I have a player who judiciously uses the Spell Compendium to boost his already powerful Cleric of Wee Jas. I have been interested by the power-up that this book gives to Clerics, a class that I never felt was necessarily wanting for power. Anyhow, I had a general question.
While fighting in the AoW, a Assassin using Improved Invisibility Attacked this Cleric, and used her Death Attack. The Cleric failed his save, yet had cast Fortunate Fate upon himself. He said that since Fortunate Fate casts Heal upon reaching -10hp, or death from a type of damage that heal can mitigate, that he should be saved from Death. I ruled otherwise, saying that while the Death Attack is not a Death Effect per see (perhaps I am wrong here, I thought that it is not the type of thing that a Death Ward would prevent) it is a Death Attack, and thus cannot be stopped by heal. I gave the description that the Crossbow bolt hit the Cleric just below the Jaw and lodged in his Skull, even as he fell the entry hole healed around the edges of the bolt, but he was still dead.
Was I correct in my ruling, ie. that Assassin Death Attacks (which are notoriously difficult to conduct and have a rather Low save DC) are not hindered by Fortunate Fate?
Also on this point, the spell, Lion's Roar was used in the same adventure, by the same Cleric, at a latter point. From what I could tell it is WAY overpowered. The Cleric did 10d8 damage to all enemies within a 120FT. BURST!!! STUNNING THEM ON A FAILED SAVE!!! and dealing HALF damage on a successful save!!! WTF!!!!!????? That alone is more powerful than any wizard/arcane spell that I know of, not only for having the largest area effect of ANY damage dealing spell that I have ever seen, by three fold!! But also it Stuns, a massively powerful effect, that could single handedly change a vast battle between upwards of 900 enemy Combatants (if there were 900 friendly combatants in the other 900 5x5ft squares). But it does not end there!!
It seems that Lion's Roar also gives all friendly combatants a +1 morale bonus to combat rolls/saves vs. fear effects, as well as a nice bonus 1d8+caster level HP (max 20, which it was maxed). WOW!!!
So lets set up a potential scenario. There is Evil Wizard A, a 15th Level Wizard, who has hired a army of 900 10th level adventurers, a mix of Fighters, Wizards, Clerics, Rogues, and all, vs. Good Cleric B, a 15th level Cleric, who has hired an army of 900 10th level adventurers, a mix of fighters, ect....
They get into a big mess of combat, and the cleric and the wizard close towards the middle to Duke it out. The Cleric casts Lion's Roar, he raises his caster level using one of the many tricks available for this, to 20th level, Save DC 23 minimum, Fort Save. The 70% evil 10th level Clerics take 45hp of Damage (66% of their total, with a average roll) and are stunned for 1 round. 50% of the Evil Fighters would face the same fate (taking damage equivalent to 56% of their total HP) and be stunned. 95%! of the Rogues would fail their saves (taking damage equivalent to 95% of their HP totals) and of course be stunned. Likewise 95% of the 10th level Wizards would fail their saves (taking 121% of their total HP!!, thus leaving them at -8hp!). Conversely the allies would all gain a +1 to hit their opponents, and gain an average of 24 or 25 bonus HP.
Evil Wizard A responds with hmm... maybe a 8th level Arcane Spell from Spell Compendium like:
Maddening Whispers - turning up to 15-20 (if he raises his caster level) of Good Cleric A's followers insane.
or
Lightning Ring - Making him resistant to electrical attacks, Damaging anyone nearby, and shotting off 2 lightning bolts a round, each doing 5d6 damage (average 17-18hp of damage) to up to 48 of Good Cleric's followers, although most likely he will end up hitting some of his own troops as well, and of course it will hurt them, not give them attack bonuses and healing.
or
whatever....
In the end no spell a 15th+ level Wizard has access to even approaches this one Cleric spell in terms of area effect destruction. I mean at a 30ft radius this spell is overpowered, much less a 120ft radius.
Thoughts?
My thought is that a divine spell is easy to deal with . . . Lion's Roar doesn't really sound like a Wee Jas spell to me. Even if the cleric knows of the spell, they pray to Wee Jas, and Wee Jas says . . . "sorry, not my style."
Just out of curiosity, did you blanket rule that they could use spells from the Spell Compendium? You may want to do something like what I do in my campaigns, which is to say that divine casters do have access to all spells in the PH, but beyond that, they have to learn new rituals and prayers to be able to cast spells outside of that source.
In this case, if they run into a scroll from the Spell Compendium, or from a FR book, or Frostburn or what have you, they may be able to cast it . . . if their god will allow it, since its the god in question granting the spell. This would give you a little more leeway if you want to use some of the spells from a given source, but not others.
