# Spell Compendium: What are the "broken" spells?



## Remathilis

So, what are the most egregiously broken spells in Spell Compendium?

Bear in mind: I don't allow Divine Metamagic OR Persistent Spell. Similarly, Spells that require elaborate builds to become broken should be equally easy to reign in.

I'm looking for what spells are soooo good that they should be crossed out in black permanent marker.

Thanks.


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## Darklone

Low level? Belker claws. But there was a rather similar thread not long ago,...


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## Ahnehnois

> But there was a rather similar thread not long ago,...



Can anyone link to that thread? I just picked up SC so I'd like to see it.


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## StreamOfTheSky

Wraithstrike is an immediate stand-out.  Swift action spell, low level (2), and lets you full attack as touch attacks.

At least Emerald Razor maneuver (Tome of Battle) and Find the Gap (also Spell Compendium, and ironically higher level and only available ot the "partial casting" classes) can only be used for one attack.  Or one attack per round, in the case of FtG.


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## Remathilis

Ahnehnois said:


> Can anyone link to that thread? I just picked up SC so I'd like to see it.




Seconded!


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## NewJeffCT

Remathilis said:


> Seconded!




Thirded!


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## Dannyalcatraz

While not "broken" in the sense usually found on this board, be careful for spells that have incomplete info.

There are a few that are actually unusable because vital mechanical info is simply absent- you'll need to track down their original versions.

There are also some that have oddball stats.  One I remember in particular was  Whirling Blade- its AoE is entirely unique, so its a DM call as to whether it can be affected by Sculpt Spell...or Split Ray, for that matter (wish I had thought of that back then).

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-3r...1-whirling-blade-area-effect-just-effect.html


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## starwed

I'm only familiar with the clerical spells, really.  Here's a few of the more powerful ones I've noticed:

The _Conviction_ (1st/3rd) spells are so good at high levels there's never a reason to not have them active.  (A first level spell that gives you +6 luck on all saves for a couple hours? )  It contrasts ridiculously with the _Resistance_ line of spells.

Some of the _planar exchange _spells seem a bit powerful.  Also, the mechanic itself is a bit weird.

_Close Wounds_ (2nd) and _Delay Death_ (4th) (both immediate actions) profoundly change how lethal the game is, but I'd say that's a good thing.
_
Sound Lance_ (4th) might be a tad powerful for an offensive divine spell, but it is single target.

_Radiant Assault_ (7th) has a pretty powerful secondary effect.  (15d6 untyped damage and _dazes _1d6 rounds on a failed will save... daze prevents all actions and effects almost everything in the game.)  Reducing the daze to 1 round is probably a good fix.


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## amethal

There's that spell that removes half the target's hit points, without a save. (I seem to remember there is a save against secondary damage, so Mettle can foil it.) Night's Caress, maybe?

EDIT Actually it was Avasculate - thanks StreamoftheSky and Eldritch Lord; and there's also a Mass Avasculate? (gulp)


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## StreamOfTheSky

Conviction is pretty good.  Not sure if it's broken, but it's very nice.

Planar Exchange is kind of wierd.  Haven't tried using it or seen it used once yet, though, so hard to judge.  I do know that in the current game I'm in/running, it's a 34 point buy gestalt, so a quick glance at all the forms makes me think "that thing wouldn't survive too long in one of OUR fights..."

Close Wounds is one of the best spells ever put in a splatbook, I would never dream of banning it.  Delay Death is almost silly, but I think you still need the Diehard feat if it's cast on you to make much use of it as your hp goes into the negatives, and IME not a single PC has ever taken that feat.

Sound lance isn't broken, though it is a divine spell, and thus a pretty good spell due to divine casters' lack of powerful evocation magic.  They did gain a bunch of blasty spells in SpC, though, so it seems pretty clear to me the deigners intended to expand their arsenal a bit.

I don't think Radiant Assault is too powerful.  It's basically Fireball with a level-appropriate dice cap and untyped damage.  Direct damage is weak, I think Polar Ray and DB Fireball taught the designers that there needs to be an extra oomph for high level direct damage spells to be worth it, versus empowering/maximizing lower level ones.  The 1d6 dazed rounds on a failed save is mostly what makes the spell worth learning.  Maybe reduce it to d4 or d3 if you want, but not down to 1.  Just my opinion.



amethal said:


> There's that spell that removes half the target's hit points, without a save. (I seem to remember there is a save against secondary damage, so Mettle can foil it.) Night's Caress, maybe?




I think you're talking about the Necromancy spells, both are high level.  One is Avasculate, the other is Avascular Mass, iirc.  Not sure if they're boken or not, but they are very strong, a good reason to not pick Necromancy as a banned school. 
And I think the save is against being dazed or stunned for a round.


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## Eldritch_Lord

StreamOfTheSky said:


> I think you're talking about the Necromancy spells, both are high level.  One is Avasculate, the other is Avascular Mass, iirc.  Not sure if they're boken or not, but they are very strong, a good reason to not pick Necromancy as a banned school.
> And I think the save is against being dazed or stunned for a round.




Correct: Avasculate/Avascular Mass take out half current HP, no save, and then require a Fort save to avoid being stunned for a round.  They require a touch attack, however, so it isn't necessarily _guaranteed_ damage...though it is pretty close.

In the last campaign I ran, four of the ten casters in the campaign took Avasculate when they got access to 7th level spells, two of them in each five-person party...when they both met up, they could effectively drop a creature to 1/16 health and auto-stun them.  Fun times.


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## Elder-Basilisk

The ones I remember:

Paladin:
*Rhino's rush*--double damage is never a good idea
*Find the gap*--nothing should ever make melee attacks into touch attacks. It is very bad juju when you can power attack for max, smite evil and spirited charge/rhino's rush. Level 12 characters end up dealing near 100 points of damage per hit and only missing on a 1.

Cleric:
*Conviction and mass conviction*--not too bad at low levels, but starting at level 12 or so, these become all day buffs (or at least all adventuring day). Massive stacking bonuses to saves make save abilities much less useful.
*Mass resist energy*--If this were level 5, it might be acceptable. As a level 3 spell that nerfs any single energy encounter into oblivion, it is too much.
*Delay Death*--Quite simply, death from damage ceases to be a possibility after level 10 or so as long as your cleric has a minor action left. This spell changes the game in a dramatic way that is not for the better. (I recommend house-ruling the death at -10 rule to death at -(10+character level) to fix the real problem).

Wizard:
*Wraithstrike* Nothing should ever make melee attacks into touch attacks. This is even worse than find the gap since it applies to all attacks for one round and can be trivially extended with a lesser rod of extend spell.
*Avasculate* and derivatives. 3.0 harm demonstrated that doing fractions of monsters hit points was never a good idea. Making it a wizard spell doesn't mean it belongs back in the game.
*Girallon's blessing* Mostly a bad idea when stacked on top of a combat familiar/animal companion (generally through the arcane heirophant prestige class).
*Evard's menacing tentacles* Another item that is a bad idea when stacked on top of an animal companion familiar through Arcane Heirophant. (Arcane heirophant is a large part of the problem here, but this and Girallon's blessing prove to be broken in the only situations where they are useful indicating that they probably don't have a non-broken but useful application (much like persistent spell--it's either useless or broken in nearly every situation)).


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## Remathilis

Thanks so far...

What about the (Lesser) Energy Orb spells? I've seen them in use and they are strong, but are they really worth banning? 

Similarly, what about Revivify? Or Pancea? 

I'm still looking for additional input, not just on these but on others (I'm glad none of my PCs noticed Avasculate)


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## Evilusion

Brambles is another one. 2nd level spell +1 to hit and damage up to a max of +10(granted this is only with wooden weapon). Combined with some of the other cleric spells(the one that lets you fight as a fighter, can not remember the name) and you now a have cleric who with out a magic weapon can bypass or negate most DR's just do to the sheer amount of damage and attacks.

Evilusion


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## billd91

*Vortex of Teeth*, Druid 4, sorc/wizard 4, is pretty ridiculous. The area effect, when playing in closed quarters of a dungeon or fortress, is huge.

Among the most serious problems of the Spell Compendium is what it does to the size of the cleric and druid spell lists. These two classes (and any others who can prep from a limited list of spells) are given a pretty significant bump in power by adding all these spells to the mix. Even if we were to assume that each individual spell was well-balanced, the net effect would be to give clerics and druids significant advantages in flexibility over a spontaneous caster with a limited "known" list or even a wizard whose list is potentially endless but must buy most of those spells.


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## billd91

Remathilis said:


> Thanks so far...
> 
> What about the (Lesser) Energy Orb spells? I've seen them in use and they are strong, but are they really worth banning?




They are super-useful and will negate most of the advantages things like golems and high-SR creatures have on the caster. When on a very limited list like the warmage's, they fill a certain niche. The warmage is very damage-spell dependent, with few encounter-ending spells that so many people seem to say are so much better than damaging spells (something of which I'm not convinced). Of all classes, he kind of needs them.

But on a general wizard list and open to all who use those lists, I think they may be a bit too good. Their range is shorter than, say, fireball, but with the "back to the dungeon" ethos of 3e, range was rarely a problem. And with the spotting rules of 3.5 (one of the worst changes from 3.0 to 3.5) based on the Spot check and the -1/10' distance, nobody is seeing anybody at extended fireball ranged anyway.


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## StreamOfTheSky

Elder-Basilisk said:


> *Rhino's rush*--double damage is never a good idea




I don't think it's that bad.  Paladins should have more options to be nasty at charging.  Barbarians and Tome of Battle classes just blow them out of the water in that area.  Heck, wildshaping druids, too.



Elder-Basilisk said:


> *Find the gap*--nothing should ever make melee attacks into touch attacks. It is very bad juju when you can power attack for max, smite evil and spirited charge/rhino's rush. Level 12 characters end up dealing near 100 points of damage per hit and only missing on a 1.




Again, not that bad, and no where near as bad as Wraithstrike.  It's level 3 or 4, and a Pal/Raner/Asn spell only, so it's not even available till late game.  Takes a standard to cast, and only lasts round/level, benefitting one attack per round.  I think in general classes like these (and Hexblade, etc...) should have better spells.  And as I noted before, Tome of Battle classes, STILL put these classes to shame.  Maybe you don't use ToB, and that's part of our divide in opinion.  Because by level 12, they can do that kind of damage in one attack, too.  As can a druid wildshaped as a large cat.  As can a barbarian built right.

And there are other ways to do melee touch attacks.  ToB has Emerald Razor maneuver, available at ECL 3.  Standard action, one attack against touch AC.  It's useful, but not broken, and gets overshadowed for damage by later strike maneuvers IME.  MIC has the heartseeker amulet to get a single attack against touch AC, and the impaling weapon enhancement, a +1 bonus.  Both swift to activate and 3/day.  The amulet is probably broken, the weapon property might also be, but is more limited in what it can be applied ot and ultimately will cost a lot more.  I'm sure there's more ways out there, these (and Wraithstrike) are just the ones I can think of right now.  Of all the possibilities, though, Find the Gap is by far the weakest of such options.





Elder-Basilisk said:


> *Mass resist energy*--If this were level 5, it might be acceptable. As a level 3 spell that nerfs any single energy encounter into oblivion, it is too much.




We put it to level 4 for arcane and divine casters.  It's still very strong, and I may move it to 5th level in later campaigns.  On that note, I'm not sure the Energy Immunity (or whatever the name is) spell should even exist.  It does as it sounds like -- pick a type, and you're immune ot it.  Lasts all day, and only level 6.  I'd ban that before even nerfing Mass Energy Resist.



Elder-Basilisk said:


> *Delay Death*--Quite simply, death from damage ceases to be a possibility after level 10 or so as long as your cleric has a minor action left. This spell changes the game in a dramatic way that is not for the better. (I recommend house-ruling the death at -10 rule to death at -(10+character level) to fix the real problem).




