What are your "Problem Spells"?

[green slime]

True Resurrection. No penalty for being raised and no significant cost to cast this spell.

Bye
Thanee

Which is why there should be spells and magical items that cause the soul to be corrupted and/or destroyed.

Wouldn't be no fun true ressurrecting a rabid, berserking minion of vileness now then would it

 

[Simulacrum]

My problem spells in 3.5 are Time Stop and M's Disjunction, both spells are way overpowered, unbalanced if not broken to the core.

I'm telling nothing new here....

 

[diaglo]

the ultimate spells which disrupt balance are Detect Magic, Detect Evil/Good/LAw/Chaos, and Cure ___Wounds.

 

[Psion]

Another vote on the transportation spells and the raising of the dead.

It seems my input here is redundant.

If you've never read Stephen Brust's Vlad Taltos novels (Jhereg, Yendi, etc). Then you should.

(...)

What they do though is have a few methods of making death permanent. If you wanted to mimic this in your game world you could have black market purchaseable one use items of the Soul Bind spell...

Heck, I just pretty much imported Morganti blades straight into my game.

 

[herald]

From a rules perspective, bringing back the dead seems like a problem, but it doesn't have to be.

Why would everyone want to comback to life? Isn't life in the here after going to be better? (For the good anyways.)

Plus, I'm sure that there are going to be people who decide not to raise the dead. If I'm a Human prince, maybe I don't want to bring back good old dad. It might be my only shot at the throne, other wise my Father might pass it on to my children.

Assassinations are done for a couple of reasons. To throw a government into chaos, or to remove an obstical to someone else taking power. If it's the former and not the latter, then chances are that bringing back the ruler is not going to be that big of deal for the attacker. If anything, his message is sent, I can reach you when I want to and I can do it again. However, if the target is to be removed, chances are that the attacker has taken into account that the victim will be revived and figure out how to deal with it. Trap the soul might just be the most effective way to eliminate a ruler. Take his soul, kill his body and use an arcane way of hiding or disposing of his soul. Perhaps planeshift it away to another plane. Offer it up to a outer planer power who will safe guard it.

Anything that Magic can create for society, can be tampered with by magic. So if you build one area up to much, chances are, it can and will be target by someone or something.

Here is what I see as being the most concerning. Cure Spells, all of them. Especially Cure Disease. Other game designers have made Cure Disease spell resistant. I think that's a step in the right dirrection. Perhaps there should be Natural phenomena that causes some large magics to fail.

Last but not lease and coming back to the concept of bringing back the dead. In my games there is such a thing as fate, and although it can be changed, eventually, you're going to die. Only those who have a chance to really change the world are ever sent back to live again. For the others, it's tough luck, hope you live the life to your best because it's off you your reward.

But that's just me.

 

[green slime]

My problem spells in 3.5 are Time Stop and M's Disjunction, both spells are way overpowered, unbalanced if not broken to the core.

I'm telling nothing new here....

For us time stop isn't a big problem, it requires good use of the Delay Spell feat or just buffs, so we haven't seen any gross abuses.

Disjunction is very powerful, but seldomly used: Both the PCs and the NPCs relying heavily on their gear, and being greedy, want more!

 

[WizarDru]

It really depends how far down deep you wish to drill. The biggest limiter for any magical intereference is penetration and rarity. How common is it for the majority of folks to get access to, social customs concerning it's use, and so forth.

True Resurrection IS a powerful spell, but unless 17th level clerics have become remarkably abundant in a particular game, only a handful of beings would have access to it. Social custom and religious restrictions might apply to such beings. In a world where 3E's 'scry and fry' is prevalent, a king might have a compact with the highest ranking member of a local temple for such a spell...in return for favors to the 'official religion' of the kingdom. The high-priest always keeps a True Res memmed just in case an emergency occurs.

For the truly powerful and/or paranoid, ruling from a personal demi-plane that is not coterminous with the astral or ethereal is much better. No nasty teleports, etherealness or other spells making your life inconvienent.

Powerful (read:RICH) rulers would probably petition powerful arcanists for Rings of Contingency, with specific enchantments to protect them in times of need. The mage of my party has a triple threat on his ring, so that should he be dominated, a targeted dispel will go off ON HIM, a teleport will fire (taking him to a safe place) and a heavy damage spell fires off after he leaves. Imagine a ruler giving a tower and land grant to a powerful wizard for his occasional protection and the odd powerful item.

