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Nothing like wild theoretical assumptions about wizards power level in a vacuum with plenty of snark in-between to round out another wizard thread. Beautiful.
Multiple posts early on already have established that these hypotheticals in the last page or so are just that. Hypothetical assumptions with very little basis in the realty of the game, and generally not how most play the game and pretty pointless to agonize about.
While there are some baseline assumptions of what magical abilities the average party will have access to as they go into the higher levels (mostly because their opponents will have these powers themselves), these are problems that plague only the absolute highest levels of the game and probably won't be encountered by most players before the campaigns end. Your wizard isn't pulling the game apart at level 1 and probably won't until level 15. (Some of their tricks can now be matched by non-spellcaster classes through new content, so things have been on an upward trend since core)
We have gotten off topic. To get things back on topic they are powerful because even if played by an average player they can handle almost any situation, and can single handedly own or trivialize encounters.
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Hahahahaha.
Hah.
Hahah.
No. See. It's the opposite. Any wizard with any amount of sense will just avoid breaking the game because to do otherwise is to risk making the GM actually get up off their rear and give two.
The GM shouldn't have to say to their players 'hey please don't break the game,' and if the player feels they are justified in doing so just because the GM didn't ask, then the player has no justification in complaining when they get a dire bat-based ICBM payload through the face.
I specifically remember a section of Undermountain in AD&D that dropped the whole party into a anti magic chamber filled with mutated trolls. That did not end well.
First (25 gp) and second (150 gp) level scrolls will only take two hours to scribe. If I devote 2,000 to gear and 1,000 to scrolls, I can scribe 5 second level scrolls and 10 first level scrolls in 30 hours, or about four 8-hour work days.
Regardless of the time needed for construction, a caster can create no more than one magic item per day.
Point here is that Antimagic>Magic>Everything Else, and this example proves it.Putting aside the "can the martials do it alone" conversation, I just found out how you stop a Great Wyrm Red Dragon. The Wizard uses his greater metamagic rod of quicken (you have one by that level) to cast Project Image and then casts Aroden's Spellbane with antimagic field as one of the selected spells. You then all beat it in initiative and kill it because my god is it's initiative low.
It seems high level wizards even have the solution to antimagic situations.
.....wait Wouldn't it be more like a vicious cycle?
Antimagic Beats Magic
Magic beats Mundane
Mundane Beats AntimagicWouldn't it work more like that?
It makes sense if the Dragon had zero mundane ability and was strictly an anti-magic entity, but the fact of the matter is that with the example I gave, the Dragon will crush any party of 4 because he has both anti-magic and mundane superiority with the assumption of optimal tactics (which isn't unreasonable here).
@ Jurassic Pratt: If the Dragon is a BBEG (which is reasonable), he won't be a run-of-the-mill Great Wyrm, and if he is aware of the party coming after him, he'll know what to expect and plan accordingly like most BBEGs would.
The fact of the matter is that a Wizard is powerful, but not invincible or undetectable (by NPCs anyway). Any martial with AMF and Spellbane will defeat any Wizard or other spellcaster, full stop. It doesn't matter what the Wizard can do because all of his tricks and abilities are shut down from these two effects combined.
Also, Spellbane is like AMF, in that it is an effect that emanates from you, so it moves with you much like AMF does, which means Disjunction, Wish, and Miracle will not work on him, and Spellbane will only counter itself, doing nothing against the AMF in place. There is a reason why Spellbane is 9th and AMF is a lower level, and that is due to palatability of the effect.
@ Firewarrior44: A dozen optimized archers or half as many gunslingers who use one as a sacrifice have a better chance of killing an AMF/Spellbane Dragon than any number of Wizards would, but if the Dragon knew he was facing a bunch of archers instead, he'd ditch those spells and use other powers to counter them, such as Smoke Cloud to effectively blind them and slay them one by one.
