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That spell is awesome. I have used it again monsters with built in caster levels, so they tend to have lower caster levels than me. I have used it on magical traps. I have had my players use it to debuff a boss, if they rolled well.
Generally speaking a boss fight will have the opposing caster be a few levels higher, but in normal fights the caster is normally a lower level or only slightly higher, but of course that still requires you to roll higher than an 11.
If a caster is 5 levels above the party your GM is not using the normal rules for designing encounters. That would make the caster at least +4 above the party APL.
PS: My advice applies to most tables I have played at and the combats I have seen described on these boards. It seems that may not work at your table.
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Well ideally most encounters shouldn't be against enemies 5 levels higher than you.
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It's not really a "straight CL-vs-CL" check, either. It's 1d20+CL vs. 11+CL, starting at the highest, then working your way down the list of dispel-able spells until you dispel something or run out of spells to dispel. Even if a caster is 5 levels higher (dick GM), you still have a 20% chance of dispelling the first spell encountered, and the overall odds increase if there are multiple spells.
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I have seen this spell end encounters and save the party more than once.It has become a staple required spell, especially for the Cleric in the party.
Some examples include, The 5th level party is getting their collective heads handed to them by a 6th level Barbarian with a +3 Greataxe when the cleric suddenly casts a focused Dispel Magic on the axe and it works. This gave us the 2 rounds we needed to recover and bring him down. In the Ruby Phoenix Tournament we effectively negated an entire encounter. Dispelling a Magic Item removing the advantage of the opposition and reducing a difficult encounter to a Cakewalk.
And these are just two examples (Luck priest being able to re-roll the Dispel Check?)
Dispel magic is one of those spells that just oozes utility.
I agree that there are many useful applications for it... if it ever happens to work. And so far, it hasn't. Not once.
Can anyone recommend a way of actually getting Dispel to function? Is there any way of boosting the CL roll?
The orange ioun crystal boost caster level by +1, but if every caster is +5 above the party level then you will still fail a lot.
There is also a feat that lets you cast at a higher level for a specific school of magic.
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My Cleric has used Dispel Magic a lot, but I will admit that I boosted the check DC to make it work more often. At first I too found the chance to succesfully use it to be very slim, and I failed them a lot (it was my Domain spell, and that stung).
But then I found Dispel Focus and Greater Dispel Focus in the Monster Summoner's Handbook, which made it a lot easier. Combined with some Myrrh from the Alchemy Manual and I was rocking a +5 on top of my casterlevel.
Things that I managed to Dispel afterwards (also castings from boss characters): Sleet Storm, Fog Cloud, Stinking Cloud, Cloudkill (there is a theme here), Blade Barrier, Fly, Black Tentacles and so on. The best use of it was something I dispelled but couldn't identify at that particular moment. Our GM mentioned afterwards that it was the Guards and Wards spell, which would have really messed up our navigation of the ruin.
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Is there any way of boosting the CL roll?
An arcanist can increase his own CL by 1 by spending 1 from his reservoir (or CL +2 with potent magic exploit)
Also, Destructive Dispel is pretty nice—if the dispel works, the target is stunned for 1 round (edit: target gets a save).
And, if you target a specific spell, you're rolling against the spell's DC instead of the caster level +11. In certain circumstances, this is an easier check. Eg, a 14th level caster that cast mirror image on himself. As a normal dispel, you'd be rolling against 25 (11 + CL14). If you specifically try to dispel mirror image, it would be only 12 (10 + spell level 2) + the caster's casting stat modifier. Please correct me if I'm wrong about this.
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You can also use a targeted dispel to specifically end one spell affecting the target or one spell affecting an area (such as a wall of fire). You must name the specific spell effect to be targeted in this way. If your caster level check is equal to or higher than the DC of that spell, it ends. No other spells or effects on the target are dispelled if your check is not high enough to end the targeted effect.
Yup.
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Lots of ways to increase level-based stuff:
Level Increase.
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I have one.
We were in the middle of fighting some constructs. They were corked in a room, and we were in the hallway. The BBEG shows up and tosses down a black tentacles in the surprise round that grabs everyone: the witch, the necromancer arcanist, the big-boom wizard, the rogue, the stonelord paladin, and my curseless oracle sorceress. I pop corset of the vishkanya and wiggle out. BBEG drops stinking cloud on the black tentacles right after. Some terrible rolls later, everyone except me is nauseated and stuck in black tentacles. After a round of futile attempts to finagle some way out of that combo, it's my turn again. My sorceress pulls out her CL10 scroll of dispel magic that she got last adventure (I believe we were all 7-8 at the time of this fight) and disposes of the black tentacles.
I also have less dramatic stories in which dispel magic got rid of walls of fire that split the party in two and another time in which it got rid of a black tentacles in that same combo.
It's a great spell, and even better on a spontaneous caster. Never leave home without it.
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I have a few Dispel magic stories as a Thief and using my skills effectively to scroll cast dispel magic, mostly against traps, but the most surprising success I had with Dispel magic was as a lower level wizard NPC against the more powerful players. I countered a raise dead spell being cast on the parties only cleric.
There was no way it would work. Not only was the CL high enough that it made it almost impossible the wizard was only there as flavor really and had horrible stats. I had to roll a 20 on a die that I had purchased a few years back that had extra 1's on its faces, basically a cheat die to make sure I always lost. I had a 5% chance of rolling a success. I rolled a 20. I had to make up some rule that you can't counter raise dead spells
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It's really not a good tactic for primary casters as they're usually better off doing something else.
However, Dispel Magic can be a pretty viable tactic for a 6 level caster like a support bard. A support bard has likely done his job by the 2nd or 3rd round of the combat. If after that he starts to use Dispel Magic, anything he accomplishes is just gravy.
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Add to CL boost list: Tattooed Sorceror Archetype. (increasing Varisian Tattoo and applying to more spells)
The Magician Bard Archetype gets a CL boost for Dispels both for regular Dispel spells,
and they can also do so as Immediate Action via special Performance which allows a Dispel check.
Using the CL boosts with the single-spell-target function (vs. DC) becomes very easy.
It's not really a "straight CL-vs-CL" check, either. It's 1d20+CL vs. 11+CL, starting at the highest, then working your way down the list of dispel-able spells until you dispel something or run out of spells to dispel. Even if a caster is 5 levels higher (dick GM), you still have a 20% chance of dispelling the first spell encountered, and the overall odds increase if there are multiple spells.
+1
And the odds increase further for any lower CL spells from wands, potions, spells-in-a-can, etc...
Dispel magic is a terrible spell. It's almost as bad as haste.
o.O
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Our group raided a castle inhabited by undead and a guards and wards spell. The spell's fog made it difficult to move and fight so we had to withdraw. We went back the next day and our wizard dispelled the fog with a lucky roll. Fights go much better when you can see most of your foes.