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The explosive runes nuke (which I will just call runic nuke from here on out) usually comes up in the context of killing incredibly powerful monsters (such as demon lords and Great Old Ones) with no real effort or even allowing the monster a saving throw. I'm sure most of you know about this, but just to recap:
The runic nuke involves casting explosive runes (spell text here) on pieces of paper or parchment. Since the runes are permanent until dispelled and have no material component cost, the caster can accumulate as many as they want, if left alone long enough. For high-level casters, a week is usually sufficient. Typically, they will then bind them all into a book or roll them all up into a scroll case. The runes detonate when read, but if an object bearing runes is destroyed (which it will, since paper has hardness 0 and 1 hp per inch of thickness, and the runes deal 6d6 force damage in a 10-ft-burst), the untriggered runes fade without going off. So what is used instead is the area version of greater dispel magic, set up in some manner so that the majority of the dispel checks will fail, and thus trigger all the runes at once. This is often done by using a scroll of greater dispel magic, or a summoned monster with greater dispel magic as a spell-like ability at a relatively low caster level (such as a nalfeshnee). Every failed dispel check causes 6d6 points of force damage to everything within 10 feet of the runic nuke, and if something is directly on top of it, they get no save against the damage. A stack of explosive runes only 100 pages thick (half an inch at most) will deal an average of 2,100 damage. Even if the runes can only penetrate the target's spell resistance on a natural 20, the target still takes an average of 105 points of damage. And with time, a wizard can create way more than 100 runes.
While some people admire the cleverness of this plan (using an obscure spell to do unusual things that are much more powerful than what was expected from the spell), for others it is a huge problem because it becomes a cheap "I win" button unless the DM has the villains and encounters explicitly designed to handle it. And if PCs use this tactic, then (assuming this is an idea that has never before occurred to any other spellcaster) other spellcasters will start using it, and the game world will become cartoonish, with character level becoming largely irrelevant and the only determining factor in who lives or dies is who has the best protections against force damage and who has the largest stockpile of explosive runes.
And the final nail in the coffin for people that can't stand this use of the spell is the fact that it turns what was supposed to be a consequence for failure (exploding on a failed dispel) into a quick and easy path to success, using the same boring trick over and over. And it's counterintuitive: using greater dispel magic makes the trick work better the lower you make the caster level, and using its higher-level cousin disjunction means it won't work at all.
Good DM skills can foil such a simple plan. For example, the runes are always kept in a bag of holding so that a dispel doesn't destroy the runes (which is guaranteed) and possibly the caster (if the dispel fails). The DM might rule that having so much powerful magic in your bag draws the attention of strange, transdimensional entities with force damage immunity that eat the contents and turn your bag into a bag of devouring.
Alternately, the DM could realize that making the nuke requires using up spell slots, and will toss encounters at the party to prevent the player from having enough spare time and resources to build up an arbitrarily large stockpile.
Also, there's the fact that, since retrieving an item from a bag of holding requires an action for each item, the caster will probably use a book with explosive runes on each page, in which case the "overlapping abjurations rule" comes into effect, and the book now emits an energy field so strong that noticing it with Perception can be done from almost a mile away before the distance penalty equals the DC reduction from the overlapping field rule. Gods only know what that would look like up close.
However, there is still nothing in the rules that explicitly prohibits this nuke tactic. So the obvious question is, why aren't NPCs using it?
The best analogy to the explosive runes is obvious: actual explosives, with the flubbed area dispel check serving as the remote triggering device (though the one big difference is that an explosive rune can't set off other explosive runes if the triggering device fizzles). If you can put enough of them close enough to the target, it will be destroyed. But unlike spell slots, explosives can't be extracted from the ether. A wizard with Spell Mastery (explosive runes) is the equivalent of a real-life man that can poop dynamite.
1. Always allow a save
Now, the reason the explosive runes don't allow a save for creatures close enough to read them is because, in its intended context and environment, the party would be hanging back while a rogue tried to disable it, and for a Reflex half effect, rogues would stand a good chance of avoiding it altogether. With trap sense, and a resistance cantrip thrown on before every Disable Device check, they might even get away with just walking up to it and reading it. And yes, the assumption when explosive runes was written was that the rogue would have trap sense, because this was the year 2000, and 3.0 didn't start with archetypes or alternate class features.
It already allows spell resistance, but there are ways of defeating spell resistance, and if there is even the slightest chance that the explosive runes spell can penetrate the spell resistance, then simply making more runes can get around this problem. So allowing a Reflex save for half damage even for adjacent creatures is one thing that could be done, but since it doesn't solve the problem for monsters without evasion (and even then, the caster can either find a way to boost the DC or just make twenty or forty times as many runes to deal with this) and impedes the spell's function even when used for its actual intended purpose, this is a subpar solution.
