2> Free Vacation on the Negative Energy Plane (no save) The gate spell allows you to call in a specific named individual who is a resident of a plane other than the one you are standing in, and they have to do anything you tell them to (no matter how stupid or dangerous) for 1 round/level. Aside from the basic hilarity of calling in Solars to hand over their sweet loot, you can actually go to other planes of existence and then call in named individuals from your home plane and then kill them. You're a 17th level character and killing a level appropriate challenge is worth more to you than the gate costs; so when you pull in the villain of the adventure and force him to hand roll taquitos for 17 rounds while your entire team beats him mercilessly in the back of the head - you actually make XP (and win the adventure). Breaks game at level 17.Um, isn't this "break" in complete violation of the ban on gaining XP from summoned creatures? Gate is a summon spell. You never gain XP from creatures defeated by a summon spell. They are considered to be part of the XP rewarded by defeating the summoner. Gate is no exception to this. In order for this trick you describe to work, you would need to defeat yourself, not the gated creature.
Nevermind. I think I failed my reading comprehension roll. I was responding to something you weren't really suggesting in here.
Still, I think my point about the XP still stands. You could use this trick to win the adventure (if you can beat him when you cast the spell), but you wouldn't gain XP for it. In fact, you'd sort of shoot yourself in the foot on XP if you did beat him. You wouldn't get any. Too bad, so sad.
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You wouldn't get any for the monster/person maybe but why wouldn't you get adventure awards? If I just saved "Happy Valley" or whatever, who cares how I did it? So while you don't get XP for the battle you certainly should for the "war".
Anyway thanks for your input Frank. I think it's cool to see other game designers chiming in, donating their time and helping out the Pathfinder RPG.
HEY GERON RAVENEYE !!!I liked your posts, but maybe that was because they almost exactly restated everything I already said :-)
*grin*
Rez
Yeah, I noticed that when I finished my post and read over the thread, but Frank's post was long (and interesting) enough to start digging out rulebooks and hypertexts immediately and puzzle together a reply that went point to point from how I view things. Sorry for playing parrot. :)
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All of these are unbounded power loops. The demonstration of the uncapped nature is merely a demonstration of the fact that they are actually broken. When actually encountered in play they will rarely be used to their fullest (essentially limitless) effect.
So what would you say is the "correct" time to nip this stuff down? When the player characters legitimately want to cure their lycanthropy and you tell them they can't because the level trade-out rules are broken? When the party wishes for a Holy Avenger? When the party sits back and watches a Black Ethergaunt solve their problems for them at the end of a gate mandate?
No.
The correct time to fix these is when you are writing the rules. You write them so that these loopholes don't exist. And then the DM doesn't have to notice that what the players happen to be doing isn't merely an effective tactic but the tip of an iceberg that extends to infinity and madness.
Remember, the vast majority of people who encounter Difference Engine in play don't do it by being a 10th level Cleric with a Wight and a Werewolf chained up in their basement - they do it because they perfectly reasonably encounter a werewolf, a wight, and then a town where they can purchase break enchantment and follow the rules in order (and find out that mysteriously they just gained 2 levels for free).
-Frank
Completely agree with you. If we can make things better. Why not? If we can remove loopholes we've encountered in 3.5, let's do it. This happened with 3.0 too, who remembers the Bag o' Rats, or the 20th level Barbarian Bucket. These are not possible in 3.5. We want to avoid this situations completely as the game progresses, not leave them behind. These are ERRORs, and they should be corrected. Period.
This thread rules!
just a little addition to the wishes thing. Specifically the efreeti. This happened in my game, and it really p*ssed me off. I took a smoke break and came back while they were back patting and planning on how to use their new item and possibly get more.
I figured that an hour or two was long enough for a little "research" so about the time I sat back down, Orcus himself gated them to his home and prompty fed his 20 level 10 barbarian abyssal ghouls "fresh" adventurer.
They were royally peeved at me for being so heavy handed, but I simply referred them back to the laminated house rules sheet v1.5 - rule number 1...Dont F*ck with the DM, he will ALWAYS get you back in the end.
That said, the rules are only a framework...or to quote Johnny depp, their more like "guidelines".
I'll bet there are dozens of other little things like this hiding in there. Removing the DM's advisory role in order to make a point is what is broken, the rest is common sense. Munchkin players break games - with a DM's consent only.
