Countermeasures against Shivering Touch?

[Shin Okada]

Shivering Touch is widely known to be one of the most broken spell in 3.5e. But before simply banning this (and the lessor one) in my next game, I want to re-check if PCs and villains can take reasonable countermeasures or not.

What kind of spells, items, abilities and such are known to be effective countermeasures against this spell?

 

[delericho]

Well, anything that gives you the cold subtype, anything that gives you immunity to Dex damage, and anything that gives you immunity to ability damage will serve to negate this spell.

But there's nothing common that I can think of. Short version: it's very, very broken.

 

[Celebrim]

The short version is that the spell is inherently broken. It cannot be made fair as written. It's basically 'Hold Person' with no save, and it just wrecks way too many opponents outright. To fix it without banning it:

a) Fort save negates. It's really important that it be a fortitude save, because dexterity tends to be inversely proportional to constitution. Big creatures with low dexterity get flattened by this spell, and it's low enough level to quicken it, which means a high level caster can simply outright win against virtually all opponents in the game. Hardly any opponent can survive the loss of ~22 dexterity and the resulting immobilization.
b) Any creature with cold resistance or immunity is immune, not just creatures with the cold subtype.
c) Victim receives a new save each round to recover from the effect.

At that point, it's only slightly more problematic than hold person - because cold resistance is still slightly rare than immunity from mind effecting spells. Which means that even toned down that much, you'll still see casters use it frequently. That's how good it is. Personally, since I believe casters are OP even at the standard balance implied by core, I just ban it. To bring it into my game would require all of the above plus increasing the spell level by 1-2 for both the lesser and standard versions.

 

[Deset Gled]

I would just straight up nerf the spell. The countermeasures for it are too specific to be useful. Trying to constantly plan against it is essentially an arms race (which the players always lose).

I would try changing "3d6 points of Dexterity damage" to "1d6". Remove the Lesser version. Still enough to be tactically useful, not enough to take things out.

Also, pick one of the two options:

1. Change "Duration: 1 round/level" to "Instantaneous", and add the line "Multiple castings of this spell do not stack.

2. Change "1d6 points of Dexterity damage" to "a 1d6 penalty to Dexterity".

Ability damage with a duration is just stupid editing.

 

[Celebrim]

Ability damage with a duration is just stupid editing.

In their defense, unnamed penalties with instantaneous duration is perhaps even harder to understand. I think I know what you intend to write, but what you wrote isn't it. Duration instantaneous is perfectly understandable in the case of damage. It makes very little sense when inflicting a status, for which you need a duration.

If you want it to inflict a status that doesn't stack instead of ability damage, keep the duration 1 round/level and say something like, "Targets of this spell take a 1d6 enhancement penalty to dexterity. This penalty cannot reduce the target's dexterity below 1. Targets which are immune to ability damage or to cold damage are immune to this spell." In that case, you've now got a spell that's really no more problematic than 'Ray of Weakness'.

 

[Dandu]

Shivering Touch is widely known to be one of the most broken spell in 3.5e. But before simply banning this (and the lessor one) in my next game, I want to re-check if PCs and villains can take reasonable countermeasures or not.

What kind of spells, items, abilities and such are known to be effective countermeasures against this spell?

Dragons learn Scintillating Scales.

 

[Shin Okada]

Thank you all for replying. So, at least there is no countermeasures easily available to various characters and creatures. Hmm ... it seems that just banning the spell (and the lessor one) is the way to go

 

[Dandu]

Thank you all for replying. So, at least there is no countermeasures easily available to various characters and creatures. Hmm ... it seems that just banning the spell (and the lessor one) is the way to go

Actually, there's one very easy counter; Shivering Touch. The party will not like it when encounters become a matter of who can soak up more Dex damage and will be more receptive to an informal detente.

 

[delericho]

Ah, good point: a ring of counterspells loaded with shivering touch will serve as a counterspell - including against a Sudden Maximised version of the spell.

I'm not sure that really counts as a good countermeasure, given how absurdly specific it is, but it works.

(Likewise the spell immunity spell, or anything that gives really good Spell Resistance.)