Game Breaker Spells - What are they?

[Raven Crowking]

See also: "Yeah, he can destroy the universe with a single thought, but he can only do it twice per day, so it's all good."

Possibly per-encounter in 4e.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Ah, but why do people complain about problems that don't exist, if they would only read the spells?

VirgilCaine, this thread obviously isn't the thread for you. This thread is for people who want to discuss spells which they consider to be potentially game-breaking.

If you don't think these problems exist, good for you. But this thread is for people who want to discuss the issue.

OK?

 

[Raven Crowking]

Teleport is a good spell, most of the time. But it should have inherent limitations. A Teleport spell could require you to teleport to a teleportation portal, or a special mark you set to get there.

A neat idea you brought up in another thread, and one I think that I'll Yoink! for my homebrew.

 

[ruemere]

[...]
How can you gather information on where the enemy is when he is asleep?

This is an exercise in intelligence. Assume, that after sufficient amount of Gather Information checks (or through roleplaying) basic information shall be obtained.

Birds? You can wait for a bird to randomly fly within 10' feet of the BBEG without him noticing and worrying? You do know scrying has a 10' sight radius, right?

I don't need to use a random bird. Note that I used the word "familiar". There are also spells for controlling animal creatures. Finally, I don't need to find the BBEG himself. All I need to know where is his toilet to plant a big bomb.

Of course, you only need to keep doing it to fail after several times of wasting spells.

Long-term, it's best to stick with what works--walking in and killing them the old-fashioned way.

I've also never understood how placing yourself in an enemy stronghold where you don't know the situation or terrain or the disposition of the enemy to be a good idea.

Higher-level NPC manipulating PCs to take the danger for them...proxy wars between spellcasters isn't my idea of a good time.

Your opinion is duly noted. My experience (20+ years) disagrees with it.

Of course, you make the fatal mistake of assuming the game world came into existence five minutes ago, when you created it OOG.
In-game, often thousands of years have passed allowing for a large amount of such places to be accumulated over time.
I mean really, is there a D&D campaign setting where magic hasn't existed for thousands of years?

The world is supposed to be believable. Unbelievable game worlds are of no interest to many people.

Nondetection items are super-expensive? Easily justified as being thousands of years old and paid off long ago. Or received as a coronation gift from a mage's guild.

It's also easy to circumvent them. Understand please, that in order to get your mark, you don't need to him him directly - you can always bring down his home on his head.

And that's the problem. It's too easy to find a loophole (unless most of your cities are build of antimagic stone).

You act like every new king has to pay for everything out of his own budget, like there hasn't been hundreds or thousands of years of history for kings to build up these kinds of things.

With such easily accessible magic, they won't have hundred years. Try days or months.

Currently, D20 system is an equivalent, where every high level party carries modern equivalent of tactic nuclear missile launcher with GPS system included (read: most such parties can easily find each other).

Of course, you can use your special in-game explanation for such things not taking place.

Finally, in the world of scrolls and other magic items, all you need to is to train hundred apprentices, give them a hundred scrolls and send them on suicide missions.

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[Midknightsun]

I consider myself a very experienced DM, and my players generally agree. With that said, many of the spells mentioned cause a lot of grief for me, especially since i have some very clever players. There's only one of me, and many of them. Arm them with spells that are easily abusable and its just sick. Saying that I can do the same thing just causes an arms race that would result in a mutually assured destruction scenario. I have no problems with magic being special, but i think it can be special without becoming a game where the wizard dominates play completely ( or the Cleric), and everybody else has their lunch money stolen from them, or has to beg for some arcane/divine magicrack to keep up with the casters:

Fighter: "Hey man . . . c-c-c-come on Wizdude, just one more Bull's Strength. I swear, I'm g-g-g-good for it.

Wizard: "Why should I bother, little man, I have already retroactively killed all our enemies and had time to summon this Balor to make some hot wings for us. I even made him wear a tutu. Chill out, I'll get that girdle for ya after I rewrite gnomes out of existence. . . and finish scrubbing my toilet already."

