Game Breaker Spells - What are they?
- Thread starter Mustrum_Ridcully
- Start date
Cheiromancer
Adventurer
Or have speak with dead work, but work it so the legal system doesn't accept information gained by those spells. Because of ways that magically acquired evidence can be tampered with- or maybe it counts as an "illegal search". Or maybe eyewitness testimony isn't accepted if there is no chance of cross-examination.ehren37 said:
And if the PCs know who the murderer is, but can't prove it, that's good for the story. Or if they have to figure out the motivation was... that's a good things. Or heck, have some murders that can be solved by speak with dead. Drop in the masked/invisible/disguised villain at some other murder, but let the cleric shine on this one.
Having a reputation as being able to easily solve murders can inspire many plot hooks.
[edit] But yeah, it changes the kind of stories that can be told. And maybe DMs don't want to tell those kinds of stories. Then it would be a game breaker.
Last edited:
Ridley's Cohort
First Post
Fly is a genre-defining ability that is not going to be removed from the game.
The open question is at what level flying becomes reasonably common, and how does one regulate access to other powerful magical effects and spells against this benchmark, e.g. Fireball, Divination, Commune, Raise Dead, etc.
The open question is at what level flying becomes reasonably common, and how does one regulate access to other powerful magical effects and spells against this benchmark, e.g. Fireball, Divination, Commune, Raise Dead, etc.
zoroaster100
First Post
ehren37 said:
Irda Ranger
First Post
Er, D&D is a high-magic game. I didn't like how 3e made it a "commercialized magic" game, what with straight gold costs for "any magic item you feel like" (and I am hopeful 4e will fix this) ... but I wouldn't propose many of the fixes discussed in this thread. Not for the Core Rules, at any rate. I've got Iron Heroes and Grim Tales if I want to go that route.
Also, as hong said in the first reply, a good action point system that lets PC's roll again, or add to their roll (a lot), fixes a lot of problems.
The "problem" I think some people have is that certain spells are incompatible with their campaign setting or the tone they are seeking. You could ban these spells out-right for that, and I think that may be the best solution for your campaign. For example, getting rid of Plane Shift and Astral Journey (or whatever it's called) would keep you players on the Prime Material (except under unique "plot hooky" circumstances). That's a perfectly legitimate GM's call when designing his world/game, but that doesn't mean those spells shouldn't be in the Core Books.
Another problem I think some people have is just that they don't like high-level play. Impose an XP penalty equal to the character's level * 10%. Done.
Since this is a game, there is only one kind of "game breaking" spells, IMO: spells that make the game un-fun. There are several ways to do this.
1. The spell is boring, but necessary to cast repetitively. I'm looking at Magic Missile, Shield/Mage Armor, and their higher level counter-parts. I am looking forward to 4e's at-will powers that I expect to replace these thoroughly.
2. The spell is a 'no brainer', tactically speaking, but 'useless' in the sense that once both sides have it, it cancels out. I'm thinking Haste and Fly here, as well as certain stat-boosting spells, but there may be others. I'm not interested in playing an arm's race. Spell tactics should always be 'interesting', like gambits in chess.
3. A spell (or spell combination) that, in the hands of a rational enemy, guarantees the PC's an un-heroic death. I'm thinking of scry/buff/teleport here. Throughout their career, PC's will make enemies. They also sleep. Combining these two facts makes Neumann and Morgenstern sad puppies.
To flesh this out a bit, the reason s/b/t is bad is because it can be used against the PC's. And I am of the opinion that any real opponent will use all resources at his disposal. Have the PC's made an enemy of the <insert powerful organization with magic users>, enough to catch some high-up's attention? There's nothing from stopping this high-up from hiring a competent-but-expendable 1st level Assassin, buffing him to the gills, and teleporting him into the PC's bed chamber while he's sleeping. It's not a guaranteed kill, but your enemy only needs to get lucky once. To an Evil Organization Big-wig, Assassins are cheap. The assassin would of course have instructions to bring the PC's head back with him.
