the spell.


The book still has too much of a Copy/Paste/Print feel for me to be comfortable with it.

Still, the 2 Copies my group has get passed around the table quite a bit.


Overall I recommend it, but with reservations.

I'd really just like to see an Errata for it. Actually, I'd like to see a Greater emphasis placed on Continuing Support for Products once they are out. Some products seem to get that support, while other don't.

 

[Stalker0]

Vraille, still got to disagree with you on the rays you mentioned.

By 14th level for most things a party fights, touch attacks are practically automatic, but saves (especially fort saves) are very hard. A wizard might literally have a 90% chance to get off a touch attack, and a 30% chance of getting through the fort save. There's just no comparison.

High level fights are often a few rounds only, and spells with guaranteed success are as good as gold. With that stunning ray, I can almost guarantee I will take a creature out of the fight for a round or more, and also cause it to drop any weapons its holding (a free disarm!!). That's worth a use of a 6th or 7th level slot....in some cases. But that's all it needs, this spell doesn't have to be the end all be all spell, but at the times its useful its painfully useful. Can take many BBEG right out of the combat.

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

Vraille, still got to disagree with you on the rays you mentioned.

By 14th level for most things a party fights, touch attacks are practically automatic, but saves (especially fort saves) are very hard. A wizard might literally have a 90% chance to get off a touch attack, and a 30% chance of getting through the fort save. There's just no comparison.

High level fights are often a few rounds only, and spells with guaranteed success are as good as gold. With that stunning ray, I can almost guarantee I will take a creature out of the fight for a round or more, and also cause it to drop any weapons its holding (a free disarm!!). That's worth a use of a 6th or 7th level slot....in some cases. But that's all it needs, this spell doesn't have to be the end all be all spell, but at the times its useful its painfully useful. Can take many BBEG right out of the combat.

I've come around to the SPELLS have to be that level for GAME Purposes....

But lets face it the Stunning Ray is a Glorified Joy Buzzer. Makes some guy go "EHHHHHH" for 6 Seconds.

For 7th Level Wizardry it seems pretty small.

A 7th Level Spell should be doing massive Damage to the Fabric of Reality, not a Ranged Cattle Prod.

I just think High level spells should be, well. High Powered (Stun Ray's not the Only one).

Also my game style means that in 90% of Battles Stunning the Main Guy for a Rd (the most logical thing here) isn't going to have that big of effect.

I'll put Stun Ray down to a Difference of Philosophy & Game Style that what the Main Thrust of D&D Game Design focuses on.

Of course, that's been true for 15 Years now.



PS. The Master Spell Sheet I mentioned. It grew a bit.

I created a Random Magic Item/Hoard Generator. That's actually fully functional now.


It Includes, PHB, SC, MIC, & various other Sources.

You can put in a CR & Select a Treasure Type (Standard, DOuble, Triple, etc) & it randomly Generates Coins, Goods, and Items, but with Drop DOwn Overrides & Modifier Boxes to allow the DM to Tweak anything he doesn't like.

It about .5 Meg big in Open Office Calc, & really needs a Instruction File so others can test it & see where I messed up.

I'll see if I can't get some Instructions Together & let people play around with it.

(Assuming that I'm allowed to do that from a Spooky Lawyer on the Coast Standpoint).

 

[anon]

1 and 7 look like each other if written sloppily. I think it was a copying error.
Both spells are so lame at 7th level that (in my group) they would never ever be taken. Drop them back to 1st and see how much your players abuse them.

 

[hong]

I've come around to the SPELLS have to be that level for GAME Purposes....

But lets face it the Stunning Ray is a Glorified Joy Buzzer. Makes some guy go "EHHHHHH" for 6 Seconds.

For 7th Level Wizardry it seems pretty small.

A 7th Level Spell should be doing massive Damage to the Fabric of Reality, not a Ranged Cattle Prod.

It's a facilitator. But because it's an insanely good facilitator, that's why it's 7th level.

 

[Grymar]

Here is one....

Thunderhead (pg 219). In the description it does one point of damage per round. One. 1.

Now in the Druid spell list it says it does 1d6 damage per round, much better.

But in the Sorc/Wiz spell list it says it still just does 1 point of damage per round.

We've adjusted it to be 1d6 per round, but I'm not sure what is right.

 

[evilbob]

Overall I recommend it, but with reservations.

I'd really just like to see an Errata for it. Actually, I'd like to see a Greater emphasis placed on Continuing Support for Products once they are out. Some products seem to get that support, while other don't.

[rant]
I guess I'm not sure what the overall problem is: WotC has the hands-down worst editing staff I've ever seen from a "professional" company, ever. And I mean, the worst. There are constant typos, errors, and even stuff that makes no sense in every one of the supplement books I've ever picked up - and some are much worse than others. (Although BoED is still the reigning champ.) Some things you'd actually have to read and think about to understand why they are obviously typos, but some are just plain "we're making tons of cash and we don't care" lazy. For example, my favorite is: "See page XX for details." Page XX? You mean you didn't even have the time to go back and figure out what page it was on before you rushed it out the door?

There is no exception to this rule and they do not seem to be getting better. My guess is that they figured out that their target audience (aka "us") are willing to live with an editing job done by Microsoft Word, or maybe a person with a 3rd-grade reading level, rather than have our precious books delayed even one more day. Until the people who buy the books do a better job of taking them to task, it seems completely reasonable to me that they would leave gobs of text out or have certain numbers wrong where ever they happened to fall. I mean who cares: you bought the book, didn't you?
[/rant]