Rules forum "Book Club": PH spells A-O

[0-hr]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Rules forum "Book Club": PH spells A-B

Well... The point I was trying to make is that penalties of the same type don't stack (PHB, p. 152 and all that).

However, bestow curse could be interpreted as providing an unnamed penalty to ability scores:

And unnamed penalties (or bonuses, for that matter) do stack.

Still, I'm not 100% sure whether an "effective decrease" is supposed to be an unnamed penalty or something else (for the latter would count as "same type").

I got a Sage answer way-back-when on this one. I don't have the actual email anymore the gist was that Bestow Curse stacks for the same reason that multiple doses of poison stacks. It's not really a penalty so much as it is "damage" to a stat. And damage (whether to CON from poison or to HP from a sword blow) is not subject to stacking limitation.

 

[James McMurray]

Detect Scrying - very effective. I'm not sure that I like how this becomes a "required" spell to be cast everyday by almost all PC's...could this be a a better skill?

You mean like the Skill Scry? i had one character in a campaign (a wizard) that memorized the spell every day. The other characters didn't though. Most people, if worried about it, have just maxed out their Scry skill. Its only DC20 to notice scrying, and the true benefit of the Detect Scrying spell (knowing location and scries) is only useful in limited circumstances. Everyone that ever scried our party did it from very far away.

 

[ashockney]

You mean like the Skill Scry?

Ummm...yeah.

Exactly like the skill Scry.

Ok, nevermind.