3.X magic questions

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 1:25 pm

Why is solid fog listed as a spell that removes opponents from the battlefield? While it's definitely crippling for ranged attackers, melee guys only suffer a debuff. Even for the ranged guys it only incapacitates you until you can get out of the fog. It seems to me that it's mostly a way of slowing down an enemy advance, making melee guys vulnerable to magical murder, or effectively creating an impenetrable wall through which the enemy is technically capable of moving but really doesn't want to. Those are all really useful tricks, but none of them seem like the sort of thing that wins you a spot on a list of spells that fvcking kill people, since without some other spell to actually kill the monster, they'll either continue using magical or effectively magical ranged attacks or else just take a few rounds to slog out of the fog and keep chasing you. It's not like Sleep where it doesn't technically kill you but it does incapacitate you more than long enough for any yahoo with a dagger to do the job. Am I missing something?

Probably the most infuriating section of the Fragment of Gears is the section on illusions. I'd really like some idea of where to start concerning how to patch 3.X illusion rules into some semblance of working right. Specifically, is there any way to allow creative illusion use without turning illusions into a school that's flat-out better than everything else available to the Core Wizard?

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 1:48 pm

The point is that it allows you to focus fire on one enemy at a time and/or you can overlay the Solid Fog with another dangerous spell like Black Tentacles.

I agree that saying "I win the fight by casting Solid Fog" is sloppy at best and downright misleading at worst.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 3:01 pm

Chamomile wrote:Why is solid fog listed as a spell that removes opponents from the battlefield? While it's definitely crippling for ranged attackers, melee guys only suffer a debuff.

Well, a melee guy who is not yet at melee range is out of combat for several rounds.

By this level, the direction of the combat is pretty much decided in the first one or two rounds, anyway. As Hogarth said, it does allow for focus fire. So, you have a scenario where two trolls are running at the party, one gets fogged, the other is murdered, and when the second one finally wades out of the fog, he sees the smoldering remains of his buddy lying there while the entire party has actions readied to do the same to him.

Also, the spell has no saving throw and no SR. The only ways to bypass it are to become ethereal/incorporeal, burrow, teleport, or use some very niche spells (Gust of Wind).

Edit: changed "nice spells" to "niche spells"

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 3:13 pm

If you're going against a fighter and you shove him in the dead middle of Solid Fog your fight with him is essentially over (barring him having some magical doohickey which in the case where this is brought up the fighter did not). The fighter can't see you, hurt you, or do anything to disrupt you from serving his allies a McMurder sandwich. He is literally out of the fight in all ways except that he will be saved for cleanup after the fight is over IF I don't wall of stone his ass (if he's on the ground which being an archer type leaves him quite stuck).

If you have a goal other than murdering his ass he can't stop you. If your goal is murdering him you know have him in a box and as a wizard may construct a fashion with which to murder him while being untouchable by mentioned fighter. You basically, in all but by way of murder have won the fight. You can leave, set up deathtrap, drop rocks on his ass, whatever.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 4:47 pm

Okay, I can see why you'd consider solid fog a killer spell (and it definitely qualifies as one of those "Conjuration murders everything forever" spells, so whether or not it fvcking kills people is mostly semantics anyway). Any word on illusions? Granted, that one doesn't have nearly as straightforward an answer, but even just some rambling about what doesn't solve the problem would be helpful. I'm completely lost as to how to regulate this.

Strung Nether · Post by **Strung Nether** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 4:53 pm

Even IF its used against something that has some supernatural movement, you just traded one standard action for the "now I have to use my supernatural movement, which can sometimes cost an action or whatever" of the entire enemy team. Any situation where solid for is not a solid choice to have will need to be specifically set up by a butthurt dm.

About illusions: Frank(i think its him) has a whole page about why illusion is sketchy.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 4:55 pm

If you're talking about the bit from the Fragment of Gears, yeah, there's that. Which is really good for outlining the problem and promises a solution, but of course that never actually got written. And that's why that section of the Tome is the only one that makes me want to just give up and become a serial killer.

Endovior · Post by **Endovior** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 6:45 pm

I remember that, yeah; it neatly isolated all the problems, but didn't actually present any solutions. I really wish that particular rant actually was followed by "some playable rules regarding illusions that won't cause you to stab out your own eyes".

