Overpowered/Underpowered Spells?

[Thanee]

Most spells used ... as in used by that particular wizard.

I neither want to distract the spellcaster nor counterspell. *shrugs*

Ready Action: As soon as some visible spell effect originates within sight, which gives away the attacker's location, I'll cast Faerie Fire/Glitterdust on that position.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Plane Sailing]

Most spells used ... as in used by that particular wizard.

OK, I see your point now.

Cheers

 

[Nail]

Ok, now tell me please, how many of those spells allow the caster ongoing control over the subject?

Ooh, an easy one: All of the ones listed.

.... the 1st level spell "Command" is out, but not Greater Command. (Duration: one round per level)

 

[Thanee]

I know what you mean, Nail, but I think you are very wrong there.

Control is only, if you can actually direct actions, otherwise there is no control, and ongoing control is, if you can do that throughout the duration, quite obviously. Dominate allows this, but none of the other spells really do. Some don't even allow control of any kind (i.e. charm).

With most of those spells you give the target a command or a course of action, which it follows, but you cannot change it later, thus no ongoing control.

Also, only dominate (from what I can recall) actually lists control in the spell description.

And I'm pretty sure, that's exactly how it is meant.
Otherwise it would be insanely powerful, you are right there!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Dark Dragon]

Most spells used ... as in used by that particular wizard.

I neither want to distract the spellcaster nor counterspell. *shrugs*

Ready Action: As soon as some visible spell effect originates within sight, which gives away the attacker's location, I'll cast Faerie Fire/Glitterdust on that position.

Bye
Thanee

Hmm, this is not bad. That reminds me of some Star Trek films: When a Romulan Warbird attacks, it becomes visible. When the attack is over, it camouflages again. Why not the same for Improved Invisibility? The party still has some difficulties to distract the invisible caster, but when he uses an attack spell (and does so successfully), the group can at least ready an attack when his invisibility is offline for a few moments.

BTW: I found the stats of the wizard and how the combat was going, here is my wiz11:

Str 10, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 20, Wis 12, Cha 8, HP 62, AC 16, human
Feats: Scribe Scroll, Improved Intiative, Silent Spell, Combat Casting, Empower Spell, Maximise Spell, Quicken Spell
Equipment: Bracers of Armor +3, Cloak of Resistance +1, Ring of Protection +1, Wand of Magic Missiles (CL 9, 20 charges), Wand of Fireballs (CL 9, 15 charges), Headband of Intellect +2, MW quarterstaff, MW light crossbow +15 bolts, dagger, robe, belt, boots, spell component pouch, scroll case
Potions: Cure moderate wounds (2d8+3)
Scrolls: Dispel Magic (CL 5), 2x Empowered Fireball (CL 10), Teleport (CL 9), Disintegrate (CL 11), Fly (CL 5), Empowered Maximised Magic Missile (CL 11), Improved Invisibility (CL 7)
Spells:
Level 0: 2x Detect Magic, Ray of Frost, Prestidigitation
Level 1: Shield, Expeditious Retreat, Mage Armor, 2x Magic Missile, Protection from Good
Level 2: See Invisibility, Mirror Image, Protection from Arrows, Invisibility, Endurance
Level 3: Fly, Protection from Fire, 2x Empowered Magic Missile, Fireball
Level 4: Silent Haste, 2x Maximised Magic Missile, Stoneskin
Level 5: Silent Improved Invisibility, 2x Quickened Magic Missile
Level 6: Empowered Maximized Magic Missile

Spells in bold were active before the attack began.
In the surprise round, he cast the emp. max. Magic Missile (standard action), dealing 37 damage, plus a quickend one (free action) dealing about 18 to 20 damage (I remember that I rolled quite good), plus a maximised one (haste!) with 25 damage. One party wizard received about 80 to 82 damage in round 1, bringing him to negative HP.
The same tactic for round 2, he used his scroll with emp. max. MM, the other two MM as in round 1. When he saw that his attack was going very well (the second party wizard was down), he decided to continue. The druid tried to get to one of the wizards, the halfling dismounted and loaded his crossbow, the assassin tried to get away from the group and drew his bow. The cleric used an area Dispel Magic, removing Improved Invisibility by guessing the right area and follows the druid in his move action. The fighter dismounted and drew his bow.
Round 3: The wizard kills the druid and a wounded wizard with his two emp. Fireballs cast from scrolls and harms the cleric. The halfling fired once on the enemy with a magic bolt and caused some damage, then she moved to the second wizard. The assassin fires at the enemy but caused only minor damage, but he removed two mirror images. The cleric used a flame strike, but the wizard made his save. The fighter readied to fire at the enemy when he casts again.
Round 4: The wizard cast disintegrate from his scroll on the halfling to prevent that she helps the party wizard. The fighter shot at the wizard but damage was too low. The halfling died, the wizard cast improved invisibility again. The assassin decided that this day is a bad day and tried to escape. The cleric cast invisibility purge, but no success. The ftr/pal/rgr healed the badly wounded cleric a bit with lay on hands.
Round 5: Two fireballs hit cleric and fighter, killing the cleric.
The rest is easy to imagine.