2. Not allow auto-failure on dispel checks, and your own dispels automatically work successfully on effects you made
This is a perfectly acceptable house rule for preventing most player abuse of this spell. However, from a story perspective, it doesn't make much sense. If you know how to do something properly (automatically dispel your own spells, or make a normal d20 dispel check), you also know how to intentionally screw it up. If you don't allow casters the option to intentionally flub their own spells, you're also saying it is fundamentally impossible to "fix" or "throw" a caster duel the way you would a boxing match, and—actually that's an interesting idea. I'll have to add it to my next adventure.
Also, the caster could just get someone or something else to dispel the effect for him. A summoned creature (or a called one that is successfully deceived) with greater dispel magic at a caster level that could even potentially fail to beat the DC, even if only on a 1, can still pull off this trick. For example, the caster can use summon monster IX to conjure a nalfeshnee which can use greater dispel magic at will with a mediocre caster level.
And of course, for spellcasting NPCs that are just as capable of using the runic nuke trick, they always have the option of getting a minion, equipping them with a single scroll of greater dispel magic, and sending them in on a suicide mission.
3. Multiple runes exploding at once don't add their damage together in the overlapping areas, but instead roll damage separately and apply the highest number. The runes also use the highest save DC and spell penetration check out of all applicable runes (even if those numbers come from different runes), adding +2 to the save DC and spell penetration check for each rune after the first.
This is a great option, since it prevents infinite damage stacking but still provides an added effect for multiple explosions going off at once. The one problem is the potential hassle and complexity, though since this makes runic nukes impossible I can't imagine this happening more than once or twice in a whole campaign, if at all.
4A. Make the runes immune to dispel magic (and greater dispel magic).
This one is also good, since the runes can still be removed with an erase spell when the party doesn't have a trapfinder, and the only way to trigger the nuke is to attempt and fail dispel checks on multiple pages at once (because if only one rune goes off, it destroys the object they're written on plus any adjacent sheets with more runes, and thus the other runes fade without being triggered). Plus this solution makes erase actually worth putting in your spellbook, since an enemy wizard can put up explosive runes all over the damned place without spending any money, and you might not always have a trapfinder available.
And since erase can only potentially trigger one rune at a time, it can't set off the nuke.
This is one of the best possible solutions I've been able to think up, since it eliminates the nuke with minimal changes to the spell, and doesn't have the complexity of option 3. And the nuke needs to be removed from the game, because if the nuke option were left in place it would break the game world, since every single creature, no matter how powerful, would have to be constantly on the lookout for things like, for example, a proximity trigger area greater dispel magic trap with a runic nuke attached. This out-of-the-way little spell would require creatures to totally revamp their plans to take being potentially instagibbed by anything bigger than a shot glass into account.
4B. Make the runes not explode on a failed greater dispel magic (but still explode for dispel magic)
This is very similar to the one above, but it makes the erase spell essentially useless, because the erase spell's dispel check has an "auto-fail on nat 1" rule, and its lack of an area version and a requirement to touch the writing, combined with how much more limited it is in what it can do, means that its one redeeming grace (at caster level 13 it becomes 95% guaranteed to remove the effect regardless of whether it's caster level 40, and a reroll ability of any kind reduces the failure chance to 0.25%) just isn't enough.
However, if you don't want to bother with using the erase spell in your game, this option is essentially identical to 4A.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the best possible fix in this case is for explosive runes to only be affected by targeted dispel effects and disjunction. But I believe it would be even better to have a general rule for this kind of thing, something like:
When multiple copies of the same harmful spell or ability overlap in a given area or affect the same target on the same action, only the highest variable penalty or damage is inflicted, unless the spell, feat, or ability description states otherwise.
But I suppose that would nerf the only useful or fun thing about delayed blast fireball unless its text were amended, so that probably isn't the perfect solution.
As to blood money, cap the maximum Strength damage the caster can do to themselves at 1, + 1 per 4 levels.
Now on to simulacrum...
...It's gonna be a long night.
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Good article.
I see your concern. I always think from the perspective of npcs and as what they would do with the same exploits. It does seem extremely powerful for lower level characters to take on large targets. My personal take is that that kind of accumulation may not go unnoticed too long, and anyone doing it may invite immediate retaliation from powerful beings or peoples (e.g. Inevitables) who wish to quash a threat to their power.
