# How do you handle Magic Circle in your game?



## Stalker0 (Jun 8, 2009)

I'm curious to know how people use magic circle in the "metaplot" of their game.

I have found magic circle to be the most powerful ritual my party has...from a scale of its power compared to its level. With an easy arcana check, my party can ensure that no creature can bypass the circle (including themselves by the strict reading of the ritual) nor can creatures attack through it. Its the ultimate form of protection.


3e has your permanent walls of force in the like, but nothing like magic circle for its low level availability.

In my game I've allowed the dispel magic power to erase magic circle for some passability. I've also set up some circles that were low enough level that my party could pass them without damage.

However, when I think about it, honestly in a world where lots of classes can learn rituals, I would think this ritual should be everywhere, binding against undead if nothing else, or perhaps shadow creatures and the like. For example, a city with some wizards could easily make their borders completely immune from an attack by shadow creatures or undead in literally a day or twos time. 

However, there is a way to beat that. An undead army could have a few living people whose soul (hehe soul) job is to run at the circle, and break it. So there are good reasons that wouldn't work.

This is what I'm curious to hear more about, what tricks do you use so that ritual has its proper power but isn't seen in every shop and corner of the world.


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## spinmd (Jun 8, 2009)

This ritual hasn't come up in my game yet, but I think the fact that it could affect the PCs as well (by the strict reading), and the fact that you have specific origins that you can pick from (so you couldn't protect against undead which have multiple origins, unless you chose ALL), would mean that it wouldn't be a big deal in my game.

I guess I will see once my party decides to master the ritual.


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## Regicide (Jun 8, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> In my game I've allowed the dispel magic power to erase magic circle for some passability. I've also set up some circles that were low enough level that my party could pass them without damage.




  Aid another might be another way of doing it.  Enough peons working together could get their level high enough to go through.  As a house rule obviously.

  Also it's a circle... flying over or burrowing under could be options if your PCs keep insisting on using it.  Natural disasters like a tree falling over and obscuring it, etc. etc.



Stalker0 said:


> However, when I think about it, honestly in a world where lots of classes can learn rituals, I would think this ritual should be everywhere, binding against undead if nothing else, or perhaps shadow creatures and the like. For example, a city with some wizards could easily make their borders completely immune from an attack by shadow creatures or undead in literally a day or twos time.




  Different edition.  Heroes as staggeringly powerful as PCs are extremely rare.


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## Ryujin (Jun 8, 2009)

Cost and effectiveness are the typical limiting factors. At low levels that 100gp per casting is going to hurt. I've got books full of rituals, but have to be very careful when and how I use them because of the costs involved.

It takes an hour to cast the ritual, after taking one minute per square that it includes. It isn't very often that you get to choose your battleground in this game.

Then there's the "check-10" rider. You had better have pretty good skill in Arcana. Most of the fights that we've had involved creatures that were 2, 3, or 4 levels higher than us. My character has a massive Arcana skill, but that is balanced by my remarkable consistently bad rolling. Don't let the caster take 10.

(Casting "Undead Ward" has 1/3 the cost and the same effect  )


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## Flipguarder (Jun 8, 2009)

If you max out arcana, and have 4 people help you who all roll above 10 can you create a magic circle that would inhibit orcus from entering at lvl 30?


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## Greatwyrm (Jun 9, 2009)

This is a good ritual, but I can think of some reasons its not the best thing ever.

For starters, its still 100gp.  Chump change for an adventurer, but a lot of money by anyone else's measure.

Also, time is a factor.  Its not something you can just whip up.  An hour of regular ritual time, plus a minute per square.  For small circles, that's not bad, but it must be a circle.  Assuming your town fits in roughly a football field, that'd be about 26.5 hours of set up.  Doable, but still three days' work, assuming about 8 hours at a shot.

Another big one is that if you're in the circle, being protected from something outside the circle, you just put yourself in a siege.  That undead army doesn't need to break the circle.  They have all the time in the world to wait for you to get hungry.  Demons or other evil creatures would probably just start executing or torturing innocents until you decided to come out.


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## Stalker0 (Jun 9, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> If you max out arcana, and have 4 people help you who all roll above 10 can you create a magic circle that would inhibit orcus from entering at lvl 30?




A 10th level wizard with some 4 assistants and a great roll could make the Anti Orcus barrier.


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## Flipguarder (Jun 9, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> A 10th level wizard with some 4 assistants and a great roll could make the Anti Orcus barrier.




I have such a large problem with that its not even funny.


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## Regicide (Jun 9, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> A 10th level wizard with some 4 assistants and a great roll could make the Anti Orcus barrier.




  Unless you can block Orcus from being able to teleport, the circle doesn't do a whole lot.


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## Flipguarder (Jun 9, 2009)

tarrasque then, its just as irritating and stupid imo.


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## Mirtek (Jun 9, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> If you max out arcana, and have 4 people help you who all roll above 10 can you create a magic circle that would inhibit orcus from entering at lvl 30?



You can do it much, much earlier than level 30, even while taking the -10 penalty to make sure that no one else can let Orcus in/out you can still do it much, much earlier than level 30. If you just moderately try to get a good arcana check, at level 30 you don't even need to roll to create a circle (including -10 penalty) to work against the level 35 gods. Incidently my swordmage will end up with +44 arcana at level 30 (automatically being able to create cricles against lvl 35 gods and all their servants by taking -10) and that's with only moderately trying to max the check, otherwise +50 would be easily possible.


Regicide said:


> Unless you can block Orcus from being able to teleport, the circle doesn't do a whole lot.



While the rules are badly written and thus very vague, most people agree that you can't fly, burry or teleporr through a circle. It's the most archetype of use to capture/bar creatures that can typically teleport (e.g. outsiders) in such circles.


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## Regicide (Jun 9, 2009)

Mirtek said:


> While the rules are badly written and thus very vague, most people agree that you can't fly, burry or teleporr through a circle. It's the most archetype of use to capture/bar creatures that can typically teleport (e.g. outsiders) in such circles.




  Badly written and vague is par for the course I've found, with many rules haveing multiple paragraphs with each stating something different.  But blocking teleportation is what Forbiddance does, not Magic Circle.


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## Stalker0 (Jun 9, 2009)

Regicide said:


> Badly written and vague is par for the course I've found, with many rules having multiple paragraphs with each stating something different.  But blocking teleportation is what Forbiddance does, not Magic Circle.




Its a good point, and considering that teleportation does not require line of effect, just line of sight, I would think you could teleport past a magic circle. But yeah the tarrasque is hosed.


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## OchreJelly (Jun 9, 2009)

If you choose the "block all" or block type "natural" (or "fey" for the more sylvan PCs), doesn't that also block the caster and his allies?  The spell makes no provisions for friend or foe as far as I can see.


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## Mirtek (Jun 9, 2009)

Regicide said:


> But blocking teleportation is what Forbiddance does, not Magic Circle.



Forbiddance blocks teleportation into the protected area, you can still teleport out of the protected area.

A magic circle blocks attempts to "pass through the circle" which should encompass all kinds of possible movement otherwise the circle is pretty useless. So you can teleport neither into the circle nor out of the circle, but if you're bored you can teleport within the circle as much as you want as long as you don't cross the boundary.


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## FrozenChrono (Jun 9, 2009)

I think magic circle's open up massive role playing options. It let's your level 30 characters be the one's who seal away orcus or any other demon prince/god/goddess. That's what epic levels are for. As for brokenness these circles are so easy to break a level 1 minion could do it in one standard action. A minion of a different type could easily free their master, or break the circle around the city if that's what the story calls for. 

The cost is definantly a limiting factor. For a city of any size to use it it would be at least as expensive as traditional defenses, and far easier to destroy.


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## Regicide (Jun 9, 2009)

Mirtek said:


> A magic circle blocks attempts to "pass through the circle" which should encompass all kinds of possible movement otherwise the circle is pretty useless.




  Hardly useless.  It is pretty sick for blocking exits or making safe camp points as most monsters can't teleport.

  Teleport doesn't "pass through", there is no line of effect.  Likewise True Portal and Plane Shift rituals will work, True Portal since it's a teleport and Plane Shift since you're coming in from another plane.  All of which can be blocked with Forbiddance.

  This does raise a point though on a problem with rituals.  It was pointed out before that the spying ritual (forget the name right now) was too short and too expensive to be useful.  The same problem comes about with things like Forbiddance.  A Forbiddance that can block level 5 creatures costs the same as a Forbiddance that blocks level 30, rituals are one of the few things in the game that don't have their cost scale.  An odd hole.  An Archmage who wants to spy on the local village idiot to be amused by his antics has to spend the same gold as to spy on Vecna!  The magic circle to stop ants from getting into the kitchen costs the same as the magic circle to stop tarrasques!