It still only lasts round/level, and if the target is't healed enough by the end of the duration, he's still quite screwed.  I could see it in tandem with Revivify, but that'd get pricy, and is the kind of repeated abuse a DM should just say no to.  Enemies, meanwhile, are free to attack other creatures.  It's a level 4 spell, it will be too limited to buff the netire party with it in one combat (not to mention take several rounds to do) till near epic. 
It could then cause problems, though.



Elder-Basilisk said:


> *Wraithstrike* Nothing should ever make melee attacks into touch attacks. This is even worse than find the gap since it applies to all attacks for one round and can be trivially extended with a lesser rod of extend spell.



It's also available at ECL 3.  Yeah, this one is the most ban-worthy in the whole book.


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## green slime

I've banned the Orb spells, not for their power, but because they encroach on the thematic flavour of the school of Evocation. With their inclusion, no convoker is going to miss banning the school of evocation.


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## StreamOfTheSky

Remathilis said:


> Thanks so far...
> 
> What about the (Lesser) Energy Orb spells? I've seen them in use and they are strong, but are they really worth banning?
> 
> Similarly, what about Revivify? Or Pancea?
> 
> I'm still looking for additional input, not just on these but on others (I'm glad none of my PCs noticed Avasculate)




Magic Missile is roughly equal to lesser orbs.  d4 +1 vs. d8 damage; force vs. energy type (force can also harm ethereal ceatures, on top of being almost unresistable); auto-hit vs. ranged touch (worse overall, though it can crit); damage that can be multi-target vs. single target only; SR vs. no SR.  So, magic missile does ~1 less damage and allows SR, and is just plain better in every other way.  Same damage advancement, too.

The level 4 orbs, i don't have as handy a comparision, but they aren't ban-worthy, either.  Definitely very strong, though.  I could do this...empowered Scorching Ray deals 12d6 in two shots at CL 7 (earliest you can normally cast it) and then jumps to 18d6 in three shots at CL 11.  Orbs do 1d6/level straight, until capping at 15, allow no SR, are single shot, and have a fort save vs. minor to moderately annoying 1 round debuff.  Seems about even to me, orb might be overall a little more useful.  Orb would seem to be only better once you reach CL 15+, to have comaparable damage.  And of course, energy resistance bones scorching ray, though it also has the nice option of multi-target.

Revivify is a great spell, I personalyl would not want to ban it.  But if you don't like the prevalence of raise abilities, maybe you do.  I like that it allows PCs to not suffer the "death penalty."  In fact, as far as I'm concerned, sicne the soul hasn't left, they're still not entirely dead, so flavor-wise it's a nice means to avoid death seeming cheap.  Die, get dragged to the temple of Pelor, and have raise cast on you?  Yeah, kinda cheapens death.  Fall to the ground and have your pulse stop, only moments later for your ally to wrench your soul back into you and keep you from leaving the mortal world?  That's badass.

I don't see why Panacea is broken.  It's higher level than any of the individual spells that would cure the effects it can.  It's just a nice utility spell.  At very high levels, a Cleric might consider keeping one 4th level slot with it prepared is always worth it just in case, but what's so bad about that?  No different than high level wizards using their low level slots for utility and buff spells.

EDIT: My problem with orb spells is that they're conjurations.  Conjuration is already one of, if not the most powerful schools.  And a lot of powergamers think evocation is worthless and pick it as a banned school.  When conjuration can so easily compete with evocation for direct damage, it's no wonder.  We made the orb spells evocations, but left them otherwise unchanged.  Yes, evocations with no SR.  Enjoy, Evokers!  You deserve it.


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## green slime

If _Resist Elements_ is a second level spell, as it is for wizards and clerics, it is blatantly obvious that the _Mass_ variant is far too low at 3rd. Even 4th, is still too low. I agree with Elder-Basilisk about this being a 5th level spell.

In general, IMC, we have house-ruled the "Mass" spell variants to be 3 levels above their normal variants.


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## Remathilis

billd91 said:


> Among the most serious problems of the Spell Compendium is what it does to the size of the cleric and druid spell lists. These two classes (and any others who can prep from a limited list of spells) are given a pretty significant bump in power by adding all these spells to the mix. Even if we were to assume that each individual spell was well-balanced, the net effect would be to give clerics and druids significant advantages in flexibility over a spontaneous caster with a limited "known" list or even a wizard whose list is potentially endless but must buy most of those spells.




My ruling for divine prep casters (Cleric, druid, paladin, ranger) is they know all the spells in the PHB + 1 spell per caster level (no spell can be higher than the highest spell level you can use). Other spells can be bought (on scrolls) and learned (DC 15+SL).

So a 2nd level druid who gains a level learns one new spell from another source, which must a 2nd level spell or lower. Likewise, a 20th level cleric has the normal PHB list, 2 domains, and additional spells (not counting any he found or bought on scrolls and learned. 

So far, it worked nicely.


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## Runestar

green slime said:


> I've banned the Orb spells, not for their power, but because they encroach on the thematic flavour of the school of Evocation. With their inclusion, no convoker is going to miss banning the school of evocation.



Well, to be fair, evocation does have its fair share of useful spells. Just that few of them actually involve dealing damage, or the damage is secondary to the main effect...


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## NewJeffCT

I don't think Revivify is overpowered, as I believe it leaves the formerly dead recipient of the spell stable at -1. So, unless somebody then follows it up with a "Heal" or similar right afterwards, that Revivified PC is out of action... and, then you'd have at least 3 PCs out of action for that round - the dead one, now Revivified, the cleric who cast Revivify and the next person who would pull out & administer a healing potion, cast a healing spell, lay on hands, etc.


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## Elder-Basilisk

StreamOfTheSky said:


> I don't think it's that bad.  Paladins should have more options to be nasty at charging.  Barbarians and Tome of Battle classes just blow them out of the water in that area.  Heck, wildshaping druids, too.
> 
> 
> 
> Again, not that bad, and no where near as bad as Wraithstrike.  It's level 3 or 4, and a Pal/Raner/Asn spell only, so it's not even available till late game.  Takes a standard to cast, and only lasts round/level, benefitting one attack per round.  I think in general classes like these (and Hexblade, etc...) should have better spells.  And as I noted before, Tome of Battle classes, STILL put these classes to shame.  Maybe you don't use ToB, and that's part of our divide in opinion.  Because by level 12, they can do that kind of damage in one attack, too.  As can a druid wildshaped as a large cat.  As can a barbarian built right.
> 
> And there are other ways to do melee touch attacks.  ToB has Emerald Razor maneuver, available at ECL 3.  Standard action, one attack against touch AC.  It's useful, but not broken, and gets overshadowed for damage by later strike maneuvers IME.  MIC has the heartseeker amulet to get a single attack against touch AC, and the impaling weapon enhancement, a +1 bonus.  Both swift to activate and 3/day.  The amulet is probably broken, the weapon property might also be, but is more limited in what it can be applied ot and ultimately will cost a lot more.  I'm sure there's more ways out there, these (and Wraithstrike) are just the ones I can think of right now.  Of all the possibilities, though, Find the Gap is by far the weakest of such options.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> We put it to level 4 for arcane and divine casters.  It's still very strong, and I may move it to 5th level in later campaigns.  On that note, I'm not sure the Energy Immunity (or whatever the name is) spell should even exist.  It does as it sounds like -- pick a type, and you're immune ot it.  Lasts all day, and only level 6.  I'd ban that before even nerfing Mass Energy Resist.
> 
> 
> 
> It still only lasts round/level, and if the target is't healed enough by the end of the duration, he's still quite screwed.  I could see it in tandem with Revivify, but that'd get pricy, and is the kind of repeated abuse a DM should just say no to.  Enemies, meanwhile, are free to attack other creatures.  It's a level 4 spell, it will be too limited to buff the netire party with it in one combat (not to mention take several rounds to do) till near epic.
> It could then cause problems, though.
> 
> 
> It's also available at ECL 3.  Yeah, this one is the most ban-worthy in the whole book.




In general, I don't think that "tome of battle characters can do it too" is a good defense. Tome of Battle itself is rather broken. More to the point, the mechanics of the game fall apart whenever characters and NPCs have attacks that will easily one-shot opponents of similar power on a roll of anything but a 1. Tactics and strategy go out the window and the game comes down to who wins initiative. Find the Gap and Rhino's Rush do that. As a general rule, anything that doubles damage or that turns melee attacks into touch attacks is overpowered and should be banned. WotC knew this when they introduced 3.5 (it was the explicit reason behind nerfing rhino hide armor) but had apparently scrapped the goal of balance by the time they wrote Spell Compendium. (And Tome of Battle--it's best not to even think of that).

As far as Delay Death goes, I think you are missing that it is an immediate action. So you don't need to spend five rounds buffing the whole party with it. You just wait until someone dies and then say, "no they don't." By mid levels, healing the character up after combat is trivially easy so the duration is not a mitigating factor. By level 11 or so, it essentially removes hit point damage as a way to die which removes the teeth from all melee monsters. (In combination with abilities like Rhino's Rush/Find the Gap, it also contributes to initiative being too important since the only way you can die by hp damage is to be suddenly killed in the first round of combat while the cleric is flatfooted).

Energy immunity, on the other hand, I do not see as an issue. It is long duration, but it is also a 6th or 7th level spell slot and a standard action which only protects one character. Even at level 20, 6th and 7th level spell slots are a sacrifice that characters feel and the need to use a standard action to protect one character renders it a generally poor in-combat strategy. So, it's a general buff spell that will sometimes work and sometimes won't. As such, it doesn't seem out of line.


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## Elder-Basilisk

NewJeffCT said:


> I don't think Revivify is overpowered, as I believe it leaves the formerly dead recipient of the spell stable at -1. So, unless somebody then follows it up with a "Heal" or similar right afterwards, that Revivified PC is out of action... and, then you'd have at least 3 PCs out of action for that round - the dead one, now Revivified, the cleric who cast Revivify and the next person who would pull out & administer a healing potion, cast a healing spell, lay on hands, etc.




Revivify is pretty close to being overpowered, but it worked out ok in our age of worms campaign. Just remember that it has expensive material components (not as much as the other raise dead type spells but it isn't free).

Also, in my list of spells that absolutely need to be banned, I realized that I forgot one important series of spells: any spell that gives you extra standard actions needs to be banned. As I recall, there is a series of spells that lets you steal the move, standard, etc action from your next turn. They should all be banned (along with the MIC belt of battle). 3.0 Haste does not need to return to the game. It was bad in 3.0 and continued to be bad in 3.5.


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## Invincible Overlord

Elder-Basilisk said:


> Revivify is pretty close to being overpowered, but it worked out ok in our age of worms campaign. Just remember that it has expensive material components (not as much as the other raise dead type spells but it isn't free).
> 
> Also, in my list of spells that absolutely need to be banned, I realized that I forgot one important series of spells: any spell that gives you extra standard actions needs to be banned. As I recall, there is a series of spells that lets you steal the move, standard, etc action from your next turn. They should all be banned (along with the MIC belt of battle). 3.0 Haste does not need to return to the game. It was bad in 3.0 and continued to be bad in 3.5.




I believe that the spell you're thinking of is the Celerity Line of spells, out of PHB2.

As far as 3.5 Haste goes, it's much tamer than any 1st, 2nd, or 3.0 Ed D&D version (and easily managable). 

And the Belt of Battle is kinda broken, but it only has 3 charges (which means for most adventurers once-a-day greatness).


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## akbearfoot

Evards menacing tentacles is extremely broken.

2 extra attacks with reach as FREE actions every round.  That means you can use them as part of a charge or AoO.  Our GM let a druid in our group take the spell, and he got to cast it about 3 times before it was taken away.


