Antimagic and Orbs

[RigaMortus2]

If the acid comes from an Orb of Acid spell? Apparently

What if it's acid that's 'gummy' enough to maintain that cohesion?

-Hyp.

Don't most oozes and slimes deal acid damage?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Don't most oozes and slimes deal acid damage?

Yup.

So you think Orb of Acid is misschooled as well, and should be Conjuration (Calling)... calling a miniature fiendish ochre jelly?

-Hyp.

 

[DreamChaser]

If I create a new spell, 'Plant Suggestion', which allows me to suggest a course of activity to a plant creature (which it must undertake to the best of its ability), what school should it be?

By the combination of all the rules, it must be Transmutation and Enchantment (Compulsion) by utilizing the PHII rule of multiple schools for a single spell. The transmutation would allow the plant to be affected by a mind-affecting spell (changing a creature's properties) and the enchantment (compulsion) would carry the suggestion.

The magic chapter tells us "Transmutation spells change the properties of some creature, thing, or condition."

Does Animal Growth violate those rules, since it can change the properties of multiple creatures? That's not catered for in the school description.

I can't believe I'm even justifying this. This is the argument equivalent of asking of clerics are only proficient with Simple WeaponS if they use more than one at at time. After all, it never specifies that they are proficient with Simple Weapon (singular).

DC

 

[KarinsDad]

If the acid comes from an Orb of Acid spell? Apparently

What if it's acid that's 'gummy' enough to maintain that cohesion?

Then, it wouldn't be acid, now would it?

And, how about Cold? If it were Ice, it would do Bludgeoning and Cold damage.

How about Fire?

The first point is, you are attempting to use the Conjuration rules to explain away something that does not truly make sense unless it is magical. You are also ignoring the fact that the Conjuration rules indicate creatures and objects, not creatures, objects, and effects.

Non-magical cohesive force, sonic, cold, fire, and acid really do not make sense. They make sense if they are magical.

The second point is that the designers obviously did not even look at the Conjuration Creation rules when creating the Orb spells. Hence, we should not use those rules for adjudicating spells that do not truly fit that school of magic. Ditto for the Create Magic Tattoo spell. They shoehorned a bunch of schools of magic into one spell and called it conjuration and totally ignored the concept of how schools of magic work (if anything, CMT should have been in the Universal school of magic since it touches on more than half of the schools).

Every once in a while, game designers (like the rest of us) screw up. It doesn't make sense to defend that and try to turn a badly designed overly powerful group of spells into something even more powerful by using rules that the designers obviously ignored when they created the spells in the first place. IMO.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

Yes. I am actually arguing that the violation of the precedent occured with Acid Arrow and Acid Splash. Precedent is not rule. It is precedent. The magic chapter outlines the "rules" of magic. The spells chapter goes on to violate those rules.

DC

I concur. Indeed, IRC acid splash did not appear in v 3.0, and only appeared in v 3.5 because there wasn't an offensive 0-level Conjuration spell and the games designers reckoned there should be one.

The trouble is that the delineation between Conjuration and Evocation spells is unclear, and designers seemingly randomly assign schools to one or the other solely on the basis of whether they want SR to apply or not. Which is IMHO an unsatisfactory approach.

IMHO, "instantaneous" Conjuration is an oxymoron, as is any Evocation spell with a duration. All Force spells are Evocation - why? All spells whcih cause acid damage are Conjuration - why?

The delineation between what should be Conjuration (creation) and Evocation should be as simple as the following:

- if a spell creates something, whether that be energy or an object, which has an instantaneous duration, it is Evocation;
- if a spell creates something, whether that be energy or an object, which has a duration other than instantaneous, it is Conjuration (creation).

Thus, Evocation spells are subject to SR and Conjuration (creation) spells are not. Acid splash is an Evocation spell, as are the energy orb spells. The energy wall spells are Conjuration (creation). Most force spells are Conjuration (creation), because they hang around for a few rounds, minutes etc. Spells which I believe are called "damage over time" spells in some online game, such as fire storm, are Conjuration (creation).

