No spell resistance vs. Orb spells? Why?

[Hypersmurf]

What you're fighting in a scenario isn't relevant?

If it's something that can kill either the conjurer or the evoker before they can react, the example will tell us nothing. So we can ignore dragons with extreme initiatives, dragons with lake-of-molten-gold-on-the-ceiling traps, and so forth.

If it's something that either the conjurer or the evoker can kill in one round, the example will tell us nothing. So we can ignore sleeping dragons, casters accompanied by a party of demigods, baby dragons, and the like.

If you absolutely need complete stats for the party, the dragon, the room, the treasure, and so forth, compile some and post them, after determining that the resulting example falls into neither of those two categories.

-Hyp.

 

[Notmousse]

That's the point of reductio ad absurdum.

Which as an arguement is both silly, and completely ignores the idea of moderation. for example I have a character heavily invested in wands of CLWs (long story, rather not discuss it), in part because it's cost efficient (IMC, ATM). To extrapolate that it's stupid to bring along other HP increasing methods, or that item X which is much cheaper in the long run is silly because it's not the *only* reason I invested in the wands of CLW.

In your scenario you propose that a couple mages (which gained a party in page 4) could beat up dragons 9 CR above their level (I'm guessing a Red of Gold Great Wyrm but I've yet to get that piece of info).

This proves that your argument in defense of Orbs is invalid unless you also accept that the same argument defends my new silly Dragonslayer spell.

This proves my arguement is situational and keyed to the scenario.

I'll take it into logical terms with a translation below:

Allow me to retranslate only instead of changing the spell we define the opponent.

A) You said "Orbs are broken because they can be used to kill dragons."

B) I said: "Which dragons?"

C) I said "By argument (A) Orb wielding Mage can kill dragons I have to wonder what kind of dragons you mean" by my argument.

You see not all dragons are created equal (nor scenarios, but I've already stated that), and I'm sure even a CR 24 Prismatic or Force dragon may be a bit too much for the conjurer or evoker to handle.

 

[hong]

Which as an arguement is both silly, and completely ignores the idea of moderation. for example I have a character heavily invested in wands of CLWs (long story, rather not discuss it), in part because it's cost efficient (IMC, ATM). To extrapolate that it's stupid to bring along other HP increasing methods, or that item X which is much cheaper in the long run is silly because it's not the *only* reason I invested in the wands of CLW.

What on earth does this have to do with reduction ad absurdum?

This proves my arguement is situational and keyed to the scenario.

Actually, the corollary to your argument is that nothing is broken.

 

[ogre]

Reading this thread was like passing by an accident, I kept coming back for more, and yup for some deranged reason, I've read the whole thing. I was very interested in the orbs power level, as I just started playing in a campaign that uses them, and I've never seen them before. So, my wizard can use them I suppose.
Well, I am certainly convinced the No SR thing is bogus. As a matter of fact, I'm so convinced, I'm going to suggest to the DM that he put SR on the orb spells, to my character's detriment, but to better the game imho.
Thank you Rystil, Karinsdad and others for making this plain, over and over. I think I agreed with you about 9 pages ago.
Notmousse, you'll need to look at this problem objectively, not definitively to see the point everyone here is making. Meaning, you won't see 'the light' until you let go of the specifics and try and see the bigger picture. Think abstractly. It will come.

 

[Rystil Arden]

What on earth does this have to do with reduction ad absurdum?



Actually, the corollary to your argument is that nothing is broken.

Yep. All of this is completely true.

Also, Notmousse, we've been talking about a CR 24 Red Dragon the whole time. Want to make it truly simple for you so that you can have more details to look at? We can use the CR 21 Red Dragon right out of the Monster Manual with no edits--playtested by the designers as CR 21. I can use that from the book and destroy a level 15 party with no orbs (let's say they have two Evans if you like). Add in no-SR orbs, and that dragon is dead before you can say "Hoard come to momma".

 

[Notmousse]

If it's something that can kill either the conjurer or the evoker before they can react, the example will tell us nothing.

I believe it does is part of the scenario is showing that 15th level mages are killing CR24 dragons. Even if both the mages went first the dragon just uses it's dragon breath killing them both (I can't say about the rest of the party as I know nothing about them).

