Vancian Anchor

[Whatthehell]

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.

Fun fact, when you make magic spells that can only be countered with other magic (force cage), you have screwed up badly as a game designer.

 

[Elf Witch]

Fun fact, when you make magic spells that can only be countered with other magic (force cage), you have screwed up badly as a game designer.

That is one opinion but does not happen to be mine or it seems some game designers. So it is not a fact of any kind it is an opinion. Which so many people in these kind of conversations seem to forget.

I don't buy that every dilemma should have to have both a magical and non magical way out.

It is up to the DM to plan encounters that fairly challenge their players. if you don't have casters in the group to have a chance of circumventing say a force cage you should not be using it.

It is the same way if you don't have any type of rogue in the party you shouldn't fill your dungeons with a lot of locked doors and traps.

If you are running a published encounter with a lot of undead you need to look closely at the numbers because most of those are written to assume you have a cleric who can turn some of them. If you don't then it is possible to overrun the party with sheer numbers.

My way of playing happens to be a valid play style and supported by several editions of DND and even other games systems. If you want a system that does it differently and supports your play style then that is fine too. Neither represent the one true and only way to play or design a game.

 

[AeroDm]

I don't think balancing extraordinary power with extraordinary limitations is a good balancing mechanism. What I have found is that when I try to put a lot of weight on both sides of the scale to achieve balance, any imprecision on my part results in significant imbalance. A better mechanism is to limit power while simultaneously limiting limitations. That way, imprecision in balancing the scales doesn't let too much power creep into the game.

As an added benefit, it means that power is introduced to the game in smaller units which makes it easier to multiclass and so on. If Wizard is a heavy handed class that is super limited and super powerful, then people are going to be unwilling to take on those limitations for one or two levels of the class. If Wizard has light rules and light power, they'll dip in and out when it suits the character.