I think you're missing a point. The Augmented subtype doesn't tell us what you are, it tells us what you were.
-Hyp.
You're right, I did. O_o
Now can somebody tell me what the hell this "augmented" subtype is GOOD for then? Right now, it seems it's only there to confuse people.
2> Free Vacation on the Negative Energy Plane (no save) The gate spell allows you to call in a specific named individual who is a resident of a plane other than the one you are standing in, and they have to do anything you tell them to (no matter how stupid or dangerous) for 1 round/level. Aside from the basic hilarity of calling in Solars to hand over their sweet loot, you can actually go to other planes of existence and then call in named individuals from your home plane and then kill them. You're a 17th level character and killing a level appropriate challenge is worth more to you than the gate costs; so when you pull in the villain of the adventure and force him to hand roll taquitos for 17 rounds while your entire team beats him mercilessly in the back of the head - you actually make XP (and win the adventure). Breaks game at level 17.Um, isn't this "break" in complete violation of the ban on gaining XP from summoned creatures? Gate is a summon spell. You never gain XP from creatures defeated by a summon spell. They are considered to be part of the XP rewarded by defeating the summoner. Gate is no exception to this. In order for this trick you describe to work, you would need to defeat yourself, not the gated creature.
Gate is not a summoning spell. It is a Calling spell. A summon spell is just like a fireball or a wall of stone - it's not really a separate critter. A Calling spell teleports an actual creature from a real place to your immediate vicinity. And the limits of summoning (such as having the effects of their abilities expire when they do or not granting anyone any XP for their defeat) don't apply.
-Frank
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Now can somebody tell me what the hell this "augmented" subtype is GOOD for then? Right now, it seems it's only there to confuse people.
Yup. To quote myself from an earlier post;
"The Animal becomes a Magical Beast. Except that it doesn't gain the abilities of a Magical Beast, it retains the abilities of an Animal, only we call it a 'Magical Beast' because we wanted to yank your dick."
Subtypes and Types are too often seen as a straightjacket. Just because the 'Animal' entry says that the creature can't get above an Int of 2 doesn't mean that an Awakened Animal needs to become a Magical Beast (but without the darkvision, bigger HD or better BAB, in other words, being exactly like an ANIMAL, except smarter!).
Grr. It's semantic gobbledigook, and it's one reason stuff like the multi-Awaken-chain gets any traction at all. Clear, concise writing would make these things go away. A single sentence stating that bonuses gained from an Awaken spell do not stack with themselves would follow established rules precedent that bonuses from the same source, even if unnamed, don't stack with themselves.
The same thing applies to some spell that adds X Hardness to items, as an unnamed bonus (I think it was in Magic of Faerun). Woot, cast it a hundred times on my Longsword / Shield / Castle wall, it now has a Hardness of 100X +5.
guess it depends on whether you game gives XP for killing party members. Usually tacky, generally inappropriate, yet still asked EVERY time the Paladin kills the rogue.
I'm glad the OP made this post. I recognize most of the points from time spend lurking on the old WoTC CharOp Board.
My suggestions:
1: Wishes cannot beget more wishes, by proxy or by immediate agent.
2: Remove the Calling descriptor/sub-school from Gate
3: errata + whatever fix Jason arrives at.
4: Energy Drain does not affect Character level/XP totals. Energy drain does effect caster/manifestor level. Values/Stats restored from Energy cannot exceed the values/stats/bonuses of a pc's character level.
5: Any creature/monster/class capable of creating spawn (creates a spawn of one "hierarchy level" less than the creator. Hierarchies are Greater, Normal/untyped and Lesser. Any creature/monster/class capable of creating spawn can only create a number of spawn equal to half their CHA score. Lesser Spawn cannot create spawn. Destroying a parent spawn also destroys all child spawn. Lesser spawn have an Int score of zero.
Thoughts?
I'm glad the OP made this post. I recognize most of the points from time spend lurking on the old WoTC CharOp Board.
That is because these particular power loops were formalized and named four to six years ago. Seriously, the Free Vacation was demonstrated o Andy Collins on the WotC board by PaulS back when 3.5 was being written and Andy Collins declined to fix it on the grounds that it seemed "like an awfully expensive way to kill something." Sigh.
Now there are also numerous established power loops using non-core material (excised because we couldn't use them anyway) and Psionics (excised because at least for the present Pathfinder does not appear to use the Psionics rules).
