Where's the save for 'Harm' spell?

[Grendel]

Harm is balanced. Skilled egotistical, condesending, munchkin, meta-gaming DMs are not going to have a problem with it. Others might.

Harm is a joykiller spell for both players and DMs. comparing it to other spells is not a good guage of balance.

The simple fact that many people find fault with the spell is a big RED flag that something might be wrong with it. The spells few proponents have yet to advance and guidelines with how they have dealt with it, other than bragging about their superious DMing abilities (real or imagined).

 

[humanist05]

There was a discussion on Harm over at the board-that-shall-not-be-named, and I'm pulling a few comments I posted over there. To give a frame fo reference, I'm of the "don't house rule it if it doesn't cause problems in your game" camp, and have never had any problems with Harm (1e, 2e, or 3e), nor have my players ever expressed a problem with the spell being used by their opponents. Your group may have a different outlook.

Someone said it was too easy to get close to opponents and deliver the touch attack. Dragons got brought up, as they often do in harm discussions (and just as often, SR is "forgotten" in such arguments) My suggestions:

Attacks of Opportunity, Reach Weapons, Spell Resistance, Readied Actions, non-Armor AC bonuses (there are quite a lot of them out there)....

If a Dragon in your campaign lets the Cleric walk up and touch it, it deserves to die, and the DM deserves a smack for handing over the dragon's XP and treasure to the PCs. (was in reference to Dragons fighting intelligently - i.e. not letting Fighters get full attack actions against them, not letting Rogues flank them, using their mobility, breath, and spells strategically)

Someone else commented that there are no spells of 7th level or below that can screw over a PC without a save. A partial list:

Antimagic Field
Blasphemy
Creeping Doom
Dictum
Enervation
Force Cage
Geas / Quest
Holy Word
Mark of Justice
Power Word, Stun
Word of Chaos

Granted, most of these aren't as nasty as Harm, but there are many ways of putting a hurting on an opponent that provide for no saves.

At 12th+ level, the game gets downright deadly - anyone who's taken a good look at the type of challenges a higher-level party faces knows this to be true. It might be LESS deadly now, HP-wise, since you're still getting Hit Dice at that point (and CON bonuses are better) but, as they have been in previous editions, the spells are still something to worry about. Some might not kill you outright, but at that level, even being unable to act for one round can easily be fatal.

And if you're relying on armor alone to protect you (re: touch attacks), rather than good strategy and defensive magic, you WILL get yourself offed. Past 8th-12th level, you're (typically) one of the biggest bad-asses in the land, and the challenges you face start ramping up quickly.

Play with Harm as-is for a while and see how it works. If it doesn't work out in your game, I'd suggest allowing a successful Will save result in the target's Hit points being halved.

*laugh* But I HAVE been playing Harm 'as-is' for a long while now. I've been playtesting a high-level module for a company I can't mention. ;-) I've also been in high level games where a party of 5 PCs (average level 12) have taken down a Storm Giant (Touch AC 10! and 199 hit points) along with a Frost Worm (Touch AC 8! and 153 hit points) in ONE battle (along with some Ice trolls and orcs)! The DM is as smart as they come, but with three Harm spells prepared by the two clerics in the party... it was a cake-walk...

 

[ruleslawyer]

Ah; the debate has started!

grabs bowl of popcorn ...

This has gone to 7 pages on the WotC boards; AND it's been debated over and over again before. No one is going to change their mind about this. Just let it go, all.

 

[humanist05]

Re: Creeping Doom

For balance against PC's, Creeping Doom is far worse. 25 foot + 5/2 lvls range, radius, and instant death, no save, no SR. If they PC's are clustered, you can take out several at once. And yet, no DM complains about this spell, because it's FAR more usful in the hands of NPCs than PCs. After all, anything with any damage reduction is unaffected. NPCs often have damage reduction. PCs, with the exception of Barbarians, never do. The real problem some DMs have with Harm is that they see DnD as a DM vs. the PCs game, they are unconcered with vauge concepts of game balance. Blantant power gaming, metagaming, and outright cheating are all perfectly acceptable DM strategies, but grave and unwholesome sins for a player. Harm is balanced. Skilled DMs are not going to have a problem with it. Others might.

And I will put in... Creeping Doom is unblanced too. Thanks for reminding me of that one. A DM of mine, mentioned he thinks that's way too powerful also. I think Harm as-is is unbalanced regardless who use it. Player OR DM...

 

[humanist05]

In one battle (I was in a playtesting game for a system to be announced later this year... ;-)), a party of 6 PCs (level 13 average) took out an Ancient Brass Dragon. Touch AC of 8!!! I think the poster that mentioned how hard it is to touch a dragon is making it sounds PHENOMONALLY difficult. It isn't, believe me! Fighters do it all the time... The brass dragon in question had 392 hit points. It failed it's magic resistant save (which was 28). It may have made it save (but Harm doesn't allow one-- ;-) It saves were FOR. +25, REF.+20, WILL +23) It was reduced to THREE (3)... count them... 3!!! hit points in one fell swoop. Touching a dragon is hardly difficult, my friends. :-( [/B]

Let me clarify... so there is no misunderstanding. The magic resistant of the dragon was reduced with a spell... He didn't 'roll' against anything.

 

[humanist05]

Ah; the debate has started!

grabs bowl of popcorn ...

This has gone to 7 pages on the WotC boards; AND it's been debated over and over again before. No one is going to change their mind about this. Just let it go, all.

What do you suggest those do that want to 'fix' the spell?

 

[ruleslawyer]

[Please, no flood control!]

Oh, I posted that on the first page of this thread, humanist.

My suggestions would be to implement one of the following:

1) Add a save for Will partial (target loses half its current hp)

OR

2) No save, but impose a damage cap of 15 hp/caster level.

IMHO, either of the above would be a balanced "fix." I use the latter, and it works fine.


BTW, creeping doom would be bad; except for the fact that there are lots of simple spells and conditions (flying, fire shield, stoneskin) that negate it. It's also at least a level higher than harm, and takes one full round to cast. More to the point, it's 1000 insects in a square 20 feet on a side . That's 1000 hp damage spread out in 16 PC-sized squares; granted, the bugs can move around once they're summoned, but initial damage is 62.5 hp per PC (unless the PCs are Large-size due to polymorph, etc.; ouch!). Creeping doom is a scary spell (as it should be!), but I haven't found it to be that unbalanced.

 

[humanist05]

[Please, no flood control!]

Oh, I posted that on the first page of this thread, humanist.

My suggestions would be to implement one of the following:

1) Add a save for Will partial (target loses half its current hp)

OR

2) No save, but impose a damage cap of 15 hp/caster level.

IMHO, either of the above would be a balanced "fix." I use the latter, and it works fine.

Thanks... I like that one alot. I might use that. Thanks 'ruleslawyer' I'm trying to find what WoTC thinks of this. Can anyone direct me to an errata page or FAQ page that mention this.
Thanks...

 

[Moleculo]

Why not make in a unarmed attack instead of a touch attack, so that it would provoke an attack of opportunity? Or let Damage Resistance reduce the damage they would suffer by the bonus/level. So a creature with 10 hitdice and damage reduction of 10/+2 would be left with 20+1d4 hp. Or somehting hehe.

jake

 

[Kytess]

My house rule #1 (of 7):

Change the save on harm to “Will partial” and add the following to the text description: “If the save is successful, the subject instead takes 1d8 damage per caster level; this cannot deal enough damage to drop them below 5 hp.”

It's a lot more than any typical cleric spell on a save, but that's to keep it in line with the insta-kill spells.