OMG, Tasha's Laughter is crazy good.

[Shadowdweller]

I treat it as Hold Person: One save per round. It's still good and our sorcerer took it.

No, this is not good. This is flat out pathetic. Save DCs in 3.5 are much lower, and granting MULTIPLE saves pretty much guarantees success after one or two rounds. The ONLY reason Hold Person is still halfway viable is because it allows opportunity for a Coup De Grace. Compare spells of appropriate level and this loses out BIG TIME. One or two round delay versus PERMANENT blindness, multi-target blindness to name a mere few...

 

[Wolffenjugend]

This is a good reason for BBEGs to try and get something (special ability or magic item) that allows them to re-roll a save once per day. It comes in really handy when a 1 really screws you over.

 

[Darklone]

No, this is not good. This is flat out pathetic. Save DCs in 3.5 are much lower, and granting MULTIPLE saves pretty much guarantees success after one or two rounds. The ONLY reason Hold Person is still halfway viable is because it allows opportunity for a Coup De Grace. Compare spells of appropriate level and this loses out BIG TIME. One or two round delay versus PERMANENT blindness, multi-target blindness to name a mere few...

I don't mind success after one or two rounds. Usually the victim loses one or two rounds worth of actions (how many combats take longer?) and is prone. That means (usually) 2 or three AoOs for standing up after he made the save, just in case he survived the full attack actions with +4 ...

And I don't agree with the usual "DCs are soooo low in 3.5". It's not too bad at least till level 10. Assuming you target the weak save of someone, he's usually failling the save in more than 50% of the cases.

kwiqsilver: A prone laughing ogre... cannot make AoOs? Are you sure? It sounds logical, but AoOs are not actions...

 

[Scharlata]

IIRC, it's language dependent too.

Hmmm.... My THL has no L-D descriptor. Am I missing sth.?

But hitting the victim of a THL while it is suffering a -4 AC penalty is funny.

Kind regards

 

[Thanee]

But hitting the victim of a THL while it is suffering a -4 AC penalty is funny.

Your opponent will surely see it like that... at least, he won't stop laughing!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Darklone]

He'll laugh himself to death.

 

[kwiqsilver]

Hmmm.... My THL has no L-D descriptor. Am I missing sth.?

No. There's no language dependency. Just the +4 bonus for dissimilar creatures, because humor doesn't translate well.

kwiqsilver: A prone laughing ogre... cannot make AoOs? Are you sure? It sounds logical, but AoOs are not actions...

AoOs are actions. They might not be listed as standard or free actions, but they meet Webster's definition of action. And most important of all, the DM agreed.
It seems silly that you could be unable to take your full attack or even move five feet, but could still make AoOs.

 

[jgsugden]

Tasha's is a good spell, but you're overlooking a few things.

1.) Animals and magical beasts are immune due to their intelligence. Constructs, oozes, plants, undead and vermin are immune to mind affecting magic. 7 of 15 types are immune.

2.) That leaves aberrations, dragons, elementals, fey, giants, humanoids, monstrous humanoids and outsiders. Of those remaining 8, 7 of them get a +4 bonus to their saving throw.

3.) Of those 8 vulnerable types, only elementals, giants and some humanoids do not have strong will saves.

4.) The range is close. The difference between a close and medium range spell, like hold person, can make a lot of difference in many games. In one game I played, if the wizard ever cast a close range spell and the opponent was not defeated by it, that wizard was as good as dead. That isn't an uncommon scenario ...

5.) In high role playing games, you're going to have trouble with the material components. You need to keep tiny tarts around without someone eating them. When was the last time you were able to keep your finger foods around without someone else mooching them?

 

[Rozman]

A prone laughing ogre... cannot make AoOs? Are you sure? It sounds logical, but AoOs are not actions...

If you can't take any actions do you threaten anyone? Even if AoO isn't defined as an "action"...

 

[Particle_Man]

Below: If you are comparing Tasha's to Hold Person, then point 1 is neutral and point 2-3 are actually in Tasha's favour, since All creature types except Humanoids are absolutely immune to Hold Person. Thus Tasha's has a better chance than Hold Person of working vs. abberations, dragons, elementals, fey, giants, monstrous humanoids and outsiders.

Point 5 can be solved with the feat Eschew Materials, assuming your DM is actually going to have you worry about your spell components being eaten.

That leave point 4. And there is a feat called Enlarge Spell that solves that problem too, for the bard at least. (A 2nd level spell slot for Enlarged Tasha's vs. a 2nd level spell slot for regular Hold Person).

So the best that can be said about Hold Person (as opposed to Tasha's) is that it might save the bard one or two feats in certain situations, and give the sorc/wizard a better range for an equivalent level spell slot. I gotta admit, Tasha's is looking pretty good in this comparison.

An Arcane Archer using Tasha's might be interesting, no?

Tasha's is a good spell, but you're overlooking a few things.


1.) Animals and magical beasts are immune due to their intelligence. Constructs, oozes, plants, undead and vermin are immune to mind affecting magic. 7 of 15 types are immune.

2.) That leaves aberrations, dragons, elementals, fey, giants, humanoids, monstrous humanoids and outsiders. Of those remaining 8, 7 of them get a +4 bonus to their saving throw.

3.) Of those 8 vulnerable types, only elementals, giants and some humanoids do not have strong will saves.

4.) The range is close. The difference between a close and medium range spell, like hold person, can make a lot of difference in many games. In one game I played, if the wizard ever cast a close range spell and the opponent was not defeated by it, that wizard was as good as dead. That isn't an uncommon scenario ...

5.) In high role playing games, you're going to have trouble with the material components. You need to keep tiny tarts around without someone eating them. When was the last time you were able to keep your finger foods around without someone else mooching them?