My suggestions:1: Wishes cannot beget more wishes, by proxy or by immediate agent.
Note that specifically getting more wishes is a Free Lunch paradox, but it's just the formal proof that the rules are broken, not the sum total of all the broken things you can do with it. Since +20 Cloaks of Resistance have a cost, you could wish for them (provided that you were using a ring or an efreet and did not have to pay that cost). The Wish problem is quite complex, as for one thing most of the "fair" uses of Wish are actually underpowered compared with miracle.
2: Remove the Calling descriptor/sub-school from Gate
That would fix it right through. I am painfully aware that summon monster IX is a cruel hoax, but the solution is to improve the monster summoning spells (both in duration and monster list, especially duration); not to have additional spells like gate which are simply way more powerful and open ended than the Monster Summons will ever be.
3: errata + whatever fix Jason arrives at.
Just for starters, types shouldn't change around.
4: Energy Drain does not affect Character level/XP totals. Energy drain does effect caster/manifestor level. Values/Stats restored from Energy cannot exceed the values/stats/bonuses of a pc's character level.
Personally I would rather just leave Negative Levels accumulating on people and never transfer them into actual lost levels.
5: Any creature/monster/class capable of creating spawn (creates a spawn of one "hierarchy level" less than the creator. Hierarchies are Greater, Normal/untyped and Lesser. Any creature/monster/class capable of creating spawn can only create a number of spawn equal to half their CHA score. Lesser Spawn cannot create spawn. Destroying a parent spawn also destroys all child spawn. Lesser spawn have an Int score of zero.
For starters: you shouldn't be able to make Shadows out of butterflies and squirrels. Shadow Spawn should require sapient victims to make. Also, they probably shouldn't last very long. I'm OK with getting a Planescape Torment style shadow explosion when a Shadow breaks into an orphanage - it should just end on its own rather than dividing into twenty parts that all chain reaction until everyone on the planet is dead.
Vampire Spawn aren't a super big problem because they have to start with humanoids and it takes a d4 days to bring them back as Spawn.
K and I had a modestly satisfactory rewrite on Wish Over Here.
-Frank
Can anyone tell me whether they are removing the wish spell from 4e? That would solve the problem (at least for 4e).
While I still think these problems are fairly minor (as in only real power-munchkins will try them out and DMs can just make a ruling on the spot) from the viewpoint of the Pathfinder rules I suppose they should be formally changed.
Unless Jason and the others disagree with Frank, of course. :)
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That is because these particular power loops were formalized and named four to six years ago. Seriously, the Free Vacation was demonstrated o Andy Collins on the WotC board by PaulS back when 3.5 was being written and Andy Collins declined to fix it on the grounds that it seemed "like an awfully expensive way to kill something." Sigh.
And with identical effort he could have had an eratta or Sage Advice clarify that it couldn't be done. But no. Why *fix* the rule when you can snark about it... :/
The Wish problem is quite complex, as for one thing most of the "fair" uses of Wish are actually underpowered compared with miracle.
True. Genies, IMO, shouldn't have Wishes. They should have a mixture of Create Food & Drink, Minor Creation, Major Creation, True Creation, Permanant Image and / or Fabricate, as well as high Craft skills. Wish for something, and the Genie actually *makes it,* right there on the spot. Unless you pissed him off, then he just makes you a permanant image of the thing and gives you a two-fingered salute.
F33b wrote:
2: Remove the Calling descriptor/sub-school from GateThat would fix it right through. I am painfully aware that summon monster IX is a cruel hoax, but the solution is to improve the monster summoning spells (both in duration and monster list, especially duration); not to have additional spells like gate which are simply way more powerful and open ended than the Monster Summons will ever be.
Calling spells should be axed. Summon the creature, then use a second spell to negotiate a longer term of service from it, at which point it gets to stick around, but still follows the rules of Summoning (no using it's own Summoning powers, no XP-costing powers, no free lunches).
I sometimes think that Summoning spells should last a minute or ten minutes or something, and that only one can be cast at a time by a single caster.
I usually think this around round three of the Druid saying, "I summon 1d3 more Badgers to join Badger-Fresh Farms, Ltd..."
Personally I would rather just leave Negative Levels accumulating on people and never transfer them into actual lost levels.
As a debuff, powerful and scary. As a permanant removal of skills and knowledge, I don't get it, and never did. We house-ruled level drain back in 1st edition, using just big damage instead.
