Anyone else get the feeling that some arcane spells were purposefully hamstringed? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Anyone else get the feeling that some arcane spells were purposefully hamstringed? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Craque
11-25-04, 04:18 AM When I read through the spell descriptions it seemed that a good number of arcane spells seemed to have flaws engineered into them to make them less useful - good spell turned into decent spells, and decent ones into crappy ones.

Anyone else get this feeling? and if so why do you think WotC did this?

Some examples:

Permanency: looks good at first glance but the more times you cast this spell the more exp you lose when that greater dispel is finally cast at you.

Circle of Death: Can kill a lot of HD worth of creatures, problem is, by the time you get it, you won't be facing creatures of such low HD ever again. It's also expensive, permits a save, and is subject to SR.

Globe of invulnerability: Same problem as circle of death, really good before you get it, but pretty much useless when you do. Being immune to entire levels of spells sounds great until you realize that spells of such low levels won't be cast at you by the time you get this spell. The field is also immobile.

Tenser's Transformation: Dangerous to the caster; makes the wizard a fighter without fighter HP or fighter feats. The spell also can't be dismissed, making it a big risk to use.

Cloudkill: Good, but it moves, and the only foreseeable purpose for the movement is to make the spell less useful.

Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound: 5th level spell that's about as useful as the first level alarm spell.

Delayed Blast Fireball: The delayed part might as well not exist, seeing as how a meaningful use for it is very hard to find. (asked fellow posters to help me with this part a while back and we failed)
Talchar
11-25-04, 05:09 AM Ummm

yea, it has been noticed. IMO the WOTC has a love affair with "close combat". It's history with Warhammer and the like, tend focus on the warrior. The D&D spell list has been morphed into single encounter buffs, the damage spells have been nerfed, the utility spells limited, death spells gutted, and overall durations wacked.

That said, not all of the changes are for the worst. The spells are much better organized, and I believe with a little more work, a cohesive, logical (if there is such a thing) spell system could be developed.

With the spells you mentioned, actually the Cloudkill spell got a major boost and is very disgusting.
Tensers got beaten with a nerf stick (but then again, a 17th level 3.0 Wizard with a 26 CON, casting a maximized Tensers, can be viewed as overkill) But with the beating it took, it should be a 5th level spell.
Mord's hound spell, should never be memorized, but should always be put into a magic item, and that is just the way it is.
Permancy, has allways sucked, but does so much less now, so I do not complain.
Delayed blast fireball, used to be good, when it used D8's (I love the typo) But now, its overleveled & should be reduced to 6th level.
Globe, WOTC never laid a finger on it.
CIrcle of death, the new incarnation of the old death spell. The old death spell killed swarms of critters the high level characters never saw (Orcs and goblins...) but was useless against the critters they did fight. (to many HD). The new Circle of Death version....same spell, pretty wraping, but sucks just like the old version.
Naeron
11-25-04, 05:47 AM When I read through the spell descriptions it seemed that a good number of arcane spells seemed to have flaws engineered into them to make them less useful - good spell turned into decent spells, and decent ones into crappy ones.

Anyone else get this feeling? and if so why do you think WotC did this?

Some examples:

These spells were not nerfed by WoTC, and there need to be spells that fit certain functions, in the situtations they were designed for the are great and in onther situations you use other spells.

Permanency: looks good at first glance but the more times you cast this spell the more exp you lose when that greater dispel is finally cast at you.

Permanency gives you instant magic items (that can be dispelled) therefore it should cost xp as that is what 3rd Ed uses for powering powerful magics. A Targetted dispel would still check for every permanency so you may not lose even one of them, especially against casters of a lower level. Be glad its no longer CON loss like it was originally.

Circle of Death: Can kill a lot of HD worth of creatures, problem is, by the time you get it, you won't be facing creatures of such low HD ever again. It's also expensive, permits a save, and is subject to SR.

Which is exactly what it is designed for, killing low level mobs. In other situations use different spells. And you should still be facing low level creatures up to the 9HD limit at up to 15th level.