Fighter: "B-b-b-ut, I'm soooo lame without your magical goodness on me. P-p-p-pleeeae just one more hit!"

Wizard: "Dammit, buy your own girdle then, ya little girl! There's gotta be a magic shoppe somewhere that'll take pity on you, and my time is better spent on scrying-and-dying things that annoy me. . . . now where is that Terrasque at . . . "

Yeah, the idea that magic balances magic is just nonsense, and doesn't solve the problem. It means both the problem and the cure is in the hands of high level casters, period. Everyone else needs to gear up, or shut up. Problem is, the casters can gear up too . .

I think fly is problematic the way it is set up. Makes it far too easy to ignore terrain and avoid 70% of enemies.

Teleport and Find the Path give me indigestion. Even moderately clever players alter the game significantly with these abilities, and make my job as DM that much more labor intensive. And frankly, since its a game I shouldn't be thinking it would be easier to go back for my Masters than set up a high level game, but I often do. And some of the rationales that go into countering spells gets old after a while, for both DM and players. I agree that the spells should be balanced in and of themselves, not because one or two other spells can block them.

Gate and Mord's Disjunction make my puppy cry . . . .I've seen it, its really sad.

Save or dies are a traditional problem for me as well. I hate the fate of the character being determined by one bad roll, and I think the while idea of the Ressorectimator (just add 5000gp of diamond/diamond dust for activation) is pretty lame. I'm surprised some of my characters didn't get frequent flyer miles for all the times the crossed into the afterlife and then got yanked back. Just not fun when it happens as often as the core rules allow.

I don't think the spells mentioned necessarily need to be removed, though, but a useful nerfing would definitely be appreciated by this DM. Hopefully 4e will at least make this less of a concern.

 

[VirgilCaine]

This is an exercise in intelligence. Assume, that after sufficient amount of Gather Information checks (or through roleplaying) basic information shall be obtained.

Ah, but how long will this take?
I'm not talking GI checks, I mean Knowledge (Geography) checks to places flora, fauna, accents, names of cities, inns and buildings.
I cannot fathom how this procedure is in any way time-efficient with an hour to cast and 1 minute per level to look around at the target's 10' radius surroundings.

I don't need to use a random bird. Note that I used the word "familiar". There are also spells for controlling animal creatures. Finally, I don't need to find the BBEG himself. All I need to know where is his toilet to plant a big bomb.

Bombs which exist, where again, in the PHB?

Your opinion is duly noted. My experience (20+ years) disagrees with it.

I guess your enemy spellcasters don't take precautions against spells and abilities that have existed for thousands of years.

The world is supposed to be believable. Unbelievable game worlds are of no interest to many people.

I don't see how what I'm saying isn't believable. I have no idea where you are getting this.

It's also easy to circumvent them. Understand please, that in order to get your mark, you don't need to him him directly - you can always bring down his home on his head.

Which spells bring down castles, caves, buildings, quickly again? I don't particularly remember any in the PHB or anywhere else for that matter.

And that's the problem. It's too easy to find a loophole (unless most of your cities are build of antimagic stone).

No, but stone is pretty tough stuff, I don't remember any spells that melt it like butter.

With such easily accessible magic, they won't have hundred years. Try days or months.

Currently, D20 system is an equivalent, where every high level party carries modern equivalent of tactic nuclear missile launcher with GPS system included (read: most such parties can easily find each other).

Of course, you can use your special in-game explanation for such things not taking place.

Where did I say magic was easily available?
Counter-measures to common attack tactics will be easily available to the elite who will get attacked by those measures. Magic is just as available as in any average D&D game--that is, to people with money. Except IMC, you also have to be trustworthy and not evil.

There's also the issue of why someone would randomly go around killing kings and whatnot.