For starters: you shouldn't be able to make Shadows out of butterflies and squirrels. Shadow Spawn should require sapient victims to make. Also, they probably shouldn't last very long. I'm OK with getting a Planescape Torment style shadow explosion when a Shadow breaks into an orphanage - it should just end on its own rather than dividing into twenty parts that all chain reaction until everyone on the planet is dead.
Vampire Spawn aren't a super big problem because they have to start with humanoids and it takes a d4 days to bring them back as Spawn.
I'd rather that the Create Spawn power not even exist for most undead. Add some flavor text saying that undead creatures sometimes seem to arise spontaneously in areas of great horror and tragedy, vortexes to the negative material plane, abandoned theatres where the D&D movie was performed, etc. No 'I command a Shadow and send him to make a thousand more, under his, and therefore my, control!'
Only Vampires have a reason top be able to Create Spawn, since it's a powerful bit of their mythology, and they have specific limitations which at least help to keep them somewhat in line.
[Although I do completely loathe the Vampire rules in D&D. The monster write-up should be more modular, like the Ghost write-up, and allow for variations ranging from Buffy-style vampires to Dracula-style vampires (and Dracula really isn't a whole lot different than a Buffy-style vampire with a half-dozen levels of Sorcerer...).]
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Ok, weighing in...
a) Wish needs cleaned up, got it. There needs to be a balance between infinate cosmic power and DM screws you power. My suggestion: Frank's revised wish (good write up BTW) and bigger wishes using the ritual rules from UA.
b) Gate should be a ritual, so should most calling spells. Research and costs to help keep them safe, legal, and rare.
c) I think the best solution is the ironic one. You become a magical beast. Anything that changes your type again ends the spell's effects. That or a simple "You may only cast this spell on a target once. If the target has class levels, it does not gain the charisma bonus or the hitdice for being awakened."
d)Hopefully, we'll work out a fix to the entire ECL/LA/XP issue.
e) Agree Spawn should be from sentient creatures. Ghost Hounds should be a one off, shadow hounds even less. How about spawn created lose 1 hd a day, unless they're emancipated or DM fiat?
What are the psionic ones Frank?
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The key is in the Augmented Animal subtype:This particular bit of esoterica is something I loathe in any game system.
"The Animal becomes a Magical Beast. Except that it doesn't gain the abilities of a Magical Beast, it retains the abilities of an Animal, only we call it a 'Magical Beast' because we wanted to yank your dick."
In my game, an Awakened Animal (or Vermin) becomes a Magical Beast, at which point it follows the rules for 'Magical Beast' in the SRD. No nonsensical exception is needed in this case, as exceptions just bog down the game and needlessly complicate things, IMO.
Yup. Magical Beast. Awaken only targets Animal or Tree, not Magical Beast.
"An awakened animal gets 3d6 Intelligence, +1d3 Charisma, and +2 HD. Its type becomes magical beast (augmented animal). An awakened animal can’t serve as an animal companion, familiar, or special mount."
Sounds like they closed the loophole but some people refuse to take the hint and decide to argue the 'augmented animal' part to mean something that they can exploit.
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Yup. Magical Beast. Awaken only targets Animal or Tree, not Magical Beast.
"An awakened animal gets 3d6 Intelligence, +1d3 Charisma, and +2 HD. Its type becomes magical beast (augmented animal). An awakened animal can’t serve as an animal companion, familiar, or special mount."
Yes, Mr Druid, you've decided to reward your best friend forever who has grown with you over the last 9 levels by casting this new spell you just gained on him and grant him sentience, and he immediately says, "Bye." and walks away.
Very strange concept there, the Druid working so hard to get a spell that destroys one of his Class Abilities.
Especially since there are exceptions of Druid with Magical Beast Companions (of the non-Awakened sort even) running around in several settings (and at least one 'Races of' book!) anyway...
I guess having a Brown Bear that can talk as an Animal Comanion is more game-wrecking than having a Cooshee or a Displacer Beast.
Sounds like they closed the loophole but some people refuse to take the hint and decide to argue the 'augmented animal' part to mean something that they can exploit.
In the examples cited more times than I care to recount, the 'Magical Beast (augmented animal)' is then changed back into an Animal type creature by some other spell and then re-Awakened.
The idea here to post useful stuff, not make underhanded swipes at other posters. We're past that now.
