The Gaming Den

Magic Circle
Level: 5
Category: Binding
Time: 1 hour
Duration: Until broken
Component Cost: 100 gp
Market Price: 250 gp
Key Skill: Arcana

You inscribe a circle on the ground, a circle emblazoned
with arcane symbols of protection. If drawn correctly,
these symbols make it difficult for creatures of a particular
origin to enter or pass. When performing the ritual, you
choose aberrant, elemental, fey, immortal, natural, shadow,
or all. The last option applies a –5 penalty to your check.
The circle requires 1 minute to inscribe per square inside
the circle (and it must be a circle).

So - the entire ritual is to draw a circle on the ground with runes in it. it takes 1 min/squre to draw the circle. THe component cost is not proportional to size. The time to cast the ritual is 1 hour.

I don't get it - so if I want to draw a 1 square circle it takes 1 minute or an hour? If I want to draw 100 square circle (he he, square circles....) it takes 100 minutes, 60 minutes, 160 minutes? I use my chalk up in either a 1 square circle or a 100 square circle or a million square circle?

I'm considering cutting ritual times down to a factor of 10% or so.

Hour would be 10 minutes.
10 minutes would be 1 minute.
1 minute would be, well, maybe a bit more than a single round.

1 hour for a circle is indeed too long for such a low spell.

However, and more specifically, I am glad that Magic Circle now allows selectable options rather than requiring casters to know a version for each type of threat.
The "All" option would be fun to try in mixed battles...

Magic circle seems to be more of the new resting spell. It basically replaces rope trick as the low level resting magic.

Not that you need resting magic. Getting attacked in your sleep isn't even a big deal. They come up and hit you. For a critical even! You're 22nd level and a Marut seriously comes over and smacks you in your sleep for... 29 points of damage. Booyeah!

It's unfortunate, but it's not really critical. A challenge goes from "standard" to "moderately difficult" if it starts while you're all stone cold asleep. Frnakly I don't even see the point in setting watches, the penalty for being asleep to your Perception tests isn't even super high.

-Username17

What gets weird about it is what happens if you draw the circle inside your own square. Thus it includes 0 squares, but does include you. Does that take no time, or is it impossible?

To answer the original question, it looks like drawing the circle and casting the ritual are two different actions. First, you have to spend 1 minute per square drawing the circle. Then you spend an hour casting the ritual that makes the circle repulsive to certain creatures.

So a 1-square circle takes an hour and a minute, and the 100-square circle takes 160 minutes. I don't know what to make of the incredible elastic chalk, though.

Presumably it's a matter of "It's chalk. No-one even cares." similar to how in 3E, if you have a component pouch, it contains as many spiders as you need to eat.

Koumei wrote:Presumably it's a matter of "It's chalk. No-one even cares." similar to how in 3E, if you have a component pouch, it contains as many spiders as you need to eat.

Oddly, I once successfully convinced someone running a game that chalk should be an extremely price-effective aid in drawing circles/runes that are healing or necromantic effects.

The logic ran that chalk's made out of the bones of millions of little sea creatures, so, from magic's point of view, it's still a little bit alive. But it's also made out of the bones of billions of tiny little sea creatures, so it's very definitely dead, which is what makes it good if you've got to draw a circle of necromancy for whatever reason.

See - it says this:

You inscribe a circle on the ground, a circle emblazoned
with arcane symbols of protection. If drawn correctly,
these symbols make it difficult for creatures of a particular
origin to enter or pass.

I draw the circle, it takes me 1 minute to make it 1 square large. I either draw it correctly or I don't - right? The ritual has nothing to do with drawing the circle, but during the ritual you choose who it blocks. But the drawing process makes it difficult for creatures...

meh - these rules need a good swift kick in the head. It's totally fluffy to bust out your stick of chalk and scribble down a circle of protection while the monsters are busting down the door - I don't see why they would want this spell to take 61 minutes MINIMUM - it breaks as soon as the 1st monster busts through the circle.

OK - 3rd ed - they had rules where you could inscribe a circle like this permanently on the floor with metal and carvings and such. THat kind of effort takes hours. But a simple protection from evil spell, a standby from 1st ed on - takes 61 minutes?

Can I draw multiple circles in the same square? If I was being chased by demons and undead could I draw 2 circles in my square (and spend 122 minutes) to keep out both of them without giving them the +5 bonus to entering?

My logic circuits continue to burn as I try to process this 4th ed stuff...

spasheridan wrote:A simple protection from evil spell, a standby from 1st ed on - takes 61 minutes?