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Sounds like your GM is giving you too much downtime.Really? At only 3rd level, a wizard should have 3,000 gp (using WBL). He'll only have 2 second level spells and let's say a dozen first level (three to start + INT mod + 2 at 2nd level + a couple random from adventuring).
First (25 gp) and second (150 gp) level scrolls will only take two hours to scribe. If I devote 2,000 to gear and 1,000 to scrolls, I can scribe 5 second level scrolls and 10 first level scrolls in 30 hours, or about four 8-hour work days.
Half a week doesn't sound like too much downtime to me.
I would like to thank Andrew Callbeck for pointing out my error and for having the decency to do it politely & discreetly in a private message:
CRB, p. 549, "Regardless of the time needed for construction, a caster can create no more than one magic item per day."
My 15 scrolls would take 15 days.
So, yeah, if you're playing in a game like ryric describes where it's go-go-go ALL the time, then maybe don't play the one class that gets a class skill effectively eliminated from the game (scribe scroll).
However, in 30+ years, those type of campaigns make up a small percentage of my experience. Even back in the early 80s when it was mapping and no dungeon ecology, there was still enough downtime to scribe scrolls.
Another thing people miss is that you really need the higher level spells available to you. You find, if you actually play a wizard or spellcaster in general, that the spells you were all about some levels ago are now pretty much useless. With a few exceptions (magic missile, haste, mirror image, etc), the spells two levels down do not do enough to justify the cost of using actions in combat anymore. Sure, a standard fireball is cool, but 10d6 at 15th level is pretty unimpressive.
This is the reason lost caster levels are so awful for a caster going into a prestige class. It is also the reason a spellcasting cohort (maximized at two levels lower) actually isn't all that disruptive. It is why metamagic often is a dud. And finally, this is why wizards are actually pretty limited in how much they can do with power; they have few high level spell slots.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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So, yeah, if you're playing in a game like ryric describes where it's go-go-go ALL the time, then maybe don't play the one class that gets a class skill effectively eliminated from the game (scribe scroll).
However, in 30+ years, those type of campaigns make up a small percentage of my experience. Even back in the early 80s when it was mapping and no dungeon ecology, there was still enough downtime to scribe scrolls.
I wouldn't say my example listed above is at all typical, just that such games do exist(and they can be fun, if everyone knows what they're getting into).
Scribing scrolls in the 80s was less about money/downtime and more about figuring out how you were going to get 3 drops of blood from a species that had been erased from time, or other such esoteric ingredient craziness.
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Another thing people miss is that you really need the higher level spells available to you. You find, if you actually play a wizard or spellcaster in general, that the spells you were all about some levels ago are now pretty much useless. With a few exceptions (magic missile, haste, mirror image, etc), the spells two levels down do not do enough to justify the cost of using actions in combat anymore.
There are a LOT of spells that remain useful - though not all of them as combat actions. Ant Haul, Expeditious Retreat, Invisibility, See Invisibility, Resist Energy, Dispel Magic, Fly, Dimension Door, most Save-Or-Suck spells...
@Darksol I'm fairly certain an arbitrary number of wizards has a better chance at killing a dragon then 12 archers. Heck take 12 wizards they all cast caustic eruption assume the dragon makes every save, that's 420 damage on average, Gold Great Wyrm only has 465 HP.
If the dragon has defenses vs that like resistance and energy protection then you maximize the eruption with say a rod. Assume every save is made So 60 damage per wizard. 2 of them get rid of energy protection leaving 600 damage which is halved effectively by resistance 30 so 300 damage. This is absolute worst case scenario (Dragon making all saves and having full resistance/protection spells up somehow despite being in an anti-magic field) and the dragon's almost dead.
