Forbidden spells

[Lichtenhart]

Ok, I'll try to make a list of all the spells that could give us problems and divide them in groups.
I'll edit this any time you want.

"banishment-like" spells
banishment
blasphemy
dictum
dismissal
holy word
word of chaos

"summoning-like" spells
planar ally (lesser, greater)
planar binding (lesser, greater)
summon monster I,II...
elemental swarm

"planar travel" spells
astral projection
dimensional anchor
gate
plane shift

"planar travel if something goes wrong" spells
prismatic spray, wall, sphere
spell turning

"teleportation" spells
dimension door
refuge
teleport
teleport without error
teleportation circle
vanish
word of recall

tree stride
shadow walk (they are a little different)

"ethereal plane" spells
blink
ethereal jaunt
etherealness

"dimensional pocket" spells
leomund's secret chest
maze
mordenkainen's magnificent mansion
rope trick
(handy hevard's haversack, bag of holding...)

and, last but not least,

contact other plane

 

[Lichtenhart]

Now, what to do?

A) Ban them all (the easy solution )

B) Let's think about them.

I'd drop the banishment-like (holy word and the like can still do the other thing, but not banish), the planar travel, the teleportation (though I'm still a little partial about tree stride and shadow walk), and contact other plane.

I'd fix the planar travel if something goes wrong, the summoning-like and the dimensional pocket ones.

I'd keep the ethereal plane ones as they are.

What do you think?

 

[Leopold]

1. Nix the banishment either way. They cannot be banished per se merely teleported back to their homeland..

2. Summon spells stay no but we must change some of them to reflect the lack of demons and holy forces that are summoned. Are there still archons and so forth in DF???

3. I think links to the planes are still open, few and far between and take ALLLOT of magic to get there..

4. See 3.

5. See 3.

6. Reading over the doc, I know that contacting the astral and ethereal are still legit just contacting hell and heaven are out...

7. Fine for me there. I don't see a reason for extrademensional planes of existance within a confined area perhaps limit the time even more when cast??

 

[RangerWickett]

From what I understand, DF was cut off from the outside realms. Otherwise you could just hop to, say, Faerun, and then hop again to Heaven. But instead, the whole place is self contained. There's no heaven and hell, but DF has it's own small pocket of the astral, the ethereal, and the shadow planes. Plus there are little bits of the elemental planes attached linearly to DF, so if you travel far enough in any given direction, you reach an elemental plane.

I'd say that we should limit dimensional travel so it can only go to colinear locations. You can travel from DF's material to DF's ethereal, but only into the same spot. You can't travel laterally, only sidereally (if that makes any sense) onto the same lateral spot on an adjacent plane.

This stops that nasty problem of teleporting the entire demon army across the Mist into the Kessel (marillith, for one, can teleport without error at will). So we cut out all teleportation spells that move laterally, but can keep things like Shadow Walk that just let you move through the plane of shadow. I'd also be tempted to say that the Mist exists on all planes, since it is sort of a rift in spacetime or some such.

As for summoning, we can say that it's not summoning creatures, but creating them from pure magic. They just look like real creatures. The explanation is internally consistent, though we might want to change some of the lists of available summoned creatures, to reinforce that it's not _just_ a change of explanation, like maybe getting rid of all aligned creatures. Since DF is coterminous with the elemental planes, maybe have elemental templates instead of fiendish and celestial templates? Or maybe keep them, to reflect the innate holy and infernal energy that fills the world from all the native outsiders.

So:

• No teleportation.
• No summoning or conjuring. All such magic is creation or transmutation instead. Summoners should be pretty much a defunct class. We might want to get rid of the school of conjuration entirely, except for that it has all the healing spells. *shrug* Suggestions?
• No planeshifting unless it is to the same spot on another plane. This includes spells like Leomund's Secret Chest or Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, which either go into the astral or ethereal, or they briefly create a pocket dimension that is still under all the restrictions of the rest of the world.
• No travel whatsoever to other planes that aren't in the Sphere of Daemonforge.
• No communication with other planes.
• Alternatives should be made to spells like Holy Word and Prismatic Spray. There should be new powers that accomplish mostly the same thing, but don't involve planar travel, or we could just make up new spells. Instead of banishing demons, maybe just kill them, or send the to the Astral.
• Summoning spells create instead of summon, and the list should be different to reflect this. No sentient creatures.

