Mage Disjunction - pages 93-94

[elnopintan]

Reading this spell, now it only remove magic object powers during a few minutes. But it still can break artifacts. This is a bit weird. isn't it?

I like the fact that this spell has duration, but 1 minute/level seems a bit low.
In PF-5: The sins of the saviors

Spoiler:

There is a disjunction trap in there. This spell duration makes this trap less dangerous.

I consider that durations should be dayily:
--day/wizard level or day/X wizard level.
--like a curse or disease. Save per day mechanic perhaps.

[Joey Virtue]

I like the old disjunction

[Tarlane]

I think that while this spell might use a bit of reworking(adjusting the duration or the like) that the intent is a good one.

Permanent breaking of the players items, while a reasonable threat, isn't something fun for the party, often times that is in tune with player death in terms of loss, especially if a number of important items are broken to them, it can set a character back a number of levels in power. I think the changes to sunder are good in this way also.

This also makes it a spell that I think players are more likely to be willing to use. They can drop it on a group of badguys to weaken them for the fight without worrying about ruining the gear they might have otherwise collected and thus setting themselves behind.

-Tarlane

[andreww]

The old disjunction had problems because it screwed with expected wealth by level and disproportionately affected characters most reliant on their gear (non casters).

Allowing it to permanently destroy artifacts was often waved around as a balancing method on the basis that you can give your BBEG half a dozen toss ones so no player will ever cast it. This overlooked the fact that many players wouldnt cast it anyway to avoid blowing up the loot.

This is frankly dull. Artifacts generally have all sorts of excellent gaming opportunities. Weird and wonderful quests that you have to complete in order to get rid of the annoying things. If you can circumvent that by simply hitting it with a spell a lot (and risking the near auto pass DC 25 save) then you suck the potential out of the situation. Sure, you get some powerful outsider linked to the artifact mad at you but you were expecting that anyway.

The other problem it has is time. If you use it against your players you then have a 10 minute break while each players makes dozens of saving throws for every magic item they possess and then some of them have to retconn their numbers becuase it broke their Gloves of Dex or something.

You then get to add in even more retrofitting time as it auto destroys all of your buffs.

Sadly the Paizo change does nothing to really address some of these issues. It changes item destruction to a temporary effect almost guaranteeing it will be used as the first spell cast by any group.

Personally I would rather see it as an area affect greater dispel (chain greater dispel is level 9) perhaps with a single target version that auto destroys spells.

This doesnt address all of the issues above but I am not sure any amendment to the spell really can.

[Majuba]

I was most pleased to see Disjunction adjusted. I've had a running agreement with my players that so long as none of them cast it, I won't.

I think perhaps the Artifact destruction part (or any item destruction) needs to be a special, single-targeted, function of the spell.

[tergiver]

andreww wrote:

You then get to add in even more retrofitting time as it auto destroys all of your buffs.

This is the only part I disagree with - as long as it dispels all your buffs, that shouldn't take much calculation. Everyone should have an unbuffed version of their character's numbers ready. Dispelling Some buffs, however, can cause that recalculation.

[Jason C Scott]

I agree that the spell had to be changed from it's 3.5 version and I like the idea of a longer duration on it's effects, I think a day per caster level is reasonable.

I would prefer saving throws and opposed caster level checks to be used as mechanics rather than a flat % die roll. I would like to see that for all spells not just this one.

It is my hope that artifacts will no longer be in a separate class from regular items and simply have higher caster levels listed in their stat blocks. I do realize that this is not going to happen any time soon due to the number of artifacts floating around.