How do you handle Mordenkainen's Disjunction?

[CrimsonTemplar]

It makes me cry...please don't cast it. <sniff>

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

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.

Overal? 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.

I hope you realize artifacts have no place in a balance discussion.

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.

That's not how the CR system works - you will end up weaker, take more damage, inflict less damage, have fewer spells/day, etc. Sure, it would be nice if DnD weren't so item dependent, but now we have a spell that takes a weakness and makes it even worse. It's sort of like how the archmage and excessive multi-classing/PrCing broke the already weak saving throw system.

 

[Artoomis]

I hope you realize artifacts have no place in a balance discussion.

Au contraire. Artifacts have always been an important part of D&D. Leaving them out of a discussion of a 9th level spell that is designed to affect them is, at the very least, odd.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Au contraire. Artifacts have always been an important part of D&D. Leaving them out of a discussion of a 9th level spell that is designed to affect them is, at the very least, odd.

Artifacts don't come with costs or creation methods for a reason - they're introduced as story elements, not balance elements.

I'm sure 99% of artifacts costs over 200,000 gp, assuming it's possible to price them - the exception being Dwarven Glowstones, but since I've never seen that item I can't really comment on it.

A 20th-level NPC gets ~220,000 gp worth of gear. If he's carrying around an artifact that will be all the gear he possesses.

PCs carrying artifacts is another story - I'd be more willing to allow them if they wouldn't backstab players, come with costs, a way to reliably Sunder them if they got out of control, etc etc.

MDj reminds me of Harm - neither is dependent on the victim's power at all. Harm ignored the victim's hp and saving throws - Harm ignores the victim's caster level as it strips off all of their spell. There's also no general counter to it - only specific counters.

 

[Norfleet]

Here's interesting Disjunction question: Characters are allowed to voluntarily fail saving throws. Can casters cast a spell in a manner such that everyone who does NOT voluntarily fail their saving throw automatically passes? The interesting thing about Disjunction is, if you're using it, that you want your opponents to actually PASS their saves, so you can still loot them. Could a caster deliberately not use his SF/GSF feats or his stat DC bonusses, or even intentionally reduce the DC of his spell so that anyone could pass the save?

 

[Artoomis]

Artifacts don't come with costs or creation methods for a reason - they're introduced as story elements, not balance elements...

Nonetheless, how can you discuss the (un?)balanced nature of a spell while discounting one of it's primary functions and disadvantages (the chance of angering a greater being and of losing spell-casting abilities)??

In fact, it's pretty tough to discuss many 9th level spells as "balanced." Many of them are designed to be used more as story-line items than routine spells.

That's certainly how I employed M's Disjunction last night.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Could a caster deliberately not use his SF/GSF feats or his stat DC bonusses, or even intentionally reduce the DC of his spell so that anyone could pass the save?

Hrmm.

That's essentially the SR question.

If my friend with SR 10 is in melee with a bunch of opponents with no SR, can I drop a Fireball on top of them all, and deliberately fail my caster level check to beat the SR?

I'd say definitely not.

But can I deliberately not use my Spell Penetration feat?

Well, now, that's a tougher question

-Hyp.

 

[Plane Sailing]

No countermeasures?

Cast anti-magic shell on the Barbarian and have him wade into the caster, the chance of blowing away the anti-magic shell is small and you better believe that the wizard will NOT like standing toe to toe with a Barbarian in an anti-magic shell. or,

Unfortunately anti-magic field is a personal spell... you can't cast it on anyone else.

I'd say that the rest of your ideas are tactics rather than countermeasures... i.e. generally useful things to do when fighting powerful wizards. A countermeasure would really be something deliberately designed to protect against a specific thing - e.g. death ward is a countermeasure against death spells, protection from fire is a countermeasure against fire spells, mind blank is a countermeasure against discern location etc. A specific defence which trumps a specific action being taken against you.

Cheers

 

[Thanee]

Have seen it only once so far (as part of a trap). The fighters lost most of their valuable equipment (including an artifact weapon), while the cleric and wizard lost only very few items, because of their much better Will saves!

How to deal with Mordenkainen's Disjunction?

As a PC...

First of all, having a good Will save definitely helps with those magic item saving throws!

Then carrying backup gear in an extradimensional space is also a good idea to be able to quickly recover!

I also had the idea to build an item, that triggers an Antimagic Field via Contingency whenever a Mordenkainen's Disjunction is cast around it.

Yes, it can hurt and especially removing all the buffs can be nasty under the right circumstances, but then again, 9th level spells usually are nasty.

As a DM...

Use it rarely if ever!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Hypersmurf]

Unfortunately anti-magic field is a personal spell... you can't cast it on anyone else.

Then use a Ring of Spell Storing, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry...

-Hyp.