Why the fear and hatred of Disjunction?

[Giltonio_Santos]

I believe the problem is not the spell, but the dependence on equipment emphasized in 3E. MD is just a powerful spell like many others; spells at high level should be able to destroy magic items, nothing wrong with that. I would use some house rules, though, to make its use more acceptable both to GMs and PCs:

- Increased casting time: that would make the spell more of a storytelling tool (if you're the heroes, you should destroy a cleric's unholy mace, not sell it), not a combat resource for one-shot powerful NPCs. Note that this also helps against what I believe is the greatest pain with MD, stopping in the middle of the combat to recalculate everything that was screwed.

- Save bonus for signature items: destroying the holy avenger of the paladin or the sword of legacy of the fighter is not the same as destroying that +2 shadow studded leather armor the rogue just purchased in Sharn, and I believe the spell should take that into account. Maybe a +4 bonus in the saving throw to five items of each player's choice, or each player may choose one item his character owns not to be affected at all.

- Negative level effect: someone already suggested above suppressing magical power during a day, but I believe that's not scary enough. I'd use a mechanic similar to negative levels. Magic items are immediately suppressed if they fail the saving throw, and will remain this way the whole day. After that, another saving throw will determine if each item is permanently lost or regains its magical powers. This would allow players plenty of time to remove the suppression before the second saving throw, and a restoration-like spell would easily solve the problem.

My 2 cents,

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

It's one of those spells that I think dramatically suck down the fun level of the game.

Honestly, I also don't like the way Dispel Magic works. After being on the recieving end of that one three and six times in a combat (or a ROUND) it just ... suuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.

I'd rather get hit with "your character is totally dead" than have to sit there for five minutes at the game table as the GM reads the littany of "Stuff You Wasted, And Math You Have To Do". A buffed up character can have alot of bonuses and additions, and suddenly random spells are disappearing.

I'd rather get stuck in an Anti-Magic Field ... AMF means I pull out my base-line character sheet and keep going ... no rolling against the spells, no back and forth, no figuring out who cast what at what caster level ...

My major beef with TDM is that it's a big chunk of "Combat Round Time" spent fugging over one PC with many many Rolls Of Fickle Fate.

Disjunction is like that, plus more. You're losing alot of stuff that you've built your character around, you're waiting around while the GM goes through your high-level List O Magical Goods and reading the littany of Crap You Don't Got No More, and then you're hosing all of the buffs that your character may very well be depending on to survive.

This is not to mention at all that the Cleric spell list is toploaded with buff spells ... group and single-person buffs ... so a Disjunction can just blow out many many more spell slots on the receiving end than it puts down ... dozens of spell slots wiped out by one 9th level spell? Yes please.

This is why Enervation sucks so hard for Spellcasters, because each negative level is eating one of their highest-level-slots ... a TGDM or Disjunction is REALLY efficient for that ... "turn advantage". You can cause the enemy to waste many rounds and spell levels of buffing with one round and one spell.

Additionally, these tactics are unfairly weighted AGAINST PCs ... "Monsters" and BBEGs and Outsiders and the usual High Level Foe don't work the same way that PCs work (mostly to make things simpler for the GM) ... they don't cast buffs, they just have better scores. They don't use magical items, they just have random SLAs, they don't use magical swords, they just have 30hd and a 40Str score ... so it's pointless to Disjunct a badguy who may have two spells cast on him while hitting a party of PCs is going to get a whole buttload of spells and hundreds of thousands of GP in gear.

--fje

 

[Sejs]

Doesn't that add to the challenge? You go into an encounter sure of yourself, then suddenly you're on the back foot, but you conquer in the end. Isn't that so much more of an achievement?

Compare to: a spell that erases the half the contents of the wizard's spellbook.

If the system wern't so very gear dependent for the non-spellcasting classes it wouldn't be so big a deal. As it stands, getting zeroed sucks. Even if conquer in the end, much bigger achievement and all, you're still left with a bitter taste in your mouth because all your stuff's been hosed.

 

[FireLance]

I believe the problem is not the spell, but the dependence on equipment emphasized in 3E.

I don't see this as a 3e problem. Loss of magic equipment is a pain regardless of edition, and can be fatal if you happen to be fighting a powerful wizard, dragon or fiend, regardless of edition.

What is it about 3e that makes it more inherently equipment dependent than any previous edition?

 

[Crothian]

What is it about 3e that makes it more inherently equipment dependent than any previous edition?

It's hardwired into the rules now.

 

[FireLance]

It's hardwired into the rules now.

Well, since this is the Rules Forum, can I have a quote?

 

[Crothian]

Well, since this is the Rules Forum, can I have a quote?

No, but it is in the DMG. There is the table of wealth by level for instance.

 

[Jack Simth]

I don't see this as a 3e problem. Loss of magic equipment is a pain regardless of edition, and can be fatal if you happen to be fighting a powerful wizard, dragon or fiend, regardless of edition.

What is it about 3e that makes it more inherently equipment dependent than any previous edition?

Because when they rebalanced the game, they had some amount of equipment in mind. It mostly prevents monsters of appropriet CR from rolling over when the party hits them because the DM has no eye for balance, while mostly preventing monsters of appropriet CR from rolling over the party when it hits them because the DM had no eye for balance. Wealth-by-level guidelines give an imperfect measure of the power of stuff, but it gives something measureable to check against a chart. A DM who's not so grand with eyeing the effect equipment has on how difficult a given monster will be to take down now has something reasonably useful to look at to say it's in range of about right.

As a side-effect, too little equipment for the level means that a critter that would otherwise be CR appropriet may very well roll over the party, and so the players expect to have something in the neighborhood of that level of equipment.

A DM can change wealth levels, readily enough - but does so at his party's peril; you need a particularly good eye for judging power levels first.

Does that make sense?

 

[FireLance]

No, but it is in the DMG. There is the table of wealth by level for instance.

There are also tables to determine random treasure. Except in very rare circumstances, the two will not agree, and a DM that specifically sets out to run a low wealth or a low magic campaign will likely ignore both.

What does underlie the rules is the assumption that a party of 4 level N characters armed with reasonably sensible gear worth approximately the standard wealth level of a level N character should be able to defeat an opponent of CR N after spending about 20% of their resources.

Slightly less general versions of this rule applied in previous editions, e.g. you need magic weapons to defeat a golem, more powerful magic items allow you to defeat more powerful monsters, etc.

So, what's changed?

 

[FireLance]

Does that make sense?

Yes, but how is it different from previous editions? A DM with no eye for balance or power levels will cause problems for the PCs regardless of edition.