Why would a dragon NOT take Antimagic field?

[keterys]

Antimagic Field is an emanation with a radius of 10 ft, duration 10 min/CL. A gargantuan creature like the very old red dargon covers a space of 20x20 ft, and would fit into the AF (using common sense by assuming that the dragon is not a Borg cube...).

It's bigger than a 10-ft. radius, cube complaints to the contrary. Bits of it would be sticking out all the time.

_Especially_ when flying, if you want to try to make some call towards realism, as it stretches out its over-hundred feet wingspan. Its claws and mouth in particular end up further outward, which are coincidentally the things it uses to grab people that it wants to get into the field.

Now, make it a size category smaller - maybe it needs a scroll of AMF then - and you're back in business. At which point you return to the several pages of thread already about how it's not fun

P.S. Just make a deal with a beholder for battle assistance.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I would say that RAW, you're correct. AMF is written as an exception to the normal emanation rules, as it is a 10 foot emanation, centered on you that surrounds you and moves with you. Seems pretty obvious that a 20x20 dragon would not have a small area inside itself that is emanating the AMF, as it would not be surrounding the caster (the dragon).

 

[NewJeffCT]

It's bigger than a 10-ft. radius, cube complaints to the contrary. Bits of it would be sticking out all the time.

_Especially_ when flying, if you want to try to make some call towards realism, as it stretches out its over-hundred feet wingspan. Its claws and mouth in particular end up further outward, which are coincidentally the things it uses to grab people that it wants to get into the field.

Now, make it a size category smaller - maybe it needs a scroll of AMF then - and you're back in business. At which point you return to the several pages of thread already about how it's not fun

P.S. Just make a deal with a beholder for battle assistance.

The exact description for Anti Magic Field is:

An invisible barrier surrounds you and moves with you. The space within this barrier is impervious to most magical effects, including spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities. Likewise, it prevents the functioning of any magic items or spells within its confines.

Where does it say that "you" has to be a Medium sized creature? If the AMF is inside the dragon, and basically useless, why even learn it? It's a high enough level spell that the dragon would not even have access to it until he was 15x15 (Huge) in size.

 

[Celebrim]

There is no reason why he wouldn't. AMF is one of the 'big guns' of high level play that utterly trumps just about everything in the game. If you play at high level, you absolutely must be able to deal with it and you absolutely must be able to drop one.

Which, if AMF were a magic card would be proof that it was broken and had an unhealthy effect on the metagame.

If you want to stick with the RAW, you're going to have to embrace this and several other big guns - true sight, mind blank, freedom of action, discern location, wall of force, force cage, find the path, disjunction, wish, time stop, etc. High level play RAW has a lot of "I win" and "You don't win" buttons.

There is a famous saying in D&D that I should probably be able to cite correctly, but it is, "If it has stats, we can kill it." There is much truth in this pithy statemetn.

The problem with many of the trump cards of high level play, is that they don't have stats. In the interest of conserving rules space and avoiding calculation, they tend to say something simple and unqualified or unquantified. As a result, you can't "kill them". They are limitless in power. They are divine pronouncements in the hands of mortals. AMF is one such trump card.

I personally feel all the things in the game that are statless and unquantified need to be seriously rethought. AMF for example could be rewritten to something like, "The caster level of any magical effect within the area of effect is reduced by 10. If this is sufficient to reduce the caster level below 0, the spell fails.", then it would still be a powerful buff or debuff. It just would no longer be an 'I win' button. If 'Fire Immunity' was rewritten as 'fire resistance: 100', then most of the time it would work exactly the same, but the God of Fire would still be able to burn it without recourse to ko fights where we took turns inventing powers that gave you absolute resistance - "True Seeing sees through everything.", "Not even true seeing can penetrate this veil.", "This spell grants protection from protection from True Seeing.", etc.

 

[keterys]

The exact description for Anti Magic Field is:

An invisible barrier surrounds you and moves with you. The space within this barrier is impervious to most magical effects, including spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities. Likewise, it prevents the functioning of any magic items or spells within its confines.

Where does it say that "you" has to be a Medium sized creature? If the AMF is inside the dragon, and basically useless, why even learn it? It's a high enough level spell that the dragon would not even have access to it until he was 15x15 (Huge) in size.

I'm sure your argument was otherwise, but yes - you've summed up exactly why a dragon should not learn antimagic field. At least, not until he can prepare it Widen-ed, I suppose.

It's hardly the only spell that's not useful for dragons, though. Large creatures can cheerfully use it to full effect, as well.

I'd not be surprised if this very argument is why in 4e a close burst emanates from all 4 corners rather than 3e's method of picking a single intersection, and thusly not sufficiently covering larger creatures.

