Hypersmurf
Moderatarrrrh...
hong said:
Heh.
"What did you do, Ray?"
-Hyp.
Improved Invisibility: Whats up with that???
- Thread starter K'Plah Q'Houme
- Start date
Heh.
"What did you do, Ray?"
-Hyp.
Brother MacLaren
Explorer
It seems to me that one of the problems with Improved Invisibility is that it's simply so good and so useful in so many applications that it becomes kind of cliched. Boring.
The greater problem for me is the Fly and Fireball combination (often Imp Inv is part of this tactic). The fighter trying to counterattack with his piddling bow has no chance, even if he can see invisible. A 7th-level mage with far spell - or whatever the feat is called - can incinerate him from beyond ten range increments (which, at a quarter-mile or more, really only works on the open plain). A flying fireballing mage with a wand can take out an army of fighter-types with no real chance for them to fight back. The spread effect means that many structures offer no defense.
Magic is extremely powerful in D&D; it isn't set up as "Might vs. Magic" with the two being relatively equal options - magic is far and away better. Fighter-types need lots of magic items just to keep up, and if you want to have any *certainty* of getting those items you need a wizard ally to make them (or a DM who allows you to buy whatever you need at a store). The fighter has very little chance of properly defending himself without a wizard's help, and a forsaker would be asbolutely destroyed by an intelligently-played wizard of equal level. While you can accept that a law of the game is that everybody needs their magic, it is equally appropriate to try to tweak the game so they don't quite need their magic as much.
Removing Fly and Improved Invisibility - as hong has done - removes a few of the situations where a fighter is basically helpless without his magical aids. There are still plenty of other options where the wizard has a significant advantage (especially once Scry and Teleport come into play). I see no problem with the DM shifting the playing field back slightly in the favor of the non-spellcasters.
And, how common magic is in the game varies from game to game. The rules as written do envision a world where invisibility is so common that every minor goblin tribe will have an adept who can see invisible, but the rules as written also have multiple 20th-level commoners in every big city. The demographics regarding frequency of PC classes and high-level NPC classes are... quirky.
The greater problem for me is the Fly and Fireball combination (often Imp Inv is part of this tactic). The fighter trying to counterattack with his piddling bow has no chance, even if he can see invisible. A 7th-level mage with far spell - or whatever the feat is called - can incinerate him from beyond ten range increments (which, at a quarter-mile or more, really only works on the open plain). A flying fireballing mage with a wand can take out an army of fighter-types with no real chance for them to fight back. The spread effect means that many structures offer no defense.
Magic is extremely powerful in D&D; it isn't set up as "Might vs. Magic" with the two being relatively equal options - magic is far and away better. Fighter-types need lots of magic items just to keep up, and if you want to have any *certainty* of getting those items you need a wizard ally to make them (or a DM who allows you to buy whatever you need at a store). The fighter has very little chance of properly defending himself without a wizard's help, and a forsaker would be asbolutely destroyed by an intelligently-played wizard of equal level. While you can accept that a law of the game is that everybody needs their magic, it is equally appropriate to try to tweak the game so they don't quite need their magic as much.
Removing Fly and Improved Invisibility - as hong has done - removes a few of the situations where a fighter is basically helpless without his magical aids. There are still plenty of other options where the wizard has a significant advantage (especially once Scry and Teleport come into play). I see no problem with the DM shifting the playing field back slightly in the favor of the non-spellcasters.
And, how common magic is in the game varies from game to game. The rules as written do envision a world where invisibility is so common that every minor goblin tribe will have an adept who can see invisible, but the rules as written also have multiple 20th-level commoners in every big city. The demographics regarding frequency of PC classes and high-level NPC classes are... quirky.
[/QUOTE]
The key is, as you no doubt understand, when a Gm does world build and creates a world with different presumptions than the standard dnd, he also needs to take into account the impact of those setting changes.
A very good example would be; If a Gm decides magic is less ubiquitous in his bold new world than in DND standard, if he decides the brutes with no magic should be more competitive in his awesomely original creation, then he will need to look at and take steps to fix this and may even have to look at changing or deleting spells such as fly or invis and the like. (They discuss such things to a degree in midnight.)
However, the thing is, while thats all good and cool and such, that does not translate into saying that there is a problem with the DND rules or that they are wrong. Thats what this thread is about.
its really not about Hong's house rules needed because hong devised a different setting... really!
Which is cool... you seem an imaginative fellow.
so it appears to be cool.
No, but thanks for sharing. It sounds like you have adapted the dnd rules to your own homegrown setting. Thats really great.
that just doesn't translate into their being a problem with the dnd rules, just an incompatability between the base rules and your self-designed setting... one which you addressed and thats too cool for words.
enjoy your games.
Absolutely, it CAN be, but of course, is not necessary.hong said:
The key is, as you no doubt understand, when a Gm does world build and creates a world with different presumptions than the standard dnd, he also needs to take into account the impact of those setting changes.
A very good example would be; If a Gm decides magic is less ubiquitous in his bold new world than in DND standard, if he decides the brutes with no magic should be more competitive in his awesomely original creation, then he will need to look at and take steps to fix this and may even have to look at changing or deleting spells such as fly or invis and the like. (They discuss such things to a degree in midnight.)