You could also just gate in an arbitrary number of lantern Archons. Let's say 6 wizards analogous to your gunslinger's at CL 20 they can bring out 120 Lantern Archons without any specialization, which is 240 beams which have a 95% hit rate for an average 798 damage (ignoring critical's). That's a dead lizard. (note via time stop a wizard could potentially produce that number of archon's on his own)
I'm also fairly certain a single wizard has the capacity to strip both spell-bane and anti-magic field off of a Dragon or any other foe. Via their own casting of spell-bane and then either mage's dis-junction (if they want to roll the dice) or with a wall of suppression at your CL -1 (Dragons CL's cap out at CL 19 as far as I can tell so you don't even need an orange Ioun stone).
Anti-Magic Field and Spellbane counters anything the Wizards cast. Even if Wizards follow up with their own Spellbane, they cancel each other out and are left with dealing with an Anti-Magic Field that may not be easily stopped, and can also be recast as well.
The Lantern archons may be annoying, but given it's only 1D6 per Ray, the Dragon can last a few rounds of tearing the wizards into bits before using proper protection against said archons.
Also note that if the Wizards die, the Archons aren't really obligated to stay and fight to the death. Even if they are, the Dragon can escape and still be victorious from the Wizards with his stupid amount of fly speed.
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1) Caustic eruption is blocked by neither spell-bane nor anti-magic field as it is an instantaneous conjuration creation effect, it's real acid.
2) The Archon's do enough damage in 1 round to instantly kill the dragon on account of there being 120 of them.
3) Wall of suppression can suppress an anti-magic field and or spell-bane so long as their caster levels are lower or equal to that of the casters. Unless said spell-bane is key'd to wall of suppression at which point it must be first brought down with another spell-bane
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The power of the wizard is inherent to the game and was understood by the designers:
There are many powerful items of magic which only this (Magic-User) class of character can employ. Most magic scrolls, wands, staves, and many of the miscellaneous items of magic are usable only by this class. Thus, while magic-users are not strong in combat with weapons, they are possibly the most fearsome of all character classes when high levels of ability are finally attained. Survival to that point can be a problem, however, as low-level magic users are quite weak.
Examples of this:
HIT POINTSMagic-Users had only d4 HD, only gained 1 hp/level starting at twelfth, and could only gain a maximum of +2 hp/lvl for high CON (so, yes, even at 18 CON, a magic-user still only gained +2 hp {one had to be exclusively a fighter to get higher than +2}).
EXPERIENCE POINTS
THF 2nd level: 1,251
ASS 2nd level: 1,501
CLR 2nd level: 1,501
DRU 2nd level: 2,001
FTR 2nd level: 2,001
ILL 2nd level: 2,251
RGR 2nd level: 2,251
M-U 2nd level: 2,501
PAL 2nd level: 2,751
THF 6th level: 20,001
ASS 6th level: 25,001
CLR 6th level: 27,501
DRU 6th level: 20,001
FTR 6th level: 35,001
ILL 6th level: 35,001
RGR 6th level: 40,001
M-U 6th level: 40,001
PAL 6th level: 45,001
THF 11th level: 220,001
ASS 11th level: 425,001
CLR 11th level: 675,001
DRU 11th level: 200,001
FTR 11th level: 750,001
ILL 11th level: 440,001
RGR 11th level: 650,001
M-U 11th level: 750,001
PAL 11th level: 1,050,001
As this scale changes and some classes move around, the Magic-User always has the second highest XP requirements to advance at low, mid, and high levels.
Scribing scrolls in the 80s was less about money/downtime and more about figuring out how you were going to get 3 drops of blood from a species that had been erased from time, or other such esoteric ingredient craziness.
Well, for those of you who are interested in a trip down memory lane, here you go:
The material upon which the scroll of spells is to be written can be purchased at the following cost guidlines:
papyrus, per sheet: 2 g.p. and up +5% chance of failure
parchment, per sheet: 4 g.p. and up +0% chance of failure
vellum, per sheet: 8 g.p. and up -5% chance of failure
The type of material used will affect the likelihood of successful transcription, as listed above. Special quills cannot normally be purchased, for only common goose or similar feather instruments are available in shops. The would-be inscriber must arrange for the special writing tools as he or she can.
