Flea vs Dragon 1-0

[IceBear]

Sounds good, but if he's casting Shapechange, the party cleric is casting True Ressurection, so he's still back and fighting.

Right, but he did die and I get to use the same trick on them later. Same difference. Just some PCs don't like dying so it might deter them even more

Anyway, as it has been pointed out, it is a 9th level spell and when we're talking that level of power lots of weird (and possibly broken) things can happen. We just have to monitor for abuse.

IceBear

 

[The Sigil]

My solution...

This has already been discussed, but my solution in all such "rules-bending" situations has always been to allow it and then throw it back at the PCs during their next adventure. Constantly. Unflinchingly. Until they tell me, "we should change the rule - get rid of the instakill cheese" or their characters are killed. Then I start a new campaign with an added House Rule... with the instakill cheese removed.

Either way, the characters are encouraged to be creative, but not cheese-creative, and I get the cheese stuff House-Ruled either way ... my smarter players have caught on and usually will start telling me "we need to change that ruling" right after the PCs "get away with it the first time."

IOW, you can get creative with instakill cheese, but only expect the trick to work once. I think that's the best way to do it. Players who are creative should be rewarded once, but if they keep trying the same trick, "do unto others..." curbs the abuse.

--The Sigil

 

[Gromm]

Originally posted by ForceUser
There's a real adversarial tone in this thread. Come on guys

Reality check. Shapechange is a NINTH LEVEL SPELL. Off the top of my head, let me think of a few more "instakill" 9th-level spells:

[Wish
Miracle
Imprisonment (not dead, but trapped forever. No save. Close enough.)
Power word, kill (less than 100 hit points only, but you've been fighting that dragon. He's wounded now.)
Temporal stasis (again not dead, but close enough. No save. Suspended forever.)

Wish can't kill.
Miracle can't kill.
Imprisonment allows SR.
Power Word Kill allows SR, would require several hundred hp of damage to bring down a dragon, assuming you beat its SR.
Temporal Statis allows SR, can be dispelled with dispel magic.

None are instant-kills. They all allow SR if nothing else, and they sure as heck don't allow for extra abilites (like say turning into a Great Wyrm Dragon or God knows what else).

I'm always mean spirited towards people trying to break the game so they can get away with something. And if this works theres no reason why EVERYONE wouldn't use it, so the PCs would probably be dead before they learned the spell. Them and every other hero in the world. Its stupid.

Its like saying that if I cast mage hand I can tear out your heart, or crush it. The spell doesn't say I can't. That logic doesn't work.

 

[TBoarder]

It's amusing that nobody here has suggested the middle-of-the-road option here... Give the Dragon a Fortitude save (DC equal to the standard DC of a 9th level Transmutation spell for that character). If he fails his save, the Dragon dies. If he makes his save (likely because Dragons have good Fort saves), he takes 10d6 points of damage (Using the Destruction spell as a guidline for damage) and has a nice chunk of his head removed. If you want to "punish" the player (which I don't recommend, since you're making the spell comperable to other spells of equal level anyway, in effect you'd be punishing her for being creative), you can rule that she takes 10d6 damage (the same damage that she did to the dragon), Reflex save (Same DC as the Dragon's Fort save) for either no damage or half damage.

 

[SupaFreak]

I thought Shapechange only allowed living forms, so a rock is totally out of the question anyway. Don't have my book with me so dont quote me.

 

[TBoarder]

I thought Shapechange only allowed living forms, so a rock is totally out of the question anyway. Don't have my book with me so dont quote me.

Nope, the spell is "as polymorph other, except this spell enables you to assume the form of any single creature of less than deity status or any single object. (Emphasis mine)

I've been thinking about this though, and this thread kinda disturbs me. It seems like people are more willing to look for ways to screw a player over for creative thinking than to; 1 - reward them for it, and 2 - work to make the ideas fair and consistant with the power level of the tools that they are using to accomplish their creative ideas.

Is the player wrong if she's expecting/demanding her idea to result in an instant kill with no save? Yes, of course. But the DM is also wrong if he doesn't try to accomodate the idea as fairly as possible. When 95% of the idea given here are to screw the player over for being creative, I have to wonder about how adversarial these DMs are with their players.

All these ideas serve to do is to make the players less likely to ever try anything new and unusual. They stifle player ingenuity, and in the long run, make the game less fun.