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## Flipguarder (Jun 9, 2009)

FrozenChrono said:


> I think magic circle's open up massive role playing options. It let's your level 30 characters be the one's who seal away orcus or any other demon prince/god/goddess. That's what epic levels are for. As for brokenness these circles are so easy to break a level 1 minion could do it in one standard action. A minion of a different type could easily free their master, or break the circle around the city if that's what the story calls for.
> 
> The cost is definantly a limiting factor. For a city of any size to use it it would be at least as expensive as traditional defenses, and far easier to destroy.





Idk it seems to offer utter fool-proof protection from a tarrasque who rarely has allies. Also the possibility of simply killing orcus' underlings who attempt to break the circle.

All that aside the idea that a lvl 15 or so wizard with 4 friends being able to without too much difficulty create a circle that permenantly and without the possibility of failure omits Orcus or a tarrasque in and of itself is ridiculously wrong imo.


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## Abisashi (Jun 9, 2009)

The stat-block in the MM is only for combat; creatures may have non-combat abilities, at your discretion (I vote the Tarrasque pops the magic circle like a bubble and tramples everyone, because he is the ultimate destroyer). I do agree that rituals should scale differently than they do now, though.


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## Flipguarder (Jun 9, 2009)

Abisashi said:


> The stat-block in the MM is only for combat; creatures may have non-combat abilities, at your discretion (I vote the Tarrasque pops the magic circle like a bubble and tramples everyone, because he is the ultimate destroyer). I do agree that rituals should scale differently than they do now, though.




Is that a house rule, and if not whats the source?


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## Regicide (Jun 10, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> Is that a house rule, and if not whats the source?




  It's a fallback to the fact that the DM can do anything.  It's not stated in the MM that they have extra powers outside of combat, it's merely the mantra that's been adopted in response to the fact that many of the more interesting monsters have had a lot of detail removed from their write ups in the new edition.

  So basically people complained that monsters in 4E are cardboard cutouts, and the response was "well it's up to the DM to do all the work of actually giving them abilities."  It's not explicity stated, it's just something that a DM will need to do because there are gapeing holes in the material.

  For instance Vecna doesn't have access to wizard spells in or out of combat, which, given his background, is ridiculous.  Instead he's nowhere near as good as an archmage should be, heck, an apprentice casts magic missle better, he just has some weird abilities and a sack of HPs far greater than a player's instead.

  If, as a DM, you want a Vecna that doesn't feel like a cardboard cutout, you have a lot of work ahead of you.  "For a being of godly intelligence and power, Vecna’s tactics are fairly simple."


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## bganon (Jun 10, 2009)

Has anyone asked for a clarification on the Magic Circle vs. Teleport issue?  It keeps coming up.

But I think the weakness of Magic Circle comes down to the ease of obscuring the runes.  And while it's not clear what counts as "affecting" creatures through the circle, I think a reasonable rule is that stuff that doesn't interfere with a creature's free will is OK.  So Orcus could still talk to people through the circle, offering them immortality if they'll just scuff it for a moment...

Even if you don't allow that much, it's hard for me to imagine large (town-sized) circles as lasting long enough to be worth the effort.  Any idiot can come along and ruin the thing in seconds.


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## Flipguarder (Jun 10, 2009)

I cant believe I said Orcus before, Tarrasque is a much more reasonable problematic adversary against this spell.

What I mean is, very few people will be jerks enough to screw up a magic circle surrounding a small town to protect against the Tarrasque.

Tarrasque knows no language so it cant ask for help. No teleport ability. And all you need is a wizard of paragon level and a few helpers. Maybe a ritual candle...

Its just stupidly powerful I think


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## Saeviomagy (Jun 10, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> I cant believe I said Orcus before, Tarrasque is a much more reasonable problematic adversary against this spell.
> 
> What I mean is, very few people will be jerks enough to screw up a magic circle surrounding a small town to protect against the Tarrasque.
> 
> ...




If your DM introduces a tarrasque into the campaign, one would hope that he goes the extra mile to reflect societies response to it.

Tarrasque cultists, villains manipulating it, other creatures of the same origin wanting to live in the city (or mess with the city) etc etc.

The magic circle might repel the first assault, but it's going to take some effort to keep it up.

(incidentally: a wasteland with numerous tarrasques and every city and encampment hiding under a magic circle bubble is a brilliant points of light setting, even if it's just for a certain season every year/decade/whatnot).


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## Regicide (Jun 10, 2009)

bganon said:


> But I think the weakness of Magic Circle comes down to the ease of obscuring the runes.  And while it's not clear what counts as "affecting" creatures through the circle, I think a reasonable rule is that stuff that doesn't interfere with a creature's free will is OK.  So Orcus could still talk to people through the circle, offering them immortality if they'll just scuff it for a moment...




  The Spiderwick Chronicles had a good example of a magic circle in it!  Saddly, no tarrasques.


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## satori01 (Jun 10, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> What I mean is, very few people will be jerks enough to screw up a magic circle surrounding a small  town




This strikes me as a straw man argument.  Of course the world abounds with said "jerks"; whom else  is one fighting while adventuring.

Duergar, Drow, Mind Flayers, things that live in the Feywild, things that live in the Shadowfell, things that live in the Abyss, things that live in the Elemental Chaos, Underground Dwarven Kingdoms at war with surface lands, insane cultist of Entropy, people beliving in the Great Hunt of them all so on and so forth....pretty much most of the MM1 and MM2.

Also as rituals are bit vague by design.....it would not be unreasonable for some to use a ritual like say Control Weather to create a downpour that would wash away any chalk made circles.


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## Flipguarder (Jun 10, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> If your DM introduces a tarrasque into the campaign, one would hope that he goes the extra mile to reflect societies response to it.
> 
> Tarrasque cultists, villains manipulating it, other creatures of the same origin wanting to live in the city (or mess with the city) etc etc.
> 
> ...





I can see it now:

At the entrance of a large city an army of cultists face the gathering crowd, the Tarrasque sleeping on a colossal wagon with some of the cultists surrounding it and chanting


High level Tarrasque priest:"In a matter of moments, the tarrasque will awaken and DESTROY YOU ALL!"

-another cultist comes up to the priest and mumbles something in his ear.

Priest:"DAMMIT!" 

-priest looks around 

Priest: "Jim, go over there and scuff those runes for me"

-low level cultist runs amusingly towards the runes surrounding the city and kicks them as though destroying a small sandcastle. Then turns around and gives the Priest a thumbs-up

Priest: "NOW the Tarrasque will DESTROY YOU ALL!"


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## Flipguarder (Jun 10, 2009)

satori01 said:


> This strikes me as a straw man argument.  Of course the world abounds with said "jerks"; whom else  is one fighting while adventuring.
> 
> Duergar, Drow, Mind Flayers, things that live in the Feywild, things that live in the Shadowfell, things that live in the Abyss, things that live in the Elemental Chaos, Underground Dwarven Kingdoms at war with surface lands, insane cultist of Entropy, people beliving in the Great Hunt of them all so on and so forth....pretty much most of the MM1 and MM2.
> 
> Also as rituals are bit vague by design.....it would not be unreasonable for some to use a ritual like say Control Weather to create a downpour that would wash away any chalk made circles.




yes sure there are jerks

But thats almost irrelevant. One of the most physically destructive forcees in the know universe can be physically stopped by a low level ritual, end of story. That in and of itself is ridiculous imo.


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## satori01 (Jun 10, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> yes sure there are jerks
> 
> But thats almost irrelevant. One of the most physically destructive forcees in the know universe can be physically stopped by a low level ritual, end of story. That in and of itself is ridiculous imo.




I do not want this to come off as too harsh, or bearing any sort of malice or animosity, (this post has none)...but Flip what you have is a personal problem.

You find some bit of flavor personally incongruous and it offends you...but alas this comes down to just taste, and is a singular phenomenon.

I myself find nothing wrong with an embodiment of Physical Destruction, being impeded by an Extra Physical, supernatural force like magic.

Honestly Magic Circle gives a pretty compelling game set up for say a 12th level encounter with the Tarrasque.  Something, someone, has awoken the big bad toothy monster and it is coming to eat the town.  The heroes of course can not defeat the Tarrasque....but they have just enough time to try to create a Magic Circle to save as many of the townspeople, as they can (like 2 hours).

Sophie's Choice meets Shindler's List, (the Circle is life), and a great cinematic scene of the lucky few wailing and watching in disbelief as the great physical engine of destruction lays waste to all around them, except for one small circle of calm.  I'd pay $8 to watch that movie !