Since I like to make things 'more magical', rather than ban spells, I would prefer to leave in Teleport, but make it useless for the s/b/t tactic. Some of my favorite fixes are "casting Teleport has the side effect of casting Dispel Magic on yourself" and "Teleporting people spend 10 rounds in 'telespace', a temporary demi-plane without light or gravity, during which time a point-of-light slowing grows from 1" to 6' in diameter emits a keening hum impossible to ignore at your intended destination."
4. A spell that makes another class wonder why it bothered to show up. There are half a dozen cleric spells that are particularly troublesome in this regard, but others have mentioned knock, so I'll admit it's in this category.
Personally, I am not a fan of many of the solutions in this thread because they're either solutions to "problems" that only exist in a particular poster's campaign expectations, or the solution makes the game less fun & magical. As for me, I like solutions that don't take the magic out of the game, and increase strategic choices. However, I have found that a few simple changes to a few spells keep them from over-powering the game; but I don't claim to have any 'one' solution for any given spell, since there isn't any. I can only tell you some things I've tried.
Teleport: see above.
Fly: a dozen ways to fix this. Making it 'Concentration', so you cannot use it and cast spells at the same time, is a good one. So is reducing maneuverability.
Knock: grant a +10 to Open Locks, which does not stack with real skill points. This allows you to get out of most jails and pick most hand-cuffs, but not break into high security vaults. That's what the Rogue is for.
Scry: cheap counter-measures. I like "Herbs of Privacy." Any village herbalist can sell you these for cheap. Set them in beeswax for a candle, or stuff them in a lamp's oil reserve. Anything that occurs within the light of one of these treated items is 'blind spot' to Scry spells. Only the super-rich and paranoid have these running 24/7, but this allows anyone (including the PC's!) to have a private conversation.
Zone of Truth/Discern Lies: I usually ban these, for two reasons. One, it makes a lot of Skills useless (including all those ranks in Bluff!). Two, 'Truth' is a funny thing. Only certain maths have been 'proven' to be true. Pretty much anything else is subject to interpretation, so even if the spells worked as advertised, the most you can say is that the target believes it to be true. "Vader betrayed and murdered your father." This makes these spells 'over sold', and disappoints a player's expectations. Better to avoid that. People better know what to expect with normal Gather Info, Diplomacy, etc.
Save or Lose: Frankly, I don't mind that HP's become meaningless. There's more than one way to skin a PC. I expect players to seek out the enemy's weaknesses, and exploit them; and they should expect the GM to do the same. NPC's would be fools to try to wear down the Barbarian's hit points with a frontal attack, not when they can attack his Will Save and/or hold his favorite little sister hostage. Similarly, any NPC who gets in a Fireball duel with a Wizard at high noon is an idiot. A Save or Lose spell is not bad per se, only if it cannot be intelligently countered (i.e., with good prep work, not just a die roll). In that instance it may violate rule #2 or #3.
Also, as hong said in the first reply, a good action point system that lets PC's roll again, or add to their roll (a lot), fixes a lot of problems.
The "problem" I think some people have is that certain spells are incompatible with their campaign setting or the tone they are seeking. You could ban these spells out-right for that, and I think that may be the best solution for your campaign. For example, getting rid of Plane Shift and Astral Journey (or whatever it's called) would keep you players on the Prime Material (except under unique "plot hooky" circumstances). That's a perfectly legitimate GM's call when designing his world/game, but that doesn't mean those spells shouldn't be in the Core Books.
Another problem I think some people have is just that they don't like high-level play. Impose an XP penalty equal to the character's level * 10%. Done.
Since this is a game, there is only one kind of "game breaking" spells, IMO: spells that make the game un-fun. There are several ways to do this.
1. The spell is boring, but necessary to cast repetitively. I'm looking at Magic Missile, Shield/Mage Armor, and their higher level counter-parts. I am looking forward to 4e's at-will powers that I expect to replace these thoroughly.
2. The spell is a 'no brainer', tactically speaking, but 'useless' in the sense that once both sides have it, it cancels out. I'm thinking Haste and Fly here, as well as certain stat-boosting spells, but there may be others. I'm not interested in playing an arm's race. Spell tactics should always be 'interesting', like gambits in chess.
