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D&D 3E/3.5 known-abusable 3.5 combos/techniques/etc.
- Thread starter kerbarian
- Start date
mvincent said:
None of these strike me as broken at all. In fact they all strike me as to be expected.
Note that _true strike_ is a Range: Personal spell, so you're hypothesizing a character with both Power Attack and either arcane spellcasting progression or UMD. Which isn't far out at all -- being able to do this is the definition of a gish build -- but it is going to weaken you compared to a simple fighter character. Remember that actions are *everything* in a D&D encounter, and that having to spend two rounds on this more than makes up for a guaranteed hit on a Power Attack.
You don't even need the wand of _speak with animals_ if you're a gnome. And you don't need the bag of tricks if you have a familiar or animal companion. I mean, all this "trick" does is replace a gnomish wizard if you don't have one. (And why wouldn't anyone want one?)
As for the ranged attack thing, sure. You're trading in attack bonus for all that. It's balanced.
This can appear broken, and people who spend a D&D session tripping (in whatever sense of the word) are really annoying, but a DM can smack this down by focusing on spellcasters and ranged attackers. Being Large isn't so great anymore when you're dodging ranged and ranged touch attacks.
Yeah, see above. The mighty spiked chain is annoying but can be countered.
See my earlier take on _explosive runes_. Note that, again, I prefer resolving things like this sequentially to resolving them "simultaneously", since the latter can lead to all kinds of troublesome rules difficulties besides this one. Just roll for random order.
Also, your PC had better be really really careful if he's storing hundreds of explosive runes just sitting around during downtime.
As for empowering the runes, sure. That's what metamagic is for, and the runes are harder to use than _fireball_. Metamagic *rods* I frequently worry about and don't really like having around in games. But they are, nonetheless, expensive (though Empower is not as expensive as I would like). Your low-level PCs shouldn't be able to buy Maximize unless they're really saving up for it and giving up some fairly major other purchases.
Er, yeah. This isn't a "trick". This is how the Magic domain is supposed to work.
...And where are they getting powerful dead creatures, if they weren't powerful enough to kill them in the first place? It's insanely unrealistic to have the corpses of powerful monsters lying around in a "graveyard". At best they'd be in a laboratory or museum somewhere and cost a very great deal of effort to steal.
Note that bullettes live underground so their corpses are unlikely to be where even a very skilled Ranger could find them, and both nightmares and titans come from *another plane*.
The difficulty of *finding* a creature to reanimate is an essential balancing factor in _animate dead_, especially balancing it against spells like the _summon monster_ tree and so forth. If you ignore that factor and assume you can get any corpse you want out of thin air, of *course* you'll get unbalanced effects -- just like the unbalanced effect of assuming _polymorph_ works on any random monster from the MM regardless of whether your character has ever studied one, seen one or even heard of one.
The _desecrate_ effect is obviously meant more to give you 4 5-HD skeletons than 1 20-HD one. Not that 4 5-HD skeletons aren't powerful, but, well, they're not *that* powerful.
Enh. Leadership is powerful, yes, but it puts a lot of its power in the hands of the DM, who's allowed to manipulate what you get for the sake of balance in his campaign. If you want a lot of followers your mobility will be restricted in the long term, which can also be an issue.
Keep in mind followers can die, and dead followers decrease your Leadership modifier and make them harder to replace.
As for summons, yeah. This is half of what summons -- and summoners -- are good for at all.
These aren't tricks. These are the only point of caltrops and tanglefoot bags.
And this is less of a "trick" and more "one of the few ways non-spellcasters can stand a chance against spellcasters at range".
They are nice. I don't think they're unbalanced for their cost, though.
Just enforce multiclass XP penalties or some other means of controlling multiclassing if the barbarian dip gets out of hand.
Yeah, it's nice. Remember to use the potential danger of bringing bags of holding into one as a balancing factor if you have to.
Err, where does it say this? It's extremely counterintuitive, if true.
If you consistently do this to a ridiculous degree you'll end up more than just one level behind. It's the DM's job to make sure this doesn't get out of hand.
Magic items aren't an endless cascade anyway, remember: They cost GP and time as well as XP to make.