However, the thing is, while thats all good and cool and such, that does not translate into saying that there is a problem with the DND rules or that they are wrong. Thats what this thread is about.
its really not about Hong's house rules needed because hong devised a different setting... really!
Uhh.. i didn't. you just made that up!hong said:
Which is cool... you seem an imaginative fellow.
and no one said you did.hong said:
so it appears to be cool.
Can i? really?hong said:
too bad, they have some good tips on magic handling in magic rare campaigns.hong said:
hong said:
No, but thanks for sharing. It sounds like you have adapted the dnd rules to your own homegrown setting. Thats really great.
that just doesn't translate into their being a problem with the dnd rules, just an incompatability between the base rules and your self-designed setting... one which you addressed and thats too cool for words.
enjoy your games.
Brother MacLaren said:
vertainly the campaign specifics wil vary... but within its predefined setting, where magic vs brutes without magic is not a common thing after low levels.. DND works.
Lets look at another example.. after about 6th level access to the fly spell or gaseous form spells and soon after that dimension door and then teleport all make tremendous changes in character capabilities. A chasm or a river or a lake go from being serious obstacles or challenges to just being easy to overcome. While those challenges would be apprppriate for a 4th level party they are trivial for a 7th level party (barring other complications.)
A bear with no magical support is a threat at lower levels but at even 5th it ceases to be a credible threat barring surprise or other circumstances.
Diseases are major issues and can even be life or adventure threatening, until about 5th level when cure diseases from your own cleric are there.
Death itself becomes a temporary inconvenience after 9th.
DND is setup to have evolving and changing challenges as your party capabilities advance. The earlier "problems" become nuisances and newer more complex problems emerge.
of course, in their own homegrown worlds, some GMs want to stifle or slow that evolution and want to keep chasms, lakes, bears, diseases or death more serious for longer. To create that feel, they simply need to ban, alter or delay all the magical spells and items and abilities that make the change.
Those are great! I currently play midnight and it has a wholly different feel and advancement and magic potency than dnd.
i just would not cite my preference for midnight and its rules as equating to dnd rules being wrong because they went for a different assumption.
unmagically supported hill giants in midnight would be a serious threat for 7th level guys. The **setting** is designed to do that and the rules make it so. In DND with its ubiquitous magic, it would not be as serious a challenge, because that fits its setting and rules.
neither is wrong.
wrong would be the Gm who took the latter as a error in the dnd rules as opposed to him choosing the wrong ruleset to do his setting.
Hypersmurf
Moderatarrrrh...
Gentlemen, behave yourselves...
-Hyp.
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K'Plah Q'Houme
First Post
It eludes me that many of you guys don't seem to think, that having magic users with potent spells like imp. invis. isn't a problem for the game. Is it fun to become nearly untouchable at lvl. 7? And you can go on and on with all that stuff about finding the invis. mage throwing dirt or paint at him, snif in his supposed direction and bla. bla. That's not fun, and it woulden't work anyway, considering that the mage would proberly cast spells and then move away again, he would perhaps fly or levitate. The question about who will win the encounter, seems to me as being superfluous. It would be a poor DM or PC who lost the battle playing the mage, with this kind of spells!
Playing a character like this is not about rolling the dice, having the nice stats, playing tactical etc. etc. It's like playing a computer game and using cheat codes. Fun for a while, borring in the end...:\
Playing a character like this is not about rolling the dice, having the nice stats, playing tactical etc. etc. It's like playing a computer game and using cheat codes. Fun for a while, borring in the end...:\
FreeTheSlaves
Adventurer
The various invisibility spells are so heavily used that they are becoming a right yawn. I thought once that my (3.0)hasted, flying, improved invisible, stoneskinned, fireballing mage was quite clever. The first time.
The thing is it set the quite logical precedent of how we'd encounter fighting wizards and trying to be interesting by veering away from that build is moving away from the optimum.
For the defensively minded wizard (i.e. one that wants to make it next level) fly and invisibility give superior mobility, speed, concealment and all the while allow the ability to launch uninterrupted attacks.
I think perhaps that if the blindfight feat helped the missile attack miss chance, as well as melee, then the rampant over-use of invisibilities might subside a bit.
The thing is it set the quite logical precedent of how we'd encounter fighting wizards and trying to be interesting by veering away from that build is moving away from the optimum.
For the defensively minded wizard (i.e. one that wants to make it next level) fly and invisibility give superior mobility, speed, concealment and all the while allow the ability to launch uninterrupted attacks.
I think perhaps that if the blindfight feat helped the missile attack miss chance, as well as melee, then the rampant over-use of invisibilities might subside a bit.
shilsen
Adventurer
K'Plah Q'Houme said:
Is it your experience that the magic users actually do become "nearly untouchable" (as you say) from 7th lvl on? I've just come out of a campaign that ran till 16th level (where I was a player), and am now DMing one where the PCs are at 9th level and in neither case did the mages (or any other spellcasters) feel that they were anywhere close to safe because of things like invisibility. It sounds like your experience is very different.
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