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## Eldritch_Lord

Elder-Basilisk said:


> In general, I don't think that "tome of battle characters can do it too" is a good defense. Tome of Battle itself is rather broken. More to the point, the mechanics of the game fall apart whenever characters and NPCs have attacks that will easily one-shot opponents of similar power on a roll of anything but a 1. Tactics and strategy go out the window and the game comes down to who wins initiative. Find the Gap and Rhino's Rush do that. As a general rule, anything that doubles damage or that turns melee attacks into touch attacks is overpowered and should be banned. WotC knew this when they introduced 3.5 (it was the explicit reason behind nerfing rhino hide armor) but had apparently scrapped the goal of balance by the time they wrote Spell Compendium. (And Tome of Battle--it's best not to even think of that).




I would argue that "Tome of Battle characters do it too" is a perfectly fine defense.  It's not nearly as broken as most new to the book often think it is--unless they hold up core fighter and barbarian as the pinnacle of balance, in which case this thread is useless because _every_ non-core spell would be considered "broken." 

If you want to talk about one-shotting enemies, the fighter and barbarian can get their damage up much higher than a Tome of Battle character; the Tome folks simply bring up the low end, so a new player doesn't build a melee character ranging from "sucks absolutely" to "rocks absolutely" but rather one ranging from "below par" to "very good."  Touch attacks for melee characters aren't a particular problem, it's touch attacks in general (c.f. _disintegrate_ and a sword swing), so if you're not banning every single touch spell there's no reason melee types shouldn't get some touch attacks as well.


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## billd91

Elder-Basilisk said:


> Find the Gap and Rhino's Rush do that. As a general rule, anything that doubles damage or that turns melee attacks into touch attacks is overpowered and should be banned. WotC knew this when they introduced 3.5 (it was the explicit reason behind nerfing rhino hide armor) but had apparently scrapped the goal of balance by the time they wrote Spell Compendium. (And Tome of Battle--it's best not to even think of that).




It had apparently been scrapped as an idea when they introduced crits, the lance, and the spirited charge feat as well. Doubling damage on a single attack is not at all overpowered nor unbalanced in the context of 3.x D&D.


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## zypherillius

Eldritch_Lord said:


> Correct: Avasculate/Avascular Mass take out half current HP, no save, and then require a Fort save to avoid being stunned for a round.  They require a touch attack, however, so it isn't necessarily _guaranteed_ damage...though it is pretty close.
> 
> In the last campaign I ran, four of the ten casters in the campaign took Avasculate when they got access to 7th level spells, two of them in each five-person party...when they both met up, they could effectively drop a creature to 1/16 health and auto-stun them.  Fun times.




I used to take Avasculate as a staple spell for ANY wizard, and every time id cast, everybody would say 'not stunned.' avasculate is very powerful, especially with a high dex, split ray or levels or archmage and it as a spell like ability.  i never messed with avascular mass since we didnt enjoy doing all the tangle stuff and the radius.


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## concerro

green slime said:


> I've banned the Orb spells, not for their power, but because they encroach on the thematic flavour of the school of Evocation. With their inclusion, no convoker is going to miss banning the school of evocation.




Most evocation spells that do damage are AoE's. The orbs are single target spells. Banning orbs will only  affect arcane casters that don't plan on taking any AoE's, which is a bad idea. I know because I was nickel and dimed by opponents 5 or 6 levels lower than me, and I could do nothing about it because I had no AoE which would have taken all of them out.


----------



## aboyd

akbearfoot said:


> Evards menacing tentacles is extremely broken.
> 
> 2 extra attacks with reach as FREE actions every round.  That means you can use them as part of a charge or AoO.



First of all, no, you can't use them as part of a charge.  The spell is not broken in that regard.  The description of a charge action states that you get a _single attack._  I haven't seen anything stating that free actions bypass that rule.  In addition, the description of the charge attack hammers home the point with examples: "_Even if you have extra attacks,_ such as from having a high enough base attack bonus or from using multiple weapons, you only get to make one attack during a charge."

As a DM, my personal reading of that would be "Literally _no_ extra attacks during a charge, no matter _what_ kind of attack it is."  Sorry to all the people playing in my campaign.  

Having said that, I agree that the spell is broken for another reason.  It says the strikes are free actions.  Free actions are meant to be repeated _many times in a single round!_  The limit is only the DM's discretion.  So a really warped reading of the spell description could lead to players flailing their enemies with 100 attacks in a single round.  It's absurd.  I'd change the spell description to make the tentacle attack a swift action.  It wouldn't be a swift action per tentacle.  Instead, it's one swift action to "unlock" use of the tentacles for that round, no matter if the tentacles strike the same or different opponents.


----------



## StreamOfTheSky

No, I think the text is pretty clear on there being a limit to the number of tentacle attacks.  The spell seems to only become potentially broken with Druid wildshaping or sorc/wiz self-polymorphing.  Then you might be able to get the attacks on a charge, by taking a form with pounce.  Even with polymorphing/wildshaping, the attacks still aren't dealing that much damage from what I can see.  Without them, the str and BAB will be so awful the attacks will be really weak.  But consider Spiritual Weapon, which is a level lower, attacks at range and independently of the caster, can full attack, can arguably be used as a "beacon" if a creature goes invisible...and does respectable damage.  I'm not convinced it's broken without a great deal of effort to make it so.

In any case, is that spell even in SpC?  I saw it in PH2.  This thread is about SpC spells.


----------



## StreamOfTheSky

green slime said:


> I've banned the Orb spells, not for their power, but because they encroach on the thematic flavour of the school of Evocation. With their inclusion, no convoker is going to miss banning the school of evocation.




Which, along with a wide-spread view that Evocation is a "weak school," lead me to just put them in as Evocations, like the gods intended. 

They were evocations in Tome and Blood, in fact.  They also were a bit different and allowed SR back that, but still.  I don't mind some evocations not allowing SR.  Wall of Force doesn't allow SR, even though you're projecting "force energy" (my made up term), so why not a few spells that allow no SR even though you're projecting fire/cold/acid/electric energy?

The most major "abuse" this has lead to in my games so far is that you can use Shadow Evocation to mimic them, which still isn't so bad.
(As Shadow Conj. is a level lower, it can only mimic spells up to 3rd level.  Whether the designers took Shadow spells into account when assigning conj. and evocation direct damage spells' levels I don't know, though there do seem to be an AWFULLY large amount of good level 4 conj. spells (too high to mimic) and level 3 evocation spells (feels like a waste when you can mimic up to 4th) for direct damage between the PH and SpC.)


----------



## aboyd

Darklone said:


> Low level? Belker claws.



Hmm.  That's only a big "maybe" for me, although if it's ban-worthy for you, then it is.  No stopping you.  

For me, I compare it to Seeking Ray, which is the same level, does maybe a couple more points of damage, and only requires a ranged touch attack.  In that regard, Belker Claws sucks -- especially the need for a melee touch attack.  That means to deliver the attack, the spellcaster is brawling with tanks -- yikes!

However, Belkar Claws gives extra attacks at higher levels, which Seeking Ray doesn't offer.  That starts to make it better than Seeking Ray, despite its drawbacks.  For me, at levels 1 through 5 it's worse than Seeking Ray, and at level 9+ it's better.  I've made no house rule about Belkar Claws at this point.



billd91 said:


> Elder-Basilisk said:
> 
> 
> 
> As a general rule, anything that doubles damage or that turns melee attacks into touch attacks is overpowered and should be banned. WotC knew this when they introduced 3.5 (it was the explicit reason behind nerfing rhino hide armor) but had apparently scrapped the goal of balance by the time they wrote Spell Compendium.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It had apparently been scrapped as an idea when they introduced crits, the lance, and the spirited charge feat as well. Doubling damage on a single attack is not at all overpowered nor unbalanced in the context of 3.x D&D.
Click to expand...


I'm with you on this one, billd91.  In addition, I'm looking at the 3.5 DMG description of Rhino Armor right now, and it does _not_ explicitly cite "never deal double damage" as the reason for nerfing it.  But maybe one of the book authors explicitly cited that reason in a blog entry or something...?

For that matter, if doubling melee attacks was a rule that 3.x was supposed to avoid, then they also abandoned that rule when it came to Sneak Attacks.


----------



## Runestar

But...how do you expect a fighter to get to move and still make a full attack without belt of battle? 

It is tempting, but I won't let this thread devolve into a debate on the merits of ToB. At least not yet. 

I thought the bite of the XXX line of spells were quite obscene. Massive stat buffs which stack on top of the already good physical stats a druid gets from wildshaping.

And you can also share it with your animal companion while you are at it.

At least they had the sanity to rule that the stat boosts from the shapeshift variant were enhancement bonuses as well...

Heroics is a controversial one - I just don't like the idea of wizards getting fighter feats with a spell. Not least because it lets them access tome of battle maneuvers, and you can combine it with imbue summoning to give your summons context-specific feats such as mage slayer.

Owl's insight - insight wis bonus of 1/2 caster lv, and divine casters already have no lack of ways to augment their caster lv...

Anyspell now available to everyone, even those who did not sleep with Mystra? 

Hunter's mercy...fairly self explanatory. 

Ray of stupidity - more irritating than anything else, because now, the DM can't throw foes with int scores of 3 or lower at the party. 

To be fair, SC did try to balance out a number of clearly problematic spells (such as fleshshiver and quill blast). But true to 3e, they ended up creating more issues than they resolved.


----------



## Noir le Lotus

In our Savage Tide campaign, our cleric is using SC a lot.

We all agree to say that all the Mass spells are too low level.

Fugue, a bard spell, is nearly broken as the effect depends on a perform check and it is quite easy and it's a Confusion-like spell that is not a mind affecting effect


----------



## aboyd

Elder-Basilisk said:


> nothing should ever make melee attacks into touch attacks. It is very bad juju when you can power attack for max, smite evil and spirited charge/rhino's rush. Level 12 characters end up dealing near 100 points of damage per hit and only missing on a 1.



If a level 12 character can hit for 100 and only misses on a 1, that basically puts them even with level 9 wizards.  So what's the problem?

(OK, maybe a level 9 wizard cannot deal 100 HP of damage in a single shot, but that wizard can Cloudkill a dozen Gibbering Mouthers in a single spell, or Fireball them all for about 31 points of damage each.  Even if they all saved for half damage, the damage total for the round would be about 180 points of damage spread across the 12 Gibbering Mouthers.  A 12th level cleric could cast Harm and do 120 points of damage in one shot.  And all that stuff is core rules, not even using splatbooks.  So I'm not following how a 12th level paladin getting _really good odds_ to do 100 points is off-balance?)

In addition, I looked up about 20 random monsters.  The difference between normal AC and touch AC was about 3 to 10 points, depending upon the creature.  So a spell that allows you to strike touch AC is essentially a bonus of +3 to +10 on average (technically, it's the mean, not the average).  So if that's too much of a bonus, then spells such as True Strike must be _extremely_ broken.  That spell gives a +20 to attack, it's only 1st level, and it's core!

I guess I just really don't see the prohibition against making normal attacks into touch attacks.  It doesn't seem unbalanced on the face of it.  However, maybe someone can teach me about any nuances I'm missing?


----------



## Runestar

> So if that's too much of a bonus, then spells such as True Strike must be _extremely_ broken.  That spell gives a +20 to attack, it's only 1st level, and it's core!




It is typically much easier to abuse wraithstrike than truestrike. 

Wraithstrike is a swift-action spell and lasts for the whole round, meaning a gish could cast it and still make a full-attack. Alternatively, if the fighter could somehow access persistent wraithstrike (say via a ring of spell storing, or if your party has an incantatrix...).

Then the DM points out how dragons too benefit a great deal from said spell, and the players agree to swear off its use forever. 

True-strike takes a standard action to cast, so you normally cannot attack in the same round you cast it (unless you quicken it, in which case it becomes a 5th lv spell, much more costly than wraithstrike). Plus, that is 1 round wasted which could have been spent attacking. It only benefits 1 attack, so the effect is more limited (the only use I have seen thus far are high lv wizards using quickened true-strikes as added insurance when lobbing orb spells against high touch-AC foes).



> We all agree to say that all the Mass spells are too low level.




I dunno - I kinda like mass aid and think it confers a fair benefit for its level. Reminds me of my ghaele PC who would go around aiding everyone prior to combat.