Yeah. And this makes sense. Although a smart monster that recognizes what's going on can save its AoO for the important PC. (You never *have* to use an AoO if you have one. If you did, you could do cheese with things like _fire shield_.)
Like many attempts to apply real-world physics to D&D, there's no actual reason to think that this should work based on the RAW. Even if it did, it's really only notable for its "cool factor", not because it's at all useful. Realistically, the water couldn't move you all that fast -- 20 ft/rd for an average, unarmored character, based on the mass of the water being ejected. 9,000 gp to have to make a DC 12 Str check each round to poorly duplicate the effect of the _fly_ spell -- with *far less* maneuverability or speed -- isn't that great.
I would almost certainly rule that using the decanter causes instability the exact same way making attacks does for the levitating creature.
...And using a horse outdoors is a "trick"... how?
And the whole deal with dropping things on people while flying over their heads isn't that easy. (In case you've never played a bomber flight sim, aiming while trying to drop things on people isn't that much easier than aiming while trying to throw things at people.) Following the wizards I'd make it an ordinary ranged attack using your BAB, which isn't going to be good if you're a caster.
This especially wouldn't work with the book, which counts as one object and is going to be completely destroyed as soon as the first _explosive runes_ goes off (the object on which the runes are written always takes full damage from it).
_Acid fog_ is level 6, so no one can cast it before CL 11. Not a 10-or-lower trick.
And _forcecage_ is level 7. Lvl 6 and lvl 7 spells are *supposed* to be super-powerful -- this is the point at which you're entering mid-levels and becoming a legendary fighting force, and where enemies are going to have to use cleverness as well as brute strength to hurt you.
See the _polymorph_ errata. The troglodyte is abusive, but the locathah is, I think, okay. Sensible thing to turn into if you're going to be going aquatic.
If you have 60,000 gp to blow on this -- which low-level characters really shouldn't -- then go right ahead. The _bag of holding_ is cheaper than the _portable hole_ but can't hold as much.
It's not really unbalancing in any way, since you have to have the ring gates, and get one gate where you need to go in the first place, in order to use it.
Also not unbalanced.
Cute. If you're somehow conscious and capable of taking actions while inside the Tarrasque, of course. Which a low-level character won't be.
Note that you have to make a successful grapple check against the Tarrasque to do this (swallowed creatures are grappled).
Also, by RAW, this won't let you escape from the Tarrasque -- it'll just take the Tarrasque to the Astral Plane, with you inside it. A nice, self-sacrificial way to save the day, but you'll still die.
Sure. Also not that unbalancing. Not all that different from everyone using their move action to close with the same guy and do a full attack.
Right, this is very annoying. If it were me I'd say that the dust *remains in the air* for the duration of the sneezing effect, forcing anyone who wants to take advantage of this to rely on ranged attacks and effects. Or just give the sneezing and choking a Fort save, which it really ought to have. (A 5d4 stun with no save is *way* too good for something at the dust's price.)
Nice effect. Still doesn't give you the maneuverability of _fly_, though, and if you can cast _overland flight_ you can cast _fly_.
Plot-Device said:
It doesn't say you can dismiss them at will, only that you can get replacements for "lost" thralls. Since thralls and believers are stuck to you by your psychic resonance with them rather than any choice on their -- or your -- part, it seems to me that sending them away might not work. No matter how far away you send them, they remain your thralls until they die.
Which brings me to the idea of killing them, which at first seems like it has no downside -- and yet the RAW don't actually say you have absolute, total mental control over the thralls and believers, and it may be that they can and will exercise self-defense if you actively try to destroy them, including running away (which again prevents you from getting new thralls).
It is a screwed-up class, though, and one I'm not sure I'd ever allow.
Hypersmurf
Moderatarrrrh...
Taraxia said:
You automatically succeed if you're casting a targeted dispel. If you're casting an area dispel, you may choose to automatically succeed.
As far as the dispelling mage being weaker... he just casts the Dispel Magic at caster level 5. If he's 10th level, and cast the Explosive Runes at his normal caster level, there's a far better than even chance that a majority of the dispel checks will fail.
I see nothing to suggest that the effects of an instantaneous spell on multiple objects in its area should be resolved anything but simultaneously; to do otherwise is a definition of 'instantaneous' I haven't encountered before...
