Post/Author/DateTime	Post
bluetooth 06-13-07, 01:13 PM	Ok I was just reading through the older posts here on the epic board and someone mentioned that you can dispel instantaneous effects with the dispel seed. Does this mean you can kill someone by simultaneously dispelling every cure spell they've ever received? As humorous as it would be, that doesn't seem well balanced.
BillTheManiac 06-13-07, 01:48 PM	Ok I was just reading through the older posts here on the epic board and someone mentioned that you can dispel instantaneous effects with the dispel seed. Does this mean you can kill someone by simultaneously dispelling every cure spell they've ever received? As humorous as it would be, that doesn't seem well balanced. It doesn't matter, because according to Sage Advice, instantaneous effects, such as Awaken, don't stack, they overlap. So technically only the strongest cure spell you've recieved, and the strongest fireball in an area, count.
R4za 06-13-07, 02:12 PM	That works for awaken as it doesn't actually stack in practise, but if cure and damage spells didn't stack we'd be playing an entirely different game. I don't care if the WotC CEO comes out to tell us so personally, 24 damage fireball and a 18 damage fireball don't total for 24 damage.
bluetooth 06-13-07, 03:06 PM	But I suppose you would have to dispel each cure seperately against every caster level of everyone who had cured them, right? It still seems kinda silly to me but if this is what the rules say then I want to be aware of it.
SokenzanMarauder 06-13-07, 03:30 PM	Bah, everyone knows that nothing is better than casting True Resurrection on someone's dragonscale armor. Only works once though... -Gene
bluetooth 06-13-07, 03:35 PM	ok, that's hilarious. And I think that could work... what other over the top ways are there to kill someone? (that aren't broken, cause true rez on dragonscale armor is exactly how true rez works)
BillTheManiac 06-13-07, 03:38 PM	That works for awaken as it doesn't actually stack in practise, but if cure and damage spells didn't stack we'd be playing an entirely different game. I don't care if the WotC CEO comes out to tell us so personally, 24 damage fireball and a 18 damage fireball don't total for 24 damage. But if you have infinite Will save, Animal ---> Awaken ---> Change type to Animal somehow ---> Animal, ad infinitum, is perfectly legal. That's how Pun-Pun get's infinite HD (well, one way).
Renvale999 06-13-07, 05:19 PM	ok, that's hilarious. And I think that could work... what other over the top ways are there to kill someone? (that aren't broken, cause true rez on dragonscale armor is exactly how true rez works) It would be the dragons choice to come back...but since you've made armor out of his hide...
bluemage55 06-13-07, 06:25 PM	Ok I was just reading through the older posts here on the epic board and someone mentioned that you can dispel instantaneous effects with the dispel seed. Does this mean you can kill someone by simultaneously dispelling every cure spell they've ever received? As humorous as it would be, that doesn't seem well balanced. You cannot dispel instantaneous effects. An instantaneous effect is done and over with, and no magic is left behind. A cure spell takes effect and is gone, and leaves behind only repaired flesh. Likewise, a fireball comes and goes, leaving only charred flesh. More humurous (and perfectly legal) is resurrecting someone's dragonscale armor, assuming that dragon is dead and willing to return.
Potato_Dragon 06-14-07, 03:27 AM	Even if it were possible to dispel or otherwise remove previous healing effects, it would only work if the target had not accumulated enough natural healing to offset it in the meantime. For example if they had a max of 200 hp, and was damaged for a total 300 and repeatedly healed magically over the course of a day, but it was a while ago and they could have naturally regained 150 hp over that time period, then they'll still have 50 hp left. Even if you hit them for 50 damage first, they'd still have 50 hp left instead of 0 because the "magically healed" hp would be lost first. And of course I would not allow it anyway even if it were somehow possible because it would require too much bookkeeping. Maybe "dispel" instantaneous effects that occurred in the previous round, but no further back than that.