----------



## billd91

Runestar said:


> True-strike takes a standard action to cast, so you normally cannot attack in the same round you cast it (unless you quicken it, in which case it becomes a 5th lv spell, much more costly than wraithstrike). Plus, that is 1 round wasted which could have been spent attacking. It only benefits 1 attack, so the effect is more limited (the only use I have seen thus far are high lv wizards using quickened true-strikes as added insurance when lobbing orb spells against high touch-AC foes).




True strike's major abusability is in magic item creation. Since it's a low level spell with a low caster level necessary to have full effect, it's an extremely power and cheap item effect ... by the regular guidelines. Any magic item involving it must be inflated WAY beyond typical guidelines.


----------



## Noir le Lotus

billd91 said:


> Since it's a low level spell with a low caster level necessary to have full effect, it's an extremely power and cheap item effect ... by the regular guidelines. Any magic item involving it must be inflated WAY beyond typical guidelines.




Remember that when a spell gives you a bonus and you want to create a magical item based on that spell, you must use the formula using the gained bonus instead of the formula using the spell level and caster level ...


----------



## Thanee

Elder-Basilisk said:


> As far as Delay Death goes, I think you are missing that it is an immediate action. So you don't need to spend five rounds buffing the whole party with it. You just wait until someone dies and then say, "no they don't."




I don't know if that really works. Shouldn't you need to cast the spell BEFORE the damage takes someone over the threshold?

i.e. you have to cast it BEFORE the attack roll, since I don't think you can cast between the hit and the applied damage, at which point the target is already dead.

And with that in mind, I think the spells is not too bad.

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Thanee

aboyd said:


> I guess I just really don't see the prohibition against making normal attacks into touch attacks.  It doesn't seem unbalanced on the face of it.  However, maybe someone can teach me about any nuances I'm missing?




It is _extremely_ potent (unlike _True Strike_, which is actually pretty crappy in most situations).

1) It's a swift action. (This is the key benefit of _Wraithstrike_, removing that alone will balance it... i.e. standard action and all attacks made before the end of your next turn are made as touch attacks)

2) It affects ALL of your attacks for one round, regardless of the number (and there are many ways to get a high number of attacks).

3) It stacks well with numerous other effects.

4) Many brute-type monsters have huge natural armour bonuses.

Bye
Thanee


----------



## billd91

Thanee said:


> It is _extremely_ potent (unlike _True Strike_, which is actually pretty crappy in most situations).
> 
> 1) It's a swift action. (This is the key benefit of _Wraithstrike_, removing that alone will balance it... i.e. standard action and all attacks made before the end of your next turn are made as touch attacks)
> 
> 2) It affects ALL of your attacks for one round, regardless of the number (and there are many ways to get a high number of attacks).
> 
> 3) It stacks well with numerous other effects.
> 
> 4) Many brute-type monsters have huge natural armour bonuses.
> 
> Bye
> Thanee




I'm thinking that leaving it swift but having it only apply to the first attack would be reasonably balancing as well.

I generally like some of these combat-based swift action spells because they're extremely easy to deal with. Boom the spell goes off, the rest of the round's actions occur, the spell goes off the books. But because they're so convenient and helpful, without costing a whole other standard action to put into effect, their results have to be tightly restricted.


----------



## aboyd

Thanee said:


> I don't know if that really works. Shouldn't you need to cast the spell BEFORE the damage takes someone over the threshold?



I think most people follow the Close Wounds model for how immediate actions work.  They're more like interrupt actions.  You can cast them when it's not your turn, and they work like readied actions in the sense that technically jump in before something, even though they really need that "something" to have happened in order for them to trigger.

Close Wounds is an immediate spell.  It says, "If you cast this spell immediately _after_ the subject takes damage, it effectively prevents the damage.  It would keep alive someone who had just dropped to -10 hit points."

Following that model for how immediate actions work, if you cast Delay Death immediately after the subject takes damage, it should effectively allow the unconscious character to sustain that damage.

Of course, nothing dictates that Close Wounds is the model everything else follows.  Perhaps it has explanatory text due to being an exception to the norm.  So a DM that ruled counter to what I've written would be well within his right to do so, and probably would be within RAW.  In fact, a DM on either side of this would probably be within RAW, as I don't think RAW ever clearly covers this nuance.

I'd love to be wrong though.  If someone knows of text that clears things up, I'd love to see it.


----------



## StreamOfTheSky

Runestar said:


> Heroics is a controversial one - I just don't like the idea of wizards getting fighter feats with a spell. Not least because it lets them access tome of battle maneuvers, and you can combine it with imbue summoning to give your summons context-specific feats such as mage slayer.




Not just the wizard, it can also be a buff for allies.  It's very powerful, but I don't think it's necessarily broken.  In my games I did make it Bard 2, because i can't understand why Bards shouldn't have a spell like this.  They can Inspire Heroics, but they can't cast it?  As for Mage Slayer...it does have requirements.  Maybe the spell doesn't say it clearly enough, but I rule the recipient needs to meet the feat's pre-requisites.
In one game, a player made a focus caster transmuter, who could then, via his class feature, give two people Heroics in a single casting.  That was kind of crazy.



Runestar said:


> Owl's insight - insight wis bonus of 1/2 caster lv, and divine casters already have no lack of ways to augment their caster lv...




What's the spell level and duration of this again?  I'm pretty sure there's a reason my current cleric doesn't bother to prepare this...  And I don't know that many ways to augment CL.  The biggest one that comes to mind is Divine Spell Power, which needs a feat and a very good turn undead mod to get the maximum +4.



Runestar said:


> Anyspell now available to everyone, even those who did not sleep with Mystra?




That doesn't make it broken. 



Runestar said:


> Hunter's mercy...fairly self explanatory.




Again, kinda think Rangers and the other "weak" classes should have awesome spells like this.  I don't think it's too much, but it is very powerful.
Unimportant side-story: My lightning-focused Evoker was in a duel once with a archer ranger.  I had taken a weak prestige class that fit him thematically, Stormcaster (lost CL = weak  ).  He tried to use hunter's mercy on me, and I spellcrafted it and used my 1/day immediate action wind wall to negate it.  Good times!



Runestar said:


> Ray of stupidity - more irritating than anything else, because now, the DM can't throw foes with int scores of 3 or lower at the party.




Yeah, this one should probably just be banned.  It can't really be nerfed as it already does so little ability damage.  It's basically just a "win button" against low int creatures, and not worth using (without being empowered, twinned, repeat cast, etc...) any other time.
In my current game, a PC has Dragonfire Adept and took a breath weapon that inflicts -6 str penalty to the victims.  There is a save, but it merely halves the duration, not the penalty.  Which means I can't use anything with 6 str or lower unless it's immune to the effect.  I really miss swarms. 



Runestar said:


> To be fair, SC did try to balance out a number of clearly problematic spells (such as fleshshiver and quill blast). But true to 3e, they ended up creating more issues than they resolved.




I disagree.  The book has a LOT of spells in it, and thus far, only about a dozen have been identified by at least two people in this thread as broken.



Runestar said:


> It is typically much easier to abuse wraithstrike than truestrike.
> 
> Wraithstrike is a swift-action spell and lasts for the whole round, meaning a gish could cast it and still make a full-attack. Alternatively, if the fighter could somehow access persistent wraithstrike (say via a ring of spell storing, or if your party has an incantatrix...).
> 
> Then the DM points out how dragons too benefit a great deal from said spell, and the players agree to swear off its use forever.




Agreed.  Wraithstrike is broken because it's so low level, a swift action, AND benefits all attacks that round, while True Strike and every other melee touch ability I know of is only for one attack.

Now, with all the debate over whether it's ever balanced to get a melee attack as a touch attack, I would like to point out two things.
1) Unless the target creature has 20+ natural armor / armor / etc... True Strike is giving a better bonus than any melee touch ability.
2) This SAME book also has a level 2 sorc/wiz spell called Scintillating Scales, which for min/level causes the caster's natural AC to count towards his touch AC!  And you know, dragons have a tendency to both have huge natural armor and sorcerer spellcasting...  Just saying.


----------



## NewJeffCT

Are there equivalents to Owl's Insight for Intelligence, Strength, Charisma, etc?  Seems odd there is only one spell to boost stats more than +4?


----------



## StreamOfTheSky

There is a 5th level cleric spell that gives a flat +10 enhancement (ie, no stacking) bonus to dexterity that lasts either rounds or minutes per level, personal range only.  Which would normally be a very poor spell for a cleric to bother with.  My current character is an armorless cleric//ninja gestalt, so I'm considering preparing it.

I don't know if there are any other large stat bonus spells in that book.


----------



## Runestar

> What's the spell level and duration of this again? I'm pretty sure there's a reason my current cleric doesn't bother to prepare this... And I don't know that many ways to augment CL. The biggest one that comes to mind is Divine Spell Power, which needs a feat and a very good turn undead mod to get the maximum +4.




Druid 5 (which explains why a cleric can't cast it), duration is a flat 1 hour. Ankh of ascension and prayer beads each gives +4 caster lv. The main upside is that it can be cast on other targets. 

Hmm...now that I think about it, I can't seem to come up with that many ways of boosting caster lv. I thought there would be more...



> Maybe the spell doesn't say it clearly enough, but I rule the recipient needs to meet the feat's pre-requisites.




A number of summoned monsters do in fact possess sufficient ranks in spellcraft to qualify for the mageslayer feat (offhand, at least the vrock, hezrou and djinni). Though you are right in that it is also a very useful buff for other PCs.



> In my current game, a PC has Dragonfire Adept and took a breath weapon that inflicts -6 str penalty to the victims.




Well, penalties can't reduce a stat below 1, which at least makes it somewhat less debiliating than stat damage.


----------



## StreamOfTheSky

Runestar said:


> Druid 5 (which explains why a cleric can't cast it.




I need to find the book instead of just going with what I remember, to avoid mistakes like that. 



Runestar said:


> Well, penalties can't reduce a stat below 1, which at least makes it somewhat less debiliating than stat damage.




Is that a rule somewhere?  I know ray of enfeeblement specifically stops at 1, but I didn't know there was a general rule.  The player in question is more often my DM, and is far more knowledgable on the draconic books than me, so I trusted him to know how it works.  If it did have a limit of reducing str to 1, that'd be a big help in expanding the number of monsters that can actually threaten the party.  I still use things he can leave paralyzed from time to time because I hate it when DMs completely target their encounters to negate PCs' abilities, but not as often as I'd like, and never in any sort of high EL encounter.


----------



## billd91

StreamOfTheSky said:


> Is that a rule somewhere?  I know ray of enfeeblement specifically stops at 1, but I didn't know there was a general rule.




If it's not a rule, it's a darn good house rule. Without it, you'd have characters running the risk of dying because of a temporary Con penalty (if there are any out there).


----------



## Elder-Basilisk

aboyd said:


> If a level 12 character can hit for 100 and only misses on a 1, that basically puts them even with level 9 wizards.  So what's the problem?
> 
> (OK, maybe a level 9 wizard cannot deal 100 HP of damage in a single shot, but that wizard can Cloudkill a dozen Gibbering Mouthers in a single spell, or Fireball them all for about 31 points of damage each.  Even if they all saved for half damage, the damage total for the round would be about 180 points of damage spread across the 12 Gibbering Mouthers.  A 12th level cleric could cast Harm and do 120 points of damage in one shot.  And all that stuff is core rules, not even using splatbooks.  So I'm not following how a 12th level paladin getting _really good odds_ to do 100 points is off-balance?)




Look at where the damage is going and what the damage is being done to. Cloudkill does its worst against weak creatures--creatures that would challenge the 9th level wizard generally just take some con damage which is dangerous but not usually a one-shot. Even those creatures that do have to save or die get a fortitude save which is usually between a 40-70% success rate. Likewise the fireball spreads out 31 damage to each of them with the risk that they make the save and take only 15 or so. 31 damage doesn't kill them outright. The same is true of harm. It can do 120 damage, but it gives the target a will save which is usually a 40-70% proposition and will not kill the target. All of the spells mentioned also have large groups of creatures who are immune or resistant to them.