So, does that cover everything?

 

[GreyOne]

I think so. I concur with RW. As for healing spells, just make it pure magic like summoning creations. You use the inherent essence of the world to heal.

 

[The Burned Man]

Old Excerpt: Not Canon but it touches on the ideas in the History Of The World (which I wrote) see

http://www.d20reviews.com/Daemonforge/history.htm

The Power and the Glory

“Our world is old, older than the patrons, older than the gods who were before them, older than the Heavens and the Hells. In the beginning there was naught but the Void within whom the Elder Ones slumbered. Until they slumbered no more and sought conflict with one another. The passion of their conflict stirred the Void and reached into the Primal realms beyond. Thus from Wind and Wave, Flame and Stone, was the World shaped.”

Cosmology, The Nature Of Reality

The Void has always been and will always be for it has no beginning and it knows no end. It is the great womb that hold within it all that exists whether is be matter, spirit or soul.

The World is created from the Primal energies of the four elemental realms.

In the far North there is the realm of Wind. In the far West there is the realm of Waves. These realms are also known as the twin realms of Wind and Wave.

In the far South there is the realm of Flame. In the far East there is the realm of Stone. These realms are also known as the twin realms of Flame and Stone.

Inwards there is the Astral, home of thoughts and the waking mind, the source of the soul. It is the source of Law.

Outwards there is the Ethereal, home of dreams and the sleeping mind, source of the spirit. It is the source of Chaos.

And always there is Shadow, for all things posses one.

Above and Below there are the Divine realms, the Heavens and the Hells, but now the World is separated from these realms.

-------

So the Astral (good for metacreativity) still exists as does the Ethereal, I never touched on Shadow since this was prior to the Manual Of The Planes came out....

 

[Leopold]

I think so. I concur with RW. As for healing spells, just make it pure magic like summoning creations. You use the inherent essence of the world to heal.

So instead of summoning intelegent fiends or angels do we instead use elemental forces? That would go more along the lines of the sticking with the 'natural' forces left in this world.

In this way we would have to rewrite the summoning table. I am all for summoning dire critters and so forth but what about the celestial or fiendish templates? Do they still apply?

 

[Lichtenhart]

[*]We might want to get rid of the school of conjuration entirely, except for that it has all the healing spells. *shrug* Suggestions?

That's huge! I don't think you want to get rid of mage armor, grease, web, melf's acid arrow, power words...
Conjuration school is divided into 4 subschools: Calling, Summoning, Creation and Healing.

Creation spells are the ones like the clouds, the arrows, and those that create a force (mage armor, phantom steed, unseen servant). They are not a problem.

Calling spells are only Gate and the Planar Ally and Binding series. Let's see if eliminate them or correct them.

Healing spells are... healing spells. Only a question: what about Raise dead, Resurrection, Reincarnation, and True Resurrection?

Summoning spells are not bad as they seems. Here they are:
Insect plague, Creeping doom, Summon swarm (If you ban them, The Queen of Rattling Races would be sad )
Leomund's secret chest (already said)
Summon monsters and nature's ally
Storm of vengeance
Elemental swarm
Drawmij's instant summoning (have you ever used it?)
Mount
Trap the soul

Still convinced?


The burned man: I like it very much. Let's say the Mist exists as well on the astral and on the ethereal and it's done with them.

 

[Leopold]

if you look over the .pdf it states that the mist extends to the astral and etheral as well...


so we change the 'holy' and 'demonic' aspect of the spells?

I don't know about the raise deadish spells being nixed. Remember skaukator (sp) holds the dead there so i would still belive that those spells would hold valid in DF

 

[The Burned Man]

There should be a time limit when you can raise someone from the dead.

Ie you cant use true ressurrection to raise one of the ancient dead in Skaukator...

..make it harder to raise the dead..

..perhaps leaving such feats for fiendlords and patrons (ie you do this for me and I´ll raise X)....