Ink is a very special requirement. Scroll spell ink, just as the ink for detailing spells in spell books, is compounded only by the inscriber from secret and strange ingredients. The basic medium should be sepia from a giant squid or ink from a giant octopus. To this liquid must be added blood, powdered gems, herbal and spice infusions, draughts concocted from parts of monsters, and so on. An example of a formula for the ink required to scribe a protection from petrification spell is shown below:
1 oz. giant squid sepia
1 basilisk eye
3 cockatrice feathers
1 scruple of venom from a medusa's snakes
1 large peridot, powdered
1 medium topaz, powdered
2 drams holy water
6 pumpkin seeds
Harvest the pumpkin in the dark of the moon and dry
the seeds over a slow fire of sandalwood and horse
dung. Select three perfect ones and grind them into
a coarse meal, husks and all. Boil the basilisk eye
and cockatrice feathers for exactly 5 minutes in a
saline solution, drain, and place in a jar. Add the
medusa's snake venom and gem powders. Allow to stand
for 24 hours, stirring occasionally. Pour off liquid
into bottle, add sepia and holy water, mixing con-
tents with a silver rod, stirring widdershins. Makes
ink sufficient for one scroll.
Other ink formulas will be devised similarly according to the dictates of the DM. Ingredients should suit the overall purpose of the ink. It is recommended that each different spell to be transcribed require a different ink compound -- clerical spells requiring more venerated and holy materials, druid spells being basically rare roots and herbs in infusions, and so on. Garments, wrappings, dust, sweat, tears, teeth, fangs, organs, blood, and so forth are all ideal components.
Once material, quill, and ink are ready, the spell scriber must actually write the magical runes, glyphs, symbols, characters, pictograms, and words upon the surface of the scroll. Transcription must be from his or her scroll books or upon an altar (for clerics and druids). Special candles and incense must be burning while the inscription is in progress. Clerics must have prayed and specially sacrificed to their deity, while magic-users must have drawn a magic circle and remain uninterrupted. PREPARATION REQUIRES ON FULL DAY FOR EACH LEVEL OF THE SPELL BEING SCRIBED ON THE SCROLL. A 1st level spell takes one day, a 2nd level spell two, etc. Time so spent must be continuous with interruptions only for rest, food, sleep, and the like. If the inscriber leaves the scroll to do anything else, the magic is broken, and the whole effort is for naught.
Failure: There is a basic 20% chance that a mistake, smudge, or flaw in the scroll will make the spell useless. To this base chance is added 1% per level of the spell being inscribed, so that total failure chances is from 21% to 29%, minus the level of teh character attempting to write the spell. Thus, if a 14th level cleric is attempting to write a 7th level spell on a parchment scroll, the failure chance is 20% + 7% - 14% = a 13% chance. After the requisite materials and preparations have been taken care of, the player character must then spend the full time necessary to inscribe the scroll spell. Thereafter, a percentile dice roll greater than the percentage chance of failure equals success.
And that's just for SCROLLS; imagine what it is for permanent items!
So, yeah, item creation was basically for NPC casters to explain how stuff got on the shelves at YOMS, not for players to craft for themselves.
My original statement that wizards should have carpal tunnel from scribing scrolls was assuming the Pathfinder Scribe Scroll feat and not this kind of arcane thaumaturgy.
The spell description says the acid can be dispelled, so it won't affect the Dragon while the AMF is up.
The rays only have a range of 30 feet. While it is true that the Archons can kill the Dragon, he will be at a safe distance, outfly them, and face the Wizards after he drew the Archons away.
The Spellbane would be tacked to that spell assuming a bastion of Wizards wanted to slay the Dragon. Even then, Dragon can easily take Magical Knack via Additional Traits feat and have an Orange Ioun Stone to shore up his missing caster level.