Globe of invulnerability: Same problem as circle of death, really good before you get it, but pretty much useless when you do. Being immune to entire levels of spells sounds great until you realize that spells of such low levels won't be cast at you by the time you get this spell. The field is also immobile.

Not a true premise, logically not every fight should be against 1 tough monster, quite a few should be against groups of lower level monsters and thus you will often face casters who are throwing around exactly the sort of spells that this stops. Even if they can cast higher spells than 4th casting 1 spell that negates up to 90% of your opponents slots for offense use is nothing to sneeze at.

Tenser's Transformation: Dangerous to the caster; makes the wizard a fighter without fighter HP or fighter feats. The spell also can't be dismissed, making it a big risk to use.

A great spell as the final cast of the day or for Gish builds once they've cast their buffs. Not a good spell for a pure wizard to cast at the beginning of a fight when they have lots of other spells left but then its not intended to be.

Cloudkill: Good, but it moves, and the only foreseeable purpose for the movement is to make the spell less useful.

Again its a horde killer, and as such does its job very well. Most beings will spend 2 rounds inside the spell which is a minimum of 2 CON damage.

Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound: 5th level spell that's about as useful as the first level alarm spell.

Its a higher level alarm spell that can see invisible and ethereal and is not fooled by figments. It cannot be damaged so unless the person can dispel magic it can be a nice source of damage.

Delayed Blast Fireball: The delayed part might as well not exist, seeing as how a meaningful use for it is very hard to find. (asked fellow posters to help me with this part a while back and we failed)

Firstly 20d6 damage cap rather than fireball's 10d6. Delay is a metamagic and can be useful. e.g. If you are initiating an attack starting with a set of these going off is very efficient.

The thing is not every spell should be great in all situations, spells are designed with a purpose, a Wizard needs spells to take out single tough opponents just as much as they need spells to take out hordes of lower level creatures. Sometime Circle of Death is not useful that I will agree, however there is always Disintegrate. But when facing a dozen 7HD creatures Circle of Death is far more useful than disintegrate.
Seeker95
11-25-04, 11:58 AM I agree with the factual statements regarding the limits and limitations of the spells.
I disagree with the view that these are bad things.

For example, permanency is a risk.
The more you use it, the more your risk compounds.
Like putting all your money into one stock.
KP91
11-25-04, 01:10 PM Globe of invulnerability: Same problem as circle of death, really good before you get it, but pretty much useless when you do. Being immune to entire levels of spells sounds great until you realize that spells of such low levels won't be cast at you by the time you get this spell. The field is also immobile

A Pitfiend's fireball would be blocked and you can hardly consider that weak. Scorching ray is a powerful spell that does a lot of damge (if all dice were roled and you got the top number it would be over 70 damge), and it would be blocked. A lot of spells are also spell-like abilities for stronger creatures.

Circle of Death: Can kill a lot of HD worth of creatures, problem is, by the time you get it, you won't be facing creatures of such low HD ever again. It's also expensive, permits a save, and is subject to SR.

Maybe your DM will have you fight more creatures as you gain levels. If your trying to kill 20 orcs, this spell eliminates a lot of them.
Jkol the Butcher
11-25-04, 01:31 PM You cannot cast fireball while in timestop anymore because the spells occur instantaneously during the spell (while people are invincible) instead of at the end. Delayed blast fireballs can be set with a duration 1 round greater than the than the timestop, and therefore you can still lay out an evocation beat down -- just with higher level spells.
solbergb
11-25-04, 03:49 PM Having gotten a lot of use out of delayed blast fireball in 1st edition...it's all about having several fireballs go off at the same time.

massed Explosive runes+CL5 dispel magic is a similar trick.

When you have the drop on the enemy (or timestop) sometimes you can set up a really nice blast with this spell. The higher damage caps and such are 3.x.

Circle of Death/Death spell always sucked...it was a way to clear out cohorts and pets and minions. The fact that it costs cash now is kind of weird though. I don't understand that.