The whole 'some people refuse to take the hint' thing is both snotty and passive-aggressive, and given that you didn't bother to read the example to which you were sniping, also kinda wrong.
There's not much more embarassing than being snotty to someone and wrong at the same time.
Me defending Franks points, perhaps a little too harshly!Are you the fanclub president? Just asking, because you come over so incredibly defensive and annoyed that some people question the assessment of the OP. Anyway, the intent wasn't bashing. :)
Some of the things the OP posted as "loopholes" are indeed loopholes. Other are very narrow interpretations of the rules, nothing else, and don't need a fix so much as some common sense. Some are only broken if the DM in question is stupid enough to simply sit there and let his players waltz all over him, but in that case, any rule can be broken. No save.
The fact that some of the combinations can be abused, if looked from one angle (or trying to exclude the underlying intent of the rule in question), won't be easily fixed by impriving or streamlining. Quite the opposite. His "Reawakening" example can only be "fixed" in his sense of the word if every ability brought up in the combo has a specifically attached note that it won't work together with all the other abilities in question. It's the same thing the old editions did for magical items...noting every exception in the item description. If you want that for every ability that could convievably be combined to an abusing result in 3.5, we're looking...
First of all, sorry if I cam across as "incredibly defensive and annoyed". It wasn't my intention to be incredibly defensive, although I do admit being annoyed. It seemed kinda strange to me, that alot of people were defending 3.5 as written, instead of looking at possible ways to solve these problems easily.
I mean, I don't see all of these people telling everyone else that every conceptual problem is actually a "feature" ;) and most people here seem to agree that there ARE problems to fix in 3.5. So, what I meant, originally, was - why not make sure to fix these problems while we're at it?
Apology accepted, and returned. :) I guess it's the old symptom of online arguments lacking in facial expressions and tone of voice.
The thing is, I'm not trying to argue the fact that there are things in 3.X that could use fixing. My point is simply that some things only come out after a few thousand geek-hours of folding, spindling and mutilating a given rules system. With the open playtest here, Pathfinder might actually get that in, but then there's a different problem...the risk that every "fix" that is installed to block some kind of abuse that comes around three corners will suddenly either cause another abuse to open up, or will at the same time block some positive effect that was actually intended. And some things will pop up 2 or 3 years after the system has been finalized, because it is such a rare combination that it simply doesn't happen that often (or is of the kind that 99 % of the DMs will smack down with a rolled newspaper).
In my opinion, there is a lot of big stuff that should be dealt with first before the the described kinds of loopholes can be closed. As far as I see, that is the task for when the Beta release is out, and most of the "rough stuff" has been dealt with. :)
Of course, simply reminding the designers that us players will manage to break EVERYthing one way or another (and I'm sure no amount of care will avoid that simple fact of RPG life ;D) is okay...will keep them on their toes, hopefully. :D
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Just don't remove Awaken as a spell. I've had some fascinating conversations with horses.
Iron kingdoms tried to remove Awaken, thing is they didn't remove limited wish. So I just wished for an awaken like effect because remember it can duplicate the effects of a lower level spell. Worked like a charm. And yes Frank pointed that out to me.
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Problems like these here are best adjudicated by the DM. There isn't enough room in ANY rule book to cover every possible way that a munchkin will try to game the system. Anyone who is trying to 'win' DnD is not only missing the point but is also playing the wrong game.
Granted there are issues that need to addressed. There's no arguments there. The questions is 'Do we spend our limited time and resources fixing issues that can only happen if someone is blatantly going out of their way to break the game or do we spend our limited time and resources addressing issues that occur with a depressing frequency simply by playing the game?'
No matter what the rules may say; I , as the DM, will use common sense and logic with a little deductive reasoning to adjudicate the game in a way that makes the game fun for everyone. The answer to a player who tries to use the rules to break the game is a firm 'NO!'
If that answer is unacceptable then the player in question needs to find another crew to game with. No hard feelings. No emotional outbursts. No need to get a bad asymmetrical haircut and carve passages from your favorite splatbook in your pale flesh.
It's not me. It's you.
See ya at the game shop.
And now for something completely different:
<threadHijack>
Powerlamer question:
What class/level would you have to be to cast a 15d6 maximized, empowered, acid energy admixtured flamestrike and what would the final damage output be in terms of dice and damage type?
</threadHijack>
Peace, etc.
SM
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Hi. New to these boards, but I've learned how to rules-lawyer from some of the best, so I hope you're willing to hear me out.