The acid itself isnt magical due to the nature of the conjuration school. You can however still get rid of the spell by moving the antimagic field over it since it has a duration. That prevents the spell from doing anything in the next two rounds.
The effects of instantaneous conjurations are not affected by an antimagic field
School conjuration (creation) [acid]; Level sorcerer/wizard 7
Duration instantaneous and 2 rounds; see text
The acid would not linger and would get suppressed but the initial burst would not be blocked. But if you insist that it is then the Wizards can use another instantaneous conjuration to deal damage like wall of iron (drop anvils on it's head) or clashing rocks, Acid Spray.
Gate has a range of 300 feet at CL 20. the Archon's can be dropped on top of the dragon. As it's a standard action they all get to shoot the turn they appear, instantly killing the dragon.
So the wizard now actually has to optimize and boost their CL by 3 levels which is doable. Dragons CL would Be 22 so Wizard would need a Caster level of 23 which is obtainable.
I'll make a point I made in another thread. What makes Wizards (and by extension 9 level casters) overly powerful are the GMs.
This can either be by not taking advantage of the inherent weaknesses of the classes even though the enemies are just as intelligent, by not playing combats themselves intelligently "Hey, that frail looking guy in a robe is raining fire on us. Let's get him FIRST" or not playing their BBEG smartly "I am the lord of Karrahgahthen. I guess I don't need to fortify my fortress against magic. Anti-Magic Field? What use is that?"
Obviously the GMs goal isn't to "win" but, considering that any Wizard worth a hoot is smarter than Stephen Hawking, they should be fine to play their casters just as well as the PCs are playing theirs. But they don't. Thus, OP.
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When you get to the point that every significant NPC needs anti-magic, or a half-dozen protective spells and items, you need to rein in the magic.or you know ..be a better dm.
i have rarely had issues with caster characters in games.
the trick is just finding ways the non casters can still have fun in the gameSo instead of asking the player to tone down his powergaming for the sake of you enjoying the game, perpetuating the arms race (which a GM can win at any time and most likely result in hurt feelings on both sides) is "being a better GM"?
That doesn't make sense, especially when we already have an example where that basically happened (caster thrown into an anti-magic environment, the epitome of the GMs arms racing capability against a caster), and people have said they were badwrongfun GMs for it.
Heck, if I take a Great Wyrm who casts Anti-Magic Field and Spellbane pre-combat and goes ham on a party of 4, that is basically a TPK, guaranteed, no matter who or what or however the characters are involved, simply because anti-magic is the only thing more broken than magic.
if the only thing the dm can think to do to deal with casters is consistently tossing around anti magic fields ? then yeah the dm needs to learn to be a better dm.
thats not to say never use anti magic fields just know that its like disarming weapon classes , lazy, uncreative and basically a nuclear option.if a player is being disruptive the best thing to do is chat with them about your concerns.
being a good player is about more then being the optimized best , its about knowing when not to break a game and work with the gm
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I've been in campaigns where downtime was so scarce that the 1 hour/spell level to copy new spells into a spellbook was hard to come by, let alone the time and money to create scrolls. Nothing like getting to 10th level and realizing it's only been a week in game.
That GM figured if your 8th-12th level sorcerer wasn't reduced to just cantrips left there weren't enough encounters in the adventuring day. Also, no magic items shops and WBL was ignored. We went to 23rd level in that campaign and I think at most one PC had about 30k gp worth of magic stuff.
And yes, we did know going in that money and magic items would be low and the GM did rebalance encounters to take that into account. We did not realize how precious a few hours of downtime would be. And yes, by the end of an adventuring day our martial types would be going into battle starting at 12 hp out of 80 or so. No wands or potions, divine caster out of spells, and we have to keep going or else the bad guys win.
its a rules thing
if you cant get an 8 hour break you cant get spells back and the party is screwed.if you can get 8 hours then you can spend 2 hours scribeing
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An antimagic field is likely to elicit groans from the entire group.
"Ugh. I have to recalculate all my stat bonuses?"
