Planar Bubble Issues

[prenzie]

The PCs in my 3.5 edition game are almost all 20th lvl now and just started Monte Cook's old Dungeon magazine adventure The Harrowing last time (originally for 15th lvl characters). To make the adventure a challenge for characters of their power level, I decided to bring in every spell & magic item alteration I could find concerning the Demonweb from every edition of the game.

So, for example, I want to use all the weird magic effects in the original Queen of the Demonweb Pits, I want to use the teleportation sub-school ban from Expedition to the Demonweb Pits (so no plane shifting out), I want to keep what the module suggests, that chaos & evil spells are at double CL, meaning that blasphemy from hezrou is a threat again. Extradimensional access, including portable hole and bag of holding, is unreliable, Magic weapons and armor and protection rings lose 2 plusses etc. etc. etc.

The PCs entered the Demonweb at the end of last game and immediately put up 3 planar bubble spells on 3 of their number:

http://alcyius.com/dndtools/spells/spell-compendium--86/planar-bubble--4633/index.html

The session ended right after that, so I have a few days to think about how effective it'll be in undoing all the problematic aspects of Demonweb adventuring.

The more I think about it, the more I hate this spell; it seems to circumvent all the challenge of an environment like this at no cost to the PCs. That said, I definitely want the spell (since the favored soul chose it as one of her spells) to do SOMETHING, to benefit the PCs, but utterly undoing every change to magic in the Demonweb seems like too much.

For instance, since the Demonweb doesn't connect to the astral plane or the ethereal, should Planar Bubble really allow the PCs to access these planes? Could Planar Bubble really undo the will of Lolth when it comes to granting wishes? If Lolth locks down the Demonweb against teleportation (except with her special cubes and pyramid triggers), can this puny mortal spell negate her will?

What do you guys think? How much should I let this spell accomplish?

 

[Rabulias]

Just some quick thoughts here.

The duration (10 minutes/level) is a fairly limiting factor. For 20th level casters, that's a little more than three hours per casting. Even with six castings per day, they can't cover all 24 hours per day, and they will be giving up all 7th level spells to do even that.

I would also say that extradimensional magic works just fine but only within the 20-foot diameter area of effect, so portable holes and the like function within the area, but teleportation can't reach beyond that area. You could make the case that portables holes and bags of holding need to reach beyond the AoE to work, but I don't see those as problematic at that level of play.

 

[nijineko]

Agreed.

This is not as much a problem as it seems. the players are high level. they have toys. they will use toys. let them.

but keep a strict eye on the duration, as Rabulias rightfully points out.

Rather than cancelling the ability, think of ways to challenge them by draining their resources. occasional dispel attempts. mass attacks by waves of minor goons to trick them into casting spells. occasionally attack them during the "night", interrupt their sleep and prevent spell recovery, again only on occasion.

unless they have a psion-nomad metamind, they will be burning a lot of their high level spells to keep the effect going, again as Rabulias pointed out.

One one hand, this is cool and fun for the players to be able to avoid the effects, but make a point of it, ham it up a bit to make them feel like they accomplished something by doing so. then when they run out, the pain will be that much more felt.

also, keep in mind that effects that originate OUTSIDE of the bubble are still boosted and/or hindered. enemies can shoot into the bubbles and still get the local benefits. only effects that originate from inside of one of the bubbles are affected by the planar bubbles.