Let us also face that the Tarrasque and Orcus are not going to appear on any wandering monster table of 4e.....Paragon level encounter with 30 level creatures, really should not have battle as normal on the agenda, as TPK will be the only result.

Unique monsters are plot devices, and thus the rules, (even limiting rules ), allow for some great inspiration on uses of those plot devices.


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## Abisashi (Jun 10, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> Is that a house rule, and if not whats the source?




It's implied, but never stated that I could find. However, I think the designers explicitly said that was their intent (though I also can't confirm this).

In general, its impractical for the rules to cover every eventuality, though personally I wish a little more complexity had gone into the design of rituals like this one, with hard level cut-offs in their power.


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## Falling Icicle (Jun 10, 2009)

I think a big part of the problem is that the ritual can last forever. There are alot of rituals now with permanent effects and there is no way to dispel them. They need to add a ritual that can dispel other rituals.


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## Flipguarder (Jun 10, 2009)

satori01 said:


> I myself find nothing wrong with an embodiment of Physical Destruction, being impeded by an Extra Physical, supernatural force like magic.




Neither do I, when the power of the magic can be sensibly more powerful than the physical attacker (thus a wall made out of "normal" magic can be about as strong as 3 ft stone walls normally are.)



satori01 said:


> Honestly Magic Circle gives a pretty compelling game set up for say a 12th level encounter with the Tarrasque.




Any 12th lvl group with a ritual caster = most likely not a tpk (considering its colossal and makes a lot of noise you could probably make a magic circle before it notices you)
Any 12th lvl group without a ritual caster = most likely tpk



satori01 said:


> Let us also face that the Tarrasque and Orcus are not going to appear on any wandering monster table of 4e.....Paragon level encounter with 30 level creatures, really should not have battle as normal on the agenda, as TPK will be the only result.




Except when you have a Ritual caster. 

And Im sorry but this is not a personal problem. The idea of a 12th level party meeting an awake tarrasque on thier own has always, since the introduction of the monster meant tpk. Now a simple ritual can remove the threat entirely?

I honestly don't see how this is ok.


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## Stalker0 (Jun 10, 2009)

The question of water came up in my game today, would splashing water on the runes erase the barrier?


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## FrozenChrono (Jun 10, 2009)

Since the duration is "Until Broken" I'd rule that water like rain or some just splashing on the ground from a jug wouldn't. If it did it would prevent a lot of traditional fantasy uses of this type of magic. I'd also rule that anything directly thrown or launched from a qualifying type cannot effect it.



> Neither do I, when the power of the magic can be sensibly more powerful than the physical attacker (thus a wall made out of "normal" magic can be about as strong as 3 ft stone walls normally are.)



It takes 1 hour to put up the barrier. It's not as if this is something you can create in combat. It's just an additional tool for parties to use to solve problems and cause more interesting encounters.

If a low level party knows Orcus or the Tarrasque are coming an hour or more ahead of time they can evacuate or move whatever they're trying to protect, they could possibly mislead or redirect these enemies. It's not as if it could be used to defeat an enemy.

For this spell to realistically cover any sized town (lets say a square mile) it would take about 168 hours including the original hour casting time. Thats about a week. I'd say that'd be enough time to create other reasonable defenses without such an glaring flaw. 

This ritual also gives a few excellent combat scenerio opportunities. 

A party manages to put a circle of protection around the town, but the aberrant/elemental/fey/immortal/natural/shadow boss creatures have minions of a different type. You must fight off the minions as they try to run by in waves and not let any get through to break the circle while also protecting yourself from a few of the evil overlord boss types. 

Enemies try to let out super-creature from magic circle prison. There's difficult terrain to get to it and there are multiple magic circles up so they have to take a standard action to remove each one. You must fight them off before they get through.


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## Regicide (Jun 10, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> The question of water came up in my game today, would splashing water on the runes erase the barrier?




  Does wearing rubber soled boots make you immune to lightning bolt?


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## Flipguarder (Jun 10, 2009)

I fully understand the limitations and possible interpretations of the ritual. But just because it can be an effective story telling tool does not change the fact that it is way more powerful raw than any spell or exploit.

The mere fact that it can end or prevent without fail, an encounter with a monster more than double your level. And that any monster that isnt a surprise and doesn't have any friends that aren't different of a different origin can be effectively made useless by this spell.

Yes it has limitations. I get that. But:

A level 8 spell should not be able to prevent a tarrasque from entering an area. End o' story in my book. It should absoloutley have a limiting factor that would make a tarrasque be able to destroy it eventually or with great force or with great damage to itself. Total prevention  is just too much imo.


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## Ryujin (Jun 10, 2009)

I would say that it takes a conscious act by an intelligent creature to break a Circle.

It's power is somewhat limited by the fact that you're eventually going to have to leave the circle, or you'd better have an Everlasting Provisions along. There's not a whole lot of fun to be had when adventuring as "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble."


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## lukelightning (Jun 10, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> The question of water came up in my game today, would splashing water on the runes erase the barrier?




That's why they put up a sign: If the runes run, run!


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## ki11erDM (Jun 10, 2009)

Abisashi said:


> However, I think the designers explicitly said that was their intent (though I also can't confirm this).




There was discussion about this around the time the pit fiend was shown in the Ampersand article (1/25/08).  I am not up on my enworld dues so can't search well... but I think those are the threads you should be looking for.  The comments went along the lines that any intelligent NPC has access to any ritual of its level or lower that they need so they can do whatever the DM needs them to do.

As for tarrasque, I think it shows how well this spell works just the way it is.  The spell does NOT stop the beast.  In no meaningful way does it affect the tarrasque from doing what it wants to do, destroying random things.  Just because it is destroying the village next door does not mean it was ‘stopped’.  Does it save a small village or temple or some other site from being immediately destroyed?  Sure, but the tarrasque could care less.  It will get back to it when the rest of the universe is fixed.

Some of you are giving the tarrasque motivations it simply does not have.


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## Ryujin (Jun 10, 2009)

ki11erDM said:


> Some of you are giving the tarrasque motivations it simply does not have.




I was thinking that it might 'accidentally' do something that would ultimately effect the contents of the circle; start a landslide, forest fire, dam a river and flood an area...... Things that conscious will doesn't pertain to, that have a ripple effect.

Godzilla isn't crushing people. He knocks over buildings that just happen to have people under them.


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## Flipguarder (Jun 10, 2009)

ki11erDM said:


> Some of you are giving the tarrasque motivations it simply does not have.




Its motivation is irrelevant. This spell takes away from the fear that mid paragon pcs should have over meeting a tarrasque.


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## Regicide (Jun 10, 2009)

ki11erDM said:


> Some of you are giving the tarrasque motivations it simply does not have.




  Props and scenery don't have motivation.  PCs have that.


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## Mirtek (Jun 10, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> The question of water came up in my game today, would splashing water on the runes erase the barrier?



If the circle is drawn with something water soluble and the water is splashed on the circle by a creature type not affected by the circle it would. If the water is splashed on the circle by a creature affected by the circle it wouldn't, even if the circle is drawn with something that's normally water soluble.


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## DracoSuave (Jun 11, 2009)

Well, a level 8 Ritual can undo the entirety of nasty effects of a Terrasque on any living creature from level 1 - 30 so, really, it's not as wildly incongruous as you might think.


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## Flipguarder (Jun 11, 2009)

Congruousness  does not denote reasonableness. Rituals in general can be extremely overpowered imo. They do things no power/feat/skill/item would ever be able to do, and they solve many encounters that would otherwise be impossible.

Rituals are not interesting, this is not cool story openers, they are just overpowered messes.

Man I hate rituals.


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## DracoSuave (Jun 11, 2009)

Rituals can be potent, but they have the disadvantage of being infeasable.  Something that cannot be used most of the time to end encounters isn't exactly a game-breaking thing.  Magic Circle is a case in point.  Sure, it's -great- for fortifying your defenses, but how often does that actually come up?

Normally the adventurers are kicking down doors and taking names--rituals that are powerful enough to win said encounter for them are generally to unwieldy to simply fire off before going into the encounter.  And none of them, not one, can be reasonably used -in- an encounter, with -very- specific exceptions.

Let's face it, it's no different than when casters had them as spells in previous editions in terms of their 'encounter stopping power.'  They just don't tend to have one round casting times any more.

I mean, yes, Magic Circle -can- stop a terrasque, and Raise Dead can undo the death the terrasque causes, but are either of these -feasible- in the typical adventuring encounter?  Raise Dead -after- the fact, but you'd need a survivor, something that ain't happenin' at paragon level.


