Dispel Magic

[Lizard]

Even the original Dungeons & Dragons game had more specifics than that!

Barely.

Here is Invisibility from Men&Magic, P 24:
Invisibility -- A spell which lasts until it is broken by the user or some outside force (remember that as in Chainmail, a character cannot remain invisible and attack). It affects only the person or thing upon whom or which it is cast. Range: 24".

 

[Ximenes088]

More seriously, I think this is another example of how constrained the 'design space' of 4e is getting, and how fewer and fewer truly different effects/concepts/etc can be wedged into it. It looks like almost anything interesting is being dumped into a huge bin labelled 'rituals'; virtually all spells/powers/exploits are simplistic variations on a few themes, with complex concepts like 'mirror image' becoming just a special effect for 'ablative AC buff', for example. You can no longer bring down a flying mage with dispel magic (always fun!), remove a ward/sigil, turn off that annoying magic sword, etc.

Setting aside the whole "we're already sure there's no way to remove a ward?" issue, this design space constraint isn't something I'm seeing. With keyword-based spell interactions, I can create entire new spell schools just by plugging a group of spells into the keyword system.

For example, say I want to make a school of blood wizardry for some villains. Some will be fully statted, others will just have a few relevant spells. I create a new "Blood" keyword, and define it thus; "Using this power subtracts its level in hit points from either the caster or a blood cultist within 10 squares, with no hit roll needed. Cultists or casters dropped below 1 hit point become unconscious or dead as normal after the spell is cast. If the caster draws from a cultist, gain the spell's level in healing. Blood powers gain +2 to all hit rolls and apply a -1 penalty to all saving throws versus their effects." Then I slap it on a bunch of book-standard wizard powers and dole them out to villains, describing the spell effects with suitably gory special effects.

I've just added a brand-new factor to fights just by adding a user-defined keyword. Now PCs have an additional incentive to take out the blood cultists before they go after the wizard, as each spell drawn from a minion heals the caster. They _can_ try to burn down the caster first, but that will provoke him to throw his biggest spells first for the healing, creating a very gory encounter... which is precisely what I want.

If it's completely new spell effects you're looking for, I can't see how they're harder to do in this model. I can think of a half-dozen new mechanics off the bat:

Arcane Turbulence: Roll Int vs Will against one enemy. On a hit, all Arcane sustain minor/move/standard powers require two additional sustaining actions of the same type. On a miss, they require one additional sustaining action. A saving throw ends either effect.
Chord of Thaumic Unity: Cast on one willing ally trained in the Arcane skill. Ally gives up one type of action, standard/move/minor. You gain that action for use only to sustain an Arcane power. Spell lasts for one encounter or until the ally ends it as a free action.
Anathemic Backlash: Immediate reaction. When someone uses a Divine power within range, roll an Int vs. Will attack. If successful, the power takes a -4 to hit, grants +2 on saving throws, and does 1 point of damage per level to the power's caster.
Flux Point State: Immediate reaction. Partially transform into arcane energy for one turn. Martial powers suffer -4 to hit the caster, while Arcane powers gain +2. Cannot move except through power use; immune to forced movement.
Zone of Twisted Space: Zone power. Move sustain. Anyone ending up within the zone at the end of their turn may be shifted one square by the caster's discretion.
Shockwave Rider: Immediate reaction. When struck by a Blast effect, you may roll Int vs. Reflex against the caster. On a success, you subtract your level from the damage, take no ongoing effects, and are pushed to a square just outside the blast area chosen by you. On a failure, you take normal damage and are pushed as above.

...and that's just with fifteen minutes of contemplation. I find 4e's system more conducive to creativity because it has an explicit and developed framework for interactions between powers.

 

[Cyronax]

Setting aside the whole "we're already sure there's no way to remove a ward?" issue, this design space constraint isn't something I'm seeing. With keyword-based spell interactions, I can create entire new spell schools just by plugging a group of spells into the keyword system.

For example, say I want to make a school of blood wizardry for some villains. Some will be fully statted, others will just have a few relevant spells. I create a new "Blood" keyword, and define it thus; "Using this power subtracts its level in hit points from either the caster or a blood cultist within 10 squares, with no hit roll needed. Cultists or casters dropped below 1 hit point become unconscious or dead as normal after the spell is cast. If the caster draws from a cultist, gain the spell's level in healing. Blood powers gain +2 to all hit rolls and apply a -1 penalty to all saving throws versus their effects." Then I slap it on a bunch of book-standard wizard powers and dole them out to villains, describing the spell effects with suitably gory special effects.