Still, if you need to break the rules to make antimagic field work for dragons - maybe it's okay to _not_ do so and give it something else.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I'm sure your argument was otherwise, but yes - you've summed up exactly why a dragon should not learn antimagic field. At least, not until he can prepare it Widen-ed, I suppose.

It's hardly the only spell that's not useful for dragons, though. Large creatures can cheerfully use it to full effect, as well.

I'd not be surprised if this very argument is why in 4e a close burst emanates from all 4 corners rather than 3e's method of picking a single intersection, and thusly not sufficiently covering larger creatures.

Still, if you need to break the rules to make antimagic field work for dragons - maybe it's okay to _not_ do so and give it something else.

Sorry, don't see it that way. The AMF description is that it surrounds you, so the specific rule here trumps the general rule of emanations. It doesn't say that it emanates from a certain point or is a cone shaped burst, like other emanation spells, it says that it surrounds you.

 

[keterys]

I guess, at the end of the day, if you want to make the frankly terrible spell that shouldn't exist work better for some reason. Well, more power to you?

 

[Dark Dragon]

By "terrible" you mean a poor choice for a spell? Or poorly designed?

For the latter, I have to concur because it leaves open questions, and is very difficult to overcome/remove once being active (as pointed out by Celebrim). A mere 1 % chance per CL for a level 9 spell to remove a level 6 spell? Hrrrm, looks if it was ignored during AD&D to D&D 3.0/5 conversion or it is sort of a holy cow. Don't know. Either improve the efficiency of Disjunction, use an approach similar to Celebrim's (I really like the ideas, worth to flesh it out), or modify AMF for a better wording and clarity. Or simply ban it.

For the former, AMF is a still a good choice for all creatures that are good melee combatants, IMHO.
Big flying dragons are a combination of everything: arcane power, physical strength, good BAB and saves, wings, good senses, some immunities, best HD available, good AC. Take away the arcane power because the dragon is in an AMF (either widened, cast from a scroll by a large dragon, or supported by a beholder): the dragon is still physically strong and could still best a melee adventurer of the same CR (Snatch, Improved Grapple, or simply by number of attacks per round: bite -claw-claw-wing-wing-tail = 6 attacks, this can only be met by monk with flurry of blows or a two-weapon fighter).

Adventurers rely on magic support both by items and spells, the dragon does not (except AMF, maybe ). So it is simple: remove the magic component, and the party is in trouble. You need a very specific built party to counter this dragon strategy efficiently, or have an anti-dragon artefact.

The dragon (CR 21) I used in the battle would easily kill the ftr25 IMG in an AMF, because of more hp, better AC, better BAB, more attacks per round. And not yet using Snatch! An AMF'ed dragon is far more dangerous than a dragon without AMF.
In the said battle, the dragon would have been in trouble IF that Earthbind spell would have worked. Then the remaining party (the ftr, the cleric/templar, the warmage, the enlightened fist) would have killed that dragon most likely if acting clever and surrounding the dragon:
- the fighter does the melee damage (if she hits with all attacks, without using power attack, she does about 100 to 120 damage per round, without counting critical hits)
- the cleric buffs (Freedom of Movement) or heals
- the enlightened fist readies to counter any spell of the dragon
- the warmage casts offensive spells if the dragon starts casting spells, forcing concentration checks

After round 3 or 4, the dragon should think about getting away, if the ftr is not yet disabled or is badly wounded. If the dragon decides to grapple one of the casters to improve his chances for teleportation spells, the other casters would ready to counterspell. Of course, this tactic needs to be properly executed and thus needs clever players.

 

[keterys]

By "terrible" you mean a poor choice for a spell? Or poorly designed?

Design I meant. You're exactly right about its problems and strengths.

Creatures are also clearly not balanced around its existence. Granted neither are they necessarily balanced around using gear and spells optimally. Dragons with full defensive buffs and barding easily his an ac that requires 20s. Course it still dies to shivering touch.

 

[NewJeffCT]

agreed that the spell is overpowered as written, and poorly designed. I think it's just a holdover from 1E days when it was rare that a party even got that high in level to be able to use it, and ultra rare to be able to attempt to dispel it.

Plus, with all the math involved in 3.5E, it can mean a lot of recalculating if you're dealing with magic items taking up nearly every available "slot" on a PC or monster, as well as "buffing" spells cast before a combat and long-term contingency type spells. Imagine if your PC is caught in the AMF, then manages to get out the next round, only to be trapped in it again in another round or two? Could easily be 15 buffs on an epic level PC from magic items, spells, feats, etc.