How do you handle Mordenkainen's Disjunction?

[WingOver]

How about this scenario:

Big bad guy KNOWS he'll lose this battle without something dramatic. He casts the best prep spells on himself he can think off and, when the party is in range, lets loose an M's Disjunction. For this example, let's say that some artifact is destroyed and the bad guy loses his spell powers (NOT part of his evil plan, of course).

I imagine a wizard backed up against the wall would be a lot more likely to disjoin (I would). But when I actually get into character and consider how important magic is to me, years of study and all that, and then to have it all snuffed out with one unlucky disjoin, it adds a new perspective on using that spell.

End result? The good guys win the day and the campaign is more or less "reset" to a more reasonable magic item value level.

Back when I DMed 2ed, I actually wanted the PCs to fail their saving throws just for this reason. They usually managed to amass a fortune in treasure items over the course of the campaign and the only way to get rid of the excess (without being cheap and using thieves) was for them to fail saves against fireballs and such. But now in 3ed with the item cost guidelines by level, monty-haul is less of a problem.

 

[Hypersmurf]

It now has DR, but it still takes no damage from non-magical sources and the monk fist is still not magical for the purposes of damaging incorporeal foes.

Conan the Shadow is a foe with damage reduction.

The monk's fist is treated as a magic weapon for purposes of dealing damage to foes with damage reduction.

Thus, the monk's fist is treated as a magic weapon for purposes of dealing damage to Conan the Shadow.

Conan the Shadow, being incorporeal, cannot be harmed by non-magic weapons... but for purposes of damaging Conan the Shadow, the monk's fist is a magic weapon.

It's like if a creature had DR 15/ Good and Piercing. If you have a blessed mace, you still aren't doing jack to it.

No, you aren't. Because your mace is not considered a Piercing weapon.

That's not an analogous situation. The monk's fist is considered a magic weapon... if the enemy has DR.

-Hyp.

 

[Artoomis]

Um... no it can't.

It now has DR, but it still takes no damage from non-magical sources and the monk fist is still not magical for the purposes of damaging incorporeal foes.

It's like if a creature had DR 15/ Good and Piercing. If you have a blessed mace, you still aren't doing jack to it.

You have to be magical for the purposes of damaging incorporeal foes to damage an incorporeal foe.

-Frank

First, there is no such thing as being "magical for the purposes of damaging incorporeal foes."

Second:

At 4th level, a monk’s unarmed attacks are empowered with ki. Her unarmed attacks are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction.

Incorporeal creatures can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, by magic weapons, or by spells, spell-like effects, or supernatural effects. They are immune to all nonmagical attack forms. They are not burned by normal fires, affected by natural cold, or harmed by mundane acids.
Even when struck by magic or magic weapons, an incorporeal creature has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source—except for a force effect or damage dealt by a ghost touch weapon.

The monk's "magic" fists are a supernatural effect, so I'd allow it to work, but I see your point. There fists are magic the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction. Incorporeality is different from DR.

 

[FrankTrollman]

That's a very sketchy reading you have there Smurf.

It says:

Her unarmed attacks are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction.

This really depends upon whether there is an order of operations (ie.: whether it checks incorporeality and DR at the same time or not).

The Incorporeal text says:

Incorporeal creatures can only be harmed by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons, [...]

So if you are going to invoke the obscurica of Incorporeal creatures with DR being affected by monks - I'm going to invoke counter obscurica:

Monk Ki Strike doesn't say it counts as magic for the purposes of harming things, only for the purposes of damaging them.

OK. Now that we've gotten that piece of silliness out of our systems, let's get back to the point: The game is designed predicated on the idea that characters have magical weapons. If player characters do not have magical weapons, the game is not intended to be balanced - and thus probably won't be.

-Frank

 

[Hypersmurf]

The monk's "magic" fists are a supernatural effect, so I'd allow it to work, but I see your point. There fists are magic the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction. Incorporeality is different from DR.

If it were phrased "for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction", I'd agree completely.

But that's not what it says.

-Hyp.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Monk Ki Strike doesn't say it counts as magic for the purposes of harming things, only for the purposes of damaging them.

Harm was nerfed, so it's no great loss

-Hyp.

 

[Artoomis]

If it were phrased "for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction", I'd agree completely.

But that's not what it says.

-Hyp.

How is "... treated as magic weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction" functionally any different from "for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction?" I'm not following you, nor did understand what you are or are not agreeing with.

 

[Hypersmurf]

How is "... treated as magic weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction" functionally any different from "for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction?"

In the first case: If the creature has damage reduction, then for the purpose of dealing damage to that creature, the fists are treated as magic weapons. He's incorporeal? Doesn't matter - for the purpose of dealing damage to him, my fists are magic weapons.

In the second case: The fists ignore DR/magic. He's incorporeal? Problem. My fists aren't considered magic weapons for the purpose of damaging the creature, only for the purpose of overcoming his DR... so they won't harm him while he's incorporeal.

Analogy: the difference between "If the shop sells icecreams, I'll give you a dollar", and "I'll give you a dollar with which to buy an icecream from the shop."

In the first case, as long as there are icecreams for sale, you get a dollar that you can spend on anything you like. In the second case, you can only spend the dollar on an icecream.

-Hyp.

 

[FrankTrollman]

Although, just as in the ice cream example, it can be interpreted using Natural English to mean that the dollar goes towards ice cream. Or that your hands don't qualify as magical for any other damaging purpose than penetrating the DR.

his was much clearer in 3e - where you did not, for instance, inflict the extra damage on creatures with DR.

-Frank

 

[Hypersmurf]

Although, just as in the ice cream example, it can be interpreted using Natural English to mean that the dollar goes towards ice cream.

It might be what the guy with the dollar thought he was saying, but it's not what he said...

This was much clearer in 3e - where you did not, for instance, inflict the extra damage on creatures with DR.

Uh... lost me. Which extra damage?

-Hyp.