3. A spell (or spell combination) that, in the hands of a rational enemy, guarantees the PC's an un-heroic death. I'm thinking of scry/buff/teleport here. Throughout their career, PC's will make enemies. They also sleep. Combining these two facts makes Neumann and Morgenstern sad puppies.
To flesh this out a bit, the reason s/b/t is bad is because it can be used against the PC's. And I am of the opinion that any real opponent will use all resources at his disposal. Have the PC's made an enemy of the <insert powerful organization with magic users>, enough to catch some high-up's attention? There's nothing from stopping this high-up from hiring a competent-but-expendable 1st level Assassin, buffing him to the gills, and teleporting him into the PC's bed chamber while he's sleeping. It's not a guaranteed kill, but your enemy only needs to get lucky once. To an Evil Organization Big-wig, Assassins are cheap. The assassin would of course have instructions to bring the PC's head back with him.
Since I like to make things 'more magical', rather than ban spells, I would prefer to leave in Teleport, but make it useless for the s/b/t tactic. Some of my favorite fixes are "casting Teleport has the side effect of casting Dispel Magic on yourself" and "Teleporting people spend 10 rounds in 'telespace', a temporary demi-plane without light or gravity, during which time a point-of-light slowing grows from 1" to 6' in diameter emits a keening hum impossible to ignore at your intended destination."
4. A spell that makes another class wonder why it bothered to show up. There are half a dozen cleric spells that are particularly troublesome in this regard, but others have mentioned knock, so I'll admit it's in this category.
******
Personally, I am not a fan of many of the solutions in this thread because they're either solutions to "problems" that only exist in a particular poster's campaign expectations, or the solution makes the game less fun & magical. As for me, I like solutions that don't take the magic out of the game, and increase strategic choices. However, I have found that a few simple changes to a few spells keep them from over-powering the game; but I don't claim to have any 'one' solution for any given spell, since there isn't any. I can only tell you some things I've tried.
Teleport: see above.
Fly: a dozen ways to fix this. Making it 'Concentration', so you cannot use it and cast spells at the same time, is a good one. So is reducing maneuverability.
Knock: grant a +10 to Open Locks, which does not stack with real skill points. This allows you to get out of most jails and pick most hand-cuffs, but not break into high security vaults. That's what the Rogue is for.
Scry: cheap counter-measures. I like "Herbs of Privacy." Any village herbalist can sell you these for cheap. Set them in beeswax for a candle, or stuff them in a lamp's oil reserve. Anything that occurs within the light of one of these treated items is 'blind spot' to Scry spells. Only the super-rich and paranoid have these running 24/7, but this allows anyone (including the PC's!) to have a private conversation.
Zone of Truth/Discern Lies: I usually ban these, for two reasons. One, it makes a lot of Skills useless (including all those ranks in Bluff!). Two, 'Truth' is a funny thing. Only certain maths have been 'proven' to be true. Pretty much anything else is subject to interpretation, so even if the spells worked as advertised, the most you can say is that the target believes it to be true. "Vader betrayed and murdered your father." This makes these spells 'over sold', and disappoints a player's expectations. Better to avoid that. People better know what to expect with normal Gather Info, Diplomacy, etc.
Save or Lose: Frankly, I don't mind that HP's become meaningless. There's more than one way to skin a PC. I expect players to seek out the enemy's weaknesses, and exploit them; and they should expect the GM to do the same. NPC's would be fools to try to wear down the Barbarian's hit points with a frontal attack, not when they can attack his Will Save and/or hold his favorite little sister hostage. Similarly, any NPC who gets in a Fireball duel with a Wizard at high noon is an idiot. A Save or Lose spell is not bad per se, only if it cannot be intelligently countered (i.e., with good prep work, not just a die roll). In that instance it may violate rule #2 or #3.
Philip
Explorer
Game-breaking for me:
Most mobility, detection and divination spells.
Can clearly remember our party inside a high-level adventure in the Bloodstone series, going through the maze of some Assassins Guild. Summoned Air Elemental in front, party flying and invisible.
Nearly all encounters and traps had suddenly become meaningless and ineffective.
If a design a mid to high-level adventure, I always need to consider, what if the party:
A. uses Find the Path
B. uses Etherealness
etc. etc.
