Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Anubis" data-source="post: 1060060" data-attributes="member: 2358">To kill this little argument, allow me to point out that as a Level 4 spell, a Level 7 Wizard can KO the Tarrasque or any legendary animal as well.  Guess we should make it a Level 9 spell, huh?You can effecively disable any fighter with a Wand of Ray of Enfeeble ment just as easily, or better yet, you can disable any pesky spellcasters with a Wand of Touch of Idiocy just as easily as well.  Maybe not helpless, but effectively helpless.  So why don't we bump 'em all up to Level 9?!Um, Necromancy?  If you look at the books, you'll not find a single Necromancy spell that lowers mental attributes; they are all Enchantment.  You should read over all that again.  Necromancy is for spells that effect life force and physical stuff (which is why there are tons of spells that hurt the physical attributes) while Enchantment is for pretty much all the stuff that effects mental attributes.Hmmm . . . I would rather, with a Wand of Enervation, just kill you by hitting you a few times and making your negative levels equal or exceed your level.  Thanks for giving THE best argument in my favor.  Enervation > Synaptic Shock . . . BY A LOT . . .Anyway, after looking, I actually can't find a single spell that deals ability damage save for Contagion and some Corrupt spells from the BoVD.  Unfortunately, those are bad comparisons as they're all stronger than this one but also have backlash (and some have saving throws).It appears to me that without a cost or backlash of some sort, a spell should never deal ability damage.  That seems to be the standard set by WotC considering the only ability damaging spell in the PH takes days to work.With that, here's what you do with Synaptic Shock . . . Make it Level 1 with some kinda backlash, an XP component, or a costly material component . . . OR . . . Change the effect to an ability penalty and make it a Level 1 spell equal to Ray of Enfeeblement . . .As the spell stands, there is NO appropriate level, and it's because of the ability damage effects, plain and simple.  Or do you think it's cool for a Level 7 Wizard to be able to KO a Level 20 Half-Orc Barbarian in two rounds without breaking a sweat?</blockquote>

Verification