Despite being based on his D&D game, Brust's Taltos series is excellent, and shows the effects of high-magic do NOT neccesarily translate into a benefit for all. Non-noble citizens don't get the benefit of semi-immortality, for example, nor do poor nobles who can't afford the cost of a ressurections. This creates a social imbalance, of course.

Another facet of the culture of is the societal factor of house-rotation. There is a set pattern of secession based on the major houses, so that even the weakest or poorest house will eventually have an emperor/empress sitting atop the throne. A typical D&D game might have a similar situation. Imagine a PC being told by his church that he must memorize a True Res and Miracle daily, in case the church has need of his talents. He may not be called on to use the spells, but if an emergency happens, he is expected to be available.

Under 3.5, I consider Shapechange to be the most problematic spell from a rules standpoint. It seems to be highly broken in a number of profound ways.

I would highly recommend Magical Medieval Europe for a good reference on how many spells don't cause a campaign trouble, and can be quietly integrated into the campaign. In many cases, it's merely more economical and logical to not use spells in replacement of manual labor.

 

[green slime]

Imagine a ruler giving a tower and land grant to a powerful wizard for his occasional protection and the odd powerful item.

As a tenth level Aristocrat Ruler King of Queezle, would YOU trust that magic-wielding, enigmatic, megalomaniac spellcaster, who has his own agenda? That dude can summon the very horrors of hell. Who knows what kind of dark pacts he has going on?

 

[Varianor Abroad]

What D&D spells do you consider to be "problem spells"? What spells, in your opinion, either disrupt "game balance" or would radically alter culture and society?

An example would be raise dead and similar spells. In a world where it was possible to bring the dead back to life, wouldn't assassination plots be pointless?

Raise dead is not a problem from a plot perspective in my mind. It's more of an issue of the banality of death if it's common. The aforementioned Dragaera example is perfect. There's easy resurrection, but Morganti "true death" weapons exist. It changes the world without unbalancing it.

In a world where clerics are told to keep certain spells handy for their rulers (great idea by the way), what about Reincarnation? Perhaps there's social consequences in some societies of the game when a druid turns you into something else. How do you prove you are who you say you are? Conversely, I could see a very nature-oriented society where raise dead is eschewed in favor of reincarnate.

There's some interesting discussion of these spells (and other issues) in a thread on Monte's boards about low magic settings. Transportation and Info Retrieval (discussed on the fourth page) are two system balance issues.

A salient point for this discussion is Communication magic. What changed the world rapidly? Radio and the telephone and television. The ability to send information quickly. D&D doesn't have many far-reaching instant communication spells that are accessible at low levels. But, it is still possible to get information places faster than on foot. (Lesser Planar Ally can be used to get a message anywhere in a pinch.) Think of Sending. Yes, it's 5th level, but a kingdom that wants the equivalent of the telegraph would set up mages capable of casting it at strategic locations to pass information. Enemies who invade must then think about trying to disrupt the information network.

In one game that I'm in, we created a pair of Message items, essentially enabling walkie-talkie communication. That empowers a party to be more effective than their opponents until the high levels when you have foes that communicate Telepathically. Would armies buy these items over better weapons? Probably for their elite scouts and skirmishers.

Lastly, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance fall into the same category of spells that society will have evolved methods of dealing with. Would you want spies to be easily able to listen in on your secret conversations?

Good topic!

 

[WizarDru]

As a tenth level Aristocrat Ruler King of Queezle, would YOU trust that magic-wielding, enigmatic, megalomaniac spellcaster, who has his own agenda? That dude can summon the very horrors of hell. Who knows what kind of dark pacts he has going on?

Ah, but you control the infrastructure and the social order. You can put the wizards against each other, keeping them at odds amongst themselves and the divine casters, if possible. Things like income, tax breaks, comfort for friends, family and companions of said spellcaster, controlling item availability and a host of other non-combat options are open to you, even if that spellcaster is a dastardly fellow.

Things like that finely crafted chest spell component worth 500 gp, crown worth 5000 gp or that diamond worth 1500 gp usually need to be purchased...and that means you, the King, control the accessability of such goods. Need more quarry stone to increase your fortress? Need foodstuffs for all those guardian beasts you've got?

Remember that the social order pretty much programs folks to see the nobility as rightful rulers, at least in the medieval mindset. Add in to that the fact that the rulers actually provide a needed beuracracy that makes more than simple barter and subsistence living possible, and you understand that power comes from more than just simple Dominate Monster spells.