Cloudkill always moved. Be glad that it actually has a useful effect on higher level critters...back in the old days when we had to walk to the dungeon uphill both ways it was even more ineffective than Death Spell against the stuff you could fight once you could cast it.

Mordenkeinen's hound was always kind of weird, but I've seen it used by NPC's very effectively. It is better if you are worried about interrupted than if you are trying to camp or are on the offensive.

Most of the spells behave the way they do because they ALWAYS behaved like that. 3.0 haste was weird, the 3.5 haste is a lot more like the older version (party buff, 1 rnd/level, oriented around fighters, doesn't buff spellcasting). If 3.5 came out as a brand new system, I doubt very much magic missile would exist (but it just isn't D&D without magic missile....) and a lot of other spells would probably be different.
Craque
11-25-04, 04:28 PM Thanks for the replies, though I would like to ask people to address the general observation about arcane spells being self-conflicting instead of just commenting on the examples I gave.
Talchar
11-25-04, 05:34 PM Thanks for the replies, though I would like to ask people to address the general observation about arcane spells being self-conflicting instead of just commenting on the examples I gave.

Ok, you are right and you are wrong. If anything, the change in spells reflects a change in philosophy. The change is a focus on individual encounters vs spells capable of affecting multiple encounters.

The biggest change is in the buff spells & spell combo's. 3.5 vs 3.0, the buff spell durations have been hacked. Much more thought has been put into spell combo's, thus limiting spell stacking. Overall, the biggest issue for me is the relative loss, of general use spells. (spells usable for multiple effects) Case in point the glyph spells being divided into component spells.
Craque
11-26-04, 05:09 AM My point is not that arcane spells should not have drawbacks, my point is that arcane spells should not have drawbacks to the point that they no longer justify the benefits they bestow.

Take globe of invulnerability and circle of death. Even WotC themselves recommend not to use the "double amount of monsters to increase CR by 2" rule too many times on a single encounter. This means that the authors of the spells are recommending that the DM not create encounters in which the spells are useful.

A Targetted dispel would still check for every permanency so you may not lose even one of them, especially against casters of a lower level.
For example, permanency is a risk.
The more you use it, the more your risk compounds.
Like putting all your money into one stock.
Then, using the stock analogy, permanency costs more and entails more risk than any other "stock" that I can name, yet it does not offer returns equal to its costs. It is true that you might not lose a single spell that you cast permanency on, but on the other hand you might lose them all. Unlike other risks (familiars) which you can protect, you can't protect those permanency spells, and they become ever more vulnerable as time goes on.

And the question still stands: why do you think wizards did this? the nerf stick has been applied too heavily on far too many arcane spells to dismiss this as random chance, so it must be purposeful.
Naeron
11-26-04, 06:24 AM The thing is that this is Not a Nerf done by WoTC. The vast majority of spells function almost exactly as they did in previous editions.

Permancency was always vulnerable to being removed and used to cost 1 CON (that was not recoverable). The minimal xp cost is nothing compared to that and of course now permanency cast on youself cannot be dispelled at all by lower level casters.

Circle of Death was always only intended against weak minions.

Cloudkill is now more powerful. It used to only affect up to certain number of HD and above that it had no effect at all.

The Globe of Invulnerability spells are unchanged in level and effect from AD&D.

Where the nerfing is occuring is in spells that used to be one being split out into different spells. Yes 3.0 Haste was nerfed, but 3.0 haste was far more powerful than AD&D haste especially for magic users, now it is much more in line with the original. The Stat buff spells had their durations heavily cut in 3.5, but again these were spells that didn't even exist in AD&D (I recall there was a spell that set STR to 18 but there were no spells to buff the other stats, and certainly they would not have been 2nd level).

What has effectively reduced the power of spell casters is that HP's nor continue to rise after 9th level and everyon applies con modifiers to HD. That has massively reduced the lethality of direct damage spells at high level when compared to AD&D (and its a good thing IMO). Casters can still drop enemies with save or dies but at least they cant still do the same with direct damage spells (when it was rare to see any creature with more than 100HP in AD&D even fireballs were very effective at high level).
Shatteredtower
11-26-04, 09:30 AM Take globe of invulnerability and circle of death. Even WotC themselves recommend not to use the "double amount of monsters to increase CR by 2" rule too many times on a single encounter. This means that the authors of the spells are recommending that the DM not create encounters in which the spells are useful.

