D&D 3E/3.5 Worst 3.5 rule from core books?

[Jack Simth]

snip startup, with very straightforward method of binding couatls, bringing in controlled outsiders to provide spell casters.



Wow, brings me back to my combinatorics class. This is really impressive, getting modifications to spell casting rolls that require scientific notation.

This is bad, even without using them as spell batteries. With a number of couatls, you can lead a fairly powerful army. And along with that, is the whole idea of getting free wishes by using planar binding on outsiders that can grant wishes.

The Couatls are just for warm-up, really. After you've got your first dozen Planetars, they aren't really needful (although, as it is Exponential Growth, they're still useful for feeding it). They're only a linch-pin in that you need them to start the process.

But yes, bad.

But with this approach, you could depopulate Heaven. I salute you, sir, for showing this lowly one true rules manipulation.

Actually, you can't.

Seriously.

See, if you pick up the Manual of the Planes, the Celestial encounter chart includes Planetars and Solars. Thus, any Celestial realm will have some population density of Planetars and Solars that is readily distinguishable from zero. Quite a few of the Celestial realms are infinite planes. An infinite plane with an average density of something that is readily distinguishable from zero will have an infinite amount of that something.

So you can't depopulate the Heavens, as there's always more.

 

[Angrydad]

I guess the point though, Jack, is that while you may not technically be depopulating Heaven in a meaningful way, to the mortal mind who must comprehend the ever growing pile of planetars (good name for a band, "We are...Pile of Planetars!") the number will soon be so big that s/he wouldn't be able to grasp it anyway. This would make it seem like the entire population of Heaven must be there. I never really bothered to read all the way through the epic spell creation stuff since my parties tend to never get that high, save a recent campaign where they're at 24th level, and the majority of the epic spells just seem broken to me. I figure I'll eventually read it all over and see what I can do with it, but I will be sure to not let my players abuse it to create an infinite summons spell or some other absurd buff up.

 

[washout]

I think the epic spell rules are actually not broken at all. The final step for a given spell is getting DM approval, it's built into the process, which is actually more foresight than the authors usually show.


And to actually contribute to the thread: I think that all of the cleric abilities and feats that let you spend turning attempts as something other than turning undead are bad. The turn undead rules themselves are terrible so it does seem to make sense to use those turn attempts for something else. But I think granting additional abilities to the already admitted most powerful base class is crazy.


Edit: Lastly my most hated thing in all of DND. Spending EXP to make items or other permanent effects. It's so entrenched into the balancing process that it's hard to reverse. And if you do change it and use rare components that have to be quested for instead the game completely switches to Magic Item Quest instead of Dungeons and Dragons. I am totally in love with the idea of characters as artificers but the mechanic is terrible.

 

[Jack Simth]

I guess the point though, Jack, is that while you may not technically be depopulating Heaven in a meaningful way, to the mortal mind who must comprehend the ever growing pile of planetars (good name for a band, "We are...Pile of Planetars!") the number will soon be so big that s/he wouldn't be able to grasp it anyway.

Heh, yes - when you start getting into numbers where you won't live long enough to count that high, specific numbers stop mattering.

This would make it seem like the entire population of Heaven must be there. I never really bothered to read all the way through the epic spell creation stuff since my parties tend to never get that high, save a recent campaign where they're at 24th level, and the majority of the epic spells just seem broken to me. I figure I'll eventually read it all over and see what I can do with it, but I will be sure to not let my players abuse it to create an infinite summons spell or some other absurd buff up.

Most of the abuse available in Epic spellcasting goes away with one or more of a handful of simple house-rules/DM-enforced guidelines are in play:
1) Mitigation cannot be used to reduce the Spellcraft DC below X% of the pre-mitigation DC (e.g., 50%, 25%, whatever "feels right"). This lets the Mitigation be useful (you can do more powerful spells), but cuts out the infinitely abusable stuff (you still have to pay Time, XP, GP, and make a spellcraft check to make an Epic spell - which puts a hard cap on what you can do).
2) Time, GP, and/or XP costs (for the most part, any one of them will handle it) are based on the pre-mitigation Spellcraft DC, not the post-mitigation Spellcraft DC. Again, Mitigation is still useful (it gets a spell down to something you can cast), but most of the abuse vanishes (you still have to pay Time, XP, and/or GP to make an Epic spell - which means you can't afford the exponential growth, above).
3) There's a cap to the number of ritualists that can be involved in a spell (thus capping how much mitigation you can get from ritualists by the quality of the ritualists, preventing the Exponential Growth listed above).
4) Something I didn't think of (there's bound to be a lot of things that would do the job that I didn't think of).