I've just added a brand-new factor to fights just by adding a user-defined keyword. Now PCs have an additional incentive to take out the blood cultists before they go after the wizard, as each spell drawn from a minion heals the caster. They _can_ try to burn down the caster first, but that will provoke him to throw his biggest spells first for the healing, creating a very gory encounter... which is precisely what I want.

...and that's just with fifteen minutes of contemplation. I find 4e's system more conducive to creativity because it has an explicit and developed framework for interactions between powers.

Great job. I will have to steal this now.

C.I.D.

 

[BryonD]

Setting aside the whole "we're already sure there's no way to remove a ward?" issue, this design space constraint isn't something I'm seeing.

I see it.
The old approach was to find the best way to model what the spell should do. The new approach appears to be: use this short list of constraints to get in the ballpark.

I've just added a brand-new factor to fights just by adding a user-defined keyword.

No, you've twiddled one of your degrees of freedom and layered on a different flavor text.

If it's completely new spell effects you're looking for, I can't see how they're harder to do in this model. I can think of a half-dozen new mechanics off the bat:

But you haven't really made anything new. You've just tweaked the parameter values. You are still in the space constraints.

 

[Dragonblade]

If it's completely new spell effects you're looking for, I can't see how they're harder to do in this model. I can think of a half-dozen new mechanics off the bat:

Arcane Turbulence: Roll Int vs Will against one enemy. On a hit, all Arcane sustain minor/move/standard powers require two additional sustaining actions of the same type. On a miss, they require one additional sustaining action. A saving throw ends either effect.
Chord of Thaumic Unity: Cast on one willing ally trained in the Arcane skill. Ally gives up one type of action, standard/move/minor. You gain that action for use only to sustain an Arcane power. Spell lasts for one encounter or until the ally ends it as a free action.
Anathemic Backlash: Immediate reaction. When someone uses a Divine power within range, roll an Int vs. Will attack. If successful, the power takes a -4 to hit, grants +2 on saving throws, and does 1 point of damage per level to the power's caster.
Flux Point State: Immediate reaction. Partially transform into arcane energy for one turn. Martial powers suffer -4 to hit the caster, while Arcane powers gain +2. Cannot move except through power use; immune to forced movement.
Zone of Twisted Space: Zone power. Move sustain. Anyone ending up within the zone at the end of their turn may be shifted one square by the caster's discretion.
Shockwave Rider: Immediate reaction. When struck by a Blast effect, you may roll Int vs. Reflex against the caster. On a success, you subtract your level from the damage, take no ongoing effects, and are pushed to a square just outside the blast area chosen by you. On a failure, you take normal damage and are pushed as above.

Oooh. Very nice.

I find 4e's system more conducive to creativity because it has an explicit and developed framework for interactions between powers.

Agreed.

 

[Chrysophrase]

I don't think a higher-level version is even necessary. The attack roll scales along with the enemy's Will Defense.

This.

It also gets rid of the 'it's only a 6th level spell and it can dispel the 20th level pit of infernal damnation???!?!" dispute.. Sure it CAN, but if the caster is only barely 6th level, the chances have got to be pretty slim...

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

You can no longer bring down a flying mage with dispel magic (always fun!), remove a ward/sigil, turn off that annoying magic sword, etc.

Bringing down a mage with dispel magic often wasn't worth the trouble, since he floats gently to the ground anyway for reasons that do not even begin to make sense.

Short-term wards and sigils would be zones, making them subject to Dispel Magic. Long term ones shouldn't be getting dismissed with a standard action, so I don't see a problem here.

Turning off a magic sword? I know I don't like the wording here, and I don't think I much enjoy the idea, either -- though 4e sounds like the edition where this would be least problematic, actually.

 

[Chrysophrase]

Zone of Twisted Space: Zone power. Move sustain. Anyone ending up within the zone at the end of their turn may be shifted one square by the caster's discretion.

Careful with your language there, 'Forced Movement' is different that 'Shifting'

 

[Benimoto]

More seriously, I think this is another example of how constrained the 'design space' of 4e is getting, and how fewer and fewer truly different effects/concepts/etc can be wedged into it. It looks like almost anything interesting is being dumped into a huge bin labelled 'rituals'; virtually all spells/powers/exploits are simplistic variations on a few themes, with complex concepts like 'mirror image' becoming just a special effect for 'ablative AC buff', for example. You can no longer bring down a flying mage with dispel magic (always fun!), remove a ward/sigil, turn off that annoying magic sword, etc.

