Wall of Force... best 5th lvl spell !

[Rashak Mani]

After yesterday I am convinced that Wall of Force is the best and most versatile 5th lvl spell !

You get to trap medium sized creatures with almost no chance to escape unless they have some pretty powerful and specific spells. You can use it to protect the party or to isolate part of the enemies so they can be dealt with piecemeal.

Even ethereal and magic is detained by it... one major boss per spell and you can stop major villains.

Agree or Disagree ? How do your DMs zero-rule this spell as relates to surrounding enemies ?

 

[Celtavian]

Re

Agree.

I pissed my DM off big time by imprisoning his huge water elemental in a force sphere none of the enemies could bring down, while I destroyed the majority of the enemy forces. It was so lopsided that the high priest of the enemy temple and his minions ran after I nuked down their army.

Wall of Force is a fairly powerful spell. The only balancing factor, as with all powerful spells, is that it can be used against the party as well. If they don't have the spell power to bring it down, well, they are out of luck.

You can imprison much bigger creatures than medium size with a wall of force depending on how they can move. A Sphere of Force is 1' radius per level. A 10th level caster can create a force sphere with a 10' radius, which means it is roughly 20' across at each of its farthest points. You could imprison plent of large and even a few huge creatures in a force sphere.

My DM thinks it is an overpowered spell. I told him no spell is overpowered as long as the enemy can use it. Screw fighter characters, casters are supreme and should be. No way a fighter-type should be able to withstand the power of a caster, ever. Magic is like having superior war technology in the modern day, it gives you an advantage that is nearly unbeatable.

 

[Wizardry]

Wall Of Force should not be allowed to be used as a spherical effect, IMO. You're basically getting a lower level version of Forcecage, in addition to the fact Wall Of Force has none of the costs and less drawbacks.

PS

Celtavian, are you really serious? I really enjoy playing a caster, but the idea that they should be naturally superior to other types of characters is ridiculous. With that said, any Fighter type past 13th-15th level is a fool not to have an item of teleportation.

 

[Xarlen]

Considering how the spherical Wall of Force is no different then the Spherical Wall of Ice (Sans you can beat it down), the enemy should recieve a saving throw.

By the reasoning that 'it's balanced because you can use it against the PCs' is bull, because then you have spells like Harm. Boop! Dead character. Boop! Dead super NPC. Sure, both sides can use it, but does that make it 'Balanced'? Or, just make a 9th level spell that's a ranged touch death attack, no save, no nuttin'. It's fair, cuz both sides can use it, Right?

However, for the sake of the thread's enthusiasm toward Wall of Force, I've devised a nasty little tactic for any mage or archer. Cast two wall of Forces, that would look like >. At the crux, there should be a foot wide gap. This allows you to I'd say about 9/10ths cover, and no one just charge up and get you (they'd have to go around).

 

[rounser]

Keep in mind that the creature the sphere is aimed at mustn't be touching the ground at the time the entrapping wall of force goes off, or the sphere will be broken at time of casting and the spell will fail.

This makes it (IMO) only good against flyers, or opponents who happen to be jumping at the time the spell fires. Given that flyers often have wide wingspans, it's unlikely to affect them either.

EDIT: Hold on a sec, you can form it into a hemisphere too. Okay, you can entrap typical medium size opponents touching the ground if you choose a hemisphere. So much for that...

 

[hong]

Re: Re

My DM thinks it is an overpowered spell. I told him no spell is overpowered as long as the enemy can use it.

By that logic, why aren't you throwing around power word kill at 1st level?

Screw fighter characters, casters are supreme and should be.

No, they shouldn't.

No way a fighter-type should be able to withstand the power of a caster, ever.

Prove it.

Magic is like having superior war technology in the modern day, it gives you an advantage that is nearly unbeatable.

Prove it.

 

[Thanee]

There's not much to prove, really. In a duel (unless the fighting conditions heavily favor the fighter) a fighter-type is bound to lose against an arcane caster, once a certain level is reached.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Wizardry]

There's not much to prove, really. In a duel (unless the fighting conditions heavily favor the fighter) a fighter-type is bound to lose against an arcane caster, once a certain level is reached.

Bye
Thanee

Completely untrue. Design any level of arcane caster you want, and I'll make an equivalent level Fighter type that will win at least half the time. People really underestimate how powerful the non caster classes are, but that's probably due to the fact they rely more on outside power than intrinsic abilities.

 

[hong]

There's not much to prove, really. In a duel (unless the fighting conditions heavily favor the fighter) a fighter-type is bound to lose against an arcane caster, once a certain level is reached.

Thanee, d00d, I mean "prove it" in the sense of referring to empirical, real-world evidence that magic is unbeatable. Unless such evidence exists, magic is simply a construct of the ruleset used to define a game, and as such can be as weak or as powerful as the game designers want.

 

[green slime]

Yet another thread degenerates into "my character can kick your character's ass from here to breakfast time..."

What were we discussing?

Oh yes, the merits of Wall of Force.

It only catches BBEG off guard if the DM is off guard. I don't hear a lot of players complaining about how it nuked their entire party.

Preparation and team work is the key. Most players once they are encountering this, will have some form of dimension door ability, or their team mates will. So where is the problem?

Well, my character can kick your character's ass from here to breakfast time...with or without the forceful wall...hemispherical or otherwise.