How do you handle Magic Circle in your game?

The whole dispelling a Magic Circle is already provided for in the ritual description. Anyone with a level = caster's arcana check - 10 breaks the circle automatically if they try to pass. So a tarrasque can break a circle cast with a check result of up to 40. Its possible to hit that result on a good die roll at around level 10, maybe even level 5 if you superoptimize arcana, but only on a roll of 20. To have a 50/50 chance of setting up a circle that would hold a tarrasque would require a superoptimized arcana character of at least level 20. Even a level 30 character can't achieve a 100% certainty of setting up such a circle, though it wouldn't be too difficult to do it with assistance.

As for the specific situation of the berbalang, the duplicates have the same keywords as the original and thus won't be any more able to break the circle than the original. Depending on how you read "affect the boundary in any way" a creature inside might be able to create an effect which would indirectly affect the circle, but its going to be up to the DM to decide exactly how indirect the causative act must be in order to get around that limitation. Since the limitation on affecting creatures on the other side of the circle also applies to allies even if you rule that the duplicates can be conjured outside the circle there are limits on what the original can do with them since they cannot affect each other.

I don't think I would allow the Dispel Magic utility spell to affect rituals in general. I think you would need a ritual version of some sort to have that kind of effect. I can't find anything listed by the compendium which has been published in 4e that does it. I'd suggest it as being a level 1 ritual since it seems a fairly basic aspect of magic. A simple opposed check vs the ritual caster's check when the ritual was set up should work fine. It might also work to counter other static magical effects of similar nature, possibly only temporarily depending on what they are and who created them. So for example divine level magic probably can't be removed permanently by a mortal ritual unless certain conditions are met, but might be neutralized for a time.

All of this kind of stuff is really relegated to the fairly abstract provenance of the DM in 4e and should mostly fall under use of the arcana (or maybe religion, heal, or nature) skill and possibly specialized rituals or items. Personally I think the overspecification of free-form magical effects in earlier editions was a bad idea. It tended to lock DMs into specific hard and fast rules about different interactions that were usually not appropriate to the specific situation and meant either the DM had to resort to "well, this guy's spell is special" kinds of excuses or else you could end up with plot busters. 4e puts it much more firmly in the DMs hands so that you have more ways to make things fun and interesting without players feeling like you took away options they should have.
 

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Even a level 30 character can't achieve a 100% certainty of setting up such a circle, though it wouldn't be too difficult to do it with assistance.
Actually my swordmage will have +45 arcana at level 30 and he's only medium-optimized. I know how I could get +50 arcana if I really wanted, but chose to not go that far into optimization. At the arcana optimization thread at the WotC boards they had superoptimized checks with +6x.
 

No, dispell magic should not be able to dispell a magic circle, but maybe allow casterlevel check to allow a creature to pass.

The ritual to destroy a certain ritual should not be a basic ritual. I would rather allow someone who knows a certain ritual to "invert" it. So if you encounter a magic ritual you need to learn the magic circle ritual and do some researches how to invert it. Maybe instead of using binding runes, you draw abjuration runes on the ground around the circle.
 

Actually my swordmage will have +45 arcana at level 30 and he's only medium-optimized. I know how I could get +50 arcana if I really wanted, but chose to not go that far into optimization. At the arcana optimization thread at the WotC boards they had superoptimized checks with +6x.

+15 for level
+9 for stat
+5 trained

I'm not seeing anything like +60...

In fact I'm not seeing +45.

I know you can also have:

+2 racial
+2 background
+3 skill specialization

Now we're up to +36. That's good, though it did eat up some resources, but that's pretty optimized. Its possible to get some power based situational bonuses and such, but I'm still not seeing ANYTHING even close to +60. I can see +45 at a limit, but if people are going above that then whatever.
 


Meh, yeah, that thread has gone up some since the last time I was in it, which was back a while. Had forgotten about Sage of Ages, that's really the main one. Still, that level of optimization is beyond feasible. I suppose if the argument is "can you trap the tarrasque" then OK it seems to be POSSIBLE, but still at best marginal. I mean you have to get a minimum of +30 to do it. I'd hardly worry about it anyway, there is already a ritual you can trap things with which is much better anyhow. In any case really who cares? At level 30 you should be able to do pretty much anything, and besides the trick would be to get the tarrasque to sit still long enough to put a circle around it...
 

4 characters assisting with a ritual to trap the Tarrasque would give +8, and you only need a 40 to trap it, so... +22? Level 20 = 10 + 8 Int + 5 Trained + 2 Imp = +25, without going into race or item bonuses. If you want, drop the assists in exchange for an item or a feat and racial bonus and you get +30 out of a level 20 and now you just need a 10 at 10 levels lower. Without really all that much effort.
 

+15 for level
+9 for stat
+5 trained

I'm not seeing anything like +60...

In fact I'm not seeing +45.

I know you can also have:

+2 racial
+2 background
+3 skill specialization

Now we're up to +36. That's good, though it did eat up some resources, but that's pretty optimized. Its possible to get some power based situational bonuses and such, but I'm still not seeing ANYTHING even close to +60. I can see +45 at a limit, but if people are going above that then whatever.
In my case (swordmage/academy master/sage of ages) it'll be:

+15 level
+5 trained
+8 stat
+1 background
+2 familiar
+2 paragon path
+6 epic destiny
+4 item
+3 feat

Hm, should be +46, I wonder why the CB is only giving me +45


Still, that level of optimization is beyond feasible.

Actually it's not. You don't even have to suffer somewhere else to get your arcana bonuses. Academy Master and Sage of Ages are very strong and the item is currently so broken that any Int-based class is gonna use it (if not your DM or your self-restraint stop you from using it).

So the only three things you could say that I needed to deliberately went out of my way to aquire them are the background, the focus and the familiar of choice.

Now if I had really wanted top max arcane I would at least have been an eladrin with 20 Int instead of a human with 18 Int for annother free +3, would get me a +6 item bonus instead of a +4 item bonus and a +2 background bonus instead of +1 to get a solid +52 before applying self-buffing powers to really go to elven ;)
 
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