Actually the 8th-level wizard spell horrid wilting has a range of 400 ft. + 40 ft./level (minimum of 1,000 ft. and 15d6 damage for a 15th-level wizard). The spell also effects all creatures as long as they are all within 60 feet of one another. lion's roar is still a powerful spell, though because it's centred on the caster reducing its radius to 60 feet or 30 feet would make it much more appropriate. Of course a single silence spell could ruin lion's roar altogether.
I always figured that since all creatures have to be within 60ft of each other, that therefor Horrid Wilting has a radius of effect of 60ft, half that of Lion's Roar. And while Horrid Wilting does do more damage than Lion's Roar (up to 20d6 vs. 10d8, or an average of 70pts of damage vs. 45pts of damage) it does not aid allies, and also does not stun those who fail the saving throw, both of which are powerful additions to Lion's Roar.
Also Horrid Wilting is on the Spell List for Wizards, so in that way both classes have equal access to it's power. Lion's Roar is Cleric and Courage only, and so therefor focuses solely on Divine power.
Also Horrid Wilting requires Verbal components and so would be equally effected by a silence spell, cast upon the spellcaster that is.
I guess my main problem, beyond the huge area of effect, and multi levels of effects (damage to badies, stunning, half if you make save, attack bonuses to goodies, hp bonus to goodies) is that Wizards, correct me if I am wrong, are supposed to be the fireball laying bad***es of magic combat. They are supposed to have the toughest most damage dealing spells of any class. It says so in the DMG/PHB as I recall. And yet here is this massive damage dealing spell, that has all sorts of cool effects, that is divine and not arcane. It's just unbalancing.
I have changed it to 30ft radius. This seems to relieve most of the major issues.
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I can't really comment on Lion's Roar, I must have overlooked it. As for Fortunate Fate, you're entirely right. An assassin's death attack is not truly a death effect, but doesn't trigger the spell, either. My reasoning is that the victim is going below -9 in one shot, missing Fortunate Fate's triggering requirements of (0 to -9 hp), if I'm not mistaken. It would be the same as if the PC took enough damage to put him at -10 or below in a single action. Looking at this another way...
According to the rules, you don't subtract damage from hit points one at a time. (If this were the case, damage reduction would be a bit more complicated and valuable.) Rather, you take the full amount at once. It sounds as though your player is assuming the death attack vs. his character ticked down through his hit points to the negative range towards -10, and that Fortunate Fate would trigger as the result of moving through 0 to -9 (or perhaps at 0). The spell won't save the cleric because he's fully healthy one moment, dead the next; Fortunate Fate's triggering conditions just don't come into play.
As a side note, I do sympathize with your player. I have a long-term character who is a cleric with the Death (or Repose) domain. It's nice to be the one handing out life and death, and a little disconcerting when someone comes along and does it to you despite your defenses. But hey, that's what assassins are known for.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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You ruled correctly.
Ultimately, regardless of whether the spell is triggered, the question is "would heal cure this condition." So, imagine that you've got a cleric positioned right by you with a held action to cast heal whenever you could benefit from that spell. You get hit by the assassin and suffer hit point damage. As a result of the hit point damage, you resolve the death attack (just as if the blade had been poisoned with instant death poison, you would resolve the save for the poison). You fail. You are dead. The cleric casts heal on you to cure the hit point damage. Irrelevant. You are dead.
The fact that the death attack operates like the sneak attack is to say that it is triggered by the same conditions as a sneak attack and prevented by the same set of defenses (e.g., fortification, concealment, etc). The damage requirement for the death attack is on par with the damage requirement for poison or other secondary effects. If an attack doesn't hurt the target, it cannot have its secondary effect. Death attack does not inflict hp damage, there is nothing heal can do to fix a character that has been hit by a death attack.
Also, this doesn't require a ruling that you can't heal sneak attack damage. Some feats allow you to trade out dice of sneak attack damage for ability score damage. That doesn't somehow allow you to use cure light wounds to heal that ability damage because the cure light wounds could be used to heal the hit point damage from sneak attack. Ability damage is different from hit point damage, and instant death, whether it's from poison, a bodak's gaze, a vorpal sword, or an assasin's death attack, is also not hit point damage.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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My thought is that a divine spell is easy to deal with . . . Lion's Roar doesn't really sound like a Wee Jas spell to me. Even if the cleric knows of the spell, they pray to Wee Jas, and Wee Jas says . . . "sorry, not my style."
This would be one of the reasons people don't play clerics. I really want to know what my character can do from the get-go. The PHB says I can cast the spells on the following list. If there are going to be qualifications on that list, I should know ahead of time. If new spells are going to be let in, I should know which ones I can cast. In no instance should I have to guess what an NPC thinks is an appropriate spell for me to cast. What's next? Wee Jas doesn't like me using Divine Power cause she's not a melee combatant? Wee Jas says I can't cast cure light wounds cause it involves touching the smelly fighter and that's not her bag?
