Dispel magic scrolls suck

[Bullgrit]

you should change the thread title to "dispel magic sucks."

Yeah, but dispel magic doesn't cost 375gp to suck -- the scroll of it costs to suck. ;-)

Any time you face off against magically buffed opponents, either targeted or area dispels (depending on what the apparent buffing is) can reshape the battle.

We rarely go against enemies with buff spells up. 1 time in 10? If that much.

Bullgrit

 

[Plane Sailing]

I can vouch for that as well. We use psionics and magic interchangeably, so the party psion has been able to easily dispel a lot of magic because a level 10 psion can dispel as a level 20 wizard just by using extra power points.

Playing with the wildly broken version of psionic dispel, eh?

 

[NewJeffCT]

Playing with the wildly broken version of psionic dispel, eh?

is there an errata of that somewhere?

 

[Twowolves]

Let's put it this way: When the party wizard picked up Craft Wand, the second wand he made was Dispel Magic (CL:10), as expensive as that is.

If nothing else, hand it to a henchman and have them fling Dispels everywhere, or ready actions to Dispel enemy spells as they cast them! Fun fun!

 

[ExploderWizard]

Was that a natural 20? These two instances here just sound like a bad roll and an unbeatable trap - nothing to do with the scrolls themselves.

This exactly. If a natural 20 on the check isn't good enough then the DM is just using a crappy way of telling you to go away and return to this area when you level up.

 

[Noumenon]

We rarely go against enemies with buff spells up. 1 time in 10? If that much.

Same goes for me. In modules, it seems like almost every one devotes several encounters to setting up the BBEG so that he has time and information to buff himself. Scrying, listen checks, guards. Everyone else gets taken by surprise. So I get the impression from running modules that buffs are rare and hard to set up. Should I fork the thread?

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

One of the things I don't like about 3E is that so many magic items (scrolls, wands, potions, etc.) don't scale with the user. I would prefer that they did.

I realize that makes pricing the items difficult but they should have found a way. Maybe the items don't increase in price but you have to pay an XP cost to use them at higher caster level. I dunno, but they should have done something. Otherwise so many items/spells are near useless as magic items.

 

[Hereticus]

We rarely go against enemies with buff spells up. 1 time in 10? If that much.

Same goes for me. In modules, it seems like almost every one devotes several encounters to setting up the BBEG so that he has time and information to buff himself. Scrying, listen checks, guards. Everyone else gets taken by surprise. So I get the impression from running modules that buffs are rare and hard to set up.

More than half the BBEGs we went against (7th level or higher) were capable of casting spells or using items. As a DM, I used this even more. Many times the characters would defeat the BBEG, but it would survive and escape. One of my favorite extended campaigns involved the group racing two previously defeated bad guys (who also hated each other) and their new minions to an artifact.

There are alot of good spells out there, and knowing that the enemy could use them too, my players became alot more effective and strategic.

Lastly, most every really potent magic item I gave out had to be pried from the cold dead fingers of a bad guy, who had used it against the characters.

Should I fork the thread?

Probably, and can you fork this post as well?

 

[Hereticus]

One of the things I don't like about 3E is that so many magic items (scrolls, wands, potions, etc.) don't scale with the user. I would prefer that they did.

I realize that makes pricing the items difficult but they should have found a way. Maybe the items don't increase in price but you have to pay an XP cost to use them at higher caster level. I dunno, but they should have done something. Otherwise so many items/spells are near useless as magic items.

To avoid that, only allow the characters to get items off villains they defeat who can use the items.

And price won't matter if they are not for sale.