Vancian Anchor
- Thread starter Empath Negative
- Start date
No I don't.
The spell is powerful but you can't hurt anyone with it. It doesn't do any damage. What it does is allow the caster a chance to change where he is on the battlefield like maybe get out of range of the other spellcasters or anyone else trying to take his head off. He can heal himself. He can run away. He could take the time to cast some buffs on himself.
It is basically used to change the situation into casters favor or allow him to escape.
And being able to manipulate time and other forces is something a lot of us think magic should be able to do at higher levels.
And to make it last 24 hours by casting it with persistent requires a 6 level higher slot which puts into epic levels.
mcintma
First Post
So much pain ... what did those bad wizards do to you in the back of that van? WHAT DID THEY DO !?!?!
I never saw it in my games, but it's clear there are folks who are still scarred from bad "wizard experiences" in 3e
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Empath Negative
First Post
Why is time stop almost univetsally considered more powerful than meteorswarm?
I don't think a lot of players and DMs think it is.
I would much rather be hit with a time stop as a PC then a meteor storm.
Terraism
Explorer
Because it breaks the action economy of the game. While the concept is more of a 4E one, the action economy is still the single biggest balancing factor in 3.5, as well. Meteor Swarm hits things hard, but to be honest, not that impressively hard on its own. Time Stop, on the other hand, gives the caster (on average) three full rounds to set up complete and total victory without any interference. While, no, you can't cast direct spells, those are often on the weaker end of the wizard's repertoire, anyway. Also, a savvy character can generally find a large number of high-damage effects that can be cast and last through a Time Stop. If nothing else, having the time to drop a few high-level summons/conjurations or the like is one way around the primary balancing factors of those spells. And yes, combining a pair (or more) of 9th level spells should make Oz, the Great and Powerful, the key with Time Stop is that there's not a single thing that can be done about it. Period.
Terraism
Explorer
In response to this, I'd like to suggest that your DM is apparently a very gentle fellow. I'd expect a super-intelligent wizard casting Time Stop to kill you without you even getting to act. Use a maximize metamagic rod, Time Stop, then, oh, I dunno. Empowered Cloudkill, Dimensional Lock, and Forcecage. If you've got the time [ha! of course you have the time], throw in things like Black Tentacles and Incendiary Cloud. When the Time Stop ends, the group is physically and mystically sealed in a small room with a large number of damaging spells, one of which cuts right through hit points. And if you had time for Tentacles, the casters are probably not doing much about it. Because they're grappled.
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Umm no I don't play with gentle DMs.
But at 18 level some of the spells you mentioned are not going to be atuokill.
We had time stop cast on us and then the caster cast a cloudkill and a force cage as well as healed himself.
It was not a TPK. The party trapped in the force cage teleported out in one round and while some of us took some damage from the cloudkill we were all able to get out of it in a round. And the dwarf who was immune to poison and the rogue did not take any damage.
Since we were not bunched together it was hard to catch us in every effect.
For this spell to be as devastating as you claim so many things have to happen. First of all the party needs to be close together. If you are the one casting it you have to cast your spells in a way that they don't take out your party members. The same with the enemy caster he may not see his allies as expendable.
Second you are not guaranteed to get anymore than two rounds.
And third any of those spells can hurt a party not prepared to handle them. It would be just as easy for a DM to have an encounter with say three spellcasters who each cast an area effect spell in their round and you get almost the same effect.
With Evards black tentacles any rogues or monks are not going to be grappled. A high level fighter should be strong enough to win the grapple check before it kills him. By this time a lot of party members have items that allow freedom of movement.
You mentioned metamagic to use those you have to give up higher spell slots which should help limit how many things you can empower.
We are talking high level play here, encounters should be challenging.
I have seen time stop used very effectively to allow a party to accomplish a goal without fighting. We used it to get an item from a dragon.
One DM I played with interpreted the rules that said you can't cast spells at someone in the time stop to mean you could not cast area effect spells at them either. So basically the only offensive spells you could cast was summon spells.
Terraism
Explorer
Not to debate the point too much, but there are a few things I'd like to note that you seem to have ignored or missed.
- Dimensional Lock prevents teleporting out of the force cage. Or using Etherealness or Dimension Door or anything of the sort. Dimension Lock does allow Spell Resistance, but other than that, the combination of those two means that you can't get out without destroying or dispelling one of the effects. Period.
