Game Breaker Spells - What are they?

[Nyeshet]

If they are going to separate the game into three tiers, then the spells should similarly fall into such tiers.

So perhaps Fly is a second tier spell (ie: gained somewhere between levels 10 and 20), Teleport is a third tier spell (between levels 20 and 30), and so forth.

Perhaps travel type spells would become available in a manner similar to the following:

Expeditious Retreat around level 1, Longstrider ~ level 3, (Swim speed gained) ~5, Feather Fall ~7, Spider Climb ~9, Glide ~11, Dimension Slide ~13, Fly ~15, Dimension Door ~17, Shadow Walk ~19, Teleport ~21, Ethereal Jaunt ~23, Teleport w/o Error ~25, Plane Shift ~27, and Astral Journey ~29?

Oddly enough it almost sounds like a highly specialized school / domain when you think about it that way. Of course, it also makes one wonder what spell tiers might look like.

In this example levels 1-10 (ie: the Heroic region of the Tier) deal mostly with enhancements to basic movements (walking, running, swimming, climbing, etc) with the exception of Feather Fall - that foreshadows Flying in the Paragon region of the tier. The Paragon Tier works in flight and some basic short range teleportation, ending with Shadow Walk, which foreshadows the planar travel aspects of the Epic Tier - which also includes such potent teleportation as the typical Teleportation and Teleport w/o Error spells.

Ah well, I'm just brainstorming at the moment, wondering how it all might work out in 4e. The idea that spells would be divided by the tier system (Heroic, Paragon, Epic) just seems to make sense to me from what we have so far heard. We have a long wait till we see what they are really up to, but it will hopefully be quite interesting and fun.

 

[Plane Sailing]

If they are going to separate the game into three tiers, then the spells should similarly fall into such tiers.

So perhaps Fly is a second tier spell (ie: gained somewhere between levels 10 and 20), Teleport is a third tier spell (between levels 20 and 30), and so forth.

I like the idea of considering the 'tiers' when placing spells, although I'd swap things around from you.

Teleport is just a way of traversing long distances, it is typically of strategic use. It reduces the time to get to the interesting place.

Fly, on the other hand, is hugely important during encounters. It is typically much more useful tactically. Since the encounter situation is typically the things that the DM designs and wants you to adventure with, something that overcomes challenges easily is pretty poor IMO.

Now this is considering the 'fly spell' type fly as it is at the moment, with the ability to hover with great manouverability. Fly spells which are like 'swift fly for 1 round' seem more in the typical fantasy trope, or fly which doesn't permit hovering (and perhaps that doesn't permit other spellcasting too) wouldn't be so much of a problem.

So I'd see 'Teleport' as a paragon level ability, and 'perfect flight' as an epic level ability, personally.

Cheers

 

[zoroaster100]

Mustrum, I completely agree with your assessment and I desperately hope the 4e designers read and pay close attention to your post.

Sean K. Reynolds blogged a while back about very similar issues, which he addressed as eliminating absolute effects in the game. I believe he included in the list the spell Knock, which suddenly makes Open Lock skill ranks redundant (he suggested that instead should allow the caster to make an unkilled Open Lock roll with a +15 bonus (if I remember correctly), so even a rogue/wizard can benefit from both his ranks and the benefit of the spell). He also included other effects that completely protect against a whole category of effects.

I would include in this list the following:

Death ward - Death effects and negative energey effects should be toned down accross the board, but there should not be a spell that totally and completely blocks them with no way to overcome this protection except to dispel it. Instead it should grant a bonus to saves.

Freedom of Movement - One effect completely makes grappling, paralyzation, and other forms of battlefield control useless. This should be toned down to a bonus to saves.

True Seeing - Again, one effect wipes out invisibility, illusion, shapechanging disguise, etc., ruining many forms of interesting adventures that involve figuring out such tricks. Instead, it should grant a strong bonus to Spot, and high Spot resolves should allow someone to discern something is wrong.

Mind Blank - Another effect that wipes out a whole category of effects, making whole types of characters and monsters useless if they rely on mind effects. Instead it should grant a strong bonus to saves.

If saves are changing in 4e to some kind of "defense" like AC, then instead of a save bonus these effects would grant a defense bonus.

I also agree that the fly spell should be epic level. At lower levels the ability to fly should just be a swift fly for one round or else more mechanical like growing wings but then you can't cast spells, or transform into a bird, etc. And mass flight should be unavailable, at least until epic levels. That way you don't have the whole party flying around unless each character invests in obtaining the ability on their own, such as the fighter getting a flying mount, the druid using shape change, the wizard using a spell for short term flight, etc., and even then only for a limited time per day in most cases. This avoids making entire types of monsters useless.

 

[hong]

I like the idea of considering the 'tiers' when placing spells, although I'd swap things around from you.

Teleport is just a way of traversing long distances, it is typically of strategic use. It reduces the time to get to the interesting place.

