How do you handle Mordenkainen's Disjunction?

[Hypersmurf]

In 3rd edition, if you get enough +2 swords (five, in fact) you can melt them into a +3 sword, and so on.

Uh... do you mean by selling four of them?

-Hyp.

 

[Storminator]

If you are not going to accept any of the numerous suggestions I made for how to deal MDJ and you are just going to continue pointing out how hard it is on your gear, which is the only thing you ultimately care about on your character sheet, maybe you should either stick to characters with a really good Will save or just flat play a different game.

If you aren't going to accept that none of your less than stellar suggestions will work for my character, you should probably stop responding to my posts. And perhaps you should pull back from making snide and asinine comments like this one:

which is the only thing you ultimately care about on your character sheet...

It's funny how when the discussion is specifically about gear, I tend to focus on gear. Isn't that strange?

Once all the challenge is gone, what's the fun of playing D&D at all? Diablo ceased being fun for me, when I could leave my character in the Hell levels fighting, while I went to the kitchen for a sandwhich.

Maybe you should actually read what I wrote. The challenge has NOT gone out of my game. In fact the important issue here is that my game is so difficult that I am hard pressed to survive with all my gear intact. Without it, I might as well play a 1 HD orc, because I've got as much chance of effecting the outcome of events.

Is that the same thing you want from D&D? If so, make liberal use of house rules. You can change anything with a house rule. And if your GM won't house rule it, get a new GM who will make it easy for you.

Cedric

Here's what I don't want from D&D: I full round attack... miss, miss, miss, miss, miss. His turn... hit, hit, crit, hit, I'm dead. Wasn't that fun? Oh wait, I can try this tactic: I run from everyone, I hide in the tree, I hope my friends save me. That sounds like lots more fun.

Yeah we did make a house rule. MDJ suppresses magic items for one day per caster level. I spent three weeks (real time and game time by coincidence) without my gear. I got the fighter's extra gloves of dex, a back up ring of protection, and a rather powerful longsword. A weapon finessing monk with a freaking longsword. And spent a lot of time getting skweegeed up off the ground.

But if I had to do that (ie, feel worthless) for the rest of the campaign, I'd have to make a new character.

PS

 

[green slime]

Actually, in ages past you could hurt monsters with +X or better weapon to hit if you had enough hit dice. So a powerful Fighter could penetrate "DR" or "incorporeality" with a teddy bear on a stick.

It was in many ways less realistic, but it meant that a Fighter could roll out of bed naked and have a chance to defeat a Spectre. And thus, MDJ really didn't matter.

I recall in 1e that this was a note in the DMG that only applied to monsters, and NOT player characters.

So Whales could hurt spectres, but 20th level humans with teddy bears could not. Of course you may be talking about an even earlier edition

 

[Hypersmurf]

I recall in 1e that this was a note in the DMG that only applied to monsters, and NOT player characters.

Yup. The footnote reads: * This does not apply to characters of any sort.

-Hyp.

 

[Cedric]

Yeah we did make a house rule. MDJ suppresses magic items for one day per caster level.

Right there you have taken the biggest bite out of the spell. So what is the point of coming here to complain about it? None of us are going to be able to remove the spell from the game for you.

I was trying to offer what I felt like were reasonable suggestions for how to combat the spell. I'm genuinely sorry that you found my advice offensive though.

Cedric

 

[Tywyll]

I've houseruled MDJ for my games as such:

If used as a spread, it dispels all spells (as normal). Magic items that fail their saves are supressed (I think its 1 hour/level). This allows for those kind of games where you want to take a groups magic noo-nahs away without crippling them forever.

Now, like Dispel, you can target a single person. In that case, if the items fail their save, they are destroyed.

Granted I know its still probably a world of pain, but at least the party can typically cover the guy for awhile (heck, with the propensity of buffing spells, if the fighter loses his armor and weapon the mage and cleric and rebuff his now normal gear to +4 each, +5 at 20th level... and that's not too shabby... at least he won't be /totally/ worthless).

I agree with the earlier post on why the system is so hard on characters... the selling and upgrading of magic items. I have tried to break the players of that habit, and to my credit, I have a 17th level character running around with her first magic sword that she found in the game, back when she was 7th level). Its been upgraded to flaming, but otherwise still just a +2 and typically her favorite weapon. She has a few spare items, and she has sold some. Most of the players in the group are like that. They do some selling, but I try to make the reality of it more cosher... I don't see PCs willing to make many items for NPCs, due to XP loss, why would NPCS be any different?

 

[S'mon]

I can't understand why it's so impossible for high level PCs to leave some back-up gear at their base, or even money to buy new kit. NPCs are supposed to be a fair challenge at level = party level (ie equal CR, roughly) despite having far less gear value at high levels. A 20th level Fighter with 0gp of gear is seriously handicapped. The way costs work,a 20th level Fighter with 220,000gp of gear instead of 760,000gp of gear ought to be perfectly viable IMO, I doubt his effective CR is more than 1 below his fully-equipped companions. So his belt of giant strength is +4 (16,000gp) instead of +6 (36,000gp). Don't break my heart.

 

[Celtavian]

re

You know, in ages past, Mord's Disjunction was never this bad, and it more or less did the same thing. What this is saying is that, quite plainly, 3E has become overly dependent on items: A high-level character is nearly useless unless he's kitted out like a Diablo II character, who's similarly useless without a buttload of crap. Something has obviously gone wrong with the concept when an entire party can be rendered totally useless by the magical equivalent of an EMP.

I hated this spell in 2e as well. Used it twice on my players, after that I stopped using it because I probably wouldn't have had a gaming group anymore. I'm really surprised Collin's didn't change this spell given that he often uses that a spell or ability isn't very fun to justify certain changes.

This spell is not very fun. It would have been nice if it had been altered.

 

[Artoomis]

In the final, big battle, I had the big bad guy use this on my group.

The results were:

1 artifact destroyed, which caused an unhappy planetar to appear.

4 of 6 party members were caught in the area of effect. 2 lost NO items, 1 lost only minor items, one lost everything except his weapon. As this was the big final battle, plenty of treasure (in the honer of speak like a pirate day, "there be treasure here- arrrh, matey") was avaible ro re-equip.

The big bag guy lost his spellcasting ability.

Overall? Very cool - much fun and anguish, no long-term detrimental affect to anyone's character. No one was upset. Everyone thought it was an appropriate thing to happen from a cornered big bad guy.

 

[Storminator]

Right there you have taken the biggest bite out of the spell. So what is the point of coming here to complain about it? None of us are going to be able to remove the spell from the game for you.

I was trying to offer what I felt like were reasonable suggestions for how to combat the spell. I'm genuinely sorry that you found my advice offensive though.

Cedric

Your advice wasn't offensive. It was of limited value. Your second post, however, can only be read as a deliberate insult. That's when I went from debating to slamming.

I am sorry, however, for the tone of my last post.

PS