How do you Dispel?

Another option might be to find a way of resolving all the dispels as one check.

Use excel to work out a probability table - down the side you have the chance of succeeding the caster level check and across the top you have the chance of making it a successive number of times. The data in the middle of the chart shows the percentage chance of actually making that check that number of times - roll %age dice and read along the chart to see how many of the things you got rid of.

This latter idea doesn't mean any change in mechanics, just uses mathematics to simulate the effect of multiple rolls in a single %age roll.

I've created a simple table for this in excel and attached a picture of it here along with the file itself.

As an example - Boffo (12th level) throws a targetted dispel at Zappo (15th level). The base chance of success is 35% (1d20+12 vs 26 needs a 14 or more, ie 35%). Rather than rolling lots of d20s, Boffo rolls %age dice and looks along the table. His chance of getting more than one success isn't that great. He rolls 20% and only knocks one spell off zappo.

Zappo decides to return the favour. His base chance of success is 65% and if he rolls a 20% on his percentage dice he has knocked off 3 of Boffos spells.

To be strictly fair, you probably ought to randomly determine which of the eligible spells are knocked off if the caster gets less than the total number on the target.

The time-consuming part isn't really the rolling lots of d20s. It's recalculating everything once you've figured out what's been dispelled.

Jeph said:

• For every point by which the save fails to beat the DC, one spell level of additional effects are dispelled.

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I dig this kind of mechanic a lot. I think effects which have different levels of effect depending upon how much one roll surpasses a static number or another roll are really underused in d20. It's added math, sure, but I don't think it's too rough. Especially if the thresholds of different results are set conveniently, like at every five or ten points of difference. But I'm digressing badly, here.

hong said:

The time-consuming part isn't really the rolling lots of d20s. It's recalculating everything once you've figured out what's been dispelled.

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Damn good point. Maybe the preponderance of buff spells is the real problem? I know it's drastic, but if they actually used up a "magic item" slot, the same way hats and belts and rings do, those lists of modifiers on a single character would get a lot shorter really damn quickly.

robberbaron said:

Personally, I wouldn't bother with changing anything because it so rarely comes up (few of my players' foes are spellchuckers and few of them would waste a perfectly good opportunity for a big boom spell to throw a Dispel at them).

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My players put up defenses against the majority of "big boom spells". I appreciate your suggestion, and certainly, some casters agree that "the best defense is a strong offense".

I've decided to go with this (inspired by suggestions above):

At third level, there's Dispel Magic, Lesser (replacing Dispel Magic). It has four versions; the counterspell and versus a magic item versions are the same (or similar enough to not matter much here).
The targeted dispel is now a Will save, with a -1 penalty for each ongoing effect on a character. For each point by which the Will save fails, one spell effect on the target ends, starting with the lowest caster level and going to the highest. It can't affect spells of higher than 3rd level.
The area dispel is also a Will save, at the same penalty. If the save fails, that person loses their single highest-caster-level effect, though it can't affect a spell higher than 3rd level.

At 6th, there's Dispel Magic (replacing Dispel Magic, Greater); it can affect spells of up to 6th level. And at 9th, there's Dispel Magic, Greater (added to the list), that affects up to 9th level spells.

Now, I can hit the "best" defense the whole party has, or strip one person of several (potentially many) less powerful defenses. And the best way to make sure a certain defense works is to have relatively few buffs overall.

(We've nerfed MDJ, since we had a 20th level part left essentially naked by over-use of the effect (and some bad saves). It wasn't terribly much fun for anyone.)

Feelings on the above?

To those who said they don't Dispel, do you prevent your party from "front-loading" with buffs? How do you handle "mega-buffed" PCs - "mega-buff" their enemies?

My players generally spend a few rounds buffing if they know they are in imminent danger of a fight.
Likewise, if my NPC spellchuckers know that their defences have been breached, they will buff what they can, round by round, until the solids hit the extractor.

ThatGuyThere said:

I've decided to go with this (inspired by suggestions above):

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I hope you don't have any sorcerers, because this is an extensive nerf to them!

I'm not sure to what extent it will also meet your key objective of making lots of caster level checks less tiring.

Was there anything you didn't like about my solution?

Index cards. Instead of spending infinity and a half eons recalculating, have index cards with summaries of the effects for each spell, and require every player to bring their own 4 function calculator to speed things up. The other option, if every player has a laptop they can bring to the game, have them do the equivalent of the effect summaries per spell effect on a spreadsheet. It's an out of game solution. You want to play high magic, high fantasy, it always comes with a price.

Also, try (for effect) to make your characters go into an anti-magic field every once in a while against caster opponents and watch the lot trying to punch each other to death. Buffs go bye bye, nukes go bye bye. It's every librarian for himself.

Plane Sailing said:

I hope you don't have any sorcerers, because this is an extensive nerf to them!

I'm not sure to what extent it will also meet your key objective of making lots of caster level checks less tiring.

Was there anything you didn't like about my solution?

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Actually, I mostly fear it as a nerf to Fighter-types. While the Save DC of a 6th or 9th level spell isn't too hard, it's not like Fighters have an admirable Will save...

Specific to your solution, it invented an entirely new mechanic - the %-versus-chart mechanic. One of the advantages of D&D (nowadays) is that there's comparitively little referencing - it's not uncommon for us to be able to resolve 4+ rounds of combat without checking any charts, tables, or rulebooks. I'm sure there are groups for whom your %-chart would be perfect (there's a player in mine, for instance, who'd adore it), but it's just not right for *me*.

In terms of reducing caster-level-checks, it's now all resolved as a single Will save - that seems pretty easy to me, and remains consistant within the system (that is, saving throws prevent bad things from happening to you).

For those concerned with the time to "undo" modifiers from the spells, we actually don't find that too hard. My players are used to keeping lists of spell effects on them, and removing them quickly-and-easily; if I can removed the (literally dozens) of caster-level-checks, I won't mind a little time spent crossing off spell durations.

And we already do the index card idea. Anyone who doesn't needs to seriously consider it.

Why do you see this as a particular Nerf for the Sorcerer?

I'm surprised the "I heart DMGenie" guy hasn't popped in to give his bit; this problem seems like exactly the kind of thing computers were made for, since your problem is not with the mechanic itself, but with the implementation of the mechanic. If there's a way to do this kind of thing with software, I'd say it'd be well worth the investment.

hong said:

The time-consuming part isn't really the rolling lots of d20s. It's recalculating everything once you've figured out what's been dispelled.

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I've not found this. Generally by the time you come back to that player, he's had time to recalculate. And if Dispel or Disjunction or whatever is being hurled at an NPC, you can prepare! Simply work out what will save or fail beforehand. More prepwork, of course, but smoother gameplay. Even easier, with Disjunction, if (for example) his save is such that the NPC can expect to lose half his items, you don't bother rolling at all - you simply knock off every other item!

Index cards and poker chips are also good helpers.