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## Caudoviral (Jun 11, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> Congruousness  does not denote reasonableness. Rituals in general can be extremely overpowered imo. They do things no power/feat/skill/item would ever be able to do, and they solve many encounters that would otherwise be impossible.
> 
> Rituals are not interesting, this is not cool story openers, they are just overpowered messes.
> 
> Man I hate rituals.




"Man *I* hate rituals."

Which is what it really all comes down to. You have expressed this opinion many times in this thread. I think everyone knows how you feel. You don't like magic circle because it doesn't jive with your  *feeling* about how the tarresque works. It is a feeling not based on game mechanics or anything else solid, it is not even a majority opinion, and thus should not be used as an argument for why a given rule is bad.


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## Flipguarder (Jun 11, 2009)

Give a level 5 character everything they could reasonably have to assist their arcana skill:

1/2 level  =2
Attribute Max = 4
Trained = 5
Racial = 2
Background = 2
Familiar = 2
Feat = 3
Assistants = 4 (assuming 50% chance of success)
(is there a item appropriate to boost arcana/ritual skills?)

2+4+5+2+2+2+3+4 = 24
Heck even take the -5 to make it omit all creatures.
24 - 5 = 19
*
You can roll a 1 and still, without fail, protect yourself from enemies 5 levels above you.

Roll a 20 and all of your assistants succeed (24+4+20 = 48), You can defend yourself from any creature in the game.*

 Vecna, any of his minions, the entirety of the Monster manual can come to your location, wanting nothing more than you dead, and as long as you have everlasting provisions, you good. Since magic circle makes no mention of an exception due to deportation, I would assume that to teleport would mean passing the circle and therefore be inhibited.


*This is from a level 5 character.*


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## Flipguarder (Jun 11, 2009)

Caudoviral said:


> "Man *I* hate rituals."
> 
> Which is what it really all comes down to. You have expressed this opinion many times in this thread. I think everyone knows how you feel. You don't like magic circle because it doesn't jive with your  *feeling* about how the tarresque works. It is a feeling not based on game mechanics or anything else solid, it is not even a majority opinion, and thus should not be used as an argument for why a given rule is bad.





So you are ok with the numbers I just posted?

It is mechanics I've explained over and over why it doesn't make sense. No other ability or action anyone else can do has this sort of power. Everyone seems just blind to it.

All a tarrasque does is makes it easier (no -5 to check) look at my math, If you are ok with a level 5 character protecting an area from any army a dm could muster then so be it. I find that a little overpowered.


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## DracoSuave (Jun 11, 2009)

Well, for one, 100gp is not trivial for a level 5 character to spend on a single ritual, nor is it trivial for a level 5 character to just happen to have in material components on the fly.

For the second, that same character might be able to ward off his house or hut.  Armies don't care.  They just move along and deal with the -real- objective.

'We can't get into that farmhouse or on the farm!'
'Probably warded by a stupid wizard.  Set up a perimeter of shooters for when he comes out to dust him with death.  The rest of us, let's move on to the castle.'

Cause, see, the army can just walk around said obstacle.  If the problem = <army> then solution != <a magic circle>

Now, if it were the Wall of Ash from the Dark Sun setting, -that- is a solution to an army.

But really tho, it's a problem that doesn't occur.  Level 5 characters don't come up against terrasques unless their DM is a jerk, or they're supposed to find a non-combat solution, for example, setting up a ward or using a ritual to save the country or run away to find the Macguffin of Win Adventure.

The fact is, you've caught up on the level of the ritual as tho that were the important matter in determining what it'll realisticly be used against.  The reality is, the character level is what is important.  Any character can use any ritual, regardless of level, provided they have the scroll of it.  But not any character will come up against terrasques or Orcus, or any other number of things this ritual'd be used against in a 'broken' manner.  It's the same as epic level minions, so what if it has 1 hp, you won't fight it at paragon level so who cares if you can autokill it on a 20 for free XP.

If a level 30 character is using Magic Circle to save a village from Orcus, that's about right, and as it should be.  It's better than wasting book space with 'Magic Circle' and 'Better Magic Circle' and 'Moar Magic Circle' and 'Magic Circle++ with Provitamin B-5' which are all the same effect.



Besides, if your adventure consists of you sitting in a Magic Circle with everlasting provisions forever, then I'd say good on you for doing that.  Are you coming out ever?  No?  Great.  So what's your next character, cause that one's not actually going on an adventure today.


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## Flipguarder (Jun 11, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> For the second, that same character might be able to ward off his house or hut. Armies don't care. They just move along and deal with the -real- objective.




Unless that real objective happens to be you or something you are holding.

So you'd be fine with this power:

Waaaaambulance
You whine at the dm about how high this encounter level is.
At-Will ✦ any
Free Action Close Blast 50
Prerequisite: Must be under level 10
Effect: Instantly kills all enemies above level 22 within burst.

Because after all, you would never use it.


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## Mirtek (Jun 11, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> and as long as you have everlasting provisions, you good.



I would also recommend some bags of holding to store your feces, otherwise it would soon become very unpleasend within the circle 


Flipguarder said:


> All a tarrasque does is makes it easier (no -5 to check)



If you don't take the -5 you risk some crazed cultist to just smudge your runes and break your circle.

And what you forget the mention is that the circle has no build-in-exception for it's caster. If you create such a magic circle around you, you are forever trapped within the circle too



Flipguarder said:


> Unless that real objective happens to be you or something you are holding.
> 
> So you'd be fine with this power:
> 
> ...



Actually the correct effect would be

Effect: Instantly kills all enemies above level 22 within burst while you are immobilzed forever. Roll a new character.


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## Regicide (Jun 11, 2009)

Mirtek said:


> I would also recommend some bags of holding to store your feces, otherwise it would soon become very unpleasend within the circle




  You'd use the feces to hurl at the tarrasque outside the circle.  Hey, a 20 hits!


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## Mirtek (Jun 11, 2009)

Regicide said:


> You'd use the feces to hurl at the tarrasque outside the circle.  Hey, a 20 hits!



Unfortunately you can't. Since you're trapped by your own circle you can't hit anything outside the cricle with thrown weapons


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## Flipguarder (Jun 11, 2009)

You guys are laughing about it but if it affects the caster an all-purpose magic circle that would stop someone your level would mean you are forever trapped within it right? Isn't that just idiotic?


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jun 11, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> Unless that real objective happens to be you or something you are holding.
> 
> So you'd be fine with this power:
> 
> ...




I don't understand why you bothered to start this thread. You don't seem to want to even acknowledge that anyone else's opinion on the matter is worth hearing. lol. And I just expel whiners from my game. Actually what I do is give the monster the following power.

Pillar of Salt (at-will; free action) Range infinite; Effect: target is turned into a pillar of salt. No known effect can reverse this power.



Rituals are perfectly fine. There may be some rather artificial situation you can concoct where a ritual can provide a benefit substantially greater than what you would expect, but they are rare cases. 

Certainly you could trap yourself inside a circle and avoid being eaten by a tarrasque but so what?  In any case Magic Circle is subject to being destroyed by any garden variety environmental effect. Nothing in the description of the ritual states that it will endure wind, rain, etc. The DM is free to work this out in any way that makes a good story.

So, Flip, instead of insisting that everyone else is just wrongheaded about it, how about you tell us what you DO want rituals to do? How should it work? Just saying its broken isn't doing us any good.


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## Flipguarder (Jun 11, 2009)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't understand why you bothered to start this thread. You don't seem to want to even acknowledge that anyone else's opinion on the matter is worth hearing.




I didn't start this thread. But yes I am being a little stubborn about this simply because everyone seems to think Im obviously wrong.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Rituals are perfectly fine. There may be some rather artificial situation you can concoct where a ritual can provide a benefit substantially greater than what you would expect, but they are rare cases.



Such as in any situation where a person maxes out their key skill? Such as a level 5 wizard being able to protect himself from anything in existence?




AbdulAlhazred said:


> Certainly you could trap yourself inside a circle and avoid being eaten by a tarrasque but so what?  In any case Magic Circle is subject to being destroyed by any garden variety environmental effect. Nothing in the description of the ritual states that it will endure wind, rain, etc. The DM is free to work this out in any way that makes a good story.



We all understand that a DM is able to do anything in the game, thats a given. We discuss rules here.

If Im concocting strange scenarios that don't normally happen, then I'd just like to point out that others are giving the power qualities that it doesn't have by raw to make it seem less powerful, such as:

1. Weather can affect it.
2. You can teleport inside it.
3. The caster is trapped inside as well.

None of these qualities exist within the text.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> So, Flip, instead of insisting that everyone else is just wrongheaded about it, how about you tell us what you DO want rituals to do? How should it work? Just saying its broken isn't doing us any good.




