Overpowered/Underpowered Spells?

[Synchronicity]

Well, they could dispel it, or not? But the initial damage will stay, which is still quite a bit.

However, a dragon with such a high facing, might still be a pretty dangerous opponent.

Bye
Thanee

Heh. It's a Conjuration [Summoning] effect. While the slime evaporates at the end of the duration, I don't believe it's dispellable, much like other Conjurations. Yeah, sure, the dragon'd be dangerous..for the 3 or so rounds it survived. Dragons have high Con, but nobody has *that* much Con. :S

 

[Thanee]

Conjurations are not dispelable? Why is that?

Only instanteneous conjurations, but that has nothing to do with being a conjuration, really.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Synchronicity]

Conjurations are not dispelable? Why is that?

Only instanteneous conjurations, but that has nothing to do with being a conjuration, really.

Bye
Thanee

Sorry, you're right. My brain randomly decided to short out for a moment there. It's dispellable; though the damage already taken will remain. It's really a problem when used on a) wizards ('I lose Con?!') or b) big stompy doom-machines with no spellcasting ability. And I stand by my assertion that blanketing a 30ft area with Con-draining slime's damn nasty.

 

[Particle_Man]

Bigby's Hand spells seem underpowered.

 

[Merlion]

I cant really think of any that I'd consider overpowered in and of themselves. The permanet de-magicing of magic items with Mord's Disjunction does seem a little heavy.
And I feel Divine Power and Righteous Might are over the top in the hands of the Cleric. And Miracle of course. I think a lot of Cleric stuff is overpowered, but not of itself, just in the context of the Cleric.

As for underpowered, well of course theres Cone of Cold.

Ice Storm also seems weak to me, only doing 5 dice of damage as a 4th level spell. Yea its a cylinder but that only matters if you've got enemies in the air.

The whole Fly/Overland flight thing...Overland Flight is 2 levels higher and inferior in every way save duration. and once you've got it, you've got Teleport too.

The Summon Monster spells. They need a total overhaul...most of the stuff is no more than a speedbump in combat at the level you get it. And since the spells have super short duration, using them for utility is somewhat limited.
The Summon Nature's Allies are ok now though.

Bull's Strength etc since their durations were more or less removed. Since they give Enhancement bonuses, and most people already have enhancement bonus granting items for their important ability scores. If their going to have super short durations, they need to give like morale or untyped bonuses.

Daze Monster is pretty silly. For a second level spell you daze one creature with no more than 6 HD for a single round. make it like 1d4+1 rounds and it might be worth it. Of course I have problems in general with spells like this and Sleep, and Deep Slumber, and Circle of Death that have HD limits that render them almost useless after a few levels.

Spell Turning is a bit weak for 7th level since it only effects a super narrow range of spells, and a small number of spell levels of spells.

I'm not to wild about the Acid Fog/Incendiary cloud type spells. They deal very little damage and their easy to get away from.

I have to agree that in terms of the stated benefits, Foresight has always seemed weak for 9th level to me.

And yes, Sound Burst is pretty weak..although I'm not in favor of Cleric's getting more damage ability.


theres probably others but those sort of spring to mind.

 

[Merlion]

And of course some stuff is basicaly ok except it got hit with the anti-utility magic duration nerf stick in 3.5 like Fly, Invisibility, Polymorph. Bull's Str etc were to my mind a little weak already...but those three are fine, until they have their duration taken away

 

[Pax]

The Ref save's mostly the point I was making. I mean, Great Wyrm dragon. You can either throw a Fort save-or-die at them, which they pass in their sleep; or, they can try a Ref save (not their best feature); and if they fail, take multiple (what, 4d6+?) dice of Con damage for 1 round/lvl. That's flipping harsh.

IMC, Slime Wave will do 1 con damage per round per 5' of face. Period. And a large creature gets whacked with 2 patches (10' of face), not 4 (10x10 occupied area).

 

[two]

How I do it

The way I figure out if a spell is overopwered or not is to ask the following question:

"If this spell is used in intelligent and min/maxxy fashion, will it change the way every encounter must be run, or force the GM to change the campaign world?"

