Is this combo as broken as I think it is?

KarinsDad said:
This is not very scary at all.
<snip>
But, this is hardly a great or scary tactic. It is a spell defensive tactic until the Wizard buffs up, but would be relatively ineffective against missile and melee attacks.

With Mastery of Shaping, you could leave a tube through the antimagic field. Make it a 5' wide line in one direction (say, straight up), and you can summon whatever you want.

Hmm, that makes me wonder: Does a Shaped-AMF with a hole in one side turn with the caster? Or is the AMF's orientation fixed to compass points? I'm tempted to say it's the same as calling direction on a Beholder's antimagic cone (that is, caster can change the hole's direction one per round), but I'm not sure that's provided for in the RAW.
 

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Gaiden said:
I mean no offense Ridley's Cohort, but I think is a very naive statement. Cute trick!?!?!

No offense taken. I love a spirited (and polite) debate.

Yeah, cute trick. Most of the devastating combos you have mentioned could be accomplished by other means. I do not need an AMF to Earthquake a cavern ceiling.

The most interesting ideas in this thread have involved environmental effects. Again, those hazards are already very real and there are other ways to exploit them.

I tend to be sceptical of "broken" combos that require spells A, B, C, D, E, F, G, etc. to work. Only a fool will insist on attacking into the teeth of fully buffed out opposition, especially at higher levels.

I also think that counting on Reach, polymorphed Str & size, to offer sufficient protection against Fighters or Rogues to be rather optimistic. There are ways of avoiding AoOs. Fighters are hardly helpless even in an AMF against a polymorphed opponent.

I am not saying it is a bad use of a 6th level spell. Anything that alters the playing field so much has the potential to elicit mistakes. There are countertactics once the game is understood. The simplest one is to retreat and dare the Wizard to follow...
 

Elephant said:
With Mastery of Shaping, you could leave a tube through the antimagic field. Make it a 5' wide line in one direction (say, straight up), and you can summon whatever you want.

Hmm, that makes me wonder: Does a Shaped-AMF with a hole in one side turn with the caster? Or is the AMF's orientation fixed to compass points? I'm tempted to say it's the same as calling direction on a Beholder's antimagic cone (that is, caster can change the hole's direction one per round), but I'm not sure that's provided for in the RAW.

I would not allow such a fine grade of control. The ability to shape an AoE after it is cast is huge, especially as a Free or MEA. Evards, Acid Fog, Spiked Stones. Think about the wider possibilities.
 

Ridley's Cohort said:
I am not saying it is a bad use of a 6th level spell. Anything that alters the playing field so much has the potential to elicit mistakes. There are countertactics once the game is understood. The simplest one is to retreat and dare the Wizard to follow...

Well at least I agree with this...if you can't use it it isn't broken. ;)
 

There are several potential problems with this entire idea:

1) If done by an Archmage (as pointed out previously), the spell leaves entire squares open. Hence, there are ways to exploit this (Flying Monk from above, Stinking Cloud spell with an origin point more than 10 feet away if the shape has squares that allow it to be cast out from, etc.).

2) If done by the Extraordinary Spell Aim feat, it can be ruled that it is even more ineffective. Just because the Antimagic field does not affect the creature (i.e. the caster) does not mean that the DM cannot rule that it still affects his spells. All of his spells. This would make a caster pretty vulnerable.

An example of this in the game is an area effect Dispel Magic. It targets the spells on the caster, not the caster himself. The inverse could be true (the antimagic does not affect the caster directly, it only affects his spells).

3) If done by the Extraordinary Spell Aim feat, the spell has a DC 31 Spellcraft check. Not hard at higher level, but usually not automatic either.

4) Antimagic Shell is one of those unusual area effect spells that emanates from the caster. If you make him immune to the spell by "shaping it around him" (via ESA), it could be ruled that the spell fails. If it is not in his area, then it is not in the area of the point of origin, hence, it cannot emanate from that point of origin.

"A burst, cone, cylinder, or emanation spell affects only an area, creatures, or objects to which it has line of effect from its origin"

The line of effect could be ruled to be stopped by the "immunity hole". In other words, the caster is "totally immune" to the Antimagic Field spell INCLUDING the emanation of that Antimagic from himself.