Fantastic, I've just been hoping to get a convo going on this topic. The problem I believe is in the way skill bonuses function. 

You can get a 20+ bonus fairly easily by level 2 but then no other bonuses except 1/2 level raise your skill.

One possible solution would be to lower the bonus to trained skills in heroic to 2 or so, then give all trained skills an additional 2 bonus in paragon level, and then additional 2 in epic. So trained would mean less at lower levels
2 at heroic
4 at paragon
6 at epic.

Another idea is to lower the amount of specialization one can have in one skill, right now there are:

Attribute
racial
background
1/2 level
feat
familiar
power
item

perhaps only 3 of these bonuses work for any one skill check, the largest ones obviously overriding weaker ones.

Another possibility is having some current bonuses that don't stack stack. Maybe your familiar provides a feat bonus, Or racial doesn't stack with background.

What I really have a problem with is that skill bonuses can be so high at lower levels but they don't get much higher. This makes the overall situation such that a specializer in a skill at level 5 is only 13 away from a specializer at level 30.


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## Ryujin (Jun 11, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> None of these qualities exist within the text.




In point of fact it says, "...these symbols make it difficult for creatures of a particular origin to enter or pass." No mention of 'exit' at all. I would say that the creator could easily exit his own circle. Getting back in could pose a problem.


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## Flipguarder (Jun 11, 2009)

If we are arguing semantics (im down if you are) then I believe the idea that a magic circle creator would be trapped there is unfairly (i believe) attributed to the idea of passing the boundary. As in it doesnt matter which direction you are coming from, passing is passing.

Let me reiterate, I believe that's a terribly broken and stupid way to read the ritual.


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## Mirtek (Jun 11, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> You guys are laughing about it but if it affects the caster an all-purpose magic circle that would stop someone your level would mean you are forever trapped within it right?



Right


Flipguarder said:


> Isn't that just idiotic?



Yes. If you draw a circle around you that works against your own origin type you are an idiot.

Yet this doesn't make the whole ritual idiotic, because you can create such a circle from the outside, you don't need to create the circle around yourself.


Flipguarder said:


> that it doesn't have by raw to make it seem less powerful, such as:
> [...]
> 3. The caster is trapped inside as well.
> 
> None of these qualities exist within the text.



Trapping the caster too is RAW from straight from the rules text. Saying that a caster can ignore his own circle is completly made up with no reference to the rules


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## Flipguarder (Jun 11, 2009)

Its not spoken of in either way. So for you to say that the caster is trapped inside is just as interpreted as me saying the caster isnt.

Common sense dictates a few things here.

The flavor text says: 

"The circle of symbols scratched into the ground glows and
sparks briefly as the demon tests the boundary. 'This will
not save you for long!' it hisses."

This means that there are two possibilities in the scenario provided within this text.

1. You have put a circle around the demon
2. You have put a circle around yourself and a demon is outside the barrier.

I see 2 as more plausible.

Also the phrase "enter or pass" would suggest that it only has a problem with entering the circle. It would say "enter or exit" if it truly was meant to prohibit exiting the circle.

Since it makes no mention of prohibiting the caster (which is a horrible oversight in text if true) then we could look to other rituals for precedence of your belief.

But no there are no instances of rituals being double edged swords like this.
--------------------------------------------

In addition to all this. All of you saying "well its an interesting possibility for pcs to use it." What about the idea that an NPC could use it.

Say an Wizard wants to become a godlike being (fairly common epic storyline) Many times there is a ritual that must be stopped in order for his plan to be thwarted. But oh guess not he has the ritual magic circle. I can think of many many storylines I've read about and played (and some in my future plans as DM) that could easily be ruined by this ritual.


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## Flipguarder (Jun 11, 2009)

double post sorry


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## Mirtek (Jun 11, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> Its not spoken of in either way. So for you to say that the caster is trapped inside is just as interpreted as me saying the caster isnt.



It is clearly spelled out. 

"An affected creature whose level is lower than your Arcana check result minus 10 cannot pass through the circle"

So if your a human and create a magic circle around yourself that works either against creature with natural origin or even against all origins, you're SOL since you are an affected creature.


Flipguarder said:


> I see 2 as more plausible.



And if he just created a circle against creature with the elemental origin he's fine. If he create a circle against elemental and natural creatures, he's an idiot.


Flipguarder said:


> Also the phrase "enter or pass" would suggest that it only has a problem with entering the circle. It would say "enter or exit" if it truly was meant to prohibit exiting the circle.



You can't exit without passing. The "enter" is indeed redundant.


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## Ryujin (Jun 11, 2009)

Just as a "what if", what side of the 'circle' are the runes on?


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## Flipguarder (Jun 11, 2009)

I understand your points, but it seems to be too little evidence for me. Your position would make a magic circle omitting all origins nigh unusable.

It also seems fairly ridiculous just in and of itself.


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## Mirtek (Jun 11, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> Your position would make a magic circle omitting all origins nigh unusable.



It could be prison or protecting something important. But you're right that it better should not include something you might want to get of the circle again.


Flipguarder said:


> It also seems fairly ridiculous just in and of itself.



I agree that the thought of an apprentice trapping himself in his own circle is funny while an archmage doing the same is ridiculous.

I am also not arguing that the risk of the caster trapping himself was intended, but the way the RAW are written this it what happens. Otherwise they should have included an "other than the caster" somewhere which they either forgot to do or never wanted to do.


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## Stalker0 (Jun 12, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> It also seems fairly ridiculous just in and of itself.




Just take a dungeon hallway, put a circle in the hallway, finishing it as you are on the outside. Now no one can cross that hallway, and you fortify the other side with all of your big guns.


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## ki11erDM (Jun 12, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> Its motivation is irrelevant. This spell takes away from the fear that mid paragon pcs should have over meeting a tarrasque.




So what you are saying is that because of that spell I can use the tarrasque in my mid level games?  That rocks!  Now its not totally wasted space in the MM.


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## Ryujin (Jun 12, 2009)

ki11erDM said:


> So what you are saying is that because of that spell I can use the tarrasque in my mid level games?  That rocks!  Now its not totally wasted space in the MM.




Now every time that someone finds a sleeping Tarrasque it'll be curled up around a Magic Circle that contains dessicated skeletons, a pile of dried excrement, and Everlasting Provisions.


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## Flipguarder (Jun 12, 2009)

Or hey if you ever find a sleeping tarrasque you may as well just spend 250g and a few hours and create a circle nobody could ever break it out of. 

Theres that pesky tarrasque taken care of.... forever..... no chance of it ever harming anyone again...


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## Caudoviral (Jun 12, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> Or hey if you ever find a sleeping tarrasque you may as well just spend 250g and a few hours and create a circle nobody could ever break it out of.
> 
> Theres that pesky tarrasque taken care of.... forever..... no chance of it ever harming anyone again...




The ridiculously powerful sealed evil in a can has to get sealed in there somehow. And if you are capable of killing the thing, it never needs to be sealed in the first place. Just look at how common of a trope this is in fantasy literature and that right there should be enough of a motivation to let a group of incredibly lucky low level characters seal away something they can't face in combat.


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## Flipguarder (Jun 12, 2009)

Caudoviral said:


> The ridiculously powerful sealed evil in a can has to get sealed in there somehow. And if you are capable of killing the thing, it never needs to be sealed in the first place. Just look at how common of a trope this is in fantasy literature and that right there should be enough of a motivation to let a group of incredibly lucky low level characters seal away something they can't face in combat.





Im sorry, I suppose I just have this thing called logic that seems to think that if the Tarrasque was this easy to trap forever, he wouldn't even be a threat.

But yeah whatever lets have some heroic level guys remove the threat of the Tarrasque forever, sure whatever.


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## Mirtek (Jun 12, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> Im sorry, I suppose I just have this thing called logic that seems to think that if the Tarrasque was this easy to trap forever, he wouldn't even be a threat.



It's only easy if you get her to hold still for ~1.5 hours you need to cast the circle around her.

And then the threat will be the earthquake or other disaster breaking the circle and release the sealed evil. As has been said, that's a pretty common fantasy scenario.


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## Flipguarder (Jun 12, 2009)

From what I've heard the Tarrasque only wakes up about once every 12 months. So getting a sleeping one to wake up while you were completing the ritual would be extremely unlucky.

Also Im not trying to say the ritual is unfixable, but Raw its just too powerful. And by raw it does not state that environmental effects would ruin the circle.


