Game Breaker Spells - What are they?

[Veril]

Some of the spells OP has a problem with really aren't an issue. Smart people who live in the world know about these and use them to their advantage (i.e. the BBEG), dumb people don't (i.e. the BBEG's minions)

Zone of truth: This allows a save. Do you know who saved when you are asking question? No way. People can refuse to answer. Spells can block this effect. No law court would accept this as 100% proof - it's good evidence, but not enough.

Speak with Dead. People know it exists. "Smart Murder" (a rogue) uses Disguise Self spell (via UMD) with Disguise skill to look like "Unfortunate Character". Runs up and kills "Hapless Victim". "Guiilble Law Enforcer Cleric" casts speak with dead on the corpse. "Hapless Victim"'s corpse says "Unfortunate Character" did it. Oops.
There are so many ways of avoiding speak with dead that it's trivial to negate it. After I kill someone I rip out their tongue and take it with me. No tongue = no speak.
Speak with dead should be used to find out supporting information i.e. "who do you think might have you killed?".

Teleport can be blocked by strong magical or natural energy - that's what the spell says. Let it work on the BBEG's minions - which is good for the players, they get to feelk good about things. Other times (for the BBEG), it fails because of the strong natural or magical energy.
A Waterfall is a strong natural energy as is a Volcano - caves in (or behind) either of those can trivially be defined by the referee as no-teleport. Doen't matter how familiar you are with it. You can defined areas of your world as having strong magical energy and BBEG site their HQ there. No Teleport allowed.

Fly. Very problematic spell. Have to fix in game. Chenge the spell so that it requires a material component of a Broomstick (at 5th) or a Carpet (higher level caster = bigger caepet). That can help some.

Save or XXXXX spells. Generally these things suck. Equip BBEG's with 1 off automatic-dispells vs these effects. Minions just get to suck it up and die. Heck as the GM you determine the effect of what players do simply say BBEG makes his save vs takeouts.

For most spells it's not too hard to solve thing, providing you remember that people in the world know "something" about magic. Minions and stupid people fall afowl of it. BBEG and smart people use it to their advantage more. This lets magic be more effective against mooks and less effective against the BBEG

 

[lukelightning]

True Seeing does totally scrap any plots about polymorphed or shapeshifted creatures, and renders all illusions pointless.

Not in my experience. You actually have to cast it, and it only lasts 1 minute/level. And it costs $$ to cast. So unless you have a good reason to suspect Welmor the Baker is a rakshasa in disguise, you're probably not going to have true seeing up and running when he hires you to get his daughter out of the well.

Scry & Teleport ("You must take this ring on a long, perilous journey through-" "No, we don't. *POP*")

Remember you can only scry creatures, not places. Plus they get a save. Besides, you're high level. DMs shouldn't rely on the same old wilderness ambushes as a plot device.

Dimension Door ("Find the controls to extend the bridge!" "Bridge? Who needs a bridge? *POP*")

You have limits on how many people you can bring with you. And you can still find reasons to require someone to find bridge controls...sure the wizard can dim door across, but she can't always bring everyone.

Fly ("The villain lives behind the stout walls of Castle Cragsmere, atop the Tower of Ruin" "Really? Okay, we go there. Roll for initiative, villain.")

In my experience, flying up to a villains castle is a good way to get peppered by arrows, shot at by fireball ballistaes, and mobbed by gargoyles, or all of the above. Fly only works on one character, if the party wants to use up a bunch of 3rd level spells to get everyone aloft, let them.

 

[gizmo33]

Sure, but as a 5th level character? I don't think anyone who is saying fly is disruptive is saying it should go completely. Just that is ought to be something for a higher level character to do.

Ok. But teleport is available to 9th level characters. So if you change fly to a 5th level spell, you're still going to have to design castles to deal with flying opponents for when the PCs reach 9th level. Unless 9th level character's aren't supposed to deal with castles, or fly is supposed to be higher than a 5th level spell. Basically, I'm not sure what the difference is if PCs are higher level in this case.

 

[lukelightning]

Heck as the GM you determine the effect of what players do simply say BBEG makes his save vs takeouts.

That sounds like cheating to me. If my character can bite the dust because of a failed save, so can your precious BBEG. Most players can smell DM shenanigans like this (I've experienced it in the past...it's kind of obvious when no BBEG ever fails the save). I'd ask the DM, why is this villain so important that you have to cheat? We're playing a game, not acting out your screenplay.