The party an use spells to bypass encounters that would have been interesting to the players, but that the characters would try their best to bypass. The spells are game-breaking in the sense that you have to design your adventure around them, they always need to be in the back of your mind. Forget one, and an encounter could suddenly become meaningless or bypassed altogether. Damage spells, buff spells and the like cannot cause encounters to become meaningless or bypassed, they can only change a hard encounter into an easy one.
Most mobility, detection and divination spells.
Can clearly remember our party inside a high-level adventure in the Bloodstone series, going through the maze of some Assassins Guild. Summoned Air Elemental in front, party flying and invisible.
Nearly all encounters and traps had suddenly become meaningless and ineffective.
If a design a mid to high-level adventure, I always need to consider, what if the party:
A. uses Find the Path
B. uses Etherealness
etc. etc.
The party an use spells to bypass encounters that would have been interesting to the players, but that the characters would try their best to bypass. The spells are game-breaking in the sense that you have to design your adventure around them, they always need to be in the back of your mind. Forget one, and an encounter could suddenly become meaningless or bypassed altogether. Damage spells, buff spells and the like cannot cause encounters to become meaningless or bypassed, they can only change a hard encounter into an easy one.
Philip
Explorer
Breaking Lord of the Iron Fortress
Examples of game breaking spells from our experience.
So, on of our DM's invited us to run us through this WoTC published adventure: Lord of the Iron Fortress. This didn't went exactly as planned (neither by the DM nor the WotC adventure writers). Note: this may contain spoilers.
No rest for the heroes
At the start of the adventure the DM told us that we needed to retrieve the MacGuffin as soon as possible, for the evil plot could bear fruits 'at any moment'. Of course, this is a common plot formula to prevent recuperating between each encounter, even although the 'moment' is plotted to be just when the heroes arrive. In essence, a plot device is used to force our heroes to conform to the x encounter per day that is required for spell-users not to dominate encounters.
Across the Void
We arrive in the outer planes. This effectively disables and thus foils use of etherealness and a host of other problem spells. We need to go to some distant flying objective. One teleport later (my wizard likes risky teleport) and we are there, bypassing encounters on the way.
Searching for the Fortress
Our characters need to find the fortress. To expedite this, the cleric use Wind Walk on our party. Fast, high and nearly invisible, we scout the target area until we find the Iron Fortress. We handily bypass 6-7 pages of encounters.
Entering the Iron Fortess
The adventure writers have given the Fortress multiple abilities that negate problem spells. Thick walls lined with lead are supposed to block divination spells. There is also an unhallow effect with a linked invisibility purge. All forms of invisibility and summon spells are thus effectively countered.
Obviously, the entrance is well guarded. The walls are mostly iron, thus my wizard suggest that he use polymorph to turn into a Rust Monster, and use the (Ex) ability to turn a series of walls into rust and bring down the whole fortress down on the enemy. The DM looks pained. Several golems and some cat like constructs attack us then. They do not fly, and have poor ranged ability. We can fly of course.
Monsters defeated, and the DM still look pained, it becomes obviously the adventure writers didn't anticipate us turning the fortress into rust. We agree to limit ourselves, and just use the rust monster to create an alternate entrance (and bypass the obviously guarded main entrance). This only causes some minor upsets, since the adventure was somewhat scripted assuming we entered through by another way.
The Immobile End Boss
It is time for the final encounter of the adventure. Our nemesis stand ready to kill us. My wizard flies over and releases an empowered ray of enfeeblement, rolls a 6 and reduces him to such a poor STR score, that, being armored and all, he becomes overly encumbered, needs to drop whatever he is holding and effectively becomes rooted to the ground. During the combat he scuffles and crawls around a bit, but is unable to contribute to the combat in a meaningful way. We kill him last after we defeated his minions. He was CR 16. The DM was a bit sad at that.
Perhaps there were more things, but these are the things I remember best. During the game the DM informed us that we probably weren't "high enough level" for the final encounter, because the final encounter assumed we had gone through many of the encounters we bypassed handily. So at his advise we rested and then went out and had some of the encounters we bypassed, so the adventure would be less 'wasted' in we would be the proper level.