- As for being guaranteed to get more than two rounds, thus the maximized Time Stop.
- As far as maximizing Time Stop goes, that's what a metamagic rod is for. 3/day maximized is significant and guarantees you the time you need.
- As for Black Tentacles, I'm not in the slightest concerned about the rogues and the fighters not being grappled. The Tentacles aren't for them. The tentacles are there to prevent the casters from getting rid of the Forcecage and Dimensional Lock.
At any rate, yes, there are a number of ways to get around the scenario there... but the point is, it's far, for more dangerous than a Meteor Swarm that does a chunk of d6s. Even if you use the same metamagic rod to maximize the Swarm.
As far as this, that argument is essentially that "if you house rule Time Stop to not be as powerful as it is, then it's not overpowered!" which is entirely true... and also completely irrelevant.
On-Topic
At the risk of being crazy and actually responding the original poster, I like the idea of a "Vancian Anchor", even if the term is a bit inaccurate. Of course, I'm the type who's all for spellcasters being capable of more powerful effects than nonspellcasters, with commensurate penalties and costs for doing so. I like my magic to be deadly not just to the targets, but dangerous to the caster, as well.
Not to debate the point too much, but there are a few things I'd like to note that you seem to have ignored or missed.
- Dimensional Lock prevents teleporting out of the force cage. Or using Etherealness or Dimension Door or anything of the sort. Dimension Lock does allow Spell Resistance, but other than that, the combination of those two means that you can't get out without destroying or dispelling one of the effects. Period.
- As for being guaranteed to get more than two rounds, thus the maximized Time Stop.
- As far as maximizing Time Stop goes, that's what a metamagic rod is for. 3/day maximized is significant and guarantees you the time you need.
- As for Black Tentacles, I'm not in the slightest concerned about the rogues and the fighters not being grappled. The Tentacles aren't for them. The tentacles are there to prevent the casters from getting rid of the Forcecage and Dimensional Lock.
At any rate, yes, there are a number of ways to get around the scenario there... but the point is, it's far, for more dangerous than a Meteor Swarm that does a chunk of d6s. Even if you use the same metamagic.
rod to maximize the Swarm.
As far as this, that argument is essentially that "if you house rule Time Stop to not be as powerful as it is, then it's not overpowered!" which is entirely true... and also completely irrelevant.
On-Topic
At the risk of being crazy and actually responding the original poster, I like the idea of a "Vancian Anchor", even if the term is a bit inaccurate. Of course, I'm the type who's all for spellcasters being capable of more powerful effects than nonspellcasters, with commensurate penalties and costs for doing so. I like my magic to be deadly not just to the targets, but dangerous to the caster, as well.
I am not ignoring things.
First of all to cast it maximized you need to use a spell slot three level higher so now you are in epic levels. Also the issue is not that time stop is over powered it is adding metamagic to the spell. A lot of people think metamagic is one of the biggest issues of over powered casters that and the easy ability to get magic items that boost the amount of spells you get.
Dimensional lock means you can't teleport out of the force cage so now you have to cast disintegrate on the forcecage or cast dispel magic on the dimension lock.
As for the tentacles you cast a still dispel magic on it and you are free. Or you carry a freedom of movement item and you can't be grappled.
For everything you brought up there are effective counters. Maybe you have them maybe you don't but that is true of any encounter. A forcecage cast with out time stop can still be impossible to deal with if you don't have anything to counter it.
And of course one way to make sure none of this happens is to be good at counter spelling and have be dedicated at ruining other casters day by counter spelling them when they cast.
My point was it is very easy for DM to nerf. spells in their games, to say this spell is not available in their games.
I don't see why people like me who like powerful magic and everything that goes with it have to be the ones not to have it or build it ourselves when all a DM who does not like it has to say nope that spell is not in my game.
And this idea of a making a spell caster have to work harder at casting does not stop any of what you just pointed out because if he succeeds the spell still goes off.
I have no issue with a spell like time stop having a full round or even two rounds to cast or having very expensive spell components. I just don't like the idea that to cast a spell you have to do it differently than casting other spells. I prefer simpler clean mechanics where everything is usually the same for the same type of action.