It's not really comparable to the Protection from Evil spell. It's more similar to the Magic Circle against Evil, specifically the version with the 10 minute casting time. Differences:

* The ritual takes 60+ minutes, the spell takes 10 minutes.
* The ritual stops ranged powers, the spell doesn't
* The ritual stops creatures based on their level, the spell stops creatures based on their spell resistance
* The ritual stops creatures based on their type (or all creatures), the spell stops creatures based on their alignment.

Unlike y'all, I'm more concerned that it's overpowered. You know what's keeping the devils in hell? A level 5 character with a maxed out Arcana skill and a bundle of magic chalk.

Am I the only person who'd like to see the whole fluff crap about why it's all so expensive like 'special candles made from the fat of aged gold dragons' 'arcane papers pressed by elven monks, at a 20.000 year old elven temple atop the highest mountain in the world, during a planer alignment.' 'rare inks processed from magic berries and mixed with the menses of a 16 year old tiefling virgin priestess' just go away?

It's just so freaking silly, and it doesn't make me feel less annoyed about having to set money on fire just to use noncombat utility spells that I could use for free in 3E

And freaking the gold costs for all the scry rituals are insane. Like 11k gold for the magic version of a lojack. And warding against scry effects takes gold and five healing surges. Bloody healing rituals like raise dead don't even use surges, why does a damn ward effect use them?

Harlune wrote:why does a damn ward effect use them?

Because it doesn't involve blasting things.

Well, if every Magic Circle needs Magic Chalk and it is indeed of limited supply, it will become Fucking Expensive Chalk.
I'd rather assume characters can draw it with a fingertip, really.

Harlune wrote:Am I the only person who'd like to see the whole fluff crap about why it's all so expensive like 'special candles made from the fat of aged gold dragons' 'arcane papers pressed by elven monks, at a 20.000 year old elven temple atop the highest mountain in the world, during a planer alignment.' 'rare inks processed from magic berries and mixed with the menses of a 16 year old tiefling virgin priestess' just go away?

Completely agreed. At times I think there should be exceptions such as for creating unique items, but then I realize that these kinds of quests are thought up by bored, farty old wizards right when adventurers ask something of them, just to make the lives of lower-levels more difficult.

The scrying magic absolutely SUCKS. A 24th-level ritual that takes you an hour to cast and burns 21,000gp seriously only gets you a MAXIMUM of 5 rounds' observation of the subject, AND the subject can make a standard-action opposed Wisdom check to destroy the sensor.

Let's say that again: one hour casting, five rounds' observation.

Twenty-one THOUSAND pieces of gold.

For thirty seconds' scrying.

"You spy on a creature - whether friend, rival or enemy - through the power of your scrying magic" Bollocks you do. If I were masochistic enough to run a 4e game, and had people masochistic and retarded enough to be playing and to use this ritual, I'd probably feel obliged to do something like this:

"The swirling mists in the crystal ball suddenly become transparent to your gaze, revealing the evil king in a tiny chamber with a curtain at the front. He is sitting down with his robes hoicked up over his knees. As you watch, he picks a book up from the floor, opens it and begins to read. It's one of those trashy sagas where the hero goes to crazy town on a bunch of monsters who never did him any harm in order to get some daft princess back from the Underworld. You hear a faint grunt followed by a splattering sound and the king turns the page. The image fades just as the story gets to the good bit with the naked succubi in it. You suck."

As for the magic circle, it's not like you can "max out" your Arcana skill, but MartinHarper's point is well made.

Assuming the dude casting the ritual is indeed 5th level and has a maxed-out Int stat, his check is going to be 2 (half level) + 5 (skill training) + 5 (ability bonus) + d20.

This means he could - by himself - block creatures of a particular type in a level range anywhere from 3 to 22, which is... more stupid than I can stand.

If he gets the maximum four allies to assist with the check (and assuming they all succeed on the DC10 Arcana check, which they probably will), he has drawn a circle that will block out a given type of creature of anywhere from 11th level to 30th level. Even selecting "all" creature types in this situation gives him a permanent, no-save lock-out of every creature from maybe up to 1 level higher than him to 20 levels higher than him.

Of course, he's totally gefucken if it rains

There has to be some way to utterly abuse this, because affected creatures can't affect the boundary in any way. That's pretty all-encompassing, and puts us straight into 2nd-Edition-type adjudication craziness. It actually raises the spectre of a mid-level character creating an area that absolutely nothing can get into or out of, short of some sort of natural phenomenon breaching the boundaries.

Well done WoTC for doing this slap-bang in the middle of the core book; I mean, creating an effect that's batshit-crazy yet *still* completely uninteresting requires a rare skill.