rob_douglas 06-14-07, 11:17 AM	I think the idea for dispelling instantaneous effects comes from the Break Enchantment spell. It can undo Petrification, even though it is an Instantaneous effect - enchantments, transmutations, and curses. I would allow that. As I see it, only Transmutations should be instantaneous, and dispellable. Curses and Enchantments shouldn't be able to be Instantaneous if they have lingering effects. I am not arguing it is allowed by RAW, but stating how I would rule on the Epic Dispel seed. I don't see anything in the RAW that allows it to undo instantaneous effects. ROB
bluetooth 06-14-07, 06:42 PM	That explains it. It seemed strange to me that you could dispel an instantaneous effect, but this is Epic we're talking about and I'm still new to it. I did look up the dispel seed though, but I wasn't yet ready to trust my own interpretation. Petrification is a hard one to deal with. You don't want it going down in an antimagic field or suseptible to something as simple as Dispel Magic, but at the same time, Break Enchantment makes perfect sense. There should probably be something added to the fortify (EDIT: Dispel) seed equivalent to your house rule, rob. Otherwise you'd be able to do something with a nonepic spell that you can't simulate (and do better) with an epic spell, and that just makes no sense whatsoever.
rob_douglas 06-14-07, 09:44 PM	My thoughts exactly (though I think you meant the Dispel seed). My, you have become prolific since going epic! :) Of course you could use the transform seed to undo an instantaneous transformation. I think that is another seed that has been under represented in what it should be able to do - or undo - like Awaken. ROB
bluetooth 06-15-07, 02:08 AM	hehe whoops yes, yes I did. And I'm not even playing an epic character yet. I'm just doing all I can to prepare myself for it because it seems less defined and more complex than nonepic.
bahamut920 06-15-07, 05:40 PM	Hmmm... Funny ways to kill someone? How about Mordankainen's disjunction on a construct? Actually happened in our game once... but the construct was considered an artifact, so the (NPC) wizard who did it lost all of his powers... for a while.
BillTheManiac 06-15-07, 05:54 PM	Hmmm... Funny ways to kill someone? How about Mordankainen's disjunction on a construct? Actually happened in our game once... but the construct was considered an artifact, so the (NPC) wizard who did it lost all of his powers... for a while. I don't think it works that way. They're creatures, not items.
Starmage21 06-15-07, 07:42 PM	I don't think it works that way. They're creatures, not items. Technically, theyre both big expensive magic items, and creatures. They dont have a caster level though, so you cant dispel them(unless your DM wants to be really mean and say that the level required to create them is their caster level). They cost money and XP and spells available to any PC once theyre in the high teens(Wish being the biggest one used in golem creation).
BillTheManiac 06-15-07, 09:16 PM	But they're creatures, not objects. Immune to dispel magic. They are created like magic items, but they are creatures. You could call them intelligent magic items if you felt like it.
bluetooth 06-15-07, 09:49 PM	That brings up something I've always wondered about. Can someone with CL 15 and Craft Construct create a construct as an intelligent magic item? This is especially significant for unintelligent constructs like Golems.
bluemage55 06-15-07, 11:52 PM	It would be utter crap for intelligent items to have any sort of special immunity, because then for 1,000 gp you can make any item immune to being dispelled or disjoined. Intelligent items are still magic items in addition to being constructs, giving them the vulnerabilities of both. Theycan be dispelled or disjoined like anything else. You calculate their caster level normally.
danelsan 06-17-07, 07:11 PM	Well, try this: Get a really powerful mage to reduce an enormous rock to a size small enough for a sling, throw it and revert the magic in mid air! (If I'm not mistaken, just takes a command word wich is a free action). The same goes for making an arrow out of the trunk of a magicaly shrinked ancient tree, and reverting it to it's real (and enormous) size AFTER it hits the target! (But a druid might not like it) Somewhere in the boards there is a guy who, mostly due to bad use of NPC by DM, got Lolth (the Spider-Goddess of the drow) drunk to death! Also, there once was a mage who created an new magic item: a single use projectile acting like delayed blast fireball, activated by a command word. He tried one against a group of enemies, leaving it on the ground an saying the command word as we escaped and they ran after us. Unfortunately, he had some other 10 of these in his pocket... more to come...
bluetooth 06-17-07, 07:36 PM	funny but dismissing a spell is a standard action. And believe me, I've considered using slow fall/levitate on boulders in catapults to use them as D&D ICBMs. also since you can enchant catapults with ranged weapon enchantments I've been dying to make a brilliant energy trebuchet of distance. You put bushels of arrows in there and it turns into a a golden rain of death that kills people inside their fortifications and even inside houses.
