D&D 3E/3.5 D&D 3.5 - Favorite Transmutation spells, by level

[StreamOfTheSky]

I don't know what to say to this. Aside from it invalidating MotAO, I Guess. This feature is outrageous.

I think gaining a few spells from prohibited schools for the cost of a feat apiece is actually a really horrible trade. Especially since dragon mag had a feat you could take once per banned school to learn any 3 spells (including ones you can't yet cast) from a banned school. And you don't need to stick around in the wizard base class (as opposed to prestige classing) to get that feat.

I was just posting that for humor, I would never actually take that class feature, unless some sort of devious trick required making a certain spell to be of the transmutation school, I guess. I hope you aren't actually appalled at how "powerful" that is.

 

[kitcik]

I think gaining a few spells from prohibited schools for the cost of a feat apiece is actually a really horrible trade. Especially since dragon mag had a feat you could take once per banned school to learn any 3 spells (including ones you can't yet cast) from a banned school. And you don't need to stick around in the wizard base class (as opposed to prestige classing) to get that feat.

I was just posting that for humor, I would never actually take that class feature, unless some sort of devious trick required making a certain spell to be of the transmutation school, I guess. I hope you aren't actually appalled at how "powerful" that is.

To me, it's not the power - it's like when you tell your kid "if you do that, I'm not taking you to the park" - then they do it, and you take them to the park anyway.

Wizards seem to have no limits - they can even use spells from their banned schools dagnabit!

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Baleful Polymorph.

I had a character play a high level Druid in a 1 shot campaign I ran in which Baleful Polymorph was used in conjunction with Enveloping Cocoon to bypass the Fort save by relaying on Enveloping Cocoon's reflex save instead. One of the other players did something or another to lower the target's ability to make the will save, I forget what it was, they designed their characters for this campaign to work together. The two of them ended up with a collection of very hard to kill kittens that they would throw into the faces of other enemies.

Total shenanigans that would have ruined a real game, but since it was a 1 shot, I rolled with it, as in rolling laughing. Baleful Polymorph has a warm spot in my heart since then.

@StreamOfTheSky , do you know which book source (or sources) those wizard variants come from? I'm interested in the Transmutable Memory variant.
EDIT: Nevermind, found it in UA.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I don't think Enveloping Cocoon is shenanigans. You're paying an extra 5th(?) level spell slot and an extra turn just to turn a fort save or lose into a reflex save or lose. It also iirc only works on large or smaller enemies (the super big guys are the most likely to have obscene fort saves in the first place) and totally doesn't prevent teleporting out.

If given all that, having a reflex save or lose is still considered overpowered, I think the problem is with Reflex effects not being more dire in general. There's a reason char op readily will say without doubt that reflex is the weakest save and you can largely replace its importance just by having a giant pile of hit points.

 

[thompsja]

6th Level: Disintegrate.

When you want the problem to Go Away.