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## Ryujin (Jun 12, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> Or hey if you ever find a sleeping tarrasque you may as well just spend 250g and a few hours and create a circle nobody could ever break it out of.
> 
> Theres that pesky tarrasque taken care of.... forever..... no chance of it ever harming anyone again...




Perfect excuse for a little "mouse in the fuse box" deus ex machina.


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## ki11erDM (Jun 12, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> From what I've heard the Tarrasque only wakes up about once every 12 months. So getting a sleeping one to wake up while you were completing the ritual would be extremely unlucky.
> 
> Also Im not trying to say the ritual is unfixable, but Raw its just too powerful. And by raw it does not state that environmental effects would ruin the circle.




Mr. T just wakes up and burrows under them.  Why all the bother?  Nothing in the spell says it extends down, or even up past 5'.


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## Kordeth (Jun 12, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> And by raw it does not state that environmental effects would ruin the circle.




It says it lasts until the circle is broken, then goes on to say that affected creatures cannot break the circle. It says nothing about the circle being immune to any other sort of disruption, so logically it isn't.

Also, you're overlooking the fact that the Tarrasque sleeps _in the world's core._ If your party of 5th-level adventurers have the resources to:

1) Dig a hole about 4,000 miles deep.
2) Survive the monstrous heat and toxic gasses they discover down there.
3) _Find_ the Tarrasque's resting spot, assuming it isn't simply mystically diffused throughout the iron and nickel of the inner core.
4) Devise a means to permanently inscribe runes on _molten freaking rock._
5) Cast the _magic circle_ ritual.

Then yeah, I think they deserve to bind the Tarrasque away until the next earthquake.


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## FrozenChrono (Jun 12, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> Or hey if you ever find a sleeping tarrasque you may as well just spend 250g and a few hours and create a circle nobody could ever break it out of.
> 
> Theres that pesky tarrasque taken care of.... forever..... no chance of it ever harming anyone again...




This is awesome. It's a great story opener. Maybe there's an item sealed with the Tarrasque that the adventurers need, maybe someone stumbles upon it and lets it out not knowing what it is? Magic circle has it's flaws, this is not one of them. The possibility of stumbling upon a sleeping Tarrasque at level 5 is completely at the DM's digression, as is any other situation that could create an overpowered use of this ritual. 

It's a lot like push and pulls. They become drastically more powerful when there is a 1000 ft cliff 2 squares away, but that kind of terrain is completely up to the DM. 


Most situations where magic circle could be used to "break the game" are preventable by logic.

Towns don't have circles around them because a block everything circle would isolate them and prevent trade/contact with the outside world. If they have a circle that targets one type of creature it becomes much easier to get around. 

Adventurers could use it to protect themselves overnight in a dangerous area, but they can never leave the place they've made the circle.

The only plot I really see this ritual preventing is someone performing another ritual to end the world/summon big bad/turn into giant snake inside the magic circle. This is also easily preventable. One of the stipulations on this new ritual is that it can't be cast inside a magic circle. Problem solved. You can also use the ritual to force your party to watch the big bad being summoned/created and being unable to do anything about it. If done right it could be an epic build up. 

All of this is doable within RAW by the way.


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## Flipguarder (Jun 13, 2009)

ki11erDM said:


> Mr. T just wakes up and burrows under them.  Why all the bother?  Nothing in the spell says it extends down, or even up past 5'.




Magic Circle = useless against flying creatures?
and things with burrow
and teleport
and anything that can jump 5'

Wow that makes most things just slightly annoyed by this spell.


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## Jack99 (Jun 13, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> Any 12th lvl group with a ritual caster = most likely not a tpk (considering its colossal and makes a lot of noise you could probably make a magic circle before it notices you)
> Any 12th lvl group without a ritual caster = most likely tpk
> 
> Except when you have a Ritual caster.
> ...



Actually, it rarely meant a TPK. In prior editions, they would simply teleport/airwalk/fly away at that level.



Flipguarder said:


> Its motivation is irrelevant. This spell takes away from the fear that mid paragon pcs should have over meeting a tarrasque.



If the tarrasque is within sight (at which point the fear should probably kick in), it's doubtful that they will have the time to cast the ritual.


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## DracoSuave (Jun 13, 2009)

Plus the circle itself has to be a perfect circle.  You can't make it square, or have it go up and down walls, or anything like that.  It's rarely good for boxing in existing threats simply because existing threats tend to move around at least once in that hour.

The point that is being missed by the OP is that if you have an hour of preparation, with sufficient imagination -any- encounter can be trivialized in almost any rpg ever.

In a cyberpunk game:

'In one hour, assassins will come here to kill you!'
'Oh.  Suppose we should grab a taxi then, and call the cops.'

In a space game:

'Oh noes!  Space Pirates will be here in one hour!'
'Hyperspace warp field GO!'

In Paranoia!:

'Bully!  Traitors will be here within the hour and are going to bring communist propaganda to insite the clones to riot!'
'Pshaw!  How would you know what communist propaganda would look like unless you've been crafting it with loving precision!  *lasers down the questgiver*'

Magic Circle requires a lot more prep than these things, that's for sure.


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## satori01 (Jun 13, 2009)

The Ritual is very poorly written, and probably should be errata'd or clarification given on the intent. Every DM is going to have to make some rullings about this.

Now Magic Circles in past editions have had 2 main effects, that are often seperate...to keep things out, and to keep something in.

Obviously an clear use of this spell is to make a safe haven for a group while in a dungeon, except for the problem that you theoretically can not get out. Many other Rituals allow the caster to designate people to be able to pass through other defensive Rituals....so not hard to add that house rule.

As to the trapping part...that becomes a little more complicated.
Teleportation I believe clearly works to get in or out of the Ritual, as you do not need line of Effect to Teleport and one can make a cogent arguement that Teleportation does not have you pass thru anything (eg you do not take damage when teleporting to the other side of a damage dealing zone etc).

The other question is how far does the Magic Circle's protection extend?
Does it extend infinitely upwards or downwards? Would a sufficently powerful Magic Circle prevent birds from flying overhead, animals from grazing, or Dwarves mining underneath the Magic Circle?

I think on the surface of it you can rule out a Magic Circle interfering with Extra Planar travel. If a creature has a personal plane shift they can utilize the power to escape. Likewise the same for Teleportation, so this spell has some clear limits to the type of enemies in can hinder and the levels of which it will be trivial for enemies to bypass.

The trickier question for me is how far does the Magic Circle effect extend to?
 Would it extend up through the roof of a building?   if for example, a King has a Magic Circle protecting a sacred chalice in the basement would the castle be inaccesable above the Magic Circle no matter how high the Castle goes up? I think that strains credulty.

Thus I think you can reasonably fly out of, (if you destroy a roof over you, outdoors a DM will have to decide how far up the Magic Circle extends or if the Magic Circle domes over), and dig out of a Magic Circle. 

This seems in line with a 5th level Ritual....creatures that can Fly, that can Burrow, or that can Teleport will be only slightly inconveinced. Other creatures will be blocked dependent upon the power level of the Magic Circle.


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## satori01 (Jun 13, 2009)

Flipguarder said:


> Magic Circle = useless against flying creatures?
> and things with burrow
> and teleport
> and anything that can jump 5'
> ...




LOL....this honestly gave me a good laugh...thank you.

First the ritual was too powerful, because you cited a 5th level character, that was an Eladrin or Gnome, that took Skill Focus Arcana, a Familiar, and had four friends to help could keep the bowling team of Orcus, Vecna, and the Tarrasque away.

(as an aside, I play in a group of 9 people, and beside my Wizard, only 3 other people are trained in Arcana. There is a Warlord w/ 14 Int, who could probably make the assist roll, so my Wizard could do this.  Under point buy almost everyone else has 10-8 Int because lets face it...Int is a dump stat(even for the Sorcerer in my group, Int a dump stat)....Rogues do not need it, Fighters do not need it, Rangers do not need it, and the rest of my group is Fighter, Rogues and Rangers....so 4 people assistng not that easy to come by for your average 5 person group.)

Now after people have dissected the rules, and determined that Teleportation, Flight, and Burrowing can bypass the erstwhile too powerful 5th level ritual.....it is too weak?

 There is no pleasing you...is there 

As you mentioned before, a clear use for this Ritual is to be able to take an extended rest on say level 2 of the Temple of Elemental Evil w/o having to treck back to Hommlet.

Now by RAW not being able to get out of your own Magic Circle is a clear oversight, but easily corrected by the DM, simply allowing the caster to designate people to be able to pass in and out of the Magic Circle ala many of the other perimeter defense Rituals in the game.


