Spells which were not properly nerved...

[Starbuck_II]

Caster level check: DC 10 + spell level + caster level of the silence spell.

This should make it "possible" to cast without making it too easy. Silence needs a little something but not too much as it's only border-line strong, imo.

Doesn't that make the check 12 (higher if heightened) + caster minimum? An equal level caster has 40% chance of success.
Only Pally/Rangers are in trouble since they have lower caster.

 

[Balthaczar]

I think Wall of Thorns could have used some alterations.

 

[yesnomu]

This way lies madness. If you cannot turn someone into a toad, then the design has failed and you may forget about other concerns such as "balance" and what.

And if you can turn someone into a toad permanently with one save, you've totally bypassed HP as an ablative resource. It's literally the same as Finger of Death, just with "polymorph" in the place of "death effect"--oh, and two levels lower.

Besides, I wasn't saying to cut these spells entirely, just to make them fit with the rest of the old save or dies. Allow a save every round, possibly with fewer/more spread apart saves for lower HD creatures. That way, you could turn most non-combat threats into a toad permanently, but stuff that can challenge you would be able to shift out.

 

[Renfield]

Sounds like another example of "Wow, this spell is actually effective in situation C, G, and X! It must be nerfed." As a GM of no significant skill even I'm insulted by this mentality. Silence has done more or less the same thing for years. If you can't hack it, then perhaps you shouldn't either DM or play wizards, that's like saying "Having 1 bolt of force energy do 1d4+1 points of damage at first level and hit unfailingly is WAAAAY too powerful, lets make it an attack roll."

Sheesh, I swear, if I walk away from this game for ten years I'll come back and suddenly all swords will do subdual damage because people complained about them being too lethal or something. Silence? Overpowered? Sheesh. There's a difference between balancing a game to make it playable and castrating it.

 

[kinem]

And if you can turn someone into a toad permanently with one save, you've totally bypassed HP as an ablative resource.

That's the point. It's what makes such spells such a great, necessary part of D&D. Any game without such spells would be 4e, not D&D.

Besides, I wasn't saying to cut these spells entirely, just to make them fit with the rest of the old save or dies. Allow a save every round, possibly with fewer/more spread apart saves for lower HD creatures. That way, you could turn most non-combat threats into a toad permanently, but stuff that can challenge you would be able to shift out.

Allowing a save every round would turn it into a spell that doesn't actually do anything, other than give things which inflict hp damage more time to do so. So it might as well just do hp damage and stop pretending to be a flavorful spell.

 

[yesnomu]

That's the point. It's what makes such spells such a great, necessary part of D&D. Any game without such spells would be 4e, not D&D.

Allowing a save every round would turn it into a spell that doesn't actually do anything, other than give things which inflict hp damage more time to do so. So it might as well just do hp damage and stop pretending to be a flavorful spell.

You're not understanding what I'm saying: The Pathfinder devs have already shown they don't want HP as a resource to become irrelevant after 9th level. This is in light of their changes to previous save-or-dies like Glitterdust and Finger of Death. Your and my views on the change are immaterial--the spell list is inconsistent as it stands.

Not to mention, even if you love powerful, flavorful spells (and I do too, believe me), you must see there's a problem here. Finger of Death does CL*10 damage on a failed Fort save at level 7, while Plane Shift... sends the target to the Elemental Plane of Fire. Forever. At level 5. And Baleful Polymorph... turns them into a bunny. Forever. At level 5. You see what I'm saying? Rebalancing the spell levels, if nothing else, is needed.

 

[kinem]

Glitterdust is a 2nd level spell so I can why it would be changed.

I don't think hp should be irrelevant as a resource, nor do I think it is even in 3.5. It's just not the only thing that matters, so it will be irrelevant some of the time, just like any of the other things that can matter often don't come into play in a given battle.

I think the spell levels are based on the assumption that PCs will have access to spells like dispel magic. So Baleful Poymorph isn't as powerful as killing the target, on this assumption, because if the target is a PC his friends can dispel the effect. Plane shift should probably be level 7 for clerics also, but it requires a touch attack, and a PC could survive on most planes until rescued.

This model doesn't work so well for monsters. Maybe we need more monsters with utility and healing magic.

 

[Salthorae]

Next you guys are going to tell me that Animate Rope shouldn't be 1st level because the Strength Burst or Escape Artist checks are too high and it can simply end an encounter when it wraps up an opponent...

Why do spells that get used well always get the nerf card played on them? They aren't useful in every situation, but kudos to the player/character that has them prepped and uses them in the situations they were designed for... the whole POINT of Baleful Polymorph is to play out the Sword and Sorcery trope of "Intellect and Wizards being more mighty than Brawn" and "beware lest you anger the wizard"... if you don't have those, then you're not playing D&D anymore... you're playing a video game (a.k.a. 4E)

 

[yesnomu]

Why do spells that get used well always get the nerf card played on them? They aren't useful in every situation, but kudos to the player/character that has them prepped and uses them in the situations they were designed for... the whole POINT of Baleful Polymorph is to play out the Sword and Sorcery trope of "Intellect and Wizards being more mighty than Brawn" and "beware lest you anger the wizard"... if you don't have those, then you're not playing D&D anymore... you're playing a video game (a.k.a. 4E)

The whole point of the spell... is to reinforce class imbalance? Work with me here. (Not to mention that Dominate Person is probably a better choice against fighters/other "brawn" types, anyway.)

And please, tell me what these highly situational instances are where Baleful Polymorph is a powerful spell, where the Wizard or Druid deserves credit for their foresight. Looks like "fighting enemies" to me--better not prepare your high-level slots for something that unlikely!

 

[Salthorae]

The whole point of the spell... is to reinforce class imbalance? Work with me here. (Not to mention that Dominate Person is probably a better choice against fighters/other "brawn" types, anyway.)

And please, tell me what these highly situational instances are where Baleful Polymorph is a powerful spell, where the Wizard or Druid deserves credit for their foresight. Looks like "fighting enemies" to me--better not prepare your high-level slots for something that unlikely!

Ease off of the sarcastic attacks there yesnomu...

First of all, the point of a spell like Baleful Polymorph is to retain classic fantasy concepts like a wizard turning people into toads. If complete and utter class balance is what you're after, then go play 4E or WoW or something rather than ripping on spells that re-create classic fantasy concepts.

Secondly I should have perhaps been more specific when talking about preparing the right spells for the right times. I was talking more about spells like Silence or Glitterdust rather than Baleful Polymorph.

I'm not sure what your vehemence against Baleful Polymorph stems from... you said that you dislike it because it "removes HP as an ablative resource", yet those characters with high HP's are 9 out of 10 times also going to have high Fort saves... so they will be the most resistant to the spell anyway. And as you said, Dominate Person is much more effective against those high HP/Fort characters anyway, it too takes away HP as an ablative resource, are you going to argue that it too needs to be nerfed or have it's spell level changed?

You do also realize that Baleful Polymorph is subject to Dispel Magic and is only permanent if your character doesn't know someone who can cast Dispel Magic or Break Enchantment...

(Under Duration) Permanent: The energy remains as long as the effect does. This means the spell is vulnerable to dispel magic.