If the spell is too powerful, just ban it and let your player know why you banned it. If you want to use the flavor text of "Wee Jas doesn't like that spell" after the fact, that's fine, but don't hide you game balance decision behind an NPC. Similarly, if you don't want to allow in all the new toys from all the new splatbooks, just don't do it. And, if you want to provide customized spell lists for every god in your campaign, give your player a heads up rather than making that determination on an ad hoc basis.
Fortunate Fate casts Heal upon reaching -10hp, or death from a type of damage that heal can mitigate ... I ruled ... the Death Attack is not a Death Effect per see (perhaps I am wrong here, I thought that it is not the type of thing that a Death Ward would prevent) it is a Death Attack, and thus cannot be stopped by heal. I gave the description that the Crossbow bolt hit the Cleric just below the Jaw and lodged in his Skull, even as he fell the entry hole healed around the edges of the bolt, but he was still dead.I believe you are flat wrong here, for many reasons.
First, a "Death Attack" despite the fancy name is still just an attack with a weapon, much like a "Sneak Attack" except that rather than dealing extra dice of damage it results in a single, fatal wound.
According to the DMG a Death Attack is "a sneak attack with a melee weapon that successfully deals damage". The DMG does not describe the type of ability it is, but since it is not given the "Su" or "Sp" descriptors it must be assumed to be "Ex" or Exceptional and therefore mundane in nature.
If you rule that a "Death Attack" cannot be healed then you have to rule the same for Sneak Attack damage.
Secondly, your example of a "crossbow bolt ... lodged in his skull" is entirely inappropriate. D&D has no mechanic for hit-location, and futhermore "hit points" are clearly described in the RAW as not simply being the ability to take physical hits but actually to avoid getting hit in the first place or training to mitigate damage from a blow.
Much as we DM's like to give vivid descriptions of wounds, you cannot in the D&D system make a mechanical ruling based upon what you think the wound is.
Using your example, if my 18 Strength Fighter with his +3 flaming greataxe deals a bull's strength-buffed specialized critical Power Attack max-roll 114 points of damage to an opponent and "splits him in half down the middle" to -9 hp but then later in the round an evil healer comes along and applies...
Thanks for the heads up on Assassin's Death Attack and Melee weapons. Kinda odd really, considering that cinematically Assassins use blowguns, arrows, crossbows, ect. to kill folks, and only about 1/2 the time use melee weapons. Of course maybe they are following in the tradition of the movie "The Professional" in which the more skilled an assassin you are, the closer you get to the client, thus D&D assassins are by their nature, very skilled!
I guess I would disagree with your example of the Fighter, as that is doing HP damage, and certainly it would heal. In this case any HP damage is purely additional to the main effect of death. I would agree that it is probably a ex ability, not sup or spl, but some ex abilites would not be covered by heal.
As far as lodging in his skull. Come on, I was trying to make the attack cinematic, I made no rules basis for that. I think it sounds better, especially in the case of a PC death, to make attacks sound better than "The assassin strikes you with his crossbow bolt. Roll your save. You fail? You are dead now."
My thought is that a divine spell is easy to deal with . . . Lion's Roar doesn't really sound like a Wee Jas spell to me. Even if the cleric knows of the spell, they pray to Wee Jas, and Wee Jas says . . . "sorry, not my style."
This would be one of the reasons people don't play clerics. I really want to know what my character can do from the get-go. The PHB says I can cast the spells on the following list. If there are going to be qualifications on that list, I should know ahead of time. If new spells are going to be let in, I should know which ones I can cast. In no instance should I have to guess what an NPC thinks is an appropriate spell for me to cast. What's next? Wee Jas doesn't like me using Divine Power cause she's not a melee combatant? Wee Jas says I can't cast cure light wounds cause it involves touching the smelly fighter and that's not her bag?
If the spell is too powerful, just ban it and let your player know why you banned it. If you want to use the flavor text of "Wee Jas doesn't like that spell" after the fact, that's fine, but don't hide you game balance decision behind an NPC. Similarly, if you don't want to allow in all the new toys from all the new splatbooks, just don't do it. And, if you want to provide customized spell lists for every god in your campaign, give your player a heads up rather than making that determination on an ad hoc basis.
Yah I would not ban a particular spell in this fashion. That is not my style. I guess some folks might, and maybe I would if I planned it out ahead of time like you suggest there. But not in the middle of the game.
Well a 17th level wizard could just use wish to get a lion's roar.
Well dang, we got 1 vote for me reading the rules wrong (although it seems the attack itself was against the rules, but I play with no go backs, unless they are within the particular session, soo.....) and 2 votes for my rules reading.