"If I fire an arrow from a magic bow outside of the field, does it get the enhancement bonuses?"
"Let's just leave the field, teleport out, and then I can use my planar magic to call up some angels who can fight inside the field for us."
Conjuration Creation spells with Instantaneous durations AND non-instantaneous durations are pretty weird as heck.
Unless there's some FAQ rulings or errata on the subject that I missed, it's going to have a huge amount of table variance in how to handle that, so they're usually not the best choices in a forum discussion about other things without some agreement to assume it's being ruled one way or another..
What's so hard to understand about them?
Do no one elses dragons use protection from/resist energy? They're all sorcerers with enough int to know what their weaknesses are after all.
Using Protection from Energy on a high level encounter is like using the Heal skill on a high level character; it's by-and-large worthless compared to other existing options that are much more protective of the Dragon's life (in this case, AMF and Spellbane).
Well resistance is redundant in an anti-magic field as it's suppressed by the field. Although if the field is suppressed with spell-bane they'd be useful.
Using Protection from Energy on a high level encounter is like using the Heal skill on a high level character; it's by-and-large worthless compared to other existing options that are much more protective of the Dragon's life (in this case, AMF and Spellbane).
There's this line though
Should a creature be larger than the area enclosed by the barrier, any part of it that lies outside the barrier is unaffected by the field.
I suppose if you're using the optional rule about how emanations work its fine but RAW any dragon big enough to cast antimagic field is probably too big to really benefit from it.
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Whether they permanently create matter is the main issue.What's so hard to understand about them?Conjuration Creation spells with Instantaneous durations AND non-instantaneous durations are pretty weird as heck.
Unless there's some FAQ rulings or errata on the subject that I missed, it's going to have a huge amount of table variance in how to handle that, so they're usually not the best choices in a forum discussion about other things without some agreement to assume it's being ruled one way or another..
That depends on the spell. As an example the glitter from glitterdust is permanent.
My players just failed a mission because they underestimated the opposition. They were supposed to take/steal/obtain an item from a caravan of 2 wagons being escorted by 20 mounted figures. These mounted fugures were lvl 2 warriors. There were a total of 4 9th level casters with one being a diviner. The party consisted of lvl 11 lich undead lord cleric, young brass dragon, a azlantean 5sorc6dragondisciple,a celestial assimar bard lvl 11. And a rogue lvl 5 magus 6 shadow touched human.
They just left a city that is completely under the effects antimagic field to retrieve an item so they could gain a key to let them use magic in the city. It should have been an easy fight if they prepared. But they didnt nullify the diviner, and didnt use any divination of their own. So in the end, the diviner and one other got away with the item.
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To continue the digression, I believe that the AMF Dragon being so unstoppable does not have to stand as some testament to the frustration. No, it can make for a more interesting game. Tell me which of these is more interesting.
1) The high CR dragon uses Antimagic Field, meaning the party has to win initiative and one-round her or get slaughtered by a boss they cannot touch.
2) Yasaraj the Unscathed is an ancient beast who is undefeated in combat thanks to her mastery of abjuration magic. While she has taken on countless challengers and emerged victorious each time, the experience has grown rather dull over the years. Desperate for entertainment, the dragon is always eager for conversation. Within the protection of her spells and lair, she is always happy to recieve guests. Cunning adventurers may even bairgain for her favor, including access to the equipment of her "less curtious" guests.
3) Legends tell of an ancient artifact, a beacon of immense power. This object is a powerful lantern, rumored to have guided Nethys himself on the way to divinity. If the stories are true, any spell cast within its light will function flawlessly, no matter what other forces interfere. While this artifact will require an epic quest to obtain, Yasaraj is on the move and the defending kingdom is running out of options.
Since the goal of the game is for everyone to have a good time, I doubt option 1 is actually all that common.
Not really.
If the spell has a duration other than instantaneous, that means it's stopped by an AMF.