So we can ignore dragons with extreme initiatives, dragons with lake-of-molten-gold-on-the-ceiling traps, and so forth.

What's the point then? If the arguement is that twinked out characters can kill things bigger than them if simply plucked from the MM then I'm sure that point has been made by now. I was under the impression that it had to do with the orbs being broken (and using cheesey characters in a biased situation to prove this somehow).

If it's something that either the conjurer or the evoker can kill in one round, the example will tell us nothing.

I thought the point was that the conjurer was killing dragons 9 CR above them in a couple rounds.

If you absolutely need complete stats for the party, the dragon, the room, the treasure, and so forth, compile some and post them, after determining that the resulting example falls into neither of those two categories.

As in a normal pair of mages and a dragon, that's somehow not biased towards the orb mage? I just don't see it happening as the scenario is prejudicial in the extreme even with my filling in the vaugeries however I see fit.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Reading this thread was like passing by an accident, I kept coming back for more, and yup for some deranged reason, I've read the whole thing. I was very interested in the orbs power level, as I just started playing in a campaign that uses them, and I've never seen them before. So, my wizard can use them I suppose.
Well, I am certainly convinced the No SR thing is bogus. As a matter of fact, I'm so convinced, I'm going to suggest to the DM that he put SR on the orb spells, to my character's detriment, but to better the game imho.
Thank you Rystil, Karinsdad and others for making this plain, over and over. I think I agreed with you about 9 pages ago.
Notmousse, you'll need to look at this problem objectively, not definitively to see the point everyone here is making. Meaning, you won't see 'the light' until you let go of the specifics and try and see the bigger picture. Think abstractly. It will come.

And that makes it all worth it Thanks for chiming in!

 

[Notmousse]

What on earth does this have to do with reduction ad absurdum?

I bought the wands because (IMC, ATM), they were the most efficient method of reliable healing. The RAA of that I would imagine being 'well why doesn't everybody, everywhere do that?' or 'This way is much more efficient in X way, why aren't you doing it this way?'. The answer to both would be 'because I was in a situation that if altered even slightly changes my buying decisions'.

 

[Rystil Arden]

What's the point then? If the arguement is that twinked out characters can kill things bigger than them if simply plucked from the MM then I'm sure that point has been made by now. I was under the impression that it had to do with the orbs being broken (and using cheesey characters in a biased situation to prove this somehow).

:sigh: I knew it would come down to claiming the two feats were the problem and argue "twinked out casters". I said this three times before I did it, but you'll recall that James McMurray is the one who told me to set it up like that (if you don't recall the exchange, I pasted it in total a page or two back).

By all means take the feats away. She doesn't need them. You'll find that with nothing more than basic metamagic feats that almost every Wizard would take (This requires exactly three feats--Quicken Spell, Maximise Spell, and your choice of Twin Spell or Energy Admixture, with preference to Energy Admixture, though other feats are certainly fun to have), two level 15 Connies will still kill the CR 24 Red Dragon (even assumed to already have up something to give himself 30 Resist against Cold).

Most everything you are arguing has already been covered. If you are too lazy to find it yourself, so be it. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, Connie survives average breath damage on a failed save, even without fire protection, but not by much, so it is in the realm of plausibility that above average breath rolls will kill her if she has no protection up. Still, on average, she lives through a breath attack and kills the dragon.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I bought the wands because (IMC, ATM), they were the most efficient method of reliable healing. The RAA of that I would imagine being 'well why doesn't everybody, everywhere do that?' or 'This way is much more efficient in X way, why aren't you doing it this way?'. The answer to both would be 'because I was in a situation that if altered even slightly changes my buying decisions'.

Actually, that isn't a valid reductio ad absurdum (mostly because there are no fallacies or contradictions that can possibly be exposed in the statement "I bought lots of CLW wands"). You need to make a statement in the form of "X proves Y" or "If X then Y" before you can reductio ad absurdum by choosing some absurd value of X and Y.

For example, if you said "I bought lots of CLW wands for 750 GP each, but a Dragon killed me before I could use them, so CLW wands suck at healing for their price" I could point out that you could buy wands of Mass Heal for 0 GP, and if the dragon killed you before you could use them, you could make the same argument.