Useless spells because of durations

[Jeff Wilder]

Whaddya mean, we gotta talk to this lynx!? The last monster we talked to ate half the party!

Stop quoting old cartoons, or the familiar gets it.


Jeff

P.S. All undead do ping under detect evil. I personally think it's stupid, but it's the rule. Trust me, I lost a $500 bet on this.

 

[beaver1024]

Other spells that are useless due to duration:

Invisibility, Eagle's Splendor, Bear's Endurance,.

 

[Diirk]

deathward ;p well not quite, its still quite useful in many situations... but the thing is you basically have to know about those situations in advance. And woe betide you if the enemy escapes and comes back 30 minutes later !

Sacrificing several 5th level slots in a 10-14th campaign really hurts and you might not even need them... its (slightly) better for clerics than it is for druids, but either way it hurts.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

P.S. All undead do ping under detect evil. I personally think it's stupid, but it's the rule. Trust me, I lost a $500 bet on this.

Even the baelnorn (good elven liches)?

500$!?!?

AR

 

[hong]

Even the baelnorn (good elven liches)?

500$!?!?

AR

One of the great moments in rgfd history. Don't ask.

 

[Thanee]

The good aligned liches are from FR and from a 3.0 publication, IIRC, that's where the problem comes from, but I like the 3.0 undead alignments better, anyways.

Invisibility is ok. I like it better at 10 min/level, but it is not useless, just more limited (no scouting around in the outpost, just passing a few guards with one casting). And the effect is incredibly powerful at 3rd level.

Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, Bear's Endurance, Fox's Cunning, Owl's Wisdom and Eagle's Splendour all seem to be underpowered because of duration.

Invisibility, Fly and Polymorph, while certainly not underpowered per se, I like with a higher duration to add some decent out of combat versatility.

Summon Monster I is really, really bad. They should have a minimum duration of 3 or 5 rounds or something like that for the Summon line.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Even the baelnorn (good elven liches)?

Even them.

500$!?!?

Yep. That's how sure I was that they couldn't possibly mean what they didn't exactly write. Under the relevant reading of detect evil (v. 3.0), a 5th-level LN cleric of Hextor radiated more evil than a 20th-level LE cleric of WeeJas. That has since been officially codified. (To put the $500 into perspective, though, as a semi-pro poker player I can easily lose twice that much in an eight-hour session without it having much impact on my bankroll. So the only real sting was to my pride.)

Note that mindless undead now have an Evil alignment. Stupid as it is, that's because of me. They had to do it, because otherwise the only way for someone to know a skeleton was evil was to look at the detect evil spell and interpret it in a not-at-all clear way. By the Sage's ruling, in 3.0, you could not possibly tell a skeleton was evil by looking at its description in the Monster Manual. (The irony is that it would have made much more sense to leave mindless undead Neutral, but tag them with the [evil] descriptor. But "sense" has very little to do with this particular rule.)

 

[Nail]

Ventriloquism is just a crappy spell. Again, it should be 0 level.

For an invisible wizard, it's awesome.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Even the baelnorn (good elven liches)?

Yep.

They'd register an aura when viewed with a Detect Evil spell, because they are undead.

Assuming you then looked at them with a Detect Good spell and [likely] a Detect Chaos spell, they'd radiate auras under those, as well - though the Chaotic and Good auras would be less powerful than their Evil aura.

A reformed-Erinyes Paladin is in the same boat, aura-wise.

 

[Hypersmurf]

That's how sure I was that they couldn't possibly mean what they didn't exactly write.

Hmm? I'm not sure what you mean by "didn't exactly write". What they wrote was perfectly clear.

Detect Evil detected, in varying strengths:

• Evil creatures
• Undead creatures
• Evil elementals
• Evil magic items or spells
• Evil outsiders
• Clerics of evil deities

Under the relevant reading of detect evil (v. 3.0), a 5th-level LN cleric of Hextor radiated more evil than a 20th-level LE cleric of WeeJas.

It's the same in 3.5.

Note that mindless undead now have an Evil alignment. Stupid as it is, that's because of me. They had to do it, because otherwise the only way for someone to know a skeleton was evil was to look at the detect evil spell and interpret it in a not-at-all clear way. By the Sage's ruling, in 3.0, you could not possibly tell a skeleton was evil by looking at its description in the Monster Manual.

Hmm? You couldn't tell they were evil, because they weren't evil. They just showed up on a Detect Evil spell (like the LN cleric of Hextor). There's a difference.

-Hyp.