I'm trying to bone up what I like to call "game-changing spells" that the PCs get access to. By this, I mean spells that vastly change the kind of encounters and even plot points I can plan for the party as the GM. I don't just mean awesome or powerful combat spells, but rather the predominantly non-combat spells have the potential to prevent specific role-playing experiences, especially if the GM doesn't take them into consideration when writing the adventure.
Anyone care to help me put together a list? The first few that come to mind:
-Speak with dead- Can easily kill a murder mystery plot, if not prepared for.
-Transportation/Transp, Greater- Can easily skip right past travel based encounters.
-Fly/Overland Flight- Can bypass travel based encounters, and pit-styled dungeon barriers,
-Stone Shape- Can bypass dungeon areas, prisons, doors, etc.
-Rope Trip- Pretty much cancels all ambushed-while-camping scenarios.
Rope Trick isn't as cool as it once was -- and it doesn't stop the ambush at all.
I see a rope hanging there I'm likely to just wait for someone to come out and shoot/attack them as they come down. If they go back in I just wait around the corner (or behind the direction of the opening) until they come out again.
Speak with dead -- Suddenly all those criminals that want to succeed know that in order to commit murder you have to mutate your victims face! Speak with dead only works if the corpse has a way to talk!
Transportation/Transp, Greater -- Portable holes become far more than an item to carry goods, it now is a magic carriage powered by the mage. Portable holes are counted as gear, and thus open one up, get the party in the hole, teleport where ever you need to go avoiding all of that annoying time wasted trying to get there.
Thats how it has changed games I've been in.
Don't forget divination/scrying. Those meticulously set up bad guys who the PCs encountered in a non-hostile way back at 1st level? They can find them now.
Don't forget divination/scrying. Those meticulously set up bad guys who the PCs encountered in a non-hostile way back at 1st level? They can find them now.
Yeah good luck with that save throw, and hope they didn't notice the sensor or have detect scrying up, and they have no alley farther than 10 feet away from them but in the same room...
Go ahead though scry and fry... just don't complain if you fry instead of them.
Yeah good luck with that save throw, and hope they didn't notice the sensor or have detect scrying up, and they have no alley farther than 10 feet away from them but in the same room...Go ahead though scry and fry... just don't complain if you fry instead of them.
Hey, I'm not saying it's necessarily a good or successful tactic, just one which changes the rules of the game. The DM has to start preparing for scry n' fry just as much as his baddies do.
I'm just not seeing it working nearly as much as people want it too is all.
Teleport flying etc, binding/ally spells, fabricate, scrying, arcane sight, charm monster, dominate person, contact other plane, permanency.
Well all of the spells change the game so I don't know what this thread is about.
Displacement is huge.
Toss it on a barbarian for wholesome goodness.
Many spells are good in many situations but Displacement is one of my current faves. Definitely in my top picks for level 3 spells.
Divination Spells are underrated IMO. They can short cut so many 'grinder' adventures. +1 on Speak With Dead.
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-Speak with dead- Can easily kill a murder mystery plot, if not prepared for. >He wore a mask, Attacked from behind, Had a bag thrown over my head. etc
-Transportation/Transp, Greater- Can easily skip right past travel based encounters. > If they know where they're going. Trackers has to walk a trail, or discover a landmark overgrown by foliage or swept under sand by wind, etc.
-Fly/Overland Flight- Can bypass travel based encounters, and pit-styled dungeon barriers. > Those are hard to keep up over periods of time and resource wasteful. That means less spells to use against the big bad or less money in there pocket as they replace those consumables often. Why can't you have big winding natural cavern with dead ends that takes hours to explore, or a cave in they have to manually clear, or brush they have to cut away. it all takes time.
-Stone Shape- Can bypass dungeon areas, prisons, doors, etc. > agreed Stoneshape, woodshape, gaseous form are great for getting into or out of someplace but see previous answer.
-Rope Trip- Pretty much cancels all ambushed-while-camping scenarios. Ambush them before or after they use it, have a bear think the ground under the rope trick is a great place for a nap, have snakes climb up rope thinking its a vine from a tree. burn the rope and have caltrops or a glyph of warding on the ground (my players still hate me for that one). There are more but auto killing a sleeping party is rude
Everything has a counter.