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## Flipguarder (Jun 13, 2009)

I love all your ideas. The only thing I wanted to express in this thread is that none of that is stated and therefore you have to houserule it either way.

EDIT: And that raw, yes it is both too powerful and too weak based upon interpretation. This is the kinda stuff I could see groups getting in huge arguments about and I think there should be errata or a generally accepted houserule.


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## Stalker0 (Jun 14, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> Plus the circle itself has to be a perfect circle.  You can't make it square, or have it go up and down walls, or anything like that.  It's rarely good for boxing in existing threats simply because existing threats tend to move around at least once in that hour.




When I started this thread, I wasn't thinking about situations where a group is trying to handle an upcoming situation in the span of a few hours, I was thinking about a scenario where a villian has plenty of time to plan.

Take this one for a example. An eladrin wizard has created his dungeon as his headquarters. In the main entrance way, he creates a magic circle against natural, and with this host of elven and eladrin minions, easily gets a check that blocks creature his level or more than likely much higher level.

Sure he spends money for teh ritual, but it saves him a boatload of trap costs.

The party is trying to beat this wizard and heads to his dungeon, some of the party is natural. How do they get through?


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## Bumbles (Jun 14, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> The party is trying to beat this wizard and heads to his dungeon, some of the party is natural. How do they get through?




Through the thermal exhaust p...er, drain pipe of course!


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## Saeviomagy (Jun 14, 2009)

I think the thing to remember is this:
Rituals, and the problems they solve, are fundamentally designed to be plot devices.


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## Kraydak (Jun 14, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> When I started this thread, I wasn't thinking about situations where a group is trying to handle an upcoming situation in the span of a few hours, I was thinking about a scenario where a villian has plenty of time to plan.
> 
> Take this one for a example. An eladrin wizard has created his dungeon as his headquarters. In the main entrance way, he creates a magic circle against natural, and with this host of elven and eladrin minions, easily gets a check that blocks creature his level or more than likely much higher level.
> 
> ...




They don't, of course.  They just drop another magic circle (or ring of magic circles, if you make them only ward against entry) around the defensive one.

Could make for a comic campaign: a large fraction of the world's surface is taken up by inpenetrable magic circles, and the best portion of the world to boot!  The problem has become catastrophic and the goal of the campaign is to find a way to break the circles AND survive what is trapped inside.


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## Mirtek (Jun 14, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> The party is trying to beat this wizard and heads to his dungeon, some of the party is natural. How do they get through?



The non-natural members break the circle for them.


satori01 said:


> The other question is how far does the Magic Circle's protection extend?



IMO the best solution it to make it a globe, just like bursts and blasts should be treated as cubes


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## ki11erDM (Jun 14, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> The party is trying to beat this wizard and heads to his dungeon, some of the party is natural. How do they get through?




Honestly Stalker, that gets to one of the core disagreements people have about D&D.  Is the world created for the players to overcome challenges?  Or is the world created and let evolve naturally.  I am personally an advocate for the middle way.  

Is the Eladrin there to be defeated by the PCs in his layer?  If yes, then there should be some way around the protection, a back door of some type.  If the Eladrin is not meant to be challenged by the PCs in his layer then there should be no way around it.

If I was DMing that, I would expect my players to want to attack him in some manor, but I would not provide them with an obvious counter to the protection.  But if they came up with a reasonable plan… it would work.

As to the size and shape of the circle, I would not make it a dome; I would make it a column (because diagonal movements count the same, but that is another thread).  If the circle is 30’ across it would extend up 30’ or until it hit an obstacle.  As the ground is an obstacle I would not extend it down.  That being said I would not break out burrowing monsters on my PCs unless they starting abusing it, then my Ki11er nature comes out. 
Could the spell be worded better so Rules Lawyers would have a hard time abusing it?  Sure, but I don’t want ever spell and power taking up 5 pages of text.


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## boolean (Jun 15, 2009)

satori01 said:


> First the ritual was too powerful, because you cited a 5th level character, that was an Eladrin or Gnome, that took Skill Focus Arcana, a Familiar, and had four friends to help could keep the bowling team of Orcus, Vecna, and the Tarrasque away.




One hand, no depth perception. Vecna's a terrible bowler.


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## Aegypius (Oct 15, 2009)

*Vexing question*

So, Magic circle - this caused a big discussion during the last game.  

We had a dead berberlang and cast a magic circle around the corpse vs the immortal type, and then used a raise dead ritual to chat with him.  

Later we determined that he had to be killed.

First: he used his summon duplicate power to summon two duplicates outside of the barrier - would this work?

Second: our paladin attacked him with his glaive - would this automatically break the circle around the berberland, thus freeing him.  

Curious what you all think.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Oct 16, 2009)

No, it won't break the circle, but note that while the berbalang can't affect anything outside the circle you have to be careful not to disrupt the circle yourselves. If any other monster happened to come along it could do so unless it had the same type the circle works against. 

As for summoning doubles outside the circle, personally I wouldn't say it could do that. It seems against the intent of the way Magic Circle works. No power can manifest its effect across the boundary of the circle. Teleport seems to be taken to be an exception, but I honestly don't think it should be as there is nothing unique about it and as soon as you allow one effect then why exclude others? So really I play it as an absolute barrier. I guess in some DM's minds it just isn't worth much.


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## keterys (Oct 16, 2009)

The wording of Magic Circle doesn't seem to prevent line of effect in any way. So it seems that it can create duplicates on the other side.

I don't see any wording of 'no power can manifest its effect across the boundary' or an exception for teleport. Just no restriction against teleport, either.

Don't see any reason using a reach weapon would break the circle, but could also see it as reasonable for a readied action to deflect a reach weapon resulting in the circle being struck, and thereby broken.

Same for bouncing arrows and such. Be a good use for p42 by a circled subject, PC or monster, really.


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## Ryujin (Oct 16, 2009)

keterys said:


> The wording of Magic Circle doesn't seem to prevent line of effect in any way. So it seems that it can create duplicates on the other side.
> 
> I don't see any wording of 'no power can manifest its effect across the boundary' or an exception for teleport. Just no restriction against teleport, either.
> 
> ...




Because it states that the affected creature cannot pass through the circle, effect creatures through the circle's boundary, or effect the boundary in any way perhaps? It's pretty cut and dried.


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## keterys (Oct 16, 2009)

Sure, and they didn't do any of those things. The duplicate did. Or the paladin's polearm. Or whatever.

Pretty standard trope for such things. 

Unless you want to argue that, for example, it can't ask someone to break the circle for it, since that's affecting the behavior of someone on the other side of the circle in a way that affects the boundary.

Seems pretty cut and dried, indeed.


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## Rothe_ (Oct 16, 2009)

To avoid problems, this is how I'd rule on it:

- A higher tier adversary would always have some way to eventually get past the circle, perhaps with some inconvenience. It could be raw physical power (like the Tarrasque vs. heroic magic circle), a spell or some other way. I would inform the players that it is not "foolproof".

- There needs to be some kind of dispelling ritual. Perhaps it is more costly than the thing you are dispelling, and perhaps takes even more time, also I'd require some kind of contest of arcana skills (perhaps add a bonus for more ingredient cost, so that a super-high arcana skill is not 100% guaranteed to stand up to dispels).


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## UngeheuerLich (Oct 16, 2009)

1. Monsters can do Rituals:
there is surely a break magic circle ritual for about the same cost and time

2. Yes, you trap yourself indefinitely. IMHO the ward against all creatures should not only be harder, but also not permanent, otherwise it is really a trap.

3. Runes on the ground need to be scribed in a way that it is not easily removed by natural forces. A warding circle in the open was never a goo idea, because a single leaf will blown there by a gust of wind, can break the circle. (You should rule out that you can´t blow it there yourself... but you can maybe pile some leaves up on the right direction.
So if you want a circle outside your town be worthwhile, you need some rocks or the city wall to make it work for more than some days.
Rain would destroy circles which are drawn hastily into sand in minutes.

4. An earthquake most surely destroys the circle.

5. Did I mention the destroy magic circle ritual?

6. A tarrasque is such a force of destruction, I bet it can break the circle by accident (I really expect the ground to be shattered by its steps or trees flying around and also birds falling from the sky within its aura, so it also will not last very long

7. enter or pass seems to allow you to do 2 kinds of circles: a oneway or a two way circle: so the circle against everything could be viable but you decide if it breaks if someone leaves or is there forever

8. The main question is: is it possible to obscure the runes indirectly... like undermining them etc.


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## eamon (Oct 16, 2009)

Rituals in 4e seem to fulfill many of the same functions as toolbox spells in 3e.  Perhaps some of the ideas from that edition would be useful here...

