Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 3749115" data-attributes="member: 710">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 am putting this up as D&D 4 thread, but it might also fit into the General Rules forum. I'd like to present a few examples, but maybe others can come up with more and even more interesting ones: Spells that "break" the rules: 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)**)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. 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.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.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.)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)**)Maybe this is also a goal of the 3 "tiers": Each tier will focus on different adventure types. You get your share of murder mysteries as a heroic character, but once a paragon or epic level character, you focus on different things (high level political intrigue, dealing with kings and kingdoms, invading armies and such...)</blockquote>

Verification