With the Caustic Eruption example, it can't apply in areas of an AMF because it has a duration other than instantaneous.
Anti-Magic Field and Spellbane counters anything the Wizards cast. Even if Wizards follow up with their own Spellbane, they cancel each other out and are left with dealing with an Anti-Magic Field that may not be easily stopped, and can also be recast as well.
The Lantern archons may be annoying, but given it's only 1D6 per Ray, the Dragon can last a few rounds of tearing the wizards into bits before using proper protection against said archons.
Also note that if the Wizards die, the Archons aren't really obligated to stay and fight to the death. Even if they are, the Dragon can escape and still be victorious from the Wizards with his stupid amount of fly speed.
Wait, what?
Either you have a Spellbane that protects against AMF, in which case your AMF is negated by the spellbane, or you have a spellbane that doesn't protect against AMF, in which case, your Spellbane is negated by the AMF.
Having the two together only work when entering into another person's Spellbane that protects against one of the two effects, but not the other.
At any rate, as far as I can tell, AMF offers you no protection from spells if you are also using Aroden's Spellbane set to protect against an AMF.
Sounds like your GM is giving you too much downtime.Really? At only 3rd level, a wizard should have 3,000 gp (using WBL). He'll only have 2 second level spells and let's say a dozen first level (three to start + INT mod + 2 at 2nd level + a couple random from adventuring).
First (25 gp) and second (150 gp) level scrolls will only take two hours to scribe. If I devote 2,000 to gear and 1,000 to scrolls, I can scribe 5 second level scrolls and 10 first level scrolls in 30 hours, or about four 8-hour work days.
Half a week doesn't sound like too much downtime to me.
But first and second level spells aren't going to unbalance the game. Whereas scrolls of third and higher level spells take at least one day to scribe.
And before you can scribe scrolls you have to learn the spells. And that requires more time and money.
I would argue that a lot of spells in the Enchantment and Divination schools can break a game (or at least a game session), even at 1st and 2nd level.
That depends on the spell. As an example the glitter from glitterdust is permanent.Whether they permanently create matter is the main issue.What's so hard to understand about them?Conjuration Creation spells with Instantaneous durations AND non-instantaneous durations are pretty weird as heck.
Unless there's some FAQ rulings or errata on the subject that I missed, it's going to have a huge amount of table variance in how to handle that, so they're usually not the best choices in a forum discussion about other things without some agreement to assume it's being ruled one way or another..
Spells can specify, but one of the things about Conjuration Creation spells generally is that an instantaneous duration means that matter it creates is permanent.
Creation: A creation spell manipulates matter to create an object or creature in the place the spellcaster designates. If the spell has a duration other than instantaneous, magic holds the creation together, and when the spell ends, the conjured creature or object vanishes without a trace. If the spell has an instantaneous duration, the created object or creature is merely assembled through magic. It lasts indefinitely and does not depend on magic for its existence.That's why Conjure Deadfall has to specify that the cube of crushing fades from existence and Acid Splash specifies that the acid from it disappears after one round.
Instantaneous + another duration is wonky and muddies the waters on that front.
I knew that, but I dont see how instantaneous and duration muddies the waters.
As an example acid arrow has a duration because the spell works over a period of time. It doesn't mean the intent was for to be able to bottle the acid. Damage dealing conjuration spells are normally not as strong as evocation damage dealing spells because they ignore SR.I really haven't see this confusion that you are talking about in the forums or in real life about how conjuration spells work.
Someone might try to use a very liberal interpretation of the rules to get acid this way, but that happens everywhere, and is not limited to conjuration. Even then the person is not confused about the intent. They are just trying to use loophole intentionally.
Which spells are causing confusion in normal game play, and where have you seen this confusion?
All this chatter about Antimagic Fields and Spellbanes. Makes me wonder if the issue is those particular, OP?, spells or an alledged OP wizard. For me the problem would be Spellbane, but that's an entirely different thread.
