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<blockquote data-quote="Puggins" data-source="post: 3822528" data-attributes="member: 12386">It's a bit better now, but SoD spells are still too reliable.&nbsp; Here's a quick example.Say a 19th level party is going up against a very old dragon, CR21, and its minions.&nbsp; The final confrontation begins and initiative is rolled.On the first round, the 18th level wizard casts an empowered ray of enervation and quickens it through his metamagic rod of quickening (a real bargain item at 70k gp).&nbsp; The dragon loses an average of 3.5 levels- let's say the wizard rolls below average and gets 3 negative levels.&nbsp; The wizard then follows up with a sudden maximized energy drain, which puts the dragon at a whopping 11 negative levels.&nbsp; The dragon has essentially lost all of its truly heinous spells and is at -11 to all of its saves.&nbsp; It does... whatever.The next round, the wizard opens up with a quickened targeted dispel magic to get rid of the dragon's major resistance spell it had up.&nbsp; The caster level check is trivial with that -11.&nbsp; Then comes the killer: Dominate Monster.&nbsp; The Dragon still has a Bless and maybe a couple of other bonuses up, so its will save is at a +16.the wizard has 22 int naturally, +6 enhancement, +5 inherent (that's why he's 18th and not 19th like the rest of his party), putting him at 33 int.&nbsp; He's casting a 9th level spell and he has Spell Focus: enchantment.&nbsp; That gives his Dominate spell a DC of 10 + 9 + 1 + 11 = 31.&nbsp; The dragon will fail its save 70% of the time.&nbsp; And that's assuming that the Dragon had many buffs that survived the targeted dispel.&nbsp; If another character (the cleric?) used another dispel magic, he'd probably need a 17 or maybe even higher in order to not immediately lose.I know there's tons of caveats there, but there are also tons of options the wizard didn't use.&nbsp; Essentially, most BBEG fights are over by the second round when the party's spellcaster has the right load-out.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Puggins, post: 3822528, member: 12386"] It's a bit better now, but SoD spells are still too reliable. Here's a quick example. Say a 19th level party is going up against a very old dragon, CR21, and its minions. The final confrontation begins and initiative is rolled. On the first round, the 18th level wizard casts an empowered ray of enervation and quickens it through his metamagic rod of quickening (a real bargain item at 70k gp). The dragon loses an average of 3.5 levels- let's say the wizard rolls below average and gets 3 negative levels. The wizard then follows up with a sudden maximized energy drain, which puts the dragon at a whopping 11 negative levels. The dragon has essentially lost all of its truly heinous spells and is at -11 to all of its saves. It does... whatever. The next round, the wizard opens up with a quickened targeted dispel magic to get rid of the dragon's major resistance spell it had up. The caster level check is trivial with that -11. Then comes the killer: Dominate Monster. The Dragon still has a Bless and maybe a couple of other bonuses up, so its will save is at a +16. the wizard has 22 int naturally, +6 enhancement, +5 inherent (that's why he's 18th and not 19th like the rest of his party), putting him at 33 int. He's casting a 9th level spell and he has Spell Focus: enchantment. That gives his Dominate spell a DC of 10 + 9 + 1 + 11 = 31. The dragon will fail its save 70% of the time. And that's assuming that the Dragon had many buffs that survived the targeted dispel. If another character (the cleric?) used another dispel magic, he'd probably need a 17 or maybe even higher in order to not immediately lose. I know there's tons of caveats there, but there are also tons of options the wizard didn't use. Essentially, most BBEG fights are over by the second round when the party's spellcaster has the right load-out. [/QUOTE]

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