D&D is supposed to be interactive and open ended. If you arbitrarily take away player's abilities such as nerfing their "save or die" abilities, you run the risk of taking away the fun. I'd suggest that if your game can't survive a failed BBEG saving throw you're not building "robust" enough encounters.

 

[gizmo33]

That sounds like cheating to me.

Agreed. If the way you make a spell work in the game is to cheat then I think the spell needs to change, at least for your game. It's more fair to the players.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Speak with Dead. People know it exists. "Smart Murder" (a rogue) uses Disguise Self spell (via UMD) with Disguise skill to look like "Unfortunate Character". Runs up and kills "Hapless Victim". "Guiilble Law Enforcer Cleric" casts speak with dead on the corpse. "Hapless Victim"'s corpse says "Unfortunate Character" did it. Oops.
There are so many ways of avoiding speak with dead that it's trivial to negate it. After I kill someone I rip out their tongue and take it with me. No tongue = no speak.
Speak with dead should be used to find out supporting information i.e. "who do you think might have you killed?".

Heck...

"Who killed you?"

"I dunno, some guy. I didn't get a good look at him."

It's not like the murder victim always gets a clear look at the face of the murderer, let alone their birth certificate or Social Security Number.

Brad

 

[Scribble]

What do you see as possible "game-breaker" spells? What does game-breaking mean at all? What can we do against them, without losing interesting spell ideas and flavor?

I can emphasize... I'll give you some of my ideas. They may already have been suggested, but I haven't read the whole thread... I'm lazy what can I say?

Discern Lies/Zone of Truth:
The game breaker aspect is that suddenly, all the ranks invested in Bluff or Sense Motive are useless. Just use the spell to make the first one unimportant and the second one not required.
Possible Fix: Just let the spells aid the skills (Discern Lies improves Sense Motive, Zone of Truth causes penalties to Bluff). It might also be useful to delay when these spells become available. (In D&D 4 terms, this might be reserved for the Paragon and Epic tier of spells and abilities)**)

I like this idea. Just let it add a significant bonus to your detect lies ability. That way, it will still catch most liars, but those trained to lie very well can still beat the system. (Almost like a lie detector now...) +10 or something... Or maybe lets you take 20 on your sense motive check?

Teleport:
Suddenly, the group doesn't have to travel to a place (no more wilderness encounters for you - which might not be that bad). But the most important game breaking element is the combination with "Scry" - suddenly you can get to your enemy anytime you want.
Possible Fix: You can't teleport into a building or home of someone unwilling (think uninvited vampires). So you can still get out, if necessary, and you can still get to the front gate of the enemy fortress, but you don't get in.

There are ways around this one... I don't think it's really all that game breaking. It's been the subject of a number of defense against stuff. Really I think any enemy worth his/her salt should know to defend their fort against it.

Speak with Dead:
Just ask the victim who it was. Solves most murder mysteries, unless you always have a story that ensures that the murderer wasn't seen by the victim, or the murderer was disguised or controlled by someone else. (Meaning the case is a bit more contrived than usual.)
Possible Fix: Not really one. Might in fact be okay, if you stick to the above limitations. The same as for Zone of Truth and Discern Lies might also apply here.

Well not sure this one needs fixin either... Some guy ina mask kileld me... I think it was bob the baker... Shrug. Maybe go more classic fantasy novel style and make the spirit talk in riddles? Or in some confusing way that can be misinterpreted. Or make the cost of casting it higher, to discourage it from being commonly cast in murder cases.

Save or Die spells*:
Suddenly, all the hit points you might have had become meaningless. The classical safety net is gone. A single roll decides whether you get to live or die, and you don't really have a way to defend yourself against it.
Possible Fix: See Disintegrate and Harm (deal massive damage), or Power Word spells (only targets with X HPs or less are affected)
*) There is also the category of Save or "Suck" - depending on the degree of "suckness", you can put them in this group, too. Save or -4 to an ability, Save or 50% miss chance are fine, in my view, but Save or become a frog or Save or be paralyzed for the rest of the encounter are not.

I'd change all the "or die" to or be reduced to -1 HP. You're out of the fight, until someone uses an action to fix you.

Dominate Person/Monster:
Even better than Save or Die spells: Save or get the enemy of your friends. Instead of taking just out one enemy, the caster just also "summoned" an ally.
On the other hand, the spell has great flavour element and is a typical fantasy trope:
Possible Fix: See Save or Die Spells, and also make it harder to use within combat (either the "ally" will have a very easy time to resist commands, or it just takes longer.)