My own wizard's solution when confronted by this combo would be to hand his dagger, an Artifact, to his companion a "Fighter". But that solution is like a lot of solutions, specific to the campaign (and DM) in question. He also might recommend just leaving and coming back in a bit. Both to plan a better response and because like most spells AMF has a duration, even at 20th level you come back in 4 hours and there's an excellent chance it has expired. Yes said dragon could recast it or have used Extend. We can involve Sir Schoedinger endlessly.
And off to work I must go.
People have been complaining about wizards well before that combo existed. You really only need the core rule book, and really the idea that the wizard is OP is not even a consensus because some people are coming it from a "what they can do" perspective. Others are looking at how things actually play out at the table. The consensus is that it is a very powerful class, and they can give GM's headaches. Nobody is saying that every wizard will definitely cause problems at a table.
Basically the wizard is always OP in theory, and occasionally in practice.
All this chatter about Antimagic Fields and Spellbanes. Makes me wonder if the issue is those particular, OP?, spells or an alledged OP wizard. For me the problem would be Spellbane, but that's an entirely different thread.
My own wizard's solution when confronted by this combo would be to hand his dagger, an Artifact, to his companion a "Fighter". But that solution is like a lot of solutions, specific to the campaign (and DM) in question. He also might recommend just leaving and coming back in a bit. Both to plan a better response and because like most spells AMF has a duration, even at 20th level you come back in 4 hours and there's an excellent chance it has expired. Yes said dragon could recast it or have used Extend. We can involve Sir Schoedinger endlessly.
And off to work I must go.
Too bad that, in hindsight, the combo doesn't work unless fighting fire with fire. Whoops...
Point still stands that anti-magic is better than magic which is better than anything else.
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Just coming off a game where I played an arcanist from Level 1 to 20, yes, an intelligent 9 level spellcaster played competently with appropriate preparation can be considered overpowered.
But that's only with all those caveats. Without that, the spellcaster will likely be played ham-fistedly and nowhere to his/her full potential. This is because a 9 level spellcaster has so many options the only way to really learn how to play him/her is through dozens of combats. He knows which spells scale well with levelling and presumably has spent time thumbing through spell descriptions to figure out which spells will work best for his character design. Which is one reason why the NPCs are always a little tougher than they need to be - the GM hasn't had that experience.
For myself, when I played, I frequently had short lists made out of spell-combos, combos of spells and magic items and later, what the DCs would be if I cast some of my high level spells at something. And I had contingency plans for what happened if there was a near TPK and I was the only one left, if there was interparty combat or how to escape various scenarios. A fair amount of my combat strategy was to let the fighter hit it with a sword, which was mutually beneficial. Spells are a limited daily resource and steel doesn't run out. This also gave the fighter something to do. As a corollary to that, I always felt embarrassed when I needed rescuing (this was more at lower levels) because it meant that the fighter couldn't go on hitting things.
I also had a good relationship with my GM. A caster's life is ultimately more or less proportionally fun based on how closely the GM follows RAW. And this is even after 3+ iterations of the game - a 1st Ed magic-user was brutal (so much of 1E was brutal). Being a wizard means painting a huge target on your back - things can get stolen. You spend a lot of time and energy protecting yourself and your possessions. There's thieves, assassins, divinations - all sorts of things that can make your life miserable if not short. A GM that has it out for you can make life heck. So, we talked about things that I could or could not do (or more to the point should or should not do). I was always after more spells and frequently went off on my own to buy / negotiate for them. Money that would have otherwise gone into enchantments went into spells instead.
But yeah, by the end of the campaign, if I wanted to, I probably could have taken down the other 4 people in the party (paladin, cleric, bard, thief). The cleric would have been the hardest to get rid of, then either the bard or paladin. Obviously I would not have lasted in a toe-to-toe fight with them, but then that's giving away most of my advantage. But the mere fact that I had a plan to defeat my own party is probably a good measure of the relative power I had.