5) Antimagic Field moves with the caster. But if the caster is unaffected by Antimagic (via ESA), he cannot be affected by it in any way. Including it moving with him. If it moves with him, it is "protecting him" and hence affecting him (in a positive way). But if he is unaffected by it, how can it protect him? Hence, if he is unaffected by it and moves, it stays put.


This could be ruled as a situation of "you cannot have your cake and eat it too", especially in the ESA case where the caster is unaffected by the spell.


And finally, one way to defeat this tactic is to have your own Wizard cast Fly, get slightly above the Shaped Antimagic Field Wizard, and then cast his own Antimagic Field. He will drop into the area of the SAF Wizard and then both of them will fall to the ground (doing this at a high elevation is risky). The rest of the group then mobs the SAF Wizard when all of his magic is gone (remember "two antimagic fields in the same area do not cancel each other out, nor do they stack", since the SAF does not cancel out the normal AF and vice versa, it does not prevent it from working).
 
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Elephant said:
With Mastery of Shaping, you could leave a tube through the antimagic field. Make it a 5' wide line in one direction (say, straight up), and you can summon whatever you want.

You still need line of effect to your Summoned Creature. Once you do that and I find out the exact direction of your "tube", I will put area effect spells directly above you and smoke you while you are limited to casting out that one direction.
 

Very good catch regarding the point of origin, Karinsdad. On that basis I would rule that these tactics fail outright. If the point of origin of an emanation is not included in the area of effect, there can be no effect at all IMO

I still do not think it is too powerful to allow shaping of AMF. If you had a version of AMF that just sat still I would allow it. But it gets extremely strange ruleswise to have moving emanations that have nowhere to emanate from.
 

Ridley's Cohort said:
No offense taken. I love a spirited (and polite) debate.

Yeah, cute trick. Most of the devastating combos you have mentioned could be accomplished by other means. I do not need an AMF to Earthquake a cavern ceiling.

The attacking portion of the combo's, yes, the negating your opposition portion, no. You're right, the earthquake alone causes the cavern ceiling collapse, but nothing I know of so completely ensures that the PC's die: no contingent spells, no teleportation magic. This assumes that all the PC's are in the AoE. If this becomes a huge concern get a rod(s) of enlarge and make the AoE huge.

At least without the shapable AMF, you are toast too.

Perhaps its not broken - the field is after all an emanation and not a ranged burst effect. I still think this combo is far more powerful than everyone is giving it credit for.
 

Gaiden said:
Perhaps its not broken - the field is after all an emanation and not a ranged burst effect. I still think this combo is far more powerful than everyone is giving it credit for.

It is unusual at best and could take the PCs by surprise the first time until they figure it out.

The archmage case does not really allow for the "polymorphed wizard tactics" since enemy fighter types can get in and attack normally (their offensive magic is not suppressed in the unaffected square of the wizard) Plus, since it is entire squares, something as simple as Greater Magic Arrows can defeat it. It does, however, allow for leaving a tunnel to the wizard so that he can cast out, but if there is a tunnel out, there is a tunnel in.

The ESA case (if allowed) does not allow for casting out of the area, so the wizard is limited to "polymorphed wizard tactics". No Shouting at the roof of the cave to collapse it tactics in the ESA case. No Quicken Dispel Magic underwater in the ESA case. Hence, a lot of spells have to be cast to make the wizard an effective fighter type (AC boost spells, Polymorph, Tensor's Transformation, etc.). Plus, a DM might rule that the Antimagic Field has to be cast last (he might rule that you cannot cast in the Antimagic Field, even if you are not affected by it yourself). Well, you cannot cast it after Tensor's because you cannot cast while transformed by Tensor's.

Both of these Shaped Antimagic Field approaches limit the Wizard in what he can do after he casts the spell.

I think Globe of Invulnerability type spells are much more potent at lower levels than this one is at higher levels, but those are not broken either.
 

@KarinsDad-I appreciate your views on the matter, but you do realize you are mostly talking about RAI, right? I mean the whole emanations without an origin is just what you think could happen, as you even said in your post, so I would just point out that I'm limiting most of my discussion here to RAW.

A DM could just rule that the combo doesn't work, but they would be taking liberties outside the actual game mechanics. If you disagree, please explain what rules would disallow this tactic.

I think the combo is proving itself if the best tactics against it are 1) run away or 2) have the DM not allow it. Although I should point out that the flying wizard kamakazi AMF was a pretty slick idea. ;)
 

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