BillTheManiac 06-17-07, 08:15 PM	Oh come on. You were on the verge of it there. Brilliant Energy Catapault Stone. Just imagine a big rock coming through your wall to hit you in the face. OWNED!
bahamut920 06-18-07, 02:20 PM	Oh come on. You were on the verge of it there. Brilliant Energy Catapault Stone. Just imagine a big rock coming through your wall to hit you in the face. OWNED! The problem with that is that it's very difficult to hit a human-sized target with a catapult. Catapults are used to wreck buildings, and by making the catapult brilliant energy, you've just ruined the purpose of the catapult. The trebuchet is a much better choice, especially when filled with arrows instead of rock. Easier to aim, and you're hitting a ridiculous spread of area with a swarm of arrows. It essentially becomes a Reflex save attack (which means rogues can magic pretzel their way out of it, and also kind of negates the point of the brilliant energy - though I guess that means it penetrates any kind of cover). Crazy effective against tightly-packed groups of low-level combatants, because they won't pass the Reflex save, and don't have enough HP to ignore the laser arrows of doom coming at them. I don't think it works that way. [Constructs are] creatures, not items. Which renders them immune to dispel magic and similar effects, but Mordankainen's disjunction destroys them. At least that's the logic used by my DM, who was the one responsible for the tactic.
User5127 06-18-07, 02:43 PM	Well, I've heard the story of an assassin mage using Polymorph magic to turn giants into grapes so they could be fed to the king. Needless to say once the king bit into the grape he killed the giant and it reverted back to its natural form. iirc this act was done in 2ed though. (I remember the gist of the story, it's been a few years..)
bluetooth 06-18-07, 02:54 PM	true, but the image of being indoors somewhere minding your own business and then suddenly a giant rock comes flying through the wall from out of nowhere to turn you into paste is just hilarious. Still, the point of the briliant energy trebuchet is 1 part tactics 3 parts terrorism. When you can hit people inside their houses, soldiers in their barracks, and conceivably the king inside his throneroom you've got a serious psychological edge. (whether or not you can actually get the king depends on a lot of things, and it's not something you would bank on in most settings) but when you take something like this to epic levels and make tons of these things, they become more like neutron bombs than anything else. Amazingly effective, but not nearly as funny as a big rock, and that is after all the topic of the thread. Now...would it be possible to use Polymorph any Object to turn a trebuchet into a much bigger trebuchet? Like...say one the size of the statue of liberty? That would be hilarious on it's own, even before adding fun enchantments to it.
bluetooth 06-18-07, 02:57 PM	That's a pretty good one, User. Also, I've been told that there's an epic feat that lets you ignore range increments, so if you had fling enemy and it was night time you could grab them and throw them to the moon. (after all, a square has an AC of 10, what epic character can't hit that?)
Kihon 06-18-07, 04:58 PM	I'm not sure you'd be dead, but here's a fun one (for higher level characters): Standard 10x10 pit trap - character falls in... at the bottom of the pit the bad wizard placed a 'portable hole.' Get it -- so what gear did you say you were carrying... bag of holding :) Bag's of Holding - all high level characters have one...and when you place them inside a portable hole... well a rip in reality is just as good as dead - most times:)
User5127 06-18-07, 09:54 PM	I'm not sure you'd be dead, but here's a fun one (for higher level characters): Standard 10x10 pit trap - character falls in... at the bottom of the pit the bad wizard placed a 'portable hole.' Get it -- so what gear did you say you were carrying... bag of holding :) Bag's of Holding - all high level characters have one...and when you place them inside a portable hole... well a rip in reality is just as good as dead - most times:) not to mention AFAIK there is no "footing" to climb out of a portable hole. So if it was 10 feet deep there really wouldn't be much way to get out. you'd have to jump and succeed the climb from there. heh. I'm sure the wizard would have permanent walls of force lining the pit and they would be greased to boot ;)
bahamut920 06-18-07, 10:15 PM	Aside from the fact that, if you have a bag of holding on you when you fall in, there's no chance to climb out; they go off instantaneously, either sending you to another plane and/or turning you into so much ugly goo.
bluemage55 06-19-07, 05:06 AM	Also, I've been told that there's an epic feat that lets you ignore range increments, so if you had fling enemy and it was night time you could grab them and throw them to the moon. (after all, a square has an AC of 10, what epic character can't hit that?) You will not be able to make a Spot check for the given square in question.