The paladin's odds are much better and there are fewer creatures who will be immune or resistant. Moreover, it is focused damage and is thus tactically more valuable (and can be multiplied with cleave--and even great cleave)



> In addition, I looked up about 20 random monsters.  The difference between normal AC and touch AC was about 3 to 10 points, depending upon the creature.  So a spell that allows you to strike touch AC is essentially a bonus of +3 to +10 on average (technically, it's the mean, not the average).  So if that's too much of a bonus, then spells such as True Strike must be _extremely_ broken.  That spell gives a +20 to attack, it's only 1st level, and it's core!




True strike would be broken if it applied to your first attack each round for one round per level and were extendable with a lesser rod of extend spell. Since it only applies to one attack, however, and classes that get it don't get rhino's rush, it remains situationally useful rather than broken.

Also, looking up random monsters is not a good way to go about evaluating the value of making a melee attack into a touch attack. Low level monsters and high level monsters have relatively similar touch ACs. So, while your low level demon may only see a difference of 3 points, I seem to recall the difference was more like 20 points for an angel of decay. (It's even more if you have Improved Blink up and can ignore their dex bonus too--back in the halcyon days of LG, my not particularly optimized 16th level fighter/wizard took out a Cornugon in one round with a couple attacks to spare despite rolling at least one 2 on the attack simply by combining wraithstrike with the arcane spellchannel feat, and his improved blink contingency.) For giants, demons, devils, and dragons, the difference is massive. (And yes, there is scintillating scales, but there is also dispel magic--and it shouldn't be a requirement to survive guys with weapons).



> I guess I just really don't see the prohibition against making normal attacks into touch attacks.  It doesn't seem unbalanced on the face of it.  However, maybe someone can teach me about any nuances I'm missing?




A few of the nuances:
A. enhancement bonuses to weapons. A weapon touch attack has a better chance to hit than a normal touch attack since it typically applies an enhancement bonus between 1 and 5. (It is also more likely to hit than a normal touch attack since weapon attacks are usually based on a maximized stat whereas magical touch attacks are generally based on a non-maximized stat--most clerics and wizards will max Wis or Int rather than dex or str).
B. power attack. With an ordinary touch attack like harm, all you get out of a +25 attack bonus against a touch AC of 12 is a 95% hit rate. With a weapon touch attack, that turns into Power Attack for 12 and apply 48 extra damage to the attack with your rhino's rush charge and _still_ having a 95% hit rate.
C. Increments and thresholds. Damage is more valuable in higher increments. If your enemy has 60 hit points, going from 15 damage to 20 damage knocks one hit off the number needed to kill him. Going to 30 damage knocks that number down to 2. From there, going to 45 damage doesn't make that much difference, but if you can get up to 60 damage, you can one-shot him and cleave, you get dramatically more effective. That last 15 points of damage is what pushes the character over the edge. Rhino's rush+find the gap+power attack and wraithstrike+power attack both push the envelope high enough for characters to regularly get one-round kills. There may be ways to do 75% of the damage that those combos achieve, but those are much less reliable and much less problematic because they don't quite reach the heights that those combos reach.


----------



## Elder-Basilisk

Runestar said:


> I dunno - I kinda like mass aid and think it confers a fair benefit for its level. Reminds me of my ghaele PC who would go around aiding everyone prior to combat.




I agree with this. Mass aid is a good spell but is not IMO broken--the reason for this is mostly because Aid is not a good 2nd level spell. It would be average as a first level spell. The big difference with mass resist energy is that resist energy is one of the best 2nd level spells. That's why making mass aid at 3rd level works but mass resist energy is still probably too powerful even at 4th level.


----------



## Elder-Basilisk

Eldritch_Lord said:


> I would argue that "Tome of Battle characters do it too" is a perfectly fine defense.  It's not nearly as broken as most new to the book often think it is--unless they hold up core fighter and barbarian as the pinnacle of balance, in which case this thread is useless because _every_ non-core spell would be considered "broken."
> 
> If you want to talk about one-shotting enemies, the fighter and barbarian can get their damage up much higher than a Tome of Battle character; the Tome folks simply bring up the low end, so a new player doesn't build a melee character ranging from "sucks absolutely" to "rocks absolutely" but rather one ranging from "below par" to "very good."  Touch attacks for melee characters aren't a particular problem, it's touch attacks in general (c.f. _disintegrate_ and a sword swing), so if you're not banning every single touch spell there's no reason melee types shouldn't get some touch attacks as well.




Disintegrate is hardly comparable to giving a fighter, barbarian or paladin touch attacks. You see, disintegrate really does 5d6 damage for an average of 17.5; it's kind of a glorified magic missile that doesn't automatically hit and is primarily useful for eliminating force cages and walls of force. Sure, it has the potential to do 77 damage if the enemy fails its save, but that doesn't happen often and as a limited ability, it had better be good or it wouldn't be worth a scarce 6th level slot that could have been fires of purity or contingency.

For a fighter type, on the other hand, touch attacks are a license to power attack for full and hit with your last iterative attack on a roll of a 2. 80% chance of 17.5 damage and a 20% chance of 77 damage? Hah! Try a 95% chance of 60 damage four times per round. Then see what is still standing.


----------



## Elder-Basilisk

Invincible Overlord said:


> I believe that the spell you're thinking of is the Celerity Line of spells, out of PHB2.
> 
> As far as 3.5 Haste goes, it's much tamer than any 1st, 2nd, or 3.0 Ed D&D version (and easily managable).




Agreed. I was referring to 3.0 haste in 3.5 which is what you get with the belt of battle and the celerity spells.



> And the Belt of Battle is kinda broken, but it only has 3 charges (which means for most adventurers once-a-day greatness).




That once per day greatness is often too much--it results in too much front-loading and makes combat come down to initiative rolls far too frequently. More to the point, however, there is no limit to characters having only one belt of battle. It is perfectly possible for a character to have four or five and just change belts after every battle. Some DMs would not allow it, but I've seen it happen.


----------



## Elder-Basilisk

Thanee said:


> I don't know if that really works. Shouldn't you need to cast the spell BEFORE the damage takes someone over the threshold?
> 
> i.e. you have to cast it BEFORE the attack roll, since I don't think you can cast between the hit and the applied damage, at which point the target is already dead.
> 
> And with that in mind, I think the spells is not too bad.
> 
> Bye
> Thanee




I usually saw it cast after the attack roll but before damage was rolled. That said, even with your interpretation, it is still pretty easy to cast it just before the attack whenever a character is in the danger zone. Your interpretation preserves the risk of death from hp damage due to critical hits, but not much else.


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## Runestar

> Disintegrate is hardly comparable to giving a fighter, barbarian or paladin touch attacks.




Then I guess we will just have to up the ante to save-or-die spells, or spells which disable foes without saves. 

Wizard moves, casts quickened true-strike and fires an empowered orb spell. Cleric moves and casts destruction. Druid moves and casts finger of death. Fighter moves and .... swings for 2d6+15. 

I guess the problem here is more of the fighter's reliance on the full-attack action. He is capable of dishing out astonishing amounts of damage (and unlike a caster, can do so without needing to expend any resources), only problem is that he needs a full round to do so (which sorely hampers his mobility). The discrepancy in damage between a full attack and a single attack is just too great. 

Is it any surprise that the (optimal) tactics of many high level monsters such as the balor, pit fiend, titan, molydeus, planetar and solar all involve spamming high lv SLAs while remaining on the move to deny the fighter classes their full attack, rather than bothering to actually wade into melee? Or at least, they would do so only after their spells have sufficiently softened the opposition. 



> It is perfectly possible for a character to have four or five and just change belts after every battle. Some DMs would not allow it, but I've seen it happen.




Considering that the belt of battle will likely also house an enhancement strength bonus (using MIC's revised pricing guidelines to combine belt of battle with belt of str and con), I doubt it...


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## Eldritch_Lord

Elder-Basilisk said:


> Disintegrate is hardly comparable to giving a fighter, barbarian or paladin touch attacks. You see, disintegrate really does 5d6 damage for an average of 17.5; it's kind of a glorified magic missile that doesn't automatically hit and is primarily useful for eliminating force cages and walls of force.




Well, let me just say that if your foes are saving against your _disintegrate_ often enough that you consider it only worth 5d6 damage, you're probably doing it wrong. 

But as Runestar says, the same applies to any save-or-die.  Yes, the melee types can dish out a lot of damage...if they get off a full attack, which means they need to hit, which means they need to get to the monster, which means they need to _survive_ long enough to get to the monster, which isn't at all a guarantee.  Tome of Battle removes the "must full attack" part, but their damage isn't nearly as high either, so it works out about even.

Meanwhile, the wizard is throwing out save-or-dies left and right (and again, if you're focusing on save-or-suck spells and your enemies are making the saves regularly, you're not trying hard enough).  Tons of damage under certain conditions, versus "I get a standard action, I win"?  Let the melee types have their touch attacks.


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## Thanee

aboyd said:


> Close Wounds is an immediate spell.  It says, "If you cast this spell immediately _after_ the subject takes damage, it effectively prevents the damage.  It would keep alive someone who had just dropped to -10 hit points."




And that is exactly it... *it* says so. _Delay Death_ does not.



> Following that model for how immediate actions work, ...




There is no model here, just a specific spell, that _specifically_ allows to be cast _after_ an effect has occured, in order to negate it. You cannot simply translate that to any other spell. Immediate Actions do not normally allow such things.


@Elder-Basilisk: Yeah, still a very potent protection for sure, but you will use up a lot more slots then, if you always have to cast it before an attack is resolved (interrupting the attack, thus happening before the attack roll). That's quite a difference to me.

Bye
Thanee


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## Elder-Basilisk

Runestar said:


> Then I guess we will just have to up the ante to save-or-die spells, or spells which disable foes without saves.
> 
> Wizard moves, casts quickened true-strike and fires an empowered orb spell. Cleric moves and casts destruction. Druid moves and casts finger of death. Fighter moves and .... swings for 2d6+15.




Wizard's damage: about 76.
Cleric's damage: about 35 (monsters failing fort saves--pull the other one)
Druid's damage: about 26 (monsters failing fort saves--pull the other one)
Fighter's damage: 22 by your calculations.

But that fighter is not doing his job right. At level 16 or so (which is where the spell options you mention are not the absolute best thing in the characters arsenals) the fighter should be at about 25 strength (16 start, +3 level, +6 belt) with greater weapon specialization and melee mastery and a +1 holy, wounding greatsword made from starmetal. At that point, if he is attacking a high AC target where he dare not power attack, he's dealing 2d6+19 (12 str, +6 feat, +1 enhancement) +2d6 holy +1 point of con for an average of 31 points of damage and one point of con. If the cleric gave him a greater magic weapon spell, that's 2d6+22 +2d6 +1 con for an average of 36 damage and 1 con. If he power attacks for five (which he probably can without much trouble), that's an average of 46 damage and 1 con--which puts him pretty close to the wizard in effective damage inflicted.

Now, sure the monster probably have a 5-30% chance of failing those fort saves and dying outright.

But the wizard could also have dropped a quickened dimension step spell to put the fighter in range for a full attack, at which point said fighter clicks his boots of speed, and unloads five attacks for a probably damage around 180 and 5 points of con or more if he power attacked.

Now, give the fighter an "all your attacks are touch attacks" ability and he power attacks for 16 and still hits all five attacks for a total of 340 damage and 5 points of con. Are you seeing the broken yet?



> I guess the problem here is more of the fighter's reliance on the full-attack action. He is capable of dishing out astonishing amounts of damage (and unlike a caster, can do so without needing to expend any resources), only problem is that he needs a full round to do so (which sorely hampers his mobility). The discrepancy in damage between a full attack and a single attack is just too great.
> 
> Is it any surprise that the (optimal) tactics of many high level monsters such as the balor, pit fiend, titan, molydeus, planetar and solar all involve spamming high lv SLAs while remaining on the move to deny the fighter classes their full attack, rather than bothering to actually wade into melee? Or at least, they would do so only after their spells have sufficiently softened the opposition.




