Need to negate Force-type damage & Disintegrate.

[Hardhead]

OK, I need some help. I need a way to negate Force-type damage, similar to the Protection from Energy spells. Whatever it is, it needs to let *other* forms of attack through. Just about any source will be OK, but I'd prefer core, then WotC, then third party. I also need a way to protect against Disintegrate attacks, though I know that's considerably harder.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

For Disintegrate, cover and concealment will go a long way, IMO.

As for negating Force attacks... if you know that you are always hit with the same spell, couldnt you arrange to counterspell it? If it's not from a specific spell... what's attacking you (and how) with force effects?

AR

 

[FrankTrollman]

Magic Missile doesn't work against anyone with full concealment. So a simple Fog Cloud or even Obscuring Mist would render it powerless. Further, Force Dragons are immune to Force Effects - but with the Wyrmling coming in as a draconic adjusted CR of 17 that probably isn't much of a help. Still, it's fairly easy to extrapolate a Half-Force Dragon template at about CR +3 that would be quite workable.

Of course - the obvious question remains: why?

Magic Missile doesn't do much in the way of actual damage - so if a Wizard wants to shoot around force effects he's already kicking himself in the balls. I'm not sure why'd you care. Damaging Attack spells are generally one of the weakest things in a Wizard's arsenal - and Force Effects trade power for reliability - meaning that they end up doing far less average damage than Fighters do just by hitting things.

Disintegration is not typed damage - so no energy resistance is possible. However, it's again a very small amount of damage for the level of the spell - so I don't know why you'd get upset about it.

-Frank

 

[thegreatbuddha]

Hey... Magic Missile is a great spell.... if you're a Mystic. Nothing beats a Quintuple Empowered Maximized Quickened Magic Missile out of a 1st level spell slot. Combine with 2 Lesser Rods of Twin Spell for maximum effect ( avg dmg per 1st level slot used = 112.5 ) If you want to get nasty, slap 2 more Empowers and a Repeat Spell on it.

of course, you'd need a 19th level character to do that, so it isn't really helping the current 7th level character in question, but I felt the need to let you know that MM doesn't suck that bad.

 

[Hardhead]

As for negating Force attacks... if you know that you are always hit with the same spell, couldnt you arrange to counterspell it? If it's not from a specific spell... what's attacking you (and how) with force effects?

Here's the deal. A Prestige Class from Mindscapes (the Psionics supplement put out by Bruce Cordell under the Malhavoc imprint) has an ability at 9th level that works similarly to the Pristmatic Burst spell, except the possible hits (1-8 on a d8 ) are:

1. 20 points sonic damage (ref half)
2. 40 points cold damage (ref half)
3. 60 points force damage (ref half)
4. Disintegrate (save, take 20 points of damage, fail die)
5. Turned to stone.
6. Mind Seed (Will save, power from the Psionic's Handbook)
7. Microcosm (Will save, also from the Psionics handbook)
8. Roll again twice.

For those unfamiliar, Mind Seed is reminicent of Agent Smith's powers in the Matrix Reloaded, except it takes a lot longer to work. If they fail their save, they have one week to get another Mind Seed or a Break Enchantment cast on them (assuming they know what's happening). If they don't, their mind is errased, and they become (mentally) a copy of you at eight levels lower, have all of your mental stats, class levels become that of you eight levels lower, all that stuff. It costs 3,000 xp to manifest. BUT, if you get lucky and hit them with the 6th beam, you get a Mind Seeded person without the XP cost.

Since the ability isn't X times per day, it just costs a certain number of power points to manifest, the BBEG can repeat it a lot, and, in a room full of helpless townsfolk, and get an army of 6th level psions (he'd have to be 14th level to get the ability), all of which shared his mental state and his goals in life.

With a cleric accomplice, you can easily use Protection from Energy effects to stop the first two. Stone to Flesh stops the 5th (more or less). Microcosm is iffy, but with the Psychic Bodyguard power (also from Mindscapes), I'm pretty sure I can make a hit by this one 75% harmless. That leaves the Disintegration and the Force damage. Right now, it's about 1 Psion and 3 dead villagers out of every four. That's a reasonably efficient Psionic Army creation system, but I'd like to get it higher, which would require somehow stopping the Force damage and/or the Disintegrate effect.

 

[Voadam]

resistance bonuses to saves for the disintegrate.

If it was the spell, a really kicking touch AC would work well too. Not sure how it would come from the burst effect.

 

[Voadam]

for the force one get a ring of evasion. Or multiclass into 2 levels of rogue.

 

[drnuncheon]

Maybe you're going about this in the wrong way. If the problem is the XP cost for using Mind Seed, maybe he could just take the Mind Seed power and find another way to pay the XP cost? Some ideas:

1. Liquid Power (from one of the Books of Eldritch Might, I believe)
2. A psionic artifact that lets you use the power X/day without cost
3. As 2, but one that lets you drain the XP from another individual instead (imagine a crystal throne that grows around the victim and drains their life force)
4. Use the sacrifice rules out of BoVD (since you're willing to accept 'civilian casualties' anyway)

Hope these spark some ideas.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

Not sure if it would work, but ready a Wall of force to appear right in front of the BBEG as he uses his power. Will the wall of force block the effect and make it so the spell is centered very close to the BBEG?

AR

 

[FrankTrollman]

Here's the deal.

No. Here's the deal:

Things from Mind's Eye aren't balanced - and often aren't even parsable by speakers of English who are fluent in the game mechanics of D&D.

If you run into something from ME that seems like the author took a flying leap off the sanity trellice and is so far into Crazy Town that he's the Mayor - that's probably exactly what happened. Prospective authors for Mind's Eye are all given the keys to a 1984 robbin's egg blue Buick Skylark and a 5 liter jug of 1M dexedrine solution along with a map of Crazy Town with unlabled streets. If you take the stuff that they come back with literally you will be in a lot of trouble.

-Frank