Wait a second. You're equating, "Don't overdo this," with "Don't do this at all." That's quite a stretch, don't you think?

I find the notion that all high level spells have to be geared toward what they can do to high level opposition a bit hard to swallow anyway. It always makes me think that low level creatures become endangered and then extinct by a certain point in some high level games. Sometimes, someone justs want to make use of a more impressive "flyswatter," even when dealing with creatures that are little more than nuisances by now.

Even if some of these spells become ones only NPCs would take, is that a bad thing? I suspect that many player groups do not reflect what the average spellcaster would find useful in spell selection.

That's not to say spells aren't going to need tailoring (a lot of tailoring in some cases) to your game. I'd just be cautious about putting death spell on par with wail of the banshee, for example, in part because of what adjustments might have to be made to the latter spell.
Seeker95
11-26-04, 09:33 AM My point is not that arcane spells should not have drawbacks, my point is that arcane spells should not have drawbacks to the point that they no longer justify the benefits they bestow.True statement, but this is a red herring. Spells have not been saddled with more drawbacks than the benefits they bestow. So while it is true that they should not, it is equally true that they have not.
Take globe of invulnerability and circle of death. Even WotC themselves recommend not to use the "double amount of monsters to increase CR by 2" rule too many times on a single encounter. This means that the authors of the spells are recommending that the DM not create encounters in which the spells are useful.Hogwash. This means that the authors are recommending that the DM not rely on doubling numbers as his only means of increasing CR. That's all. If the DM's intent is a higher CR, use more challenging monsters. If the DM's intent is a high number of opponents, then use it. What this does to circle of death is completely unrelated, and you are grasping at straws to support a weak argument.

Then, using the stock analogy, permanency costs more and entails more risk than any other "stock" that I can name, yet it does not offer returns equal to its costs.Hogwash again. Place all your stock into any single spell, and you get diminishing returns compared to the risk.

Fireball? You're practically useless against creatures with SR, evasion, and fire resistance.
Polymorph? No problem, as long as you don't need access to the (Ex), (Su), or (Sp) abilities of the forms you take.
Anti-magic field? Just don't wander too close to anyone else in your party.

If you want to turn your wizard into a one-trick pony, you will be cannon fodder. If you want to palce all your stock into permancency-supported personal buffs, you're running a risk. This is not a failing of the individual spell, but rather the failing of the player stupid enough to place all his eggs in one basket and think he can have "all the benefit, all the time, no risk".

And the question still stands: why do you think wizards did this? the nerf stick has been applied too heavily on far too many arcane spells to dismiss this as random chance, so it must be purposeful.Wizards didn't.
Count Arioch the 28th
11-26-04, 09:42 AM Maybe your DM will have you fight more creatures as you gain levels. If your trying to kill 20 orcs, this spell eliminates a lot of them.

20 5 hd orcs won't give the wizard any exp anyway, and the Wizard spent a metric assload of gp to get the material component.
Talchar
11-26-04, 12:51 PM Thanks for the replies, though I would like to ask people to address the general observation about arcane spells being self-conflicting instead of just commenting on the examples I gave.

Your statement, while containing elements of truth, has one flaw. In many ways, 3.0 was an increase in arcane spell power over past incarnations. Version 3.5, while toning down many of 3.0's extremes, still representss an increase in spell power.