Particularly, many high level spells referred to each other.  For example, an antimagic field might be negated by a mordenkainen's disjunction; a prismatic sphere holds up against such a field, and so on.  Many of these effects were potentially problematic in the sense that they might dramatically affect creatures of wildly different levels, just like 4e rituals.  However, they still represented a fun cat-and-mouse puzzel.  The few time they'd come up, the challenge would be to think up just the right combination of effects to break through the BBEG's defenses - or to think up just the right combination of effects to become invulnerable to the unwitting BBEG's uber-attack.

In short, if you want inspiration as to how to play with such magic circles from a plot device perspective, I'd just peek back at 3e at look at the various options there.  Many of those options can be converted to 4e with a bit of creativity, and they're worked out in much greater detail.

Fundamentally though, anything using skill checks can be grossly optimized via numerous techniques - and so you'll need another balancing factor when these become the measuring stick for power.


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## Nichwee (Oct 16, 2009)

Or just consider that sort of Warding/Binding ritual as Conjuring a Zone. 
Oh look, Dispel Magic works now.

I'd possibly make it so the PC had to do an Arcana check, taking maybe an hour of study to correctly identify the Conjuration/Zone effect before being able to target it properly with Dispel Magic if I didn't want it dropped instantly by a good roll.


TBH all magic should have a dispel/curcumvent method. As WotC haven't made an "Undo Ritual" ritual I'd use Dispel Magic as a means for stopping long standing rituals in an area (as they sound like a Zone to me). Could also handwave it as short term dispelling as it isn't truely a Zone you are targetting (so you have 5-10 minutes to play with then you are going to need to deal with it again).

IMO rituals are cool. They don't break the game - as they take a long time, burn a lot of cash, and can only be powergamed if your DM is being stupid (Tarrasque in a Lvl 10 game = stupid, or intended to be bypassed like this, at which point it isn't powergaming).* 

They are a good way of giving characters some nice "think about it and we might have a way around this" options. Some are a bit vague, but common sense and care generally fix this (and who wants rituals that take 20 minutes to read?)


*As someone said, a Lvl 30 Minion in a Lvl 5 game is just as abusable, as a party of players may well be able to prep, buff, ambush and kill it for insane XP if given the hour or so a ritual needs. In fact, Stinking Cloud + go first = win. Minion starts its turn in the effect = dies. It's the DM's job to stop this stupidity not the PC's, or WotC's.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Oct 16, 2009)

The whole dispelling a Magic Circle is already provided for in the ritual description. Anyone with a level = caster's arcana check - 10 breaks the circle automatically if they try to pass. So a tarrasque can break a circle cast with a check result of up to 40. Its possible to hit that result on a good die roll at around level 10, maybe even level 5 if you superoptimize arcana, but only on a roll of 20. To have a 50/50 chance of setting up a circle that would hold a tarrasque would require a superoptimized arcana character of at least level 20. Even a level 30 character can't achieve a 100% certainty of setting up such a circle, though it wouldn't be too difficult to do it with assistance.

As for the specific situation of the berbalang, the duplicates have the same keywords as the original and thus won't be any more able to break the circle than the original. Depending on how you read "affect the boundary in any way" a creature inside might be able to create an effect which would indirectly affect the circle, but its going to be up to the DM to decide exactly how indirect the causative act must be in order to get around that limitation. Since the limitation on affecting creatures on the other side of the circle also applies to allies even if you rule that the duplicates can be conjured outside the circle there are limits on what the original can do with them since they cannot affect each other.

I don't think I would allow the Dispel Magic utility spell to affect rituals in general. I think you would need a ritual version of some sort to have that kind of effect. I can't find anything listed by the compendium which has been published in 4e that does it. I'd suggest it as being a level 1 ritual since it seems a fairly basic aspect of magic. A simple opposed check vs the ritual caster's check when the ritual was set up should work fine. It might also work to counter other static magical effects of similar nature, possibly only temporarily depending on what they are and who created them. So for example divine level magic probably can't be removed permanently by a mortal ritual unless certain conditions are met, but might be neutralized for a time.

All of this kind of stuff is really relegated to the fairly abstract provenance of the DM in 4e and should mostly fall under use of the arcana (or maybe religion, heal, or nature) skill and possibly specialized rituals or items. Personally I think the overspecification of free-form magical effects in earlier editions was a bad idea. It tended to lock DMs into specific hard and fast rules about different interactions that were usually not appropriate to the specific situation and meant either the DM had to resort to "well, this guy's spell is special" kinds of excuses or else you could end up with plot busters. 4e puts it much more firmly in the DMs hands so that you have more ways to make things fun and interesting without players feeling like you took away options they should have.


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## Mirtek (Oct 16, 2009)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Even a level 30 character can't achieve a 100% certainty of setting up such a circle, though it wouldn't be too difficult to do it with assistance.



Actually my swordmage will have +45 arcana at level 30 and he's only medium-optimized. I know how I could get +50 arcana if I really wanted, but chose to not go that far into optimization. At the arcana optimization thread at the WotC boards they had superoptimized checks with +6x.


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## UngeheuerLich (Oct 16, 2009)

No, dispell magic should not be able to dispell a magic circle, but maybe allow casterlevel check to allow a creature to pass.

The ritual to destroy a certain ritual should not be a basic ritual. I would rather allow someone who knows a certain ritual to "invert" it. So if you encounter a magic ritual you need to learn the magic circle ritual and do some researches how to invert it. Maybe instead of using binding runes, you draw abjuration runes on the ground around the circle.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Oct 17, 2009)

Mirtek said:


> Actually my swordmage will have +45 arcana at level 30 and he's only medium-optimized. I know how I could get +50 arcana if I really wanted, but chose to not go that far into optimization. At the arcana optimization thread at the WotC boards they had superoptimized checks with +6x.




+15 for level
+9 for stat
+5 trained

I'm not seeing anything like +60... 

In fact I'm not seeing +45. 

I know you can also have:

+2 racial
+2 background
+3 skill specialization

Now we're up to +36. That's good, though it did eat up some resources, but that's pretty optimized. Its possible to get some power based situational bonuses and such, but I'm still not seeing ANYTHING even close to +60. I can see +45 at a limit, but if people are going above that then whatever.


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## keterys (Oct 17, 2009)

The googles tell me a crazy character can get up to a +52. Least, so sayeth the charopers.

I imagine few will really end up more than +40, but that's still more than enough to automatically get the Tarrasque.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Oct 18, 2009)

Meh, yeah, that thread has gone up some since the last time I was in it, which was back a while. Had forgotten about Sage of Ages, that's really the main one. Still, that level of optimization is beyond feasible. I suppose if the argument is "can you trap the tarrasque" then OK it seems to be POSSIBLE, but still at best marginal. I mean you have to get a minimum of +30 to do it. I'd hardly worry about it anyway, there is already a ritual you can trap things with which is much better anyhow. In any case really who cares? At level 30 you should be able to do pretty much anything, and besides the trick would be to get the tarrasque to sit still long enough to put a circle around it...


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## keterys (Oct 18, 2009)

4 characters assisting with a ritual to trap the Tarrasque would give +8, and you only need a 40 to trap it, so... +22? Level 20 = 10 + 8 Int + 5 Trained + 2 Imp = +25, without going into race or item bonuses. If you want, drop the assists in exchange for an item or a feat and racial bonus and you get +30 out of a level 20 and now you just need a 10 at 10 levels lower. Without really all that much effort.


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## Mirtek (Oct 19, 2009)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> +15 for level
> +9 for stat
> +5 trained
> 
> ...



In my case (swordmage/academy master/sage of ages) it'll be:

+15 level
+5 trained
+8 stat
+1 background
+2 familiar
+2 paragon path
+6 epic destiny
+4 item
+3 feat

Hm, should be +46, I wonder why the CB is only giving me +45




AbdulAlhazred said:


> Still, that level of optimization is beyond feasible.




Actually it's not. You don't even have to suffer somewhere else to get your arcana bonuses. Academy Master and Sage of Ages are very strong and the item is currently so broken that any Int-based class is gonna use it (if not your DM or your self-restraint stop you from using it).

So the only three things you could say that I needed to deliberately went out of my way to aquire them are the background, the focus and the familiar of choice.

Now if I had really wanted top max arcane I would at least have been an eladrin with 20 Int instead of a human with 18 Int for annother free +3, would get me a +6 item bonus instead of a +4 item bonus and a +2 background bonus instead of +1  to get a solid +52 before applying self-buffing powers to really go to elven


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