Effect of Miasma (MotW)

[Noldor Elf]

What can character do under effect of miasma spell? Speak? Cast spells?

Miasma
Level: Drd 4
Target: One living creature
Duration: 5 rounds/level
By filling the subject's mouth and throat with unbreatable gas, you prevent him or her doing much more than coughing and spitting. The subject can hold his or her breath for 2 rounds per point of Constitution but must make a Constitution check (DC 10+1 per previous success) each round thereafter to continue doing so. Failure on any such check (or voluntary resumption of breathing) causes the subject to fall unconscious (0 hp). On the next roun, the subjext drops to -1 hit points and is dying; on the third round he or she suffocates.

 

[0-hr]

The character should probably use that time to start rolling up his next character.

 

[Apok]

Y'know, I normally don't say things like this, but that spell really bothers me. There's no save, lasts for an incredible ammount of time for such a nasty spell and is essentialy death for any target that needs to breathe and doesn't have some kind of protection up beforehand. To top it off, it's a 4th level spell. Fourth level. This spell seriously needs to be fixed unless there is already errata out there somewhere.

 

[Stalker0]

Yeah, this spell is pretty nasty. One one to admend it a tad would be to say that if the person does nothing but attempt to breathe, they don't have to hold their breath and make con checks. If the person does anything, walk, run, attack, they suffer like teh spell description says.

otherwise, basically its a spell with no save that takes the character out of the game for at least 35 levels, and gives a very good chance of dieing. If you don't want to change it, throw it out is my recommedation.

 

[Dursk Starkfire]

miasma

this spell has been errata'd to have a Fortitude saving throw.
otherwise, it was way too potent.

 

[Stalker0]

Does the fortitude negate?

Still I think its still too powerful for a 4th level spell, if you fail the fort save, your basically out of combat for 35 rounds.

At least phantasmal killer gives you a fort and a will save.

 

[Mahali]

As of yet there has been no errata.

 

[AuraSeer]

Holy catfish. What were they smoking when they came up with this one? It's even more dangerous than Finger of Death!

FOD lets you take one Fortitude save, and if you fail, you're dead. Miasma requires multiple Constitution checks-- which are much harder than Fort saves-- and you're dead if you fail any of them.

At minimum caster level, against a 9th-level wizard with Con 12, the spell will require 11 Con checks. The target needs a natural 20 to succeed at the last one. His chance of succeeding at all in succession are about 0.000012 %. By contrast, against a base Finger of Death (DC 20), his single Fort save will succeed 25% of the time.

A 9th level caster, with Extend Spell, gets a duration of 90 rounds. A Great Wyrm, with its puny 31 Con, dies choking.

Even as a 7th-level spell, it'd be b0rken.

 

[Crothian]

It's one of those good ideas on paper, not so good around the gaming table sort of thing. At least now it requires a fort save to negate.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Which I think is a really bad idea - it turns it into yet another "fail a save and you're out of the fight'.
I much prefer changing it so that it takes a standard action for you to breathe (ie - you can take a move-equivalent and breathe). The con checks only come in when you decide to take full actions. It significantly decreases the effectiveness of a single target, while at the same time being an interesting spell that's not a sure-fire kill.