Just as long as they limit the precision of the starting and/or end point, so the buff/scry/teleport thing doesn't become quite so easy as currently. Most other teleporting magic in games puts limits on where you can jump from/to, eg only between specified "gates", only to a preset destination, etc.

 

[Sun Knight]

If you don't like those spells just remove them from your game and leave them in for those who like using them. I don't see how Save or Die spells are so detrimental to the game, especially how raise dead, ressurection, and instant full heal spells are so plentiful by the time the party gets high enough to use or be targeted by such spells. You want save or die spells removed, fine. Lets also remove Raise Dead, Reincarnation, Resurrection, True Ressurection, and Heal spells as well.

 

[Remathilis]

Possible examples might be polymorph or flesh to stone which do hp damage but if you get to 0 (or whatever is an appropriate threshold) you are turned into a bunny/turned to stone/etc.

PHB2 has a spell called "Call of Stone" It does two points of dex damage a round (fort save negates) if you drop to 0 dex, you become a statue. If you make any of your saves, the effect stops.

I personally think more spells should do something similar: feeblemind does int damage/round, Baleful Polymorph does str damage, etc.

 

[Plane Sailing]

If you don't like those spells just remove them from your game and leave them in for those who like using them. I don't see how Save or Die spells are so detrimental to the game, especially how raise dead, ressurection, and instant full heal spells are so plentiful by the time the party gets high enough to use or be targeted by such spells. You want save or die spells removed, fine. Lets also remove Raise Dead, Reincarnation, Resurrection, True Ressurection, and Heal spells as well.

Keep calm!

This thread is about spells which many people consider problematical - and it is worth noting that the WotC designers think some of them are problematical as well, since they've already mentioned that they want to do something about 'save or lose' spells... so perhaps you are missing something that they have spotted as a trend? Worth considering at any rate.

As zoroaster100 mentions, MindBlank simply shuts down an enchanter. True Seeing shuts down an illusionist. That seems like a bit of a system problem to me, perhaps you think differently.

You could always start a separate thread (perhaps in the D&D rules forum) to discuss the reasons why you think there are no problem spells in D&D at the moment though - it might provoke some interesting discussion.

Cheers

 

[Plane Sailing]

PHB2 has a spell called "Call of Stone" It does two points of dex damage a round (fort save negates) if you drop to 0 dex, you become a statue. If you make any of your saves, the effect stops.

I remember thinking that that spell idea (and also the spells which you can 'charge up' by taking longer to cast them) were the two best ideas in the PHB2. I hope we see some of those aspects coming into 4e.

 

[Sun Knight]

Keep calm!

Oh, I am very calm. I just don't see why they should remove of change spells that aren't a problem or only a problem for only some people.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

If you don't like those spells just remove them from your game and leave them in for those who like using them. I don't see how Save or Die spells are so detrimental to the game, especially how raise dead, ressurection, and instant full heal spells are so plentiful by the time the party gets high enough to use or be targeted by such spells. You want save or die spells removed, fine. Lets also remove Raise Dead, Reincarnation, Resurrection, True Ressurection, and Heal spells as well.

The reason they are so harmful is the FEELING they tend to give players and DMs alike. For example:

"Alright, we've set out into the wilderness on a 3 week trip to the legendary Dungeon of Infinite DOOM. We've heard in town that there are cultists there who are doing a ritual to summon their horribly evil god to destroy all of reality. We are the only ones strong enough to stop them. We are 8th level, so we have a number of hit points and the skills to win.

We reach the temple and we find some cultists in the first room. One them casts Slay Living on the fighter. He rolls a natural 1 and dies despite being at full hit points, having a large fort save, and being able to kill that cultist in about 2-3 hits. The rest beat the cultist.

The party considers going onwards, after all if they don't stop the cultists the world will be destroyed. However, that was their only front line fighter character. Plus, they receive a bunch of out of character whining from the player of the character who (strangely enough) doesn't want to spend the next 3 hours of the session (and possibly all of the next one) watching everyone else play the game. So they pick up the body of their fallen comrade and trudge the 3 weeks back to town to get the fighter brought back to life....a level lower than everyone else."

Yes, the same thing can happen with hit point damage, but it happens more gradually and tends to be a lot more predictable. VERY few enemies hit in one round for enough damage to kill any one character. So, because of that you have the ability to go "Wow...that monster hits for 50 damage a round? The fighter has 80, two rounds of being hit in a row will kill him. But if we can cast a cure critical wounds every round for an average of 25 healing, it'll take the enemy 4 rounds to kill him instead of 2. That should give us the couple of extra rounds the rest of the party needs to win."

This allows the party to predict how far their resources will go, realize when they are almost dead and retreat in order to rest and regain resources. Maybe they'll spend a day overnight outside in the wilderness rather than 6 weeks going to town and back. Also, the fighter won't lose a level. The players get a challenge ("Wow..this is hard, we had to retreat and rest in order to beat them...and that one battle they knocked me down to -5 before you healed me. It was close") without dealing with the level loss and trouble of death and raise dead.