Casters Nerfed, Melee Ascendant (3.5)

[Marshall]

IME if you use your highest level spells, such as Hold Monster, it works more often. Even worse is Wall of Force - no save. Your opponent is in trouble if they don't have some form of astral travel.

Oh? Why? Wall of Force has no save because theres nothing to save against. Read the spell and dont add in the paragraph from Wall of Ice. You cant use WoF to trap. Thats Forcecage

 

[hong]

Oh? Why? Wall of Force has no save because theres nothing to save against. Read the spell and dont add in the paragraph from Wall of Ice. You cant use WoF to trap. Thats Forcecage

Wrooong! That's a chip up the nostril!

 

[Hypersmurf]

You cant use WoF to trap.

Hmm? So if you evoke an impenetrable hemisphere of force 20 feet high and 40 feet across in such a fashion that a creature is within it, he's not trapped?

-Hyp.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Wrooong! That's a chip up the nostril!

You b-b-b-b-b-b. You b-b-b-b-b-b.

[breath]

You b-b-b-b-b...

-Hyp.

 

[Marshall]

Hmm? So if you evoke an impenetrable hemisphere of force 20 feet high and 40 feet across in such a fashion that a creature is within it, he's not trapped?

-Hyp.

Nope. Not without adding something to the spell that the spell is not designed to do. Why can I evade that 20ft high 40ft across ice hemisphere, but not the force one? Why does it cost a 7th level spell and 1500gp just to prepare a spell that specifically does just that?

Better question. Does your DM allow you to melt locks with Fireball?

 

[hong]

Nope. Not without adding something to the spell that the spell is not designed to do. Why can I evade that 20ft high 40ft across ice hemisphere, but not the force one?

Because wall of force has

Saving Throw: none

in its statblock.

Better question. Does your DM allow you to melt locks with Fireball?

Has it managed to escape your attention all this time that fireball is capable of dealing damage to objects?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Nope. Not without adding something to the spell that the spell is not designed to do.

1. Can I cast a Wall of Force as a hemisphere centred on myself, so that nothing outside can get me?

2. Can I cast a Wall of Force as a hemisphere centred on myself, so that nothing outside can get me, if my buddy is standing in the square beside me? (Still three squares from the edge of the Wall)

3. Can I cast a Wall of Force as a hemisphere centred on myself, so that nothing outside can get me, if an opponent is standing in the square beside me? (Still three squares from the edge of the Wall)

-Hyp.

 

[Carnifex]

Better question. Does your DM allow you to melt locks with Fireball?

He should, fireball does damage to objects after all.

 

[Staffan]

1e and 2e had the 10d6 damage caps because HD maxed out at 10. When 3e came along, the damage caps stayed but everyone got a full HD for every level and a full CON bonus for every level. That 10d6, doesnt amount to very dangerous, if you have 20d10 + 20x6 HP.

Well, damage caps go up for higher-level spells (it's 15d6 for a Cone of Cold, for example), but I do kind of agree with what you're saying. Hit points and melee damage went *way* up in the 2e to 3e changeover (due to Str and Con bonuses being easier to get, monsters getting them too, and many monsters using d10s or d12s for hit dice), but the poor "kaboom"-type spells stayed at a measly 1d6 hp/level. I'm thinking that they should probably get some kind of bonus - maybe a general increase to 1d8/level, or a spell-level-linked base damage in addition to the caster level-based damage (so a fireball might do 3d6+1d6/level or something like that).

 

[Al]

Pish tosh. You don't use a disintegrate against a pumped melee brute. You use disintegrate against a lich or vampire. Against the pumped melee brute, you use dominate or hold, and laugh as he tries to roll a natural 20 each round.

The lich or vampire sucks up the 50-odd points of damage and then smacks you back (although the lich's smacking ability is also hugely reduced). You throw a weakened dominate or hold (weakened by the drop in Spell Focus and the nerf of Fox's Cunning) and he saves after a couple of rounds. I'm not saying that wizards are entirely useless in 3.5e- that would be foolish (seeing as I haven't seen it yet) and false (from what I have seen). It's certainly clear though that they have been hugely weakened.

Given that melee is undoubtedly the most dangerous place on the 3E battlefield, and is likely to remain so in 3.5E, I don't think that's a problem at all

Granted, but spellcasters are often forced into melee as well.

or if it didn't affect objects

It might not, but then that's utterly illogical. Disintegrate works by...er...disintegrating things. If it can carve through 10' of stone, it seems ridiculous to not being able to disintegrate a fraction of that in flesh, blood and bone.

Heck, in our group, on a good day the wizards could have more hit points than the fighters. N-times empowered endurance will do that for you

Sure, for quarter of an hour

I've yet to meet a 200hp character who won't blink at losing 70 of those hit points at one go

A meleeist can easily deal 70 points in one round at high levels, especially with decent magical equipment, a high Str and some damage-boosting feats (not to mention melee-smack PrCs such as the frenzied berserker, cavalier and weapon master)...if the rumour that Power Attack is now twice as effective (i.e. +2 damage for every -1 to hit) then melee damage is going to launch into the orbit. I wouldn't be surprised to see average high-level melee damage well in excess of 100pts/round for every reasonably standard characters.