At issue, while some AD&D damaging spells had infinite potencial, the saving throw system, virtually assured that higher level PC's /monsters allways made their saves. Wizards, in 3.0+, can cast more spells and finally, AD&D high level mages functionally cannot exist... Last time I checked, an Archmage, measured his time required to memorize his spell lists in terms of days. (ie 18th level mage requires 34.5 memorization hours to set his spell list)

Final thought, you statement while true in specific cases, is not true in general. Your desire not to dwell on cases you bring up, is telling. I would say that your statement would be true if you could manifest a level by level example (of spells that exist in prior editions) of 'nerfing' that reflect your contention.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Craque 11-25-04, 04:18 AM	When I read through the spell descriptions it seemed that a good number of arcane spells seemed to have flaws engineered into them to make them less useful - good spell turned into decent spells, and decent ones into crappy ones. Anyone else get this feeling? and if so why do you think WotC did this? Some examples: Permanency: looks good at first glance but the more times you cast this spell the more exp you lose when that greater dispel is finally cast at you. Circle of Death: Can kill a lot of HD worth of creatures, problem is, by the time you get it, you won't be facing creatures of such low HD ever again. It's also expensive, permits a save, and is subject to SR. Globe of invulnerability: Same problem as circle of death, really good before you get it, but pretty much useless when you do. Being immune to entire levels of spells sounds great until you realize that spells of such low levels won't be cast at you by the time you get this spell. The field is also immobile. Tenser's Transformation: Dangerous to the caster; makes the wizard a fighter without fighter HP or fighter feats. The spell also can't be dismissed, making it a big risk to use. Cloudkill: Good, but it moves, and the only foreseeable purpose for the movement is to make the spell less useful. Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound: 5th level spell that's about as useful as the first level alarm spell. Delayed Blast Fireball: The delayed part might as well not exist, seeing as how a meaningful use for it is very hard to find. (asked fellow posters to help me with this part a while back and we failed)
Talchar 11-25-04, 05:09 AM	Ummm yea, it has been noticed. IMO the WOTC has a love affair with "close combat". It's history with Warhammer and the like, tend focus on the warrior. The D&D spell list has been morphed into single encounter buffs, the damage spells have been nerfed, the utility spells limited, death spells gutted, and overall durations wacked. That said, not all of the changes are for the worst. The spells are much better organized, and I believe with a little more work, a cohesive, logical (if there is such a thing) spell system could be developed. With the spells you mentioned, actually the Cloudkill spell got a major boost and is very disgusting. Tensers got beaten with a nerf stick (but then again, a 17th level 3.0 Wizard with a 26 CON, casting a maximized Tensers, can be viewed as overkill) But with the beating it took, it should be a 5th level spell. Mord's hound spell, should never be memorized, but should always be put into a magic item, and that is just the way it is. Permancy, has allways sucked, but does so much less now, so I do not complain. Delayed blast fireball, used to be good, when it used D8's (I love the typo) But now, its overleveled & should be reduced to 6th level. Globe, WOTC never laid a finger on it. CIrcle of death, the new incarnation of the old death spell. The old death spell killed swarms of critters the high level characters never saw (Orcs and goblins...) but was useless against the critters they did fight. (to many HD). The new Circle of Death version....same spell, pretty wraping, but sucks just like the old version.
Naeron 11-25-04, 05:47 AM	When I read through the spell descriptions it seemed that a good number of arcane spells seemed to have flaws engineered into them to make them less useful - good spell turned into decent spells, and decent ones into crappy ones. Anyone else get this feeling? and if so why do you think WotC did this? Some examples: These spells were not nerfed by WoTC, and there need to be spells that fit certain functions, in the situtations they were designed for the are great and in onther situations you use other spells. Permanency: looks good at first glance but the more times you cast this spell the more exp you lose when that greater dispel is finally cast at you. Permanency gives you instant magic items (that can be dispelled) therefore it should cost xp as that is what 3rd Ed uses for powering powerful magics. A Targetted dispel would still check for every permanency so you may not lose even one of them, especially against casters of a lower level. Be glad its no longer CON loss like it was originally. Circle of Death: Can kill a lot of