No spell resistance vs. Orb spells? Why?

[Brother MacLaren]

It sounds symptomatic of a rampant arms-race effect that seems to have happened with 3.5e supplments.

Fair enough. In my opinion, Scintillating Scales is so good that it is overpowered at any level. And in my opinion orb spells are so good that they are overpowered (at what level would they NOT be taken? 7th?). I'd just as soon have a game with neither.

Pierce Magical Protection is in the Mage Slayer chain of feats -- a useful chain intended for fighters, barbarians, and monks. Before Bo9S (which I don't have), this seems to have been an early attempt to buff up the power of non-casters with some very powerful feats.

 

[Rystil Arden]

It sounds symptomatic of a rampant arms-race effect that seems to have happened with 3.5e supplments.

It's funny - we got hold of and used a lot of 3.0 supplements, but we've not touched any of the 3.5 supplements at all. I think that it may be because the latter seem rather more inclined towards the arms race effect.

"Orbs are a problem! Buff up 'scintillating scales'!"
"scintillating scales are now a problem! introduce Pierce Magical Protection"
etc.
etc.

3.5 generally does not have this problem as long as you make sure to snipe out a few problem abilities as they appear and don't let the defenders of Problem Ability A tell you that Problem Ability B is the solution because pretty soon the poor folks who don't take any problem abilities are left in the lurch (I mentioned this earlier in the vein of the "whichever side wins initiative nukes the other side and automatically wins" paradigm).

If anything, 3.5 is better about exploits on the whole than 3.0 because most of the designers know some of the big exploits from 3.0 and avoid them, and most editors keep them away too--too many extra actions and stackings in 3.0, in general.

 

[Felix]

In the fact that the example mages aren't capable of killing cr +9 dragons as was proposed in the example.

Against a CR+9 critter with Maximize Breath, the Evoker and the Conjurer will die.

Against a CR+9 critter without Maximize Breath, the Evoker will die and the Conjurer has a fighting chance. He has that fighting chance because of the Orbs. Would this not suggest that perhaps the Orbs have something to do with the wizard being able to kill CR+9 challenges? And that perhaps being able to kill CR+9 challenges is an indication of imbalance?

 

[Nail]

So what you're saying then is "show me your work."

Nope.

I'm saying: "What spreadsheet (et al.) did you use?"

 

[Nail]

...for example:

"I use a spreadsheet which has all of the monster stats from the MM 3.5e. I'd be happy to share it. If I use this spreadsheet, I find the median touch AC for monsters in the MM 3.5e is Touch AC 12."

Now your turn.

 

[evilbob]

(I mentioned this earlier in the vein of the "whichever side wins initiative nukes the other side and automatically wins" paradigm).

I think this is a general problem with all very high level battles. And it's not really something you can really "fix," either. Any party with a high-level wizard, given enough time to plan, should almost always win handily with a good initiative. Why would a wizard fight any other way?

 

[Notmousse]

Against a CR+9 critter without Maximize Breath, the Evoker will die and the Conjurer has a fighting chance.

Without Maximize Breath they both die anyway. Like I said the dragon crushes them. It's a simple matter of 'if you don't one shot the dragon you die at level 15'.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I think this is a general problem with all very high level battles. And it's not really something you can really "fix," either. Any party with a high-level wizard, given enough time to plan, should almost always win handily with a good initiative. Why would a wizard fight any other way?

Huh? Maybe against something of approximately their own level, but not against something massively more powerful. And they don't need time to plan--they just need Orbs.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Without Maximize Breath they both die anyway. Like I said the dragon crushes them. It's a simple matter of 'if you don't one shot the dragon you die at level 15'.

Crush is fairly easily thwarted by Contingency-Polymorph (Colossal dragon can't crush Huge opponents), Contingency-DimDoor, or Projected Image, just looking at core spells. Not sure if a dragon can crush flying opponents; that sounds like a DM judgement call to me.

 

[Seeten]

Sounds to me like more obfuscation, as though the dragon versus the conjurer is the argument, and not the balance of the orbs.