How do you handle Mordenkainen's Disjunction?

[Stalker0]

I personally consider Mordenkainen's Disjunction to be THE most broken spell in the game.

First, it automatically dispels anything in its area. Anything automatic in dnd is bad, and magic items are the lifeblood of characters at high levels. Without magic items, characters cannot beat any monster unless its CR is drastically lower than their level.

Second, the chance to destroy 100,000 gold magic items is so harsh. And as a one time screw, it hurts the players much more than npcs. Disjunction the npcs all you want, I've got more, but all it takes for one to permanently neuter the pcs.

If you are not in agreement with me that's fine, but for those who are, what do you do in your games to prevent what I am describing?

One suggestion one of my players had was to make disjoining taboo. gods like Baccob while normally uncaring, might consider it a sticking point if people start permanently breaking magic.

What other ways do you handle it?

 

[green slime]

Mord's D is like atomic weapons.

Firstly, the NPCs they are battling do not always have access to this spell. Those that do, are mostly the greedy kind, and would rather have the fingers on the items at hand. Of course, if being really pushed, they can unleash it. But it isn't exactly common place for 18th+ level wizards to have this spell just lying around ready to whack the PCs over the head. Seriously, for near-epic NPC wizards, with clone and stasis clone are you really going to be too concerned about these idiotic PCs spoiling your long term plans? Sure it hurts when they poke their fingers in some little side plot you have going, but really they aren't more than a nuisance?

Secondly, such bada$$ dudes are likely to have mean allies, who don't appreciate their weaponry disappearing either.

*shrug* I guess my players don't overuse and abuse this strategy, and neither do I.

 

[green slime]

Also, as the DM, If I plan to use this atomic weapon in an encounter, then I had better plan how to get the wealth levels sorted out again....So it would have to be like a climatic encounter, with foreshadowing, and not just some random encounter on the way to the local magic shoppe

 

[DM2]

What, green slime, don't you have "18th Level Sorcerer in love/hate relationship with magic" on your wandering monster table?

 

[orangefruitbat]

How often would it show up?

PCs don't use it very often, because they want all the magical loot.

NPCs presumably are thinking the same. So, presumably the NPC wizards want to get their grubby little hands on all those scrolls, potions, wands, etc. that are currently in the hands of the players.

About the only time I would see a wizard using this spell against PCs is if he has nothing left to lose - "You may have won, you stupid do-gooders, but one more step and I'll nuke ALL your magic items! I mean it". Could be an interesting situation.

Monsters that don't use magic items but have it as a spell-like ability could be brutal - but I can't think of any creatures that have this SA.

I personally consider Mordenkainen's Disjunction to be THE most broken spell in the game.

First, it automatically dispels anything in its area. Anything automatic in dnd is bad, and magic items are the lifeblood of characters at high levels. Without magic items, characters cannot beat any monster unless its CR is drastically lower than their level.

Second, the chance to destroy 100,000 gold magic items is so harsh. And as a one time screw, it hurts the players much more than npcs. Disjunction the npcs all you want, I've got more, but all it takes for one to permanently neuter the pcs.

If you are not in agreement with me that's fine, but for those who are, what do you do in your games to prevent what I am describing?

One suggestion one of my players had was to make disjoining taboo. gods like Baccob while normally uncaring, might consider it a sticking point if people start permanently breaking magic.

What other ways do you handle it?

 

[FrankTrollman]

My big gripe with the spell is that it ruins character concepts and makes the game less fun.

I "handle" the spell by never using it as a player or DM, and asking the other players to do the same.

Kind of how I handle Astral Projection.

-Frank

 

[BVB]

Here's a deterrant idea: Let it be known that every major building in the campaign has a weight-bearing, main support column carved out of weak wood ... transmuted to steel. If someone gets the urge to cast M.D. in the house, he'd better plan on dealing with a major headache when the ceiling collapses.

 

[Tiberius]

In the last campaign I played in, I was planning to make Disjunction my lead-off spell for any given battle, once we reached those levels. Too bad the game ended when we were 3rd level or so.

I don't really see it as a problem. Sure, you nuke their stuff. That just means that the take the now-"merely"-masterwork items and go bully CR 1-5 creatures for their loot for a few in-game months. Slaughtering tribes of evil humanoids would be easy for characters of those levels, and very profitable.

-Tiberius

 

[Storminator]

Our DM ruled that the magic items are only suppressed for one day per caster level. Still makes it a powerful spell, but not the end of the world.

When I failed my saves (what a time for a string of bad rolls ), I "lost" over a quarter million gold in items. Fortunately that only lasted a few weeks.

We've seen MD nearly half a dozen times, and it's rather terrifying. Watching a whole parties buffs go down at once...nasty.

PS

 

[BVB]

I really don't like relying on magic items anyway. Maybe it's a perspective leaking in from the real world, but I believe that it's too easy to have your goodies taken away, so don't grow attached to them to begin with.

So you get hit by MD -- big deal. Either you're in the same straits now as your enemy and you fight it out like real men, or he's still too tough and you run away to fight another day.