Detect Evil (or any other alignment determining spells) If alignment was that easy to determine, just imagine how society would change!
"I don't like Melissa's new boyfriend."
"Why not?"
"He's chaotic evil, that always ends badly for her."
Zone of Truth - Replace getting sworn in to tell "The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" with a second level spell.
Detect Evil (or any other alignment determining spells) If alignment was that easy to determine, just imagine how society would change!
"I don't like Melissa's new boyfriend."
"Why not?"
"He's chaotic evil, that always ends badly for her."Someone clearly hasn't actually read what detect evil actually does.
Unless Melissa's new boyfriend is a divine servant of an evil god, undead, 5th+ level, or a fiend, he won't show up on detect evil.
He could also be a stand up guy, whose planning on murdering the bastard that molested his girlfriend.
Good people with evil intent detect as evil (and vice versa for detect good).This makes the detect alignment spells rather unreliable as a hard measure.
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He could also be a stand up guy, whose planning on murdering the bastard that molested his girlfriend.
Good people with evil intent detect as evil (and vice versa for detect good).This makes the detect alignment spells rather unreliable as a hard measure.
He could be focusing so hard on working out the details of a vile murder plot that his brow is furrowed, but unless he has at least 5 hit dice (or is undead, an outsider, etc) detect evil will read him as not-evil.
Well all of the spells change the game so I don't know what this thread is about.
Granted, all spells change the game, but they don't all change the game in the same way. As a GM who writes his own adventures, I don't really need to look ahead and familiarize myself with the impact and rules minutia of a spell like chain lightning, hold monster, or even haste. Most combat spells are just variations on the same themes that a GM has to contend with at every level: save or suck, save or die, battlefield control, blasting, healing, debuff, offense buff, defense buff, etc. All these things tend to do, what I generally count on the party eventually doing: ie- kill the badguys after I say "roll initiative". Many non combat spells, also don't have a wide ranging impact on the game: knock/find traps doesn't do much a rogue can't with a skill check. Warp wood, doesn't do much that a barbarian can't do with an axe and 20 minutes. The rules text for Speak with Plants is basically just a list of things the spell can't do.
Other spells significantly impact what I can and can't include in an adventure as a fun and challenging encounter, what kind of mcguffins and plot hooks I can use, what double-crosses and betrayals I can pull, what environmental challenges I can use to create atmosphere, and in general what stories I can tell with the rules. If I want to run a murder mystery, and I forget to account for Speak to Dead, then I'm screwed. If I want to channel Heart of Darkness and take the party on a trek through the Jungle to get somewhere, I need to make sure they can't just teleport to the end point, my encounters need to have some way of challenging and drawing in flying characters, and I can't expect to be able to drive home how nasty and grimy they all feel at the end of their epic jungle odyssey, because they'll just cast Prestidigitation and clean themselves up instantly as soon as I mention it.
I'm not saying these spells are good or bad, underpowered or overpowered, etc. and I'm not saying that they can't be countered or worked around, I'm just saying that GMs who write their own adventures risk disappointment and frustration if they aren't familiar with this kind of spell before they put pen to paper.
Detect Evil (or any other alignment determining spells) If alignment was that easy to determine, just imagine how society would change!
"I don't like Melissa's new boyfriend."
"Why not?"
"He's chaotic evil, that always ends badly for her."Someone clearly hasn't actually read what detect evil actually does.
Unless Melissa's new boyfriend is a divine servant of an evil god, undead, 5th+ level, or a fiend, he won't show up on detect evil.
See Alignment doesn't have those restrictions, which is why I referred to alignment determining spells in general.
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I don't see how any first level spell can be a game changer since they are available from minute 1.
My biggies:
levitate/spider climb: really begins players' mobility growth. At this point walls and pits are less of a barrier.
reincarnation/raise dead: death is much less of a concern after this point.
teleport: overland travel between known areas becomes easy.
wind walk: overland travel becomes very easy and fast, even to unknown areas. Basically at this point wilderness adventures are done without major GM interference.
commune: This spell can really mess with a lot of secrets of the GM's world. Basically the players can confirm or deny a lot of their ideas.
heal: in-combat healing becomes really effective. PCs can be brought from nearly dead to full in one round, which probably hasn't been possible since first level.
antimagic field: can be a game changer in the right hands. At 12th level+ the ability to shut off magic can really mess with some foes and situations.