HD worth of creatures, problem is, by the time you get it, you won't be facing creatures of such low HD ever again. It's also expensive, permits a save, and is subject to SR. Which is exactly what it is designed for, killing low level mobs. In other situations use different spells. And you should still be facing low level creatures up to the 9HD limit at up to 15th level. Globe of invulnerability: Same problem as circle of death, really good before you get it, but pretty much useless when you do. Being immune to entire levels of spells sounds great until you realize that spells of such low levels won't be cast at you by the time you get this spell. The field is also immobile. Not a true premise, logically not every fight should be against 1 tough monster, quite a few should be against groups of lower level monsters and thus you will often face casters who are throwing around exactly the sort of spells that this stops. Even if they can cast higher spells than 4th casting 1 spell that negates up to 90% of your opponents slots for offense use is nothing to sneeze at. Tenser's Transformation: Dangerous to the caster; makes the wizard a fighter without fighter HP or fighter feats. The spell also can't be dismissed, making it a big risk to use. A great spell as the final cast of the day or for Gish builds once they've cast their buffs. Not a good spell for a pure wizard to cast at the beginning of a fight when they have lots of other spells left but then its not intended to be. Cloudkill: Good, but it moves, and the only foreseeable purpose for the movement is to make the spell less useful. Again its a horde killer, and as such does its job very well. Most beings will spend 2 rounds inside the spell which is a minimum of 2 CON damage. Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound: 5th level spell that's about as useful as the first level alarm spell. Its a higher level alarm spell that can see invisible and ethereal and is not fooled by figments. It cannot be damaged so unless the person can dispel magic it can be a nice source of damage. Delayed Blast Fireball: The delayed part might as well not exist, seeing as how a meaningful use for it is very hard to find. (asked fellow posters to help me with this part a while back and we failed) Firstly 20d6 damage cap rather than fireball's 10d6. Delay is a metamagic and can be useful. e.g. If you are initiating an attack starting with a set of these going off is very efficient. The thing is not every spell should be great in all situations, spells are designed with a purpose, a Wizard needs spells to take out single tough opponents just as much as they need spells to take out hordes of lower level creatures. Sometime Circle of Death is not useful that I will agree, however there is always Disintegrate. But when facing a dozen 7HD creatures Circle of Death is far more useful than disintegrate.
Seeker95 11-25-04, 11:58 AM	I agree with the factual statements regarding the limits and limitations of the spells. I disagree with the view that these are bad things. For example, permanency is a risk. The more you use it, the more your risk compounds. Like putting all your money into one stock.
KP91 11-25-04, 01:10 PM	Globe of invulnerability: Same problem as circle of death, really good before you get it, but pretty much useless when you do. Being immune to entire levels of spells sounds great until you realize that spells of such low levels won't be cast at you by the time you get this spell. The field is also immobile A Pitfiend's fireball would be blocked and you can hardly consider that weak. Scorching ray is a powerful spell that does a lot of damge (if all dice were roled and you got the top number it would be over 70 damge), and it would be blocked. A lot of spells are also spell-like abilities for stronger creatures. Circle of Death: Can kill a lot of HD worth of creatures, problem is, by the time you get it, you won't be facing creatures of such low HD ever again. It's also expensive, permits a save, and is subject to SR. Maybe your DM will have you fight more creatures as you gain levels. If your trying to kill 20 orcs, this spell eliminates a lot of them.
Jkol the Butcher 11-25-04, 01:31 PM	You cannot cast fireball while in timestop anymore because the spells occur instantaneously during the spell (while people are invincible) instead of at the end. Delayed blast fireballs can be set with a duration 1 round greater than the than the timestop, and therefore you can still lay out an evocation beat down -- just with higher level spells.
