Clerical spell Harm, too powerful?

[FlimFlam]

=-]

heres a spin for you...

Why is your cleric casting Harm in the first place?

Harm is the channeling of Negative Energy. If your playing a good priest (therefore channeling positive energy when turning) why are you using negative energy. I sure hope your not letting a priest of pelor, or lathander channel negative energy.

this thought deals with the inflict spells as well. negative energy.

before Harm and Heal even come up....you should have asked these questions. While i am sure there are situations that channeling negative energy for a good pourpous has and will happen. i cannot intilectually understand why they would be allowd to memorise them on a regular basis.

the bad thing is that THIS is the sort of stuff that should have been delt with LONG before Harm and Heal come up.

iso
"...I don't know whats hotter, you or that car."

Ummm, the channeling of negative energy is not an evil thing. Not sure where you got that from.

Do two negatives make a positive? If my Lawful Good Cleric casts Harm on the Lawful Good king, would that be an evil act? Negative Energy expelled for a negative effect = positive???

NOTE: That last paragraph was purely sarcastic, for the sarcastically-imparred.

 

[IceBear]

The main problem with harm is they left it mechanically the same as in 2nd Edition while combat in 3E is not mechanically the same as then.

IceBear

 

[Lucius Foxhound]

Hey, can't we end this thread already? Some people like Harm, some people House Rule it. Personally, house rules scare me (probably because my DM is a bastard). But it might work for other campaigns.

It seems that all Harm questions will be answered with the revised PHB.

Until then, Tom ... I hope you and IceBear will be happy together.

 

[IceBear]

I could care less what the revised books say. If they don't change it (and it's a very good possibilty they won't) then we'll keep using the exisiting house rule (works for us). If they do, then I'll evaluate the new rule with my group and make the decision then.

It's nice to see a reasonable post from you (despite the last part which I'll ignore).

IceBear

 

[Isollae]

i agree, mathamaticly there is NO reason any cleric CANNOT cast Harm,

and i agree that asking those kinds of HARD questions should be considered house rules.

but then so is adding a save or capping the ammount of damage it does. whith my questions you dont effect a mechanical change but instead evaluate how a player is playing a charicter, is he/she just Timmy, Power Gamer in disguse. or somebody who's not really thought out what the motivcations of the cleric is supposed to be (gosh i sound like a hollywood director)

i try not to tell people how to play but the fact that any DM is allowing his good cleric to routinly cast inflict/Harm spells is an eyebrow raiser.

my personal opinon (and this will be brutaly honest) is if you have a player who is doing this, you should spend an hour or so with him alone and quietly put your foot up his kiester.

im not TELLING you to do this but it is what 'I' would do.

iso
"...no bows, no blades, leave your weapons behind..."

 

[Psion]

You can come up with killer combos ("smackdowns") for lots and lots of spells, all of which will probably be lethal.

Sure you can. And about 90% of the ones I have seen depend on the admittance of a particularly abusive supplemental rule; of those that are not, they are often difficult to set up and assume optimum conditions.

Claiming that Harm is broken because it makes it easy to a.) have a quickened inflict spell ready for the follow-up, b.) have one of your buddies drop the killing blow, or c.) insert other tactic, is not sufficient to claim that a spell that doesn't even kill you on it's own...ever is imbalanced.

That harm does not kill a creature by itself is the merest technicality AFIAC. Doing 1-4 points of damage is trivial, and nearly anyone in the party should be able to acheive that in most encounters. The quickened or readied action is just a means of plugging what is already a very small drawback to the spell.

I'll make a bet: the "revisions" will cause more imbalances than they'll fix. There's a reason why buildings aren't held together with band-aids.

Well, I would take that bet, but I imagine we would likewise differ on whether it fixed anything, especially considering you are debating with me the validity of one of the things that so clearly needs fixed.

 

[Darkness]

Actually, people seem to take things very personally when it comes to Harm? Why?

Few as much as you, though. So what's your point?

Because they know changing the game is just plain wrong.

Assuming you are able to, please fetch your DMG and read the "Changing Rules" section on page 11, as I told you previously. And then feel free to to realize the errors of your ways. Thank you.

But hey, if you can still look your players in the eye without them snickering things like, "Wonder what he'll house rule next!?" that's fine with me.

What are you afraid of, anyway? That you can't trust your players? I'm sorry if you can't, but you are mistaken if you believe that the same as true for everyone else as well. Bad players do exist, yeah - but they're hardly a majority everywhere. So relax, ok?

Originally posted by Lucius Foxhound
Harm. Love it or go play White Wolf.

Thinking for yourself. Love it or trying to role-play makes little sense.

 

[IceBear]

i agree, mathamaticly there is NO reason any cleric CANNOT cast Harm,

and i agree that asking those kinds of HARD questions should be considered house rules.

but then so is adding a save or capping the ammount of damage it does. whith my questions you dont effect a mechanical change but instead evaluate how a player is playing a charicter, is he/she just Timmy, Power Gamer in disguse. or somebody who's not really thought out what the motivcations of the cleric is supposed to be (gosh i sound like a hollywood director)

i try not to tell people how to play but the fact that any DM is allowing his good cleric to routinly cast inflict/Harm spells is an eyebrow raiser.

my personal opinon (and this will be brutaly honest) is if you have a player who is doing this, you should spend an hour or so with him alone and quietly put your foot up his kiester.

im not TELLING you to do this but it is what 'I' would do.

iso
"...no bows, no blades, leave your weapons behind..."

Agreed, BUT in my campaign's case we didn't like the idea that ONLY the evil clerics could cast the current version of harm, so instead we decided to treat it just like the Inflict spells.

This has been debated before. What's the difference in casting harm to slay an evil dragon for the betterment of a beleaured town than killing the dragon in combat or with blade barrier? Basically, in 3E, unless the spell has the [EVIL] descriptor, it's not an evil spell. Now, if a good cleric was using harm for questionable purposes, maybe there would be problems.

I do see your viewpoint, and it is one way of handling it. My group just prefered the saving throw - and they still don't cast it often.

IceBear

 

[Piratecat]

Lucius and anyone else applicable - insults are NOT appropriate. Even if someone else insults you first. Avoid them in the future, please.

I'm not saying that only weak DMs would have to house rule Harm..

Wait, that's exactly what I'm saying.

Wrong, bucko. So leave the insults at home. I'm less than impressed. If this is somehow a problem, feel free to email me.

Thread closed.