Depends on the high level monster in question. When I played Age of Worms, our fighters were the ones trying to stay out of range of Dragotha's full attacks. (Of course, I was playing a fighter/scout with the PHB 2 improved spring attack line of feats so, in general there wasn't much difference between my full attack and my move+attack).



> Considering that the belt of battle will likely also house an enhancement strength bonus (using MIC's revised pricing guidelines to combine belt of battle with belt of str and con), I doubt it...




Who do you think uses belts of battle? It's not for fighters; it's for wizards and clerics. Flame strike+Belt of battle+Flame strike. Prismatic wall+Belt of battle+Telekinesis.

Now, if you use the MIC's revised pricing guidelines, the fighters will probably have belts of battle too, but they'll either use them for extra move actions so that they can full attack in round 1 or blow them all at once for two full attacks in round 2.

Either way: belt of battle=broken. There's no call to bring 3.0 haste into 3.5.


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## Elder-Basilisk

Thanee said:


> @Elder-Basilisk: Yeah, still a very potent protection for sure, but you will use up a lot more slots then, if you always have to cast it before an attack is resolved (interrupting the attack, thus happening before the attack roll). That's quite a difference to me.




Quite a difference, but 4th level slots are cheap by level 12 or so and characters don't take attacks when they are in danger of dying that often. So you only need a couple prepared and you can use pearls of power to refresh them for later fights.

A small price to pay to completely remove the possibility of death by hp damage.


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## Flatus Maximus

Elder-Basilisk said:


> Also, in my list of spells that absolutely need to be banned, I realized that I forgot one important series of spells: any spell that gives you extra standard actions needs to be banned. As I recall, there is a series of spells that lets you steal the move, standard, etc action from your next turn. They should all be banned (along with the MIC belt of battle). 3.0 Haste does not need to return to the game. It was bad in 3.0 and continued to be bad in 3.5.




You said it yourself -- you don't get an extra action with the _celerity_ spells, you steal it from your next turn.  So what's the big deal?  (I understand that if the _dazed_ penalty is removed somehow, then there is a serious problem, but otherwise they seem like emergency-only spells.)


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## StreamOfTheSky

You could always ammend the belt of battle's usages to be move action, standard attack action, or full attack action.  In any case, it takes a swift action to use, which I could be using to cast another spell anyway, so I never found belt of battle terribly worthwhile for any of my casters.  I mostly like it for Tome of Battle characters, actually.  My friends like ot come up with a character's "limit break" -- the way they could nova most gloriously.  One of my character's concept (never reached high enough level) used the belt, a master (? the one that allows up to 9th level maneuvers) Diamond Mind Ring, and the Storm Guard Warrior tactical feat.

[sblock]Set-up: Full attack as touch attacks for no damage, as per the combat rhythm tactic, each touch granting you +5 damage on next round's attacks on that target...  Use Sudden Leap or Quicksilver Motion ot close to melee first, though I prefer waiting for an enemy to come to me.
Execution: Use Time Stands Still for two full attack actions, all getting that +x damage.  Then, use belt of Battle (swift action) for another full round action.  The DM ring allows you a second use of TST without recovering maneuvers.  Take ANOTHER pair of full attack actions, also with +x to damage...
If you REALLY wanted to focus on this kind of 1/day nova, you could ready Avalanche of Blades for the prep round of touch attacks, but I consider that a waste just for one trick, cause otherwise it's an awful maneuver.[/sblock]

EDIT: Actually, I had a pouncing, charge-based (Leap Attack, Storm Trooper, etc...) Barbarian/Rogue once who could also have used the Belt of Battle to AT LEAST as disgusting effect as any spellcaster.


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## Ifni

My picks:
-Bite of the Werebeast line - +16 Str and free feats in addition to the natural strength of wildshaped druids / animal companions? Uhuh.
-Ray of Stupidity - it's not just the Int-3 foes who have to worry about this. Ability damage stacks. Think about Split Ray Empowered Rays of Stupidity. Average 10 Int damage will take down a _lot_ of creatures - and the ones with higher Int often NEED that Int, an NPC wizard who's just lost 10 Int is probably quite sad.
-(Greater) Consumptive Field - I don't understand why anyone thought a spell that let you get +unlimited Str for killing sufficient bunnies was a good idea... admittedly it's a lot worse Persisted, but even the rounds/level version is pretty exploitable.
-Wraithstrike - enough has been said.
-Mass Resist Energy - a few levels higher and it would probably be fine.
-Imbue Familiar With Spell Ability - maybe. It's dangerous in that it effectively grants extra actions to the PC. It's probably less worrisome if you allow a lot of the good alternate class features that trade in your familiar.

I don't have a major problem with the Orb spells, although I also would have no problem with a houserule moving them to Evocation. They're mostly just mediocre single-target damage with a minor rider effect - backup options for the (hopefully rare) case where your caster doesn't have anything better to do. (To justify "mediocre damage" - I'm comparing to "the damage I would get by using that action and spell-slot to D-Door the big tank fighter next to her target for a full attack".) 

I don't think Delay Death is broken so long as you actually enforce immediate action rules - can't be used when flat-footed, only once per round, and they eat your swift action for the next round. I also take the interpretation that you have to cast it before the attack is resolved - Close Wounds is an explicit exception to the usual immediate-action rules. Having played a cleric with it for several levels, I'd also note that there are a lot of other really good L4 cleric spells to compete with it.

Now, if you use the Destiny domain from Races of Destiny, but the version of Delay Death from SpC, then it's a L3 domain spell - and therefore can be chained with a lesser metamagic rod of chaining (which is pretty cheap in the MIC). THAT can be broken, because the party chips in for the cleric to buy L3 pearls of power, and then every fight begins with "I cast chained Delay Death on the entire party as soon as I'm not flatfooted". That's a combo issue, though.

Brambles... meh. It's rounds/level and you have to be wielding a wooden weapon, possibly a wooden bludgeoning weapon depending on how you interpret "striking surfaces". 

Rhino's Rush can be used to great effect, but if you're going to ban that one, be fair and ban Lion's Charge as well. Don't give the druids all the charging fun at the expense of the poor paladins 

In the somewhat related category of "spells that make your players hate you", I would list Ray Deflection and Ironguard, with an honorable mention to Scintillating Scales (I've fought a dragon with this, and we'd already used up all our dispels - not pretty). Ray Deflection and Ironguard do a pretty good job of shutting down whole classes of attacks that people may have specialized in. Fleshshiver is also a lot scarier on NPCs than on PCs - NPCs tend to have access to more ways to boost CL (especially if the CL is based on HD for some reason).

Re belt of battle: my sorcerer loved hers. That said, she took it off a pouncemonster barbarian ("I shocktrooper-charge-pounce, full power attacking with no penalty to hit! Then I use my belt of battle and full attack you again - still full power attacking with no penalty to hit!"), so I think she earned it  Being able to effectively quicken a top-level spell can be extremely useful.

EDIT: Re Celerity - part of the problem is combos with the Arcane Fusion line from Complete Mage. Another part is the ability to get daze immunity (e.g. from Favor of the Martyr - although given that makes you immune to "effects that would cause you to be dazed", you could argue that it makes you immune to the WHOLE effect of Celerity, including the good bits). But even used just as written... being able to take standard actions as immediates is powerful. After my first game with Celerity on my sorcerer I thought of a bunch of ways I could have used it (but didn't think of at the time, due to being sick and sleep-deprived) - for example, if I'd used Celerity to cast Spiritwall or Wall of Force when the Balor exploded, we would've needed a lot less healing. Another application is being able to interrupt enemy spellcasting without having to ready an action (cast Celerity when they start casting, toss a damage spell or a Silence in their direction, or something that blocks their line of effect). It's also very good for first-round novas - I've been on the receiving end of swift-action spell + Chained Greater Dispel (to shut down visible magic items and dispel all buffs below CL 26, in that case) + Celerity + Sudden Extended Timestop, and that was painful - there were over 100 levels of spells on the battlefield by the time anyone in my L14 party got to act.


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## Flatus Maximus

Trade a move/standard/full action now for completely giving up your next turn?  Was your sorcerer really doing this _regularly_?  I'm curious because I, personally, would be extremely nervous having my sorcerer "take five" every other round.  I remain unconvinced that this spell is broken as written.  (Not that anyone needs to convince me....)


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## Runestar

I would argue that belt of battle is more useful to a fighter than a caster. With 3 charges, a fighter can use it to get 3 extra move actions, allowing him to move+full attack thrice a day. Conversely, a caster can only get 1 extra standard action out of it, and he doesn't really have much use for extra move actions. 

My casters rarely ever used celerity to fuel novas, to be honest. It was more of a "get out of a crappy situation" card, a last ditch effort to cast some key spell in response to the opponent's attempt to screw around with the party (like yeah, that example of casting wall of force in response to the balor exploding to contain the fallout from his death throes). Only the standard action version saw use though, the move and full-round version remained unused.


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## Elder-Basilisk

Flatus Maximus said:


> You said it yourself -- you don't get an extra action with the _celerity_ spells, you steal it from your next turn.  So what's the big deal?  (I understand that if the _dazed_ penalty is removed somehow, then there is a serious problem, but otherwise they seem like emergency-only spells.)




Acquire daze immunity and it's flat-out broken but the essential issue is that actions now are more useful than actions in the future--and if the encounter is over this round, then it doesn't matter if you are dazed next round. Anything that enables a front-end nova in the manner discussed before where the party eats 100 levels of spells before initiative 45 comes around is broken.

As for some of the other spells that have been mentioned, I agree with most of them. Lion's pounce belongs with rhino's rush on the list of "don't go there" spells. Imbue familiar with spell ability also belongs on the list.

One note with the orb spells: the rider effects are not necessarily minor. Orb of fire dazes the target for the next round. That's pretty darn good. I believe orb of electricity blinds the target for the next round. Not as good but still quite worthwhile.

Now, you don't cast them for the riders, but the riders do make them noticeably better spells unless you are up against foes with mettle.


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## StreamOfTheSky

Elder-Basilisk said:


> Now, you don't cast them for the riders, but the riders do make them noticeably better spells unless you are up against foes with mettle.




In which case, you curse the fact that it has a rider as the Hexblade or whatever completely ignores the entire spell effect.   I've seen that happen on several occasions, too.

As for Celerity...I was considering banning them, but for now they remain in my games.  Ultimately, those line of spells are gambles.  Gambles that combat WILL end this round.  I personally don't like to take chances like that, but I'm sure others do.  As for when I DM, I very much enjoy throwing NPCs at the party in waves, or linking together two separate combats that spills into one big brawl due to how the first fight goes down, drawing in the intended fight #2's combatants.  It does many good things for the game, IMO.  For one, it's dynamic and "different." It also makes it easier to find that thin little line between a barely alive party and a TPK.  If the NPCs don't all attack at once, I can somewhat control the lethality while having the second, third, etc... wave come in quickly enough to stop them from just healing back to full with wands.  Granted, involved combats like that can't happen all the time, but I try to have them as much as possible.

I bring that up because I think a happy little side consequence of that is the mind-set it puts the players in, greatly curbing their willingness to use spells like Celerity.  My players know by now that I like to do that sort of thing.  They know they can't always be sure that a combat is actually going to end.  So to try and use Celerity truly is a gamble in any game I run, since anything short of a gained full round action ends up being a net loss for actions if combat continues on the next round.


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## Runestar

How might one acquire daze immunity anyways? Barring one spell which is forgotten realms specific (and unique only to those who worship Ilmater), and an eberron dragonmark trait (something along that line), I can't recall any other ways of becoming immune to daze.

Even undead and constructs are not exempt (with caveats).