solbergb 11-25-04, 03:49 PM	Having gotten a lot of use out of delayed blast fireball in 1st edition...it's all about having several fireballs go off at the same time. massed Explosive runes+CL5 dispel magic is a similar trick. When you have the drop on the enemy (or timestop) sometimes you can set up a really nice blast with this spell. The higher damage caps and such are 3.x. Circle of Death/Death spell always sucked...it was a way to clear out cohorts and pets and minions. The fact that it costs cash now is kind of weird though. I don't understand that. Cloudkill always moved. Be glad that it actually has a useful effect on higher level critters...back in the old days when we had to walk to the dungeon uphill both ways it was even more ineffective than Death Spell against the stuff you could fight once you could cast it. Mordenkeinen's hound was always kind of weird, but I've seen it used by NPC's very effectively. It is better if you are worried about interrupted than if you are trying to camp or are on the offensive. Most of the spells behave the way they do because they ALWAYS behaved like that. 3.0 haste was weird, the 3.5 haste is a lot more like the older version (party buff, 1 rnd/level, oriented around fighters, doesn't buff spellcasting). If 3.5 came out as a brand new system, I doubt very much magic missile would exist (but it just isn't D&D without magic missile....) and a lot of other spells would probably be different.
Craque 11-25-04, 04:28 PM	Thanks for the replies, though I would like to ask people to address the general observation about arcane spells being self-conflicting instead of just commenting on the examples I gave.
Talchar 11-25-04, 05:34 PM	Thanks for the replies, though I would like to ask people to address the general observation about arcane spells being self-conflicting instead of just commenting on the examples I gave. Ok, you are right and you are wrong. If anything, the change in spells reflects a change in philosophy. The change is a focus on individual encounters vs spells capable of affecting multiple encounters. The biggest change is in the buff spells & spell combo's. 3.5 vs 3.0, the buff spell durations have been hacked. Much more thought has been put into spell combo's, thus limiting spell stacking. Overall, the biggest issue for me is the relative loss, of general use spells. (spells usable for multiple effects) Case in point the glyph spells being divided into component spells.
Craque 11-26-04, 05:09 AM	My point is not that arcane spells should not have drawbacks, my point is that arcane spells should not have drawbacks to the point that they no longer justify the benefits they bestow. Take globe of invulnerability and circle of death. Even WotC themselves recommend not to use the "double amount of monsters to increase CR by 2" rule too many times on a single encounter. This means that the authors of the spells are recommending that the DM not create encounters in which the spells are useful. A Targetted dispel would still check for every permanency so you may not lose even one of them, especially against casters of a lower level. For example, permanency is a risk. The more you use it, the more your risk compounds. Like putting all your money into one stock. Then, using the stock analogy, permanency costs more and entails more risk than any other "stock" that I can name, yet it does not offer returns equal to its costs. It is true that you might not lose a single spell that you cast permanency on, but on the other hand you might lose them all. Unlike other risks (familiars) which you can protect, you can't protect those permanency spells, and they become ever more vulnerable as time goes on. And the question still stands: why do you think wizards did this? the nerf stick has been applied too heavily on far too many arcane spells to dismiss this as random chance, so it must be purposeful.
Naeron 11-26-04, 06:24 AM	The thing is that this is Not a Nerf done by WoTC. The vast majority of spells function almost exactly as they did in previous editions. Permancency was always vulnerable to being removed and used to cost 1 CON (that was not recoverable). The minimal xp cost is nothing compared to that and of course now permanency cast on youself cannot be dispelled at all by lower level casters. Circle of Death was always only intended against weak minions. Cloudkill is now more powerful. It used to only affect up to certain number of HD and above that it had no effect at all. The Globe of Invulnerability spells are unchanged in level and effect from AD&D. Where the nerfing is occuring is in spells that used to be one being split out into different spells. Yes 3.0 Haste was nerfed, but 3.0 haste was far more powerful than AD&D haste especially for magic users, now it is much more in line with the original. The Stat buff spells had their durations heavily cut in 3.5, but again these were spells that didn't even exist in AD&D (I recall there was a spell that set STR to 18 but there were no spells to buff the other stats, and certainly they would not have been 2nd level). What has effectively reduced the power of spell casters is that HP's nor continue to rise after 9th level and everyon applies con modifiers to HD. That has massively reduced the lethality of direct damage spells at high level when compared to AD&D (and its a good thing IMO). Casters can still drop enemies with save or dies but at least they cant still do the same with direct damage spells (when it was rare to see any creature with more than 100HP in AD&D even fireballs were very effective at high level).
