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Because summoning is generally a poor combat strategy. If you're a character focused on using the summon monster spells, after SM2-3, you quickly learn that your only viable uses for summons are A) meat shields, or B) spell-like abilities. Note that "damage dealers" isn't one of those two options, so protection from alignment isn't really relevant, and elementals don't have spell-like abilities.Edit: not only that, but elementals are now one of the few PRPG creatures that are immune to sneak/crits... so why would someone NOT summon elementals? ever?
One thing you start getting after SM3 is monsters with SR, which "can" power through a protection vs. X field... however, elementals are a good option throughout the whole SM1-9 range as they are always immune to the pro. evil barrier effect...
One thing you start getting after SM3 is monsters with SR, which "can" power through a protection vs. X field... however, elementals are a good option throughout the whole SM1-9 range as they are always immune to the pro. evil barrier effect...
No, they're a horrible option, because while they're immune to the barrier effect (and let's be honest, anything non-good is going to be immune to 99.9% of the barrier effects a typical party is likely to face, so elementals are hardly unique there), they cannot deal appreciable damage or impairment compared to another spell of their level. Elementals are generally a good option for the summon nature's ally line, but that's for two reasons: first, they get earlier access to better elementals, and two, they don't have access to very many creatures will spell-like abilities, which means meat shields are the best they can hope for most of the time.
The only recourse you have against a summoned elemental who has been buffed with protection vs. X is dispel magic or antimagic shield, as far as I can tell... this makes conjurers a pretty annoying foe, if not dangerous...
Uh, no. Any non-summoned creature can attack through a protection from alignment spell, regardless of their alignment. Those spells only protect against summoned creatures. Casting protection from alignment on a summoned creature is generally a massive waste of time and resources.
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The only recourse you have against a summoned elemental who has been buffed with protection vs. X is dispel magic or antimagic shield, as far as I can tell... this makes conjurers a pretty annoying foe, if not dangerous...What about dismissal, banishment, mage disjunction, blasphemy, holy word, dictum and word of chaos?
Getting rid of summoned creatures is not that difficult, even if their alignement is N.
ok, you got me... :)
But still, I find that a conjurer level 1 through 5 (i.e. SM1 through SM3), elementals are nasty if the party cleric buffs the elemental(s) with pro vs. evil (or conjurer himself via wand)
edit: sorry for the last few posts... as I've been suffering from tunnel vision due to the recent CoT games. The last one had a conjurer vs. conjurer fight (a "duel of summoned monsters", like pokemon battle...), in which the baddie summoned a constant stream of lowly lemures and the PC conjurer summoned a few small earth elementals then buffed them with pro vs. evil... the lemures couldn't touch the elementals, so the baddie conjurer buffed a few of his lemures with pro vs. whatever, and realized that elementals are not affected by it! :P
Quick question.
Tonight I was in combat with PfE up. A harpie used harpie song and i failed my will save.
How does the PfE mental resistance bit come in. I read it as that i immediately receive another roll to resist it.
If not how would it help me?
If you read further into that paragraph you will read this;
'Whileunder the effects of this spell, the target is immune to any new
attempts to possess or exercise mental control over the target.'
This means you would not have been susceptible to the charm if you were already covered by the PfE spell.
You would have gotten to make a save vrs. the charm at a plus two if you were already charmed and someone cast PfE on you.
Also the plus 2 resistance bonus of the spell, and the plus 2 morale bonus should stack on your save
Quick question.
Tonight I was in combat with PfE up. A harpie used harpie song and i failed my will save.
How does the PfE mental resistance bit come in. I read it as that i immediately receive another roll to resist it.
If not how would it help me?
If you read further into that paragraph you will read this;
'While
under the effects of this spell, the target is immune to any new
attempts to possess or exercise mental control over the target.'This means you would not have been susceptible to the charm if you were already covered by the PfE spell.
You would have gotten to make a save vrs. the charm at a plus two if you were already charmed and someone cast PfE on you.