Those are the ones that immediately come to mind, anyway.
He could also be a stand up guy, whose planning on murdering the bastard that molested his girlfriend.
I don't know about your game, but that wouldn't be evil intent in mine. Neutral, maybe, and depending on circumstances I could make a case for good.
He could also be a stand up guy, whose planning on murdering the bastard that molested his girlfriend.I don't know about your game, but that wouldn't be evil intent in mine. Neutral, maybe, and depending on circumstances I could make a case for good.
In the real world I might agree with you, but in the game where shades of gray don't exist and alignment is absolute? Well, in such a place murder. Is. Evil.
Intending to commit murder is evil intent. Can't get more clear cut than that.
Nope.
I'd give you the long-form arguments for it but I've been burned by too many threads where you're playing self-admitted King of the Trolls to invest the time, sorry.
Nope.
I'd give you the long-form arguments for it but I've been burned by too many threads where you're playing self-admitted King of the Trolls to invest the time, sorry.
Harrumph! I am not, nor have I ever admitted to being a troll, much less their king!
When my player's get access to scrying and speak with dead, my murder mysteries don't become easy mode now. On the contrary, I'll design the mission around those spells. Speaking with the dead could identify the murderer, but in a world of magic, this dead person could be treated like any other witness. What if he is lying (Zone of Truth appears to only effect the living)? Or maybe he was so traumatized by you know, being killed and all that it is difficult to make out his side of the story? What if the murderer was a noble with a lot of power? What if the murderer wore a mask or blindfolded the victim during the act?
I try not to make them foolproof, but reward players with their use by putting them on the right track.
As for teleportation/flying for skipping travel encounter, I just shrug. It's fine by me. All that does if give me the message that the players just want to get to the meat of the action and not bother with the filler. In fact, I tend to agree.
Charm person/monster use to trip me up but then I realized that the charmed one (no pun intended...) is now your best buddy, but his previous buddies are still, you guessed it, buddies. Would you betray or attack/kill another friend even if it was your best friend asking you to do so? I know I wouldn't. Granted, evil creatures, as one example, might not be the most loyal, but I tend to use that line of thought as a base and figure out his motives, loyalty and whatnot and go from there. It can be a boon, where you charm an unloyal/greedy servant, or a bane when you charm a creature in combat that does his best to do nonlethal means to stop the caster and the charmed one's other buddies from fighting each other.
Detect Evil? Cool, Mr. Paladin, you now know the barkeep is CE. But, he hasn't done anything evil per say. Either catch him in the act or just sit pretty and be understandably suspicious.
My 2 copper.
"Find The Path, aka Skip The Adventure."
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He could also be a stand up guy, whose planning on murdering the bastard that molested his girlfriend.I don't know about your game, but that wouldn't be evil intent in mine. Neutral, maybe, and depending on circumstances I could make a case for good.In the real world I might agree with you, but in the game where shades of gray don't exist and alignment is absolute? Well, in such a place murder. Is. Evil.
Intending to commit murder is evil intent. Can't get more clear cut than that.
So, from your point of view, an adventurer that sets out to rescue his girlfriend from bandits that have been raiding his home town (likely intending to kill the bandits) is planning an evil act? Just pointing out that an almost cliche newbie adventure falls under the description "murdering the bastard that molested his girlfriend."
What if the murderer was a noble with a lot of power? What if the murderer wore a mask or blindfolded the victim during the act?Don't forget disguises...
*Casts Speak With Dead* "What did the murderer look like?"
"YOU, you bastard!"
This is one of the best murder mystery twists I have ever heard of in tabletops. Now I have to figure out a way to one up it in my game...
Many of these are copies, but...
Fly - trivialize many a thing. Even Levitate can do this.
Teleport - trivialize many a thing.
Raise Dead - death aint for keeps.
Animate Dead - permanent thralls.
Lesser Restoration - creates PCs that never rest (except for arcane casters).
Dispel Magic - counterspells, trivialize many a thing
Heroes Feast - all-day immunities for a party
Wall of Stone - utility and battlefield control with endless possibilities
Telekinesis - another swiss-army spell that redefines what can and can't be done
Legend Lore - divination which bypasses any form of protection, warding or deception. Effectively destroys any interference to gathering info.