Shatteredtower 11-26-04, 09:30 AM	Take globe of invulnerability and circle of death. Even WotC themselves recommend not to use the "double amount of monsters to increase CR by 2" rule too many times on a single encounter. This means that the authors of the spells are recommending that the DM not create encounters in which the spells are useful. Wait a second. You're equating, "Don't overdo this," with "Don't do this at all." That's quite a stretch, don't you think? I find the notion that all high level spells have to be geared toward what they can do to high level opposition a bit hard to swallow anyway. It always makes me think that low level creatures become endangered and then extinct by a certain point in some high level games. Sometimes, someone justs want to make use of a more impressive "flyswatter," even when dealing with creatures that are little more than nuisances by now. Even if some of these spells become ones only NPCs would take, is that a bad thing? I suspect that many player groups do not reflect what the average spellcaster would find useful in spell selection. That's not to say spells aren't going to need tailoring (a lot of tailoring in some cases) to your game. I'd just be cautious about putting death spell on par with wail of the banshee, for example, in part because of what adjustments might have to be made to the latter spell.
Seeker95 11-26-04, 09:33 AM	My point is not that arcane spells should not have drawbacks, my point is that arcane spells should not have drawbacks to the point that they no longer justify the benefits they bestow.True statement, but this is a red herring. Spells have not been saddled with more drawbacks than the benefits they bestow. So while it is true that they should not, it is equally true that they have not. Take globe of invulnerability and circle of death. Even WotC themselves recommend not to use the "double amount of monsters to increase CR by 2" rule too many times on a single encounter. This means that the authors of the spells are recommending that the DM not create encounters in which the spells are useful.Hogwash. This means that the authors are recommending that the DM not rely on doubling numbers as his only means of increasing CR. That's all. If the DM's intent is a higher CR, use more challenging monsters. If the DM's intent is a high number of opponents, then use it. What this does to circle of death is completely unrelated, and you are grasping at straws to support a weak argument. Then, using the stock analogy, permanency costs more and entails more risk than any other "stock" that I can name, yet it does not offer returns equal to its costs.Hogwash again. Place all your stock into any single spell, and you get diminishing returns compared to the risk. Fireball? You're practically useless against creatures with SR, evasion, and fire resistance. Polymorph? No problem, as long as you don't need access to the (Ex), (Su), or (Sp) abilities of the forms you take. Anti-magic field? Just don't wander too close to anyone else in your party. If you want to turn your wizard into a one-trick pony, you will be cannon fodder. If you want to palce all your stock into permancency-supported personal buffs, you're running a risk. This is not a failing of the individual spell, but rather the failing of the player stupid enough to place all his eggs in one basket and think he can have "all the benefit, all the time, no risk". And the question still stands: why do you think wizards did this? the nerf stick has been applied too heavily on far too many arcane spells to dismiss this as random chance, so it must be purposeful.Wizards didn't.
Count Arioch the 28th 11-26-04, 09:42 AM	Maybe your DM will have you fight more creatures as you gain levels. If your trying to kill 20 orcs, this spell eliminates a lot of them. 20 5 hd orcs won't give the wizard any exp anyway, and the Wizard spent a metric assload of gp to get the material component.
Talchar 11-26-04, 12:51 PM	Thanks for the replies, though I would like to ask people to address the general observation about arcane spells being self-conflicting instead of just commenting on the examples I gave. Your statement, while containing elements of truth, has one flaw. In many ways, 3.0 was an increase in arcane spell power over past incarnations. Version 3.5, while toning down many of 3.0's extremes, still representss an increase in spell power. At issue, while some AD&D damaging spells had infinite potencial, the saving throw system, virtually assured that higher level PC's /monsters allways made their saves. Wizards, in 3.0+, can cast more spells and finally, AD&D high level mages functionally cannot exist... Last time I checked, an Archmage, measured his time required to memorize his spell lists in terms of days. (ie 18th level mage requires 34.5 memorization hours to set his spell list) Final thought, you statement while true in specific cases, is not true in general. Your desire not to dwell on cases you bring up, is telling. I would say that your statement would be true if you could manifest a level by level example (of spells that exist in prior editions) of 'nerfing' that reflect your contention.