Why the fear and hatred of Disjunction?

[Elemental]

(Desert Gled, good point on Wish)

I'm still not happy with Disjunction as written, but I don't think anyone's going to budge or be budged from this point. If a group's fine with it as written, more power to them.

The root of my dislike is that it has unequalled potential to ruin fun, for reasons detailed here, in a more articulate way than I've been managing. Bolding for emphasis mine:

Disjunction is a bad spell. It makes the game less fun.

Comments about 'real threats of danger' are, of course, correct so far as they go, but IMHO miss the point. As a player I do want to be challenged. Losing the use of my magic items does create a scary challenge, as characters encountering 9th level spells are very dependent on their items. But having the items changed to normal items, permanently, isn't challenging, it's just a waste of my time and a huge drain of fun.

The spell would be much much better, IMHO, and create virtually the same effect, if it simply disabled items for a certain period of time. Anything from 1 minute to 1 month, as desired for effect.

The after-fight tale of "HOLY CRAP! I didn't know what I was going to do without my .... or my ....!! I can't believe we made it out of there. Hey mage, how much longer till our stuff works?" is great and fun, and still scary. The same story isn't even told when the item changes are permanent because the players and characters are demoralized and upset.

Anyway, the arguments have mostly been made, and any observers have enough from both sides to go on.

 

[Artoomis]

Could you elaborate on that? I'm honestly not sure what you're saying. If it's what it seemed like--then uh, yes, I was talking about NPC's who weren't bothered about taking the chance.

(an afterthought--if a Wish can restore multiple magic items, why can't it restore spellcasting ability?)

I'm probably coming off as more belligerent than I wanted to in the last few posts, so I'll pull back from this thread a bit.

I only meant that I was addressing a balancing factor of a possible fate far worse that death for the caster and only now are you bringing up the possiblity of a caster who does not care. That takes the argument to a different place.

That's all I meant - it's why my argument was different - because it was in response to the NPC who does not care about his own fate one whit.

Such an NPC might very well use Wish or Miracle and the heck with the personal consequences for a very powerful effect.

Heck, I could see him calling for a Miracle form some dark power to take all the PCs souls and his own as payment, or something like that. Heck, that might even work!

 

[Artoomis]

A note on the NPC who cares not for his/her own fate. For a powerful neutral or evil character, this is exceedingly rare.

History show us this very well - such people willingly sacrifice others, but not themselves.

A good character (well, maybe an "exalted" one) might very well sacrifice themselves, though.

 

[Elemental]

I only meant that I was addressing a balancing factor of a possible fate far worse that death for the caster and only now are you bringing up the possiblity of a caster who does not care. That takes the argument to a different place.

That's all I meant - it's why my argument was different - because it was in response to the NPC who does not care about his own fate one whit.

Such an NPC might very well use Wish or Miracle and the heck with the personal consequences for a very powerful effect.

Heck, I could see him calling for a Miracle form some dark power to take all the PCs souls and his own as payment, or something like that. Heck, that might even work!

But the point I made was that it was possible to have a character willing to take the small risk and not that unreasonable for several character types that the PC's could quite plausibly face. And they don't have to be "suicidal", just overconfident, cocky, desperate, dedicated or mind controlled.

"Wish or Miracle to wipe out the party" would be wholly down to DM fiat so far as effects go (and would probably lead to the players staging a coup ), so it's not really useful as a comparison to anything.

If "very common artifacts" and "no spellcaster would ever risk his casting for any reason imaginable" works in your game, good for you. But it wouldn't in mine (or in all other games), and hopefully I've explained why.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Would Contingency provide a defense against this? Does that spell work similar to a readied action, in that it happens immediately before the trigger?

How about Ring of Spell Battle from Complete Arcane? Would that work?

 

[Crothian]

How about Ring of Spell Battle from Complete Arcane? Would that work?

What's it do?

 

[KarinsDad]

What's it do?

It allows the caster to make Spellcraft checks every round to know all spells being cast within 60 feet (even if the caster cannot see or hear the spell) and allows the caster to change the target of one spell once per day. I think it is specified as target (not origin point), so I do not think it would work.

 

[KarinsDad]

Would Contingency provide a defense against this? Does that spell work similar to a readied action, in that it happens immediately before the trigger?

Contingency has to affect your person.

So, it might if the Contingency was based on a successful Spellcraft by the user of the Contingency to detect an MD spell being cast. The user could probably use Contingency to then Teleport home or some such.

 

[Artoomis]

...If "very common artifacts" and "no spellcaster would ever risk his casting for any reason imaginable" works in your game, good for you. But it wouldn't in mine (or in all other games), and hopefully I've explained why.

No, you have not. You have certainly done a fine job of explaining why it would not work in YOUR game. Not "all other games." Personally, I would never presume to know what is best for "all other games."

Also, even one artifact per high-level (17th +) PC is not "very common." High level PCs are not "very common" on the first place.

I submit that minor artifacts are fairly rare, but enough exists that to have one (plus or minus) for each 17th (+) level PC would not be unreasonable at all.

But, again, I would also count legendary weapons as artifacts, so that ups the number somewhat, too.

 

[Slaved]

In order to have an npc fear casting it artifacts would have to be either fairly common or he would have to know ahead of time that the party carries them.

After all, this high level archmage might've fought off thousands of adventurers by now. Unless he has dozens of artifacts just laying around everywhere from these fights it could easily be justified that most people just do not have them. Sure, the pc's might, but they are special. Typically much more special than other run of the mill adventurers floating around the universe.

So, to me, looking at it from the npc's point of view he has no reason not to cast it. It destroys buffs, it takes the enemies down a few pegs, and it is incredibly unlikely for an artifact to be around and able to be hit by the spell. Even if there is one, because even that many is a rarity, the chances of it being destroyed and losing spellcasting ability is tiny.

Couple a near zero chance of the opponents having any plus a near zero chance of losing spellcasting ability even if they do along with the incredible known immediate and very much more likely reward that comes with casting it and I could not justify an enemy npc not casting it. Unless the world was known to have a great deal of artifacts and that any powerful person it likely to have at least one.