Find the Path - the ability to find every secret door and password to get from A to B. Trivializes entire dungeons and all the tricks they offer.
Disintegrate - Anti-force, anti-undead, anti-material.
Timestop - turns the caster into god.
Find the Path is useful, but hardly trivializes a dungeon. It offers some inkling as to what to do as per the wording "indicating at appropriate times the exact path to follow or physical actions to take." This still only provides "the shortest, most direct physical route to a prominent specified destination" and as such does not entirely prevent encounters ranging from bandits, troll caves, or trapped keeps, should those be in the way.
The most it might do is lead the characters to a trap's bypass lever or provide a sense of danger allowing the players to hide from an encounter or look for the aforementioned traps. Even at that, only the player it is cast upon gets these warnings and may unconsciously sidestep a trigger plate just to be pin-cushioned anyway when his friend following at the rear of the party steps on it. As for passwords, good luck. You might not get shot on sight by a doorkeeper, but that doesn't mean that you wouldn't have to get past him yourself or solve the riddle on the passage door (though you might have been lucky enough to pick up the mage's diary who cast the arcane lock spell).
And yes, I'm aware that is DM douche-baggery, but the spell really doesn't specify anything that would prevent this kind of spell-blocking abuse, if you can really call it that. I'd lean towards spell-abuse blocking myself.
-Rope Trick- Pretty much cancels all ambushed-while-camping scenarios. Ambush them before or after they use it, have a bear think the ground under the rope trick is a great place for a nap, have snakes climb up rope thinking its a vine from a tree. burn the rope and have caltrops or a glyph of warding on the ground (my players still hate me for that one). There are more but auto killing a sleeping party is rude
Can't the PCs pull the rope up inside while they sleep?
Can't the PCs pull the rope up inside while they sleep?
-Rope Trick- Pretty much cancels all ambushed-while-camping scenarios. Ambush them before or after they use it, have a bear think the ground under the rope trick is a great place for a nap, have snakes climb up rope thinking its a vine from a tree. burn the rope and have caltrops or a glyph of warding on the ground (my players still hate me for that one). There are more but auto killing a sleeping party is rude
Far as I know, not anymore. The rope is left dangling which allows any creature with a decent perception to know something is up and also provides access to the pocket dimension.
Can't the PCs pull the rope up inside while they sleep?
Rope Trick was changed in Pathfinder:
When this spell is cast upon a piece of rope from 5 to 30 feet long, one end of the rope rises into the air until the whole rope hangs perpendicular to the ground, as if affixed at the upper end. The upper end is, in fact, fastened to an extradimensional space that is outside the usual multiverse of extradimensional spaces. Creatures in the extradimensional space are hidden, beyond the reach of spells (including divinations), unless those spells work across planes. The space holds as many as eight creatures (of any size). The rope cannot be removed or hidden. The rope can support up to 16,000 pounds. A weight greater than that can pull the rope free.
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Perhaps half of divination spells have some utility in plot busting or plot making. There are also a few odd spells in other schools that have divination uses that might catch you out or you can use. Some favorites and some I just noticed that look potentially troublesome:
Arcane Mark (Universal cantrip) - A wizard with the foresight to Arcane Mark some maguffin/imposter that must be swapped/stolen/recovered can be annoying.
Create Treasure Map (APG: Divination Level 2) - kill a bad guy - go directly to the big treasure - skip all the intervening adventure - especially useful on a Lich for finding that phylactery
Enter Image (APG: Transmutation Level 3) - slip a portrait/scroll/coin with your image on it, into the bad guys possession/meeting place - get information/sit in on the meeting unobserved. Alternately, on the plotting hand, for police states the rulers eyes can literally be everywhere on every coin in the land and portraits in every public building and council chamber...
Blood Biography (APG: Level 3) - Immediately identify a body: name, race, profession, how and when it died - not good for murder mysteries
Spell Gauge (Faiths of Balance: Level 2)- know what spells a target has prepared - allows identification of casters and their likely type and intent
See through stone (Dwarves of Golarion: Level D3/R4) - you can’t hide that there
There will probably be a gem or two amongst the 380 spells in Ultimate Magic/Combat and the 200 spells in all other sources (outside core/APG/UM/UC).