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[Sithobi1]

Well, Orb of Force is Conjuration

 

[KarinsDad]

The delineation between what should be Conjuration (creation) and Evocation should be as simple as the following:

- if a spell creates something, whether that be energy or an object, which has an instantaneous duration, it is Evocation;
- if a spell creates something, whether that be energy or an object, which has a duration other than instantaneous, it is Conjuration (creation).

Thus, Evocation spells are subject to SR and Conjuration (creation) spells are not.

On the surface, this sounds really good and my first gut reaction was to thank you and add this to my house rules.


Unfortunately, this will gut the Evocation school and overpower the Conjuration school. Out of the core Wizard/Sorcerer spells, the following Evocation spells would become Conjuration spells. There are no Conjuration spells that would become Evocation spells (that I saw).

Level one: Tenser's Floating Disc
Level two: Continual Flame, Darkness, and Flaming Sphere
Level three: Daylight, Leomund's Tiny Hut, and Wind Wall
Level four: Fire Shield, Ice Storm, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Wall of Fire, and Wall of Ice
Level five: Bigby's Interposing Hand, Sending, and Wall of Force
Level six: Bigby's Forceful Hand, Otiluke's Freezing Sphere would have a version in both schools
Level seven: Bigby's Grasping Hand, Forcecage, Mordenkainen's Sword
Level eight: Bigby's Clenched Fist, Otiluke's Telekinetic Sphere
Level nine: Bigby's Crushing Hand

That's 23 Evocation spells out of the 41 core ones. Considering that the Conjuration school already has more spells than the Evocation school in core (51), this would totally upset the balance of the Conjuration and Evocation schools.


So, not only would the Conjuration school gain all of these spells, it would also drop the SR of most of these spells as well. That school would rule!

 

[Sithobi1]

If you did everything except [force] effects under that rule, it becomes:
Level 1: Nothing
Level 2: Continual Flame, Darkness, Flaming Sphere
Level 3: Daylight, Wind Wall(Doesn't make sense as Conjuration)
Level 4: Fire Shield, Ice Storm, Wall of Fire, Wall of Ice
Level 5: Sending
Level 6: Otiluke's Freezing Sphere(I'd leave this in Evocation)
Level 7: Nothing
Level 8: Nothing
Level 9: Nothing

That's 11 spells.

 

[Jack Simth]

On the surface, this sounds really good and my first gut reaction was to thank you and add this to my house rules.


Unfortunately, this will gut the Evocation school and overpower the Conjuration school. Out of the core Wizard/Sorcerer spells, the following Evocation spells would become Conjuration spells. There are no Conjuration spells that would become Evocation spells (that I saw).

Level one: Tenser's Floating Disc
Level two: Continual Flame, Darkness, and Flaming Sphere
Level three: Daylight, Leomund's Tiny Hut, and Wind Wall
Level four: Fire Shield, Ice Storm, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Wall of Fire, and Wall of Ice
Level five: Bigby's Interposing Hand, Sending, and Wall of Force
Level six: Bigby's Forceful Hand, Otiluke's Freezing Sphere would have a version in both schools
Level seven: Bigby's Grasping Hand, Forcecage, Mordenkainen's Sword
Level eight: Bigby's Clenched Fist, Otiluke's Telekinetic Sphere
Level nine: Bigby's Crushing Hand

That's 23 Evocation spells out of the 41 core ones. Considering that the Conjuration school already has more spells than the Evocation school in core (51), this would totally upset the balance of the Conjuration and Evocation schools.


So, not only would the Conjuration school gain all of these spells, it would also drop the SR of most of these spells as well. That school would rule!

Let's see... core spells that would go from Conjouration(Creation) to Evocation if you make all Instant spells from the Conjouration(Creation) school into Evocations....

Acid Splash
Create Water
Gate
Wall of Iron
Wall of Stone

Granted, that's not many....

 

[schporto]

Continuing this but back towards the antimagic field part, and less with the orbs....
Does holy water work in an antimagic field? I actually think it doesn't....
Everburning torch would also not work....
What about the other alchemical items? (which - just to be a nuisance - includes acid and ugh a thunderstone which does non-magical sonic damage)
-cpd