Strung Nether · Post by **Strung Nether** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 7:21 pm

psst: frank, we want you to make some decent illusion rules. thanks.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 8:00 pm

The Image spells are absurdly powerful. Making multiple copies of all your allies, all shooting arrows and yelling is well within the capabilities, as is hiding your entire team behind a one-way duck blind. If your team has halfway decent ranged capability, a somewhat inventive illusionist can tilt the tide of battle to a ridiculous extent with just a single Image.

But against Mindless beings, it's even more ridiculous. Skeletons and Golems don't routinely claw the walls to pieces, which means that you can beat pretty much any golem or skeleton horde of any CR with a first level spell and a friend with a hammer.

-Username17

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 10:37 pm

On the topic of magic questions...

Fucking blink, how does it work?

Particularly, the spell references that "An ethereal creature is invisible, incorporeal, and capable of moving in any direction, even up or down". However you are only ethereal half the time. So, is the rule that you can fly, you can't fly, or you have to roll each square you travel upwards and 50% of the time you blink back to the material and fall? Then theres this piece of insanity:

"You take only half damage from falling, since you fall only while you are material."

MOMENTUM DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!

So, if I am blinking and try to fly up 10', what happens?

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 10:51 pm

I think the idea with Blink is that you're constantly blinking in and out of reality, which is why attacks have a 50% chance of hitting you. So no, you can't fly, you're going back and forth between ethereal and Prime way too quickly.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 10:54 pm

With blink, you can fly iff you're able to fly on both the material and ethereal planes. Like, say, if you had wings.

schpeelah · Post by **schpeelah** » Tue Aug 21, 2012 1:21 am

I recall a ruling somewhere on the Wizards site that you fall at half speed while blinking.

erik · Post by **erik** » Tue Aug 21, 2012 2:09 am

schpeelah wrote:I recall a ruling somewhere on the Wizards site that you fall at half speed while blinking.

www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/blink.htm wrote:You take only half damage from falling, since you fall only while you are material.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Tue Aug 21, 2012 5:03 am

It's probably because (if you blink fast enough) you are effectively only subject to 0.5g, which reduces your terminal kinetic energy by half.

Winnah · Post by **Winnah** » Tue Aug 21, 2012 8:30 am

But you're only subjected to half the drag force...

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Tue Aug 21, 2012 8:31 am

RadiantPhoenix wrote:It's probably because (if you blink fast enough) you are effectively only subject to 0.5g, which reduces your terminal kinetic energy by half.

That doesn't work.

When you blink out, you stop falling, as per the spell. Therefore when you blink back in you start falling again. Unless you somehow keep the momentum you had before you blinked out (which would make moving when blinking really weird as you constantly gained and lost momentum whilst blinking in and out) you should only ever take around 1or 2 D6 damage.

Now, according to the moving through objects rule you have a 50% chance of blinking in or out when moving into each square, no matter how fast you are moving. This suggests that if you fall off a cliff you should roll for every square, and take falling damage from the last time you blinked in. Although that would be a lot more rolling, it would result in a hell of a lot less average damage than half the height you fell from, which shouldn't really affect the damage that much.

On a related note, it states that force effects extend from the material plane into the ethereal, however not the other way round. Does this mean that you can pick up a sword made of force whilst in the ethereal and murder people in the real world? However, if I'm reading it right, once you blink back into the real world the sword is an item you are holding, so it then blinks with you into the ethereal next time you blink and becomes unable to affect the real world?

Man, they sure do make some fucking complicated spells.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Tue Aug 21, 2012 1:26 pm

IIRC, it used to be even weirder in 2E. I thought it was a bunch of random teleportation, where you'd end up 10' in a random direction (roll 1d8 to determine which direction). There was a chance you'd blink right before or after you attacked or after you were attacked.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Aug 21, 2012 3:30 pm

The damage you take from falling is pretty much crazy anyway, so the fact that the damage modifier for some completely magical effect is bizarre doesn't even bother me.

-Username17

ModelCitizen · Post by **ModelCitizen** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 1:35 pm

Falling damage is the way it is to support progressively higher level pit traps. Having a pit trap for every possible party level isn't that useful though. Even if you needed a pit to do a very specific amount of damage, you could just fill it with spikes, acid, lava, boiling tar, crushy walls, flesh-eating insects, or any combination thereof.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 9:27 pm

Chamomile wrote: Probably the most infuriating section of the Fragment of Gears is the section on illusions. I'd really like some idea of where to start concerning how to patch 3.X illusion rules into some semblance of working right. Specifically, is there any way to allow creative illusion use without turning illusions into a school that's flat-out better than everything else available to the Core Wizard?

