Hi
As written, it appears that Gate could be used to (for example) summon an enemy unprepared into a buffed ambush or a deathtrap (and indeed, could be used by villains to theoretically kidnap PCs this way). I'm pretty sure this isn't the intended use of the spell (which I'm assuming is summoning and transport). What is the best way to handle this?
My default decision would just be to say that the target can sense hostile intent from a Gate and can choose not to pass through in that circumstance. But is there a better solution or have I misread the spell?
Drawing an enemy into a deathtrap or ambush seems like a perfectly reasonable use of the spell to me. It's a 9th-level spell slot and costs 5,000 gp per casting, which I will give the benefit of the doubt to the game economy and say that probably stings. So it should have a powerful effect. Smart villains might accordingly use pseudonyms rather than their true names to avoid such tactics. So I would start giving your supervillains comic book names if I were you.
iserith wrote:
The summoning part of Gate should have had a saving throw.
Yes, that's true - the spell doesn't specifically say it consumes the component. Good catch.
At the levels we're talking about, this kind of power seems right for the tier (see page 10). The characters become heroic or villainous archetypes in their own right. "The fate of the world or even the fundamental order of the multiverse might hang in the balance during their adventures." The corrupt duke the PCs met in the lower tiers of play might have no defense against this kind of tactic and that is demonstrative of the characters' rise in power (which they earned). But the true enemies at that level - gods, demons, devils, and all manner of nasty otherworldly things - might be wise to it, making it less desirable in some instances. As for NPCs using this power, that's firmly in the control of the DM. He might decide that only PCs can access this kind of power, being protagonists and all, or that villains at these levels opt for other tactics for reasons that make perfect sense in context.
iserith wrote:
SetentaeBolg wrote:
I would expect to see at least some creatures without names in a world where such a thing was possible. If one literally has no name, they would be immune to that feature of the spell.
Anybody who wanted characters to have names should have written the Gate spell differently.
I suppose even that becomes a trade off. True Resurrection requires a name if a body no longer exists.
Why would you bother with gate? Just use planar ally.
jaelis wrote:
I certainly hope you are right about planar ally 
SetentaeBolg wrote:
True names and whatnot were kind of a thing in Planescape (AD&D 2e) if I remember correctly. Demons and devils certainly didn't want their true name known lest they end up being servitors to mortals. It's debatable whether or not that was what they were thinking when they wrote the Gate spell, but that would be an interesting coincidence. It would further indicate that the designers don't envisage players at this level of play using such tactics on mundane enemies.
iserith wrote:
The rules say that you can't gate someone using a pseudonym which would indicate to me "true names" are a thing.
If a plane ruler can block Gates I'd say they can choose just to block the summoning component of Gates as well. I think it'd make sense for the Prime plane to be pretty well locked down. In prior editions while the material plane didn't have a specific ruler there was an agreement among immortals to stay hands off because most new immortals came from that plane. There could be an accord among dieties that prevents Gate summonings agaist people who are on the Prime.
Another thing is that since diamonds are used in all resurrection spells and for Gate I could really see them being a controlled substance. There may only be a few 5000 gp diamonds in existence and they may be tightly controlled.
What deity is going to grant his/her clerics the use of Gate solely for kidnapping and assassination? Certainly not one that heroic PCs would revere.
I think it might be a good premise for a campaign actually. Say you got a villain powerful enough to use gate. She's smart enough to never use her true name, so she calls herself Lady Deathtrap. If you draw the attention of Lady Deathtrap, she'll use gate to snatch you into, well, a deathtrap. So you're going about your adventuring business, learning the trade from levels 1 to 5. When you flip over to 6th-level, now you're kind of a player in the big scheme of things and you get 1 enmity point plus character knowledge that you're being watched. When you level and when you thwart Lady Deathtrap's plans or the like during the campaign (say by foiling her servants and emissaries or stealing relics she wanted or otherwise draw attention to yourself as a hero), you earn 1 point of enmity. The DM would make clear what things would earn enmity so the players can decide if it's worth progressing closer to being gated. Doing things that support her agenda or that obscure your identity would reduce enmity points as well. (DM makes this clear, too.) If you get to 13 enmity points, she gates you into her domain and tries to take you out in some kind of crazy set-piece encounter with all the bells and whistles.