Of the already-commented-upon spells, some easily fit the criteria:

Alter Self/Polymorph/Shape Change
Gate
Mord's Disjunction
Scry/Teleport
Silence

I think Alter Self is fine. But Polymorph Any Object/Shape Change, as written, with no limitations upon creatures polymorphed into, is ridiculous. If this spell is used often, and well, it can the tailed to precisely fit an opponent, or to greatly reduce the party's weaknesses. Yes, it might look stupid to have the party walking around in "troll form" or whatever, but it's incredibly effective and forces the GM to change every encounter.

Gate, if used often, is the same. Gate in some appropriate help for any reasonably-scary battle and have your life made much easier. Or have a Gated bodyguard for a while, etc.

Teleport is the same deal. If used intelligently (i.e. all the time) it's nearly impossible for a GM to figure out what the party is going to do, and to control battles. Unless the GM uses a lot of DimAnchors -- which substantially changes every encounter. Just makes the campaign world a mess, and is it really that fun?

Silence is another good example. A 1st level bard cohort with a wand of silence, readying it to cast when an enemy start to cast, is far more effective than he has any right to be. Basically, all enemy spell-casting can be shut down for the price of a 2nd level spell. Fun? (granted, this guy will be killed in an instant, but you get the point. Sub in a 10th level cleric cohort, a dedicated "silencer", and it's all over).

Just my opinions, but removing these spells entirely simply makes for a more fun and more entertaining (i.e. less binary) game.

 

[Khristos]

I am curious as to why people don't put time stop on here. Let me put out what I did with this beautiful spell. I cast time stop inside a time stop. Eventually this led to an enemy cleric inside a force cube, dimensionally locked, facing a projected image (which I had cast silence on via a scroll) with 4 delayed blast fireballs (76d6 damage). Typically I start a fight with my rod of maximization in hand and switch to my rod of quickening during the time stop. This way I could quicken spell attack and still hold action to use greater dispel as a counter. Pretty powerful stuff

 

[Dark Dragon]

Wow, losts of comments Interesting, some spells are listed quite often, perhaps they will be revised, faq'd, errat'd ...some day...

The WotC "Problematic Spells" thread is very good.....for the first 2 pages. After that, it's fluff.

Dark Dragon, I'm very suprised at your list of spells that "need work". Only two of your list ever come up as being problematic - Cone of Cold and Mord's Disjuction.

What about:

• Alter Self/Polymorph/Shape Change
• Cone of Cold
• Entangle
• Gate
• Mord's Disjunction
• Polar Ray
• Scry/Teleport
• Silence

These, at a minimum, are the problematic spells. The others you list are mere gnats in comparison.

I posted those spells that just came into mind.
I agree that most of the spells you're listing need some changes. The polymorphing stuff is badly worded and in parts horribly overpowered (especially when you're DMing epic campaigns), Gate may just kill an encounter or the party.

Time Stop: Bad stuff if the wizzie uses some Delayed Blast Fireballs. Really bad stuff if an archmage with mastery of elements casts some DBFs. But if the PCs use this tactic often, it might be used on them. That's the way I handle it, and the players should never forget that.

Entangle: Well, I never realised that it could be overpowered. Perhaps because my druid rarely had an opportunity to use it to full effect. But in the right conditions it is a very nasty spell.

Silence: Yep, quite good for an auto-spellcaster-shut-off. How many silent spells prepares a caster? Two? Three? Perhaps a silent dispel? Or a silent teleport?

Teleport: IMC, it was changed that it makes noise and light and leaves the creatures dazed, just like Dimension Door, IIRC. Scry-Buff-Teleport is a bit rirkier then.

Hunter's Mercy: Yes, that is really nasty. OK, the ranger changes his bow attacks for casting HM, but a crit with a bow in the next round hurts a lot. Now take a ranger/deepwood sniper with a bow enchanted with some sort of burst. Ouch!

Ice Storm: Aye, quite weak, I agree.

Planar Binding: Seems ok to me. It has a HD cap, and the creature must be persuaded to fulfil the caster's bidding.