Clerical spell Harm, too powerful?

[Ferox4]

roundabout & roundabout.........

 

[Lucius Foxhound]

Harm's fine as is

The spell cannot be defended against except with SR, a high touch AC, a spell that turns you into undead, or actually being undead. Most of these players don't have access to and most monsters don't have in sufficient quantity to warrant harm having no save.

Ummm... how about Fly? Or Levitate? Or Spider-Climb? How about that dragon just flaps his big ol' wings and gets out of the way? Gaseous Form? Anti-magic field? Repulsion? Bigby's Forceful Hand? Mislead? Wall of Force?

The list of goes on and on ... DOZENS.

Truth is, anyone who thinks Harm's too powerful in their campaign... is just a crappy DM. IMHO, of course.

 

[hong]

Re: Harm's fine as is

Ummm... how about WANGER? Or WANGER? Or WANGER-Climb? How about that dragon just flaps his big ol' WANGERS and gets out of the way? Gaseous WANGER? Anti-WANGER field? ReWANGERsion? Bigby's Forceful WANGER? MisWANGER? Wall of WANGER?

Sorry, Lucius. You know how it goes.

 

[Lucius Foxhound]

S'ok Hong... but I don't speak Australian. Put another shrimp on the barbie for me, will ya?

 

[hong]

Put another WANGER on the barbie for me, will ya?

Ouch!

 

[Celtavian]

Re

Sorry Lucius, those are not harm specific defenses. They simply don't allow a touch attack due to distance and are only useable by arcane casters or clerics with certain domains. I listed only defenses that would specifically stop harm from working, not defenses that simply impede the caster from making contact.

You also failed to mention how every single one of the defenses you listed requires that you not enter melee combat at any point in time. I guess that doesn't matter much to you, but I certainly don't think most players or DMs enjoy such a proposition.I guess that means only a caster can defend against a harm.

Not to mention, the person using harm could just as easily fly, levitate, dispel the other persons fly or levitate, etc, etc.

The only counters for harm is SR, high touch AC, spell that turns you into undead, being undead, spell turning, a priest casting counter spell, and a dispel magic either as a counter or if the person is holding the charge.

The other spells you listed will impede the harm from getting to you, but do not stop it. The person casting harm will most likely hold the charge until they can strike you. The above 7 methods actually prevent the spell from working.

I think a bad DM would allow harm to work as is and expect a standard party or encounter to defend against it. Harm as it is makes it easy to kill most warrior types save archers, most cleric types without access to fly or other movement spells, rogues, and just about every monster that doesn't have access to fly, levitate, wall of force, and the other spells you listed with a simple touch attack followed by just about any other attack. Yep, that is what I call balance.

 

[Simulacrum]

My ruling is that Harm is actually the big bad ass brother of Destruction. Fort save or 20d6 damage (without save).
-
Half of the current Hitpoints sounds nice but fails it's logic on creatures with less than 100 HP or so.

 

[Derren]

Re: Re

[...] The only counters for harm is SR, high touch AC, spell that turns you into undead, being undead, spell turning, a priest casting counter spell, and a dispel magic either as a counter or if the person is holding the charge. [...]

Spell turning doesn´t help against Harm because it´s a touch spell which aren´t turned.

And all the solutions above are only doable by a caster. So noncaster are pretty much defenseless against harm except they have a high touch AC (But this doesn´t stop Harm completely because the cleric doesn´t loose the charge) or being undead (which makes you vulnerable to Heal)

 

[BMF]

Sorry Lucius, those are not harm specific defenses. They simply don't allow a touch attack due to distance and are only useable by arcane casters or clerics with certain domains. I listed only defenses that would specifically stop harm from working, not defenses that simply impede the caster from making contact.

I think the players are supposed to employ a certain amount of strategy when they confront difficulties. Any strategy that stops the spell from working is valid.

Furthermore, I have actually played characters that survived a harm spell. It doesn't kill you, and any smart character should have some sort of healing and/or contingency plan for when things go suddenly bad.

By the time you are high enough level to be attacked with that spell, you should be high enough level to deal with it some how. I believe the rules allow for that as they are written.

You also fail to mention another way to stop the spell from working. It happened to me just last week:
Take lots of damage.

It happened like this:
My opponent noticed me back up and cast true strike, he became frightened and cast fireball and lightning bolt at me before I could get the harm cast. With a flat zero (0) hp left, I decided to cast cure critical wounds on my next turn instead (thus wasting the true strike, too). A few rounds after that, the NPC escaped; yet another survivor of an attempted harm spell.

 

[AuraSeer]

::WHAM WHAM::

"Start breathing, you stupid horse, or we'll beat you some more!"

::WHAM WHAM WHAM::