Examples of game breaking spells from our experience.
So, on of our DM's invited us to run us through this WoTC published adventure: Lord of the Iron Fortress. This didn't went exactly as planned (neither by the DM nor the WotC adventure writers). Note: this may contain spoilers.
No rest for the heroes
At the start of the adventure the DM told us that we needed to retrieve the MacGuffin as soon as possible, for the evil plot could bear fruits 'at any moment'. Of course, this is a common plot formula to prevent recuperating between each encounter, even although the 'moment' is plotted to be just when the heroes arrive. In essence, a plot device is used to force our heroes to conform to the x encounter per day that is required for spell-users not to dominate encounters.
Across the Void
We arrive in the outer planes. This effectively disables and thus foils use of etherealness and a host of other problem spells. We need to go to some distant flying objective. One teleport later (my wizard likes risky teleport) and we are there, bypassing encounters on the way.
Searching for the Fortress
Our characters need to find the fortress. To expedite this, the cleric use Wind Walk on our party. Fast, high and nearly invisible, we scout the target area until we find the Iron Fortress. We handily bypass 6-7 pages of encounters.
Entering the Iron Fortess
The adventure writers have given the Fortress multiple abilities that negate problem spells. Thick walls lined with lead are supposed to block divination spells. There is also an unhallow effect with a linked invisibility purge. All forms of invisibility and summon spells are thus effectively countered.
Obviously, the entrance is well guarded. The walls are mostly iron, thus my wizard suggest that he use polymorph to turn into a Rust Monster, and use the (Ex) ability to turn a series of walls into rust and bring down the whole fortress down on the enemy. The DM looks pained. Several golems and some cat like constructs attack us then. They do not fly, and have poor ranged ability. We can fly of course.
Monsters defeated, and the DM still look pained, it becomes obviously the adventure writers didn't anticipate us turning the fortress into rust. We agree to limit ourselves, and just use the rust monster to create an alternate entrance (and bypass the obviously guarded main entrance). This only causes some minor upsets, since the adventure was somewhat scripted assuming we entered through by another way.
The Immobile End Boss
It is time for the final encounter of the adventure. Our nemesis stand ready to kill us. My wizard flies over and releases an empowered ray of enfeeblement, rolls a 6 and reduces him to such a poor STR score, that, being armored and all, he becomes overly encumbered, needs to drop whatever he is holding and effectively becomes rooted to the ground. During the combat he scuffles and crawls around a bit, but is unable to contribute to the combat in a meaningful way. We kill him last after we defeated his minions. He was CR 16. The DM was a bit sad at that.
Perhaps there were more things, but these are the things I remember best. During the game the DM informed us that we probably weren't "high enough level" for the final encounter, because the final encounter assumed we had gone through many of the encounters we bypassed handily. So at his advise we rested and then went out and had some of the encounters we bypassed, so the adventure would be less 'wasted' in we would be the proper level.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
Though, I might add here, Monte Cook has put up a contra point to this.Philip said:
Instead of letting the players break your adventure with certain magic, require the magic.
There are locations they can only be reached via "Teleport" or "Fly". To get through the "Maze of Thousand Deaths", you really need "Find the Path".
But not every party actually has access to the "game-breaker" spells. Which means you can do that probably at home, because you know which abilities are available to the players (and you can provide them with alternatives routes or scrolls of the required spells)
Certain adventure types will no longer work at a certain level, while new adventure options open up.
So, the goal should probably be to ensure that you have enough time to run adventures in each "tier" of adventures. I think that might be what the 3 Level Tiers can achieve (if they are in fact used this way). If you have 10 levels to play the different types of adventure reasonably without "game-breaking"/"world-changing", it should fine. And if you have your favourite spot of adventure types, you can certainly important the E6 rules to D&D 4, too.
Geron Raveneye
Explorer
Philip said:
Hum...so you bring up an example of an adventure that simply didn't take even half of the Core options into account while being designed to illustrate how intelligent use of those same options is "game-breaking"? I don't know if that's a problem with the game system, or with people writing stuff for it that don't really think it through...or playtest it at least once. :\
