Underpowered

[Lucius Foxhound]

What, like inflict light wounds, inflict moderate wounds, inflict serious wounds, inflict critical wounds...

Good point. It's strange how those spells have Will saves, isn't it? What are you "Willing" against? Hmmm.

 

[IceBear]

Yeah, I'm not sure why their Will saves either. I'd just arm wave it away as being a force of will to throw off the effects of negative energy and evilness being forced into your body. It would almost seem to imply that rather than harming your body directly, these spells would effect your soul instead.

IceBear

 

[incognito]

Plane Sailing: I'm with you on the Flame Arrow Spell.

Fireball isn't too usefull indoors, where it can be difficut to catch the right opponents, without catching your allies.

Also, Flame arrow can sneak attack. For those twinky Rouge/Wizards (esp Arcane Ticksters)

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

There's that spell (and amulet) that is supposed to protect you from scrying, but the opposed check is trivial to overcome.

Nondetection. Amulet of Proof against Detection and Location. For the spell, the check is not easy to overcome. The check is DC 15 + caster level when you cast Nondetection on yourself. An opponent of equal level has a 30% chance of detecting you. Great with Invisibility.

Find traps was way better than the thief ability in 2E.
It gives virtually nothing to a cleric in 3E.

Thieves from 2e were underpowered for many reasons, including spellcasters getting all of their tricks. The spell should not have been converted at all. Oh well.

Divine Might is also underpowered -- a 5th level spell that gives you a size increase and small Str boost for one round/level is pretty lame. I mean, compare to Poly Other/Self.

I agree, but I wouldn't compare it to Polymorph. Those spells are still broken.

Finally, Animate Dead is underpowered as a 5th level arcane spell; it should be 4th level, max.

It is in D20 Modern. I think we can get a feel for what revisions WotC is making by looking at D20 Modern.

Unless the duration of the Haste runs out before the combat is over, and that may happen quite easily!

That almost never happens! By the time you cast Haste, you're 5th-level+, and most combats only last that long. At higher levels, it never runs out (but can be negated by Dispel, Slow, etc). I have had a battle that lasted more than one week (game-time), however.

Sounds good, but +4 AC for a 1st lvl spell? How could one ever sell this to the fighters wearing plate with all the drawbacks armor has. I think Mage Armor fits that slot nicely. But I'll keep it in mind.

It stacks with Mage Armor still.

 

[Destil]

Good point. It's strange how those spells have Will saves, isn't it? What are you "Willing" against? Hmmm.

Negetive energy. Like a will save to avoid being destroyed by voidstone in the negetive energy plane. Or like most planer effects (banshment et cetera) where a will save is required.

 

[James McMurray]

IMHO, creeping doom isn't to be used to target armies of mooks; it's for PC parties, each of whose members (except for the barbarian and 20th-level monk) stand to take hundreds of hp in damage in the second round of the spell unless they get out right quick.

In my campaign, the party could easily all have DR, since there's a psion in the group with Inertial Barrier. An average party though will have no access to DR at all.

This spell is actually over-powered when used against PCs, and under-powered when used by them. No 11th - 13th level party will be able to handle 1000 points of damage divided amongst the group, making the spell too devestating to use against the party. Most foes a 13th level party faces will have at least DR 5/silver, making the spell not very useful for the party.

Granted, there are situations where it will be useful (fighting things without DR, when you can cast the spell without fear of it being interrupted) but those times are few and far between. Any foe with a modicum of intelligence is going to try to interrupt a spellcaster when they see him calling forth magic. Any foe with decent spellcraft will know to stop that spell from being cast at all costs.

Also, the damage actually occurs the moment the spell is cast, not the second round. Did you mean the second round after the casting starts?

I'm not saying it's broken, just definitely not underpowered. And try it against something with a 10'x10' face for REAL damage-dealing potential.

Without using a house rule, face has no bearing on the amount of damage taken. As written, each creature takes damage equal to its hit points. I do like the variant from WotC's site though, that divides the damage into the squares affected.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

Note that flame arrow is a ranged attack spell requiring an attack roll, which means it benefits from ranged attack feats like Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot. Most wizards IMC take Point Blank Shot at least (then again, most wizards IMC turn out to be elves, and they carry longbows around).

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[ruleslawyer]

This spell is actually over-powered when used against PCs, and under-powered when used by them. No 11th - 13th level party will be able to handle 1000 points of damage divided amongst the group, making the spell too devestating to use against the party. Most foes a 13th level party faces will have at least DR 5/silver, making the spell not very useful for the party.

This was my point exactly. Thanks for agreeing.

Also, the damage actually occurs the moment the spell is cast, not the second round. Did you mean the second round after the casting starts?

I was referring to a) the next round, since a 1-round spell takes effect at the beginning of the next round; or b) under WotC's house rule, the round after that, when all of the insects that weren't in the PCs' squares move into those squares and inflict their damage.

Without using a house rule, face has no bearing on the amount of damage taken. As written, each creature takes damage equal to its hit points. I do like the variant from WotC's site though, that divides the damage into the squares affected.

I was assuming that you were citing the latter variant, since otherwise, there isn't even a chance in h*** that creeping doom is underpowered, IMHO. Yes, it's better for use by NPCs than by PCs, although even that's only true if DMs limit encounters with NPC parties (which, IMHO, should constitute a MUCH larger percentage of encounters than in most campaigns described on these threads). For one thing, that wouldn't make it underpowered, just more useful by certain parties against certain others. Are sundering or Mordenkainen's disjunction underpowered? Second, and simply put, not everything has DR, and DR is the ONE defense against the hundreds of points this spell does. Thus, it is NOT underpowered.

My sympathies on the TPK, by the way, although I'm sure you knew it was coming...

 

[James McMurray]

Cool. So it looks like we're on the same page after all.

Thatnks for the sympathy. I actually had no idea it was coming, until they said they were going to go fight the original demi-lich with only 4 party members, then I had an idea. Of course, had the wizard not forgotten to cast his quickened empowered shatter, they wouldn't have died.