User5127 06-19-07, 02:28 PM	You will not be able to make a Spot check for the given square in question. But that still doesn't mean you can't throw some one in that general direction. Make an attack roll against the moon. I don't need a spot check to see something that big.
bluemage55 06-20-07, 02:03 AM	But that still doesn't mean you can't throw some one in that general direction. Make an attack roll against the moon. I don't need a spot check to see something that big. That isn't how it would work. The moon, like the planet, functions as a location rather than an object that you can target. For the same reason, you can't say that you throw something with the planet you're standing on as your target and have it land randomly on the planet. Likewise, you can't throw something from Earth to Mars just because you can see a point of light in the sky.
User5127 06-20-07, 01:58 PM	I disagree. the moon in the distance is no different than a target. If I can pull back the string of a bow and aim an arrow at it I can shoot the arrow at it. But because I can't see a 5x5' square the arrow (if it some how could go that far) would just hit randomly on the moon. Same as shooting an arrow at a person who is 50 feet away, 500 feet away, 5,000' away. As long as I can see the target I can shoot at it. And the moon is just so damn big that I can easily see it from earth. So assuming I can roll against the AC and also against the range increment penalty that I would incure for shooting that far, I could hit it. But where on the moon would I hit it? No idea. Would I even no if I did in fact hit it? Probably not, the arrow is way to far away for me to make that kind of spot check when you consider the size of said arrow. Now replace arrow with person. Same rules apply, your ammunition is just different. EDIT: Distant Shot says that as long as I have line of sight to the target in question I can throw of fire a ranged weapon to any target at it with no penalty to range. A tree, A house, A castle, A mountain, A cliff-side, and even a planet or moon are all targetable by that definition. But as I said, You may not be able to hit something specific on that target, but you can certainly shoot at the target as a whole.
bluemage55 06-20-07, 04:00 PM	EDIT: Distant Shot says that as long as I have line of sight to the target in question I can throw of fire a ranged weapon to any target at it with no penalty to range. A tree, A house, A castle, A mountain, A cliff-side, and even a planet or moon are all targetable by that definition. But as I said, You may not be able to hit something specific on that target, but you can certainly shoot at the target as a whole. The method you have come up with is definitely not supported by the rules, nor the intent, and is rife with abuse (such as the abuse you yourself are advocatring). Very large objects can only be targeted section-by-section. If you attack a wall, for instance, you only attack a specific 5 ft. by 5 ft. section. You cannot attack it as a whole, because it creates incredible rules complications (where does the break occur? can you even reach the entirety of the wall? etc.). Likewise, you cannot target the moon, the sun, or stars as single objects. Some objects are open to DM interpretation (smaller houses or very large trees for example), but huge locations like the moon are not. With your interpretation, you also get the interesting dilemma of removing these "targets". So you achieve a range of 1,000 miles when there's a mountain in front of you, but without the mountain, your range drops significantly? And I don't think you want to argue that the designers intended for players to throw enemies at any star of their choosing.
snakeman830 07-04-07, 03:47 PM	Have you seen the build called "Chuck" on the CharOp boards? He'll throw an army out of the solar system. (Search for "The CO respose to the Fastest Speed") As for funny ways of killing someone, what about using True Resurrection on one of their grafts? That way, it's similar to having a ticked off opponent emerging from inside you. (Morge Tounge owners, beware) Then, there's always the popular "Brilliant Energy Anvil" trick. For fun ways of slaughtering large numbers of people, load a catabult/trebuchet with lots of Alchemist's Fire. Set fire to the entire city in one shot.