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## Flatus Maximus

Runestar said:


> How might one acquire daze immunity anyways? Barring one spell which is forgotten realms specific (and unique only to those who worship Ilmater), and an eberron dragonmark trait (something along that line), I can't recall any other ways of becoming immune to daze.
> 
> Even undead and constructs are not exempt (with caveats).




I think this is right: Quick Recovery (Lords of Madness); in the case of the _celerity_ spells you can shake it off with a DC = 10 + (your CL or HD)/2 + (your caster stat) Will save.


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## Flatus Maximus

Elder-Basilisk said:


> Anything that enables a front-end nova in the manner discussed before where the party eats 100 levels of spells before initiative 45 comes around is broken.




I don't see how your example works.  Once you've cast any of the _celerity_ spells, you're done casting swift/immediate spells until the end of your next turn.  (Note to OP: Hopefully this tangent is relevant to the original topic; if not, I can move this discussion elsewhere.)


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## StreamOfTheSky

Well, Celerity spells aren't in Spell Compendium, so it really isn't relevant.  But yeah, I think a DM should rule that you must be dazed afterwards for celerity to work, because otherwise it IS absolutely broken.


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## akbearfoot

Wraithstrike...nobody in any of my gaming groups has ever even asked the DM if they could find/learn it.  Mutual non-nuclear proliferation pact I think.  Kinda like how nobody has ever taken Black tentacles and the DM never used it again after a module where 1 casting of it almost caused a TPK for 6 characters.

What classes even have access to it?  The example I saw above someone said they were an unoptomized 16th level wizard/fighter.  But then they mentioned having feats from several splatbooks, MiC items and SpC spells.So  I'm curious if those wiz/fght levels were actually PrC levels? Racial substitutions, class substitutions etc...any of which can greatly skew an objective comparison.

An actual 16th level fighter/wizard is a -really- bad class combination.  Half the HP of a fighter, with half the BaB and half the caster level...Unless possibly it was optimized with only enough caster levels to get access to wraithstrike.  Then use a 2H wounding weapon with power attack and a bag full of pearls of power.  A Twilight Mithril BP with the shield spell and all the other basic protections gives a competative AC while letting you cast your spells.  Pretty much the definition of optimized though.

I sorta assume that no DM in his right mind would allow a PC to say....create a Use Activated item of wraithstrike.

The melee example above was similar, with the expectation that the melee is running around with the +1 weapon full of enhancment bonuses with a greater magic weapon on all the time.  With the assumption that he has the MWM line of feats and a BaB thats high enough to PA for full and still hit on a 2.  My assumption is that anyone who is optimized to this degree is always the first one to get hit by the Empowered Ray of Enfeeblment, or the Confusion.  Or he gets hit by a Ray of Stupidity or Ego Whip and goes comatose because his charisma is most likely a 6!


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## Ifni

So... Celerity is not in the SpC, so kind of irrelevant to the thread, but I wanted to answer some questions people asked about my last post. See spoiler text.

akbearfoot: heh, my dervish didn't learn about empowered rays of enfeeblement until around L12, but after that he always carried potions of lesser restoration - worth every penny. He wasn't using belts of battle, because he needed the Str boost more (and we weren't using the MIC rules for combining them), but he could dance in, full attack and dance out without need for items, and was regularly doing 200+ damage/round starting at L11 (in one round at L15 he cracked 1000 damage, but that was an exceptional situation). He didn't actually get targeted that often, because the melee enemies couldn't full attack him, and if the opponents were mostly casters, they usually didn't realize how dangerous he was until after they were dead (or they wasted rounds trying to stop him with effects he was immune to). There were painful exceptions, though.

If you want to restrict belts of battle while allowing their use to help fighters get full attacks, maybe just houserule them to only the move-action option? Meleers really need a way to get full attacks (if they're not spirited charger types), to keep up with the rest of the party. It's never been a very big deal for me, but my meleers are a dervish and a pouncer, and in my recent high-level tables the consensus has been that if the meleers aren't getting to full attack every round, the casters aren't doing their jobs - so I tend to just assume meleers get full attacks, in balance discussions. If that's not the situation, I can see how meleers would feel weak.

Re wraithstrike: before it was banned in Living Greyhawk, people were talking about fighters taking three levels of wizard ONLY to get Wraithstrike. It also has the effect of making spellsword or arcane trickster builds _much_ stronger, and melee wizards (perhaps using a skilful weapon or Arcane Disciple: Divine Power to improve their BAB) can also become very dangerous. I have a problem with anything that gives fighters who dabble in magic, or full-caster wizards wielding swords, an immense advantage in melee damage over non-magical meleers. Also, it makes dragons just horrendously scary.

I agree the riders on the orb spells can be nice. My shadowcraft mage has actually started using shadow-conjured orb of fire now and then, because the rider is so pretty and her save DCs are quite high (and the party she's been playing in is very weak on direct damage). I still don't think the rider+damage makes them dangerously overpowered for L4 spells, though.




[sblock]My sorc only had Celerity for one game - she picked it up for her big finale, because I was absolutely certain it was going to get used against us (final two-round Living Greyhawk Core Special, with strong hints that we'd be facing the Greater Boneheart), and I wanted to have the option to use it myself  So yeah... I was actively abusing it, in that game, with Greater Arcane Fusion loops* and a cohort who could use Healing Lorecall to remove the daze (although I note I only resorted to the Greater Arcane Fusion silliness after the GM did it first). But after the game, I noticed just how many instances there had been where if I'd thought fast enough, I could've used Celerity WITHOUT the exploits and saved some resources (three exploding-enemy situations, another case where I used a one-time-only immediate-action Wish-like power to get an AMF when Celerity + AMF would've worked just as well, reactive counterspelling-with-damage against a certain nasty monster's spell-likes, readying an action and wasting that turn when I could have done what I wanted with Celerity...)

I suspect that even without the ability to remove/negate the daze, and without silly Greater Arcane Fusion nested actions, it's still a bit too low-level at 4th. Not sure if it's _broken_ if you remove the abusive combos, but it's very, very good. 

StreamOfTheSky: using waves of enemies would help in some cases, but even so, if you weren't planning to use that move action next round, it's not like you've lost much. That said, giving up the ability to use immediate-action defences can be pretty important.

Btw, this only applies to the standard action version. I don't have a problem with the move- and full-round action versions.



Runestar said:


> How might one acquire daze immunity anyways? Barring one spell which is forgotten realms specific (and unique only to those who worship Ilmater), and an eberron dragonmark trait (something along that line), I can't recall any other ways of becoming immune to daze.
> 
> Even undead and constructs are not exempt (with caveats).




Favor of the Martyr in SpC might do it, although I'd be tempted to rule that "immune to any effect that will cause you to be dazed" = "immune to the entire effect of Celerity". Quick Recovery does it at the cost of a move action. Having someone cast Panacea or a Healing-Lorecall-boosted healing spell on you after the fact works as well - in the latter case, a low-level immediate-action spell like Close Wounds is good.

Flatus: in the example I was thinking of (and I suspect ElderBasilisk may have fought something similar), the sequence went like,
L19 enemy wizard (on init 49 - he had a succubus marshal on his team ):
-Swift action: activate Dispelling Cord (MIC)
-Standard action: chained Greater Dispel on PCs and their visible items. Dispel check is at +26 (+20 CL, +2 Dispelling Cord, +2 due to Spellcaster's Bane prebuff, +2 Elven Spell Lore feat). Takes 10 with Arcane Mastery, autodispels everything CL 25 and lower.
End turn.
-Immediate action: Celerity.
-Standard action: Sudden Extended Time Stop. Rolls max on duration. (This ALWAYS happens to me. I have never had a DM roll LESS than max on a bad guy's timestop duration.)
-Next 10 rounds: (dazed), Wall of Force (blocking escape route), Evard's Black Tentacles, Cloudkill, Freezing Fog, Maw of Chaos, Extended Lingering Flames, Cold-Substituted Extended Lingering Flames, Acid-Substituted Extended Lingering Flames, Electric-Substituted Extended Lingering Flames... and a bunch of others I don't remember. The lower-level spells were quickened. I did count up the spell levels at the time and there were over 100 on the battlefield by the time the timestop ended. The dispel had taken down our freedom of movement, heroes' feast and save buffs and shut off our resistance items.

Now, Celerity is not the only issue here  You could get nearly the same effect by using the standard action to greater dispel and the swift to activate a Belt of Battle and cast the Sudden Extended Timestop. Celerity specifically became more of an issue a round later, when one of us cast AMF and moved toward him, and he decided to teleport out as an immediate action rather than stay to be captured.

(The fight was more or less a tie - he got out with his succubus girlfriend, his familiar and a PC's body, we killed his other three lackeys and lost a PC and an animal companion. Given we were a L14 party and the fight was EL22, that's not bad, but still... ow, ow, ow.)

The final fight in the mod where my sorc had Celerity was very similar except there were three wizards, two epic, and they only had one melee lackey rather than four. The party was also L16, not L14. It went MUCH better. The top of the initiative order was a bad guy at init 70, who opened with pretty much exactly the same combo but with more L9 spells, but because we had Foresight active (from scrolls) and immediate-action defences such as Celerity, we were able to interrupt the nova. The fact that we had two PCs with inits in the 60s, so they didn't ALL get to go before us, also helped.

*For clarity, by "Greater Arcane Fusion loops" I mean:
-Cast Celerity, grants a standard action, and you will be dazed when that action ends
-Use that standard action to cast Greater Arcane Fusion, which you use to cast a L7 or lower spell of your choice, and Celerity, granting an extra standard action (still inside the first standard action)
-Repeat until you run out of Greater Arcane Fusions or decide to stop.
This is a way to pump out lots and lots of spells as a one-round nova, with very little your opponents can do to stop it - you're dazed at the end of it but that doesn't matter if they're dead. It's a bit like Timestop except you don't need L9 spells and you don't need to restrict yourself to lasting effects. I consider it an abuse of the rules and unquestionably broken, and I have pretty liberal standards for powergaming 
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## Elder-Basilisk

akbearfoot said:


> Wraithstrike...nobody in any of my gaming groups has ever even asked the DM if they could find/learn it.  Mutual non-nuclear proliferation pact I think.  Kinda like how nobody has ever taken Black tentacles and the DM never used it again after a module where 1 casting of it almost caused a TPK for 6 characters.
> 
> What classes even have access to it?  The example I saw above someone said they were an unoptomized 16th level wizard/fighter.  But then they mentioned having feats from several splatbooks, MiC items and SpC spells.So  I'm curious if those wiz/fght levels were actually PrC levels? Racial substitutions, class substitutions etc...any of which can greatly skew an objective comparison.
> 
> An actual 16th level fighter/wizard is a -really- bad class combination.  Half the HP of a fighter, with half the BaB and half the caster level...Unless possibly it was optimized with only enough caster levels to get access to wraithstrike.  Then use a 2H wounding weapon with power attack and a bag full of pearls of power.  A Twilight Mithril BP with the shield spell and all the other basic protections gives a competative AC while letting you cast your spells.  Pretty much the definition of optimized though.
> 
> I sorta assume that no DM in his right mind would allow a PC to say....create a Use Activated item of wraithstrike.
> 
> The melee example above was similar, with the expectation that the melee is running around with the +1 weapon full of enhancment bonuses with a greater magic weapon on all the time.  With the assumption that he has the MWM line of feats and a BaB thats high enough to PA for full and still hit on a 2.  My assumption is that anyone who is optimized to this degree is always the first one to get hit by the Empowered Ray of Enfeeblment, or the Confusion.  Or he gets hit by a Ray of Stupidity or Ego Whip and goes comatose because his charisma is most likely a 6!