Nope. You cannot really balance a power that's very open-ended with powers that aren't, without explicit or implicit agreements at the gaming table about how far you can get with it before GM starts sending grudge challenges your way. It either is level-appropriately powerful AND offers flexibility on top, or is deliberately crippled to compensate for its flexibility.

Honestly, I'd prefer combal illusions to just be a form of mindjack, resisted by Will saves normally, rather than super-holograms that can kill people...

PoliteNewb · Post by **PoliteNewb** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 10:58 pm

FatR wrote:
Chamomile wrote: Probably the most infuriating section of the Fragment of Gears is the section on illusions. I'd really like some idea of where to start concerning how to patch 3.X illusion rules into some semblance of working right. Specifically, is there any way to allow creative illusion use without turning illusions into a school that's flat-out better than everything else available to the Core Wizard?
Nope. You cannot really balance a power that's very open-ended with powers that aren't, without explicit or implicit agreements at the gaming table about how far you can get with it before GM starts sending grudge challenges your way. It either is level-appropriately powerful AND offers flexibility on top, or is deliberately crippled to compensate for its flexibility.

This, pretty much. So to answer the question of "is there any way to allow creative illusion use without turning illusions into a school that's flat-out better than everything else?", the short answer is, "yes, by turning into a school that is largely worse than everything else".

Honestly, I'd prefer combat illusions to just be a form of mindjack, resisted by Will saves normally, rather than super-holograms that can kill people...

I find this a viable and palatable option, personally. Of course, it greatly changes the nature of what "illusions" are in the game, so YMMV.

K · Post by K » Wed Aug 22, 2012 11:24 pm

PoliteNewb wrote:
FatR wrote:
Chamomile wrote: Probably the most infuriating section of the Fragment of Gears is the section on illusions. I'd really like some idea of where to start concerning how to patch 3.X illusion rules into some semblance of working right. Specifically, is there any way to allow creative illusion use without turning illusions into a school that's flat-out better than everything else available to the Core Wizard?
Nope. You cannot really balance a power that's very open-ended with powers that aren't, without explicit or implicit agreements at the gaming table about how far you can get with it before GM starts sending grudge challenges your way. It either is level-appropriately powerful AND offers flexibility on top, or is deliberately crippled to compensate for its flexibility.
This, pretty much. So to answer the question of "is there any way to allow creative illusion use without turning illusions into a school that's flat-out better than everything else?", the short answer is, "yes, by turning into a school that is largely worse than everything else".

The way to fix illusions actually requires fixing two things:

1. Illusions need physical properties that interact with the game's physics engine. For example, maybe they don't work in bright light or shimmer if you put physical objects into them.

Basically, they need to work like sci-fi holograms where the baddies shoot the illusion and it goes to static for a few seconds and you know its an illusion (Escape from LA-type versions, not the ST:NG versions). This corrects the completely open-ended part of illusions and should let you avoid every Disbelief argument you ever had.

2. You need a better game engine.

The things that illusions do are not substantially different from things you could do with regular effects or work, but the rules just aren't there and so illusions default to big power.

For example, the Hide rules suck big dick in 3.X, so hiding inside an illusion defaults to big power because everyone houserules that being physically hidden from sight is an overwhelming Hide bonus. The monster AI rules don't even exist, so putting skeletons in a box is super powerful because people rule that Mindless monsters don't test their environment or remember where enemies are and won't try to claw through. Bluffing and Intimidation rules are feeble, so making illusions of credible threats that monsters waste attacks on defaults to big noise instead of monsters getting some kind of check to remember the real people vs. the illusion people.

Basically, fixing illusions requires writing a better game than 3.X. This is why no Tome fix was forthcoming.

ModelCitizen · Post by **ModelCitizen** » Thu Aug 23, 2012 4:21 am

I've written simple mob AIs in computer games* and it's nothing I'd want to fuck with in tabletop. For a game as complex as D&D a behavior script that can handle even mindless enemies is going to be impossible to run by hand, especially if you want it to handle shortest-path problems like deciding whether to bash down a wall or walk an extra 200'.

I'm all for having a few simple if-else statements for common-case stuff like "who should zombie attack" or "what does zombie do when it's trapped in a coffin." But having zombies deal with Illusionary Wall on arbitrary terrain will eventually require either DM judgment or a computer.

*Nothing you've heard of. We're talking student projects, a garage project I abandoned because of art problems, and new and better garage project which is going to make me an overnight internet millionaire and inspire /v/ to build a statue of me. Or at least, that's the plan.

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