3.0 spells broken? BAH!

[Renfield]

I'm a DM for a group who has two players who are quite competent at playing spellcasters. They use rather creative combinations of spells and can be quite clever though not exactly what I would call over powered. I never thought any of the 3.0 spells needed any real adjusting, maybe tweaking some spells to return them to their roots in 2nd and 1st edition as they were meant to be but that's about it (I mean what iron skin castin mage didn't feel pain when they changed that spell with 3.0?). Maybe Polymorph needed a little something but I never thought Haste was too powerful... sure the wizard could launch off more than one nasty spell in a single round, just means no more of those nasty spells for a later encounter.

So if you are a 3.5 gamer that misses some of the 3.0 variations which would you swap and which do you think actually are broken without the WOtC philosophy of 'if it works well to the PC's advantage it *must* be overpowered'?

 

[Li Shenron]

I think 3.0 spells are just fine if you play in a group which cares nothing for power. In such a situation, you won't have a player who casts Haste or Harm over and over and over, because he'll simply feel the game is boring, and in his next character he will certainly choose to learn other spells instead.

But the current average gaming group is very focused on playing effective characters, and have more fun in building a smackdown PC rather than trying every time something new.

I don't mean to say that one of the two way to play is wrong, just that it all depends on what you want from RPing and which way you have more fun to play: for the first way, any edition which gives a lot of variants provides excellent gaming time, and 3.5 is no better nor worse than 3.0; for the second way, more or less every new edition has been better than the previous in avoiding tricks to outshine the rest of the possible characters.

 

[Thanee]

Some spells definitely were overpowered in 3.0, mostly Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, Endurance, Harm, Haste, Polymorph Other, Polymorph Self (pre-errata), True Resurrection (still is, it's just ridiculous that this spell has no XP cost or any notable cost (5k gp is peanuts at that level)), ... There are more in the sourcebooks (like Kiss of the Vampire in MoF, or Miasma in MotW (pre-errata). Blindsight in MoF is also pretty tough, the SS version is much better!).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Renfield]

Well said!

Thankfully the player in my group who likes to build PC's with a high Smackdown factor rarely repeats himself and values roleplaying highly. So he'll make a rather potent PC (especially considering my approval of free reign of the Mongoose Publishing books) who'll have a nice background, concept, and rarely be buff in the same way a previous character was.

Granted were I to have PC's who did the same thing over and over I wouldn't necessarily switch to 3.5 to have weaker versions of the spells. I'd likely be forced to find a new group Still, never really found any of the spells too powerful. I mean spells got powerful but they were at a level where that power was perfectly acceptable.

 

[Thanee]

A 95% chance to kill just about anyone (except the few with a high spell resistance or insane (not merely high) touch AC) at 11th level is acceptable power?

Anyways, if the players aren't really overdoing it, things really aren't that bad with 3.0 as you said, especially if their powerful PC's also have good backgrounds and all the things around the actual numbers that make the game fun.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Renfield]

The Polymorph spells I can almost agree with. However the ability enhancing spells I never considered too powerful. One of the few clerical spells handy even in higher levels. Still had the chance to get a simple +1 bonus to whatever stat bonus your spell was for or a max of a +3 bonus if your stat was an odd number. Not too much of a big thing for a 3rd level character. Never over balanced any games I've ran. Not to mention the players enemies had access to the same spells. Never put the players above another. Even with the ability enhancing spells the fighter will likely top the cleric, and should the cleric top the fighter in raw combat bonuses it's usually at the cost of numerous such spells. Duration means they are actually useful for more than one combat.

Harm was never a problem either, at about 11th level you have enemies that can kill you, or petrify you or what not with but a mere gaze (i.e. the Bodack and the Medusa, CR 8 and CR7 creatures respectively in 3.0) so a touch attack to bring and enemy to 1d4 hp seems an allright trade off to me. They'd only be able to use it on one creature per spell cast so while it might make the climactic battle with the boss a little anticlamactic oh well. I'd say if anything simply adjust the die, nervous about the enemy being reduced to 4 or less HP? make a home rule that it's a d6 or d8 or even a d10.

True Ressurection is a 9th level spell, the most powerful level the clerics can obtain before getting into epic casting, so why should it be penalised? As for the Diamond. Well, Diamonds aren't exactly the most common prescious stones in the world, and finding one worth 5000gp can be made to be difficult with a little creativity. If you think it simply makes ressurection far to easy in your home brewed campaign it's pretty easy to house rule it. In one of my worlds death, even for high level adventurers, was normally a be all and end all. Even if the PC's managed to get someone Ressurected they would have to go through quite a lot more and even then shouldn't expect anything more than ressurect or raise dead. In short it works fine in just about any standard D&D campaign setting.

I don't have access to the classbooks so I can't exactly dispute those

 

[Renfield]

Heh, Maybe I'm just a spoiled DM who doesn't have 100% power gamers in my group and never really had a hard time countering such spells after a fashion.

 

[Li Shenron]

Heh, Maybe I'm just a spoiled DM who doesn't have 100% power gamers in my group and never really had a hard time countering such spells after a fashion.

Actually, I think you are lucky

 

[Vecna]

Do you need something really broken?
Try the 3.5 shapechange...

 

[Renfield]

3.5 Shapechange? Hmmm... little beefy, being an 'any' sort of thing. Perhaps change it so that it's anything to size Collossal that's equal to your characters level in HD... instead of x2 Still, quite the buff spell, but fitting for ninth level, wouldn't consider it an epic level spell exactly.

BTW Lucky... maybe, they have their downsides Their constant neutrality get's to me >.<