This is one of the best murder mystery twists I have ever heard of in tabletops. Now I have to figure out a way to one up it in my game...What if the murderer was a noble with a lot of power? What if the murderer wore a mask or blindfolded the victim during the act?Don't forget disguises...
*Casts Speak With Dead* "What did the murderer look like?"
"YOU, you bastard!"
Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyes. I am stealing this so much.
He could also be a stand up guy, whose planning on murdering the bastard that molested his girlfriend
While unlawful in most areas, taking the law into your own hands isn't actually evil. The kings executioner doesn't ding as evil for killing the helpless people they tie to his chopping block, Paladins don't register as evil for slaughtering orcs, and either does someone taking life for a serious crime.
Well, in such a place murder
PC's call it adventuring.
There is a LOT of gray area in the D&D alignment system: Neutrality.
Detect magic oddly enough will be your first experience with this. People can spam that spell non stop. It screws up magic traps, spots anyone carying magic items while they're hiding, lets you know something is up with invisible critters, and points out things that you probably should not touch.
Color spray can take out hordes of low level mooks: effectively ending encounters.
Fly ruins any sort of terrain based encounter or climbing obstacle.
speak with dead: mentioned
Teleport ruins any sort of "attacked while on the road" plot/encounter.
Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyes. I am stealing this so much.This is one of the best murder mystery twists I have ever heard of in tabletops. Now I have to figure out a way to one up it in my game...What if the murderer was a noble with a lot of power? What if the murderer wore a mask or blindfolded the victim during the act?Don't forget disguises...
*Casts Speak With Dead* "What did the murderer look like?"
"YOU, you bastard!"
Agreed,
Yoink.
Freedom of Movement - It makes you immunt to a lot of stuff. It is very difficult to take a FoM character out of the fight short of killing them outright. Clerics can get this ability at level 1 via a domain power.
Paladins don't register as evil for slaughtering orcs...
Slaughtering defenseless orcs not evil? I beg to differ (0:40 to 1:30). :P
@OP: or, you know, you could let the players' spells work and not give your NPCs convenient access to all the things that could easily de-rail the PCs, and just let the plot go however it goes.
Writers complain because Superman is too powerful, so they ignore or circumvent his powers, or Batman's resources, or etc just because Martian Manhunter has telepathy so lets just have him not use that this week. But hey, just let it happen once in a while. Its a more interesting story if you deal with the repercussions of someone's power, instead of stifling them.
The best Superman story I ever read was All-Star Superman, because it took Superman at his height, at his most powerful, including him at his most intelligent like he was in the 70s when he did all the Kryptonian science etc, and THEN made him 3x stronger, to the point that kryptonite didnt even hurt him anymore, and that was the starting point, and it went from wild story to wild story from there. And yet in that series, Superman was at his most challenged ever, and they were some of the best stories ever.
So, you could throw all the right weird stuff at players that denies them access to their normal abilities, just so you can tell your mystery story. You should in fact, from time to time. But sometimes you should say "well, what if they could just skate past that, how would that work out?" and let them run with it. You might be surprised at how well it can turn out.
Paladins don't register as evil for slaughtering orcs...
Slaughtering defenseless orcs not evil?
Bad dork, no pizza. No adding words to the sentence.
hey, is that the dorkness rising people?
Hey, are they the Dorkness Rising people?
Many of them are, yes.
Speak with dead only talks to the body, not the soul as it has departed. If the body never saw the killer it has no way to identify him or her. Though a DM could use this to provide clues without spoiling the mystery.
The hardest ones I have to deal with:
freedom of movement: Makes grappling useless which turns powerful creatures into weak creatures. Elminates a number of useful spells from working as defensive spells. Eliminates hardship on travel as well.
discern location: Very difficult to stop. Find the location of almost anyone.
antilife shell: Pretty much makes living melee monsters useless against the caster.
charm person/monster: Hiding information very difficult to do with charm spells available.
raise dead/resurrection: Eliminates death as a real threat. No such thing as heroic sacrifice.
planar adaptation: Makes traveling on another plane possible, but also can make it too easy.