Maybe make this one have a higher casting cost as well... To again move people away from casually using it...

Magic Circle vs Evil:
The +2 to AC and saves is fine. The immunity to charm and compulsion effects not so much. Essentially, you completely negate the ability of many characters and monsters.
Possible Fix: Reduce the benefit (and in turn ensure that compulsions and charms aren't getting to strong, see Dominate Person/Monster)

Eh... You need these when summoning high level demons and devils and such. Maybe make it have various effects depending on what marterial components you use...

Chalk = +2 AC
Diamond Dust = Immunity to charm compulsion effects.

Or maybe just give it a bonus to your save.

 

[apoptosis]

Well, then the smart non-mage villain has hired a mage, or rather a network of mages for every corner of his stronghold, or rather a network of mages for every corner of his stronghold at all hours of the day. Basically, the smart villain needs to has to build a massive network of deathly loyal mages who never think to over thrown him while he sleeps.

Seems to me if magic has some power in the world to 'break rules' a smart non-magic using villain will have access to spell users.

The fact that he has to worry about his underlings overthrowing him is actually interesting and has some associated drama.

There seems to be a general discordance (not with an individual but in a group-think sort of way) that people want a fantastical game where paradoxically magic cant do anything that is not mundane (i am being a bit hyperbolic but it seems that way to me a bit). [this is not directed at the person i responded to and is a general thought]

I would more understand if people as a whole wanted less of a high fantasy game and magic was generally only slightly beneficial but again and again I see a lot of people say they want a high fantasy game.

 

[Loincloth of Armour]

Speak with Dead isn't the killer (so to speak) with mysteries, it's things like Commune. Even with an XP cost, it's still a bit annoying.

The following is paraphrased from a game I was a player in (I thought up the idea, so guilty of breaking the game.)

Me: We've narrowed the field down to 3 people who could be the murderer of Victim A.

I cast Commune and ask, "Was Victim A killed through the actions of Subject 1?"

DM: No.

Me: Next question. I get 1 per level.

DM: Crap.

Me: "Was Victim A killed through the actions of Subject 2?"

Etc. (Followed by the PCs going through every named NPC they've met. After all, the killer should be someone the players know about, or at least the person who ordered the killing should be someone the players know about.

I don't mind short-term divinations (Q: "Will breaking this seal cause us problems?" A: "Woe.") Or ones that have answers in riddles (Q: "Will we do well if we venture down to the second level." A: "Open flame lights the way to victory.") but straight out-and-out answers (while easier to DM) do take something out of the game.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Of course magic causes changes in the world that doesn't reflect history (and alot of mythology and stories since those reflect history frequently). However, I think it's possibly a slippery slope once you determine that magic will have no effect on the way society deals with problems in terms of technology. Magic, by it's nature, bypasses various "barriers" - death, distances, all the rest.

I think part of the reason these spells are so problematic is because there was never a society in the real world that had to deal with anything like it. Fireball is no problem, we had catapults, grenades and rockets. But Scry-Teleport? Don't have anything that is close enough (a cruise missile might be a bit similar, but how many mercenaries - the closest thing to an adventurer - have access to such a thing? Exactly, no one...)
Speak With Dead? Raise Dead?!

Once you consequently apply the game rules on a setting, it changes a lot from what you must settings expect to do - it no longer feels like medieval fantasy...

I do think that DnD traditionally has had a shortage of protection spells. You should be able to cast a spell on someone's corpse to prevent speak with dead and it should probably be about the same level as the original spell. Teleport should probably have various magical and mundane ways of thwarting it. Infallible divination spells with no cost for casting should probably be changed. But at the same time I think the limitations should be applied judiciously, and with the understanding that magic will/should probably change the appearence of DnD (and some of the realities of what it means to run a "murder mystery" type adventure, for example).

I can't imagine a world with magic where I can't fly to the top of a remote moutain. Then again, I wonder why there are no similar spells to prevent that.

I don't like the idea of limiting spells with other spells. I think there should be some precautions that anybody could take, provided he knew anything about magic (Enough ranks in Knowledge Arcana). So, to avoid Divinations spells, hide yourself behind lead (doesn't work all the time, but at least during your regularly scheduled secret meetings). Ethreal wanderers? Can't move through living wood or plants...

There should probably also be spells, and they might be more effective or easier to apply (once you have a mage - or are the mage - that can cast them), but there should be a more "mundane" alternative...