Everything [...] Spells: Dispel Magic (a few in-game impressions)

[ruemere]

This is just a quick recap of a few times Dispel Nagic was used in my games. Hopefully, someone will take note of that or chime in with their in-game experiences.

1. Medium scale battle. Night raid by PCs + NPC soldiers on encampent of several scores of opponents lead by enemy general (base Lich).

During the fight the Lich attempts to help his soldiers by taking down buffs, invisibilites and area spells (like Entanglement) by using several area dispels.

Bad idea. By the time he is done, his soldiers are dead or routed, and the party tears up the camp looking for the general, i.e. the Lich.

2. Large scale battle. Hundreds of Shadowspawn Zombies vs players during assault (by PCs) on an important strategic point.

Officers leading zombies exchange pleasantries with PCs (i.e. spells).
Some of them include general spells like Dispel.

Unfortunately, spells are taken down at random - important ongoing effects remain untouched.

Bad idea for officers.

3. Characters find two wands, one of Dispel Magic and the other of Fireball.

During the three year long campaign, they have almost exhausted Fireballs, and used Dispel Magic wand two or three times, always outside of combat, and only to Dispel some minor annoying effect.

----

There could have been more examples, however these three I find most telling. Single BBEGs cannot afford to use actions which do not negate PC resources or negate at random. Multiple villains of lower level better work as artillery than debuffers. Magic items of the same level - offense has much wider application than limited and non-scalable defense.

Generalizing, D20 lacks system for active defense. In other words, you cannot actively defend using defensive spells and abilities. You defend only by building high passive defenses.
That's why things like Dispel Magic are underpowered.

Limiting defense system to passive one speeds up combat resolution, so there is some merit in doing that. However, given my experiences with WFRP (where you could trade attacks for dodges, for example), maybe it would be a good idea to develop several combat manoeuvers and spells sorely for defense.

For example:

- Block - Use opportunity attack to make Reflex saving through against opponent melee attack roll. Halve damage received upon success. Works only against weapons of the same size, one size bigger or smaller.

- Counterspell - Use opportunity attack to cast Dispel Magic in attempt to interrupt another spell being cast. You may substitute any spell for Dispel Magic provided that you identify correctly spell being cast by your opponent (Spellcraft check vs 10 + opponent's Spellcraft total + spell level being cast) - substituted spell level must be higher or equal to spell being cast.

Regards,
Ruemere

[Jal Dorak]

NPC clr9/ftr6 moves into a field of black tentacles with many spell effects active, including Freedom of Movement and Bear's Endurace.

Party cleric casts dispel magic, failing to remove the freedom spell, but succeeding on a bear's endurance. Previously the party had only done around 10-20 damage per round on this cleric, it was a tough fight. With only 26 hit points left, this put the cleric into the negatives. Encounter over.

Another fight, the party cleric uses it on a buffed ftr10. Removes energy resistance, and more importantly shield of faith +4.

Another fight, party cleric uses it on a group of 5 clr6. Removes protection from evil on each one, unfortunately missed the magic circle against evil, which kept most of them protected.

Still another. Wiz7 is trapped below deck on a ship while the other 4 PCs are above decks fighting Kuo-Toa, including a Monitor Clr7. The wizard uses haste once he could pop his head out of the deck hatch. After a few rounds of hasted devastation, the cleric casts dispel magic on the party, eliminating 3 of 4 hastes. It bought the cleric another 3-4 rounds of combat.

[Crusader of Logic]

I'm noticing a pattern already. The Dispel only works out well if the combat is artificially slowed considerably. Seriously. Just taking an extra attack off 3 people made it live 3 more rounds? What, are they doing 1d6+1 to the thing?

In anything approaching normal speed, waste of time.

Anyways, here's an example better than Dispel. Anti Magic Ray. It just flat out stops all magic effects for a period. I used this once. It didn't even seem to have any effect, and since the guy was alone he was easily taken out in one round. Waste of my action, waste of expensive component. Were it instead Dispel, it wouldn't have even been assured of working.

After that... multiple examples of combats involving presumably buffed enemies and BBEGs that were just torn apart in 1 round of concentrated fire, two examples of a highly buffed enemy attacking a single PC. One of which was taken out in 2 rounds (the PC, that is) and couldn't have dispelled even if he wanted to. More to the point it was the minion doing all the damage, so dispelling the cleric was pointless. The other actually lasted a while, but dispelling the cleric was still pointless even though he had about ten buffs active because it was a better use of actions to stun juggle with PW Stun while the cohort smashes them up. Again, only the minion was a real threat here.