I'm not really feeling willing to read up on most of this, but I may be able to help with this tricky "Awaken" loop we're dealing with. Cracking out my handy SRD, I'm looking at the "Target" line of the spell description. It specifically mentions the term "animal", as does the spell text. "Animal" is defined as a creature type, which is mentioned in various locations to be unable to have an intelligence higher than 2. Therefore, any creature or character with an intelligence of 3 or higher is an illegal target for the Awaken spell. Since the target of the spell has 3d6 intelligence, they can't be an animal (due to a minimum of 3 intelligence from the roll), and therefore becomes an illegal target for the spell. No DM finesse, no crazy cross-examples. As written, the Awaken spell can be used on a target animal once and only once. Now, if you could turn yourself into a tree, you'd have something, but I have yet to see a spell that allows that.
Technically any creature which stops being an Animal Type because it has an Int higher than 3 gains the [Augmented Animal] Subtype, which means that they are still targetable by any spells which target animals. So really you don't need to do anything funky Reawaken. Once you've targeted yourself once, you can target yourself again and again.
But seriously, this discussion shouldn't be revolving around people trying to pull hair-brained theories on why these rules loopholes don't exist, because they do. This discussion should be about people coming up with alternate writeups of the rules such that these loop holes don't exist, as all of them are symptomatic of portions of the rules that don't work well.
-Frank
And technically as a Game Master...
I can have a host of whatever CR20 creatures swoop down and utterly destroy said Munchkin player character....Frankly I feel your name says it all..."Troll"man
What are the psionic ones Frank?
That's a weird question, because the Psionics rules that most people who use Psionics use these days (the XPH) are not actually open content. So while people wanting to infinite power themselves in an SRD world are going to Affinity Field across a Fission to give themselves more Power Points than they spend to blah blah blah.
More current Psionics shenanigans include the "Save Point" using:
- Forced Dream (Magic of Eberron)
- Anticipatory Strike (Complete Psionics)
- Time Hop
- Psionic Contingency
- A psi-crystal
- Status
- Imbue Spell-like Ability
- Sending Stones (Magic Item) (Complete Arcane)
This allows you to have your entire existence revert back to what it was 24 hours ago at the end of every adventuring day unless you voluntarily prevent that from happening - which means that if anything actually bad ever happens (like say, you die) then it is undone automatically.
---
But I don't really like talking about Psionics power loops because they have a tendency to be quite complicated and you've seen what happens when you talk about extremely simple power loops on message boards. ;)
-Frank
But I don't really like talking about Psionics power loops because they have a tendency to be quite complicated and you've seen what happens when you talk about extremely simple power loops on message boards. ;)-Frank
Yeah, you get people who start browsing through a heap of books and hypertext, and then either agree with you, or go "You have a problem with THAT?". ;)
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---But I don't really like talking about Psionics power loops because they have a tendency to be quite complicated and you've seen what happens when you talk about extremely simple power loops on message boards. ;)
-Frank
Well i see the problem. I think my problem is I was looking at the UTP versions of some of those powers.
At least you didn't mention the metamind. Suck for free, 10 rounds a day.
Two and a half potential fixes for some of the brokenness -
1) Spell-like abilities should cost XP if the spell does. The Efreet can't spend himself down a level/hit dice, so there's a limit to how much juju the wish can have. I've been playing this way, and I don't know if there's an official rule that says they don't cost XP.
1.5) Epic items should have a cap - I've implemented someone else's house rule that epic items are capped at 2x the non-epic cap. So only +10 cloaks of resistance, not +20. That doesn't address the current list of brokenness, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.
2) I ran an adventure where the shadow that got away in a previous encounter went off into the wilderness creating shadow monsters. I ruled that since shadows had a -4 intelligence adjustment, any creature with an int less than 5 wouldn't turn into a shadow spawn. So there were some random dead animals, but only shadow goblins, displacer beasts, etc.
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In my opinion, there is a lot of big stuff that should be dealt with first before the the described kinds of loopholes can be closed. As far as I see, that is the task for when the Beta release is out, and most of the "rough stuff" has been dealt with. :)
And yet, to my view, a lot of these crazy little over-the-top issues come from a single bit of 'big stuff that should be dealt with.'
Critters are given all sorts of powers that aren't balanced for PCs to have.