As I see it, the "design space" for 4e is larger in some very real ways. There is a greater variety of types of actions. There are standard, move, minor, free and immediate actions. Powers can be daily, encounter or at-will. Most of the classes (mainly the martial ones) get more powers with only a few (the spellcasters) getting less. All this points to a wider variety of powers, mostly because there is now a greater variety in the opportunity cost for a power, and so you can design powers at various strengths.

It looks like there's as much, or more interesting effects happening in combat as in any previous edition. In the page of Wizard spells we say at DDXP, all of the daily powers are widely varied. I'll grant that the encounter powers mostly followed a formula of damage+effect, but the effects were varied. As for mirror image, I fully support that change. Mirror Image just should not have made it into print. If you go and look at the later pages in the Beholder thread, Mirror Image is cited as basically the number one reason that a defensive wizard has nothing to fear from a Beholder.

I would bet that making non-combat spells into rituals will in fact increase the amount of "interesting" stuff that happens in an adventure. As an example, I think spells like Hallucinatory Terrain are interesting, but there's no way any Wizard of mine would memorize that in place of a combat spell. Interesting solutions to out-of-combat problems are great, but combat is life-and-death.

As to Dispel Magic, I like the new version just fine. In 5-6 years of weekly 3rd edition play, including plenty of games at conventions and in different gaming groups, I've seen Dispel Magic used to counter a spell or remove a magical trap less than 5 times. I've never seen it used to suppress a magic item. I appreciate that everybody plays differently, but this version of Dispel Magic looks better for me and I appreciate it.

 

[Ximenes088]

I see it.
The old approach was to find the best way to model what the spell should do. The new approach appears to be: use this short list of constraints to get in the ballpark.
...
No, you've twiddled one of your degrees of freedom and layered on a different flavor text.
...
But you haven't really made anything new. You've just tweaked the parameter values. You are still in the space constraints.

There's a 3.5 spell that lets you forcibly direct a large group of enemies around in an area? Or one that makes "Concentration" eat up more of your action, or become prohibitively difficult if it's too burdensome an effect? Or lets you ignore the brunt of an explosive effect and be pushed safely to its edge? There may well be such things, but I can't say I've heard of them. These effects are "in the space constraints" in the sense that they don't introduce new resolution subsystems, which earlier editions loved to do. If you require a spell to introduce a new subsystem to be "new", then I'd agree that 4e is discouraging you.

But all right, let's take your challenge on its face. Suppose I've got a tribe of kobolds infected with a form of reptilian elephantiasis- they suffer egregious overgrowth of scales, fangs, horns, claws, and other draconic elements. The deluded tribal shamans believe that this sickness is merely a transformative process that will eventually end in their apotheosis into full-fledged dragons. They've created a number of spells that merge elements of the sickness and their reptilian nature, and I want these powers to feel unique and characteristic to their PC enemies. I want to use the 4e guidelines to make these spells. What are some ideas?

Breath of the Hatchling: Caster bites off a mawfull of jagged, tumor-raddled scales from his own body, chews, and breathes out a cloud of infectious blood and scale fragments. Blast effect versus Armor Class for weapon-type damage plus necrotic ongoing until save.
Promised Flight: Caster rips two 'wings' of loose scales from the hide of his back and leaps upward convulsively, landing fifteen squares away, ignoring AoOs for the movement, and doing minor weapon-type blast damage around the 'liftoff' area from flying scale fragments.
Blessing of the Claw: Caster claws their own pus-filled buboes and dances about, spraying all within the blast radius. On a hit, victim takes necrotic damage and is briefly magically infected and Slowed as scaly, tumorous growths cover them until a save is made. On a miss, victims take the damage but fight off the sorcerous plague.
Great Wyrm's Molt: The caster's body begins to swell inside his skin, forcing the crusty mass tighter and tighter until it explodes around the caster in flailing ropes of razor-edged scales and infectious hide, strip after strip bursting loose in a continuous cascade of tissue. Acts as a mobile encounter-duration Zone around the caster, creating difficult terrain for all non-kobolds and doing weapon-type and necrotic damage. When the spell is terminated, the caster is skinned alive and reduced to 0 hit points.

Three of the above effects are instantaneous spells that Dispel Magic never would have worked against in 3.5, not without holding an action to dispel. The fourth is a Zone that seriously changes the battlefield every time some kobold shaman decides that _he_ really _will_ become a great dragon when he casts it, and thus can be an excellent occasion to throw a Dispel. Not only do you take out the zone, but you kill the enemy caster as well. And I can testify that my design concerns with the spells placed flavor first and worried about descriptive mechanics afterwards. 4e provided everything I needed.