With that kind of setup, you can make gate a really cool countdown or Sword of Damocles. Do they thwart her or occasionally support her plans? Do they prepare for the inevitable by questing for ways to (heh) negate the gate? Do they lay low until they're higher level and come up with a plan to turn the tables when they're gated? Do they make a plan to take her out pre-emptively? A lot of meaningful decisions to be made there.
And if you playing Planescape, call her The Lady of Pain and the "deathtrap" is hitting the blinds in The Mazes.
It seems like people missed the part where Gate only functions to locate/draw-in extraplanar entities.
"If the creature is on a plane other than the one you're on..."
Therefore, only extra-planar adversaries would consider Gating each other to death. So, not only are you looking at level 17+ characters, you're looking for such characters who live on different planes yet want to set up elaborate traps to kill one another. Most mundane or non-epic-level traps or ambushes probably wouldn't be extremely effective against such high level-characters, so, really, if it's going to be a 'death trap', there would probably need to be an uneven number of high-level characters on one side of the conflict. So, just like at most levels, the guy with the bigger force wins.
Theoretically, somebody could go to another plane and set up a trap to try and Gate in their nemesis from their home plane, but that seems like a lot of work rife with opportunities to backfire, not the least of which is being susceptible to Gate spells one's self.
All of this, AND the ambushing party must know (or guess) that the target is on another plane for a Gate spell to work. This is in addition to the true name (not True Name- but it's pretty functionally equivalent) aspect of the spell, as well as any potential countermeasures against Gates that might be enacted in a society or setting where Gate assassinations are documented.
2Chlorobutanal wrote:
For example gate is useless against pretty much all Fiends as very few of them go by their actual name.
SetentaeBolg wrote:
Meh. "Teleport assassinations" has been a thing in D&D for a long time now. There's been examples of this happening wit teleporting the party to the enemy instead of enemy to party, but the same principles apply.
You summon an enemy spellcaster. Congrats, you just used your level 9 spell for the day. They still have theirs. Gate in a unique devil, Time Stop, Dominates, or any number of responces are possible.
You gate in a lich or high level undead. Congrats, you kill it. It reforms. Net result? Not much.
You gate in an evil emperor. He dies. Too bad he has a companion who's also a level 17 cleric and knows true resurrection, and they know who you are now. The thing about evil empires is they have support structures in place that you need to dismantle for the empire to fall apart. Or, even if you kill the evil emperor and he doesn't come back, said emperor has heirs. Cut off the head, others step up. Evil empires can be comprised of goblinoids, orcs, humans, tieflings, drow, yuan-ti, any number of intelegent evil creatures, or all of them combined.
Your main enemy is a devil, demon, or otherwise powerful otherworldy being who happens to have wide magical and physical resources at their disposal - perhaps by gating them, they drag their guards with them. Or any number of other issues. And again with the lich issue - you summon it, you kill it, it goes home and reforms. Or the god issue - otherwordly creatures often have divine patrons, and they can forbid the use of gate on their minions in their own presence.
An ancient dragon. So, you summon it... you still have to fight an ancient, powerful dragon who is an engine of physical and sorcerous destruction, and you're down a level 9 spell slot. Good luck. Replace with Tarrasque or other high level monsters as needed. Getting to the monster is not the problem in this case.
I remember playing Neverwinter Nights 2. The major enemies were these undead magical creations that were, for all intents and purposes, immune to all damage. In order to detroy one, you needed to use a lengthy (read: minute long casting) spell involving their true name in the creature's presence, which made them mortal enough to damage. The big problem with these things was the fact that you had to get their weakness, then hold off long enough to complete the spell. Even if you could have gated these creatures in, it would have been a hell of a fight as they summoned reinforcements and waged war. A simple assassination this was not.
Legendary rules offer magic resistance, so those may just give someone the power (at least mechanical justification) to say "No!" to a Gate spell as well. So, anyone worth summon-assassinating would be immune to it.
Dimensional anchor spell that is coming with the core book rules.
These are just the things I can think of off the top of my head - I'm sure there's other things we can think of with more specific examples. High level threats involve much more to them, where simple combat isn't the whole of the danger. There's much more complex issues at play. I don't think I've ever had a big bad that could be solved through a simple assassination.