Have you run into many runic nukes in your campaigns, Thelemic_Noun?
Possible Solution:
If the PC start making a habit out of this, then other NPC will hear about this.
Simple solution, NPC, will start off fights with a weak Greater Dispel on the party. Weather by Ambush, Surprise, or just throw repeated use... they will be catching the party... while they are carring all these explosive scroll / books on them.
After the party self detonates a few times, then they will get the message.
::: Better solution tho ::: Talk to your players, and ask them not to use the spell in this way, as it is not what the spell was intended for.
As DM, i would only count the highest level Damage explosive rune, and just treat the rest of the Damage as overlap by the same effect, and ignore the rest of the damage from the same spell effect.
Um, Oliver, that's exactly what I said...
Good to see that there are others out there with the same problems and solutions.
I'm fairly certain that dispelling your own Explosive Runes auto-passes. The way around this is to summon something to do it for you.
Dispel magic has the rules for you autopassing.
You don't beat SR on a natural 20, or fail on a natural 1. That only applies to attack rolls and saves and SR is a caster level check.
I know it is. But given that there are so many ways to boost spell penetration (+5 from dweomer's essence, +5 from Penetrating Spell, etc) and caster level (+4 from bead of karma via use magic device, +1 praying at an altar to Nethys, +1 from a cleric with the Arcane subdomain, +1 orange prism ioun stone, etc.) that it's pretty rare for anybody to have an SR that is 21 points greater than a smart caster's effective spell penetration modifier.
It's not totally foolproof, but by the time a PC or NPC reaches upper-mid levels (11-14) it should be workable to obliterate most anything of CR 20 or below in one round.
I'm fairly certain that dispelling your own Explosive Runes auto-passes. The way around this is to summon something to do it for you.
Dispel magic has the rules for you autopassing.
It auto-passes because it never occurred to the designers that a caster might want to actually cast the spell but intentionally fail for some reason. Personally, I'd find it odd to say to a player "not trying hard enough is physically impossible in this situation." This is a case where rules are needlessly closing off a roleplaying opportunity, and we're only happy with that because it makes it harder to perform an exploit that could be easily fixed some other way.
(Incidentally, if the caster wanted to "intentionally fail" with greater dispel magic, it would have to be an all-or-nothing decision; he wouldn't be allowed to roll for some effects but not others).
If this otherwise unremarkable niche 3rd-level abjuration were fixed, there wouldn't be a problem with allowing characters to intentionally fail when casting their spells. If it's possible to fix or throw a boxing match, it should be possible to fix or throw an arcane duel.
Yes, the 3.5 Complete Arcane had rules for surreptitiously "pulling" spells in a duel, but that was only for damage, not other effects.
Solution 3 is the best one. Simple and easy. You wouldn't even need the "overlapping" thingy, just say that when a rune goes off, it disrupts other nearby runes, causing them to fail. And that runes don't go off at the exact same moment.
As for blood money, the best solution is just to ban it. There's no saving that spell, it should never have been printed. And in the context it was printed - as a campaign-specific spell known only by one single ancient individual - it is pretty clear it was not intended for use by PC's in a normal campaign.
For simulacrum, I use a template that is applied to the creature.
SIMULACRUM TEMPLATE
When casting simulacrum, the created copy is identical to the original creature except as follows.
Natural Armor: Natural armor is reduced by half.
Ability Scores: All ability scores are reduced by an amount equal to the original creature's modifier for that ability score, if the modifier is possitive. For example, if the original creature has Str 26 and Dex 8, the simulacrum will have Str 18 and Dex 8.
Skill ranks: Skill ranks are adjusted for a lowered intelligence bonus if applicable. The loss in ranks should be averaged for all skills, and where an uneven loss is applied, it should be determined by the GM.
Magical abilities: The caster level for any of these is halved. In addition, a simulacrum loses all spells or spell-like abilities that has a spell level higher than 2. If the spell or spell-like ability has a lesser version that is of level 2 or lower, the spell or spell-like ability becomes that instead. For example, if the original creature has 3/day cure light wounds, restoration and raise dead, the simulacrum will have 3/day cure light wounds and lesser restoration. Exceptions may be made by the GM, both in allowing more powerful abilities to remain and to remove abilities that would normally have been retained.
Damaging special abilities: Any special ability with a set amount of damage, such as a dragons breath weapon or a wyvern's poison, has the damage reduced by one dice step.
I find that this both greatly reduces the kind of abuse one could do with it while retaining the concept, and reduces the fiddliness of removing HD and feats etc.