In a fantasy setting, PCs are going to be able to turn into creatures, and thus gain powers that aren't balanced for them to have. PCs are going to be able to charm/dominate/control creatures, and thus gain powers that aren't balanced for them to have. PCs are going to be able to summon critters, and gain powers that aren't balanced for them to have. PCs are going to be able to have Cohorts / Companions / Familiars of all sorts, and gain powers that aren't balanced for them to have. In some games, PCs are going to be able to *play as monsters,* and, once again, gain powers that aren't balanced for them to have.
Is the solution to get rid of summoning, get rid of cohorts / animal companions, get rid of polymorph / wild shape, get rid of monsters-as-PCs *and* get rid of charm / dominate spells? That sounds less and less like fantasy role-playing and more and more like CSI: Miami.
IMO, what *needs* to happen is for monsters *not* to have abilities (from Efreeti Wishes to Surrukh craziness to Lantern Archon free Continual Lights at will) that are not balanced for the PCs to have. Because barring the most stripped-down non-fantasy game EVER, the PCs *are* going to find away to get one of those monster abilities working for them, even if it's as simple as a maxed out Diplomacy check and a fat bribe!
4E is going, IMO, the exact wrong direction. Monsters are becoming *less* like PCs, and spells like Polymorph and Summoning and options like monsters-as-PCs are going to be even stickier and messier and harder to manage than they were in 3E.
What's better, take all sorts of fantasy options, such as shapeshifting, summoning and enchantment/charm spells out of the game because it breaks if anyone casts them, or *fix the monsters using special 'proud nail' rules* and leave these fantasy-staples in the game? And there's the irony, Mike Mearls got it dead on right when he said that 'proud nails' are a problem, and then he veered in the exact opposite direction and made the entire freaking Monster Manual 4E into a bunch of proud nails! Argh! I was on your side Mike! Why have you forsaken me? :)
Polymorph isn't the problem. Gate isn't the problem. Wild Shape isn't the problem. These are just symptoms of the problem, which goes by names like Efreeti and War Troll and Shadow.
I got to respectfully disagree here, really. :) It's not the fact that an Efreet possesses the ability to cast Wish for the one who controls him...it's the wording of the spell itself. Add the old and traditional clause that a Wish cannot be used to gain more wishes, from whatever source, and that any attempt will end badly for the one who wished such, and you're finished with that particular problem. Clarify that "magical item" does NOT mean artifact or relic, and you're done with that as well.
The whole spawning problem can be dealt with in one line. "Spawns cannot create spawns themselves before they are not free from their creator's control." A popular and widely found modern myth about vampires.
The worst problems can be dealt with "at the source", so to speak, since Wish is an ability a high-level wizard will have as well, or a mid-level group in a Ring of Three Wishes or similar.
Polymorphing was actually pretty harmless in its 3.0 incarnation, and never needed the whole mutation-mess it was put through over time. One line would have cured all those "But the player can use ANY monster supplement as source, it's BROKEN!!" complaints. "The caster can only polymorph the target into a creature he has seen before, or knows intimately from theory. A successful Knowledge (relevant field) check (DC 15 + CR of the monsters) is necessary to remember enough details about any creature to polymorph into it." Have fun watching the habitual polymorpher sink skill points into diverse Knowledge skills to be able to keep his portfolio up.
The summoning spells need one part eliminated. The "...or to perform other actions." part should go. That turns the spell into pure combat support, which it was supposed to be in the first place, and leaves such scams as creating everburning torches to spells as Gate, Lesser Planar Ally and similar spells, where you need to haggle with the creature you called to do you a service.
My point is that these are the "smaller changes" that are in the details. Rewordings, clarifications, and a line here and there to stop a loophole. The 3.5 system is based on the fact that monster abilities are (more or less) consistent with what PCs can do at some point, through spells or magical items or class abilities. Taking that away from monsters would be hurting that more than it helps.
All in my opinion, of course. :)
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I do agree with your point that the Wish, etc. need to have some clarifying language in them, and that the *entire* problem isn't that 8 HD Efreeti can grant three of them a day with no cost at all, but that problem doesn't cease to exist when the Wish is a 9th level spell that *does* have consequences for PCs to use.
If it isn't balanced for an 8th level character, then an 8 HD critter has no business tossing it around, because the game has a half-dozen different ways that the PCs can get their hands on it, and if you remove them all from the game, you might as well just outlaw magic from your fantasy altogether.
