Why the fear and hatred of Disjunction?

[Infiniti2000]

This one is NOT broken

That is clearly a matter of judgment, but let me ask you this to clarify your personal judgment of brokenness. Are spell levels linear or exponential? Specifically, compare the effects of dispel magic, greater dispel magic, and disjunction. They are spaced 3 levels apart (very nice). If you fit a power curve to the three spells based on your judgment, will it be linear? X^2? X^3? (estimate)

Is that the way (in general) all spells should be?

 

[Quartz]

For all the talk of high level adventurers requiring a certain amount of magic items, I'd note that the Order of The Stick are fairly high level and have next to no magic items.

 

[Artoomis]

That is clearly a matter of judgment, but let me ask you this to clarify your personal judgment of brokenness. Are spell levels linear or exponential? Specifically, compare the effects of dispel magic, greater dispel magic, and disjunction. They are spaced 3 levels apart (very nice). If you fit a power curve to the three spells based on your judgment, will it be linear? X^2? X^3? (estimate)

Is that the way (in general) all spells should be?

Irrelevant.

9th level spells are supposed to be the most powerful in the game, short of Epic spells. Wish and Miracle (especially Miracle), for example, are almost completely open-ended as to what might be accomplished.

Spells with very specific numerical effects have rules to them as to what level they should be, but other than that it really is a more of a seat-of-the-pants analysis where, for example, 6th level spells are more powerful than 5th level spells but less than 7th level spells.

I find spells with no saving throws to be far more worrisome than MD. MD has its own balancing factors built within it that seem okay by me, but can be a problem in campaigns that vary from what the PHB assumes is typical.

Sheesh - it's a 9th level spell. It is SUPPOSED to be powerful and scary.

If a player/PC is worried about it, simply do everything you can to increase your Will saves, including becoming exempt from the automatic failure on a "natural one" for saving throws. I know there is a way to do that from some supplemental material, but I don't remember what it is - feat, prestige class... something. There you have it - virtual immunity from MD.

In ordinary play, I find Fortitude "save or die" effects far scarier than MD!!

 

[Artoomis]

For all the talk of high level adventurers requiring a certain amount of magic items, I'd note that the Order of The Stick are fairly high level and have next to no magic items.

Yes, well, there is Vow of Poverty as well. However, they are exceptions.

 

[Artoomis]

Now that I think about it, a FAR greater threat to your items comes from Sunder and Disarm.

Sunder can break them (fairly easily for many items) and Disarm can get them taken away, perhaps tp be destroyed.

Should Sunder and Disarm be eliminated because you might lose items to them?

 

[Infiniti2000]

Irrelevant.

Not irrelevant at all and your refusal to respond is very telling. Particularly, this statement of yours:

Sheesh - it's a 9th level spell. It is SUPPOSED to be powerful and scary.

tells me that you don't think it's possible for a 9th-level spell to be broken. How can we even have a reasonable discussion on the brokenness of a spell when you don't even agree that such is possible?

 

[Infiniti2000]

Now that I think about it, a FAR greater threat to your items comes from Sunder and Disarm.

Not really. If you are disarmed, the culprit is highly unlikely to destroy the item and therefore you can get it back. Sunder is only (very) easy if you house rule it to be less than a standard action. Even though, there are some things you can't sunder and in either case it's one item at a time, not ALL of them, and it doesn't include all of your active spells.

That's not an appropriate analogy at all.

 

[Seeten]

Most DM's dont try to sunder their fighter's weapons.

My Barbarian made an Adamantine weapon after his first great axe was sundered. To sunder the Adamantine magic axe, you'd need an MDJ, pretty much, and you know, its still a vicious adamantine axe, even disjoined.

And I had to spend 3 character levels at thousands of gold under wealth by level guidelines, by the by, while this had occurred, and with weapon focus/weapon specialization, I used a dire flail in the meantime, not even masterwork, for 3 levels.

Should sunder be eliminated? I dunno. But I've taken it up a notch on the barbarian, with weapon chain and adamantine weapon. To sunder my weapon, you need to be the uber sundermonkey, and you have no feats left for actually hurting people.

 

[Seeten]

Where are the high level fighter powers that are broken and scary? Oh yeah, there are none.

This is why Warblades arent broken. See the other thread for the details. Gimme level 9 maneuvers on par with MDJ, maybe "Sunder all spells in mind/all stored spellpower for the day" and lets have it hit the whole party and require fort saves. Sounds fair to me!

 

[Artoomis]

Not irrelevant at all and your refusal to respond is very telling. Particularly, this statement of yours: tells me that you don't think it's possible for a 9th-level spell to be broken. How can we even have a reasonable discussion on the brokenness of a spell when you don't even agree that such is possible?

I think you may have musunderstood me.

If MD, for example, had no down side to the caster and no save as well as SR not applying, I think we'd all agree that would be broken.

As is, there is no way to definitively measure its power level as it has no standarized numerical effect.

But, given that one's items can be sundered and taken with disarm, I do not see a spell with "save-or-die" type of effect for each item to really be unbalancing, especially with the built-in disincentive to cast it of the very real chance of losing all spell casting abilities as well as destroying the treasure you would get from the battle.

In general, I would view MD as being used only when critical to the plot. Among other things, you can never tell what it will do to the party - perhaps nothing at all if all saves are made. Most likley, a few items will be destroyed. That's generally not such a big deal, though its true effect on the party is basically random.

If I were to house-rule this at all, I would add bonuses to the Will save based upon an item's power. Maybe something like caster level divided by four, rounding up (so that caster level 5 = +2 bonus on the save). I do not think it is needed, but it's pretty reasonable.