I was hoping for a clear "It says here in the sage advice or errata that the Assassin's death attack....."
No dice I guess. Sorry for the pun.
By the way, the player (they are all about 18th level now) got true resurrected, so other than being out some gold, he is otherwise basically unhurt. In fact it only cost him half total, because the woman his is arranged to marry resurrected him, and thus she said half the cost was covered by her, as her dowry. She is one cold High priestess.of Wee Jas.
Well a 17th level wizard could just use wish to get a lion's roar.
No he/she could not. Lion's Roar is an 8th level spell and Wish maxes out at 6th level clerical spells, from schools that are not prohibited to you.
Even it did (which as I said, it is 2 levels away from being able to do) it would still cost 5k exp to do it.
Just to quote the DMG 3.5 on creating new spells it says:
"Wizards and sorcerers should not cast healing spells,"
Thus Lion's Roar rightfully should not be a Wizard/Sorcerer spell because it heals. I am cool with that.
"but they should have the best offensive spells. If the spell is flashy or dramatic, it should probably be a wizard/sorcerer spell."
Hmm......remind me again what wizard spell is as powerful, in terms of area of effect, as Lion's Roar? In the example above, with Horrid Wilting, you have an effective maximum area of 2,800sq ft. (a 30ft radius circle). Lion's Roar has an effective maximum area of 45,200sq. ft. (a 120ft radius circle) or in other words, a 16 times bigger area of effect. More than half the damage, 16 times the area of effect. Sure horrid Wilting has long range capability, but Lion's Roar also Stuns, and then heals and improves morale amongst friends.
Dang Spell Compendium is unbalanced.
The only reason I had opened the door to it, was that I was mostly familiar with 3.0 and have just started getting into 3.5 in the last 2 years. I decided to allow the cannon books, (ie. core books, complete set, spell compendium) because I figured they would be power balanced, and not prone to great leaps of power creep.
Aside from the size of the spell area the spell does not seem to be any problem, but even if the range were halved I doubt it would change how the spell worked in combat. The benifits to allies come from minor spells and are not overpowering for these level.
Even though I don't like the size of the spell (it doesn't force the cleric to move into position to cast it since it hits everyone anyway) it is not powerful powerful enough to say it is overpowered.
"but they should have the best offensive spells. If the spell is flashy or dramatic, it should probably be a wizard/sorcerer spell."Hmm......remind me again what wizard spell is as powerful
Fireball. Lightening bolt, meteor swarm, transmute rock to lava,horrid wilting, just to name a few. Ok, maybe not as good as Lion's Roar on their own. But Lion's roar is one spell. One spell for a cleric. Wiz/Sorcs overall, even espite this ONE spell, still have the best offensive spells in the game.
If by using one spell as an example, you want to claim the spell compendium is unbalanced, that's up to you. It just seems silly to me.
"but they should have the best offensive spells. If the spell is flashy or dramatic, it should probably be a wizard/sorcerer spell."Hmm......remind me again what wizard spell is as powerful
Fireball. Lightening bolt, meteor swarm, transmute rock to lava,horrid wilting, just to name a few. Ok, maybe not as good as Lion's Roar on their own. But Lion's roar is one spell. One spell for a cleric. Wiz/Sorcs overall, even espite this ONE spell, still have the best offensive spells in the game.
If by using one spell as an example, you want to claim the spell compendium is unbalanced, that's up to you. It just seems silly to me.
Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Meteor Swarm, yah!! These are wizardy spells, high in flavor and all. And according to the DMG 3.5 wizards should have the flashier spells.
Lion's Roar is not my only example from spell compendium. In my opinion, spells like the following either destroy important aspets to the game or are unbalanced in how they are written (they show power creep):
Lion's Roar (to powerful)
Death Pact (hmm so no players have no need to fear death, great that will really make the game more itneresting, plus what happens when the players a fighting Kyuss/Cold Captain/other big baddie, and opps he has a Death Pact, they kill him, he comes right back, great....)
Revivify (hmm even fewer issues with dying, just what we need)
Delay Death (ok, so you can be unkillable too?)
Cometfall (overpowered in it's first incarnation in complete divine, and dang if this clerical spell doesn't smell of wizard)
Possibly Darkfire (really just seems like a spell given to clerics to make them as powerful, in terms of attack spells, as wizards)
And I have yet to finish reading over even 1/4 of the spells in the book.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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True. You'd have to pick other spells to make that claim. Like wraithstrike, ball lightning and moonbow (mainly broken in conjuction with Sudden Maximize or Empower), conviction...even the orb spells are problematic, as they make SR essentially useless.
Allowing SpC into a game radically alters the power curve. This appears to be part of WotC's strategy behind supplements in general.