The whole spawning problem can be dealt with in one line. "Spawns cannot create spawns themselves before they are not free from their creator's control." A popular and widely found modern myth about vampires.
Which does nothing for the character that can turn into an undead, or summon one, or *use Diplomacy* to convince one to use it's Create Spawn power on his behalf, or take it as a Cohort with Undead Leadership.
The problem is exactly as big as I've described it. Create Spawn is a crazy-broken power, as written. If a PC can't have this power without breaking the game, *then it doesn't belong in the game.*
One line would have cured all those "But the player can use ANY monster supplement as source, it's BROKEN!!" complaints. "The caster can only polymorph the target into a creature he has seen before, or knows intimately from theory. A successful Knowledge (relevant field) check (DC 15 + CR of the monsters) is necessary to remember enough details about any creature to polymorph into it."
And now the DM is also being punished. He has to look at every single monster he introduces to his game, to see if it's got a power that he doesn't want Transmuter Bob to be adding to his catalog of kewl powers.
If the Shadow didn't have Create Spawn and the Efreeti created goods with Fabricate / Creation spells instead of Wish, then the creatures themselves are no longer unbalanced, and PCs who get their hands on these abilities (or befriend these creatures) are no longer game-breakers.
The plethora of ways that a creature that can grant 3 Wishes / day can abuse it's own abilities is breathtaking.
Uh, except that Wish has an XP Cost of 5000. :)
Unless your Wizard has infinite experience points, he cannot simply pay the costs and do this. He loses 5K XP every time.
Now, unless the GM is going to let the player go into XP Debt, he will run out of the ability to do this.
This means that a 17th level Wizard can, at most, cast 3 wishes in a single day. And then he's DONE. For a while.
So...how long do you want to stay 17th level while the party advances.
Wish is fine. Stupid dungeon mastering unbalances this, not the high XP cost, which you must pay in ADDITION to the cost of any items that you create.
Quite frankly, in our games, when someone memorizes Wish or Limited Wish, it's a reason to save the party's butt in a tight spot.
On the other hand, Create Spawn is broken. Period. This power needs to have fixed restrictions on the number of spawn, or the world would be covered in spawn in a few short weeks.
Well, as I found out yesterday night, the whole Wish problem is a symptom of 3.5...check the wording of the 3.0 version of wish if you're interested to see how it differs on the creation of items. :)
Is always funny to see where the whole 3.5 update went wrong. In that respect, I agree with the original poster...the best chance not to create such loopholes is to make sure your wording is clear and correct, and spells out what you want the rule in question to do.
Why not just take the spells out?
The game wont be fundamentally altered.
If you can give the d6 hit die to wizards, taking a spell out wont be any different
Uh, except that Wish has an XP Cost of 5000. :)In Pathfinder Alpha, the 18th level non-specialist wizard can use Wish 1/day as a spell-like ability. Spell-like abilities don't have an XP cost.
-Hyp.
In the case of Wish, that is not correct. Wish specifically says you must spend the XP in the description. This is why often, you'll see things noted in modules like "So and So has X number of XP for casting Wish spells." There is no difference between a spell-like ability and casting a spell as far as all the other mechanics of the game are concerned. I am convinced you are incorrect. Unless the ability says "Grant another's Wish."
In the case of Wish, that is not correct. Wish specifically says you must spend the XP in the description. This is why often, you'll see things noted in modules like "So and So has X number of XP for casting Wish spells." There is no difference between a spell-like ability and casting a spell as far as all the other mechanics of the game are concerned. I am convinced you are incorrect. Unless the ability says "Grant another's Wish."Uh, except that Wish has an XP Cost of 5000. :)In Pathfinder Alpha, the 18th level non-specialist wizard can use Wish 1/day as a spell-like ability. Spell-like abilities don't have an XP cost.
-Hyp.
[Citation Needed]
People have already linked to the rule in the Monster Manual that says that if you cast a spell with a spell-like ability that you don't pay any XP costs. In order to demonstrate your counter thesis, you would need to find a specific rule that said that you did need to pay 5000 XP even while casting wish as a spell-like ability. And I'm reading the spell entry right now and it says no such thing.
Provisionally, I believe you to be in error pending you finding a statement in the rules to back up your position.
-Frank
Fix for wishing for items: You may wish for any number of items that have a total market price of 2,000 gp x your relevant casting ability score (Charisma for sorcerers and Intelligence for wizards) or less.
Thoughts?