I'm still not seeing how you can find the layout and location of an enemy easily enough with the basic Scrying spell to Teleport to them with enough confidence you won't arrive off-target or something and waste the spell. Edit: Or die.

I don't think it's special at all, I see it as a natural consequence of a long history of magic.

I guess I'm alone in assuming that, given the threat of Teleporting enemies, people will take countermeasures and these countermeasures are very long-lasting.

Finally, in the world of scrolls and other magic items, all you need to is to train hundred apprentices, give them a hundred scrolls and send them on suicide missions.

Regards,
Ruemere

Absolute waste of manpower. If you've got 100 apprentices you're much better off training them and getting them stronger than wasting their potential with suicide missions to kill a few enemies.


I have no idea how anyone can say offensive Teleportation can work in the long run (i.e. more than five times, and maybe not even then) for a hero (or a villain for that matter).
If you were really interested in killing your enemy, you'd get out and kill him instead of uselessly Scrying on him.

It's a simple matter of reading the spells and knowing what they can do and what they can't and IG, people, over a long time, using that knowledge to make themselves safer and teleportation more dangerous.

If you can't read the spell descriptions and understand how dangerous offensive teleportation is, that's not my problem, but you'll never see it happen in any of my games, except in the gravest extreme.

 

[Votan]

I think knock is a good spell so long as it is balanced by a limited number of uses per day. I do not mind different classes being able to solve problems in a different way.

What made knock a bit problematic in the current edition was the access to cheap scrolls so that it was always ready when needed. If the wizard needs to prepare it and hold a slot open for this spell, it is a different matter.

But then many of the problems of 3.X are item based more than spell based.

One of the rare exceptions is teleport but even teleport would be greatly helped by some exact specification on the limits. What does failure look like and how does it work? How do you handle levels of familiarity? And what is up with teleporting without error???

 

[VirgilCaine]

One of the rare exceptions is teleport but even teleport would be greatly helped by some exact specification on the limits. What does failure look like and how does it work? How do you handle levels of familiarity? And what is up with teleporting without error???

Also, I think the descriptions of failure and familiarity are pretty clear.

Read Greater Teleport carefully. It took me a few times to realize that it doesn't stop you from teleporting somewhere extremely dangerous (BBEG's erupting volcano tower on top of a fault line in the middle of a thunderstorm! Off-target, Mishap, and Similar Area chances all +15 %, on a Seen Casually target for a total chance of 56% failure! ), only if it's a false destination or the information is not complete enough and the spell is going to directly result in a mishap.

Meaning: If the PCs want to be stupid, they still can.

 

[Plane Sailing]

VirgilCaine, perhaps you didn't understand my earlier message. You might want to re-read it.

Do not participate in this thread again.

 

[Lurks-no-More]

Ah, but how long will this take?
I'm not talking GI checks, I mean Knowledge (Geography) checks to places flora, fauna, accents, names of cities, inns and buildings.
I cannot fathom how this procedure is in any way time-efficient with an hour to cast and 1 minute per level to look around at the target's 10' radius surroundings.

Discern Location has no save or spell resistance, and gives you the exact location of the thing or person you are looking for.

I guess your enemy spellcasters don't take precautions against spells and abilities that have existed for thousands of years.

The problem, as others have said, is not that you can't protect against scry-buff-teleport attacks; it's that everybody must do so, or they're at the mercy of any determined high-level hit team. Altering teleport so as to prevent this is, IMO, preferable to having every bad guy equipped and prepared so as to make it impossible.

If you can't read the spell descriptions and understand how dangerous offensive teleportation is, that's not my problem, but you'll never see it happen in any of my games, except in the gravest extreme.

Greater Teleport: "If you attempt to teleport with insufficient information (or with misleading information), you disappear and simply reappear in your original location. Interplanar travel is not possible." It's not that dangeorus, really.

Seeing that the SBT attack is a tactic that appears, independently, in game after game, and is very commonly seen as problematic and setting-damaging, I think you're underestimating the impact it has on the game.