Also the plus 2 resistance bonus of the spell, and the plus 2 morale bonus should stack on your save
Not exactly.
When targeted by enchantment (charm or compulsion) effects while under a PfAlignment spell, and assuming that you have been targeted by an alignment for which your Protection applies, you still must make a saving throw to negate. If you fail your save, then while the Protection spell lasts you are not subject to the controlling effects of that charm/compulsion. You do NOT receive blanket immunity to enchantment spells via a Protection from Alignment spell.
I think after a lot of debate and discussion in 3.5e, the "possession/control" of protection from evil implies that the person casting the offending spell or effect would need to actually have control over the PCs actions.
Cause Fear, Hold Person, etc, limit the PC's actions, but don't let the caster decide what the PC gets to do. So they are not affected by this protection.
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I think after a lot of debate and discussion in 3.5e, the "possession/control" of protection from evil implies that the person casting the offending spell or effect would need to actually have control over the PCs actions.
Cause Fear, Hold Person, etc, limit the PC's actions, but don't let the caster decide what the PC gets to do. So they are not affected by this protection.
That is what I ruled
I have had characters who were of good alignment cast Protection from Good on themselves to avoid being magically convinced to help out the good realm against X threat.
Out of curiosity, was this caster a Cleric? Because if he was, he committed an Evil act in casting an [Evil] spell, and should therefore have to deal with the consequences (Atonement or something...). If he was a Wizard, no worries I guess. Wizards have all the fun...
IMO, True Neutral has always been the min-maxer's favorite alignment, for obvious reasons. No alignment to attack is always mechanically better, since you can't get hit by certain spells, you didn't take negative levels for wielding Holy/Unholy weapons back in the day, etc. I decided not to allow PCs to be True Neutral (or any Evil, for that matter) in my campaigns. I reserve True Neutral almost exclusively for monsters that are incapable of forming an opinion, like animals, swarms, constructs, oozes, plants, etc. And Evil is strictly for the badguys, i.e. monsters.
On a personal note, when we were doing Red Hand of Doom, I decided to randomly throw in some treasure at one point. Since the party didn't have a cleric, but did have a Paladin, I made it a Horn of Goodness/Evil, primarily because it was in the price range I was looking for. They wanted to sell it but either forgot or never had a chance to do so. Then, some time later, the evil casters started in with the Dominate Person on the dual-wielding Rogue. In two rounds they would have all been dead if the Sorcerer had not remembered the Horn and implored the Paladin to blow it. Almost certainly saved them from a TPK.
If I were in charge, I'd rewrite the rules/spells/items as much as possible in such a way that actually choosing an alignment like Lawful Good opens as many doors as it closes, figuratively speaking, and is as empowering (relative to True Neutral) as it is limiting. For example, what if you had to be of Good alignment to be able to cast Protection from Evil? As it is, an Evil Wizard could cast Pro. Evil, and though that could be usefull sometimes, I don't like that he can do it. It feels like he shouldn't be able to do it, but it's allowed. My way, if you made your wizard True Neutral you'd have NO alignment-based spells, so you might want to make him Neutral Good or something to open up certain options(like PfE), but at the cost of closing off others (like PfG). I think I'd like that a lot better. I also think the alignment spells, in general, are not so great in comparison to other options at the same spell levels which don't care about alignment. I'd like the Cleric's Holy Smite a lot better if it were Cleric spell level 3, for example. Even then I doubt I'd prepare it over Bestow Curse very often.
To be honest, I really wish they would just drop alingment based affects completely. It only hurts party builds. Just make it protective ward, that blocks mental warding and control, grants small benefits to saves/AC, and lasts 1 Round/Level. Holy Word just straight up hurts enemies, especially specific enemies of your faith/church/deity/etc. . .
~shrugs~ Why not just make a (slightly) higher level spell that does not have any alignment restrictions or just house rule it.