Looking at the latter parts in particular, Death Ward would seem to turn many of the encounters into walk-overs.
Anyone have any experience with this yet [at all]??
Well Dispel Magic negates Death Ward. :)
Death Ward is no more "game-breaking" than Resist Energy. In some encounters it is pretty good, but in others it's just ok.
Here are some hypothetical encounters:
Encounter 1: A bunch of Spectres. Here Death Ward is crazy good, but this is also an encounter which will DESTROY a party without it.
Encounter 2: Some "normal enemies" plus a few level-draining creatures. Here Death Ward is OK, but no more crazy than Resist Energy vs a fire-based creature. And here Dispel Magic comes in too, as Mr. Dog mentioned.
In both cases, your are using four 4th lvl spell slots to save your party for one or two encounters (assuming they use a minute or two between encounters to heal up or the like). If you only protect the fighter, I would think it totally justified by the monsters to try to attack another party member. Most incorporeal undead have pretty good int scores, and they know they didn't drain lvls (since they didn't get temp hp). Four lvl 4 spell slots for a couple of encounters is a pretty big price to pay at any level (it will eat up most high lvl spells for a cleric throughout this AP).
Also, in an encounter with purely spectres, I would have the spectres run away if they met a party which was all protected by Death Ward. If they would wait until they saw the party was injured or just PC lvl x min is up to how much of a dick GM you want to be, but they would under no circumstances impotently claw at the PCs while the fighter dices them up with his magic sword. And since they can just run away through walls and floors, they will probably get away.
Well Dispel Magic negates Death Ward. :)
And it's single target. In a group of 7 players like the one I am DMing just target a different PC. If a PC wants to dump many spell slots to repeated castings of DWard they are handicapping themselves in other ways.
|
As mentioned, Death Ward is crazy expensive as far as party resources go. I am more concerned about my Pharasmin Inquisitor with the Repose domain. He's about to hit level 8, and while Broken Moon shouldn't see him needing his "Ward against Death" aura, by the time the group is once again menaced by powerful undead and evil clerics... negative energy and level drain are going to be extremely trivial threats.
Looking at the latter parts in particular, Death Ward would seem to turn many of the encounters into walk-overs.
Anyone have any experience with this yet [at all]??
It's a one-target spell that lasts minutes. Even if there were communal or mass versions of the spell, the fact is that they still only protect you for a short while.
Sure, the nature of the AP will mean that you usually have the spell prepared - maybe the cleric will go as far as prepare it once for each character (which means he'll have few to no other 4th-level slots available, and 4th is kinda important for clerics).
But is that any different from any other adventure where you know something of your enemies?
"Ooh, we fight many devils - get fiendbane swords, load up on banishment and holy smite/word, and get protection from evil"
"Lich ahead, make sure we have freedom of movement/remove paralysis"
"Arcanist enemy, we should protect ourselves against magic attacks"
etc.
You're blowing 4 4th-level slots before the first blow is stricken? That should make it a walk-over. You've already committed significant resources to the fight, and it hasn't even started yet.
Where exactly would you find this to be a 'walk-over'?
Shadows of Gallowspire would be the most serious once, since it has a LOT of energy drain/death/negative energy effects, and at that point PCs should have access to plenty of 4th level spells (especially if they have an Oracle or bought a Staff of Souls) with 13-15 minute durations. The degree it influences the encounter varies from a minor effect to a complete cakewalk. For example, in Renchurch Catacombs you have:
- Formulary (golem's negative energy damage and lich's touch)- Catacombs (death effect)
- Grotto (negative energy)
- Chamber of Rejuvenation (lich's touch, some of the cenobite's spells/channeling)
- Hall of Shadows (shadow's ability damage)
- Scriptorium (many of Lucimar's spells)
- Chamber of Empty Eyes (bodak's energy drain)
- Seance Room (ghost's draining touch and a few of their spells)
- Cellarium (qlippoth's waves of exhaustion)
- Urgathoan Fly (some of the cenobite's spells/channeling)
- Necrotic Sanctum (some of the GF's spells/channeling, the necrotic well)
That being said, I haven't run it yet and I'm not sure whether it will make the adventure TOO easy. Even if it does, a simple solution might be to have the Whispers throw some dispels at the party so they still gain some benefit from DW but don't get to have it for the whole dungeon.
EDIT: Oops, read the start date as 2012 not 2011. Sorry for the necromancy.