It's official: Harm is broken.

[Tom Cashel]

Me too, Hong.

Me too.

 

[King_Stannis]

On the "Save or Die" thing, just last session a PC cast hold person on an enemy (2nd lvl cleric version). The enemy failed the save and got coup de grace'd next round. Dead.

Save or Die is a part of D&D.

Beat me to it, Tom. "Hold", the poor man's "save or die" spell - but oftentimes just as effective.

 

[Storminator]

Upon seeing 7,862,968th Harm thread:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHH--sputter--!!!

Harm's not broken. Andy Collins is.

On the "Save or Die" thing, just last session a PC cast hold person on an enemy (2nd lvl cleric version). The enemy failed the save and got coup de grace'd next round. Dead.

Save or Die is a part of D&D.

Nothing wrong with Save or Die spells. But that's not Harm. Harm is No Save and Die. That's wrong.

PS

 

[Tom Cashel]

Nothing wrong with Save or Die spells. But that's not Harm. Harm is No Save and Die. That's wrong.

PS

Once again...

Quote me the part of the Harm description where it says the target is killed.

 

[Zappo]

That article doesn't mean anything in terms of spells being officially broken. The author doesn't say that Harm (or the Save or Die spells) is broken per se, but only that it scales too well at epic levels. He implies nothing about how it is at the usual 11th-20th levels. While I agree that Harm is broken, that article doesn't help much. It says that Harm is broken at epic levels, but my beef is that it's broken full stop.

 

[Sniktch]

In my experience being left with 2hp is about the same as being killed. I think Harm/Heal should have a save, but otherwise I have no problem with them.

Well, maybe just a little, but only at Epic Levels. It bugs me to think that an Epic spell will do 40d6 damage while Harm just reduces the target's hp to very low. If I'm facing a 900 hp monster, why bother with the spell that might do 240 hp when I can just zap 899 hp with one shot? Admittedly, I don't think I ever want to play at the levels where this would be an issue, but it's there.

Personally, I just allow a save and treat it as a cause/cure critical if saved against, but thats my game. If Harm works as is in yours, go with it.

 

[Lucius Foxhound]

I can't count the number of times my character has been down to 4 or less HP and somehow managed to survive. Anyone else ever have a character that even gets knocked into *gasp* negative HP and somehow gets healed and comes back?

Geas also has no save... is it broken? There are things you can Geas someone into doing that effectively takes them out of combat for DAYS. What's the difference between that and effectively killing them? You still get XP for it...

Oh, and Rangers are broken.

 

[Sniktch]

Unfortunately, there are far too many radius effects and coup de grace attacks going on in my game for low or negative hp characters to survive very long. If you get knocked that low you generally have one round to escape/recover before becoming toast.

EDIT: and I believe Geas/Rangers would be a topic for another thread

 

[Tom Cashel]

If you get knocked that low you generally have one round to escape/recover before becoming toast.

Ah-ha! Same thing with Harm.

And Rangers (especially the New York variety) are as broken as they've ever been....

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

And Rangers (especially the New York variety) are as broken as they've ever been....

[hijack]
I'm actually a little worried that WotC will "overcorrect" the ranger in 3eRevised. But I'm one of the guys who thinks the ranger is fine as is.
[/hijack]