Countering Harm

[Mal Malenkirk]

*shrug*

I prefer touch attack with no save and a damage cap.

I can understand if it doesn't feel right for some people, but making Harm work like slay living/destructuction except for the fact that it doesn't kill outright feels wrong to me.

Even though harm/heal aren't in the inflict/cure line up, I still feel they are a continuity. I want them to work in basicly the same way. There are no save for inflict critical wound and it doesn't feel right to me to grant a save for harm either.

Next session the cleric of the campaign will be level 11 and druid won't be far from level 13. I'm about to see harm in action a lot, so I'll see for myself.

 

[CRGreathouse]

There are no save for inflict critical wound and it doesn't feel right to me to grant a save for harm either.

Inflict critical wounds has "Save: Will half".

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

I can't believe I've missed that!

I think I was simply always under the impression that it had no save. Was it no save in 2nd?

And I know realize that there is a certain undead dragon that would have been much tougher had I realized that there was a will save!

Thanks for the eye opener.

 

[CRGreathouse]

And I know realize that there is a certain undead dragon that would have been much tougher had I realized that there was a will save!

Now I'm . An undead dragon would be healed by inflict critical wounds as if by cure critical wounds.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Now I'm . An undead dragon would be healed by inflict critical wounds as if by cure critical wounds.

The cure spells mirror the inflict spells. By opening my eyes to the one, you opened my eyes to the other as well. The dragon should have had a will save to reduce by half the damage the cleric was dealing him by spontaneously casting his strongest cure spells on him.

Come on man, read between the lines!

 

[CRGreathouse]

Come on man, read between the lines!

I considered the possibility, but thought it wasn't likely that you were doing so, especially considering that you didn' mention it.

 

[Dr. Zoom]

The characters IMC just gained 5th level, so I do not have to worry about Harm yet. I believe I will rule 0 the spell, probably with a Will save for half your current hit points unless some other option makes more sense to me.

 

[IceBear]

That was my original house rule too - to keep it in line with the Inflict spells. But then I saw the 1d8 per character level (to a maximum of 5hp left) and saw that in some (maybe most?) it would actually be more powerful than save for half (and thus, not nerfing the spell too much). But still, I think the Will save for half is the most logical house rule to use (and I probably would switch back to that one in another campaign).

IceBear

 

[gfunk]

I have mixed feelings about Harm. It is very powerful, but perhaps just short of broken and, as stated above, it has numerous counters.

My major gripe with the spell is with creatures with a lot of hp like Dragons. The epic struggle b/w a dragon and a group of PCs seems to have been reduced to:

(a) Get all the arcane and divine casters in the party to buff the hell out of the party cleric and give him a couple of Rings of Counterspell (with Dispel Magic + Greater Dispelling)

(b) Touch the Dragon

(c) Sor/Wiz (hasted) follows up with a couple of damaging spells to finish the job

Sure older dragons have nearly god-like intelligence, but it feels kind of silly to modify their whole defense against one spell.

 

[Junkheap]

You dont understand

This is directed to CRGreathouse.

Obviously i know that harm heals undead. That is in its unaltered PHB form. What you don't seem to understand is that if you make it a fort save(as monte implies)undead are IMMUNE to anything with a fort save, so they don't have to worry about harm. As i stated before and hold true for any spell with a fort save, undead are immune to the spell UNLESS it can affect objects. Harm in monte's altered state would NOT affect undead because harm does not affect objects, unless specifically stated like disintergrate.