Now, maybe if the DM is throwing a full fledged CoDzilla at you... Except then, he's probably boosted his CL so he doesn't get affected anyways, or even better yet is abusing a certain combo that makes him immune to almost all magic including dispel while suffering no drawbacks himself. If the rocket launcher tag involves trading particle cannon fire, well I'd assume you can keep up.

[JoelF847]

Crusader of Logic wrote:

I'm noticing a pattern already. The Dispel only works out well if the combat is artificially slowed considerably. Seriously. Just taking an extra attack off 3 people made it live 3 more rounds? What, are they doing 1d6+1 to the thing?

In anything approaching normal speed, waste of time.

Anyways, here's an example better than Dispel. Anti Magic Ray. It just flat out stops all magic effects for a period. I used this once. It didn't even seem to have any effect, and since the guy was alone he was easily taken out in one round. Waste of my action, waste of expensive component. Were it instead Dispel, it wouldn't have even been assured of working.

After that... multiple examples of combats involving presumably buffed enemies and BBEGs that were just torn apart in 1 round of concentrated fire, two examples of a highly buffed enemy attacking a single PC. One of which was taken out in 2 rounds (the PC, that is) and couldn't have dispelled even if he wanted to. More to the point it was the minion doing all the damage, so dispelling the cleric was pointless. The other actually lasted a while, but dispelling the cleric was still pointless even though he had about ten buffs active because it was a better use of actions to stun juggle with PW Stun while the cohort smashes them up. Again, only the minion was a real threat here.

Now, maybe if the DM is throwing a full fledged CoDzilla at you... Except then, he's probably boosted his CL so he doesn't get affected anyways, or even better yet is abusing a certain combo that makes him immune to almost all magic including dispel while suffering no drawbacks himself. If the rocket launcher tag involves trading particle cannon fire, well I'd assume you can keep up.

Crusader, I'd have to disagree with the example of the highly buffed enemy. Sure their CL is higher than yours, but probably not by more than 4, which means that you have about a 30% chance to take down each effect they have. If they have 10, you can still take 3 on average, and if you're lucky, 4, 5, or more. Often that is enough to dramatically change the time of battle, especially if their AC or chance to be hit is boosted too high for your damage machines to penetrate.

Other than that example, you're probably right that in most cases, taking down a single spell is not worth the action in combat, unless it's a spell that's actively taking out 1 or more of the PCs (such as black tenticles.)

[Crusader of Logic]

If they were a full fledged CoDzilla, their CL would be 9 higher at a minimum. And that assumes they are the same level as you. It only takes 10 levels to be off the RNG entirely.

Even if it were only +4, 30% chance to take off random buffs. Shouldn't you be doing something with a higher success rate? If the enemy is that optimized, you'll only get one chance.

As long as they're at least 5 better, they can mess you up hard with Holy Word effects. You cannot afford to let them act.

[JoelF847]

Crusader of Logic wrote:

If they were a full fledged CoDzilla, their CL would be 9 higher at a minimum. And that assumes they are the same level as you. It only takes 10 levels to be off the RNG entirely.

Even if it were only +4, 30% chance to take off random buffs. Shouldn't you be doing something with a higher success rate? If the enemy is that optimized, you'll only get one chance.

As long as they're at least 5 better, they can mess you up hard with Holy Word effects. You cannot afford to let them act.

First of all not all enemies are identically fully optimized characters. Second, your suggestions that they can simply use holy word assumes that a) they're clerics or have it as an SLA, and b) that you're playing at a certain level of play. If you're playing 5th level PCs, and being attacked by a 9th level wizard with fly, mage armor, shield, protection from arrows, displacement, false life, and mirror image, for example, I think taking even 2 of those down would be quite helpful, and well worth an action, especially if your party is stronger on melee and not so hot at ranged attacks.

[Crusader of Logic]

A super CoDzilla was an example of where Dispel would be useful, if you could get it through. Except that you can't. If you are facing a 9th level buffed Wizard at level 5, I recommend casting the spell that gets you the hell out of there.