The scrying magic absolutely SUCKS. A 24th-level ritual that takes you an hour to cast and burns 21,000gp seriously only gets you a MAXIMUM of 5 rounds' observation of the subject, AND the subject can make a standard-action opposed Wisdom check to destroy the sensor.

Let's say that again: one hour casting, five rounds' observation.

Twenty-one THOUSAND pieces of gold.

For thirty seconds' scrying.

"You spy on a creature - whether friend, rival or enemy - through the power of your scrying magic" Bollocks you do. If I were masochistic enough to run a 4e game, and had people masochistic and retarded enough to be playing and to use this ritual, I'd probably feel obliged to do something like this:

"The swirling mists in the crystal ball suddenly become transparent to your gaze, revealing the evil king in a tiny chamber with a curtain at the front. He is sitting down with his robes hoicked up over his knees. As you watch, he picks a book up from the floor, opens it and begins to read. It's one of those trashy sagas where the hero goes to crazy town on a bunch of monsters who never did him any harm in order to get some daft princess back from the Underworld. You hear a faint grunt followed by a splattering sound and the king turns the page. The image fades just as the story gets to the good bit with the naked succubi in it. You suck."

As for the magic circle, it's not like you can "max out" your Arcana skill, but MartinHarper's point is well made.

Assuming the dude casting the ritual is indeed 5th level and has a maxed-out Int stat, his check is going to be 2 (half level) + 5 (skill training) + 5 (ability bonus) + d20.

This means he could - by himself - block creatures of a particular type in a level range anywhere from 3 to 22, which is... more stupid than I can stand.

If he gets the maximum four allies to assist with the check (and assuming they all succeed on the DC10 Arcana check, which they probably will), he has drawn a circle that will block out a given type of creature of anywhere from 11th level to 30th level. Even selecting "all" creature types in this situation gives him a permanent, no-save lock-out of every creature from maybe up to 1 level higher than him to 20 levels higher than him.

Of course, he's totally gefucken if it rains

There has to be some way to utterly abuse this, because affected creatures can't affect the boundary in any way. That's pretty all-encompassing, and puts us straight into 2nd-Edition-type adjudication craziness. It actually raises the spectre of a mid-level character creating an area that absolutely nothing can get into or out of, short of some sort of natural phenomenon breaching the boundaries.

Well done WoTC for doing this slap-bang in the middle of the core book; I mean, creating an effect that's batshit-crazy yet *still* completely uninteresting requires a rare skill.

If you choose the "all" option, does that block out all of the critters that the other options allow for, or all creatures full-stop?

That was the first thing I wondered when I read it. It doesn't actually say, but as "Origins" in the Monster Manual says "Origins are: aberrant, elemental, fey, immortal, natural and shadow" - which exactly corresponds to the list given in the Magic Circle description - it looks as though there aren't any creature origins that aren't covered by the spell.

So, either way, "all" creatures are blocked.

Of course, as soon as they introduce a new creature origin then intelligent creatures of that origin will be able to go completely fvcking hog-wild with chalk circles all over the place that only others of its type will be able to get through.

Also note that the very last thing you'd want to do is cast the Magic Circle ritual with the "all" option and have yourself inside it when you've finished. It's not just possible but actually reasonably likely that you'll have imprisoned yourself for the rest of eternity with absolutely no way to leave.

Anyway, it's a solution to the 8th-level-guys-dealing-with-30th-level-character problem. They don't walk up and try to crit him in his sleep, they just draw a big chalk circle around his house and leave him to rot. If they find some way to preserve the integrity of the barrier, he is NEVER leaving.

Of course, you could reasonably say that using a Linked Portal doesn't count as "crossing the boundary", but in that case why couldn't our demons use a True Portal (or Warlock use Ethereal Stride or whatever) to get in? It really is just like 2nd Edition over again, but without the awesome.

Wizards of the Coast: "Taking the FUN out of 'fundamental design flaws'"

Amra wrote:It's not like you can "max out" your Arcana skill, but MartinHarper's point is well made.

Assuming the dude casting the ritual is indeed 5th level and has a maxed-out Int stat, his check is going to be 2 (half level) + 5 (skill training) + 5 (ability bonus) + d20.

Could also burn a feat on Skill Focus for another +3, and Eladrin get a racial bonus of +2 Arcana. You could also get an Item bonus: a +1 item bonus from a low level magic item seems standard. And you could get a Power bonus of +5 (from wisdom) and a reroll from a Ranger. Add those to your calculations, and he's getting all devils up to 22nd to 41st, depending on his rolls.