 

[dcollins]

BTW: I found the stats of the wizard and how the combat was going, here is my wiz11...

Yowch, guess he sure likes magic missiles, eh?

An 11th level NPC wizard is meant to have about 21,000 gp in possessions by the rules. By my calculation, his gear adds up to 33,860 gp (even allowing for half-price scrolls and wands), i.e., about +50% gear, the equivalent of a 13th-level NPC.

 

[Dark Dragon]

Yowch, guess he sure likes magic missiles, eh?

An 11th level NPC wizard is meant to have about 21,000 gp in possessions by the rules. By my calculation, his gear adds up to 33,860 gp (even allowing for half-price scrolls and wands), i.e., about +50% gear, the equivalent of a 13th-level NPC.

*shrug* Remove the bracers (he had cast Mage Armor which gave a better AC), the cloak (he had cast Protection from Good), exchange his weapons from MW to normal, and you can roughly substract 11.000 gp, resulting in nearly 22.000 gp gear value. These items were just for completion but they didn't had any impact on the encounter.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Out of interest, do you remember why he wanted to ambush the PCs? It seems that they were unaware that they had a price on their head, but there was a wizard out gunning for them.

 

[dcollins]

*shrug* Remove the bracers (he had cast Mage Armor which gave a better AC), the cloak (he had cast Protection from Good), exchange his weapons from MW to normal, and you can roughly substract 11.000 gp, resulting in nearly 22.000 gp gear value. These items were just for completion but they didn't had any impact on the encounter.

Well, the other thing I almost said in the last post is that he's suspiciously offensive-based, with a dearth of protective spells/abilities that wizards commonly have. Yanking out his only defensive items in favor of keeping his offensive scrolls and wands only exacerbates that criticism.

My critique would be that this wizard is very meta-gamed for specifically this one ambush. I don't see that he could do much more in the campaign than this, and that's at least a little bit out-of-bounds for a DM, IMO. Metamagicked offensive scrolls (instead of utility stuff) is rather abnormal. I would frown on a player who cheesed it with some one-trick race/ability combination, in the same way.

Nontheless, the fly/ improved invisibility (and 3E haste) combination is very powerful, but this example at least pours salt into the wound by making a character optimized for almost nothing but that tactic.

 

[Dark Dragon]

Out of interest, do you remember why he wanted to ambush the PCs? It seems that they were unaware that they had a price on their head, but there was a wizard out gunning for them.

The group was unaware that some mighty guys were quite unpleased about the party's actions. IIRC, the adventueres believed that they had won the battle against a troll king and his army and his ally, a very powerful gythianky psychic warrior. Both the troll king and the gythianky were killed by the group in a large battle at Eshpurta in Amn. The party was on the way to Athkatla and wanted to take out the remaining troups of the troll army. The trolls were encamped at strategic important places along the way between Eshpurta and Athkatla, attacking caravans and reinforcements for Eshpurta.

The wizard attack was meant to warn the group that someone is trying to obliterate the party. The fight was a very vivid dream about what might happen in the future. Some days later, the group had to face a nearly similar but not so heavy front-loaded wizard, but they were better prepared and finished him off after a short fight. It showed also the power of a single flying invisible spell caster whose only goal is to kill the PCs and who will equip himself accordingly to reach this goal. And it wasn't really difficult to design such an encounter because of the power of some spells that are combined to a deadly effect.

Which leads to the question: When is a spell overpowered? A spell might be ok when used alone, but deadly when it is combined with another spell. In this case: Fly and Improved Invisibility.