However, without abuse of rituals (or other mitigation) to some extent, it's really hard to do anything particularly useful with Epic spellcasting.

 

[Runestar]

Well, if it is direct damage you want, I think you are better off using metamagicked versions of existing spells, rather than epic spellcasting. So that may be another aspect worth looking into. Maybe each +1d6 damage increment costs just +1dc, rather than +2?

 

[thompsja]

Well, if it is direct damage you want, I think you are better off using metamagicked versions of existing spells, rather than epic spellcasting. So that may be another aspect worth looking into. Maybe each +1d6 damage increment costs just +1dc, rather than +2?

If you want a twinned, energy-admixtured fireball, you need an 11th level spot. Now, with 3.5 rules that damage increasing feats do not combine, you'll have a target hit for 10d6 points of fire damage, + 10d6 of some other energy, plus hit by a second fireball for another 10d6 damage. This takes two epic feats (10th level slot, 11th level slot), and three metamagic feats. The target gets to apply spell resistance - with Epic spells, we can make that far more difficult, and gets to apply any energy resistance separately. At the levels we're at, everybody has some level of energy resist.

If we take Intensify spell, with fireball, it will do 120 points of damage, as a 10th level spell. Still need two epic feats (10th level spell and Intensify Spell) Taking Intensify Spell requires the caster to be at least 26th level.

However we could do:

Burn, MF, Burn!

Base DC 19 + 2 (change bolt to 20' ball) + 20 (change to 1-action time) +40 (add 20d6 damage)
take 40d6 damage (-40) is DC 41. This is 369,000GP, 8 days, and 14,760 XP. This does 30d6.

It's more resource intensive, but doesn't require you to burn feats. This is a bare-bones version - with Epic, we can make it easier to beat Spell Resistance and Savings throws. Again, at this level, most people have them.

Even better, we could use the destroy seed, which for the same cost, will do 30d6 of untyped damage - much better than energy attacks.

Epic still kicks ass.

 

[Runestar]

If you want a twinned, energy-admixtured fireball, you need an 11th level spot. Now, with 3.5 rules that damage increasing feats do not combine, you'll have a target hit for 10d6 points of fire damage, + 10d6 of some other energy, plus hit by a second fireball for another 10d6 damage.

Not entirely.

By the rules, it seems that only empower does not stack with maximize, if only because it was specifically mentioned in its entry. Conversely, the FAQ does mention that twin spell stacks with maximize spell. This suggests that unless otherwise stated, metamagic feats stack with each other. Otherwise, you get funny scenarios with say, a widened, maximized fireball. What, does only the base area of the fireball deal max damage, and the extra area deal 10d6?

For instance, a twinned orb of acid modified with a rod of maximize would deal 300 damage.

Likewise, don't forget that a spellcaster can (and typically would) take improved metamagic feats. Many exist, from incantatrix's improved metamagic, the epic of the same name (which can be taken multiple times), arcane thesis, easy metamagic, metamagic rods etc. I feel it would be easier to trick out existing damage spells, than waste gold researching subpar epic spellcasting versions.

 

[thompsja]

Not entirely.

By the rules, it seems that only empower does not stack with maximize, if only because it was specifically mentioned in its entry. Conversely, the FAQ does mention that twin spell stacks with maximize spell. This suggests that unless otherwise stated, metamagic feats stack with each other. Otherwise, you get funny scenarios with say, a widened, maximized fireball. What, does only the base area of the fireball deal max damage, and the extra area deal 10d6?

Hm. Twin & Maximize combine? OK. With scorching ray, that's six rays at 24 damage each. I guess we don't have something totally consistent.... some metamagic feats are synergistic but one is specifically forbidden.

OK. I still submit that Epic Spellcasting, and in particular, ritual casting, is the worst rule in 3.5.

 

[Jack Simth]

OK. I still submit that Epic Spellcasting, and in particular, ritual casting, is the worst rule in 3.5.

I counter with Manipulate Form.

 

[akbearfoot]

it was only a matter of time before someone brought up Pun Pun.