Dealing with the last item first: 
The melee example is actually pretty typical for parties that work together. All the melee character needs to do is have a cleric or wizard in his party who is willing to prep greater magic weapon and cast it on his greatsword. (Bonus points for using a metamagic rod of chain spell or the chain spell feat to hit every weapon in the party at once or for casting extended greater magic weapons at the end of every day so that you still have your full complement of spells for the next day). It's actually better with a cleric or favored soul because they can use the bead of karma from a strand of prayer beads to boost their caster level by four for the whole suite of standard buffs (greater magic weapon, magic vestment, energy immunity, and potentially conviction) which makes them one point better than the example I posted above.

As for the melee type, I posted, it is not necessarily optimized and is entirely possible with a vanilla fighter 16. With a 16 starting strength, there's plenty of room for whatever stats you think you need to be a real roleplayer and the four levels of fighter beyond lvl 12 (needed for greater weapon specialization) are plenty of room to add things like barbarian (rage makes the example better) and hexblade or pious templar (defensive boosts). You can make the character much more effective than the numbers I posted would indicate. Ray of stupidity is on the banned list for reasons explored by others in this post, and confusion is only more of an issue for him than for anyone else if his will save is poor but ray of enfeeblement is an option (as are potions of lesser restoration).

WRT power attack, the full power attack "hits on a 2" number is there to illustrate why wraithstrike anything that turns attacks into touch attacks is a bad idea. The guy does plenty of damage already and turning it into "hits on a 2 with full PA" cracks the game in half.

As to how the character gets wraithstrike, it might require a few sacrifices--two levels of wizard and a few levels of the heinously broken abjurant champion prestige class. It could also be done with a greater ring of spell storing, a lesser ring of spell storing, and casting a contingent wraithstrike into it. But really, the kind of characters who can get wraithstrike in their own right are not far behind the fullBAB melee with that combo.

As for the fighter wizard from my previous post, I believe that, at the time, he was human Fighter 1/Wizard 6/Spellsword 2/Eldritch Knight 7. Starting str 14, dex 14, con 14, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 10. (Advanced Int at all opportunities; I believe he had a +4 belt of giant strength and +6 headband of intellect, a +1 holy wounding adamantine guisarme, and +1 moderate fortification mithral chain shirt). The relevant combo was greater blink activated by contingency (no action), arcane strike a 7th level spell (greater scrying IIRC--sacrificed as a free action), activate boots of speed (free action), set power attack to full, cast wraithstrike (swift action) take the free attack from the 3.0 version of expert tactician (free action), full attack. No MIC items on that character though--he predated the MIC book.

I didn't say "unoptimized," but rather "not particularly optimized." He was nothing horrible like the even split fighter/wizard you were wondering about, but he was nothing like as powerful as he might have been with access to twilight armor (which would remove the need for spellsword levels), or the knight phantom (who needs wraithstrike as a spell--you get it as a class feature) or abjurant champion prestige classes. He was also not as effective as he might have been had I sacrificed his lower ability scores a bit more (though I think the 10 charisma saved his life from some kind of charisma draining shadow in a Nyrond interactive at one point. 2 Charisma is alive (and able to rudely ask the cleric for a restoration spell). 0 charisma would have been dead). And I'm sure there is a cheesy feat or two buried somewhere in the FRCS that would enable him to qualify for eldritch knight (or abjurant champion) without the fighter levels. So maybe, "not on the bleeding edge of optimized character construction" would have been a better way to put it.


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## Runestar

> And I'm sure there is a cheesy feat or two buried somewhere in the FRCS that would enable him to qualify for eldritch knight (or abjurant champion) without the fighter levels.




2 actually, both of which are in PGTF. Militia gives you proficiency with all martial weapons, while otherworldly makes you a native outsider (and the MM states that outsiders are automatically proficient with all martial weapons).

But you seem to have made your point. 



> The relevant combo was greater blink activated by contingency (no action), arcane strike a 7th level spell (greater scrying IIRC--sacrificed as a free action), activate boots of speed (free action), set power attack to full, cast wraithstrike (swift action) take the free attack from the 3.0 version of expert tactician (free action), full attack.




My memory of 3.0 is quite fuzzy, but I seem to recall that expert tactician did not give you any extra attacks - the enemy in question simply does not see what you did for the rest of the turn. But it still seems like a fairly potent attack sequence nonetheless. 

Sure would like to know what the designers were smoking when they conceptualized it...


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## pawsplay

Moonbolt: Another one of those excessive ability damage effects. 

Energy Immunity: I don't mind the basic concept, but it seems low level when compared to Protection From Energy it turns a duration of a few hours into 24hours, and amps up 12 points/level to complete immunity. 

Ebon Eyes: There's nothing too remarkable about seeing in magical darkness, except that they took that ability away from all but the most powerful fiends in 3.5. When you're the only kid on the block who can see in _deeper darkness_, things get ugly.


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## Thanee

pawsplay said:


> Ebon Eyes: There's nothing too remarkable about seeing in magical darkness, except that they took that ability away from all but the most powerful fiends in 3.5. When you're the only kid on the block who can see in _deeper darkness_, things get ugly.




_Anyone_ (well, except blind creatures) can see in _Deeper Darkness_, as it only creates shadowy illumination.

_Blacklight_ on the other hand...

BTW, _Deeper Darkvision_ also allows to see through magical darkness. And _Blindsight_.

Bye
Thanee


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## akbearfoot

From my perspective that's pretty darn optimized.  In our Age of Wyrms campaign each character is only allowed to use Core + Ebberon CS + a single other sourcebook of our choice.  We have neither a mage nor a priest, and 3 of our players prefer to do whatever they feel like tactics be damned.  Like skipping a 5 attack flurry of blows and abandoning a flanked monster with a rogue on the other side whos next on initiative...just to get the killing blow on a wimpy minion across the battlemap whos already got 3 others fighting it.


A 1 level dip, 2 prestige classes, high level contingent spells, optimized weapon enchantments.  All neatly centered around feats spells and magic items that abuse the action economy.   Pretty much a pre-dated RKV 

I totally agree that 3.5 wraithstrike is broken for gish with broken 3.0 feats that ignore dex/dodge bonuses automatically in combat.


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## Elder-Basilisk

akbearfoot said:


> From my perspective that's pretty darn optimized.  In our Age of Wyrms campaign each character is only allowed to use Core + Ebberon CS + a single other sourcebook of our choice.  We have neither a mage nor a priest, and 3 of our players prefer to do whatever they feel like tactics be damned.  Like skipping a 5 attack flurry of blows and abandoning a flanked monster with a rogue on the other side whos next on initiative...just to get the killing blow on a wimpy minion across the battlemap whos already got 3 others fighting it.
> 
> 
> A 1 level dip, 2 prestige classes, high level contingent spells, optimized weapon enchantments.  All neatly centered around feats spells and magic items that abuse the action economy.   Pretty much a pre-dated RKV
> 
> I totally agree that 3.5 wraithstrike is broken for gish with broken 3.0 feats that ignore dex/dodge bonuses automatically in combat.




Hardly just a one level dip. Fighter/wizard is what the character is. (And the truly optimized character wouldn't have bothered with any levels of fighter, so it's not as though pure-classing is somehow less optimized). It just happens that taking only one level of fighter is the best way to do it in 3.x. Curiously, if you do it that way, you end up with most of the same tradeoffs as you had in earlier editions. You hit slightly less often. Your spells aren't quite as good. And you have to be really careful about how much armor you wear.

And expert tactician never denied people their dex. In 3.0, it let characters take an extra attack against any foe who was denied their dex bonus. In 3.5 it was rewritten to give your allies a bonus if you hit with an OA. That character denied foes their dex the same way any fighter/wizard or rogue does: he used blink. (And, because he had the spells for it, greater blink and improved invisibility).

And in any event, wraithstrike is still way broken for any character who has any use for it whatsoever. Fighter 12/Wizard 3? It's still broken. (And pearls of power are cheap). Fighter 2/Wizard 3? It's still broken. The effect: getting to resolve ordinary power attackable melee attacks as touch attacks is too good to coexist with balance in the game.


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## Zanticor

What do you guys think of Phantasmal Assailants? Sure it's two saves but 8 damage to both dex and wis? That drops a lot of creatures. And because it's damage it even stacks so you can cast two (or twin it). For a specialised illusionist that can be a poor man's Phantasmal Killer.

Zanticor


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## billd91

Zanticor said:


> What do you guys think of Phantasmal Assailants? Sure it's two saves but 8 damage to both dex and wis? That drops a lot of creatures. And because it's damage it even stacks so you can cast two (or twin it). For a specialised illusionist that can be a poor man's Phantasmal Killer.
> 
> Zanticor




Seems a bit much to me. The original version in Complete Arcane does 4 points to each (2 with a save). I think I like that version better.


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## Elder-Basilisk

Zanticor said:


> What do you guys think of Phantasmal Assailants? Sure it's two saves but 8 damage to both dex and wis? That drops a lot of creatures. And because it's damage it even stacks so you can cast two (or twin it). For a specialised illusionist that can be a poor man's Phantasmal Killer.
> 
> Zanticor




Spells that do ability damage (rather than inflict a penalty) are generally a bad idea, but I am not too worried about phantasmal assailants. It's a low-level spell and nearly everything has either a good fortitude _or_ a good will. Sure, you could heighten it, but if you're in the market for gambling that your opponent will fail both his will and his fortitude save, you might as well get phantasmal killer and have an opponent who is straight up dead, not just disadvantaged.


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## Terron

Elder-Basilisk said:


> And in any event, wraithstrike is still way broken for any character who has any use for it whatsoever. Fighter 12/Wizard 3? It's still broken. (And pearls of power are cheap). Fighter 2/Wizard 3? It's still broken. The effect: getting to resolve ordinary power attackable melee attacks as touch attacks is too good to coexist with balance in the game.




I am not certain about wraithstrike being broken for all characters who can use it.
I once played a monk/sorcerer/enlightened fist.
He needed wraithstrike to compensate for his poor BAB (the  low point was +2 at 6th level).
He did not have Power Attack. His strength was only 12 and his BAB was too low to make it useful anyway.
He had the Ascetic Sorcerer feat so his primary stat was Cha.

I can see that the combination of Power Attack and Wraithstrike would be too good together. Perhaps making the spell stop you from power attacking would fix it.


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## SnowHeart

billd91 said:


> (_In response to a question about the Orb spells...)_
> They are super-useful and will negate most of the advantages things like golems and high-SR creatures have on the caster. When on a very limited list like the warmage's, they fill a certain niche. The warmage is very damage-spell dependent, with few encounter-ending spells that so many people seem to say are so much better than damaging spells (something of which I'm not convinced). Of all classes, he kind of needs them.
> 
> But on a general wizard list and open to all who use those lists, I think they may be a bit too good. Their range is shorter than, say, fireball, but with the "back to the dungeon" ethos of 3e, range was rarely a problem. And with the spotting rules of 3.5 (one of the worst changes from 3.0 to 3.5) based on the Spot check and the -1/10' distance, nobody is seeing anybody at extended fireball ranged anyway.



I know this is more than a day late but I just saw this thread brought back up and had to chime in.  I'm playing a level 19 war mage in a campaign right now and I rely heavily on those orb spells.  Not because I actually like them, but because they are the only spells I have that get through damage resistance -- for most of the other creatures we encounter, I need a 17+ on my CL check to get through SR so the orbs are the only reliable way I have of doing damage.  And even then, it's only against a SINGLE target and requires a ranged touch attack, plus they almost always make their saves against the additional effect.  Given my druthers, I would rather use the flashier spells, but these are a very solid backup and, IMHO, not ban-worthy or overpowered.  They fill an important gap in the mage's arsenal at higher levels.  JMO.  

As for the wraithstrike issue...  I could see it both ways.  I've been playing around with a Master Transmogrifist (on paper only thus far) and picked up wraithstrike for his spell list not because I was thinking, "OMG THIS WILL RULE" but because I thought, "If I run into something with an AC that's too high for me to hit, this will be an another option."  It only lasts for one round which really does not seem that game breaking to me.  But, I haven't looked at the other spells mentioned in comparison, so maybe it ought to just be a higher level spell rather than ruled "broken" and banned.


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