-Hyp.
That's ok if you wouldn't allow it, but can you understand how other DM's might consider a glass vial full of dust smashed against the ceiling as effectively casting the dust into the air?Hypersmurf said:
Use activated implies that you might be able use it differently than stated. Example: swords are use activated, but a thrown magical sword would still typically work.
Hypersmurf said:
You're right. Mea culpa.
However, there's no mechanic for voluntarily failing a caster-level check, and there isn't any mechanic for voluntarily lowering one's caster level when casting a spell, as far as I know.
The "instantaneous"-ness of _dispel magic_ is still preserved here, since there's no lingering magical effect causing the sequential instantaneous effects -- you presume that each dispel of the area dispel is a separate instantaneous effect that takes place during the 6-second (1 standard action) casting time of the spell. It's not dictated that it happen this way by RAW, but it makes as much sense to me as doing it the other way, and I prefer to err on the side of not allowing cheesy players to use a 600d6 area attack.
(The last time this happened to me as a player, the DM wasn't quite this draconian, but still said that it was so unlikely that you could really get off a dispel against all 100 explosive runes *all at once* that he'd only give him 1d4 separate rune explosions, at best.)
(Again, I think using what are obviously intended to be negative effects as positive, offensive effects is really cheesy and to be avoided. See the _dust of sneezing and choking_.)
mvincent said:
Sure, but the Dust isn't just a magic item, it's a *cursed* item that "appears to be _dust of appearance". Just like the -2 cursed magic sword, it shouldn't reveal its cursed effect unless someone satisfies the conditions of the curse by *trying to use it as the item it pretends to be*. That's how I imagine it, anyway.
That applies to a targeted dispel, but not an area one (trust me, this one has been discussed at length before).Taraxia said:
(note: I’m assuming you’re just providing information on possible methods to nerf abuses, rather than initiating a rules debate on every item I listed)
I was considering handling it that way also, but then you’d have to apply that reasoning to other uses of dispel (and other spells possibly), and it just seemed so contrary to D&D.
The maximum cost is 500gp, which seems pretty cheap for its power, even for a low level character. Although a skeleton is preferable, a 20 HD zombie could actually be made out of a 10 HD corpse, which a 5th level party would likely encounter at some point (it's only a CR 4 or 5 dragon). While I provided a more extreme example, I’ve used desecrate/animate dead lots of times (on decent sized corpses), and each time it just became too powerful.
It should only take 15 minutes, since the rules say:
“If she wants to prepare all her spells, the process takes 1 hour. Preparing some smaller portion of her daily capacity takes a proportionally smaller amount of time, but always at least 15 minutes”
Correct. The symbol could not be forced on someone. However, a familiar or ally could easily trigger it (especially a symbol of persuasion) and the enemy would still be in the area effect.
Many DM’s consider a tattoo an object, but even if not, no big deal.
Good catch. Thanks. I typically instead do this with a wondrous item (like wings of flying).
My bad. I was actually talking about the Archmage’s “Mastery of Shaping” ability here
Summon monster takes a full round to cast (i.e. takes effect on the next round) and last considerably less time. Having used both often, I stand by the effectiveness of this item at medium levels.
I typically handle dropped items like any other improvised thrown weapon.
I suppose not, but that is the primary purpose of listing a price. The strand of prayer beads cost was simply an error that sometimes people try to take advantage of.
Correct. My second list was just some tips and tricks (which I thought people were asking for).Taraxia said:
Hypersmurf
Moderatarrrrh...
Taraxia said:
CASTER LEVEL
A spell’s power often depends on its caster level, which for most spellcasting characters is equal to your class level in the class you’re using to cast the spell.
You can cast a spell at a lower caster level than normal, but the caster level you choose must be high enough for you to cast the spell in question, and all level-dependent features must be based on the same caster level.
In the event that a class feature, domain granted power, or other special ability provides an adjustment to your caster level, that adjustment applies not only to effects based on caster level (such as range, duration, and damage dealt) but also to your caster level check to overcome your target’s spell resistance and to the caster level used in dispel checks (both the dispel check and the DC of the check).
-Hyp.
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