D&D 4E In D&D 4e, is there any ability by Enemies that will silence a caster?

[Minifig]

By silence, I mean force them to use a melee weapon or ranged weapon.. and tell them that they cannot use their magic/mana?

My friend is a cleric and I was warning him that something may exist like this in game, and he doesn't have anything to defend himself in game.. other than his magic and his chain mail, and a paladin and a warden.

Could he potentially be screwing himself?

 

[NMcCoy]

4e strongly tries to avoid the older "your character sucks for this combat" - thus, for example, there aren't whole categories of enemies immune to magic or Sneak Attack, as there were in previous editions. As far as I know, there aren't any monsters that care about power source at all.

 

[Shin Okada]

AFAIK, by RAW the only ways to make someone unable to use one's power are,

1: Make him unable to meet the Requirement of his powers.

2: Make him helpless (often that means he is unconscious). As he cannot take any action, he can't use almost all of his powers

3: Make him dead.

Those 3.

Unfortunately, most powers don't have "requirement" line. So, basically, as long as a character or monster is living and able to take appropriate action for that power (minor, standard, etc.) he can use that power.

That means, in 4e, it became much easier to capture a bad guy without killing him. But it is very difficult to keep harmless and interrogate or imprison him.

 

[AngryMojo]

Even in the event there was, at the most I'd give a penalty to attack rolls with Implement powers instead of flat-out disallowing them. This way it's more difficult to cast a spell, but you're not useless.

 

[im_robertb]

Please don't do this. You will make your PC weep.

 

[Minifig]

Please don't do this. You will make your PC weep.

I wasn't planning to, I was just asking because I didn't want one of my very good friends to be rendered useless in a fight just in case our (or a future) DM pulls it.

 

[Lord Ernie]

I wasn't planning to, I was just asking because I didn't want one of my very good friends to be rendered useless in a fight just in case our (or a future) DM pulls it.

Considering a majority of people here are DM's, I think people pretty much asumed you were one as well .

Mind you, there's nothing in 4E that does this (barring perhaps an adventure or module out there I'm not familiar with), but that does not stop your DM from putting in an 'anti-magic zone' or something similar if he really wants to. I've always disliked this kind of approach, and in 4th it's probably even more devastating than in older editions, but some DM's like the old-school feel of it. And the absence of some kind of existing mechanic will not stop them from putting something like this in, if they really want to do so.

 

[Minifig]

Our DM is mixing 3.5 with 4.0e (having us use our imaginations for the environments ala 3.5 with D&D 4.0e style minis and board maps and stuff and using D&D 4.0e Classes & Races) , a bit, but I don't think he'd take it as far as throwing up 'anti-magic zones'.. but, even if he did.. I was just making the precaution for my friend who doesn't have a weapon at all on his Cleric and it significantly worried me.

 

[Shin Okada]

Just a little bit off-topic but ... as we see phrases like "arcane magic", "divine magic", "primal magic", & "psionic magic" in various 4th edition rule books, bringing "anti-magic" into 4th edition may cause a lot of chaos.

Now we don't actually know what is magic and what is non-magical. There even be "martial teleport" powers. And with some martial epic destiny feature, a dead man revives. Who said martial cannot be magic?

 

[On Puget Sound]

If your GM says "divine magic doesn't work here", no amount of basic melee attacks with a mace is going to save the situation. Under such a situation, the cleric is better off making "aid another" rolls to add to a striker's chance to hit; this requires no weapon. And then beating up the GM, which may or may not require one.